re in the
enjoyment of many advantages of which they knew nothing. The
wonder-working press was unknown to them; and above all, the beautiful
light of Christianity had not been shed on the world. We have the broad
day; they wrought in the twilight gloom. What majestic monuments of art!
what enduring legacies of beauty! what objects to make a man love his
country more and more, could have been erected with the means expended a
few years ago in reckless speculations! Instead of turning with melancholy
loathing to those broken bubbles on which the hopes and fortunes of many
of us were suspended, we could at least look with admiration on the marble
pile, and exclaim, 'I also can be proud of the genius and taste of my
country!' Another lesson we may learn from the fate of ancient states: it
is to beware of presumptuous pride and overweening conceit: these are the
result of inconsiderate ignorance. It was through presumptuous pride that
Athens fell, as I have before intimated. We have reason to fear there are
many, some unconscious of the injury they do, and perhaps with just
intentions, who feed this appetite for undue praise. Others, for mere
popularity or the applause of the day, minister with adroitness the sweet
though poisonous morsel for which our vanity and self-love are
open-mouthed; which (to carry on the simile,) puffs us up with the
comfortable notion that we are superior in every respect to all other
nations, ancient or modern. It would be well to turn a deaf ear to this
syren's song: let us learn if possible to _know_ ourselves; let us
remember that there is no perfection, either in men or their institutions;
and by avoiding a vain and presumptuous spirit, and scanning with a
careful eye the causes of the greatness which under Providence we possess,
we shall be most likely to approach the perfection which we all desire. We
can have little doubt that the Agrigentine considered the institutions of
his country as perfect as we do ours; and the citizens of greater states,
Athens, even Rome itself, indulged in the same pleasing thought. Our only
means of judging of the future is the past. We see that nations have
sprung from obscurity, risen to glory, and decayed. Their rise has in
general been marked by virtue; their decadence by vice, vanity, and
licentiousness. Let us beware!

I would not have the reader censure me for commencing this article as a
traveller and ending it with an attempt to moralize. In reviewing in