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wisdom, learning, and power are equally so, the pupil, in order to understand and remember any biographical account, will observe the following

Rule 10.-In biography, observe the particular qualities for which the person is admired or esteemed; and the instances which are given of those qualities.

WILSON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST.

He was a Scotchman by birth. The first years of his residence in this country were devoted to school-keeping in Pennsylvania. An early acquaintance with the venerable Bartram kindled within him a love of science; and after he commenced his ornithological inquiries, he pursued them for the remaining short period of his life with an enthusiasm, perseverance, and self-devotion, which have rarely been equalled. He died in Philadelphia, August 23d, 1813, at the age of forty-seven. His American Ornithology, executed under every possible disadvantage, and with encouragement so slender, as hardly to keep him from the heavy pressure of want, is a monument to his name that will never decay. The old world and the new will regard it with equal admiration. "We may add without hesitation," says Mr Bonaparte, "that such a work as he has published in a new country, is still a desideratum in Europe." To accomplish such a work, with all the facilities which the arts and knowledge of Europe afford, would confer no common distinction. But when it is considered that Wilson taught himself, almost unassisted, the arts of drawing and engraving; that he made his way in the science with very little aid from books or teachers; that he entered a path in which he could find no companions, none to stimulate his ardour by a similarity of pursuits or communion of feeling, none to remove his doubts, guide his inquiries, or to be deeply interested in his success; when these things are considered, the labours of Wilson must claim a praise, which is due to a few only of the solitary efforts of talent and enterprise.

In the strictest sense of the terms, Wilson was a man of genius; his perceptions were quick, his impressions vivid; a bright glow of feeling breathes through his compo

sitions. In the professed walks of poetry, his attempts were not often fortunate; but his prose writings partake of the genuine poetic spirit. A lively fancy, exuberance of thought, and minute observation of the natural world, are strongly indicated in whatever has flowed from his pen. He travelled for the double purpose of procuring subscriptions to his book, and searching the forest for birds; and some of his graphic descriptions of the scenery of nature, and the habits of the winged tribes, are inimitable. Sometimes he walked; at others descended rivers in a canoe; again he was on horseback, in a stage-coach or a farmer's wagon, as the great ends of his wanderings could be most easily attained. The cold repulses of the many from whom he solicited subscriptions he bore with equanimity; undaunted by disappointment, unsubdued by toil and privation. The acquisition of a new bird, or of new facts illustrating the habitudes of those already known, was a fountain of joy in his gloomiest moments; it poured the waters of oblivion over the past, and gave him new energy in his onward course.-N. AM. REV.

COLLOQUIAL POWERS OF FRANKLIN.

Never have I known such a fireside companion as he was!-Great as he was, both as a statesman and a philosopher, he never shone in a light more winning than when he was seen in a domestic circle. It was once my good fortune to pass two or three weeks with him, at the house of a private gentleman, in the back part of Pennsylvania; and we were confined to the house during, the whole of that time, by the unintermitting constancy and depth of the snows. But confinement could never be felt where Franklin was an inmate. His cheerfulness and his colloquial powers spread around him a perpetual spring. When I speak, however, of his colloquial powers, I do not mean to awaken any notion analogous to that which Boswell has given us, when he so frequently mentions the colloquial powers of Dr Johnson. The conversation of the latter continually reminds one of "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war." It was, indeed, a perpetual contest for victory, or an arbitrary and despotic exaction of homage to his superior talents. It was strong, acute, prompt, splendid and vociferous; as loud, stormy, and sublime, as those winds which he represents as shaking the Hebrides, and rocking the old castles that frowned upon the dark rolling sea beneath. But one gets tired

of storms, however sublime they may be, and longs for the more orderly current of nature. Of Franklin no one ever became tired. There was no ambition of eloquence, no effort to shine, in any thing which came from him. There was nothing which made any demand either upon your allegiance or your admiration.

His manner was as unaffected as infancy. It was nature's self. He talked like an old patriarch; and his plainness and simplicity put you, at once, at your ease, and gave you the full and free possession and use of all your faculties.

