to survey? Or was there any national reason which should make them the strong men they showed themselves?

All these causes had doubtless much to do with the great excellence of their education; but, we hold, cannot account for all the differences which so distinctively mark the scholars of that glorious age and those of modern, and especially of American growth. England and Germany-for the best patterns of manly and thorough scholarship came from them-were at that time in a peculiar position. Europe was just coming forth from the middle ages, as from a land of darkness, with her clumsy absurdities and dusky notions clinging fast to her. Knowledge, of course, was in its infancy, and had gradually worked its way from the sequestered haunts of busy, bungling monks, among the Men of all ranks and common grades were beginning to study and think. All this we know had much to do with their eagerness for truth, while their scanty helps in its attainment may somewhat account for their thoroughness and simplicity.

masses.

It is a great thing to be on the confines of so significant an age as were those middle centuries. Man becomes infinitely curious and earnest, and his progress incessant and rapid as it is certain. But if they had a great Past to inspire them with energy, speaking from the Roman and Grecian annals with the deep-toned wisdom of two thousand years, surely we have a greater. Never, we believe, was there so splendid a Past, so powerful to command a nation's steady retrospect. Never was there a more glorious career than that of America, at once to make a people sober and glad. If it was the simple study of the Past which then wrought in men's minds so manly and befitting an education, we, of this age, have all that they could look back upon, together with an additional and intermediate period, filled with as great men and more important events than distinguished any former era. Besides, we have now many more tools for the getting of knowledge, the gathered stock of many generations. The highways of thought are becoming wide and open, and have many travelers upon them. The swift advance of science and the widereaching arts are making avenues, not merely for the merchandise of goods, but the interchange of sentiments and theories; swelling the heave-o of the sailor, the whistle of the car and the cotton-mill, as well as that significant hum of knowledge, ascending daily from the lisping lip of childhood or the manlier tongue of youth, all over our land, the delightful presage of an intelligent posterity.

Improvement is ever on the wing for a farther advance. Invention, busy and quick-eyed, treadeth nimbly on the heels of ingenuity. Intelligence standeth on the thick-peopled shores of Europe and America, eagerly waiting to pass each to the sister hemisphere, a steady and resistless intermarch of thought, and solemn as the ceaseless flow of the gray midland ocean, which is made its vast vehicle, or the fated rush of spirits, which, as Grecian stories say,

66 were borne, in silence lone, Along the lake of Acheron."

All these are our express benefits, in which we stand their betters. There must, then, have been something other than circumstances which made those of olden time the scholars they were. It was not from without-it was not in instruments. It was from within, in the manner of study. In a word, at that time men thought; and this we believe to be the only adequate and proper reason. The world of men and things around had to them a meaning. They were hemmed in by realities. The tangible and visible, which are to us dull forms, lifeless and witless, were in their clear view the simple and pleasant signs of inward and blessed spiritualities. The universe became fervid and glorious with thought, and they were held bound in secret pleasures, which the gross dull-eyed world knew not of. Hence the strength and nimbleness of their powers, the evenness of their minds, and the graciousness of their natures. Seeing things as they were, they had no heart towards improprieties and that monstrous one-sidedness which so disfigures the intellect, and marks an unhealthy soul.

We

But we have few specimens of this growth, and this firm, even texture of mental being. Now-a-days we do anything but think. read, we hear, we learn, but we do not reflect. We cram our heads with reviews and our memories with facts, but never go to the originals of the one, or dream of applying the other. We mingle with men, yet know them not; we look at things, but see them not. We are busy, no one busyer than the yankee, yet not steady. We hold to the opinions of our fathers and friends, as so many sacred and certain traditions; but we neither examine those, nor form any of our own. In a word, we are in haste, not in earnest. We have, in the character of our people and the peculiarities of our situation, the best elements of the Scholar-enterprise, penetration, and a ready, sleepless ingenuity, which cannot be outwitted-qualities which will make scientific enterprises rapid and effective, like our warfare. We have within ourselves as vast resources in the mental as in the physical world— powers and intellectual prowess; while in those grand or gentle objects of nature, which furnish the strongest symbols of thought,-our old mountains, our primal forests, our rivers and lakes, with a reach and swell like the sea, we have materials for the most splendid and valuable productions of Genius, in Poetry, Philosophy, or Art. one thing we lack-a want which sets us down as below the average of Scholars, in the true notion of the term-a patient-thoroughness in searching the reasons and relations of things.

We must be seekers before we can be knowers. Let us awake from our sluggishness and imbecility. Let us pour the gathered energies of our natures upon the truths which concern our being, till we shall have cast off the charge of hollowness and fearfulness in study, and wrought a National Scholarship, which shall make us in science what we are in commerce; so that the nations shall not only respect our flag, which casts a shadow on every sea, but our books, which shall be read in every tongue; and instead of compelling us to visit the old world as the metropolis of knowledge, shall draw all people to the shrine of the new.

EARNWALL.

VOL. XIII.

LIFE-ITS SHADES AND LIGHTS.

