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"A sad page in my diary-a death has occurred | to intercept the slave on his way from Africa to in the house. America, and to disappoint his owner, but as soon as he has crossed, we shall not only leave his owner in peace but give him our custom for the commerce in which he uses the slave.

Mr.

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arrived ten days ago, without notice, having journeyed from Norfolk to London to consult the first physicians. He had cancerous tumors, pronounced by all incurable. As a last resort, he performed with difficulty the journey to Malvern, and arrived at the house in a state which rendered it dangerous to move him to lodgings. The doctor instantly pronounced his state beyond the reach of human aid, except in palliating suf-in it; the traders would also be more than ever fering, and soothing his few remaining days. He told Mrs. B that he could not survive ten days. After four days, Mr. B- came to the drawingroom, and cordially shaking hands with all his fellow-patients, thanked God that he was safe, and getting well-he was sure of it! His appetite good-he slept well, and was free from all pain. The doctor was obliged to tell his afflicted wife that this happy change showed no amelioration of the actual disease, which was surely proceeding to its fatal termination. When, some days after this, it was deemed right to tell the patient of his state, he was with difficulty made to believe it. He had been buoyant with high spirits, and perfectly at ease. His relatives then came around him; and about the tenth day, (or, as I believe, on the very day predicted,) he has died. The brothers proposed to remove the remains, but the considerate patients would not hear of it. They asked if he would have the funeral at early morning; Dr. W. would not allow secrecy, and it is to take place in the afternoon."

But the bad results would not rest there. Continued enforcement of the armed suppression would tend still further to aggravate the horrors of the middle passage. The increased profits of the trade would of course multiply the vessels engaged stimulated to brave the risk of detection in hope of profit, while the higher profit would allow a wider margin for loss by capture; vessels, therefore,' would be more readily and more often captured. But the incentives to evade detection would be stronger than ever; swiftness and secrecy would be still more sought, and the miserable freight still more cruelly sacrificed to a water-cutting shape of the vessel and to concealment. It will be impossible to continue the armed suppression much longer, in the teeth of growing opinion and augmenting proof of its inefficacy-its mischievous self-defeat. It will be abandoned.

Must the slave-trade, then, be left to its criminal career-to people America with a race in bondage? We think not. We believe that the ceasing of the armed intervention will be the first step towards an effectual but peaceful war with agrarian slavery and the slave-trade. How may this come about?

The immediate result of the cessation will be, that England will no longer be regarded with distrust by foreign countries whom she coerces to For the writer's main end, a proof of the effica- obey her notion of moral necessity. England has cy of the cold-water cure, Mr. Lane's book is of a conscience against trading in slaves, and she not slender value. His own case, we must be per-only abstains, but forces other nations to abstain. mitted to think, proves little or nothing. The Some do not, but merely affect to do so; and main evil was evidently on the nervous system or while they pretend to obey, they own an increas"the spirits." The best proof of this is, that as ing grudge against the country that compels them soon as his trifling anxiety about the cold-water to so humiliating, inconvenient, and costly a sacriprocess was over, Mr. Lane felt comparatively fice. They do not understand her motives to be well in himself; a result which could not have purely philanthropic, because they are not conscious followed and been maintained in the case of or- of such motives in themselves; they believe her ganic derangement—unless upon the principle of to be actuated by an invidious dog-in-the-manger Goldsmith's quack, whose patients felt an improve- wish to hinder their prosperity, and at all events ment even while the pills were going down the hate her pragmatical tyranny. Ill-will to England throat. From his obvious unacquaintance with is the great substantial product of her armed intermedicine, Mr. Lane's other instances prove noth-vention; a feeling shared by America, Brazil, ing; he uses terms so generally that they convey no precise meaning; so that his conclusions are not warranted by his premises. He speaks of some old man of eighty, with "disease of the heart," who was greatly improved. Before such a case is worth a rush, we must know in what way the "heart" of the old gentleman was affected, and how its disorder was inferred; even then, the case, considering the age and the uncertainty of medical inference in obscure diseases, is too near a modern miracle for implicit credit.

