with loathing to the tedious length of life awaiting me I prepared my own destruction. But prudence and fortitudel came to my aid I resolved to fulfil my destiny, and now it is about to be ended by nature. ་་” 10 b bi Y7t«ts! P 9tj{

So long hath been my pilgrimage, that I cant remember to have lived with an earlier generation, and witnessed ap pearances of nature which are now no more. However ins credible it may seem to you, I recollect a time when the great luminary which now almost touches the earth at yon↳ der point, was fixed directly over our heads, and shot down his rays with a fervour which few of this degenerate age could support. Nay, what is more wonderful, my memory carries me back to a still remoter period, when he stood as near to the earth as he does now, in the opposite quarter of the heavens. Let not your slender knowledge doubt of these truths, how far soever beyond your experience, but respect the dictates of age and wisdom. And believe me further, when I tell you, that in those primitive times thes productions of nature reached a degree of perfection of which you can now form but a faint idea. For it was then my happiness to converse with a race of flies of a goodlier presence, and more majestic form, than can be seen in these degenerate times. Nor were they more gifted in bodily endowments than in wisdom, courage, eloquence, and other accomplishments of great and noble minds. But the powers of nature were then equally vigorous in all her works. The atmosphere was purer, the seasons more genial, the fruits and flowers of far richer hue and flavour, than any that are known at present. For I cannot but observe that a decay of nature hath lately been creeping on, as if in sympathy with my decline. The symptoms of failure and decrepitude are fast approaching, and I foresee in the coming age a grievous deterioration of all things. But (to use the words of one eminent among the sons of men) I have lived long enough for nature and for glory.' I leave my example for the benefit of you my children. To imitate at least will be come you, however little you can hope to equal; born as you are in the old age of the world, and destined to a period of darkness, degeneracy, and decline."

This address was received with becoming edifications by

the attentive crowds and perceiving, by the harangue having closed, that the breath was now out of the venerable sage they made preparations for the funeral obsequies with all due solemnity and decorum. He lay in state, as beseemed. a person of his rank and figure, for the space of three minutes and a quarter, and was then committed, with proper ceremony, to the tomb of his ancestors.

Reader! dost thou smile? The name being changed, the fable is told of thyself. A little wider space, a little longer time, and where is the difference? To beings of a nature superior to ours, the cares and contentions, the acquisitions and triumphs of man, will appear in much the same light as to us do those of the Sarmatian insect.-The Cabinet, a series of Literary and Moral Essays.

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THE PRACTICE OF PATIENCE.-Jeremy Taylor.

At the first address and presence of sickness, stand still and arrest thy spirit, that it may without amazement or affright consider that this was that thou lookedst for, and wert always certain should happen, and that now thou art to enter into the actions of a new religion, the agony of a strange constitution; but at no hand suffer thy spirits to be dispersed with fear, or wildness of thought, but stay their looseness and dispersion by a serious consideration of the present and future employment. For so doth the Lybian lion, spying the fierce huntsman; he first beats himself with the strokes of his tail, and curls up his spirits, making them strong with union and recollection, till being struck with a Mauritanian spear, he rushes forth into his defence and noblest contention; and either 'scapes into the secrets of his own dwelling, or else dies the bravest of the forest, Every man, when shot with an arrow from God's quiver, must then draw in all the auxiliaries of reason, and know that then is the time to try his strength, and to reduce the words of his religion into action, and consider that if he behaves himself weakly and timorously, he suffers never the less of sickness; but if he returns to health, he carries along with him the mask of a coward and a fool; and if he descends into his grave, he enters into the state of the faithless and unbelievers. Let him set his heart firm upon this re

solution-I must bear it inevitably, and I will, by God's grace, do it nobly.

CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.—Channing.

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To bring together in a narrower compass what seem to us the great leading features of the intellectual and moral character of Napoleon Bonaparte, we may remark, that his intellect was distinguished by rapidity of thought. understood by a glance what most men, and superior men, could learn only by study. He darted to a conclusion rather by intuition than reasoning. In war, which was the only subject of which he was master, he seized in an * instant on the great points of his own and his enemy's positions; and combined at once the movements by which an overpowering force might be thrown with unexpected fury on a vulnerable part of the hostile line, and the fate of an army be decided in a day. He understood war as a science; but his mind was too bold, rapid, and irrepressible, to be enslaved by the technics of his profession. He found the old armies fighting by rule; and he discovered the true characteristic of genius, which, without despising rules, knows when and how to break them. He understood thoroughly the immense moral power which is gained by originality and rapidity of operation. He astonished and paralysed his enemies by his unforeseen and impetuous assaults, by the suddenness with which the storm of battle burst upon them; and, whilst giving to his soldiers the advantages of modern discipline, breathed into them, by his quick and decisive movements, the enthusiasm of ruder ages. This power of disheartening the foe, and of spreading through his own ranks a confidence, and exhilarating courage, which made war a pastime, and seemed to make victory sure, distinguished Napoleon in an age of uncommon military talent, and was one main instrument of his future power.

