CONTENTS OF VOLUME II, NUMBER 4 (continued 2)

From the charm of such associations we do not pretend to be exempt, nor do we envy the man who could claim such an exemption. But we are free to confess that this circumstance is too apt to disturb the judgment in a comparison of the merits of ancient and modern history. To a certain extent it may fairly be estimated amongst the advantages of the former, for if it gives a greater interest to early history it holds out a greater temptation to the ardent prosecution of that study. But we do not fear the comparison without such adventitious aid, for we maintain that as historians the ancients are still unequalled. Of all their histories which have descended to the present time, there are none which have not many of the higher excellences of historical composition; but it is for Thucydides, Tacitus and Plutarchus, the great masters in their respective styles, that we challenge modern history to produce the parallels. The definition which Diodorus has given of history, "that it is philosophy teaching by example," may truly be applied to the writings of the two first named historians. Indeed, we have never taken up the works of the first without wonder at the rare and philosophical temperament which enabled him to conduct his eager search after truth without disturbance from those feelings which personal injuries and the spirit of party would so naturally have awakened in others under the same circumstances. Himself a principal actor in the scenes which his page commemorates, his situation and temper alike fitted him for conducting his researches in a spirit of truth, a task which he accomplished in a manner as yet unrivalled. How deep is the devotion to the austere majesty of truth which he displays in his masterly preface when he offers up the favorite fictions of his nation as a sacrifice upon its altars, and stripping his subject of its stolen ornaments, presents it to the world in naked simplicity. If historical criticism has become a science in the hands of the accomplished Niehbuhr, surely its origin and chief ornament are to be found in that noble monument of antiquity. It was no small evidence of future greatness which the young Demosthenes gave, in the choice of this history as his model. For where could he find the springs of government touched with so true a knowledge of their nature, or in what book are the actions of man in masses traced to their motives and causes with an analysis so searching? If we would trace society through the first forms of republican government, and witness its agitations under the opposition of those ever living and opposing forces the democratic and aristocratic principles, we must look to Thucydides. A living witness and a profound observer of the unbalanced democracies of ancient Greece, his deep sagacity always enabled him to resolve their line of action into the two elementary and diverging forces according to their true proportions. As the modern astronomer is able to detect even in the course of the most erratic comet the resultant of the two opposing forces of the solar system, so this profound observer of the human heart was able to trace in the madness of revolution, the contests of a more pacific policy, and even in the horrors of anarchy, the direction given by the two elementary and opposing forces of the social system. Would we trace society still further as another combination of these elementary forces in different proportions gives its direction in the line of despotism, we must turn to the Roman Thucydides—to Tacitus, for a true knowledge of the internal machinery which regulates it under this form of government. Do we wish to obtain an accurate view of the motives which move masses to action? would we investigate man, not as an individual, but according to those common qualities of the human mind by which we may classify his species and genera, and by which only we must consider him if we would rightly estimate the effects of circumstances upon masses? Turn to either or to both of these historians, whose profound and searching analysis so rarely fails of detecting the motives to human action. In both we shall find the same deep philosophy, the same careful study of the human heart, and the same eagerness to utter truth when clearly conceived, without regard to the forms of expression; the great and distinctive difference is in the difference of temperament arising perhaps out of a difference of situation. The more fiery Roman gives you glowing sketches, not pictures—they flow from him with that careless haste so indicative of boundless wealth. Each sketch bears within itself the evidence of lofty conception, and shows in every line the traces of a master's hand whose rapid touch is too busy in embodying the forms with which his brain is teeming to waste its energies in those minuter cares so necessary for filling out a perfect picture. With rapid pencil he leaves perhaps a simple line, but it is the line of Apelles—the hand of the master was there. The conceptions of the rival Greek, like his, are lofty but more matured, and the same careless ease with a somewhat superior elegance, mark his execution. His coloring however is milder, and you are never struck with those startling contrasts of light and shade so peculiar to the Roman.

The inquirer who would train his mind in those pursuits most necessary for the statesman, and, for that reason, seeks an intimate knowledge of human nature, would arise from an attentive study of the works of these great historians with feelings of pleasure and self gratulation. Conscious, that he had acquired much knowledge of man as a mere instrument in the hands of the politician, he already begins to perceive the rules by which men of sagacity have reckoned with much of probability if not of certainty, upon the future actions of their fellow beings. But not being yet fully aware of the uses to which this knowledge may be applied in directing the affairs of society, he is now anxious to inquire into the results of those attempts which the great masters of the human race have made, to regulate the movements of masses and mould them to their peculiar views. He must now turn to Plutarch's superb gallery of portraits of the distinguished men of antiquity; he must open that book, which oftener than any other, has afforded the favorite subject of the early studies of the distinguished statesmen and warriors of all the countries to which modern civilization has extended. He will here perceive the modes by which his models are trained to greatness, and learn to know and estimate the distinctive qualities which have elevated their possessors so far above the common mass. His studies which heretofore were directed to his fellows will be now turned to himself, and a course of self reflection will teach him to exercise and improve his strength, and to measure the proportions in which it must be applied to the levers which move the ball of public opinion. To show that we do not place too high an estimate upon this wonderful book, we might simply refer to the internal evidences of its rare excellences. But we cannot refrain from offering further proofs, more striking at least, if not as strong. It is no small evidence of its excellence that it is a book of more general interest than any other biography or history extant; that it is amongst the first and the last books which we like; its interest taking an early hold upon the youthful mind, and continuing through our after life. And the fact is not to be forgotten, in choosing the books for such a course of study as the one just referred to, that most of the great modern statesmen and generals, have bestowed much of their early attention and study on this work; for this is some evidence that its pages serve to awaken an early love of heroic virtue, and contribute to form the habits necessary for its growth and continued existence. In our reference to the works of the three authors which we should choose in preference to all others of human origin, for the study of human nature we have not adverted to the true order in which they should be read. The book of biography should precede as well as succeed the study of the two historians. We challenge all modern history and biography for the production of three parallels to our chosen models, whose works can contribute so much to the attainment of this particular end. Davila, the favorite of Hampden,—and Guicciardini, whom St. John preferred to all modern historians,—have some of the excellences of which we have been speaking, but will any one compare them to the first? In the English language, Clarendon is the only history worthy of the attention of the student in search of an author who illustrates the science of human nature by a reference to the recorded experience of past generations. The works of Gibbon, Hume and Robertson, are admirable for their style and general interest, but they take no true views of man (epistola non erubescit) as the instrument of legislation; they do not present us with that impersonation of the common qualities and motives of our nature, which alone can be the subject of laws, and whose character only can be moulded by the general institutions of society,—in short, with that man who is the true subject of the politician's study. Indeed we doubt if the historical works of these gentlemen ever were or ever will be the favorites of any great and practical statesman,—a test which we ask shall be applied to the models which we have chosen. We are perfectly aware of what we hazard by such assertions, but safe behind our mask, we feel secure from danger.

In the view of the course of study which we have just been surveying, we paused at the point where the inquirer having learnt the strength and the temper of the various great springs which chiefly influence human action, had turned aside to ascertain the best modes of handling them by a reference to the experience of those who had successfully regulated the machinery of society and effected in its movements the particular objects which they had in view. From this point, the transition is easy from the history and biography of antiquity to its oratory. For where shall we find the springs of human action so dexterously handled? It must be remembered that the orators of antiquity approached their subjects under circumstances very different from those which attend our modern debates. They practised upon the societies in which they lived, under the same penalties which attend the eastern physician who undertakes the Sultan's cure. The gift of this splendid but fatal talisman of the heart was always attended with the most unhappy consequences to its possessor. Exile and death were the penalties, in case of failure, in the measures which they recommended, or even in case of the loss of popular affection. And so deep were the distresses of those gifted but unhappy children of genius, that one of their most sincere admirers was forced to exclaim

"Ridenda poemata malo Quam te conspicuæ divina Philippica famæ, Volveris a prima quæ proxima."