THE ANTI-SLAVERY THAT MIGHT SUCCEED. FREE trade in sugar must at first act as an encouragement of the slave-trade-there is no doubt of it. The opening of so important a market as that of Great Britain will enhance the value of slave-grown sugar; the higher value of the article will enhance the value of the producers; and that will enhance the profits of the slave-trade. Our armed efforts at suppressing the trade, therefore, will be rendered more ridiculous than ever, by the crowning inconsistency, that we shall do our best

Spain, and other great nations. The feeling will die away when the coercion ceases.

The slave-employing countries may resort to Africa to fulfil all the demands upon their labormarkets. It is not likely that the Southern States of the great American Union would do so, since social and political reasons make the citizens of the Union view the increase of slaves with alarm; but Cuba, and possibly Brazil, might take a larger draft of slave-immigrants. The traffic, however, I would be free; the slaves would be more valua ble; and the trader would have no motive to treat them worse than cattle would be treated; their health, therefore, would be an object of care, and the horrors of the middle passage would cease with our intervention.

But if we abstained from restricting the slavemigration, there would be no reason for restricting the migration of free blacks. To British subjects we might forbid slave-trading; by proper regulations in the West Indies, we might prevent any British slave-trading by defeating its object, the individual profit of the trader. But the free migration would bring to the West Indies, their most useful population, the Negro. With a free labor

market, where wages have superseded the lash as There have been no such settlements, because an incentive to industry, it is most imperatively there have been no materials for them--a surplus free necessary to have an abundance of laborers: that black population to be spared from the American abundance the West Indies would soon have, and side of the Atlantic. There has, however, althey would then be able to compete with slave-ready been shown the disposition to such a reemiowning countries in the growth of sugar.

gration: the black emigrants from our principal West Indian colonies have willingly returned as "delegates;" gentlemen of the black race have even consented to go, in order to promote an intercourse so beneficial to their kind; and an official agent at Sierra Leone belonged to the race. These are solitary instances, but they serve to show that the desired motive and capacity both exist in the African; both have been exhibited under the influence of a free black emigration to the West Indies, limited as that was. Were the West Indies fully peopled, our stations on the coast of Western Africa would become really colonies; although the climate excludes the AngloSaxon race, Anglo-Saxon influences would take root, would fructify, and would spread towards the interior.

But to people the West Indies is the one great essential to any probable scheme for civilizing the Negro. The West Indies will for the first time be able to set a complete practical example of free black labor; of which we have preached the merit, though we have shrunk from exemplifying it. The white civilizer cannot penetrate the pestilential continent of Africa, to civilize the denizens of the soil; but in the West Indies he has the African entirely under his own eye, and in the best possible circumstances for the process of civilization. The Negro is at once introduced to a fully-civilized society, but one blessed by the too rare concomitant that industry prospers in it. He is easily kept in the state of discipline, legal and moral, the most conducive to his own welfare. But he is in all respects a free man, and is at once Such is the way in which Africa might be civ introduced to the practice of free institutions; even ilized through the West Indies; such is the Antiattaining the franchise, municipal and political, Slavery enterprise that might succeed.—Spectator, without hinderance. And experience has proved | 25th July. that in the West Indies the Negro actually does become a civilized man, with extraordinary facility and rapidity.

From the Spectator.

SLAVERY AND TIME.

Show, for the first time completely, that in the West Indies emancipation really succeeds in a worldly sense-that it is politically safe, and com- A GREAT question of time is involved in the promercially profitable-and you teach the best possi-ject of the anti-slavery philanthropists, which they ble lesson to slave-owning countries; one far more seem entirely to overlook. They induced England persuasive than coercion. You show them that to abolish first the slave-trade and then slavery, in they may abandon slavery itself, and that therefore they do not need the trade in slaves. Some have already shown a disposition to profit by such a lesson, were it humanely and perseveringly read to them. Brazil has several public men willing and able to read it; Cuba has had its Governor Valdez; and even the Southern States of the Union might consent to benefit by an experimental attempt at solving the great problem that darkens their future.

