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They are the blossoms of another world, whose fruitage is angels and archangels. Or dew-drops! They are dew-drops that have their source, not in the chambers of the earth, nor among the vapors of the sky, which the next breath of wind, or the next flash of sunshine, may dry up forever, but among the everlasting fountains and inexhaustible reservoirs of mercy and love. Playthings! God! If the little creatures would but appear to us in their true shape for a moment we should fall upon our faces before them, or grow pale with consternation, or fling them off with horror and loathing.

Thy riper virtues to my heart;
Those virtues, which before untried,
The wife has added to the bride:
Those virtues, whose progressive claim,
Endearing wedlock's very name,
My soul enjoys, my song approves,
For conscience' sake as well as love's.

And why?-they show me every hour Honour's high thought, Affection's power, Discretion's deed, sound Judgment's sen tence,

And teach me all things-but repentance.

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CHRISTOPHER SMART.

["We hear of 'Single-speech Hamilton.' We have now to say something of 'Single-poem Smart' the author of one of the grandest bursts of devotional and poetical feeling in the English language—the 'Song to David.' This poor unfortunate was born at Shipbourne, Kent, in 1722. His father was steward to Lord Barnard, who after his death continued his patronage to the son, who was then eleven years of age. The Duchess of Cleveland, through Lord Barnard's influence, bestowed on Christopher an allowance of £40 a year. With this he went to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1739; was in 1745 elected a Fellow of Pembroke, and in 1747 took his degree of M. A. At college, Smart began to display that reckless dissipation which led afterwards to such melancholy consequences. He studied hard, however, at intervals; wrote poetry both in Latin and English; produced a comedy called a Trip to Cambridge; or, The Grateful Fair,' which was acted in the hall of Pembroke College; and, in spite of his vices and follies, was popular on account of his agreeable manners and amiable dispositions. Having become acquainted with Newberry, the benevolent, red-nosed bookseller, commemorated in 'The Vicar of Wakefield,'-for whom he wrote some trifles-he married his step-daughter, Miss Carnan, in the year 1753. He now removed to London, and became an author by trade. He wrote a clever satire, entitled 'The Hilliad,' against Sir John Hill, who had attacked him in an underhand manner. He translated the fables of Phædrus into verse,-Horace into prose ('Smart's Horace' used to be a great favourite, under the rose, with school boys): made an indifferent version of the Psalms and Paraphrases, and a good one, at a former period, of Pope's Ode on St. Cecelia's Day,' with which that poet professed himself highly pleased. He was employed on a monthly publication called 'The Universal Visitor.' We find Johnson giving the following account of this matter in Boswell's Life:-Old Gardner, the bookseller, employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany, called 'The Universal Visitor.' There was a formal written contract. They were

'The multitudinous abyss, Where secrecy remains in bliss, And wisdom hides her skill.'

bound to write nothing else,-they were to have, I think, a third of the profits of the sixpenny pamphlet, and the contract was for ninety-nine years. I wrote for some months in 'The Universal Visitor' for poor Smart, And, not to multiply instances to repletion, this stanza while he was mad, not then knowing the terms on which he was engaged to write, and thinking I was doing him good. I hoped his wits would soon return to him. Mine returned to me, and I wrote in the Universal Visitor' no longer.

"Smart at last was called to pay the penalty of his blended labour and dissipation. In 1763 he was shut up in a mad-house. His derangement had exhibited itself in a religious way: he insisted upon people kneeling down with him in the street and praying. During his confinement, writing materials were denied him, and he used to write his poetical pieces with a key on the wainscot. Thus 'scrabbling,' like his own hero, on the wall, he produced his immortal 'Song to David.' He became by and by sane; but, returning to his old habits, got into debt, and died in the King's Bench prison, after a short illness, in 1770.

