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his infancy delighted; he had attracted admiration at the period when it is most exquisitely felt; he stood forth the literary and political champion of republican England; and Europe acknowledged him the conqueror. But the storm arose; his fortune sank with the republic which he had defended; the name which future ages have consecrated was forgotten; and neglect was imbittered by remembered celebrity. Age was advancing. Health was retreating. Nature hid her face from him forever; for never more to him returned

"Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine."

What was the refuge of the deserted veteran from penury-from neglect from infamy-from darkness? Not in a querulous and peevish despondency; not in an unmanly recantation of principles, erroneous, but unchanged; not in the tremendous renunciation of what Heaven has given, and Heaven alone should take away: but he turned from a distracted country and a voluptuous court; he turned from triumphant enemies and inefficient friends; he turned from a world, that to him was a universal blank, to the muse that sits among the cherubim, and she caught him into heaven! The clouds that obscured his vision upon earth, instantaneously vanished before the blaze of celestial effulgence, and his eyes opened at once upon all the glories and terrors of the Almighty, the seats of eternal beatitude and bottomless perdition. What though to look upon

the face of this earth was still denied? what was it to him, that one of the outcast atoms of creation was concealed from his view, when the Deity permitted the muse to unlock his mysteries, and disclose to the poet the recesses of the universe-when she bade his soul expand into its immensity, and enjoy as well its horrors as its magnificence? what was it to him that he had "fallen upon evil days and evil tongues?" for the muse could transplant

his spirit into the bowers of Eden, where the frown of fortune was disregarded, and the weight of incumbent infirmity forgotten, in the smile that beamed on primeval innocence, and the tear that was consecrated to man's first disobedience !

LESSON III.

The Life of the Blessed.-BRYANT.

[From the Spanish of Luis PONCE DE LEON.]

REGION of life and light!

Land of the good whose earthly toils are o'er!
Nor frost nor heat may blight

Thy vernal beauty, fertile shore,
Yielding thy blessed fruits for evermore

There, without crook or sling,

Walks the good Shepherd; blossoms white and red
Round his meek temples cling;

And, to sweet pastures led,

His own loved flock beneath his eye is fed.

He guides, and near him they
Follow delighted, for he makes them go
Where dwells eternal May,

And heavenly roses blow,
Deathless, and gathered but again to grow.

He leads them to the height
Named of the infinite and long-sought Good,
And fountains of delight;

And where his feet have stood

Springs up, along the way, their tender food.

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And when, in the mid skies,

The climbing sun has reached his highest bound,
Reposing as he lies,

With all his flock around,

He witches the still air with numerous sound.

From his sweet lute flow forth
Immortal harmonies, of power to still
All passions born of earth,

And draw the ardent will
Its destiny of goodness to fulfil.

Might but a little part,

A wandering breath, of that high melody
Descend into my heart,

And change it till it be

Transformed and swallowed up, oh love! in thee,

Ah! then my soul should know,
Beloved! where thou liest at noon of day,
And, from this place of wo

Released, should take its way
To mingle with thy flock, and never stray.

LESSON IV.

Burial Places in the Country.-WORDSWORTH.

IN ancient time, as well known, it was the custom to bury the dead beyond the walls of towns and cities; and among the Greeks and Romans, they were frequently interred by the way-sides. I could here pause with pleasure, and invite the reader to indulge with me in contemplation of the advantages which must have attended such a practice. I could ruminate upon the beauty which the monu

ments, thus placed, must have borrowed from the surrounding images of nature, from the trees, the wild flowers, from a stream running perhaps within sight or hearing, from the beaten road stretching its weary length hard by. Many tender similitudes must these objects have presented to the mind of the traveller, leaning upon one of the tombs, or reposing in the coolness of its shade, whether he had halted from weariness, or in compliance with the invitation 86 Pause, traveller," so often found upon the monuments. And to its epitaph, also, must have been supplied strong appeals to visible appearances or immediate impressions; lively and affecting analogies of life as a journey; death as a sleep overcoming the tired wayfarer; of misfortune as a storm that falls suddenly upon him; of beauty as a flower that passeth away, or of innocent pleasure as one that may be gathered; of virtue that standeth firm as a rock against the beating waves; of hope "undermined insensibly, like the poplar by the side of the river that has fed it," or blasted in a moment, like a pine tree by the stroke of lightning upon the mountain top; of admonitions and heartstirring remembrances, like a refreshing breeze that comes without warning, or the taste of the waters of an unexpected fountain. These, and similar suggestions, mus have given, formerly, to the language of the senseless stone, a voice enforced and endeared by the benignity of that nature with which it was in unison. We, in modern times, have lost much of these advantages; and they are but in a small degree counterbalanced, to the inhabitants of large towns and cities, by the custom of depositing the dead within, or contiguous to, their places of worship; however splendid or imposing may be the appearances of those edifices, or however interesting or salutary the recollections associated with them. were it not true that tombs lose their monitory virtues when thus obtruded upon the notice of men occupied with the cares of the world, and too often sullied and defiled by those cares; yet still, when death is in our thoughts,

Even

nothing can make amends for the want of the soothing influences of nature, and for the absence of those types of renovation and decay, which the fields and woods offer to the notice of the serious and contemplative mind. To feel the force of this sentiment, let a man only compare, in imagination, the unsightly manner in which our monuments are crowded together in the busy, noisy, unclean, and almost grassless church-yard of a large town, with the still seclusion of a Turkish cemetery, in some remote place, and yet further sanctified by the grove of cypress in which it is embosomed.

LESSON V.

The Good Schoolmaster.-THOMAS FULLER.

THERE is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these: First, young scholars make this calling their refuge, yea, perchance before they have taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession, but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others, who are able, use it only as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to the children, and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich, they become negligent, and scorn to touch the school, but by the proxy of an usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself.

His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had as lief be schoolboys as schoolmasters ;

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