communication with India as early as their authors having copied from nature, the days of Abraham, or about four and having truly represented the state hundred years after the deluge. of the heavens, in the era in which they Perhaps no country has undergone lived-nearly five thousand years ago. less change than eastern Asia. What Nor do these calculations descend to the is in India now, was always there; as it grosser estimations of the Chaldeans was found by the Portuguese, so was it and Egyptians." Yet the student of found when Parmenio led the triumphs ancient history is referred to the valley of Alexander thither. Neither the of the Nile as the cradle of literature, conquering sword of Alexander, nor the science, and arts; but Cadmus, the ferocious violence of its Mohommedan Phenician, introduced the elements of masters, nor the power of its European writing to the colonies of Greece. tyrants, have been able to effect any The researches of the learned in this considerable change. Indeed, it may hitherto sealed magazine of knowledge, be deemed problematical whether any have opened for the contemplation of alteration would be an improvement on the philosopher, the philanthropist, and a system of laws and ethics that have statesman, a novel but ripe field of inbeen tested by the experience of four teresting inquiry. Each may here disthousand years-idolatry excepted · cover a regular system of science in the Yet, notwithstanding the apparent per- various ramifications of government and fection of this system of laws, having morals, perspicuously displayed to the existed from time immemorial, and still understanding in the annals of an age tenaciously adhered to by the natives, that extends far away, back beyond the the last of their conquerors only have popular epochs of our day. When been able to procure the means of their Egypt was yet unknown; long before analysis by access to their libraries. Mizraim had left the plains of Shinar to -Many of their Brahminical tomes establish the empire of the Nile; when claim an almost incredible existence; all other nations slumbered in savage reaching far beyond the tolerated limits sloth, excited only by the barbarous of orthodox chronology. Ridicule and passions of rapacious hostility; led on grave denunciation have condemned by the tide of commercial enterprise, these records of an inappreciated an- the minister of our artificial wants and tiquity, and there is reason to doubt, necessaries, and the most successful whether the constructive creeds of missionary of learning-literature, inmodern zealots have not retarded the tuitively flowed in the same channel, spread of intelligence and the progress westward, through the metropolitan of intellect, by positive assertion, unsus- marts of Persia, Assyria, Chaldea, and tained by Scripture, the evidences of na- Phenicia, to Egypt and Carthage. Its ture, analogy, or the philosophy of the African progress was arrested by the physical indices of the progress of crea- arid sands of Lybia and the great tion. The condemnation of these an- Saharah; while, on the North, after passtique records, that contain much to re- ing Damascus, it seems to have lost its commend their perusal, as the mere impetus at the base of Mount Taurus. emanations of a voluptuous fancy or But in the process of time a brilliant sublime fable, should be sanctioned, if flame burst spontaneously from the hills not with doubt, at least with extreme of Palestine, illuminating not Syria caution. For, how is it, if they are alone, but the whole of western Ásia totally unworthy of credit, that the basked in the effulgence of wisdom, astronomical tables exhibiting an exact emanating from the mind and pen of delineation of the celestial spheres at Solomon, King of Israel; a prince no the same periods, have been attested and less distinguished for his literary fame, accredited by such eminent astronomers than for the splendor of his commercial as M. Bailly, of Paris, and Professor enterprise. He laid the foundations of Playfair, of Edinburgh? "These ta- Tadmor in the Desert; raised its pillared bles," say they, "display an accuracy palaces, colonnades and aqueducts, as a less surprising than the justness and central trading rendezvous for the merscientific nature of the principles on chants of Elam and Ind, from the east, which they are constructed; that such and the caravans of Damascus, from the a conformity to the calculations for those west. Under the auspices of a royal ages could result from nothing, but co-partnership-Hiram and Solomon Jerusalem the Metropolis of Science-Institutions of Greece. 463 navigation extended from the seas of brass.† And when the monarch willed Cathay to the channels of Albion, and to mount his chariot and review his Jerusalem and Tyre revelled in the troops, wealth of distant nations. The combination of contemporary literature, commerce, science and arts, impelled the advance of general improvement; peace was secured; and prosperity, refinement and happiness prevailed throughout the sphere of its influence. Much has been said and written concerning the sapient King of Israel, his magnificent temples and gorgeous palaces. The former were overlaid with gold, and ornamented with the most lustrous gems, dazzling the eyes while the imagination was bewildered, and the mind, as it were, transported into the region of fiction and enchantment. By the influence of superior policy his power accumulated, and his sceptre swayed over all the