Having passed the night on the same spot as on their ascent, where they found their companions, they arrived the next day at noon at the convent of St. James, and on the following day, Sunday, the 28th of September, O. S., they offered their grateful thanksgiving to Heaven for the success of their arduous enterprise, perhaps not far from the spot where "Noah built an altar to the Lord." Doubts were soon raised of his having really reached the summit. Many orthodox Armenians had expressed their doubt even before he left the country, and it being afterwards publicly asserted by an eminent scientific man that it was impossible, the professor found it expedient to request that all persons in that country who had taken part in the expedition might be examined on oath, and he has inserted their depositions at full length confirming their statements.1 A Mr. Antonomoff, a young man holding an office in Armenia, ascended Mount Ararat, in the middle of August, 1834, partly to satisfy his own curiosity, and partly out of regard to the reputation of Parrot, in reference to whom it is still obstinately denied that he ever reached the summit. Mr. Antonomoff found that the large cross set up by Parrot was nearly covered with snow; the smaller cross planted on the summit was not to be found, and was probably buried in the snow. One of his guides, who had accompanied Parrot, showed him the spot where it had been set up. On descending, he was called to meet with the same obstinate and foolish incredulity. We have understood that the same incredulity exists among the English gentlemen at Tebriz. There is obviously no ground for doubt. No narrative of the kind has more internal proofs of being entirely trust-worthy. ARTICLE V. THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF AMERICAN MIND. By Rev. David Peabody, Worcester, Mass. DEVOTION to works of practical utility seems to have been a striking feature of the Saxon race, ever since their character was distinctly developed by the progress of civilization. While the Germans in general have been chiefly remarkable for patient study, for profound research, for abstruse speculation and critical analysis in all subjects which can afford materiel slight or solid for intellect to work upon; and the French have addicted themselves very much to the pursuit of the agreeable, the beautiful, the exhilarating in manners, literature, and life; the English have been distinguished rather for sober and laborious attention to whatever is substantially useful to man as an intellectual, social, and religious being. They, it is true, have not neglected the elegancies of life and letters, nor the pursuits of science and the arts; but, a matter which demands special notice, as it is worthy of high praise,-they have left on them all, or with few exceptions, the strong impress of a passion for utility. And for the Americans we may, perhaps without vanity, challenge the honor of having improved somewhat on the parent English utilitarian character. Indeed such were the circumstances of our origin and our entire history as a people, that it had been unpardonable in us not to have added something to this character for completeness and perfection. The principles of our honored fathers,we speak of the first settlers of New England especially-were, all strictly utilitarian principles. They were the living growth of hearts that panted not for ease, for pleasure, for splendor, nor for power, but for the attainment and permanent security of that which should be in the highest degree and on the broadest scale useful--useful not for one age, but for all subsequent time. Whatever feelings of regret those men of sacred and sainted memory may have experienced, as they parted from their native shore, and saw for the last time its temples, towers and palaces fading from their view,—it was not for the loss of monuments of elegance and grandeur like these, that they sorrowed. VOL. VII. No. 22. 53 And whatever sinking of heart they may have felt as they entered the wilderness and gathered their little ones about them at their log-cabin fireside, and heard the famished wolf howl at the ill-secured door,-it was not so much that they were discouraged by the hardness of their lot, as anxious for the success of the great practical experiment which was here to be tried. Their eye was fixed on objects of substantial good; and from the tinsel and glitter of life, from every thing not connected with the high destinies of men, they turned away with even more perhaps than merited contempt. That spirit of guarded and single devotion to the great good of man, they scrupulously cherished. It moulded all their plans and governed all their conduct. Under its influence they may have fallen into serious mistakes, as what enthusiastic votaries to a great enterprise have not?