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fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel.

8. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth,—weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes.

9. Shut, now, the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settle ments, the abandoned adventures of other times, and parallel of this.

10. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children; was it hard labor and spare meals; was it disease; was it the tomahawk; was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the recollection of the loved and left beyond the sea; was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate?

11. And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?

Questions-Where was the first English settlement made in New England? In what year? At what season of the year?

LESSON XCV.

Early Printing.

1. THERE is some probability that this art originated in China, where it was practised long before it was known in Europe. Some European traveller might have imported the hint. That the Romans did not practise the art of printing, cannot but excite our astonishment, since they really possessed the art, and may be said to have enjoyed it, unconscious of their rich possession. I have seen Roman stereotypes, or printing immovable types, with which they stamped their pottery.

2. How, in daily practising the art, though confined to this object, it did not occur to so ingenious a people to print their literary works, is not easily to be accounted for. Did the wise and grave senate dread those inconveniences which attend its indiscriminate use? Or perhaps they did not care to deprive so large a body as their scribes of their business. Not a hint of the art itself appears in their writings.

3. When first the art of printing was discovered, they only made use of one side of a leaf; they had not yet found out the expedient of impressing the other. Afterwards they thought of pasting the blank sides, which made them ap pear like one leaf. Their blocks were made of soft wood, and their letters were carved; but frequently breaking, the expense and trouble of carving and gluing new letters suggested our movable types, which have produced an almost miraculous celerity in this art.

4. Our modern stereotype consists of entire pages in solid blocks of metal, and, not being liable to break, like the soft wood at first used, is profitably employed for works which require to be perpetually reprinted. Printing on carved blocks of wood must have greatly retarded the progress of universal knowledge; for one set of types could only have produced one work, whereas it now serves for hundreds.

5. When their editions were intended to be curious, they omitted to print the first letter of a chapter, for which they left a blank space, that it might be painted or illuminated to the fancy of the purchaser. Several ancient volumes of these early times have been found, where these letters are wanting, as they neglected to have them printed.

6 The initial carved letter, which is generally a fine

wood-cut, among our printed books, is evidently a remains or imitation of these ornaments. Among the very earliest books printed, which were religious, the Poor Man's Bible has wooden cuts, in a coarse style, without the least shadowing or crossing of strokes; and these they inelegantly daubed over with colors, which they termed illuminating, and sold at a cheap rate to those who could not afford to purchase costly missals, elegantly written and painted on vellum.

7. The tradition of the Devil and Dr. Faustus was derived from the odd circumstances in which the Bibles of the first printer, Fust, appeared to the world. When he had discovered this new art, and printed off a considerable number of copies of the Bible, to imitate those which were commonly sold in manuscript, he undertook the sale of them at Paris. It was his interest to conceal this discovery, and to pass off his printed copies for manuscript.

8. But, as he was enabled to sell his Bibles at sixty crowns, while the other scribes demanded five hundred, this raised universal astonishment; and still more when he produced copies as fast as they were wanted, and even lowered his price. The uniformity of the copies increased wonder. Informations were given to the magistrates against him as a magician; and, in searching his lodgings, a great number of copies were found.

9. The red ink,—and Fust's red ink is peculiarly bril liant, which embellished his copies, was said to be his blood; and it was solemnly adjudged that he was in league with the devil. Fust was at length obliged, in order to save himself from a bonfire, to reveal his art to the Parliament of Paris, who discharged him from all prosecution, in consideration of this useful invention.

LESSON XCVI.

Advantages of Temperance.

1. TEMPERANCE promotes clearness and vigor of intellect. If the functions of the brain be not in a healthy and vigorous state, equally unhealthy and inefficient must be those of the mind. History will bear us out in asserting, that the highest and most successful intellectual efforts have ever been associated with the practice of those general principles of temperance in diet for which we plead. It is the mighty minds

that have grappled most successfully with the demonstrations of mathematical, intellectual, and moral science, that stand highest on the scale of mental acumen and power; and it is such minds that have found strict temperance in diet essential to their success. Let us advert to the history of a few of these master spirits of the human race.

2. Foremost on the list stands Sir Isaac Newton. The treatise of his, that cost him the mightiest intellectual effort of all his works, was composed while the body was sustained by bread and water alone. And in spite of the wear and tear of such protracted and prodigious mental labor as his, that same temperance sustained him to his eighty-fifth year.

3. Upon no one, perhaps, has the mantle of Newton fallen so fully, at least so far as learning is concerned, as La Place. And we have the testimony of biography that he "had always been accustomed to a very light diet; that he gradually reduced it to an extremely small quantity ;" and "that he was enabled to continue his habits of excessive application to study until within two years of his death, without any inconvenience, owing to his always using very light diet, even to abstemiousness." He lived seventy-eight years.

4. The celebrated John Locke, with a feeble constitution, outlived the term of threescore years and ten by his temperance. "To this temperate mode of life, too, he was probably indebted for the increase of those intellectual powers, which gave birth to his incomparable work on the human understanding, his treatises on government and educa tion, as well as his other writings, which do so much honor to his memory."

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5. Another intellectual philosopher, who saw fourscore years, was the venerable Kant. By this commendable and healthy practice,"-early rising, says his biographer, "daily exercise on foot, temperance in eating and drinking, constant employment, and cheerful company, he protracted his life to this advanced period; " and we may add, acquired the power for his immense labors of mind.

6. Few men have more fully established their claims to intellectual superiority of a very high grade, than President Edwards. But it was temperance alone that could carry him through such powerful mental efforts. "Though constitutionally tender, by the rules of temperance, he enjoyed good health, and was enabled to pursue his studies thirteen hours a day."

7. The same means enabled Martin Luther, though his lays were stormy in the extreme, to make the moral world end at his will, and to leave for his posterity so many profound literary productions. "It often happened," says his biographer, "that, for several days and nights, he Icked himself up in his study, and took no other nourishment than bread and water, that he might the more uninterruptedly pursue his labors."

8. The records of English jurisprudence contain scarcely a name more distinguished than that of Sir Matthew Hale. And it is the testimony of history, that "his decided piety and rigid temperance laid him open to the attacks of ridicule; but he could not be moved." In eating and drinking, he observed not only great plainness and moderation, but lived so philosophically, that he always ended his meal with an appetite.

9. Perhaps no man accomplishes more for the world than he who writes such a commentary on the Scriptures as that of Matthew Henry. And it is, indeed, an immense literary labor. But the biographer's account of that writer's habits, shows that temperance and diligence were the secret of his success. "He was an early riser; for he would be in his study by four or five o'clock, and continue there till eight; then, after attending family prayer, and receiving a slight refreshment, he went up again till noon after dinner he resumed his book or pen till four o'clock, and in the evening visited his friends."

10. Few men have accomplished more than John Wesley. And it is gratifying to learn that it was "extraordinary temperance which gave him the power to do so much, and to live so long."

11. In reading the works of Milton, we are not so much delighted with the play of imagination, as with the rich and profound, though sometimes exceedingly anomalous views, which he opens before us. The fact is, he was a man of powers and attainments so great as justly to be classed among the leading intellects of his generation. Nor were such powers and attainments disjoined from temperance. It is testified of him, that while engaged in the instruction of youth, "he set the example of hard study and spare diet to his pupils, whom he seems to have disciplined with the severity of old times."

12. Among the scientific men of modern days, who have

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