the purpose of his life. His heart is fixed. He lives a life of virtue, not by laying hold of his passions, compelling their conformity to the right, but by living for a higher, nobler object.

Nor is he penurious or selfish. He may appear so to others, but it is in appearance only. His heart is generous and free. There can be no benevolence and generosity in a course of life that is sure to make one poor in after life.

Live, then, with your eye on a noble object, and self-denial is sweet. If gentlemen of the middle ages could sacrifice their ease, their time, and their life for their betrothed, can not you withstand temptation when the eyes of kindred are on you? Ask the student who has earned a world-wide fame, or the man of princely fortune, and learn of them their toil and struggles!

In conclusion, let me entreat you to seek the control of the elements by forethought, if you would be successful. It matters not what your profession may be; there are certain laws that govern it. Learn the laws by which every trade, and all intercourse with men are governed, and conform to them. Think! There is more strength in true thought than in the whirlwind or the lightning. The time has gone by when mere physical force will be sufficient to serve us. Our work is too great and too heavy to be done by our hands. We must have the wind, and the streams, and the lightning to aid us.

Persevere against discouragement. When you have chosen your object of life, pursue it without fear or faltering. Be not discouraged amid difficulties. Let your will be under the control of reason and a sound judgment, and your success, in whatever you undertake, is beyond a

doubt.

As the eagle dips his wings in the crystal spring, to beautify and strengthen them for his upward flight, so should the young go to the fountains of literature and science to adorn and strengthen their minds, that they may be qualified to rise to a sphere of usefulness in the world.

THE EXPIRING ARTIST.

BY L. M. W.

I AM weary, dear Helen, you have read to me long;
I would that you sing me some soul-cheering song;
breaks from my will,
My pencil's unsteady,

My heart's pulse is low, and my vitals grow chill.
You sung to me once on that loved summer's day-
Come near to my side, now, and sing me the lay
That song, you remember, that pledged the first

VOW,

That made you, dear Helen, so near to me now.

T is dark here, dear Helen, the day doth decline,
I've studied so long now, my energies pine;
But when the dark winter has filed with its gloom,
Say, will we not tread upon summer's gay bloom?
Will not the bright birds, as we walk through the
lawn,

Sing welcome to us, at the evening and dawn?
O, then, then 't will be that the toils of this day

Will sweeten, dear Helen, our walk o'er the way.

I am weary, dear Helen, you have sung to me long,
On your beautiful lyre, e'en the sweetest of song;
But stand near me now, for my vision doth wane,
My pulse beats so slow, and so wild is my brain.

Come nearer and let me recline on thy breast,
For it seems to me now I shall sleeep a long rest.

Next summer, when all this dark winter is gone,
Thou 'lt tread, dearest Helen, the lawn all alone.

The blasts of dark winter had swept from the sky,
And the song of the cuckoo told summer was nigh;

The fields were all sown, and the woodlands were gay,

The meadows were green, on the first summer's day, When sad o'er the lawn, as the light from the west

Did kiss the soft mountain to soothe it to rest,

Went forth, in the shade of a willow's dark gloom, To weep, did sad Helen, by her Angelo's tomb.

PARENTS who spend their income in clothing the bodies of their children, and neglect the cultivation of their minds, sacrifice their immortal interests for the show of exterior decorations, that fade in a day; but those who devote their energies and pecuniary substance to the intellectual and moral culture of their children, furnish them with robes of unfading and imperishable beauty, increasing in brightness in this life, and becoming to them pearls of inestimable worth when time shall be no

more.

studying law, without the aid of an instructor, and at the end of two years was admitted to practice at the bar. But such was the state of the country at that time, that no encouragement offered for engaging in his profession, and he went to Goshen, Orange County, N. Y., where he resumed teaching, in a classical school.

It was while thus engaged that he commenced the preparation of school-books; and to him is due the credit of the first Spellling-book, English Grammar, and Readinging-book, that were published in the United States. This employment seemed to give direction to the whole of his future life.

So general became the use of his spellingbook, that his family was supported, during the twenty years in which he was employed in compiling his American Dictionary, by a premium of less than one cent per copy. About thirty millions of copies of this book have been sold, including the different forms which it has assumed under the revision of the author.

