It is unnecessary to recapitulate the horrid scenes of the Carnatic, of St. Domingo, of the Russian Provinces in the late war with France, of Scio, of the Morea, and of other parts of Greece in the recent Greek war. On few has the hand of war borne more heavily than on the cultivators of the soil; and perhaps in no period of the world have they suffered more than in the last half century. In peaceful countries the husbandman quietly moves behind his plough, or tends his flock in the shade of his native hills, but when war rages it is too often the case, that they find themselves without flocks, fields, or home. With hearts bleeding under the experience of human crime and cruelty, they are obliged to adopt the language of Virgil's unfortunate shepherds,

"Nos patriæ fines et dulcia linquimus arva.”

II,-Not to speak of the useful arts, which, although less splendid in their pretensions, are not less propitious in their influence on the progress of civilization, it will surely not be maintained, that war has been otherwise than unfavorable to the progress of the fine arts, sculpture, painting, architecture, and the like. The time has been, when Athens and Corinth, not to mention other distinguished cities of Greece, displayed the proud testimonials of their refinement in their temples, paintings, and statues. And we know not, that any satisfactory reason can be given, why it is not now as it was then, except it be the devastations of war. In the year 410, the city of Rome was taken and pillaged by the Goths and Huns of Alaric. After the streets had been strewed with the dead of every age and condition, a violent assault was commenced upon the works of art.-"The palaces of Rome, (says Gibbon in his history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,) were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture. The sideboards of massy plate, and the variegated wardrobes of

silk and purple, were irregularly piled in the waggons, that always followed the march of a Gothic army. The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled or wantonly destroyed; many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious materials; and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of the battle-axe.”—And yet Gibbon gives his readers to understand, and Robertson does not hesitate to confirm the statement, that far greater outrages than these were committed, when at a much later period the city of Rome was assaulted, and during several months was subjected to every species of cruelty and depredation by the soldiers of Charles V. So far as we have been able to perceive, the works of art have not, in any country or in any age of the world, been respected by the invading and conquering army, whenever the removal or demolition of them was supposed to promote their objects. Mr. Southey in his History of the Peninsular War, speaking of the Castle of Benevento, which he represents as superior to any thing of the kind in England, observes; "Every thing combustible was seized. Fires were lighted against these fine walls; and pictures of unknown value, the works perhaps of the greatest Spanish masters, and those of other great painters, who left so many of their finest productions in Spain, were heaped together as fuel.”* And what is remarkable, this was done, not by the enemies of Spain, but by those English allies, who had come to defend her. So late as the year 1814, the British army, that entered the city of Washington, burnt down the Capitol, the President's House, and the public Offices, destroying with them the national library, and a multitude of papers and documents of great value in a civil and historical point of view.

*As quoted in the Harbinger of Peace, vol. I. p. 47.

III,-Science and literature too, as well as the arts, suffer from a state of war. It is, indeed, said one of the philosophers of Germany, that he calmly pursued his researches in the immediate neighborhood of the battle of Jena, undisturbed by the horrors around him. And there is an old story of Archimedes, (whether true or false is of but little consequence in the present inquiry,) that he was deeply engaged in solving a mathematical problem, ignorant of the fact that Syracuse had been assaulted and taken by the Romans. But however this may be, no one will prétend, that the ability to engage the mind in philosophic and literary researches at such a time is often possessed. It is absurd to suppose, that the intellect can be kept steadily and profitably at work, while the heart is excited and rent by the angry passions. And such a state of excitement and anger is almost always attendant upon war, even when its thunders are heard at a distance, and its fires do not smite upon our own favored dwellings.

The history of all literature abundantly shows, that quietude and retirement are favorable to the developements of refined intellect. It was amid the shades of Mantua, that Virgil composed the Æneid; it was in the solitary vales of Vaucluse, that Petrach drew the breath of poetic inspiration; it was when blindness and misfortune had driven the great Milton into the depths of retirement, and not amid the bustle of politics and the conflict of arms, that he wrote his Paradise Lost.-But we will not pursue this interesting topic further than merely to add, that it is an ancient idea, almost as old as the world itself, and is no doubt, founded on observation and reflection, that the Muses, prompted by the instincts of their own high nature, flee from confusion and strife. If those, who have solicited their favor, have not mistaken their character, they seek retirement; the bustle and

turmoil of arms grate horrible discord to their ears; they love to listen to rural sounds, the breath of winds, and the dash of waterfalls; they delight in the solitude of forests and the contemplative silence of Ægerian grottos.

IV,-Civilization may be understood to suffer in all cases, where there is an interruption of the principles and institutions of Social life. And this is always the case in that numerous class of wars, more cruel and terrific as a general thing than any others, denominated Civil Wars. Look into the Jewish and Roman wars of this description; and see how family ties were sundered; mark how brother was arrayed against brother, and father was arrayed against son. We have already given instances from Tacitus; the following, of an earlier date but of the same character, is from Valerius Maximus. "The father of Caius Toranius, (says this historian,) had been proscribed by the triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to the interests of that party, discovered to the officers, who were in pursuit of his father's life, the place where he concealed himself, and gave them withal a description, by which they might distinguish his person when they found him. The old man, more anxious for the safety and fortunes of his son, than about the little that might remain of his own life, began immediately to inquire of the officers who seized him, whether his son was well, whether he had done his duty to the satisfaction of his generals? "That son," replied one of the officers, "so dear to thy affections, betrayed thee to us; by his information thou art apprehended, and diest." The officer with this struck a poniard to his heart, and the unhappy parent fell, not so much affected by his fate, as by the means to which he owed it. "* We see here the effect of war upon social life; how it enters into the sacred retreat of families; how it sunders *As quoted and translated by Paley, Mor. Philos. Bk. I, Ch. 5.

the most sacred ties; and converts bosoms, that were formed for mutual love, into the repository of the most hateful passions. What was the condition of social life and of social institutions in France during the progress of the French Revolution! Every man stood in fear of his neighbour; the great principle of sociality was broken at the fountain; suspicion, and mistrust, and terror were written upon every countenance; the smile that enlightened the domestic hearth was quenched; even the members of the same family lost confidence in each other; they wrapt themselves up in a jealous and inhospitable selfishness, to the exclusion of those tender and amiable sentiments which are the basis of social happiness; one dark image constantly haunted their troubled imaginations, the vision of the Revolutionary Tribunal and the spectre of the bloody Guillotine. The French invasion of Russia in 1812 furnishes abundant instances of the effect of war upon the social feelings. "Hence forward, (says Count Segur,) there was no fraternity in arms, there was an end to all society, to all ties; the excess of evils had brutified them. Hunger, devouring hunger, had reduced these unfortunate men to the brutal instinct of self preservation, the only understanding of the most ferocious animals, and which is ready to sacrifice every thing to itself. A rough and barbarous nature seemed to have communicated to them all its fury. Like savages, the strongest despoiled the weakest; they rushed round the dying, and frequently waited not for their last breath. When a horse fell, you might have fancied you saw a famished pack of hounds. They surrounded him, they tore him to pieces, for which they quarrelled among themselves like ravenous dogs."

V,-The Religious life and Religious institutions, which constitute another of the great elements of CIVILIZATION, as well as the social life and social institutions,