FORCE OF TALENTS.-Dr. Dwight.

TALENTS, whenever they have had a suitable theatre, have never failed to emerge from obscurity, and assume their proper rank in the estimation of the world. The jealous pride of power may attempt to repress and crush them; the base and malignant rancour of impotent spleen and envy may strive to embarrass and retard their flight: but these efforts, so far from achieving their ignoble purpose, so far from producing a discernible obliquity, in the ascent of genuine and vigorous talents, will serve only to increase their momentum, and mark their transit with an additional stream of glory.

When the great Earl of Chatham first made his appearance in the House of Commons, and began to astonish and transport the British Parliament and the British nation, by the boldness, the force, and range of his thoughts, and the celestial fire and pathos of his eloquence, it is well known, that the minister, Walpole, and his brother Horace, (from motives very easily understood,) exerted all their wit, all their oratory, all their acquirements of every description, sustained and enforced by the unfeeling insolence of office,' to heave a mountain on his gigantic genius, and hide it from the world.-Poor and powerless attempt!The tables were turned. He rose upon them, in the might and irresistible energy of his genius, and in spite of all their convulsions, frantic agonies, and spasms, he strangled them and their whole faction, with as much ease as Hercules did the serpent, Python.

Who can turn over the debates of the day, and read the account of this conflict between youthful ardour, and hoary headed cunning and power, without kindling in the cause of the tyro, and shouting at his victory? That they should have attempted to pass off the grand, yet solid and judicious operations of a mind like his, as being mere theatrical start and emotion; the giddy, hair-brained eccentricities of a romantic boy! That they should have had the presumption, to suppose themselves capable of chaining down to the floor of the Parliament, a genius so ethereal, towering, and sublime, seems unaccountable! Why did they not, in the next breath, by way of crowning the climax of vanity, bid the magificent fire-ball to descend from its exalted and appropri

ate region, and perform its splendid tour along the surface of the earth?

Talents, which are before the public, have nothing to dread, either from the jealous pride of power, or from the transient misrepresentations of party, spleen, or envy. In spite of opposition from any cause, their buoyant spirit will lift them to their proper grade.

The man, who comes fairly before the world, and who possesses the great and vigorous stamina, which entitle him to a niche in the temple of glory, has no reason to dread the ultimate result: however slow his progress may be, he will, in the end, most indubitably receive that distinction. While the rest, the swallows of science,' the butterflies of genius, may flutter for their spring; but they will soon pass away and be remembered no more. No enterprising man, therefore, (and least of all, the truly great man) has reason to droop or repine at any efforts, which he may suppose to be made with the view to depress him. Let, then, the tempest of envy or of malice howl around him. His genius will consecrate him; and any attempt to extinguish that, will be as unavailing, as would a human effort to quench the stars.'

STANZAS,

Written near la Croix de la Flegère, in the Vale of Chamouni.*

Watts.

"T IS night, and silence with unmoving wings Broods o'er the sleeping waters;-not a sound

Breaks its most breathless hush; the sweet moon flings Her pallid lustre on the hills around,

Turning the snows and ices that have crowned

Since chaos reigned-each vast and searchless height,
To beryl, pearl, and silver; whilst, profound,

In the still waveless lake reflected bright,

And girt with arrowy rays, rests her full orb of light.

*La Croix de la Flegère is an elevated point on the mountain of that name, and commands a fine view of Montblanc.

The eternal mountains momently are peering
Through the blue clouds that mantle them;- -on high
Their glittering crests majestically rearing,
More like to children of the infinite sky,
Than of the dædal earth;-triumphantly,
Prince of the whirlwind-monarch of the scene-
Mightiest where all are mighty,—from the eye

Of mortal man half hidden by the screen

Of mist that moats his base, from Arve's dark, deep ravine,

Stands the magnificent Montblanc!—his brow,
Scarred by ten thousand thunders; most sublime,
Even as though risen from the world below,
To watch the progress of decay;-by clime-
Storm-blight-fire-earthquake, injured not-like Time,
Stern chronicler of centuries gone by,

Doomed by an awful fiat still to climb,

Swell and increase with years incessantly,

Then yield at length to thee, most dread Eternity!

