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man:

"Floruit sine fructu,
Defloruil sine luctu."

He entertained without profit,

He corrupted without remorse.

chievous. We do not hesitate to say, that the parent | the passions? And who will pretend that the formal who permits his children to become fascinated with the moral, hastily appended to the last ten lines of the fic wild abstractions and ruinous metaphysical sophistries tion, will erase from the susceptible heart the vivid of this writer, has no right to complain of any results, impressions which have been graven with the practised however destructive." In this manly exposition of style of the writer. The passions have all been kindled these corrupting fictions we heartily concur. And into a consuming flame, which some men would fain unless we greatly misconceive the virtues of our coun- persuade us may be subdued by a frigid lesson of formal trymen; unless we appreciate too highly the morals of morality, which seems to be appended only to disgust the age, the period rapidly approaches, when it will be the bewildered reader, or to operate as a salvo for the said of this demoralizing writer, as was said of a better reputation of the author. How many have perished by the way side, who never lived to reach the goal? How many have gone down in the midst of the tempest of the passions, whose frail bark could not, by the aid of the dim light in the far distant haven, survive the perils of the deep? We are aware of the controlling force of public opinion, and of the indomitable, though fleeting In the view which we have taken of romances, as sway of literary fame; we well know how many are entertainments, to be cautiously tolerated, because of enchained by the fashionable celebrity of this attrac the propensity of man for the marvellous—as a salutary tive writer; we even anticipate the severity of those escape for his unbridled curiosity-as a remedy or anti- strictures which, in the midst of popular delusion, our dote for the greater evil of idleness, and not because remarks will necessarily provoke; but if, in the labor of their intrinsic merit, we have been irresistibly led to we have bestowed upon the effort to create a just the conclusion, that no fictions can be safely introduced standard of morals, we have succeeded in awakening which offer the “most distant injury to the laws of mo- the attention of a single reader to the demoralizing tenrality, religion, or sound politics." Wo, we have already dency of the fashionable literature of the age, we are exclaimed-wo, if free sway should be given to the well content to bear all the censure, which those invadrunken imaginations of the wicked! And the facility, riably encounter, who devote their time and energies to we have further insisted, with which romances approach counteract an evil, whose extent is only measured by every class of the community, and their winning influ- its destructive tendency. We still adhere to the stern ence over the heart, while the judgment sleeps, would rule, that IT IS THE FIRST DUTY OF EVERY CHRISTIAN justify the most rigorous restriction. To unfold to our AND OF EVERY PATRIOT, TO OPPOSE EVERYTHING WHICH view, with severe fidelity, the costly lessons of expe- TENDS TO CORRUPT PUBLIC MORALS, OR TO PROMOTE rience, and to keep our mind pure and free from the LICENTIOUSNESS OF OPINION. It is by this sublime contamination of the vile passions, are the normal rules standard, that we have judged the writings of THE of this class of productions. And it is because Mr. AUTHOR OF Falkland and MALTRAVERS. The quesBulwer deliberately violates all these salutary rules; it tion which will determine the morality of Bulwer's prois because he has given free sway to his impure ima-ductions is, "CAN GENIUS CONSECRATE CRIME?" Let ginings; because he proposes for our admiration men a kindred spirit announce his condemnation :

of loose principles and profligate morals, and claims our approval of these characters, on account of their eminent talents; it is because the lessons he proposes are not the lessons of true experience, but the perilous illusions of a false philosophy; it is for such convincing reasons, that we feel impelled to class his works with those which were born of the French Revolution, the most obscene crimes of human thought. It is not constancy in virtue, but vaccilating probity which challenges our admiration in the creations of his fancy. He constantly inculcates the false and dangerous theory, that men of exalted genius may throw themselves securely into the whirl of sensual indulgences, and when overtaken by satiety or disgust, quietly and instantly return to the paths of rectitude. He seems content with the dramatic moral, and appears to think that justice is satisfied, and virtue placated, by the ultimate chastisement or reformation of the offender. And this tardy and reluctant retribution appears to him a satisfactory apology, for leading the chaste mind of the reader through all the corrupting purlieus of vice, and for throwing around the most vivid and glowing descriptions of obscene crime all the seductive witchery of his attractive and classical manner. Who can calculate the frightful mischief which is effected by such uncleanliness and immorality, in the delirious progress of the youthful enthusiast through this mystic circle of

"Not all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay,

Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime!"