It is not to be supposed, that under such circumstances they would ever approach their subject without a most careful consideration of its nature and consequences, or that they would fail to study the means of recommending themselves and their plans to popular favor. Indeed it would naturally be expected that in the effort to persuade the will of those upon whom they were operating, into a concurrence with their own, they would scarcely place in competition with that object the desire to write an oration to be admired by posterity. We should look to find then a more attentive observance of the modes of influencing the human heart and reason, than amongst the modern speakers who were moved by none of their fears. A comparison of the ancient with the modern orators would fully prove the fact, but as we cannot of course enter into that comparison here, and deserve no thanks from the reader for inviting his attention to it, we would advert to the fact that these are the only real statesmen whose orations have had an interest for a remote posterity. From which the conclusion is fair, that of all speeches accessible to the reader, these are the most valuable for acquiring the means of influencing men, since no other orations of successful orators remain in an agreeable form. Who reads the speeches of any of the modern orators who have been statesmen at the same time, and who succeeded in impressing their views upon the public mind. No one reads the speeches of Walpole, Chatham, and Fox, the real orator statesmen of England, whilst Burke's orations, which invariably dispersed his audience, are familiar to almost every reader of the English language. The most distinguished orator and statesman that France has produced was Mirabeau; the most successful in America were Henry and Randolph. Yet what orations have they left behind them which are indicative of the real genius of those master minds? The modern speeches which are held up as models, are those which failed to effect the end of their delivery, and even if pleasing in point of style and composition, they must have been very feeble as orations.

But the admirers of modern oratory, the readers of Sheridan, Curran and Philips, will perhaps demand that definition of oratory which thus excludes their favorites from all competition with the orators of antiquity. We define it to be, the means of attaining, by the persuasion either of the feelings or reasons of men, an end which of ourselves, we cannot effect. This is the only point of view in which a statesman would use rhetoric as an instrument. The display of learning and the exhibition of the graces of composition and style, he leaves to the author in his closet who has time to bestow upon pursuits less exalted than his. The real orator, if he be the subject of a despot, will study the character of the man whom he sues, and mould his address in the form most persuasive to him who holds the power of which he would avail himself. If on the other hand the power which he seeks resides with the people, he will appeal to that temper and those dispositions which are common to the mass, and having selected the arguments and sentiments most persuasive to them, would never think of sacrificing one tittle of them to secure the reputation of an orator with the future generations who might read his effusions. Ridiculous as it may seem to the lovers of the gaudy imagery and polished periods of the Irish orators, we maintain that the speeches of Cromwell and of Vane, which seem so absurd to us now, in effecting their ends, accomplished the true object of rhetoric. They suited the temper of the times, they served to mould the progress of public opinion, and proved powerful instruments in directing the revolution. Profound observers of those times, they were too sagacious as statesmen to think of sacrificing the means of securing great public ends for the sake of pleasing the taste of posterity and acquiring the reputation of turning polished periods—a task in which, after all, the wretched Waller had excelled them.

Who believes that such oratory as Sheridan's or Curran's, aye, or even as Burke's, would have produced a tithe of the influence upon the sturdy old roundheads which the cant of the day exercised over them. These effusions would have been treated with scorn, or would perhaps have called down punishment upon the heads of their authors as holding out temptations to the carnal man. Any attempt, in the temper of those times, to deliver orations fitted for the taste of posterity, would have been as ridiculous and misplaced as Petit Jean's apostrophes to the sun, moon and stars, in his defence of the dog. Indeed, it is the prevailing sin of modern taste to suppose that the making of a "fine speech," can be a sufficient inducement for speaking. Plato has defined rhetoric to be "the art of ruling men's minds," and the moment it ceases to look to that end, it is vain and ridiculous. This is the besetting sin of American oratory. Adams, Everett, or even Webster, will seize any occasion, the death of Lafayette, the erection of a monument, or any thing which may serve as a text for a speech, to deliver orations which can have no possible influence except to convince the few who read them, that their authors have not only read, but learned to round a period. Polished sentences, brilliant imagery, and even the ancient forms of attestation are profusely displayed, and all the orator's most showy wares are studiously arrayed, for effect, so as to tempt the public to what?—to any useful end which they have in view? No, simply to an admiration of their authors. It was the practice of antiquity, it is true, to deliver funeral orations—but they are miserably mistaken if they expect to shelter themselves under those usages in their unmeaning and personal displays. They pursue the form, but neglect the substance. Do they suppose that when Pericles delivered his funeral oration over his countrymen who had fallen in the expedition to Samos, he had no other object than that of making a speech? Do they believe for a moment that he whose rhetoric procured him the surname of Olympius, that the master orator of antiquity, (if we may judge his oratory by its effects,) that he who never addressed an assembly without first praying the Gods "that no word might fall from him unawares which was unsuitable to the occasion," would have spoken from such a motive as that only? Could they have supposed that such was the motive of Demosthenes in his funeral oration over those who fell at Cheronea?

Higher ends were in the view of these orators upon these occasions. They were subjects connected with the public policy of the times and with measures which they themselves had directed. Upon the success of these depended their popularity, and on that hung their fortunes, their homes, nay, their lives. They afforded happy occasions for defending their policy, for pushing their claims upon public favor, and for weaving by a thousand plies the cord which bound them to popular sympathy, in those moments of deep feeling when the people were too much absorbed in their own emotions, to examine into the personal motives of their orators. No such consequences depend upon the popularity of our orators. Their popularity can scarcely be really affected, by any orations which they could deliver on the battle of Lexington, the Bunker Hill monument, or the death of La Fayette. The public measures of the present day have but a remote connection with them. What worthy motive then could have influenced them, we were going to say, in the perpetration of such folly? In such men of the closet as the younger Adams and Everett, it is not surprising; but in Webster, who is capable of real and effective oratory, it can only be viewed as a weak compliance with the morbid taste of the clique around him.

Of the importance of the study of the ancient laws, particularly the Roman or civil, we shall say but little, as in the first place, a view of that subject in all its relations with modern government and civilization, would far exceed the limits of this essay; and because, secondly, no one can be found who will deny the uses of this pursuit to the lawyer. To the general reader we would only remark, that instead of abandoning this useful study to the lawyers, as a pursuit proper only to that profession, he would do well to remember that the revival of letters has always been mainly ascribed to the discovery of the pandects at Amalphi; that since that time professorships of civil law have been attached to every learned University in Europe, and no scholar for many centuries afterwards was reckoned accomplished without some knowledge of this subject. He should remember too, that since the revival of letters, this law has formed an essential, nay, the chief ingredient of the jurisprudence of Spain, Holland, France, and all Italy, with the exception of Venice;—whilst, notwithstanding all that has been suggested by the idle casuistry of national pride, it is the most important portion of the law of Germany, Hungary, Poland and Scotland. And much as we boast of the common law in England and what was English America, yet in both countries, the civil code is the law of courts of admiralty, the basis of most of our chancery law, and even on the common law side of our judiciary it is freely used on the subject of contracts, and has furnished the groundwork, nay, almost the entire system of our legal pleadings. Should this reader be a divine, we would beg leave to remind him that the canon law itself is so intimately associated with the civil code, that no good canonist has yet existed who neglected the study of this last. Indeed, the canon law is at last but a compound of the christian system of ethics and the civil code of municipal law. Need we say more in support of the claims of this study upon the attention of the general scholar and reader? Can the statesman or scholar expect to understand the history of nations and governments without a knowledge of their laws and judicial systems, those alimentary canals, which distribute the food that supports the moral being of society? As well might the anatomist expect to derive a knowledge of his science by a view of the external structure of the human frame, whilst the internal organization and the whole circulating system were concealed from his observation. And quite as absurd are the investigations of the historical inquirer, who, content with a knowledge of the form of government, looks no farther into the internal structure of a society. We would fain pursue the interesting inquiries which this subject suggests, in connection with the history of modern governments and the progress of civil liberty, did our limits permit. But our purpose is accomplished, in having recurred to facts, which of themselves demonstrate the necessity of this highly important study.

