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or in the midst of strangers, as in the bosom of his family; but the "voice of Nature" holds a different language, and calls for and receives tranquillity and comfort from natural kindness, affections and sympathies.

Pope's illustrations of the "Ruling Passion" are very analogous to Gray's sentiment; and St. Evremond means pretty much the same thing, when he says "the last sighs of a handsome woman are more for the loss of her beauty than her life:"

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'Mercy! cries Helluo, mercy on my soul!

"Is there no hope? Alas, then bring the jowl."

So Narcissa is shocked at the idea of being buried in woolen, and her last words were:

"One would not sure be frightful when one's dead,

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And-Betty give this cheek a little red❞— 1

Thus do our wonted fires live in our ashes, when the body is dead to every thing else

I. H.

MR. EDITOR.

Looking over the first volume of your excellent and interesting miscellany I perceived the Inquirer No. I. p. 510-mentions his possessing a work entitled "Reflections on Ridicule, and the means of avoiding it"-&c. by Jeremy Collier, A. M. From various idiomatic peculiarities in the style Inquirer is disposed to believe it was translated from the French, although the title-page announces it as an original work-As I am one of those who ardently desire the welfare of the republic of letters, and believing also that the detection of plagiarism has at least an indirect tendency to promote that welfare, I have taken the liberty to inform your correspondent through the medium of the Port Folio, that there is a French work entitled, "Reflexions sur le Ridicule, et sur les moyens de l'avoiter, par m. l'Abbé de Bellegarde." A copy of this work printed at Amst. anno 1707, may be seen in the Philadelphia Library, No. 1108. 12mo. whether the English work can be identified with this I cannot say, as I have not seen the former.

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FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

A SKETCH OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND PRESENT STATE OF DICKINSON COLLEGE IN CARLISLE.

On the happy termination of our revolutionary conflict, the patriots and statesmen of America, though relieved from the fatigues of a camp, and no longer exposed to the dangers attendant on the profession of arms, were not permitted to repose from their labours. The country which their wisdom and valour had rescued from external domination, was now to be improved in its internal resources. The arts of peace were to be cultivated, the vast and complex machinery of civil government was to be erected and put in motion, and every necessary mean devised and employed not only to maintain the liberty and independence recently achieved, but to render them a blessing to the then existing and to future generations. Among these thousand objects of attention and deliberation, the education of youth claimed and was admitted to a distinguished place.

Whether we consult the history of nations, or listen to the more familiar but not less instructive lessons of experience and observation, we will be convinced that, under Providence, the sound and correct education of youth constitutes the true basis of the pre-eminence and happiness of kingdoms and states. And this is particularly the case in those communities and among those people distinguished by the blessings and immunities of civil liberty. It is still more emphatically the case in places under the direction of representative governments. For where every man has a suffrage either proximately or remotely in the affairs of the nation, unless that suffrage be enlightened by wisdom and guided by virtue, it cannot but fall out that those affairs must go wrong, and that misrule, anarchy and despotism will be the tragic result. If we again recur to history, that faithful and universal teacher and monitor, we will again learn, that the decline and downfall of empires, kingdoms and states, has been generally preceded, and to reflecting minds foretold, by a marked deterioration in the discipline and education of youth. With regard to the Roman empire, in particular, the most august monument of human grandeur the world has ever be

held, the decline of letters is known to have accompanied pari passu the decline of civil power, and to have had a material influence on it as a cause.

If from the advantages of sound learning to the state we turn to its influence on the characters of individuals, we will find its effects to be no less striking. We will find that, though without much learning man may become useful and respectable, yet that he cannot without it become polished, enlightened, distinguished and great he cannot ascend to that grade in the scale of his Creator's works to which his powers are intended to exalt him. If to this rule a Franklin, a Rittenhouse, and a Washington present exceptions, they are to be regarded as mere exceptions, and therefore do not amount to an infraction of the rule. They were prodigies, which necessarily implies a departure from and an ascendency over common principles.

Actuated by these or similar considerations, those patriots who had directed the councils and fought the battles of America during the difficulties and perils of her struggle for freedom, could not look without an anxious mind towards her future destinies. Nor of this anxiety was the part inconsiderable which bore relation to colleges and seats of learning.

Hitherto many of the American youth, those more particularly on whom devolved the management of state affairs, had been accustomed to receive their education in foreign countries. But this practice was justly regarded as exceptionable and dangerous. Apprehensions were entertained, not without foundation, that the youth thus educated would inevitably contract certain European habits and manners, and imbibe certain foreign opinions relative to matters of civil polity, and ecclesiastical privileges and establishments, unsuitable and even unfriendly to the state of things in their own country. As all plants are known to acquire most perfection when suffered to flourish in their parent soil, and to receive the sun and breezes of their native climate, it was, in like manner, conceived, that seminaries of education established at home would be most likely to prove distinguished nurseries for supplying America with those to whom she might in future confide her destinies, whether in the forum, the senate,

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