Вугел

THE WARRIOR'S WREATH.
The warrior's wreath-its dark green leaves
Are twined around a lofty brow ;-
The laurel crown which Glory weaves,
Adorns her warlike votary now:
His dark eye casts a brighter beam;

Earth trembles at his haughty tread;
His mien and gestures proudly seem
To tell how oft he's fought and bled.
But lo! that laurel bears a stain-

A blood red stain defiles its leaf;
A stain which tells of death and pain;
Of ruin, wo, and human grief;
Of cities razed; of shattered fanes;
Of desolation, rage and wiles;
Of prostrate thrones; of kings in chains-
And yet, behold! the warrior smiles!

DELTA

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A sudden life is round me with the light,

Voices and wings are in the woods and air; Broad vistas open to my travelling sight, And hills arise, and vallies, wondrous fairEven while I gaze, a sudden shaft of fire,

The visions of the past were mine this hour,
And in my heart the pride of an o'ermastering power-

XI.

A power that could create, and from the dead
Draw life and gather accents. There are spells,
Known to the unerring thought, which freely shed
Light round the groping footstep, when rebels
The o'er-cautious reason, and the instinct fear,
Shrinks from its own huge shadow-they are here!

XII.

This is a spot-if there have ever been,
As ancient story tells in legends sooth,
Such forms as are not earthly, earthward seen,
Having strange shapes of beauty and of youth,
Then do I ween that this should be the spot
Where they should come,—and yet I see them not.

XIII.

Yet have I prayed their presence with a tongue Of song, and a warm fancy that could take, From many-voiced expression, as she sung, Her winged words of music, and awake, True echoes of her strain to win my quest, And woo the coming of such spirit-guest.

XIV.

Yet have they come not, though my willing thought,
Grew captive to my wild and vain desire;
And in my heart meet pliancy was wrought,
To raise the forms, in seeming, I require ;—

And in this truant worship I bow'd down,
Since first night's shadows fell and made the forests
brown.

XV.

And sure no fitter spot had spirit sought,
For the soft-falling of star-pacing feet;
This is the holiest wood, with flowers inwrought,
Having fresh odors of most heavenly sweet;
Nor in the daylight's coming, then, do these,
Cathedral shadows fly, that lurk behind the trees.

XVI.

The wild-beast burrows not beneath our hill,

Nor hide these leaves one serpent. Gentlest doves Brood in the pines at evening, seldom still,

With murmur through the night, of innocent loves: And I have shaken, with no boyish trust, From my own human feet, the base and selfish dust.

XVII.

And fancy hath been with me, to beguile,

The stubborn reason into faith, and show The subtle shapes from fairy-land that while, In gamesome dance, the wasted hours below; Meet lawn of green and purple, here, is spread, By Nature's liberal hand, for fay's fantastic tread.

XVIII.

And memories of old song, the solemn strains

Of bards that gave themselves to holiest thought, And gloried in their wild, poetic-pains,

Were in my heart, and my wrapt soul was fraught With faith in what they feigned, until my blood, Grew tremulously-strong beneath my hopeful mood.

XIX.

And when the dark hours came, the twirring stars,
Seem'd eyes, that darted on me keenest fires;
Earth had her voice, and promised, through her bars,
To burst the bondage set on free desires-
And not a breath that stirr'd the flowers, but seem'd,
The shadowy whispers from some shape I dreamed.

XX.

Makes yon tall pine blaze up, like some proud city Yet vainly have I waited!--not in vain!

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EVERETT'S ADDRESS

AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE.

In August, 1837, Governor EVERETT delivered an address before a Literary Society of Williams College, in Berkshire, the westernmost county of Massachusetts. Were we disposed to heap needless praises, this performance would afford abundant occasion for eulogy. It is in all respects worthy of its author: and to those who know the full import of that assertion, it is tribute enough for almost any man. What induces us now to notice this Address, however, is much less a wish to honor him for this new effort in the cause of human improvement-that noble cause, of which he has long been so illustrious a champion-than a desire to present some inter esting discussions which we find here, of several important questions.