We come now to the psychological view of ancient literature, which subject is so intimately connected with the inquiry into the tendencies of this study, towards elevating and extending the spiritual capacity of man, that we shall embrace it under that head. As no man would engage in any laborious pursuit without having some object in view, so perhaps no one would ever enter into the pursuit after knowledge if it offered no rewards. It is coveted by many, because it sometimes brings to its possessor wealth, and almost always secures him reputation, whilst a few only desire it for its spiritual uses—and yet these last constitute its highest reward. Let the practical man of the world who doubts it, and who would laugh at any arguments adapted to his reason upon this subject as a mere idle thing, look to the history of literary men. Let him behold such a man as Bayle, for example, who having secured in his taste for knowledge a consolation and a happiness of which the world could not rob him, only thought of his persecutions to laugh at them, and found but amusement in what the world deems misfortunes. Poverty, exile, disease, all in their turns assailed him, and yet no one who reads his history can doubt but that he was the happiest man of his day. Resigned to all human events, he found his pleasure in the one noble taste which absorbed his mind, and he succeeded in elevating his spirit to such a distance above the misfortunes and persecutions of this world, that they dwindled into utter insignificance in his estimation. A dismission from an office of honor and profit, under circumstances which would have excited murmurs and anger in the minds of most other men, was scarcely noticed by him, or noticed in a spirit of cheerful content. "The sweetness and repose" (said he upon this occasion) "I find in the studies in which I have engaged myself and which are my delight, will induce me to remain in this city, if I am allowed to continue in it, at least until the printing of my dictionary is finished; for my presence is absolutely necessary in the place where it is printed. I am no lover of money nor of honors, and would not accept of any invitation should it be made to me; nor am I fond of the disputes and cabals which reign in all academies: Canam mihi et musis." Car. Lit. vol. i, p. 22. These were not mere professions; his life, nay, his very death illustrated their truth and sincerity. The very hour of his death was soothed and solaced by this taste, which subdued even the sense of the last mortal agony. This, and instances similar in nature, if not in degree, which abound in the lives of literary men, afford conclusive evidence of the rewards which knowledge brings to the human mind itself. What can elevate the dignity of our nature more in our view than the contemplation of such spectacles as these? What terms expressive enough should we find, to convey our sense of gratitude to the genius who would offer us a gift that would enable us to defy the persecutions of this world and laugh at its misfortunes! a gift, which, for our enjoyments, would render us independent of every other being in existence, save ourselves and him who created us—a gift which would endow us with a taste and the means of gratifying a taste which age cannot dull, and gratification cannot satiate. And yet to a great degree, the mind which is imbued with the love of knowledge enjoys these blessings. When this becomes the absorbing taste of our minds, it not only endures—but man cannot take it from us. Whilst sensual pleasures die, and the tastes which they gratify decay with time, this is the immortal desire of our being which survives when all others fade away. It is the charmed gift which we bear within ourselves, and whose spells can call up a thousand forms of beauty and light even in the depths of the dungeon, and surround the couch of disease with bright visions and pleasant hopes. As those who ate of the fabled lotus were said to forget their country and kindred in their enjoyments, when they had tasted of its flowers, so those who have once fed upon the immortal fruit of the tree of knowledge, cease to regard those temporal cares and pleasures which bind man to this earth, and lead through a maze of uncertainty to disappointment at last. They look into nature—and each link which they discover in the great chain of truth, seems, in the enthusiasm of the vision, another step on that ladder by which man mounts from earth to heaven. Each hidden harmony which they discover in nature is another thought of the divine mind which they have conceived and understood, and serves to bind them still more closely in that communion into which the Creator permits them to enter with him. The consideration of man, the pleasures merely earthly which he controls and which belong to him, always temporal and always alloyed with pain, they can consent to relinquish, in the consciousness that they are entering into closer communion with him who is pure, perfect, and unchangeable. And their pleasures as much exceed those which they renounce, as the Creator is superior to the created. They have tasted the living stream of truth, whose waters refresh the more, the more they are drunk—they find themselves on the borders of that eternal spring whose course is infinite in extent. Whilst they follow its trace they secure immortality,—for none who drink of its waters shall ever die.

See the student who dwells alone in his hermitage, or who perhaps nightly cribs his worn frame in some almost forgotten attic;—he is surrounded by circumstances which to the eye of the common observer denote the extremity of wretchedness and misery! Those who are more elevated by the pride of place and by the possession of those things which the world calls good, often look upon him with pity and contempt; and yet how rashly do they judge. Do they know whether he regards their pleasures or whither his aspirations would lead him. He looks out upon the stars, "those isles of light," which repose in the liquid blue of the vaulted heavens, and they speak to him of wisdom and love, of beauty and peace. He walks abroad amid the works of nature, and traces in all her hidden harmonies a beauty and a unity of design which speak but of one spirit, and that the infinite and eternal spirit of the universe. He begins indeed "to mingle with the universe;" and, like the mystic Egeria, a spirit of beauty pure and undefiled arises from the silent memorials of creative design, to commune with him in his morning walks and evening meditations. He compares the soul, which guides and animates the physical universe, with the vain and contentious spirit of his fellow man; he compares the order and beauty of the physical universe, which submits all its motions to the divine will, with the moral government of man,—at once the sport and the victim of his own caprices; and learns to despise what most men value, and to prize those pleasures which they neglect. He has learnt to feel that He who rules all events, has considered him also, in his Providence; and willing to put his trust in that being, without whose knowledge "not a sparrow falleth to the ground," he stands forth the most self-humbled, and yet the most elevated of God's creatures.

If knowledge hath these spiritual uses,—and what reflecting man can doubt the fact, how mortifying is it to see many wasting their strength and throwing away the means by which they could attain these ends, for the sake of wealth and earthly honors. As the alchemist who, in his eager search after the grand magisterium, neglects many discoveries really useful which were within his reach, so these men put their frail trust in the world and waste their lives in the vain pursuit of its phantoms. But we do not expect these men to take this view of the subject unless they have trained their minds to it, either through the christian philosophy, or what is second to that system only, the school of the Platonist writers. It is for this reason chiefly, that we have ventured to recommend the study of the writings of the genius so nearly divine, of that author whose psychological system presaged the christian revelation, as the morning twilight betokens the coming sun. It was his, that beautiful conception of the spirit of the universe, at once so poetical and sublime;—an idea which Abraham Tucker only of modern English writers, seems to have fully comprehended and explained. This sublime and philosophical poet perceived that by an attentive study of nature, the human mind was capable of entering into communion with the divine mind through its works; he felt that he was capable of conceiving more and more of the ideas which existed in the creative mind, as he understood more of the system of the universe; he meditated upon the harmony which extended through the greatest and the least of nature's operations; his soul took in forms of beauty and filled with lofty conceptions until it became enamored of its contemplations, and in the spirit of true poetry he endowed the universe with a soul which governed it and with which the mind of man may commune. But to return to our original proposition; we asserted that the writings of ancient philosophers afforded the best views of psychology to which we have access. By psychology, we mean what relates to our spiritual being. To maintain this proposition it will be necessary to recur, for a moment, to the subject of inquiry which engaged their attention, and to the spirit of those times.

