While, in strange contrast, hoary winter bends,
Delayed and charmed, to smile upon the scene;
Thy lakes, thy beauteous lakes! adorned with all
The ever-varying hues of thy glad skies-
Here shadowing forth the form of some tall cliff,
And there the vineyard's gay luxuriant growth,
While on their placid bosoms wave and glide,
Like things of air, fantastic sails of skiffs.

Sweet Leman! on thy lovely shores full oft
My youthful footsteps wandered with delight,
And oft with heart entranced reclined beneath
The shadowing mountain cliff, I drunk from thee
Delicious draughts of poetry, till thought
Dissolved away in airy reverie!

Thou art the mirror placed by nature's hand,
Reflecting back her gayest, loveliest charms.
Thy verdant shores are classic, on them roamed
The Albion bard whose reckless muse profane
Here felt thy inspiration, pure, intense,
And kindling sung in chaster, nobler lays,
Of freedom and of love, such as thine own!
The images of Julie, Clare, St. Preux

Still dwell among thy beauteous scenery.
The shades of Bonaventura, of Staël,
Of Gibbon, Fernay's patriarch, and him*
Whose thrilling pen drew lines of fire, haunt yet
Thy sylvan solitudes.

*Rousseau.

MONT BLANC !-Oft have mine eyes gazed on thy brow,
Thine awful brow! but long to gaze once more

Before they close on earth. Thou art, dread peak,
Alone, without a brother, like the God

Whose hand almighty made and holds thee up,
Sublime in thine own solitude! The storms
Pay worship round thee; winds and thunderbolts
Go from thy foot, like monarch's heralds swift,
And all the mountain tops responsive roll
Their echoing homage on, with trembling awe!
The generations of the past have gazed

On thee, but they have gone; ten thousand more
May look and die; but thou wilt still remain,-
For thou, dread genius of the mountain storm,
Shalt only sink when nature sinks and dies,
When suns go out, and stars from heaven fall.

Land of glacier and the avalanche !

Thou wert not made to be the home of slaves!
The heart among thy lofty heights beats free,
And trembles not at sceptres or at chains.
God hath ordained thee freedom's mountain home,
And built thy battlements up to his throne!
Firm hast thou stood in liberty's great cause,
Midst falling states and changing monarchies.
Still stand! stand like thine everlasting hills!
The spirits of thy Tells and Winkelreids
Are yet abroad, and thou needst never fall!

289

THE RELATIONS WHICH THIS COUNTRY SUSTAINS

TO THE NATIONS OF EUROPE.

BY THE REV. FRANCIS WAYLAND, D. D.

THIS Country is evidently at the head of the popular party throughout the civilized world. The statement of a few facts will render this remark sufficiently evident.

1. This nation owes its existence to a love of those very principles for which the friends of liberty are now contending. Rather than bow to oppression, civil or ecclesiastical, our fathers fled to a land of savages, determined to clear away in an inhospitable wilderness, one spot on the face of the earth where man might be free. Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem.*

2. This nation first proclaimed these principles, as the only proper basis of a constitution of govern

ment.

3. This nation first contended for these principles with perfect success. In other countries, attempts had been made to re-model the institutions of government. But in some cases, the attempt was arrested in its outset by overwhelming force; in

* The armorial bearing on the shield of Massachusetts.

others, the first movement having been succeeded by anarchy, anarchy gave place to military despotism, and this at last yielded to a restoration of the former dynasty. In our country first was the contest commenced, in simplicity of heart, for the rights of man; and when these were secured, here alone did the contest cease. Since our revolution, other nations have followed our example, and many more are preparing to follow it. But when the most glorious success shall have attended their struggle for liberty, they are but our imitators; and the greatest praise of any subsequent revolution must be that it has resembled our own. Our heroic struggle, its perfect success, its virtuous termination, have rivetted the eyes of the people of Europe specially upon us, and they cannot now be averted. To us do they look, when they would see what man can do; and while sighing under their oppressions, they yet hope to be free.

4. And lastly, our country has given to the world the first occular demonstration, not only of the practicability, but also of the unrivalled superiority of a popular form of government. It was not long since fashionable to ridicule the idea, that a people could govern themselves. The science of rulers was supposed to consist in keeping the

people in ignorance, in restraining them by force, and amusing them by shows. The people were treated like a ferocious monster, whose keepers could only be secure while its dungeon was dark, and its chain massive. But the example of our own country is rapidly consigning these notions to merited desuetude. It is teaching the world that the easiest method of governing an intelligent people is, to allow them to govern themselves. It is demonstrating that the people, so far from being the enemies, are the best, nay, the natural friends of wholesome institutions. It is showing that kings, and nobles, and standing armies, and religious establishments, are at best only very useless appendages to a form of government. It is showing to the world that every right can be perfectly protected, under rulers elected by the people; that a government can be stable, with no other support than the affections of its citizens; that a people can be virtuous, without an established religion; and, more than this, that just such a government as it was predicted could no where exist but in the brain of a benevolent enthusiast, has actually existed for half a century, acquiring strength, and compactness, and solidity with every year's duration. And it is manifest that no where else have men been so free, so happy, so en