h at last;
Both, children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.

DEFINITIONS.--1. Her'it-age, that which is inherited, or taken by descent,
from an ancestor. 3. Sat'ed, surfeited, glutted. Hinds, peasants,
countrymen. 5. Ad-judged', decided, determined. 8. Be-nign' (pro.
be-nin'), having healthful qualities, wholesome.

NOTES.--1. To hold in fee, means to have as an inheritance. 9. Prove
title. That is, to prove the right of ownership.

LXXI. NO EXCELLENCE WITHOUT LABOR.

William Wirt (b. 1772, d. 1834) was born in Bladensburg, Md. He was
admitted to the bar in 1799, and afterwards practiced law, with eminent
success, at Richmond and Norfolk, Va. He was one of the counsel for the
prosecution in the trial of Aaron Burr for treason. From 1817 to 1829 he
was attorney-general for the United States. In 1803 he published the
"Letters of a British Spy," a work which attracted much attention, and in
1817 a "Life of Patrick Henry."

1. The education, moral and intellectual, of every individual, must be
chiefly his own work. Rely upon it that the ancients were right; both in
morals and intellect we give the final shape to our characters, and thus
become, emphatically, the architects of our own fortune. How else could it
happen that young men, who have had precisely the same opportunities,
should be continually presenting us with such different results, and
rushing to such opposite destinies?

2. Difference of talent will not solve it, because that difference is very
often in favor of the disappointed candidate. You will see issuing from
the walls of the same college, nay, sometimes from the bosom of the same
family, two young men, of whom one will be admitted to be a genius of high
order, the other scarcely above the point of mediocrity; yet you will see
the genius sinking and perishing in poverty, obscurity, and wretchedness;
while, on the other hand, you will observe the mediocre plodding his slow
but sure way up the hill of life, gaining steadfast footing at every step,
and mounting, at length, to eminence and distinction, an ornament to his
family, a blessing to his country.

3. Now, whose work is this? Manifestly their own. They are the
architects of their respective fortunes. The best seminary of
learning that can open its portals to you can do no more than to
afford you the o