"The 'Song to David' has been well called one of the greatest curiosities of literature. It ranks in this point with the tragedies written by Lee, and the sermons and prayers uttered by Hall in a similar melancholy state of mind. In these cases, as well as in Smart's, the thin partition between genius and madness was broken down in thunder,-the thunder of a higher poetry than perhaps they were capable of even conceiving in their saner moments. Lee produced in that state which was, indeed, nearly his normal one-some glorious extravagancies. Hall's sermons, monologized and overheard in the madhouse, are said to have tran scended all that he preached in his healthier moods. And, assuredly, the other poems by Smart scarcely furnish a point of comparison with the towering and sustained loftiness of some parts of the 'Song to David.' Nor is it loftiness alone,-although the last three stanzas are absolute inspiration, and you see the waters of Castalia tossed by a heavenly wind to the very summit of Parnassus,-but there are innumerable exquisite beauties and subtleties dropt as if by the hand of rich haste, in every corner of the poem. Witness his description of David's muse as a

'Blest light, still gaining on the gloom, The more than Michal of his bloom, The Abishag of his age.'

The account of David's object

'For further knowledge, silence vice, And plant perpetual paradise,

When God had calmed the world.'

Of David's Sabbath

"Twas then his thoughts self-conquest pruned,

And heavenly melancholy tuned,

To bless and bear the rest.'

One of David's themes

about gems

'Of gems-their virtue and their price,
Which, hid in earth from man's device,
Their darts of lustre sheath;
The jasper of the master's stamp,
The topaz blazing like a lamp,

Among the mines beneath.'

"Incoherence and extravagance we find here and there; but it is not the flutter of weakness, it is the fury of power: from the very stumble of the rushing steed, sparks are kindled. And, even as Baretti, when he read 'The Rambler' in Italy, thought within himself, If such are the lighter productions of the English mind, what must be the grander and sterner efforts of its genius? and formed, consequently, a strong desire to visit that country; so might he have reasoned, If such poems as 'David' issue from England's very madhouses, what must be the writings of its saner and nobler poetic souls? And thus might he from the parallax of a Smart, have been able to rise toward the ideal altitude of a Shakspeare or a Milton. Indeed, there are portions of the 'Song to David,' which a Milton or a Shakspeare has never surpassed. The blaze of the meteor often eclipses the light of

"The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.""]

A SONG TO DAVID.

Oh thou that sit'st upon a throne
With harp of high majestic tone,

To praise the King of Kings:
And voice of heaven-ascending swell
Which, while its deeper notes excel,
Clear as a clarion rings.

Sweet is the dew that falls betimes,
And drops upon the leafy limes;
Sweet Hermon's fragrant air:
Sweet is the lily's silver bell,
And sweet the wakeful tapers smell
That watch for early prayer.

Sweet the young nurse, with love intense, Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence;

Sweet when the lost arrive:

Sweet the musician's ardour beats,
While the vague mind's in quest of sweets,
The choicest flowers to hive.

Sweeter, in all the strains of love, The language of thy turtle-dove,

Pair'd to thy swelling chord; Sweeter, with every grace endued, The glory of thy gratitude, Respired unto the Lord.

Strong is the horse upon his speed;
Strong in pursuit the rapid glede,

Which makes at once his game:
Strong the tall ostrich on the ground;
Strong through the turbulent profound
Shoots Xiphias to his aim.

Strong is the lion-like a coal
His eye-ball-like a bastion's mole
His chest against his foes:
Strong the gier-eagle on his sail,
Strong against tide the enormous whale
Emerges as he goes.

But stronger still in earth and air,
And in the sea, the man of prayer,
And far beneath the tide :
And in the seat to faith assign'd,
Where ask is have, where seek is find,
Where knock is open wide.

Beauteous the fleet before the gale;
Beauteous the multitudes in mail,

Rank'd arms, and crested heads;
Beauteous the garden's umbrage mild,
Walk, water, meditated wild,

And all the bloomy beds.

Beauteous the moon full on the lawn,
And beauteous when the veil's withdrawn,
The virgin to her spouse:
Beauteous the temple, deck'd and fill'd,
When to the heaven of heavens they build
Their heart-directed vows.

