as is common among the savage tribes, would form a singular, but a very desirable character. The wild man of the woods can run as fast as the four-footed animals with which he associates; and sometimes, it is said, runs them down and seizes them as his prey. A savage who depends upon his bow has not the swiftness of the wild man, yet he can walk seventy or eighty miles a day, and thirty or forty miles at once. One cannot help observing a peculiar dignity and gracefulness, in the gait of our American Indians, particularly the chiefs of their tribes. They go forward with a firm step, their body kept in a straight line, their head erect, and seem to move with as much ease as a boat in a fair wind. Strength, agility, and hardiness of body, together with courage, being with them the highest point of perfection; the whole course of their education has a bearing towards this end. They live in the open air and exercise, and repose themselves alternately, so as to give suppleness to their joints and ease and nimbleness to their motions.

Mr. Bartram, in his account of the Lower Creeks, a tribe of Indians inhabiting East and West Florida, says:-"On one hand, you see among them troops of boys; some shooting with the bow, some enjoying one kind of diversion, and some another; on the other hand are seen bevies of girls, wandering through orangegroves, and over fields and meadows, gathering flowers and berries in their baskets, or lolling under the shades of flowery trees, or chasing one another in sport, and striving to paint each others' faces with the juice of their berries."

These Creeks, I will venture to presume, have resembled considerably the ancient Greeks, about the time that they instituted their celebrated games, consisting in running, wrestling, boxing and other athletic exercises; which are often alluded to in the writings of St. Paul. In the Heroic, or rather, the Barbarous ages of Greece, that people were little, if any, better informed, or more civilized, than our American Creeks. Their first object, in the education of their children, was, to inspire them with courage, and give them strength, agility, swiftness, and all the other bodily per

fections; that so they might be able to defend their liberties and the independence of their respective tribes. After a while they were smit with the love of learning, and Greece finally became the fountain of literature, and even spread the arts and sciences over Italy; whence at last they were diffused throughout all Europe. But the Greeks still kept up their games, and all their customary exercises of body; and they are the only people opon history, who have taken much care and pains to make the improvements of body and mind keep an even pace together. Their circumstances were peculiarly favorable to this; since, as to labor, it was done by their slaves.

Among modern civilized nations, the great mass of the people follow daily labor for a livelihood; and among these again, the tillers of the ground stand in the foremost rank. They living in the open air, and using exercises which expand the chest and brace the nerves and muscles, acquire an uncommon degree of hardiness and vigor of body; yet, by reason of the intensity of their toils, they soon lose that jauntiness of limbs, that ease of motion, that nimbleness of gait, which the savage retains even to old age.-Laborers in the mechanical arts have more or less bodily activity, generally, according to the nature of their occupations. Those trades which require a sedentary life, a seclusion from the air, and a curved posture of body which compresses the lungs, as well as those that expose the artificers to a poisonous effluvia, tend to bring on weakness and disease, and often-times hasten death.

The wealthy part of mankind, whose circumstances free them from the necessity of constant toil, might, one would think, rise superior to others in proportion to their superior advantages. But how rarely is it so in fact? Their luxury and debauchery poison both mind and body; insomuch that where vast possessions are vested unalienably in certain families, as in some parts of Europe, most of those enormously wealthy families, in the course of ages, dwindle down to a race of pigmies, in comparsion with whom the savage holds an enviable rank. The savage state and the state of luxurious refinement, are the two extremes; between

which, somewhere, there lies a point that is most favorable to the happiness of man, and to the general developement of his faculties.

The learned might have the best chance to unite in themselves bodily and mental excellencies, if prudent care were early begun and constantly continued. If there were used frequent exercise in the open air, both at the commencement and throughout the whole course of a life of study; if study and exercise were alternate, at short intervals, the body would retain its vigorous tone, the mind would be relieved, and the progress of learning be promoted, rather than retarded. But this is often reversed in practice. Observe a scholar that has just left the occupations of agriculture: observe his ruddy countenance and florid health. Observe the same individual two or three years after; see his dim eye, his faded cheek, his emaciated body, the debility of his whole frame !-And what has operated this melancholy change?-Continued mental exercise, without corresponding exercise of the body. He has been a hard student, and has treasured up Greek, and Latin, and Algebra, and Logic; but, for want of frequent intervals of exercise in the open air, the juices of his body have corrupted, like the water in a standing pool.