"A VALE of tears!" Fit name for such a world!
A world, where man is doomed so oft to drink
The bitter cup of sorrow, and weep o'er
The miseries, and woes, which hourly fall
To fallen man. Fit name for such a world!
Anticipated joys, untasted, turn

To grief and flee away-temptations rush
Upon us like a flood-unnumbered woes,
Innumerable trials, pierce the heart
With keenest pangs-adversity

Rolls o'er us, with its dark and sullen waves.
Who cannot tell of disappointed hopes,

Which gather round the mind and shroud it thick

With gloom? Who has not worn the saddened brow
So deeply stamped with sorrow? And whose cheek
Has not betrayed the bitter, silent tear?

And can we e'er forget the lonely hours,
That have on "leaden wings" moved over us→
Those gloomy nights and more than sunless days—
While we have borne the cross, the heavy cross
Of suffering? And who of us that has
Not bowed before Affliction's shrine, and laid
Upon her cruel altars some fond gift-
Some offering dear as life itself-then mourned
The last and broken tie that bound us here?
What wonder then, that 'mid these trials, woes,
And sorest of Life's ills, fond Hope forsakes
Us, and the shadow of Despair broods o'er
The sorrow-stricken soul! "A vale of tears!"
Fit name for such a world!

But is our home
Nought but a waste of suffering, sighing, woe!
And is man's lot so sorrowful and sad,
So helpless, hopeless and forlorn? Methinks
There is a brighter page 'twere well to look
Upon-one that discloses joys which more
Than compensate for all our toils and tears.
And when we grieve, despond and e'en despair,
We think not of the thrill of ecstasy
That penetrates the soul, and causes all
Its chords to vibrate with the magic touch
Of tenderness and love, when friends, "but few
On earth, and therefore dear," together meet,
Perchance, long absent meet ;-nor do we think

33

Of all our joyous smiles and ardent hopes,
And recollections fond, of by-gone days,
Which steal upon the soul like music soft,
And distant, at hour of tranquil night;-nor yet
The deep sensations, painful, yes, but sure
They're pleasing too-the melancholy joy—
Which all of us have felt, when visiting,
And planting fresh with flowers, the graves
Of those we loved; nor yet think we of that
Unfailing source of happiness, whence flows
A stream of pure felicity, most deep,
Whose branches constitute a thousand rills,
Which fertilize, and gladden, and adorn
The field of human life-domestic bliss.
There too's a pleasure and a satisfaction felt
In conquering self, that seldom is derived
From any source beside. And surely 'tis
A glorious strife, and victory is more
Than doubly glorious. And he who wins
The conquest, he is worthy of a crown
More dazzling far than ever graced the head
Of proudest earth-throned king. And such an one
Shall he receive in that "great day," and there
Will find the joy of that approving hour

To far outweigh the ills of years.

And how

Exalted, yea, and how unspeakable,

The pure delight it gives, to wipe the tear
From Sorrow's eye-console the comfortless-
Afford relief to those distressed-bind up

The sad, the broken heart-administer
The healing balm to Affliction's bitter wound-
And cheer the lonely, cold and wretched roof
Of Poverty !

But oh! the height of bliss,

Of earthly bliss, is what he feels who lives

Not for himself, but for his brother man.
Thrice happy he; no joy compared with his.

How enviable his lot! And if it leads

Him far away to other climes, as oft

It does, unfriended and alone, to toil

And labor there-'tis this that solaces

His care-worn breast, that cheers his lonely hours,
That gives a refuge in distress. And this
Has made the flinty stone, the pillow soft-

The cold damp ground, the downy bed-the dews
Of night, the choicest coverlets-and heaven's

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Broad canopy, a safe and sure retreat

From many a pitiless storm.

These then are joys

Which we all have or can taste. Therefore,
Call not this world a "vale of tears:" say not
That" time is not worth living for," and that
It savors more of ill than good, that it

Has more of bitter than of sweet.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN MIND.

In the great struggle between the Roman and the Barbarian powers, near the commencement of the Christian era, the Anglo-Saxon race makes its first appearance. Though it was then weak, in comparison with the Huns and Vandals, who swept, like a deluge, through southern Europe, prostrating everywhere in their course its civilization, since that time it has moved on steadily to conquest and to empire, until there is no rival of its greatness.

The settlement of America forms an epoch in the progress of this race. It was here placed in new conditions, a new energy was infused into its spirit, a new path was struck out by its genius; and while its developments are still truly Anglo-Saxon, they are also distinct, and characterize a new order of mind.

We shall sketch the progress of the Anglo-Saxon race, as it is seen in our own country.

National development, it must be remembered, is in obedience to certain principles of human nature. While it is admitted that progress is a law of intellect, whether individual, national or moral; it must be seen that its order is always from the physical to the spiritual. The woodman and the mechanic are pioneers of the artist and the scholar. American mind, noble indeed in the commencement of its career, ever active, ever earnest, cannot be expected to present a full development, until time is allowed for the operation of these universal principles.

Our history opens with a few small colonies scattered along the Atlantic coast. Though weak, yet they dare, with a true courage, conceive the idea of subduing a continent over which nature has forever held supreme dominion. True to their wants, to Anglo-Saxon enterprise, to religion, they struggled with their condition, till the ruggedness of nature yields to their industry, and the red man flies before them towards the setting sun.

And while their enterprise at home is thus successful, abroad it has penetrated every ocean and sea, in spite of tropical heat or polar cold, and returns laden with the riches of every clime. These colonies, thus nurtured by necessity, swelled into states, based upon constitutions developed within themselves by the collision of free, active mind