not apply in this. They have their virtues and their vices, and we see no reason for believing that the proportion between the good and the bad that is in them, constitutes any very striking difference between them and other men. With the utmost good-will to the cause which Mr Buchanan labours to advance, we advise him not to rest upon the peculiar excellence of their character, their claims to better treatment at our hands than they have hitherto received. per Journey to the Northern Ocean, and quoted by Dr Jarvis, in his Discourse delivered before the New York Historical Society. Matonabbee, one of their chiefs, had requested him (Hearne) to kill one of his enemies, who was at that time several hundred miles distant. To please this great man,' says he, and not expecting that any harm could possibly arise from it, I drew a rough sketch of two human figures on a piece of paper, in the attitude of wrestling; in the hand of one of them I drew the figure of a bayonet, pointing to the breast of the other. This,' said I to MatonThe religious opinions, traditions, and abbee, pointing to the figure which was holding the rites of the Indians, have been investigated bayonet, is I, and the other is your enemy.' Opwith great care, and many facts have been posite to those figures I drew a pine tree, over ascertained and used in support of many tree projected a human hand. This paper I gave which I placed a large human eye, and out of the theories. That which has attracted most to Matonabbee, with instructions to make it as pubattention, identifies these savages with the lic as possible. The following year when he came remains of the ten tribes of Israel. Mr to trade, he informed me that the man was dead. Adair, whose means of obtaining knowledge Matonabbee assured me, that the man was in respecting the Indians, were very great, and fect health when he heard of my design against more lately, Dr Boudinot, have urged with quite gloomy, and, refusing all kinds of sustenance, him, but almost immediately afterward became great force, every thing which can be sug-in a very few days died.' gested in support of this hypothesis. ReTheir jugglers and priests, of course, ensemblances, some of which seem almost too deavour to confirm this disposition, and acexact to be referred to chance, unquestion-quire a skill and facility in carrying through ably exist between many rites and religious their impostures, which might well deceive customs observed by the Indians, and those a wiser people. An instance of the sagacity which were imposed by divine authority of a juggler thus employed, which Mr upon the Jews. But it is difficult to ascertain Heckewelder relates, proves at least, that how far the authority for some of the most important may be relied on; and, without changes in the weather are indicated more distinctly and earlier, than casual observers adverting to the fatal objections against this of such things would suppose. theory which may be drawn from the physical structure and peculiarities of language of the natives of this country, it may be safely asserted, that many nations of the old continent are as closely assimilated to the Jews, by an identity of religious ritual, as are the aborigines of this. Somewhat similar ceremonies are practised by nations who have not gone beyond a certain degree of civilization in all parts of the world. Sacrifices, the worship of the principal heavenly bodies, and of spiritual powers in various forms, and some measure of veneration for consecrated periods and places, are always found among the savage nations of the old world, and have always been among them, if we may trust to the evidence of records, and of monuments which go back beyond all record; and they are now ascertained to bave existed among all the tribes of American Indians. Perhaps the only conclusion which can be rationally deduced from these facts, is, that all the religions in the world had one common origin;-that there was a time when the parents of the inhabitants of the earth knew, from sources which are now closed, that God is, and what He is, and what are the laws and relations which govern and connect the various parts of his creation;-and that as the weakness and wickedness of men varied in character and measure, this knowledge was lost or perverted in different modes and degrees. Perhaps there have been no nations more superstitious than the Indians; many in stances are known of individuals losing all strength and health, from the anxiety and horror which some unlucky omen or fearful circumstance had caused, and literally dying from the fear of death. A remarkable instance of this is related by Hearne, in his In the summer of the year 1799, a most uncommon do which I was going. I mentioned the circumstance to the chief of the place, and told him that I thought it impossible that we should have rain while the sky was so clear as it then was, and had been for near five weeks together, without its being previously announced by some signs or change in the atmosphere. But the chief answered: Chenos knows very well