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tion appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defence.

All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!

LESSON LXIII.

Reflections on the Battle of Lexington.-E. EVERETT.

It was one of those great days, one of those elemental occasions in the world's affairs, when the people rise, and act for themselves. Some organization and preparation had been made; but, from the nature of the case, with scarce any effect on the events of that day. It may be doubted, whether there was an efficient order given the whole day to any body of men, as large as a regiment. It was the people, in their first capacity, as citizens and as freemen, starting from their beds at midnight, from their firesides, and from their fields, to take their own cause into their own hands.

Such a spectacle is the height of the moral sublime; when the want of every thing is fully made up by the spirit of the cause; and the soul within stands in place of discipline, organization, resources. In the prodigious efforts of a veteran army, beneath the dazzling splendour of their array, there is something revolting to the reflective mind. The ranks are filled with the desperate, the mercenary, the depraved; an iron slavery, by the name of subordination, merges the free will of one hundred thousand men, in the unqualified despotism of one; the humanity, mercy, and remorse, which scarce ever desert the individual bosom, are sounds without a meaning to that fearful, ravenous, irrational monster of prey, a mercenary army.

It is hard to say, who are most to be commiserated, the wretched people on whom it is let loose, or the still more wretched people, whose substance has been sucked out, to nourish it into strength and fury. But in the efforts of the people, of the people struggling for their rights, moving not in organized, disciplined masses, but in their spontaneous action, man for man, and heart for heart,— though I like not war nor any of its works, there is something glorious. They can then move forward without orders, act together without combination, and brave. the flaming lines of battle, without entrenchments to cover, or walls to shield them.

No dissolute camp has worn off from the feelings of the youthful soldier the freshness of that home, where his mother and his sisters sit waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to hear good news from the wars; no long service in the ranks of a conqueror has turned the veteran's heart into marble; their valour springs not from recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the preservation of a life, knit by no pledges to the life of others. But in the strength and spirit of the cause alone they act, they contend, they bleed.

In this, they conquer. The people always conquer. They always must conquer. Armies may be defeated; kings may be overthrown, and new dynasties imposed by foreign arms on an ignorant and slavish race, that care not in what language the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in whose name the deed of their barter and sale is made out. But the people never invade; and when they rise against the invader, are never subdued.

If they are driven from the plains, they fly to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting hills are their castles; the tangled, pathless thicket their palisado, and nature,God, is their ally. Now he overwhelms the hosts of their enemies beneath his drifting mountains of sand; now he buries them beneath a falling atmosphere of polar snows; he lets loose his tempests on their fleets; he puts a folly into their counsels, a madness into the hearts of their leaders; and never gave and never will give a full and final triumph over a virtuous, gallant people, resolved to be free.

LESSON LXIV.

The Banian Tree.-ENCYCLOPEDIA.

THIS tree, which is also called the Burr Tree, or the Indian Fig, is one of the most curious and beautiful of Nature's productions, in the genial climate of India, where she sports with the greatest variety and profusion. Each tree is in itself a grove; and some of them are of an amazing size and extent, and, contrary to most other animal and vegetable productions, seem to be exempted from decay. Every branch from the main body, throws out its own roots; at first, in small tender fibres, several yards from the ground; these continually grow thicker, until, by a gradual descent, they reach the surface, and there, striking in, they increase to large trunks, and become parent trees, shooting out new branches from the tops.

These in time suspend their roots, and receiving nourishment from the earth, swell into trunks, and shoot forth other branches; thus continuing in a state of progression, so long as the earth, the first parent of them all, contributes her sustenance. A Banian tree, with many trunks, forms the most beautiful walks, vistas, and cool recesses, that can be imagined. The leaves are large, soft, and of a lively green; the fruit is a small fig, when ripe, of a bright scarlet, affording sustenance to monkeys, squirrels, peacocks, and birds of various kinds, which dwell among the branches.

