rchs, even in more civilized countries than the land of Confucius.
"Continue," said he to the official historian, "to write the truth
without constraint. May my virtues and vices contribute to the public
utility, and be instructive to my successors. Your tribunal is free; I
will for ever protect it, and permit it to write my history with the
utmost impartiality."

It is readily admitted that the cases are not exactly parallel. Still,
the relation contains an excellent lesson, not only to princes, but to
other people. How happy would it be for the world, if we all lived
under the full persuasion of the fact, that the faithful hand of
history will not fail to send us down to posterity odious or respected,
as by our lives and conduct we shall have deserved! And if my friend
Wheelwright shall feel offended that I have kept a record of the most
striking incidents of his life, I have only to hope that he will dispel
his frowns, dismiss his objections, and, by his own example, illustrate
the value of such magnanimity as that displayed by the Emperor of China.

SOME PASSAGES

IN THE LIFE OF

MR. DANIEL WHEELWRIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

A DISQUISITION ON CIRCLES.

"In _circle_ following _circle_."

The horse at the cider-mill; the mules in the press-room of the
American Tract Society; and the watchman who walks his drowsy round
until he falls asleep; are not the only beings that spend their lives
in traversing a circle. As the curve is the true line of beauty, and as
the circle in Egyptian hieroglyphics is ever used as the symbol of
renewed life--the type or sign of the generative principle--so the
motion produced by the _centripetal_ and _centrifugal_ forces, seems
to be that of nature. We are often told of the never-ending domestic
duties of the faithful housewife, doomed--

"To tread the same dull circle round and round;"--

The parson often discourses touching the round of his parochial duties;
and who does not sympathize with the diurnal editor at the thought of
the harassing duties devolving upon him, "in circles incessant." The
man of the world, and the sensualist, dance the giddy round of pleasure.
The judge goes his circuit, to bring men to justice in this world, and
the self-denying missionary traverses his, to save them from it in the
next. It is very true that the periphery of the circles traversed by
some persons and objects, is greater than that of others. One man walks
the circumference of h