Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, and he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept consolation that was to be bought by forgetfulness? No! the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and, when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud even over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it even for the song of pleasure or the burst of revelry? No! there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song; there is a recollection of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. O, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that ever he should have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him?

The grave of those we loved- what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness, of the parting scene: the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs; its noiseless attendance; its mute, watchful assiduities; the last testimonies of expiring love; the feeble, fluttering, thrilling (0, how thrilling!) pressure of the hand; the last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence;;

the faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection!

Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that being who can never, never, never return, to be soothed by thy contrition!

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom, that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged in thought, word or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart that now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing.

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living!

REPUBLICS.-H. S. Legaré.

THE name of REPUBLIC is inscribed upon the most imperishable monuments of the species; and it is probable that it will continue to be associated, as it has been in all past ages, with whatever is heroic in character, and sublime in genius, and elegant and brilliant in the cultivation of arts and letters. It would not be difficult to prove that the base hirelings who have so industriously

inculcated a contrary doctrine have been compelled to falsify history and abuse reason.

It might be asked, triumphantly, what land has ever been visited with the influences of liberty, that has not flourished like the spring? What people has ever worshipped at her altars, without kindling with a loftier spirit, and putting forth more noble energies? Where has she ever acted, that her deeds have not been heroic? Where has she ever spoken, that her eloquence has not been triumphant and sublime?

With respect to ourselves, would it not be enough to say that we live under a form of government and in a state of society to which the world has never yet exhibited a parallel? Is it, then, nothing to be free? How many nations, in the whole annals of human kind, have proved themselves worthy of being so? Is it nothing that we are republicans? Were all men as enlightened, as brave, as proud, as they ought to be, would they suffer themselves to be insulted with any other title? Is it nothing, that so many independent sovereignties should be held together in such a confederacy as ours? What does history teach us of the difficulty of instituting and maintaining such a polity, and of the glory that, of consequence, ought to be given to those who enjoy its advantages in so much perfection and on so grand a scale? For, can anything be more striking and sublime than the idea of an imperial republic, spreading over an extent of territory more immense than the empire of the Cæsars in the accumulated conquests of a thousand years -without prefects or proconsuls or publicans-founded in the maxims of common sense employing within itself no arms but those of reason and known to its subjects only by the blessings it bestows or perpetuates, yet capable of directing, against a foreign foe, all the energies of a military despotism, -a republic, in which men are completely insignificant, and principles and laws exercise, throughout its vast dominion, a peaceful and irresistible sway, blending in one divine harmony such various habits and conflicting opinions, and mingling in our institutions the light of philosophy with all that is dazzling in the associations of heroic achievement, and extended domination, and deep-seated and formidable power!

THE DEATH OF WASHINGTON.-R. T. Paine.

HAVING accomplished the embassy of a benevolent Providence, Washington, the founder of one nation, the sublime instructor of all, took his flight to heaven; not like Mahomet, for his memory is immortal without the fiction of a miracle; not like Elijah, for recording time has not registered the man on whom his mantle should descend; but in humble imitation of that Omnipotent Architect, who returned from a created universe to contemplate from his throne the stupendous fabric he had erected!

The august form whose undaunted majesty could arrest the lightning, ere it fell on the bosom of his country, now sleeps in silent ruin, untenanted of its celestial essence. But the incorruptible example of his virtues shall survive, unimpaired by the corrosion of time, and acquire new vigor and influence from the crimes of ambition and the decay of empires. The invaluable valediction bequeathed to the people who inherited his affections is the effort of a mind whose powers, like those of prophecy, could overleap the tardy progress of human reason, and unfold truth without the labor of investigation. Impressed in indelible characters, this legacy of his intelligence will descend, unsullied as its purity, to the wonder and instruction of succeeding generations; and, should the mild philosophy of its maxims be ingrafted into the policy of nations, at no distant period will the departed hero, who now lives only in the spotless splendor of his own great actions, exist in the happiness and dignity of mankind.

The sighs of contemporary gratitude have attended the sublime spirit to its paternal abode, and the prayers of meliorated posterity will ascend in glowing remembrance of their illustrious benefactor! The laurels that now droop as they shadow his tomb with monumental glory will be watered by the tears of ages; and, embalmed in the heart of an admiring world, the temple erected to his memory will be more glorious than the pyramids, and as eternal as his own imperishable virtues!

ANCIENT AND MODERN PRODUCTIONS.

C. Sumner.

THE classics possess a peculiar charm, from the circumstance that they have been the models, I might almost say the masters, of composition and thought, in all ages. In the contemplation of these august teachers of mankind, we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of the world, better remembered and more cherished still than all the intermediate words that have been uttered, as the lessons of childhood still haunt us when the impressions of later years have been effaced from the mind. But they show with most unwelcome frequency the tokens of the world's childhood, before passion had yielded to the sway of reason and the affections. They want the highest charm of purity, of righteousness, of elevated sentiments, of love to God and man. It is not in the frigid philosophy of the porch and the academy that we are to seek these; not in the marvellous teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the mellifluous words of Plato; not in the resounding line of Homer, on whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at the Isthmian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and intemperate eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. these must not be our masters; in none of these are we to seek the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these writers has been engaged in weaponless contest with the Sermon on the Mount, and those two sublime commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets. The strife is still pending. Heathenism, which has possessed itself of such siren forms, is not yet exorcised. It still tempts the young, controls the affairs of active life, and haunts the meditations of age.

No!

Our own productions, though they may yield to those of the ancients in the arrangement of ideas, in method, in beauty of form, and in freshness of illustration, are immeasurably superior in the truth, delicacy and elevation of their sentiments, above all, in