known to me. The comparison and analysis of them occupied me unceasingly. At length I thought of the Abbé Morel, who lived in my parish, and whom I had seen at my uncle's. He was a little man, and not wanting in understanding, and professed a vast austerity of principles. This was the reason that determined me to apply to him. He was the first person that I informed of the wavering of my faith, for it never was my habit to disguise the truth. He pressed me earnestly to study the apologists and defenders of the Christian religion. I began with the Abbé Gauchat, the Abbé Bergier, Abbadie, Holland, Clarke, &c. I studied them severely. Sometimes I made notes upon my reading, and I left these notes in the books, when I returned them to the Abbé Morel, who asked me with astonishment, if I had written and conceived them.

"But the drollest thing was, that from these works I first became acquainted with the names of those which they pretended to refute, and I collected from them their titles, in order that I might procure them. Thus the Traité de la Tolerance, the Dictionnaire Philosophique, the Questions Encyclopediques, the Bons Sens of the Marquis d'Argens, the Lettres Juives, l'Espion Turc, the Mœurs, l'Esprit, Diderot, D'Alembert, Raynal, the Systême de la Nature, went successively through my hands.".

VOLNEY'S RUINS; OR, MEDITATION ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF EMPIRES.

(From the New York Correspondent.)

THE superior merits of this work are too well known to require commendation; but it is not generally known that there are in circulation three English translations of it, varying very materially in regard to faithfulness and elegance of diction. And as it is desirable that the admirers of this celebrated writer should possess the best translation, I insert the following samples for their information.

The French Edition.

INVOCATION.- -" Je vous salue, ruines solitaires, tombeaux saints, murs silencieux! C'est vous que j'invoque; c'est a vous que j'adresse ma priere. Oui! tandis que votre aspect repousse d'un secret effroi les regards du valgaire, mon cœur trouve a vous contempler le charme des sentimens profonds et des hautes peusees. Combien d'utiles leçons de reflexions touchantes ou fortes n'offrez-vous pas a l'esprit qui sait vous consulter! C'est vous qui, lorsque la terre entiere asservie, se taisait devant les tyrans, proclamiez deja les verites qu'ils detestent, et qui, confondant la depouille des rois avec celle du dernier esclave, attestiez le saint dogme de l'EGALITE. C'est dans votre enceinte, qu'amant solitaire de la LIBERTIE, j'ai vu m'apparaitre son genie, non tel que se le peint un vulgaire insense, arme de torches et de poignards, mais sous l'aspect august de la justice, tenant en ses mains les balances sacrees ou se pesent les actions des mortels aux portes de l'eternite.

O tombeaux! que vous possedez de vertus! vous epouvantez les tyrans ; vous empoisonnez d'une terreur secrete leurs jouissances impies; ils fuient votre incorruptible aspect, et les laches portent loin de vous l'orgueil de leurs palais.

Paris Translation, now published in this city, in duodecimo and octavo. INVOCATION," Hail, solitary ruins! holy sepulchres and silent walls! you I invoke; to you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret terror, the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart, the charm of delicious sentiments, sublime contemplations. What useful lessons! what affecting and profound reflections you suggest to him who knows how to consult you. When the whole earth in chains and silence, bowed the neck before its tyrants, you had already proclaimed the truths which they abhor, and confounding the dust of the king with that of the meanest slave, had announced to man the sacred dogma of EQUALITY! Within your pale, in solitary adoration of LIBERTY, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions of the dead; not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude, armed with fire and sword, but under the august aspect of Justice, poising in her hand the sacred balance, wherein are weighed the actions of men at the gates of eternity.

"O Tombs! what virtues are yours! you appal the tyrant's heart, and poison with secret alarm his impious joys; he flies, with coward step, your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence."

London Translation.