neighboring nations; and the sovereigns at a distance sought his friendship and alliance. His fame had spread to the uttermost parts of the earth; the philosophy and learning of the age were concentrated at his court, and Jerusalem became the metropolis of science. The brilliancy of his genius and of his power was not displayed more in the richness of his architectural designs, the superlative beauty and magnitude of his buildings, or his commercial adventures, than in the number and pomp of his military divisions. One million and a half of men composed his infantry; twelve thousand horsemen, with one thousand four hundred chariots-the exquisite workmanship of Assyria and Egypt. He procured the fiery barbs of Africa for his cavalry, and the swiftest pur coursers of Arabia were harnessed to his armories of Lebanon were stored with shields of gold and targets of silver. His garrisons were built of marble, and the stalls for the horses were made of * China, at this time. "High, on silver wheels, Caparisoned in gold, were harnessed to the car. The king commands-himself the charioteer." But it is to the institutions of Greece, the beacon-light of antiquity, to which the modern world is mainly indebted for all it knows of ancient literature. -They were admirably adapted for the early development of the intellectual and physical powers of its citizens. With an inherent reverence for the sacred mysteries of Eleusis, embracing the doctrines of religion, the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments-virtue was an essential qualification for public honors. The Olympic, Isthmean, Pyrating incentives to merit; not alone for thean, and Nemean games, were exhilithe athletic, but the literary competitors for fame were there. Herodotus, the father of profane history, read his compositions at the celebration of the Olympic games. It was thus the Greek became addicted to controversial declamation on speculative theories, which he had the address to controvert or defend with an excess of dignified refinement. "To define with accuracy, to distinguish with acuteness, to reason with subtilty while attempting to analyze those operations of the mind which the faculties of man were not formed to comprehend," were his specious characteristics. Urged on by the desire of surpassing excellence, the Grecian mind soared far above the envious flights of its predecessors. The delicacy of taste, richness, beauty, glowing almost into animated life, was only found in the inimitable statuary of her studios, while her architectural proportions have deservedly been admired in every age for chasteness of outline and ornamental + Bible and Josephus. design. Literature, sculpture and paint furnishing the rudiments of the mecha ing were sedulously cultivated, and were nical elements, on which are formed deemed exclusively the permanent cha- the fiery vehicles on which we ride triracteristics of Greece, until her sove- umphantly away from the rude and reignty was suppressed by the Roman dusky purlieus of antiquity. power, and the torch of Grecian genius blazed from the altars of Italy. Spreading with the success of the Caesars, it swept round the southern foot of the Alpine barrier into the ultra-montane regions of the benighted west of Europe, illuminating the progress of the conqueror. With the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, the advance of man's intellectuality was arrested, and for a thousand years the gloom of ignorance brooded over the tomb of science, of literature, and arts. All had passed away, as it were, into the vortex of oblivion. All that ennobles the mind, the mighty power of intelligence, was obliterated the world was a waste of depravity and superstition, until that brilliant spark gleamed upon the genius of Guttenburg. The effulgence of a new era burst from the literary press with tenfold vigor. Accelerated alone by its intrinsic merit, its course was onward, under the happy coincidental auspices of the Reformation. How often is the public ear assailed with the broad assertion, that the intelligence of the present period far surpasses that of every previous age. Here we should pause! while we may view, with laudatory complacence, yes, even with some degree of pride and exultation, the brilliant march of intellectual improvement, and reflect that, besides what we see among the devastated ruins of the past, and the exhumations of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Nineveh, we are yet in the novitiate of progress, considering that we possess the superior advantages of past experience. We should not forget that there has been a Cadmus, a Solomon, a Homer, an Herodotus, a Socrates, an Archimedes, a Praxiteles, an Apelles, a Demosthenes, a Cæsar and a Cicero-a Bacon, a Locke, a Descartes and a Newton; that the splendid career of to-day is predicated on the incidental progress of forty centuries, by legacies of wisdom, discoveries, and inventions of former times, which we have inherited, and continue to appreciate and improve, seldom accrediting the distant periods from which they emanated. Thus have they prepared the way, Mind has now mounted the CAR of PROGRESS-seizing the reins of science and of art-bounding forward unrestrained, like the bright chariot of the sun, into the untrodden fields of knowledge, and like that glorious luminary, enlightening the world in its course; invigorating the germs of intellect and genius, until they burst forth into fructifying maturity. Disengaged