from the airy regions of contemplation, to such low matters. But such a one should be put into the same state-room of the great Ship of Fools, with those who twisted their necks to look like Alexander, or spoke thick to resemble Hotspur. A man that can do great things and not little ones, is an imperfect man; and there is no more inconsistency between the two, than there is in a great poet's being able to write a promissory note, or a great orator's having the power to talk about the weather. I will only remark, in conclusion, that good-breeding should form a part of every system of education. Not that children should be made to barter their native simplicity for a set of artificial airs and graces, but that they should be early impressed with the deformity of selfishness, and the necessity of thinking of others as well as themselves. Care should be taken that their intercourse with each other be in a spirit of courtesy and mildness. He, who has been reared in a brawling and ill-mannered nursery, can hardly be expected to ripen into a polite man. The elder members of a family should bear in mind that the influence of their own conduct will encircle the children like an atmosphere. There can be little happiness in that household, in which the minutest offices are not dictated by a spirit of thoughtful courtesy and delicate consideration for others. How many marriages are made wretched by a neglect of those little mutual attentions, so scrupulously paid in the days of courtship. Let it be borne in mind, that the cords of love, which bind hearts so closely together, that neither Life, nor Death, nor Time, nor Eternity can sever them, are woven of threads no bigger than a spider's web. SONNET. [From the Spanish of Hernando de Herrera.] IDEAL BEAUTY. Serena luz, presente en quien espira divino amor, que enciende y junto enfrena, etc. O LIGHT serene! present in him who breathes A voice that breathes angelic harmony Transparent veil of flesh, a glimpse is given; LETTERS FROM OHIO. NO. III. In the remarks I have made on the unparalleled progress of Ohio, I have scarcely hinted at the causes. These are principally four; the moral energy of the population, the exclusion of slavery, the fertility of the soil, and the facilities for navigation. The last cannot be overrated. To no spot on this planet has nature been more lavish of her rivers. To describe them belongs to the geographer. But let me ask, of what avail would these magnificent gifts have been to the West, without the labors of Watt and Fulton? It is steam, which is building and peopling these cities, and urging the march of empire westward. I have no question that before twenty years have gone by, the majority of the population of the Union,-if it last so long,-will be found west of a north and south line drawn through the capital of Ohio. Cincinnati, the Empress of the West, will then be the geographical centre, and should the seat of government ever be moved westward, here will it, most likely, be placed. Nor could its site be better chosen, for never was an inland city more easy of access from every quarter. And this we owe principally to Steam. Pittsburg has become our immediate neighbor, and the Gulf of Mexico is brought almost in sight. Steam has created for us Ports of Entry more than a thousand miles from the ocean. Banish steamboats from these vast rivers, and what would become of the cities that line their banks? Suppose steamboats never to have been used, and tell me if these cities could by any possibility have attained their present magnitude in one century from this time? I believe not. The Steam Engine is no subject for Poetry or Romance, but I must be cold-hearted if I could witness its achievements here without enthusiasm. Ask a citizen of the West, who are the greatest benefactors of modern times, and Watt and Fulton occur to him spontaneously; the one, for perfecting the Steam Engine, the other for applying it to navigation. It sprang forth all finished from the hand of Watt, as Minerva came all armed from the brain of Jupiter. But it was reserved for America, the native home of mighty rivers, to discover its most important function. Why do not the people of this valley erect a monument to Fulton, and place it on one of the loftiest hills that overlook the Ohio or Mississippi? Antiquity would have raised altars and decreed divine honors to such a man. And, on second thought, Fulton has built his own monuments all over our waters. The three hundred steamboats this side of the Alleghanies, and the two hundred on the other, are so many glorious monuments of his stupendous benefaction. The first steamboat, called the New-Orleans, passed down the Ohio, just twenty years ago; and well might the wood-nymphs retire in affright from the noise of its machinery; for it was the knell to their dominion over these vast solitudes. Now, it is no uncommon thing to count as many as fifteen or eighteen boats at once at the Cincinnati landing. Some are departing and others coming every hour, and a livelier scene can hardly be conceived. The greatest speed obtained in Fulton's life-time, leaving wind and current out of the question, was ten miles an hour. Since that, it has been increased to nearly fourteen miles an hour. This would make three hundred and thirty-six miles a day. What a rate to be