XXI.

Well hast thou chosen-thou for whom I twine
This annual wreath-the path which these pursued ;
The joys, which once were theirs, shall now be thine;
By thee, their spirit and their taste renewed,
Shall feed the healthful love of solitude;

Of pure and peaceful thought, and simple pleasure;
And temper those desires which would intrude

For ever on our bosoms, and would measure
All that we think, feel, do, by splendour or by treasure.

XXII.

Then lift thou still the Telescope of Time;
Show to young pilgrims in life's wondrous ways
From what to shrink; for what alone to climb;
How the day darkens; the strong limb decays;
That earth has more to value, and to praise,
Than Indian dust, or a conspicuous lot;

Bring to their marv'lling glances scenes which raise
Thirst for those glories which no cloud may blot ;
For flow'rs which will not fade, for fruits which perish not.

XXIII.

Still fan the flame of Nature's pure enjoyment

In the young bosom, yet to Nature true;

Still be thy patriotic, blest employment

To wile our steps to flow'ry scenes, and new;

To ocean shores, brown heath, and mountain blue;
Woods, dells, and brooks in Juue's delicious time;
The soul of their green quiet, sun and dew,

Render inert the world's tenacious lime,

And they, who feel their pow'r, shall less rue that of crime.

Introduction.

ON THE

PHYSICAL POWERS, INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES, AND MORAL PERCEPTIONS,

OF MAN.

BY THOMAS MYERS, LL.D.

When moulded by his Maker's hand, MAN first
Became a perfect form, in symmetry

Complete, but lifeless still-no hand was raised
Volition's act to mark-no rapt'rous eye
The vast expanse surveyed-nor ardent mind,
With awe-suspended voice, inquired, What am I?
All was motionless and mute, as o'er

The breathless form Creation bent, and gazed
In silent wonder.

But, see-th' ALMIGHTY MIND, ETERNAL breathes
Upon the frigid mass, and pulse to pulse

Succeeds-Life flows throws ev'ry vein -the eye
In wild amazement rolls-till man his high
Descent evinced, and rose creation's lord.

FEW subjects are capable of exciting a deeper interest than that which constitutes the topic of this Introductory Essay. MAN-emphatically the noblest work of creation-is 'fearfully and wonderfully made.' Whether viewed in the symmetry of his form, the majesty of his mien, or the pliability of his physical powers, he is superior to all the other works of his Maker's hand, by which the earth is at once peopled and adorned; but when we contemplate his intellectual faculties, his moral perceptions, and his eternal destiny, he rises incompre

hensively in the scale of importance, and infinitely transcends all other sublunary beings. A well-known poet has aptly remarked

The spacious west,
And all the teeming regions of the south,
Hold not a quarry in the curious flight
Of knowledge, half so tempting or so fair
As man to man.

If we suffer the eye, aided by the imagination, to throw even a cursory glance over the vast fields of creation, we are equally struck with the inconceivable multitude of animated beings presented to our view, and the harmony which binds the whole into one complete system-a system not merely extending from man to the polypus, but grasping both the vegetable and mineral kingdoms; so that,

Whatever link we strike,

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. Few persons, however, can have taken even this cursory glance at all which the visible creation presents, without having their utmost powers overwhelmed by the magnitude and grandeur of the scene, and feeling a desire to descend from contemplating the whole to a more perfect comprehension of some selected part. Guided by this feeling in our annual endeavours to amuse and instruct the rising generation, we have usually chosen some interesting page from the vast volume of nature, as the subject of an Introductory Essay. Various departments of the natural and intellectual worlds have, therefore, successively passed in review before us; yet none which is so nearly allied to SELF-none so important in its connexion and consequences-none, we presume, from its multifarious associations, has yet been presented, which is so interesting as MAN. To render this delineation as explicit as possible, we shall briefly examine him in his physical powers, his intellectual faculties, and his moral perceptions. In pursuing each of these topics, it is by no means

our intention to carry our readers into the dissecting room of the anatomist, or the cobweb-lined study of the metaphysician;-to follow the casuist in his conjectures the philosopher in his elaborate researches or the fanciful speculator through the variety of his reveries;-but to contemplate Man, as we find him, an inhabitant of the globe, endowed with pre-eminent faculties and attributes, and encompassed with crowds of animated beings designed to minister to his wants, and participate with him in the bounties of nature and the enjoyment of life. When viewed in this light, he must not be considered merely as an inhabitant of the present scene, but as placed on the confines of another world, combining the two modes of material and spiritual existence, and forming, as Locke has expressed it, the Nexus utriusque mundi. He not only displays the most perfect form in the visible creation, but the gulf which separates all other sublunary beings from the fulness of human intelligence is altogether impassable by them, justifying the exclamation of the poet;

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is Man!

Section X.

ON THE PHYSICAL POWERS OF MAN.

In form erect, and mien majestic, MAN
His lordly stamp imprints on Nature's works;
And while creation's verge he treads, his eye
Th' expanding scene surveys, and darts from earth
To heav'n. His soul-directed frame, active
And pliant still, mid Sol's refulgent beams
Or Winter's hoary sway, braves ev'ry clime.
From Afric's plains to Zembla's icy capes,
And Antisana's' brow, his lowly cot

A farm-house on the gigantic mountain of Antisana, is the highest inhabited place on the globe; and, according to Humboldt, is 3,800 feet above the elevated plain of Quito, and 13,500 above the sea.

Or stately pile he rears, and reigns supreme.
Nor does he storms and climes on land's firm base
Alone defy, but winds and waves controuls,
And o'er the mighty deep in triumph rides.

THE superior structure of the human frame, and the pliability of Man's physical powers, have induced some persons to overstep the boundaries of nature, and to represent him as the centre of animal perfection. Providence, however, has adopted a wiser plan, and one far better suited to the station he is designed to occupy; for had he the strength of the lion, with the touch of the spider; could he gaze at the sun with the eagle, and peep into a pore with the fly, these very extremes of power and sensibility would only convert his pleasures into pains, and render him miserable, where he was designed to be happy. We must not, therefore, look for the perfection of his organization, and the wisdom of his Maker, in the union of extremes; but in the adaptation of his frame and constitution to the circumstances in which he is placed.

On directing our attention to the physical condition of Man, the first thing that attracts our notice is his figure; as he is the only being, among the multifarious tribes spread over the surface of the globe, that stands erect. Some other animals, especially the monkey and the bear, may be made to approximate to this position, but in none of them does the whole surface of the foot press upon the ground, or the os calcis contribute to the support of the body. But when Man stands in his natural position, the axis of his trunk is upright, and his heel rests firmly on the earth. This gives him a commanding posture; affords him a peculiar facility of viewing objects in all directions, around and above him; and is therefore justly considered as a distinguishing attribute of his physical pre-eminence.

In briefly sketching the relative anatomy of Man, in order to develope his physical economy, the organ which is regarded as the seat of that noble faculty