to the people for the preservation of freedom; Mistress of the world, Rome sunk under her own weight, and unable to support the heighth of power she had attained to, that very power be came the cause of her ruin, and from her toỏ numerous conquests, she was herself ultimately conquered. While the Plebeians, ever solicitous to acquire fresh grants and further immunities, had long before, from obtaining too much liberty, become slaves by the very means they had sought to preserve themselves free. The mighty Colossus tottered and fell to the ground. The Barbarians rushing in on every side, grew rich with her spoils, and strengthened themselves by her strength. The very Emperors who had held the forces of the universe in awe, were raised one day, and deposed the next, at the pleasure of a few soldiers; and those who had ruled the world, were in the course of time confined to the dominion of a single city. It were curious to fancy the capitol resounding with the barbarick clamours and discordant tongues of Goths or Vandals, which, but a little space before, had only heard that language, which to this day remains the standard of literature and taste. Fallen Rome became an easy prey to the Barbarian forces which ravaged the territory, and was re

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peatedly attacked, taken, and plundered by single tribes of that mighty empire, over the whole of which she had a little before so imperiously domineered. Amongst her numerous enemies, Rome was trampled upon in her turn by Carthaginian invaders; by plunderers from that very city she had herself razed to the ground. Genserick, seems to have been led from frozen seas to burning sands by the ordinances of fate, as a weapon in the hand of Providence to seek and obtain severest retribution for a victim over which Rome had so cruelly insulted, while through him the conquered Carthage triumphed over and despoiled her own conquerors.

During the dark ages, while Europe was involved in the deepest obscurity, Asia began to shine forth with the most conspicuous splendor. Her bands of Saracens overruning Persia, Arabia, Egypt, and all the northern part of Asia, even penetrated into Spain by the most rapid succession of conquests, and remained firm possessors of the conquered territory for a lengthened period, notwithstanding the difference of religion, language, and complexion. The decisive victory which Charles Martel gained over these invaders when they attempted to cross the

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Pyrenees, proved a fatal blow to their European power, and from that moment they began to totter, and sink from preeminence. The internal divisions of their state, and the frequent assassinations of reigning princes by too powerful subjects, who aspired to fill their thrones, and who were in their turn themselves assassinated by others, equally aspiring, rendered this unhappy nation one continued scene of domestic misery. Ferocity seems to be one principle character of the Mahometan religion, and the bloody banquet of Abdalla will ever be remembered with horror and disgust. The Saracens after their expulsion from Spain, gradually lost every remnant of power, and now remain on the scorched coasts of Africa, the slaves of their conquerors the Turks, only conspicuous for the miseries arising to them from that dreadful visitant the plague, or from their own barbarity, the cruelties of their rulers, or the crimes of individuals. What was formerly called the garden of the world, is now become, under their influence, the miserable retreats of a few rapacious pirates, and sanguinary tyrants. From the wretchedness of her scanty inhabitants, and the natural miseries of the soil or climate, Africa seems, for the crimes of her sons, to have inherited the malediction of nature, while savage barbarism, robbery, and ty

ranny, are become the characteristics of a coun try, once respected for its sciences and ennobled by its military atchievements,

Since the fall of the Saracens, sovereign power ceased to be engrossed by any single nation; while, from the wreck of the Roman empire, the more equal states of modern Europe have taken their rise. But the revolutions which have happened and continue to happen in her governments, and the nations that rise and fall before our eyes, remain a lasting proof, that though perhaps Europe is become more refined in her learning, or accomplished in her arts, she is not become exempt from, or raised above the changes of adversity and prosperity, which have marked the progress of the ancient world. Would the fourteenth Lewis have given credit to him who asserted, that his unhappy descendant might by possibility embrue the violated throne with his blood, or that his race could eventually become wanderers on the face of the earth? And does it not raise emotions of wonder and compassion in our breasts, when we behold that very nation, whom we ourselves remember flourishing in native freedom and independance, now groaning beneath the enervating chain of Gallic tyranny? Yet glorious at least was her fall, and noble the

last struggles of expiring liberty, when she sunk in the defence of that freedom, which she had so dearly prized, and till that moment, so rigidly preserved.

One obvious moral seems to me the inevitable result of these contemplations. That the exuberance of national pride, should in any and every nation be restrained, and the haughtiness of individuals thoroughly eradicated, when they reflect that the united wisdom of nations, the collected force of empires, was unable to preserve them from decay, and even in some instances, have only proved instrumental to their own destruction.

While Man however is taught, by a review of the weakness and calamities of his fellow-creatures, to think more humbly of himself, ought not his awe and veneration to be in the highest degree encreased towards HIM,

"Who sees with equal eye as GoD of all, "A hero perish or a sparrow fall;

"Atoms, or systems into ruin hurl'd,

"And now a bubble burst,and now a world."

POPE.

Who sits immovable amid the crumbling wreck, who sees and directs the impending ruin, allevi