The most important and natural inquiry which would present itself to a being of limited powers of knowledge and enjoyment, and whose existence at most is brief, is as to the best pursuit which can engage his time and energies. The vanity of human wishes, the transitory nature of earthly enjoyments, must have been as apparent to the first man as to us. The necessity of discriminating between the various ends of our actions, and objects of our desires, in the brief space which is allotted us for action, must have impressed itself at an early period upon the human mind. And as happiness is the proposed end of all our actions, the most important inquiry which can engage the human mind, is as to the best means of attaining it. Accordingly, we find the "TO KALON" engaging the attention of all ancient philosophers; and however differently they might conduct their reasoning, all of them who were respected arrived at the same conclusion, viz: that he whose conduct was most strictly regulated by the rules of virtue, would enjoy the greatest degree of happiness. It was thus, according to Plato, that we were to restore the immaculate qualities of the pre-existent soul. The sterner Zeno maintained that nothing was pleasant but virtue, and nothing painful but vice; whilst the gentle and more persuasive Epicurus, reversing the rule, (and in a certain sense the doctrines were identical,) taught that nothing was virtuous but what was pleasant, or vicious if it were not painful—because virtue is at last but the rule which shall conduct us to happiness. At that time the light of Christian revelation had not burst upon the world; the flickering and uncertain rays of human reason afforded the only light to guide them in the search for the path of truth, and "shadows, clouds, and darkness rested on it." The bright hopes and the awful fears by which the Christian revelation would prompt man to virtue, were then either unknown or but little heeded. To tempt his disciples then to a virtuous life, and to fortify them against the seductions of vicious temptation, the ancient philosopher was forced to hold forth the rewards which virtue offers to us in this life. The persuasions of oratory, the allurements of poetry, the demonstrations of philosophy, were all used to entice the youthful mind to the pursuit of virtue; and more, the masters practised their creed in the view of their disciples. But so far as external appearances bear testimony on the subject, happiness does not always attend the practice of virtue in this world. It was necessary, then, to refer the doubtful to some other source of enjoyment. The philosopher referred the pupil to a source which was within—the pleasant consciousness of well-doing;—the enlargement of the spiritual capacity under a virtuous discipline, were the exalted and noble inducements which they presented to their view. Their theories of the universe, their social customs, their daily habits, were all made subsidiary to the end of impressing these grand truths upon their disciples. These conceptions stood forth in severe and sublime simplicity, as they were formed by the cold and cautious inductions of philosophy; but the master mind of antiquity, not content with their unspeaking beauty, seized fire from heaven, and breathing into them the warm spirit of his eloquence, sent them forth to the world radiant and impressive forms, which appealed not only to the reason, but to the sensibility of the beholder. Every argument was used which could exalt our spiritual being, and every illustration which could explain its nature, so far at least as they understood it. The pursuit of virtue became a matter of feeling—self-denial was an enthusiasm, and the world often beheld the disciples of these great masters acting upon the abstract maxims of mere human reason, and pursuing virtue with that unfaltering trust in the hopes which it excites, which would shame many disciples of a more certain faith, and those who have the guidance of a clearer light. It is not surprising, then, that the nature of our spiritual being, and the invigorating and regenerating influences of the pursuit of knowledge and virtue, should be more often the theme of ancient than of modern philosophers. And yet the moralist, the philosopher and the poet, would each derive both assistance and delight from the too much neglected works of these noble old masters. We have seen the wonderful revival of letters in Germany in modern times ascribed to the study of the Platonists,—with what truth our knowledge of German literature will not permit us to say. But we do not doubt that the ascribed cause is adequate to that end. Certain it is, that Bulwer has derived from these sources much of that which is worth any thing in his writings. His views of our spiritual being, and of the spiritual uses of knowledge, are evidently clothed in light reflected from the Platonists. Indeed, the finest portion of all his writings, that in which he describes the change wrought on Devereux's mind by a course of solitary meditation, or, to use a shorter phrase, the metempsychosis of his hero, is but a paraphrase of the finest of all moral fables, the Asinus Aureus of Apuleius, and one which at last fails to do justice to the splendid original. Should any reader think it worth the time to examine into the truth of our remarks upon the spirit of ancient philosophy, we would crave his attention to this most beautiful allegory, as affording a complete and interesting illustration of their general correctness. The fable, founded upon a Milesian story, opens with the description of a young man who has debased his soul with debauchery until he is transformed to an ass; he falls gradually from one vice to another, and under the dominion of all he suffers under the degrading and debasing penalties appropriate to each. He was at last on the eve of perpetrating a crime so monstrous that nature suddenly revolted, and horror-stricken, he broke from his keeper and flies to the seashore. With solitude comes reflection, and reflection brings remorse. Despair is the natural consequence; and feeling that without assistance he is lost, he turns to heaven for succor. The moon is in full splendor, just rising from the waves; the awful silence of the night deepens his sense of solitude;—"Video præ micantis lunæ candore nimis completum orbem, commodum marinis emergentem fluctibus, nactusque opacæ noctis silentiosa secreta, certus etiam summatem Deam præcipua majestate pollere resque prorsus humanas ipsius regi providentia," &c. p. 375. Relief is vouchsafed to him, a change passes over his spirit, and nature wears towards him a different aspect—her countenance is clothed in smiles, and all things seem to rejoice with him. "Tanta hilaritudine præter peculiarem meam, gestire mihi cuncta videbantur; ut pecua etiam cujuscamodi et totas domos et ipsam diem serena facie gaudire sentirem." The entire conception is not only highly poetical, but eminently philosophical; the progress of the human mind in its transition through the range of vices, the sentiments of remorse and despair, that yearning after better things which ever and anon returns like a guardian angel to rescue man from his most fallen estate, the change of heart, and the influence of nature, are depicted in the spirit of truth and beauty.

But we fear that we are trespassing too far upon the patience of the reader, and especially when our subject is not one of general interest. And yet we are so deeply impressed with the fact that an attention to this study is the great want of American literature, that we could not forbear suggesting briefly the various points of view from which its importance may be seen—even at the risk of being tedious. Under the sanction, then, of past experience, and under the higher authority of reason, we would crave the attention of the rising generation to these studies, that they may prepare themselves to do something worthy of their hopes and useful to their country. And of this at least we can safely assure them that the exercises which we recommend are those in which were trained all the best models in science and general literature, whom they most revere and admire.

A LOAN TO THE MESSENGER.

NO. I.

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live to be married.—Benedict.

The day I was married, my dear Editor, I was greeted by a valued crony of mine with the following Jew desperate, as Mrs. Malaprop might call a jeu d'esprit. The occasion which gave this trifle birth having now been some years a matter of history, I am disposed to lend it to your good readers for a month, and beg them to be very careful of it, as it is really one of the neatest things of the kind I or they have ever seen. It is by a poet of no low order of genius, I can assure you, whose fault alone it is that his name, albeit not insignificant, is not yet higher on the rolls of poetic fame. It has never been in print.

J. F. O.

LIFE.

A BRIEF HISTORY, IN THREE PARTS, WITH A SEQUEL: Dedicated to my friend on his Wedding Day, November 1, 18—.

Part I.—LOVE.

A glance,—a thought,—a blow,— It stings him to the core. A question—will it lay him low? Or will time heal it o'er? He kindles at the name,— He sits, and thinks apart; Time blows and blows it to a flame,— Burning within his heart. He loves it though it burns, And nurses it with care: He feeds the blissful pain, by turns, With hope, and with despair!

—

Part II.—COURTSHIP.

Sonnets and serenades, Sighs, glances, tears and vows, Gifts, tokens, souvenirs, parades, And courtesies and bows. A purpose, and a prayer: The stars are in the sky,— He wonders how e'en hope should dare To let him aim so high! Still hope allures and flatters, And doubt just makes him bold: And so, with passion all in tatters, The trembling tale is told! Apologies and blushes, Soft looks, averted eyes, Each heart into the other rushes, Each yields, and wins, a prize.

—

Part III.—MARRIAGE.

A gathering of fond friends,— Brief, solemn words, and prayer,— A trembling to the fingers' ends, As hand in hand they swear. Sweet cake, sweet wine, sweet kisses,— And so the deed is done: Now for life's woes and blisses,— The wedded two are one. And down the shining stream They launch their buoyant skiff, Bless'd, if they may but trust Hope's dream,— But ah! Truth echoes—If!

—

THE SEQUEL.—IF.

If health be firm,—if friends be true,— If self be well controlled,— If tastes be pure,—if wants be few,— And not too often told,— If reason always rule the heart,— And passions own its sway,— If love for aye to life impart The zest it does to day,— If Providence with parent care Mete out the varying lot,— While meek Contentment bows to share The palace or the cot,— And oh! if Faith, sublime and clear, The spirit upward guide,— Then bless'd indeed, and bless'd fore'er, The Bridegroom, and the Bride!

WILLIAM CUTTER.

P———d.

READINGS WITH MY PENCIL.

NO. II. Legere sine calamo est dormire.—Quintilian.

8. "A drayman is probably born with as good organs as Milton, Locke, or Newton: but by culture they are as much above him, almost, as he is above his horse."—Chesterfield.

Chesterfield, it would seem, was a Phrenologist, in fact.

9. "In matters of consequence, have nothing to do with secondary people: deal always with principals."—Edgeworth.

Good advice. In matters of state, deal never with a clerk,—he has no discretion. In matters of trade deal never with an agent, if you can come near the principal, for the same cause,—he lacks the discretion that the latter has. But for a different cause than this, in matters of love, deal never with parents, but with the child: it is true, she has less discretion, but in this matter she is still the principal.

10. "Women may have their wills while they live, for they may make none when they die."—Anon.

The author of that, whoever he be, was a kind soul: he found an apology for that which husbands, lovers, and fathers are apt to think a grievous fault in the sex. But the thought that strikes me most forcibly upon reading that passage is, the injustice of the law's treatment of women in this regard. Why should a woman's property, upon her marriage, become, ipso facto, another's? I take it that is a question which neither casuists nor gownsmen can answer. I knew an old woman who could give the true reply, and it was one that she gave as a reason for every query, puzzling or plain,—and that was "'Cause!"

11. "A soul conversant with virtue resembles a fountain: for it is clear, and gentle, and sweet, and communicative, and rich, and harmless and innocent."—Epictetus.

Beautiful because true. Such a soul is clear; one can see deeply into its crystal purity: it is gentle, and no waves disturb the spectator as he gazes: it is sweet, and he who drinks of it is refreshed and renovated in mental and intellectual health. Communicative is it, and throws out its jets in affluent profusion, making the atmosphere delicious to those who come within its reach. Rich, too, abundantly, overflowingly rich, full of jewels beyond price, ready for those who will gather them up from the inexhaustible bed of that fountain: harmless, moreover, and innocent, diffusing influences of a healthful and inspiring force, which turns mere sense to soul, mere mortality to immortality!

12. "The suspicion of Dean Swift's irreligion proceeded, in a great measure, from his dread of hypocrisy: instead of wishing to seem better, he delighted in seeming worse than he was."—Dr. Johnson.

That is a queer apology for a great Moralist to make for a Dean of the Church! It makes out Swift to be the worst of rascals: for it makes him more regardful of other men's opinions than of his own. It exhibits him as contravening conscience with seeming. Now, to my mind, the mere suspicion of hypocrisy is a far less evil than the positive conviction of it. He was, according to Johnson, afraid of being thought a hypocrite, and so he actually became one!

