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Title: The fourth progressive reader

Carefully arranged for the use of schools

Author: Anonymous

Release date: August 5, 2024 [eBook #74195]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: P. O'Shea, 1871

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74195

Credits: Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FOURTH PROGRESSIVE READER ***

THE ILLUSTRATED PROGRESSIVE SERIES.

THE

FOURTH PROGRESSIVE READER.

CAREFULLY

ARRANGED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS.

NEW YORK:

P. O’SHEA, PUBLISHER;

27 BARCLAY STREET.

1871.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871,

By P. O’SHEA,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

PREFACE.

The selections for the FOURTH PROGRESSIVE READER have been made with great care, and, if the judgment of some of our most accomplished teachers may be trusted, with becoming discrimination.

Lessons have been selected that are interesting to the young, and that convey, each, an instructive moral in such a way as to impress itself deeply on the mind of the pupil. They have also been selected and arranged with a view to affording the best possible exercises in reading.

New selections have been made from several distinguished writers. Those from Archbishop Spalding, Father Lacordaire, Doctor Newman, Miss Hoffman, and Brother Philippe, are in every respect excellent.

Short biographical sketches have been appended of the different authors from whose works selections, have been made. In making those selections care has been taken to furnish examples of the various styles of composition, and in doing this whatever could be found most interesting and instructive was sought for; whilst every thing dull, frivolous, or at all tinctured with erroneous views or principles has been rigidly excluded.

The Lessons are a grade higher than those of the THIRD READER, but nothing supposed to be above the capacity or intelligence of children who have read through the preceding books of the Series has been introduced.

The instructions on articulation, emphasis, and inflection, will be found to be moderately full and very clear and intelligible.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

PAGE.

Pronunciation

15

Articulation

16

Accent

19

Time

20

Emphasis

22

Inflection

34

Circumflex Inflection—Monotone

39

Parenthesis and Parenthetical Clauses

40

Tone—Expression and Energy

42

On Reading of Verse

45

Rests in Verse

48

READING LESSONS.

PROSE.

LESSON.

1.

Teaching and Character of Jesus Christ

Chateaubriand ,

52

3.

The Devoted Son and the Generous Stranger

Brother Philippe ,

55

4.

The Christian Mother

Mary I. Hoffman ,

60

6.

The Two Roads

66

9.

The Young Shepherd

Fenelon ,

72

10.

The Same.—Continued

75

12.

The Broken Heart

Irving ,

79

13.

Little Victories

84

14.

The Same.—Continued

86

16.

The Widow of the Pine Cottage

91

19.

The Bobolink

Irving ,

97

20.

The Same.—Continued

99

22.

Portrait of a Virtuous and Accomplished Woman

Fenelon ,

102

24.

The Avaricious Miller

Goldsmith ,

105

25.

The Death of the Little Scholar

Dickens ,

108

28.

The Monk of St. Francis

Sterne ,

115

29.

My Mother’s Grave

Brownson ,

118

30.

Good Counsel

120

32.

Reproof to an Affected Speaker

La Bruyere ,

125

35.

Our Miseries Often Our Fault

Blair ,

129

37.

Influence of Religion on the Tyrolese

Alison ,

133

40.

Behind Time

Freeman Hunt ,

138

43.

A Storm at Sea

Archbishop Hughes ,

145

44.

The Atmosphere

150

46.

Discretion

Addison ,

154

47.

Stability of Character

Alison ,

156

52.

Death of Little Nell

Dickens ,

167

53.

Sorrow for the Dead

Irving ,

171

54.

Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain

Prescott ,

174

59.

The Charmed Serpent

Chateaubriand ,

183

60.

My Rosary

Sir Humphrey Davy ,

185

61.

The Indians

Story ,

187

63.

The Friars and the Knight

Digby ,

191

66.

Patriotism and Christianity

Chateaubriand ,

196

67.

Best Kind of Revenge

Chambers ,

199

68.

Queen Elizabeth of Hungary

Montalembert ,

201

70.

The Presumption of Youth

Rollin ,

210

73.

A Picture of Human Life

Johnson ,

216

75.

On the Waste of Time

Franklin ,

223

77.

Dialogue with the Gout

Franklin ,

227

79.

Edward the Confessor

Lingard ,

232

82.

Washington and Bonaparte Compared

Chateaubriand ,

238

83.

Character of Franklin

Brougham ,

242

87.

The Roman Pontiffs

Archbishop Spalding ,

249

88.

Labor and Genius

Sydney Smith ,

251

91.

A Curtain Lecture of Mrs. Caudle

Jerrold ,

259

94.

God Gave to His Church Charity

Lacordaire ,

270

96.

George Washington

Dwight ,

273

97.

Conduct of La Fayette in the American Revolution

J. Q. Adams ,

276

99.

Sir Thomas Moore

Henry Giles ,

282

101.

The Religion of Catholics

Dr. Doyle ,

287

103.

Speech of Logan, Chief of the Mingoes

Jefferson ,

293

105.

Character of the Irish Peasantry

Barrington ,

296

109.

Voluntary Confession of Sin

Lacordaire ,

310

POETRY.

LESSON.

2.

Little at First, but Great at Last

53

5.

Woodman, Spare that Tree

Morris ,

64

7.

The Laborers

68

8.

The Boy

Willis ,

70

11.

Old Times

Gerald Griffin ,

78

15.

Our Titles

90

17.

A Psalm of Life

Longfellow ,

95

18.

Let Virtue be Your Aim

96

21.

Who is My Neighbor?

101

23.

The work of To-day

Charles Mackay ,

104

26.

God, the True Source of Consolation

Thomas Moore ,

112

27.

The Martyrdom of St. Agnes

De Vere ,

113

31.

The Sister of Charity

Gerald Griffin ,

122

33.

My Birthday

Thomas Moore ,

126

34.

Labor

Frances Osgood ,

127

36.

True Patriotism

Sir William Jones ,

132

38.

Hymn of the Mountaineers

Mrs. Hemans ,

135

39.

Exhortation to Prayer

136

41.

Evil Influence of Skepticism

Campbell ,

141

42.

David’s Lament for Absalom

Willis ,

143

45.

The Cherwell Water Lily

Faber ,

152

THE YEAR OF SORROW—IRELAND—1849.

48.

Spring

Aubrey De Vere ,

160

49.

Summer

162

50.

Autumn

164

51.

Winter

165

55.

Palestine. (Altered from Whittier.)

178

56.

Love of Country and of Home

Montgomery ,

180

57.

The Heavenly Rest

181

58.

Love of Country

Scott ,

182

62.

Indian Names

Sigourney ,

190

64.

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

Eliza Cook ,

193

65.

Now, To-day

Adelaide A. Proctor ,

195

69.

William Tell

Knowles ,

203

71.

Mary Magdalen

Callanan ,

214

72.

The Wexford Massacre

215

74.

The Doubting Heart

Adelaide A. Proctor ,

222

76.

The Reaper Death

Longfellow ,

226

78.

The Death of the Flowers

William Cullen Bryant ,

230

80.

The Coming of Winter

T. B. Read ,

235

81.

The Sister of Charity

Williams ,

236

84.

The Last Minstrel

Scott ,

246

85.

The Minstrel Boy

Thomas Moore ,

247

86.

Army Hymn

O. W. Holmes ,

248

89.

The Dying Girl

Williams ,

255

90.

The Angelus Bell

Campion ,

257

92.

The Song of the Shirt

Hood ,

263

93.

Bernardo del Carpio

Mrs. Hemans ,

266

95.

Union and Liberty

O. W. Holmes ,

272

98.

Paul Revere’s Ride

Longfellow ,

278

100.

The Battle Field

Bryant ,

285

102.

A Birthday Offering

Dr. Newman ,

290

104.

God is Everywhere

294

106.

Advice to a Young Critic

Pope ,

300

108.

Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard

Gray ,

305

TABLE OF VOWEL SOUNDS.

This table is designed for an exercise upon the vowel elements. These should be pronounced alone as well as in combination with the words given as examples. Let the class first pronounce the table in order, thus:

A long, Fate, ā; A short, Fat, ă, &c.; then pronounce the column of elements alone.

N AME.

E XAMPLE.

E LEMENT.

A long

Fāte

ā

A short

Făt

ă

A Italian

Fär

ä

A broad

Fâll

â

E long

Mēte

ē

E short

Mĕt

ĕ

I long

Pīne

ī

I short

Pĭn

ĭ

O long

Nōte

ō

O short

Nŏt

ŏ

O long and close

Môve

ô

U long

Tūbe

ū

U short

Tŭb

ŭ

U middle or obtuse

Fûll

û

U short and obtuse

Für

ü

OI and OY

Böĭl

öĭ

OU and OW

Böûnd

öû

EQUIVALENTS.

E short and obtuse, like ü in Für

Hër

ë

I like E long

Machîne

î

I short and obtuse, like ü in Für

Sïr

ï

O like A broad

Nôr

ô

O like U short

Sō̇n

ō̇

U like O in Move

Rūle

ū

Y like I long

Tȳpe

ȳ

Y like I short

Sy̆mbol

y̆

Y short and obtuse, like ü in Für

Mÿrtle

ÿ

EW like U long

Now̄

ew̄

TABLE OF CONSONANT SOUNDS.

This table should be treated by the class in the same manner as the table of vowel sounds. The sound of a consonant may be ascertained by pronouncing a word containing it in a slow and forcible manner.

VOCAL CONSONANTS are those uttered with a slight degree of vocality, but less than that of a vowel. They are formed with a vibration of the vocal chords.

ASPIRATE CONSONANTS are those in which the pure breath alone is heard. They are formed without any vibration of the vocal chords.

N AME.

E XAMPLE.

E LEMENT.

VOCAL CONSONANTS.[1]

B

Babe

b

D

Did

d

G hard

Gag

g

J

Joy

j

L

Lull

l

M

Maim

m

N

Nun

n

NG

Sing

ng

R (trilled)

Rap

r

R (untrilled)

Nor

r

TH soft

Thine

th

V

Valve

v

W

Wine

w

Y

Yes

y

Z

Zeal

z

ZH (or Z)

Azure

zh

ASPIRATE CONSONANTS.

CH

Church

ch

F

Fife

f

H[2]

Hold

h

K

Kirk

k

P

Pipe

p

T

Tent

t

S

Seal

s

SH

Shine

sh

TH sharp

Thin

th

EQUIVALENTS.

C soft, like s

Çease

ç

C hard, like k

Cake

c

Ch hard, like k

Chasm

ch

Ch soft, like sh

Çhaise

çh

G soft, like j

Giant

g

Ph like f

Seraph

ph

S soft, like z

Muse

ṣ

S like zh

Vision

s

Q like k

Coquette

q

X like ks

Tax

x

X like gz

Exalt

z̧

Q has the sound of k, and is always followed by u, which, in this position, commonly has the sound of w, but is sometimes silent.

WH is an aspirated w, pronounced as if written hw.

[1] Sometimes called Subvocals, or Subtonics.

[2] H sounded before a vowel, is an expulsion of the breath after the organs are in a position to sound the vowel.

EXERCISES ON THE VOWEL SOUNDS.

In pronouncing the words in the following exercises, special attention should be given to the precise sound of the letters italicized. The sounds of the letters in Italics are the same as the sound of the vowel at the head of the paragraph.

Exercises upon tables of words like the following are valuable, not only for developing vocal power, but as one of the best methods of correcting habitual errors in pronunciation.

a, long, as in fāte.—Fame, blame, sail, cambric, nature, ancient, patron, matron.

a, short, as in făt.—Bat, mat, bad, had, can, cannon, sand, fancy, marry, have.

a, Italian, as in fär.—Are, bar, star, guitar, mart, alarm, parchment, father, heart, hearth, guard, daunt, haunt.

a, broad, as in fâll; and o, as in nör.—Ball, call, tall, nor, form, storm, corn, salt, ought, fought, nought.

a, as in fàre; and e, as in thêre.—Dare, rare, pair, air, share, snare, where, heir, stare, pare.

a, as in fā̇st.—Blast, chance, lance, trance, branch, grasp, graft, grant, grass, pass, class.

e, long, as in mēte; and i, as in marîne.—Be, she, theme, scene, marine, pique, key, fiend, grieve, treaty, Cæsar, critique, relief, belief, leaf, quay, lenient, inherent.

e, short, as in mĕt.—Bed, bread, debt, engine, tepid, get, yes, chest, egg, kettle.

i, long, as in pīne; and y, as in bȳ.—Smile, mile, vine, fly, type, defy, sky, kind, flight, ally, apply, tiny.

i, short, as in pĭn; and y, as in my̆th.—Din, ring, whip, skip, lyric, servile, agile, cygnet, cynic, cylinder.

o, long, as in nōte.—Home, dome, glory, vocal, more, gore.

o, short, as in nŏt.—Mob, rob, sob, dot, got.

o, long and close, as in môve; and u, as in rū̇le.—Prove, mood, lose, rule, true, ruin, druid, moon, root.

u, long, as in tūbe; and ew, as in new̄.—Tune, fuse, cure, lure, duty, curate, few, pew.

u, short, as in tŭb; and o, as in sō̇n.—Just, must, tun, fun, hug, rug, dove, does, rough, son, ton.

u, middle, as in fûll.—Bush, push, butcher, cushion, puss.

u, short and obtuse, as in für; e, as in hër; i, as in fïr; and y, as in mÿrrh.—Burn, murmur, further, herd, fern, person, merge, mercy, sir, bird, virtue, dirk, dirt, mirth, myrrh, myrtle, syrtis.

oi, as in vöĭce; and oy, as in böy̆.—Boil, coil, coy, toy, void, coin, joint, joist, poise, noise, employ, rejoice, avoid, appoint, embroil, foible, oyster.

ou, as in söûnd; and ow, as in nöŵ.—Pound, proud, brown, vow, endow, noun, town, doubt, devout, plough, trout, ground, shout, vowel, thou, around.

INTRODUCTION.

It can not be too often, or too emphatically, impressed on the minds of those who desire to read well, that they must study to acquire the same easy, graceful, and natural tone and manner in reading, which persons of education and taste use in speaking. It is important, therefore, to observe closely the manner of those who read and speak well.

But, of course, no one can be taught to read well until he has learned to articulate distinctly and pronounce his words correctly. He must also pay due attention to TIME, INFLECTION and EMPHASIS. The following rules and exercises, taken from the best sources, will be found very useful. They are made as simple and plain as possible, but are at the same time moderately full.

PRONUNCIATION.

Pronunciation is good when all the letters and syllables in every word, are uttered with due force and proper fullness of sound. To pronunciation belong articulation and accent.

A correct articulation requires that every vowel, and, of course, every syllable in a word, be uttered with fulness and distinctness.

A correct accentuation requires that a peculiar stress be laid on one or more syllables of a word, and, of course, that the other syllables be pronounced with less stress, or force. In most words it is sufficient to accent one syllable. In monosyllables there can be no accent, as if one syllable were pronounced with force, there would be no syllable left to be passed over lightly.

ARTICULATION.

DIRECTIONS AND EXERCISES.

I. Avoid suppressing any syllable or part of a syllable.

Do not say:

fat-t’l

for

fa-tal

met’l

”

met-al

cap’n

”

cap-tain

firm’ment

”

firm-a-ment

reg’lar

”

reg-u-lar

trav’ler

”

trav-el-er

des’late

”

des-o-late

bar-r’l

”

bar-rel

ev’ry

”

ev-e-ry

his-t’ry

”

his-to-ry

sev’ral

”

sev-e-ral

b’lief

”

be-lief

flut’ring

”

flut-ter-ing

mem’ry

”

mem-o-ry

par-tic’lar

”

par-tic-u-lar

read-in’

”

read-ing

writin’

”

writ-ing

speak-in’

”

speak-ing

walk-in’

”

wal-king

mor-nin’

”

morn-ing

sli-din’

”

slid-ing

shavin’

”

sha-ving

laughin’

”

laugh-ing

fight-in’

”

fight-ing

com-man’s

”

com-mands

con-si’s

”

con-sists

gov-er’-ment

”

gov-ern-ment

Feb’-u-ary

”

Feb-ru-ary

an’

”

and

groun’

”

ground

boun’

”

bound

wa’m-er

”

warm-er

ha’m-less

”

harm-less

II. Avoid substituting one sound for another. Do not say:

vir-too or vir-tshoo

for

vir-tue (yu)

lec-ter or lec-tshoor

”

lec-ture (yūr)

ed-i-cate or ed-ju-cate

”

ed-u-cate (yu)

fea-tur or fea-tshoor

”

feat-ure (yūr)

mois-ter or mois-tshoor

”

mois-ture (yūr)

mix-ter or mix-tsher

”

mix-ture (yūr)

ves-ter or ves-tshure

”

ves-ture (yūr)

stat-er or stat-chur

”

stat-ure (yūr)

as-soom or as-shoom

”

as-sume (yume)

pur-soot or pur-shoot

”

pur-suit (yute)

chil-drin or child-er-en

”

child-ren

fear-luss or fear-liss

”

fear-less

win-e-gar

”

vin-e-gar

con-clood

”

con-clude (yude)

III. Avoid adding to, or taking from the sound of the word.

Do not say:

wil-ler

for

wil-low

fel-ler

”

fel-low

win-der

”

win-dow

wid-er

”

wid-ow

pil-ler

”

pil-low

hol-ler

”

hol-low

fol-ler

”

fol-low

Ma-ri-ar

”

Ma-ri-a

Sav-an-ar

”

Sav-an-ah

tub-ac-cur

”

to-bac-co

croc-er-dile

”

croc-o-dile

hold

”

old

hart

”

art

high

”

eye

griev-ious (yus)

”

griev-ous

hein-ious

”

hein-ous

wen

”

when

ware

”

where

witch

”

which

all

”

hall

appy

”

happy

wile

”

while

wit

”

whit

wine

”

whine

wey

”

whey

wit

”

whit

ay

”

hay

elp

”

help

aft

”

haft

ose

”

hose

ire

”

higher

wist

”

whist

wy

”

why

IV. Avoid pronouncing words alike which are not precisely alike. Do not say:

ac-cess

for

ex-cess

fish-er

”

fis-sure

al-tar

”

al-ter

gent-le

”

gen-tile

mare

”

may-or

e-lis-ion

”

e-ly-sian

bar-on

”

bar-ren

e-merge

”

im-merge

em-i-grant

”

imˊ-mi-grant

im-pos-tor

”

im-pos-ture

ac-cede

”

ex-ceed

e-lic-it

”

il-lic-it

af-fect

”

ef-fect

can-did

”

cand-ied

ap-pos-ite

”

op-pos-ite

as-sist-ance

”

as-sist-ants

cease

”

seize

cauf

”

cough

cen-sus

”

sen-ses

cents

”

sense.

[See exercises on these and similar words in the author’s “Columbian Spelling Book.”]

V. Avoid blending the end of a word with the beginning of the next. Do not confound—

A nice  house,

with

An ice  house.

False sights ,

”

False heights .

The darkest hour ,

”

The darkest tower .

It strikes with an awe ,

”

It strikes with a naw .

My heart was awed ,

”

My heart was sawed .

A notion  of sweetness,

”

An ocean  of sweetness.

There was a great error ,

”

There was a great terror .

My brothers ought  to go,

”

My brother sought  to go.

He walked in fields of ice ,

”

He walked in fields of vice .

Wastes and  deserts,

”

Waste sand  deserts.

Look on this spot ,

”

Look on this pot .

Goodness centers  in the heart,

”

Goodness enters  in the heart.

Luxurious soil ,

”

Luxurious oil .

Chaste stars ,

”

Chased tars .

Such a notion  exists,

”

Such an ocean  exists.

To obtain either ,

”

To obtain neither .

His cry  moved me,

”

His crime  moved me.

The same arrow ,

”

The same marrow .

ACCENT.

The remarks on Accentuation in the third book of this series have already familiarized the learner with the uses of accent. He has learned how accent determines the pronunciation of words, and how it shows, in many cases, the sounds of the vowels. He has also learned, that many words are differently accented, and, of course, differently pronounced, when used as nouns, from the manner in which they are accented and pronounced, when used as verbs.

We shall not repeat what we have there explained; but we will here inform the pupil, that while all words of more than one syllable have one accented syllable, almost all words of more than three syllables have two accented syllables. These two syllables are not accented with equal force, and this makes necessary the terms Primary Accent, and Secondary Accent.

Where two syllables are accented in the same word, that which has the greater amount of stress laid upon it, receives the primary accent (generally marked ˝), and that which has the less amount of stress laid upon it, receives the secondary accent (generally marked ˊ or ˋ).

EXAMPLES.

- edˊ-u-ca˝-tion

- recˊ-o-mend˝

- vo-cab˝-u-larˊ-y

- resˊ-o-lu˝-tion

- amˊ-bi-gu˝-i-ty

- adˊ-mon-i˝-tion

- tem˝-po-raˊ-ry

- mo˝-ment-aˊ-ry

- inˊ-de-pend˝-ence

- conˊ-ver-sa˝-tion

- satˊ-is-fac˝-tion

- mat˝-ri-moˊ-ny

- conˊ-se-quen˝-tial

- rĕˊ-sur-rec˝-tion

- morˊ-ti-fi-ca˝-tion

Observing the proper position of the accent, and paying particular attention to it, is indispensable for good reading. Those who fail to do so, always read with a drawling, monotonous tone, and cannot please their hearers. There is no precision in their pronunciation, and there can be no clearness in their enunciation. (See the “Columbian Spelling Book,” page 105, where the nature and uses of accents are treated of at considerable length.)

TIME.

The second requisite of good reading is, that due regard be paid to TIME: if the reader hurries on without making the necessary pauses, the pronunciation is not only indistinct, but the sense is often altogether lost; and if he hesitates, making pauses where none should be made, and reads without animation or spirit, the sense is equally injured, or made difficult to ascertain, and the reading is of that drawling kind to which it is so tiresome to listen.

Those who desire to become good readers, then, must pay due attention to the pauses which should be made. Pauses are of two kinds, Grammatical Pauses, which are marked by characters, and Rhetorical Pauses, which are not marked by characters, but which the sense of what you read, requires to be made. We shall first speak of the GRAMMATICAL PAUSES; they are—

The

Comma

(marked)

,

”

Semicolon

”

;

”

Colon

”

:

”

Period

”

.

”

Interrogation

”

?

”

Exclamation

”

!

The Parenthesis () is used to inclose some word or words which are not essential to the structure of the sentence; and the Dash (—) is used to denote a sudden breaking or turning off in the discourse or sentence.

When any of these points is met with in reading, there must be a pause of greater or less duration. You should stop at the comma about as long as you would be saying a word, or while you can draw breath; at the others you should stop a little longer, but there can be no proper time fixed upon; the sense and requirements of the sentence or clause must always determine. It is usual to stop longer at each subsequent pause marked in the table, than at the preceding one; thus, longer at the semicolon than the comma, longer at the colon than the semicolon, and so on. This cannot be given as an invariable rule, however, due attention to the sense of the passage read being the best possible, indeed, the only way in which the proper duration of the pause can be determined.

RHETORICAL PAUSES are such as the sense requires, though not marked by characters. It will be at once perceived, that the proper making of them is much more difficult to the young reader, than those of which we have just spoken; and yet, if he desires to read with grace and elegance, he cannot dispense with them. We do not think that very young learners will be benefited much by studying rules for making rhetorical pauses, (they can be made to understand their proper use and place more readily by a competent teacher,) but we give a few of the most useful and simple.

1. The rhetorical pause should be made after the subject, or nominative, if it consists of several words; as—To express this connection | two marks are used. The love of riches | is not a virtue. The experience of want | enhances the value of plenty.

2. When the subject is an important word there should be a rhetorical pause made after it; as—Charity | like the sun | brightens all its objects. Industry | is the foundation of wealth. God | hath set him over us. Truth | never changes.

3. The rhetorical pause should be made before and after clauses and similes; as—The hope | which we have | as an anchor of the soul. And calm | as a slumber | they die. Hope | the balm of life | hath soothed us. Virtue | like gold | bears to be tried.

4. The rhetorical pause should be made after the objective in sentences of inverted construction; as—To my mother | give my fond remembrance. On all sides | were carnage and death. On Linden | when the sun was low. On this side of the grave | there is no real happiness.

5. A pause should generally be made before the relative pronoun; as—He | who fears God | may be trusted. I have faith | that I may have life. I saw a man | who begged his bread. Nobody loves him | who loves only himself. She gave me this book | which I now hand to you.

6. A pause should generally be made before and after clauses introduced by prepositions; as—It is below me | on his throne | to sit. Work | without show | and without pomp | presides. They spoke to me | of things | which I had seen | and of things | which I had not seen. From law | arises security.

7. A pause should be made before many of the conjunctions and adverbs; as—Honor | and shame | from no condition rise. I fought not for | but against Cæsar. Hast so much wit | and mirth | and spleen about thee. I stood among them | not of them. The region | beyond the grave | is not a solitary land. I shall come | whenever I can. Take heed | lest ye fall. Watch | and pray | lest ye enter into temptation. Though he was learned | yet he was modest.

EMPHASIS.

Emphasis is a peculiar stress laid on words for the purpose of distinguishing them from, or contrasting them with other words; also for the purpose of drawing marked attention to any particular word.

EXAMPLES.

1. I spoke not for | but against Cæsar.

2. I did not say here | but there.

3. You say | he is honest. There is not | a more dishonest man | in town.

4. I care not | who is in | or | who is out.

5. We have offended against the lord | already.

6. He | who cannot bear a joke | should not give a joke.

7. Little minds | are crushed by misfortune, when great ones | rise above it. He raised a mortal to the skies, | she drew an angel down.

8. Many mistake love of virtue | for virtue.

Emphasis is sometimes laid only on particular syllables of a word; as—

1. What is said | cannot be unsaid.

2. He will decrease | but I will increase.

3. There is seldom convenience | without inconvenience.

4. To do | and to undo | are common things.

Emphasis is slight, strong, and vehement; as—

1. Let our motto be | our country, our WHOLE COUNTRY, and | NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY.

2. My first argument | is, that the people | demand it; my second argument | is, that THE PEOPLE | DEMAND IT; my third argument | is, that THE PEOPLE | DEMAND IT.

3. If I was an American | as I am an Englishman, I would never lay down my arms—never, NEVER, NEVER.

4. The union, it SHALL | and MUST be preserved.

5. RISE | arch of the ocean, and queen of the west!

6. Romeo, ROMEO, wherefore art thou Romeo?

The following admirable observations on EMPHASIS are worthy of attention.

“In every sentence, and clause of a sentence, there is one or more words which require to be pronounced with a greater degree of force than the other words. Without knowing and marking the accented syllables in words, we cannot give them their proper pronunciation; nor can we bring out the full meaning of a sentence, unless we know and mark the emphatic words. The accented syllables of words we learn by imitating the pronunciation of correct speakers; and by referring, in cases of doubt, to a dictionary in which they are given. The emphatic words in a sentence we can only learn by knowing their relative importance in it, and the precise meaning which the writer of it intended each of them to convey. In fact, if we know the meaning and drift of the sentence, we shall have no difficulty in discovering the emphatic words. In all such cases they are naturally and spontaneously suggested to us, just as they are to persons uttering or speaking their own sentiments. For even the most illiterate persons are sure, when uttering their own sentiments, to lay the proper emphasis on their words; though they may, and very often do, give them the wrong accents. If a laboring man, for example, were to say, “It is a spade, and not a shovel that I want,” he would be sure to pronounce the words “spade” and “shovel” with a greater degree of force than the other words; because he wishes to draw the particular attention of the person whom he addresses to the ideas or things which they represent. Had he merely said, “It is a spade I want,” he would nevertheless have pronounced the word “spade” emphatically, because he wished it to be particularly understood that it was a spade, and not any other implement, such as a shovel, that he wanted. Should he say, “Is the spade broken?” he would pronounce the word “broken” emphatically; because his object is to obtain precise information on that point. But if he should say, “Is it the spade that is broken?” he will lay the emphasis on the word “spade,” and not upon “broken;” because, understanding that there is some implement broken, he wishes to be informed whether it is the spade. Again, should he say, “Is it my spade that is broken?” he will lay the emphasis on the word “my”; because he desires to know whether the spade that is broken is his or not. Should he ask, “Who broke the spade?” he will lay the emphasis on the word “who;” because, being already aware that the spade is broken, his object in making the inquiry is, to learn the name of the person who broke it. And, lastly should he say, “How was the spade broken?” he will make “how” the emphatic word; because, in this case, he wishes to be informed of the manner or way in which the accident occurred.

“It is obvious from what has been said, that if we understand the meaning of what we read, in the same degree as a person understands the thoughts which he utters, we shall, like him, naturally and spontaneously lay the emphasis on the proper words. It is equally obvious, that if we do not understand the meaning of what we read, we shall either have to pronounce all the words with the same degree of force—which would be absurd—or to run the risk of perverting the meaning of the author, by laying the emphasis on the wrong words. The following sentence will exemplify this:—“O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have written concerning me.” If we perceive that the intention of our Saviour was to reproach his disciples for their backwardness in believing, we shall, in reading it, naturally lay the principal emphasis on the word “slow.” But if we do not see that this was the object of the speaker, the chances are we shall lay the emphasis on one of the other words, and thus change or pervert the meaning. For example, if we lay the emphasis on “believe,” it would imply that the disciples were reproached for believing; if on “all,” then the inference would be that they might have believed some of the things which the prophets had written, but that it was foolish in them to believe all. If we lay the emphasis on “prophets,” it would imply that they might have believed others, but that they were fools for believing the prophets; if on “written,” the inference would be, that though they might have believed what the prophets had said, it was foolish in them to believe what they had written; and, finally, if we lay the emphasis on “me,” it would imply that though they might have believed what the prophets had written concerning others, yet they were fools for believing what they had written concerning the Saviour.

Even in the most familiar sentences, illustrations of this may be found. The simple question, for example: “Do you ride to town to-day?” may, by varying the position of the emphasis, be made to suggest as many different meanings as it contains words. If we lay the emphasis on “you,” we wish to ascertain from the person addressed, whether it is he or some other person that is to ride to town to-day; if on “ride,” we mean to ask him whether he purposes to ride or walk; if on “town,” our purpose is to inquire whether it is to the town or to the country he means to ride; and, finally, if we make “to-day” the emphatic word, we wish him to say whether it is to-day or to-morrow he intends to ride to town. Even the preposition “to,” if made emphatic, would imply, though obscurely, that we wished the person addressed to say whether he intended to ride quite as far as the town, or only part of the way.

“We shall show, by a few illustrations, the power which EMPHASIS has over accent when the sense or meaning requires it:—

1. He must increase, but I must decrease.

2. Neither justice nor injustice has any thing to do with the matter.

3. What is done cannot be undone.

4. Religion raises men above themselves, irreligion sinks them below the brutes.

5. This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

6. To me it was far from being an agreeable surprise; on the contrary, it was a disagreeable one.

7. Thought and language act and react upon each other.

8. What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?

9. I shall always make nature, truth, and reason, the measures of praise and dispraise.

10. A gentleman who was pressed by his friends to forgive his daughter, who had married against his wishes, promised to do so, but added, that he would have them remember that there was a difference between giving and forgiving.

“In the preceding, and in all similar cases, the position of the accent is completely changed by the emphasis. The reason is obvious: the speaker wishes to draw the special attention of the person addressed to the contrasted parts of the words; and hence he pronounces those parts or syllables emphatically, the effect of which is, in such cases, to change the seat of the accent.

“This transposition of the accent takes place also in words which have a sameness of termination, even though they may not be directly opposed in sense; as in the following examples:—

1. Cataline was expert in all the arts of simulation and dissimulation; covetous of what belonged to others, lavish of his own.

2. In this species of composition, plausibility is more essential than probability.

“From what has been said with regard to emphasis, we may draw the following general conclusion: Whenever a person wishes to bring an idea prominently or forcibly under the notice of the person or persons whom he addresses, he will naturally and instinctively pronounce the word which expresses it with a corresponding degree of emphatic force. The degree or intensity of the emphasis will, of course, depend upon the importance of the idea to be expressed, the nature of the subject, and the feelings or emotions of the speaker. In some cases it will be slight, in others strong, and in others, vehement or energetic; and hence a good general division of emphasis, with regard to its intensity, might be into three degrees, namely SLIGHT, STRONG, and VEHEMENT. Of course, there must be a great diversity in the degrees of emphasis, from the slight to the vehement; but the general divisions which we have suggested will be quite sufficient for practical purposes—and we have no other in view.

“Though in all properly constructed sentences, every word is useful and necessary, yet in every sentence the relative importance of the words must be different. Articles, Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Auxiliary Verbs, for example, are less important in their significations than the words which they introduce or connect—as Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. And hence it may be laid down as a general rule, that the less important words in a sentence should be pronounced with less of force and distinctness than the more important words. And this, as we have seen, we always do in SPEAKING; for it is to the more important words that we naturally desire to draw the special attention of the person or persons whom we address, and not to the ancillary or subordinate words.

“It may also be observed that Pronouns, though important parts of speech, should be classed, with regard to their pronunciation in a sentence, with the less important words, as Articles, Prepositions, and Conjunctions. The reason is obvious: no new idea is introduced by a Pronoun. It stands for, or represents, a word which has been mentioned before, and which is, consequently, already before the mind of the person addressed. Pronouns, therefore, should be always pronounced without emphasis, unless when some contrast or opposition is intended.[3] We shall illustrate this by a familiar sentence or two:—

If John is there, I will thank yŏu to give hĭm this book—though, perhaps, I should give it to you, and not to him. Yŏu are right; it is to me you should give it. You think so, but I think differently; and so, I am sure, does he.

“In the foregoing sentences, the pronouns printed in Italic are emphatical, because they are antithetical, or opposed to each other; while the other pronouns in the same sentence should be pronounced without emphasis, because no contrast or opposition is intended.

“In the same way, any of the less important parts of speech may become emphatical; as—

I told you to bring me the book, not a book. You were told to put the book on the table—not under it. It was and I said—not or.

“From what has been said with regard to emphasis, it is evident that all antithetic or contrasted words are emphatic; and in fact, it is usual to consider such words only as emphatic. Mr. Walker, and his followers, for example, hold that in every case of emphasis there is an antithesis expressed or implied; and that it never can be proper to give emphatic force to a word unless it stands opposed in sense to some other word expressed or understood.[4] But this is to take too narrow a view of emphasis. There are other sources of it besides contrast or antithetic relation. There may be absolute, as well as antithetic emphasis. For example, if the idea to be communicated is of peculiar or paramount importance in itself, the word expressing it should be pronounced with a corresponding degree of emphatic force; and this a person speaking his own sentiments will naturally do, particularly if he is under the influence of passion or emotion. It is evident, too, that this kind of emphasis may extend to several words in succession, and even to whole clauses of sentences. This kind of emphasis Mr. Walker himself admits under the head of “General Emphasis.” The following are examples:—

1.                            What men could do

Is done already: heaven and earth will witness,

If Rome must fall, that we are innocent.

2. There was a time, then, my fellow citizens, when the Lacedæmonians were sovereign masters both by sea and land; when their troops and forts surrounded the entire circuit of Attica; when they possessed Eubœa, Tanagra, the whole Bœotian district, Megara, Ægina, Cleone, and other islands; while this state had not one ship—no, not—one—wall.

3. Or shall I—who was born I might almost say, but certainly brought up, in the tent of my father—that most excellent general!—shall I the conqueror of Spain and Gaul, and not only of the Alpine nations, but what is greater yet, of the Alps themselves—shall I compare myself with this half-year-captain,—a captain—before whom, should one place the two armies without their ensigns, I am persuaded he would not know to which of them he is consul.

“It is usual to subdivide Antithetic Emphasis into Single, Double, and Treble Emphasis;[5] and to give rules for the proper pronunciation of emphatic words in each case. But the simple principles we have adopted render all such rules superfluous; for in all cases of antithesis the antithetic terms must be either expressed or understood; if they are expressed, which is usually the case, there can be no difficulty with regard to emphasis; for when the words which are opposed to each other in the sentence are expressed in it, the mind instantly perceives the opposition between them and the voice instinctively marks it in the pronunciation. The following are examples:—

SINGLE EMPHASIS.

1. Study not so much to show knowledge as to acquire it.

2. He that cannot bear a jest should not make one.

3. We think less of the injuries we do, than of those we suffer.

4. It is not so easy to hide one’s faults, as to mend them.

5. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

DOUBLE EMPHASIS.

1. To err is human; to forgive, divine.

2. Custom is the plague of wise men, and the idol of fools.

3. The prodigal robs his heir, the miser robs himself.

4. The pleasures of the imagination are not so gross as those of sense, nor so refined as those of the understanding.

5. Grief is the counter passion of joy. The one arises from agreeable, and the other from disagreeable events—the one from pleasure, and the other from pain—the one from good, and the other from evil.

6. One sun by day—by night ten thousand shine.

7. The foulest stain and scandal of our nature

Became its boast—one murder makes a villain,

Millions a hero.

TREBLE EMPHASIS.

1. He raised a mortal to the skies,

She drew an angel down.

2. A friend cannot be known in prosperity; and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity.

3. The difference between a madman and a fool, is that the former reasons justly from false data; and the latter erroneously from just data.

4. Flowers of rhetoric in sermons or serious discourses are like the blue and red flowers in corn, pleasing to those who come only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap the profit.

5. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves,

Than that Cæsar were dead, to live all freemen?

“In such cases as the preceding, it is obvious that there can be no difficulty with regard to EMPHASIS; because the words which are opposed to each other in the sentence are expressed. But when only one of the contrasted terms is expressed, as in the following examples, the careless or injudicious reader is apt to overlook its antithetic import, and will consequently fail to give it the emphatic pronunciation which is necessary to bring out the full meaning of the sentence.

1. A child might understand it. [The antithesis implied or suggested in this sentence is obviously—not merely a man or a person of mature judgment, but even a child.]

2. Exercise and temperance will strengthen even an indifferent constitution. [That is, not merely an ordinary or good constitution, but even an indifferent one.]

3. He that runs may read. [That is, not merely a person who walks, and who has therefore leisure to observe, but even he that runs.]

4. We know the passions of men: we know how dangerous it is to trust the best of men with too much power. [That is, not merely bad or ordinary men, but even the best of men.]

5. Tubal. One of them showed me a ring which he had of your daughter for a monkey.

Shylock. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise,—I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys. [That is, so far from giving it for one monkey, I would not have given it for a whole wilderness of monkeys.]

6.             Can a Roman senate long debate

Which of the two to choose, slavery or death!

[That is, other senates may, but can a Roman one?]

7. Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought. [That is, not merely in words or audibly, but even in thy thought.]

8. And think not to say among yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. [That is, not merely from the seed or descendants of Abraham, but even from these stones.]

9. By the faculty of a lively and picturesque imagination, a man in a dungeon is capable of entertaining himself with scenes and landscapes, more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compass of nature. [That is, not only when he is absent from beautiful scenes, but even in a dungeon.]

10. A man of a polite imagination is let in to a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving; he can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable companion in a statue. [That is, he can converse even with a picture, and find an agreeable companion even in a statue, which are pleasures unknown to the vulgar or uneducated.]

“It is obvious, that in each of the preceding examples there is an antithesis implied or understood; and the only rule necessary in such cases is, to pronounce the words which imply it with such a degree of emphatic force as will best bring out the full meaning of the sentence. And this every reader will naturally do, if he keeps in mind, and puts into practice, the great and fundamental rule for GOOD READING, namely, Understand what you read, and read it as if you understood it.”

INFLECTION.

In speaking or reading, the voice must either rise or fall, if it do not continue in the same uniform tone. This rising and falling, or upward and downward sliding of the voice, is called INFLECTION.

When the voice rises, it is, of course, called the rising inflection, and when it falls, the falling inflection.

When the voice, instead of either rising or falling, continues during the utterance of several words in the same tone, it is called a monotone. That falling of the tone which usually takes place at the end of a sentence or paragraph is termed a cadence.

The voice sometimes rises and falls, or falls and rises, on the same word or syllable. This is called a circumflex.

The inflections are generally marked thus:

Rising Inflection,

(ˊ)

Falling Inflection,

(ˋ)

Cadence,

(ˋ)

Circumflex,

(ˇ)

The following rules will assist the learner in determining the inflections. They are as few and as simple as possible, and can be understood with very little effort, particularly by the aid of a competent teacher.

I. Whenever the voice must be suspended without the sense being complete, the rising inflection should be used.

EXAMPLES.

1. No man can rise above the infirmities of naˊture, unless he is assisˊted by God.ˋ

2. To acquire knowˊledge is the duty of man.

3. Shame being lostˊ, all virtue is lost.

4. Fathˊers, Senators of Romeˊ, arbiters of naˊtions, to you I fly for refuge.

5. Poor were the expectations of the modˊest, the virˊtuousˊ, and the goodˊ, if the reward of their labors were expected only from man.

6. An honest manˊ, (as the poet has saidˊ,) is the noblest work of God.

II. At the end of a sentence, and in all places where the sense is complete, the falling inflection should be used.

EXAMPLES.

1. Peace will soon be estabˋlished; confidence will come with peaceˋ; capˋital will follow conˋfidence; employment will increase with capˋital; educationˊ will be diffuˊsed, and virtue will grow with educaˋtion.

2. It is of the last importance to season the passions of a child with devoˋtion; which seldom dies in a mind that has received an early tincˋture of it.

3. Temˊperance, by fortifying the mind and bodˊy, leads to hapˋpiness.

4. Sincerity is to speak as we thinkˋ, to do as we pretend and professˋ, to perform and make good what we promˋise, and really to be what we appearˋ to be.

5. The consequences of intemperance are disgraceˋ, povˋerty, disease, and premature deathˋ.

6. I could not treat a dogˋ ill. Unkindness seldom produces other than evil effectsˋ.

III. When a question is asked by an interrogative word, the word which asks the question, as well as all other important words in the question, takes the falling inflection.

EXAMPLES.

1. Whatˋ will you do in the day of visitaˋtion?

2. Whereˋby shall I knowˋ this? Howˋ shall the manifestaˋtion be madeˋ?

3. Whoˋ do men say that I amˋ? Whomˋ do they represent me to beˋ?

4. Whoˋ is here so braveˋ that he would be a bondˋman?

5. Whatˋ have I doneˋ that you should give me this cruel treatmentˋ?

6. Whyˋ bendest thou in stormˋ; whyˋ lower thy headˋ?

IV. When a question is asked commencing with a verb, the previous rule is reversed, and all the important words in the question, particularly the last, take the rising inflection.

EXAMPLES.

1. Is the windˊ blowˊing? Is the sunˊ shinˊing? Is it rainˊing? Is it snowˊing?

2. Do I loveˊ? dost thou loveˊ? do we loveˊ?

3. Are you coldˊ? Is he poorˊ? Is she vainˊ?

4. Has he not involˊved himself by his improvˊidence?

5. Has that poorˊ man been cheatˊed? has his povˊerty been no protecˊtion?

EXCEPTION.—When the question defies contradiction, and is only interrogatory in form, being really an assertion, the falling inflection is used: as—

6. Are not the happy rareˋ? Are not the good the most hapˋpy?

7. Does he not possessˋ this world’s goodsˋ as if he possessed them notˋ?

8. How fewˋ can we find whose activˋity has not been misappliedˋ?

V.—Words that are contrasted with one another have opposite inflections; and answers have, generally, opposite inflections to the questions.

EXAMPLES.

1. We see the moteˋ in anothˊer’s eye, but cannot discern the beamˊ in our ownˋ.

2. He strikes othˊers but hurts himselfˋ.

3. We should judge by the heartˋ rather than the headˊ.

4. Did he act justˋly or unjustˊly? He acted justˊly, not unjustˋly.

5. Did he say trueˋ or untrueˊ. He said trueˊ, not untrueˋ.

6. I am more inclined to be gladˋ than sorˊry, to loveˋ than to hateˊ, to make friendsˋ than to deserve foesˊ, to be a good friendˊ than a bad enemyˋ.

VI.—When words express pity, joy, or grief, they take the rising inflection; and in all language expressive of tender emotion the rising inflection predominates.

EXAMPLES.

1. Ohˊ dearˊ me. Oh genˊtle sleepˊ, nature’s soft nurseˊ.

2. Piˊty, kindˊ gentlemen, friendsˊ of humanityˊ.

3. Ohˊ, my lordˊ, let me speak a word in thy earˊ.

4. I am thy fathˊer—oh, my sonˊ! my sonˊ!

5. Poor Maˊry. How my heartˊ bled to see her angˊuish, when she looked upon her departed childˊ.

6. Ohˊ that I knewˊ how I could consoleˊ her, how I could bring peaceˊ to her mind.ˋ

VII.—When words express denunciation, reproach, violent passion, or dignified emotion, they take the falling inflection.

EXAMPLES.

1. You wrong me evˋery way—you wrongˋ me, Brutus.

2. Revengeˋ, revengeˋ, Timotheus cries.

3. Let no man dareˋ speak ill of my departed fatherˋ.

4. Oh wretched manˋ. Oh unhapˋpy sinner.

5. Wretchˋ that I amˋ, whereˋ shall I goˋ?

6. Avauntˋ and quit my sightˋ. Let the earth hideˋ thee. Begoneˋ!

7. What a splendid piece of workˋmanship is manˋ.

8. Behold the child of purˋity arrayed in her inˋnocence.

9. Oh, dearˋest to my soulˋ—now goneˋ, alasˋ, from my sight. Woeˋ is me, that my sojourning is prolongˋed.

VIII.—In a commencing series, of three or four numbers, the last number or numbers of the series, and in a concluding series, the last but one, generally takes the rising inflection, and all the other take the falling inflection.

EXAMPLES.

1. Honorˋ, virˋtue, and truthˊ, distinguish himˋ.

2. He is distinguished by honˋor, virˊtue, and truthˋ.

3. Haˋtreds, dissenˋtions, disˋcords, and warsˊ are produced by ambiˋtion.

4. You have a friend who will pityˋ, supportˋ, defendˊ, and relieveˋ you.

5. The wind and rain are oˋver; calm is the morn of dayˋ; the clouds are divided in heavˊen; over the green hills flies the inconstant sunˋ.

6. A true friend unbosoms freeˋly, advises justˋly, assists readˋily, takes all paˊtiently, and continues a friend unchangeˋably.

7. A good disposiˋtion, virtuous princiˋples, a liberal educaˋtion, and industrious habˊits, are passports to happiness and honˋor.

8. Hapˋpiness and honorˊ are the reward of a good disˋposition, virtuous prinˋciples, a liberal educaˊtion, and industrious habˋits.

9. If you look about youˊ, and consider the lives of othˊers as well as your ownˋ; if you think how few are bornˋ with honˊor, and how many dieˊ without nameˊ or childˋren; how little beautyˋ we seeˊ, and how few friendsˊ we hearˋ of; how many diseasesˊ and how much povˋerty there is in the worldˊ, you will admireˊ, instead of repinˋing at God’s provˋidence.

CIRCUMFLEX INFLECTION.

In a circumflex the voice is made to bend so that it falls and rises, or rises and falls, during the utterance of a single sound. Circumflex inflection is used in expression of bitter irony or reproach.

