Who seem like specters thro' the mist of ages,
Went down in solemn stillness to the grave;
The city they erected was their tomb!

And thus 'tis everywhere; the world is but
A mass of rank corruption, of decay
Within decay; the architect is laid

Beneath the falling dome his genius planned ;
And feeble man but glories in his tomb.

OLD BOOKS.

In the economy of human wisdom, it frequently happens, that those pursuits which should prove pleasurable duties are made laborious tasks, the execution of which men regard as praiseworthy deeds. This truth we may see daily exemplified if we wander no farther than these College walls. All students-excepting those who "run the race for honors," and those who make it their highest ambition to become distinguished in vice, read much, and this is well; but how few in this important branch of their mental discipline really combine pleasure with profit.

One of the most common and yet injurious mistakes existing among College readers, is the immensely disproportionate amount of time and attention spent on modern literature, particularly on the essays, reviews, critiques, and miscellaneous articles, into which forms modern authors for the most part throw their thoughts. This species of literature, calling forth but little mental exertion from the reader or sympathy with the author, is hastily skimmed over, leaving but a misty notion of that which, at best, is second-rate. The study of simplified metaphysical writings, and of popular expositions of the sciences, also engrosses much of the student's time. Filled with a vague idea that he must acquire a large stock of material from which to fabricate the necessary orations, poems and debates that go to making up the College genius, books are to him mere magazines of ideas from which he may draw supplies, or models of

fine writing from which he may form his style. Thus misconceiving the mission of books, he naturally prefers the writers of our age whose works are

"Volumes of detail where all is orderly set down

And they that read may run, nor need to stop and think."

Why not then leave these turbid streams, confusing by their number and diversity-and seek the pure fountain-heads of wisdom and truthlet us acquaint ourselves with those simple yet grand old thinkers who, unlike their successors, are not satisfied to give us a description only of the glorious old Temple of Truth, but who lead us to the threshold, and, laying open her inmost recesses, invite us to tread her sacred halls ourselves. Why, where do you suppose the much-lauded matter of the essayists, lecturers, pseudo poets, and novelists that fill our libraries, is obtained? It is merely a mangled version of the glowing truths stored up by the poets and dramatists of England's palmy days-faint glimpses of the wit and wisdom of Spain's soldier-author-the impassioned grace of the Italian bards squeezed through their narrow minds and then thinly scraped over the mental bread so sparingly doled out to hungry Young America.

Johnson, I think it is, tells of a man who in his whole life read and studied no author but Shakspeare, and he says farther, that his views of life were more comprehensive, his reason clearer, and his sentiments far more liberal than a thousand scholars of greater pretensions. This may be an extreme case, though that subtle observer and lover of his fellows would well repay the study of a life-time, yet how much better would it be to keep, as our daily companions, a few of those sterling old authors who in their simplicity and constant freshness, lead us to think and reason for ourselves, than to fall in love with the gorgeous yet fictitious splendor of Alexander Smith or Gilfillan, or even the keen fencing of Macaulay, or the heavy thunder of Carlyle. Better would it be; for it is only when, forgetting self, we go back and lie in prison with John Bunyan and Cervantes, stalk deer and moralise with merry Will, and chat quaintly with pithy old Burton, that we receive with frank and teachable minds the varied lessons of their world-wide observation and keen mother wit. These are they who give to us—

"Half suggested thoughts, the riddles thou mayest solve.
The fair ideas, coyly peeping like young loves out of roses,
The quaint arabesque conceptions, half cherub and half flower,
The light analogy, or deep allusion, trusted to thy learning."

But apart from the expansion of mind derived from communion with these bright intellects of bygone days-what spiritual joy and good does their companionship afford us—after the toil of the day when the evening lamps are lighted, like wise and loving friends they sit down by our firesides, talking of the scenes and duties of life, telling of good men of old, encouraging every germ of good, and beguiling from us every stormy passion, till the stony selfishness of our conceit melts away into the broad open affection that embraces all our fellows. Thus they leave us wondering that ever we had gone from our own hearth-stones in search of friends and companions, while they, so full and calm, so unintruding, and yet, so true and frank, are ever close by our side. With such teachers and friends we may bid defiance to poverty and misfortune, for the noble philosophy taught in the hour of prosperity brings home its stores to us; for us one who had found it so has testified. "We may crown ourselves with glorious memories of Cervantes though we beg; if we night it under the stars, we dream heaven-sent dreams of the prisoned and homeless Galileo. We hum old sonnets, and snatches of poor Massinger's plays. We chant Dryden's Odes, and dwell on Otway's rhymes. We reason with Bolingbroke, or Diogenes as the humor takes us; and laugh at the world; for the world, thank heaven, has left us alone." 9

CIVILIZATION.

Bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos?

-Pharsalice.

THE dawning light of early civilization shone first upon the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. Where arose the palaces and temples of Babylon and Thebes, men first were trained to regard the principles and obligations of social life, improved by means of mental and moral culture, and subjected to the control of salutary laws and a regular government. Thence, civilization by successive steps, advanced through Greece, Rome, Gaul, Germany and Britain, until at length she crossed the ocean, and erecting her altar on our shores, kindled anew the flame amid the darkness of the West. Now, the "sea has come up upon Babylon,"the muses have forsaken Helicon--the tread of a foreign soldiery is in the streets of the eternal city, and America is to modern Europe what was Greece to Egypt, whither her philosophers resorted to learn her wisdom and admire her proficiency in art.

In the two portions of North America, the civilization of Europe pursued its course under vastly different auspices. In the North, the aboriginal races were not only conquered, but exterminated, and Europeans and their descendants reared a mighty nation in the land they occupied ; but when Cortes and his Christian soldiery began their conquest of the kingdoms of Anahuac, they found before them not a wilderness where roaming savages held undisputed mastery, but a lovely land, where a powerful and cultivated people lay waiting to receive them, whose populous and wealthy cities filled the plain, while fields of waving grain and fruitful orchards spread upon the sunny slopes. Public works of utility and art, proclaimed a government rivaling the intelligence and power of ancient Egypt. Statuary and painting decorated her palaces and temples. Her kings reigned over a simple hearted and industrious people, proud of

their country's civilization, but having no ancient history, for the memory of their fathers was buried in the forests of the Northwest. Although in hieroglyphics, an elevated literature distinguished them, and regular tribunals, as among the ancient Greeks, awarded prizes for essays upon history, morality or tradition; and on the ruins of a polity involving most of the essential elements of the Feudal system, Montezuma had but just established absolute dominion. Still were they a barbarous people, for their captives shed their blood upon the altars of the God of war, and their warriors and the frantic populace made their horrid banquet on the refuse of the sacrifice. Upon this people those representatives of superior European civilization began the work of conquest-not to exterminate, but to conquer-mingle with and improve. With slow but certain progress, they advanced upon the capitol of the Indian monarch whose power was paralyzed by superstitious fear. With the might and main of the Gods. they were believed to be, their polished armor flashing in the sun's light, those mailed heroes, whose hearts were stouter than their bucklers, trod beneath their fiery steeds the trembling ranks of a fear-disarmed foc. The mighty cities Cempoallo and Cholula yielded to their thunder, and the bloodstained hands of Cortes reared the cross, over altars whence holy horror hurled Astec deities, and the rifled temples resounded to the adoration of the mass, which so lately echoed to the shrieks of human hecatombs. Then fell Mexico, and Tezcuco, the Athens of Anahuac. The civilization of Europe had conquered the barbarism of America. The conquest completed, on the lofty plains of fruitful Mexico, almost in sight of either ocean, the glory of the old world, and the pride of the new, found a common grave. Why is it that while on our soil, whence the blood of an exterminated race seems to cry to God for vengeance and a curse, in Mexico, when religious zeal endeavored to transform barbarism into civilization, the civilizer and the savage have together fallen? It will be found that Mahomet's two-edged apostle, although he may work fearful things among the nations, is not the one whom history has proved most efficacious in propagating civilization. This is old and true.

The character of a man's desires is the scale by which we estimate his condition. We rank him high or low, according to the origin of the motives by which he is actuated-whether they spring from sense, imagination or from understanding. By the same criterion we estimate a nation's civilization. Civilization is not lofty and expensive structures, palaces, temples, aqueducts and bridges. It is neither literature, nor music, nor statuary, nor painting, nor any branch of art. It is not the