to marshal before us the living nations; and of history to rouse the generations of the elder world from their pompous mausoleums or humble graves to rehearse their fortunes. I might call on natural science to open the volumes in which she has not merely written down the names, the forms, and the qualities of the various subin existence,-the vast census, if I may so express it, jects of the animal, vegetable, and mineral world now of the three kingdoms of nature; but where she has races of the animal and vegetable world buried by the also recorded the catalogues of her perished children,deluge beneath the everlasting rocks. Yes, winged lately been discovered imprinted in sand-stone on the creatures twenty feet in height, whose footsteps have banks of Connecticut river; enormous mammoths and mastodons, of which no living type has existed since the flood, brought to light from blocks of Siberian ice or dug up in the morasses of our own continent; petrified skeletons of portentous crocodiles and megathe armadillo,-and which for ages on ages have been theria seventy feet in length, covered with scales like extinct, have by the creative power of educated mind and gypsum have oped their ponderous and marble jaws, and a host of monstrous forms have risen into day; the recovered monuments of a world of lost giants.'

been made to start out of the solid rock. Sand-stone

'But leaving with these transient glances all attempt letto magnify the work of education, by pointing out the astonishing results to which it guides the well-trained mind, a much shorter method might be pursued with would take such an one to a place of instruction, to a one who needed to be impressed with its importance.

But before we come to those discussions, us, by way of making the reader enter more vividly into the spirit of the Address, give him some additional idea of its locality.

I school, yes, to a child's school,- (for there is no step "The pleasant village where we are assembled,' says would say,-in those faint sparks of intelligence, just in the process more important than the first,) and I Mr. Everett, 'contains, within view of the spot where brightening over the rudiments of learning, you bewe stand, the site of Fort Hoosack, and a mile or two hold the germ of so many rational and immortal spieast of us stood Fort Massachusetts. The plough has passed over its rude lines; but what scenes of humble rits. In a few years, you, and I, and all now on the heroism and almost forgotten valor are associated with stage shall have passed away, and there on those little its name! It was the bulwark of the frontier in the seats, primer in hand, are arranged our successors. Yes, days of its infancy. The trembling mother on the it, shall have vanished;-when the longest periods of when the volume of natural science, and nature with banks of the Connecticut,-in the heart of Worcester, human history shall have run together to a point:clasped her babes closer, at an idle rumor that Fort when the loud, clear voices of genius, and the multiMassachusetts had given way. A hundred villages tudinous tongues of nations, shall alike be hushed reposed in the strength of this stout guardian of New forever, those infant children will have ripened into England's Thermopyla, through which, for two gene-immortal beings, looking back from the mansions of rations, the French and Canadian foe strove to burst eternity with joy or sorrow, on the direction given to into the colonies. These are recollections of an earlier their intellectual and moral natures, in the dawn of day. A few miles to the north of us lies that famous their existence! If there is any one not deeply imfield of Bennington, to which, sixty years ago, this day pressed by this single reflection with the importance of and this hour, your fathers poured from every village education, he is beyond the reach of anything that can in the neighborhood, at the summons of Stark.' be urged, by way either of illustration or argument.'

It is impossible not to be struck with the following impressive display of the importance of edu

cation:

It is a prevailing opinion, that an early stage of society, when civilization is but little advanced, is the time of highest poetic excellence. 'If I wished to express most forcibly the importance, The philosophical poet, Imlac, in Rasselas, seems the dignity, and the obligation of the great work of education, I believe it might best be done by taking to espouse this opinion, and gives the reasons our stand at once on the simple enunciation of the spi- for it-namely, that the first poetry of every naritual and immortal nature of the thing to be educated; the mind of man. Then if we wished to give tion gave the bent to public taste, and retained life and distinctness to the ideas of the importance of by consent the credit which it had acquired by education, which result from this contemplation, we might do so by a single glance at the number and accident; and moreover, that the earliest bards importance of the branches of knowledge, to which seized upon the best subjects of description and education furnishes the key. I might allude to the admirable properties of language, which it is the first the most probable events for fiction, leaving to business of education to impart; the wonders of the their successors nothing but transcriptions of the written and spoken tongue as the instrument of thought,-wonders which daily use scarcely divests of same incidents, new namings of the same chatheir almost miraculous character. I might glance at racters, and new combinations of the same imathat which is usually next taught to the unfolding mind, the astonishing power of the science of numbers, ges.* When to these reasonings is added the with which on the one hand we regulate the humblest influence of the venerable saying-'A poet is details of domestic economy, and on the other compute born—not made,'—the point seems clear to most the swiftness of the solar beam, and survey, and as it were, stake out from constellation to constellation the minds, that an advanced state of cultivation is great railroad of the heavens, on which the comet comes unfriendly, or at least not at all conducive, to

blazing upward from the depths of the universe. I

might proceed with the branches of knowledge to which education introduces us, and ask of geography

