plies, ever subject to casual failures, for articles necessary for the public defence, or connected with the primary wants of individuals. It will be an additional recommendation of particular manufactures, where the materials for them are exclusively drawn from our agriculture, and consequently impart and ensure to that great fund of national prosperity and independence, an encouragement which cannot fail to be rewarded.

Among the means of advancing the public interest, the occasion is a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to the great importance of establishing through out our country the roads and canals which can best be executed under the national authority. No objects within the circle of political economy so richly repay the expense bestowed on them: there are none, the utility of which is more universally ascertained and acknowledged: none that do more honour to the Government, whose wise and enlarged patriotism duly appreciates them. Nor is there any country which presents a field, where nature invites more the art of man, to complete her own work for his accommodation and benefit. These considerations are strength ened, moreover, by the political effect of these facilities for intercommunication, in bringing and binding more closely together the various parts of our extended confederacy. Whilst the States, individually, with a laudable enterprise and emulation avail themselves of their local advantages, by new roads, by navigable canals, and by improving the streams susceptible of navigation, the general Government is the more urged to

similar undertakings, requiring a national jurisdiction, and national means, by the prospect of thus systematically completing so inestimable a work. And it is a happy reflection, that any defect of constitutional authority which may be encountered, can be supplied in a mode which the constitution itself has providently pointed out.

The present is a favourable season also for bringing again into view the establishment of a national seminary of learning within the district of Columbia, and with means drawn from the property therein subject to the authority of the general government. Such an institution claims the patronage of Congress, as a monument of their solicitude for the advancement of knowledge, without which the blessings of liberty cannot be fully enjoyed, or long preserved; as a model instructive in the formation of other seminaries; as a nursery of enlightened preceptors; as a central resort of youth and genius from every part of their country, diffusing on their return examples of those national feelings, those liberal sentiments, and those congenial manners, which contribute cement to our union, and strength to the great political fabric, of which that is the formation.

In closing this communication, I ought not to repress a sensibility, in which you will unite, to the happy lot of our country, and to the goodness of a superintending Providence to which we are indebted for it. Whilst other portions of mankind are labouring under the distresses of war, or struggling with adversity in other forms, the United States are in

the

the tranquil enjoyment of prosperous and honourable peace. In reviewing the scenes through which it has been attained, we can rejoice in the proofs given, that our political institutions, founded in human rights, and framed for their preservation, are equal to the severest trials of war, as well as adapted to the ordinary periods of repose. As fruits of this experience, and of the reputation acquired by the American arms, on the land and on the water, the nation finds itself possessed of a growing respect abroad, and of a just confidence in itself, which are among the best pledges for its peaceful career.

Under other aspects of our country, the strongest features of its flourishing condition are seen, in a population rapidly increasing, on a territory as productive as it is extensive; in a general industry, and fertile ingenuity, which find their ample rewards; and in an affluent revenue, which admits a reduction of the public burthens without withdrawing the means of

sustaining the public credit, of gradually discharging the public debt, of providing for the necessary defensive and precautionary establishments, and of patronising, in every authorised mode, undertakings conducive to the aggregate wealth and individual comfort of our citizens.

It remains for the guardians of the public welfare, to persevere in that justice and good-will towards other nations, which invite a return of these sentiments towards the United States; to cherish institutions which guarantee their safety, and their liberties, civil and religious; and to combine with a liberal system of foreign commerce, an improvement of the natural advantages, and a protection and extension of the independent resources of our highly-favoured and happy country.

In all measures having such objects, my faithful co-operation will be afforded. JAMES MADISON. Washington, Dec. 5, 1815.

CHARACTERS.

Account of the late eminent Philologist and Critic, Professor Critic, Professor Heyne of Gottingen, from his Life published in German.

CHEYNE,

HRISTIAN GOTTLOB HEYNE, an eminent critical scholar and philologist, was born at Chemnitz, in September 1729. In his younger years he had to struggle against the pressure of extreme poverty. His parents, who subsisted by the linen manufacture, were exceedingly indigent, and according to his own emphatic account, the first impressions on his mind were made by the tears of his mother, lamenting that she was not able to find bread for her children." He was, however, sent to a common school in his native place, where he shewed great aptitude for learning, and soon made so much progress, that in his tenth year he gave lessons in reading and writ ing to a female child of a neigh bour, in order that he might obtain money to defray the expense of his own education. By the friendship of a clergyman, who had been one of his godfathers, he was enabled to enter himself

at the grammar-school. He now applied with the greatest diligence, and having acquired a competent knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, was sent to the university of Leipsic, where he soon attracted the notice of professors Christ, Ernesti, and Winkler. On the recommendation of Ernesti, he obtained the situation of private tutor in the family of a French merchant, but only for a short period, and therefore he was obliged to support himself in the best manner he could by private teaching. Having made choice of the law for a profession, he endeavoured to become thoroughly acquainted with. the Roman law, literature, and history. The knowledge acquired in this manner enabled him afterwards to give lectures to the students of jurisprudence on the Roman antiquities, which were received with great approbation. A Latin elegy which he wrote on the death of Lacoste, preacher of the French reformed congregation, attracted the notice of the Saxon minister, Count Bruhl, and procured him an invitation to Dresden, to which he repaired in

