The final Resignation of Prejudices.

"So, from all tracts of earth, this gathering throng In ships and chariots shape their course along, Reach with unwonted speed the place assign'd To hear and give the counsels of mankind.

South of the sacred mansion first resort The assembled sires, and pass the spacious court. Here in his porch earth's figur'd GENIUS stands, Truth's mighty mirror poising in his hands: Graved on the pedestal and chased in gold, Man's noblest arts their symbol forms unfold, His tillage and his trade; with all the store Of wondrous fabrics and of useful lore: Labors that fashion to his sovereign sway Earth's total powers- her soil, and air, and sea; Force them to yield their fruits at his known call, And bear his mandates round the rolling ball. Beneath the footstool all destructive things, The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings, Lie trampled in the dust; for here at last Fraud, folly, error, all their emblems cast. Each envoy here unloads his wearied hand Of some old idol from his native land; One flings a pagod on the mingled heap, One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep; Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns, globes, and stars, Codes of false fame and stimulants to wars, Sink in the settling mass-since guile began These are the agents of the woes of man. 'Here, then,' said Hesper, with a blissful smile, 'Behold the fruits of thy long years of toil. To yon bright borders of Atlantic day Thy swelling pinions led the trackless way,

And taught mankind such useful deeds to dare,
To trace new seas and happy nations rear;
Till by fraternal hands their sails unfurl'd
Have waved at last in Union o'er the world.

Then let thy steadfast soul no more complain
Of dangers braved and griefs endured in vain,
Of courts insidious, envy's poison'd stings,
The loss of empire and the frown of kings;
While these broad views thy better thoughts compose
To spurn the malice of insulting foes;
And all the joys descending ages gain,
Repay thy labours and remove thy pain.'

CHAPTER V.

INLAND NAVIGATION, CIVIL ENGINEERING, AND STATESMANSHIP.

"Nor seas alone the countless barks behold,
Earth's inland realms their naval paths unfold.
Her plains, long portless, now no more complain
Of useless rills and fountains nursed in vain:
CANALS curve thro' them many a liquid line,
Prune their wild streams, their lakes and oceans join.
New York resigns her stagnant world of fen,
Allures, rewards the cheerful toils of men,

Leads their long new-made rivers round her reign,
Drives off the putrid air, and waves her golden grain,
Feeds a whole nation from her cultured shore,
Where not a bird could skim the skies before.

From Mohawk's mouth, far westing with the sun,
Thro' all the midlands recent channels run,
Tap the redundant lakes, the broad hills brave,
And HUDSON marry with MISSOURI's wave.
From dim SUPERIOR, whose uncounted sails
Shade his full seas and bosom all his gales,
New paths unfolding seek Mackenzie's tide,
And towns and empires rise along their side;
Free crystal highways all his north adorn,
Like coruscations from the boreal morn.
Proud MISSISSIPPI, tamed and taught his road,
Flings forth irriguous from his generous flood
Ten thousand watery glades; that, round him curl'd,
Vein the broad bosom of the Western World.

Sway'd with the floating weight each river toils,
And joyous Nature's full perfection smiles;
While growing arts their social virtues spread,
Enlarge their compacts and unlock their trade,
Till each remotest clan, by commerce join'd,
Links in the chain that binds all human kind."

IN 1793, we find Mr. Fulton actively engaged in a project to improve inland navigation: even at that early day, he had conceived the idea of propelling vessels by steam; and he speaks in some of his manuscripts with great confidence of its practicability. In May, 1794, he obtained from the British Government a patent for a Double Inclined-Plane, to be used for transportation.

Indeed, the subject of canals appears chiefly to have engaged his attention about this time. He now, and probably for some time previously, professed himself a civil engineer. Under this title, he published his work on canals. In 1795, he published some essays on the same subject in the London Morning Star.

In the introduction to his Treatise on Canal Navigation, he says that his thoughts were first turned to this subject by reading a paper descriptive of a canal proposed by the Earl of Stanhope. In the spring of 1796, he published in London his "Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation," with many plates. The object of this work

was to prove that small canals, navigated by boats of little burden, were preferable to canals and vessels of the dimensions then in use, and to recommend a mode of conveyance over mountainous countries independent of locks, railways, and steamengines. This he proposed to accomplish by Inclined-Planes, upon which vessels navigating the canal, of a construction adapted to his plan, and their cargoes, should be raised and lowered from one level to another, or by lifting or lowering the boat and her freight perpendicularly by machinery of very ingenious construction, placed on the higher level. This was to be moved by the power of water taken from the superior height, and applied to a water-wheel; or by the weight of a body of water received into a coffer, which was to move in a direct line between the higher and the lower level, through a perpendicular shaft or well made in the earth for the purpose. He also proposed, by a different modification of his machinery, and by what he calls Double Inclined-Planes, to accomplish the passage over a valley, from one summit to another. He does not pretend that to use Inclined-Planes for these purposes was an original thought of his; but their connection with machinery, as he suggests, and particularly the perpendicular lift, he claimed as his invention.