and holy in the virtue of families, is cruelly trampled on, and held in the bitterest derision. Oh! my brethren, were we to pursue those details, which no pen ever attempts, and no °chronicle 'perpetuates, we should be tempted to ask, what that is which civilization has done for the character of the species? It has thrown a few paltry embellishments over the surface of human affairs; and for the order of society, it has reared the defence of law around the rights and the property of the individuals who compose it. But let war, legalize it as you may, and usher it into the field with all its parades of forms and manifestoes,-let this war only have its season, and be suffered to overlook those artificial defences, and you will soon see how much of the security of the commonwealth is due to positive restriction, and how little of it is due to the natural sense of justice among men. I know well, that the plausibilities of human character, which abound in every modern and enlightened society, have been mustered up to oppose the doctrine of the Bible on the woful depravity of our race. But out of the history of war I can gather for this doctrine the evidence of experiment. It tells me, that man, when left to himself, and let loose among his fellows, to walk after the counsel of his own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, will soon discover how thin that tinsel is which the boasted hand of civilization has thrown over him. REV. THOMAS CHALMERS. CXXVIII.-THE LAST JOURNEY. Michaud, in his description of an Egyptian funeral procession,-which he met on its way to the cemetery of Rosetta, says "The procession, we saw pass. stopped before certain houses, and sometimes receded a few steps. I was told that the dead stopped thus before the doors of their friends to bid them a last farewell, and before those of their enemies to effect a reconciliation before they parted for ever." SLOWLY, with measured tread, To his long home. Short grows the homeward road, O Grave! we come. Yet, yet-ah! hasten not Where he hath been; Never more seen. Will the dead speak again? Lo! the dead lips unclose- "O thou, mine enemy! Come forth and look on me "Curse not thy foeman now- Now his last labor's done! Seal up this precious dust- Take the soul home! MRS. C. A. °SOUTHEY. CXXIX.-A BATTLE OF ANTS. ONE day when I went out to my wood pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking further, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a °duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internécine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they wore engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already 'divested him of several of his members. They fought with more 'pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was-Conquer or die. In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some 'Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart and had now come to avenge or rescue his °Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar-for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red, he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right foreleg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cem ́ents to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an 'Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord fight! Two killed on the patriot's side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick," Fire! for God's sake, fire!"-and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least. I took up the chip, on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce, and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity, such as war only could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at length, after an hour more, he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he went off over the window-sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door. H. D. THOREau. CXXX.-XERXES. A throne was erected for Xerxes upon an eminence; and there seeing all the sea crowded with his vessels, and the land covered with his troops, he at first felt a secret joy in surveying with his own eyes the vast extent of his power, and considered himself the most happy of mortals; but reflecting soon afterwards, that of so many thousands, in one hundred years' time, there would not be one living soul remaining, his joy was turned into grief, and he could not forbear weeping at the instability of human things. He looked upon the ocean bright And, far as he could gaze, One glorious vision met his sight,-— His ships in thousands swept the wave, From east to west-o'er sea and land, ORÖLLIN. Waved scarf and plume!-flashed spear and brand! |