EXAMPLES.

1. They offer us their protecˋtion. Yĕs, sŭch protection as vŭltures give to lămbs—covering and devouring themˋ.

2. Gone to be mărried! gone to swĕar a pĕace! gone to be frĭends!

3. He dâres not touch a hâir of Catalineˋ.

4. I may do what I shall be sorˋry for. You hâve done what you shoûld be sorˋry for.

5. So this is yŏu. How glăd I am to meet so trŭe a friend.

MONOTONE.

In a monotone the voice neither rises nor falls during the utterance of a succession of words. It is generally used in pronouncing grand and solemn passages.

EXAMPLES.

1. The bell strikes one. We take no note of time but from its loss. To give it, then, a tongue is wise in man. As if an angel spoke, I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright, it is the knell of my departed hours.

2. Who would fardells bear,

To groan and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death

That undiscovered country from whose bourne

No traveler returns,—puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear the ills we have

Than fly to others which we know not of.

3. I flew towards her; my arms were already unclosed to clasp her, when, suddenly, her figure changed—her face grew pale—a stream of blood gushed from her bosom. ’Twas Evelina.

4. The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globeˊ itselfˋ—

Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve,

And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,

Leaveˊ not a wreck behindˋ.

PARENTHESIS AND PARENTHETICAL CLAUSES.

A parenthesis is an explanatory clause introduced into a sentence. Parenthesis might be omitted in reading without injuring the grammatical construction of the sentence. The tone employed in reading parenthetical clauses, should, generally, be lower than that in which the other parts of the sentence are read. The monotone is most suitable for parenthesis, but when inflections are used, as they sometimes are in short clauses, the inflection should be the same as that used at the pause immediately preceding the parenthesis, which is generally the rising inflection.

EXAMPLES.

1. Rememˊber (continued she with a sighˊ) your dearˊ absent friendˋ.

2. Know then, this truthˊ, (enough for man to knowˊ,)

Virtue aloneˋ is happiness belowˋ.

3. Nothing can be greatˊ the contemplation of which is not greatˋ (says Longinusˋ).

4. On the one handˊ, are the divine approbaˊtion and immorˋtal honˋor; on the othˊer, (remember and bewareˊ,) are the stings of conˋscience and endless inˋfamy.

5. Genˊtlemen, if I make out this case by evˊidence, (and if I do not, forget every thing you have heard, and reproach me for having abused your honest feelˊings,) I have established a claim for damˊages that has no parallel in the annals of fashionable intrigueˋ.

The expressions said I, continued he, so to speak, then, except, nevertheless, therefore, yet, notwithstanding, etc., are read in a lower tone, like parenthesis, and with the falling inflection, as:

Justice, said heˋ, will carry it.

Though he was rich, yetˋ, for our sakes he became poor.

Though deep, yet clearˋ; though gentle, yetˋ not dull.

I love every one of them, exceptˋ the old crone.

He was, so to speakˋ, the lion of the tribe.

TONE.

Tone differs from accent and emphasis, but may be said to be nearly allied to inflection. Tone is not confined to words, but to whole passages, and is intended to convey to the minds of the hearers the passions and feelings which are supposed to have influenced the writer or speaker.

Nothing can contribute more to beautiful and expressive reading than the use of the tones most suitable to the matter read. Nor is the correct language of emotion, the appropriate sound with which certain passages should be uttered, of very difficult attainment. The smallest child finds tones to express its various feelings, and there can be no great difficulty in the reader’s ascertaining the emotions under which the author spoke or wrote, and making his tones such as give best expression to those emotions.

But in this, as in other matters, there should be moderation. Every thing artificial and theatrical should, in reading ordinary compositions, be avoided. We recommend Murray’s rule to the learner: “In reading, let your tones of expression be borrowed from those of common speech, but, in some degree, more faintly characterized. Let those tones which signify any disagreeable passion of the mind be more faint than those which indicate agreeable emotion; and, on all occasions, preserve yourselves from being so far affected with the subject as to be able to proceed through it with an easy and masterly manner, which has its good effects in this as well as in every other art.”

EXPRESSION AND ENERGY.

The following observations on Expression and Energy are taken from Vandenhoff’s “Plain System of Elocution:”

EXPRESSION.

“Expression is the modulating or regulating the organ of the voice to tones of gentleness or force, according to the nature and degree of feeling, or passion, expressed in words. Expression is the natural language of emotion. It is, in Elocution, to a certain extent, a vocal imitation of passion. But this must be done without “aggravating the voice” (as Bottom has it.) It is a grace which requires the nicest management; and cannot be achieved but with the best cultivation of ear and voice; in order to catch and re-echo the tones of the heart to the ears and hearts of others.

“Expression, therefore, is a refinement on Intonation: they go hand in hand: we cannot think of the one without the other. Intonation gives the voice volume and power; expression uses and adopts it to the feeling of the moment.

ENERGY.

“Energy is intimately allied to the two preceding graces of Elocution; to which it adds force, intensity, and earnestness. As Expression is variety of Intonation, Energy may be called the Emphasis of Expression.

“It is the life, the soul, the animating spirit. Without it, the speaker may be correct, and even agreeable, by a due observance of rule; but if he lack energy, he will be listened to without interest; his voice will fall powerless on the ear, and neither “awake the senses,” nor “stir the blood.”

“Energy, it is true, depends somewhat on individual temperament and constitution. But even where natural or physical energy is deficient, an energetic manner may be acquired by practice and exercise under judicious direction; just as the muscular powers may be improved, and bodily vigor increased, even in a feeble frame, under a course of training and well-regulated exercise.

“Even in narration, what force, what reality can be given to a description by a speaker who, as it were, throws himself into the scene, and by the vivacity and energy of his delivery brings the action graphically before your eyes, hurries you into the heat of it, and makes you feel as if personally engaged in what is so stirringly related to you as in that beautiful description, in Shakspeare’s Henry IV., of the gallant Prince Henry and his comrades armed for battle:

“All furnish’d, all in arms,

Glitt’ring in golden coats like images;

As full of spirit as the month of May,

And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;

Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.

I saw young Harry,—with his beaver on,

His cuises on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,—

Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,

And vaulted with such ease into his seat,

As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,

To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,

And witch the world with noble horsemanship!

“Unless this description, full of poetic imagination and coloring as it is, be delivered with warmth, energy, and a tone of enthusiasm, it will fall very short of its due impression; and thus the poet will be deprived, by the speaker’s coldness, of the full appreciation, by the hearer, of the exquisite beauty of the picture.

“But the force of his elocution must be greatly increased, and the expression must be changed, become impassioned, and raised almost to fierceness, to produce the full effect of Hotspur’s heroic and inspiring answer: which breaths the highest enthusiasm of confident and daring valor, undaunted resolution, and impatient thirst of glory.

“It must therefore be marked with all the energy that the reader can command.

HOTSPUR’S EAGERNESS FOR BATTLE.

Let them come!

They come like sacrifices in their trim,

And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war,

All hot, and bleeding, will we offer them!

The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit

Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire,

To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,

And yet not ours! Come, let me take my horse,

Which is to bear me like a thunderbolt

Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:

Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,

Meet, and ne’er part till one drop down a corse!

“Thus we see that Intonation, Energy, and Expression are kindred graces: united and embodied in full force and with just discrimination, they reach the climax of the power of Elocution, the acmé of its art—PASSION.

“In conclusion, I take leave to add, that I shall indeed feel proud if this feeble attempt of mine may have the effect of awaking the reader’s interest, exciting, and in some degree aiding him in the cultivation of an art, on which the Orator’s success so much depends.”

ON READING OF VERSE.

The following remarks on reading verse are by the same writer:

“In the reading of verse, we must observe

1. Time and rhythm.

2. Melody and cadence.

“1. By time, I mean the regulation of the pulsation and movement of sound by the voice, to the regulated metrical accentuation (or rhythm), and construction of the verse.

“Time and rhythm are therefore inseparable and mutually dependent: one belongs to the Poet, the other to the Elocutionist.

“English verse consists of the arrangement at regular intervals of accented and unaccented—or, heavy and light—syllables. This regular arrangement makes the rhythm of the verse: the number of syllables employed in a line makes the metre of the verse.

“Now if, in reading verse, we do not regularly mark the pulsation of the accented syllables,—according to their arrangement in the rhythm—at due intervals of sound, we shall break the rhythm by reading out of time.

“For example, in the Ode of Dryden, on Cecilia’s Day, occurs this couplet; which I now mark according to the regular rhythmical division and accentuation.

On theˊ | bare earthˊ | exposedˊ | he liesˊ |

With notˊ | a friendˊ | to closeˊ | his eyesˊ.

“But to read the first line of the couplet thus, (accenting the and not accenting bare) would be to sacrifice all the force of the line, in order to produce an unmeaning sing-song by equipulsation of sound.

“We must, therefore, by art, reconcile the strength of the line with the music of the verse; and thus divide and accent it in delivery.

On the bareˊ | earthˊ | exposedˊ | he liesˊ.

“Sometimes the poet himself will, purposely, break the regularity of his rhythm for expression and effect; the Elocutionist, in such cases, must aid that effect by marking and timing the pulsation of sound accordingly. As in the following lines from Pope:

1. Smoothˊ flow the waves, the zephyrs gently play.

2. Wideˊ and more wide the floating rings advance,

Fillˊ all the wat’ry plain, and to the margin dance.

3. Amphion there the loud creating lyre

Strikesˊ, and behold a sudden Thebes aspire!

4. Fameˊ sits aloft, and points them out their course.

5. Brightˊ as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike.

6. Allˊ are but parts of one stupendous whole,

Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;

That chang’d through all, and yet is all the same,

Greatˊ in the earth, as in the ethereal frame,

Warmsˊ in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glowsˊ in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,

Livesˊ thro’ all life, extends through all extent,

Spreadsˊ undivided, operates unspent,

Breathesˊ in our soul, informs our mortal part, &c.

“The Italicised words indicate the departure from the regular rhythm in these lines; most of which commence with a heavy syllable, for force and effect. This the reader must mark by pulsation of voice,—a prolongation of sound, or a rest, on the commencing heavy syllable, with a lighter enunciation of the succeeding unaccented syllables.

“The occurrence of several successive unaccented syllables, lessening the due number of accents in any line, must be balanced by a short rest to supply the place of the deficient accent (as in the 5th and 6th lines of the 6th example.) By these means the due time of the verse will be preserved, and its movement will echo, (as it were,) or, at all events, aid and strengthen the sense.

“The above verses will accordingly be read with the division and accentuation following:

1. Smoothˊ | flow the wavesˊ, | the zephˊyrs gent | ly playˊ.

2. Wideˊ | and more wideˊ | the floatˊ | ing ringsˊ | advanceˊ,

Fillˊ all | the watˊ | ’ry plainˊ, | and to the marˊ | gin danceˊ.

3. Amphi on thereˊ | the loudˊ | creaˊ | ting lyreˊ |

Strikesˊ, | and beholdˊ | a sudˊ | den Thebesˊ | aspireˊ!

4. Fameˊ | sits aloftˊ, | and pointsˊ | them outˊ | their course.

5. Brightˊ | as the sunˊ, | her eyesˊ | the gaˊ | zers strikeˊ.

6. Allˊ | are but partsˊ | of oneˊ | stupenˊ | dous wholeˊ, |

Whose bod | y Naˊ | ture isˊ, | and Godˊ | the soulˊ;

That chang’dˊ | thro’ allˊ, | and yetˊ | in allˊ | the sameˊ, |

Greatˊ | in the earthˊ, | as in | the etheˊ | real frameˊ, |

Warmsˊ | in the sunˊ, | refreshˊ | es in the breezeˊ, |

Glowsˊ | in the starsˊ, | and blosˊ | soms in the treesˊ, &c.

RESTS IN VERSE.

“There is another point, which properly comes under the head of time, in rhythmical reading, and the due observance of which is essential to the melody of verse: that is the rests or pauses peculiar to verse, viz.:

THE CÆSURAL REST, to divide the line; and

THE REST AT THE CLOSE of each line.

“The duration of each of these pauses or rests is equal to that of the short rhetorical pause; subject, of course, to be increased by the pause of sense.

“‘The cæsural pause may fall,’ says Blair, ‘in heroic verse, after the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, or the seventh syllable.’

“The placing it is the poet’s business: it is the Elocutionist’s to mark it in delivery. But if its introduction would be absolutely repugnant to sense and just elocution, the poet must bear the fault, and his line lose some portion of its melody by the omission; for sense cannot be sacrificed to sound.

“The rest at the end of the line suggests itself, and must not be omitted: the sense will most frequently enforce it; when it does not, a rest must nevertheless be made by a suspension of voice at the end of each line, equal to the short pause in Elocution.

EXAMPLE.

Achilles’ wrath, | to Greece the direful spring |

Of woes unnumbered, | heav’nly goddess sing!

EXERCISES.

“The following verses in heroic measure—that is, consisting of ten syllables to each line, the syllables being (with occasional variations, which are allowed) alternately light and heavy—I have marked with the cæsural pause and rest at the end of the line. Let the student read them aloud, marking these pauses, and duly observing time, rhythm, and poetical intonation.

THE TEMPLE OF FAME.—Pope.

Four faces had the dome, | and every face |

Of various structure | but of equal grace!

Four brazen gates | on columns lifted high, |

Salute the different quarters | of the sky.

Here fabled chiefs, | in darker ages born, |

Or worthies old, | whom arms or arts adorn, |

Who cities rais’d, | or tam’d a monstrous race, |

The walls, | in venerable order, | grace:

Heroes | in animated marble | frown, |

And legislators seem | to speak in stone.

Westward | a sumptuous frontispiece | appear’d |

On Doric pillars | of white marble rear’d, |

Crown’d with an architrave | of antique mould, |

And sculpture rising | on the roughen’d gold.

In shaggy spoils | here Theseus was beheld, |

And Perseus, dreadful | with Minerva’s shield:

There great Alcides, | stooping with his toil, |

Rests on his club, | and holds th’ Hesperian spoil:

Here Orpheus sings; | trees wooing to the sound, |

Start from their roots, | and form a shade around:

Amphion there | the loud creating lyre |

Strikes, and behold | a sudden Thebes aspire!

Cythæron’s echoes | answer to his call, |

And half the mountain | rolls into a wall:

There might ye see | the lengthening spires ascend, |

The dome swell up, | the widening arches bend, |

The growing towers | like exultations rise, |

And the huge columns | heave into the skies.

MELODY and CADENCE require that in reading poetry the inflections be more smooth, or less angular, than in prose. To make the inflections as sharp as they often are in ordinary composition, would interfere with that easy and graceful flow which is the chief charm of poetical composition. But while cadence adds much to the beauty of poetical expression, it must not be carried so far as to supersede the just inflection and emphasis which the sense demands. To do so, would be to give to the reading a sing-song tone and sameness, both unmeaning and disagreeable. Melody may be said to relate to the whole verse in poetry; cadence applies only to the closing line or phrase.

[3] Pronouns used as antecedents, and also relatives, when their antecedents are not expressed, should obviously be pronounced with a certain degree of emphatic force; as, “He that runs may read.” “Who seeks for glory often finds a grave.” “What man has done, man can do.”

[4] The following is Mr. J. Sheridan Knowles’s account of emphasis:—“EMPHASIS is of two kinds, absolute and relative. Relative emphasis has always an antithesis expressed or implied: absolute emphasis takes place when the peculiar eminence of the thought is solely, singly considered.

’Twas base and poor, unworthy of a peasant,

To forge a scroll so villainous and loose,

And mark it with a noble lady’s name.

Here we have an example of relative emphasis; for, if the thought were expressed at full, it would stand thus:—Unworthy not only of a gentleman, but of a peasant.

’Twas base and poor, unworthy of a man,

To forge a scroll so villainous and loose,

And mark it with a noble lady’s name.

Here we have an example of absolute emphasis; for, if the thought were expressed at full, it would stand thus:—Unworthy a being composed of such perfections as constitute a man.” Mr. Knowles adds: “I apprehend that, notwithstanding all that has been written on the subject, the true definition of emphasis remains still to be discovered.”

[5] Single emphasis, is when there is one pair of words opposed to each other in a sentence; Double emphasis, when there are two pairs; and Treble, when there are three.

PART SECOND.

I.—TEACHING AND CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

Among the French writers of the nineteenth century, Chateaubriand has been one of the most distinguished. His “Genius of Christianity” is a remarkably brilliant and eloquent work.

1. JESUS CHRIST appears among men full of grace and truth; the authority and the mildness of His precepts[6] are irresistible. He comes to heal the most unhappy of mortals, and all His wonders are for the wretched. In order to inculcate[7] His doctrine, He chooses the apologue,[8] or parable, which is easily impressed[9] on the minds of the people. While walking in the fields, He gives His divine lessons.

2. When surveying the flowers that adorn the mead, He exhorts His disciples to put their trust in Providence, who supports the feeble plants, and feeds the birds of the air; when He beholds the fruits of the earth, He teaches them to judge of men by their works; an infant is brought to Him, and He recommends innocence; being among shepherds, He gives Himself the appellation of the Good Shepherd, and represents Himself as bringing back the lost sheep to the fold.

3. In Spring He takes His seat upon the mountain, and draws from the surrounding objects instruction for the multitude sitting at His feet. From the very sight of this multitude, composed of the poor and the unfortunate, He deduces His beatitudes. Blessed are those that weep—blessed are they that hunger and thirst. Such as observe His precepts, and those that slight them, are compared to two men who build houses, the one upon a rock, and the other upon the sand. When He asks the woman of Samaria for drink, He expounds unto her His heavenly doctrine, under the beautiful image of a well of living water.

4. His character was amiable, open, and tender, and His charity unbounded. The evangelist gives us a complete and admirable idea of it in these few words: He went about doing good. His resignation to the will of God is conspicuous[10] in every moment of His life; He loved and felt the sentiment of friendship: the man whom He raised from the tomb, Lazarus, was His friend; it was for the sake of the noblest sentiment of life that He performed the greatest of His miracles.

5. In Him the love of country may find a model. “O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” He exclaimed, at the idea of the judgments which threatened that guilty city, “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Casting His sorrowful eyes from the top of a hill over this city, doomed for her crimes to a signal destruction, He was unable to restrain His tears: “He beheld the city,” says the evangelist, “and wept over it.” His tolerance[11] was not less remarkable: when His disciples begged him to command fire to come down from heaven on a village of Samaria, which had denied Him hospitality, He replied with indignation, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.”

[6] PREˊ-CEPTS, commands, rules or directions for moral guidance.

[7] IN-CULˊ-CATE, to urge, or enforce.

[8] APˊ-O-LOGUE (log), a parable, a moral fable.

[9] IM-PRESSˊ, to fix deep, to imprint.

[10] CON-SPICˊ-UOUS, plain, manifest, evident.

[11] TOLˊ-ER-ANCE, patient endurance, indulgence.

II.—LITTLE AT FIRST, BUT GREAT AT LAST

1. A traveler through a dusty road,

Strewed[12] acorns on the lea,[13]

And one took root, and sprouted up,

And grew into a tree.

Love sought its shade at evening time,

To breathe its early vows,

And Age was pleased, in heat of noon,

To bask[14] beneath its boughs.

The dormouse loved its dangling twigs;

The birds sweet music bore;

It stood a glory in its place—

A blessing evermore.

2. A little spring had lost its way

Amid the grass and fern:

A passing stranger scooped a well,

Where weary men might turn;

He walled it in, and hung with care

A ladle at the brink;

He thought not of the deed he did,

But judged that Toil might drink.

He passed again—and lo! the well,

By summers never dried,

Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues,

And saved a life beside.

3. A dreamer dropped a random[15] thought;

’Twas old, and yet ’twas new—

A simple fancy of the brain,

But strong in being true:

It shone upon a genial[16] mind,

And lo! its light became

A lamp of life, a beacon[17] ray,

A monitory[18] flame.

The thought was small—its issue[19] great;

A watch-fire on the hill,

It sheds its radiance[20] far adown,

And cheers the valley still!

4. A nameless man, amid a crowd

That thronged the daily mart,[21]

Let fall a word of hope and love,

Unstudied, from the heart;

A whisper on the tumult thrown—

A transitory[22] breath—

It raised a brother from the dust;

It saved a soul from death.

Oh germ! oh fount! oh word of love!

Oh thought at random cast!

Ye were but little at the first,

But mighty at the last!

[12] STREWED, sowed, scattered.

[13] LEA, open land, meadow land.

[14] BASK, repose, recline.

[15] RANˊ-DOM, at hazard; without aim or purpose.

[16] GEˊ-NI-AL, sympathetic; adapted to receive it.

[17] BEAˊ-CON, guiding, warning against danger.

[18] MONˊ-I-TO-RY, admonishing, warning.

[19] ISˊ-SUE (ish’-shu), result, consequence.

[20] RAˊ-DI-ANCE, light, brightness.

[21] MART, a place of sale or traffic.

[22] TRANSˊ-I-TO-RY, fleeting, quickly passing away.

III.—THE DEVOTED SON AND THE GENEROUS STRANGER.

BROTHER PHILIPPE.

Brother Philippe is the present (1871) Superior General of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He is the author of several very meritorious works. He resides in France, where during the late war he was remarkable, though a very old man, for his energy, courage and holy zeal in providing for the wants of the wounded and dying upon the battle fields.

1. A young man, named Robert, was waiting on the coast at Marseilles for some one to hire his boat. A stranger entered, and was on the point of stepping out again, notwithstanding the presence of Robert, whom he did not suppose to be the owner. “As the boat-man is not coming,” said he, “I shall pass into another boat.” “Sir,” said Robert, “this is my own boat, do you wish to get out of port?” “No; I merely thought of enjoying a row on the river before night closed in, but you don’t look like a sailor.” “True, Sir, I am not a sailor; but the want of money forces me to seek employment during my leisure hours.”

2. “What! avaricious[23] at your age? This is a shame which mars your youth, and lessens the interest inspired by your pleasing appearance.” “Ah! Sir, if you knew why I wish to make money, you would not, indeed, add to my sorrow by believing me guilty of such a low vice.” “I may have wronged you; but you have not explained yourself. Let us have a row; meantime you can tell me all your troubles, for your looks have disposed me in your favor.”

3. “I have but one trouble,” said the young man; “it is that of having a dear father bound in chains; and this may last I know not how long! My father was a broker in this city, and had obtained, by means of his own and my mother’s earnings, an interest in a merchant vessel bound to Smyrna. He took charge of the buying and the selling of the stock. The vessel was seized by a pirate ship, and taken to Tetuan, where my father remains prisoner, with the greater part of the ship’s crew. They demand ten thousand francs for his ransom;[24] but, as he had made large outlays so as to increase the business, we are far from possessing that sum. However, my mother and my sisters work day and night, and I contrive to do my part as a clerk in a jeweler’s shop, and I seek besides, as you perceive, to fill up my leisure hours. We have retrenched our mode of living in every possible way, and one room forms our lodging. At first I thought of going to take my father’s place, and thus release him from his cruel chains. I was about putting this idea into execution, when my mother assured me that such an undertaking was as rash as it was impracticable;[25] and she forbade all the captains of the Levant to take me on board.”

4. “Do you ever hear from your father? Do you know the name of his master in Tetuan, and in what manner is he treated?” “His master is the intendant of the king’s gardens; they treat him with humanity, and the labor to which he is subjected is not above his strength. But he is our father; he is so good, and we are not there to comfort him; he is far from us, from his dear wife and his three children, whom he loves tenderly.”

5. “What name does he bear in Tetuan?” “It is not changed; they call him Robert.” “Robert? in Tetuan? with the intendant[26] of the gardens?” “Yes, Sir.”

6. “I am touched at your sorrow, my good friend; and, in consequence of your noble sentiments, I predict[27] for you the accomplishment of your wishes, which, indeed, you richly merit. Meanwhile, let me now enjoy a few moments’ solitude in this spot.”

7. When it was night, Robert had orders to put him ashore. Then the stranger, slipping a purse into the young man’s hands, disappeared without allowing him time to express his thanks. The purse contained four hundred francs, mostly in gold coins. Such generosity gave Robert the highest opinion of the stranger, who had listened with so much interest to his sad tale. In vain did Robert seek him, to assure him of his lasting gratitude.

8. Six weeks elapsed since this extraordinary occurrence, and those good people worked on indefatigably,[28] to complete the sum mentioned. One day they were partaking of a frugal meal of bread and dried almonds, in the narrow room which was their home, when a man entered, and surprised them in the midst of their trouble and their misery. He was cleanly clad. Heavens! ... it is Robert, their father. What astonishment! What exclamations of joy! What tears were shed, in their happiness. Robert embraced his wife and his children, and told them how thankful he felt for the twelve thousand francs which he received at the moment he embarked on the vessel, where his passage had been already paid; clothes also were furnished him, and he knew not, he said, how to acknowledge so much solicitude[29] and attention.

9. The surprise of the mother and the children increased at every word spoken; they could not comprehend this mysterious language, and they looked at each other in their bewilderment. At length, the mother broke silence: she supposed that her son had done all this without consulting her; she told her husband how zealously he had labored since the beginning of his captivity; how he had endeavored to go and replace him, and how she had prevented him from so doing. “Ten thousand francs,” added she, “were necessary for the ransom; we had but a little more than the half, most part of which was acquired[30] by his attention to business; for the rest, friends must have aided him.”

11. All at once the disheartened father grew thoughtful and gloomy, and thus addressed his son: “Unhappy boy, can I owe you my liberty without regret? How could it have remained a secret to your mother, and not be bought at the price of virtue? At your age, unhappy son of a slave, one cannot easily obtain so much money. I shudder to think that filial piety may have made you culpable.[31] Confide in me, be sincere, do not conceal the truth; have you been guilty of dishonesty?”

12. “Banish your fears, dear father,” cried the virtuous son, as he embraced him tenderly; “your child is not unworthy of this title, nor lucky enough to have effected your freedom, which, in truth, you do not owe to me; I know your benefactor—oh, yes, I know him. Do you remember, dear mother, the stranger who gave me his purse—how he questioned me thus: ‘Where is your father? What is his name? Who is his master?’ Were I to spend my whole life, I shall find him again, and he shall admire the fruits of his generosity.”

Then his dutiful son related the incident which had taken place, restoring, meanwhile, the peace and the happiness which had, for a moment, given place to fear.

13. Restored to his family, the honest Robert found friends and means. Success surpassed his hopes. After ten years, he had acquired a little fortune; and his children, who were all settled in life, shared the happiness of their father and mother.

[23] AVˊ-A-RIˊ-CIOUS, greedy of wealth.

[24] RANˊ-SOM, the price paid to redeem a person or goods from an enemy.

[25] IM-PRACˊTI-CA-BLE, incapable of being done.

[26] IN-TENDˊ-ANT, an overseer.

[27] PRE-DICTˊ, to foretell.

[28] INˊ-DE-FATˊ-I-GA-BLE, untiring, not yielding to fatigue.

[29] SO-LICˊ-I-TUDE, anxiety, care, concern.

[30] ACˊ-QUIRE, to gain, to obtain.

[31] CULˊ-PA-BLE, blameable.

IV.—THE CHRISTIAN MOTHER.

MARY I. HOFFMAN.

Miss Hoffman is an American authoress of very marked ability. Her “Agnes Hilton,” “Alice Murray,” and “Felix Kent” are works of fiction of great and deserved popularity.

1. It was a poor, dilapidated[32] house in a narrow lane; no curtains shaded the small windows through which the glaring sun came mockingly in. A table stood in the middle of the room, with—we cannot say the remains of the last meal, for the meal had been too scant to have any remains—but with the soiled cups and plates still unremoved; the cold stove looked as if it had never known what it was to have a good fire blazing and burning within it; back by the wall was an old scuttle, in which were a few coals, evidently placed there away from the stove, lest too close proximity[33] might tempt to using them before the time to heat the teakettle for the next meal came round.

2. On a little bench sat a pale, thin-faced child of seven or eight years. An old, threadbare coat, very much too large, was wrapped around him, completely covering, or rather burying him in its ample folds. After one or two ineffectual attempts he succeeded in disengaging[34] his little hands, and then smoothed back the golden locks from his broad, handsome brow.

3. On the floor were two little girls, one five, the other three. They were playing with bits of cloth and shreds of ribbons, ever and anon pausing to look up in the face of a middle-aged woman sitting by the window, sewing on a jacket as fast as her hand could fly. She had on a faded dress of mourning, and her countenance looked sorrow-stricken and worn.

4. On a bed in one corner was lying a boy of fifteen or sixteen years. He was very pale, and with the sunken eyes closed, the chin slightly fallen, the ashen lips parted, displaying the large even teeth, a looker-on might have congratulated himself that the vital[35] spark had fled—that the spirit had found a happier home. But his languid eyes opened, and a groan escaped his lips.

5. His mother started and exclaimed:

“Oh, Alfred, that pain has again awakened you!”

“No, mother, no, I was not asleep,” he sorrowfully replied.

“Not asleep, Alfred! I thought you were, you lay so quiet.”

“I know it, but I only had my eyes closed, thinking of the time we lived in Stanton, and it all came back so plain, that I thought this poor, cold room was only a dream, but I opened my eyes, and oh, mother, it wasn’t, it wasn’t!” Clasping his hands, he cried: “What a change since father died, what a change!” and sobs choked the further utterance of the poor, sick boy.

6. “Oh, Alfred, dear Alfred,” said his mother, while unbidden tears came into her eyes; “your father was too good to be left here to suffer. He was called home to heaven—to heaven,” she slowly repeated, dropping her needle and pressing her hand upon her heart to keep down its tumultuous[36] throbbings. Then, after a moment’s pause, she added:

“But, Alfred, be patient; God will not forget us.”

“Forget us!” he exclaimed, starting up and looking wildly around, “why, mother, it seems we are already forgotten.”

“No, Alfred, don’t say that; God is so good and merciful, He sends us these trials to disengage our minds from the world, and prepare us for heaven; His beautiful heaven, child. You remember when, in Stanton, we used to read of it, and think we could even suffer martyrdom to show our love and gratitude to our dear Lord, who came on earth and died that we might enjoy it. And now, when pain and suffering come upon us, shall we murmur and repine?”

7. “Oh, mother, I don’t want to murmur,[37] but—oh, it is so much easier to talk of pain than it is to suffer it.”

“But, Alfred, dear, any pain or trial sent by God, if we only bear it with patience and resignation, will be showing the same love as if we died for Him.”

“Why, mother!” he exclaimed, forgetting, in his surprise, the great weakness that a moment before had gathered around his heart; “your words seem so strange, I will not say irreverent—but, mother, to compare our trials to martyrdom seems—seems so presumptuous.”[38]

8. Pausing an instant in her sewing, she fixed a steadfast gaze upon him; perceiving the conversation was not wearying him, she said:

“Alfred, I have often wished in this sickness to tell you my thoughts on this subject, for it seems they were suggested by my good angel, to strengthen and comfort me. You have been so weak, that I have not dared to dwell on any subject, or use more words than were absolutely necessary. But now I see you are able to hear me, and I will speak.”

9. “Yes, do, mother, do tell me something that will comfort me too; for, oh, how sad, how stricken I feel!” His large eyes looked haggard and wild. The little boy on the bench moved nearer, and, bending over with his elbows on his knees and his chin resting on his tiny palms, fixed his blue eyes wonderingly upon her, listening intently to what she was about to say. Newly threading her needle, she commenced;

“Alfred, a martyr suffers death through love of God, and rather than consent to an act displeasing to Him; in other words, rather than do any thing that would offend Him.”

“Yes, mother, but—”

“Wait, my child, wait. If now, through the same love of God, and through fear of offending Him, we suffer our trials and afflictions with patience and resignation, is it not the same spirit which leads one to martyrdom? is it not, my child, the same?”

10. He paused a moment before replying, and then slowly said: “In the way in which you present it to my view, it really does seem so, mother; but—” placing his hand upon his heart, “I wish I could make it seem so here.” He raised himself on his elbow and gazed round the desolate room; a wintry smile lit up his wan countenance.

“Oh, mother,” he bitterly exclaimed, “to talk of glorious martyrdom and joyous heaven in this wretched, wretched home of poverty!”

11. “Why not, my child?” she asked, in her kindest and most soothing tones. “Is it not the very place to talk of them? Has Alfred forgotten the cold little stable of Bethlehem, and the poor, comfortless home of Egypt? No, no, Alfred, poverty itself can never exclude[39] us from heaven. One single sin may forever close its gates, but, let us be ever so poor and wretched, we still have just as great a claim to heaven as the richest; perhaps even greater; remember Lazarus.”

11. Clasping her thin hands, while a smile played over her worn features, she continued:

“It may come upon us—poverty may—with such crushing force that we will have to lie down and die; but then it will be our path to heaven, our road home. Home! Oh, Alfred, what comfort in that word! There we will meet father, mother, sisters, brothers, and all will be joy and happiness. Every tear will be wiped away, and all the sorrow and wretchedness of the way-side forgotten. Yes, Alfred, from this very room, so poor and cold, we may go to a home all beautiful and bright.” With a hurried hand she resumed her sewing. Alfred was silent, but the cloud had passed from his brow.

[32] DI-LAPˊ-I-DATED, gone to ruin, decayed.

[33] PROX-IMˊ-ITY, nearness.

[34] DIS-EN-GAGE, to free, to release.

[35] VIˊ-TAL, necessary to life.

[36] TU-MULTˊ-UOUS, with wild commotion.

[37] MURˊ-MUR, to grumble, to complain.

[38] PRE-SUMPTˊ-U-OUS, rashly bold, over confident.

[39] EX-CLUDEˊ, to shut out, to debar.

V.—WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE.

MORRIS.

George P. Morris, an American writer, was born October 10, 1802, and died July 6, 1864. He was the author of many popular songs.

1. Woodman, spare that tree;

Touch not a single bough;

In youth it sheltered me,

And I’ll protect it now.

’Twas my forefather’s[40] hand

That placed it near his cot;

Then, woodman, let it stand;

Thy axe shall harm it not.

2. That old, familiar[41] tree,

Whose glory and renown[42]

Are spread o’er land and sea,

And wouldst thou hew it down?

Woodman, forbear thy stroke:

Cut not its earth-bound ties;

O, spare that aged oak,

Now towering[43] to the skies.

3. When but an idle boy,

I sought its grateful shade;

In all their gushing[44] joy.

Here, too, my sisters played.

My mother kissed me here;

My father pressed my hand:

Forgive this foolish tear,

But let that old oak stand.

4. My heartstrings round thee cling,

Close as thy bark, old friend!

Here shall the wild bird sing,

And still thy branches bend.

Old tree, the storm still brave!

And, woodman, leave the spot;

While I’ve a hand to save,

Thy axe shall harm it not.

[40] FOREˊFA-THER, an ancestor, as a grandfather, or great-grandfather.

[41] FA-MILˊIAR, well-known.

[42] RE-NOWNˊ, fame, high honor.

[43] TOWˊER-ING, rising aloft.

[44] GUSHˊ-ING, flowing, exuberant, impulsive.

VI.—THE TWO ROADS.

1. It was New Year’s night. An aged man was standing at a window. He raised his mournful eyes towards the deep blue sky, where the stars were floating, like white lilies, on the surface of a clear, calm lake. Then he cast them on the earth, where few more hopeless beings than himself now moved towards their certain goal[45]—the tomb.

2. Already he had passed sixty of the stages[46] which lead to it, and he had brought from his journey nothing but errors and remorse. His health was destroyed, his mind vacant, his heart sorrowful, and his old age devoid of comfort.

3. The days of his youth rose up in a vision[47] before him, and he recalled the solemn moment when his father had placed him at the entrance of two roads—one leading into a peaceful, sunny land, covered with a fertile harvest, and resounding with soft, sweet songs; the other leading the wanderer into a deep, dark cave, whence there was no issue[48], where poison flowed instead of water, and where serpents hissed and crawled.

4. He looked towards the sky, and cried out in his agony, “O youth, return! O my father, place me once more at the entrance to life, that I may choose the better way!” But his father and the days of his youth had both passed away.

5. He saw wondering lights floating away over dark marshes, and then disappear. These were the days of his wasted life. He saw a star fall from heaven, and vanish in darkness. This was an emblem[49] of himself, and the sharp arrows of unavailing remorse[50] struck home to his heart. Then he remembered his early companions, who entered on life with him, but who, having trod the paths of virtue and of labor, were now honored and happy on this New Year’s night.

6. The clock, in the high church tower, struck, and the sound, falling on his ear, recalled his parents’ early love for him, their erring son; the lessons they had taught him; the prayers they had offered up in his behalf. Overwhelmed with shame and grief, he dared no longer look towards that heaven where his father dwelt; his darkened eyes dropped tears, and with one despairing effort, he cried aloud, “Come back, my early days! come back!”

7. And his youth did return; for all this was but a dream which visited his slumbers on New Year’s night. He was still young; his faults alone were real. He thanked God fervently that time was still his own; that he had not yet entered the deep, dark cavern, but that he was free to tread the road leading to the peaceful land where sunny harvests wave.

8. Ye who still linger on the threshold[51] of life, doubting which path to choose, remember that, when years are passed, and your feet stumble on the dark mountain, you will cry bitterly[52], but cry in vain, “O youth, return! O, give me back my early days!”

[45] GOAL, a post or mark set to bound a race, end.

[46] STAGˊES, steps or degrees of advance or progress.

[47] VIˊSION, an imaginary appearance, as seen in a dream or in sleep.

[48] ISˊSUE (Ishˊshu), egress, passage out.

[49] EMˊBLEM, a picture or object representing one thing to the eye and another to the understanding.

[50] RE-MORSEˊ, reproach of conscience.

[51] THRESHˊOLD, a door-sill; beginning; entrance.

[52] BITˊTER-LY, sorrowfully.

VII.—THE LABORERS.

1. You can not pay with money

The million sons of toil—

The sailor on the ocean,

The peasant on the soil,

The laborer in the quarry,

The hewer of the coal;

Your money pays the hand,

But it can not pay the soul.

2. You gaze on the cathedral[53]

Whose turrets[54] meet the sky:

Remember the foundations

That in earth and darkness lie:

For, were not those foundations

So darkly resting there,

Yon towers up could never soar

So proudly in the air.

3. The workshop must be crowded,

That the palace may be bright;

If the plowman did not plow,

Then the poet could not write.

Then let every toil be hallowed[55]

That man performs for man,

And have its share of honor

As part of one great plan.

4. See, light darts down from heaven,

And enters where it may;

The eyes of all earth’s people

Are cheered with one bright day.

And let the mind’s true sunshine

Be spread o’er earth as free,

And fill the souls of men,

As the waters fill the sea.

5. The man who turns the soil

Need not have an earthly mind;

The digger ’mid the coal

Need not be in spirit blind:

The mind can shed a light

On each worthy labor done,

As lowliest things are bright

In the radiance[56] of the sun.

6. What cheers the musing[57] student?

The poet, the divine?

The thought that, for his followers,

A brighter day will shine.

Let every human laborer

Enjoy the vision bright—

Let the thought that comes from heaven.

Be spread like heaven’s own light!

7. Ye men who hold the pen,

Rise like a band inspired;[58]

And, poets, let your lyrics[59]

With hope for man be fired;[60]

Till the earth becomes a temple,

And every human heart

Shall join in one great service,

Each happy in his part.

[53] CA-THEˊ-DRAL, a church edifice.

[54] TURˊ-RETS, spires, or little towers.

[55] HALˊ-LOW-ED, treated as sacred.

[56] RAˊ-DI-ANCE, vivid brightness.

[57] MUSˊ-ING, meditating.

[58] IN-SPIRˊED, divinely influenced.

[59] LYRˊ-ICS, songs; hymns.

[60] FIRˊED, animated.

VIII.—THE BOY.

WILLIS.

1. There’s something in a noble boy,

A brave, free-hearted, careless one,

With his unchecked, unbidden joy,

His dread of books and love of fun,

And in his clear and ready smile,

Unshaded by a thought of guile,

And unrepressed[61] by sadness,—

Which brings me to my childhood back,

As if I trod its very track,

And felt its very gladness.

2. And yet, it is not in his play,

When every trace of thought is lost,

And not when you would call him gay,

That his bright presence thrills me most:

His shout may ring upon the hill,

His voice be echoed in the hall,

His merry laugh like music trill,

And I in sadness hear it all,—

For, like the wrinkles on my brow,

I scarcely notice such things now,—

3. But when, amid the earnest game,

He stops, as if he music heard,

And, heedless of his shouted name

As of the carol[62] of a bird,

Stands gazing on the empty air,

As if some dream were passing there;—

’Tis then that on his face I look—

His beautiful but thoughtful face—

And like a long-forgotten book,

Its sweet familiar meanings trace,—

4. Remembering a thousand things

Which passed me on those golden wings,

Which time has fettered now;

Things that came o’er me with a thrill,

And left me silent, sad, and still,

And threw upon my brow

A holier and a gentler cast,

That was too innocent to last.

5. ’Tis strange how thoughts upon a child

Will, like a presence, sometimes press,

And when his pulse is beating wild,

And life itself is in excess[63]—

When foot and hand, and ear and eye,

Are all with ardor[64] straining high—

How in his heart will spring

A feeling whose mysterious[65] thrall[66]

Is stronger, sweeter far than all!

And on its silent wing,

How, with the clouds, he’ll float away,

As wandering and as lost as they!

[61] UN-RE-PRESSED, not subdued or mastered.

[62] CARˊ-OL, a song of great joy.

[63] EX-CESSˊ, that which exceeds or surpasses what is usual or necessary.

[64] ARˊ-DOR, warmth or heat of passion or affection; eagerness.

[65] MYS-TEˊ-RI-OUS, secret; not easily understood.

[66] THRALL, bondage; slavery.

IX.—THE YOUNG SHEPHERD.

FENELON.

The illustrious Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray, in France, was born in 1651 and died, at Cambray, in 1715. He was as remarkable for sanctity as for genius. His purity, meekness and amiability, won the hearts of all—even of his enemies, if it can be said that he had any.

1. Sha-Abbas, king of Persia, being on his travels, withdrew from his retinue,[67] in order to visit the country, and there, without being known, to behold mankind in all their native freedom. He took with him only one of his officers, as an attendant.

2. “I am weary,” said he, “of living among sycophants,[68] who take all occasions to over-reach, while they flatter me. I am determined to visit husbandmen and shepherds, who know nothing of me.”

3. He traveled, with his confidant, through several villages where the peasants were dancing, and was overjoyed to see that his subjects, though at such a distance from court, had their diversions, and those so innocent and unexpensive.

4. After refreshing himself in a cottage, he crossed a meadow, enameled[69] with flowers, which decked the borders of a limpid[70] stream. Here he spied a young shepherd, playing on his pipe beneath a shady elm, while his flocks were grazing around him.

5. The king accosts him, surveys him closely, finds his aspect agreeable, and his air, though easy and natural, yet graceful and majestic. The simple habit[71] in which the shepherd was clad, did not in the least diminish the agreeableness of his person. The king supposed him at first to be a youth of illustrious birth, who had disguised himself; but he learned from the shepherd that his parents dwelt in an adjacent[72] village, and that his name was Alibeg.

6. The more questions the king put to him, the more he admired the strength and solidity of his genius. His eyes were lively, and beaming[73] with intelligence; his voice was sweet and melodious; his features were not rude, neither were they soft and effeminate.[74] The shepherd, though sixteen years of age, did not seem conscious of those perfections which were conspicuous to others. He imagined that his thoughts, his conversation, and his person, were not unlike those of his neighbors.

7. The king frequently smiled at the innocent freedom of the youth, who gave him much information about the state of the people. He gave the officer who accompanied him a private signal not to discover that he was the king, for fear that Alibeg, if he once knew with whom he conversed, would lose in an instant, his wonted[75] freedom, and all his native graces.

8. “I am now convinced,” said the prince to his attendant, “that nature is as beautiful in the lowest state as in the highest. No monarch’s son was ever born with nobler faculties than this young shepherd. I should think myself infinitely happy, had I a son equally handsome, intelligent, and ingenuous.[76] I will have him educated at my own court.”

9. The king accordingly took Alibeg away with him; and the youthful shepherd was much surprised to find that a prince should be so pleased with his conversation. Taken to court, he was instructed by proper tutors in all the graces which add to manly beauty, and in all the arts and sciences which adorn the mind.

10. The grandeur of the court, and a sudden change of fortune, in some measure influenced the temper of Alibeg. His crook, his pipe, and shepherd’s dress, were now forsaken; and, instead of them, he appeared in a purple robe embroidered with gold, and a turban enriched with jewels. Alibeg was handsomer than any other man at court. He was qualified to transact the most important affairs, and his master, placing the utmost confidence in his integrity,[77] soon conferred on him the post of jewel-keeper and treasurer of his household.

11. During the whole reign of the great Sha-Abbas, Alibeg’s reputation daily increased. But, as he advanced in years, he frequently recalled to mind his former state of life, and always with regret. “Oh, happy days!” would he whisper to himself; “oh, innocent days! days, wherein I tasted true joys without danger; days, since which I never saw one so pleasant, shall I not see you any more? He who has deprived me of you, by making me thus great, has utterly undone me.”

[67] RETˊ-I-NUE, a train of attendants.

[68] SYCˊ-O-PHANTS, mean flatterers.

[69] EN-AMˊ-ELED, covered; filled.

[70] LIMˊ-PID, clear; pure.

[71] HABˊ-IT, dress; garb.

[72] AD-JAˊ-CENT, near by; adjoining.

[73] BEAMˊ-ING, glowing; shining.

[74] EF-FEMˊ-I-NATE, feminine; delicate.

[75] WONTˊ-ED, accustomed; usual.

[76] IN-GENˊ-U-OUS, open; frank; candid.

[77] IN-TEGˊ-RI-TY, honesty; uprightness.

X. THE YOUNG SHEPHERD—CONTINUED.

1. Alibeg, after a long absence, revisited his native village. Here he gazed with fondness on those places where he had formerly danced, sung, and tuned his pipe with his fellow-swains.[78] He made presents to all his friends and relations; but advised them, as they valued their peace of mind, never to resign their rural pleasures, never to expose themselves to the anxieties and misfortunes of a court. Alibeg felt the weight of those misfortunes, soon after the death of his good master Sha-Abbas.

2. Sha-Sephi succeeded his father. Some envious, artful courtiers[79] found means to prejudice the young prince against him. “He has,” said they, “betrayed the trust reposed in him by the late king. He has hoarded up immense treasures, and embezzled[80] valuable effects.”

3. Sha-Sephi was young, and a monarch; which was more than sufficient to make him credulous[81] and inconsiderate. He had, besides, the vanity to think himself qualified to reform his fathers acts, and to judge of things better than the latter had done. To have some plea for removing Alibeg from his post, he commanded him to produce the cimeter,[82] set with diamonds of an immense value, which his royal grandsire used to wear in battle. Sha-Abbas had formerly ordered these to be taken off; and Alibeg brought witnesses to prove that they were so removed long before his promotion.

