f ative minds; but what are all these when the thought comes, that without mountains the spirit of man must have bowed to the brutal and the base, and probably have sunk to the mo notonous level of the unvaried plain? 2. When I turn my eyes upon the map of the world, and behold how wonderfully the countries where our faith was nurtured, where our liberties were generated, where our philosophy and literature, the fountains of our intellectual grace and beauty, sprang up, were as distinctly walled out by God's hand with mountain ramparts, from the eruptions and inter ruptions of barbarism, as if at the especial prayer of the early fathers of man's destinies, I am lost in an exalting admiration. 3. Look at the bold barriers of Palestine! see how the infant liberties of Greece were sheltered from the vast tribes of the uncivilized north by the heights of Hamus and Rhodope! behold how the Alps describe their magnificent crescent, inclining their opposite extremities to the Adriatic and Tyrrhine Seas, locking up Italy from the Gallic and Teutonian hordes till the power and spirit of Rome had reached their maturity, and she had opened the wide forest of Europe to the light, spread far her laws and language, and planted the seeds of many mighty nations! 4. Thanks to God for mountains! Their colossal firmness seems almost to break the current of time itself; the geologist in them searches for traces of the earlier world; and it is there, too, that man, resisting the revolutions of lower regions, re tains through innumerable years his habits and his rights. While a multitude of changes have remoulded the people of Europe; while languages, and laws, and dynasties, and creeds, have passed over it like shadows over the landscape, the chil dren of the Celt and the Goth, who fled to the mountains a thousand years ago, are found there now, and show us in face and figure, in language and garb, what their fathers were; show us a fine contrast with the modern tribes dwelling below and around them; and show us, moreover, how adverse is the spirit of the mountain to mutability, and that there the fiery heart of freedom is found for ever. WILLIAM HOWITT 17. IRELAND AND THE IRISH [C. E. Lester is wide and expansive in his writings, generous in his fee ings, and truly American in his mind and heart. His view of "Ireland under English Oppression," in his admirable work entitled "Condition and Fate of England," is one of the most eloquent essays in the English language.] RELAND still has an existence as a nation. She has her universities and her literature. She is still the "Emerald Isle of the Ocean." An air of romance and chivalry is around her. The traditionary tales that live in her literature invest her history with heroic beauty. But she has no need of these. Real heroes, the O'Neils, the O'Briens, and the Emmets, will be remembered as long as self-denying patriotism and unconquerable valor are honored among men. 2. In every department of literature she will take her place. Where is the wreath her shamrock does not adorn? Where the muse that has not visited her hills? Her harp has ever kindled the soul of the warrior and soothed the sorrows of the broken-hearted. It has sounded every strain that can move the human heart to greatness or to love. Whatever vices may stain her people, they are free from the crime of voluntary servitude. The Irishman is the man last to be subdued. Possessing an elasticity of character that will rise. under the heaviest oppression, he wants only a favorable opportunity and a single spark to set him in a blaze. 3. The records of religious persecutions in all countries have nothing more hideous to offer to our notice than the Protestant persecutions of the Irish Catholics. On them, all the devices of cruelty were exhausted. Ingenuity was taxed to devise new plans of persecution, till the machinery of penal iniquity might almost be pronounced perfect. The great Irish chieftains and landlords were purposely goaded into rebellion, that they might be branded as traitors and their lands confis cated for the benefit of English adventurers. Such was the course adopted towards Earl Desmond, a powerful chief of Muuster r; such also was the treatment of O'Neil. When Queen Elizabeth heard of the revolt of the latter, she remarked to her courtiers: "It would be better for her ser vants, as there would be estates enough for them all." 4. This single expression of Elizabeth reveals the entire policy of the English Government towards Ireland. That injared country was the great repast at which every monarch bade his lords sit down and eat. After they had gorged their fill, the remains were left for those who came after. Tranquillity succeeded these massacres, but it was the tranquillity of the grave-yard. The proud and patriotic Irishmen were folded in the sleep of death, and the silence and repose around their lifeless corpses were called peace. "They made a solitude, And called it peace." 