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LORD CHESTERFIELD AND LORD CHATHAM.

Thy bride comes forth! begin the festal rites!
The walnuts strew! prepare the nuptial lights!
O envied husband, now thy bliss is nigh!
Behold for thee bright Hesper mounts the sky!
WARTON.

When I again asked Paoli if it was possible for me in any way to show him my great respect and attachment, he replied, "Ricordatevi che Io vi sia amico, e scrivetemi. Remember that I am your friend, and write to me." I said I hoped that when he honoured me with a letter, he would write not only as a commander, but as a philosopher and a man of letters. He took me by the hand, and said, "As a friend." I dare not transcribe from my private notes the feelings which I had at this interview. I should perhaps appear too enthusiastic. I took leave of Paoli with regret and agitation, not without some hopes of seeing him again. From having known intimately so exalted a character, my sentiments of human nature were raised, while, by a sort of contagion, I felt an honest ardour to distinguish myself, and be useful as far as my situation and abilities would allow; and I was, for the rest of my life, set free from a slavish timidity in the presence of great men, for where shall I find a man greater than Paoli?

THE LADY'S LOOKING-GLASS.

IN IMITATION OF A GREEK IDYLLIUM.
BY MATTHEW PRIOR.

Celia and I the other day
Walk'd o'er the sand-hills to the sea:
The setting sun adorn'd the coast,
His beams entire, his fierceness lost :
And on the surface of the deep,
The winds lay only not asleep:
The nymph did like the scene appear,
Serenely pleasant, calmly fair:
Soft fell her words, as flew the air.
With secret joy I heard her say,
That she would never miss one day
A walk so fine, a sight so gay.

But, oh the change! the winds grow high;
Impending tempests charge the sky;
The lightning flies; the thunder roars;
And big waves lash the frighten'd shores.
Struck with the horror of the sight,
She turns her head, and wings her flight;
And trembling vows, she'll ne'er again
Approach the shore, or view the main.

Once more at least look back, said I; Thyself in that large glass descry: When thou art in good humour drest; When gentle reason rules thy breast;

The sun upon the calmest sea
Appears not half so bright as thee:
'Tis then, that with delight I rove
Upon the boundless depth of love;
I bless my chain; I hand my oar;
Nor think on all I left on shore.

But when vain doubt, and groundless fear
Do that dear foolish bosom tear;
When the big lip, and wat'ry eye
Tell me, the rising storm is nigh:
'Tis then, thou art yon angry main,
Deform'd by winds, and dash'd by rain;
And the poor sailor, that must try
Its fury, labours less than I.

Shipwreck'd, in vain to land I make : While love and fate still drive me back: Forc'd to dote on thee thy own way,

I chide thee first, and then obey.

Wretched when from thee, vex'd when nigh, I with thee, or without thee, die.

LORD CHESTERFIELD AND

LORD CHATHAM.

[Walter Savage Landor, born at Ipsley Court, Warwickshire, 30th January, 1775; died 17th September, 1864. Poet, soldier, philosopher, essayist, and critic. His principal works are: Gebirus, a poem; Count Julian, a tragedy; Idyllica Heroica; Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men, Statesmen, &c. (from which we quote); Pericles and Aspasia; Citation and Examination of Shakspeare for Sheep-stealing; The Pentameron and Pentalogue; Andrea of Hungary, and Giovanni of Naples, dramas; The Hellenics; Letters of an American; Last Fruit off an Old Tree; Dry Sticks Fagoted; &c. &c. Of the Imaginary Conversations the Edinburgh Review says: "In these hundred and twenty-five dialogues-making allowance for every shortcoming or excess-the most familiar and the most august shapes of the past are reanimated with vigour, grace, and beauty.]

CHESTERFIELD.

It is true, my lord, we have not always been of the same opinion, or, to use a better, truer, and more significant expression, of the same side in politics; yet I never heard a sentence from your lordship which I did not listen to with deep attention. I understand that you have written some pieces of admonition and advice to a young relative: they are mentioned as being truly excellent. I wish I could have profited by them when I was composing mine on a similar occasion.

CHATHAM.

My lord, you certainly would not have done it, even supposing they contained, which I am far from believing, any topics that could have escaped your penetrating view of manners and morals: for your lordship and I set out

LORD CHESTERFIELD AND LORD CHATHAM.

diversely from the very threshold. Let us then rather hope that what we have written, with an equally good intention, may produce its due effect; which indeed, I am afraid, may be almost as doubtful, if we consider how ineffectual were the cares and exhortations, and even the daily example and high renown, of the most zealous and prudent men, on the life and conduct of their children and disciples. Let us however hope the best rather than fear the worst, and believe that there never was a right thing done or a wise one spoken in vain, although the fruit of them may not spring up in the place designated or at the time expected.