4. When Alibeg’s enemies found this scheme too weak to effect his ruin, they prevailed on Sha-Sephi to give him strict orders to produce an exact inventory[83] of all the rich furniture intrusted to his care. Alibeg opened the doors, and showed every thing committed to his charge. No one article was missing: each was in its proper place, and preserved with great care.

5. The king, surprised to see such order every where observed, began to entertain a favorable opinion of Alibeg, till he espied, at the end of a long gallery, an iron door, with three strong locks. “There it is,” whispered the envious courtiers in his ear, “that Alibeg has concealed all the valuable effects which he has purloined.”[84] The king now angrily exclaimed, “I will see what is in that room. What have you concealed there? Show it me.” Alibeg fell prostrate at his feet, beseeching him not to take from him all that he now held valuable upon earth.

6. Sha-Sephi now took it for granted that Alibeg’s ill-gotten treasure lay concealed within. He commanded the door to be opened. Alibeg, who had the keys in his pocket, unlocked the door. Nothing, however, was found there, but his crook, his pipe, and the shepherd’s dress which he wore in his youth.

7. “Behold great sir,” said he, “the remains of my former felicity,[85] which neither fortune nor your majesty have taken from me. Behold my treasure, which I reserve to make me rich, when you shall think proper to make me poor. Take back every thing besides; but leave me these dear pledges of my rural[86] station. These are my substantial riches which will never fail me.

8. “These, O king! are the precious, yet innocent possessions of those who can live contented with the necessaries of life, without tormenting themselves about superfluous[87] enjoyments. These are riches which are possessed with liberty and safety; riches which never give me one moment’s disquiet. Oh, ye dear implements of a plain, but happy life! I value none but you; with you I will live, and with you die. I here resign, great sir, the many favors which your royal bounty[88] has bestowed upon me.”

9. The king, convinced of Alibeg’s innocence, instantly banished his accusers from court. Alibeg became his prime minister, and was intrusted with the most important secrets. He visited, however, every day, his crook, his pipe, and rural habit, that he might remember them, should fickle fortune deprive him of a monarchˊs favor. He died in a good old age, without wishing to have his enemies punished, or to increase his possessions; and left his relations no more than what would maintain them in the station of shepherds, which he always thought the safest and most happy.

[78] SWAINS, peasants; shepherds.

[79] COURTˊ-IERS, those who frequent courts.

[80] EM-BEZˊ-ZLED, purloined; robbed; stolen.

[81] CREDˊ-U-LOUS, easy of belief; unsuspecting.

[82] CIMˊ-E-TER, a short Turkish sword.

[83] INˊ-VEN-TO-RY, catalogue; account.

[84] PUR-LOINˊ-ED, stolen.

[85] FE-LICˊ-I-TY, happiness.

[86] RUˊ-RAL, pertaining to the country.

[87] SU-PERˊ-FLU-OUS, more than is necessary.

[88] BOUNˊ-TY, generosity; liberality.

XI.—OLD TIMES.

GERALD GRIFFIN.

Gerald Griffin was born in Ireland in 1803. He was a distinguished novelist and dramatist. He has also written some short poems remarkable for their tenderness of feeling and beauty of expression.

While still a young man he withdrew from the pursuits of literature and joined the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He died in 1840 at the early age of thirty-seven.

1. Old times! old times! the gay old times!

When I was young and free,

And heard the merry Easter chimes,

Under the sally tree;

My Sunday palm beside me placed,

My cross upon my hand,

A heart at rest within my breast,

And sunshine on the land!

Old times! old times!

2. It is not that my fortunes flee,

Nor that my cheek is pale,

I mourn whene’er I think of thee,

My darling native vale!

A wiser head I have, I know,

Than when I loitered there;

But in my wisdom there is woe,

And in my knowledge care,

Old times! old times!

3. I’ve lived to know my share of joy,

To feel my share of pain,

To learn that friendship’s self can cloy,

To love and love in vain—

To feel a pang and wear a smile,

To tire of other climes,

To like my own unhappy isle,

And sing the gay old times!

Old times! old times!

4. And sure the land is nothing changed,

The birds are singing still;

The flowers are springing where we ranged,

There’s sunshine on the hill;

The sally waving o’er my head,

Still sweetly shades my frame,

But ah, those happy days are fled,

And I am not the same!

Old times! old times!

5. Oh, come again, ye merry times!

Sweet, sunny, fresh, and calm;

And let me hear those Easter chimes,

And wear my Sunday palm.

If I could cry away mine eyes,

My tears would flow in vain;

If I could waste my heart in sighs,

They’ll never come again!

Old times! old times!

XII.—THE BROKEN HEART.

IRVING.

Washington Irving was born in the City of New York, in 1783 and died in 1859. His writings are deservedly popular. His “Sketch Book,” “Life of Goldsmith,” “Life of Columbus,” “Conquest of Granada,” and other works, have made him as well known to European as to American readers.

1. Every one must recollect the tragical[89] story of young Emmet, the Irish patriot; it was too touching to be soon forgotten. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, condemned, and executed[90] on a charge of treason. He was so young, so intelligent, so generous, so brave, so everything that we are apt to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled[91] the charge of treason against his country, the eloquent vindication of his name, and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation, all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution.

2. But there was one heart whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor[92] of a woman’s first and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her whose whole soul was occupied by his image! Let those tell who have had the portals[93] of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth, who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, whence all that was most lovely and loving had departed.

3. But then the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, so dishonored! there was nothing for memory to dwell on, that could soothe the pangs of separation, none of those tender, though melancholy circumstances, which endear the parting scene, nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent like the dews of heaven to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish.

4. To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her fathers displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities.[94] The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate[95] her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her love.

5. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity which scathe and scorch the soul, which penetrate to the vital seat of happiness, and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude[96] walking about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe, that mocked at all the blandishments[97] of friendship, and “heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely”.

6. The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade[98]. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene; to find it wandering like a specter, lone and joyless, where all around is gay, to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow.

7. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction,[99] she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra,[100] and, looking about for some time with a vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish[101] scene, she began with the capriciousness[102] of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness, that she drew a crowd mute and silent around her, and melted every one into tears.

8. The story of one so true and tender, could not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his address to her, and thought that one so true to the dead could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance that her heart was unalterably another’s.

9. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of her early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow but hopeless decline, and, at length, sank into the grave, the victim of a broken heart.

10. She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,

And lovers are around her, sighing;

But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,

For her heart in his grave is lying!

11. She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,

Every note which he loved awaking;

Ah! little they think who delight in her strains,

How the heart of the Minstrel is breaking!

12. He had lived for his love, for his country he died,

They were all that to life had entwined him;

Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,

Nor long will his love stay behind him.

13. O! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,

When they promise a glorious morrow;

They’ll shine o’er her sleep, like a smile from the West,

From her own loved island of sorrow!

[89] TRAGˊ-I-CAL, mournful, calamitous.

[90] EXˊ-E-CUTED (here means) put to death.

[91] RE-PELLEDˊ, resisted.

[92] FERˊVOR, warmth, ardor.

[93] PORTˊAL, an entrance, a gateway.

[94] SEN-SI-BIL-I-TYˊ, delicate feeling, tenderness.

[95] DISˊ-SI-PATE, to disperse, to scatter.

[96] SOLˊ-I-TUDE, loneliness, seclusion.

[97] BLANDˊ-ISH-MENTS, artful caresses, soothing words.

[98] MASˊ-QUER-ADEˊ, an assemblage of persons for amusement in which masks are worn.

[99] AB-STRACˊ-TION, absence of mind.

[100] ORˊ-CHES-TRA, a place or gallery for musicians.

[101] GARˊ-ISH, gaudy, showy.

[102] CA-PRIˊ-CIOUS-NESS, freak, whimsicalness.

XIII.—LITTLE VICTORIES.

REMARK.—In conversational pieces like the following, the manner of each speaker should be imitated, as in a dialogue.

1. “Oh, mother, now that I have lost my limb, I can never be a soldier or a sailor; I can never go round the world!” And Hugh burst into tears, now more really afflicted than he had ever been yet. His mother sat on the bed beside him, and wiped away his tears as they flowed, while he told her, as well as his sobs would let him, how long and how much he had reckoned on going round the world, and how little he cared for anything else in future; and now this was the very thing he should never be able to do!

2. He had practiced climbing ever since he could remember, and now this was of no use; he had practiced marching, and now he should never march again. When he had finished his complaint, there was a pause, and his mother said, “Hugh, you have heard of Huber.”

“The man who found out so much about bees?” said Hugh.

“Bees and ants. When Huber had discovered[103] more than had ever been known about these, and when he was sure that he could learn still more, and was more and more anxious to peep into their tiny[104] homes, and curious ways, he became blind.”

3. Hugh sighed, and his mother went on.

“Did you ever hear of Beethoven? He was one of the greatest musical composers[105] that ever lived. His great, his sole delight, was in music. It was the passion of his life. When all his time and all his mind were given to music, he suddenly became deaf, perfectly deaf; so that he never more heard one single note from the loudest orchestra[106]. While crowds were moved and delighted with his compositions[107] it was all silence to him.” Hugh said nothing.

4. “Now do you think,” asked his mother—and Hugh saw that a mild and gentle smile beamed from her countenance—“do you think that these people were without a heavenly Parent?”

“Oh no! but were they patient?” asked Hugh.

“Yes, in their different ways and degrees. Would you suppose that they were hardly treated? Or would you not rather suppose, that their Father gave them something better to do, than they had planned for themselves?”

5. “He must know best, of course; but it does seem very hard, that that very thing should happen to them. Huber would not have so much minded being deaf, perhaps; or that musical man being blind.”

“No doubt their hearts often swelled within them, at their disappointments; but I fully believe that they very soon found God’s will to be wiser than their wishes. They found, if they bore their trial well, that there was work for their hearts to do, far nobler than any the head could do through the eye, or the ear. And they soon felt a new and delicious pleasure, which none but the bitterly disappointed can feel.”

“What is that?”

6. “The pleasure of rousing the soul to bear pain, and of agreeing with God silently, when nobody knows what is in the breast. There is no pleasure like that of exercising one’s soul in bearing pain, and of finding one’s heart glow with the hope that one is pleasing God.”

“Shall I feel that pleasure?”

“Often and often, I have no doubt; every time you can willingly give up your wish to be a soldier, or a sailor, or any thing else you have set your mind upon, you will feel that pleasure. But I do not expect it of you yet. I dare say, it was long a bitter thing to Beethoven to see hundreds of people in raptures[108] with his music when he could not hear a note of it.”

7. “But did he ever smile again?” asked Hugh.

“If he did, he was happier than all the fine music in the world could have made him,” replied his mother.

“I wonder, oh, I wonder if I shall ever feel so!”

“We will pray to God that you may. Shall we ask him now?”

Hugh clasped his hand. His mother kneeled beside the bed, and, in a very few words, prayed that Hugh might be able to bear his misfortune[109] well, and that his friends might give him such help and comfort as God should approve.

[103] DIS-COVˊ-ERED, found out.

[104] TINˊ-Y, very small.

[105] COM-POSˊER, an author.

[106] ORˊ-CHES-TRA, a body of musicians.

[107] COM-PO-SIˊ-TIONS, musical pieces.

[108] RAPTˊ-URES, extreme delight.

[109] MIS-FORˊ-TUNE, calamity.

XIV.—LITTLE VICTORIES.—CONTINUED.

8. Hugh found himself subject to very painful feelings sometimes, such as no one quite understood, and such as he feared no one was able to pity as they deserved. On one occasion, when he had been quite merry for a while, and his mother and sister Agnes were chatting[110] they thought they heard a sob from the sofa. They spoke to Hugh, and found that he was indeed crying bitterly.

“What is it, my dear,” said his mother. “Agnes, have we said anything that could hurt his feelings?”

“No, no,” sobbed Hugh. “I will tell you presently.”

9. And presently he told them, that he was so busy listening to what they said, that he forgot every thing else, when he felt as if something got between two of his toes; unconsciously he put down his hand, as if his foot was there! Nothing could be plainer than the feeling in his toes; and, then, when he put out his hand, and found nothing, it was so terrible! it startled him so! It was a comfort to find that his mother knew about this. She came, and kneeled by his sofa, and told him that many persons who had lost a limb, considered this the most painful thing they had to bear, for some time; but that, though the feeling would return occasionally through life, it would cease to be painful.

10. Hugh was very much dejected[111], and when he thought of the months and years, to the end of his life, and that he should never run and play, and never be like other people, he almost wished that he was dead.

Agnes thought that he must be miserable indeed, if he could venture to say this to his mother. She glanced at her mother’s face, but there was no displeasure there. On the contrary, she said this feeling was very natural. She had felt it herself, under smaller misfortunes than Hugh’s; but she had found, though the prospect appears all strewn[112] with troubles, that they come singly, and are not so hard to bear, after all.

11. She told Hugh, that when she was a little girl, she was very lazy, fond of her bed, and not at all fond of dressing or washing.

“Why, mother! you?” exclaimed Hugh.

“Yes; that was the sort of little girl I was. Well, I was in despair, one day, at the thought that I should have to wash and clean my teeth, and brush my hair, and put on every article of dress, every morning as long as I lived.”

“Did you tell any body?” asked Hugh.

12. “No; I was ashamed to do that; but I remember I cried. You see how it turns out. When we have become accustomed to any thing, we do it without ever thinking of the trouble, and, as the old fable tells us, the clock, that has to tick so many millions of times, has exactly the same number of seconds to do it in. So will you find, that you can move about on each separate occasion, as you wish, and practise will enable you to do it without any trouble or thought.”

“But this is not all, nor half what I mean,” said Hugh.

13. “No, my dear, nor half what you will have to bear. You resolved to bear it all patiently, I remember. But what is it you dread the most?”

“Oh! all manner of things. I can never do like other people.”

“Some things,” replied his mother. “You can never play cricket, as every Crofton boy would like to do. You can never dance at your sister’s Christmas parties.”

14. “Oh! mamma!” cried Agnes, with tears in her eyes, and with the thought in her mind, that it was cruel to talk so.

“Go on! go on!” cried Hugh, brightening. “You know what I feel, mother; and you don’t keep telling me, as others do, and even sister Agnes, sometimes, that it will not signify much, and that I shall not care, and all that; making out that it is no misfortune, hardly, when I know what it is, and they don’t. Now then, go on, mother! What else?”

15. “There will be little checks and mortifications continually, when you see little boys leaping over this, and climbing that, and playing at the other, while you must stand out, and can only look on. And some people will pity you, in a way you will not like; and some may even laugh at you.”

“Oh mamma!” exclaimed Agnes.

“Well, and what else?” said Hugh.

16. “Sooner or later, you will have to follow some way of life determined by this accident, instead of one that you would have liked better.”

“Well, what else?”

“I must ask you, now. I can think of nothing more; and I hope there is not much else; for, indeed, I think here is quite enough for a boy, or any one else, to bear.”

“I will bear it, though; you will see.”

17. “You will find great helps. These misfortunes, of themselves strengthen one’s mind. They have some advantages, too. You will be a better scholar for your lameness, I have no doubt. You will read more books, and have a mind richer in thoughts. You will be more beloved by us all, and you yourself will love God more for having given you something to bear for His sake. God Himself will help you to bear your trials. You will conquer your trials one by one, and by a succession of LITTLE VICTORIES, will, at last, completely triumph over all.”

[110] CHATˊ-TING, talking familiarly.

[111] DE-JECTˊ-ED, discouraged, low-spirited.

[112] STREWN, scattered.

XV.—OUR TITLES.

1. Are we not Nobles? we who trace

Our Pedigree[113] so high,

That God for us and for our race

Created Earth and Sky,

And Light, and Air, and Time, and Space,

To serve us, and then die.

2. Are we not Princes? we who stand

As heirs beside the Throne;

We who can call the promised land

Our Heritage,[114] our own;

And answer to no less command

Than God’s, and His alone.

3. Are we not Kings? both night and day,

From early until late,

About our bed, about our way,

A guard of Angels wait;

And so we watch, and work, and pray

In more than royal state.

4. Are we not holy? do not start;

It is God’s sacred will

To call us Temples set apart

His Holy Ghost may fill;

Our very food.... Oh hush, my heart,

Adore It and be still!

5. Are we not more? Our life shall be

Immortal[115] and divine;

The nature Mary gave to Thee,

Dear Jesus, still is Thine;

Adoring in Thy Heart I see

Such blood as beats in mine.

6. O God! that we can dare to fail,

And dare to say we must!

O God, that we can ever trail

Such banners in the dust,

Can let such starry honors pale,

And such a Blazon[116] rust!

7. Shall we upon such Titles bring

The taint of sin and shame?

Shall we, the children of the King

Who hold so grand a claim,

Tarnish, by any meaner thing,

The glory of our name?

[113] PEDˊ-I-GREE, lineage, line of descent from a progenitor.

[114] HERˊ-IT-AGE, an estate that passes from an ancestor to an heir.

[115] IM-MORˊ-TAL, exempt from death.

[116] BLAˊ-ZON, a coat of arms.

XVI.—THE WIDOW OF THE PINE COTTAGE.

1. It was Saturday night, and the widow of the Pine Cottage sat by her blazing fagots,[117] with her five tattered children at her side, endeavoring, by listening to the artlessness, of their prattle,[118] to dissipate[119] the heavy gloom that pressed upon her mind. For a year, her own feeble hand had provided for her helpless family, for she had no supporter: she thought of no friend in all the wide, unfriendly world around.

2. But that mysterious Providence, the wisdom of whose ways is above human comprehension, had visited her with wasting sickness, and her little means had become exhausted. It was now, too, mid-winter, and the snow lay heavy and deep through all the surrounding forests, while storms still seemed gathering in the heavens, and the driving wind roared among the neighboring pines, and rocked her puny[120] mansion.

3. The last herring smoked upon the coals before her; it was the only article of food she possessed, and no wonder her forlorn, desolate state brought up in her lone bosom all the anxieties of a mother, when she looked upon her children; and no wonder, forlorn as she was, if she suffered the heart-swellings of despair to rise, even though she knew that He, whose promise is to the widow and to the orphan, can not forget his word.

4. Providence had, many years before, taken from her her eldest son, who went from his forest home to try his fortune on the high seas, since which she had heard no tidings of him; and, later still, the hand of death deprived her of the companion and staff of her earthly pilgrimage,[121] in the person of her husband. Yet to this hour she had upborne; she had not only been able to provide for her little flock, but had never lost an opportunity of ministering to the wants of the miserable and destitute.

5. The indolent may well bear with poverty, while the ability to gain sustenance remains. The individual who has but his own wants to supply, may suffer with fortitude the winter of want; his affections are not wounded, his heart not wrung. The most desolate in populous cities may hope, for charity has not quite closed her hand and heart, and shut her eyes on misery.

6. But the industrious mother of helpless and depending children, far from the reach of human charity, has none of these to console her. And such a one was the widow of the Pine Cottage; but as she bent over the fire, and took up the last scanty remnant of food, to spread before her children, her spirits seemed to brighten up, as by some sudden and mysterious impulse, and Cowper’s beautiful lines came uncalled across her mind:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

But trust Him for His grace;

Behind a frowning Providence

He hides a smiling face.

7. The smoked herring was scarcely laid upon the table, when a gentle rap at the door, and loud barking of a dog, attracted the attention of the family. The children flew to open it, and a weary traveler, in tattered garments, and apparently indifferent health, entered and begged a lodging, and a mouthful of food. Said he, “It is now twenty-four hours since I tasted bread.” The widow’s heart bled anew as under a fresh complication[122] of distresses; for her sympathies[123] lingered not around her fireside. She hesitated not even now; rest and a share of all she had she proffered to the stranger. “We shall not be forsaken,” said she, “or suffer deeper for an act of charity.”

8. The traveler drew near the board, but when he saw the scanty fare, he raised his eyes toward heaven with astonishment: “And is this all your store?” said he, “and a share of this do you offer to one you know not? then never saw I charity before! but, madam,” said he, continuing, “do you not wrong your children by giving a part of your last mouthful to a stranger?”

9. “Ah,” said the poor widow, and the tear-drops gushed[124] into her eyes as she said it, “I have a boy, a darling son, somewhere on the face of the wide world, unless heaven has taken him away, and I only act toward you, as I would that others should act toward him. God, who sent manna[125] from heaven, can provide for us as He did for Israel; and how should I this night offend Him, if my son should be a wanderer, destitute as you, and He should have provided for him a home, even poor as this, were I to turn you unrelieved away.”

10. The widow ended, and the stranger, springing from his seat, clasped her in his arms: “God, indeed, has provided your son a home, and has given him wealth to reward the goodness of his benefactress: my mother! oh, my mother!” It was her long-lost son, returned to her bosom from the Indies. He had chosen that disguise that he might the more completely surprise his family; and never was surprise more perfect, or followed by a sweeter cup of joy.

11. That humble residence in the forest was exchanged for one comfortable, and indeed beautiful, in the valley; and the widow lived long with her dutiful son, in the enjoyment of worldly plenty, and in the delightful employments of virtue; and, at this day, the passer-by is pointed to the willow that spreads its branches above her grave.

[117] FAGˊ-OTS; bundles of sticks used for fuel.

[118] PRATˊ-TLE; trifling talk.

[119] DISˊ-SI-PATE; to scatter, to disperse.

[120] PUˊ-NY; small and weak.

[121] PILˊ-GRIM-AGE; the journey of human life.

[122] COM-PLI-CAˊ-TION; the act of mingling together several things.

[123] SYMˊ-PA-THIES; compassion.

[124] GUSHED; flowed copiously.

[125] MANˊ-NA; food miraculously provided by God for the Israelites.

XVII.—A PSALM OF LIFE.

LONGFELLOW.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born at Portland, Maine, in 1807. He is one of the most popular of living poets.

1. Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

2. Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

3. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined[126] end or way,

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us farther than to-day.

4. Art is long, and time is fleeting;

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled[127] drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

5. In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac[128] of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

6. Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant,

Let the dead past bury its dead!

Act—act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o’erhead.

7. Lives of great men all remind us,

We can make our lives sublime;[129]

And, departing, leave behind us

Foot-prints[130] on the sands of time;—

8. Foot-prints, that, perhaps, another,

Sailing over life’s solemn[131] main,[132]

A forlorn[133] and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

9. Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving,[134] still pursuing,[135]

Learn to labor, and to wait.

[126] DES’-TIN-ED, fated; appointed.

[127] MUF’-FLED, covered; wrapped up.

[128] BIV’-OUAC (biv’-wak), encampment without tents; a watching.

[129] SUB-LIME’, lofty; grand.

[130] FOOT-PRINTS, impression of the foot.

[131] SOL’-EMN, grave; serious.

[132] MAIN, open sea; ocean.

[133] FOR’-LORN, forsaken; helpless.

[134] A-CHIEV’-ING, performing; doing.

[135] PUR-SU’-ING, following up.

XVIII.—LET VIRTUE BE YOUR AIM.

1. Whatever be thy lot on earth,

Thy mission[136] here below,

Though Fame may wreathe[137] her laurels[138] fair,

Around your youthful brow,—

If you would rise from earthly things,

And win a deathless name,

Let all your ways be just and right—

Let virtue be your aim.[139]

2. Though cherished[140] friends may traitors[141] prove.

Their kindness all depart,

And leave a mournful spell around

Thy sad and bleeding heart;

Though you may oft be scorned[142] by men,

Or those who bear the name,

Let all your ways be just and right—

Let virtue be your aim.

3. Oh! ye who dwell in stately[143] halls,

Where wealth and fame[144] are known,

Remember you may yet be poor,

Neglected and alone!

But, oh! remember this broad truth,

Ere others’ faults you scan,[145]

Your wealth may make a thousand fools—

BUT VIRTUE MAKES THE MAN.

[136] MIS’-SION, errand; business.

[137] WREATHE, entwine.

[138] LAU’-RELS, flowers for garlands.

[139] AIM, purpose; intention.

[140] CHER’-ISH-ED, dear; loved.

[141] TRAI’-TORS, betrayers.

[142] SCORN’-ED despised; disdained

[143] STATE’-LY, magnificent; grand

[144] FAME, renown; glory.

[145] SCAN, examine critically.

XIX. -THE BOBOLINK.

W. IRVING.

1. The happiest bird of our spring, and one that rivals[146] the European lark, in my estimation,[147] is the Bobolink. He arrives at that choice portion of the year, which, in this latitude, answers to the description[148] of the month of May, so often given by the poets. With us, it begins about the middle of May, and lasts until nearly the middle of June.

2. Earlier than this, winter is apt to return on its traces, and to blight[149] the opening beauties of the year; and later than this, begin the parching, and panting, and dissolving[150] heats of summer. But, in this genial[151] interval,[152] Nature is in all her freshness and fragrance; “the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle[153] is heard in our land.”

3. The trees are now in their fullest foliage[154] and the brightest verdure; the woods are gay with the clustered[155] flowers of the laurel; the air is perfumed by the sweet-brier and the wild rose; the meadows are enameled[156] with clover-blossoms; while the young apple, the peach, and the plum, begin to swell, and the cherry to glow among the green leaves.

4. This is the chosen season of revelry[157] of the Bobolink. He comes amidst the pomp and fragrance of the season; his life seems all sensibility[158] and enjoyment, all song and sunshine. He is to be found in the soft bosoms of the freshet and sweetest meadows; and is most in song when the clover is in blossom.

5. He perches[159] on the topmost twig of a tree, or on some flaunting weed, and, as he rises and sinks with the breeze, pours forth a succession[160] of rich, tinkling notes, crowding one upon another, like the outpouring melody of the sky-lark, and possessing the same rapturous[161] character.

6. Sometimes he pitches from the summit of a tree, begins his song as soon as he gets upon the wing, and flutters tremulously[162] down to the earth, as if overcome with ecstasy[163] at his own music. Sometimes he is in pursuit of his paramour;[164] always in full song, as if he would win her by his melody; and always with the same appearance of intoxication[165] and delight.

7. Of all the birds of our groves and meadows, the Bobolink was the envy of my boyhood. He crossed my path in the sweetest weather, and the sweetest season of the year, when all Nature called to the fields, and the rural[166] feeling throbbed in every bosom; but, when I, luckless urchin, was doomed to be mewed[167] up, during the livelong day, in a school-room, it seemed as if the little varlet[168] mocked at me, as he flew by in full song, and sought to taunt me with his happier lot. O, how I envied him! No lessons, no tasks, no schools; nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields, and fine weather.

[146] RI’-VALS, strives to excel.

[147] ES-TI-MA’-TION, opinion; esteem.

[148] DE-SCRIP’-TION, account.

[149] BLIGHT, blast; destroy.

[150] DIS-SOLV’-ING, melting.

[151] GE’-NI-AL, fruitful; productive.

[152] IN’-TER-VAL, space between.

[153] TUR’-TLE, species of dove.

[154] FO’-LI-AGE, leaves collectively.

[155] CLUS’-TER-ED. growing in bunches.

[156] EN-AM’-EL-ED, inlaid; variegated.

[157] REV’-EL-RY, festive mirth; jollity.

[158] SENS-I-BIL’-TY, delicate feeling.

[159] PERCH’-ES, alights.

[160] SUC-CES’-SION, series.

[161] RAP’-TUR-OUS, joyful; thrilling.

[162] TREM’-U-LOUS-LY, tremblingly.

[163] EC’-STA-SY, excessive joy.

[164] PAR’-A-MOUR, lover.

[165] IN-TOX-I-CA’-TION, high excitement.

[166] RU’-RAL, pertaining to the country.

[167] MEW’-ED, shut up; confined.

[168] VAR’-LET, scamp; rascal.

XX.—THE BOBOLINK.—CONTINUED.

1. Farther observation and experience have given me a different idea of this little feathered voluptuary,[169] which I will venture to impart, for the benefit of my school-boy readers, who may regard him with the same unqualified envy and admiration which I once indulged.

2. I have shown him only as I saw him at first, in what I may call the poetical part of his career, when he, in a manner, devoted himself to elegant pursuits and enjoyments, and was a bird of music, and song, and taste, and sensibility, and refinement. While this lasted, he was sacred from injury; the very school-boy would not fling a stone at him, and the merest rustic[170] would pause to listen to his strain.

3. But mark the difference. As the year advances, as the clover-blossoms disappear, and the spring fades into summer, his notes cease to vibrate[171] on the ear. He gradually gives up his elegant tastes and habits, doffs his poetical and professional suit of black, assumes a russet,[172] or rather a dusky garb, and enters into the gross enjoyments of common, vulgar birds.

4. He becomes a bon vivant, a mere gormand;[173] thinking of nothing but good cheer, and gormandizing on the seeds of the long grasses, on which he lately swung and chanted so musically. He begins to think there is nothing like “the joys of the table,” if I may be allowed to apply that convivial[174] phrase to his indulgences. He now grows discontented with plain, every-day fare, and sets out on a gastronomical[175] tour, in search of foreign luxuries.[176]

5. He is to be found in myriads[177] among the reeds of the Delaware, banquetting[178] on their seeds; grows corpulent[179] with good feeding, and soon acquires the unlucky renown of the Ortolan.[180] Wherever he goes, pop! pop! pop! the rusty firelocks of the country are cracking on every side; he sees his companions falling by thousands around him; he is the reed-bird, the much-sought for tit-bit of the Pennsylvanian epicure.[181]

6. Does he take warning and reform? Not he! He wings his flight still farther south in search of other luxuries. We hear of him gorging[182] himself in the rice swamps; filling himself with rice almost to bursting; he can hardly fly for corpulency. Last stage of his career, we hear of him spitted by dozens, and served up on the table of the gormand, the most vaunted[183] of southern dainties, the rice-bird of the Carolinas.

7. Such is the story of the once musical and admired, but finally sensual[184] and persecuted[185] Bobolink. It contains a moral, worthy the attention of all little birds and little boys, warning them to keep to those refined and intellectual[186] pursuits, which raised him to such a pitch of popularity, during the early part of his career; but to eschew[187] all tendency to that gross and dissipated[188] indulgence, which brought this mistaken little bird to an untimely end.

[169] VO-LUPˊ-TU-A-RY, one given to pleasure.

[170] RUSˊ-TIC, dweller in the country.

[171] VIˊ-BRATE, quiver.

[172] RUSˊ-SET, reddish brown.

[173] GORˊ-MAND, glutton.

[174] CON-VIVˊ-I-AL, festal; social.

[175] GAS-TRO-NOMˊ-IC-AL, pertaining to good eating.

[176] LUXˊ-U-RIES, dainties.

[177] MYRˊ-I-ADS, tens of thousands.

[178] BANˊ-QUET-TING, feasting.

[179] CORˊ-PU-LENT, fleshy; fat.

[180] ORˊ-TO-LAN, delicate, small bird.

[181] EPˊ-I-CURE, one given to luxury.

[182] GORGˊ-ING, swallowing greedily.

[183] VAUNTˊ-ED, boasted.

[184] SENSˊ-U-AL, luxurious.

[185] PERˊ-SE-CU-TED, harassed; vexed.

[186] IN-TEL-LECTˊ-U-AL, mental.

[187] ES-CHEWˊ, avoid; shun.

[188] DISˊ-SI-PA-TED, loose; abandoned.

XXI.—WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

1. Thy neighbor? It is he whom thou

Hast power to aid[189] and bless,

Whose aching heart, or burning brow

Thy soothing[190] hand may press.

2. Thy neighbor? ’Tis the fainting poor,

Whose eye with want is dim,

Whom hunger sends from door to door—

Go thou, and succor[191] him.

3. Thy neighbor? ’Tis that weary[192] man,

Whose years are at their brim,

Bent low with sickness, cares and pain—

Go thou, and comfort him.

4. Thy neighbor? ’Tis the heart bereft[193]

Of every earthly gem:

Widow[194] and orphan helpless left—

Go thou, and shelter them.

5. Whene’er thou meet’st a human form

Less favored[195] than thine own,

Remember ’tis thy neighbor worm,

Thy brother or thy son.

6. Oh! pass not, pass not heedless by;

Perhaps, thou canst redeem

The breaking heart from misery—

Go, share thy lot with him.

[189] AID, help; assist.

[190] SOOTHˊ-ING, solacing.

[191] SUCˊ-COR, help; relieve.

[192] WEAˊ-RY, tired; fatigued.

[193] BE-REFTˊ, deprived.

[194] WIDˊ-OW, a woman whose husband is dead.

[195] FAˊ-VOR-ED, benefitted.

XXII.—PORTRAIT OF A VIRTUOUS AND ACCOMPLISHED WOMAN.

FENELON.

1. Antiope is mild, simple, and wise; her hands despise not labor; she foresees things at a distance; she provides against contingencies[196] she knows when it is proper to be silent; she acts regularly and without hurry; she is continually employed, but never embarrassed,[197] because she does every thing in its proper season.

2. The good order of her father’s house is her glory, it adds greater luster[198] to her than beauty. Though the care of all lies upon her, and she is charged with the burden of reproving,[199] refusing, retrenching[200] (things which make almost all women hated), yet she has acquired the love of all the household; and this, because they do not find in her either passion, or conceitedness,[201] or levity, or humors as in other women. By a single glance of her eye, they know her meaning, and are afraid to displease her.

3. The orders she gives are precise; she commands nothing but what can be performed; she reproves with kindness, and in reproving encourages. Her father’s heart reposes upon her as a traveler, fainting beneath the sun’s sultry rays, reposes himself upon the tender grass under a shady tree.

4. Antiope is a treasure worth seeking in the most remote corners of the earth. Neither her person nor her mind is set off with vain ornaments; and her imagination, though lively, is restrained by her discretion. She never speaks but through necessity; and when she opens her mouth, soft persuasion and simple graces flow from her lips. When she speaks, every one is silent; and she is heard with such attention, that she blushes, and is almost inclined to suppress[202] what she intended to say; so that she is rarely ever heard to speak at any length.

[196] CON-TINˊ-GEN-CIES, chances, casual events, possibilities.

[197] EM-BARˊ-RASSED, perplexed, confused.

[198] LUSˊ-TER, brightness, splendor, brilliancy.

[199] RE-PROVEˊ, to censure to one’s face, to reprimand.

[200] RE-TRENCHˊ, to lessen, to curtail.

[201] CON-CEITˊ-ED-NESS, pride, vanity.

[202] SUP-PRESSˊ, to restrain, to conceal.

XXIII.—THE WORK OF TO-DAY.

CHARLES MACKAY.

1. If Fortune with a smiling face,

Strew roses on our way,

When shall we stoop to pick them up?

To-day, my friend, to-day.

But should she frown with face of care.

And talk of coming sorrow,

When shall we grieve if grieve[203] we must?

To-morrow, friend, to-morrow.

2. If those who’ve wronged us, own their fault,

And kindly pity pray,

When shall we listen, and forgive?

To-day, my friend, to-day.

But, if stern[204] Justice urge[205] rebuke,[206]

And warmth from Memory borrow,

When shall we chide,[207] if chide we dare?

To-morrow, friend, to-morrow.

3. If those to whom we owe a debt,

Are harmed unless we pay,

When shall we struggle to be just?

To-day, my friend, to-day.

But, if our debtor[208] fail our hope,

And plead his ruin thorough,[209]

When shall we weigh his breach[210] of faith?

To-morrow, friend, to-morrow.

4. For virtuous[211] acts, and harmless joys,

The minutes will not stay;

We’ve always time to welcome them,

To-day, my friend, to-day.

But care, resentment,[212] angry words,

And unavailing sorrow,

Come far too soon, if they appear

To-morrow, friend, to-morrow.

[203] GRIEVE, mourn, sorrow.

[204] STERN, severe, rigid.

[205] URGE, press, impel.

[206] RE-BUKEˊ, reproof, reprehension.

[207] CHIDE, blame, reproach.

[208] DEBTˊ-OR, one that owes.

[209] THORˊ-OUGH, complete, perfect.

[210] BREACH, non-fulfillment, violation.

[211] VIRˊ-TUOUS, morally good.

[212] RE-SENTˊ-MENT, retaliation.

XXIV.—THE AVARICIOUS MILLER.

GOLDSMITH.

Oliver Goldsmith was born in 1731, at Pallasmore, County of Longford, Ireland, and died in 1774. The works of Goldsmith are more popular to-day than those of any English author of the Eighteenth Century. He was equally successful as a novelist and a poet. His “Vicar of Wakefield”, “Traveller,” and “Deserted Village” are each models of excellence in their way. His essays, also, have rare merit.

1. Whang, the miller, was naturally avaricious;[213] nobody loved money better than he, or more respected those that had it. When people would talk of a rich man in company, Whang would say, “I know him very well; he and I have been very long acquainted; he and I are intimate.”[214]

2. But, if a poor man was mentioned, he had not the least knowledge of the man; he might be very well, for aught he knew; but he was not fond of making many acquaintances, and loved to choose his company.

3. Whang, however, with all his eagerness[215] for riches, was poor. He had nothing but the profits of his mill to support him; but, though these were small, they were certain: while it stood and went, he was sure of eating; and his frugality[216] was such, that he, every day, laid some money by; which he would, at intervals, count and contemplate with much satisfaction.

4. Yet still his acquisitions[217] were not equal to his desires; he only found himself above want, whereas he desired to be possessed of affluence.[218] One day, as he was indulging these wishes, he was informed that a neighbor of his had found a pan of money under ground, having dreamed of it three nights in succession.[219]

5. These tidings were daggers to the heart of poor Whang. “Here am I,” said he, “toiling and moiling[220] from morning till night for a few paltry farthings, while neighbor Thanks only goes quietly to bed, and dreams himself into thousands before morning. Oh, that I could dream like him! With what pleasure would I dig round the pan! How slyly would I carry it home! Not even my wife should see me! And then, oh the pleasure of thrusting one’s hands into a heap of gold up to the elbows!”

6. Such reflections only served to make the miller unhappy. He discontinued[221] his former assiduity;[222] he was quite disgusted[223] with small gains, and his customers began to forsake him. Every day he repeated the wish, and every night laid himself down in order to dream. Fortune, that was for a long time unkind, at last, however, seemed to smile upon his distress, and indulged[224] him with the wished-for vision.

7. He dreamed that under a certain part of the foundation of his mill, there was concealed a monstrous[225] pan of gold and diamonds, buried deep in the ground, and covered with a large flat stone. He concealed his good luck from every person, as is usual in money-dreams, in order to have the vision repeated the two succeeding[226] nights, by which he should be certain of its truth. His wishes in this, also, were answered; he still dreamed of the same pan of money, in the very same place.

8. Now, therefore, it was past a doubt; so, getting up early the third morning, he repaired, alone, with a mattock[227] in his hand, to the mill, and began to undermine[228] that part of the wall to which the vision directed. The first omen[229] of success that he met with was a broken ring; digging still deeper, he turned up a house-tile, quite new and entire.

9. At last, after much digging, he came to a broad, flat stone; but, then, it was so large, that it was beyond his strength to remove it. “There,” cried he in raptures to himself, “there it is! under this stone, there is room for a very large pan of diamonds, indeed. I must even go home to my wife, and tell her the whole affair, and get her to assist me in turning it up.” Away, therefore, he goes, and acquaints his wife with every circumstance of their good fortune.

10. Her raptures, on this occasion, may easily be imagined;[230] she flew round his neck, and embraced him in an agony of joy. But these transports, however, did not allay their eagerness to know the exact sum; returning together to the place where Whang had been digging, there they found—not, indeed, the expected treasure—but the mill, their only support, undermined and fallen!

[213] AV-A-RIˊ-CIOUS, greedy after gain.

[214] INˊ-TI-MATE, close in friendship.

[215] EAˊ-GER-NESS, ardent desire.

[216] FRU-GALˊ-I-TY, wise economy.

[217] AC-QUI-SIˊ-TIONS, gains.

[218] AFˊ-FLU-ENCE, great wealth.

[219] SUC-CESˊ-SION, regular order.

[220] MOILˊ-ING, drudging; laboring.

[221] DIS-CON-TINˊ-U-ED, ceased.

[222] AS-SI-DUˊ-I-TY, untiring diligence.

[223] DIS-GUSTˊ-ED, greatly dissatisfied.

[224] IN-DULGˊ-ED, gratified.

[225] MONˊ-STROUS, very large.

[226] SUC-CEEDˊ-ING, following.

[227] MATˊ-TOCK, pick-ax.

[228] UN-DER-MINEˊ, dig under.

[229] Oˊ-MEN, sign; token.

[230] IM-AGˊ-IN-ED. conceived.

XXV.—THE DEATH OF THE LITTLE SCHOLAR.

DICKENS.

Charles Dickens died in 1870. He was the most popular English novelist of our day.

1. Without further preface, he conducted them into his little school-room, which was parlor and kitchen likewise, and told them they were welcome to remain under his roof till morning. The child looked round the room as she took her seat. The chief ornaments of the walls were certain moral sentences, fairly copied in good round text, and well-worked sums in simple addition and multiplication, evidently achieved[231] by the same hand, which were plentifully pasted around the room; for the double purpose, as it seemed, of bearing testimony to the excellence of the school, and kindling a worthy emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.

2. “Yes,” said the schoolmaster, observing that her attention was caught by these specimens, “that’s beautiful writing, my dear.” “Very sir,” replied the child, modestly; “is it yours?” “Mine!” he returned, taking out his spectacles, and putting them on, to have a better view of the triumphs so dear to his heart; “I couldn’t write like that nowadays. No: they are all done by one hand; a little hand it is; not so old as yours, but a very clever[232] one.”

3. As the schoolmaster said this, he saw that a small blot of ink had been thrown upon one of the copies; so he took a penknife from his pocket, and going up to the wall carefully scratched it out. When he had finished, he walked slowly backward from the writing, admiring it as one might contemplate[233] a beautiful picture, but with something of sadness in his voice and manner, which quite touched the child, though she was unacquainted with its cause.

4. “A little hand, indeed,” said the poor schoolmaster. “Far beyond all his companions, in his learning and his sports too. How did he ever come to be so fond of me! That I should love him is no wonder, but that he should love me—” And there the schoolmaster stopped, and took off his spectacles to wipe them, as though they had grown dim. “I hope there is nothing the matter, sir,” said Nell, anxiously.

5. “Not much, my dear,” returned the schoolmaster; “I hoped to have seen him on the green to-night. He was always foremost among them. But he’ll be there to-morrow.” “Has he been ill?” asked the child with a child’s quick sympathy.

6. “Not very. They said he was wandering in his head yesterday, dear boy, and so they said the day before. But that’s a part of that kind of disorder; it’s not a bad sign—not at all a bad sign.” The child was silent. He walked to the door, and looked wistfully out. The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still.

7. “If he could lean on somebody’s arm, he would come to me, I know,” he said, returning into the room.

“He always came into the garden to say good night. But perhaps his illness has only just taken a favorable turn, and it’s too late for him to come out, for it’s very damp, and there’s a heavy dew. It’s much better he shouldn’t come to-night.”

8. The next day, towards night, an old woman came tottering up the garden as speedily as she could, and meeting the schoolmaster at the door, said he was to go to Dame West’s directly, and had best run on before her. He and the child were on the point of going out together for a walk, and without relinquishing her hand, the schoolmaster hurried away, leaving the messenger to follow as she might.

9. They stopped at a cottage door, and the schoolmaster knocked softly at it with his hand. It was opened without loss of time. They passed into an inner room, where his infant friend, half-dressed, lay stretched upon a bed.

10. He was a very young boy; quite a little child. His hair still hung in curls about his face, and his eyes were very bright; but their light was of heaven, not earth. The schoolmaster took a seat beside him, and stooping over the pillow, whispered his name. The boy sprang up, threw his wasted arms around his neck, crying out that he was his dear, kind friend.

11. “I hope I always was. I meant to be, God knows,” said the poor schoolmaster. “Who is that?” said the boy, seeing Nell. “I am afraid to kiss her, lest I should make her ill. Ask her to shake hands with me.”

12. The sobbing child came closer up, and took the little languid hand in hers. Releasing his again after a time, the sick boy laid him gently down.

13. “You remember the garden, Harry,” whispered the schoolmaster, anxious to rouse him, for a dulness seemed gathering upon the child, “and how pleasant it used to be in the evening? You must make haste to visit it again, for I think the very flowers have missed you, and are less gay than they used to be. You will come soon, my dear, very soon now, won’t you?”

14. The boy smiled faintly—so very, very faintly—and put his hand upon his friend’s gray head. He moved his lips, too, but no voice came from them, no, not a sound. In the silence that ensued, the hum of distant voices, borne upon the evening air, came floating through the open window.

15. “What’s that?” said the sick child, opening his eyes. “The boys at play upon the green.” He took a handkerchief from his pillow, and tried to wave it above his head. But the feeble arm dropped powerless down. “Shall I do it?” said the schoolmaster.

16. “Please wave it at the window,” was the faint reply. “Tie it to the lattice.[234] Some of them may see it there. Perhaps they’ll think of me, and look this way.”

17. He raised his head, and glanced from the fluttering signal to his idle bat, that lay, with slate and book, and other boyish property, upon a table in the room. And then he laid him down softly once more, and asked if the little girl were there, for he could not see her.

18. She stepped forward and pressed the passive hand that lay upon the coverlet. The two old friends and companions—for such they were, though they were man and child—held each other in a long embrace, and then the little scholar turned his face towards the wall, and fell asleep.

19. The poor schoolmaster sat in the same place, holding the small, cold hand in his, and chafing it. It was but the hand of a dead child. He felt that; and yet he chafed it still, and could not lay it down.

[231] A-CHIEVEDˊ, performed, completed, done.

[232] CLEVˊ-ER, skilful, dexterous, able.

[233] CON-TEM-PLATE, consider closely.

[234] LATˊ-TICE, a window blind or screen made by strips and bars crossing each other and forming open spaces like net work.

XXVI.—GOD, THE TRUE SOURCE OF CONSOLATION.

MOORE.

Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1779, and died in 1852. He was the sweetest and most brilliant lyric poet of his time. Many of his Irish melodies are unequaled for their sparkling gems of wit and fancy, and for deep and tender sentiment.

1. O Thou, who dry’st the mourner’s tear,

How dark this world would be,

If, when deceived and wounded here,

We could not fly to Thee!

2. The friends, who in our sunshine live,

When winter comes, are flown;

And he who has but tears to give,

Must weep those tears alone.

3. But Thou wilt heal the broken heart

Which like the plants that throw

Their fragrance from the wounded part,

Breathes sweetness out of woe.

4. When joy no longer soothes or cheers,

And e’en the hope that threw

A moment’s sparkle o’er our tears,

Is dimm’d and vanish’d too!

5. Oh! who could bear life’s stormy doom,

Did not Thy wing of love

Come brightly wafting through the gloom

Our peace-branch from above!

6. Then, sorrow, touch’d by Thee, grows bright

With more than rapture’s ray,

As darkness shows us worlds of light,

We never saw by day.

XXVII.—THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. AGNES.

DE VERE.

Aubrey De Vere is one of the most gifted and accomplished of living poets.

ANGELS.

1. Bearing lilies in our bosom,

Holy Agnes, we have flown

Missioned from the Heaven of Heavens

Unto thee, and thee alone.

We are coming, we are flying,

To behold thy happy dying.

AGNES.

