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have actually swayed the British sceptre, will indeed look upon different pictures.

With great beauty and truth, Bolingbroke describes the character, defines the duties, and enforces the obligation of a patriot king; that he should regard his power as a trust, and that of the people as property; that he should know the true principles, and pursue the true ends of government; that his moral character must be formed, not as the statuary forms a statue, but as nature forms a flower; and that corruption should be expelled from the public councils, are principles of public morality and political conduct, which, although neither new nor original, are discussed by Bolingbroke with an eloquence and ability that almost invest them with the charm of novelty. In reading a didactic treatise of this description, our admiration for the author will be excited by the style, rather than the ideas. As to the abstract qualities which constitute a patriot king, the most of men have as clear an idea as Bolingbroke, and could, in their own way, lay down the necessary precepts. It is the praise of his lordship by his rapid style, and classic illustrations, by the warmth of his fancy and the fervor of his diction, to pour upon a dry and barren subject, a flood of instructive learning and charming eloquence.

THE HUMMING-BIRD AND THE BUTTERFLY.

BY PAUL GRANALD.

A Humming-bird-the tale is old,
The moral worth a mine of gold-
A Humming-bird, a tiny thing,

With jewell'd breast and ebon wing,

Whose plumes had caught the tints-the light-
Of all those glorious flowers,
Through which, with never-ceasing flight,
It wing'd a life of summer hours;
Striking from out th' ambient air
The notes that mark'd its pathway there!

Or if, perchance, it lighted on

Some plant more beauteous than the rest,

Or rock'd it gently in the sun

Upon some gorgeous wild-bird's breast,
"Twould take almost a magic power
To tell the Bird, or paint the Flower!
So like in hue, in beauty these,
A winged blossom on the breeze
The Bird might seem ;-a living gem,
If gems could woo the airs of even,
A truant Flower from its stem,
All sportive on the breath of heaven!
But to my tale ;-

This glorious thing

Of gilded plume and tireless wing,

Went roaming through a Southern land,

--For beauty dwells 'neath Southern suns, And there, profuse, a Maker's hand

Hath placed his bright, his beauteous ones

And in its flight it chanc'd to greet

A Fly, whose wings were died with stains

Born of the clouds when sunbeams meet
Above the earth, the falling rains,-
For fable tells-and fain would I-
How won its hues, the Butterfly.

"Tis said-I will not vouch its truth,
For earth was then but in its youth;
"Twas shortly after Noah landed-
(On Ararat his ark was stranded,)
A colony of dusky flies
Dwelt near their ancient paradise;
And these in conclave sat awhile,

But soon resolv'd to make a king,
Mighty reason!*-man need not smile,-
They choose him by his breadth of wing!
A king he was-what then befel,
The sequel of the tale must tell.
Ambition seiz'd the little wretch,

An Eagle pass'd him proudly by,
Abroad this king his wings did stretch
To follow to the upper sky.
Away! away! though toss'd about

By ev'ry breeze that swept along,
He wings him in the monarch's rout,

Far, far above the earth's base throng!
He passes many a cloudy train,
He hears around, the falling rain,
But heeds them not; he only sees
The Eagle borne upon the breeze,
And he that Fly-had often heard
The Eagle was a kingly bird,
And vainly strove to emulate
The monarch in his "pride of state."
But, sad mishap! he had not flown
Beyond the ken of earthly things,
When, through a mist by zephyrs blown,

He damp'd, at once, his filmy wings.
Now downward to the earth he sped,

His dreams forgot, his kingdom too, Till sunbeams wak'd him from the dead, By kissing from those wings, the dew, "Twas then he found-oh, glad surpriseHe'd dip them in the rain-bow's dyes! And since that time, none, none deny, The King of Flies, the Butterfly! "The beautiful"-thus spoke the bird"The beautiful of earth should be Companions in their destiny, And I, oh Fly! have never fear'd

An earthly rival, save in thee.

For I have watch'd thee, when profuse
Each bud was gemm'd with morning dews-
Have follow'd in thy wayward flight,
And seen thee on those buds alight;
And yet, so dainty was thy wing,

So light thy touch, thy perch in air,
Have never known thee downward fling
A pearl that slept in beauty there,
But left them to their blest repose,
The dew-drop and its love, the rose.
And though thy light and fragile form
May never breast a summer's storm,
And though the breeze that would not tear
A wither'd flowret from its stem,
And scarcely on its breath might bear
A leaf from Flora's diadem ;-

*Some philosophers (so called) tell us, that the first king I was chosen by an assemblage of the whole race of man, who, meeting in a broad plain, selected the tallest of their number to rule over them. See also the history of Saul.