The Hindoos are peculiarly fond of the Banian tree; they consider its long duration, its outstretching arms, and its overshadowing beneficence, as emblems of the Deity, and almost pay it divine honours. The Brahmins, who thus find a fane in every sacred grove,' spend much of their time in religious solitude, under the shade of the Banian tree; they plant it near their temples or pagodas; and in those villages where there is no structure erected for public worship, they place an image under one of these trees, and there perform a morning and evening sacrifice.

The natives of all castes and tribes are fond of recreating in the cool recesses, beautiful walks, and lovely vistas of this umbrageous canopy, impervious to the hottest beams.

of a tropical sun. These are the trees under which a sect of philosophers, called Gymnosophists, assembled in Arrian's days, and this historian of Ancient Greece presents a true picture of the modern Hindoos. 'In winter,' he says, 'the Gymnosophists enjoy the benefit of the sun's rays in the open air; and in summer, when the heat becomes excessive, they pass their time in cool and moist places, under large trees, which, according to the accounts of Nearchus, cover a circumference of five acres, and extend their branches so far, that ten thousand men may easily find shelter under them.'

On the banks of the river Narbudda, in the province of Guzzerat, is a Banian tree, supposed, by some persons, to be the one described by Nearchus, and certainly not inferior to it. It is distinguished by the name of Cubbeer Burr, which was given it in honour of a famous saint. High floods have, at various times, swept away a considerable part of this extraordinary tree; but what still remains, is nearly two thousand feet in circumference measured round the principal stems; the overhanging branches, not yet struck down, cover a much larger space; and under it grow a number of custard-apple and other fruit trees. The large trunks of this single tree amount to three hundred and fifty; and the smaller ones exceed three thousand; every one of these is constantly sending forth branches and hanging roots, to form other trunks, and become the parents of a future progeny.

The Cubbeer Burr is famed throughout Hindostan, not only on account of its great extent, but also of its surpassing beauty. The Indian armies generally encamp around it; and at stated seasons, solemn Jatarras, or Hindoo festivals, to which thousands of votaries repair, from every part of the Mogul empire, are there celebrated. It is said that seven thousand persons find ample room to repose under its shade. It has long been the custom of the British residents in India, on their hunting and shooting parties, to form extensive encampments, and spend weeks together, under this delightful and magnificent pavillion, which affords a shelter to all travellers, particularly to the religious tribes of the Hindoos.

It is generally filled with greenwood pigeons, doves, peacocks, and a variety of feathered songsters-with monkeys, which both divert the spectator, by their antic tricks,

and interest him by the parental affection they display to their young offspring, in teaching them to select their food, and to exert themselves in jumping from bough to bough, -and is shaded by bats of a large size, many of them measuring upwards of six feet, from the extremity of one wing to the other. This tree affords not only shelter, but sustenance, to all its inhabitants; being covered amid its bright foliage, with small figs, of a rich scarlet, on which they all regale with as much delight as the lords of creation on their more costly fare, in their parties of plea

sure.

LESSON LXV.

Human Knowledge, scanty as it is, truly admirable.BURGH.

It is amazing and delightful to consider, what seemingly difficult things are done by means of human knowledge, scanty and confined as it is. The wonders performed by means of reading and writing are so striking, that some learned men have given it as their opinion, that the whole was communicated to mankind originally by some superior being.

That by means of the various compositions of about twenty different articulations of the human voice, performed by the assistance of the lungs, the glottis, the tongue, the lips, and the teeth, ideas of all sensible and intelligible objects in nature, in art, in science, in history, in morals, in supernaturals, should be communicable from one mind to another; and again, that signs should be contrived, by which those articulations of the human voice should be expressed, so as to be communicable from one mind to another by the eye; this seems really beyond the reach of humanity left to itself.

That one man should, by uttering a set of sounds no way connected with, or naturally representative of, one set of ideas more than another, enlighten the understanding, rouse the passions, delight or terrify the imagination of another; and that he should not only be able to do this when present, but that he should produce the same effect by a set of figures no way naturally fit to represent either

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