2. Bearing lilies far before you,

Whose fresh odors, backward blown,

Light those smiles upon your faces,

Mingling sweet breath with your own,

Ye are coming smoothly, slowly,

To the lowliest of the lowly.

ANGELS.

3. Unto us the boon was given;

One glad message, holy maid,

On the lips of two blest spirits,

Like an incense-grain was laid.

As it bears us on like lightning,

Cloudy skies are round us brightening.

AGNES.

4. I am here, a mortal maiden:

If our father aught hath said,

Let me hear His words and do them.

Ought I not to feel afraid,

As ye come, your shadows flinging

O’er a breast, to meet them springing?

ANGELS.

5. Agnes, there is joy in Heaven;

Gladness, like the day, is flung

O’er the spaces never measured,

And from every angel’s tongue

Swell those songs of impulse vernal,

All whose echoes are eternal.

6. Agnes, from the depth of Heaven

Joy is rising, like a spring

Borne above its grassy margin,

Borne in many a crystal ring;

Each o’er beds of wild flowers gliding,

Over each low murmurs sliding.

7. When a Christian lies expiring,

Angel choirs, with plumes outspread,

Bend above his death-bed, singing:

That, when Death’s mild sleep is fled,

There may be no harsh transition

While he greets the Heavenly Vision.

AGNES.

8. Am I dreaming, blessed angels?

Late ye floated two in one;

Now, a thousand radiant spirits

Round me weave a glistening zone.

Lilies, as they wind extending,

Roses with those lilies blending.

9. See! th’ horizon’s ring they circle;

Now they gird the zenith blue;

And now, o’er every brake and billow

Float like mist and flash like dew.

All the earth, with life o’erflowing,

Into heavenly shapes is growing!

10. They are rising! they are rising!

As they rise, the veil is riven!

They are rising! I am rising—

Rising with them into Heaven!—

Rising with those shining legions

Into life’s eternal regions!

XXVIII.—THE MONK OF ST. FRANCIS.

STERNE.

1. A poor monk, of the Order of St. Francis, came into the room to beg something for his convent. The moment I cast my eyes upon him, I was determined not to give him a single sous; and accordingly I put my purse into my pocket—buttoned it up—set myself a little more upon my center, and advanced up gravely to him: there was something, I fear, forbidding[235] in my look: I have his figure[236] this moment before my eyes, and think there was that in it which deserved better.

2. The monk, as I judged from the break in his tonsure, a few scattered white hairs upon his temples being all that remained of it, might be about seventy; but from his eyes and that sort of fire which was in them, which seemed more tempered[237] by courtesy than years, he could be no more than sixty—truth might lie between—he was certainly sixty-five; and the general air of his countenance, notwithstanding something seemed to have been planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to the account.

3. It was one of those heads which Guido has often painted—mild, pale, penetrating; free from all commonplace ideas of fat contented ignorance, looking downwards upon the earth. It looked forwards; but looked as if it looked at something beyond this world.... It would have suited a Brahmin;[238] and had I met it upon the plains of Hindostan, I had reverenced it.

4. The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes: one might put it into the hands of any one to design; for it was neither elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so. It was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it lost not the distinction by a bend forwards in the figure—but it was the attitude[239] of entreaty; and, as it now stands present to my imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.

5. When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and, laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with which he journeyed being in his right), when I had got close up to him, he introduced himself with the little story of the wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order—and did it with so simple a grace—and such an air of deprecation[240] was there in the whole cast of his look and figure—I was bewitched not to have been struck with it. A better reason was, I had predetermined not to give him a single sous.

6. “’Tis very true,” said I, replying to a cast upwards with his eyes, with which he had concluded his address—“’tis very true—and heaven be their resource[241] who have no other but the charity of the world; the stock of which, I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great claims which are hourly made upon it.”

7. As I pronounced the words “great claims,” he gave a slight glance with his eye downwards upon the sleeve of his tunic.[242] I felt the full force of the appeal. “I acknowledge it,” said I—“a coarse habit, and that but once in three years, with meagre diet, are no great matters: and the true point of pity is, as they can be earned in the world with so little industry, that your order should wish to procure them by pressing upon a fund which is the property of the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm.

8. “The captive who lies down counting over and over again the days of his afflictions, languishes also for his share of it; and had you been of the order of mercy, instead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I am,” continued I, pointing at my portmanteau,[243] “full cheerfully should it have been opened to you for the ransom of the unfortunate.” The monk made me a bow.

9. “But,” resumed I, “the unfortunate of our own country, surely, have the first right; and I have left thousands in distress upon the English shore.” The monk gave a cordial wave with his head, as much as to say, no doubt, there is misery enough in every corner of the world, as well as within our convent. “But we distinguish,” said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his tunic, in return for his appeal—“we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labor, and those who eat the bread of other people’s, and have no other plan in life, but to get through it in sloth and ignorance for the love of God.”

10. The poor Franciscan made no reply: a hectic of a moment passed across his cheek, but could not tarry. Nature seemed to have done with her resentments in him; he showed none—but, letting his staff fall within his arm, he pressed both his hands with resignation upon his breast, and retired.

11. My heart smote me the moment he shut the door. “Pshaw!” said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times; but it would not do: every ungracious syllable I had uttered, crowded back into my imagination; I reflected I had no right over the poor Franciscan, but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language. I considered his gray hairs—his courteous figure seemed to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me, and why I could use him thus. I would have given twenty livres[244] for an advocate. “I have behaved very ill,” said I within myself; “but I have only just set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along.”

[235] FOR-BIDˊ-DING, repulsive.

[236] FIGˊ-URE, shape, appearance.

[237] TEMˊ-PERED, softened, moderated.

[238] BRAHˊ-MIN, a priest among the Hindoos.

[239] ATˊ-TI-TUDE, posture, position.

[240] DEP-RE-CAˊ-TION, regret for, excusing, begging pardon for.

[241] RE-SOURCEˊ, resort, means of supply.

[242] TUˊ-NIC, a garment.

[243] PORT-MANˊ-TEAU, a bag to carry clothing in.

[244] LIVˊ-RE, a French money of account equal to 18½ cents.

XXIX.—MY MOTHER’S GRAVE.

DR. BROWNSON.

Dr. Brownson is a writer of very great ability. His “Review,” which he conducted for several years, and for which he wrote nearly every article, was marked by unrivaled logical power and great boldness and independence. Since the discontinuance of his “Review,” he has published the “American Republic” a very able and elaborate work.

1. I lingered several weeks around the grave of my mother, and in the neighborhood where she had lived. It was the place where I had passed my own childhood and youth. It was the scene of those early associations which become the dearer to us as we leave them the farther behind. I stood where I had sported in the freedom of early childhood; but I stood alone, for no one was there with whom I could speak of its frolics.[245] One feels singularly desolate[246] when he sees only strange faces, and hears only strange voices in what was the home of his early life.

2. I returned to the village where I resided when I first introduced myself to my readers. But what was that spot to me now? Nature had done much for it, but nature herself is very much what we make her. There must be beauty in our souls, or we shall see no loveliness in her face; and beauty had died out of my soul. She who might have recalled it to life and thrown its hues over all the world was—but of that I will not speak.

3. It was now that I really needed the hope of immortality.[247] The world was to me one vast desert, and life was without end or aim. The hope of immortality! We want it when earth has lost its gloss of novelty; when our hopes have been blasted, our affections withered, and the shortness of life and the vanity of all human pursuits have come home to us and made us exclaim,[248] “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity:” we want then the hope of immortality to give to life an end, an aim.

4. We all of us at times feel this want. The infidel feels it in early life. He learns all too soon, what to him is a withering fact, that man does not complete his destiny on earth. Man never completes any thing here. What then shall he do if there be no hereafter? With what courage can I betake myself to my task? I may begin; but the grave lies between me and the completion.[249] Death will come to interrupt my work, and compel me to leave it unfinished.

5. This is more terrible to me than the thought of ceasing. I could almost (at least I think I could) consent to be no more after I had finished my work, achieved[250] my destiny; but to die before my work is completed, while that destiny is but begun,—this is the death which comes to me indeed as a “King of Terrors.”

6. The hope of another life to be the complement[251] of this, steps in to save us from this death to give us the courage and the hope to begin. The rough sketch shall hereafter become the finished picture: the artist shall give it the last touch at his easel, the science we had just begun shall be completed, and the incipient[252] destiny shall be achieved. Fear not then to begin; thou hast eternity before thee in which to end.

[245] FROLˊ-ICS, wild pranks; scenes of mirth.

[246] DESˊ-O-LATE, lonely; comfortless.

[247] IMˊ-MOR-TAL-I-TY, endless existence hereafter.

[248] EX-CLAIMˊ, cry out.

[249] COM-PLEˊ-TION, fulfillment.

[250] A-CHIEVEDˊ, accomplished.

[251] COMˊ-PLE-MENT, that which completes.

[252] IN-CIPˊ-I-ENT, commencing; beginning.

XXX.—GOOD COUNSEL.

1. Never speak anything for a truth, which you know or believe to be false. Lying is a great sin against God, who gave us a tongue to speak the truth, and not falsehood. It is a great offense against humanity[253] itself; for, where there is no regard to truth, there can be no safe society between man and man.

2. And it is an injury to the speaker; for, beside the disgrace which it brings upon him, it occasions so much baseness of mind, that he can scarcely tell the truth, or avoid lying, even when he has no color of necessity for it; and, in time, he comes to such a pass, that as other people can not believe he speaks the truth, so he himself scarcely knows when he tells a falsehood.

3. You must not equivocate[254] nor speak anything positively for which you have no authority, but report, or conjecture, or opinion.

4. Let your words be few, especially, when your superiors or strangers are present, lest you betray your own weakness, and rob yourselves of the opportunity which you might, otherwise, have had to gain knowledge, wisdom, and experience by hearing those whom you silence by your impertinent talking.

5. Be not too earnest, loud, or violent in your conversation. Silence your opponent with reason, not with noise.

6. Be careful not to interrupt another when he is speaking; hear him out, and you will understand him the better and be able to give him the better answer.

7. Consider before you speak, especially, when the business is of moment; weigh the sense of what you mean to utter, and the expressions you intend to use, that they may be significant, pertinent, and inoffensive. Inconsiderate persons do not think till they speak; or they speak, and then think.

8. Some people excel in husbandry, some in gardening, some in mathematics. In conversation, learn, as near as you can, where the skill or excellence of any person lies; put him upon talking on that subject, observe what he says, keep it in your memory, or commit it to writing. By this means, you will glean the worth and knowledge of every body you converse with; and, at an easy rate, acquire what may be of use to you on many occasions.

9. When you are in company with light, vain, impertinent persons, let the observing of their failings make you the more cautious, both in conversation with them and in your general behavior, that you may avoid their errors.

10. If any one whom you do not know to be a person of truth, sobriety, and weight, relates strange stories, be not too ready to believe or report them; and yet unless he is one of your familiar acquaintances, be not too forward to contradict him.

11. If the occasion requires you to declare your opinion, do it modestly and gently, not bluntly nor coarsely; by this means, you will avoid giving offense, or being abused for too much credulity.

[253] HU-MANˊ-I-TY, mankind.

[254] E-QUIVˊ-O-CATE, speak purposely so as to convey a false impression.

XXXI.—THE SISTER OF CHARITY.

GERALD GRIFFIN.

1. She once was a lady of honor and wealth,

Bright glowed on her features the roses of health;

Her vesture was blended of silk and of gold,

And her motion shook perfume from every fold:

Joy revelled around her—love shone at her side,

And gay was her smile, as the glance of a bride;

And light was her step in the mirth-sounding hall,

When she heard of the daughters of Vincent de Paul.

2. She felt, in her spirit, the summons[255] of grace,

That called her to live for the suffering race;

And heedless of pleasure, of comfort, of home,

Rose quickly like Mary, and answered, “I come.”

She put from her person the trappings[256] of pride,

And passed from her home, with the joy of a bride,

Nor wept at the threshold, as onwards she moved—

For her heart was on fire in the cause it approved.

3. Lost ever to fashion—to vanity lost,

That beauty that once was the song and the toast—

No more in the ball-room that figure we meet,

But gliding at dusk to the wretch’s retreat,

Forgot in the halls is that high-sounding name,

For the Sister of Charity blushes at fame;

Forgot are the claims of her riches and birth,

For she barters for heaven the glory of earth.

4. Those feet, that to music could gracefully move,

Now bear her alone on the mission of love;

Those hands that once dangled the perfume and gem,

Are tending[257] the helpless, or lifted for them;

That voice that once echoed the song of the vain.

Now whispers relief to the bosom of pain;

And the hair that was shining with diamond and pearl,

Is wet with the tears of the penitent girl.

5. Her down bed—a pallet; her trinkets—a bead;

Her lustre—one taper that serves her to read;

Her sculpture—the crucifix nailed by her bed;

Her paintings—one print of the thorn-crowned head;

Her cushion—the pavement that wearies her knees;

Her music—the psalm, or sigh of disease;

The delicate lady lives mortified[258] there,

And the feast is forsaken for fasting and prayer.

6. Yet not to the service of heart and of mind,

Are the cares of that heaven-minded virgin confined.

Like him whom she loves, to the mansions of grief

She hastes with the tidings of joy and relief.

She strengthens the weary—she comforts the weak,

And soft is her voice in the ear of the sick;

Where want and affliction on mortals attend,

The Sister of Charity there is a friend.

7. Unshrinking where pestilence scatters his breath,

Like an angel she moves, ’mid the vapor of death;

Where rings the loud musket, and flashes the sword,

Unfearing she walks, for she follows the Lord.

How sweetly she bends over each plague-tainted face,

With looks that are lighted with holiest grace;

How kindly she dresses each suffering limb,

For she sees in the wounded the image of Him.

8. Behold her, ye worldly! behold her, ye vain!

Who shrink from the pathway of virtue and pain;

Who yield up to pleasure your nights and your days,

Forgetful of service, forgetful of praise.

Ye lazy philosophers—self-seeking men,—

Ye fireside philanthropists, great at the pen,

How stands in the balance your eloquence weighed

With the life and the deeds of that high-born maid?

[255] SUMˊ-MONS, a call.

[256] TRAPˊ-PINGS, ornaments.

[257] TENDˊ-ING, attending; keeping.

[258] MORˊ-TI-FIED, subdued; humbled.

XXXII.—REPROOF TO AN AFFECTED[259] SPEAKER.

LA BRUYERE.

1. What do you say? What? I really do not understand you. Be so good as to explain yourself again. Upon my word, I do not. O, now I know! you mean to tell me it is a cold day. Why did you not say at once: “It is cold to-day.” If you wish to inform me it rains or snows, pray say: “It rains,” “it snows;” or, if you think I look well, and you choose to compliment[260] me, say, “I think you look well.”

2. “But,” you answer, “that is so common, and so plain, and what every body can say.” Well, and what if they can? Is it so great a misfortune to be understood when one speaks, and to speak like the rest of the world? I will tell you what, my friend; you and your fine-spoken brethren want one thing—you do not suspect[261] it, and I shall astonish[262] you—you want common sense.

3. Nay, this is not all; you have something too much; you possess an opinion that you have more sense than others. That is the source of all your pompous[263] nothings, your cloudy sentences, and your big words without a meaning. Before you accost[264] a person, or enter a room, let me pull you by your sleeve, and whisper in your ear: “Do not try to show off your sense; have none at all; that is your part. Use plain language, if you can; just such as you find others use, who, in your idea, have no understanding; and then, perhaps, you will get credit for having some.”

[259] AF-FECTˊ-ED, not natural.

[260] COMˊ-PLI-MENT, praise, flatter.

[261] SUS-PECTˊ, mistrust.

[262] AS-TONˊ-ISH, to amaze.

[263] POMPˊ-OUS, ostentatious.

[264] AC-COSTˊ, speak to; address.

XXXIII.—MY BIRTHDAY.

THOMAS MOORE.

1. “My birthday!”—what a different sound

That word had in my youthful ears!

And how, each time the day comes round,

Less and less white the mark appears!

When first our scanty years are told,

It seems like pastime to grow old;

And, as youth counts the shining links

That Time around him binds so fast,

Pleased with the task, he little thinks

How hard that chain will press, at last.

2. Vain was the man, and false as vain,

Who said: “Were he ordained[265] to run

His long career[266] of life again,

He would do all that he had done.”

Ah! ’tis not thus the voice that dwells

In sober birthdays, speaks to me;

Far otherwise—of time it tells

Lavished[267] unwisely, carelessly,

Of counsel mocked—of talents made,

Haply,[268] for high and pure designs,

But oft, like Israel’s incense, laid

Upon unholy, earthly shrines,

Of nursing many a wrong desire,

Of wandering after Love too far,

And taking every meteor fire

That crossed my path-way, for his star!

3. All this it tells, and I could trace[269]

The imperfect picture o’er again,

With power to add, retouch,[270] efface[271]

The lights and shades, the joy and pain,

How little of the past would stay!

How quickly all should melt away,

All—but that freedom of the mind,

Which hath been more than wealth to me;

Those friendships in my boyhood twined,[272]

And kept till now unchangingly.[273]

And that dear home, that saving ark,

Where love’s true light at last, I’ve found,

Cheering within when all grows dark,

And comfortless, and storm around.

[265] OR-DAINˊ-ED, appointed.

[266] CA-REERˊ, race, course.

[267] LAVˊ-ISHED, wasted.

[268] HAPˊ-LY, perhaps, perchance.

[269] TRACE, delineate, draw.

[270] RE-TOUCHˊ, improve by new touches.

[271] EF-FACEˊ, erase, blot out.

[272] TWINˊ-ED, closely united.

[273] UN-CHANGˊ-ING-LY, unvaryingly.

XXXIV.—LABOR.

FRANCES OSGOOD.

1. Pause not to dream of the future before us;

Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o’er us;

Hark! how creation’s deep musical chorus,[274]

Unintermitting,[275] goes up into Heaven!

Never the ocean-wave falters[276] in flowing,

Never the little seed stops in its growing,

More and more richly the rose-hart keeps glowing,

Till from its nourishing stem it is riven.[277]

2. “Labor is worship!”—the robin is singing;

“Labor is worship!”—the wild bee is ringing;

Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing,

Speaks to thy soul from out nature’s heart.

From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower;

From the rough sod comes the soft-breathing flower;

From the small insect, the rich coral bower;

Only man, in the plan, ever shrinks from his part.

3. Labor is life!—’Tis the still water faileth;

Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth[278],

Keep the watch wound; for the dark dust assaileth[279]

Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon.

Labor is glory!—the flying cloud lightens;

Only the waving wing changes and brightens;

Idle hearts only the dark future frightens;

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune.

4. Labor is rest—from the sorrows that greet us;

Rest from all petty vexations[280] that meet us;

Rest from sin-promptings[281] that ever entreat us;

Rest from world Sirens[282] that lead us to ill.

Work—and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow;

Work—thou shalt ride o’er care’s coming billow;

Lie not down wearied ’neath woe’s weeping willow:

Work with a stout heart and resolute[283] will.

5. Droop not, though shame, sin, and anguish[284] are round thee;

Bravely fling off the cold chain that hath bound thee;

Look on yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee;

Rest not content in thy darkness,—a clod.[285]

Work for some good,—be it ever so slowly;

Cherish some flower,—be it ever so lowly;

Labor!—all labor is noble and holy;

Let thy great deeds be a prayer to thy God.

[274] CHOˊ-RUS, a singing together.

[275] UN-IN-TER-MITˊ-TING, unceasing.

[276] FALˊ-TERS, hesitates; fails.

[277] RIVˊEN, rent; torn off.

[278] BE-WAILˊ-ETH, bemoans; laments.

[279] AS-SAILˊ-ETH, invades; attacks.

[280] VEX-Aˊ-TIONS, troubles.

[281] SIN-PROMPTˊ-INGS, temptations to sin.

[282] WORLD-SIRENS, attractions of the world.

[283] RESˊ-O-LUTE, firm; unbending.

[284] ANˊ-GUISH, extreme pain.

[285] CLOD, dull, stupid fellow; dolt.

XXXV.—OUR MISERIES OFTEN OUR FAULT.

BLAIR.

1. We find man placed in a world, where he has, by no means, the disposal of the events that happen. Calamities[286] sometimes befall the worthiest and the best, which it is not in their power to prevent, and where nothing is left them, but to acknowledge and to submit to the high hand of Heaven. For such visitations of trial, many good and wise reasons can be assigned[287], which the present subject leads me not to discuss.[288]

2. But, though those unavoidable[289] calamities make a part, yet they make not the chief part, of the vexations and sorrows that distress human life. A multitude of evils beset[290] us, for the source of which we must look to another quarter. No sooner has any thing in the health or in the circumstances of men, gone cross[291] to their wish, than they begin to talk of the unequal distribution[292] of the good things of this life; they envy the condition of others; they repine[293] at their own lot, and fret against the Ruler of the world.

3. Full of these sentiments, one man pines under a broken constitution.[294] But let us ask him, whether he can fairly and honestly assign no cause for this but the unknown decree of Heaven? Has he duly valued the blessing of health, and always observed the rules of virtue and sobriety?[295] Has he been moderate in his life, and temperate in all his pleasures? If now he is only paying the price of his former, perhaps, his forgotten indulgences, has he any right to complain, as if he were suffering unjustly?

4. Were we to survey the chambers of sickness and distress, we should often find them peopled with the victims of intemperance and sensuality, and with the vicious children of indolence and sloth. Among the thousands who languish there, we should find the proportion of innocent sufferers to be small. We should see faded youth premature[296] old age, and the prospect of an untimely grave, to be the portion of multitudes who, in one way or other, have brought those evils on themselves; while yet these martyrs of vice and folly have the assurance to arraign[297] the hard fate of man, and to “fret against the Lord.”

5. But you, perhaps, complain of hardships of another kind; of the injustice of the world; of the poverty which you suffer, and the discouragements under which you labor; of the crosses and disappointments of which your life has been doomed to be full. Before you give too much scope to your discontent, let me desire you to reflect impartially upon your past train of life. Have not sloth, or pride, or ill-temper, or sinful passions, misled you often from the path of sound and wise conduct? Have you not been wanting to yourselves in improving those opportunities which Providence offered you, for bettering and advancing your state?

6. If you have chosen to indulge your humor or your taste, in the gratifications[298] of indolence and pleasure, can you complain because others, in preference to you, have obtained those advantages which naturally belong to useful labors and honorable pursuits. Have not the consequences of some false steps, into which your passions, or your pleasures, have betrayed you, pursued you through much of your life; tainted[299], perhaps, your character, involved[300] you in embarrassments[301], or sunk you into neglect?

7. It is an old saying, that every man is the artificer[302] of his own fortune in the world. It is certain, that the world seldom turns wholly against a man, unless through his own fault. “Religion is,” in general, “profitable unto all things.” Virtue, diligence, and industry, joined with good temper and prudence, have ever been found the surest road to prosperity; and, where men fail of attaining it, their want of success is far oftener owing to their having deviated from that road, than to their having encountered insuperable barriers in it.

8. Some by being too artful, forfeit the reputation of probity. Some, by being too open, are accounted to fail in prudence. Others, by being fickle and changeable, are distrusted by all. The case commonly is, that men seek to ascribe their disappointments to any cause, rather than to their own misconduct; and, when they can devise no other cause, they lay them to the charge of Providence. Their folly leads them into vices; their vices into misfortunes; and, in their misfortunes, they “murmur against Providence.”

9. They are doubly unjust toward their Creator. In their prosperity, they are apt to ascribe their success to their own diligence, rather than to His blessing; and, in their adversity, they impute their distresses to His providence, not to their own misbehavior. Whereas, the truth is the very reverse of this. Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from above; and of evil and misery, man is the author to himself.

[286] CA-LAMˊ-I-TIES, misfortunes.

[287] AS-SIGNˊ-ED, given; specified.

[288] DIS-CUSSˊ, debate, reason on.

[289] UN-A-VOIDˊ-A-BLE, inevitable.

[290] BE-SETˊ, surround; besiege.

[291] CROSS, adverse; contrary.

[292] DIS-TRI-BUˊ-TION, dispensation.

[293] RE-PINEˊ, murmur.

[294] CON-STI-TUˊ-TION, corporeal frame.

[295] SO-BRIˊ-E-TY, temperance.

[296] PREˊ-MA-TURE, too early.

[297] AR-RAIGNˊ, call in question.

[298] GRAT-I-FI-CAˊ-TIONS, indulgences.

[299] TAINTˊ-ED, stained; corrupted.

[300] IN-VOLVˊ-ED, entangled.

[301] EM-BARˊ-RASS-MENT, perplexity.

[302] ART-IFˊ-I-CER, inventor.

XXXVI.—TRUE PATRIOTISM.[303]

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

1. What constitutes[304] a State?

Not high raised battlements[305] or labored mound,[306]

Thick wall or moated[307] gate;

Nor cities proud, with spires and turrets[308] crowned;

Not bays and broad-armed ports,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies[309] ride;

Not starred and spangled courts,

Where low-browed baseness[310] wafts perfume to pride.

2. No; men, high-minded[311] men,

With powers as far above dull brutes endued[312],

In forest brake, or den,

As beasts excel[313] cold rocks and brambles[314] rude;

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain;[315]

Prevent the long aimed blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend[316] the chain;

These constitute a State;

And Sovereign[317] Law, that State’s collected[318] will,

O’er thrones and globes elate,[319]

Sits empress, crowning good, repressing[320] ill.

[303] PAˊ-TRI-OT-ISM, love of country.

[304] CONˊ-STI-TUTES, makes; forms.

[305] BATˊ-TLE-MENTS, breastworks.

[306] MOUND, rampart; bank of earth.

[307] MOATˊ-ED, surrounded by a ditch.

[308] TURˊ-RETS, little towers.

[309] NAˊ-VIES, fleets of ships.

[310] BASEˊ-NESS, meanness.

[311] HIGHˊ-MIND-ED, magnanimous.

[312] EN-DUˊ-ED, furnished; endowed.

[313] EX-CELˊ, exceed; surpass.

[314] BRAMˊ-BLES, prickly shrubs.

[315] MAIN-TAINˊ, defend; support.

[316] REND, part asunder.

[317] SOVˊ-ER-EIGN, supreme.

[318] COL-LECTˊ-ED, congregated.

[319] E-LATEˊ, raised; lofty.

[320] RE-PRESSˊ-ING, quelling.

XXXVII.—INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE TYROLESE.

ALISON.

Sir Archibald Alison, although not himself a Catholic, eloquently sets forth, in the following lesson, the refining and civilizing influences of the Catholic Church.

1. What is it, then, which has wrought so surprising a change in the manners and habits of Europe, of the inhabitants of the great mountain-girdle of the earth? What is it which has spread cultivation through wastes deemed, in ancient times, inaccessible[321] to improvement, and humanized[322] the manners of a people, remarkable only, under the Roman sway, for the ferocity and barbarism of their customs?

2. What but the influence of religion; of that faith which has calmed the savage passions of the human mind, and spread its beneficial influence amongst the remotest[323] habitations of men, and which prompted its disciples to leave the luxuries and comforts of southern civilization to diffuse[324] knowledge and humanity through inhospitable realms, and spread, even amidst the regions of desolation, the light of knowledge, and the blessings of Christianity.

3. Impressed with these ideas, the traveler, in crossing the St. Bernard, and comparing the perfect safety with which he now can explore the most solitary parts of these mountains, with the perils[325] of the passage, attested by votive[326] offerings, even in the days of Adrian, and the Antonines, will think with thankfulness of the religion by which this wonderful change has been effected, and with veneration of the saint whose name has, for a thousand years, been affixed to the pass where his influence first reclaimed the people from their barbarous life; and in crossing the defile of Mount Brenner, where the Abbey of Wilten first offered an asylum to the pilgrim, he will feel, with a late amiable and eloquent writer, “how fortunate it is that religion has penetrated these fastnesses, impervious[327] to human power, and, where precautions are impossible and resistance useless, spread her invisible ægis[328] over the traveler, and conducts him, secure under her protection, through all the dangers of his way!”

4. When in such situations he reflects upon his security, and recollects that these mountains, so savage, and so well adapted to the progress of murderers and banditti[329], have not in the memory of man been stained with human blood, he ought to do justice to the cause, and gratefully to acknowledge the influence of religion.

5. Impressed with these ideas, he will behold with interest the crosses which frequently mark the brow of a precipice, and the little chapels hollowed out of the rock, where the road is narrowed; he will consider them as so many pledges of security, and rest assured, that so long as the pious mountaineer continues to adore the “Good Shepherd,” and to implore the power of the “Afflicted Mother,” he will never cease to befriend the traveler, nor to discharge the duties of hospitality.

[321] IN-AC-CESSˊ-I-BLE, beyond reach of.

[322] HUˊ-MAN-IZE, to render human.

[323] RE-MOTˊ-EST, most distant.

[324] DIF-FUSEˊ, to spread, to extend in all directions.

[325] PERˊ-ILS, dangers.

[326] VOˊ-TIVE, given by vow, devoted.

[327] IM-PERˊ-VI-OUS, not to be penetrated or passed through.

[328] ÆGIS, shield, protection.

[329] BAN-DITˊ-TI, outlaws, highwaymen, robbers.

XXXVIII.—HYMN OF THE MOUNTAINEERS.

MRS. HEMANS.

Mrs. Felicia Dorothea Hemans was born in England in 1794, and died in 1835. Her poetry is not only remarkable for purity and delicacy of feeling, but is often marked by ardent and vigorous expression.

1. For the strength of the hills we bless thee, our God, our fathers’ God!

Thou hast made Thy children mighty, by the touch of the mountain sod.

Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge[330] where the spoiler’s foot ne’er trod;

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers’ God!

2. We are watchers of a beacon[331] whose light must never die;

We are guardians of an altar midst the silence of the sky,

The rocks yield founts of courage, struck forth as by Thy rod;

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our father’s God.

3. For the dark-resounding caverns,[332] where Thy still, small voice is heard;

For the strong pines of the forests, that by Thy breath is stirred;

For the storms on whose free pinions[333] Thy spirit walks abroad;

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers’ God!

4. The royal eagle darteth on his quarry[334] from the heights,

And the stag, that knows no master, seeks there his wild delights;

But we, for Thy communion, have sought the mountain sod;

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers’ God!

5. The banner of the chieftain far, far below us waves;

The war-horse of the spearman cannot reach our lofty caves;

Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold of Freedom’s last abode;

For the strength of the hills we bless Thee, our God, our fathers’ God!

6. For the shadow of Thy presence, round our camp of rock outspread;

For the stern defiles of battle, bearing record of our dead;

For the snows and for the torrents, for the free heart’s burial sod;

For the strength of the hills, we bless Thee, our God, our fathers’ God!

[330] REFˊ-UGE, shelter, or protection from danger.

[331] BEAˊ-CON, a signal, or mark to give warning of danger.

[332] CAVˊ-ERN, a deep hollow place in the earth.

[333] PINˊ-IONS, wings.

[334] QUARˊ-RY, the game which a hawk or an eagle is pursuing, or has killed.

XXXIX.—EXHORTATION TO PRAYER.

1. Not on a prayerless bed, not on a prayerless bed

Compose thy weary limbs to rest;

For they alone are blessed

With balmy sleep,

Whom angels keep;

Nor, though by care oppressed,

Or anxious sorrow,

Or thought in many a coil perplexed

For coming morrow,

Lay not thy head

On prayerless bed.

2. For who can tell, when sleep thine eyes shall close,

That earthly cares and woes

To thee may e’er return?

Arouse, my soul,

Slumber control,

And let thy lamp burn brightly;

So shall thine eyes discern

Things pure and sightly;

Taught by the Spirit, learn

Never on thoughtless bed

To lay thine unblessed head.

3. Hast thou no pining want, or wish, or care,

That calls for holy prayer?

Has thy day been so bright

That in its flight

There is no trace of sorrow?

And art thou sure to-morrow

Will be like this, and more

Abundant? Dost thou yet lay up thy store,

And still make plans for more?

Thou fool! this very night

Thy soul may wing its flight.

4. Hast thou no being than thyself more dear,

That plows the ocean deep?

And when storms sweep the wintry, lowering skies,

For whom thou wakest and weepest?

O, when thy pangs are deepest,

Seek then the covenant ark of prayer,

For He that slumbereth not, is there,

His ear is open to thy cry;

O, then, on prayerless bed

Lay not thy thoughtless head.

5. Arouse thee, weary soul, nor yield to slumber,

Till in communion blessed

With the elect thou rest,

Those souls in countless number;

And with them raise

The note of praise,

Reaching from earth to heaven;

Chosen, redeemed, forgiven;

So lay thy happy head,

Prayer-crowned, on blessed bed.

XL.—BEHIND TIME.

FREEMAN HUNT.

1. A railroad train was rushing along at almost lightning speed. A curve was just ahead, beyond which was a station at which the cars usually passed each other. The conductor was late, so late that the period during which the down train was to wait had nearly elapsed; but he hoped yet to pass the curve safely. Suddenly a locomotive dashed into sight right ahead. In an instant there was a collision. A shriek, a shock, and fifty souls were in eternity; and all because an engineer had been behind time.

2. A great battle was going on. Column[335] after column had been precipitated for eight mortal hours on the enemy posted along the ridge of a hill. The summer sun was sinking to the west; rëenforcements[336] for the obstinate defenders were already in sight; it was necessary to carry the position with one final charge, or every thing would be lost.

3. A powerful corps had been summoned from across the country, and if it came up in season all would yet be well. The great conqueror, confident in its arrival, formed his reserve[337] into an attacking column, and ordered them to charge the enemy. The whole world knows the result. Grouchy[338] failed to appear; the imperial guard was beaten back; Waterloo was lost. Napoleon died a prisoner at St. Helena because one of his marshals was behind time.

4. A leading firm in commercial circles had long struggled against bankruptcy. As it had enormous assets[339] in California, it expected remittances by a certain day, and if the sums promised arrived, its credit, honor, and its future prosperity would be preserved. But week after week elapsed without bringing the gold. At last came the fatal day on which the firm had bills maturing[340] to enormous amounts. The steamer was telegraphed at daybreak; but it was found, on inquiry, that she brought no funds, and the house failed. The next arrival brought nearly half a million to the insolvents[341], but it was too late; they were ruined because their agent, in remitting, had been behind time.

5. A condemned man was led out for execution. He had taken human life, but under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve[342], a favorable answer had been expected the night before, and though it had not come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would yet arrive in season. Thus the morning passed without the appearance of the messenger. The last moment was up. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in the wind. Just at that moment a horseman came into sight, galloping down hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand, which he waved rapidly to the crowd. He was the express rider with a reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died an ignominious death, because a watch had been five minutes too slow, making its bearer arrive behind time.

6. It is continually so in life. The best laid plans, the most important affairs, the fortunes of individuals, the weal of nations, honor, happiness, life itself, are daily sacrificed because somebody is “behind time.” There are men who always fail in whatever they undertake, simply because they are “behind time.” There are others who put off reformation year by year, till death seizes them, and they perish unrepentant, because forever “behind time.” Five minutes in a crisis is worth years. It is but a little period, yet it has often saved a fortune or redeemed a people. If there is one virtue that should be cultivated more than another by him who would succeed in life, it is punctuality; if there is one error that should be avoided it is being behind time.

[335] COLˊ-UMN, a body of troops in deep files, with narrow front.

[336] RE-EN-FORCEˊ-MENTS, supplies of additional troops.

[337] RE-SERVEˊ, a select body of troops kept in the rear of an army in action, to give support when required.

[338] Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, was defeated by the Allies under the Duke of Wellington, at Waterloo, June 18, 1815. Marshal Grouchy was expected to aid the emperor with a body of troops, but failed to appear.

[339] ASˊ-SETS, property or effects.

[340] MA-TURˊ-ING, ripening, coming to a perfected state. Bills or notes mature when they become due.

[341] IN-SOLˊ-VENT, one who cannot pay his debts.

[342] RE-PRIEVEˊ, a suspension of a entence of death.

XLI.—EVIL INFLUENCE OF SKEPTICISM.

CAMPBELL.

Thomas Campbell was born in Scotland in 1777, and died in 1844. Some of his shorter poems are remarkable for pathos and beauty, such as “O’Connor’s Child,” “The Exile of Erin,” etc.

1. O, lives there, Heaven! beneath thy dread expanse,

One hopeless, dark idolater of Chance,

Content to feed, with pleasures unrefined,

The lukewarm passions of a lowly mind;

Who, mouldering earthward, reft[343] of every trust,

In joyless union wedded to the dust,

Could all his parting energy dismiss,

And call this barren world sufficient bliss?

2. There live, alas! of heaven-directed mien,

Of cultured soul, and sapient[344] eye serene,

Who hail thee, Man! the pilgrim of a day,

Spouse of the worm, and brother of the clay!

Frail as the leaf in Autumn’s yellow bower,

Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower!

A friendless slave, a child without a sire,

Whose mortal life, and momentary fire,

Lights to the grave his chance-created form,

As ocean-wrecks illuminate the storm;

And, when the gun’s tremendous flash is o’er,

To night and silence sink for evermore!

3. Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim,

Lights of the world, and demigods[345] of Fame?

Is this your triumph, this your proud applause,

Children of Truth, and champions of her cause?

For this hath Science searched, on weary wing,

By shore and sea, each mute and living thing?

Launched with Iberia’s[346] pilot from the steep,

To world’s unknown, and isles beyond the deep?

Or round the cope[347] her living chariot driven,

And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven?

O, star-eyed Science, hast thou wandered there,

To waft us home the message of despair?

Then bind the palm, thy sage’s brow to suit,

Of blasted leaf, and death distilling fruit!

4. Ah me! the laureled wreath that Murder rears,

Blood-nursed, and watered by the widow’s tears,

Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread,

As waves the night-shade[348] round the sceptic head.

What is the bigot’s torch, the tyrant’s chain?

I smile on death, if heavenward Hope remain!

But, if the warring winds of Nature’s strife

Be all the faithless charter of my life,

If chance awaked, inexorable power!

This frail and feverish being of an hour,

Doomed o’er the world’s precarious scene to sweep,

Swift as the tempest travels on the deep,

To know Delight but by her parting smile,

And toil, and wish, and weep, a little while;

Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain

This troubled pulse, and visionary[349] brain!

Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom!

And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb!

5. Truth, ever lovely, since the world began,

The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man,

How can thy words from balmy slumber start

Reposing Virtue, pillowed on the heart!

Yet, if thy voice the note of thunder rolled,

And that were true which Nature never told,

Let Wisdom smile not on her conquered field

No rapture dawns, no treasure is revealed!

O, let her read, nor loudly, nor elate,

The doom that bars us from a better fate!

But, sad as angels for the good mans sin,

Weep to record, and blush to give it in!

[343] REFT, bereft; deprived.

[344] SAˊ-PI-ENT, wise.

[345] DEMˊ-I-GOD, a deified hero.

[346] I-BEˊ-RI-A’S PIˊ-LOT, Columbus. Iberia is an ancient name of Spain.

[347] COPE, the concave of the sky, an arch or vault over head.

[348] NIGHTˊ-SHADE, a noxious plant.

[349] VIˊ-SION-A-RY, prone to see or capable of seeing visions; imaginative.

XLII.—DAVID’S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM.

WILLIS.

1. Alas, my noble boy! that thou shouldst die!

Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair!

That death should settle in thy glorious eye,

And leave his stillness in this clustering hair!

How could he mark thee for the silent tomb,

My proud boy, Absalom!

2. Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill

As to my bosom I have tried to press thee.

How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill,

Like a rich harpstring, yearning[350] to caress thee,

And hear thy sweet “My father!” from these dumb

And cold lips, Absalom!

3. But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush

Of music, and the voices of the young;

And life will pass me in the mantling[351] blush,

And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung;—

But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come

To meet me, Absalom!

4. And, O, when I am stricken, and my heart,

Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken,

How will its love for thee, as I depart,

Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token!

It were so sweet, amid death’s gathering gloom,

To see thee, Absalom!

5. And now, farewell! ’Tis hard to give thee up,

With death so like a gentle slumber on thee:—

And thy dark sin!—O, I could drink the cup,

If from this woe its bitterness had won thee.

May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,

My lost boy, Absalom!

[350] YEARNˊING, strongly desiring.

[351] MANˊTLING, suffusing the face.

XLIII.—A STORM AT SEA.

ARCHBISHOP HUGHES.

Archbishop Hughes, was born in the north of Ireland in 1798. He came to the United States in 1817, with his father, and died January 3, 1864. He was educated at Mount St. Mary’s, Emmetsburg, Maryland, ordained priest in 1825, became bishop in 1842, and archbishop of New York in 1850. He devoted his great energies in an especial manner to the encouragement and spread of Catholic education. His controversies with Breckenridge, and the debate on the Public School question, proved him to be a man of great controversial ability.

1. This day I was gratified with what I had often desired to witness—the condition of the sea in a tempest. I had contemplated the ocean in all its other phases, and they are almost innumerable. At one time it is seen reposing in perfect stillness under the blue sky and bright sun. At another, slightly ruffled, and then its motion causes his rays to tremble and dance in broken fragments of silvery or golden light,—and the sight is dazzled by following the track from whence his beams are reflected,—while all besides seems to frown in the darkness of its ripple.

2. Again it may be seen somewhat more agitated and of a darker hue, under a clouded sky and a stronger and increasing wind. Then you see an occasional wave, rising a little above the rest, and crowning its summit with that crest of white, breaking from its top and tumbling over like liquid alabaster[352]. I had seen the ocean, too, by moonlight, and as much of it as may be seen in the darkness, when the moon and stars are veiled. But until to-day I had never seen it in correspondence with the TEMPEST.

3. After a breeze of some sixty hours from the north and north-west, the wind died away about four o’clock yesterday afternoon. The calm continued till about nine in the evening. The mercury in the barometer[353] fell, in the mean time, at an extraordinary rate; and the captain predicted that we should encounter a “gale” from the south-east. The “gale” came on, at about eleven o’clock; not violent at first, but increasing every moment. I awoke with a confused recollection of a good deal of rolling and thumping through the night, which was occasioned by the dashing of the waves against the ship.

4. Hurrying on my clothes, I found such of the passengers as could stand, at the doors of the hurricane-house[354], “holding on,” and looking out in the utmost consternation. It was still quite dark. Four of the sails were already in ribbons; the winds whistling through the cordage; the rain dashing furiously and in torrents; the noise and spray scarcely less than I found them under the great sheet at Niagara. And in the midst of all this, the captain with his speaking trumpet, the officers, and the sailors, screaming to each other in efforts to be heard,—this, all this, in the darkness which precedes the dawning of day, and with the fury of the hurricane, combined to form as much of the terribly sublime as I ever wish to witness concentrated in one scene.

5. The passengers, though silent, were filled with apprehension. What the extent of the danger, and how all this would terminate, were questions which rose in my own mind, although I was unconscious of fear or trepidation.[355] But to such questions there are no answers, for this knowledge resides only with Him who “guides the storm and directs the whirlwind.” We had encountered, however, as yet, only the commencement of a gale, whose terrors had been heightened by its suddenness, by the darkness, and by the confusion. It continued to blow furiously for twenty-four hours; so that during the whole day I enjoyed a view, which, apart from its dangers, would be worth a voyage across the Atlantic.

6. The ship was driven madly through the raging waters, and when it was impossible to walk the decks without imminent risk of being lifted up and carried away by the winds, the poor sailors were kept aloft, tossing and swinging about the yards and in the tops, clinging by their bodies, feet, and arms, with mysterious tenacity, to the spars, while their hands were employed in taking in and securing sail.

7. On deck the officers and men made themselves safe by ropes; but how the gallant fellows aloft kept from being blown out of the rigging, was equally a matter of wonder and admiration. However, about seven o’clock they had taken in what canvas had not been blown away, except the sails, by means of which the vessel is kept steady. At nine o’clock the hurricane had acquired its full force. There was no more work to be done. The ship lay to[356], and those who had her in charge only remained on deck to be prepared for whatever of disaster might occur. The breakfast hour came, and passed, unheeded by most of the passengers.

8. By this time the sea was rolling up its hurricane waves; and that I might not lose the grandeur of such a view, I fortified myself against the rain and spray, and, in spite of the fierceness of the gale, planted myself in a position favorable for a survey of all around me, and in safety, so long as the ship’s strong works might hold together. I had often seen paintings of a storm at sea, but here was the original. These imitations are oftentimes graphic[357] and faithful, as far as they go, but they are necessarily deficient in accompaniments which paintings cannot supply, and are therefore feeble and ineffective.

9. You have, upon canvas, the ship and the sea, but, as they come from the hands of the artist, so they remain. The universal motion of both is thus arrested and made stationary. There is no subject in which the pencil of the painter acknowledges more its indebtedness to the imagination than in its attempts to delineate[358] the sea storm.

10. It was not the least remarkable, and by far the most comfortable circumstance in this combination of all that is grand and terrible, that, furious as were the winds, towering and threatening as were the billows, our glorious bark preserved her equilibrium[359] against the fury of the one, and her buoyancy in despite of the alternate precipice and avalanche of the other. True it is, she was made to whistle through her cordage, to creak and moan through all her timbers, even to her masts. True it is, she was made to plunge and rear, to tremble and reel and stagger. Still, she continued to scale the watery mountain, and ride on its very summit, until, as it rolled onward from beneath her, she descended gently on her pathway, ready to triumph again and again over each succeeding wave.

11. At such a moment it was a matter of profound deliberation which most to admire, the majesty of God in the winds and waves or His goodness and wisdom in enabling His creatures to contend with and overcome the elements even in the fierceness of their anger! To cast one’s eye abroad on the scene that surrounded me at this moment, and to think man should have said to himself, “I will build myself an ark in the midst of you, and ye shall not prevent my passage; nay, ye indomitable waves shall bear me up, and ye winds shall waft me onward!” And yet there we were in the fullness of this fearful experiment.

12. I had never believed it possible for a vessel to encounter such a hurricane without being dashed or torn to pieces, at least in all her masts and rigging; for I am persuaded that had the same tempest passed as furiously over your town, during the same length of time, it would have left scarcely a house standing. The yielding character of the element in which the vessel is launched is the great secret of safety on such occasions. Hence, when gales occur upon the wide ocean, there is little danger; but when they drive you upon breakers on a lee shore[360], where the keel[361] comes in contact with “the too solid earth,” then it is impossible to escape shipwreck.

13. I never experienced a sensation of fear on the ocean; but this tempest has increased my confidence tenfold, not only in the sea but in the ship. It no longer surprises me that few vessels are lost at sea, for they and their element are made for each other. And the practical conclusion from this experience of a gale is encouraging for all my future navigation. I shall have confidence in my ship now, as I have ever had in the sea. Ever since my eyes first rested on the ocean, I have cherished an instinctive affection for it, as if it were something capable of sympathy and benevolence. When calm, it is to me a slumbering infant. How tranquilly it sleeps!

[352] ALˊ-A-BAS-TER, a white stone used for ornamental purposes.

[353] BA-ROMˊ-E-TER, an instrument used for measuring the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, and which gives warning of the approach of a storm by the falling of the mercury; a weather-glass.

