st attached to their
native soil) would not be insensible to this loss; and the Mariner, in
his thoughtful mood, would sadden under it upon the wide ocean. The
central or cardinal feeling of these thoughts may, at a future time,
furnish fit matter for the genius of some patriotic Spaniard to express
in his own noble language--as an inscription for the Sword of Francis
the First; if that Sword, which was so ingloriously and perfidiously
surrendered, should ever, by the energies of Liberty, be recovered, and
deposited in its ancient habitation in the Escurial. The Patriot will
recollect that,--if the memorial, then given up by the hand of the
Government, had also been abandoned by the heart of the People, and that
indignity patiently subscribed to,--his country would have been lost for
ever.

There are multitudes by whom, I know, these sentiments will not be
languidly received at this day; and sure I am--that, a hundred and fifty
years ago, they would have been ardently welcomed by all. But, in many
parts of Europe (and especially in our own country), men have been
pressing forward, for some time, in a path which has betrayed by its
fruitfulness; furnishing them constant employment for picking up things
about their feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds. While
Mechanic Arts, Manufactures, Agriculture, Commerce, and all those
products of knowledge which are confined to gross--definite--and
tangible objects, have, with the aid of Experimental Philosophy, been
every day putting on more brilliant colours; the splendour of the
Imagination has been fading: Sensibility, which was formerly a generous
nursling of rude Nature, has been chased from its ancient range in the
wide domain of patriotism and religion with the weapons of derision by a
shadow calling itself Good Sense: calculations of presumptuous
Expediency--groping its way among partial and temporary
consequences--have been substituted for the dictates of paramount and
infallible Conscience, the supreme embracer of consequences: lifeless
and circumspect Decencies have banished the graceful negligence and
unsuspicious dignity of Virtue.

The progress of these arts also, by furnishing such attractive stores of
outward accommodation, has misled the higher orders of society in their
more disinterested exertions for the service of the lower. Animal
comforts have been rejoiced over, as if they were the end of being. A
neater and more fertile garden; a greener field