LESSON XIV.

ON THE STUDY OF HISTORY.

1. THE advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds; it amuses the fancy, improves the understanding, and strengthens virtue. In reality, what entertainment is thers more agreeable to the mind than to be transported into the remotest ages of the world, and to observe human society, in its infancy, making the first faint essays toward the arts and sciences?

2. What is more pleasant than to see the policy of government and the civility of conversation refining by degrees, and every thing that is ornamental to human life, advancing toward its perfection? than to mark the rise, progress, declension, and final extinction of the most flourishing empires; the virtues which contribute to their greatness, and the vices which drew on their ruin?

3. In short, to see all the human race, from the beginning of time, pass as it were in review before us, appearing in their true colors, without any of those disguises which, during their life time, so much perplex the judgment of the beholders, what spectacle can be imagined so magnificent, so various, so interesting?

4. What amusement, either of the senses or imagination, can be compared with it? Shall those trifling pastimes, which engross so much of our time, be preferred as more satisfactory and more fit to engage our attention? How perverse must that taste be, which is capable of so wrong a choice of pleasures?

5. But history is a most improving part of knowledge, as well as an agreeable amusement; and, indeed, a great part of what we commonly call erudition, and value so highly, is nothing but an acquaintance with historical facts. An extensive knowledge of this kind, belongs to men of letters; but I must think it an unpardonable ignorance in persons of whatever sex or condition, not to be acquainted with the history of their

own country, along with the histories of ancient Greece and Rome.

6. I must add, that history is not only a valuable part of knowledge, but opens the door to many other parts of knowledge, and affords materials to most of the sciences. And, indeed, if we consider the shortness of human life, and our limited knowledge even of what passes in our own time, we must be sensible, that we should be forever children in understanding, were it not for this invention which extends our experience to all past ages, and to the most distant nations; making them contribute as much to our improvement in wisdom as if they had actually lain under our observation.

7. A man acquainted with history, may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century. There is also an advantage in that knowledge which is acquired by history, above what is learned by the practice of the world, that it brings us acquainted with human affairs, without diminishing in the least from the most delicate sentiments of virtue.

8. And, to tell the truth, I scarcely know any study or occupation so unexceptionable as history in this particular. Poets can paint virtue in the most charming colors; but as they address themselves entirely to the passions, they often become advocates for vice. Even philosophers are apt to bewilder themselves in the subtilty of their speculations; and we have seen some go so far as to deny the reality of all moral distinction.

9. But I think it a remark worthy the attention of the speculative reader, that the historians have been, almost without exception, the true friends of virtue, and have always represented it in its proper colors, however they may have erred in their judgments about particular persons. Nor is this combination of historians in favor of virtue, at all difficult to be accounted for.

ncient Greece comprised all of modern Greece, and a large part of Turkey in Europe. al distinction; the distinction of right and wrong, of merit and demerit.

10. When a man of business enters into life and action, he is more apt to consider the characters of men as they have relation to his interest, than as they stand in themselves, and has his judgment warped on every occasion by the violence of his passion. When a philosopher contemplates characters and manners in his closet, the general abstract view of the objects, leaves the mind so cold and unmoved, that the senti ments of nature have no room to play, as he scarcely feels the difference betwixt vice and virtue.

11. History keeps in a just medium betwixt these extremes, and places the objects in their true point of view. The writers of history, as well as the readers, are sufficiently interested in the characters and events, to have a lively sentiment of blame or praise; and, at the same time, have no particular interest or concern to pervert their judgment.

1. "I REPOSED my weary pilgrim-limbs at last in Rome. Rome! once the center of the world, through which its destiny vibrated, like the crimson gush of man's existence in the human heart! How fallen now! how sad, how desolate, how weak, how ruined! Yet who can stand in the hallowed spot of Rome's ancient power and grandeur, but with silent awe and wonder!

2. Rome is great and powerful still; but the pasteboard show of marshaled monks and gilded priests adds nothing to her greatness, and augments not her grandeur. She is great

in ruin! great in the glorious achievements of another age. Her power and influence among the kingdoms and principalities of the world, have long since passed away; and her scepter has been broken.