Though these destruction bring to thee,
Bear thou companionship with me."
"There was a time," the Fly replied,
"When thou these beauties didst deride.
The one on whom ye lavish now

This fulsome praise; remember, when
On him abuse ye did bestow,

Far greater and as vulgar then."
The bird was in a scornful mood-
To tell it now is some relief-

And boasted of the plants he'd woo'd,
And had not crush'd a single leaf!
Indeed, methinks he went so far
As saying he had nestled in
A lily's cup, and did declare

He'd left the golden dust within!
A tale the Fly could not allow,

He could not do it, nor couldst thou!
"Yet this was but a trifling fault,
Ye swore I was a creeping dolt,
A thing of earth❞—

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It is always with the splendor of his thought, that the language of Plato is colored. Brilliancy in him springs from the sublime.

Plato spoke to an extremely ingenious people, and ought to speak as he does.

There arises from his writings an indescribable intellectual vapor.

Seek in Plate only forms and ideas it is what he sought himself. There is in him more light than objects, more form than substance.

It is proper to breathe him, and not to feed upon him.

Longinus blames, in Plato, the boldness which the rhetoric of the dialogue of the subject and of the time warranted.

The high philosophy has its licences, as the high poetry. By the same title, it has the same rights. Plato shows nothing, but he shines; he puts light in our eyes, and places in us a brightness with which all objects then become illuminated. He teaches us nothing, but he trains us; he fashions us and makes us fit to learn every thing. The perusal of him, increases in us, one knows not how, the susceptibility for distinguishing and admitting all the beautiful truths which can present themselves. Like the air of the mountains, it sharpens the organs, and gives the taste for wholesome food. In Plato, the spirit of poetry animates the languors of logic.

Plato loses himself in the void; but we see the play of his wings; we hear their noise.

Digressions, when they are not necessary, and

There will never be a tolerable translation of the explanation of that which is clear, are the deHomer, unless all the words of it be chosen with fects of Plato. Like children, he troubles the limart, and be full of variety, novelty and charm. It pid water to afford himself the pleasure of seeing is also necessary that the expression should be as it settle and grow clear. In fact, it is in order to antique, as undisguised as the manners, the events establish better the character of his personage; and the personages brought upon the scene. With but he thus sacrifices the piece to the actor, and our modern style, every thing makes grimaces in the fable to the masquerader. Homer, and his heroes seem some grotesque figures which the grave and the proud represent.

All beautiful poetry resembles that of Homer, and all beautiful philosophy that of Plato.

Plato is the first of speculative theologians. The revelation of Nature has no organ more brilliant. Plato found philosophy made of brick; he made it of gold.

I admire in Plato that eloquence which dispenses with all the passions, and has no need of them to triumph. This is the distinguishing trait of this great metaphysician.

There is in Plato, a light always ready to show itself, and which never shows itself. We perceive it in his veins, as in those of the flint; it is only necessary to hit his thoughts to make it spout out

from them.

The Phedon is a beautiful picture, admirably composed; there are beautiful colors, but few good reasons.

Aristotle has ranked the dialogues of Plato in the class of epic poems.

He was right, and Marmontel, who opposes him, has misunderstood the nature and the character of these dialogues, and misunderstood Aristotle.

Plato should be translated in a style pure, but a little loose, a little languid. His ideas are fine; they have little body; and to clothe them, there suffices a drapery, a veil, a vapor, of something floating, I know not what. If we give them a tight dress, we render them all counterfeit.

Plato, Xenophon, and the other writers of the school of Socrates, have the evolutions of the bird's wing; they make long circuits; they em

He heaps up clouds; but they conceal a celes-brace much space; they wheel a long time around tial fire, and this fire awaits only the shock.

Naturally a spirit of flame, and not only full of light, but luminous, Plato burns with his own flame.

the point where they wish to alight, and which they always have in view; then, at length, they fall there. In imagining the track traced in the air by the wing

of these birds, which amuse themselves by rising and falling, in hovering and wheeling, one can have an idea of what I have called the evolutions of their mind and of their style.

They are of those who build labyrinths, but labyrinths in the air. Instead of figurative or colored words, they chose simple and common words, because the idea which they employed them to present, is itself a great and long figure.