[354] HURˊ-RI-CANE HOUSE, a house on the upper deck.

[355] TREP-I-DAˊ-TION, involuntary trembling; agitation of mind; alarm.

[356] LAY TO, had the progress stopped, as a vessel by bringing her head to the wind.

[357] GRAPHˊ-IC, well described; vivid.

[358] DE-LIN’ˊE-ATE, represent by drawing or by describing, so as to present a picture to the mind.

[359] E-QUI-LIBˊ-RI-UM, balance of power or weight; just poise or balance.

[360] LEE SHORE, a shore against which the wind blows.

[361] KEEL, the principal timber in a vessel, extending from stem to stern, at the bottom.

XLIV.—THE ATMOSPHERE.

1. The atmosphere rises above us, with its cathedral[362]-dome, arching towards the heavens, of which it is the most familiar synonym[363] and symbol. It floats around us like that grand object which the apostle John saw in his vision—“a sea of glass like unto crystal.” So massive is it, that, when it begins to stir, it tosses about great ships like playthings, and sweeps cities and forests to destruction before it. And yet it is so mobile[364], that we live years in it before we can be persuaded that it exists at all; and the great bulk of mankind never realize the truth that they are bathed in an ocean of air. Its weight is so enormous that iron shivers before it like glass; yet a soap bubble sails through it with impunity, and the tiniest insect waves it aside with its wing.

2. It ministers lavishly to all the senses. We touch it not; but it touches us. Its warm south wind brings back color to the pale face of the invalid; its cool west winds refresh the fevered brow, and make the blood mantle in our cheeks; even its northern blasts brace into new vigor the hardy children of our rugged clime.

3. The eye is indebted to it for all the magnificence of sunrise, the full brightness of midday, the chastened[365] radiance of the “gloaming[366],” and the “clouds that cradle near the setting sun.” But for it the rainbow would want its “triumphal arch,” and the winds would not send their fleecy messengers on errands round the heavens. The cold weather would not shed its snow feathers on the earth, nor would drops of dew gather on the flowers. The kindly rain would never fall, nor hailstorm, nor fog diversify[367] the face of the sky. Our naked globe would turn its tanned and unshadowed forehead to the sun, and one dreary, monotonous blaze of light and heat dazzle and burn up all things.

4. Were there no atmosphere, the evening sun would in a moment set, and without warning plunge the earth in darkness. But the air keeps in her hand a sheaf of his rays, and lets them slip slowly through her fingers; so that the shadows of evening gather by degrees, and the flowers have time to bow their heads, and each creature space to find a place of rest, and nestle to repose. In the morning, the gairish[368] sun would at once burst from the bosom of night, and blaze above the horizon; but the air watches for his coming, and sends at first one little ray to announce his approach, and then another, and by and by a handful; and so gently draws aside the curtain of night, and slowly lets the light fall on the face of the sleeping earth, till her eyelids open, and, like man, she “goeth forth again to her labor till the evening.”

[362] CA-THEˊ-DRAL, a large church, the term is properly applied to the church in which the bishop of the diocese usually officiates.

[363] SYNˊ-O-NYM, one of two or more words having the same or a similar meaning.

[364] MOBˊ-ILE, movable, light.

[365] CHASTˊ-ENED (chaˊ-snd), pure.

[366] GLOAMˊ-ING, twilight.

[367] DI-VERˊ-SI-FY, give variety to.

[368] GAIR-ISH, gaudy, brightly shining.

XLV.—THE CHERWELL WATER-LILY.

FABER.

1. How often doth a wild flower bring

Fancies and thoughts that seem to spring

From inmost depths of feeling!

Nay, often they have power to bless

With their uncultured loveliness,

And far into the aching breast

There goes a heavenly thought of rest

With their soft influence stealing.

How often, too, can ye unlock,

Dear wild flowers, with a gentle shock,

The wells of holy tears!

While somewhat of a Christian light

Breaks sweetly on the mourner’s sight,

To calm unquiet fears!

Ah! surely such strange power is given

To lowly flowers like dew from heaven;

For lessons oft by them are brought,

Deeper than mortal sage hath taught,

Lessons of wisdom pure, that rise

From some clear fountains in the skies.

2. Fairest of Flora’s lovely daughters

That bloom by stilly running waters,

Fair lily! thou a type must be

Of virgin love and purity!

Fragrant thou art as any flower,

That decks a lady’s garden-bower.

But he who would thy sweetness know

Must stoop and bend his loving brow

To catch thy scent, so faint and rare,

Scarce breathed upon the summer air.

And all thy motions, too, how free,

And yet how fraught with sympathy!

So pale thy tint, so meek thy gleam,

Shed on thy kindly father-stream!

Still, as he swayeth to and fro,

How true in all thy goings,

As if thy very soul did know

The secrets of his flowings.

3. And then that heart of living gold,

Which thou dost modestly infold,

And screen from man’s too searching view,

Within thy robe of snowy hue!

To careless man thou seem’st to roam

Abroad upon the river,

In all thy movements chain’d to home,

Fast-rooted there forever:

Link’d by a holy, hidden tie,

Too subtle for a mortal eye,

Nor riveted by mortal art,

Deep down within thy father’s heart.

4. Emblem in truth thou art to me

Of all a daughter ought to be!

How shall I liken thee, sweet flower,

That other men may feel thy power,

May seek thee on some lovely night,

And say how strong, how chaste the might,

The tie of filial duty,

How graceful, too, and angel bright,

The pride of lowly beauty!

Thou sittest on the varying tide

As if thy spirit did preside,

With a becoming, queenly grace,

As mistress of this lonely place:

A quiet magic hast thou now

To smooth the river’s ruffled brow,

And calm his rippling water,

And yet, so delicate and airy,

Thou art to him a very fairy.

A widowed father’s only daughter.

XLVI.—DISCRETION.

ADDISON.

1. There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion[369]; it is this indeed, which gives a value to all the rest, which sets them at work in their proper times and places, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed of them. Though a man has all other perfections, and wants this one, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his particular station of life. At the same time that I think discretion is the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment[370] of little, mean, ungenerous minds.

2. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable means of attaining[371] them; cunning has only private, selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well formed eye, commands a whole horizon;[4] cunning is a sort of short-sightedness that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.

3. Discretion, the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to the person who possesses it; cunning, when it is once detected, loses its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about those events which he might have done had he passed only for a plain man. Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life: cunning is a kind of instinct that only looks after our immediate interest and welfare.

4. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understanding: cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them. In short cunning is only the mimic[372] of discretion, and may pass upon weak men, in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.

5. The cast of mind which is natural to a discreet man, makes him look forward into futurity, and consider what will be his condition millions of ages hence, as well as what it is at present. He knows that the misery or happiness which is reserved for him in another world, loses nothing of its reality by being placed at so great a distance from him. The objects do not appear little to him because they are remote.[373] He considers that those pleasures and pains which lie hid in eternity, approach nearer to him every moment, and will be present with him in their full weight and measure, as much as those pains and pleasures which he feels at this very instant.

6. For this reason, he is careful to secure to himself that which is the proper business of his nature, and the ultimate[374] design of his being. He carries his thoughts to the end of every action, and considers the most distant as well as the most immediate effects of it. He supersedes[375] every little prospect of gain and advantage which offers itself here, if he does not find it consistent with the views of a hereafter. In a word, his hopes are full of immortality, his schemes are large and glorious, and his conduct suitable to one who knows his true interest, and how to pursue it by proper methods.

7. I have, in this essay upon discretion, considered it both as an accomplishment and as a virtue, and have therefore described it in its full extent, not only as it is the guide of a mortal creature, but as it is in general the director of a reasonable being. It is in this light that discretion is represented by the wise man, who sometimes mentions it under the name of discretion, and sometimes under that of wisdom. It is, indeed, as described in the latter part of this paper, the greatest wisdom, but, at the same time, in the power of every one to attain. Its advantages are infinite, but its acquisition[376] is easy.

[369] DIS-CREˊ-TION, prudence.

[370] AC-COMˊ-PLISH-MENTS, attainments.

[371] AT-TAINˊ-ING, reaching, obtaining.

[372] MIMˊ-IC, imitator, counterfeit.

[373] RE-MOTEˊ, distant.

[374] ULˊ-TI-MATE, final.

[375] SUˊ-PER-SEDE, to set aside.

[376] AC-QUI-SIˊ-TION, acquirement, attainment.

XLVII.—STABILITY OF CHARACTER.

ALISON.

1. Stability[377] of character is, in all pursuits, the surest foundation of success. It is a common error of the indolent[378] and the imprudent to attribute the success of others to some peculiar talents, or original superiority of mind, which is not to be found in the generality of men. Of the falseness of this opinion, the slightest observation of human life may satisfy us. The difference of talents, indeed, and the varieties of original character, may produce a difference in the aims and in the designs of men; and superior minds will naturally form to themselves superior objects of ambition. But the attainment of these ends, the accomplishment of these designs, is, in all cases, the consequence of one means alone—that of steadfastness and perseverance in pursuit.

2. “It is the hand of the diligent,” saith the wise man, “that maketh rich.” It is the same diligence, when directed to other ends, that maketh great. Every thing which we see with admiration in the world around us, or of which we read with delight in the annals of history—the acquisitions of knowledge, the discoveries of science, the powers of art, the glories of arms, the dignities of private, or the splendors of public virtue—all have sprung from the same fountain of mind, from that steady but unseen perseverance which has been exerted in their pursuit. The possession of genius alone, is, alas! no certain herald of success; and how many melancholy instances has the world afforded to us all, of how little avail mere natural talents are to the prosperity of their possessors, and of the frequency with which they have led to ruin and disgrace, when unaccompanied with firmness and energy of mind!

3. This stability of character is the surest promise of honor. It supposes, indeed, all the qualities of mind that are regarded by the world with respect; and which constitute the honorable and dignified in human character. It supposes that profound[379] sense of duty, which we every where look for as the foundation of virtue, and for the want of which no other attainments can ever compensate.[380] It supposes a chastened and regulated imagination, which looks ever to “the things that are excellent,” and which is incapable of being diverted from their pursuit, either by the intoxications[381] of prosperous, or the depressions of adverse fortune. It supposes, still more, a firm and intrepid[382] heart, which neither pleasure has been able to seduce, nor indolence to enervate,[383] nor danger to intimidate,[384] and which, in many a scene of trial, and under many severities of discipline, has hardened itself at last into the firmness and consistency of virtue.

4. A character of this kind can never be looked upon without admiration; and wherever we meet it, whether amid the splendors of prosperity, or the severities of adversity, we feel ourselves disposed to pay it a pure and an unbidden homage.[385] The display of wild and unregulated talents may sometimes, indeed, excite a temporary admiration; but it is the admiration we pay to the useless glare of the meteor, which is extinguished while it is beheld; while the sentiment we feel for the steady course of principled virtue, is the admiration with which we regard the majestic path of the sun, as he slowly pursues his way, to give light and life to nature.

5. This stability of character is, in another view, the surest foundation of happiness. There are, doubtless, many ways in which our happiness is dependent upon the conduct and the sentiments of others; but the great and perennial[386] source of every man’s happiness is in his own bosom—in that secret fountain of the heart, from which the “waters of joy or of bitterness” perpetually flow.

6. It is from this source, the man of steadfast and persevering virtue derives his peculiar happiness; and the slightest recurrence to our own experience, can tell us both its nature and its degree. It is pleasing, we all know, to review the day that is past, and to think that its duties have been done; to think that the purpose with which we rose, has been accomplished; that in the busy scene which surrounds us, we have done our part, and that no temptation has been able to subdue our firmness and our resolution.

7. Such are the sentiments with which, in every year of life, and still more in that solemn moment when life is drawing to its close, the man of persevering virtue is able to review the time that is past. It lies before him, as it were, in order and regularity; and, while he travels, over again, the various stages of his progress, memory restores to him many images to soothe and to animate his heart. The days of trial are past; the hardships he has suffered, the labors he has undergone, are remembered no more, but his good deeds remain, and from the grave of time seem to rise up again to bless him, and to speak to him of peace and hope.

8. Such are, then, the consequences of firmness and stability of character; and such the rewards which he may look for, who, solemnly devoting himself to the discharge of the duties of that station or condition which Providence has assigned him, pursues them with steady and undeviating labor. It is the character which unites all that is valuable or noble in human life, the tranquillity of conscience, the honors of wisdom, and the dignity of virtue.

[377] STA-BILˊ-I-TY, firmness.

[378] INˊ-DO-LENT, lazy, slothful.

[379] PRO-FOUNDˊ, deep, thorough.

[380] COMˊ-PEN-SATE, make amends.

[381] IN-TOXˊ-I-CAˊ-TION, inclination.

[382] IN-TREPˊ-ID, fearless, bold.

[383] ENˊ-ER-VATE, to weaken, to deprive of nerve or strength.

[384] IN-TIMˊ-I-DATE, to inspire with fear.

[385] HOMˊ-AGE, reverence, respect.

[386] PER-ENˊ-NI-AL, perpetual.

THE YEAR OF SORROW—IRELAND—1849.

AUBREY DE VERE.

XLVIII.—SPRING.

1. Once more through God’s high will, and grace

Of hours that each its task fulfills,

Heart-healing Spring resumes her place,

The valley throngs and scales the hills

2. In vain. From earth’s deep heart o’ercharged

The exulting life runs o’er in flowers;

The slave unfed is unenlarged:

In darkness sleep a Nation’s powers.

3. Who knows not Spring? Who doubts, when blows

Her breath, that Spring is come indeed?

The swallow doubts not; nor the rose

That stirs, but wakes not; nor the weed.

4. I feel her near, but see her not;

For these with pain-uplifted eyes

Fall back repulsed, and vapors blot

The vision of the earth and skies.

5. I see her not—I feel her near,

As, charioted in mildest airs,

She sails through yon empyreal sphere,

And in her arms and bosom bears

6. That urn of flowers and lustral dews,

Whose sacred balm, o’er all things shed,

Revives the weak, the old renews,

And crowns with votive wreaths the dead.

7. Once more the cuckoo’s call I hear;

I know, in many a glen profound,

The earliest violets of the year

Rise up like water from the ground.

8. The thorn I know once more is white;

And, far down many a forest dale,

The anemones in dubious light

Are trembling like a bridal veil.

9. By streams released, that singing flow

From craggy shelf through sylvan glades;

The pale narcissus, well I know,

Smiles hour by hour on greener shades.

10. The honeyed cowslip tufts once more

The golden slopes; with gradual ray

The primrose stars the rock, and o’er

The wood-path strews its milky way.

11. From ruined huts and holes come forth

Old men, and look upon the sky!

The Power Divine is on the earth:

Give thanks to God before ye die!

12. And ye, O children worn and weak!

Who care no more with flowers to play,

Lean on the grass your cold, thin cheek,

And those slight hands, and whispering, say,

13. “Stern Mother of a race unblest,

“In promise kindly, cold in deed,—

“Take back, O Earth, into thy breast,

“The children whom thou wilt not feed.”

XLIX.—SUMMER.

1. Approved by works of love and might,

The Year, consummated and crowned,

Has scaled the zenith’s purple height,

And flings his robe the earth around.

2. Impassioned stillness—fervors calm—

Brood, vast and bright, o’er land and deep:

The warrior sleeps beneath the palm;

The dark-eyed captive guards his sleep.

3. The Iberian laborer rests from toil;

Sicilian virgins twine the dance;

Laugh Tuscan vales in wine and oil;

Fresh laurels flash from brows of France.

4. Far off, in regions of the North,

The hunter drops his winter fur;

Sun-stricken babes their feet stretch forth;

And nested dormice feebly stir.

5. But thou, O land of many woes!

What cheer is thine? Again the breath

Of proved Destruction o’er thee blows,

And sentenced fields grow black in death.

6. In horror of a new despair

His blood-shot eyes the peasant strains,

With hands clenched fast, and lifted hair,

Along the daily-darkening plains.

7. “Why trusted he to them his store?

“Why feared he not the scourge to come?”

Fool! turn the page of History o’er—

The roll of Statutes—and be dumb!

8. Behold, O People! thou shalt die!

What art thou better than thy sires?

The hunted deer a weeping eye

Turns on his birthplace, and expires.

9. Lo! as the closing of a book,

Or statue from its base o’erthrown,

Or blasted wood, or dried-up brook,

Name, race, and nation, thou art gone.

10. The stranger shall thy hearth possess;

The stranger build upon thy grave.

But know this also—he, not less

His limit and his term shall have.

11. Once more thy volume, open cast,

In thunder forth shall sound thy name;

Thy forest, hot at heart, at last

God’s breath shall kindle into flame.

12. Thy brook dried up, a cloud shall rise,

And stretch an hourly widening hand,

In God’s good vengeance, through the skies

And onward o’er the Invader’s land.

13. Of thine, one day, a remnant left

Shall raise o’er earth a Prophet’s rod,

And teach the coasts of Faith bereft

The names of Ireland, and of God.

L.—AUTUMN.

1. Then die, thou Year—thy work is done:

The work ill done is done at last.

Far off, beyond that sinking sun

Which sets in blood, I hear the blast

2. That sings thy dirge, and says—“Ascend,

“And answer make amid thy peers,

“(Since all things here must have an end,)

“Thou latest of the famine years!”

3. I join that voice. No joy have I

In all thy purple and thy gold;

Nor in that nine fold harmony

From forest on to forest rolled:

4. Nor in that stormy western fire,

Which burns on ocean’s gloomy bed,

And hurls, as from a funeral pyre,

A glare that strikes the mountain’s head;

5. And writes on low-hung clouds its lines

Of cyphered flame, with hurrying hand;

And flings amid the topmost pines

That crown the steep, a burning brand.

6. Make answer, Year, for all thy dead,

Who found not rest in hallowed earth;

The widowed wife, the father fled,

The babe age-stricken from his birth

7. Make answer, Year, for virtue lost;

For courage proof ’gainst fraud and force

Now waning like a noontide ghost;

Affections poisoned at their source.

8. The laborer spurned his lying spade,

The yeoman spurned his useless plow;

The pauper spurned the unwholesome aid,

Obtruded once, exhausted now.

9. The roof-trees fall of hut and hall,

I hear them fall, and falling cry,

“One fate for each, one fate for all;

So wills the Law that willed a lie.”

10. Dread power of Man! what spread the waste

In circles hour by hour more wide,

And would not let the past be past?—

The Law that promised much, and lied.

11. Dread power of God! Whom mortal years

Nor touch, nor tempt; Who sitt’st sublime

In night of night—O bid thy spheres

Resound at last a funeral chime!

12. Call up at last the afflicted race,

Whom man, not God, abolished.—Sore,

For centuries, their strife: the place

That knew them once shall know no more!

LI.—WINTER.

1. Fall, snow, and cease not! Flake by flake

The decent winding-sheet compose.

Thy task is just and pious; make

An end of blasphemies and woes.

2. Fall flake by flake! by thee alone,

Last friend, the sleeping draught is given:

Kind nurse, by thee the couch is strewn,

The couch whose covering is from heaven.

3. Descend and clasp the mountain’s crest;

Inherit plain and valley deep:

This night on thy maternal breast

A vanquished nation dies in sleep.

4. Lo! from the starry Temple Gates

Death rides, and bears the flag of peace:

The combatants he separates;

He bids the wrath of ages cease.

5. Descend, benignant Power! But O,

Ye torrents, shake no more the vale:

Dark streams, in silence seaward flow:

Thou rising storm, remit thy wail.

6. Shake not, to-night, the cliffs of Moher,

Nor Brandon’s base, rough sea! Thou Isle,

The Rite proceeds! From shore to shore,

Hold in thy gathered breath the while.

7. Fall, snow! in stillness fall, like dew,

On church’s roof and cedar’s fan;

And mold thyself on pine and yew;

And on the awful face of man.

8. Without a sound, without a stir,

In streets and wolds, on rock and mound,

O, omnipresent Comforter,

By Thee, this night, the lost are found!

9. On quaking moor, and mountain moss,

With eyes upstaring at the sky,

And arms extended like a cross,

The long-expectant sufferers lie.

10. Bend o’er them, white-robed Acolyte!

Put forth thine hand from cloud and mist;

And minister the last sad Rite,

Where altar there is none, nor priest.

11. Touch thou the gates of soul and sense;

Touch darkening eyes and dying ears;

Touch stiffening hands and feet, and thence

Remove the trace of sin and tears.

12. And ere thou seal those filmed eyes,

Into God’s urn thy fingers dip,

And lay, ’mid eucharistic sighs,

The sacred wafer on the lip.

13. This night the Absolver issues forth:

This night the Eternal Victim bleeds:

O winds and woods—O heaven and earth!

Be still this night. The Rite proceeds!

LII.—DEATH OF LITTLE NELL.

DICKENS.

1. By little and little, the old man had drawn back towards the inner chamber. He pointed there, as he replied, with trembling lips, “You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You will never do that—never while I have life. I have no relative or friend but her—I never had—I never will have. She is all in all to me. It is too late to part us now.”

2. Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he stole into the room. They who were left behind drew close together, and after a few whispered words, not unbroken by emotion, or easily uttered, followed him. They moved so gently that their footsteps made no noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief and mourning. For she was dead.

3. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel now. She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death.

4. Her couch was dressed with, here and there, some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. “When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.” These were her words.

5. She was dead! Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird—a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed—was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless for ever!

6. Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings and fatigues? All gone. His was the true death before their weeping eyes. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born; imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.

7. And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. Yes. The old fireside had smiled on that same sweet face; it had passed like a dream through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire, upon the cold, wet night, at the still bed-side of the dying boy, there had been the same mild, lovely look. So shall we know the angels in their majesty, after death.

8. The old man held one languid arm in his, and kept the small hand tightly folded to his breast, for warmth. It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile—the hand that had led him on through all their wanderings. Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.

9. She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was ebbing fast—the garden she had tended—the eyes she had gladdened—the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtless hour—the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday—could know her no more.

10. “It is not,” said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent, “it is not in this world that Heaven’s justice ends. Think what it is compared with the world to which her young spirit has winged its early flight, and say, if one deliberate wish, expressed in solemn terms above this bed, could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!”

11. When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of their grief, they heard how her life had closed. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night; but as the hours crept on, she sank to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of those who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said “God bless you!” with great fervor. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was at beautiful music which she said was in the air. It may have been.

12. Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face—such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget—and clung with both her arms about his neck. They did not know that she was dead at first. For the rest, she had never murmured or complained; but with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered—save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them—faded like the light upon the summer’s evening.

13. And now the bell—the bell she had so often heard by night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure, almost as a living voice—rung its remorseless tone for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy poured forth—on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life; to gather round her with angels; and when they called to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her early death, some thought it might be so indeed. Thus coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the church was cleared in time of all but the sexton and the mourning friends.

14. They saw the vault covered and the stone fixed down. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place—when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all (it seems to them) upon her quiet grave—in that calm time, when all outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them, then, with tranquil and submissive hearts, they turned away, and left the child with God.

LIII.—SORROW FOR THE DEAD.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

1. The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.[387] Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open; this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament?

2. Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon her he most loved—when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portals—would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness?

3. No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection, when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who could root out such a sorrow? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange it, even for the song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry?

4. No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down even upon the grave of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious[388] throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies moldering before him!

5. But the grave of those we loved, what a place of meditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy; there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene; the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendance, its mute watchful assiduities.

6. The last testimonies of expiring love! the feeble, fluttering, thrilling, oh! how thrilling! pressure of hand! The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection! The last fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence! Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate. There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited[389], every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being, who can never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition.

7. If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet;—then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back to thy memory, and knock dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant in the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing.

8. Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of Nature about the grave, console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile[390] tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite[391] affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.

[387] DI-VORCEDˊ, disunited or separated.

[388] COM-PUNC-TIOUS, repentant; sorrowful.

[389] UNˊ-RE-QUITED, not repaid; not done or given in return.

[390] FUˊ-TILE, trifling; worthless.

[391] CONˊ-TRITE, sorrowful; bowed down with grief.

LIV.—ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC, QUEEN OF SPAIN.

PRESCOTT.

William H. Prescott was born in Salem, Mass., May 4th, 1796, and died in Boston, January 28 1859. His historical and biographical works, published in fifteen octavo volumes, have enjoyed a wide and deserved popularity; although in many instances marred by views and statements, which seem to betray a mind warped by religious prejudice. In his edition of Robertson’s “History of the Emperor Charles V.” he has permitted some of the most glaring errors of that writer to pass uncorrected, although Maitland, in his admirable work entitled “The Dark Ages,” had very clearly and conclusively exposed them.

1. Her person was of the middle height, and well proportioned. She had a clear, fresh complexion, with light blue eyes and auburn hair, a style of beauty exceedingly rare in Spain. Her features were regular, and universally allowed to be uncommonly handsome.

2. The illusion which attaches to rank, more especially when united with engaging manners, might lead us to suspect some exaggeration in the encomiums[392] so liberally lavished on her. But they would seem to be in a great measure justified by the portraits that remain of her, which combine a faultless symmetry[393] of features, with singular sweetness and intelligence of expression.

3. Her manners were most gracious and pleasing. They were marked by natural dignity and modest reserve, tempered by an affability[394] which flowed from the kindliness of her disposition. She was the last person to be approached with undue familiarity; yet the respect which she imposed was mingled with the strongest feelings of devotion and love.

4. She showed great tact in accommodating herself to the peculiar situation and character of those around her. She appeared in arms at the head of her troops, and shrunk from none of the hardships of war. During the reforms introduced into the religious houses, she visited the nunneries[395] in person, taking her needle-work with her, and passing the day in the society of the inmates. When traveling in Galicia,[396] she attired herself in the costume of the country, borrowing for that purpose the jewels and other ornaments of the ladies there, and returning them with liberal additions. By this condescending and captivating deportment, as well as by her higher qualities, she gained an ascendency[397] over her turbulent[398] subjects, which no king of Spain could ever boast.

5. She spoke the Castilian[399] with much elegance and correctness. She had an easy fluency of discourse, which, though generally of a serious complexion, was occasionally seasoned with agreeable sallies, some of which have passed into proverbs. She was temperate, even to abstemiousness,[400] in her diet, seldom or never tasting wine: and so frugal in her table, that the daily expenses of herself and family did not exceed the moderate sum of forty ducats.[401]

6. She was equally simple and economical in her apparel. On all public occasions, indeed, she displayed a royal magnificence;[402] but she had no relish for it in private, and she freely gave away her clothes and jewels, as presents to her friends.

7. Naturally of a sedate, though cheerful temper, she had little taste for the frivolous amusements which make up so much of a court life; and, if she encouraged the presence of minstrels and musicians in her palace, it was to wean her young nobility from the coarser and less intellectual pleasures to which they were addicted.

8. Among her moral qualities, the most conspicuous, perhaps, was her magnanimity.[403] She betrayed nothing little or selfish, in thought or action. Her schemes were vast, and executed in the same noble spirit in which they were conceived. She never employed doubtful agents, or sinister measures, but the most direct and open policy. She scorned to avail herself of advantages offered by the perfidy[404] of others.

9. Where she had once given her confidence, she gave her hearty and steady support: and she was scrupulous to redeem any pledge she had made to those who ventured in her cause, however unpopular. She sustained Ximenes[405] in all his obnoxious[406] but salutary reforms. She seconded Columbus in the prosecution of his arduous enterprise, and shielded him from the calumny[407] of his enemies. She did the same good service to her favorite, Gonsalvo de Cordova;[408] and the day of her death was felt, and, as it proved, truly felt, by both, as the last of their good fortune.

10. Artifice[409] and duplicity[410] were so abhorrent to her character, and so averse from her domestic policy, that when they appear in the foreign relations of Spain, it is certainly not imputable to her. She was incapable of harboring any petty distrust, or latent malice; and, although stern in the execution and exaction of public justice, she made the most generous allowance, and even, sometimes, advances, to those who had personally injured her.

11. But the principle which gave a peculiar coloring to every feature of Isabella’s mind, was piety. It shone forth from the very depths of her soul with a heavenly radiance, which illuminated her whole character. Fortunately, her earliest years had been passed in the rugged school of adversity, under the eye of a mother who implanted in her serious mind such strong principles of religion, as nothing in after life had power to shake.

12. At an early age, in the flower of youth and beauty, she was introduced to her brother’s court; but its blandishments,[411] so dazzling to a young imagination, had no power over hers; for she was surrounded by a moral atmosphere of purity, “driving far off each thing of sin and guilt.” Such was the decorum of her manners, that, though encompassed by false friends and open enemies, not the slightest reproach was breathed on her fair name in this corrupt and calumnious[412] court.

[392] EN-COˊ-MI-UM, a high commendation; praise.

[393] SYMˊ-ME-TRY, a due proportion of the parts of a body to each other.

[394] AF-FA-BILˊ-I-TY, easiness of approach; readiness to converse.

[395] NUNˊ-NE-RY, a religious house for females who have forsaken the world.

[396] GAL-Iˊ-CIA, an old province of Spain.

[397] AS-CENDˊ-EN-CY, superior or controlling influence.

[398] TURˊ-BU-LENT, riotous; violent; mutinous.

[399] CAS-TILˊ-IAN, the language spoke in Castile, considered the most elegant dialect of Spain.

[400] AB-STEˊ-MI-OUS-NESS, a sparing use of food, or strong drink.

[401] DUCˊ-AT, a coin of several countries in Europe, struck in territory governed by a duke. A silver ducat is generally of nearly the value of an American dollar, and a gold ducat of twice the value.

[402] MAG-NIFˊ-I-CENCE, grandeur of appearance; splendor of show or state.

[403] MAG-NA-NIMˊ-I-TY, greatness of mind; dignity or elevation of soul, which meets danger with calmness and firmness, which raises the possessor above revenge, which makes him hate injustice and meanness, and moves him to act and suffer for noble objects.

[404] PERˊ-FI-DY, treachery; falsehood.

[405] CARDINAL XI-MEˊ-NES, born 1437, died 1517. He was a distinguished ecclesiastic, and a great statesman.

[406] OB-NOXˊ-IOUS, odious; unpopular.

[407] CALˊ-UM-NY, the uttering of a false charge, proceeding from hatred against another.

[408] GONSALVO DE CORDOVA, called also “the Great Captain,” was a Spanish warrior, distinguished by his victories over the Moors in Spain, and the French in Naples. Born 1443, died 1515.

[409] ARˊ-TI-FICE, an artful or skillful contrivance; a fraud or trick.

[410] DU-PLICˊ-I-TY, double-dealing; deceitfulness.

[411] BLANDˊ-ISH-MENT, words or actions expressive of affection or kindness, and tending to win the heart, or to flatter.

[412] CA-LUMˊ-NI-OUS, slanderous.

LV.—PALESTINE.

ALTERED FROM WHITTIER.

John Greenleaf Whittier is a well-known and popular writer in prose and verse.

1. Blest land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song,

Where the holiest of memories, pilgrim-like, throng

In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea,

On the hills of thy beauty—my heart is with thee.

With the eye of a spirit I look on that shore,

Where pilgrim and prophet have lingered before;

With the guide of a spirit I traverse the sod

Made bright by the steps of the angels of God.

2. Blue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hear

Thy waters, Gennesaret[413], chime on my ear;

Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down,

And thy spray on the dust of His sandals was thrown.

Beyond are Bethulia’s[414] mountains of green,

And the desolate hills of the wild Gadarene[415];

And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor[416] to see

The gleam of thy waters, O dark Galilee!

3. There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang

To the song which the beautiful prophetess sang,

When the princes of Issachar[417] stood by her side,

And the shout of a host in its triumph replied.

Lo! Bethlehem’s[418] hill-site before me is seen,

With the mountains around and the valleys between;

There rested the shepherds of Judah[419], and there,

The song of the angels rose sweet on the air.

4. And Bethany’s[420] palm trees in beauty still throw

Their shadows at noon on the ruins below;

But where are the sisters who hastened to greet

The lowly Redeemer, and sit at his feet?

I tread where the Twelve in their wayfaring trod;

I stand where they stood with the Incarnate God;

Where his blessing was heard, and his lessons were taught;

Where the blind were restored, and the healing was wrought.

[413] GEN-NESˊ-A-RET, a sea or lake in Palestine, the borders of which, in the time of Christ, were covered with numerous towns and villages; called also, Sea of Galilee.

[414] BETH-U-LIˊ-A, a city which appears to have overlooked the plain of Esdraelon, and to have guarded one of the passes to Jerusalem.

[415] GAD-A-RENEˊ, an inhabitant of Gadara, a city in a mountainous region near the Sea of Galilee.

[416] TAˊ-BOR, an isolated mountain, of a conical form, a few miles southwest of the Sea of Galilee.

[417] ISˊ-SA-CHAR, a son of Jacob and Leah; also, the tribe named after him.

[418] BETHˊ-LE-HEM, the city where Our Lord was born.

[419] JUˊ-DAH, the name of one of the tribes of Israel, afterwards applied to the whole nation.

[420] BETHˊ-A-NY, a town near Jerusalem the residence of Martha and Mary.

LVI.—LOVE OF COUNTRY AND OF HOME.

MONTGOMERY.

1. There is a land, of every land the pride,

Beloved by heaven o’er all the world beside;

Where brighter suns dispense[421] serener[422] light,

And milder moons imparadise[423] the night:

A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,

Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth.

2. The wandering mariner, whose eye explores

The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,

Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,

Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;

In every clime, the magnet[424] of his soul,

Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole:

3. For in this land of heaven’s peculiar grace,

The heritage[425] of nature’s noblest race,

There is a spot of earth supremely[426] blest,

A dearer, sweeter pot than all the rest,

Where man, creation’s tyrant, casts aside

His sword and scepter, pageantry and pride,

While, in his softened looks, benignly[427] blend

The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend.

4. Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,

Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life;

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,

An angel guard of loves and graces lie;

Around her knees domestic duties meet,

And fireside pleasures gambol[428] at her feet.

Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?

Art thou a man? a patriot?[429] look around;

Oh! thou shalt find, howe’er thy footsteps roam,

That land thy country, and that spot thy home.

[421] DIS-PENSEˊ, deal or divide out in portions or parts; distribute.

[422] SE-RENˊ-ER, clearer; more soothing.

[423] IM-PARˊ-A-DISE, make very happy; render like Paradise.

[424] MAGˊ-NET, the loadstone; that which attracts.

[425] HERˊ-IT-AGE, inheritance; portion; an estate devolved by succession.

[426] SU-PREMEˊ-LY, in the highest degree.

[427] BEˊ-NIGNˊ-LY, graciously; kindly.

[428] GAMˊ-BOL, dance and skip about in sport; play in frolic, like boys and lambs.

[429] PAˊ-TRI-OT, a person who loves his country, and zealously supports and defends it and its interests.

LVII.—THE HEAVENLY REST.

ANON.

1. There is an hour of peaceful rest

To mourning wanderers given,

There is a tear for souls distrest,

A balm for every wounded breast—

’Tis found above—in heaven!

2. There is a soft, a downy bed,

’Tis sweet as breath of even;

A couch for weary mortals spread,

Where they may rest the aching head,

And find repose in heaven!

3. There is a home for weary souls,

By sin and sorrow driven,

When tossed on life’s tempestuous shoals

Where storms arise, and ocean rolls,

And all is drear—but heaven!

4. There faith lifts up the tearful eye,

The heart with anguish riven;

And views the tempest passing by,

The evening shadows quickly fly,

And all serene in heaven!

5. The fragrant flowers immortal bloom.

And joys supreme are given;

There rays divine disperse the gloom:

Beyond the confines of the tomb

Appears the dawn of heaven!

LVIII.—LOVE OF COUNTRY.

SCOTT.

1. Breathes there the man, with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said,

“This is my own, my native land!”

Whose heart has ne’er within him burned,

As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand?

If such there breathe, go, mark him well;

For him no minstrel raptures swell.

2. High though his titles, proud his name,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;

Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

The wretch, concentrated all in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown;

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from which he sprung,

Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

3. O Caledonia! stern and wild,

Meet nurse for a poetic child,

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,

Land of the mountain and the flood.

Land of my sires; what mortal hand

Can e’er untie the filial band

That knits me to thy rugged strand!

LIX.—THE CHARMED SERPENT.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

1. One day, while we were encamped in a spacious[430] plain on the bank of the Genesee river, we saw a rattlesnake. There was a Canadian in our party who could play on the flute, and to divert us he advanced toward the serpent with his new species of weapon. On the approach of his enemy, the haughty[431] reptile curls himself into a spiral[432] line, flattens his head, inflates[433] his cheeks, contracts his lips, displays his envenomed fangs and his bloody throat. His double tongue glows like two flames of fire; his eyes are burning coals; his body, swollen with rage, rises and falls like the bellows of a forge; his dilated[434] skin assumes a dull and scaly appearance; and his tail, which sends forth an ominous sound, vibrates[435] with such rapidity as to resemble a light vapor.

2. The Canadian now begins to play on his flute. The serpent starts with surprise and draws back his head. In proportion as he is struck with the magic sound, his eyes lose their fierceness, the oscillations[436] of his tail diminish, and the noise which it emits grows weaker, and gradually dies away. The spiral folds of the charmed serpent, diverging from the perpendicular,[437] expand,[438] and one after the other sink to the ground in concentric[439] circles. The tints of azure, green, white, and gold, recover their brilliancy on his quivering skin, and, slightly turning his head, he remains motionless in the attitude of attention and pleasure.

3. At this moment the Canadian advances a few steps, producing with his flute sweet and simple notes. The reptile immediately lowers his variegated[440] neck, opens a passage with his head through the slender grass, and begins to creep after the musician, halting when he halts, and again following him when he resumes his march. In this way he was led beyond the limits of our camp, attended by a great number of spectators, both savages and Europeans, who could scarcely believe their eyes. After witnessing this wonderful effect of melody, the assembly unanimously decided that the marvelous[441] serpent should be permitted to escape.

[430] SPAˊ-CIOUS, wide; roomy; extensive.

[431] HAUGHˊ-TY, proud; disdainful.

[432] SPIˊ-RAL, winding like a screw.

[433] IN-FLATESˊ, to swell or distend.

[434] DI-LAT-ED, expanded.

[435] VI-BRATE, to swing; to quiver; to move to and fro.

[436] OS-CIL-LAˊ-TION, vibration; a movement backward and forward.

[437] PER-PEN-DICˊ-U-LAR, a line is said to be perpendicular to another, on which it falls, or from which it extends at right angles.

[438] EX-PANDˊ, to dilate; to open.

[439] CON-CENˊ-TRIC, having a common center.

[440] VAˊ-RI-E-GATED, diversified in colors.

[441] MARˊ-VEL-OUS, wonderful.

LX.—MY ROSARY.

SIR HUMPHREY DAVY.

Sir Humphrey Davy was born in England, December 17, 1779, and died at Geneva, May 29, 1829. He made several valuable discoveries in chemistry.

1. The rosary which you see suspended around my neck, is a memorial[442] of sympathy and respect for an illustrious man. I was passing through France, in the reign of Napoleon, by the peculiar privilege granted to a savant,[443] on my road to Italy. I had just returned from the Holy Land, and had in my possession two or three of the rosaries which are sold to pilgrims at Jerusalem, as having been suspended in the Holy Sepulchre. Pius VII. was then in imprisonment at Fontainebleau. By a special favor, on the plea of my return from the Holy Land, I obtained permission to see this venerable and illustrious pontiff. I carried with me one of my rosaries.

2. He received me with great kindness. I tendered my services to execute any commissions, not political ones, he might think fit to intrust me with, in Italy, informing him that I was an Englishman: he expressed his thanks, but declined troubling me. I told him that I was just returned from the Holy Land; and, bowing, with great humility, offered him my rosary from the Holy Sepulchre.

3. He received it with a smile, touched it with his lips, gave his benediction over it, and returned it into my hands, supposing, of course, that I was a Roman Catholic. I had meant to present it to his Holiness; but the blessing he had bestowed upon it, and the touch of his lips, made it a precious relic to me; and I restored it to my neck, round which it has ever since been suspended.... “We shall meet again; adieu:” and he gave me his paternal blessing.

4. It was eighteen months after this interview, that I went out, with almost the whole population of Rome, to receive and welcome the triumphal entry of this illustrious father of the church into his capital. He was borne on the shoulders of the most distinguished artists, headed by Canova;[444] and never shall I forget the enthusiasm with which he was received: it is impossible to describe the shouts of triumph and of rapture sent up to heaven by every voice. And when he gave his benediction to the people, there was a universal prostration,[445] a sobbing, and marks of emotion and joy, almost like the bursting of the heart. I heard everywhere around me cries of a “The holy father! the most holy father! His restoration is the work of God!”

5. I saw tears streaming from the eyes of almost all the women about me, many of whom were sobbing hysterically,[446] and old men were weeping as if they were children. I pressed my rosary to my breast on this occasion, and repeatedly touched with my lips that part of it which had received the kiss of the most venerable pontiff. I preserve it with a kind of hallowed feeling, as the memorial of a man whose sanctity, firmness, meekness, and benevolence, are an honor to his Church and to human nature: and it has not only been useful to me, by its influence upon my own mind, but it has enabled me to give pleasure to others; and has, I believe, been sometimes beneficial in insuring my personal safety.

6. I have often gratified the peasants of Apulia and Calabria, by presenting them to kiss a rosary from the Holy Sepulchre, which had been hallowed by the touch of the lips and benediction of the Pope: and it has even been respected by, and procured me a safe passage through, a party of brigands, who once stopped me in the passes of the Apennines.

[442] ME-MOˊ-RIAL, that which preserves the memory of something.

[443] SA-VANTˊ, (sä-väng), a man of learning.

[444] CA-NOˊ-VA, a celebrated Italian sculptor, born November 1, 1757, died October 13, 1822.

[445] PROS-TRAˊ-TION, a bowing down.

[446] HYS-TERˊ-I-CAL-LY, in an extremely nervous or convulsive manner.

LXI.—THE INDIANS.

STORY.

Joseph Story died in 1845. He was one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is best known by his “Commentaries on the Constitution,” which he prepared in pursuance of his duties as Dane Professor of Law, in Harvard University.

1. There is, in the fate of these unfortunate beings, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment: much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities;[447] much in their characters which betray us into an involuntary[448] admiration. What can be more eloquent than their history? By a law of nature they seemed destined[449] to a slow but sure extinction.[450] Everywhere at the approach of the white man they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone forever.

2. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more. Two centuries ago, and the smoke of their wigwams,[451] and the fires of their councils rose in every valley, from the Hudson Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests; and the hunter’s trace and dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their glory. The young listened to the song of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down, but they wept not: they should soon be at rest in finer regions, where the Great Spirit dwells, in a home prepared for the brave beyond the western skies.

3. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage, and fortitude, and sagacity, and perseverance beyond most of the human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life, they had its virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hatred, stopped not this side of the grave.

4. But where are they? Where are the villagers and warriors and youth; the sachems and the tribes; the hunters and their families? They have perished; they are consumed. The wasting pestilence[452] has not alone done the mighty work. No, nor famine—nor war; there has been a mightier power; a moral canker, which has eaten into their heart cores—a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated—a poison which betrayed them to lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may call their own. Already the last feeble remnant of their race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes—the aged, the helpless, the men, and the warriors—“few and faint, yet fearless still.”

5. The ashes are cold upon their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls around their lowly cabins. They move on with slow, unsteady steps. The white man is upon their heels for terror or dispatch, but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their desolate villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cry; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both; which chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. It is courage, absorbed by despair. They linger but a moment. Their look is onward.

6. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them, no—never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassable gulf. They know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther, not distant nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race.

7. Reason as we may, it is impossible not to read in such a fate much which we know not how to interpret; much of provocation to cruel deeds and deep resentments; much of apology for wrong and perfidy; much of pity, mingling with indignation; much of doubt and misgiving as to the past; much of painful recollections, much of dark forebodings.

[447] A-TROCˊ-I-TY, great wickedness.

[448] IN-VOL-UNˊ-TA-RY, not having will or choice; unwilling.

[449] DESˊ-TIN-ED, ordained; devoted.

[450] EX-TINCˊ-TION, destruction.

[451] WIGˊ-WAM, an Indian cabin or hut.

[452] PESTˊ-I-LENCE, plague; contagious or infectious disease.

LXII.—INDIAN NAMES.

SIGOURNEY.

1. Ye say, they all have passed away,

That noble race and brave,

That their light canoes have vanished

From off the crested wave;

That ’mid the forests where they roamed

There rings no hunter’s shout;

But their name is on your waters,

You may not wash it out.

2. ’Tis where Ontario’s billow

Like Ocean’s surge is curled,

Where strong Niagara’s thunders wake

The echo of the world;

Where red Missouri bringeth

Rich tributes from the West,

And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps

On green Virginia’s breast.

3. Ye say, their cone-like cabins,

That clustered o’er the vale,

Have fled away like withered leaves

Before the autumn gale;

But their memory liveth on your hills,

Their baptism on your shore,

Your everlasting rivers speak

Their dialect of yore.

4. Old Massachusetts wears it

Within her lordly crown,

And broad Ohio bears it,

Amid her young renown;

Connecticut hath wreathed it

Where her quiet foliage waves,

And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse,

Through all her ancient caves.

5. Wachusett hides its lingering voice

Within his rocky heart,

And Alleghany graves its tone

Throughout his lofty chart:

Monadnock on his forehead hoar

Doth seal the sacred trust;

Your mountains build their monuments,

Though ye destroy their dust.

LXIII.—THE FRIARS AND THE KNIGHT.

DIGBY.

Kenelm H. Digby is the author of several very valuable and interesting works. His “Mores Catholici,” “Broad Stone of Honor,” “Compitum,” and “Lover’s Seat,” prove him to be a writer of high culture and great research.

1. Two friars of Paris, traveling in the depth of winter, came, at the first hour of the night, fatigued, covered with mud, and wet with rain, to the gate of a house where they hoped to receive hospitality, not knowing that it belonged to a knight who hated all friars, and who for twenty years had never made his confession. The mother of the family replied to their petition, “I know not, good fathers, what to do. If I admit you under our roof, I fear my husband; and if I send you away cruelly in this tempestuous[453] night, I shall dread the indignation[454] of God. Enter, and hide yourselves till my husband returns from hunting, and has supped, for then I shall be able to supply you secretly with what is needful.”

2. Shortly, the husband returns, sups joyfully, but, perceiving that his wife is sad, desires to know the cause. She replies that she dares not disclose[455] it. Pressed and encouraged, she at length relates what has happened, adding, that she fears God’s judgment, seeing that His servants are afflicted with cold and hunger, while they are feasting at their ease. The knight, becoming more gentle, orders them to be led forth from their hiding-place, and to be supplied with food.

3. The poor friars came forth, and drew near the fire; and when he sees their emaciated[456] faces, humid[457] raiment,[458] and their feet stained with blood, the hand of the Lord is upon him, and from a lion he becomes a lamb. With his own hands he washes their feet, places the table, and prepares their beds, bringing in fresh straw. After the supper, with altered look and tone, he addresses the elder friar, and asks whether a shameless sinner, who hath not confessed since many years, can hope for pardon from God?