April

April 1752, elated with hope, and experienced a very favourable reception; but though the most flattering promises were made to him, they terminated in disappointment, and his situation would have been highly unpleasant, had he not obtained the place of tutor to a young gentleman, which enabled him to spend the winter in comfort, till 1753, when he was again thrown out of employment. About this time he seems to have been reduced to a state of the utmost distress. Such was his poverty, that he was obliged to sell his books to prevent himself from starving; and pea-shells, which he collected and boiled, were on many occasions his only food. As he had no lodging, a young clergyman, named Sonntagg, with whom he had formed an acquaintance, took pity on his condition, and gave him a share of his apartment, where he slept on the bare boards, with a few books to supply the place of a pillow. At length, after much solicitation, he was admitted as a copyist into the Bruhlian library, at a bare salary of a hundred dollars per annum. As this appointment was not sufficient to preserve him from want, necessity compelled him to become a writer. His first attempt was a translation of a French novel; and in the same year he gave a translation of "Chariton's History of Chærea and Callirrhoe," a Greek romance brought to light a few years before by Dorville, and illustrated by a learned commentary. It deserves to be remarked, that it was here that he first manifested that taste for criticism by which he was afterwards so much distin

guished. "In the false and corrupted passages, I have assumed," says the translator," true critical freedom; and supplied, corrected, and amended, according to my own ideas. In doing this, I enjoyed the infinite pleasure, which a young critic feels when he thinks he is able to amend." These early productions appeared without his name. His next work was an edition of Tibullus. It was dedicated to Count Bruhl, and though it met with no particular notice, either from him or the German literati, it excited considerable attention in foreign countries, and served to make the name of the critic much better known. Having found in the Electoral library a manuscript of Epictetus, which he collated, he was thence led to a more critical examination of the work of that philosopher, and soon found, particularly by studying the Commentary of Simplicius, that an extensive field was here open for the labours of the critic." His first edition of Epictetus, which appeared in 1756, afforded a decisive proof of his profound knowledge in the Greek, and induced him to make himself better acquainted with the principles of the Stoic philosophy. Though classical literature formed the principal object of his research, he had not devoted himself to that branch exclusively. In the Bruhlean library he found abundance of works on the English and French literature, and he read with great attention the classical productions of both these nations: About this time he became acquainted with the celebrated Winkelmann, who frequented the

library,

library, and who was then on the point of undertaking a tour to Italy. Heyne, however, notwithstanding all his exertions, continued to labour under the oppression of poverty, and his situation was rendered still worse by the incursion of the Prussians into Saxony. When the Prussian troops took possession of Dresden, Count Bruhl, who was the chief object of Frederick's resentment, was obliged to fly for shelter to Augustus King of Poland, upon which his palace was de stroyed and his library dispersed. None suffered more on this occasion than those who were in the Count's service; and as they were deprived of their salaries, the source from which Heyne had hitherto derived a scanty maintenance was entirely dried up. He endeavoured, therefore, to relieve his wants by translating political pamphlets from the French, but the small pittance which this produced afforded very little, relief. In the autumn of the year 1757 he was again reduced to a most forlorn condition, but was so fortunate as to obtain, through the means of Rabener, a place as tutor in a family, where he became acquainted with a lady named Theresa Weiss, whom he afterwards married. His pupil having gone to the university of Wittenberg, Heyne repaired thither himself in the month of January 1759, and resumed his academic studies, which he prosecuted with more advantage than before, applying chiefly to philosophy and the German history. In the year following, a residence at Wittenberg having become insecure, he retired to some distance in the

country, but soon after returned to Dresden, where he witnessed the horrors of the bombardment in the month of July, during which he was exposed to the most imminent danger, In the year following, Heyne married the object of his affections, and in 1763 he was invited to Gottingen to the vacant professorship of John Matthias Gesner. He entered on his new office with an inaugural discourse, "De veris bonarum artium literarumque incrementis ex libertate publica;" which was followed by a classical dissertation, on announcing the aniversary of the university, and the festival on account of peace, "De genio sæ culi Ptolemæorum." Before the end of the year he read his first paper as a member of the Society of the Sciences, entitled " Temporum mythicorum memoria a corruptelis nonnullis vindicata." His first academic lectures were Horace, the Georgics of Virgil, and some parts of the tragic writers. In 1766 he explained the Iliad, and afterwards the Greek antiquities and archæology. Heyne's new situation, as it afforded him considerable leisure, enabled him to resume his labours as a writer, which domestic circumstances, during the first years of his residence at Gottingen, rendered more necessary; and he published a translation of the first seven parts of Guthrie's and Gray's History of the World, but with such additions and improvements, that it might be called an original work. After this employment, he returned to the La tian Muses, and in 1767 published the first part of his Virgil, which was followed by the other parts,

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