But Africa-how would such a change affect her? Most momentously. Were the eastern shore of America fully peopled with a free black race--were even the West Indies alone so peopled -commercial relations must necessarily increase with the opposite coast of western Africa. It must inevitably follow, that free blacks would be much and increasingly employed in any commercial relations with Western Africa; for which their race alone is suited by physical constitution. The number of free civilized blacks in Africa would multiply. To state this modest fact alone, is to imply a social revolution in Africa; monarchs in that benighted country could not long remain in a condition lower than menials in the free settlements. If the monarchs did not begin to advance in civilization, the menials would soon speculate in the trade of being monarchs. But free settlements would multiply, and would be normal schools for the neighboring races. Civilizationa true European civilization-once established on the continent of Africa, would soon spread by a beneficent contagion. It is to be remembered that there are no such settlements in Western Africa: there are some trading stations; Sierra Leone is a station for liberated Africans, ill managed, unprosperous; Liberia is a settlement of transported slaves; but there are no proper colonies.

her own dominions; but they did so by convincing her. They have continued their importunity, and extended it to the request that England should force other countries to abolish the slave-trade, and also slavery, without waiting for conviction. Their wish has been indulged to a surprising extent, but up to this time with no very flattering results; for the compulsory style of policy manifestly defeats itself, hindering what might be accomplished were it sought by wiser means.

There is such a thing as national consistency. It needs not be confounded with obstinate adherence to one opinion, for it does not refer to different periods. A country, like an individual, may fairly hold different sentiments at different periods; the change being brought about by the legitimate process of conviction. Thus, England has more than once changed her opinion on the subject of West Indian slavery, and each change has been a real advance towards a wiser and more moral view. The consistency of which we speak refers to the different acts of the same country at any one period. England violates it at this present time, by tolerating slavery in the southern states of the great American Union, and not in Brazil; for we make fiscal distinctions between the two, where there is not a trace of moral distinction. In like manner, we tolerate in Russia what we denounce in Cuba. It is the same with the slave-trade: we forbid on the Niger and in the West Indian archipelago what we suffer at Mozambique and in the Bosphorus.

How can a nation speak to the world while the practical expression of its views is thus full of confusion and contradiction? Countries are not, like human individuals, endowed with one single, audible, and unmistakeable voice; Britannia is not a real person, and cannot rise to her feet and address