4. “Yea, in sooth,” replied the friar; “hope in the Lord, and do good, and he will deal with thee according to his mercy; for in whatever day the sinner repents, he will remember his iniquity no more.” The contrite host declares that he will not then defer any longer approaching the sacraments. “This very night,” said he, “I will unburden my conscience, lest my soul should be required of me.” The friar, however, little suspecting danger of death, advised him to wait till morning. All retired to rest; but during the night the friar became alarmed, rose, prostrated himself on the earth, and besought God to spare the sinner.

5. In the morning, however, the master of the house was found dead. The man of God, judging from what had passed, consoled the widow, declared that in his dreams he had been assured of the salvation of her husband; and the man was buried honorably, bells tolled, and Mass was sung, and the friars departed on their way.

6. It is to instances of this kind that St. Jerome alludes in his beautiful epistle to Lacta, where he says, “A holy and faithful family must needs sanctify its infidel chief. That man cannot be far from entering upon the career of faith, who is surrounded by sons and grandsons enlightened by the faith.”

[453] TEM-PESTˊ-U-OUS, very stormy.

[454] IN-DIG-NAˊ-TION, anger.

[455] DISˊ-CLOSE, to make known.

[456] E-MAˊ-CIA-TED, reduced to leanness, thin, wasted.

[457] HUˊ-MID, damp, moist.

[458] RAIˊ-MENT, clothing.

LXIV.—WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY.

ELIZA COOK.

1. We have faith in old proverbs[459] full surely,

For wisdom has traced[460] what they tell,

And truth may be drawn up as purely

From them, as it may from a “well.”

Let us question the thinkers and doers,

And hear what they honestly say,

And you’ll find they believe, like bold wooers,[461]

In “Where there’s a WILL there’s a WAY.”

2. The hills have been high for man’s mounting,

The woods have been dense[462] for his ax,

The stars have been thick for his counting,

The sands have been wide for his tracks.

The sea has been deep for his diving,

The poles have been broad for his sway,

But bravely he’s proved by his striving,[463]

That “Where there’s a WILL there’s a WAY.”

3. Have ye vices that ask a destroyer,

Or passions that need your control?[464]

Let Reason become your employer,

And your body be ruled by your soul.

Fight on, though ye bleed at the trial,

Resist with all strength that ye may,

Ye may conquer Sin’s host by denial,

For, “Where there’s a WILL there’s a WAY.”

4. Have ye poverty’s pinching to cope[465] with?

Does suffering weigh down your might?

Only call up a spirit to hope with,

And dawn may come out of the night.

Oh! much may be done by defying[466]

The ghost[467] of Despair and Dismay,

And much may be gained by relying[468]

On “Where there’s a WILL there’s a WAY.”

5. Should you see afar off that worth winning,[469]

Set out on a journey with trust,

And ne’er heed though your path at beginning

Should be among brambles[470] and dust.

Though it is by footsteps ye do it,

And hardships may hinder and stay,

Keep a heart and be sure ye go through it,

For, “Where there’s a WILL there’s a WAY.”

[459] PROVˊ-ERBS, sayings; maxims.

[460] TRACˊ-ED, shown; marked out.

[461] WOOˊ-ERS, suitors; lovers.

[462] DENSE, close; thick.

[463] STRIVˊ-ING, making efforts.

[464] CON-TROLˊ, restraint; government.

[465] COPE, strive; contend.

[466] DE-FYˊ-ING, daring; outbraving.

[467] GHOST, specter; apparition.

[468] RE-LYˊ-ING, trusting; depending.

[469] WINˊ-NING, getting; gaining.

[470] BRAMˊ-BLES, prickly shrubs.

LXV.—NOW, TO-DAY.

ADELAIDE A. PROCTOR.

1. Arise! for the day is passing,

And you lie dreaming on;

Your brothers are cased in armor,[471]

And forth to the fight are gone!

A place in the ranks awaits you;

Each man has some part to play;

The Past and the Future are nothing

In the face of stern TO-DAY.

2. Arise from your dreams of the Future—

Of gaining some hard-fought field,

Of storming[472] some airy[473] fortress,[474]

Or bidding some giant yield;

Your future has deeds of glory,

Of honor, (God grant it may!)

But your arm will never be stronger,

Or needed as now—TO-DAY.

3. Arise! if the Past detain[475] you,

Her sunshines and storms forget;

No chains so unworthy to hold you

As those of a vain regret;

Sad or bright, she is lifeless ever;

Cast her phantom[476] arms away,

Nor look back, save to learn the lesson

Of a nobler strife TO-DAY.

4. ARISE! for the day is passing!

The sound that you scarcely hear,

Is the enemy marching to battle!

Rise! RISE! for the foe is near!

Stay not to sharpen your weapons,

Or the hour will strike at last,

When, from dreams of a coming battle,

You may wake to find it past!

[471] ARMˊ-OR, defensive arms.

[472] STORMˊ-ING, taking by assault.

[473] AIRˊ-Y, fanciful; visionary.

[474] FORˊ-TRESS, fort; strong hold.

[475] DE-TAINˊ, hinder; keep back.

[476] PHANˊ-TOM, specter; ghost-like.

LXVI.—PATRIOTISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

1. But it is the Christian religion that has invested[477] patriotism[478] with its true character. This sentiment led to the commission of crime among the ancients, because it was carried to excess; Christianity has made it one of the principal affections in man, but not an exclusive[479] one. It commands us above all things to be just; it requires us to cherish the whole family of Adam, since we ourselves belong to it, though our countrymen have the first claim to our attachment.

2. This morality was unknown before the coming of the Christian law-giver, who had been unjustly accused of attempting to extirpate[480] the passions: God destroys not his own work. The Gospel is not the destroyer of the heart, but its regulator. It is to our feelings what taste is to the fine arts; it retrenches all that is exaggerated, false, common, and trivial.[481] It leaves all that is fair, and good, and true. The Christian religion, rightly understood, is only primitive[482] nature washed from original[483] pollution.[484]

3. It is when at a distance from our country that we feel the full force of the instinct by which we are attached to it. For want of the reality, we try to feed upon dreams; for the heart is expert in deception, and there is no one who has been suckled at the breast of a woman but has drunk of the cup of illusion.[485] Sometimes it is a cottage which is situated like the paternal habitation; sometimes it is a wood, a valley, a hill, on which we bestow some of the sweet appellations[486] of our native land. Andromache gives the name of Simois to a brook. And what an affecting object is this little rill, which recalls the idea of a mighty river to her native country! Remote from the soil which gave us birth, nature appears to us diminished, and but the shadow of that which we have lost.

4. Another artifice of the love of country is to attach a great value to an object of little intrinsic worth, but which comes from our native land, and which we have brought with us into exile. The soul seems to dwell even upon the inanimate things which have shared our destiny: we remain attached to the down on which our prosperity has slumbered, and still more to the straw on which we counted the days of our adversity. The vulgar have an energetic expression, to describe the languor which oppresses the soul when away from our country. “That man,” they say, “is home-sick.”

5. A sickness it really is, and the only cure for it is to return. If, however, we have been absent for a few years, what do we find in the place of our nativity? How few of those whom we left behind in the vigor of health are still alive! Here are tombs where once stood palaces; there rise palaces where once stood tombs. The paternal field is overgrown with briers, or cultivated by the plow of a stranger; and the tree beneath which we frolicked in our boyish days has disappeared.

6. Were we asked, what are those powerful ties which bind us to the place of nativity, we should find some difficulty in answering the question. It is, perhaps, the smile of a mother, of a father, of a sister; it is, perhaps, the recollection of an old preceptor[487] who instructed us, and of the young companions of our childhood; it is, perhaps, the care bestowed upon us by a tender nurse or by some aged domestic, so essential a part of the household; finally, it is something most simple, and, if you please, trivial,—a dog that barked at night in the fields, a nightingale that returned every year to the orchard, the nest of the swallow over the window, the village clock that appeared above the trees, the churchyard yew, or the Gothic tomb. Yet these simple things demonstrate the more clearly the reality of a Providence, as they could not possibly be the source of patriotism, or of the great virtues which it begets, unless by the appointment of the Almighty himself.

[477] IN-VESTˊ-ED, clothed.

[478] PAˊ-TRI-OT-ISM, love of one’s country.

[479] EX-CLUˊ-SIVE, tending to exclude, or shut out.

[480] EXˊ-TIR-PATE, to root out, to destroy.

[481] TRIVˊ-I-AL, trifling, worthless.

[482] PRIM-I-TIVE, first, original.

[483] O-RIGˊ-I-NAL, primary, first.

[484] POL-LUˊ-TION, defilement corruption.

[485] IL-LUˊ-SION, error; false show, unreality.

[486] AP-PEL-LAˊ-TION, a name by which a thing is called.

[487] PRE-CEPTˊ-OR, a teacher.

LXVII.—BEST KIND OF REVENGE.

CHAMBERS.

1. Some years ago, a warehouseman in Manchester, England, published a scurrilous[488] pamphlet, in which he endeavored to hold up the house of Grant Brothers to ridicule. William Grant remarked upon the occurrence that the man would live to repent what he had done; and this was conveyed by some tale-bearer to the libeller, who said, “Oh, I suppose he thinks I shall some time or other be in his debt; but I will take good care of that.” It happens, however, that a man in business cannot always choose who shall be his creditors. The pamphleteer became a bankrupt, and the brothers held an acceptance[489] of his which had been indorsed[490] to them by the drawer, who had also become a bankrupt[491].

2. The wantonly libelled men had thus become creditors of the libeller! They had it in their power to make him repent of his audacity.[492] He could not obtain his certificate without their signature, and without it he could not enter into business again. He had obtained the number of signatures required by the bankrupt law, except one. It seemed folly to hope that the firm of “the brothers” would supply the deficiency.[493] What! they, who had cruelly been made the laughing stock of the public, forget the wrong and favor the wrong doer? He despaired. But the claims of a wife and children forced him at last to make the application. Humbled by misery, he presented himself at the counting house of the wronged.

3. Mr. William Grant was there alone, and his first words to the delinquent[494] were, “Shut the door, sir!” sternly uttered. The door was shut, and the libeller stood trembling before the libelled. He told his tale, and produced his certificate, which was instantly clutched by the injured merchant. “You wrote a pamphlet against us once!” exclaimed Mr. Grant. The supplicant expected to see his parchment thrown into the fire. But this was not its destination. Mr. Grant took a pen, and writing something upon the document, handed it back to the bankrupt. He, poor wretch, expected to see “rogue, scoundrel, libeller,” inscribed, but there was, in fair round characters, the signature of the firm.

4. “We make it a rule,” said Mr. Grant, “never to refuse signing the certificate of an honest tradesman, and we have never heard that you were anything else.” The tears started into the poor man’s eyes. “Ah,” said Mr. Grant, “my saying was true. I said you would live to repent writing that pamphlet. I did not mean it as a threat. I only meant that some day you would know us better, and be sorry you had tried to injure us. I see you repent of it now.” “I do, I do!” said the grateful man. “I bitterly repent it.” “Well, well, my dear fellow, you know us now. How do you get on? What are you going to do?” The poor man stated that he had friends who could assist him when his certificate was obtained. “But how are you off in the meantime?”

5. And the answer was, that, having given up every farthing to his creditors, he had been compelled to stint his family of even common necessaries, that he might be enabled to pay the cost of his certificate. “My dear fellow, this will not do; your family must not suffer. Be kind enough to take this ten-pound note to your wife from me. There, there, my dear fellow! Nay, don’t cry; it will be all well with you yet. Keep up your spirits, set to work like a man, and you will raise your head among us yet.” The overpowered man endeavored in vain to express his thanks: the swelling in his throat forbade words. He put his handkerchief to his face, and went out of the door crying like a child.

[488] SCURˊ-RIL-OUS, grossly abusive.

[489] AC-CEPTˊ-ANCE, a bill or draft accepted by the party on whom it is drawn, who thus becomes liable for its payment at the time stated in the draft.

[490] IN-DORSEDˊ, a bill or note is indorsed by the party, to whom it is made payable, or who may be the holder of it, writing his name across the back of it.

[491] BANKˊ-RUPT, a person who is unable to pay his debts.

[492] AU-DACˊ-I-TY, boldness; impudent presumption.

[493] DE-FIˊ-CIEN-CY, want.

[494] DE-LINˊ-QUENT, one who fails in his duty.

LXVIII—QUEEN ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY.

MONTALEMBERT.

1. Generosity to the poor, particularly that exercised by princes, was one of the most remarkable features of the age in which she lived; but we perceive that, in her, charity did not proceed from rank, still less from the desire of acquiring praises or purely human gratitude, but from an interior and heavenly inspiration. From her cradle, she could not bear the sight of a poor person without feeling her heart pierced with grief, and now that her husband had granted her full liberty in all that concerned the honor of God and the good of her neighbor, she unreservedly abandoned herself to her natural inclination to solace[495] the suffering members of Christ.

2. This was her ruling thought each hour and moment: to the use of the poor she dedicated[496] all that she retrenched from the superfluities[497] usually required by her sex and rank. Yet, notwithstanding the resources which the charity of her husband placed at her disposal, she gave away so quickly all that she possessed, that it often happened that she would despoil[498] herself of her clothes in order to have the means of assisting the unfortunate.

3. Elizabeth loved to carry secretly to the poor, not alone money, but provisions and other matters which she destined for them. She went thus laden, by the winding and rugged paths that led from the castle to the city, and to cabins of the neighboring valleys.

4. One day, when accompanied by one of her favorite maidens, as she descended by a rude little path (still pointed out) and carried under her mantle, bread, meat, eggs, and other food to distribute to the poor, she suddenly encountered her husband, who was returning from hunting. Astonished to see her thus toiling on under the weight of her burden, he said to her, “Let us see what you carry,” and at the same time drew open the mantle which she held closely clasped to her bosom; but beneath it were only red and white roses, the most beautiful he had ever seen—and this astonished him, as it was no longer the season of flowers.

5. Seeing that Elizabeth was troubled, he sought to console her by his caresses; but he ceased suddenly, on seeing over her head a luminous[499] appearance in the form of a crucifix. He then desired her to continue her route without being disturbed by him, and he returned to Wartbourg, meditating with recollection on what God did for her, and carrying with him one of these wonderful roses, which he preserved all his life.

6. At the spot where this meeting took place, he erected a pillar, surmounted by a cross, to consecrate forever the remembrance of that which he had seen hovering over the head of his wife. Among the unfortunate who particularly attracted her compassion, those who occupied the greatest part in her heart were the lepers;[500] the mysterious and special character of their malady rendered them, throughout the middle ages, objects of a solicitude and affection mingled with fear.

[495] SOLˊ-ACE, to give comfort to.

[496] DEDˊ-I-CATE, to devote.

[497] SU-PER-FLUˊ-I-TIES, things not needed.

[498] DE-SPOILˊ. to stop, to rob.

[499] LUˊ-MI-NOUS, bright, shining.

[500] LEPˊ-ERS, persons infested with leprosy.

LXIX.—WILLIAM TELL.

KNOWLES.

Switzerland was at one time subject to Austria. Gesler (pronounced Gesˊler), at the time of these events, in 1307, was the Austrian governor of Switzerland. He was a most cruel tyrant, and even pushed his tyranny so far as to require the Swiss to uncover their heads and bow down to his hat placed upon a pole. William Tell, a brave Swiss, refused to perform this act of servility. He was seized for punishment. Tell’s son, Albert, without his father’s knowledge, had been taken prisoner on the preceding day by Gesler. The truth of the narrative of the exploits of William Tell has been recently called in question.

SCENE—A Chamber in the Castle. Enter GESLER, OFFICERS, and

SARNEM, with TELL in chains and guarded.

SARNEM. Down, slave! Behold the governor.

Down! down! and beg for mercy.

GESLER. [Seated.] Does he hear?

SAR. He does, but braves thy power.

OFFICER. Why don’t you smite him for that look?

GES. Can I believe

My eyes?—He smiles! nay, grasps

His chains as he would make a weapon of them

To lay the smiter dead. [To TELL.]

Why speakest thou not?

TELL. For wonder.

GES. Wonder!

TELL. Yes, that thou shouldst seem a man.

GES. What should I seem?

TELL. A monster!

GES. Ha! Beware—think on thy chains.

TELL. Though they were doubled, and did weigh me down

Prostrate to earth, methinks I could rise up—

Erect, with nothing but the honest pride

Of telling thee, usurper,[501] to the teeth,

Thou art a monster! Think upon my chains!

How came they on me?

GES. Darest thou question me?

TELL. Darest thou answer.

GES. Do I hear?

TELL. Thou dost.

GES. Beware my vengeance.

TELL. Can it more than kill?

GES. Enough—it can do that.

TELL. No, not enough:

It cannot take away the grace of life—

Its comeliness[502] of look that virtue gives—

Its port erect with consciousness[503] of truth—

Its rich attire of honorable deeds—

Its fair report that’s rife on good men’s tongues:

It cannot lay its hands on these, no more

Than it can pluck the brightness from the sun,

Or with polluted finger tarnish it.

GES. But it can make thee writhe.

TELL. It may.

GES. And groan.

TELL. It may; and I may cry,

Go on, though it should make me groan again.

GES. Whence comest thou?

TELL. From the mountains. Wouldst thou learn

What news from them?

GES. Canst tell me any?

TELL. Ay; they[504] watch no more the avalanche.[505]

GES. Why so?

TELL. Because they look for thee. The hurricane

Comes unawares upon them; from its bed

The torrent breaks, and finds them in its track—

GES. What do they then?

TELL. Thank Heaven it is not thou!

Thou hast perverted nature in them.

There’s not a blessing Heaven vouchsafes[506] them but

The thought of thee doth wither to a curse.

GES. That’s right! I’d have them like their hills,

That never smile, though wanton summer tempt

Them e’er so much.

TELL. But they do sometimes smile.

GES. Ay?—when is that?

TELL. When they do talk of vengeance.[507]

GES. Vengeance! Dare they talk of that?

TELL. Ay, and expect it too.

GES. From whence?

TELL. From Heaven!

GES. From Heaven?

TELL. And their true hands

Are lifted up to it on every hill

For justice on thee.

GES. Where’s thy abode?

TELL. I told thee—on the mountains.

GES. Art married?

TELL. Yes.

GES. And hast a family?

TELL. A son.

GES. A son! Sarnem!

SAR. My lord, the boy.

[GESLER signs to SARNEM to keep silence, and, whispering,

sends him off.]

TELL. The boy! What boy?

Is’t mine?—and have they netted my young fledgling[508]?

Now Heaven support me, if they have! He’ll own me,

And share his father’s ruin! But a look

Would put him on his guard—yet how to give it!

Now, heart, thy nerve; forget thou art flesh; be rock.

They come—they come!

That step—that step—that little step, so light

Upon the ground, how heavy does it fall

Upon my heart! I feel my child!—

Enter SARNEM with ALBERT, whose eyes are rivetted on TELL’S

bow, which SARNEM carries.

’Tis he!—We can but perish.

SAR. See!

ALBERT. What?

SAR. Look there?

ALB. I do. What would you have me see?

SAR. Thy father.

ALB. Who? That—that my father?

TELL. [Aside] My boy—my boy!—my own brave boy,

He’s safe!

SAR. [Aside to GESLER] They’re like each other.

GES. Yet I see no sign

Of recognition[509] to betray the link

Unites a father and his child.

SAR. My lord,

I am sure it is his father. Look at them.

It may be

A preconcerted[510] thing ’gainst such a chance,

That they survey each other coldly thus.

GES. We shall try. Lead forth the caitiff.[511]

SAR. To a dungeon?

GES. No; into the court.

SAR. The court, my lord?

GES. And send

To tell the headsman[512] to make ready. Quick!

The slave shall die!—You marked the boy?

SAR. I did. He started—’tis his father.

GES. We shall see. Away with him!

TELL. Stop!—Stay!

GES. What would you?

TELL. Time!—a little time to call my thoughts together.

GES. Thou shalt not have a minute.

TELL. Some one, then, to speak with.

GES. Hence with him!

TELL. A moment!—Stop!

Let me speak to the boy.

GES. Is he thy son?

TELL. And if

He were, art thou so lost to nature as

To send me forth to die before his face?

GES. Well, speak with him.

Now, Sarnem, mark them well.

TELL. Thou dost not know me, boy—and well for thee

Thou dost not. I’m the father of a son

About thy age. Thou,

I see, wast born like him, upon the hills;

If thou shouldst ’scape thy present thraldom, he

May chance to cross thee; if he should, I pray thee

Relate to him what has been passing here,

And say I laid my hand upon thy head,

And said to thee,—if he were here, as thou art,

Thus would I bless him. May’st thou live my boy,

To see thy country free, or die for her,

As I do!                            [ALBERT weeps.

SAR. Mark! he weeps.

TELL. Were he my son,

He would not shed a tear. He would remember

The cliff where he was bred, and learned to scan

A thousand fathoms’ depth of nether[513] air;

Where he was trained to hear the thunder talk,

And meet the lightning, eye to eye, where last

We spoke together, when I told him death

Bestowed the brightest gem that graces life,

Embraced for virtue’s sake. He shed a tear!

No; were he by, I’d talk to him, and his cheek

Should never blanch, nor moisture dim his eye,—

I’d talk to him—

SAR. He falters!

TELL. ’Tis too much!

And yet it must be done! I’d talk to him—

GES. Of what?

TELL. The mother, tyrant, thou dost make

A widow of. I’d talk to him of her.

I’d bid him tell her, next to liberty,

Her name was the last my lips pronounced.

And I would charge him never to forget

To love and cherish her, as he would have

His father’s dying blessing rest upon him.

SAR. You see, as he doth prompt, the other acts.

TELL. [Aside.] So well he bears it, he doth vanquish me.

My boy! my boy! O, for the hills, the hills—

To see him bound along their tops again,

With liberty.

SAR. Was there not all the father in that look?

GES. Yet, ’tis ’gainst nature.

SAR. Not if he believes

To own the son would be to make him share

The father’s death.

GES. I did not think of that! [To TELL.] ’Tis well

The boy is not thy son. I’ve destined him

To die along with thee.

TELL. To die? For what?

GES. For having braved my power, as thou hast.

Lead them forth.

TELL. He’s but a child.

GES. Away with them!

TELL. Perhaps an only child.

GES. No matter.

TELL. He may have a mother.

GES. So the viper hath;

And yet, who spares it for the mother’s sake?

TELL. I talk to stone. I talk to it as though

’Twere flesh; and know ’tis none. I’ll talk to it

No more. Come my boy!

I taught thee how to live—I’ll show thee how to die.

[501] U-SURPˊ-ER, one who seizes that to which he has no right.

[502] COMEˊ-LI-NESS, grace; beauty.

[503] CONˊ-SCIOUS-NESS, the perception of one’s own thoughts and feelings.

[504] The mountaineers.

[505] AVˊ-A-LANCHE, a vast body of snow, ice, or earth sliding down the side of a mountain.

[506] VOUCH-SAFEˊ, condescend to grant or permit.

[507] VENGEˊ-ANCE, punishment in retaliation for an injury.

[508] FLEDGˊ-LING, a young bird.

[509] REC-OG-NIˊ-TION, act of knowing again; acknowledgment.

[510] PRE-CON-CERTˊ-ED, arranged beforehand.

[511] CAIˊ-TIFF, a villain; a knave.

[512] HEADSˊ-MAN, one who beheads.

[513] NETHˊ-ER, lower.

LXX.—THE PRESUMPTION OF YOUTH.

ROLLIN.

Charles Rollin was born at Paris, January 30, 1661, and died September 14, 1741. His father, who was a cutler, intended him to follow his own trade; but through the kindness of a Benedictine monk, he was educated at the college of Plesseis. He afterward became Rector of the University of Paris. His “Ancient History,” a work of considerable merit, continues still to be republished and extensively read.

1. The young people of Athens, amazed at the glory of Themistocles,[514] of Cimon[515] of Pericles,[516] and full of a foolish ambition, after having received some lessons from the sophists,[517] who promised to render them very great politicians, believed themselves capable of every thing, and aspired to fill the highest places. One of them, named Glaucon, took it so strongly in his head that he had a peculiar genius for public affairs, although he was not yet twenty years of age, that no person in his family, nor among his friends, had the power to divert him from a notion so little befitting his age and capacity.

2. Socrates, who liked him on account of Plato,[518] his brother, was the only one who succeeded in making him change his resolution. Meeting him one day, he accosted[519] him with so dexterous a discourse that he induced[520] him to listen. He had already gained much influence over him. “You have a desire to govern the republic?” said Socrates. “True,” replied Glaucon. “You can not have a finer design,” said the philosopher,[521] “since, if you succeed in it, you will be in a state to serve your friends, to enlarge your house, and to extend the limits of your native country.”

3. “You will become known not only in Athens but through all Greece, and it may be that your renown, like that of Themistocles, will reach even to the barbarous[522] nations. At last, you will gain the respect and admiration of everybody.” A beginning so flattering pleased the young man exceedingly, and he very willingly continued the conversation. “Since you desire to make yourself esteemed and respected, it is clear that you think to render yourself useful to the public.” “Assuredly.” “Tell me, then, I beseech you, what is the first service that you intend to render the state?”

4. As Glaucon appeared to be perplexed, and considered what he ought to answer,—“Probably,” replied Socrates, “it will be to enrich the republic, that is to say, to increase its revenues.” “Exactly so.” “And, undoubtedly, you know in what the revenues of the state consist, and the extent to which they may be increased. You will not have failed to make it a private study, to the end that if one source should suddenly fail, you may be able to supply its place immediately with another.” “I assure you,” answered Glaucon, “that this is what I have never thought of.”

5. “Tell me, at least, then, the necessary expenses of maintaining the republic. You can not fail to know of what importance it is to retrench[523] those which are superfluous[524].” “I confess to you that I am not more instructed with regard to this article than the other.” “Then it is necessary to defer till another time the design that you have of enriching the republic; for it is impossible for you to benefit the state while you are ignorant of its revenues and expenses.”

6. “But,” said Glaucon, “there is still another means that you pass over in silence; one can enrich a state by the ruin of its enemies.” “You are right,” replied Socrates; “but in order to do that, you must be the more powerful; otherwise you run the risk of losing that which you possess. So, he who speaks of undertaking a war, ought to know the power of both parties, to the end that if he finds his party the stronger, he may boldly risk the adventure; but, if he find it the weaker, he should dissuade the people from undertaking it.”

7. “But, do you know what are the forces of our republic, by sea and by land, and what are those of our enemies? Have you a statement of them in writing? You will do me the pleasure to allow me a perusal of it.” “I have none yet,” replied Glaucon. “I see, then,” said Socrates, “that we shall not make war so soon, if they intrust you with the government; for there remain many things for you to know, and many cares to take.”

8. The sage mentioned many other articles, not less important, in which he found Glaucon equally inexperienced, and he pointed out how ridiculous they render themselves, who have the rashness to intermeddle with government, without bringing any other preparation to the task than a great degree of self-esteem and excessive ambition. “Fear, my dear Glaucon,” said Socrates, “fear, lest a too ardent desire for honors should blind you; and cause you to take a part that would cover you with shame, in bringing to light your incapacity,[525] and want of talent.”

9. The youth was wise enough to profit by the good advice of his instructor, and took some time to gain private information, before he ventured to appear in public. This lesson is for all ages.

[514] THE-MISˊ-TO-CLES, a celebrated Athenian statesman and military leader, was born about 514 before Christ.

[515] CIˊ-MON, an illustrious Athenian general and statesman, born about the year 510 before Christ. He belonged to the aristocratic party of his time, and contributed to the banishment of Themistocles, the leader of the opposite party. He was also the political opponent of Pericles.

[516] PERˊ-I-CLES, an Athenian statesman, born about 495 before Christ.

He labored to make Athens the capital of all Greece, and the seat of art and refinement.

[517] SOPHˊ-ISTS, professed teachers of wisdom.

[518] PLAˊ-TO, a celebrated Greek philosopher, born in Athens about the year 495 before Christ. He was a pupil of Socrates.

[519] AC-COSTˊ-ED, addressed.

[520] IN-DUCˊ-ED, prevailed upon.

[521] PHI-LOSˊ-O-PHER, lover of wisdom.

[522] BARˊ-BA-ROUS, uncivilized.

[523] RE-TRENCHˊ, lessen; curtail.

[524] SU-PERˊ-FLU-OUS, extravagant; needless.

[525] IN-CA-PACˊ-I-TY, inability.

LXXI.—MARY MAGDALEN.

CALLANAN.

J. J. Callanan was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1795. He was an associate of Dr. Maginn, and, through him, became a contributor to “Blackwood’s Magazine.” He died in Lisbon in 1829.

1. To the hall of that feast came the sinful and fair;

She heard in the city that Jesus was there;

She marked not the splendor that blazed on their board,

But silently knelt at the feet of her Lord.

2. The hair from her forehead, so sad and so meek,

Hung dark o’er the blushes that burn’d on her cheek;

And so still and so lowly she bent in her shame,

It seemed as her spirit had flown from its frame.

3. The frown and the murmur went round through them all,

That one so unhallowed should tread in that hall;

And some said the poor would be objects more meet,

For the wealth of the perfumes she showered at his feet.

4. She marked but her Saviour, she spoke but in sighs,

She dared not look up to the heaven of his eyes;

And the hot tears gushed forth at each heave of her breast,

As her lips to his sandals she throbbingly pressed.

5. On the cloud after tempests, as shineth the bow,

In the glance of the sunbeam, as melteth the snow,

He looked on that lost one—her sins were forgiven;

And Mary went forth in the beauty of heaven.

LXXII.—THE WEXFORD MASSACRE.

The Mayor and Governor offered to capitulate; but whilst their Commissioners were treating with Cromwell, an officer perfidiously opened the castle to the enemy; the adjacent wall was immediately scaled, and after a stubborn but unavailing resistance in the Marketplace, Wexford was abandoned to the mercy of the assailants. The tragedy so recently acted at Drogheda was renewed. No distinction was made between the defenceless inhabitants and the armed soldiers; nor could the shrieks and prayers of three hundred females, who had gathered around the great Cross, preserve them from these ruthless barbarians.—LINGARD’S HISTORY OF ENGLAND: New York Edition, vol. 10, p. 297.

1. They knelt around the Cross divine,

The matron and the maid—

They bowed before redemption’s sign

And fervently they prayed—

Three hundred fair and helpless ones,

Whose crime was this alone—

Their valiant husbands, sires, and sons,

Had battled for their own.

2. Had battled bravely, but in vain—

The Saxon won the fight;

And Irish corses strewed the plain

Where valor slept with Right.

And now that man of demon guilt

To fated Wexford flew—

The red blood reeking on his hilt,

Of hearts to Erin true!

3. He found them there—the young, the old—

The maiden and the wife;

Their guardians brave, in death were cold,

Who dared for them the strife—

They prayed for mercy. God on high!

Before Thy cross they prayed,

And ruthless Cromwell bade them die

To glut the Saxon blade.

4. Three hundred fell—the stifled prayer

Was quenched in woman’s blood;

Nor youth nor age could move to spare

From slaughter’s crimson flood.

But nations keep a stern account

Of deeds that tyrants do;

And guiltless blood to Heaven will mount,

And heaven avenge it too.

LXXIII.—A PICTURE OF HUMAN LIFE.

JOHNSON.

Doctor Samuel Johnson, born 1709, died 1784, was distinguished as an essayist and lexicographer.

1. Obidah, the son of Abensina, left the caravansary[526] early in the morning, and pursued his journey through the plains of Indostan. He was fresh and vigorous with rest; he was animated with hope; he was incited by desire; he walked swiftly forward over the valleys, and saw the hills gradually rising before him.

2. As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise, he was fanned by the last flutter of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices; he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring: all his senses were gratified, and all care was banished from his heart.

3. Thus he went on till the sun approached his meridian,[527] and the increasing heat preyed upon his strength; he then looked round about him for some more commodious path. He saw, on his right hand, a grove that seemed to wave its shades as a sign of invitation: he entered it, and found the coolness and verdure irresistibly pleasant.

4. He did not, however, forget whither he was traveling, but found a narrow way, bordered with flowers, which appeared to have the same direction with the main road, and was pleased, that, by this happy experiment, he had found means to unite pleasure with business, and to gain the reward of diligence without suffering its fatigues. He, therefore, still continued to walk, for a time, without the least remission[528] of his ardor, except that he was sometimes tempted to stop by the music of the birds, whom the heat had assembled in the shade, and sometimes amused himself with plucking the flowers that covered the bank on either side, or the fruits that hung upon the branches.

5. At last, the green path began to decline from its first tendency, and to wind among hills and thickets, cooled with fountains, and murmuring with waterfalls. Here Obidah paused for a time, and began to consider whether it were longer safe to forsake the known and common track, but remembering that the heat was now in its greatest violence, and that the plain was dusty and uneven, he resolved to pursue the new path, which he supposed only to make a few meanders,[529] in compliance with the varieties of the ground, and to end at last in the common road.

6. Having thus calmed his solicitude, he renewed his pace, though he suspected he was not gaining ground. This uneasiness of his mind inclined him to lay hold on every new object, and give way to every sensation that might soothe or divert him. He listened to every echo, he mounted every hill for a fresh prospect, he turned aside to every cascade,[530] and pleased himself with tracing the course of a gentle river, that rolled among the trees, and watered a large region, with innumerable circumlocutions.[531]

7. In these amusements the hours passed away unaccounted, his deviations[532] had perplexed his memory, and he knew not toward what point to travel. He stood pensive[533] and confused, afraid to go forward, lest he should go wrong, yet conscious that the time of loitering was now past. While he was thus tortured with uncertainty, the sky was overspread with clouds, the day vanished from before him, and a sudden tempest gathered round his head.

8. He was now roused by his danger to a quick and painful remembrance of his folly; he now saw how happiness is lost when ease is consulted; he lamented the unmanly impatience that prompted him to seek shelter in the grove, and despised the petty curiosity that led him on from trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflecting, the air grew blacker, and a clap of thunder broke his meditation.[534]

9. He now resolved to do what remained yet in his power, to tread back the ground which he had passed, and try to find some issue, where the wood might open into the plain. He prostrated himself upon the ground, and commended his life to the Lord of nature.

10. He rose with confidence and tranquillity,[535] and pressed on with his saber in his hand; for the beasts of the desert were in motion, and on every hand were heard the mingled howls of rage and fear, and ravage[536] and expiration:[537] all the horrors of darkness and solitude surrounded him:—the wind roared in the woods, and the torrents tumbled from the hills.

11. Thus forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild, without knowing whither he was going, or whether he was every moment drawing nearer to safety or to destruction. At length, not fear but labor began to overcome him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, and he was on the point of lying down, in resignation to his fate, when he beheld, through the brambles, the glimmer of a taper. He advanced toward the light, and finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such provisions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah fed with eagerness and gratitude.

12. When the repast was over, “Tell me,” said the hermit, “by what chance thou hast been brought hither; I have been now twenty years an inhabitant of the wilderness, in which I never saw a man before.” Obidah then related the occurrences of his journey, without any concealment or palliation.[538]

13 “Son,” said the hermit, “let the errors and follies, the dangers and escapes of this day, sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that human life is the journey of a day. We rise in the morning of youth, full of vigor, and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit and hope, with gayety and with diligence, and travel on awhile in the straight road of piety, toward the mansion of rest.

14. “In a short time we remit our fervor, and endeavor to find some mitigation[539] of our duty, and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our vigor, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance, but rely upon our own constancy,[540] and venture to approach what we resolve never to touch.

15. “We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades of security. Here the heart softens, and vigilance[541] subsides;[542] we are then willing to inquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether we may not, at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without losing the road of virtue, which we for awhile keep in our sight, and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation, and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness of innocence, and solace[543] our disquiet with sensual[544] gratifications.

16. “By degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit the only adequate[545] object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths[546] of inconstancy,[547] till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives with horror, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue.

17. “Happy are they, my son, who shall learn from thy example not to despair, but shall remember, that though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavors ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return, after all his errors; and that he who implores strength and courage from above, shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son, to thy repose; commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence;[548] and when the morning comes again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life.”

[526] CARˊ-A-VANˊ-SA-RY, a kind of inn or public house, in the East, where caravans rest at night, being a large square building, with an extensive area or yard in the middle.

[527] ME-RIDˊ-I-AN, mid-day; the point directly overhead; hence, the highest point, as of success, prosperity, or the like.

[528] RE-MISˊ-SION, the act of remitting, surrendering, or giving up; relaxation; decrease.

[529] ME-ANˊ-DERS, indirect or winding courses; turnings.

[530] CAS-CADEˊ, a small cataract or waterfall.

[531] CIRˊ-CUM-VO-LUˊ-TION, a turning or rolling round.

[532] DEˊ-VI-Aˊ-TION, a wandering from one’s course or way.

[533] PENˊ-SIVE, thoughtful, or sad.

[534] MEDˊ-I-TAˊ-TION, the revolving or turning of a subject in the mind; close or continued thought.

[535] TRAN-QUILˊ-LI-TY, peace; quiet; freedom from care or trouble.

[536] RAVˊ-AGE, violent ruin or destruction; havoc.

[537] EXˊ-PI-RAˊ-TION, a breathing out or expulsion of air from the lungs through the mouth or nose; the last act of breathing out; death.

[538] PALˊ-LI-Aˊ-TION, concealment of the worst circumstances of an offense; lessening by favorable description.

[539] MIT-I-GAˊ-TION, softening; making easier or milder.

[540] CONˊ-STAN-CY, the quality of being constant or steadfast; freedom from change; fixedness of mind.

[541] VIGˊ-I-LANCE, watchfulness.

[542] SUB-SIDESˊ, falls into a state of quiet; rests; ceases.

[543] SOLˊ-ACE, to cheer in grief; to comfort; to allay.

[544] SENSˊ-U-AL, lewd; pleasing to the senses.

[545] ADˊ-E-QUATE, equal; fully sufficient.

[546] LABˊ-Y-RINTH, a labyrinth, among the ancients, was a building made with many winding passages, so that a person could hardly avoid being lost. Hence, any difficult windings or ways; any thing that is much entangled or very perplexing.

[547] IN-CONˊ-STAN-CY, a want of fixedness or firmness of mind; unsteadiness; fickleness.

[548] OM-NIPˊ-O-TENCE, almighty power; God.

LXXIV.—THE DOUBTING HEART.

ADELAIDE A. PROCTOR.

FIRST VOICE.

1. Where are the swallows fled?

Frozen and dead,

Perchance, upon some bleak and stormy shore.

SECOND VOICE.

O doubting heart!

Far over purple seas,

They wait, in sunny ease,

The balmy southern breeze,

To bring them to their northern home once more.

FIRST VOICE.

2. Why must the flowers die?

Poisoned they lie

In the cold tomb, heedless of tears or rain.

SECOND VOICE.

O doubting heart!

They only sleep below

The soft, white, ermine snow,

While winter winds shall blow,

To breathe and smile upon you soon again.

FIRST VOICE.

3. The sun has hid its rays

These many days;

Will dreary hours never leave the earth?

SECOND VOICE.

O doubting heart!

The stormy clouds on high

Vail the same sunny sky,

That soon, (for Spring is nigh.)

Shall wake the Summer into golden mirth.

FIRST VOICE.

4. Fair Hope is dead, and light

Is quenched in night.

What sound can break the silence of despair?

SECOND VOICE.

O doubting heart!

The sky is overcast,

Yet stars shall rise at last,

Brighter for darkness past,

And angels’ silver voices stir the air.

LXXV.—ON THE WASTE OF TIME.

FRANKLIN.

Benjamin Franklin, distinguished as a statesman, a patriot, and a philosopher, was born at Boston in 1706. He began his career as a printer, and by diligence, integrity and rare sagacity, became one of the foremost of that able and brilliant band of men who were the leaders of the American Revolution. He died in 1790.

1. Amergus was a gentleman of good estate: he was bred to no business, and could not contrive how to waste his hours agreeably; he had no relish for any of the proper works of life, nor any taste for the improvement of the mind; he spent generally ten hours of the four-and-twenty in bed; he dozed away two or three more on his couch; and as many more were dissolved in good liquor every evening, if he met with company of his own humor. Thus he made a shift to wear off ten years of his life since the paternal[549] estate fell into his hands.

2. One evening as he was musing alone, his thoughts happened to take a most unusual turn, for they cast a glance backward, and he began to reflect on his manner of life. He bethought himself what a number of living beings had been made a sacrifice[550] to support his carcass, and how much corn and wine had been mingled with these offerings; and he set himself to compute what he had devoured since he came to the age of man.

3. “About a dozen feathered creatures, small and great, have, one week with another,” said he, “given up their lives to prolong mine, which, in ten years, amounts to at least six thousand. Fifty sheep have been sacrificed in a year, with half a hecatomb[551] of black-cattle,[552] that I might have the choicest parts offered weekly upon my table. Thus a thousand beasts, out of the flock and the herd, have been slain in ten years’ time to feed me beside what the forest has supplied me with.

4. “Many hundreds of fishes have, in all their variety, been robbed of life for my repast,[553] and of the smaller fry, some thousands. A measure of corn would hardly suffice[554] me fine flour enough for a month’s provision, and this arises to about six score bushels; and many hogsheads of wine and other liquors have passed through this body of mine—this wretched strainer of meat and drink! And what have I done all this time for God and man? What a vast profusion[555] of good things wasted upon a useless life and a worthless liver!

5. “There is not the meanest creature among all those that I have devoured, but hath answered the end of its creation better than I. It was made to support human nature, and it has done so. Every crab and oyster I have eaten, and every grain of corn I have devoured, hath filled up its place in the rank of beings with more propriety and honor than I have done. Oh, shameful waste of life and time!”

6. In short, he carried on his moral reflections[556] with so just and severe a force of reason, as constrained[557] him to change his whole course of life; to break off his follies at once, and to apply himself to gain some useful knowledge, when he was more than thirty years of age. He lived many following years, with the character of a worthy man and an excellent Christian;[558] he died with a peaceful conscience,[559] and the tears of his country were dropped upon his tomb.

7. The world, that knew the whole series of his life, were amazed at the mighty change. They beheld him as a wonder of reformation, while he himself confessed and adored the Divine power and mercy which had transformed him from a brute to a man. But this was a single instance, and we may almost venture to write miracle[560] upon it. Are there not numbers, in this degenerate[561] age, whose lives thus run to utter waste, without the least tendency[562] to usefulness?

[549] PA-TERˊ-NAL, belonging to or derived from one’s father.

[550] SACˊ-RI-FICE, destruction or surrender of anything, made for the sake of something else; the thing destroyed or given up.

[551] HECˊ-A-TOMB, the sacrifice of a hundred.

[552] BLACKˊ-CAT-TLE, cows, bulls, and oxen, as distinguished from sheep and goats, which are called small cattle.

[553] RE-PASTˊ, the act of taking food; that which is taken as food or a meal; victuals.

[554] SUF-FICEˊ, to be sufficient or enough; to furnish or supply.

[555] PRO-FUˊ-SION, a large quantity.

[556] RE-FLECˊ-TION, the turning of the mind to what has already occupied it; continued thinking.

[557] CON-STRAINˊ-ED, compelled; forced.

[558] CHRISTˊ-IAN, one who professes to believe in the religion of Christ; especially one whose inward and outward life is conformed to the doctrines of Christ; one who has received the Sacrament of Baptism.

[559] CONˊ-SCIENCE, the power or principle within us which decides on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our actions or affections, and approves or condemns them.

[560] MIRˊ-A-CLE, a wonder or wonderful thing; an effect or event that differs or departs from the known laws of nature.

[561] DE-GENˊ-ER-ATE, having become worse than one’s kind; having lost in worth or goodness; degraded; mean.

[562] TENDˊ-EN-CY, direction or course toward any place, effect, or result; desire.

LXXVI.—THE REAPER, DEATH.

LONGFELLOW.

1. There is a reaper, whose name is Death,

And, with his sickle keen,

He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,

And the flowers that grow between.

2. “Shall I have nought that is fair?” saith he;

“Have nought but the bearded grain?

Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,

I will give them all back again.”

3. He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,

He kissed their drooping leaves;

It was for the Lord of Paradise

He bound them in his sheaves.

4. “My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,”

The reaper said, and smiled;

“Dear tokens of the earth are they,

Where he was once a child.

5. “They all shall bloom in fields of light,

Transplanted by my care,

And saints, upon their garments white,

These sacred blossoms wear.”

6. Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath,

The reaper came that day;

’Twas an angel visited the earth,

And took the flowers away.

LXXVII.—DIALOGUE WITH THE GOUT.

FRANKLIN.

1. Franklin. Eh! Oh! Eh! What have I done to merit these cruel sufferings?

Gout. Many things: you have ate and drank too freely, and too much indulged those legs of yours in their indolence.[563]

Franklin. Who is it that accuses me?

Gout. It is I, even I, the Gout.

Franklin. What! my enemy in person?

Gout. No; not your enemy.

Franklin. I repeat it, my enemy; for you would not only torment[564] my body to death, but ruin my good name. You reproach me as a glutton and a tippler;[565] now all the world that knows me will allow that I am neither the one nor the other.

2. Gout. The world may think as it pleases. It is always very complaisant[566] to itself, and sometimes to its friends; but I very well know that the quantity of meat and drink proper for a man who takes a reasonable degree of exercise would be too much for another who never takes any.

Franklin. I take—Eh! Oh!—as much exercise—Eh!—as I can, Madam Gout. You know my sedentary[567] state; and on that account, it would seem, Madam Gout, as if you might spare me a little, seeing it is not altogether my own fault.

3. Gout. Not a jot; your rhetoric and your politeness are thrown away; your apology avails nothing. If your situation in life is a sedentary one, your amusements, your recreations, at least, should be active. You ought to walk or ride; or if the weather prevents that, play at something.

But let us examine your course of life. While the mornings are long, and you have leisure to go abroad, what do you do? Why, instead of gaining an appetite for breakfast, by salutary exercise, you amuse yourself with books, pamphlets, or newspapers, which commonly are not worth the reading. Yet you eat an inordinate breakfast: four dishes of tea, with cream, one or two buttered toasts, with slices of hung beef; which I fancy are not things the most easily digested.

4. Immediately afterward, you sit down to write at your desk, or converse with persons who apply to you on business. Thus the time passes till one, without any kind of bodily exercise. But all this I could pardon, in regard, as you say, to your sedentary condition; but what is your practice after dinner? Walking in the beautiful gardens of those friends with whom you have dined would be the choice of men of sense; yours is to be fixed down to chess, where you are found engaged for two or three hours.

5. This is your perpetual recreation; the least eligible[568] of any for a sedentary man, because, instead of accelerating[569] the motion of the fluids, the rigid[570] attention it requires helps to retard the circulation and obstruct internal secretions.[571] Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expected from such a course of living but a body replete with stagnant humors, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies,[572] if I, the Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating those humors, and so purifying or dissipating them? Fie, then, Mr. Franklin! But, amidst my instructions, I had almost forgotten to administer my wholesome corrections; so take that twinge, and that.

6. Franklin. Oh! Eh! Oh! Oh! As much instruction as you please, Madam Gout, and as many reproaches; but pray, Madam, a truce with your corrections!

