ter than Anacreon's dove. He can lay any latitude under
contribution in a few hours, flying incredible distances during the
process of digestion. He is an ornament to the air, and the pot
also.--Here might be a descendant of Bryant's waterfowl; but its
journeyings along the pathless coast of the upper atmosphere are at an
end.

"All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men,
another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." The
matter composing the vegetables and the lower animals is promoted, as
it were, by being eaten by man and incorporated into his body, which is
a breathing house not made with hands built over the boundary-line of
two worlds, the sensible and noumenal. "The human body is the highest
chemical laboratory which matter can reach. In that body the highest
qualities and richest emoluments are imparted to it, and it is indorsed
with a divine superscription." It there becomes part and parcel of the
eye, the organ of light and the throne of expression,--of the blood,
which is so eloquent in cheek and brow,--of the nerves, the
telegraph-wires of the soul,--of the persuasive tongue,--of the
tear-drop, the dew of emotion, which only the human eye can shed,--of
the glossy tresses of beauty, the nets of love.

The provision markets of a community are a good index of the grade of
its civilization. Tell me what a nation eats, what is its diet, and I
will tell you what is its literature, its religious belief, and so
forth. Solid, practical John Bull is a mutton, beef, and pudding eater.
He drinks strong ale or beer, and thinks beer. He drives fat oxen, and
is himself fat. He is no idealist in philosophy. He hates generalization
and abstract thought. He is for the real and concrete. Plain, unadorned
Protestantism is most to the taste of the middle classes of Great
Britain. Music, sculpture, and painting add not their charms to the
Englishman's dull and respectable devotions. Cross the Channel and
behold his whilom hereditary foeman, but now firm ally, the Frenchman!
He is a dainty feeder and the most accomplished of cooks. He
etherealizes ordinary fish, flesh, and fowl by his exquisite cuisine. He
educates the palate to a daintiness whereof the gross-feeding John Bull
never dreamed. He extracts the finest flavors and quintessential
principles from flesh and vegetables. He drinks light and sparkling
wines, the vintage of Champagne and Burgundy. Accordingly the Frenchman
is