In 1783 Mr. Webster returned to Hartford. At this period the country was agitated by discord and dissensions, and by the use of his pen he did more to vindicate the acts of Congress, and to allay the popular discontent, than any other man. The dangers of the war were now over, but the old confederation was found to be inadequate to the necessities of the people. He therefore published a pamphlet in the winter of 1784-5, entitled Sketches of American Policy." In this he urged the necessity of a new system of government for the United States.

66

During the summer of 1785 he made a journey south, to petition the state legislatures for the enactment of a law that should secure to authors an exclusive right to the publication of their writings. Thus the public attention was called to the subject, and a general copyright law was enacted by Congress soon after the formation of our government.

He published a periodical in New York in 1788, called the " American Magazine;" but it failed of success, and was continued only one year. During the succeeding year he settled himself at Hartford in the practice of the law. In the autumn of the

same year he married the daughter of William Greenleaf, Esq., of Boston.

He was induced by the solicitations of friends to relinquish his profession, and to aid in the support of Washington's Administration during the French Revolution. Accordingly he removed to New York in 1793, and commenced a daily paper, with the title of "The Minerva," and afterwards a semi-weekly, called "The Herald." These names were subsequently changed to those of " Commercial Advertiser," and New York Spectator." This was the first example of a paper for the country being made up from the columns of a daily without re setting the types-a practice now very common.

66

In 1807 Mr. Webster published "A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language." This was a work highly original, and the result of many years of diligent investigation. After publishing the Grammar, he entered during the same year, upon the great work of his life-that of preparing a new and complete dictionary of the English language.

Several years were now spent in collecting words which had not been introduced into the English dictionaries; in discriminating with exactness the various senses of all the words in our language, and adding those significations which they had recently received. Some estimate may be formed of the great labor bestowed on this part of the work from the fact that the first edition of "The American Dictionary of the English Language" contained twelve thousand new words, and between thirty and forty thousand definitions not found in any previous work. The number has since been swelled to about thirty thousand new words.

In 1823 Mr. Webster received the de gree of LL.D. from Yale College. Having nearly completed his dictionary, he made a voyage to Europe in 1824, for the purpose of perfecting his work by consulting literary men abroad, and by examining some standard authors to which he could not gain access in this country. After visiting Paris he went to the University of Cambridge, England, where he had access to all the public libraries, and there he finished THE AMERICAN DICTIONARY,

having spent the labor of twenty years upon it.

The first edition of twenty-five hundred copies of this great work was printed in this country at the close of the year 1828. This was soon followed by an edition of three thousand copies in England. Having now arrived at the age of seventy years, Mr. Webster considered his great literary labors brought nearly to a close. However, in 1840 he published a second edition of his dictionary, consisting of three thousand copies, in two volumes, royal octavo. The improvements consisted chiefly in the addition of several thousands of words to the vocabulary, and the correcting of definitions.

son, Webster was tall, and somewhat slender. He was remarkably erect through life, and moved, even in his advanced years, with a light and elastic step.

Since Webster's decease his Dictionary has been thoroughly revised by Chauncey A. Goodrich, Professor in Yale College, and son-in-law of the great lexicographer, and all the improvements and corrections of the former editions are now incorporated in the body of the work. This edition is published by Messrs. G & C. Merriam, of Springfield, Mass., and is known as " Webster's Unabridged Dictionary." It has been introduced into many of the principal schools in the Union, as well as the colleges, literary institutions, and Congress. An octavo edition has also been prepared by Professor Goodrich, containing all the words in the large work, and published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, New York. Webster's Dictionary is now regarded as a standard expositor of the English language by the best scholars of our country and England; also as far as the language is known.

He published some of his writings and observations in 1843, but the closing act of his life was the revision of the Appendix to his Dictionary, and the addition of some hundreds of words. His hand rested in its last labors on the work which he had commenced thirty-six years before. In the midst of his own family, at New Haven, Conn., he gently sank to rest on the 28th day of May, 1843, in the eightyfifth year of his age. He went down the declivity of life full of years and honors, having administered more to education and literature than any other man on the records of history.