13. "As much company as I have kept, and as much as I love it, I love reading better; and would rather be employed in reading, than in the most agreeable company."—Pope.

It is but a choice of company after all. For my part I verily believe the poet loved both well enough, although the world of books he most affected. He never wrote the "Essay on Man" or the "Dunciad" from the experience of the study, however: men's hearts were the 'books' he read from when he gave those splendid poems birth. The "world of books"—reminds me of

14. "Books are a real world, both pure and good, Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness may grow." Wordsworth.

15. "Oh! who shall tell the glory of the good man's course, when, as his mortal organs are closing upon the world, he is looking forward to the opening brightness of that sun which never sets, shining from out the sapphire gates of Heaven! What earthly simile can your poet or your rhapsodist furnish, to carry to the spirit so rapturous a conception?"—Chalmers.

The simplest similes for such purposes are the best. And it is a beautiful order of our nature, that it furnishes them abundantly for the improvement of the reflective mind. And thus would I assimilate an earthly scene to the rapturous conception of the eloquent divine whom I have quoted. A most beautiful autumn day, free from clouds,—when the varied colored leaves seem willing to fade, with so bright, so warm, so cheerful a sun upon them,—is to me an emblem of the beaming of the sun of righteousness, which, growing brighter as their bodies decay, makes the happiest and holiest spirits willing to die, under an influence so benign.

16. "I walked, I rode, I hunted, I played, I read, I wrote, I did every thing but think. I could not, or rather I would not think. Thinking kept me too long to one point. I could not bear that turning my face to a dead wall. In self defence, to keep me from my thoughts, I flitted from one occupation to another in which my mind could not, if it would, find the least employment or permanent satisfaction. But the world called me a very happy man!"—Bulwer, (I believe.)

Every man has those moments, I imagine, of struggling with his own mind, endeavoring, yet almost impossibly, to fix it upon a single object for any length of time: when it is like a bird in a storm, attempting to alight upon a waving, trembling spray.

17. "But Thomas Moore, albeit but an indifferent biographer, is one of the greatest masters of versification the world has ever known, while in song-writing he is perfectly unrivalled."—Quarterly Review.

Perhaps in a peculiar, refined style of song-writing he may be: but while his are the music of the fancy, Burns speaks the melodies of the soul.

18. "The Creator has so constituted the human intellect, that it can grow only by its own action, and by its own action it will most certainly and necessarily grow. Every man must, therefore, in an important sense, educate himself. His books and teachers are but aids, the work is his."—Daniel Webster.

The great statesman spoke this from the lessons of his own experience, and it is true. Yet how many moments there are in a scholar's life, when his progress seems so slow that he languishes over every task; and, because he cannot attain every thing at once, forgets, that every thing worth gaining is obtained after many struggles: and, if one foot slips back a little, yet, if he gain at all on his way, that it is better to persevere! Besides, it is not only the ends of study which are delightful—for so also are its ways: and, if we are not advancing rapidly, there is yet a pleasure in exercise, even when much of it fails.

19. "The preacher, raising his withered hands as if imparting a benediction with the words, closed his discourse with the text he had been enforcing,—'It is good that a man bear the yoke in his youth.'"—Lights and Shadows.

I do believe that text most implicitly. I myself feel that it is true: for I am one of those who are best when most afflicted. While the weight hangs heavily, I keep time and measure, like a clock; but remove it, and all the springs and wheels move irregularly, and I am but a mere useless thing.

20. "Fair and bright to day, but windy and cold."—My Old Journal.

———like a satirical beauty!

J. F. O.

HALLEY'S COMET.

And who art thou amid the starry host, Shedding thy pale and misty light, Like some lone pearl, unseen and lost, Amid the diamonds of a gala night. Thou comest from the measureless abyss, Where God hath made his glory known; Is it with mystic cord, to this To bind some system yet unseen, unknown. Art thou the ship of heaven, laden with light, From the eternal glory sent, To feed the glowing suns, that might In ceaseless radiance but for thee be spent? Or art thou rolling on thy way, a car, Bearing from God some angel band, Sent forth from world to world afar, To regulate the fabric of his hand? Oh! if thou art on some such errand sent, Forth from the throne of Him we love, May not thy homeward path be bent By our poor earth, to bear our souls above?

Prince Edward.

EPIMANES.

BY E. A. POE. Chacun a ses vertus.—Crebillon's Xerxes.

Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming of Christ—his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus—his implacable hostility to the Jews—his pollution of the Holy of Holies, and his miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore more generally noticed by the historians of his time than the impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which make up the sum total of his private life and reputation.

* * * * *

Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and other countries, sixteen cities of that name besides the one to which I more particularly allude. But ours is that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its vicinity to the little village Daphne, where stood a temple to that divinity. It was built (although about this matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the country after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and became immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the flourishing times of the Roman empire, it was the ordinary station of the Prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the emperors of the queen city, among whom may be mentioned, most especially, Verus and Valens, spent here the greater part of their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself. Let us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes around upon the town and neighboring country.

What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way with innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally through the wilderness of buildings?

That is the Orontes, and the only water in sight, with the exception of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad mirror, about twelve miles off to the southward. Every one has beheld the Mediterranean; but, let me tell you, there are few who have had a peep at Antioch. By few, I mean few who, like you and I, have had, at the same time, the advantages of a modern education. Therefore cease to regard that sea, and give your whole attention to the mass of houses that lie beneath us. You will remember that it is now the year of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty. Were it later—for example, were it unfortunately the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty-six, we should be deprived of this extraordinary spectacle. In the nineteenth century Antioch is—that is, Antioch will be in a lamentable state of decay. It will have been, by that time, totally destroyed, at three different periods, by three successive earthquakes. Indeed, to say the truth, what little of its former self may then remain, will be found in so desolate and ruinous a state, that the patriarch will remove his residence to Damascus. This is well. I see you profit by my advice, and are making the most of your time in inspecting the premises—in

———satisfying your eyes With the memorials and the things of fame That most renown this city.

I beg pardon—I had forgotten that Shakspeare will not flourish for nearly seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the appearance of Epidaphne justify me in calling it grotesque?

It is well fortified—and in this respect is as much indebted to nature as to art.

Very true.

There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.

There are.

And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.

All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud huts and abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance of filth in every kennel, and, were it not for the overpowering fumes of idolatrous incense, I have no doubt we should find a most intolerable stench. Did you ever behold streets so insufferably narrow, or houses so miraculously tall? What a gloom their shadows cast upon the ground! It is well the swinging lamps in those endless collonades are kept burning throughout the day—we should otherwise have the darkness of Egypt in the time of her desolation.

It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder singular building? See!—it towers above all the others, and lies to the eastward of what I take to be the royal palace.

That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under the title of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman Emperor will institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a cognomen Heliogabalus. I dare say you would like a peep at the divinity of the temple. You need not look up at the Heavens, his Sunship is not there—at least not the Sunship adored by the Syrians. That Deity will be found in the interior of yonder building. He is worshipped under the figure of a large stone pillar terminating at the summit in a cone or pyramid, whereby is denoted Fire.

Hark!—behold!—who can those ridiculous beings be—half naked—with their faces painted—shouting and gesticulating to the rabble?

Some few are mountebanks. Others more particularly belong to the race of philosophers. The greatest portion, however—those especially who belabor the populace with clubs, are the principal courtiers of the palace, executing, as in duty bound, some laudable comicality of the king's.

But what have we here? Heavens!—the town is swarming with wild beasts! What a terrible spectacle!—what a dangerous peculiarity!

Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous. Each animal, if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the lesser or more timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are entirely without restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions when Nature asserts her violated dominion—but then the devouring of a man-at-arms, or the throtling of a consecrated bull, are circumstances of too little moment to be more than hinted at in Epidaphne.

But what extraordinary tumult do I hear? Surely this is a loud noise even for Antioch! It argues some commotion of unusual interest.

Yes—undoubtedly. The king has ordered some novel spectacle—some gladiatorial exhibition at the Hippodrome—or perhaps the massacre of the Scythian prisoners—or the conflagration of his new palace—or the tearing down of a handsome temple—or, indeed, a bonfire of a few Jews. The uproar increases. Shouts of laughter ascend the skies. The air becomes dissonant with wind instruments, and horrible with the clamor of a million throats. Let us descend, for the love of fun, and see what is going on. This way—be careful. Here we are in the principal street, which is called the street of Timarchus. The sea of people is coming this way, and we shall find a difficulty in stemming the tide. They are pouring through the alley of Heraclides, which leads directly from the palace—therefore the king is most probably among the rioters. Yes—I hear the shouts of the herald proclaiming his approach in the pompous phraseology of the East. We shall have a glimpse of his person as he passes by the temple of Ashimah. Let us ensconce ourselves in the vestibule of the Sanctuary—he will be here anon. In the meantime let us survey this image. What is it? Oh, it is the God Ashimah in proper person. You perceive, however, that he is neither a lamb, nor a goat, nor a Satyr—neither has he much resemblance to the Pan of the Arcadians. Yet all these appearances have been given—I beg pardon—will be given by the learned of future ages to the Ashimah of the Syrians. Put on your spectacles, and tell me what it is. What is it?

