they are more addicted to real sensual pleasure than any other people.

After spending a week very agreeably at Barnaul, Ledyard made preparations for resuming his journey, and reached Yakutsk, on the Lena, on the 18th of September. Here he was told by the authorities that the journey to Okhotsk at that season was impracticable,—a mild manner of telling him that he must not go. He therefore resolved to make the best use of his time, and lost no opportunity of gaining all the knowledge he could of the country and the people. The foilowing are two extracts from his journal at this place:

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE TARTARS.

The Tartar face, in the first impression it gives, approaches nearer to the African than the European; and this impression is strengthened on a more deliberate examination of the individual features and whole compages of the countenance; yet it is very different from an African face. The nose forms a strong feature in the human face. I have seen instances among the Kalmuks where the nose, between the eyes, has been much flatter and broader than I have ever witnessed in Negroes, and some few instances where it has been as broad over the nostrils quite to the end; but the nostrils in any case are much smaller than in Negroes. Where I have seen those noses, they were accompanied with a large mouth and thick lips; and these people were genuine Kalmuk Tartars. The nose protuberates but little from the face, and is shorter than that of the European. The eyes universally are at a great distance from each other, and very small; at each corner of the eye the skin projects over the ball; the part appears swelled; the eyelids go in nearly a straight line from corner to corner. When open, the eye appears as in a square frame. mouth generally, however, is of a middling size, and the lips thin. The next remarkable features are the cheek bones. These, like the eyes, are very remote from each other, high, broad, and withal project a little forward. The face is flat. When I look at a Tartar en profile, I can hardly see the nose between the eyes, and if he blow a coal of fire, I cannot see the nose at all. The face is then like an inflated bladder. The forehead is narrow and low. The face has a fresh color, and on the cheek bones there is commonly a good ruddy hue.

The

The Tartars, from time immemorial, (I mean the Asiatic Tartars,) have been a people of a wandering disposition. Their converse has been more among the beasts of the forest than among men; and when among men, it has only been those of their own nation. They have ever been savages, averse to civilization, have never, until very lately, mingled with other nations, and now

and

rarely. Whatever cause may have originated their peculiarities of features, the reason why they still continue, is their secluded way of life, which has preserved them from mixing with other people. I am ignorant how far a constant society with beasts may operate in changing the features; but I am persuaded that this circumstance, together with an uncultivated state of mind,—if we consider a long and uninterrupted succession of ages,-must account, in some degree, for this remarkable singularity.

WOMAN.

I have observed among all nations that the women ornament themselves more than the men; that, wherever found, they are the same kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender beings; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest They do not hesitate, like man, to perform a hospitable or generous action; not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, but full of courtesy and fond of society; industrious, economical, ingenuous; more liable in general to err than man, but in general also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship to a woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar,-if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that, if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, with a double relish.

On the 29th of December Ledyard left Yakutsk to return to Irkutsk, which he reached in seventeen days. Here, by an order from the Empress, he was arrested, under the pretence of his being a spy, and was conducted by two guards, with all the speed with which horses and sledges could convey him, to Moscow, exposed to the extreme rigors of a Siberian winter, and thence to Poland. Here he was set at liberty, and told that if he ever entered Russia again it would be at the cost of his life. While on the journey, he thus writes on the

BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY.

Though born in the freest of the civilized countries, yet, in the present state of privation, I have a more exquisite sense of the amiable, the immortal nature of liberty than I ever had before.

It would be excellently qualifying if every man who is called to preside over the liberties of a people should once-it would be enough-actually be deprived of his liberty unjustly. He would be avaricious of it more than of any other earthly possession. I could love a country and its inhabitants if it were a country of freedom. There are two kinds of people I could anathematize with a better weapon than St. Peter's, those who dare deprive others of their liberty, and those who suffer others to do it.