CHESTERFIELD.

СНАТНАМ.

271

Education and grammar are surely the two driest of all subjects on which a conversation can turn: yet, if the ground is not promiscuously sown, if what ought to be clear is not covered, if what ought to be covered is not bare, and, above all, if the plants are choice ones, we may spend a few moments on it not unpleasantly. It appears then to me, that elegance in prose composition is mainly this: a just admission of topics and of words; neither too many nor too few of either; enough of sweetness in the sound to induce us to enter and sit still; enough of illustration and reflection to change the posture of our minds when they would tire; and enough of sound matter in the complex

Pray, if I am not taking too great a free- to repay us for our attendance. I could perdom, give me the outline of your plan.

СНАТНАМ.

Willingly, my lord: but since a greater man than either of us has laid down a more comprehensive one, containing all I could bring forward, would it not be preferable to consult it? I differ in nothing from Locke, unless it be that I would recommend the lighter as well as the graver part of the ancient classics, and the constant practice of imitating them in early youth. This is no change in the system, and no larger an addition than a woodbine to a sacred grove.

CHESTERFIELD.

I do not admire Mr. Locke.

CHATHAM.

Nor I: he is too simply grand for admiration: I contemplate and revere him. Equally deep and clear, he is both philosophically and grammatically the most elegant of English writers.

CHESTERFIELD.

If I expressed by any motion of limb or feature my surprise at this remark, your lordship I hope will pardon me a slight and involuntary transgression of my own precept. I must entreat you, before we move a step further in our inquiry, to inform me whether I am really to consider him, in style, the most elegant of our prose authors.

CHATHAM.

Your lordship is capable of forming an opinion on this point, certainly no less correct than mine.

CHESTERFIELD.

Pray assist me.

haps be more logical in my definition, and more concise; but am I at all erroneous?

CHESTERFIELD.

I see not that you are.

CHATHAM.

My ear is well satisfied with Locke; I find nothing idle or redundant in him.

CHESTERFIELD.

not some of his principles lead too far? But, in the opinion of you graver men, would

CHATHAM.

The danger is that few will be led by them far enough: most who begin with him stop short, and, pretending to find pebbles in their shoes, throw themselves down upon the ground and complain of their guide.

CHESTERFIELD.

What then can be the reason why Plato, so much less intelligible, is so much more quoted and applauded?

CHATHAM.

The difficulties we never try are no difficulties to us. Those who are upon the summit of a mountain know in some measure its altitude, by comparing it with all objects around; but those who stand at the bottom and never mounted it, can compare it with few only, and with those imperfectly. Until a short time ago I could have conversed more fluently about Plato than I can at present: I had read all the titles to his dialogues and several scraps of commentary; these I have now forgotten, and am indebted to long attacks of the gout for what I have acquired instead.

272

CHESTERFIELD.

THE RETURN OF SPRING.

A very severe schoolmaster! allows a long vacation.

I hope he

CHATHAM.

Severe he is indeed, and although he sets no example of regularity, he exacts few observances and teaches many things. Without him I should have had less patience, less learning, less reflection, less leisure; in short, less of everything but of sleep.

CHESTERFIELD.

Locke, from a deficiency of fancy, is not likely to attract so many listeners as Plato.

CHATHAM.

And yet occasionally his language is both metaphorical and rich in images. In fact, all our great philosophers have also this property in a wonderful degree. Not to speak of the devotional, in whose writings one might expect it, we find it abundantly in Bacon, not sparingly in Hobbes; the next to him in range of inquiry and potency of intellect. And what would you think, my lord, if you discovered in the records of Newton a sentence in the spirit of Shakspeare?

CHESTERFIELD.

I should look upon it as upon a wonder, not to say a miracle: Newton, like Barrow, had no feeling or respect for poetry.

СНАТНАМ.

His words are these:

"I don't know what I may seem to the world; but as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of Truth lay all undiscovered before me."

CHESTERFIELD.

Surely Nature, who had given him the volumes of her greater mysteries to unseal; who had bent over him and taken his hand, and taught him to decipher the characters of her sacred language; who had lifted up before him her glorious veil, higher than ever yet for mortal, that she might impress her features and her fondness on his heart, threw it back wholly at these words, and gazed upon him with as much admiration as ever he had gazed upon her.

THE RETURN OF SPRING.