what he is about; he can at any time predict what the weather will be; he takes his observations morning and evening from the river or something in it.' On my return from this place after three o'clock in the afternoon, the sky still continued the same until about four o'clock, when all at once the horizon became overcast, and without any thunder or wind, it began to rain, and continued so for several hours together, until the ground became thoroughly soaked." It was not until lately, that the languages of the American aborigines have been studied with great care; and valuable results have rewarded the labour bestowed upon these pursuits. Mr Duponceau, who and whose authority is indisputable, declares is the best authority upon these subjects, that, the American languages in general are copious both in words and in grammatical forms, and that their structure is exceedingly methodical and regular. That their peculiar and complicated forms,—which he calls polysynthetic,-appear to characterize all these languages, from one extremity of the continent to the other, and that they differ essentially from those of the dead and living languages of the old hemisphere. The polysynthetic construction of language, Mr Duponceau explains to mean, "that in which the greatest number of ideas are comprised in the least number of words." This is effected in the Indian languages by constructing compound words, by interweaving together the most significant sounds or syllables of each simple word, in such a manner as to excite in the mind immediately all those ideas which the primitive words would have singly expressed; and also by combining the various parts of speech, particularly the verb, so that the various forms and inflections will express, with the principal action, the greatest possible number of the ideas of moral and physical subjects connected with it. Thus there are many words of these languages, which are made to convey very different ideas by the simple addition or subtraction of a letter. "Wunachquin" means He had, by this time, encompassed a square of « the nut of a tree, the leaves of which reabout five feet each way, with stakes and barks, so that it might resemble a pig pen of about three feet semble a hand;" and "nadholineen” means in height, and now, with his face uplifted and turned" come with the canoe, and take us across closely shutting up with bark the opening which between the northern and southern lantowards the north, he muttered something, then the river." With regard to the similarity had been left on the north side, he turned in the guages, in respect of grammatical consame manner, still muttering some words, towards the south, as if invoking some superior being, and struction, we will give Mr Duponceau's own words. It will be remembered, that having cut through the bark on the southwest cornow we shall have rain enough!' Hearing down these different languages, that the principal ner, so as to make an opening of two feet, he said: such is the difference between the words of the river the sound of setting poles striking against nations of America can understand each a canoe, he inquired of me what it was? I told him other no better, than different nations in it was our Indians going up the river to make a bush net for fishing. Send them home again!' said he; Europe or Asia. tell them that this will not be a fit day for fishing!' told him to let them come on, and speak to them himself, if he pleased. He did so, and as soon as they came near him, he told them that they must by no means think of fishing that day, for there should come a heavy rain which would wet them in a jocular manner, give us only rain, and we 'No matter, Father!' answered they will cheerfully bear the soaking.' They then passed on, and I proceeded to Goschachking, the village to Q. And, pray, what work? A. Why, to bring down rain from the sky. A. The women of the village; don't you see how Q. But can you make it rain? A. I can, and you shall be convinced of it this very day. all through. trate the extraordinary similarity which subsists we can venture to search into remote causes. in point of grammatical construction between the languages and antiquities should discover ways of each of these two entrenchments, which lay idioms of nations placed at such an immense dis- distinctly their origin and successive condi- within a mile of each other, were a number of large tance from each other, cannot, I think, be exhibited, and with this and the references I have above made, tions, or that any record should be any where flat mounds, in which the Indian pilot said, were buried hundreds of the slain Talligewi, whom I shall discovered, which would tell them and us hereafter, with Colonel Gibson, call Alligewi. Of I believe I may, for the present, rest satisfied. * Indeed, from the view which he (Mr Heckewelder) whence they came, and through what these entrenchments, Mr Abraham Steiner, who was offers of the Lenni Lenape idiom, it would rather changes they have passed. But if these with me at the time when I saw them, gave a