by a want of Education, is like the loss which the year would suffer by the destruction of the spring."

5. If the bud be blasted, the tree will yield no fruit. If the springing corn be cut down, there will be no harvest. So if the youth be ruined through a fault in their education, the community sustains a loss which cannot be repaired; "for it is too late to correct them when they are spoiled."

6. Notwithstanding the care of your legislators in enacting laws, and enforcing them by severe penalties; notwithstanding the wise and liberal provision which is made by some towns and some private gentlemen in the state; yet there is still in many places, "a great and criminal neglect of education."

7. You are, indeed, a very considerable degree better in this respect than in the time of the late war; but yet much remains to be done. Great care ought to be taken, not only to provide a support for instructors of children and youth; but to be attentive in the choice of instructors: to see that they be men of good understanding, learning and morals; that they teach by their example as well as by their precepts ; that they govern themselves, and teach their pupils the art of self government.

8. Another source of improvement, which I beg leave to recommend, is the establishment of social libraries. This is the easiest, the cheapest and most effectual mode of diffusing knowledge among the people. For the sum of six or eight dollars at once, and a small annual payment besides, a man may be supplied with the means of literary improvement, during his life, and his children may inherit the blessing.

9. A few neighbours joining together in setting up a libary, and placing it under the care of some suitable person, with a very few regulations to prevent carelessness and waste, may render the most essential service to themselves, and to the community.

10. Books may be much better preserved in this way, than if they belonged to individuals; and there is an advantage in the social intercourse of persons who have read the same books, by their conversing on the subjects which have occurred in their reading, and communicating their observations one to another.

11. From this mutual intercourse, another advantage may arise for the persons who are thus associated may not only acquire, but originate knowledge. By studying nature and

the sciences, by practising arts, agriculture and manufactures, at the same time that they improve their minds in reading, they may be led to discoveries and improvements original and beneficial; and being already formed into society, they may diffuse their knowledge, ripen their plans, correct their mistakes, and promote the cause of science and humanity in a very considerable degree.

18. The book of nature is always open to our view, and we may study it at our leisure. ""Tis elder scripture writ by God's own hand." The earth, the air, the sea, the rivers, the mountains, the rocks, the caverns, the animal and vegetable tribes are fraught with instruction. Nature is not half explored; and in what is partly known, there are many mysteries, which time, observation and experience must unfold.

13. Every social library, among other books, should be furnished with those of natural philosophy, botany, zoology, chymistry,husbandry, geography, and astronomy; that inquiring minds may be directed in their enquiries; that they may see what is known, and what still remains to be discovered; and that they may employ their leisure and their various opportunities in endeavouring to add to the stock of science, and thus enrich the world with their observations and improvements.

14. Suffer me to add a few words on the use of spiritous liquor, that bane of society, that destroyer of health, morals and property. Nature indeed has furnished her vegetable productions with spirit; but she has so combined it with other substances, that unless her work be tortured by fire, the spirit is not separated, and cannot prove pernicious. Why should this force be put on nature, to make her yield a noxious draft, when all her original preparations are salutary.

15. The juice of the apple, the fermentation of barley, and the decoction of spruce are amplysufficient for the refreshment of man, let his labour be ever so severe, and his perspiration ever so copious. Our forefathers, for many years after the settlement of the country, knew not the use of distilled spirits.

16. Malt was imported from England, and wine from the Western or Canary Islands, with which theywere refreshed, before their own fields and orchards yielded them a supply. An expedition was once undertaken against a nation of Indians, when there was but one pint of strong water (as it was then called) in the whole army, and that was reserved for the sick; yet no complaint was made for want of refreshment..

17. Could we but return to the primitive manners of our ancestors, in this respect, we should be free from many of the disorders, both of body and mind, which are now experienced. The disuse of ardent spirits, would also tend to abolish the infamous traffic in slaves, by whose labour this baneful material is procured.

18. Divine Providence seems to be preparing the way for the destruction of that detestable commerce. The insurrections of the blacks in the West-Indies have already spread desolation over the most fertile plantations, and greatly raised the price of those commodities which we have been used to import from thence.

19. If we could check the consumption of distilled spirits, and enter with vigour into the manufacture of maple sugars, of which our forests would afford an ample supply, the demand for West-India productions might be diminished; the plantations in the islands would not need fresh recruits from Africa; the planters would treat with humanity the remaining blacks; the market for slaves would become less inviting; and the navigation, which is now employed in the most pernicious species of commerce which ever disgraced humanity, would be turned into some other channel.

20. Were I to form a picture of happy society, it would be a town consisting of a due mixture of hills, vallies, and streams of water. The land well fenced and cultivated; the roads and bridges in good repair; a decent inn for the refreshment of travellers; and for public entertainments. The inhabitants mostly husbandmen; their wives and daughters domestic manufacturers; a suitable proportion of handicraft workmen, and two or three traders; a physician and lawyer, each of whom should have a farm for his support.