moving, and that, too, with a motion so easy, so motionless, if I may so call it, as to invite rather than repel slumber! Nor is it in propelling boats only, that steam is working its miracles here. I see and hear it wherever I turn. It moves our grist-mills, saw-mills, paper-mills. It labors in our factories, foundries, and breweries. A single engine supplies Cincinnati with water from the river, which it forces up into a reservoir more than a hundred feet above high water mark; while hundreds are fabricated every season to work on the sugar plantations in the lower country. With such facts before me, am I not justified in pronouncing the invention of the Steam Engine to be the most important which history has recorded? If we of this age do not believe so, future times will. Or if they make any exception it will be in favor of printing, for nothing else has any pretensions to competition on the score of utility. Printing has been eloquently described as "binding the whole human raee of uncounted millions, into one gigantic rational being, whose memory reaches to the beginnings of written records, and retains imperishably the events which have occurred." With equal truth may it be said that the Steam Engine furnishes for this gigantic rational being an accomplished, tractable, never-tiring, Herculean servant, with muscles of iron and a soul of fire, to perform all the labor and drudgery, which his ever increasing wants may require. Remember that I do not now speak of this engine as an exquisite specimen of mechanical contrivance, which it preeminently is; but I speak of it as the instrument through which Steam is made to act as monarch among all the prime moving forces. Before this invention, the principal moving forces were Gravitation, Wind, and Animal Strength. Compare Steam with either of these, as a prime mover, and for all practical purposes it will be found immeasurably superior. Compare it first with Gravitation. This can act but in one direction; that acts in all directions. This would suffice, if the course of things on earth were one everlasting downhill; that makes the distinction between uphill and downhill almost insignificant. This can carry a boat tardily from Pittsburgh to New-Orleans, but can never bring it back; that scarcely heeds the existence of the current, equally despising its help or its obstruction. On the smooth lake or sea, Gravitation is useless; but there Steam acts to its utmost advantage. Formerly mills could only be placed by falls of water, and then whole regions, like our immense prairies, must have been necessarily without them; but now we find them placed any where and every where, according to the convenience of the owner. Thus is Steam in every view superior to Gravitation. Compare it next with Wind. The wind bloweth where it listeth; obeying a higher power than man, it is never constant either in direction or intensity. Now it blows this way, now that. To-day we have a tempest approaching to a hurricane, sweeping and devastating all before it. Tomorrow the whole atmosphere rests in torpid stillness, the sails flag, and the vessel becomes a motionless mass, supine and sluggish on the dead surface of the waters. Not so with Steam. That is subject to the control of man, and acts in the direction and with the intensity he chooses. Amid storm and calm, against wind and tide and with them, the vessel urged by Steam pursues its way, unheeding the elements, and seeming to exult, with a conscious pride, in its independent power. And the voyager on the eastern waters shares this exultation, as he darts swiftly by the fastest sailing ships, when the most favoring gales are blowing. Thus is Steam superior to Wind. And, lastly, compare it with Animal Strength. This has been the most efficient among the prime movers, but will be so no longer. The strength of all animals, rational or brute, has a limit which can soon be reached and never passed. But to the power of Steam no limit has been discovered; nor can there be a limit, except that which is fixed by the strength and tenacity of the materials, within and upon which the power is to act. There are single engines which work with the force of six hundred horses. With a cylinder only eighteen inches in length and two in diameter, Perkins obtained a pressure equal to forty atmospheres. Again, the most robust and hardy animals are able to work only a small portion of the time. The lash cannot quicken them when their muscles are relaxed. Fatigue overcomes them, and they faint; disease weakens them, and they are useless; death overtakes them, and they are gone. But Steam is liable to none of these infirmities or contingencies. The engine never faints nor tires. It can work every moment of every day for numberless years, wanting nothing but occasional repairs. Its metalic frame is above all malady, and, never having lived, it cannot die. Lastly, animals must be fed from the fruits of the earth. This makes their use always expensive, and frequently impracticable. Besides, had the power of Steam remained unknown, a period must have been ultimately reached in the progress of society, when the earth, with its fruitfulness daily diminishing, by over use, could not have furnished subsistence for all the animals necessary to perform all the labor required. But the Steam Engine