very appear to have been formed by philosophers in their nations have no records, they have tradi- accurate description, which was published at Philaclosets, than by savages in the wilderness. If it tions, and the authority of these traditions delphia, in 1789 or 1790, in some periodical work, should be asked how this can have happened, I can only answer, that I have been ordered to collect is confirmed by many unquestionable facts. the name of which I cannot at present remember. If these traditions are believed, they still and ascertain facts, not to build theories. There It is known, by the character of their lan-leave the earlier history of these tribes unremains a great deal yet to be ascertained, before guages, that the inhabitants whom our known. But the same obscurity enwraps fathers found in possession of the vast regions of this continent, may be arranged the origin of other nations. There seems in three principal divisions, viz. the more sufficient reason for supposing that the civilized Indians in Middle and South American Indians are all a kindred people America, as the Mexicans and Peruvians; with the Asiatic aborigines; and that one the Lenni Lenape with their kindred tribes; overflow from the heart of Asia poured into and the Huron or Iroquois nations. Besides America the ancestors of that people who these, there are the Esquimaux in the north, were afterwards driven south, by hordes of and many smaller and disconnected tribes in savages who escaped from the opposite conthe south. The mounds and barrows in tinent when it had again become too crowded North America authorize the belief, that for all its inhabitants to remain there and other nations once dwelt here before those who were found here. The Lenni Lenape have a distinct tradition to this effect, that many hundred years since, they resided far to the westward of the Mississippi. That, The peculiarities of the Indian languages are considered, by those competent to decide upon the subject, as decisive against the hypothesis of their Hebrew origin. We would only remark upon one fact, which seems to us to suggest an argument that we do not recollect to have seen urged. The Jews were separated from the nations for the sake of the Scriptures, which were to be given them; a characteristic of these Scriptures is, that they teach the absolute existence of the Deity. Now this is a truth which no Indian language can express. An Indian cannot speak of being, without also describing the mode of being; he cannot say, "I am walking," but "I walk,"-"I am eating," but "I eat;" there is no word yet discovered in any Indian language, which answers to the verb to be. It is therefore a singular fact, that the phrase which may be called the definition of God's nature given by himself, "I am that I am," cannot be, as far as is yet known, precisely and adequately translated into any language not of European origin, which is spoken on this continent. Mr Duponceau speaks of this circumstance, in a note to a part of his Report on the Languages of the American Indians. having begun to migrate, after a long jour live. Clinton, in his Discourse delivered before This hypothesis was advanced by Mr the New York Historical Society, in 1811, and supported by no less eloquence than Historical Account has brought in confirmaingenuity. Since then, Mr Heckewelder's tion of it many traditions and facts of various kinds, which Mr Clinton could not anticipate. Of the literary character of Mr Buchanan's work, much cannot be said. It is merely without much method or purpose. Of the 371 a compilation from well known writers, made pages which his book contains, an Appendix, consisting wholly of extracts, occupies 59; Report, both inserted entire, fill 100 more; Dr Jarvis' Discourse and Mr Duponceau's and of the remainder, Mr Heckewelder supand speeches, mostly reprinted from very plies a large portion, and Indian treaties common books, make up almost all that is left. We do not think that Mr Buchanan Molina, in his Grammar of the Othomi language, gives the conjugation of a verb, which, he says, corresponds to the Latin sum, es, fui; but I am inclined to believe that he is mistaken, and that this verb answers to stare sto, as in the other American Lenni Lenape often call themselves by the can point out fifty pages of his own writing, languages. For, he says, afterwards, that it is never generic name of Wapanachki, or "Men of and those which appear to be his, are cer tainly not the most valuable parts of the work. From the Preface, we had expected a somewhat different course; he says, other verbs. Therefore I do not see how it can be had come from the north. It would seem before the public; but upon my arrival in London used in conjunction with an adjective, and that to express, for instance, I am rich, the adjective takes the form of a verb, and is itself conjugated, as in Latin, sapio, I am wise, frigeo, I am cold.' Nor is it ever used as an auxiliary in the conjugation of applied in its mere substantive sense. In the Mexican language, Zenteno acknowledges that it is