We are compound beings, consisting of animal and mental parts and faculties. It is a most desirable thing to have "a sound mind in a sound body;" and therefore, whilst the principal attention is to be paid to intellectual, moral, and religious improvements, there is no small attention due also to the health, soundness, and agility of the corporeal part of our nature.

And here it may not be amiss to mention that, in time long past, the American youth, even those of fashion and rank, were accustomed to various athletic exercises which have since been exploded by general consent. Whether it be owing to that circumstance alone, or to that in conjunction with several others, the youth of the present day, those of the active laboring classes excepted, are far less muscular and robust, and far less capable of strenuous body exertion, than those who were upon the stage of life fifty years ago, when riding was mostly on horseback, and when, by both

sexes, their own locomotive faculties of walking were more highly thought of, and much oftener put in requisition, than they are now.

CHAP. LXVII.

Of the general propensity to petty scandal.

As if there were not prattle enough from human tongues, a great deal of care is taken to teach birds to talk. Some families of opulence and rank are said to have devoted a considerable portion of their time to the advancement of this species of education: would it be altogether time lost, if they would mind to teach their birds a few sound and pithy maxims for domestic use, and the benefit of their visitants.

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The following anecdote I will cite as an example, for the purpose of showing to what good account the lingo of speaking birds might be turned, if their education were conducted either on moral principle, or upon principles of domestic economy. In the city of London, as Goldsmith informs us, two men, living directly opposite to one another, in the same street, had a quarrel on account of the one having informed against the other for not paying the duties on his liquors; and that the aggrieved party, after teaching his parrot to repeat the ninth commandment, placed the cage at the front of his house; so that whenever the informer on the opposite side of the street stepped out of his own door, he heard from the parrot this admonition, Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

This sacred precept is to be understood as possessing a very wide latitude of meaning; comprehending not only perjury and gross calumny, which are both punishable by civil law, but also evil speaking, in all its multifarious shapes and degrees. It is obvious to remark, that although the prohibitory precepts in the eighth article, and the ninth, of the holy decalogue, are both levelled against evils that are alike prejudicial and pernicious to society, yet the laws of society take much

more concern in the one than in the other. Every well regulated civil society arms itself against theft, and metes out punishment as well to petty pilferers as to the highway robber: and yet the violations of the next succeeding article of divine prohibition pass, for the most part, without punishment, and almost without notice. Not but that money is trash, in comparison with character; so that he who steals the one, does far less injury than he who wounds the other. But the fact is, civil law is quite incompetent to the task of taking cognizance of the violations of the ninth commandment, save in a few instances of flagrant enormity.

The trespasses of the tongue, in this way, are so innumerable, so diverse, and oftentimes so artful, that no legislator could classify them, and much less enact laws that would reach them wholly, without destroying the liberty of speech altogether. And besides, there is, in society, much less averseness to evil speaking than to theft. If one have his money or his goods stolen, he no sooner makes it known, than his neighbors join with him in searching for the thief, who, if found and convicted, is sure to be punished; because common zeal, as well as common consent, takes side against the culprit. But the pilferers from character fare less hard; or rather, they are tolerated, provided they manage with art and address, and mingle some wit with their malice or their levity.

And as petty violations of this part of the decalogue meet with impunity, so also they meet with encouragement. Few are altogether without envy, which ever takes delight in a backbiting or detracting tongue. Few are without some conscious and visible faults; and the faulty are naturally prone to take pleasure in the noticeable faults of others, as it tends to quiet them about their own. From these causes, and still oftener perhaps, from thoughtless levity, encouragement is given, almost every where, to the small dealers in detraction, who, all together, compose a pretty numerous body.

It requires no great stretch of charity to believe, that there are many persons who never have been guilty of any dishonest action, and much less of downright