*We give this account of Imlac's reasoning from memorynot having Rasselas before us.

the highest effusions of poetry. This opinion, prolific elements of poetical conception. For this reaso discouraging to those who hope highly of of the heavens has been enlarged and the science of asson, in the same proportion in which the apparent circuit man's progress, through the instrumentality of tronomy extended by the telescope, the province of his continued efforts, this opinion, so mischie-imagination and thought must be immeasurably extended also. The soul becomes great by the habitual contemplation of great objects. As the discovery of a new continent, upon the surface of the globe by Columbus, gave a most powerful impulse to the minds of men in every department, it is impossible that the discovery of worlds and systems of worlds, in the immensity of space, should not wonderfully quicken the well instructed genius. As the ambition, the avarice, the adventure, the legion host of human passions rushed out from the old world upon the new, so the fancy must wing its way, with unwonted boldness, into the new-found universe,

Vous in repressing the efforts which that hope inspires,-is combatted by Mr. Everett with unanswerable power. Let not the length of the extract deter any reader:

'I deem the notion, that the first age was necessarily the best, to be a mere prejudice; and the idea that a partially improved age and a limited degree of knowledge are in themselves and essentially more favorable to the exercise of original genius, in any form, appears to me to be a proposition as degrading as it is unsound. 'On the contrary, I believe that truth is the great inspirer;-the knowledge of truth the aliment and the instrument of mind; the material of thought, feeling, and fancy. I do not mean that there is no beauty in poetical language founded on scientific error;-that it is not, for instance, consistent with poetry to speak of the rising sun or the arch of heaven. Poetry delights in these sensible images and assimilations of ideas in themselves distinct. From the imperfection of human language, it will perhaps always be necessary to describe many things in the material, and still more in the moral and metaphysical world, under similitudes which fall greatly beneath their reality: 'Thus in Shakspeare,

the floor of Heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.

'In Spenser's Faery Queen,

The sacred fire, which burneth mightily
In living breasts, was kindled first above,
Among the eternal spheres and lampy Heavens.
'In Paradise Lost, the moon divides her empire
With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared
Spangling the universe.

Now, though these images, separately weighed at the present day, may seem beneath the dignity of the subject to which they are applied, they are poetical and pleasing, (with the exception possibly of lampy;) nor do I know that in any state of science, however advanced, such language will cease to please.

But the point I maintain is this, that, as knowledge extends, the range of all imagery is enlarged, poetical language is drawn from a wider circle, and, what is far more important, that the conception kindles by the contemplation of higher objects.

'Let us illustrate this point still further, in reference to the effect on poetry of the sublime discoveries of modern astronomy. The ancients, as we all know, formed but humble conceptions of the material universe. The earth was the centre; the sun, moon, and five planets were shining bodies revolving about it, to give it light, and the stars were luminaries hung up as lamps in a vaulted sky. This philosophy not only lies at the foundation of the imagery, under which Homer represents the heavens, but it prevailed so long, and falls in so entirely with the impressions made upon the eye, that it has given a character to the traditionary language of poetry even to the present day. Shakspeare, and Spenser, and Milton, as we have just seen, in this respect, draw their images from the same source as Virgil, Homer, and Hesiod.

Beyond the solar walk or milky way.

'In Paradise Lost, there is a struggle between the old and new philosophy. The telescope was known, but had not yet revolutionized the science of astronomy. Even Lord Bacon did not adopt the Copernican system, and Galileo's wonderful instrument had produced scarce any result, beyond a more distinct conception of the magnitudes of the bodies, which compose the solar system. But it is pleasing to remark, with what promptness Milton seizes upon this new topic of poetical illustration. In his very first description of the arch-fiend, we are told of

his ponderous shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders, like the moon, whose orb,
Through optic glass, the Tuscan artist views,

At evening from the top of Fesolé,

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.