absolutely wanting, and that it is impossible to translate into that idiom the I am that I am,' of the sacred writings. (Arte Mexic. p. 30). I have in vain endeavoured to obtain a translation of that sentence into Delaware from Mr Heckewelder, and I believe it cannot be literally rendered into any American language. Strong proof is requisite to make a rational mind believe, that the Hebrew language could be so changed by any circumstances, as that, while it became greatly improved in some important respects, it should have lost the power of conveying an idea, or rather a proposition, which, in its original form, it expressed with wonderful force and exactness, and upon which depends every thing which gives to that language a value or sanctity. The early history of these tribes is probbly lost forever. It seems almost unreasonable to hope, that further inquiries into their that the Lenape have pointed out some of Many wonderful things are told of this famous thrown up, with a deep ditch on the outside, were I had abandoned all intention of placing myself in the summer of 1820, having casually spoken of the interest I had taken in the present state of the North American Indians, it was suggested, that from my observations and researches, which extended to other tribes than those more particularly noticed by Mr Heckewelder, together with extracts from such parts of his useful and interesting volume, as tend to confirm and illustrate the facts I had collected, or the views I had taken of the subject, the public might be presented with a work, in some degree favour of the Indians. calculated to facilitate the adoption of measures in Upon the whole, while we acknowledge that Mr Buchanan may do some good, by helping to spread the knowledge of facts, which have been long before the public, we add to the information which other writers are compelled to say, that his endeavours to had given, have been wholly fruitless. comprehension of Young Pupils. Illus- the answers to the questions, it will be af isting state of society. Such excellencies or defects of character are exhibited as are common to many in these days, and they are rewarded by a recompense of good or evil, for which reality may afford sufficient precedent. But in the Crusaders she goes back to the 12th century, and describes persons and events which can now be only imagined. We are not so well pleased with this tale as with most of its predecessors. It does not seem to us so successful in its purpose of usefulness;the lessons which it teaches are not taught so impressively;-the advantages of integrity, courage, and perseverance in good conduct are inculcated, but it is by examples which cannot be realized. Some of our readers may thank us for a brief ab The position of the plates in the present - WE avail ourselves of the opportunity Theodore, the hero, is educated in obscurity by a woman of humble rank, who passes for his aunt. While attending a tournament, given in honour of the nuptials of a neighbouring noble, he is of some service to the bridegroom, and is invited by his father to accompany him to the Holy Land. He goes, endears himself particularly to king Richard, is taken prisoner by Saladin, and resists every endeavour to shake his faith and convert him to Islamism. Upon the peace, which Richard concluded with Saladin, he recovered his freedom, and after being instrumental in procuring the release of Richard from the German prisons, he returns with him to England, and soon after discovers that he is of high rank, and heir to large estates, and recognises in his mother a captive whom he had known at the court of Saladin. In the work now before us she has departed somewhat from her usual course. In her former tales some individual whose character and condition belong to her country and to this age, is made to pass through a variety of circumstances which are not at variance with the actually ex It must be obvious, from this slight sketch of the story, that it affords opportunity for introducing many interesting scenes. That which represents Cœur de Lion, upon his trial for the murder of the Marquis of Montserrat, before the emperor and princes of Germany, is particularly well drawn. This tale will be the more useful from the author's faithful adherence to historical truth in all the principal characters and events. The Badge. A Moral Tale. By the author 296 MY DEAR BROTHER, the mind proposes to itself, a great object, beset with difficulties, all of which are to come into contact with, and to act upon the body. Some of the best examples of this are voyagers and travellers. Other men will find others. The armies and navies of the world may be looked to for them, and, without doubt, admirable ones might be found in both. These, however, are not instances precisely of what we have now in view. They are not parallel cases. The motives of all are not alike, and their objects are far different. They differ principally in this; that while one of them has a specific object in view, and pursues it with tried means, the other has an object to