and their power increased, but as the commonwealth has been ruined and impoverished! To what are we to impute these disorders? and to what cause assign the decay of a state, so powerful and flourishing in past time? The reason is plain. The servant is now become the master. The magistrate was then subservient to the people: punishments and rewards were properties of the people: all honours, dignities, and preferments were disposed by the voice and favour of the people. But the magistrate, now, has usurped the right of the people, and exercises an arbitrary authority over his ancient and natural lord. You miserable people! the meanwhile, without money, without friends; from being the ruler, are become the servant; from being the master, the dependant: happy that these governors, into whose hands you have thus resigned your own power, are so good, and so gracious, as to continue your poor allowance to see plays. Believe me, Athenians, if recovering from this lethargy, you would assume the ancient freedom and spirit of your fathers; if you would be your own soldiers, and your own commanders, confiding no longer your affairs in foreign or mercenary hands; if you would charge yourselves with your own defence, employing abroad, for the public, what you waste in unprofitable pleasures at home, the world might, once more, behold you making a figure worthy of Athenians. "You would have us then (you say) do "service in our armies, in our own persons; and for so doing, you would have the pensions we receive in time of peace, ac"cepted as pay in time of war. Is it thus we are to understand "you"Yes, Athenians, 'tis my plain meaning. I would make it a standing rule, that no person, great or little, should be the better for the public money, who should grudge to employ it for the public service. Are we in peace? the public is charged with your subsistence. Are we in war, or under a necessity, as at this time, to enter into a war? let your gratitude oblige you to accept, as pay, in defence of your benefactors, what you receive, in peace, as mere bounty. Thus, without any innovation, without altering or abolishing any thing, but pernicious novelties, introduced for the encouragement of sloth and idleness; by converting for the future the same funds for the use of the servicable, which are spent, at present, upon the unprofitable; you may be well served in your armies; your troops regularly paid; justice duly administered; the public revenues reformed and increased; and every member of the commonwealth rendered useful to his country, according to his age and ability, without any further burden to the state., This, O men of Athens! is what my duty prompted me to represent to you upon this occasion.-May the gods inspire you to determine upon such measures as may be most expedient for the particular and general good of our country! THE PERFECT SPEAKER. IMAGINE to yourselves a Demosthenes addressing the most illustrious assembly in the world, upon a point whereon the fate of the most illustrious of nations depended.-How awful such a meeting! How vast the subject! Is man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion? Adequate yes, superior. By the power of his eloquence, the augustness of the assembly is lost in the dignity of the orator; and the importance of the subject for a while superceded by the admiration of his talents. With what strength of argument, with what powers of the fancy, with what emotions of the heart, does he assault and subjugate the whole man, and, at once, captivate his reason, his imagination, and his passions!-To effect this, must be the utmost effort of the most improved state of human nature. Not a faculty that he posses-. ses, is here unemployed: not a faculty that he possesses, but is here exerted to its highest pitch. All his internal powers are at work: all his external testify their energies. Within, the me mory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions are all busy without, every muscle, every nerve is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, but speaks. The organs of the body attuned to the exertions of the mind, through the kindred organs of the hearers, instantaneously, and, as it were, with an electrical spirit, vibrate those energies from soul to soul. Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such a multitude, by the lightning of eloquence, they are melted into one mass-the whole assembly actuated in one and the same way, become, as it were, but one man, and have but one voice. The universal cry is-LET US MARCH AGAINST PHILIP LET US FIGHT FOR OUR LIBERTIES—LET VS CONQUER-OR DIE! On the duties of School-Boys, from the pious and judicious ROLLIN. QUINTILLIAN says, that he has included almost all the duty of scholars in this one piece of advice which he gives them, to love those who teach them, as they love the seience which they learn of them; and to look upon them as fathers, from whom they derive not the life of the body, but that instruction which is in a manner the life of the soul. Indeed this sentiment of affection and respect suffices to make them apt to learn during the time of their studies, and full of gratitude all the rest of their lives. It seems to me to include a great part of what is to be expected from them. Docility, which consists in submitting to directions, in readily receiving the instructions of their masters, and reducing them to practice, is properly the virtue of scholars, as that of masters is to teach well. The one can do nothing without the other; and as it is not sufficient for a labourer to sow the seed, unless the earth, after having opened its bosom to receive it, in a manner batches, warms, and moistens it; so likewise the whole fruit of instruction depends upon a good correspondence between the masters and the scholars. Gratitude for those who have laboured in our education, is