Glorious the sun in mid career;
Glorious th' assembled fires appear;
Glorious the comet's train :
Glorious the trumpet and alarm;

Glorious-more glorious is the crown
Of Him that brought salvation down,
By meekness call'd thy Son;
Thou that stupendous truth believed,
And now the matchless deed's achieved,
Determined, dared, and done.

AMERICAN HISTORY.

FROM DISCOURSE BEFORE THE NEW YORK
HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

[GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, LL.D. Born New York, 1786. Died there in 1870. He was a lawyer and elegant scholar, served in Congress from 1825 to 1833, and published "Discourses and Addresses," 1833, besides several minor volumes, and numerous contributions to periodicals. He edited an edition of Shakespeare in three volumes.]

The study of the history of most other nations fills the mind with sentiments not unlike those which the American traveller feels on entering the venerable and lofty cathedral of some proud old city of Europe. Its solemn grandeur, its vastness, its obscurity strike awe to his heart. From the richly painted windows, filled with sacred emblems, and strange antique forms, a dim religious light falls around. A thousand recollections of romance and poetry, and legendary story, come thronging in upon him. He is surrounded by the tombs of the mighty dead, rich with the labors of ancient art, and emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry.

What names does he read upon them? Those of princes and nobles who are now remembered only for their vices; and of sovereigns, at whose death no tears were shed, and whose memories lived not an hour in the affections of their people. There, too, he sees other names, long familiar to him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest the blood-stained soldier of fortunethe orator, who was ever the ready apologist

Glorious the Almighty's stretch'd-out arm, of tyranny-great scholars, who were the

Glorious the enraptured main :

Glorious the northern light's astream;
Glorious the song, when God's the theme;
Glorious the thunder's roar:

Glorious hosannah from the den;

Glorious the catholic amen;

Glorious the martyr's gore;

pensioned flatterers of power-and poets, who profaned the high gift of genius to pamper the vices of a corrupted court.

Our own history, on the contrary, like that poetical temple of fame reared by the imagination of Chaucer, and decorated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively dedicated to the memory of the truly great. Or, rather, like the Pantheon of Rome, it

stands in calm and severe beauty, amid the | hitherto been wilfully blind to the value of ruins of ancient magnificence and "the toys our example and the exploits of our of modern state." Within, no idle ornament sagacity, courage, invention, and freedom, encumbers its bold simplicity. The pure the blame must rest with her, and not with light of heaven enters from above, and America. sheds an equal and serene radiance around. As the eye wanders about its extent it beholds the unadorned monuments of brave and good men, who have bled or toiled for their country, or it rests on votive tablets inscribed with the names of the best benefactors of mankind.

Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando, volnera passi, Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, Quique pii vates, et Phoebo digna locuti, Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes, Quique sui memores, alios fecere merendo.*

Is it nothing for the universal good of mankind to have carried into successful operation a system of self-government, uniting personal liberty, freedom of opinion, and equality of rights, with national power and dignity; such as had before existed only in the Utopian dreams of philosophers? Is it nothing, in moral science, to have anticipated, in sober reality, numerous plans of reform in civil and criminal jurisprudence, which are but now received as plausible theories by the politicians and economists of Europe? Is it nothing to have been able to call forth on every emergency, either in war or peace, a body of talents always equal to the difficulty? Is it nothing to have, in less than a-half century, exceed

Doubtless this is a subject upon which we may be justly proud. But there is another consideration, which, if it did not naturally arise of itself, would be pressed upon us by the taunts of European criti-ingly improved the sciences of political

cism.

What has this nation done to repay the world for the benefits we have received from others? We have been repeatedly told, and sometimes, too, in a tone of affected impartiality, that the highest praise which can fairly be given to the American mind, is that of possessing an enlightened selfishness; that if the philosophy and talents of this country, with all their effects, were forever swept into oblivion, the loss would be felt only by ourselves; and that if to the accuracy of this general charge the labors of Franklin present an illustrious, it is still but a solitary exception.