Aristotle reformed all the rules, and added, in all the sciences, new truths to known truths. His book is an ocean of doctrines. It is the encyclopedia of antiquity.

If all books should disappear, and his writings should be preserved by chance, the human mind would suffer no irreparable loss, except that of Plato.

Xenophon wrote with the feather of a swan, Plato with a gold pen, and Thucydides with a stylus of brass.

Deprive Juvenal of his bile and Virgil of his wisdom, and you will have too bad authors. Plutarch, in his morals, is the Herodotus of philosophy.

I consider the lives of the Illustrious Men, as one of the most precious monuments which antiquity has bequeathed to us.

Whatever has seemed the greatest in the human race, is there presented to our eyes and whatever the best men have done, therein serves us for an example. The wisdom of antiquity is therein entire.

I do not feel for the writer, the esteem which I entertain for his compilation. Praiseworthy for a thousand virtues, he who never allowed to be sold either his old slaves or the animals which labor or accident had maimed in his service, he is of that cowardice which allows him to float between the opinions of the philosophers without having the courage to contradict or to support them, and which gives him, for all the celebrated men, the respect which is due only to those who were virtuous and

The memorable things of Xenophon are a slender thread, out of which he has the art of making a magnificent lace; but with which one can see just. nothing.

Homer wrote to be sung, Sophocles to be declaimed, Herodotus to be recited, and Xenophon to be read. From these different objects of their works, a multitude of differences in their style must necessarily arise.

It seems that Ennius wrote slowly; Sallust seldom; Tacitus with difficulty; Pliny the younger, early and often; Thucydides late and seldom.

Terence was an African; nevertheless, he seems to have been nourished by the Athenian graces. The Attic honey is on his lips; one might easily believe that he was born on Mount Hymettus.

Cicero is in Philosophy, a kind of moon. His doctrine has a light very sweet but borrowed, a light altogether Grecian, which the Roman has softened and enfeebled.

Cicero, in his learning, shows more taste and discernment than real criticism. No writer has more boldness in expression than Cicero. He is believed to have been circumspect and almost timid; no tongue, however, was less so than his.

He makes a fine day shine even upon crimes. With an excellent judgment, Plutarch has nevertheless a singular frivolity of mind. Every thing that amuses him, attracts and engages him. He is a master-scholar in the energy of his studies.

I say nothing of his credulity. As to this, it is wrong to blame those who write the facts, of which philosophy should make use to compose history.

The idea of Plutarch, in his morals, is tinged with the purple of all the other books. He therein says what he knows, rather than what he thinks.

The style of Tacitus, although less beautiful, less rich in agreeable colors and in varied turns, is nevertheless perhaps more perfect than that of Cicero himself; for, all the words in it are chosen with care, and have their weight, their measure, their exact number; but supreme perfection resides in a combination and in perfect elements.

In the narrations of Tacitus, there is an interest in the recital which does not suffer us to read little, and a profundity, a grandeur of expression which does not suffer us to read much. The mind, as if

His eloquence is clear, but it flows in great whirl- divided between the curiosity which impels it, and pools and cascades, when it should do so.

the attention which keeps it back, experiences some

There are a thousand ways of dressing and sea-fatigue. soning language; Cicero loved them all.

One finds in Catullus, two things whose union makes the worst thing in the world, delicacy and grossness.

In general, however, the principal idea of each of his little pieces is happily and simply turned; his airs are handsome, but his instrument is rude.

Horace satisfies the mind, but he does not make the taste contented.

Virgil satisfies the taste as well as the reflection. The remembrance of his verses is as delightful as their perusal.

The style of Tacitus was suitable for painting black souls and tempestuous times.

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When Sir Walter Raleigh was brought to the scaffold, he asked to see the axe; as he pressed his finger lightly across the edge. he said, "Tis a sharp remedy, but a sound cure for all diseases." He then laid his head upon the block, and being told to place himself so that his face might look towards the East-he said-" No matter how the head lie, so the heart be right."

WINTER IS THE SEASON OF CHARITY.

The wintry wind is howling through the land;
Stern Frost hath grasp'd the mountain, stream and lea.
The patient cattle weep, and cow'ring stand,
Seeking cold shelter of the leafless tree.
The gallant Cock forgets his chivalry ;
His dames have ceas'd to occupy his care,
The humbled Turkey quells his bravery,
And famish'd birds chirp for their simple fare

From the good gifts of God, which you so largely share.

