energetic-for the men of America are self-made men and gather no honor from birth but the broad, proud honor of citizenship in a country where not a lord nor a lordling, as such, can throw contempt over their plebeian origin.

But, as examples speak more persuadingly than precepts, we propose, in the future numbers of the Monthly Repository, to present lively and brief original sketches of American character-the characters of men who have grown up and flourished, or are now flourishing, in the midst of us, and under the genuine influence of republican institutions. Such models we need not fear to place before the mental vision of our youthful readers, and say to them, these are the jewels of America

YOUTH AND MANHOOD.

As in the succession of the seasons each, by the invariable laws of nature, affects the productions of what is next in course, so in human life every period of our age, according as it is well or ill spent, influences the happiness of that which is to follow. Virtuous youth generally brings forward accomplished and flourishing manhood; and such manhood passes off itself without uneasiness into respectable and tranquil old age. But when nature is turned out of its regular course, disorder takes place in the moral just as in the vegetable world. If the spring put forth no blossoms, in summer there will be no beauty, and in autumn no fruit. So if youth be trifled away without improvement, manhood will be contemptible, and old age miserable. If the beginnings of life have been vanity, its latter end can be no other than vexation of spirit.

DIFFERENCES.

It is remarkable that men, when they differ in any thing considerable, or which they think considerable, will be apt to differ in almost every thing else. Their differences beget contradiction. Contradiction begets heat. Heat quickly rises into resentment, rage, and ill will. Thus they differ in affections as they differ in judgment; and the contention that began in pride, ends in anger.

In Henderson's Biblical Researches in Russia, we find the following description of the monument, erected over the remains of HOWARD the Philanthropist.

AT the distance of five versts to the north of Kherson, stands the original monument of the prince of Christian philanthropists, the illustrious Howard, who, after travelling fifty thousand Bri miles, to investigate and relieve the sufferings of humanity, fel! a victim, near this place, to his unremitting exertions in t.s benevolent cause. It is situate a little east of the public road leading from Nikslaief to Kherson, near the southern bank of a small stream, which here diffuses a

A verst is about one mile and a half English

partial verdure across the steppe." On the opposite bank are a few straggling and ruinous huts, and close by is a large garden, sheltered by fine lofty trees, which have been planted to beautify the villa once connected with it, but now no more. The spot itself is sandy, with a scanty sprinkling of vegetation, and is only distinguishable from the rest of the steppe by two brick pyramids, and a few graves in which the neighboring peasantry have interred their dead-attracted, no doubt, by the report of the singular worth of the foreign friend whose ashes are here deposited. One of the pyramids is erected over the dust of the Philanthropist, and the other over the grave of a French gentleman who revered his memory, and wished to be buried by his side.

The genuine humility of Howard prompted him to choose this sequestered spot, and it was his anxious desire that neither monument nor inscription, but simply a sundial, should be placed over his grave. This cenotaph is erected at a short distance from the Russian cemetery, and close to the public road. It is built of a compact white freestone, found at some distance, and is about thirty feet in height, surrounded by a wall of the same stone, seven feet high, by two hundred in circumference. Within this wall, in which is a beautiful cast iron gate, a fine row of Lombardy poplars has been planted, which, when fully grown, will greatly adorn the monument. On the pedestal is a Russian inscription of the following import :

Died, Jan. 28, 1790, aged 65, HOWARD.

The sun dial is represented near the summit of the pillar, but with this remarkable circumstance--that the only divisions of time it exhibits are the hours from X to II, as if to intimate that a considerable portion of the morning of life is past, ere we enter on the discharge of its active duties, and that, with many, the performance of them is closed, even at an early hour after the meridian of their days. In a subsequent number we design to furnish the reader a brief biographical sketch of the illustrious Philanthropist.

*A steppe is a high, uncultivated plain, and for the most part, destitute of inhabitants.

DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL HISTORY.

INSECT ARCHITECTURE-CADDIS-WORMS.

There is a very interesting class of grubs which live under water, where they construct for themselves moveable tents of various materials as their habits direct them, or as the substances they require can be conveniently procured. Among the materials used by these singular grubs, well known to fishermen by the name of caddisworms, and to naturalists as the larva of the four-winged flies in the order Trichoptera, we may mention sand, stones, shells, wood, and leaves, which are skilfully joined and strongly cemented. One of these grubs forms a pretty case of leaves glued together longitudinally, but leaving an aperture sufficiently large for the inhabitant to put out its head and shoulders when it wishes to look about for food. Another employs pieces of

Leaf Nest of Caddis-Worm.

reed cut into convenient lengths, or of grass, straw, wood, &c., carefully joining and cementing each piece to its fellow as the work proceeds; and he frequently finishes the whole by adding a broad piece longer than

Reed Nest of Caddis-Worm.

the rest to shade his door-way over-head, so that he may not be seen from above. A more laborious structure is reared by the grub of a beautiful caddis-fly (Phryganea,) which weaves together a group of the leaves of aquatic plants into a roundish ball, and in the interior of this forms a cell for its abode. The following figure from Roesel will give a more precise notion of this structure than a lengthened description.

Another of these aquatic architects makes choice of the tiny shells of young fresh water mussels and snails (Planorbis,) to form a moveable grotto, and as these little shells are for the most part inhabited, he keeps the poor animals close prisoners, and drags them without

mercy along with him. These grotto-building grubs are by no means uncommon in ponds; and in chalk districts.

One of the most surprising instances of their skill occurs in the structures of which small stones are the principal material. The problem is to make a tube about the width of the hollow of a wheat straw or a crow quill, and equally smooth and uniform. Now the materials being small stones full of angles and irregularities, the

Stone Nest of Caddis-Worm.