The answer may be given, confidently and triumphantly. Without abandoning the fame of our eminent men, whom Europe has been slow and reluctant to honor, we would reply that the intellectual power of this people has exerted itself in conformity to the general system of our institutions and manners; and, therefore, that, for the proof of its existence and the measure of its force, we must look not so much to the works of prominent individuals as to the great aggregate results; and if Europe has

*Patriots are here, in Freedom's battle slain,

Priests, whose long lives were closed without a stain,
Bards, worthy him who breathed the poet's mind,
Founders of arts that dignify mankind,
And lovers of our race, whose labors gave
Their names a memory that defies the grave.

VIRGIL-From the MS. of Bryant.

economy, of law, and of medicine, with all their auxiliary branches; to have enriched human knowledge by the accumulation of a great mass of useful facts and observations, and to have augmented the power and the comforts of civilized man, by miracles of mechanical invention? Is it nothing to have given the world examples of disinterested patriotism, of political wisdom, of public virtue; of learning, eloquence, and valor, never exerted save for some praiseworthy end? It is sufficient to have briefly suggested these considerations; every mind would anticipate me in filling up the details.

No-Land of Liberty! thy children have no cause to blush for thee. What though the arts have reared few monuments among us, and scarce a trace of the Muse's foot step is found in the paths of our forests, or along the banks of our rivers; yet our soil has been consecrated by the blood of heroes, and by great and holy deeds of peace. Its wide extent has become one vast temple and hallowed asylum, sanctified by the prayers and blessings of the persecuted of every sect, and the wretched of all nations.

Land of Refuge-Land of Benedictions! Those prayers still arise, and they still are heard: "May peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces!" "May there be no decay, no leading into captivity, and no complaining in thy May truth flourish out of the earth, and righteousness look down from Heaven !"

streets!"

66

THE PARROT.

THE ALHAMBRA.

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[JEAN BAPTISTE LOUIS GRESSET, an elegant French poet, born at Amiens in 1709, died in 1777. His principal poem, "Ver-Vert," containing the humorous adventures of a parrot, has been translated into many languages. We cite the following extracts.]

The public soon began to ferret The hidden nest of so much merit, And, spite of all the nuns' endeavours, The fame of Ver-Vert filled all Nevers ; Nay, from Moulines folks came to stare at The wondrous talent of this parrot; And to fresh visitors, ad libitum, Sister Sophie had to exhibit him. Dressed in her tidiest robes, the virgin, Forth from the convent cells emerging, Brings the bright bird, and for his plumage First challenges unstinted homage; Then to his eloquence adverts,— "What preacher's can surpass Ver-Vert's?" Truly, in oratory, few men Equal this learned catechumen, Fraught with the convent's choicest lessons, And stuffed with piety's quintessence; A bird most quick of apprehension, With gifts and graces hard to mention ; Say, in what pulpit can you meet A Chrysostom half so discreet, Who'd follow, in his ghostly mission, So close the fathers and tradition?" Silent, meantime, the feathered hermit Waits for the sister's gracious permit, When, at a signal from his Mentor, Quick on a course of speech he 'll enter: Not that he cares for human glory, Bent but to save his auditory;

Hence he pours forth with so much unction, That all his hearers feel compunction.

Thus for a time did Ver-Vert dwell
Safe in his holy citadel;
Scholared like any well-bred abbé
And loved by many a cloistered Hebe:
You'd swear that he had crossed the same
bridge

As any youth brought up in Cambridge.
Other monks starve themselves; but his skin.
Was sleek, like that of a Franciscan,
And far more clean; for this grave Solon
Bathed every day in eau de Cologne.
Thus he indulged each guiltless gambol,
Blessed had he ne'er been doomed to ramble!
*
*

*

*

*

The prodigal, reclaimed and free, Became again a prodigy, And gave more joy, by works and words, Than ninety-nine Canary-birds,

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