Bless me, it is an ape!

True—a baboon; but by no means the less a Deity. His name is a derivation of the Greek Simia—what great fools are antiquarians! But see!—see!—yonder scampers a ragged little urchin. Where is he going? What is he bawling about? What does he say? Oh!—he says the king is coming in triumph—that he is dressed in state—and that he has just finished putting to death with his own hand a thousand chained Israelitish prisoners. For this exploit the ragamuffin is lauding him to the skies. Hark!—here come a troop of a similar description. They have made a Latin hymn upon the valor of the king, and are singing it as they go.

Mille, mille, mille, Mille, mille, mille, Decollavimus, unus homo! Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus! Mille, mille, mille! Vivat qui mille mille occidit! Tantum vini habet nemo Quantum sanguinis effudit!¹

which may be thus paraphrased.

A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, We, with one warrior, have slain! A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand, Sing a thousand over again! Soho!—let us sing Long life to our king, Who knocked over a thousand so fine! Soho!—let us roar, He has given us more Red gallons of gore Than all Syria can furnish of wine!

¹ Flavius Vopiscus says that the Hymn which is here introduced, was sung by the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic war, having slain with his own hand nine hundred and fifty of the enemy.

Do you hear that flourish of trumpets?

Yes—the king is coming! See!—the people are aghast with admiration, and lift up their eyes to the heavens in reverence. He comes—he is coming—there he is!

Who?—where?—the king?—do not behold him—cannot say that I perceive him.

Then you must be blind.

Very possible. Still I see nothing but a tumultuous mob of idiots and madmen, who are busy in prostrating themselves before a gigantic cameleopard, and endeavoring to obtain a kiss of the animal's hoofs. See! the beast has very justly kicked one of the rabble over—and another—and another—and another. Indeed, I cannot help admiring the animal for the excellent use he is making of his feet.

Rabble, indeed!—why these are the noble and free citizens of Epidaphne! Beast, did you say?—take care that you are not overheard. Do you not perceive that the animal has the visage of a man? Why, my dear sir, that cameleopard is no other than Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus the Illustrious, King of Syria, and the most potent of the Autocrats of the East! It is true that he is entitled, at times, Antiochus Epimanes, Antiochus the madman—but that is because all people have not the capacity to appreciate his merits. It is also certain that he is at present ensconced in the hide of a beast, and is doing his best to play the part of a cameleopard—but this is done for the better sustaining his dignity as king. Besides, the monarch is of a gigantic stature, and the dress is therefore neither unbecoming nor over large. We may, however, presume he would not have adopted it but for some occasion of especial state. Such you will allow is the massacre of a thousand Jews. With what a superior dignity the monarch perambulates upon all fours. His tail, you perceive, is held aloft by his two principal concubines, Elline and Argelais; and his whole appearance would be infinitely prepossessing, were it not for the protuberance of his eyes, which will certainly start out of his head, and the queer color of his face, which has become nondescript from the quantity of wine he has swallowed. Let us follow to the Hippodrome, whither he is proceeding, and listen to the song of triumph which he is commencing.

Who is king but Epiphanes? Say—do you know? Who is king but Epiphanes? Bravo—bravo! There is none but Epiphanes, No—there is none: So tear down the temples, And put out the sun! Who is king but Epiphanes? Say—do you know? Who is king but Epiphanes? Bravo—bravo!

Well and strenuously sung! The populace are hailing him 'Prince of Poets,' as well as 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight of the Universe,' and 'most remarkable of Cameleopards.' They have encored his effusion—and, do you hear?—he is singing it over again. When he arrives at the Hippodrome he will be crowned with the Poetic Wreath in anticipation of his victory at the approaching Olympics.

But, good Jupiter!—what is the matter in the crowd behind us?

Behind us did you say?—oh!—ah!—I perceive. My friend, it is well that you spoke in time. Let us get into a place of safety as soon as possible. Here!—let us conceal ourselves in the arch of this aqueduct, and I will inform you presently of the origin of this commotion. It has turned out as I have been anticipating. The singular appearance of the Cameleopard with the head of a man, has, it seems, given offence to the notions of propriety entertained in general by the wild animals domesticated in the city. A mutiny has been the result, and as is usual upon such occasions, all human efforts will be of no avail in quelling the mob. Several of the Syrians have already been devoured—but the general voice of the four-footed patriots seems to be for eating up the Cameleopard. 'The Prince of Poets,' therefore, is upon his hinder legs, and running for his life. His courtiers have left him in the lurch, and his concubines have let fall his tail. 'Delight of the Universe,' thou art in a sad predicament! 'Glory of the East,' thou art in danger of mastication! Therefore never regard so piteously thy tail—it will undoubtedly be draggled in the mud, and for this there is no help. Look not behind thee then at its unavoidable degradation—but take courage—ply thy legs with vigor—and scud for the Hippodrome! Remember that the beasts are at thy heels! Remember that thou art Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus, the Illustrious!—also 'Prince of Poets,' 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight of the Universe,' and 'most remarkable of Cameleopards!' Heavens! what a power of speed thou art displaying! What a capacity for leg-bail thou art developing! Run, Prince! Bravo, Epiphanes! Well done, Cameleopard! Glorious Antiochus! He runs!—he moves!—he flies! Like a shell from a catapult he approaches the Hippodrome! He leaps!—he shrieks!—he is there! This is well—for hadst thou, 'Glory of the East,' been half a second longer in reaching the gates of the Amphitheatre, there is not a bear's cub in Epidaphne who would not have had a nibble at thy carcase. Let us be off—let us take our departure!—for we shall find our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast uproar which is about to commence in celebration of the king's escape! Listen! it has already commenced. See!—the whole town is topsy-turvy.

Surely this is the most populous city of the East! What a wilderness of people! What a jumble of all ranks and ages! What a multiplicity of sects and nations! What a variety of costumes! What a Babel of languages! What a screaming of beasts! What a tinkling of instruments! What a parcel of philosophers!

Come let us be off!

Stay a moment! I see a vast hubbub in the Hippodrome. What is the meaning of it I beseech you?

That? Oh nothing! The noble and free citizens of Epidaphne being, as they declare, well satisfied of the faith, valor, wisdom, and divinity of their king, and having, moreover, been eye witnesses of his late superhuman agility, do think it no more than their duty to invest his brows (in addition to the Poetic Crown) with the wreath of victory in the foot race—a wreath which it is evident he must obtain at the celebration of the next Olympiad.

TO HELEN.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfum'd sea, The weary wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the beauty of fair Greece, And the grandeur of old Rome. Lo! in that little window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand! The folded scroll within thy hand— Ah! Psyche from the regions which Are Holy land!

E. A. P.

ON THE POETRY OF BURNS¹

BY JAMES F. OTIS.

¹ This paper was written at the request of a literary society of which the author was a member, and the facts are gathered principally from Currie. Some extracts from the poet's own letters, and from an eloquent review of Lockhart's Burns, which appeared a few years since in the Edinburgh Review, are interwoven, and the whole made up as an essay to be "read not printed."

If we take the different definitions of the term "Poetry," that have been given this beautiful and magical art by the various writers upon its nature and properties, as each supported by reason and fact, we shall hardly arrive at any degree of certainty as to its real meaning. It has been called "the art of imitation," or mimickry. Aristotle and Plato characterize it as "the expression of thoughts by fictions;" and there are innumerable other definitions, none of which are more satisfactory to the student than is that of the celebrated "Blair." He says, "it is the language of Passion,—or enlivened Imagination, formed, most commonly, into regular numbers. The primary object of a poet is to please, and to move; and therefore it is to imagination and the passions that he speaks. He may, and he ought to have it in his view to instruct and reform; but it is indirectly, and by pleasing, and moving, that he accomplishes this end. His mind is supposed to be animated by some interesting object which fires his imagination or engages his passions: and which, of course, communicates to his style a peculiar elevation, suited to his ideas, very different from that mode of expression which is natural to the mind in its calm, ordinary state." And this definition will allow of being yet more particularly and minutely understood: it is susceptible of being analyzed still farther, and described as "a language, in which fiction and imagination may, with propriety, be indulged beyond the strict limits of truth and reality."