Gout. No, sir, no; I will not abate a particle of what is so much for your good, therefore—

Franklin. Oh! Eh! It is not fair to say I take no exercise, when I do, very often, go out to dine, and return in my carriage.

7. Gout. That, of all imaginable exercises, is the most slight and insignificant, if you allude to the motion of a carriage suspended on springs. By observing the degree of heat obtained from different kinds of motion, we may form an estimate of the quantity of exercise given by each. Thus, for example, if you turn out to walk in winter with cold feet, in an hour’s time you will be in a glow all over; ride on horseback, the same effect will scarcely be perceived by four hours’ round trotting; but if you loll in a carriage, such as you have mentioned, you may travel all day, and gladly enter the last inn to warm your feet by a fire.

8. Flatter yourself, then, no longer, that half an hour’s airing in your carriage deserves the name of exercise. Providence has appointed few to roll in carriages, while he has given to all a pair of legs, which are machines infinitely more commodious and serviceable. Be grateful, then, and make a proper use of yours.

[563] INˊ-DO-LENCE, sloth, idleness.

[564] TOR-MENTˊ, to put to extreme pain.

[565] TIPˊ-PLER, a frequent and habitual drinker of strong liquors.

[566] COMˊ-PLAI-SANTˊ, polite, courteous.

[567] SEDˊ-EN-TA-RY, accustomed to sit much.

[568] ELˊ-I-GI-BLE, desirable.

[569] AC-CELˊ-ER-ATE, to hasten the motion of; to quicken.

[570] RIGˊ-ID, severe, strict, exact.

[571] SE-CREˊ-TION, separation of juices.

[572] MALˊ-A-DIES, bodily ailments; diseases.

LXXVIII.—THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

1. The melancholy days[573] are come, the saddest of the year,

Of wailing[574] winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.

Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead;

They rustle to the eddying[575] gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay,

And from the wood-top caws[576] the crow, through all the gloomy day.

2. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers

Are lying in their lowly bed, with the fair and good of ours.

The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain

Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

3. The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,

And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade,[577] and glen.[578]

4. And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home,

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light, the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers, whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

5. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,

The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side;

In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;

Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,

So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

[573] MELˊ-AN-CHOL-Y, low-spirited; unhappy; sad.

[574] WAILˊ-ING, moaning; grieving over; weeping loudly.

[575] EDˊ-DY-ING, moving circularly.

[576] This reading—caws, instead of calls—is sanctioned by the gifted author.

[577] GLADE, an open or cleared place in a forest or wood.

[578] GLEN, a retired and narrow valley; a narrow space between hills.

LXXIX.—EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.

LINGARD.

John Lingard, D. D., was born in England in 1771; died in 1851. With the completion of the “History of England,” which has been republished in New York in thirteen volumes, the literary fame of Dr. Lingard became established throughout Europe. Cardinal Wiseman speaks of this history, and its learned author, in the following terms: “It is a Providence that in history we have had given to the nation a writer like Lingard, whose gigantic merit will be better appreciated in each successive generation, as it sees his work standing calm and erect amidst the shoals of petty pretenders to usurp his station. When Hume shall have fairly taken his place among the classical writers of our tongue, and Macaulay shall have been transferred to the shelves of romances and poets, and each thus have received his due meed of praise, then Lingard will be still more conspicuous as the only impartial historian of our country.”

1. If we estimate the character of a sovereign by the test of popular affection, we must rank Edward among the best princes of his time. The goodness of his heart was adored by his subjects, who lamented his death with tears of undissembled grief, and bequeathed his memory as an object of veneration to their posterity. The blessings of his reign are the constant theme of our ancient writers: not, indeed, that he displayed any of those brilliant qualities which attract admiration, while they inflict misery.

2. He could not boast of the victories which he had achieved; but he exhibited the interesting spectacle of a king, negligent of his private interests, and wholly devoted to the welfare of his people; and, by his labors to restore the dominion of the laws, his vigilance to ward off foreign aggression, his constant, and ultimately successful, solicitude to appease the feuds of his nobles,—if he did not prevent the interruption, he secured, at least, a longer duration of public tranquillity, than had been enjoyed in England for half a century.

3. He was pious, kind, and compassionate; the father of the poor, and the protector of the weak; more willing to give than to receive, the better pleased to pardon than to punish. Under the preceding kings, force generally supplied the place of justice, and the people were impoverished by the rapacity of the sovereign. But Edward enforced the laws of his Saxon predecessors, and disdained the riches that were wrung from the labors of his subjects.

4. Temperate in his diet, unostentatious in his person, pursuing no pleasures but those which his hawks and hounds afforded, he was content with the patrimonial domains of the crown; and was able to assert, even after the abolition of that fruitful source of revenue, the Danegelt, that he possessed a greater portion of wealth than any of his predecessors enjoyed. To him, the principle that the king can do no wrong, was literally applied by the gratitude of his people, who, if they occasionally complained of the measures of the government, attributed the blame not to the monarch himself, of whose benevolence they entertained no doubt, but to the ministers, who had abused his confidence, or deceived his credulity.

5. It was, however, a fortunate circumstance for the memory of Edward, that he occupied the interval between the Danish and Norman conquests. Writers were induced to view his character with more partiality, from the hatred with which they looked upon his successors and predecessors. They were foreigners; he was a native: they held the crown by conquest; he by descent: they ground to the dust the slaves whom they had made; he became known to his countrymen only by his benefits. Hence he appeared to shine with purer light amid the gloom with which he was surrounded; and whenever the people under the despotism of the Norman kings, had any opportunity of expressing their real wishes, they constantly called for “the laws and customs of the good King Edward”.

LXXX.—THE COMING OF WINTER.

T. B. READ.

1. Autumn’s sighing,

Moaning, dying,

Clouds are flying

On like steeds;

While their shadows

O’er the meadows,

Walk like widows

Decked in weeds.

2. Red leaves trailing,

Fall unfailing,

Dropping, sailing,

From the wood,

That, unpliant,

Stands defiant,

Like a giant,

Dropping blood.

3. Winds are swelling

Round our dwelling,

All day telling

Us their woe;

And, at vesper,

Frosts grow crisper,

As they whisper

Of the snow.

4. From the unseen land,

Frozen inland,

Down from Greenland,

Winter glides.

Shedding lightness

Like the brightness

When moon-whiteness

Fills the tide.

5. Now bright Pleasure’s

Sparkling measures

With rare treasures

Overflow!

With this gladness

Comes what sadness

Oh, what sadness,

Oh, what woe!

6. Even merit

May inherit

Some bare garret,

Or the ground;

Or, a worse ill,

Beg a morsel

At some door-sill,

Like a hound.

7. Storms are trailing,

Winds are wailing,

Howling, railing,

At each door.

’Midst this trailing,

Howling, railing,

List the wailing

Of the poor!

LXXXI.—THE SISTER OF CHARITY.

WILLIAMS.

Richard Dalton Williams was born in Ireland. He had been for several years previous to his death, Professor of Belles Letters in the Catholic College, Mobile. His poems all bear the unmistakable stamp of poetic genius.

1. Sister of Charity, gentle and dutiful,

Loving as seraphim, tender and mild,

In humbleness strong, and in purity beautiful,

In spirit heroic, in manners a child,

Ever thy love like an angel reposes,—

With hovering wings o’er the sufferer here,

Till the arrows of death are half-hidden in roses,

And hope-speaking prophecy smiles on the bier.

2. When life, like a vapor, is slowly retiring,

As clouds in the dawning to heaven uprolled,

Thy prayer, like a herald, precedes him expiring,

And the Cross on thy bosom his last looks behold;

And O! as the Spouse to thy words of love listens,

What hundredfold blessings descend on thee then—

Thus the flower-absorbed dew in the bright iris glistens,

And returns to the lilies more richly again.

3. Sister of Charity, child of the holiest,

O, for thy living soul, ardent as pure—

Mother of orphans and friend of the lowliest—

Stay of the wretched, the guilty, the poor;

The embrace of the Godhead so plainly enfolds thee

Sanctity’s halo so shrines thee around,

Daring the eye that unshrinking beholds thee,

Nor droops in thy presence abashed to the ground.

4. Dim is the fire of the sunniest blushes,

Burning the breast of the maidenly rose

To the exquisite bloom that thy pale beauty flushes,

When the incense ascends and the sanctuary glows,

And the music, that seems heaven’s language, is pealing—

Adoration has bowed him in silence and sighs,

And man, intermingled with angels, is feeling

The passionless rapture that comes from the skies.

5. O, that this heart, whose unspeakable treasure

Of love hath been wasted so vainly on clay,

Like thine, unallured by the phantom of pleasure,

Could rend every earthly affection away.

And yet, in thy presence, the billows subsiding

Obey the strong effort of reason and will,

And my soul, in her pristine tranquillity gliding,

Is calm as when God bade the ocean be still.

6. Thy soothing, how gentle! thy pity, how tender!

Choir-music thy voice is—thy step angel grace,

And thy union with deity shrines in a splendor

Subdued, but unearthly, thy spiritual face.

When the frail chains are broken, a captive that bound thee,

Afar from thy home is the prison of clay,

Bride of the Lamb, and earth’s shadows around thee

Disperse in the blaze of eternity’s day.

7. Still mindful, as now, of the sufferer’s story,

Arresting the thunders of wrath ere they roll,

Intervene as a cloud between us and His glory,

And shield from His lightnings the shuddering soul.

As mild as the moonbeam in autumn descending

That lightning, extinguished by mercy, shall fall,

While he hears, with the wail of a penitent blending,

Thy prayer, Holy Daughter of Vincent de Paul.

LXXXII.—WASHINGTON AND BONAPARTE COMPARED.

CHATEAUBRIAND.

1. If Washington and Bonaparte are compared, man with man, the genius of the first will seem to take a less lofty flight than that of the second. Washington belongs not, like Bonaparte, to the race of Alexanders and Cæsars, who surpassed the ordinary stature of the human race; he creates no sentiment of astonishment; he is not seen contending, on a vast theatre, for glory, with the greatest captains and most powerful monarchs of the earth, he traverses[579] no seas; he hurries not from Memphis to Vienna, from Cadiz to Moscow; his work is a simple one of defending himself, with a handful of citizens, within the narrow limits of domestic hearths, in a land without a past and without celebrity.

2. He gains none of those battles which renew the bloody triumphs of Arbela[580] and Pharsalia;[581] he puts not his foot upon the necks of kings; he does not say to them, waiting on the vestibule of his palace, how often you come! and how you weary Attila![582] A certain spirit of silence envelops the actions of Washington: slow caution marks them all. One would say that he had ever the sentiment of his great mission with him, and that he feared to compromise it by rashness.

3. His own personal destiny seems not to have entered into the calculations of this hero of a new species; the destinies of his country alone occupied him, and he did not permit himself to risk or gamble with what did not belong to him. But from this profound obscurity what light breaks forth! Seek through the unknown forests where the sword of Washington glittered, and what will you find there? Tombs? No! A world. Washington has left the United States as a trophy of his field of battle.

4. Bonaparte possessed no single trait of this great American. His wars were all waged on an ancient continent, environed[583] by splendor and stunning with noise. His object was personal glory: his individual destiny filled all his thoughts. He seems to have known that his mission would be short: that the torrent that fell from such a height would quickly expend its force. He hurried forward to enjoy and to abuse his glory, as if aware that it was a fugitive dream of youth. Like the gods of Homer, four steps must suffice him to reach the end of the world.

5. Each of these men has been recompensed according to his works. Washington, after having raised a nation to independence, slept peacefully, as a retired magistrate, under his paternal roof, amid the regrets of his countrymen, and the veneration of all people, Bonaparte, having robbed a nation of its independence was hurled, a dethroned emperor, into exile, and the terrified earth hardly thought him secure enough under the custody of the ocean.

6. Even while exhausted and chained to a rock, he was struggling with death: Europe dared not lay down her arms, for fear of him. He died; and this event, published at the gate of the palace before which the conqueror had proclaimed so many funerals, hardly arrested the passer-by. What, indeed, had citizens to weep for!

7. Washington and Bonaparte both arose out of the bosom of a republic. Both were born of liberty; the first was faithful to it, the second betrayed it. Their lot will be according to the different part they chose: very different with future generations. The name of Washington will spread with liberty from age to age, and mark the commencement of a new era for the human race: the name of Bonaparte will be pronounced also by distant generations, but no benedictions will be attached to it; it will serve on the contrary, as an authority to oppressors, great and petty of all times.

8. Washington represented completely the wants, the ideas, the state of enlightenment and opinions of his epoch. He seconded, instead of thwarting, the advancing movement: he willed that which he ought to have willed; the fulfilment of the mission to which he was called. Hence the coherence[584] and perpetuity of his work.

9. This man, who strikes the imagination so slightly, because he was natural, and kept within his just proportions, has confounded his history with that of his country: his glory is the common patrimony of increased civilization: his renown rises like one of those sanctuaries whence a stream, pure and inexhaustible, flows forth for ever, for the solace of the people.

10. Bonaparte might also have enriched the public domain. His action was on the nation the most civilized, the most intelligent, the most brave, the most brilliant of the earth. What a rank would he have occupied at present in the universe, if he had joined magnanimity to his other heroic qualities! if—Washington and Bonaparte at the same time—he had nominated liberty the inheritor of his glory!

11. But the disproportioned giant did not completely identify his destiny with that of his country. His genius belonged to modern, his ambition to ancient times. He did not perceive that the miracles of his life by far surpassed the value of a diadem, and that this gothic ornament but ill became him. Sometimes one might see him take a step with the age; at others he would retrograde toward the past. But whether he reascended the stream of time or followed its course, the prodigious force of his genius seemed to command a flow or a flux at his will.

12. Men were, in his eyes, only a means of power: there was no sympathy between their welfare and his own. He promised to liberate, and he enchained them: he separated himself from them, and they shrunk back from him. The kings of Egypt built their funeral pyramids, not amid fertile plains, but sterile sands. On a like site has Bonaparte constructed the monument of his renown.

[579] TRAVˊ-ERSES, crosses over.

[580] AR-BEˊ-LA, it was near Arbela that Alexander gained his great victory over the Persians.

[581] PHAR-SAˊ-LIA, it was here Julius Cæsar defeated Pompey.

[582] AT-TIˊ-LA, a celebrated king of the Huns. He invaded Europe with an immense army, in 451. He crossed the Rhine and penetrated to the heart of Gaul, sacking and burning all the towns in his way. He was defeated by Ætius at Chalons.

[583] EN-VIˊ-RON, to surround.

[584] CO-HERˊ-ENCE, consistency.

LXXXIII.—CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN.

BROUGHAM.

1. One of the most remarkable men certainly of our times as a politician, or of any age as a philosopher, was Franklin; who also stands alone in combining together these two characters, the greatest that man can sustain, and in this, that, having borne the first part in enlarging science by one of the greatest discoveries ever made, he bore the second part in founding one of the greatest empires in the world.

2. In this truly great man every thing seems to concur that goes toward the constitution of exalted merit. First, he was the architect of his own fortune. Born in the humblest station, he raised himself by his talents and industry, first to the place in society which may be attained with the help only of ordinary abilities, great application, and good luck; but next, to the loftier heights which a daring and happy genius alone can scale; and the printers’ boy who at one period of his life had no covering to shelter his head from the dews of night, rent in twain the proud dominion of England, and lived to be the ambassador of a commonwealth which he had formed, at the court of the haughty monarchs of France, who had been his allies.

3. Then he had been tried by prosperity as well as by adverse fortune, and had passed unhurt through the perils of both. No ordinary apprentice, no commonplace journeyman, ever laid the foundation of his independence in habits of industry and temperance more deep than he did, whose genius was afterwards to rank him with the Galileos and Newtons of the old world. No patrician born to shine in courts, or assist at the councils of monarchs, ever bore his honors in a lofty station more easily, or was less spoiled by the enjoyment of them, than this common workman did when negotiating with royal representatives, or caressed by all the beauty and fashion of the most brilliant court in Europe.

4. Again, he was self-taught in all he knew. His hours of study were stolen from those of sleep and of meals, or gained by some ingenious contrivance for reading while the work of his daily calling went on. Assisted by none of the helps which affluence tenders to the studies of the rich, he had to supply the place of tutors by redoubled diligence, and of commentaries by repeated perusal. Nay, the possession of books was to be obtained by copying what the art which he himself exercised furnished easily to others.

5. Next, the circumstances under which others succumb he made to yield, and bent to his own purposes—a successful leader of a revolt that ended in complete triumph after appearing desperate for years: a great discoverer in philosophy without the ordinary helps to knowledge; a writer famed for his chaste style without a classical education; a skillful negotiator, though never bred to politics; ending as a favorite, nay, a pattern of fashion when the guest of frivolous courts, the life which he had begun in garrets and in workshops.

6. Lastly, combinations of faculties, in others deemed impossible, appeared easy and natural in him. The philosopher, delighting in speculation, was also eminently a man of action. Ingenious reasoning, refined and subtle consultation, were in him combined with prompt resolution and inflexible firmness of purpose. To a lively fancy he joined a learned and deep reflection; his original and inventive genius stooped to the convenient alliance of the most ordinary prudence in every day affairs; the mind that soared above the clouds, and was conversant with the loftiest human contemplations, disdained not to make proverbs and feign parables for the guidance of apprenticed youths and maidens at service; and the hands that sketched a free constitution for a whole continent, or drew down the lightning from heaven, easily and cheerfully lent themselves to simplify the apparatus by which truths were to be illustrated or discoveries pursued.

7. His whole course, both in acting and in speculation, was simple and plain, ever preferring the easiest and shortest road, nor ever having recourse to any but the simplest means to compass his ends. His policy rejected all refinements, and aimed at accomplishing its purposes by the most rational and obvious expedients. His language was unadorned, and used as the medium of communicating his thoughts, not of raising admiration; but it was pure, expressive, racy. His manner of reasoning was manly and cogent, the address of a rational being to others of the same order; and so concise, that preferring decision to discussion, he never exceeded a quarter of an hour in any public address. His correspondence on business, whether private or on state affairs, is a model of clearness and compendious shortness; nor can any state papers surpass in dignity and impressiveness those of which he is believed to have been the author in the earlier part of the American revolutionary war.

8. His mode of philosophizing was the purest application of the inductive principle, so eminently adapted to his nature, and so clearly dictated by common sense, that we can have little doubt that it would have been suggested by Franklin, if it had not been unfolded by Bacon, though it is clear that in this case it would have been expounded in far more simple terms. But of all this great man’s scientific excellencies, the most remarkable is the smallness, the simplicity, the apparent inadequacy of the means which he employed in his experimental researches. His discoveries were made with hardly any apparatus at all; and if, at any time, he had been led to employ instruments of a less ordinary description, he never rested satisfied until he had, as it were, afterward translated the process, by resolving the problem with such simple machinery, that you might say he had done it wholly unaided by apparatus. The experiments by which the identity of lightning and electricity was demonstrated were made with a sheet of brown paper, a bit of twine, a silk thread, and an iron key. Upon the integrity of this great man, whether in public or in private life, there rests no stain. Strictly honest, and even scrupulously punctual in all his dealings, he preserved in the highest fortune that regularity which he had practiced, as well as inculcated, in the lowest.

9. In domestic life he was faultless, and in the intercourse of society, delightful. There was a constant good humor and a playful wit, easy and of high relish, without any ambition to shine, the natural fruit of his lively fancy, his solid, natural good-sense, and his cheerful temper, that gave his conversation an unspeakable charm, and alike suited every circle, from the humblest to the most elevated.

LXXXIV.—THE LAST MINSTREL.

SCOTT.

Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771, died September 21, 1832. He was distinguished as a poet, and unrivaled as a novelist.

1. The way was long, the wind was cold,

The Minstrel was infirm and old;

His withered cheek, and tresses gray,

Seemed to have known a better day:

The harp, his sole remaining joy,

Was carried by an orphan boy;

The last of all the Bards was he,

Who sung of Border chivalry.

2. For well a day! their date was fled,

His tuneful brethren all were dead;

And he neglected and oppressed,

Wished to be with them and at rest.

No more on prancing palfrey borne,

He caroled, light as lark at morn;

No longer courted and caressed,

High-placed in hall, a welcome guest,

He poured to lord and lady gay

The unpremeditated lay.

3. Old times were changed, old manners gone,

A stranger filled the Stuart throne,

The bigots of the Iron time

Had called the harmless art a crime.

A wandering Harper, scorned and poor,

He begged his bread from door to door,

And tuned, to please a peasants ear,

The harp a king had loved to hear.

4. He passed where Newark’s stately tower

Looks out from Yarrow’s birchen bower;

The Minstrel gazed with wistful eye,

No humbler resting-place was nigh;

With hesitating step, at last,

The embattled portal arch he passed,

Whose pond’rous grate and massy bar

Had oft rolled back the tide of war,

But never closed the iron door

Against the desolate and poor.

5. The Duchess marked his weary pace,

His timid mien, and reverend face,

And bade her page the menials tell,

That they should tend the old man well:

For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;

In pride of power and beauty’s bloom,

Had wept o’er Monmouth’s bloody tomb!

LXXXV.—THE MINSTREL BOY.

THOMAS MOORE.

1. The minstrel boy to the war is gone;

In the ranks of Death you’ll find him,

His father’s sword he has girded on,

And his wild harp slung behind him.

“Land of song,” said the warrior-bard,

“Though all the world betrays thee,

One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,

One faithful harp shall praise thee.”

2. The minstrel fell: but the foeman’s chain

Could not bring his proud soul under.

The harp he loved ne’er spoke again,

For he tore its chords asunder,

And said, “No chains shall sully thee,

Thou soul of love and bravery;

Thy songs were made for the pure and free;

They never shall sound in slav’ry.”

LXXXVI.—ARMY HYMN.

O. W. HOLMES.

1. O Lord of Hosts! Almighty King!

Behold the sacrifice we bring!

To every arm thy strength impart,

Thy Spirit shed through every heart.

2. Wake in our breasts the living fires,

The holy faith, that warmed our sires;

Thy hand hath made our nation free;

To die for her is serving Thee.

3. Be thou a pillared flame to show

The midnight snare, the silent foe;

And when the battle thunders loud,

Still guide us in its moving cloud.

4. God of all Nations! Sov’reign Lord!

In thy dread name we draw the sword;

We lift the starry flag on high,

That fills with light our stormy sky.

5. From treason’s rent, from murder’s stain,

Guard thou its folds till Peace shall reign;

Till fort and field, till shore and sea,

Join our loud anthem,—Praise to Thee!

LXXXVII.—THE ROMAN PONTIFFS.

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING.

M. J. Spalding, D. D. Archbishop of Baltimore, is a native of Kentucky. He is a man of great learning and ability, and of untiring industry. He is the author of a very valuable “History of the Protestant Reformation,” and of several volumes of Essays and Lectures. The following is from his brilliant Introduction to the “History of the Church,” by Darras.

1. Take them all in all, the two hundred and fifty Popes and more, who have successively occupied the Chair of Peter, constitute the most respectable and venerable body of men whose deeds are recorded on the pages of history. Nearly all of them were highly respectable men, learned, enlightened, and pious, far beyond their age; very many of them were venerable for their personal sanctity. Seventy-nine of them—nearly a third of the entire number—were so remarkable for their holiness of character as to merit being inscribed on the Calendar of Saints; and this number includes thirty-three who willingly laid down their lives for Christ and His Church.

2. A very large proportion of the others were men of blameless life, and of indefatigable[585] zeal for the propagation[586] of the faith, while not a few of them were possessed of great learning and capacity. Such, for instance, were Innocent III., Innocent IV., Boniface VIII., and Benedict XIV.,—not to name a host of others in the earlier ages of the Church.

3. In this connection, it is a remarkable fact, and one which shows how effectually Christ has watched over His Church, in the person of His Vicars on earth; that during the last three centuries—since the so-called Reformation—not a single unworthy or immoral Pope has occupied the venerable Chair of Peter. While wickedness has abounded[587], and the very foundations of the faith have been boldly undermined by wicked men “lying in wait to deceive,” God has taken care of His own, and has spared scandals in the high places of His Church.

4. The Reformation, has, perhaps, been instrumental in involuntarily and indirectly rendering this signal service to the cause of the Church, which it so unblushingly maligned. By removing from the pale of Catholic Christendom the most turbulent[588] and unrestrained of its members, it has contributed to purify the atmosphere breathed by the great body of Christians, who remained faithful; while by its bitter opposition, it has quickened their zeal and nourished their vigilance. Thus God’s providence hath drawn good out of evil.

5. Compare the Popes with the sovereigns who have contemporaneously[589] filled the various thrones of Europe and the world; and mark the difference, or rather the contrast. While among the latter it is very difficult to discover even one just man, in a long line of incumbents;[590] in the former, it is almost as difficult to find one who is wicked. Among the latter, personal morality, self-restraint, and purity are the exception; among the former, they are the rule. Among the latter, a ruler now and then appears clad with the virtues which mark the saint, as if to show that sanctity is compatible with every condition in life; among the former so many blameless and saintly men appear, that we cease to wonder, and yield to no surprise on discovering a new Pope who is true to the traditions[591] of his order. When we find a solitary flower in the bleak and dreary desert, we are startled into unbounded admiration; when we behold whole clusters of them in a flower-garden, we look with calm pleasure on the beautiful spectacle, but take it as a matter of course, and are not at all astonished.

[585] IN-DE-FATˊ-I-GA-BLE, unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.

[586] PROPˊ-A-GAˊ-TION, diffusion; increase.

[587] A-BOUNDˊ-ED, been prevalent or plentiful.

[588] TURˊ-BU-LENT, riotous; disorderly.

[589] CON-TEMˊ-PO-RA-NEOUS, living or existing at the same time.

[590] IN-CUMˊ-BENT, one who holds an office.

[591] TRA-ˊDI-TION, the history or account handed down from one to another.

LXXXVIII.—LABOR AND GENIUS

SYDNEY SMITH.

Sydney Smith was born in 1791, and died in 1845. His miscellaneous writings, comprising essays, reviews, and occasional pieces, are characterized by a happy combination of strong sense and brilliant wit.

1. The prevailing idea with young people has been, the incompatibility[592] of labor and genius; and, therefore, from the fear of being thought dull, they have thought it necessary to remain ignorant. I have seen, at school and at college, a great many young men completely destroyed by having been so unfortunate as to produce an excellent copy of verses. Their genius being now established, all that remained for them to do, was to act up to the dignity of the character; and as this dignity consisted in reading nothing new, in forgetting what they had already read, and in pretending to be acquainted with all subjects by a sort of off-hand exertion of talents, they soon collapsed[593] into the most frivolous and insignificant of men.

2. It would be an extremely profitable thing to draw up a short and well-authenticated account of the habits of study of the most celebrated writers with whose style of literary industry we happen to be most acquainted. It would go very far to destroy the absurd and pernicious[594] association of genius and idleness, by showing that the greatest poets, orators, statesmen, and historians—men of the most brilliant and imposing talents—have actually labored as hard as the makers of dictionaries and the arrangers of indexes; and that the most obvious reason why they have been superior to other men is, that they have taken more pains than other men.

3. Gibbon was in his study every morning, winter and summer, at six o’clock: Burke was the most laborious and indefatigable[595] of human beings: Leibnitz[596] was never out of his library: Pascal killed himself by study: Cicero narrowly escaped death from the same cause: Milton was at his books with as much regularity as a merchant or an attorney; he had mastered all the knowledge of his time: so had Homer. Raphael lived but thirty-seven years; and in that short space carried the art of painting so far beyond what it had before reached, that he appears to stand alone as a model to his successors.

4. There are instances to the contrary; but, generally speaking, the life of all truly great men has been a life of intense and incessant[597] labor. They have commonly passed the first half of life in the gross darkness of indigent humility—overlooked, mistaken, contemned by weaker men,—thinking while others slept, reading while others rioted, feeling something within them that told them they should not always be kept down among the dregs of the world; and then, when their time has come, and some little accident has given them their first occasion, they have burst out into the light and glory of public life, rich with the spoils of time, and mighty in all the labors and struggles of the mind.

5. Then do the multitude cry out, “A miracle of genius!” Yes, he is a miracle of genius, because he is a miracle of labor; because, instead of trusting to the resources of his own single mind, he has ransacked a thousand minds; because he makes use of the accumulation of ages, and takes, as his point of departure, the very last line and boundary to which science has advanced; because it has ever been the object of his life to assist every intellectual gift of nature, however munificent,[598] and however splendid, with every resource that art could suggest, and every attention diligence could bestow.

6. But, while I am descanting[599] upon the conduct of the understanding, and the best mode of acquiring knowledge, some men may be disposed to ask, “Why conduct my understanding with such endless care? and what is the use of so much knowledge?” What is the use of so much knowledge? What is the use of so much life? What are we to do with the seventy years of existence allotted to us? and how are we to live them out to the last?

7. I solemnly declare that, but for the love of knowledge, I should consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher as preferable to that of the greatest and richest man in existence; for the fire of our minds is like the fire which the Persians burn on the mountains: it flames night and day, and is immortal, and not to be quenched! Upon something it must act and feed—upon the pure spirit of knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of polluting passions.

8. Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love coeval[600] with life, what do I say but love innocence, love virtue, love purity of conduct, love that which, if you are rich and great, will vindicate the blind fortune which has made you so, and make men call it justice; love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes; love that which will comfort you, adorn you and never quit you,—which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conceptions, as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain that may be your lot in the outer world,—that which will make your motives habitually great and honorable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of meanness and of fraud.

9. Therefore, if any young man have embarked his life in pursuit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event; let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train; but let him ever follow her as the Angel that guards him, and as the Genius of his life. She will bring him out at last into the light of day, and exhibit him to the world comprehensive in acquirements, fertile in resources, rich in imagination, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful above his fellows in all the relations and in all the offices of his life.

[592] IN-COM-PAT-I-BILˊ-I-TY, state or quality of a thing which prevents it from harmonizing with something else; inconsistency; disagreement.

[593] COL-LAPSˊ-ED, fell together, as the sides of a hollow vessel; shrunk up; dwindled.

[594] PER-NIˊ-CIOUS, mischievous, hurtful, or evil, in a high degree.

[595] IN-DE-FATˊ-I-GA-BLE, incapable of being exhausted or wearied; persevering.

[596] Pronounced Libˊnitz.

[597] IN-CESˊ-SANT, unceasing; continual.

[598] MU-NIFˊ-I-CENT, bountiful; liberal; generous.

[599] DES-CANTˊ-ING, discoursing; making remarks; commenting.

[600] CO-Eˊ-VAL, of the same age; contemporary.

LXXXIX.—THE DYING GIRL.

WILLIAMS.

1. From a Munster vale they brought her,

From the pure and balmy air,

An Ormond peasants daughter,

With blue eyes and golden hair.

They brought her to the city,

And she faded slowly there;

Consumption has no pity

For blue eyes and golden hair.

2. When I saw her first reclining,

Her lips were moved in prayer,

And the setting sun was shining

On her loosened golden hair.

When our kindly glances met her,

Deadly brilliant was her eye;

And she said that she was better

While we knew that she must die.

3. She speaks of Munster valleys,

The patron,[601] dance, and fair.

And her thin hand feebly dallies

With her scattered golden hair.

When silently we listened

To her breath, with quiet care,

Her eyes with wonder glistened,

And she asked us what was there.

4. The poor thing smiled to ask it,

And her pretty mouth laid bare,

Like gems within a casket

A string of pearlets rare.

We said that we were trying

By the gushing of her blood,

And the time she took in sighing,

To know if she were good.

5. Well, she smiled and chatted gayly,

Though we saw, in mute despair,

The hectic brighter daily,

And the death-dew on her hair.

And oft her wasted fingers,

Beating time upon the bed,

O’er some old tune she lingers,

And she bows her golden head.

6. At length the harp is broken,

And the spirit in its strings,

As the last decree is spoken,

To its source, exulting, springs.

Descending swiftly from the skies,

Her guardian angel came,

He struck God’s lightning from her eyes,

And bore Him back the flame.

7. Before the sun had risen

Through the lark-loved morning air,

Her young soul left its prison,

Undefiled by sin or care.

I stood beside the couch in tears,

Where, pale and calm, she slept,

And though I’ve gazed on death for years,

I blush not that I wept.

I checked with effort pity’s sighs,

And left the matron there,

To close the curtain of her eyes,

And bind her golden hair.

[601] PA-TRONˊ, (pronounced pattern,) assemblage of persons on the anniversary of the local patron saint of a parish or town in Ireland.

XC.—THE ANGELUS BELL.

CAMPION.

1. The large moon of autumn,

The guardian of night,

Had closed her pale lamp

In the firmaments height;

From the Black Abbey’s towers

The wild doves careered,

As the bright dawn of morn

Awaking appeared;

And the old marble city,

From campanile gray,

Proclaimed to the burghers

All Noreward—“’twas day!”

Then the long, mellow knell

Of the Angelus Bell,

Seemed psalming and singing

O’er blessed crypt and cell,

Where the Black Monks were wont

In the old times to dwell.

2. ’Twas noon, at the market-cross,

In the quaint town,

And the burgher so comely,

The tall peasant brown,

And the gaunt man-at-arms,

And mild maiden meek,

With the peach-blush of beauty

And peace on her cheek,

Were crowding together

In hundreds around,

While the tall cross stood stately

’Mid tumult and sound.

Then the long, mellow knell

Of the Angelus Bell

Upon the dense crowd

In the market-place fell;

And the burgher knelt down,

And the peasant as well,

And the gaunt soldier rude,

At the peal of the bell,

While the pure maiden voice

Joined the long, mellow knell.

3. ’Twas night o’er the abbey,

The moon rose again

O’er the grand domes of pleasure

And poor haunts of pain;

And the wild dove was nestled

Again in the cleft

Of the old belfry tower

That early he left;

And the pale monks were sitting

Alone and alone,

With lamps still unlighted,

And penitent moan;

When the Angelus Bell,

With its long, mellow knell,

Broke up their lone reveries

Like a blest spell;

And down on the cold earth

The holy men fell,

The grand prayer to chant

And their long beads to tell;

While sang with its psalm-voice

The Angelus Bell.

XCI.—A CURTAIN LECTURE OF MRS. CAUDLE.

JERROLD.

Douglas William Jerrold was born in London in 1803, and died in 1857. He was first a midshipman in the navy, then a printer, and lastly, a man of letters by profession. His “Caudle Lectures” were published in the London Punch, and extensively read in England and America.

1. Bah! that’s the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I’m very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn’t look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he’d have better taken cold than taken our umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear the rain? And, as I’m alive, if it isn’t St. Swithin’s day![602] Do you hear it against the window?

2. Nonsense: you don’t impose upon me; you can’t be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? O, you do hear it! Well, that’s a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don’t think me a fool, Mr. Caudle; don’t insult me! he return the umbrella! Any body would think you were born yesterday. As if any body ever did return an umbrella!

3. There: do you hear it? Worse and worse. Cats and dogs, and for six weeks: always six weeks; and no umbrella! I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow. They shan’t go through such weather, I am determined. No; they shall stop at home, and never learn any thing, the blessed creatures! sooner than go and get wet! And when they grow up, I wonder who they’ll have to thank for knowing nothing; who, indeed, but their father! People who can’t feel for their own children ought never to be fathers.

4. But I know why you lent the umbrella: O, yes, I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother’s to-morrow: you knew that, and you did it on purpose. Don’t tell me; you hate to have me go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don’t you think it, Mr. Caudle; no, sir: if it comes down in buckets’ full, I’ll go all the more.

5. No; and I won’t have a cab![603] Where do you think the money’s to come from? A cab indeed!—Cost me sixteen-pence, at least: sixteen-pence! two-and-eight-pence; for there’s back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who’s to pay for ’em; for I’m sure you can’t, if you go on as you do, throwing away your property, and beggaring your children, buying umbrellas.

6. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I don’t care; I’ll go to mother’s to-morrow—I will; and what’s more, I’ll walk every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death. Don’t call me a foolish woman; it’s you that’s the foolish man. You know I can’t wear clogs[604]; and with no umbrella, the wet’s sure to give me a cold—it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for all you care, as I dare say I shall; and a pretty doctor’s bill there’ll be. I hope there will. It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn’t wonder if I caught my death. Yes, and that’s what you lent the umbrella for. Of course.

7. Nice clothes I get, too, traipsing[605] through weather like this! My gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. I needn’t wear ’em then. Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear ’em. No, sir; I am not going out a dowdy to please you or any body else. Gracious knows! it isn’t often that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once: better, I should say; but when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady. O, that rain! if it isn’t enough to break in the windows.

8. Ugh! I look forward with dread to to-morrow! How I am to go to mother’s, I am sure I can’t tell, but if I die, I’ll do it.—No, sir, I won’t borrow an umbrella: no; and you shan’t buy one. (With great emphasis.) Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I’ll throw it into the street.

9. Ha! and it was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I’m sure if I’d have known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one. Paying for new nozzles for other people to laugh at you! O, it’s all very well for you; you can go to sleep. You’ve no thought of your poor patient wife, and your own dear children: you think of nothing but lending umbrellas!

10. Men, indeed! Call themselves lords of creation! pretty lords, when they can’t even take care of an umbrella!

11. I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me, but that’s what you want: then you may go to your club, and do as you like; and then nicely my poor dear children will be used; but then, sir, then you’ll be happy. O, don’t tell me! I know you will! else you’d never have lent the umbrella!

12. The children, dear things! they’ll be sopping wet; for they shan’t stay at home; they shan’t lose their learning; it’s ill their father will leave them, I’m sure.—But they shall go to school. Don’t tell me they needn’t: you are so aggravating[606], Caudle, you’d spoil the temper of an angel; they shall go to school! mark that: and if they get their deaths of cold, it’s not my fault; I didn’t lend the umbrella.

13. “Here,” says Caudle, in his manuscript, “I fell asleep, and dreamed that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs: that, in fact, the whole world revolved under a tremendous umbrella!”

[602] There is an old superstition in England that if it rains on St. Swithin’s day (15th July), not one of the next forty days will be wholly without rain.

[603] CAB, a kind of carriage, with two or four wheels, drawn by one horse.

[604] CLOGS, a kind of overshoes worn to keep the feet dry.

[605] TRAIPSˊ-ING, a colloquial or low word, meaning, running about idly or carelessly.

[606] AGˊ-GRA-VAT-ING, making worse; also colloquially, provoking; irritating.

XCII.—THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

HOOD.

Thomas Hood was born in London in 1798, and died in 1845. His life was one of severe toil and much suffering, always sustained, however, with manly resolution and a cheerful spirit. He wrote much, both in prose and verse. He was a man of peculiar and original genius, which manifested itself with equal power and ease in humor and pathos.

The following remarkable piece of poetry appeared in the London Punch only a short time before the death of the lamented author. It was written at a time when the attention of benevolent persons in London had been awakened to the inadequate wages paid to poor needlewomen, and their consequent distress; and from the seasonableness of its appearance, as well as its high literary merit, it produced a great effect. It is valuable, as an expression of that deep and impassioned sympathy with suffering, which was a leading trait in Hood’s nature, and forms an attractive element in his writings.

1. With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread—

Stitch—stitch—stitch!

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still, with a voice of dolorous[607] pitch,

She sang the “Song of the Shirt!”

2. Work—work—work!

While the cock is crowing aloof![608]

And work—work—work!

Till the stars shine through the roof!

It’s O, to be a slave

Along with the barbarous Turk,

Where woman has never a soul to save,

If THIS is Christian work.

3. “Work—work—work!

Till the brain begins to swim;

Work—work—work!

Till the eyes are heavy and dim!

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Till over the buttons I fall asleep,

And sew them on in my dream.

4. “O men with sisters dear!

O men with mothers and wives!

It is not linen you’re wearing out,

But human creatures’ lives!

Stitch—stitch—stitch!

In poverty, hunger and dirt,

Sewing at once, with a double thread,

A SHROUD as well as a shirt!

5. “But why do I talk of death,

That phantom of grisly bone?

I hardly fear his terrible shape,

It seems so like my own—

It seems so like my own,

Because of the fast I keep:

O God! that bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!

6. “Work—work—work!

My labor never flags;

And what are its wages? A bed of straw,

A crust of bread—and rags:

A shattered roof—and this naked floor—

A table—a broken chair—

And a wall so blank my shadow I thank

For sometimes falling there!

7. “Work—work—work!

From weary chime to chime;

Work—work—work!

As prisoners work for crime!

Band, and gusset, and seam,

Seam, and gusset, and band,

Till the heart is sick and the brain benumbed,[609]

As well as the weary hand!

8. “Work—work—work!

In the dull December light;

And work—work—work!

When the weather is warm and bright;

While underneath the eaves

The brooding swallows cling,

As if to show me their sunny backs,

And twit me with the spring.

9. “O, but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet,

With the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet!

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel,

Before I knew the woes of want,

And the walk that costs a meal!

10. “O, but for one short hour!

A respite,[610] however brief!

No blessed leisure for love or hope,

But only time for grief!

A little weeping would ease my heart—

But in their briny bed

My tears must stop, for every drop

Hinders needle and thread!”

11. With fingers weary and worn,

With eyelids heavy and red,

A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,

Plying her needle and thread—

Stitch—stitch—stitch—

In poverty, hunger, and dirt,

And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch,—

Would that its tone could reach the rich!—

She sang this “Song of the Shirt!”

[607] DOLˊ-O-ROUS, sorrowful; painful.

[608] A-LOOFˊ, at a distance; apart.

[609] BE-NUMBEDˊ, made torpid.

[610] RESˊ-PITE, delay; pause; interval.

XCIII.—BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.

MRS. HEMANS.

The celebrated Spanish champion, Bernardo del Carpio, having made many ineffectual efforts to procure the release of his father, the Count Saldana, who had been imprisoned by King Alfonso of Asturias, at last took up arms in despair. The war which he maintained proved so destructive that the men of the land gathered round the king, and united in demanding Saldana’s liberty. Alfonso, accordingly, offered Bernardo immediate possession of his father’s person in exchange for his castle of Carpio. Bernardo, without hesitation, gave up his stronghold, with all his captives, and being assured that his father was then on his way from prison, rode forth with the king to meet him. “And when he saw his father approaching, he exclaimed,” says the ancient chronicle, “O God! is the Count of Saldana indeed coming?” “Look where he is,” replied the cruel king; “and now go and greet him whom you have so long desired to see.” The remainder of the story will be found related in the ballad. The chronicles and romances leave us nearly in the dark as to Bernardo’s history after this event.

1. The warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire.

And sued the haughty king to free his long imprisoned sire:

“I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train;

I pledge my faith, my liege:[611] my lord, O, break my father’s chain!”

2. “Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransomed[612] man this day;

Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way.”

Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed,

And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger’s[613] foamy speed.

3. And, lo! from far, as on they pressed, there came a glittering band,

With one that ’midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land.

“Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he,

The father, whom thy faithful heart hath yearned[614] so long to see.”

4. His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his cheeks’ hue came and went;

He reached that gray-haired chieftain’s side, and, there dismounting, bent;

A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father’s hand he took—

What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?

5. That hand was cold! a frozen thing!—it dropped from his like lead:

He looked up to the face above—the face was of the dead!

A plume waved o’er the noble brow—the brow was fixed and white!

He met, at length, his father’s eyes—but in them was no sight!

6. Up from the ground he sprang, and gazed; but who could paint that gaze!

They hushed their very hearts, that saw its horror and amaze:

They might have chained him, as before that stony form he stood;

For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood.

7. “Father!” at length he murmured low, and wept like childhood then—

Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men!—

He thought on all his glorious hopes, on all his young renown:

Then flung his falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down;

8. And covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow,

“No more, there is no more,” he said, “to lift the sword for now:

My king is false! my hope betrayed! my father—O, the worth,

The glory, and the loveliness are passed away from earth!”

9. Then from the ground he sprang once more, and seized the monarchs rein,

Amidst the pale and wildered looks of all the courtier train;

And with a fierce, o’ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led,

And sternly set them face to face—the king before the dead!

10. “Came I not forth, upon thy pledge, my father’s hand to kiss?

Be still, and gaze thou on, false king! and tell me, what is this?

The voice, the glance, the heart I sought—give answer, where are they?

If thou wouldst clear thy perjured[615] soul, send life through this cold clay!

11. “Into these glassy eyes put light—be still! keep down thine ire;

Bid these white lips a blessing speak—this earth is not my sire!

Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was shed—

Thou canst not?—and a king!—his dust be mountains on thy head!”

12. He loosed the steed—his slack hand fell;—upon the silent face

He cast one long, deep, troubled look, then turned from that sad place;

His hope was crushed, his after-fate untold in martial strain;

His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain!

[611] LIEGE, sovereign.

[612] RANˊ-SOMED, redeemed from captivity or imprisonment by the payment of a ransom or price.

[613] CHARGˊ-ER, a war horse.

[614] YEARNED, desired earnestly; longed.

[615] PERˊ-JURED, guilty of taking a false oath.

XCIV.—GOD GAVE TO HIS CHURCH CHARITY.

LACORDAIRE.

Father Lacordaire was born in France in 1802, and died in 1861. Of all the great modern French preachers, he was the ablest and most brilliant. His “Conferences” at Notre Dame, Paris, attracted immense crowds of the most distinguished people of the city. They have been translated into English, and published in New York in three octave volumes.

1. Society is impossible if it be not founded upon respect for authority by the people, and for the people by authority. Well, then, the Catholic Church carries the respect of the people for authority to its highest degree; she changes the master into a father, so that if the father errs, the children, like those of the patriarch, cover his faults with the mantle of their respect. At the same time she instills into the hearts of sovereigns that respect so delicate, so precious, in the eyes of their people. In their palaces, and in the midst of their pomp, she causes them to practice that saying of the Gospel, “He who would be greatest among you let him be your servant.”

2. The persuasive force which resulted from these rational advantages was immense. Whether men examined opinions, history, morality, or society, the Church was without parallel.

3. They were able to deprive her of everything, her patrimony, the help of the civil authority, the liberty common to all; they could cast her ministers into prisons, torture them on scaffolds; but men do not imprison reason, they do not burn accomplished facts, they do not dishonor virtue, they do not assassinate logic.

4. We are strong then, gentlemen, first by the spirit of God which speaks in us, but also in the human mind which, when it comes coolly to examine our history, our dogmas, our morality, is obliged to agree that nothing is more firmly established.

5. Nevertheless, this was not enough. History only addresses itself to those who have studied it; ideas enlighten only those who can compare them, civilization is only appreciable to civilized men.

6. The Church needed a yet more human, that is to say, a more general source of persuasion. God gave to his Church charity. There was no heart into which the Church could not penetrate by charity; for misfortune is the monarch of this lower world, and sooner or later every heart is touched by his scepter. Men may resist grace and reason, but who shall resist charity? Why hate those who do good? why kill those who give their life? Henceforth the Church might advance with confidence to subdue the universe, for there are tears everywhere in the world, and they are so natural to us that, even if there were no cause for them, they would flow without cause, the simple charm of that indefinable sadness of which our soul is the deep and mysterious well.

