obstinacy with which they defied all her ef- | experience, transmitted by language, modforts to collect them, and not remembering the precise terms of the contract by which the fiend was bound to obey her commands for a certain space, the sorceress exclaimed, "Deevil, that neither I nor they ever stir from this spot more!" The words were hardly uttered, when, by a metamorphosis as sudden as any in Ovid, the hag and her refractory flock were converted into stone, the angel whom she served, being a strict formalist, grasping eagerly at an opportunity of completing the ruin of her body and soul by a literal obedience to her orders. It is said that when she perceived and felt the transformation which was about to take place she exclaimed to the treacherous fiend, "Ah, thou false thief! lang hast thou promised me a gray gown, and now I am getting ane that will last for ever." The dimensions of the pillar and of the stones were often appealed to as a proof of the superior stature and size of old women and geese in the days of other years by those praisers of the past who held the comfortable opinion of the gradual degeneracy of mankind. IN MAN. SIR WALTER SCOTT. FROM THE FRENCH OF BARON CUVIER. N some respects man appears to possess nothing resembling the instincts of animals. He is not stimulated to any regular continuous exertion of industry by innate ideas. All his knowledge is the consequence of his own sensation or of those of his predecessors. The result of human ified by reflection and applied to our various wants and enjoyments, have originated all the arts of human life, whether useful or ornamental. Language and letters, by affording the means of preserving and communicating all acquired knowledge, form for our species an indefinite source of perfection. ous. The gradations, however, in the development of man are very distinct and numerThe early hordes, obliged to live by hunting or fishing or on wild fruits, occupied altogether in the search of subsistence, could multiply but slowly and make but little progress toward civilization. Their arts were confined to the construction of huts and canoes, to covering themselves with the skins of beasts, and to the fabrication of arrows and of nets. They observed such stars only as guided them in their wanderings, and examined those natural objects alone whose properties were serviceable to themselves. They domesticated no animal but the dog, for this obvious reason-that nature had given him a tendency to that peculiar mode of life which they themselves pursued. When they had succeeded in taming the herbivorous animals, they found a more secure subsistence in the possession of numerous herds and flocks, and the consequent enjoyment of more leisure to extend the range of their acquisitions; more industry was then employed in the fabrication of clothes and dwellings, the ideas of property and barter became general, the unequal distribution of rank gave rise to virtuous or criminal emulation, but the necessity of seeking fresh pastures still condemned them to a wandering life, rendered them sub servient to the course of the seasons, and as yet confined within narrow limits the circle of their improvement. The multiplication of the human species and the advancement of art and science have been carried to any great length only since the invention of agriculture and the division of the soil into hereditary possessions. By means of agriculture the manual labor of a portion of society has been found adequate to the sustenance of the whole, and thus has sufficient leisure been left for other occupations to those not engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The hope of securing by industry a comfortable subsistence for himself and his posterity has added a new spur to the emulation of man. The discovery of a circulating medium to represent property, by facilitating exchange and rendering private fortunes more independent and more susceptible of increase, has carried this emulation to the highest possible degree, but, by a necessary consequence, it has also carried to the highest degree the vices of effeminacy and the fury of ambition. In the successive stages of social development the natural propensity to reduce everything to general principles and to trace the causes of the phenomena of nature has produced contemplative men who have added new ideas to the general mass of intellect. Such men have, for the most part, in unenlightened ages, sought to convert their mental superiority into the means of domination over their fellow-men, exaggerating their own merits and disguising their ignorance by the propagation of superstition. An evil still more irremediable is the abuse of physical power. Man, who at the present day can bid defiance to the attacks of other animals, yet constitutes the only species that is perpetually in a state of mutual warfare. The hunting tribes dispute for their tracts of forest, and the wandering shepherds for their range of pasture. Both, again, make perpetual inroads upon the cultivators of the soil to possess themselves of the fruits of agricultural labor without the trouble of industry. Even civilized nations, far from being satisfied with the blessings they enjoy, engage in warfare for the prerogatives of pride or