His thoughts were of a character to shine by their own light, without any adventitious aid. They required only a medium of vision like his pure and simple style, to exhibit, to the highest advantage, their native radiance and beauty. His cheerfulness was unremitting. It seemed to be as much the effect of the systematic and salutary exercise of the mind as of its superior organization. His wit was of the first order. It did not show itself merely in occasional coruscations; but, without any effort or force on his part, it shed a constant stream of the purest light over the whole of his discourse. Whether in the company of commons or nobles, he was always the same plain man; always most perfectly at his ease, his faculties in full play, and the full orbit of his genius forever clear and unclouded. And then the stores of his mind were inexhaustible. He had commenced life with an attention so vigilant, that nothing had escaped his observation, and a judgment so solid, that every incident was turned to advantage. His youth had not been wasted in idleness, nor overcast by intemperance. He had been all his life a close and deep reader, as well as thinker; and, by the force of his own powers, had wrought up the raw materials, which he had gathered from books, with such exquisite skill and felicity, that he had added a hundred fold to their original value, and justly made them his own.-WIRT.

CHARACTER OF CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL.

This extraordinary man, without the aid of fancy, without the advantages of person, voice, attitude, gesture, or any of the ornaments of an orator, deserves to be considered as one of the most eloquent men in the world; if eloquence may be said to consist in the power of seizing the attention with irresistible force, and never permitting

it to elude the grasp until the hearer has received the conviction which the speaker intends.

His voice is dry and hard; his attitude, in his most effective orations, was often extremely awkward, as it was not unusual for him to stand with his left foot in advance; while all his gesture proceeded from his right arm, and consisted merely in a vehement, perpendicular swing of it, from about the elevation of his head to the bar, behind which he was accustomed to stand.

As to fancy, if she hold a seat in his mind at all, which I very much doubt, his gigantic genius tramples with disdain on all her flower-decked plats and blooming par terres. How, then, you will ask, with a look of incredulous curiosity,-how is it possible that such a man can hold the attention of an audience enchained through a speech of even ordinary length? I will tell you.

He possesses one original, and almost supernatural faculty, the faculty of developing a subject by a single glance of his mind, and detecting at once the very point on which every controversy depends. No matter what the question: though ten times more knotty than "the gnarled oak," the lightning of heaven is not more rapid nor more resistless than his astonishing penetration. Nor does the exercise of it seem to cost him an effort. On the contrary, it is as easy as vision. I am persuaded that his eyes do not fly over a landscape, and take in its various objects with more promptitude and facility, than his mind embraces and analyzes the most complex subject.

Possessing while at the bar this intellectual elevation, which enabled him to look down and comprehend the whole ground at once, he determined, immediately, and without difficulty, on which side the question might be most advantageously approached and assailed. In a bad cause, his art consisted in laying his premises so remotely from the point directly in debate, or else in terms so general and specious, that the hearer, seeing no consequence which could be drawn from them, was just as willing to admit them as not; but, his premises once admitted, the demonstration, however distant, followed as certainly, as cogently, and as inevitably, as any demonstration of Euclid.

All his eloquence consists in the apparently deep selfconviction and emphatic earnestness of his manner; the correspondent simplicity and energy of his style; the close and logical connexion of his thoughts; and the easy gra

dations by which he opens his lights on the attentive minds of his hearers.

The audience are never permitted to pause for a moment. There is no stopping to weave garlands of flowers to be hung in festoons around a favourite argument. On the contrary, every sentence is progressive; every idea sheds new light on the subject; the listener is kept perpetually in that sweetly pleasurable vibration, with which the mind of man always receives new truths; the dawn advances in easy but unremitting pace; the subject opens gradually on the view; until, rising in high relief in all its native colours and proportions, the argument is consummated by the conviction of the delighted hearer. -WIRT.

Rule 11.-History is a successive and connected account of the events which have affected particular nations or people. Such are, the history of England; the history of the Jews, &c.

Rule 12.-The substance of history is termed chronology, which is merely a list of the events which have occurred to any nation or people, with the dates when each of those events happened.

The limits of this work do not admit examples of this branch of composition. It is mentioned here, in order to complete an arrangement which includes every species of writing. But, in order to assist the pupil in the habits of understanding, discriminating, and retaining, what he reads or hears of history; let him adhere to the following precepts:

Rule 13.-Observe the geographical situ

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