find, and feels his means to be purely contingent. This last lays his account familiar with the character and habits of to tempt men into enterprises of great haz-¡ real harmony in its compound being;-when children, and their peculiar modes of think-ard, which have been repeatedly made ing and speaking, and of one who feels a without success, and which have not undeep interest in their welfare. We are frequently terminated in the death of a frequently reminded of Miss Edgeworth by greater or lesser number of the party imThe experience in the unaffected graces of expression; by the mediately concerned. felicity with which the most suitable occa- Africa is most commonly adduced in ansions are seized upon for making a moral im- swer to this inquiry, and surely there is pression upon the youthful mind; and, above enough in that experience to make the all, by the fascination of truth and nature, heart sink, though it may not settle the so hard to be analyzed, but which ever question. What are the motives, it is askclaims the attention to the passing page. ed, to these undertakings; and do the ends Children, however, are of course the best justify the means? Is it a contingent or judges of what interests them; and the voices a certain good you have in view, and is life of all whom we have questioned upon the ever to be jeopardized by a mere continsubject, are unanimous in favor of the Badge.gency? Shall we minister to enthusiasm, The following letter is so charming and when death is in its progress; or patronize faithful a representation of the feelings of genius, when the road it makes for itself boyhood, that we cannot deny ourselves the has in and about it a reality of horror and pleasure of giving it to our readers. danger, which could hardly be equalled by its wildest imaginings? Shall we tempt with conjecture at best, and M*****, Oct. 22, 1824. without goes men from the safety and comfort of home, the poor meed of human probability, where to the desolate and waste places of the human nature, as he has known it, has nev earth, and be made happy and famous our-er been; nothing remains with him but the selves, by the only half-voluntary misery of consciousness of his own identity, and the others? These, and many similar questions sustaining persuasion, that if he has deserthave been asked, by the readers of travels ed the works of man, he is still among the and voyages. As abstract questions, they works of God. The motives of these two might be answered negatively. It is wrong classes of men are widely different. A to furnish means for enterprises which are warrior is moved by something foreign to always dangerous, and frequently fatal, and himself. He has no necessary concern the accomplishment of which may be un- with the occasion or purpose of his acting. important however successful. But this is He has a prescribed field of duty, and not the kind of reasoning which is at all though it may be wide and responsible, it applicable to the present case. Voyages has limits, which others have fixed. He and travels are not necessarily more dan- meets his fellow, though it may be only to gerous than many other, and far more com- kill; and is social though cruel. The men mon pursuits. And when we consider the of whom we speak are moved by the im character, the whole intellectual state of pulse of their own mind. They owe noththose who undertake them, and follow them ing to circumstances such as ordinarily af in the path of danger, and mark their un- fect men. Opportunity is all they require. subdued endurance of evil in all its forms They can learn but little, if any thing, and in almost all its degrees, we trust them from others; for the peculiarity of their vofearlessly and hopefully wherever they may cation consists in this, that it generally go. Nor is the want of success to be urg- calls them where other men have never ed against these pursuits. They are never been. If they learn any thing, it is to entirely unsuccessful. If nothing new is foretell the misery that probably awaits discovered about the earth, something new them. is learned of the mind. It is showed to us, in these instances, in new aspects and under new circumstances. It seems in them an irresistible power, and we come at length to be more, far more surprised at failure than success. As I can't write joining hand yet, Mrs Mason said if I would tell her the words I wanted to send to you, she would write them down. First then, I thank you for your letter, and dear mamma for the books she sent. Oh, Charles, it is very pleasant here; I have got a beautiful play-ground, it is all even, and the grass is very green; and I can begin at the front door with my horse or wheelbarrow and run all round the house without any fence to stop me; and then at the side of this great yard it. I thought till yesterday I did not want any thing but to have you come. But oh, Charles, yesterday something happened--I hate to come to that-but I must tell you about my poor paroquet. When I came home from school Mrs Mason gave me a seed cake, and I ran to the cage to