The wonderful effects of that rapidity of thought by which Bonaparte was marked, the signal success of his new mode of warfare, and the almost incredible speed with which his fame was spread through nations, had no small agency in fixing his character, and determining for a period

the fate of empires. These stirring influences infused a new consciousness of his own might. They gave intensity and audacity to his ambition; gave form and substance to his indefinite visions of glory, and raised his fiery hopes to empire. The burst of admiration which his early career called forth, must, in particular, have had an influence in imparting to his ambition that modification by which it was characterised, and which contributed alike to its success and to its fall. He began with astonishing the world, with producing a sudden and universal sensation, such as modern times had not witnessed. To astonish, as well as to sway, by his energies, became the great aim of his life. Henceforth to rule was not enough for Bonaparte. He wanted to amaze, to dazzle, to overpower men's souls, by striking, bold, magnificent, and unanticipated results. To govern ever so absolutely would not have satisfied him, if he must have governed silently. He wanted to reign through wonder and awe, by the grandeur and terror of his name, by displays of power which would rivet on him every eye, and make him the theme of every tongue. Power was his supreme object; but a power which should be gazed at as well as felt, which should strike men as a prodigy, which should shake old thrones as an earthquake, and, by the suddenness of its new creations, should awaken something of the submissive wonder which miraculous agency inspires. Such seems to us to have been the distinction or characteristic modification of his love of fame. It was a diseased passion for a kind of admiration, which, from the principles of our nature, cannot be enduring, and which demands for its support perpetual and more stimulating novelty. Mere esteem he would have scorned. Calm admiration, though universal and enduring, would have been insipid. wanted to electrify and overwhelm. He lived for effect. The world was his theatre; and he cared little what part he played, if he might walk the sole hero on the stage, and call forth bursts of applause which would silence all other fame. In war, the triumphs which he coveted were those in which he seemed to sweep away his foes like a whirlwind; and the immense and unparalleled sacrifice of his own soldiers, in the rapid marches and daring assaults to

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which he owed his victories, in no degree diminished their worth to the victor. In peace, he delighted to hurry through his dominions; to multiply himself by his rapid movements; to gather at a glance the capacities of improvement which every important place possessed; to suggest plans which would startle by their originality and vastness; to project, in an instant, works which a life could not accomplish, and to leave behind the impression of a superhuman energy.

Our sketch of Bonaparte would be imperfect indeed, if we did not add, that he was characterised by nothing more strongly than by the spirit of self-exaggeration. The singular energy of his intellect and will, through which he had mastered so many rivals and foes, and overcome what seemed insuperable obstacles, inspired a consciousness of being something more than man. His strong original tendencies to pride and self-exaltation, fed and pampered by strange success and unbounded applause, swelled into an almost insane conviction of superhuman greatness. In his own view, he stood apart from other men. He was not to be measured by the standard of humanity. He was not to be retarded by difficulties, to which all others yielded. He was not to be subjected to laws and obligations which all others were expected to obey. Nature and the human will were to bend to his power. He was the child and favourite of fortune; and, if not the lord, the chief object of destiny. His history shows a spirit of self-exaggeration, unrivalled in enlightened ages, and which reminds us of an Oriental king to whom incense had been burnt from his birth as to a deity. This was the chief source of his crimes. He wanted the sentiment of a common nature with his fellow-beings. He had no sympathies with his race. That feeling of brotherhood, which is developed in truly great souls with peculiar energy, and through which they give up themselves willing victims, joyful sacrifices, to the intertests of mankind, was wholly unknown to him. His heart, amidst all its wild beatings, never had one throb of disinterested love. The ties which bind man to man he broke asunder. The proper happiness of a man, which consists in the victory of moral energy and social affection over the selfish passions, he cast away for the lonely joy of a despot.