—but it laid the foundation of a noble character both in them and their posterity. That spirit they bequeathed to their children. The circumstances of the country were all adapted to foster it. No opportunity was afforded for the cultivation of the graceful, the elegant, the refined. An unbroken forest to be cleared away, a hard soil to be made productive, protection to be secured from an ungenial climate, and at length from hostile and blood thirsty neighbors, and all this with small resources and small sympathy except from a few, at a distance of three thousand, equal to the present distance of ten thousand, miles, demanded exclusive attention to the practical. Thus the character of New England, and with some qualification we may say, of the United States has been formed. And though the harsher features have been not a little softened, still the grand, pervading peculiarity remains in a good degree unchanged. Characteristic of the English in general, a taste or passion for the practically useful is a still stronger element of character under the influences to which it has been subjected in the new world; and of all questions, Cui bono is the most natural and familiar to a New England mind. Our present purpose is to suggest a few brief considerations, illustrative of the position which has been assumed ;—that the distinguishing element, or feature rather of American mind and character, is a passion for the practical and useful. And in these considerations, we shall refer to the three grand developements of mind and character, in Literature, in the Arts, and in Religion. The Literature of a people is the embodying of that people's mind, the stamped medallion of its character. This is true, to a larger extent of the fresh literature of an existing people, than of the antique remains of nations known only in the records of the past. These remains usually form but a small part of the whole; and it may not unfrequently happen that they form that part which is least distinctly marked of all with any national peculiarities. They are like the more precious chrystalizations that alone survive the corrosion of time, while the coarser rock in which they were embedded, and which was a far truer index of the qualities of the surrounding soil, is crumbled away. They present but a deceptive sample of the mass of the original materiel; and a still more deceptive expression of the condition of popular mind, taste, and manners. There is, perhaps, only one work, (the Iliad,) not professedly a full delineation of national peculiarities, which can be confidently relied on as, in the main, a true and faithful exhibition of whatever was visible and tangible in the characteristic features of a distant age. At all events, such works are rare. And, in truth, even here, no small allowance is to be made for the license of the poet, a license claimed too, it is suspected, by the ancient historian, in "accommodating," if Bacon may define," the shows of things to the wishes of the mind." But a literature fresh and new, the living product of living genius, a growth that has shot forth spontaneously under existing influences, exhibits the fibre, the nerve, the very life-blood, with fac-simile exactness, of the mind and character of the people among whom and for whom it exists. Here then can be no deception; and the image and superscription are often too faithfully true. If, now, we look at the great body of American literature, and here we speak of literature in its broadest sense, we shall be struck with its practical character, as a distinctive and prominent peculiarity. In this view, it differs widely from that of every other country, not excepting even Britain herself. In speculative science, in the higher walks of natural and intellectual philosophy, and in classical criticism, we have attempted nothing, and of course accomplished nothing worthy of honorable consideration. These fields we have scarcely entered,. except merely to glean from the results of foreign labors. The names of Kant, of Locke and Brown, of Coleridge and Cousin, form a constellation in which no American star appears. If it should be said that Edwards deserves to be ranked among them, who, whatever may be thought of his theology, is acknowledged by all to stand in the very first rank of metaphysicians; a moment's attention will show that he is to be regarded rather as a practical than a speculative writer even in his metaphysics; for he wrote with an aim at immediate practical effect, in the explosion of certain metaphysical theories which he thought at variance with practical religion. It need not be said that our country has furnished no name that for patient research and original discoveries in mathematics and the physical world, deserves to be associated with the names of Newton and Laplace, or of Herschel, Cuvier, and many others of less distinction. Nor can we boast of a single laurel gathered in the fields of classical criticism. Our scholars, content with the commentaries of European scholiasts, have never sought the honor of adding to the ponderous tomes already written, to supply the chasms and explain the obscurities of the ancient poets, which when supplied and explained would require as many volumes more to determine their practical value. In fact we have had none of those whom with a somewhat different application, Cowper calls "Learned philologists, who chase A panting syllable through time and space, To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah's ark. The learning which has been most cultivated among us, is that which the same poet describes as "Learning without pretence, The friend of truth, the associate of sound sense; Strong judgment laboring in the Scripture mine, Few among us have aspired to high distinction in the department of fine-writing, taste, and belles lettres literature. If any have endeavored to imitate the Addisons of English prose, it has been generally less as fine writers to please, than as efficient moralists to instruct the age-a praise which must indeed be awarded to the model as well as the imitators; less in those qualities which gratify the ear and delight the imagination, than in those which make a practical appeal to the business and bosoms of men. Here, mere taste has comparatively few votaries; and |