e
when Indians were in the neighborhood of the first town that was
settled.

As a pendant to this, we may mention something connected with the
originals of that other continent which our race is peopling at the
antipodes. A few weeks ago, we were dining at the table of a naval
officer, well known in the scientific and literary world, upon which
occasion he mentioned, that being off the infant town of Sydney, in New
South Wales, in the year 1806, he ate some of the first home-bred
bullock which was killed in the colony. The son of the first governor
having just returned from the colony, which he had now made his home,
happening to be of our party, added, that "since that time their
progress had been so rapid, that this year they were to melt down two
million sheep for their tallow."

There are three events in the history of the world which will bear
comparison with this rapid extension of the English race. The first--and
this has always appeared to us to be the most striking occurrence in
history--is the marvelous manner in which a handful of Greeks, under
Alexander and his successors, overran and held for a long period the
whole of the East. The wonder is increased when we consider the
difficulty of maintaining communications in that part of the world.
They, in a great measure, changed the language and ideas of the East.
The Gospel was written in Greek; and the law of Moses, the writings of
the Hebrew prophets, were translated into Greek on the banks of the
Nile. A Greek kingdom was ever able to maintain itself for a long period
of time on the very confines of Tartary; and specimens of the
Graeco-Bactrian coinage are even to this day abundant in that part of the
world. All this, however, passed away, and has not left any very obvious
traces on the present state of things. The second event was the
establishment of the Roman empire. Strongly as we are disposed to
maintain that, on a general view of human affairs, every thing happens
for the best, yet we may say of the Roman empire that it was in many
respects a giant evil. No man of great original genius ever spoke the
Roman language; in the sense in which many Greeks, and among ourselves
Bacon, Shakspeare, and Newton, were men of original genius. There was a
time when there were men of spirit and ability in every Greek city:
there was a time when the Roman empire governed the world and there was
not one great man from Britain to the Euphrates. Having fulfilled its
des