INVOCATION." Solitary ruins, sacred tombs, ye mouldering and silent walls, all hail! To you I address my Invocation. While the vulgar shrink from your aspect with secret terror, my heart finds in the contemplation a thousand delicious sentiments, a thousand admirable recollections. Pregnant, I may truly call you, with useful lessons, with pathetic and irresistible advice to the man who knows how to consult you. A while ago the whole world bowed the neck in silence before the tyrants that oppressed it; and yet in that hopeless moment you already proclaimed the truths that tyrants hold in abhorrence: mixing the dust of the proudest kings with that of the meanest slaves, you called upon us to contemplate this example of EQUALITY. From your caverns, whither the musing and anxious love of LIBERTY led me, I saw escape its venerable shade, and with unexpected felicity, direct its flight and marshal my steps the way to renovated France.

"Tombs: what virtues and potency do you exhibit! Tyrants tremble at your aspect-you poison with secret alarm their impious pleasures-they turn from you with impatience, and, coward like, endeavour to forget you amid the sumptuousness of their palaces."

Philadelphia Translation.

INVOCATION. "Hail, ye solitary ruins, ye sacred tombs, and silent walls! "Tis your auspicious aid that I invoke, 'tis to you my soul, wrapt in meditation, pours forth its prayer! What though the profane and vulgar. mind shrinks with dismay from your august and awe-inspiring aspect, to me ye unfold the sublimest charms of contemplation and sentiment, and offer to my senses the luxury of a thousand delicious and enchanting thoughts! How sumptuous the feast to a being that has a taste to relish, and an understanding to consult you! What rich and noble admonitions, what exquisite and pathetic lessons do you read to a heart that is susceptible of exalted feelings! When oppressed humanity bent in timid silence throughout the globe beneath the galling yoke of slavery, it was you that proclaimed aloud the birthright of those truths which tyrants tremble at while they detect, and which, by sinking the loftiest head of the proudest potentate, with all his boasted pageantry, to the level of mortality with his meanest slave, confirmed and ratified by your unerring testimony the sacred and immortal doctrine of EQUALITY.

"Musing within the precincts of your inviting scenes of philosophic solitude, whither the insatiate love of true-born LIBERTY had led me, I heheld her genius ascending, not in the spurious character and habit of a blood-thirsty fury armed with daggers and instruments of murder, and followed by a frantic and intoxicated multitude, but under the placid and chaste aspect of justice, holding with a pure and unsullied hand the sacred scales in which the actions of mortals are weighed on the brink of eternity.

"O ye tombs and emblematic images of death! How superlative is your power, how irresistible your influence! Your presence appals and chills the souls of tyrants with electric horror and remorse: the very remembrance of you haunts their minds like a ghastly spectre in the midst of their voluptuous enjoyments, and the terror you inspire plants thorns in all their thoughts, and poisons their impious pleasures into pains."

:

The first translation was made and published in London soon after the appearance of the work in French, which I perceive by a late edition, is still adopted without alteration. Mr. Volney, when in this country, in 1797, expressed his disapprobation of this translation, alleging that the translator must have been overawed by the government or clergy from rendering his ideas faithfully and accordingly an English gentleman then in Philadelphia, volunteered to correct this edition. But it seems that by his endeavours to give the true and full meaning of the author with great precision, he has so overloaded his composition with an exuberance of words as in a great measure to dissipate the simple elegance and sublimity of the original. Mr. Volney, when he became better acquainted with the English language, perceived this defect; and, with the aid of our countryman, Joel Barlow, made and published in Paris, a new, correct, and elegant translation. Of the Philadelphia translation, besides the edition printed there, there have unfortunately been three others, one in New York, one in Albany, and another in Exeter, New Hampshire; and I am told, although I have not seen the edition, that it has lately been stereotyped in Philadelphia.

Messrs. Dixon and Sickels, printers and publishers in New York, have just issued a neat edition, in duodecimo, copied from the Paris translation, and embellished with plates; containing the Law of Nature, a Biographical notice of Volney, and a list of his works. A few copies have been printed in octavo, upon superfine paper, which makes a splendid volume.

EDUCATION.