But the fund thus accruing, or even a portion of

the nations in a voice of oneness. Nations must of the slave-trade costs about half a million yearly. speak by their actions; and, to make the discourse The tax on sugar for protecting the West Indies is intelligible, must make their actions have one obvi-estimated at not less than a million and a half. ous and consistent drift. By an opposite system The loss by refusal to trade freely with Brazil, England baffles her own utterance; one part of her Cuba, and other countries, augmented by their repolicy is an answer to the other, and to refute her- taliatory tariffs, must be represented by a still larger self her own actions may be cited. How can she but an unknown amount. The gross loss, therepretend that slavery is an intolerable offence, when fore, is to be counted by millions sterling; which she makes no single abatement in her amity, com- we should save. mercial or political, with the slave-owning, slavetrading states of the Union? Brazil may well be-it, might be devoted in a variety of ways to encourlieve that we lie when we say that we will not age the conversion of slave-owning countries to a trade with her on account of her slave-dealing, humaner and wiser policy-devoted to the antisince she is far more humane even on that score slavery agitation by force of example. Sir Robert than nations from whom we withhold no friendly Peel has suggested improvements on the ministerelation. Brazil must guess that we have some rial plan for altering the sugar-duties, and among other motive. If we wish to make her believe them attention to immigration of labor into the what we say, we must shape our utterance to a British sugar colonies: that may best be done by consistent unity; and if we cannot, by force of extending the sources to other than the present treaties, or of irresistible circumstances in our com- "British possessions" on the western coast of Afmercial and social state, be consistent in our com- rica; and to do so, with the official aid and superpulsory course against the slave-trade, we must vision that would be desirable, would occasion exadopt some other course in which we can be con-pense. Ingenuity would devise other modes in sistent. As long as we hesitate to do so, we which England could apply the fable of the North achieve nothing but defeat. Wind and the Sun. Meanwhile, not only would Now, can we suppress either slavery or the the nations be seduced into a more favorable mood, slave-trade by compulsion? Certainly we cannot, but the example would be relieved of its contraproprio motu. We cannot decree the cessation of dicting and frustrating contingencies, and would be slavery in Brazil, in the United States, in Asia, or furnished forth to shine in the most conspicuous even in Africa; we cannot suppress the slave-trade manner. In that way England might make free under other flags, by our own edict. To effect labor succeed; might so display the fact before the either result, we must obtain the assent of the na-world as to make the knowledge of it unequivoca' tion whose institutions we would modify. Can we and inevitable; and at the same time might concil do that by compulsion? Obviously not. We can-iate the stranger to accept conviction, instead of not even attempt it. Where we have extorted a exasperating him obstinately to resist it. reluctant assent from foreign governments to use compulsion over their subjects, we have uniformly failed; and we have certainly provoked abundant odium, exasperation, vindictive desire rather to encourage than abandon the traffic we denounce.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL has manfully grappled with the moral part of the sugar question. In rejoinder to the reply that the wrong of admitting slave-grown sugar is not to be justified by the other wrongs of But while we engage in this fruitless crusade, admitting slave-grown coffee, cotton, and tobacco, what a waste is there of precious time! The he denies that these are wrongs, and contends that slavery that we cannot abolish is increasing in its it is not for us in our tariffs to be pronouncing judgnumbers and its geographical limits; the slave-trade ment on the institutions and customs of other naby sea has become more horrible in its details; and tions. Commerce is the great instrument for securslave-trading for the market of North America has ing the peace of the world, and that instrument is turned into a domestic traffic, quite shut up from impaired by any restrictions, especially of such an our interference. The institution, therefore, is offensive and irritating nature as those founded on growing, and its overthrow is becoming more diffi- hostility to particular usages. How incensed would cult every day; not merely because our hostile ad- the people of England be, if the United States were vances have grievously hindered our proselytism, to forbid commercial intercourse with us on the score but because the mere increase in numbers and ex-of our alleged injustice to Ireland; how exasperated tent renders the practical removal or emancipation of an ignorant slave population more and more difficult through the lapse of time. Certainly, slavery makes greater progress than the doctrine of abolition does, and there is no sign yet that the relative pace of advance has really begun to alter.

Russia would be with us, if we were to refuse to take her tallow and hides because they were the produce of serf labor. The peace of the world could not consist with this international prying and meddling, and spying out immoralities. We have not advanced a jot by it towards the only object for which The most hopeful prospect of success lies in a it has been put in practice, the great object of ridprocess of conversion by example. But we cannot ding the world of slavery. It remains to be seen speak that example emphatically while we com- whether that end may not be better promoted by plicate it with other processes that are not exam-what improves the harmonies and good understandple: it must be unavailing while we harden the ing between nations. As yet, we have adopted hearts of the nations against us by a hostile com- but a sorry mode of recommending free labor, pulsion. In order, then, to endow with vigor that course which is hopeful, let us abandon that which is hopeless-call off the hostile band of compulsion, and apply our attention, energies, and resources, solely to the example.