the monopoly of commerce. From this propensity to combat results the necessity of governments for the direction of national wars and the repression or regulation of private quarrels. Circumstances more or less favorable have either retarded the progress of civilization or accelerated its advancement in the different races of mankind. Thus, in both continents, the frozen climates of the North and the impenetrable forests of America are as yet inhabited only by wandering hordes of savages who subsist by fishing or the chase. The immense sandy deserts or vast tracts of morass that extend over Central Asia and great part of Africa are covered with tribes of shepherds and innumerable herds and flocks. These semi-barbarous hordes have assembled from time to time at the call of some enthusiastic chief and poured like an inundation upon the civilized countries which surrounded them, and whose inhabitants the baneful influence of luxury had rendered less capable of resistance. Having established themselves there and become effeminate in their turn, they remained in possession until some other warlike hordes arrived to subjugate or expel them. This is the cause of that despotism which, perpetually pressing upon the people, has invariably crushed all the efforts of industry and talent in the beautiful climates of Persia, of India and of China. Mild climates, soils abundantly supplied with moisture by the hand of nature and rich in vegetable productions, are the true cradles of agriculture and civilization. When the position of countries thus happily circumstanced shelters them against the irruptions of barbarian hordes, talent of every description is excited and mutual emulation carries every art and science to a high pitch of perfection. Such were the advantages possessed by Greece and Italy in ancient days, and such are the happy privileges at the present moment of by far the largest portion of Europe. There are, however, intrinsic and almost constitutional obstacles which appear to arrest the progress of certain races of mankind even in the very midst of circumstances the most favorable to improvement. Translation of EDWARD GRIFFITH. in the works of God, to search everywhere for traces of the all-pervading and all-perfect Mind, to seek in the humblest zoophyte the expression of an idea of God-the not unworthy type of the infinite Archetype. He wrought in glowing faith. He served at the altar of Science as a priest of the Most High. Infidelity went from his presence rebuked and humbled. His soul was kindled, his lips were touched ever more and more with the fire of heaven, as, with waning strength and under the burden of bereavement, he still drew bolder, fuller harmonies, unheard before, from the lyre of universal nature. Says one who was present at the lecture from which he went home to die, "In the whole of this lecture. there was an omnipresence of the omnipotent and supreme Cause. The examination of the visible world seemed to touch upon the invisible. The search into creation invoked the presence of the Creator. It seemed as if the veil were to be torn from before us and Science was about to reveal eternal wisdom." which Newton wrought for the mechanism THE cynic is one who never sees a good of the heavens. His generalizations now seem final and complete. They bind together all tribes of being in one vast and beautiful system pervaded by analogies and equivalent provisions, and reveal in the structure and adaptations of the animal economy numberless mysteries of divine wisdom which had been hidden from the foundation of the world. He reached these sublime results because his religious nature prompted him to look for unity and harmony quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin and never seeing noble game. The cynic puts all human actions into only two classes-openly bad, and secretly bad. All virtue and generosity and disinterestedness are merely the appearance of good, but selfish at the bottom. He holds that no man does a good thing except for profit. The effect of his conversation upon your feelings is to chill and sear them-to | send you away sour and morose. AMERICAN VALOR IN MEXICO. His criticisms and innuendoes fall indiscrim-H inately upon every lovely thing like frost upon the flowers. If Mr. A is pronounced a religious man, he will reply: "Yes, on Sundays." Mr. B has just joined the church: "Certainly; the elections are coming on." The minister of the gospel is called an example of diligence: "It is his trade." Such a man is generous: "Of other men's money." This This man is obliging: "To lull suspicion and cheat you." That man is upright: cause he is green." HERE is one point, sir, where we can all meet, and that is the gallantry and good conduct of our country. This is one of the high places to which we can come up together and, laying aside our party dissension, mingle our congratulations that our country has had such sons to go forth to battle, and that they have gathered such a harvest of renown in distant fields. The time has been -and there are those upon this floor who re"Be-member it well-when our national flag was said to be but striped bunting and our armed vessels but fir-built frigates. The feats of our army and navy in our last war with England redeemed us