their deeds, or perusing the works of their genius? Such is the emotion I now experience, when I think, that here Plato was accustomed to discourse; these gardens around us not merely recall the idea of the sage to my memory, but place, as it were, his very form before my eyes. Here, too, Speusippus taught; here Xenocrates, here his disciple, Polemon; this is the very seat he used to occupy."

From these words of the great son of Rome, turn for a moment to the scene of his grandest struggles, that arena whereon the mightest spirits met in terrible conflict, the Forum. Here, while Romans were freemen, all state affairs were debated in the most public manner, and the spot perhaps deserved the praise of being "the noblest theatre on this side of heaven." Elevated in the midst of the great square was the rostra, from which, with his eyes fixed on the capitol, which immediately faced him, and the Tarpeian rock, with which the most impressive associations of honor and infamy were connected, the noblest of orators, "wielded at will the fierce democracy," filling all bosoms with a passionate love of freedom and the glory of the Roman race. Cicero, in his work de Finibus, has indicated a fine trait of his character in the following remark:

"Often when I enter the senate house, the shades of Scipio, of Cato, and of Lælius, and in particular of my venerable grandfather, rise to my imagination."

Every elegant mind will be thus haunted in the same localities.

The scene that beneficent spirits have visited “remains hallowed to all time," says Schiller; it is still

"blessed, though robbers haunt the place." Southey adds, "He whose heart is not excited upon the spot which a martyr has sanctified by his sufferings, or at the grave of one who has largely benefitted mankind, must be more inferior to the multitude by his moral, than he can possibly be raised above them in his intellectual nature." We are indebted to the influence of local association, for one of the most valuable productions in modern history. It was in the Church of St. Maria d' Ara Cœli, on the Capitoline Hill at Rome, as Gibbon himself tells us: "On the fifteenth of October, 1764, as he sat musing amid the ruins of the capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing Vespers, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the city first started to his mind."

Why is Pompeii so full of thrilling associations to the thoughtful traveller? It is because he there views a city that was old when CHRIST was a babe, the well preserved homes of a thousand happy circles all of whom perished long before our ancestors had a language or the world a substantial hope. It is a city that reposed twenty centuries in the bosom of the earth, with nations trampling above, while its monuments and decorations. have been so well preserved, and now stand out so brightly in brilliant day, that a contemporary of Augustus, returning to its sheets, its forums, its temple-fanes and tesselated boudoirs, might exclaim:

"I greet thee, O my country! my dwelling is the only spot upon the earth which has preserved its form; an immunity extending even to the smallest objects of my affection. Here is my couch; there are my favorite

authors. My paintings, also, are still fresh as when the ingenious artist spread them over my walls. Come, let us traverse the town; let us visit the drama; I recognize the spot where I joined for the first time in the plaudits given to the fine scenes of Terence and Euripides. Rome is but one vast museum; Pompeii is a living antiquity."

On visiting the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the ingenuous scholar is inspired by the genius of the place. He remembers that within those venerable walls, Hooker and Johnson, Bacon and Newton pursued the walks of science, and thence soared to the most elevated heights of literary renown. It was the same noble emulation that Tully experienced at Athens, when he contemplated the portico where Socrates sat, and the laurel grove where Plato discoursed.

But the most interesting associations we can explore are those connected with the early struggles of our country to be free. This topic is the most important, and we shall dwell on it more at length.

In glancing at the historical events of our Revolution, we escape from the obscurity which invests the "dim and shadowy visions" of a remoter past. We contemplate an age crowded, indeed, with unparalleled and stupendous events, but one perfectly authentic and luminous with the highest degree of splendor. Mr. Alison, describes the era of our national birth in the following high strain of eloquence:

"The reign of George III., embraces, beyond all question, the most eventful and important period in the annals of mankind. In its eventful days were combined

the growth of Grecian democracy with the passions of Roman ambition; the fervor of plebeian zeal with the pride of aristocratic power; the blood of Marius with the genius of Cæsar; the opening of a nobler hemisphere to the enterprize of Columbus, with the rise of a social agent as mighty as the press or the powers of steam.

"But if new elements were called into action in the social world, of surpassing strength and energy, in the course of this memorable reign, still more remarkable were the characters which rose to eminence during its continuance. The military genius, unconquerable courage, and enduring constancy of Frederic; the ardent mind, burning eloquence, and lofty patriotism of · Chatham; the incorruptible integrity, sagacious intellect, and philosophic spirit of Franklin; the disinterested virtue, prophetic wisdom, and imperturbable fortitude of WASHINGTON; the masculine understanding, feminine passions, and blood-stained ambition of Catharine, would alone have been sufficient to cast a radiance over any other age of the world. But bright as were the stars of its morning light, more brilliant still was the constellation which shone forth in its meridian splendor, or cast a glow over the twilight of its evening shades. Then were to be seen the rival genius of Pitt and Fox, which, emblematic of the antagonist powers which then convulsed mankind, shook the British Senate by their vehemence, and roused the spirit destined, ere long, for the dearest interests of humanity, to array the world in arms; then the great soul of Burke cast off the unworldly fetters of ambition or party, and, fraught with a giant's force and a prophet's wisdom, regained its destiny

in the cause of mankind; then the arm of Nelson cast its thunderbolts on every shore, and preserved unscathed in the deep the ark of European freedom; and, ere his reign expired, the wisdom of Wellington had erected an impassible barrier to Gallic ambition, and said, even to the deluge of imperial power, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." Nor were splendid genius, heroic virtue, gigantic wickedness, wanting on the opposite side of this heart-stirring conflict. Mirabeau had thrown over the morning of the French Revolution the brilliant but deceitful light of Democratic genius; Danton had colored its noontide glow with the passions and the energy of tribunitian power; Carnot had exhibited the combination, rare in a corrupted age, of Republican energy with private virtue; Robespierre had darkened its evening days by the blood and agony of selfish ambition; Napoleon had risen like a meteor over its midnight darkness, dazzled the world by the brightness of his genius and the lustre of his deeds, and ured its votaries, by the deceitful blaze of glory, to perdition.

"In calmer pursuits in the tranquil walks of science and literature, the same age was, beyond all others, fruitful in illustrious men. Doctor Johnson, the strongest intellect and the most profound observer of the eighteenth century; Gibbon the architect of a bridge over the dark gulf which separates ancient from modern times, whose vivid genius has tinged with brilliant colors the greatest historical work in existence; Hume, whose simple but profound history will be coeval with the long and eventful thread of English story; Robertson, who first threw