vency; some unforeseen rise or fall of prices; some triumph of a mean or fraudulent competitor; "the law's delay, the proud man's contumely, the insolence of office, or some one of the spurns that patient merit from the unworthy takes" "—some self-reproach, perhaps--follows you within the door; chills the fireside; sows the pillow with thorns, -and the dark care, lost in the waking thought, haunts the vivid dream.

3. Let the case of a busy lawyer testify to the priceless value of a love of reading. He comes home, his temples throbbing, his nerves shattered, from a trial of a week; surprised and alarmed by the charge of the judge, and pale with anxiety about the verdict of the next morning; not at all satisfied with what he himself had done, though he does not see how he could have improved it; recalling with dread and self-disparagement, if not with envy, the brilliant effort of his antagonist, and tormenting himself with the vain wish that he could have replied to it—and altogether a very miserable subject, and in a condition as unfavorable to accept comfort from wife and children as poor Christian in the first three pages of Pilgrim's Progress.

4. With an almost superhuman effort he opens his book, and in a twinkling of an eye he is looking into the full "orb of Homeric or Miltonic song;" or he stands in the crowd breathless, or swayed as forests or the sea by winds -hearing, and to judge, the Pleadings for the Crown;'or the philosophy which soothed Cicero or Bo-e'thi-us in their afflictions, in exile, in prison, and the contemplation of death, breathes over his petty cares like the sweet south;-or Pope or Horace laugh him into good humor, or he walks with Æneas and the Sibyl in the mild light of the world of the laurelled dead-and the court-house is as completely forgotten as the dream of a preadamite life.

Well may he prize that endeared charm, so effectual and safe, without which the brain had long ago been chilled by paralysis, or set on fire by insanity.-Rufus Choate.

II.-Prejudice.

1. Prejudice?—What wrongs, what injuries, what mischiefs, what lamentable consequences, have resulted at all times from nothing but this perversity of the intellect! Of all the obstacles to the advancement of truth and human progress, in every department-in science, in art, in government, and in religion-in all ages and climes, not one on the list is more formidable, more difficult to overcome and subdue, than this horrible distortion of the moral as well as intellectual faculties. It is a host of evils within itself.

2. I could enjoin no greater duty upon my countrymen now-North and South-than the exercise of that degree of forbearance which would enable them to conquer their prejudices. One of the highest exhibitions of the moral sublime the world ever witnessed was that of Daniel Webster, when, in an open barouche in the streets of Boston, he proclaimed in substance, to a vast assembly of his constituents-unwilling hearers-that "they had conquered an uncongenial clime; they had conquered a sterile soil; they had conquered the winds and currents of the ocean; they had conquered most of the elements of nature; but they must yet learn to conquer their prejudices!"

3. I know of no more fitting incident or scene in the life of that wonderful man, for perpetuating the memory of the true greatness of his character, on canvas or in marble, than a representation of him as he then and there stood and spoke. It was an exhibition of moral grandeur surpassing that of Aristides when he said, "O Athenians, what Themistocles recommends would be greatly to your interest, but it would be unjust."—Alexander II. Stephens.

CHAPTER LXXXIII.—EDGAR ALLAN POE.-1811-1849.

I.-Biographical.

1. This short-lived and unfortunate man, born in Baltimore, has exerted an influence on versification far beyond anything indicated by the number or length of his poenis. The death of his parents left him an infant in homeless poverty. In his fifth year he was adopted by a Mr. Allan, of Baltimore, and at the age of cleven he was sent to the University of Virginia. Child though he was, he was expelled from this institution for dissipation, and soon after started to take part in the Greek revolution, but was sent home from St. Petersburg, having never reached Athens. He was then placed in the United States Military Academy, at West Point, but was soon expelled, and, on his return to Baltimore, Mr. Allan finally dismissed him from his doors.

2. Poc now took to literature as a means of livelihood, writing wild tales and strange verses for the magazines. and editing different periodicals. In these pursuits he moved back and forth between the cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. He died in Baltimore after a brief illness. James Russell Lowell thus speaks of him :

"There comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge;
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,
But the heart, somehow, seems all squeezed out by the mind."

3. Poe's tales and poems are as graphic and real as though he wrote with the pen of Daniel De Foe, as weird and extravagant as though he were fresh from reading Mrs. Radcliffe, and as preternatural as though he were a pupil of Coleridge. These effects are heightened by a melodious verse, in which the same cadences and refrains are often repeated, and the consonants move as if marshalled by a

master of phonetics, while slow-paced mutes bear onward the solemn apparitions, and the liquids and dentals dance in lighter strains with sonorous jangle. It is as impossible to escape the enchantment of this wonderful succession of sounds, as it is to escape the ghostly mystery of his tales. He belongs to no school, has no models; but his poems have done much, especially in England, to enlarge the scope of versification. As a specimen of his verse, in addition to the extracts already given from The Bells, we insert that remarkable poem

II.-The Raven.

1. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten

lore

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

""Tis some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber door

Only this, and nothing more."

2. Ah! distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to
borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost
Lenore-

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels
name Lenore-

Nameless here for evermore.

3. And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple

curtain

Thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,

"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber

door;

This it is, and nothing more."

4. Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

"Sir," said I, "or madam, truly your forgiveness I

implore;

But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came

rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you"-here I opened wide the door

Darkness there, and nothing more.

5. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word "Lenore ?"

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word "Lenore!"—

Merely this, and nothing more.