never hungers nor thirsts. Its only wants are water and fuel. Water is found every where, and its entire quantity can never be diminished by a single drop. Were the whole ocean converted into steam, it must of necessity return again to water. At the same time it is independent of the earth's fertility, and must ever remain sufficient for all the wants of all the men who may at any distant period people the globe. With fuel, it might perhaps be different, if wood were the only resource. But when will the magazines of coal be exhausted? Not till the whole interior of our planet is used up. And thus is Steam superior to Animal Strength. Having gone so far with this enticing subject, allow me to mention the immense gain on the score of humanity. I do not remember that this has ever been taken into view; but it strikes me as a momentous consideration. Every living thing, whether rational or brute, is susceptible of pain. Constrained action of every kind is always painful. Now I will not ask whether every humane person would not rejoice to see his fellow creatures released altogether from the drudgery of tugging at the oar, the lever, the crank, and the anvil, till their muscles become rigid and their limbs distorted ;-provided that inert matter, which is incapable of pain, could be made to perform the same labor. But are the feelings of that man to be envied, who would not rejoice to see even the brutes released from the consuming toil and suffering incident to their state of servitude and hardship? That they have feeling, their writhing under the scourge too often proves. But the engine, which is so fast taking their place in the service of man, has no feeling. It can neither smart under the lash, nor be galled by the yoke or harness. No cruelty, neglect, or exposure can occasion to it one of those tortures, "which mercy, with a bleeding heart, weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast." I repeat it, this seems to me to be a momentous consideration. Who can estimate the suffering which the Steam Engine is destined to save, through all coming time, to man and the inferior animals? Countless labors are to be performed, and, if lifeless machines did not perform them, living creatures must. On the score of humanity, then, the gain is immeasurable. Since, for all the work performed by Steam, not a nerve will ever smart, nor a twinge of pain be felt. In giving this account of what the Steam Engine has done and is doing for the Western country, I have said nothing of Steam Carriages and Rail Roads, because as yet we have none of them. But every thing indicates that we shall not long be without them. Over these vast tracts of level country, rail roads can be constructed cheaper than any where else, probably, in the world. Those immensely deep cuts and high embankments, which have made the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road so ruinously expensive, would in no case be necessary. And the objection of costliness being removed, I can think of no other sufficiently weighty to withstand the demonstrations which have recently been given in favor of this mode of conveyance. To the velocity of boats, there is an impassable limit, existing in the nature of the fluid medium. But to that of rail road cars, there is no necessary and absolute limit. The only measure of speed will be the safety of passengers. If they could breathe and be safe under a velocity of sixty miles an hour, the engine would move them at that rate. The cars on the Liverpool and Manchester Rail Road, carry merchandize at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour; and, from a statement recently made, it ap pears that the actual cost of transporting fifty tons one mile, on those cars, is only one cent! Now with such facts before us, not to be sanguine on the subject of rail roads and steam carriages would be positively unphilosophic. I admit that, if this were not the age of scientific prodigies, we should be apt to require ocular proof, before we could believe the facts themselves; but, once admitted, the immense superiority of rail roads over every other species of conveyance follows incontestably; and, if they are thus superior, they must soon supplant canals and turnpikes altogether. I have no doubt that, before our children are off the stage, they will be constructed on all the great lines of travel throughout the Union. The horse will be dismissed from the service of the traveler and the mail-carrier, because he is too slow; and men will speak contemptuously of one hundred miles a day, as a mere snail's pace. The journey from Boston to Cincinnati, which now occupies ten days at the shortest, will then be performed in less than three; and a tour of the Union in the same proportion. I am serious in these anticipations. If rail roads should be constructed between all our important places, as I have no doubt they will be; and if steam carriages shall be substituted for those drawn by horses, of which I have as little doubt; the consequence will be, that those, whose good fortune it shall be to live at that time, will be able to receive and circulate intelligence, and transport themselves and their commodities, from one place to another, with four times the greatest rapidity now possible, under the most favorable circumstances; and that, too, with |