Let Charity, thy grateful bosom warm ;
Slight not their sorrows; for a God of Love
Hath made you both: and the same potent arm
Which wields the thunder, clothes the trembling dove
That sues to you for food. And trifles prove
The heart of man or woman; for the eye
Which pities the poor bird, will surely move
At griefs, which wring from man the bitter sigh-
The widow's wasting tear, and pining infancy.

Arthur Mordante was in every respect what men call a genius. He was imaginative, susceptible, ardent in his adoration of the beautiful, and painfully, perhaps morbidly, sensitive regarding his own defects. His character was impulsive and passionate, full of that high and generous feeling, whose common fate it is to be thrown back, chilled, unappreciated, and misconstrued, on the warm heart whence it springs. He had grown up, surrounded by the loveliness of his own reflections, and shielded by the tenderest affection from whatever could wound or distress a disposition, whose sad tendencies circumstances had confirmed. Though he occasionally yielded to the dark moods, always the portion of such visionary intellects, the tenor of his usual existence was happy, with the calm, serene enjoyment, more lasting than wilder mirth. It is a strange thing, how great a waste of feel

But the Storm comes-Hark! through the crackling wood ing marks the experience of a temperament like

The Giant comes, and clad in darkness, lends
Horror to common danger. How the blood
Leaps to the trav'ller's heart, as Mem'ry blends

his; how frequently enthusiasm is awakened by trifles, and strong emotions come forth at the bid

Thoughts of his home, bright hearth, and smiling friends. ding of events, undeserving such reception. That Happy, how happy he! O let him feel

For those, to whom the Almighty sends
Cold, sickness, poverty, the scanty meal,

this is the case, the history of many a poet's life bears ample witness, in its wild anticipations, its

And all the nameless woes, which breaking hearts conceal. premature realization of passionate sentiment, and

LOVE SKETCHES.

NO. VI.

THE POET'S LOVE.

A blessed lot 'tis thine to bear

Through trouble's tearful throng,
A haunted heart and a charmed life,
O dreaming child of song!

A spirit whose bewildering thoughts
In starry beauty beam,

A soul to throw the living light
Of glory round a dream.

And oh! through all things, still to love
The holy and the high;

Moving among the cares of earth,

A pilgrim from the sky.

last, and truest of all, its inevitable disappointments. With his traits of mind, his vague views and imaginings, his fervent, impetuous affections, Arthur had early knelt down before the beautiful illusion of love. How the lovers had met, or how their tenderness was first excited, matters not now; I would only tell here, that the dream was. What a varied chronicle of mingled hope and doubt and trouble may be traced in those two brief wordsthey loved!

It was the only happy moment Mr. Mordante had known for years, when Edith and his son met him once more. How he was changed! Edith scarcely recognized one familiar trait of her early friend, in the dark, stern man, from whom every token of his youthful enthusiasm had long departed. His appearance was calm and haughty, and his manner cold and reserved-tinged with that involuntary suspicion, which reveals so much of experienced deception and lingering regret, and that "Sarcastic bitterness of tongue,

It needed not the glance of a prophet to read that Arthur Mordante would be a poet. The destiny was written on every line of that mournfully The stinging of a heart the world had stung." earnest face, and told in the impassioned tone of His health was infirm, and his eyes were lustrous his low voice. The quick-coming color to his with that unnatural gleaming which is often the cheek, usually fair and pale, and the deep gaze of outward sign of the sorrow which worketh death. those dark, dreamy eyes, all bespoke him one of Well might tears rush to Arthur's eyes as he looked that martyr-band, the children of song. Ah! theirs on his father's face, for that wan cheek was blanched is a holy lot, with all its innumerable sorrows! It is a blessed thing, the power to idealize life, to steal from reality its harshness, from expectation its deception, from thought its evanescence; to paint, in immortal words, visions that but dawn and pass away, and to experience, for awhile at least, that inspiration hath its better world, and that happiness is not wholly an illusion,

VOL. IX-5

by suffering; and it was easy to see, amid all his assumed tranquillity, that Mordante's was the proud heart, which "brokenly lives on.”