From Poland he went to London, where he was received with great cordiality by that munificent patron of letters and science, Sir Joseph Banks. He had not been in London a day, before a plan was proposed to him to explore Central Africa; and being asked when he would be ready to set out, "To-morrow morning," was the prompt answer; and, the preparations for his journey having been made, he left London on the 30th of June, under the patronage of the "African Association." He went first to Paris, thence to Marseilles, thence sailed to Alexandria, and arrived at Cairo on the 19th of August. Here, after having spent three months in making every inquiry and preparation for his hazardous journey, just as he was about starting, he was attacked by a bilious fever. The best medical skill of Cairo was called to his aid, but without effect, and in November, 1788, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, he closed his life of vicissitude and toil at the moment when he imagined his severest cares were over, and when the prospects before him were more flattering than they had been at any former period.

Such was the end of one of the most remarkable of men, in whom the spirit of romantic adventure was ever conspicuous. That he accomplished little compared with the magnitude of his designs seems to have been his misfortune, not his fault. The acts of his life demand notice less on account of their results than of the spirit with which they were performed, and the uncommon traits of character which prompted to their execution. Such instances of decision, energy, perseverance, fortitude, and enterprise have rarely been witnessed in the same individual; and, in the exercise of these high attributes of mind, his example cannot be too much admired or imitated.'

JAMES MADISON, 1751-1836.

JAMES MADISON, the fourth President of the United States, was born in Orange County, Virginia, on the 5th of March, (O.S.,) 1751. After the usual preparatory studies, he entered Princeton College in 1767, and graduated in 1771. While at college, he studied so intensely as to impair his health, which it took some years to recover after his return home; during which he devoted a portion of his time to reading law and miscellaneous literature. In 1776, he was elected a member of the General Assembly of his native State. The next year he was appointed by the

1 Read Sparks's Life of Ledyard: Quarterly Review, xxxviii. 85; North Amer. Rev., xxvii. 360; Amer. Quar., iii. 88.

Assembly a member of the Council of State, which position he held till 1779, when he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, of which he continued a member till 1784. In 1787, he was elected a member of Congress, and in the same year a delegate to the Convention at Philadelphia which formed the present Constitution of the United States. Of the debates of this remarkable body, he is the only one who preserved the records, which were published after his death, and are among the most valuable materials of our country's history. In the interval between the close of the Convention and the meeting of the State Conventions to sanction the Federal Constitution, Mr. Madison, in conjunction with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, wrote a series of articles in the public prints in favor of the Constitution, which were afterwards collected in a volume, entitled The Federalist, and which, for half a century, was a text-book in our best colleges. On the adoption of the Constitution, he was elected a representative to Congress, and continued a member till 1797, the end of Washington's administration.

On the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency, in 1801, Mr. Madison was appointed Secretary of State, which office he held during the eight years of Mr. Jefferson's administration; and in 1809 he succeeded his friend and coadjutor as President of the United States. After having filled the office for two terms, he retired to his seat, Montpelier, where he passed his remaining years, chiefly as a private citizen, declining political office, except that he acted as visitor and rector of the University of Virginia, and as a member of the State Convention to amend the Constitution of Virginia. He died on the 28th of June, 1836, distinguished for his talents and acquirements, for the important offices which he had filled, and for his virtues in private life.

OUR COUNTRY'S RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE WORLD.

Let it be remembered, that it has ever been the pride and boast of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature. By the blessing of the Author of these rights on the means exerted for their defence, they have prevailed over all opposition. * * * No instance has heretofore occurred, nor can any instance be expected hereafter to occur, in which the unadulterated forms of republican government can pretend to so fair an opportunity of justifying themselves by their fruits. In this view, the citizens of the United States are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude, and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfil the ends of govern

1 Many of the views advocated by Mr. Madison in the Convention for framing the Constitution will ever be an honor to his character. He thought the clause allowing the "importation of such persons as any State might think proper," till 1808, dishonorable to the American character." And again, "Mr. Madison thought it wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property

in men."

2 Of the eighty-five numbers of the "Federalist," five were written by Jay, fourteen by Madison, three by Hamilton and Madison, and sixty-three by Hamilton. See the Life of Hamilton for a more particular account.

ment, be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre which it has never yet enjoyed; and an example will be set which cannot but have the most favorable influence on the rights of mankind. If, on the other side, our governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal and essential virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against them; and their patrons and friends exposed to be insulted and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation.

AN APPEAL FOR THE UNION.

I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scenes into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys; the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defence of their sacred rights, consecrate their union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness. But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own