[Allan Cunningham, born at Blackwood, Dumfriesshire, 1785; died in London, 29th October, 1842. Poet, novelist, and miscellaneous writer. His principal works are: Sir Marmaduke Maxwell, a dramatic poem; Traditionary Tales of the Peasantry; Lord Røldan; Sir Michael Scott; Paul Jones: The Maid of Elwar,-romances; Songs of Scotland, ancient and modern: Lives of British

Painters, Sculptors, and Architects; Biographical and Critical History of the Literature of the Last Fifty Years (1833); The Works of Robert Burns; and The Life of Sir David Wilkie.]

Cauld winter is awa', my love,
And spring is in her prime;
The breath of Heaven stirs a' to life,
The grasshoppers to chime.
The birds canna contain themsel's
Upon the sprouting tree,
But loudlie, loudlie sing of love:
A theme which pleaseth me.

The blackbird is a pawky loon,

An' kens the gate of love;
Fu' weel the sleekit mavis kens

The melting lilt maun move.
The gowdspink woos in gentle note,

And ever singeth he,

Come here, come here, my spousal dame!— A theme which pleaseth me.

What says the sangster rose-linnet?
His breast is beating high,

Come here, come here, my ruddie mate,
The way of love to try!

The lavrock calls his freckled mate

Frae near the sun's ee-bree, Make on the knowe our nest, my love!A theme which pleaseth me.

The hares hae brought forth twins, my love,
Sae has the cushat doo;
The raven croaks a softer way,

His sooty love to woo:

And nought but love, love breathes around
Frae hedge, frae field, and tree,
Soft whispering love to Jeanie's heart:
A theme which pleaseth me.

O lassie is thy heart mair hard
Than mavis on the bough;
Say, maun the hail creation wed,
And Jean remain to woo?
Say, has the holie lowe of love

Ne'er lighten'd in your ee?
O! if thou canstna feel for pain,
Thou art nae theme for me!

THE TRUE GREATNESS OF A NATION.

THE TRUE GREATNESS OF A

NATION.

278

washed out by the tears of all the recording angels of heaven.

[CHARLES SUMNER, jurist, statesman and orator, was born in Boston, January 6, 1811. After his graduation from Harvard College in 1830, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1834. Before this he had become editor of the American Jurist, and subsequently he pre-intellect of man. pared for publication several important legal works,

and was lecturer in the Law School at Harvard. In

1851 he was elected U. S. Senator from Massachusetts, to which office he continued to be elected until his death. He early became distinguished for his bold and

able opposition to slavery, and for his advocacy of arbi

tration as a substitute for war. Wendell Phillips says: "His eloquence belongs to the school of Burke, whom he liked to be thought to resemble, as indeed he did, in

features. His speeches had more learning than Burke

cared to show, but in weaith of illustration, gorgeous
rhetoric, lofty tone, and a gigantic morality which
trends all sophistry under foot, the resemblance was
close." Eleven volumes of his works have been pub-
From his oration in
lished. He died March 11, 1874.
Boston, July 4, 1845, on The True Grandeur of Na
tions, we extract as follows:]

The true greatness of a nation is in those qualities which constitute the greatness of the individual. It is not to be found in vastness of extent of territory, nor in population, nor in wealth; nor in fortifications, or armies, or navies; not in the phosphorescent glare of fields of battle; not in Golgothas, though covered by monuments that kiss the clouds; for all these are the creatures and representatives of those qualities of our nature, which are unlike anything in God's nature.

The true greatness of a nation cannot be in triumphs of the intellect alone. Litera. ture and art may widen the sphere of its influence; they may adorn it; but they are in their nature but accessories. The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the The truest tokens of this grandeur in a state are the diffusion of the greatest happiness among the greatest number, and that passionless God-like justice which controls the relations of the state to other states, and to all the people who are committed to its charge.

But war crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness, all that is God-like in man. "It is," says the eloquent Robert Hall, "the temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue." True, it cannot be disguised, that there are passages in its dreary annals cheered by deeds of generosity and sacrifice. But the virtues which shed their charms over its horrors are all borrowed of peace; they are emanations of the spirit of love which is so strong in the heart of man, The that it survives the rudest assaults. flowers of gentleness, of kindliness, of fidelity, of humanity, which flourish in unregarded luxuriance in the rich meadows of peace.. receive unwonted admiration when we dis cern them in war, like violets shedding their perfume on the perilous edges of the precipice, beyond the smiling borders of civilization. God be praised for all the examples. of magnanimous virtue which he has vouchsafed to mankind! God be praised that the Roman Emperor, about to start on a distant expedition of war, encompassed by squadrons of cavalry and by golden eagles which moved in the winds, stooped in his saddle to listen to the prayer of the humble widow demanding justice for the death of her son God be praised that Sydney, on the field of battle, gave with dying hand the cup of cold water to the dying soldier! That single act of self-forgetful sacrifice has consecrated the fenny field of Zutphen, far, oh! far beyond its battle; it has consecrated thy name, gallant Sydney, beyond any feat of thy sword, beyond any triumph of thy pen.