The day following their meeting, Arthur, fatigued by his journey, was asleep on a couch, and Edith and Mordante were conversing on the trifling events which had happened to both since their parting. Each instinctively avoided the slightest allu

sion to the painful occurrences of old times, as we "I can look on my altered character, as on that of are apt to do, when the mind is too full of them, a stranger, and moralize calmly on its traits. It for language to tell all its thoughts. At length is one of the signs of that perfect grief, which there was a pause, and Mordante's gaze rested on shuts us entirely from enjoyment, and which has his son. Arthur's hair was tossed carelessly away no earthly hope, that the mind enters as if upon a from his forehead--his face was slightly flushed, new and separate existence, and we quietly recall and his lashes drooped on a cheek, fair and deli- the past, as we would remember another's youth. cate as a girl's. His slumber was not profound, There was a time when it pained me to recollect and his fancies seemed bright ones, for a smile my early ambition, my early expectations, and to see hovered on his lips. Is it an idle belief, that the how both have vanished. Now, even that regret departed revisit us in our visions? Who knows has gone; I have acquired something like resigbut that angels are watching around us in our sleep-nation, and ask nothing in life but its endurances ; ing moments? And if the thought be but an illu- for I feel, almost with a spirit of prophecy, that my sion, dispel it not, but thank God that the deception remaining days will be few. You will always be may sometimes be so vivid! Perhaps there were voices whispering to that dreamer's spirit, for the smile brightened on his features, and he murmured "Mother!"

to Arthur, the blessing you have been from his childhood; and I trust you will teach him to shun the passion I have proved so fatal. Ah! Edith, it is a fearful thing to love unwisely, and to confide in vain!"

Mordante heard that word, and its magic charmed him. The habitual reserve and constraint, which Why was it that Edith's cheek grew very pale custom had rendered almost natural, was forgotten as Mordante's words met her ear; and her glance, for a moment: his frame shook with sudden agita- as it encountered his, was almost reproachful in its tion, and he trembled like a little child. What sorrow? And why was it that tears not to be resorrowful spirits that single sound summoned from pressed, filled those eyes usually so calm and the past! What a long, long list of hopes disap- thoughtful? Her companion understood that voicepointed, affections wasted, griefs unshared, and hu- less appeal to his memory of the past; and his tone miliation proudly and silently endured! Slowly was very kind and gentle, as he said, "Forgive his convulsive emotion went by; and when he ad- me, dear Edith, if in the selfishness of my harsher dressed his companion, his voice was low and sad, wrongs, I forgot your uncomplaining but mournful but composed and unfaltering. All that both had experience. We have both endured much, but my suffered—all that each knew of the other's expe- pilgrimage is nearly at an end. For you, dear rience, appeared to rise again before them; and Edith, your peace and reward are beyond this the confidence of their young friendship came back, world.” strengthened and chastened by the troubles of many Who that has dwelt with meditative gaze on the years. Nothing induces more complete and un- darker truths of common existence, can doubt the questioning trust, than the knowledge of a wrong reality of broken hearts? Many are they, though in common, and the friends had alike been deceived they break in silence, with no poet to trace their by the one they had loved. With the remembrance trials, nor to tell their destiny. We attribute to of this, mingled mutual expectations withered-disease the work often wrought by some hidden, pleasures which left no record but their blight-unmurmuring trouble, which finds no chronicler,— ties now painfully divided, and tenderness rejected and many an one goes down to the grave, whose and profaned. Mordante's habitual concealment malady was nothing but grief! gave way before the tide of thronging recollections, and he spoke of his afflictions with the tranquillity of one who had lost the ardor even of passionate regret.

It would take from transgression its bitterest part, could its punishment rest solely with ourselves; but error is doubly fearful, when its consequences fall on those who are dear to us-when one hour of weakness, one instant of folly, may cast a lasting shadow on the life of the innocent and beloved. It was a sad thing to Edith, to listen to the proud and haughty sorrows of that altered heart, and to mark how wholly the eager enthusiasm, the unsuspecting reliance, had forsaken her friend. They spoke long and earnestly, for Mordante seemed to find relief in this, his first moment of confidence.

Like every poetical disposition, Arthur's was keenly susceptible to whatever was beautiful in art, and to all that forcibly appealed to imaginative feeling. The meeting with his father had imparted to his spirits more than their usual buoyancy; and though Mordante's health was feeble enough to awaken anxiety, Arthur regarded it with the happy hopefulness of youth, and he now followed his favorite enjoyments with redoubled interest. Music was one of his enthusiastic loves, for Arthur's temperament knew no medium; his tastes were all ardent, and, what to others were only feelings, with him, deepened into intense and passionate emotions.

Edith, comme à l'ordinaire, was his inseparable companion, and they were one evening together at a concert. The hall was crowded, for the princiYou find me greatly changed, Edith," he said; pal performer was an Italian singer, whose appear

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