from the gross hallucinations of past ages, imposed by priests and princes, it rises from the slime of ignorance and depression on freedom's pinions, independent alike of antiquated dogmas, rude philosophy, the restraint of intolerance, and senseless superstition. By the buoyancy of its own enthusiasm, it soars in an atmosphere uncontaminated by a false philanthropy. Time and space are conducted by its operations, and the world is embraced at a glance. It commands the elements, and they obey it; the silent mandate of a tyrant's wrath, or the sweet accents of a lover's vow, fly on electric wings, and strike their destination of a thousand miles in an instant of time. The globe is a sphere too circumscribed for its expansive research; the universe alone can limit its aspirations. No part of it, however, is too remote for the investigation of the mind, too sublime for its contemplation, or too insignificant for its reflective consideration. By the influence of a candid pulpit and enlightened press, benevolent institutions and the dignified adminis tration of a liberal government, it will diffuse the genuine aspirations of the soul-of nature-of justice of truthyes, and of a Deity-until the final link of the despot's chain is dissolved by the intensity of its power. Even now, the empires of oppression quake, and the ebullition of the volcanic base on which they rest is only suppressed by the arms of a military force; yet another is rising into being on the very crater of revolution, and it may be, with the germ of destruction in its bosom. It is but a few years ago that thrones tumbled their occupants, leaving the sceptre and the diadem, the pomp of regal sway, the insignia of royal grandeur, with all 465 Discovery of America-The Telescope, Printing-press, &c. that makes a paltry man the king, was dark archive-dungeons of monastic sehurled to the dust for a season. Not- clusion, were recognized and brought to withstanding the restrictions of a sup- light, which, under the same régime of posititious benevolence imposed upon the neglect, must have been lost to the world rude masses of mankind, genius has for ever. The crypts of ancient lore broken through the barriers of pre- were unbarred; mouldy parchments unscribed edicts, limiting the action of the furled; rare manuscripts, isolated scrolls, mind to conventional theories; opposed valuable books of sacred and profane histhe novelties of modern invention or tory, arts and sciences, were put to the scientific discoveries as innovations, press, and struck off at a price that enaconflicting with the established and ta- bled the poor as well as the rich to enjoy citly sanctioned principles of ages. "The feast of reason and the flow of soul." Giotta invented, or at least improved, the mariner's compass; and the temeThus, the splendor of an enlightened rity of Columbus practically demon- epoch commenced, dissipating the gloom strated the spherical form of the earth in which the human mind had been by the discovery of America. The shrouded for centuries; opening a vista power of vision was extended by the of superlative grandeur to the mental discovery of Galileo. The telescope is vision of those who were qualified to apthe key that unlocks the obstructing preciate the prospect and future destiny barriers of sight in the regions of space, of the world-extending its benign raopening the siderial universe for in- diance to the farthest habitations of civspection and study. But the final blow ilized life, in the ratio of time's progresagainst the influence of the restrictive sion, to cease only when the last particle decrees of oppression was given by the of sand shall have passed the gorge of invention of the printing types. The his emblematic glass, and has dropped impetus of intellect was restored by the into the inexterminable vortex of eterinfluence of the press; men dared to nity. look abroad, and their intellectual powers were enabled to roam at large in the realms of nature, exploring the land and sea, and scanning the celestial regions of the spheres. sages, The application of magnetic polarity to navigation, the discovery of America, and the invention of printing, have af fected the aspect and destiny of the moral, commercial, and political world more than all the philosophy of the ethics of philanthropists, the swords of conquerors, the decrees of emperors, ecclesiastical bulls, or the tortures of inquisitorial tribunals. This concatenation of discoveries was essential to man's successful career of improvement. Without one of these his progress would have been checked; and what, it may be asked, would be the state of the world deprived of the press, the magnet, or America? The magnet, as the key to ocean navigation, opened the portals of a world hitherto locked in the embrace of its own exclusiveness. The announcement of the actual existence of another continent, of easy access, astonished the consecrated guardians of wisdom no less than it did their more ignorant devotees, By the aid of the printing press and types, the literary tomes of knowledge that had been shut up for ages in the VOL. XIV. now, 4 If our fathers stood aghast, amazed, and bewildered, at the discovery and existence of another vast continent, besides that on which they lived, we, the denizens of later days, are equally astonished that it should have remained a terra incognita, until advertised by Columbus and his contemporary navigators in the western world-a continent of vast