Nor is the greatness of nations to be found in triumphs of the intellect alone, in literature, learning, science or art. The polished Greeks, the world's masters in the delights of language, and in the range of thought, and the commanding Romans, overawing the earth with their power, were little more than splendid savages; and the age of Louis XIV. of France, spanning so long a period of ordinary worldly magnificence, thronged by Marshals bending under military laurels, enlivened by the unsurpassed comedy of Molière, dignified by the tragic genius of Corneille, illumined by the splendors of Bossuet, is degraded by immoralities tues of war. Let not the acts of generosity that cannot be mentioned without a blush, and sacrifice which have triumphed on its by a heartlessness in comparison with which fields, be invoked in its defence. In the the ice of Nova Zembla is warm, and by a words of Oriental imagery, the poisonsuccession of deeds of injustice not to beous tree, though watered by nectar, can

VOL. VIII.

Let me not be told then of the vir

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the clouds containing, or depositing the rain are opposite the sun, and in the evening the rainbow is in the east, and in the morning in the west; and as our heavy rains in this climate, are usually brought by the westerly winds, a westerly wind indicates that the bad weather is on the road, by the wind, to us; whereas the rainbow in the east proves that the rain in these clouds is passing from us.

produce only the fruit of death! As we Phys. A rainbow can only occur when cast our eyes over the history of nations we discern with horror the succession of wondrous slaughters by which their progress has been marked. As the hunter traces the wild beast, when pursued to his lair, by the drops of blood on the earth, so we follow man, faint, weary, and staggering with wounds, through the black forest of the past, which he has reddened with his gore. Oh! let it not be in the future ages as in those which we now contemplate. Let the grandeur of man be discerned in the bless ings which he has secured; in the good he has accomplished; in the triumphs of benevolence and justice; in the establishment of perpetual peace.

OMENS.

[Sir Humphrey DaVY was born at Penzance, Cornwall, England, December 17, 1778. At an early age he displayed a taste for literature, especially fiction and poetry. His attention being directed to scientific pursuits he soon gave evidence of genius in that field of

knowledge. In 1801 he went to London and became a

lecturer at the Royal Institution, from which time his

fame and usefulness steadily augmented. His imagina

tion, literary skill, and practicality, give a popular interest to his writings. He died in the prime of his

powers, at the age of 51 years. Our extract is from his little treatise on fly-fishing, entitled Salmonia.]

Poict. I hope we shall have another good day to-morrow, for the clouds are red in the West.

Phys. I have no doubt of it, for the red has a tint of purple.

Hal. Do you know why this tint portends fine weather?

Phys. The air when dry, I believe, refracts more red, or heat-making rays; and as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they are again reflected in the horizon. I have observed generally a coppery or yellow sunset to foretell rain; but, as an indication of wet weather approaching, nothing is more certain than a halo round the moon, which is produced by the precipitated water; and the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds, and, consequently, the more ready to fall.

Hal. I have often observed that the old proverb is correct:

A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning
A rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight.
Can you explain this omen?

Poict. I have often observed that when the swallows fly high, fine weather is to be expected or continued; but when they fly low, and close to the ground, rain is almost surely approaching. Can you account for this?

Hal. Swallows follow the flies and gnats, and flies and gnats usually delight in warm strata of air; and as warm air is lighter, and usually moister than cold air, when the warm strata are higher, there is less chance of moisture being thrown down by them by mixture with cold air; but when the warm and moist air is close to the surface, it is almost certain that as the cold air flows down into it, a deposition of water will take place.

Poict. I have often seen sea-gulls assemble on the land, and have almost always observed that very stormy and rainy weather was approaching. I conclude that these animals, sensible of a current of air approaching from the ocean, retire to the land to shelter themselves from the storm.

Orn. No such thing. The storm is their element; and the little petrel enjoys the heaviest gale, because, living on the smaller sea insects, he is sure to find his food in the spray of a heavy wave, and you may see him flitting above the edge of the highest surge. I believe that the reason of this migration of the sea-gulls, and other seabirds, to the land, is their security of finding food; and they may be observed at this time, feeding greedily on the earth worms and larvæ, driven out of the ground by severe floods; and the fish on which they prey in fine weather in the sea, leave the sea and go deeper in storms. The search after food is the principal cause why animals change their places. The different tribes of the wading birds, always migrate when rain is about to take place; and I remember in the end of March, for the arrival of the once, in Italy, having been long waiting, double snipe in the Campagna of Rome, a great flight appeared on the third of April,

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