ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

more in proportion than the farmer, manufacturer, or trader, who renders those lands, or buildings, or capitals productive. The fatigued labourer must not be blooded so often as the pampered feaster; nor ought the political physician to amerce alike the earnings of industry and the spendings of luxury."

"Men breed down to a certain pitch of misery; to a lower in the rude than in the luxurious nations. The savage races therefore continue to multiply in a state of privation and difficulty which would impose celibacy in a civilized community. The lowest classes of civilized life are consequently better off than the community in savage society. Whatever rises above the basest order is clear gain to human happiness: it is so much plenty and enjoyment, which in a savage state would not have existed at all. There all are equal: all are fed, as in a workhouse, with the merest necessaries, and with the least possible amusement of labour. With every improvement in civilization, the suffering classes become fewer, the enjoying classes more numerous.Machines are invented, which dismiss whole villages of the miserable, and maintain the proprietors and scatterers of their productions in comfortable affluence. Not only the intensity of human welfare is greatly increased on the whole by the social arts, but the number of those maintained in a given district. Where savagism will feed ten, civilization will feed a hundred. It is a preferable form of human existence, not only because nine-tenths of the community are better provided for, but because nine-tenths of the community are superadded to what would else exist.-Whether civilization is strictly the result, or the cause of the condensation of populousness, has been occasionally disputed. There seems to be a mixture of action and re-action. Multiply, from whatever cause, the people, and new divisions of labour and arts of life are recurred to, which approximate them to a more refined condition. Thin the population, from whatever cause, and something of the idleness, privation, and rudeness of savagism will return. The North-Americans wilder, as they disperse along the Ohio and the Mississippi; and re-civilize, as they collect in the Genessee country, and about the lakes.' A. A. R.

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic]

SUBJECT OF THE PLATE.

FROM LORD BYRON'S "HEBREW MELODIES."

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen : Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew

still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances uplifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

SUMMER.-A FRAGMENT.

NOW Summer comes, and with her brings
New life to all created things,

Which, as it should be, is employed
To praise the God from whom enjoyed;
And that which cannot be expressed
By words, from actions may be guessed.
The trees to birds a shelter give;
The fields enable beasts to live;-
The birds, with little songs of praise,
Their tuneful voices heavenward raise;
The larger beasts, with louder notes,
In praise employ their bellowing throats.
The queen of insects, butterfly,
As, tinged like rainbow, she flits by,
And happy bee, with humming sound,
Seem to give thanks for flowers around-
Nay, e'en those flowers, to "reason's car,"
In praise employ a language clear,
And, thankful for the blessing given,
Return their fragrance up to Heaven.
The streams, released from Winter's chain,
Through verdant meadows flow again;
And millions of their finny treasure

By rapturous leaps display their pleasure.

* * *

*

*

*

Thus all creation, with one voice, Unite to praise and to rejoice;

*

But Man, vain Man, who boasts his right
To rule o'er all with sovereign might,
Whose higher gifts claim higher praise,
He, only he, withholds his lays,

His thanks amid the general joy,

(Which he too often does destroy).

Should aught o'erthrow some idle dream,

Should aught destroy some favourite scheme;

Though in success he'd ruin find,

He ah! most lamentably blind!

Rebelliously rails on the arm

Which shields him from impending harm,
Despises other blessings given,

And rears his haughty crest 'gainst Heaven.
June, 1817.

J. R.

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »