body, by shaking and trembling, by faintings and convulsions, and sometimes by excessive bleedings at the nose. Our every-day experience of the effects of revivals, "protracted," and camp meetings, freely confirms the truth of these statements. The fanatic preacher, insensible to the sweet influences of the meek spirit and gentle charities of our Saviour's gospel of love, skilled in the dialectics of the raw head and bloody bones" school of eloquence, appeals to the fears and passions of an ignorant audience, thunders out his anathemas and stern denunciations, and pictures to them in awfully vivid colors, "the burning gulf," the fiery hell," " the unquenchable flame," and "the unceasing torments," the terrors that await them in another world. Thus are their bodies and minds tortured into disease of the direst kind. Thus are made unnumbered victims of convulsions, idiocy, madness, bedlam and the church-yard. Of the influence of study and the exercise of the intellectual powers upon the physical functions, our author remarks:

"It is an opinion not uncommonly entertained, that studious habits, or intellectual pursuits, tend necessarily to injure

the health and abbreviate the term of life

that mental labors are ever prosecuted at the expense of the body, and must consequently hasten its decay. Such a result, however, is by no means essential, unless the labors be urged to an injudicious excess, when, of course, as in all overstrained exertions, whether of body or mind, various prejudicial efforts may be naturally anticipated."

The justice of this view is substantiated by the fact of the long life of many devoted to literary occupations. Boerhave lived to seventy years of age, Locke to seventy-three, Galileo to seventy-eight, Sir Edward Coke to eighty-four, Newton to eighty-five, and Fontenelle to a hundred. Leibnitz, Volney, Buffon and others, lived to very advanced ages. Many of the greatest men of our own country, as Chief Justice Marshall, Jefferson, Franklin, Jay and others, lived the lives of patriarchs. There seems but little question that a certain extent of mental activity is beneficial to the health, and that the degree of intellectual exertion that can be healthfully

sustained depends much upon the original constitution of the mind and the force of physical energy which accomFanies it. Dr. Sweetser is disposed to think that the injurious effect of study upon the physical health is exaggerated, and that the disease which is often the accompaniment of a studious life arises from the transgression of the obvious laws of a judicious hygiene. That disorders of the digestive functions are more frequent in our academic institutions than in those abroad, is a well recognized fact-that there exists a perfect disregard of physical education, is equally well established. It is not so in the universities abroad. The ablest wrangler in the halls of Trinity or the first classic of Christ Church, is not seldom the boldest swimmer and the stoutest oarsman of the Cam and Isis.

It would appear from the statistics collected by Dr. Madden, in his interesting book on the Infirmities of Genius, that certain intellectual pursuits are more conducive to long life than others; that the average age of the Natural Philosophers is seventy-five years, being the greatest, and that of the Poets fifty-seven, being the smallest. Those studies which draw most largely on the imagination, seem less favorable demand the exercise of the dispassionto long life than those which simply

ate reason.

Our author remarks judiciously and with force upon the blighting influence of a too premature intellectual education. It would be well for every parent to mark well and digest his pertinent observations upon this subject. The hot-bed system of education, which is too prevalent among us, is a crying evil. There is nothing so injurious to the physical health and vigor, as the forcing prematurely the mind, while the body is in its youth and weakened by the demand upon its strength for growth and development. It does much towards filling the churchyard with the youthful dead.

"Præcocibus mors ingeniis est invida semper."

Youthful prodigies of learning are too often youthful prodigies of disease.

"Premature and forced exertions of the mental faculties must always be at the

enfeebled by overlabor and digestion, impaired by indulgence, finds his appetite improve, and his capacity for food increase, by attention to style and elegance in the serving of his dishes, while a plain and inelegant simplicity which appeals only to the grossness of a hungry appetite, fails to excite a desire, if it does not produce a positive disgust. In sickness, the delicate fastidiousness of the patient often interferes with the operation of a nauseous medicine, and frequently great anxiety for the peculiar operation of a remedy prevents its action. In fever, the symptoms increase in intensity by the most ordinary excitement of the mind. Often, the confidence inspired by the gold-headed cane and wise Burleigh nod of the physician, exerts a more excellent influence than the most efficacious of remedies. When the body is weakened by disease, and the powers of life almost stilled, a sudden arousing of the mind will give renewed vigor to the wasted frame, cause the blood to course more freely through the veins, and bestow the physical energy of health upon a system suffering previously from the debility of disease.

"When the mind is quicken'd, out

Haller quotes a case of gout cured by a fit of anger. The severest toothache not unfrequently departs, upon the approach of a dentist armed with a formidable wrench. The most whimsical remedies have proved efficacious in cramp; and many other diseases have been unable to resist a necklace of toads, rings of coffin nails, and such epicurean niceties as gladiator's blood, raw liver, and vultures' brains. Intermittent fevers have been cured by the swallowing of live spiders, of the snuff of the candle, and by charms of various contrivance. We doubt whether such remedies would prove equally efficacious at the present day; but assuredly, human nature is not so far changed, as to be insusceptible of the same mental effects as those to which such cures are traceable.

The extensive resources which the fine arts disclose, might be made liberal use of as a means of curing disease. Music, whose influence is so powerful on the mental emotions, would prove a fruitful source of useful remedy. We have ancient authority in favor of its employment. Pythagoras directs certain mental disorders to be treated by music. Thales cured a disastrous pestilence by its means. Martinius Capella affirms that fevers were thus removed. Aulus Gellius tells us that a case of sciatica was cured by the influence of sweet sounds, and Theophrastus maintains that the bites of serpents and other venomous reptiles We find it stated in a late medical can be relieved by similar means. journal, that the convulsive movements in a case of St. Vitus's dance were completely under the control of music, that they were quickened and increased by rapid and stirring tunes, subdued and repressed by slow and gentle airs.

It is a question of deep interest to the medical philosopher, how far the constitution of modern society affects tion of life. "It is not the direct and the production of disease and the duraknown risks to our health," says a late writer in Blackwood, "which act with the most fatal effects, but the semi-conscious condition, the atmosphere of circumstances, with which artificial life surrounds us. The great cities of Europe, perhaps London above

all others, under the modern modes of life and business, create a vortex of preternatural tumult, a rush and frenzy of excitement which is fatal to far more than are heard of as express victims to that system." Existence in the active world of a large city necessarily involves, as society is now constituted, such a degree of mental wear and tear, that the most robust physical organization cannot long sustain it without suffering. The excitement of politics, trade and commerce, the intellectual efforts of the statesman to meet the demands of his high station, the anxieties of the great merchant whose millions are at stake, stimulate the mind to such activity, that disease is inevitable. Nervous affections, disorders of the brain and insanity, seem the almost unavoidable evils of our higher civilisation.* Those facts, if true of older countries, apply with tenfold more force to society as organized in America. The very spirit of our institutions urging to constant progression, the frequency of political change, the absence of fixedness of social position, the rich man of to-day being the poor man of to-morrow, the continuous struggle for advancement, the prize being accessible to all, the disenthralment from antiquated modes of thought and the universal spirit of free inquiry, beget an unrest unknown to more ancient forms of society. It is not surprising, then, that insanity, nervous diseases and the disorders of the digestive functions, the frequent effects of excessive mental activity, should abound to such an extent among us.

To counteract the morbid influence upon health of the mental restlessness of our community, men's minds must be diverted from

"The passions and cares that wither life;"

the anxieties, the toil and trouble of business, and relaxed by the healthful influence of the gentler emotions. To promote this end, the most efficacious

means seems to be an extension of the taste for pleasures of an elevated character.

There is a great want of capacity among us for the right enjoyment of life. Surpassing all people in commercial enterprise and laborious energy, skilled beyond example in the " means and appliances" for the acquisition of wealth, we are far in the rearward of most nations in the proper appreciation of its uses. The end is lost in the struggle for the means. Living in a land where the laborer is deemed worthy of his hire, where industry meets the highest reward and the necessaries and luxuries of life are of easy attainment, we strive with a might unequalled by the want-compelling efforts of the foreign worker to whom a pause from toil is starvation. We journey along the rugged road of life, without reposing by its waysides of pleasantness and peace. Our care-worn countenances and saddened looks strike the stranger as a curious illustration of our boasted happiness. The companionable Englishman, missing among us that spirit of good fellowship which at home prompts the merry gathering and prolongs the social hour, and the pleasureloving Frenchman, feeling his holiday cheerfulness chilled by the dull monotony of our working-day life, conclude that "all work and no play" has succeeded in its legitimate effect of making Jonathan a "dull boy."

We look for a remedy to this unwise intensity of devotion to business, to the encouragement (coupled with the improvement) of the theatres, to public concerts, the founding of galleries of art, the establishment of national holidays, the promotion of social pleasures, and otherwise extending the motives which may urge to refined enjoyment. In the absence of these, the public mind will continue to seek, in the fanaticism of religion and the excitements of trade and politics, for that stimulus which serves to administer to the prevalent passion for mental intoxication.

We have heard the learned in matters relating to art, express the opinion that these United States are destined to form a new style of architecture. Remembering that a vast population, rich in material and guided by the experience, the precepts, and the models of the old world, is about to erect durable structures for every function of civilized life, we also cherished the hope that such a combination would speedily be formed.

We forgot that though the country was young, yet the people were old, that as Americans we have no childhood, no half fabulous, legendary wealth, no misty, cloud-enveloped background. We forgot that we had not unity of religious belief, nor unity of origin; that our territory, extending from the white bear to the alligator, made our occupations dissimilar, our character and tastes various. We forgot that the Republic had leaped full grown and armed to the teeth from the brain of her parent, and that a hammer had been the instrument of delivery. We forgot that reason had been the dry nurse of the giant offspring, and had fed her from the beginning with the stout bread and meat of fact; that every wry face the bantling ever made had been daguerreotyped, and all her words and deeds printed and labelled away in the pigeon-holes of official bureaux.

Reason can dissect, but cannot originate; she can adopt, but cannot create; she can modify, but cannot find. Give her but a cockboat, and she will elaborate a line of battle ship; give her but a beam with its wooden tooth, and she soon turns out the patent plough. She is not young, and when her friends insist upon the phenomena of youth, then is she least attractive. She can imitate the flush of the young cheek, but where is the flash of the young eye? She buys the teeth,-alas! she cannot buy the breath of childhood. The puny cathedral of Broadway, like an elephant dwindled to the size of a dog, measures her yearning for Gothic sublimity, while the roar of the Astor-house, and

the mammoth vase of the great reservoir, show how she works when she feels at home, and is in earnest.

The mind of this country has never been seriously applied to the subject of building. Intently engaged in matters of more pressing importance, we have been content to receive our notions of architecture as we have received the fashion of our garments, and the form of our entertainments, from Europe. In our eagerness to appropriate we have neglected to adapt, to distinguish,-nay, to understand. We have built small Gothic temples of wood, and have omitted all ornament for economy, unmindful that size, material, and ornament are the elements of effect in that style of building. Captivated by the classic symmetry of the Athenian models, we have sought to bring the Parthenon into our streets, to make the temple of Theseus work in our towns. We have shorn them of their lateral colonnades, let them down from their dignified platform, pierced their walls for light, and, instead of the storied relief and the eloquent statue which enriched the frieze, and graced the pediment, we have made our chimney tops to peer over the broken profile, aud tell by their rising smoke of the traffic and desecration of the interior. Still the model may be recognized, some of the architectural features are entire; like the captive king stripped alike of arms and purple, and drudging amid the Helots of a capital, the Greek temple as seen among us claims pity for its degraded majesty, and attests the barbarian force which has abused its nature, and been blind to its qualities.

If we trace Architecture from its perfection, in the days of Pericles, to its manifest decay in the reign of Constantine, we shall find that one of the surest symptoms of decline was the adoption of admired forms and models for purposes not contemplated in their invention. The forum became a temple, the tribunal became a temple, the theatre was turned into a church; nay,