7. Metaphysics[616] and history are the pillars of truth; but these pillars are hidden in the foundations of the temple, they are only sought for by the light of flambeaux[617] and by distinguished men.

8. A humble priest, a curé of a country village, never enters with the sciences into the cottage of the poor. He goes there with charity. He finds there a heart suffering, and consequently open: and the poor man seeing the priest coming to him full of respect for his misery, and of feeling for his trouble, easily recognizes truth in the garb of love.

[616] MET-A-PHYSˊ-ICS, a science which embraces all those inquiries which relate to other than physical objects.

[617] FLAMˊ-BEAUX, (flam-bo), lighted torches.

XCV.—UNION AND LIBERTY.

O. W. HOLMES.

1. Flag of the heroes who left us their glory,

Borne through our battle-field’s thunder and flame,

Blazoned in song and illumined in story,

Wave o’er us all who inherit their fame!

Up with our banner bright,

Sprinkled with starry light,

Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore;

While through the sounding sky,

Loud rings the nation’s cry,—

Union and Liberty!—one evermore!

2. Light of our firmament, guide of our nation,

Pride of her children, and honored afar,

Let the wide beams of thy full constellation

Scatter each cloud that would darken a star!

3. Empire unsceptered! what foe shall assail thee,

Bearing the standard of Liberty’s van?

Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee,

Striving with men for the birthright of man!

4. Yet, if by madness and treachery blighted,

Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw,

Then, with the arms of thy millions united,

Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law!

5. Lord of the universe! shield us and guide us,

Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun!

Thou hast united us, who shall divide us?

Keep us, oh keep us, the Many in One!

Up with our banner bright,

Sprinkled with starry light,

Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore;

While through the sounding sky,

Loud rings the nation’s cry,—

Union and Liberty!—one evermore!

XCVI.—GEORGE WASHINGTON.

DWIGHT.

1. To Americans the name of Washington will be ever dear; a savor of sweet incense, descending to every succeeding generation. The things which he has done are too great, too interesting, ever to be forgotten. Every object which we see, every employment in which we are engaged, every comfort which we enjoy, reminds us daily of his character. The general peace, liberty, religion, safety, and prosperity, strongly impress, in every place, what he has done, suffered, and achieved.

2. When a legislature assembles to enact laws; when courts meet to distribute justice; when congregations gather to worship God; they naturally and almost necessarily say, “To Washington it is owing, under God, that we are here.” The farmer pursuing his plow in peace, the mechanic following the business of his shop in safety, ascribes the privilege to Washington. The house which, uninvaded, shelters from the storm, the cheerful fireside surrounded by our little ones, the table spread in quiet with the bounties of Providence, the bed on which we repose in undisturbed security, utters, in silent but expressive language, the memory, and the praise, of Washington.

3. Every ship bears the fruits of his labors on its wings, and exultingly spreads its streamers to his honor. The student meets him in the still and peaceful walk; the traveler sees him in all the prosperous and smiling scenes of his journey; and our whole country, in her thrift, order, safety and morals, bears, inscribed in sunbeams, throughout her hills and her plains, the name and the glory of Washington.

4. From a subject so singular, and so edifying, it is not easy to fail of gaining useful practical instruction. Particularly, the inestimable benefits which we have derived from the efforts of this great man, cannot but prompt every ingenuous mind to remember, with unceasing gratitude, the goodness of God, in bestowing upon us such a blessing; God, who formed and furnished him for labors so useful, and for a life so glorious.

5. By him are our rulers, at the present and at every future period, taught how to rule. The same conduct will ever produce substantially the same effects, the same public well-being, the same glory, the same veneration. To be wise and good; to forget or restrain the dictates of passion, and obey those of duty; to seek singly the public welfare, and lose in it personal gratification; to resist calmly and firmly the passions, and pursue only the interests, of a nation, is the greatest secret of ruling well.

6. When these things are exhibited in the strong light of example, and crowned with success and honor, they are taught in a manner beyond measure more impressive than can be found in rules and arguments. Here they are already tried, and proved. Here they are seen surrounded by all their delightful attendants, and followed by all their happy consequences. The conviction produced is complete, the impression supreme. From this great example all rulers may learn wisdom, and our rulers more than others.

7. The youths, also, of our country, who wish to become great, useful and honorable, will here find the best directions, and the most powerful incitements. To be great, useful, and honorable, they must resemble him. The very actions which he performed, they may indeed not be called to perform; the sufferings which he underwent, they may not be obliged to undergo; but the attributes which he possessed and displayed, must, in a good degree, be possessed and displayed by them also.

8. Let them particularly remember, that greatness is not the result of mere chance or genius; that it is not the fact of brilliancy, nor the desperate sally of ambition; that it is, on the contrary, the combined result of strong mental endowments, vigorous cultivation, honorable design, and wise direction. It is not the glare of the meteor; glittering, dazzling, consuming, and vanishing; but the steady and exalted splendor of the sun; a splendor which, while it shines with prëeminent brightness, warms also, enlivens, adorns, improves, and perfects the objects on which it shines: glorious indeed by its lustre, but still more glorious in the useful effects produced by its power.

9. Of this great truth the transcendent example before us is a most dignified exhibition. Let them imitate, therefore, the incessant attention, the exact observation, the unwearied industry, the scrupulous regard to advice, the slowness of decision, the cautious prudence, the nice punctuality, the strict propriety, the independence of thought and feeling, the unwavering firmness, the unbiassed impartiality, the steady moderation, the exact justice, the unveering[618] truth, the universal humanity, and the high veneration for religion and for God, always manifested by this great man. Thus will future Washingtons arise to bless our happy country.

[618] UN-VEERˊ-ING, unchanging, fixed.

XCVII.—CONDUCT OF LA FAYETTE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

J. Q. ADAMS.

1. The war of American Independence is closed. The people of the North American confederation are in union, sovereign and independent. La Fayette, at twenty-five years of age, had lived the life of a patriarch, and illustrated the career of a hero. Had his days upon earth been then numbered, and had he then slept with his fathers, illustrious as for centuries their names had been, his name, to the end of time, would have transcended them all.

2. Fortunate youth! fortunate beyond even the measure of his companions in arms with whom he had achieved the glorious consummation of American Independence. His fame was all his own; not cheaply earned; not ignobly won. His fellow-soldiers had been the champions and defenders of their country. They reaped for themselves, for their wives, their children, their posterity to the latest time, the rewards of their dangers and their toils. La Fayette had watched, and labored, and fought, and bled, not for himself, not for his family, not, in the first instance, even for his country.

3. In the legendary tales of chivalry we read of tournaments at which a foreign and unknown knight suddenly presents himself, armed in complete steel, and, with the visor down, enters the ring to contend with the assembled flowers of knighthood for the prize of honor, to be awarded by the hand of beauty; bears it in triumph away, and disappears from the astonished multitude of competitors and spectators of the feats of arms.

4. But where in the rolls of history, where in the fictions of romance, where, but in the life of La Fayette, has been seen the noble stranger, flying, with the tribute of his name, his rank, his affluence, his ease, his domestic bliss, his treasure, his blood, to the relief of a suffering and distant land, in the hour of her deepest calamity—baring his bosom to her foes; and not at the transient[619] pageantry[620] of a tournament,[621] but for a succession of five years sharing all the vicissitudes[622] of her fortunes; always eager to appear at the post of danger—tempering the glow of youthful ardor with the cold caution of a veteran commander; bold and daring in action; prompt in execution; rapid in pursuit; fertile in expedients; unattainable in retreat; often exposed, but never surprised, never disconcerted; eluding his enemy, when within his fancied grasp; bearing upon him with irresistible sway when of force to cope with him in the conflict of arms? And what is this but the diary of La Fayette, from the day of his rallying the scattered fugitives of the Brandywine, insensible of the blood flowing from his wound, to the storming of the redoubt[623] at Yorktown.

[619] TRANˊ-SIENT, passing, not permanent.

[620] PAGˊ-EANT-RY, pomp, show.

[621] TOURˊ-NA-MENT, a mock fight.

[622] VI-CISˊ-SI-TUDE, alteration, change.

[623] RE-DOUBTˊ, an outwork within another outwork in a fortified place.

XCVIII.—PAUL REVERE’S RIDE.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

1. Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five:

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

2. He said to his friend: “If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North-Church tower, as a signal-light,—

One, if by land, and two, if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country-folk to be up and to arm?”

3. Then he said good-night, and with muffled oar

Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,

Just as the moon rose over the bay,

Where, swinging wide at her moorings, lay

The Somerset, British man-of-war:

A phantom ship, with each mast and spar

Across the moon like a prison bar,

And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified

By its own reflection in the tide.

4. Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,

Wanders and watches with eager ears,

Till, in the silence around him, he hears

The muster of men at the barrack door,

The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,

And the measured tread of the grenadiers

Marching down to their boats on the shore.

5. Then he climbed to the tower of the church,

Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,

To the belfry chamber overhead,

And startled the pigeons from their perch

On the somber rafters, that round him made

Masses and moving shapes of shade,—

Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall,

To the highest window in the wall,

Where he paused to listen, and look down

A moment on the roofs of the town,

And the moonlight flowing over all.

6. Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead

In their night encampment on the hill,

Wrapped in silence so deep and still

That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,

The watchful night-wind, as it went

Creeping along from tent to tent,

And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”

A moment only he feels the spell

Of the place and the hour, the secret dread

Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

For suddenly all his thoughts are bent

On a shadowy substance far away,

Where the river widens to meet the bay,—

A line of black, that bends and floats

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

7. Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,

Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride

On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.

Now he patted his horse’s side,

Now gazed on the landscape far and near,

Then impetuous stamped the earth,

And turned and tightened the saddle-girth;

But mostly he watched with eager search

The belfry tower of the old North Church,

As it rose above the graves on the hill,

Lonely and spectral and somber and still.

8. And lo! as he looks on the belfry’s height,

A glimmer, and then a gleam, of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight

A second lamp in the belfry burns!

9. A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,

Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

10. It was twelve by the village clock,

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.

He heard the crowing of the cock,

And the barking of the farmers dog,

And felt the damp of the river fog,

That rises after the sun goes down.

11. It was one by the village clock,

When he galloped into Lexington.

He saw the gilded weathercock

Swim in the moonlight as he passed,

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,

Gaze at him with a spectral glare,

As if they already stood aghast

At the bloody work they would look upon.

12. It was two by the village clock,

When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

He heard the bleating of the flock,

And the twitter of birds among the trees,

And felt the breath of the morning breeze

Blowing over the meadows brown.

And one was safe and asleep in his bed

Who at the bridge would be first to fall,

Who that day would be lying dead,

Pierced by a British musket-ball.

13. You know the rest. In the books you have read

How the British regulars fired and fled,—

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,

Chasing the red-coats down the lane,

Then crossing the fields to emerge again

Under the trees at the turn of the road,

And only pausing to fire and load.

XCIX.—SIR THOMAS MOORE.

HENRY GILES.

Henry Giles, a distinguished author and lecturer, was born in Ireland.

1. A just man is always simple. He is a man of direct aims and purposes; there is no complexity in his motives, and, thence, there is no jarring or discordancy in his character. He wishes to do right, and in most cases he does it; he may err, but in most cases it is by mistake of judgment, and not by perversity of intention. The moment his judgment is enlighted, his action is corrected. Setting before himself always a clear and worthy end, he will never pursue it by any concealed or unworthy means.

2. We may carry our remarks, for illustration, both into private and into public life. Observe such a man in his home, there is a charm about him, which no artificial grace has ever had the power to bestow; there is a sweetness, I had almost said, a music, in his manners, which no sentimental refinement has ever given. His speech, ever fresh from purity and rectitude of thought, controls all that are within its hearing, with an unfelt, yet a resistless sway. Faithful to every domestic trust, as to his religion and his God, he would no more prove recreant to any loyalty of home, than he would blaspheme the Maker in whom he believes, or than he would forswear the heaven in which he hopes.

3. Fidelity and truth to those bound by love and nature to his heart, are to him most sacred principles; they throb in the last recesses of his moral being, they are embedded in the life of his life; and to violate them, or even think of violating them, would seem to him as a spiritual extermination, the suicide of his soul. Nor is such a man unrewarded, for the goodness he so largely gives is largely paid back to him again; and though the current of his life is transparent, it is not shallow; on the contrary, it is deep and strong. The river that fills its channel glides smoothly along in the power of its course; it is the stream which scarcely covers the ruggedness of its bed, that is turbulent and noisy.

4. With all this gentleness, there is exceeding force; with all this meekness, there is imperative command; but the force is the force of wisdom, and the command is the command of love. And, yet, the authority which rules so effectually, never gathers an angry or an irritable cloud over the brow of the ruler; and this sway, which admits of no resistance, does not oppress one honest impulse of nature, one movement of the soul’s high freedom, one bound of joy from the heart’s unbidden gladness, in the spirit of the governed.

5. Take this character into public life. Place him before the people as the candidate for their legislative suffrages; he is there for no selfish ambition, and, willing to be most loyal to his country, he will be no traitor to his conscience. Place him in the legislative assembly to which these willing suffrages send him, he maintains inviolate the trust given to him; with a brave eloquence he maintains the rights of the citizens: with a grave dignity he maintains the privileges of the senator. Place him in the council of the executive magistrate, and no favor can win him, and no danger appall; indifferent to office and fearless of power, he will assert the highest right, and he will stand by it, whatever be the cost.

6. Place him on the bench of justice, no prejudice can approach him, no passion can move him. Nothing can ruffle the august placidity of his soul, except it be the stirrings of a gracious pity. Unmoved he sits, while all around him heaves; he listens not to popular clamor, he cares not for the scowl of power; and, while he is guardian, no corruption shall sully the fountain of justice, and no obstruction shall impede its stream. Place him in the presence of a tyrant; call upon him for his opinion, let life or death hang on the result, he will not speak rashly, but he will not speak falsely.

7. Let the tyrant cajole and fondle, it avails not; let the tyrant rail and threaten, it is still as vain; let wife entreat, let children hang upon his neck, let friends beseech, let multitudes implore, he meets affection with affection; he weeps while others weep; but, fixed as the rock in the ocean, the tempest may crash about his head, and the waves strike against his breast, his foundation based unchangeably on the centre of eternal right, his head majestically erect, gloriously lifted up to heaven, bends not before the shock, and his breast receives the tempest only to shiver it.

8. Place him in the dungeon: shut him in from the fair earth and the open sky; wrench him from the delights of home; let him be loaded with years; let him be enfeebled by sickness; let him be wearied with confinement; let life hang by the finest thread that ever held a spirit from its God,—the unwavering faith of a true man upholds him, and his hope remains undimmed, and his peace remains unbroken.

9. Call him from the dungeon to his doom, he goes rejoicing to the scaffold; he looks cheerfully on the ax; he faces death almost with gayety; he forgives his enemies; he pities his destroyers; he wishes good to all men; he gives a moment to silent prayer; he meekly lays his head upon the block;—then, there is the echo of a blow that sends a soul to heaven. This character is not imaginary; it is real, it is practicable. The original is Sir Thomas Moore, of England.

C.—THE BATTLE FIELD.

BRYANT.

1. Once this soft turf, this rivulet’s sands,

Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,

And fiery hearts and arméd hands

Encountered in the battle-cloud.

2. Ah, never shall the land forget

How gushed the life-blood of her brave,—

Gushed, warm with hope and valor yet,

Upon the soil they fought to save.

3. Now all is calm, and fresh, and still;

Alone the chirp of flitting bird,

And talk of children on the hill,

And bell of wandering kine,[624] are heard.

4. No solemn host goes trailing by

The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;[625]

Men start not at the battle-cry;—

O, be it never heard again!

5. Soon rested those who fought; but thou,

Who minglest in the harder strife

For truths which men receive not now,—

Thy warfare only ends with life.

6. A friendless warfare! lingering long

Through weary day and weary year;

A wild and many-weaponed throng

Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

7. Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,

And blench not at thy chosen lot!

The timid good may stand aloof,

The sage may frown—yet faint thou not!

8. Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,

The hissing, stinging bolt of scorn,

For with thy side shall dwell at last

The victory of endurance born.

9. Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;

The eternal years of God are hers;

But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,

And dies among his worshipers.

10. Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,

When those who helped thee flee in fear,—

Die full of hope and manly trust,

Like those who fell in battle here.

11. Another hand thy sword shall wield,[626]

Another hand the standard wave,

Till from the trumpet’s mouth is pealed[627]

The blast of triumph o’er thy grave!

[624] KINE, cows.

[625] WAIN, a wagon.

[626] WIELD, use with the hand; handle.

[627] PEALˊ-ED, rung; resounded; sounded loudly.

CI.—THE RELIGION OF CATHOLICS.

DR. DOYLE.

Right Reverend James Doyle was born at New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland, in 1786; died in 1834. His letters written over the signature of J. K. on all the great topics of the day in Ireland, are classed among the ablest documents of the kind ever written.

1. It was the creed, my lord, of a Charlemagne and of a St. Louis, of an Alfred and an Edward, of the monarchs of the feudal times, as well as of the Emperors of Greece and Rome; it was believed at Venice and at Genoa, in Lucca and the Helvetic nations in the days of their freedom and greatness; all the barons of the middle ages, all the free cities of later times, professed the religion we now profess. You know well my lord, that the charter of British freedom, and the common law of England, have their origin and source in Catholic times.

2. Who framed the free constitutions of the Spanish Goths? Who preserved science and literature, during the long night of the middle ages? Who imported literature from Constantinople, and opened for her an asylum at Rome, Florence, Padua, Paris and Oxford? Who polished Europe by art, and refined her by legislation? Who discovered the New World and opened a passage to another? Who were the masters of architecture, of painting, and of music? Who invented the compass, and the art of printing? Who were the poets, the historians, the jurists, the men of deep research, and profound literature?

3. Who have exalted human nature, and made man appear again little less than the angels? Were they not almost exclusively the professors of our creed? Were they who created and possessed freedom under every shape and form, unfit for her enjoyment? Were men, deemed even now the lights of the world and the benefactors of the human race, the deluded victims of a slavish superstition? But what is there in our creed which renders us unfit for freedom?

4. Is it the doctrine of passive obedience? No, for the obedience we yield to authority, is not blind, but reasonable? our religion does not create despotism; it supports every established constitution which is not opposed to the laws of nature, unless it be altered by those who are entitled to change it. In Poland it supported an elective monarch; in France an hereditary sovereign; in Spain, an absolute or constitutional king indifferently; in England when the houses of York and Lancaster contended, it declared that he who was king de facto was entitled to the obedience of the people.

5. During the reign of the Tudors, there was a faithful adherence of the Catholics to their prince, under trials the most severe and galling, because the constitution required it; the same was exhibited by them to the ungrateful race of Stuart; but since the expulsion of James (foolishly called an abdication), have they not adopted with the nation at large, the doctrine of the Revolution: “that the crown is held in trust for the benefit of the people; and that should the monarch violate his compact, the subject is freed from the bond of his allegiance?” Has there been any form of government ever devised by man to which the religion of Catholics has not been accommodated?

6. Is there any obligation, either to a prince, or to a constitution, which it does not enforce? What, my lord, is the allegiance of man divided who gives to Cæsar what belongs to Cæsar, and to God what belongs to God? Is the allegiance of the priest divided who yields submission to his bishop and his king?—of the son who obeys his parent and his prince? And yet these duties are more distinct than those which we owe our sovereign and spiritual head. Is there any man in society who has not distinct duties to discharge?

7. May not the same person be the head of a corporation, and an officer of the king? a justice of the peace, perhaps, and a bankrupt surgeon, with half his pay? And are the duties thus imposed upon him, incompatible one with another? If the Pope can define that the Jewish sabbath is dissolved, and that the Lord’s day is to be sanctified, may not this be believed without prejudice to the act of settlement, or that for the limitation of the crown? If the Church decree that on Fridays her children should abstain from flesh-meat, are they thereby controlled from obeying the king when he summons them to war?

CII.—A BIRTH-DAY OFFERING.

DR. NEWMAN.

Dr. John Henry Newman, a distinguished Catholic Ecclesiastic, was formerly a minister of the Established Church in England, and leader of what has been called the Puseyite movement. He is a man of very remarkable ability.

1. Dear Frank, this morn has ushered in

The manhood of thy days;

A boy no more, thou must begin

To choose thy future ways;

To brace thy arm, and nerve thy heart,

For maintenance of a noble part.

2. And thou a voucher[628] fair hast given,

Of what thou wilt achieve,

Ere age has dimmed thy sunlit heaven

In weary life’s chill eve;

Should Sovereign Wisdom in its grace

Vouchsafe to thee so long a race.

3. My brother, we are linked with chain

That time shall ne’er destroy;

Together we have been in pain,

Together now in joy;

For duly I to share may claim

The present brightness of thy name.

4. My brother, ’tis no recent tie

Which binds our fates in one,

E’en from our tender infancy

The twisted thread was spun;—

Her deed, who stored in her fond mind

Our forms, by sacred love enshrined.[629]

5. In her affection all had share,

All six, she loved them all;

Yet on her early-chosen Pair

Did her full favor fall;

And we became her dearest theme,

Her waking thought, her nightly dream.

6. Ah! brother, shall we e’er forget

Her love, her care, her zeal?

We cannot pay the countless debt,

But we must ever feel;

For through her earnestness were shed

Prayer-purchased blessings on our head.

7. Though in the end of days she stood,

And pain and weakness came,

Her force of thought was unsubdued,

Her fire of love the same;

And e’en when memory failed its part,

We still kept lodgment in her heart.

8. And when her Maker from the thrall[630]

Of flesh her spirit freed,

No suffering ’companied the call,

—In mercy ’twas decreed,—

One moment here, the next she trod

The viewless mansion of her God.

9. Now then at length she is at rest,

And, after many a woe,

Rejoices in that Saviour blest,

Who was her hope below;

Kept till the day when he shall own

His saints before His Father’s throne.

10. So it is left for us to prove

Her prayers were not in vain;

And that God’s grace-according love

Has fallen as gentle rain,

Which, sent in the due vernal[631] hour,

Tints the young leaf, perfumes the flower.

11. Dear Frank, we both are summoned now

As champions of the Lord;—

Enrolled am I, and shortly thou

Must buckle on thy sword;

A high employ, nor lightly given,

To serve as messengers of heaven!

12. Deep in my heart that gift I hide;

I change it not away,

For patriot-warrior’s hour of pride,

Or statesman’s tranquil[632] sway;

For poet’s fire, or pleader’s skill

To pierce the soul and tame the will.

13. O! may we follow undismayed[633]

Where’er our God shall call!

And may His Spirit’s present aid

Uphold us lest we fall!

Till in the end of days we stand,

As victors in a deathless land.

[628] VOUCHˊ-ER, a warrant; a testimony.

[629] EN-SHRINˊ-ED, enclosed.

[630] THRALL, bondage.

[631] VERˊ-NAL, belonging to Spring.

[632] TRANˊ-QUIL, peaceful; undisturbed.

[633] UN-DIS-MAYEDˊ, with courage.

CIII.—SPEECH OF LOGAN, CHIEF OF THE MINGOES.

JEFFERSON.

1. I may challenge the whole of the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, and, indeed, of any more eminent orators, if Europe, or the world, has furnished more eminent, to produce a single passage superior to the speech of Logan, a Mingo chief, delivered to Lord Dunmore, when governor of Virginia. As a testimony of Indian talents in this line, I beg leave to introduce it, by first stating the incidents necessary for understanding it.

2. In the spring of the year 1774, a robbery was committed, by some Indians, upon certain land adventurers[634] on the Ohio river. The whites in that quarter, according to their custom, undertook to punish this outrage in a summary[635] way. Captain Michael Cresap, and one Daniel Greathouse, leading on these parties, surprised, at different times, traveling and hunting parties of the Indians, who had their women and children with them, and murdered many. Among these, were unfortunately the family of Logan, a chief celebrated in peace and war, and long distinguished as the friend of the whites.

3. This unworthy return provoked his vengeance. He accordingly signalized[636] himself in the war which ensued. In the autumn of the same year a decisive battle was fought at the mouth of the Great Kanhawa, between the collected forces of the Shawnees, the Mingoes, and the Delawares, and a detachment[637] of the Virginia militia. The Indians were defeated, and sued for peace. Logan, however, disdained to be seen among the suppliants: but, lest the sincerity of a treaty from which so distinguished a chief absented himself, should be distrusted, he sent by a messenger, the following speech to be delivered to Lord Dunmore.

4. “I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed as they passed, and said ‘Logan is the friend of the white men.’ I had even thought to live with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, last spring in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace: but do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

[634] AD-VENTˊ-UR-ERS, those who attempt difficult enterprises.

[635] SUMˊ-MA-RY, short; brief.

[636] SIGˊ-NAL-I-ZED, made remarkable.

[637] DE-TACHˊ-MENT, a party sent off from the main body.

CIV.—GOD IS EVERY WHERE.

1. Oh! show me where is He,

The high and holy One,

To whom thou bend’st the knee,

And pray’st, “Thy will be done!”

I hear thy song of praise,

And lo! no form is near:

Thine eyes I see thee raise,

But where doth God appear?

Oh! teach me who is God, and where his glories shine,

That I may kneel and pray, and call thy Father mine.

2. “Gaze on that arch above:

The glittering vault admire.

Who taught these orbs to move?

Who lit their ceaseless fire?

Who guides the moon to run

In silence through the skies?

Who bids that dawning sun

In strength and beauty rise?

There view immensity! behold! my God is there:

The sun, the moon, the stars, his majesty declare.

3. “See where the mountains rise;

Where thundering torrents foam;

Where, vailed in towering skies,

The eagle makes his home:

Where savage nature dwells,

My God is present too;

Through all her wildest dells

His footsteps I pursue:

He reared those giant cliffs, supplies that dashing stream,

Provides the daily food which stills the wild bird’s scream.

4. “Look on that world of waves,

Where finny nations glide;

Within whose deep, dark caves

The ocean-monsters hide:

His power is sovereign there,

To raise, to quell the storm;

The depths His bounty share,

Where sport the scaly swarm;

Tempests and calms obey the same almighty voice,

Which rules the earth and skies, and bids far worlds rejoice.

5. “No human thoughts can soar

Beyond His boundless might;

He swells the thunder’s roar,

He spreads the wings of night.

Oh! praise His works divine!

Bow down thy soul in prayer;

Nor ask for other sign,

That God is everywhere:

The viewless spirit, He—immortal, holy, blest—

Oh! worship Him in faith, and find eternal rest!”

CV.—CHARACTER OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY.

BARRINGTON.

Sir Jonah Barrington was born in Ireland in 1767, and died in 1834. He was a member of the Irish Parliament which met in Dublin before the act of Union in 1800, and which numbered among its members a great many men of distinguished character and brilliant talents, such as Grattan, Curran, Plunkett, Flood, and others. His “Personal Sketches” are racy, humorous, and full of interesting anecdotes.

1. The Irish people have been as little known, as they have been grossly defamed, to the rest of Europe. The lengths to which English writers have proceeded in pursuit of this object would surpass all belief, were not the facts proved by histories written under the immediate eye and sanction of Irish governments; histories replete with falsehood, which, combined with the still more mischievous misrepresentations of modern writers, form altogether a mass of the most cruel calumnies that ever weighed down the character of a meritorious[638] people.

2. This system, however, was not without its meaning. From the reign of Elizabeth, the policy of England has been to keep Ireland in a state of internal division; perfect unanimity among her inhabitants has been considered as likely to give her a population and a power incompatible[639] with subjection,[640] and there are not wanting natives of Ireland, who, impressed with that erroneous idea, zealously plunge into the same doctrine, as if they would best prove their loyalty to the king by vilifying their country.

3. The Irish peasantry, who necessarily compose the great body of the population, combine in their character many of those singular and repugnant[641] qualities which peculiarly designate the people of different nations; and this remarkable contrariety of characteristic traits pervades almost the whole current of their natural dispositions. Laborious, domestic, accustomed to want in the midst of plenty, they submit to hardships without repining, and bear the severest privations with stoic fortitude. The sharpest wit, and the shrewdest subtilty, which abound in the character of the Irish peasant, generally lie concealed under the semblance of dullness, or the appearance of simplicity; and his language, replete with the keenest humor, possesses an idiom of equivocation,[642] which never fails successfully to evade a direct answer to an unwelcome question.

4. Inquisitive, artful, and penetrating, the Irish peasant learns mankind without extensive intercourse, and has an instinctive knowledge of the world, without mingling in its societies; and never, in any other instance, did there exist a people who could display so much address and so much talent in the ordinary transactions of life as the Irish peasantry.

5. The Irish peasant has, at all periods, been peculiarly distinguished for unbounded but indiscriminate[643] hospitality, which, though naturally devoted to the necessities of a friend, is never denied by him even to the distresses of an enemy.[644] To be in want or misery, is the best recommendation to his disinterested protection; his food, his bed, his raiment, are equally the stranger’s and his own; and the deeper the distress the more welcome is the sufferer to the peasant’s cottage.

6. His attachments to his kindred are of the strongest nature. The social duties are intimately blended with the natural disposition of an Irish peasant; though covered with rags, oppressed with poverty, and perhaps with hunger, the finest specimens of generosity and heroism are to be found in his unequaled character.

7. An enthusiastic attachment to the place of their nativity is another striking trait of the Irish character, which neither time nor absence, prosperity nor adversity, can obliterate or diminish. Wherever an Irish peasant was born, there he wishes to die; and, however successful in acquiring wealth or rank in distant places, he returns with fond affections to renew his intercourse with the friends and companions of his youth and his obscurity.

8. An innate spirit of insubordination to the laws has been strongly charged upon the Irish peasantry; but a people to whom the punishment of crimes appears rather as a sacrifice to revenge than a measure of prevention, can never have the same deference to the law as those who are instructed in the principles of justice and taught to recognize its equality. It has, however, been uniformly admitted by every impartial writer on the affairs of Ireland, that a spirit of strict justice has ever characterized the Irish peasant.[645]

9. Convince him by plain and impartial reasoning, that he is wrong; and he withdraws from the judgment-seat, if not with cheerfulness, at least with submission: but, to make him respect the laws, he must be satisfied that they are impartial; and, with that conviction on his mind, the Irish peasant is as perfectly tractable as the native of any other country in the world.

10. An attachment to, and a respect for females, is another characteristic of the Irish peasant. The wife partakes of all her husband’s vicissitudes; she shares his labor and his miseries, with constancy and with affection. At all the sports and meetings of the Irish peasantry, the women are always of the company; they have a great influence; and, in his smoky cottage, the Irish peasant, surrounded by his family, seems to forget all his privations. The natural cheerfulness of his disposition banishes reflection; and he experiences a simple happiness, which even the highest ranks of society might justly envy.

[638] MERˊ-I-TOˊ-RI-OUS, having merit, deserving well.

[639] IN-COM-PATˊ-I-BLE, inconsistent.

[640] SUB-JECˊ-TION, under control, being subject to.

[641] RE-PUGˊ-NANT, opposite; inconsistent.

[642] E-QUIVˊ-O-CA-TION, ambiguity of speech.

[643] IN-DIS-CRIMˊ-IN-ATE, not making distinction.

[644] It has been remarked that the English and Irish people form their judgment of strangers very differently:—an Englishman suspects a stranger to be a rogue, till he finds that he is an honest man; the Irishman conceives every person to be an honest man till he finds him out to be a rogue; and this accounts for the very striking difference in their conduct and hospitality to strangers.

[645] Sir John Davis, attorney-general of Ireland, who, in the reign of James the First, was employed by the king to establish the English laws throughout Ireland, and who made himself perfectly acquainted with the character of the inhabitants, admits that “there were no people under heaven, who loved equal and impartial justice better than the Irish.”

CVI.—ADVICE TO A YOUNG CRITIC.

POPE.

1. ’Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning join;

In all you speak, let truth and candor shine;

That not alone what to your sense is due

All may allow, but seek your friendship too.

Be silent always, when you doubt your sense,

And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.[646]

2. Some positive, persisting[647] fops we know,

Who, if once wrong, will needs be always so:

But you, with pleasure, own your errors past,

And make each day a critic on the last.

’Tis not enough your counsel to be true:

Blunt truths more mischief than slight errors do;

Men must be taught, as if you taught them not,

And things unknown proposed, as things forgot.

3. Without good breeding truth is disapproved;

That only makes superior sense beloved.

Be niggard[648] of advice on no pretense;

For the worst avarice is that of sense.

With mean complacence[649] ne’er betray your trust

Nor be so civil as to prove unjust.

Fear not the anger of the wise to raise;

Those best can bear reproof, who merit praise.

4. But where’s the man who counsel can bestow,

Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know;

Unbiassed, or by favor, or by spite;

Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right;

Though learned, well-bred; and, though well-bred, sincere;

Modestly bold, and humanly severe;

Who to a friend his faults can freely show,

And gladly praise the merit of a foe?

5. Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfined;

A knowledge both of books and human kind;

Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride,

And love to praise with reason on his side;

Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame;

Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame;

Averse alike to flatter or offend;

Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend?

[646] DIFˊ-FI-DENCE, want of confidence.

[647] PER-SISTˊ-ING, persevering steadily.

[648] NIGˊ-GARD, meanly; parsimonious.

[649] COM-PLAˊ-CENCE, civility.

CVII.—MARIE ANTOINETTE.

BURKE.

Edmund Burke was born in Ireland in 1728, and died in 1797. Such was the transcendent ability of Burke, that, at a time when England was richest in brilliant orators, and great statesmen, he rose from his obscure position, as a young and unknown Irishman, to be the great central figure in the array of great names which shed a lustre over the closing years of the Eighteenth century. But to his unrivaled merits as an orator and statesman, can be added the still higher praise of being a man of unblemished honor and probity.

1. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled, melancholy repose.

2. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, to save herself by flight—that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give—that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment.

3. This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people), were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated[650] carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous[651] slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family, who composed the king’s body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace.

4. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; while the royal captives, who followed in the train, were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and thrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies,[652] and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shapes of the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted[653] to six hours, they were, under a guard, composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings....

5. It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart I must have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration, to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace, concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers.

6. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded: and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage, while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

[650] MU-TIˊ-LAT-ED, mangled; maimed.

[651] PRO-MISˊ-CU-OUS, indiscriminate; confused.

[652] CONˊ-TU-ME-LIES, reproaches; offensive treatment.

[653] PRO-TRACT-EDˊ, lengthened.

CVIII.—ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

GRAY.

Thomas Gray was born in London, December 26, 1716, and died in 1771. The following poem has been always deservedly popular. The manuscript of it was sold in London in 1854 for £131.

1. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea;

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

2. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,

And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

3. Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,

The moping owl does to the moon complain

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,

Molest her ancient, solitary reign.

4. Beneath those rugged elms, that ewe-tree’s shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

5. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow, twittering from the straw-built shed,

The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,

Or busy housewife ply her evening care;

No children ran to lisp their sire’s return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield;

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;

How jocund[654] did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

8. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;

Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,

The short and simple annals of the poor.

9. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,

Await, alike, the inevitable[655] hour;—

The paths of glory lead—but to the grave.

10. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If memory o’er their tomb no trophies[656] raise,

Where, through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault,

The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

11. Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?

Can Honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

12. Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid

Some heart, once pregnant[657] with celestial fire;

Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,

Or waked to ecstasy[658] the living lyre.[659]

13. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,

Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;

Chill Penury[660] repressed their noble rage,

And froze the genial current of the soul.

14. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

15. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,

The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest;

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country’s blood.

16. The applause of listening senates to command

The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation’s eyes.

17. Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed[661] alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

18. The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide,

To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame;

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the muse’s flame.

19. Far from the madding crowds ignoble strife,

Their sober wishes never learned to stray:

Along the cool, sequestered[662] vale of life,

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

20. Yet, even these bones from insult to protect,

Some frail memorial, still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

21. Their name, their years, spelled by the unlettered Muse,

The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,

That teach the rustic moralist to die.

22. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e’er resigned,—

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,—

Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies;

Some pious drops the closing eye requires:

Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,

Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

24. For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,

Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,

If, chance, by lonely Contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

25. Haply, some hoary-headed swain may say,

“Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn,

Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

26. “There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high,

His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

27. “Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn,

Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove;

Now drooping, woful, wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

28. “One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,

Along the heath, and near his favorite tree;

Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he

29. “The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the churchyard path we saw him borne—

Approach, and read (for thou canst read), the lay,

Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”

THE EPITAPH.

30. “Here rests his head upon the lap of earth,

A youth to fortune and to fame unknown;

Fair Science frown’d not on his humble birth,

And melancholy mark’d him for her own.

31. “Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,

Heav’n did a recompense as largely send:

He gave to mis’ry all he had—a tear;

He gain’d from heaven (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

32. “No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode;

(There they, alike, in trembling hope repose,)

The bosom of his Father and his God.”

[654] JOCˊ-UND, merry, gay, lively.

[655] IN-EVˊ-I-TA-BLE, unavoidable.

[656] TROˊ-PHIES, memorials of victory.

[657] PREGˊ-NANT, teeming, fertile.

[658] ECˊ-STA-CY, excessive joy, rapture.

[659] LYRE, a musical instrument.

[660] PENˊ-URY, poverty, indigence.

[661] CIR-CUM-SCRIBEDˊ, inclosed, limited, confined.

[662] SE-QUESˊ-TERED, set apart, seized upon.

CIX.—THE VOLUNTARY CONFESSION OF SIN.

LACORDAIRE.

1. The most important of the divine penalties with which the Church is armed is confession, voluntary[663] confession. And in that penalty there is justice; for if you have had the courage to commit the fault, why not do so before the world? If you have not been afraid of doing evil before your own heart, why not do so before the whole human family?

2. And yet this justice is merciful; for it is not to the world, to a severe and corrupt world, that you are directed to avow your faults, but to a single man, in the most profound secret; to a man humble and meek, subject to temptation like his brethren, but purified by victory; and that avowal humbles without dishonoring you, touches rather than strikes you, reconciles you to yourself and to God: to yourself by the good which you feel living in your heart, to God by the pardon which he grants to you.

3. When Protestants abolished[664] confession, when they sent men to confess to God, what did they do? They only left the soul alone with sin, and drove away mercy by the fear of justice. And when, gentlemen, by a better instinct, you occupy yourselves about penitentiary[665] systems, are you not upon the traces of Jesus Christ and His Church? Do you not seek to transform public vengeance into expiation,[666] so that the guilty might leave your hands punished but saved, wounded by shame and grief but brought back by them to the sense and honor of virtue? It is your object, and one of your most cherished desires, one also most worthy of respect; why, then, do you despise the mystery of expiation in the Church? Why do you not perceive that the work accomplished by her is the very one which it is your ambition to realize? For you are as yet only making experiments, and what experiments they are!

4. You may build very ingenious prisons, you may stifle a man well between four walls, you may impose upon him many privations which you do not consider to be tortures because they do not shed blood; but, whatever you may do, you will always dishonor man, and you will find the road to his heart only to pour into it more deeply the poison of despair. Yes, penitence is more needed than penalties; expiation rather than repression; rehabilitation[667] rather than death. Yes, but you cannot effect this.

5. Think that this is accomplished; let men come to the feet of the priest, and you will do more than with your chains, your executioners and your dreams. Besides, what crimes do you extinguish with all this penal preparation? Murder, theft, violence. But there exists an evil which pierces men’s hearts, which gnaws the peace of families, which corrupts nations, and delivers them over, bound hand and foot, to the first conqueror who comes. Does not this evil escape from you? We, with our voluntary confession, reach all public as well as secret crimes; we reach them in the thought that prepares them, on the throne as well as in the shop of the artizan. See these princes, who are men like ourselves, more men than we, and on that account more to be pitied. They have their vices surrounded with guards and honors; truth does not reach them even when men are able to insult them, for insult teaches nothing.

6. Stand by a moment; behold a poor priest, a Capuchin, whose name is unknown; he ascends the superb stairs, he enters, he penetrates even where confidential friends are not admitted; he sits, and the prince, kneeling, says to him, “Confiteor tibi Pater.” And to whom does he say that? It is not to a man, but to the whole of humanity. It is the whole human kind which seizes and compresses him, which says to him, “Sire, you have sinned, you are not worthy to draw near to God.”

7. If some one had said to Augustus, whilst he was walking in his gardens with Horace or Mecænas, “There is a man below with a staff and wallet, who says he is sent from God to hear the confession of your faults;” would he not have looked upon him as a madman? And yet, gentlemen, that folly has prevailed! And observe, I pray you, that, on all occasions, in Christianity we find nothing but follies; and we justify these follies before you—you, the élite of this age—and you listen to them and exclaim, “Nevertheless it is grand!”

[663] VOLˊ-UN-TA-RY, free; proceeding from choice or free will.

[664] A-BOLˊ-ISH-ED, annulled; abrogated; put an end to.

[665] PEN-I-TENˊ-TIA-RY, a house of correction.

[666] EX-PI-Aˊ-TION, the act of atoning for a crime or sin; atonement; satisfaction.

[667] RE-HA-BIL-I-TA-TION, restoration to former condition or position.

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Table of Contents

THE FOURTH PROGRESSIVE READER.

PREFACE.

CONTENTS.

TABLE OF VOWEL SOUNDS.

TABLE OF CONSONANT SOUNDS.

EXERCISES ON THE VOWEL SOUNDS.

INTRODUCTION.

PRONUNCIATION.

ARTICULATION.

DIRECTIONS AND EXERCISES.

ACCENT.

EXAMPLES.

TIME.

EMPHASIS.

INFLECTION.

CIRCUMFLEX INFLECTION.

MONOTONE.

PARENTHESIS AND PARENTHETICAL CLAUSES.

TONE.

EXPRESSION AND ENERGY.

EXPRESSION.

ENERGY.

ON READING OF VERSE.

RESTS IN VERSE.

EXAMPLE.

EXERCISES.

PART SECOND.

I.—TEACHING AND CHARACTER OF JESUS CHRIST.

II.—LITTLE AT FIRST, BUT GREAT AT LAST

III.—THE DEVOTED SON AND THE GENEROUS STRANGER.

IV.—THE CHRISTIAN MOTHER.

V.—WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE.

VI.—THE TWO ROADS.

VII.—THE LABORERS.

VIII.—THE BOY.

IX.—THE YOUNG SHEPHERD.

X. THE YOUNG SHEPHERD—Continued.

XI.—OLD TIMES.

XII.—THE BROKEN HEART.

XIII.—LITTLE VICTORIES.

XIV.—LITTLE VICTORIES.—Continued.

XV.—OUR TITLES.

XVI.—THE WIDOW OF THE PINE COTTAGE.

XVII.—A PSALM OF LIFE.

XVIII.—LET VIRTUE BE YOUR AIM.

XIX. -THE BOBOLINK.

XX.—THE BOBOLINK.—Continued.

XXI.—WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?

XXII.—PORTRAIT OF A VIRTUOUS AND ACCOMPLISHED WOMAN.

XXIII.—THE WORK OF TO-DAY.

XXIV.—THE AVARICIOUS MILLER.

XXV.—THE DEATH OF THE LITTLE SCHOLAR.

XXVI.—GOD, THE TRUE SOURCE OF CONSOLATION.

XXVII.—THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. AGNES.

XXVIII.—THE MONK OF ST. FRANCIS.

XXIX.—MY MOTHER’S GRAVE.

XXX.—GOOD COUNSEL.

XXXI.—THE SISTER OF CHARITY.

XXXII.—REPROOF TO AN AFFECTED[259] SPEAKER.

XXXIII.—MY BIRTHDAY.

XXXIV.—LABOR.

XXXV.—OUR MISERIES OFTEN OUR FAULT.

XXXVI.—TRUE PATRIOTISM.[303]

XXXVII.—INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE TYROLESE.

XXXVIII.—HYMN OF THE MOUNTAINEERS.

XXXIX.—EXHORTATION TO PRAYER.

XL.—BEHIND TIME.

XLI.—EVIL INFLUENCE OF SKEPTICISM.

XLII.—DAVID’S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM.

XLIII.—A STORM AT SEA.

XLIV.—THE ATMOSPHERE.

XLV.—THE CHERWELL WATER-LILY.

XLVI.—DISCRETION.

XLVII.—STABILITY OF CHARACTER.

THE YEAR OF SORROW—IRELAND—1849.

XLVIII.—SPRING.

XLIX.—SUMMER.

L.—AUTUMN.

LI.—WINTER.

LII.—DEATH OF LITTLE NELL.

LIII.—SORROW FOR THE DEAD.

LIV.—ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC, QUEEN OF SPAIN.

LV.—PALESTINE.

LVI.—LOVE OF COUNTRY AND OF HOME.

LVII.—THE HEAVENLY REST.

LVIII.—LOVE OF COUNTRY.

LIX.—THE CHARMED SERPENT.

LX.—MY ROSARY.

LXI.—THE INDIANS.

LXII.—INDIAN NAMES.

LXIII.—THE FRIARS AND THE KNIGHT.

LXIV.—WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY.

LXV.—NOW, TO-DAY.

LXVI.—PATRIOTISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

LXVII.—BEST KIND OF REVENGE.

LXVIII—QUEEN ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY.

LXIX.—WILLIAM TELL.

LXX.—THE PRESUMPTION OF YOUTH.

LXXI.—MARY MAGDALEN.

LXXII.—THE WEXFORD MASSACRE.

LXXIII.—A PICTURE OF HUMAN LIFE.

LXXIV.—THE DOUBTING HEART.

LXXV.—ON THE WASTE OF TIME.

LXXVI.—THE REAPER, DEATH.

LXXVII.—DIALOGUE WITH THE GOUT.

LXXVIII.—THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

LXXIX.—EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.

LXXX.—THE COMING OF WINTER.

LXXXI.—THE SISTER OF CHARITY.

LXXXII.—WASHINGTON AND BONAPARTE COMPARED.

LXXXIII.—CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN.

LXXXIV.—THE LAST MINSTREL.

LXXXV.—THE MINSTREL BOY.

LXXXVI.—ARMY HYMN.

LXXXVII.—THE ROMAN PONTIFFS.

LXXXVIII.—LABOR AND GENIUS

LXXXIX.—THE DYING GIRL.

XC.—THE ANGELUS BELL.

XCI.—A CURTAIN LECTURE OF MRS. CAUDLE.

XCII.—THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.

XCIII.—BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.

XCIV.—GOD GAVE TO HIS CHURCH CHARITY.

XCV.—UNION AND LIBERTY.

XCVI.—GEORGE WASHINGTON.

XCVII.—CONDUCT OF LA FAYETTE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

XCVIII.—PAUL REVERE’S RIDE.

XCIX.—SIR THOMAS MOORE.

C.—THE BATTLE FIELD.

CI.—THE RELIGION OF CATHOLICS.

CII.—A BIRTH-DAY OFFERING.

CIII.—SPEECH OF LOGAN, CHIEF OF THE MINGOES.

CIV.—GOD IS EVERY WHERE.

CV.—CHARACTER OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY.

CVI.—ADVICE TO A YOUNG CRITIC.

CVII.—MARIE ANTOINETTE.

CVIII.—ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD.

CIX.—THE VOLUNTARY CONFESSION OF SIN.

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