He now slumbers in the quiet cemetery at New Haven, beneath a monument of Quincy Granite, rising some twelve or fifteen feet high. The only inscription to be found on it is simply the word

WEBSTER,

cut on the square block which constitutes the base of the monument. What inscription more appropriate? No name, save that of the FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, is more extensively and familiarly known. than NOAH WEBSTER. His fame is as wide as the English language. From the venerable halls of the oldest college in America to the rudest log school-house in the western wilds his name is as familiar as household words.

Noah Webster had seven children; one son, William G. Webster, now a resident of New Haven, Conn., and six daughters. His widow died in June, 1847. In per

America may well cherish the fame of him who has bequeathed such a monument of learning, and even taught the Briton his own language. But, like Franklin, and Fulton, and Morse, his name belongs not to America alone, but to all mankind. Achievements such as theirs, like the light of the sun, pertain to no clime nor race, but to the whole world.

College Oxygen is transparent, colorless, tasterather less, and inodorous, like common air; it is about one-tenth heavier than that body, and possesses the same mechanical properties. It acts neither as an acid nor an alkali, and is dissolved sparingly by water, one hundred gallons absorbing about four and a half of the gas.

and

The term oxygen signifies acid-former. It was applied by Lavosier, who supposed it to be the active principle of all acids, an opinion now known to be false. There is reason to believe that oxygen is capable of existing in two atmospheric states, a passive or quiescent state, and an active condition, in which its affinities are greatly exalted. The ozone, discovered in the atmosphere, by Prof. Schonbein, concerning which much has been said, is supposed to be the active form of oxygen.

The leading property of oxygen is the intense energy with which it unites with other substances. So vehement is this action that fire is produced, and hence oxygen is the great supporter of combustion. All substances which burn in the air, burn in pure oxygen gas with greatly increased brilliancy. An extinguished candle plunged into it is instantly relighted if the least spark of fire remain upon the wick. Iron wire burns in it with vivid scintillations, and phosphorus with a light so brilliant that the eyes cannot endure it. In all these cases the light and heat are produced by the chemical union of the oxygen with the burning body, the weight of which is increased exactly in proportion to the amount of oxygen consumed. All the common cases of combustion which take place in the air, are due to the same —the combination of its oxygen with combustible substances. It here proceeds in a more subdued and regulated way, because atmospheric oxygen is diluted with four times its bulk of another gas, which, if taken alone, extinguishes fire altogether. Oxygen is by far the most widely diffused of all the elements. It constitutes

cause

one-fifth, by weight, of the atmosphere, eight-ninths of the ocean and all other waters, nearly one-half of the solid rocks that compose the crust of the globe-of every solid substance we see around us, the houses in which we live, the stones and soils upon which we tread, and much more than one-half of the bodies of all living animals and plants.

The discovery of oxygen was made by Dr. Priestley, in 1774, and it has been justly pronounced the "capital discovery of the last century, rivalling in importance the great discovery of gravitation, by Newton, in the preceding century.' It disclosed the phenomena of nature in an entirely new aspect, exploded the old theories, and laid the foundations of modern chemical science. It has a very wide range of combination; uniting with all the elements except fluorine, forming compounds termed oxides. The act of combination is called oxidation ; the separation of oxygen from a compound is termed deoxidation. The affinity of oxygen is exerted at low temperatures as well as high ones; its activity never ceases. It exists in a free state throughout the atmosphere which envelopes the globe, and is in constant contact with all forms of matter; attacking everything with which it is not already combined.

This slow combustion, though unaccompanied by light, is always attended with heat, although it may not be in sufficient quantity to be measured. An ounce of iron rusted in the air, or burnt in oxygen gas, produces exactly the same amount of heat in both cases; the difference being, that in the former instance the heat is developed so slowly as to take years, while in the latter case the same effect is duced in as many minutes.

pro

The cause of decay in vegetable and animal substances is the action of oxygen upon the elements of which they consist. They are oxidized, or undergo a slow combustion, called by Liebig eremacausis, which breaks them up into simpler and more permanent compounds.

Oxidization is also the grand process by which air, earth, and sea are cleansed and purified from innumerable contaminations. Putrid vapors and pestilential effluvia are