Who is there that has not felt the power of Poetry? For it is not essential that it be embodied in regular and finely wrought periods, and conveyed to the ear in alternate rhyme, and made to harmonize in nicely-toned successions of sounds. Who is there that has not felt its power? It originated with the very nature of man; and is confined to no nation, age, or situation. This is proved by the well-attested fact, that Poetry ever diminishes in strength of thought, boldness of conception, and power of embodying striking images, in proportion as it becomes polished and cultivated. The uncivilized tenant of our forests is, by nature, a Poet! Whether he would lead his brethren to the field of warfare, or conclude with the white man a treaty of peace and future amity, still his style evinces the same grand characteristic,—the spirit of true Poetry. The barbarous Celt, the benighted Icelander, and the earliest and most unenlightened nations of the world, as described on the page of history, are proofs of the principle we have been considering; and it was not, indeed, until society became settled and civilized, that poetical composition ceased to embrace every impulse of which the human soul is susceptible. It was not till then, that, in the language of a distinguished writer, "Poetry became a separate art, calculated, chiefly, to please; and confined, generally, to such subjects as related to the imagination and the passions." Then was it that there arose, naturally, divisions in the classes or schools of Poetry,—as Lyric, Elegiac, Pastoral, Didactic, Descriptive, and Dramatic. A consideration of each of these classes might furnish us with materiel for an interesting examination of their individual peculiarities: but time will not permit so wide a range.

ROBERT BURNS was born on the 25th of January, 1759, in the town of Ayr, in Scotland. His pretensions by birth, were a descent from poor and humble, but honest and intelligent parents; and a title to inherit all their intelligence and virtue, as well as all their poverty. Upon the nature of these pretensions, Burns, in a letter to a friend, dated many years after, takes occasion to say: "I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character, which the pye-coatcd guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at Edinborough last winter, I got acquainted in the Herald's Office; and looking through that granary of honors, I there found almost every name in the kingdom: but for me,—

'My ancient but ignoble blood Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood.'"

His father was a native of the north of Scotland, but he was driven by various misfortunes to Edinborough, and thence still farther south to Ayrshire, where he was first employed as a gardener in one of the families in that vicinity, and afterwards, being desirous of settling in life, took a lease of a little farm of seven acres, on which he reared a clay cottage with his own hands, and soon after married a wife. The first fruit of this union was our poet, whose birth took place two years thereafter. Robert, during his early days, was by no means a favorite with any body. He was remarkable, however, for a retentive memory, and a thoughtful turn of mind. His ear was dull, and his voice harsh and dissonant, and he evinced no musical talent or poetical genius until his fifteenth or sixteenth year. It is pretended by his biographers, (of whom there have been several, and who all agree in this opinion,) that the seeds of Poetry were very early implanted in his mind, and that the recitations and fireside chaunts of an old crone, who was familiar in his father's family, served to cherish their growth, and strengthen their hold upon his memory. This "auld gudewife" is said to have had the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning fairies, witches, warlocks, apparitions, giants, dragons, and other agents of romantic fiction. Speaking of these tales and songs, he says, in his later years, "so strong an effect had they upon my imagination, that even to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I am fain to keep a sharp look out in suspicious places; and, though nobody can feel more sceptical than I have ever done in such matters, yet it often requires an effort of Philosophy to shake off these idle terrors."

When Robert was in his seventh year, his father quitted the birth-place of the poet, and took a lease of a small farm on the estate of Mr. Fergusson, called Mount Oliphant. He had been, for a year or two previous to this event, a pupil of Dr. Murdoch, who is represented as being a very worthy and acute man, and who took much pains with the education of the future poet. In fact, his father had previously taught him arithmetic, and whatever of lore could be gathered from the "big ha' bible," as they sat by their solitary candle; and he had been sent, alternately with his brother, a week at a time during a summer's quarter, to a writing master at the parish school at Dalrymple. But Dr. Murdoch, his faithful friend in youth and age, instructed him in English Grammar, and aided him in the acquisition of a little French. After a fortnight's instruction in the latter language, he was able to translate it into English prose, but, farther than this, his new attainment was never of much advantage to him. Indeed, his attempts to speak the language were ridiculously futile at times. On one occasion, when he called in Edinborough at the house of an accomplished friend, a lady who had been educated in France, he found her conversing with a French lady, to whom he was introduced. The French woman understood English; but Burns must need try his powers. His first sentence was intended to compliment the lady on her apparent eloquence in conversation; but by mistaking some idiom, he made the lady understand that she was too fond of hearing herself speak. The French woman, highly incensed, replied, that there were more instances of vain poets than of talkative women; and Burns was obliged to use his own language in appeasing her. He attempted the Latin, but his success did not encourage him to persevere. And, in fine, with the addition of a quarter's attendance to Geometry and Surveying, at the age of nineteen, and a few lessons at a country dancing school, I have now mentioned all his opportunities of acquiring a scholastic education. He says of himself, in allusion to his boyish days, "though it cost the schoolmaster many thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs and particles."

As soon as young Burns had strength to work, he was employed as a laborer upon his father's farm. At twelve he was a good ploughman; a year later he assisted at the threshing-floor; and was his father's main dependance at fifteen, there being no hired laborers, male or female, in the family at the time. In one of his letters, (and it is by extracting copiously from them, that I propose chiefly to narrate his history,) he remarks upon this subject—"I saw my father's situation entailed on me perpetual labor: the only two openings by which I could enter the temple of fortune, were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little, chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an aperture, I never could squeeze myself into it; the last I always hated—there was contamination in the very entrance!" And it was this kind of life,—the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing toil of a galley-slave, that brought him to his sixteenth year, at about which period he first perpetrated the sin of rhyming. Of this you shall have an account in the author's own language.

"You know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labors of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language; but you know the Scottish idiom,—she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. In short, she altogether, unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, rigid prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the contagion I cannot tell. You medical people—(he was addressing the celebrated Dr. Moore) you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, &c.; but I never expressly said I loved her. Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an Eolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I plucked the cruel nettle-stings and thistles from her little white hand. Among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favorite reel, to which I attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had Greek and Latin: but my girl sung a song, which was said to have been composed by a country laird's son upon a neighboring maiden with whom he was in love! and I saw; no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could shear sheep and cast peats, (his father living in the moorlands,) he had no more scholar craft than myself."

Thus, with Burns, began Love and Poetry. This, his first effort, is valuable, more from the promise it gave of his future excellence as a poet, than for any intrinsic merit which it possessed as a performance of so gifted a genius. I have been the more particular in describing the circumstances attending the composition of these, his earliest verses, for the proof they afford of the truth of the general remark, that of all the poetical compositions of Burns, his love-songs, and amatory poetry are far the best. His feelings predominated over his fancy, and whenever the latter is introduced we are forced to deem it an intrusion for the strong contrast it presents with the native and characteristic simplicity of his more natural and heartfelt effusions.

Referring to the predilections which I have said gave a character to so large a portion of his poetical writings, he says,—"My heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other: and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes I was received with favor, and sometimes I was mortified with a repulse." And in another letter he says farther, "Another circumstance in my life which made some alterations in my mind and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c. in which I made a pretty good progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. Scenes of riot and roaring dissipation were, till now, new to me; but I was no enemy to social life. For all that, I went on with a high hand in my geometry till the sun entered Virgo, (a month, which is always a carnival in my bosom,) when a charming fair one, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the sphere of my duties. I, however, struggled on with my sines and co-sines for a few days more, but stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel,

'Like Proserpine, gathering flowers, Herself, a fairer flower.'

It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The remaining weeks I staid I did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet her. And the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless."

This brings us to a period, which the poet calls an important era in his life—his twenty-third year; and he explains this in the following näive and characteristic style. "Partly through whim, and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined a flax-dresser in the neighboring town of Irvine to learn his trade. This was an unlucky affair; as we were welcoming in the new year with a carousal, our shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left like a true poet, not worth a sixpence." About this time the clouds of misfortune thickened around his father's head, who, indeed, was already far gone in a consumption; and to crown the distresses incident to his situation, a girl, to whom he was engaged to be married, jilted him with peculiar circumstances of mortification.