dimensions-extending from one frozen zone almost to the other-exhibit ing all the physical characteristics of the eastern hemisphere, where the splendor of a magnificent sublimity and grandeur prevails throughout its whole extent. From the towering glaciers of the Arctic highlands to the bold, rock-bound promontory of Terra del Fuego, a rugged mountain range, emerging from the Northern Sea, extends its vertebraic line along nine thousand miles of continent, under the various cognomens of Rocky Mountains, Sierra Madre, Cordilleras, and Andes, until they sink abruptly into the Southern Ocean. From their dark, cavernous ravines, great rivers take their rise, or rather fall, plunging over precipices, headlong dashing and wheeling the fleecy foam around on the wild-whirling eddies, until they reach the smooth, placid channels of the lower valleys and the plains, alleled natural advantages of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; for it abounds in all that constitutes the superiority of other lands, to promote the happiness, intelligence, and prosperity of an independent people-rivers admirably adapted to navigation, on which to convey the surplus products of fertile localities to those of other climes, to irrigate a soil favorable to every production that is necessary to sustain life or minister to the natural and artificial comforts and wants meandering along the deep-channeled can appreciate and improve the unpar arteries of the world, fertilizing the soil, meliorating the aridity of the atmosphere, and refreshing vegetation; while a hundred tributaries, oozing from the spurs or ribs of the great spinal ridge of America, augments the power and volume of the receptive currents, until they reach the great oceanic reservoir, from which they exhibit numerous channels for internal commerce, stretching away up, up, to the region of the icy peaks, and to the snow-capped summits from whence their waters sprung. What of man; the recipient of the oppressed; is the lauded magnitude of the aquatic trading ducts of Europe in comparison with those of America? The noble and romantic Rhine, the classic Thames, the Rhone, the Danube and the Po, would scarcely fill the bed of our own Missouri, # the tributary of a third-class river on the Western Continent. While we look with admiration on the magnitude of these continuous tides, rushing in a thousand channels from the fountains of the Andes, their estuaries widening as they approach the equatorial embrace of the Amazonian sea, flowing toward the ocean with a breadth of one hundred and eighty miles, and another of eighty, may we not exult in the aquatic grandeur, extent and magnificence of our Northern Lakes? Stretching away far into the interior of the broadest part of our continent, are seas fit for fleets of merchantmen to traverse, and on which the marine squadrons of warlike nations may yet battle for supremacy. These, all these, are the work of the same grand Architect who laid the foundations of the eastern wing of the world-a part of the embodiment of creation. Their existence is coeval; but now their facilities for human progress are vastly at variance. That is enfeebled, superannuated, exhausted, and worn out by age, by an avaricious selfishness of the few to oppress the masses of a superabundant population. By the depressing policy of its religious and political institutions it must decay, and is now crumbling into ruin, while the wave of human progress is still "Westward, ho!" This continent seems, at the present time, the accredited home of an invincible progress in all things that tend to the reformation of the human family. It seems to have been reserved for the articular aggrandizement of a race that appreciating the intellectual and physical progress of the age. Extending its marine ramifications to every quarter of the globe, the (late strange) ships of the new world are seen on every sea. What a retrospective view-what a scene for intelligent reflection! A continent abounding in all things that nature has to bestow for the sustenance and enjoyment of transitory existence; inexhaustible mineral wealth; a soil unsurpassed in exuberant fertility; climates possessing every grade of temperature; -the equatorial regions graduated from the scorching heat of the tropical seacoast to the more moderate temperature of the salubrious zones, at an elevation of from six to nine thousand feet above the level of the ocean, where Cortez and Pizarro found the densely populated empires of Montezuma and the Incas in a state of civilization but little inferior, in many respects, to their conquerors; thence rising from the peopled plateaus to the frozen pinnacles of a frigid region under the ecliptic. Induced by the allurements of wealth, the auriferous regions of Mexico and Peru swarmed with emigrants from Spain. Here, they basked in the sunshine of affluence, and the treasury of Hispaniola was supplied by the revenue of transatlantic subjects. They, however, enjoyed the balmy influences of an atmosphere of a superior world with less restraint. Combined with the luxuriant productions of the soil, tropical fruits and cereal varieties, a delightful clime, and the natives subordinated to abject slavery; with the munificence of imperial patronage governments were established, and the vice-royal courts of Anahuac and Lima exhibited a splendor but little inferior to the Escurial, or the Alhambra of the Moors. Such was the lavish extravagance of these sub-governments, רי. |