then. I had a great deal of business to at- | To thee, whose friendship kept its equal truth Through the most dreary hour of my embittered youth, arms. tend to that took me a great part of the day from home; but whenever I could spare a minute from business, the child was in my I rendered the mother's labor as light as I could; any bit of food satisfied me. When watching was necessary, we shared it between us; that famous grammar for teaching French people English-which has been for thirty years, and still is, the great work of the kind throughout all America and in every nation in Europe-was written by me in hours not employed in business, and in great part during my share of the nightwatchings over a sick, and then only, child, who, after lingering many months, died in my arms. This was the way that we went on; this was the way that we began our married life. WILLIAM COBBETT. DEDICATION OF THE DREAM." TO THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND. ON I dedicate the lay. Ah! never bard In days when Poverty was twin with Song, Nor wandering harper, lonely and ill-starred, Cheered by some castle's chief and har bored long, Not Scott's Last Minstrel in his trembling lays, Woke with a warmer heart the earnest meed of praise. For easy are the alms the rich man spares To sons of Genius by misfortune bent, But thou gavest me what woman seldom dares Belief, in spite of many a cold dissent, When, slandered and maligned, I stood apart From those whose bounded power hath wrung, not crushed, my heart. NCE more, my harp, once more! Al- Then, then, when cowards lied away my though I thought name And scoffed to see me feebly stem the tide, When some were kind on whom I had no claim, And some forsook on whom my love relied, And some who might have battled for my sake Stood off in doubt to see what turn “the world" would take, Thou gavest me that the poor do give the poor Kind words and holy wishes and true tears; Thou didst not shrink, of bitter tongues We all within our graves shall sleep, afraid, Who hunt in packs the object of their blame; To thee the sad denial still held true, A hundred years to come; No living soul for us will weep, A hundred years to come. But other men our land will till, For from thine own good thoughts thy heart And others then our streets will fill, its mercy drew. And though my faint and tributary rhymes Add nothing to the glory of thy day, And other words will sing as gay, WILLIAM GOLDSMITH BROWN, WHAT IS POETRY? FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE. UNDERSTAND by poetry by its contemplation. For instance. I affirm that the creation was a wondrous, beneficent work which all intelligent moral beings cognizant thereof must have regarded with admiration, but that the plans and purposes of God are entirely above the comprehension of man: that is plain prose. Now let us see a poetic statement of that same truth, and mark its immensely superior vividness and force: "Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said, Who hath laid the measures thereof? If thou knowest? When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Or I am impelled to observe that the creations of the mind, unlike all corporeal existences, are essentially indestructible, and so fitted to abide and exert influence for ever: that is a prosaic statement of an obvious fact. Let us note how Byron presents it in poetry: The beings of the mind are not of clay; Or I observe that the midnight thunder during a violent summer tempest is echoed from mountain-top to mountain-top, forming a chorus of awful sublimity; but the poet seizes the thought and fuses it in the glowing alembic of his numbers thus: "Far along, From crag to crag, the rattling peaks among, And Jura answers, through his misty shroud, Such instances speak more clearly than the plainest or the sublest definitions. They show that to the poetic conception Nature is no huge aggregation of senseless matter warmed into fitful vitality by sunbeams only to die and be resolved into its elements, but a living, conscious, vital universe quivering with deathless aspiration because animated by the breath of God. Nor must we regard poetry merely as an intellectual achievement a trophy of human genius, an utterance from the heart of Nature fitted to solace its votaries and strengthen them for the battle of life. Poetry is essentially, inevitably, the friend of virtue and merit, the foe of oppression and wrong, the champion of justice and freedom. Wherever the good suffer from the machinations and malevolence of the evil, wherever vice riots or corruption festers or tyranny afflicts and degrades, there Poetry is heard as an accusing angel, and her breath sounds the trump of impending doom. She cannot be suborned nor perverted to the service of the powers of darkness a Dante or a Körner lured or bribed to sing the praises of a despot or glorify the achievements of an Alva or a Cortes could only stammer out feeble, halting stanzas, which mankind would first despise, then compassionately forget. But to the patriot in his exile, the slave in his unjust bondage, the martyr at the stake, the voice of Poetry comes freighted with hope and cheer, giving assurance that, while evil is but for a moment, good is for ever and ever; that all the forces of the universe are at last on the side of justice; that the seeming triumphs of iniquity are but a mirage divinely permitted to test our virtue and our faith; and that all things work together to fulfil the counsels and establish the kingdom of the all-seeing and omnipotent God. HORACE GREELEY. 10 the disgrace of men, it is seen that there are women both more wise to judge what evil is expected, and more constant to bear it when it is happened. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. DUTY OF A MINORITY IN A STATE OF WAR. FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 25, 1814. OW far the minority, in a state of war, How may justly oppose the measures of government is a question of the greatest delicacy. On the one side, an honest man, if he believe the war to be unjust or unwise, will not disavow his opinion. But, on the other hand, an upright citizen will do no act, whatever he may think of the war, to put his country in the power of the enemy. It is this double aspect of the subject which indicates the course that reason approves. Among ourselves, at home, we may contend; but, whatever may be requisite to give the reputation and arms of the republic a superiority over its enemy, it is the duty of allthe minority no less than the majority—to support. Like the system of our State and general governments-within they are many, to the world but one--so it ought to be with parties: among ourselves we may divide, but in relation to other nations there ought to be only the American people. In some cases it may possibly be doubtful, even to the most conscientious, how to act. This is one of the misfortunes of differing from the rest of the community on the subject of war. Government can command the arm and hand, the bone and muscle, of the nation; but these are powerless, nerveless, without the concurring good wishes of the community. He who, in estimating the strength of a people, looks only to their numbers and physical force, leaves out of the reckoning the most material elements of powerunion and zeal. Without these the former is inert matter; without these a free people | The firing continued, the famine began; is degraded to the miserable rabble of a des- For all had good appetites there to a man, potism; but with these they are irresistible. And, because of the noise, as they slept not a wink, JOHN C. CALHOUN. CONJUGAL LOVE. READ of the emperor Conrad the Third your way, Perhaps you'll allow me to tell it to-day. "The city of Wensburg I mean to besiege," He said; and his soldiers said, "Do you, my liege? We are all at your service; command, we obey." So "blockade and bombard" was the rule of the day. I can't avoid saying I think it a pity A king should seek fame by destroying a city; What a very small portion of glory he shares! Think of peaceable citizens all at their duties, To be frightened and have the house broken To Conrad they sent a well-written petition to bits, And, maybe, the little ones thrown into fits, For the purpose of raising an emperor's fame! But one cannot be silent when people do wrong. To beg him to pity their hapless condition; "Yes, dear little creatures," the emperor said; "To be sure: let each load both her back and her head. |