5. Often a great chief, possessed of large estates, was purposely driven by the most flagrant injustice and insults into open rebellion, that he might be branded as a traitor, and his rich possessions, by confiscation, revert to the English vampyres that so infested the land. Every cruelty and outrage that can dishonor our nature was perpetrated in these unjust wars by English leaders and English soldiers. Cities were sacked, villages burned, and the helpless and the young slaughtered by thousands. A record of these scenes of crime and blood we cannot furnish. It is written, however, on every foot of Irish soil, and in the still living memories of many an Irish heart. C. EDWARDS LESTER. HONOR 18. THE DUELLIST'S HONOR. [ONOR is the acquisition and preservation of the dignity of our nature: that dignity consists in its perfection; that perfection is found in observing the laws of our Creator; the laws of the Creator are the dictates of reason and of religion that is, the observance of what He teaches us by the natural light of our own minds, and by the special reve : lations of His will manifestly given. They both concur in teaching us that individuals have not the dominion of their own lives; otherwise, no suicide would be a criminal. They concur in teaching us that we ought to be amenable to the laws of the society of which we are members; otherwise, morality and honor would be consistent with the violation of law and the disturbance of the social system. 2. They teach us that society cannot continue to exist where the public tribunals are despised or undervalued, and the redress of injuries withdrawn from the calm regulation of public justice, for the purpose of being committed to the caprice of private passion, and the execution of individual ill-will; therefore, the man of honor abides by the law of God, reveres the statutes of his country, and is respectful and amenable to its authorities. Such, my friends, is what the reflecting portion of mankind has always thought upon the subject of honor. This was the honor of the Greek; this was the honor of the Roman; this the honor of the Jew; this the honor of the Gentile; this, too, was the honor of the Christian, until the superstition and barbarity of Northern devastators darkened his glory and degraded his character. 3. Man, then, has not power over his own life; much less is he justified in depriving another human being of life. Upon what ground can he who engages in a duel, through the fear of ignominy, lay claim to courage? Unfortunate delinquent! Do you not see by how many links your victim was bound to a multitude of others? Does his vain and idle resignation of his title to life absolve you from the enormous claims which society has upon you for his services-his family for that support, of which you have robbed them without your own enrichment? 4. Go, stand over that body; call back that soul which you have driven from its tenement; take up that hand which your pride refused to touch, not one hour ago. You have, in your pride and wrath, usurped one prerogative of God. You have inflicted death. At least, in mercy, attempt the excrcise of another; breathe into those distended nostrils-let your brother be once more a living soul! Merciful Father! how power. less are we for good, but how mighty for evil! Wretched man! he does not answer-he cannot rise. All your efforts to make him breathe are vain. His soul is already in the presence of your common Creator! Like the wretched Cain, will you answer, "Am I my brother's keeper ?" 5. Why do you turn away from the contemplation of your own honorable work? Yes, go as far as you will, still the admonition will ring in your ears: It was by your hand he fell! The horrid instrument of death is still in that hand, and the stain of blood upon your soul. Fly, if you will-go to that house which you have filled with desolation. It is the shriek of his widow-they are the cries of his children-the broken sobs of his parent; and, amidst the wailings, you distinctly hear the voice of imprecation on your own guilty head! Will your honorable feelings be content with this? Have you now had abundant and gentlemanly satisfaction? BISHOP ENGLAND. 19. EMOTIONS ON RETURNING TO THE UNITED STATES, 1837. SIR, IR, I dare not trust myself to speak of my country with the rapture which I habitually feel when I contemplate her marvellous history. But this I will say that on my return to it, after an absence of only four years, I was filled with wonder at all I saw and all I heard. 2. What is to be compared with it? I found New York grown up to almost double its former size, with the air of a great capital, instead of a mere flourishing commercial town, as I had known it. I listened to accounts of voyages of a thousand miles in magnificent steamboats on the waters of those great lakes, which, but the other day, I left sleeping in the primeval silence of nature, in the recesses of a vast wilderness; and I felt that there is a grandeur and a majesty in this irresistible onward march of a race, created, as |