With blushes reddening as she moves along, With copious life informed, and all awake; THE WONDERS OF CIVILIZATION. THOMSON. THE condition of the present inhabitants of this country is very different from that of their forefathers. These, generally divided into small states or societies, had few relations of amity with surrounding tribes, and their thoughts and interests were confined very much within their own little territories and rude habits. Now, however, every one sees himself a member of one vast civilized society which covers the face of the earth, and no part of the earth is indifferent to him. In England, a man of small fortune may cast his regards around him, and say, with truth and exultation—"I am lodged in a house that affords me conveniences and comforts which even a king could not command some centuries ago. There are ships crossing the seas in every direction, to bring what is useful to me from all parts of the earth. In China, men are gathering the tea-leaf for me; in America, they are planting cotton for me; in the West India islands, they are preparing my sugar and my coffee; in Italy, they are feeding silk-worms for me; in Saxony, they are shearing the sheep to make me clothing; at home, powerful steamengines are spinning and weaving for me, and making cutlery for me, and pumping the mines that minerals useful to me may be procured. My patrimony was small, yet I have carriages running day and night on all the roads, to carry my correspondence; I have roads, and canals, and bridges, to bear the coal for my winter fire; nay, I have protecting fleets and armies around my happy country, to secure my enjoyments and repose. Then I have editors and printers, who daily send me an account of what is going on throughout the world, among all these people who serve me; and in a corner of my house I have books, the miracle of all my possessions-more wonderful than the wishing-cap of the Arabian tales, for they transport me instantly, not only to all places, but to all times. By my books I can conjure up before me, to vivid existence, all the great and good men of antiquity; and, for my individual satisfaction, I can make them act over again the most renowned of their exploits: the orators declaim for me; the historians recite; the poets sing;-in a word, from the equator to the pole, and from the beginning of time until now, by my books I can be where I please."-This picture is not overcharged, and might be much extended-such being the miracle of God's goodness in providence, that each individual of the civilized millions that cover the earth may have nearly the same enjoyments as if he were the single lord of all. COMMERCE. THE band of Commerce was designed To associate all the branches of mankind; ARNOTT. Capricious taste itself can crave no more COWPER. THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH NATION. THE great-grandsons of those who had fought under William, and the great-grandsons of those who had fought under Harold, began to draw near to each other in friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for their common benefit. Here commences the history of the English nation. The history of the preceding events is the history of wrongs inflicted and sustained by various tribes, which, indeed, all dwelt on English ground, but which regarded each other with aversion such as has scarcely ever existed between communities separated by physical barriers. For even the mutual animosity of countries at war with each other is languid when compared with the animosity of nations which, morally separated, are yet locally intermingled. In no country has the enmity of race been carried further than in England. In no country has that enmity been more completely effaced. The stages of the process by which the hostile elements were melted down into one homogeneous mass are not accurately known to us. But it is certain that, when John became king, the distinction between Saxons and Normans was strongly marked, and that before the end of the reign of his grandson it had almost disappeared. In the time of Richard I., the ordinary imprecation of a Norman gentleman was, "May I become an Englishman!" His ordinary form of indignant denial was, "Do you take me for an Englishman?" The descendant of such a gentleman a hundred years later was proud of the English name. The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our country during the thirteenth century may not inaptly be compared. Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed; that the national character began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has ever since retained; and that our fathers became emphatically islanders,-islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any great society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative assemblies which now meet either in the Old or in the New World, held its first sittings. Then it was that the common law rose to the dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of England terrible on the Then it was that the most ancient colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of learning were founded. Then was formed that language, less musical, indeed, than the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then, too, appeared the first dawn of that noble literature, the most splendid and the most durable of the many glories of England. seas. MACAULAY. THE PROGRESS OF ENGLAND. THE history of England is emphatically the history of progress. It is the history of a constant movement in the public mind, of a constant change in the institutions of a great society. We see that society, at the beginning of the twelfth century, in a state more miserable than the state in which the most degraded nations of the East now are. We see it subjected to the tyranny of a handful of armed foreigners. We see a strong distinction of caste separating the victorious Norman from the vanquished Saxon, |