You remember the tale of Polycrates.  He was the happiest of men; good luck attended every one of his steps; success crowned all he undertook, and a friend thus spoke to him:  “Thou art too happy for thy happiness to last.  Appease the anger of the Eumenides by a voluntary sacrifice, or deprive thyself of what thou most valuest among all that thou possessest.”  Polycrates obeyed, and drew from his finger a precious jewel, of immense value, dear to his heart, and threw it into the sea.  Soon after a fish was brought to his house, and his cook found the precious ring in the belly of the fish; but the friend who advised him hastened to flee from the house, and shook the dust of its threshold from his shoes, because he feared a great mischief must fall upon that too prosperous house.  There is a deep meaning in that tale of Polycrates.

Machiavel says, that it is now and then necessary to recall the constituting essential principles to the memory of nations.  And who is charged by Providence with this task?  Misfortune!  It was the battles of Cannae and of Thrasymene which recalled the Romans to the love of their fatherland; nations had till now, about such things, no other teacher than misfortune.  They should choose to have a less afflicting one.  They can have it.  To point this out will be the final object of my remarks, but so much is certain, that prosperity alone is yet no security for the future, even of the happiest commonwealth.  Those ancient nations have been also prosperous.  They were industrious, as your nation is; their land has been covered with cities and villages, well-cultivated fields, blessed with the richest crops, and crowded with countless herds spread over immense territories, furrowed with artificial roads; their flourishing cities swarmed with artists, and merchants, and workmen, and pilots, and sailors, like as New York does.  Their busy labourers built gigantic water-works, digged endless canals, and carried distant waters through the sands of the desert; their mighty, energetic spirit built large and secure harbours, dried the marshy lakes, covered the sea with vessels, the land with living beings, and spread a creation of life and movement along the earth.  Their commerce was broad as the known world.  Tyre exchanged its purple for the silk of Serica; Cashmere’s soft shawls, to-day yet a luxury of the wealthiest, the diamonds of Golconda, the gorgeous carpets of Lydia, the gold of Ophir and Saba, the aromatic spices and jewels of Ceylon, and the pearls and perfumes of Arabia, the myrrh, silver, gold dust, and ivory of Africa, as well as the amber of the Baltic and the tin of Thule, appeared alike in their commerce, raising them in turn to the dominion of the world, and undoing them by too careless prosperity.  The manner and the shape of one or the other art, of one or other industry, has changed; the steam-engine has replaced the rowing-bench, and cannon replaced the catapult; but, as a whole, even your country,