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men worse.

Some of the Creeks learnt to read and write, and they are the greatest rascals among all the Indians. They went on to Washington, and said they were going to see their Great Father, to talk about the good of the nation. And when they got there they all wrote upon a little piece of paper, with out the nation at home knowing anything about it. And the first thing the nation at home knew about the matter, they were called together by the Indian agent, who showed them a little piece of paper, which he told them was a treaty which their brethren had made in their name with their Great Father at Washington. And as they knew not what a treaty was, he held up the little piece of paper, and they looked under it, and lo! it covered a great extent of country; and they found that their brethren, by knowing how to read and write, had sold their houses, and their land, and the graves of their fathers; and that the white man, by knowing how to read and write, had gained them. Tell our Great Father at Washington, therefore, that we are very sorry we cannot receive teachers among us; for reading and writing, though very good for white men, is very bad for Indians."

Such are the views on education entertained by this singular race of men; and as long as people use the power which education gives them to deceive their neighbours and enrich themselves, there will always be a certain amount of prejudice against it.

THE VANITY OF WORLDLY GRANDEUR.

An alehouse keeper near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of the French King, at the commencement of a war with France pulled down his old sign,

and put up the Queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden sceptre he continued to sell ale till she was no longer the favourite of his customers; he changed her, therefore, some time after, for the King of Prussia, who was probably changed in turn for the next great man that attracted the admiration of the vulgar.

The publican, in this respect, exactly imitates the conduct of the great, who deal out their figures one after another to the gazing crowd beneath them. When we have sufficiently wondered at one, that is taken in, and another exhibited in its room, which seldom holds its station long, for the mob are ever pleased with variety.

I must own I have such an indifferent opinion of the stability of the populace, that I am ever led to suspect that merit which raises their shout, at least I am certain to find those great and sometimes good men who find satisfaction in such acclamations made worse by it; and history has too frequently taught me that the head which has grown this day giddy with the roar of the million, has the very next been fixed upon a pole.

There

As Alexander VI. was entering a little town in the neighbourhood of Rome, which had just been evacuated by the enemy, he perceived the townsmen busy in the market place in pulling down from a gibbet a figure which had been designed to represent himself. were also some knocking down a neighbouring statue of one of the Orsini family, with whom he was at war, in order to put Alexander's effigy, when taken down, in its place. It is possible a man who knew less of the world would have condemned the adulation of those barefaced flatterers; but Alexander seemed pleased at their zeal, and turning to Borgia, his son, said with a smile, "You see, my son, the small difference between

a gibbet and a statue." If the great could be taught any lesson, this might serve to teach them upon how weak a foundation that glory stands which is built upon popular applause; for as such praise what seems like merit, they as quickly condemn what has only the appearance of guilt.

Popular glory is a perfect coquette; her lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and perhaps, at last, be jilted into the bargain. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense; her admirers must play no tricks, they feel no great anxiety, for they are sure in the end of being rewarded in proportion to their merit. When Swift used to appear in public, he generally had the mob shouting in his train. "How much joy," he would say, "might all this bawling give my lord mayor."

I know not how to turn so trite a subject out of the beaten road of common place, except by illustrating it rather by the assistance of my memory than my judgment, and instead of making reflections by telling a story..

A Chinese, who had long studied the works of Confucius, who knew the characters of fourteen thousand words, and could read a great part of every book that came in his way, once took it into his head to travel into Europe, and observe the customs of a people whom he thought not very much inferior even to his own countrymen in the arts of refining upon every pleasure. Upon his arrival at Amsterdam, his passion for letters naturally led him to a bookseller's shop; and as he could speak a little Dutch, he civilly asked the bookseller for the works of the immortal Ilixofou. The bookseller assured him that he had never heard the book mentioned before. "What! have you never heard of that immortal poet?" returned the

other, much surprised, "that light of the eyes, that favourite of kings, that rose of perfection! I suppose you know nothing of the immortal Fipsihihi, second cousin to the moon?" "Nothing at all, indeed, sir," returned the other. "Alas!" cries our traveller, "to what purpose then has one of these fasted to death, and the other offered himself up as a sacrifice to the Tartarian enemy, to gain a renown which has never travelled beyond the precincts of China?"

There is scarcely a village in Europe, and not one university, that is not thus furnished with its little great men. The head of a petty corporation, who opposes the designs of a prince who would tyrannically force his subjects to save their best clothes for Sundays; the puny pedant, who finds one undiscovered property in the polype, describes an unheeded process in the skeleton of a mole, and whose mind like his microscope, perceives nature only in detail; the rhymer who makes smooth verses, and paints to our imagination, when he should only speak to our hearts: all equally fancy themselves walking forward to immortality, and desire the crowd behind them to look on. The crowd takes them at their word. Patriot, philosopher, and poet are shouted in their train. Where was there ever so much merit seen; no time so important as our own; ages yet unborn shall gaze with wonder and applause. To such music the important pigmy moves forward, bustling and swelling, and aptly compared to a puddle in a storm.

DEATH'S FINAL CONQUEST.

The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate:

Death lays his icy hand on kings.

Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant with laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield-
They tame but one another still;
Early or late

They stoop to fate,

And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives! creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow:

Then boast no more your mighty deeds;

Upon death's purple altar now,

See where the victor victim bleeds!
All heads must come

To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

James Shirley.

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THE BATTLE OF POICTIERS.

Edward, Prince of Wales, encouraged by the success of his previous campaign, took the field against the French with an army which no historian makes amount to more than 12,000 men, and of which not a third were English, and with this small body he ventured to penetrate into the heart of France. It appears that his intentions were to march into Normandy, and to join his forces with those of the Earl of Lancaster and the partisans of the King of Navarre; but finding all

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