THE PLEASURES OF THOUGHT.

BY SIDNEY DYER.

I.

For what was man designed? to live and die?
To mingle back to dust and be forgot?
To feel the ills of life and then to lie

In drear oblivion in the grave and rot?
O, cruel fate! were this his hopeless lot;
Twere better far that life he ne'er should know,
Than thus to be, and wish that he were not;
To long for pleasure's stream, yet mid the flow
Of sorrow's turbid wave to sink in deepest woe.
II.

He wears an upright form of heavenly make,
Which oft, like well-tuned harp-strings, doth awake
With soul and sense mysteriously combined;
A thrill of rapturous pleasure in the mind.
But sense alone ne'er yields the bliss designed,
When into man was breathed the deathless soul;
By heavenly skill for purer joys refined,
And pant to soar beyond where farthest planets roll
And upward taught to look from earth's control,

imparting a consciousness of power, called into action hopes, aims and sentiments, which, unenvoked, might have long slumbered in impotent despair. This was a high service. Let it be duly honored. We believe it to be the only process by which a class of men, among the noblest of their kind, can be effectually roused and comforted; and in view of the sphere of utility thus realized, it is scarcely grateful to criticise the example which these memoirs reveal. Yet, there is a vast difference between character and thought, opinion and life, habit and genius. For the truths to which Channing attached such inestimable value, we refer to his writings; for a portrait of the man, we are indebted to his biographer, and that suggests many inferences which serve to throw new light upon the actual relation between personality and faith. One great principle we everywhere see displayed is that the generation of an inward force is the great end of all that deserves the name of education. Not in scholarship, readiness, tact or discipline-but in the capacity to think wisely, to feel truly, to act justly, lies the absolute greatness of man. It is in vain to evade or conceal this primal fact. Channing's own words, "to get a disposable « HOPE's" fond delights one tuneful bard* hath sung, strength of intellect," is after all the one thing Whose fame Apollo might have wished to share, needful in all genuine mental culture. Doubtless Bright star-eyed Hope, when his wild numbers rung, this is to be attained in various ways, according Born once again to earth, divinely fair,"Enchanted smiled and waved her golden hair," to the tendencies and gifts of the individual; in But still her promised good is far away, his case it was by meditative rather than external intentness that the boon was sought and found. And to enforce this law, as the requisite of similarly constituted beings, seems to us the essential truth to be gleaned from these volumes. It is only partially recognized in our systems of education and individual theories. Lamb says a man may lose himself in another's ideas as easily as in a neighbor's grounds. We may be so diverted from all singleness of purpose and individuality of life, as to defeat the very object sought abroad, even among the richest fields of experience. "To thine own self be true" was a maxim of the sagacious and prudent courtier; more nobly interpreted, it is also the doctrine of moral insight, and one which Channing has most admirably illustrated.

In

The French Directory, in a letter to the Spanish Admiral Massaredo, thus alluded to England:-"From a small corner of the earth, which the sun seems to light with regret, England pretends exclusively to the sovereignty of the

seaa."

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III.

For when at last brought near, most oft despair
Is found to dwell and rule with iron sway
Where she had promised most and cast her brightest ray.

IV.

The pleasing joys that "MEMORY's" voice recalls
Have oft been sung, and late by one† whose strain
Upon the ear in softened cadence falls,

But memory's song awakes, with each refrain,
Those deep-toned chords that bring up tears again,
We linger o'er the past with sad regret,

Where lie our blighted hopes on time's dark plain,
Each happy interval review, and yet
Would all its bliss forego could we its pains forget.
V.

With nobler aim and far sublimer flight,

An elder bard‡ awoke the tuneful shell,
And to "IMAGINATION's" realms of light
Mounted on viewless wing, and caught the swell
Of angel choirs, as gently rose and fell
Their votive praise on high. Though strong its sway,
Imagination's but a passing spell-

An Ignis Fatuus, whose delusive ray

Lights up unreal worlds, and glows but to betray.

Till 'neath their ponderous weight old Neptune groans and Its heavenly powers expand and noblest thoughts inspire! reels.

Who know Him not, though on the world's high throne, Long e'er the winds had filled his loosened sail.

XXXI.

Let Gallia's traitor kings a warning be

To thrones and powers-ay, let them henceforth know
That man has power to act, and dare be free;

That he was born to think, and thought shall flow
Free as the air we breathe, the winds that blow.
Who dares again oppress with traitorous scheme,
Shall by a freeman's arm be stricken low;
The age of Kings has passed-a vanished dream-
FREEDOM ascends the throne, and THOUGHT shall reign
supreme!

XXXII.

The PRESS, which strives Thought's power to extend,
Gives "local habitation and a name"

To what the mind conceives. Its force shall end
Grim Error's reign, and blast to endless shame
The foes of human kind, but spread the fame
The good man seeks to earth's remotest bound.
Against its freedom only those exclaim,
Who dread the dazzling light it sheds around,
Exposing deeds they seek to shroud in gloom profound.

XXXIII.

XXXVII.

Thus THOUGHT goes forth and holds the world in awe,
Subservient makes each seen and latent power,

(Led to their springs by truth's unerring law,)
Bedecks the desert wild with fruit and flower,
And gleans from barren fields a princely dower;
Amid confusion, perfect order finds,

A radiant sun, where clouds of darkness lower;
Culls rarest gems from long neglected mines,
And purest bliss enjoys where ignorance repines!

XXXVIII.

O'er Earth ere long a fearful change shall pass,
Hurled back to chaos whence at first it came,
Its beauty changed to one unshapen mass,

As round it spreads the fierce devouring flame,
Which leaves no lingering trace of place or fame ;
Then o'er the scene shall THOUGHT arise and shine,
With radiant beams the noonday sun shall shame,
And from the smouldering wrecks of Earth and Time,
In triumph mount to God Immortal and DIVINE!
Louisville, Ky.