give Pinky some, but he would not come forward to take it; he stood on his perch, and looked dull, and would not speak a word; presently his head shook a little, and then he fell right down on the bottom of the cage. I believe I cried very loud, for Mrs Mason came, and she took Pinky out of the cage, and she said he had a fit; he came to a little, but he fell down again and then he died. Oh Charles, I cried a great deal; and I feel dull now, and I almost wish mamma would come for nie. But I will try to stay as long as she wants me to. My dutiful love to dear Father and Mother; and give my love to your paroquet; and send me word whether he talks as much as ever; it makes me laugh now when I think how smart he looks when he hollows out, "Charley is a good boy." Why cannot you teach him to say, "Eddy is a good boy." Poor Pinky had almost learned it when he died. there is a hill-if it was winter I could coast down Your affectionate Brother, EDWARD EDGERLY. This story in some few passages betrays marks of haste and carelessness in the com position. It seems to us also that the author has not succeeded in giving a very distinct idea of patriotism. But these defects detract but slightly from the merits of a work, which cannot but prove highly agreeable and instructive to those for whom it is designed. MISCELLANY. TRAVELLERS AND VOYAGERS. "Cœlum et animum." Ir has been seriously questioned whether governments or individuals have, in strict morals, any right, by bounty or otherwise, The exercise of human power is most striking when the body, as in these cases, is made immediately the agent of the mind. When the body must suffer to the farthest point of human endurance, and live. We are accustomed to look upon the pure, unmixed labours of the mind, as upon the greatest results of the exercise of human power. The poet and the moralist are the exception and the example, when we would contrast ages, or illustrate them. But in these instances the mind has been alone in its labours, the body has been at rest, and it may be, has fared sumptuously every day. They have hardly sustained their human relations to each other, and we have talked of the men as divine, nay, called them so. Human nature is in its perfect proportions, when it furnishes us with an instance of We know of no beings who excite so intense an interest as these voyagers and trav ellers. Their histories, or journals as they better and more truly call them, have an interest with us akin to that of works of fiction. There is a high poetry in all their conceptions. They have the widest field for the imagination in the scenes of their fearless choice; and, as if there was a resemblance, between the conceptions of a bold mind, and the realities of unknown regions, we find coincidences which sometimes astonish and always delight us. Their jour nals, the faithful records of what they daily see and daily suffer, though made up of little more than human experience in an unknown region, have the power of a work of the fancy. We have a hero who is in deed one of ourselves, and who powerfully teaches us what we should in like circumstances surely feel. The difficulty with us is to reconcile what we read with the notions we have of human sufferance derived from our own experience in ourselves. We have never been out of the human race. We have in our commonest pursuits, and equally in our rarest, been supported by human sympathy. In our retirements from the world, which have been but short and few, and a relaxation instead of a pursuit, we have seen that which our fellows have seen. We have never been alone. Our privations have been all voluntary; and when a little more severe or annoying than common, the most they have demanded or received has been a fretful exclamation; and if there have been others with us, our efforts have done little more than to divide the feelings of impatience or disgust. tion, than we have done, of its origin. For In reading this narrative of Franklin, Now in the men, about whom we write, there is nothing of all this to be found. There is a patience so bold and indomitable, that we at last become more astonished and surprised at its failure, than at its continuance. Franklin's Narrative* furnishes an instance of this, and explains our meaning. After having followed this traveller through an unbroken series of personal sufferings, and wondered and admired at the unexampled self-possession he has every where shown,-having seen the turbulent, and the vicious yielding to a personal authority, powerful and irresistible by its very mildness alone, we at length hear an expression of impatience from one of the party, and then a tone of irritation mingled with ill-temper; and for a moment we wonder that men, who have borne every thing, as nothing, could have found, in any kind of circumstance, an evil which could for a moment have conquered them. Our wonder, however, ceases with its expression. In travellers, we see human beings unWe learn in a moment the whole history. der new aspects. They are few in numThe mind at last is yielding to the