from this reproach, the offspring of foreign jealousy; and had they not, the events of the present war would have changed these epithets into terms of honor, for our flag has become a victorious standard borne by marching columns over the hills and valleys, and through the cities and towns and fields, of a powerful nation, in a career of success of which few examples can be found in ancient or modern warfare. Thus his eye strains out every good quality and takes in only the bad. To him religion is hypocrisy; honesty, a preparation for fraud; virtue, only a want of opportunity; and undeniable purity, asceticism. The livelong day he will coolly sit with sneering lip transfixing every character that is presented. It is impossible to indulge in such habitual severity of opinion upon our fellow-men without injuring the tenderness and delicacy of our own feelings. A man will be what his most cherished feelings are. If he encourage a noble generosity, every feeling will be enriched by it; if he nurse bitter and envenomed thoughts, his own spirit will absorb the poison, and he will crawl among men as a burnished adder whose life is mischief and whose errand is death. He who hunts for flowers will find flowers, and he who loves weeds may find weeds. Let it be remembered that no man who is not himself morally diseased will have a relish for disease in others. Reject, then, the morbid ambition of the cynic, or cease to call yourself a man. HENRY WARD BEECHER. The movement of our army from Puebla was one of the most romantic and remarkable events which ever occurred in the military annals of any country. Our troops did not, indeed, burn their fleet, like the first conquerors of Mexico, for they needed not to gather courage from despair nor to stimulate their resolution by destroying all hopes of escape, but they voluntarily cut off all means. of communication with their own country by throwing themselves among the armed thousands of another and advancing with stout hearts, but feeble numbers, into the midst of a hostile country. The uncertainty which everywhere felt when our gallant little army disappeared from our view will not be forgotten during the present generation. There was universal pause of expectation-hoping, but still fearing; and the eyes of twenty millions of people were anxiously fixed upon another country which a little band of its armed citizens had invaded. A veil concealed them from our view. They were lost to us for fifty days, for that period elapsed from the time when we heard of their departure from Puebla till accounts reached us of the issue of the movement. The shroud which enveloped them gave way, and we discovered our glorious flag waving in the breezes of the capital, and the city itself invested by our army. hung over the public mind and the anxiety | his banishment it was his fortune to win the four-horse chariot-race at Olympia, whereby he gained the very same honor which had before been carried off by Miltiades, his half brother on the mother's side. At the next Olympiad he won the prize again with the same mares; upon which he caused Pisistratus to be proclaimed the winner, having made an agreement with him that on yielding him this honor he should be allowed to come back to his country. Afterward, still with the same mares, he won the prize a third time; whereupon he was put to death by the sons of Pisistratus, whose father was no longer living. They set men to lie in wait for him secretly, and these men slew him near the government-house in the nighttime. He was buried outside the city, beyond what is called "the Valley Road," and right opposite his tomb were buried the mares which had won the three prizes. The same success had likewise been achieved once previously-to wit, by the mares of Evagoras the Lacedæmonian, but never except by them. At the time of Cimon's death, Stesagoras, the elder of his two sons, was in the Chersonese, where he lived with Miltiades, his uncle; the younger, who was called Miltiades, after the founder of the Chersonesite colony, was with his father in Athens. LEWIS CASS. THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. TH HE Persians, having brought Eretria into subjection, after waiting a few days made sail for Attica, greatly straitening the Athenians as they approached, and thinking to deal with them as they had dealt with the people of Eretria. And because there was no place in all Attica so convenient for their horse as Marathon, and it lay, moreover, quite close to Eretria, therefore Hippias, the son of Pisistratus, conducted them thither. When intelligence of this reached the Athenians, they likewise marched their troops to Marathon and there stood on the defensive, having at their head ten generals, of whom one was Miltiades. Now, this man's father, Cimon, the son of Stesagoras, was banished from Athens by Pisistratus, the son of Hippocrates. In It was this Miltiades who now commanded the Athenians, after escaping from the Chersonese and twice nearly losing his life. First he was chased as far as Imbrus by the Phœnicians, who had a great desire to take him and carry him up to the king; and when he had avoided this danger, and, having reached his own country, thought himself to be altogether in safety, he found his enemies wait |