Shakspeare, the Earl of Southampton and "The Tempest."

Shakspeare after, and probably on account of the deer-stealing affair, went from Stratford to London about the year 1587. Here finding Richard Burbidge, who was from the immediate neighborhood of Stratford, engaged in the calling of a stage-player, he likewise betook himself to the stage, and acted at the Globe theatre, (the Earl of Leicester's or the Queen's,) and afterwards at the Blackfriars. Two years later he appears to have become a stockholder in the latter establishment, and from this source he afterwards derived a very considerable income. After taking up his abode in London, he won the friendship of young Henry Wriothesley, the generous, the romantic Earl of Southampton, who was destined to enjoy the double honor of being the patron of Shakspeare, and of the Colony of Virginia. In 1593 the poet, aged 29, dedicated "Venus and Adonis," his first production, to the Earl, who was then only 19, and in the following year, "The Rape of Lucrece," his second poem. The Earl of Southampton was a great favorite of the Earl of Essex, who appointed him General of the horse in Ireland, contrary to the known wishes of the Queen; by whose repeated orders he was displaced. In 1597 he accompanied Essex as a volunteer in an unfortunate expedition against the Spanish in the West Indies. And during a temporary loss of the Queen's favor, owing to the circumstances of

his marriage, he spent some time in a sort of it draweth on more and greater demaunds. This exile in France, accompanying Secretary Cecil which now presseth is to request your Lordship at the time of the negotiation of the treaty of in all you can to be good to the poore players of Vervins. In 1601 the Earl of Southampton was the Black Fryers, who call themselves by auimplicated with Essex in a conspiracy to seize thoritie the Servants of his Majestie, and aske the person of Queen Elizabeth. While Essex, for the protection of their most graceous Maister for the treasonable temerity of this hair-brained and Sovereigne in this the tyme of their troble. attempt, lost his life on the scaffold, Southamp-They are threatened by the Lord Maior and Alton suffered the penalties of attainder during the dermen of London, never friendly to their callQueen's life. However, upon the accession of ing, with the destruction of their meanes of liveJames, he was released from confinement, his lyhood, by the putting downe of their plaie-house, attainder was reversed, and his title and estates which is a private theatre, and hath never given restored to him. There appears to have been occasion of anger by anie disorders. These beara very close intimacy and devoted friendship ers are two of the chiefe of the companie; one between this nobleman and Shakspeare. It is of them by name Richard Burbidge, who humsaid that the Earl at one time made the poet blie sueth for your Lordship's kinde helpe, for the munificent present of £1,000. Some, how-that he is a man famous as our English Roscius, ever, have refused to credit that so large a one who fitteth the action to the word and the sum was given, and have supposed that it was word to the action most admirably. By the exprobably no more than a loan. On the other ercise of his qualitye, industry and good behahand, however, it is alleged that the Earl was viour, he hath become possessed of the Black liberal to an extravagant degree, in so much as Fryers playhouse which hath bene imployed for eventually to prove the ruin of his private for- players sithence it was builded by his Father tune, and it is suggested that the sum of £10,000 now nere 50 yeres agone. The other is a man has been given by an English nobleman in mod- no whitt lesse deserving favor and my especiall ern times to a celebrated actor. Whatever may friende, till of late an actor of good account in have been the real character of the pecuniary the Companie, now a sharer in the same and favor shown by Southampton to Shakspeare, writer of some of our best English playes, which, whether a donation or a loan, it probably took place not long after the latter came to reside at London, for it is certain that he was then poor, and yet we find that in two years he became a share-holder in theatrical stock, and it is quite improbable that he could in so short a period have acquired money for this purpose from the profits of his acting.

His

as your Lordship knoweth, were most singularly liked of Queen Elizabeth, when the Companie was called upon to performe before her Ma'tie at Court, at Christmas and Shrovetide. most gracious Ma'tie King James alsoe, since his coming to the Crowne, hath extended his royall favour to the Companie in divers waies and at sundrie tymes. This other hath to name Shakspeare, according to some, retired from William Shakespeare, and they are both of one the stage before 1605; according to others, and countie and indeed almost of one towne; both more probably, it was not till 1607 or 1608. How- are right famous in their qualityes, though it ever, it is certain that he was after 1608, a can- longeth not to your Lo. gravitie and wisedom to didate for the place of "master of the revels"-resort unto the places where they are wont to debut he did not receive the appointment. The light the publique care. Their trust and sute following letter, written by the Earl of South- nowe is, not to be molested in their waye of life ampton, about 1603, to Lord Chancellor Elles- whereby they maintaine themselves and their mere, has been discovered of late years among the MSS. of that nobleman, preserved at Bridgewater House, and is taken from a work entitled "New Facts relating to the life of Shakspeare," prefixed to the Boston edition, 1847, of his dramatic works. The interest of this letter is enhanced to Virginians, by the consideration, that ple of " the writer was not only the patron of Shaks- one "a man famous as our English Roscius," peare, but also afterwards of Virginia. My the other who "hath to name William Shakesverie honored Lord, the manie good offices I peare," the "writer of some of our best English have received at your Lordship's hands, which playes," as they repair to the presence of the ought to make me backward in asking farther Lord Chancellor and present the letter of the favors, only imbouldens me to require more in generous Earl, we cannot doubt but that the two the same kinde. Your Lordship will be warned

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wives and families, (being both married and of good reputations,) as well as the widowes and orphanes of some of their dead fellowes.

Your. Lo. most bounden at com.

H. S. Should we in our fancy accompany this coupoore players of the Black Fryers," the

howe hereafter you graunt me anie sute, seeing * [A mistake. It was not more than 32 years.]