edified, himself was not," or to demon'strate, practically as it were, and by example, how possible it is to have all fine and noble feelings, or their appearance, for a moment, and yet retain no particle of respect for them, or of belief in their intrinsic worth or permanent reälity.

JEFFREY.

FRANCIS JEFFREY, one of the most eloquent writers and most masterly critics in the English language, an eminent jurist and orator, was born at Edinburgh, Scotland, on the 23d of October, 1773. He passed six years at the High School of Edinburgh, studied at the University of Glasgow for two sessions of six months each, and in his eighteenth year resided for a few months at Oxford. His reading in his youth embraced classics, history, ethics, criticism, and the belleslettres: he was indefatigable in practicing composition, and in early manhood wrote many verses. He was admitted to the Scottish bar at the age of twentyone. The first number of the "Edinburgh Review," which contained five papers of Jeffrey's, appeared in October, 1802, when he was twenty-nine years old; and he became its editor after the first two or three numbers. The celebrity which the Review at once attained, was owing far more to him than any other of the contributors. His professional practice became very great; and from 1816 till he ceased to practice, he was the acknowledged leader of the Scottish bar. In 1820, and again in 1821, he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. He was appointed president of the Faculty of Advocates in 1829, when he resigned the editorship of the Review, a position which he had held for twentyseven years. During that period he contributed more than two hundred articles. In 1830 he was appointed Lord Advocate, an office which, besides many other duties, involved those of Secretary of State for Scotland. He thus entered parliament in his fifty-eighth year. In 1834 he was raised to the bench, and became an eminent judge, assuming the title of Lord Jeffrey. In 1843 he published three volumes, containing selections from his "Contributions to the Edinburgh Review." He died at Edinburgh, January 26th, 1850.

II.

68. LORD BYRON.

MAN of rank, and of capacious soul,

Who riches had, and fame, beyond desire;

An heir of flattery, to titles born,

And reputation, and luxurious life :
Yět, not content with ancestorial name,

Or to be known, because his fathers were,
He on this height hereditary stood,
And gazing higher, purposed in his heart
To take another step.

Above him seemed,
Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat
Of canonized bards, and thitherward,

By Nature taught, and inward melody,

In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye.

No cost was spared. What books he wished, he read; What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see, He saw. And first in rambling school-boy days, Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes, And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks, And maids, as dew-drops, pure and fair, his soul With grandeur filled, and melody, and love. 3. Then travel came, and took him where he wished. He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp ; And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows; And mused on battle-fields, where valor fought In other days; and mused on ruins gray

With years; and drank from old and fabulous wells,
And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked;
And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave

Of ocean mused, and on the desert waste;
The heavens and earth of every country saw.
Where'er the old-inspiring Genii dwelt,

Aught that could rouse, expand, refine the soul,
Thither he went, and meditated there.

4. He touched his harp, and nations heard entranced.
As some vast river of unfailing source,

5.

Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed,
And oped new fountains in the human heart.
Where fancy halted, weary in her flight,
In other men, his, fresh as morning, rose,

And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home,
Where angels bashful looked. Others, though great,
Beneath their argument seemed struggling; whiles
He from above descending, stooped to touch

The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though
It scarce deserved his verse.

With Nature's self
He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty.
He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks.

Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines,
And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend ;
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist,-the lightning's fiery wing,
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance seemed:
Then turned, and with the grasshopper, that sung
His evening song beneath his feet, conversed.

6. Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters were ;
Rocks, mountains, meteörs, seas, and winds, and storms,
His brothers,-younger brothers, whom he scarce
As equals deemed. All passions of all men,-
The wild and tame-the gentle and severe ;
All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane;
All creeds; all seasons, Time, Eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was feared by man,
He tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves,
Then smiling looked upon the wreck he made.
7. With terror now he froze the cowering blood;
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness :
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud,-gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.
So Ocean from the plains his waves had late
To desolation swept, retired in pride,
Exulting in the glory of his might,

And seemed to mock the ruin he had wrought.
8. As some fierce comet of tremendous size,
To which the stars did reverence as it passed,
So he through learning and through fancy took
His flight sublime; and on the loftiest top

Of Fame's dread mountain sat: not soiled and worn,
As if he from the earth had labored up;

But, as some bird of heavenly plumage fair

He looked, which down from higher regions came,
And perched it there, to see what lay beneath.

9. The nations gazed, and wondered much, and praised;

Critics before him fell in humble plight,—
Confounded fell,-and made debasing signs

To catch his eye; and stretched, and swelled themselves,
To bursting nigh, to utter bulky words
Of admiration vast: and many, too,
Many that aimed to imitate his flight,

With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made,

And gave abundant sport to after days.

10. Great man! The nations gazed, and wondered much, And praised; and many called his evil good.

Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness;
And kings to do him honor took delight.
Thus full of titles, flattery, honor, fame,-
Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full,—

He died he died of what? Of wretchedness.
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump

Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts
That common millions might have quenched, then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink.
His goddess, Nature, wooed, embraced, enjoyed,
Fell from his arms, abhorred; his passions died,-
Died, all but dreary, solitary pride;

And all his sympathies in being died.

11. As some ill-guided bark, well-built, and tall,
Which angry tides cast out on desert shōre,
And then, retiring, left it there to rot

And mölder in the winds and rains of heaven;
So he, cut from the sympathies of life,
And cast ashōre from pleasure's boisterous surge,
A wandering, weary, wōrn, and wretched thing,
Scorched, and desolate, and blasted soul,

A gloomy wilderness of dying thought,

Repined and groaned, and withered from the earth.
His groanings filled the land his numbers filled;
And yet he seemed ashamed to groan: Poor man!-
Ashamed to ask, and yet he needed help.

POLLOK.

ROBERT POLLOK was born in 1799, in Renfrewshire, Scotland, where his father was a small farmer. After receiving the usual elementary education, he entered, at the age of nineteen, on a five years' course of study in the University of Glasgow. His ambitious and energetic poem, "Course of Time," appeared in the spring of 1827, and speedily obtained a popularity which it is not likely soon

to lose. Its deeply religious character recommended it to serious persons; and it was admired by critics for the many flashes of original genius which light up the crude and unwieldly design, and atone for the narrow range of thought and knowledge, as well as for the stiff pomposity that pervades the diction. A few of its passages are strikingly and most poetically imaginative, and some are beautifully touching. Immediately after the publication of his poem, he was admitted as a preacher in the United Secession Church. He died of consump tion in September of the same year, before the age of thirty.

III.

69. MIDNIGHT-THE COLISEUM.

HE stars are fōrth, the moon above the tops

Tof the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful!

I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face

Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learned the language of another world.
2. I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, upon such a night,
I stood within the Colise'um's' wall,
'Midst the chief relics of all-mighty Rome:
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shōne through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near, from out of the Cæsar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song

Begun and died upon the gentle wind.

3. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bow-shot. Where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tunelèss birds of night, amidst

1 Cŏl`i sẽ um, the amphitheatre of Vespasian, at Rome, the largest in the world, said to have held 110,000 spectators. The ruins are still standing. It is said to have been built in one year, by the compulsory labor of twelve thousand

Jews. It was called the Coliseum, from the colossal statue of Nero, which was placed in it. In this amphitheater were exhibited the contests of gladiators and wild animals, and other savage spectacles in which the Romans delighted.