the character of an honest man, and the mark of a good heart. Who is there among us, says Cicero, that has been instructed with any care, that is not highly delighted with the sight, or even the bare remembrance of his preceptors, masters, and the place where he was taught and brought up? Seneca exhorts young men to preserve always a great respect for their masters, to whose care they are indebted for the amendment of their faults, and for having imbibed sentiments of honour and probity. Their exactness and severity displease sometimes, at an age when we are not in a condition to judge of the obligations we owe to them; but when years have ripened our understanding and judgment, we then discern that what made us dislike them, I mean admonitions, reprimands, and a severe exactness in restraining the passions of an imprudent and inconsiderate age, is expressly the very thing which should make us esteem and love them. Thus we see that Marcus Aurelius, one of the wisest and most illustrious emperors that Rome ever had, thanked the Gods for two things especially-for his having had excellent tutors himself, and that he had found the life for his children. Quintillian, after having noted the different characters of the mind in children, draws, in a few words, the image of what he judged to be a perfect scholar; and certainly it is a very amiable one. "For my part," says he, "I like a child who is encouraged by commendation, is animated by a sense of glory, and " weeps when he is outdone A noble emulation will always keep him in exercise, a reprimand will touch him to the quick, "and honour will serve instead of a spur. We need not fear "that such a scholar will ever give himself up to sullenness." Mihi ille detur puer, quem laus excitet, quem gloria juvet, qui virtus fleat. Hic erit alendus ambitu: hunc mordebit objurgatio; hunc honor excitabit: in hoc desidium nunquam verebor. How great a value soever Quintillian sets upon the talents of the mind, he esteems those of the heart far beyond them, and looks upon the others as of no value without them. In the same chapter from whence I took the preceding words, he declares, he should never have a good opinion of a child, who placed his study in occasioning laughter, by mimicking the behaviour, mien, and faults of others; and he presently gives an admirable reason for it: "A child," says he, " cannot be truly ingenuous, "in my opinion, unless he be good and virtuous; otherwise, I "should rather choose to have him dull and heavy, than of a bad "disposition." Non dabit spem bonoe indolis, qui hoc imitandi studio petit, ut rideatur. Nam probus quoque imprimus erit ille vere ingeniosus: alioqui non pejus duxerim tardi esse ingenii, quam mali. He displays to us all these talents in the eldest of his two children, whose character he draws, and whose death he laments in so eloquent and pathetic a strain, in the beautiful preface to his sixth book. I shall beg leave to insert here a small extract of it, which will not be useless to the boys, as they will find it a model which suits well with their age and condition. After having mentioned his younger son, who died at five years old, and described the graces and beauties of his countenance, the prettiness of his expression, the vivacity of his undersanding, which began to shine through the veil of childhood: "I had "still left me," says he, " my son Quintillian, in whom I placed "all my pleasure and all my hopes, and comfort enough I might "have found in him; for, having now entered into his tenth year, he did not produce only blossoms like his younger brother, but fruits already formed, and beyond the power of disappointment. I have much experience; but I never saw in any child, I do not say only so many excellent dispositions for "the sciences, nor so much taste, as his masters know, but so "much probity, sweetness, good nature, gentleness, and inclina"tion to please and oblige, as I discerned in him. "Besides this, he had all the advantages of nature; a charm'ing voice, a pleasing countenance, and a surprising facility in pronouncing well the two languages, as if he had been equally "born for both of them. "But all this was no more than hopes. I set a greater value upon his admirable virtues, his equality of temper, his re"solution, the courage with which he bore up against fear and "pain; for, how were his physicians astonished at his patience "under a distemper of eight months continuance, when at the "point of death he comforted me himself, and bade me not to weep for him! and delirious as he sometimes was at his last "moments, his tongue ran on nothing else but learning and the "sciences: O vain and deceitful hopes!" &c. Are there many boys amongst us, of whom we can truly say so much to their advantage, as Quintillian says here of his son? What a shame would it be for them, if born and brought up in a Christian country, they had not even the virtues of Pagan children! I make no scruple to repeat them here again-docility, obedience, respect for their masters, or rather a degree of affec tion, and the source of an eternal gratitude; zeal for study, and a wonderful thirst after the sciences, joined to an abhorrence of vice and irregularity; an admirable fund of probity, goodness, gentleness, civility, and liberality; as also patience, courage, and greatness of soul in the course of a long sickness.What then was wanting to all these virtues? That which alone could ren der them truly worthy the name, and must be in a manner the soul of them, and constitute their whole value, the precious gift of faith and piety; the saving knowledge of a Mediator, a sinwere desire of pleasing God, and referring all our actions to him. COLUMBIA. BY THE REVEREND DR. DWIGHT. COLUMBIA, Columbia, to glory arise, To conquest, and slaughter, iet Europe aspire; Fair Science her gates to thy sons shall unbar, CC |