3. But still, all nations must and do go there, to bend before the altar of genius, and to pay a willing homage to her treas

a Pompeii (Pom-pē'-yi) an ancient city of Italy overwhelmed by an eruption of the

volcanic mountain Vesuvius.

ures of art. There are the deathless tints, the immortal touches of Michael Angelo's gigantic hand; there too, are the divine and angelic impressions of Raphael; there, but why should I attempt an enumeration of a thousand names, consecrated to genius, and hallowed by antiquity, whose glorious works so richly adorn the Eternal City! They are known to all, but not by all appreciated.

4. I looked down from the brink of the deep crater's mouth into the black and fiery bosom of Vesuvius, where the raging flames, old as time itself, have maddened into fury and awful storms of molten anger, burying fair cities deep beneath their glowing wrath! What a scene! I turned my eyes upon the fair blue waters, so sweetly spread at the base, like the smooth surface of a burnished shield, flashing back the rays of the sun in all the glory that he sends them.

5. It was a lovely day in spring, when the flowers were young and bursting into blossom, diffusing their perfumes over the gay embellished, vine-clad hills. The bay of Naples then reposed in beauty; there was no breeze to curl its surface, and the warm sun smiled gently upon it. O! how bright the prospect over its blue expanse! The city, too, was glorious in the thin blue ethereal vapor, lightly tinging the swelling domes and lofty spires of sunny Naples.

6. I came down from the mountain, and entered the buried cities of the plains. Pompeii and Herculaneum !a once gay cities long buried beneath the red crackling fires of the volcano's wrath! How little do we know of those beings who once gaily trod the well-worn pavements of those silent streets?

7. They have gone; and myriads before, too, have stepped into the awful crater of eternity! And those cities have slept beneath the black cinders of Vesuvius' fires for many centuries; and now they open their ponderous gates and sealed treasures, to the world's astonished gaze!

a Michael Angelo (Mi'-ka-el An'-jel-o;) an Italian painter and designing architect. b Ra-pha-el; an Italian painter subsequent to Angelo. c Eternal City; another name for Rome. d Her-cu-la'-ne-um; an ancient city of Italy overwhelmed by an eruption of Vesuvius.

LESSON XVI.

THE SAME SUBJECT, CONCLUDED.

1. AND lo, a voice from Italy! It comes like the stirring of the breeze upon the mountains! It floats in majesty like the echo of the thunder! It breathes solemnity like a sound from the tombs! Let the nations hearken; for the slumber of ages is broken, and the buried voice of antiquity speaks again from the gray ruins of Pompeii.

2. Roll back the tide of eighteen hundred years. At the foot of the vine-clad Vesuvius stands a royal city; the stately Roman walks its lordly streets, or banquets in the palaces of its splendor. The bustle of busied thousands is there; you may hear it along the thronged quays; it rises from the amphitheater and the forum. It is the home of luxury, of gaiety and of joy. There toged royalty drowns itself in dissipation; the lion roars over the martyred Christian, and the bleeding gladiator dies at the beck of applauding spectators. It is a careless, a dreaming, a devoted city.

3. There is a blackness in the horizon, and the earthquake is rioting in the bowels of the mountain! Hark! a roar, a crash! and the very foundations of the eternal hills are belched forth in a sea of fire! Woe for that fated city! The torrent comes surging like the mad ocean; it boils above wall and tower, palace and fountain, and Pompeii is a city of tombs!

4. Ages roll on; silence, darkness and desolation are in the halls of buried grandeur. The forum is voiceless, and the pompous mansions are tenanted by skeletons! Lo! other generations live above the dust of long lost glory, and the slumber of the dreamless city is forgotten.

5. Pompeii beholds a resurrection! As summoned by the blast of the first trumpet, she hath shaken from her beauty the ashes of centuries and once more looks forth upon the world, sullied and somber, but interesting still. Again upon her arches, her courts and her colonnades, the sun lingers in

a Dressed in a gown. b Gladiatorial shows were a common amusement for the people of Pompeii, in which the combatants fought till one or both were slain.