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Nihil est quod est mame humanâ laboratum quod non aliquando ad interitum redigitur, vel injuriâ haminum, vel ipsâ interfect[ive] omnium, vetustate.

However pleasant to look on, may be the works of art, with which we are surrounded, we must be struck with a degree of melancholy, at the inevitable fate that awaits them. For nothing formed by the human hand, can possibly withstand desolations of time; And frequently the evil passions of men are the distroyers of their own works. How many Cities have risen in ages past? astonished the world by their d grandeur, and then sunk into obscurity? Let Rome be scited for an example; yes, Rome! built on seven hills*; defended by majestic walls and numerous towers; Rome! enclosing 420 elegant temples of the Gods, spacious public buildings, and magnificent palaces! That famous city which gave habitions to 4000,000 of inhabitants, from among whom issued armies that terrefied neibouring nations, and planted the Roman eagle in triumph over adjacent cities. Here was the Campus Martius! adorned with statues, columns, arches, and porticoes; frequented for the pleasantness of its situation, and its convinience for public assemblies. Here, on mount Palatinus, stood the Palatium of Romulus, and the succeeding emperors of Rome. Here also, rose with magnificent grandeur towards the heavens, the celebrated Capitolium, rich almost to incredability. But her glory is no longer more -

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what she was. Her enimies have frequently pillaged her of her wealth, and laid her low with destructive flame; and although she posseses relicks of ancient beauties, she is fast dcaying, and her inhabitants decreasing. The case of Jerusalem would conferm the subject before us. She once was among the 1^th Cities of the world; her spacious temple for worship of the true God, was one of the most elegant dsplay of architecture ever accoumplished by human art. Her hundred towers poui pointed pompously to the clouds, and repeatedly secured her inhabitants againce the furyies of invading foes. The [walls] were high and commanding. The buidings, both private and publick, numerous and elegant. To the distant spectator, she presented an aspect grand and sublime. But now, how changed: how has she become desolated: where now is she of whom it was said by an inspired poet; “beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the side of the C aarth, the City of the great King”? Ah! Hierosolyma fuit! Attacted by the Titus Vespatian, her walls, after a cruel siege, were razed from their foundations and her buildings destroyed. So true it is that human labor are destined to decay. From the past ma we may learn, what the future, in respect to things of this kind, certainly will be. Our own City must yield to the fate of former ones. The

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elegant dome at the south, whose spire is elivated upwards with rare sublimity, and the no less beautiful, though less spacious fabrick at the [noth], alike the pride of their visitants, and the arnaments of the town, must become impared by years, if not reduced before, by the unresistable torch of Vulcan: And thees numerous private dwellings, however strong now to appearance, and however welllaid their foundations, must be swept away by the flood of years.

May 13, 1824 E. Mitchell

1824

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