'Grand and sublime as is this imagery, it is borrowed from the lowest order of the wonders unfolded by the telescope. I cannot but think, if the whole circle of modern astronomny had been disclosed to the mind of Milton, that it would have filled his soul with still brighter visions. Could he have learned, from the lips of its great discoverer, the organic law which regulates the entire motions of the heavens;-could he have witnessed the predicted return of a comet, and been taught that of these mysterious bodies, seven millions are supposed to run their wild career within the orbit of the planet Uranus; and that, by estimation, one hundred millions of stars, each probably the centre of a system as vast as our own,-multitudes of them combined into mighty systems of suns wondrously complicated with each other-are distributed throughout space, would these stupendous views have been lost on his mind? I can never believe that truth, the great quickener and inspirer, revealed in such majestic glimpses, would have fallen inoperative on such an intellect. He would have awoke to a new existence in the light of such a philosophy. Escaping from the wholly false, and the partly false, the "utter and the middle darkness" of the Ptolemaic system, he would have felt the "sovereign vital lamp" of pure science in his inmost soul. He would have borrowed from La Place the wings of the boldest analysis, and would have flown to the uttermost parts of creation, where he could have seen through the telescope the bands of Orion loosened, and the gems of his glittering belt blazing out into empyreal suns;-while crowded galaxies, "powdered with stars" rushed asunder into illimitable systems. He would have soared with the Herschells, father and son, to the outer regions of space, and embalmed the whole Newtonian philosophy

'Now I cannot but think, that, when the sublime discoveries of modern astronomy shall have become as thoroughly wrought into the vocabulary and the intel-in his immortal verse.' ligence of the community, as the humble and errone- Of a similar cheering tendency, and pertinent ous conceptions of the ancients, the great and creative minds will derive from them, a vastly grander range of to the same argument, is the following passage, poetical illustration. I cannot but think, that, by the from a different part of the Address. We can study of this one science alone,-thought, speech, and literature will be wonderfully exalted. It is not in hardly say, whether it is more suited to charm reference to poetry, a mere matter of poetical imagery. by its beauty, or to exalt by the etherial subliThe ideas formed of divine wisdom and power,- of in-mity of the views it presents: finite space,-of stupendous magnitude and force,-of the grandeur and harmony of the material universe,are among the highest materials of thought and the most

'A continued progress in the intellectual world is consistent with all that we know of the laws that govern

it, and with all experience. A presentiment of it lies | the portal,* a chill from the dark valley of the shadow deep in the soul of man, spark as it is of the divine nature. The craving after excellence, the thirst for truth and beauty, has never been,-never can be,-fully slaked at the fountains, which have flowed beneath the touch of the enchanter's wand. Man listens to the heavenly strain, and straightway becomes desirous of still loftier melodies. It has nourished and strengthened instead of satiating his taste. Fed by the divine aliment he can enjoy more, he can conceive more, he can himself perform more.'

In the subjoined extracts, are some enlightened criticisms upon the four greatest poets of the world. We place the name of each poet as a head to the observations upon him.

SHAKSPEARE.

'With a reverence as deep as honesty or manliness permits for the master geniuses of our race,—a reverence nourished by the fond and never intermitted study of their works,—I may say that I catch, from this very study of their writings and characters, a conception, that, high as they rose, they might have risen higher. I can sometimes behold the soil of the world upon their snow-white robes, and the rust of human passion upon the glittering edge of their wit. It was long ago said by the great Roman critic, that the good Homer sometimes nods;-and Shakspeare, the most brilliant example unquestionably of a triumph over the defects of education,-mental and moral,-too often exhibits traces of both. As he floats on eagle's wings along what he nobly calls "the brightest heaven of invention," he is sometimes borne, by an unchastened taste, into a misty region, where the understanding endeavors in vain to follow him; and sometimes, as he skims with the swallow's ease and swiftness along the ground, too confident of his power to soar when he will up to the rosy gates of the morning, he stoops, and stoops, and stoops, till the tips of his graceful pinions are sadly daggled in the mire.'

HOMER.

of death comes over the heart. The compass of poetry contains no image which surpasses this dismal inscription in solemn grandeur;-nor is there anywhere a more delicious strain of tender poetic beauty, than that of the distant vesper bell, which seems to mourn for the departing day, as it is heard by the traveller just leaving his home. But Dante lived in an age, when Christianity-if I may so speak-was paganized. Much of his poem, substance as well as ornament, is heathen. Too much of his inspiration is drawn from the stormy passions of life. The warmth with which he glowed is too often the kindling of scorn and indignation, burning under a sense of intolerable wrong. The holiest censed partizan that sweeps the strings. The divine muse may string his lyre, but it is too often the incomedy, as he calls his wonderful work, is much of it mere mortal satire.'

MILTON.