body. ber, and removed from common influences. Hunger and cold have the mastery. The Each individual in so small a community night is no longer comfortable, nor the feels his personal importance. Each mind sleep refreshing with the thermometer at is constantly kept in action for one's self, 50° or more below zero,-the acrid mosses for there is little room for its wider operaand burnt bones have at length ceased to tion. The mind does not expand here at be palatable. The body will no longer least, with the remote and the uncertain, bear all this, and the mind is growing con- the solitary and the unbounded. Danger scious that existence on such terms is not is abroad every where; and if this were worth preserving. The mind grows weak less distinct, there is a pressure of the with this consciousness, and men who were present, which keeps the mind and the absolutely living upon the sustaining influ- heart at home. Suffering, in its extreme, ences of each other's minds, are peevish which is alike personal to all, which pecuand unkind to each other. This is the liarity of constitution and temperament most melancholy, the saddest moment in alike yield to, is here. There is no hope, this whole history. We cannot feel, in any for there is no time nor room for it. Presshape, the circumstances, we can under-ent want must be supplied, present danger stand perfectly its effects. How dreadful was the situation of these men, when they could be unkind to each other. Theirs was not the resource, if any such there be, which we are taught to find in the world when friends grow cruel. There was nothing for them but the miserable consciousness of a common suffering. The misery could only be added to, by its being felt, and complained of, as individual. And this did at last happen. It is unnecessary to tell the reader that this state of things did not last long, or to offer any farther explana * Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819, 20, 21, and 22. By John Franklin, Captain R. N., F. R. S. and Commander of the Expedition. averted, and with present means too, where But in the midst and pressure of all this, 297 The wet drift wood is collected on the banks of the river, or the evergreen cut down, and the fire blazes cheerfully. The teakettle boils in the shower of rain or snow, the snow-drift is removed and a place for sleep prepared, the prayers for the dead are read, in addition to the evening service, over the grave of the murdered friend. At Fort Enterprise, in Franklin, where the extreme of illness was added to all other physical suffering, the courtesies, nay the decencies of common life, are observed in a manner as affecting as incredible. What makes this instance more striking is, that hope had preceded the travellers to this melancholy post, and it was there all blasted. We It was said that the individual was engrossed by his own wants. That the misery is too great to the individual, too personal to himself, to allow him to go farther. Were this to be taken as set down, we should be ashamed to have written it. Here would be common selfishness, vulgar enough in all its expressions, but far more vulgar in this than in all others. would not wrong these men for the world. We would do honour to our own nature, in the testimony we bear to its dignity and supremacy in the individuals about whom we write. The case of the individual in these instances was emphatically the care of the whole. He who saved his own life, contributed largely and truly to the preservation of his comrades. It might almost be allowed us to say, that in these extreme cases, there is but one mind, but one individual. The desolation is alike around all. The cold and the hunger would as surely reach him who might, by unworthy means, seek to protect himself, or supply his own pressing wants, as him who boldly yielded his personal share to the common stock of suffering, and who, under its heavy pressure, found his irresistible motive to help others as well as himself. Where there is no escape, there must be a common feeling, Distinctions are lost in such a mass, and all are felt for in one's own feeling. Here we find the explanation of what is otherwise unaccountable to us who yield so readily, and are so little pleased with the best that is done for us. We understand how life may be preserved, and the mind be preserved, where there are apparently no present means for doing either. It may be that the mind gets new strength, by this continued contact with physical suffering, as the magnet is said to do by undisturbed contact with iron. New circumstances make it what we find it, and we admit, and understand too, its novel and vast effects. The aspect is new in which we see men in these instances, in another regard. In leaving society, they have left its rules behind them; and we find in their place a new code in true, but terrible harmony with all the circumstances. Necessity has been said to have no law. But here it becomes a law itself. In Franklin, we despised the men who broke to pieces the canoes, which our own foresight showed us |