EXERCISE CLXXXV. HARRIET MARTINEAU was born in Norwich, England, June 12th, 1802. Her early education was liberal and thorough, though her father's circumstances were far from being affluent. Afflicted with partial deafness from early youth, and deprived completely of the sense of smell, she found especial delight in the practice of writing. This gave her a facility which proved of the utmost service, when afterwards pecuniary need made that a business, which had once been only a recreation. Miss Martineau had not written long for the public, before she showed that she had talents of no ordinary stamp. She has written on almost every subject, from a book of devotion for the young to a philosophical treatise for the most mature. In 1834 she sailed for America, and made an extensive tour through the United States. The results of her sojourn with us, she afterwards gave in two separate works, which, on the whole, are allowed to have been written in a fair and candid spirit. TRUE LOVE. HARRIET MARTINEAU. 1. There needs no other proof that happiness is the most wholesome moral atmosphere, and that in which the immortality of man is destined ultimately to thrive, than the elevation of soul, the religious aspiration, which attends the first assurance, the first sober certainty of true love. There is much of this religious aspiration amidst all warmth of virtuous affections. There is a vivid love of God in the child that lays its cheek against the cheek of its mother, and clasps its arms about her God is thanked (perhaps, unconsciously,) for the brightness of his earth, on summer evenings, when a brother and sister, who have long been parted, pour out their heart-stores tc each other, and feel their course of thought brightening as it runs. 2. When the aged parent hears of the honors his children have won, or looks round upon their innocent faces as the glory of his decline, his mind reverts to him who, in them, prescribed the purpose of his life, and bestowed its grace. But religious as is the mood of every good affection, none is so devotional as that of love, especially so called. The soul is then the very temple of adoration, of faith, of holy purity, of heroism, of charity. At such a moment the human creature shoots up into the angel; there is nothing on earth too defiled for its charity— nothing in hell too appalling for its heroism-nothing in Heaven too glorious for its sympathy. 3. Strengthened, sustained, vivified by that most mysterious power, union with another spirit, it feels itself set well forth on the way of victory over evil, sent out conquering and to conquer. There is no other such crisis in human lif The philosopher may experience uncontrollable agitation in verifying his principle of balancing systems of worlds, feeling, perhaps, as if he actually saw the creative hand in the act of sending the planets forth on their everlasting way; but this philosopher, solitary seraph as he may be regarded amidst a myriad of men, knows at such a moment no emotions so divine as those of the spirit becoming conscious that it is beloved-be it the peasant girl in the meadow, or the daughter of the sage reposing in her father's confidence, or the artisan beside his loom, or the man of letters musing by his fireside. 4. The warrior about to strike the decisive blow for the liberties of a nation, however impressed with the solemnity of the hour, is not in a state of such lofty resolution as those who, by joining hearts, are laying their joint hands on the whole wide realm of futurity for their own. The statesman who, in the moment of success, feels that an entire class of social sins and woes is annihilated by his hand, is not conscious of so holy and so intimate a thankfulness as they who are aware that their redemption is come in the presence of a new and sovereign affection. 5. And these are many-they are in all corners of every land. The statesman is the leader of a nation, the warrior is the grace of an age, the philosopher is the birth of a thousand years; but the lover, where is he not? Wherever parents look round upon their children, there he has been—wherever children are at play together, there he will soon be-wherever there are roofs under which men dwell, wherever there is an atmosphere vibrating with human voices, there is the lover, and there is his lofty worship going on, unspeakable, but revealed in the brightness of the eye, the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of the discourse. EXERCISE CLXXXVI. JAMES GATES PERCIVAL was born in Berlin, Connecticut, September 15th, 1795, and died in Wisconsin, May 2d, 1857. He was but fourteen years of age, when he wrote a burlesque poem on the times, said to have considerable merit. In 1820 he published a volume of poems, and thereafter continued to write and publish much, both in prose and poetry, till the time (1843) of his last publication, entitled "The Dream of a Day and Other Poems." He was a man of large and general culture, especially rich in classical attainment; and, as a poet, without a superior, perhaps, in the gift of fancy, coupled with a certair strange power to arrest the feelings and hold the reader under a sort of poetic enchantment. O, HAD I THE WINGS! I. JAS. G. PERCIVAL O, had I the wings of a swallow, I'd fly That rolls o'er the ever-green bowers of the line! II. Indeed, I should gloomily steal o'er the deep, We would fly from the dark clouds of winter away, III. We would nestle awhile in the jessamine bowers, And there we would stay, till the winter is o'er, IV. How light we would skim, where the billows are rolled When morning comes forth in her loveliest prime: Through the breath of the cedar that blows from the shore. V. And, when we had rested our wings, and had fed We would hurry again to the land of our loves; And, when from the breast of the ocean would spring, EXERCISE CLXXXVII. JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES, a British dramatist, was born in Cork, Ireland, in the year 1784. He discovered a decided taste for dramatic pursuits at an very early age, and, in its development, had the aid of some of the best critics of the day. He was not only a writer, but also an actor, of plays. Among his various dramatic pieces is the play of William Tell, from which the following dialogue between Tell and Gesler, the tyrant, has been extracted. In later life, Mr. Knowles became a minister of the Baptist denomination. He died, November 29th, 1862, at Torquay, England. WILLIAM TELL was a peasant, born near Altorf, in Switzerland, and celebrated for his resistance to the tyranny of Gesler, an Austrian governor. This Gesler had carried his insolent sway so far as to require the Swiss to uncover their heads before his hat, elevated on a pole, as a sign of Austrian sove reignty, of which he was the representative. Tell refusing to do this, was condemned by the brutal governor to shoot an apple from the head of his own son. Being a skillful rcher, he did this without injury to the boy; but had concealed about his person a second arrow with which he purposed to shoot the tyrant himself, nad he been so unfortunate as to miss his aim in shooting at the apple. The short dialogue below shows well the spirit that animated this famous defender of liberty. Ges. Ha! Beware-Think on thy chains. Tell. Though they were doubled, and did weigh me down, Thou art a monster! Think upon my chains! Think on my chains! Think on my chains! Ges. Darest thou question me? Ges. Do I hear? Tell. Thou dost. Ges. Beware my vengeance. Ges. Enough-it can do that. It can not take away the grace of life, Its rich attire of honorable deeds, Its fair report, that's rife on good men's tongues: |