'In Paradise Lost, we feel as if we were admitted to the outer courts of the Infinite. In that all-glorious temple of genius inspired by truth, we catch the full diapason of the heavenly organ. With its first choral swell the soul is lifted from the earth. In the Divina Commedia, the man, the Florentine, the exiled Ghibel line, stands out from first to last breathing defiance and revenge. Milton in some of his prose works, betrays the partizan also,-but in his poetry we see him in the white robes of the minstrel, with upturned though sightless eyes, rapt in meditation at the feet of the heavenly muse. Dante in his dark vision descends to the depths of the world of perdition, and, homeless fugitive as he is, drags his proud and prosperous enemies down with him, and buries them-doubly destroyedin the flaming sepulchres of the lowest hell. Milton, on the other hand, seems almost to have purged off the dross of humanity, Blind, poor, friendless, in solitude and sorrow, with quite as much reason as his Italian rival to repine at his fortune and war against mankind, how calm and unimpassioned is he in all that concerns his own personality! He deemed too highly of his divine gift to make it the instrument of immortalizing his hatreds. One cry alone of sorrow at his blindness, 'Not a ray of pure spiritual illumination shines one pathetic lamentation over the evil days on which through the sweet visions of the father of poetry. The he had fallen, bursts from his full heart. There is not light of his genius, like that of the moon as he de-a flash of human wrath in all his pictures of woe. scribes it in the eighth Iliad, is serene, transparent, Hating nothing but evil spirits, in the childlike simand heavenly fair; it streams into the deepest glades plicity of his heart, his pure hands undefiled with the and settles on the mountain tops of the material and so-pitch of the political intrigues in which he had lived, eial world; but for all that concerns the spiritual na- he breaths forth his inexpressibly majestic strains,ture, it is cold, watery, and unquickening. The great the poetry not so much of earth as of heaven. test of the elevation of the poet's mind, and of the refinement of the age in which he lives, is the distinctness, power, and purity with which he conceives the spiritual world. In all else he may be the observer, the recorder, the painter; but in this dread sphere he must assume the province, which his name imports; he must be the maker:-creating his own spiritual world by the highest action of his mind, upon all the external and internal materials of thought. If ever there was a poetical vision, calculated not to purify, and to exalt, but to abase and to sadden, it is the visit of Ulysses to the lower regions. The ghosts of the illustrious departed are drawn before him by the reeking fumes of the recent sacrifice; and the hero stands guard with his drawn sword, to drive away the shade of his own mother from the gory trench, over which she hovers, hankering after the raw blood. Does it require an essay on the laws of the human mind to shew, that the intellect which contemplates the great mystery of our being, under this ghastly and frivolous imagery, has never been born to a spiritual life, nor caught a glimpse of the highest heaven of poetry?

DANTE.

'Can it be hoped that, under the operation of the influences to which we have alluded, any thing superior to Paradise Lost will ever be produced by man? It requires a courageous faith in general principles to believe it. I dare not call it a probable event; but can we say it is impossible? If out of the wretched intellectual and moral elements of the commonwealth in England,-imparting as they did at times too much of their contagion to Milton's mind,-a poem like Paradise Lost could spring forth, shall no corresponding fruit of excellence be produced, when knowledge shall be universally diffused, society enlightened, elevated, and equalized; and the standard of moral and religious principle in public and private affairs, raised far above its present level? A continued progress in the intellectual world is consistent with all that we know of the laws that govern it, and with all experience. A presentiment of it lies deep in the soul of man, spark as it is of the divine nature, The craving after excellence, the thirst for truth and beauty, has never been,-never can be,-fully slaked at the fountains, which have flowed beneath the touch of the enchanter's wand. Man listens to the heavenly strain, and straightway be comes desirous of still loftier melodies. It has nourish

by the divine aliment he can enjoy more, he can conceive more, he can himself perform more.

'In Dante, for the first time in an uninspired bard,ed and strengthened instead of satiating his taste. Fed the dawn of a spiritual day breaks upon us. Although the shadows of superstition rest upon him, yet the strains of the prophets were in his ears, and the light of divine truth-strong though clouded-was in his soul. As we stand with him on the threshold of the world of sorrows, and read the awful inscription over † Odys. XI.

⚫ Homeri II. VIII. 535.

'Should a poet of loftier muse than Milton, bereafter appear, or to speak more reverently, when the Milton of * Dell' Inferno, Canto III.

Del Purgatorio, Canto VIII.
Dell' Inferno, Canto IX, X.
Paradise Lost, Books III and VII, at the beginning.

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