One immediate result would be a great saving in money. The precise amount cannot be ascertained. The machinery for the armed suppression

guarding it with fences implying its inferiority to slave labor. We begin to give fair play to the example when we brave competition, and our efforts to induce other nations to copy us will not be weakened by the withdrawal of offensive prohibitions, and the establishment of the closer amity and improved influences which result from the ties of commercial interests.-Examiner, 1 Aug.

From the Christian Observer.

private nor commander, nation nor legislature, in

PEACE SOCIETIES; AND ELIKU BURRITT, THE his denunciations of war, under all its forms and

LEARNED AMERICAN BLACKSMITH.

for every purpose. If he maintains that it is a game," which, were subjects wise, kings would not play at," we doubt not he would impartially add," Or presidents either, if citizens were wise." In a recent letter, dated Worcester, Massachusetts, May 15, he writes:

AND SO Elihu Burritt is coming across the Atlantic to make a philanthropic tour in England. And who is Elihu Burritt? To ask the question "argues oneself unknown;" for who that receives many letters, and is supposed to have any influ- "It makes my heart sad to say that America ence, has not been showered upon with olive- has entered the field of blood, and perhaps is to ribranches and other anti-war papers, in which the val the British in India, and the French in Algeria. name of Elihu Burritt is as conspicuous as the Our Texas iniquity is bringing forth its first fruits of Duke of Wellington's statue is like to be upon the sin. From one aggression after another, our gov triumphal arch. We are hearty peace men, though ernment has got itself into a condition of war with not Peace-Society men; we abominate and depre- Mexico, and what is to come of it no human forecate war, though we believe that national defence sight can tell. The sober part of our community is lawful; just as we should with a good con- and country are taken all aback by this unexpected science knock down, tongs-wise or poker-wise, an war; and the whole whig' press denounces it with assassin who should burst in upon our wife and unsparing severity. It should afford us some conchildren; or as the Quaker on the deck of a ves-solation, that where sin abounds grace much more sel boarded by an enemy, though he would not use lead or steel to repel the invaders, yet thought it "The peace band here will not be cast down or his duty to thrust as many of them as he could discouraged, though the heathen rage and the overboard into the ocean, with " Friend, thou hast people imagine a vain thing.' Perhaps the cause no business here." We are far/from undervalu- of peace may ultimately receive vast accessions of ing, as many persons do, the benevolent intentions strength from the thousands converted to its prinof good men on either side of the Atlantic, who ciples by a new illustration of the sin and folly of are laboring to promote the principles of universal war. We shall redouble our energies and strengthpeace and good will. We honor their motives, en our faith to meet the exigency. We shall though they sometimes injure the cause they plead speak out boldly against all war. I hope something by the manner in which they urge it, and by not may occur to stay the progress of hostilities beallowing that defensive warfare, when it cannot be tween the two countries. I shall send you by next avoided without submitting to aggressive ruffian-steamer, I hope, some returns from the addresses. ism, is justifiable;-that it is a duty imperative upon men, patriots, and Christians.

abounds to set limits to the wrath of man.

Let us follow peace with all men.' I hope an Anti-War League will be formed in the course of this year, which shall take in as members and officers men of all nations, kindred, and tongues, and hold its anniversary in London. During my stay in England I intend to solicit attention to this idea. I send by Harnden's express 500 'Olive Leaves' for the British press."

Elihu Burritt is without question a remarkable, and highly estimable, man. His zealous exertions to suppress slavery, to promote temperance, and to blunt the appetite of nations for war, have been honorable to his character as a philanthropist and a Christian; and his labors have produced a considerable effect in his own country, and have elicit- We trust that our worthy republican has not ed many friendly memorials from ours. The thought the worse of England in comparing the man"Peace-Advocate" asks :-"Who can estimate ifestoes of Polk and Peel; and when he arrives the influence of Elihu Burritt in calming down the among us, he will find, even in the dog-days, that the fiery spirits of America to their present tempera-people of England have no belligerent passions to ture? For surely the writer, who, through the late tempestuous period, has been pouring his arguments for peace into a million of minds every week, [probably two millions,] as it is estimated he has done through his Olive Leaves for the American press, may well be supposed to have exercised an important influence in the amelioration which has taken place.'

gratify in going to war with his country; and that all they ask of her is reason and justice.