Hark! there are sounds of tumult and commotion
Hurtling in murmurs on the distant air,
Like the wild music of a wind-lashed ocean:
They rage-they gather now:-yon valley fair
Still sleeps in moonbright loveliness,-but there,
Methinks, a form of horror I behold,

With giant stride descending!-'t is Despair
Riding the rushing avalanche; now rolled
From its tall cliff-by whom? what mortal

Perchance a gale from fervid Italy

may

unfold!

Disturbed the air-hung thunder; or the tone
Breathed from some hunter's horn;-or it may be,
The echoes of the mountain cataract, thrown
Amid its voiceful snows, have thus called down
The overwhelming ruin on the vale:

Howbeit a mystery to man unknown,

'T was but some heaven-sent power that did prevail, For an inscrutable end its slumbers to assail.

Madly it bursts along-even as a river
That gathers strength in its most fierce career;
The black and lofty pines a moment quiver
Before its breath,-but as it draws more near,

Crash-and are seen no more!

Fleet-footed fear,

Pale as that white-robed minister of wrath,
In silent wilderment her face doth rear,

But having gazed upon its blight and scath,

Flies, with the swift chamois, from its death-dooming path!

JACOB'S DREAM.-Anonymous,

THE Sun upon the western hills was gone,
That guard thy vales of beauty, Palestine!
Now flaming like a golden fiery zone,

The crescent on the eastern heaven, supine,
Hung on the purple horizontal line.

Up Padan-aram's height, abrupt and bare, A pilgrim toiled, and oft on day's decline

Looked pale, then paused for eve's delicious air:The summit gained, he knelt, and breathed his evening prayer.

He spread his cloak, and slumbered. Darkness fell
Upon the twilight hills. A sudden sound
Of silver trumpets o'er him seemed to swell;
Clouds heavy with the tempest gathered round,
Yet was the whirlwind in its caverns bound.
Still deeper rolled the darkness from on high,
Gigantic volume upon volume wound:

Above, a pillar shooting to the sky,
Below, an ocean spreading on incessantly.

Voices are heard-a choir of golden strings,
Low winds, whose breath is loaded with the rose;
Then chariot-wheels,—the nearer rush of wings;
Pale lightning round the dark pavilion glows:
It thunders-the resplendent gates unclose.

Far as the eye can glance, o'er height on height,
Blaze fiery waving wings, and star-crowned brows,
Ranked by their millions, brighter and more bright,
Till all is lost in one supreme, unmingled light.

But two beside the sleeping pilgrim stand,
Like cherub-kings, with uplift mighty plume,
Fixed sunbright eyes, and looks of high command:
They tell the patriarch of his glorious doom,
Father of countless myriads, that shall come,

Sweeping the land, like billows of the sea,
Bright as the stars of heaven from twilight's gloom,
Till he is given whom angels long to see,
And Israel's splendid line is crowned with Deity.

ADDRESS OF ALASCO TO HIS COUNTRYMEN.-Shec.

THE chief, Malinski, has betrayed

His post, and fled. I would that every knave,
He has left behind, might strip the patriot cloak,
And follow him. Such ruffian spirits taint
The cause of freedom. They repel its friends,
And so disfigure it by blood and violence,
That good men start, and tremble to embrace it.
But now, my friends, a sterner trial waits us.-
Within yon castle's walls we sleep to-night,
Or die to-day before them. Let each man
Preserve the order of advance, and charge,
As if he thought his individual sword
Could turn the scale of fate. String every' heart
To valour's highest pitch;-fight, and be free!
'This is no common conflict, set on foot,
For hireling hosts to ply the trade of war.—
Ours is a nobler quarrel-we contend

"

For what 's most dear to man, wherever found-
Free or enslaved-a savage, or a sage;-
The very life and being of our country.
'T is ours, to rescue from the oblivious grave,
'Where tyrants have combined to bury them,'
A gallant race-a nation- and her fame,-
To gather up the fragments of our state,
And in its cold, dismembered body, breathe
The living soul of empire.' Such a cause
Might warm the torpid earth, put hearts in stone
And stir the ashes of our ancestors,