During his residence at Irvine, our poet was miserably poor and dispirited. His food consisted chiefly of oat meal, and this was sent to him from his father's family; and so small was, of necessity, his allowance, that he was obliged to borrow often of a neighbor, until he should again be supplied. He was very melancholy with the idea, that the dreams of future eminence and distinction which his imagination had presented to his mind, were only dreams; and to dissipate this melancholy his resource was society with its enjoyments. The incidents to which I have alluded took place some years before the publication of his poems. About this time William Burns removed from Mount Oliphant to Lochlea, and later still, to the parish of Tarbolton, where, as we are informed by a letter from Dr. Murdoch, written in 1799, that "Robert wrote most of his poems." It was in Tarbolton that Burns established a debating club, which consisted of the poet, his brother Gilbert, and five or six other young peasants of the neighborhood—the laws and regulations for which were furnished by the former. Among these members was David Sillar, to whom the two beautiful poems, entitled "Epistles to Davie, a brother poet," were addressed. Some of the rules and regulations of this club are so peculiar, and bespeak so forcibly the character of their author, that I cannot resist the temptation to transcribe some of them. The eighth is in the following words:

"Every member shall attend at the meetings, without he can give a proper excuse for not attending. And it is desired, that every one who cannot attend will send his excuse with some other member: and he who shall be absent three meetings without sending such excuse, shall be summoned to the club night, when if he fail to appear, or send an excuse, he shall be excluded."

And the tenth and last rule is worthy of particular notice, and a part of it of incorporation into the code even of more extensive and more pretending societies: it is as follows:

"Every man proper for a member of this club, must have a frank, honest, open heart—above any thing low or mean, and must be a professed lover of the female sex. No haughty, self-conceited person, who looks upon himself as superior to the rest of the club—and especially no mean spirited, worldly mortal, whose only will is to heap up money, shall, upon any pretence whatever, be admitted. In short, the proper person for this society, is a cheerful, honest-hearted lad—who, if he has a friend that is true, a mistress that is kind, and as much wealth as genteely to make both ends meet, is just as happy as this world can make him."

But I must, however reluctantly, omit many interesting particulars in the earlier, and more private life of our poet, and hasten to his visit to Edinborough in the winter of 1786. The celebrated Dugald Stewart, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinborough, in a letter to Dr. Currie, alludes to several of Burns's early poems, and avers, that it was upon his showing a volume of them to Henry McKenzie, (the celebrated author of "The Man of Feeling,") that this gentleman introduced the rustic bard to the notice of the public, in the xcvii No. of The Lounger, which justly famous periodical paper was then in the course of publication, and had long been a favorite work with the young poet.

Depressed by poverty, and chagrined with the contrasts which fate seemed malignantly bent upon opposing to his ambitious aspirations, his only object, at last, had been to accumulate the petty sum of nine guineas, (which he did by the publication of a few of his poems,) and to take passage in the steerage of a ship bound to the West Indies, determined to become a negro driver, or any thing else, so that he could escape the fangs of that merciless pack, the bailiffs; for, said he,

"Hungry ruin had me in the wind."

He had taken leave of his friends—had despatched his single chest to the vessel—had written his Farewell Song, which he sang to the beautiful air of "Roslin Castle," and which closes with,

"Adieu, my friends!—Adieu, my foes! My peace with these, my love with those: The bursting tears my heart declare, Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr!"

when a letter from Dr. Blacklock, elicited by a perusal of the volume to which I have just now alluded, opened for him new prospects to his poetic ambition, by inviting him to Edinborough. Thither, then, he went—and his reception by all classes, ages and ranks, was as flattering as, in his most sanguine aspirations, he could have desired. Dr. Robertson, the celebrated historian, Dr. Blair, Dr. Gregory, Professor Stewart, Mr. McKenzie, and many more men of letters were particularly interested in his reception, and in the cultivation of his genius. He became, from his first entrance into Edinborough, the object of universal attention, and it seemed as if there was no possibility of rewarding his merits too highly. Mr. Lockhart, the latest and most eloquent of the numerous biographers of Burns, has a note, containing an extract from a letter of Sir Walter Scott, and furnished by the latter for his work, which is too interesting to be passed over. It relates to a personal interview of Sir Walter with our poet, during his first visit to Edinborough.

"As for Burns," writes he, "I may truly say, 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' I was a lad of fifteen in 1786–7, when he came first to Edinborough, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him: but I had very little acquaintance with any literary people, and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented." ... "As it was, I saw him one day at the late venerable Professor Fergusson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked, and listened. The only thing I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print, with the ideas suggested to his mind upon reading the story whereof, (written under it) he was moved even to tears. He asked whose the lines were? and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half forgotten poem of Langhorne's. I passed this information to Burns by a friend, and I was rewarded with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure." ... "His person," continues Sir Walter, "was strong and robust: his manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity. There was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments: the eye, alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed, (I say literally glowed,) when he spoke with feeling or interest." ... "I never saw another such eye in a human head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption."

After making a few more observations with relation to the poet's conversation and manner, the writer I have been quoting concludes his reminiscence as follows:

"This is all I can tell you about Burns. I never saw him again, except in the street, where he did not recognise me, as I could not expect he should. I have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was like a farmer, dressed in his best, to dine with the laird. I was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I do not know that I can add any thing to these recollections of forty years since."

These are extracts, that, one day or other, will be looked upon as curiosities in literature, and will be inestimably precious: at present, I fear me, an apology should follow their introduction, at such length: but I shall only say in the language of another, in excuse for dwelling so long on this incident in the life of Burns, that it forms "the most remarkable phenomenon in the history of modern literature."

But if this, his first winter in Edinborough, produced a favorable effect upon the future fame of Robert Burns, as a poet, it was also the source of vast unhappiness to him, during his after life. Not only was he admitted to the company of men of letters and virtue, but he was pressed into the society of those, whose social habits, and love of the pleasures of life were their chief attractions. When among his superiors in rank and intelligence, his carriage was decorous and diffident: but among others, his boon companions, he, in his turn, was lord of the ascendant: and thus commenced a career, which, had its outset been a more prudent one, would probably not have closed until a later period, nor without a much greater measure of glory and honor to him, who was thus unfortunately misguided.

During the residence of Burns at Edinborough, he published a new and enlarged edition of his poems, and was thus enabled to visit other parts of his native country, and some parts of England beside. Having done this, he returned, and during most of the following winter, we find him again in the gay and literary metropolis, much less an object of novelty, and, of course, of general attention and interest, than before. Unable to find employment or occupation of a literary nature, he quitted Edinborough in the spring of 1788, and took the farm of Ellisland, near Dumfries: besides advancing 200l. for the liberation of his brother Gilbert from some difficulties into which certain agricultural misfortunes had involved him. He was, soon after, united to his "bonnie Jean," the theme of so much of his delightful verse, and employed himself in stocking and cultivating his farm, and rebuilding the dwelling house upon it. There is an anecdote of him in the history furnished by Dr. Currie, the truth of which Mr. Lockhart seems disposed to question: his doubts originate from a consideration of the absurd costume in which the older biographer has seen fit to invest the poet in his narration. As this is the only exception taken to it, and as it is certainly illustrative of Burns's character and manners in other respects, and as it is related, too, upon so good authority, I shall venture to introduce it in this, its proper place, in point of time.

"In the summer of 1791, two English gentlemen, who had before met Burns at Edinborough, paid a visit to him in Ellisland. On calling at his house, they were informed that he had walked out on the banks of the river; and, dismounting from their horses, they proceeded in search of him. On a rock that projected into the stream, they saw a man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. He had a cap, made of a fox's skin, on his head, a loose great coat fixed round him by a belt, from which depended an enormous Highland broadsword. It was Burns. He received them with great cordiality, and asked them to share his humble dinner; an invitation which they accepted. On the table they found boiled beef with vegetables and barley-broth, after the manner of Scotland, of which they partook heartily. After dinner, the bard told them ingenuously that he had no wine to offer them—nothing better than Highland whiskey, a bottle of which Mrs. Burns set on the board. He produced, at the same time, his punch-bowl, made of Inverary marble; and mixing the spirit with water and sugar, filled their glasses, and invited them to drink. The travellers were in haste, and besides, the flavor of the whiskey to their southron palates was scarcely tolerable: but the generous poet offered them his best, and his ardent hospitality they found it impossible to resist. Burns was in his happiest mood, and the charms of his conversation were altogether fascinating. He ranged over a great variety of topics, illuminating whatever he touched. He related the tales of his infancy and his youth; he recited some of the gayest, and some of the tenderest of his poems: in the wildest of his strains of mirth he threw in some touches of melancholy, and spread around him the electric emotions of his powerful mind. The Highland whiskey improved in its flavor; the bowl was more than once emptied, and as often replenished: the guests of our poet forgat the flight of time and the dictates of prudence; at the hour of midnight they lost their way in returning to Dumfries, and could scarcely distinguish it, when assisted by the morning's dawn."