The history of Mr. Burritt deserves to rank among the interesting literary annals of successfully self-taught men. He was born in New Britain, Connecticut, in the year 1811, of honest and respectable parents. He enjoyed the privilege of attending the district school for some months every We fear that the "cooling down" has not yet ex-year, till he was sixteen years old; and by his tended in some quarters much below fever point; diligence and attention to his studies he became and the addition of the word Mexico, to those of well versed in the elementary branches of an EngTexas and Oregon, upon the American popular lish education, and by cultivating a taste for readwar-banner, has not evinced that the mind of his ing, he acquired much valuable information. When countrymen is wholly pacific. But this is not his he arrived at the age of sixteen his father died, and fault. We doubt whether all his classical learning he was apprenticed to the trade of a blacksmith; and will dissuade his ardent compatriots from their when the term of his indenture had expired, and cherished notion that Texas, in its political etymol- he had attained his legal majority, he had gained ogy, assuredly means something which behoved to the reputation of being a young man of good moral be woven with the Union, for which purpose they and religious character, and a skilful workman in might quote Terence and Virgil—"Telam texere, his vocation, and one who cherished an ardent at"Texamus robore naves;"-or that the Oregon claim is not good Greek for coveting, and stretching out their hands and reaching after, whatever they may think it politically or commercially expedient to possess. Our Athenian blacksmith, however, spares them not; he is impartial in his censures; he excepts neither gentle nor simple,

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tachment for books. The Bible was the first book which he thoroughly studied; and at a very early age, he was familiar with almost every passage in the Old and New Testaments. He next availed himself of the opportunity of reading afforded by the "Social Library" in the town in which he lived; and afterwards was dependent on the kipi.

PEACE SOCIETIES; AND ELIHU BURRITT.

