a great continent, and blotted forever from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the 35 tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, untamable progenitors. The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone, and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to 40 remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck.

As a race, they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, 45 and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, 50 the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city,

will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains, and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute 55 to their unhappy fate as a people.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Biographical and Historical: Charles Sprague, 1791-1875, was born in Boston and spent his entire life there. It is said that he was never more than ten miles from Boston in all his life. His father assisted in throwing the tea overboard in the Boston Harbor. He was a banker, and for forty years was cashier of the Globe Bank. He was also an orator and an author and wrote many short poems, among which "The Winged Worshipers" and "The Family Meeting" are best remembered. His ode written in 1830 for the centennial cele bration of the settlement of Boston attracted much favorable comment.

They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

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Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soared

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From his nest by the white wave's foam; And the rocking pines of the forest roaredThis was their welcome home!

The soil where first they trod.

They have left unstained what there they found

Freedom to worship God.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Biographical: Mrs. Felicia Hemans, 1793-1835, an English poet, was born in Liverpool. She is best known by her short poems, among which this is one of the most popular. She was buried in St. Anne's Church, Dublin.

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THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.

BY THOMAS JEFFERSON.

I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly, and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these:

His mind was great and powerful, without being of the s very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke, and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the ad10 vantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in read

15 justment. The consequence was that he often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and New York. He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern.

Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was pru20 dence; never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or 25 consanguinity, of friendship, or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally irritable and high-toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke 30 its bounds, he was most tremendous in his wrath.

In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contribution to whatever promised utility, but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he 35 exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one could wish, his deportment easy, erect, and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback.

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Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, and 45 embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education was merely reading, writing and common arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day.