I HAVE always observed, says the Margravine of Anspach, that young people, when early corrupted, have become cruel and inhuman; their imaginations, fixed on one object alone, refuse admittance to any other; they are strangers to pity, and devoid of feeling; they would sacrifice father and mother to their smallest gratifications. On the contrary, a young man, brought up in happy simplicity, is drawn by nature towards the tender and affectionate passions in the first moments-his heart is moved by the sorrows of others he is filled with joy at the sight of his companions-he is alive to the shame of displeasing, and to the regret of having given offence. If his youthful ardour renders him lively, impetuous, or angry, the moment after, his heart, filled with goodness, shows his readiness to repent of his fault, and he would on any terms purchase pardon from those whom he has wounded. His pride humiliates him, from the tenderness of his sentiments. He quickly feels offended with himself, and even, in the height of his indignation, a word or an excuse disarms him. Youth is not the age of hatred or of vengeance; it is that of commiseration, of clemency, of generosity. And I will venture to maintain, that a youth properly brought up, and who has preserved his innocence to twenty, is at that age the most generous, the most amiable, and the best of men. Experience will prove the truth of my maxim.

SUPER-CHRISTIAN EXTRACTS.

WE should be always learning.-Solon.

That learning is most requisite which unlearns evil.-Antisthenes.

Learning teaches youth temperance, affords comfort to old age, gives riches to the poor, and is an ornament to the rich.—Diogenes.

The eye receives light from the firmament, the soul from learning.Aristotle.

The learned differ as much from the ignorant, as the living from the dead. -Ib.

Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity; and the best provision against old age.-Ib.

Virtue is perfect happiness, and requires no other aid than Socratic strength. -Antisthenes.

A wise man is not governed by the laws and ordinances of men, but is guided by the rule of virtue.—Ib.

Those who possess virtue, possess also nobility.-Ib.

Virtue is the beauty, vice the deformity of the soul.-Socrates.

Priestcraft and Kingcraft are partners in the same firm. They trade together. Kings and conquerors make laws, parcel out lands, and erect churches and palaces for the priests and dignitaries of religion. In return, priests anoint kings with holy oil, hedge them around with inviolability, spread over them the mysterious sanctity of religion, and, with very little ceremony, make over the whole species as slaves to those gods upon earth by virtue of divine right!

LETTER 24.-FROM THE REV. ROBERT TAYLOR.

ON THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES,

DEAR MR. CARLILE.-When clergymen find occasion to meddle with politics, and wish to bring their ancient prerogative of Augury into action, they find their convenient text, as they can for every thing else, in the words which their fraternity put into the mouth of the demon of their idolatry-"O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" Mat. xvi. 3. The connection of Augury, or the power or privilege of prophecying with astrological observation, is clearly marked in this passage, delivered in answer to a request that he would show them a sign from heaven. Our bishops at this day retain in their armorial bearings the Lituus, which, among the ancient Romans, was the chief ensign of the augurs, and which derived its name from its resemblance to the military trumpet. "We call it the crosier, or bishop's staff, and it is held to be a distinguishing emblem of the episcopal dignity," Mosheim, Vol. I. p. 393. I don't like to trust myself with conjectures on etymological derivations, which are often merely fanciful, and lead us away from the terra firma of fact, into the regions of imagination. But the very word which we translate Bishop, and from which we form our adjective episcopal, signifying a looker-out, or looker-over, leads us directly to the discovery that this must have been originally the title of the officer whose high and sacred avocation called him to look out or over the aspects of the celestial signs, to survey the heavens, and from thence, to prognosticate future events. The Lituus, or crosier, like the wand of the conjuror, was held by the augur, partly as an ensign of his office, and partly for the supposed utility of pointing out and dividing the visible heavens into its imagined dioceses, regions, or houses. Such an order of men could not fail to become invested with the highest notions of dignity and sanctity that stupid ignorance and brute wonderment could attach to so mystical a function; they would be consulted in all cases of emergency. They were so: hence the inseparable connection of Church and State, and the hereditary right of their episcopal successors, who literally never let the staff out of their hands, to sit in the House of Lords, and to be consulted on all affairs of state. Of all the curious absurdities that ever were in the world, it is surely one of the drollest, that men should suppose or inquire for a supernatural origination, of that which they see with their own eyes to be the most natural and self-evident thing that could be imagined, and so seem to hunt the world over to find a truth, against which they are obliged to keep their eyes shut all the while, and to smart and take pains to avoid seeing. I shall not waste my precious space in your pages, by giving the Latin text, but draw No. 4.-VOL 2.

I.