ness of his friends. Before he reached the age of | before the public as a rather ostentatious debut on twenty-one he was conversant with the English my part to the world; and I find myself involved classics, both in prose and poetry, and passed de- in a species of notoriety, not at all in consonance lightfully many of his leisure hours in poring over with my feelings. Those who have been acquaintthe pages of Milton, Young, Thomson, Cowper, ed with my character from my youth up will give Addison, &c. In the winter of the year in which me credit for my sincerity when I say, that it never he attained his majority, he commenced, under the entered my heart to blazon forth any acquisition of I had, until the unfortunate denouement direction of a brother-in-law, who was an accom- my own. plished scholar, the study of mathematics. About which I have mentioned, pursued the even tenor of the same time he entered on the study of the Latin my way unnoticed, even among my brethren and language, for the purpose of reading Virgil in the kindred. None of them ever thought that I had original. He soon after turned his attention to any particular genius, as it is called; I never French, which he mastered with wonderful facili- thought so myself. All that I have accomplished, ty. He then acquired the Spanish, and afterwards or expect or hope to accomplish, has been and will the Greek and German languages. During two be by that plodding, patient, persevering process winters he devoted nearly all his time to study, of accretion which builds the ant-heap-particle but he was occupied a large portion of his time by particle-thought by thought-fact by fact. during spring and summer in working at his trade And if I ever was actuated by ambition, its highas a blacksmith, and in this exemplary way ac-est and farthest aspiration reached no farther than the hope to set before the young men of my counquiring the means of subsistence. When about twenty-three years old, he accepted try an example in employing those fragments of an invitation" to teach a grammar-school," but time called odd moments.' And, sir, I should esthis employment did not suit his convenience or teem it an honor of costlier water than the tiara his inclination. He was then engaged for a year encircling a monarch's brow, if my future activity or two as an agent for a manufacturing company, and attainments should encourage American workwhen he returned to his anvil, and has since been ing men to be proud and jealous of the credentials industriously engaged in the occupation of a black-which God has given them to every eminence and smith, to which he was apprenticed in his youth; immunity in the empire of mind. These are the but he devotes all his leisure hours to literary pur- views and sentiments with which I have sat suits. After having mastered the Hebrew, Greek, down night by night, for years, with blistered and Latin languages, and all the languages of hands and brightening hopes, to studies which I modern Europe, he turned his attention to Oriental hoped might be serviceable to that class of the literature, and in order to avail himself of the facil- community to which I am proud to belong. This ities afforded by the valuable library of the Ameri- is my ambition. This is the goal of my aspiracan Antiquarian Society at Worcester, he removed tions. But, not only the prize, but the whole to that place, where he has ever since resided, and course lies before me, perhaps beyond my reach. been regarded as a useful and exemplary citizen. I count myself not yet to have attained' to anyHe has become a proficient in the most difficult thing worthy of public notice or private mention; languages of Asia, and in many of those languages what I may do is for Providence to determine. in Europe which are now nearly disused and obsolete-among them are Gaelic, Welsh, Celtic, Saxon, Gothic, Icelandic, Russian, Sclavonic, Armenian, Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Sanscrit, and Tamul. It was stated, in a public meeting, in 1838, by Governor Everett, that Mr. Burritt by that time, by his unaided industry alone, had made himself acquainted with fifty languages. Mr. Burritt shows no disposition to relax from his labors. He usually devotes eight hours to labor, eight hours to study, and eight hours to physical indulgence and repose; and, by pursuing this course, he enjoys the advantages-vainly coveted by many literary men-connected with "a sound mind in a healthy body." Nor does he confine his labors to the mere acquisition of literary wealth-he also diffuses it with a liberal hand. He has written many valuable articles for periodical publications; he has delivered many lectures which have been replete with interest and valuable information; and has been repeatedly listened to by large and highly respectable audiences, in New York, Philadelphia, and other places, with edification and delight. He has not yet reached the meridian of life, and it is to be hoped that many years of usefulness are still before him.

The following extract from a letter written by nim in 1839, to Dr. Nelson, a gentleman who had taken some interest in his history, displays the simple, unassuming, earnest character of the man, in a very interesting point of view.

"An accidental allusion to my history and pursuits, which I made unthinkingly, in a letter to a friend, was, to my unspeakable surprise, brought

"As you expressed a desire in your letter for
some account of my past and present pursuits, I
shall hope to gratify you on this point, and also
rectify a misapprehension which you with many
others may have entertained of my acquirements.
With regard to my attention to the languages, a
study of which I am not so fond as of mathematics,
I have tried, by a kind of practical and philosophi
cal process, to contract such a familiar acquaint-
ance with the head of a family of languages, as to
introduce me to the other members of the same
family. Thus, studying the Hebrew very criti-
cally, I became readily acquainted with its cognate
languages, among the principal of which are the
Syriac, Chaldaic, Arabic, Samaritan, Ethiopic,
&c. The languages of Europe occupied my at
tention immediately after I had finished my clas-
sics; and I studied French, Spanish, Italian, and
German, under native teachers. Afterwards, 1
pursued the Portuguese, Flemish, Danish, Swed-
ish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Welsh, Gaelic, Celtic.
I then ventured on further east into the Russian
empire; and the Sclavonic opened to me about a
dozen of the languages spoken in that vast domain,
between which the affinity is as marked as that
between the Spanish and Portuguese. Besides
I am now trying to push
those, I have attended to many different European
dialects still in vogue.
on eastward as fast as my means will permit,
hoping to discover still farther analogies among the
oriental languages, which will assist my pro-
gress."

Mr. Burritt speaks in glowing words of the
blessings in store for the world from the united

E

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