21. A clergyman of good understanding of a candid disposition and exemplary morals; not a metaphysical nor a polemic, but a serious and practical preacher. A schoolmaster who should understand his business, and teach his pupils to govern themselves. A social library, annually incréasing, and under good regulation.

22. A club of sensible men, seeking mutual improvement. A decent musical society. No intriguing politician, horse jocky, gambler or sot; but all such characters treated with contempt. Such a situation may be considered as the most favourable to social happinessof any which this world can afford.

XV. BARON HALLER, on the death of his Wife. 1.HALL I sing thy death, Marianne? What a theme! When my sighs interrupt my words, and one idea flies before the other! The pleasures thou didst bestow on me, now augment my sorrows. I open the wounds of a heart that yet bleeds, and thy death is renovated to me.

2. But my passion was too violent-Thou didst merit it too well; and thine image is too deeply engraven on my soul, to permit me to be silent. The expressions of thy love revivify, in some degree, my felicity: they afford me a tender recollection of our faithful union, as a remembrance thou wouldest have left to me.

3. These are not lines dictated by wit; the artificial complaints of a poet. They are perturbed sighs which escape from a heart not sufficient for its anguish. Yes, I am going to paint my troubled soul, affected by love and grief, that, only occupied by the most distressing images, wanders in a labyrinth of affliction.

4. I see thee yet, such as thou wast at death. I approached thee, touched by the most lively despair. Thou didst call back thy last strength to express one word, which I yet asked from thee. O soul, fraught with the purest sentiments, thou didst only appear disturbed for my afflictions; thy last expressions were only those of love and tenderness; and thy last actions, only those of resignation.

5. Whither shall I fly? Where shall I find in this country an asylum, which only offers to me objects of terror; This house in which I lost thee; this sacred dome in which repose thy ashes; these children-Ah! my blood chills at the view of those tender images of thybeauty,whose artless voices call for their mother. Whither shall I fly? Why cannot I fly to thee?

6. Does not my heart owe thee the sincerest tears? Here thou hadst no other friend but me. It was I who snatched thee from the bosom of thy family; thou didst quit them to follow me. I deprived thee of a countrywhere thou wast loved by relatives who cherished thee,to conduct thee,alas, to the tomb.

7. In those sad adieus with which thy sister' embraced thee, while the country gradually faded from our eyes, she lost our last glances; then with a softened kindness, mingled with a tender resignation, thou didst say, I depart with tran quillity; what can I regret? My Haller accompanies me. 8. Can I recollect without tears, the day that united me to

thee. Yet even now, softened pleasure mingles with my sorrows, and rapture with my affliction. How tenderly loved thy heart! that heart which could forget every thing, birth, beauty and wealth! and which, notwithstanding the avowal I made of my fortune, only valued me for my sentiments. 9. Soon thou didst resign thy youth, and quit the world to be entirely mine! Superior to ordinary virtue, thou wast only beautiful for me. Thy heart was alone attached to mine: careless of thy fate, thou wast alone troubled with my lightest sorrows and enraptured with a glance thatexpressed content.

10. A will, detached from the vanity of the world and resigned to heaven; content, and a sweet tranquillity, that neither joy nor grief could disturb; wisdom in the education of thy children: a heart overflowing with tenderness, yet free from weakness; a heart made to soothe my sorrows; it was this that formed my pleasures, and that forms my griefs.

11. And thus I loved thee-more than the world could believe more than I knew myself. How often in embracing thee with ardour, has my heart thought with trembling, Ah If I should lose her!-How often have I wept in secret?

12. Yes, my grief will last, even when time shall have dried my tears the heart knows other tears than those which cover the face. The first flame of my youth, the sadly pleasing recollection of thy tenderness, the admiration of thy virtue, are an eternal debt for my heart.

13. In the depth of the thickest woods, under the green shade of the beach, where none will witness my complaints, I will seek for thy amiable image, and nothing shall distract my recollection. There I shall see thy graceful mein, thy sadness when I parted from thee, thy tenderness when I embraced thee, thy joy at my return.

14. In the sublime abodes of the celestial regions, I will follow thee; I will seek for thee beyond the stars that roll beneath thy feet. It is there that thy innocence will shine in splendour of heavenly light; it is there that with new strength thy soul shall enlarge its ancient boundaries.

15. It is there that, accustoming thyself to the light of Divinity, thou findest thy felicity in its councils; and that thou minglest thy voice with the angelic choir, and a prayer in my favour. There thou learnest the utility of my affiction. God unfolds to thee the volume of fate; thou readest his designs in our separation, and the close of my caree