with others, and wins all the prizes to which he has a mind. A place in the Senate is straightway offered to the young man. He takes his seat there; he speaks, when so minded, without party anger or intrigue, but not without party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm for his cause. Still he is poet and philosopher even more than orator. 2. If a company of giants were got together, věry likely one or two of the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incontestable superiority of the very tallèst of the party; and so I have heard some London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's superiority, complain that he occupied too much of the talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer has the chance to listen? To remember the talk is to wonder; to think not only of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the trifles he had stored there, and could produce with equal readiness. 3. Many Londoners-not all—have seen the British Muse'um Library, the dome where our million volumes are housed. What peace, what love, what truth, what beauty, what happiness for all, what generous kindness for you and me, are here spread out! It seems to me one can not sit down in that place without a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table and to have thanked Heaven for this my English birthright, freely to partake of these bountiful books, and to speak the truth I find there. 4. Under the dome which held Macaulay's brain, and from which his solemn eyes looked out on the world but a fortnight since, what a vast, brilliant, and wonderful store of learning was ranged!—what stränge lōre would he not fetch for you at your bidding! A volume of law or històry, a book of poetry familiar or forgotten (except by himself, who forgot nothing), a novel ever so old, and he had it at hand! 5. With regard to Macaulay's style, there may be faults of course; but we are not talking about faults. Take at hazard any three pages of his Essays or of his History; and, glimmering below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader, see one, two, three, a half-score of allusions to other historic facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which you are not acquainted. Why is this epithet used? Whence is that simile drawn? How does he manage, in two or three words, to paint an individual, or to indicate a landscape? He reads twenty books to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description! 6. One paper I have read regarding Lord Macaulay says "he had no heart." Why, a man's books may not always speak the truth, but they speak his mind in spite of himself; and it seems to me this man's heart is beating through every page he penned. He is always in a storm of revolt and indignation against wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic resistance; how he backs and applauds freedom struggling for its own; how he hates scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful; how he recognizes genius, though selfish villains possess it! 7. The critic who says Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had none; and two men more generous, and more loving, and more hating, and more partial, and more noble, do not live in our history. Those who knew Lord Macaulay knew how adʼmirably tender, and generous, and affectionate he was. It was not his business to bring his family before the theater footlights, and call for bouquets from the gallery as he wept over them. 8. If any young man of letters reads this little sermon,-and to him, indeed, it is addressed,-I would say to him, "Bear Scott's words in your mind, and 'be good, my dear.' Here are two literary men gone to their account, and, laus Deö,' as far as we know, that account is fair, and open, and clear. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or explanations of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoidable et cetera. 9. Here are two examples of men most differently gifted: each pursuing his calling; each speaking his truth as God både him; each honèst in life; just and irreproachable in his dealings; dear to his friends; honored by his country; beloved at his fireside. It has been the fortunate lot of both to give incalculable happiness and delight to the world, which thanks them in return with an immense kindliness, respect, affection. It may not be our chance, brother scribe, to be endowed with such merit, or rewarded with such fame. But the rewards of these men are rewards paid to our service. We may not win the baton' Laus De' o, praise to God. * Et cet' era, and the rest; &c. 1 Baton, (bå tông′), a truncheon or staff; a marshal's staff. or epaulettes,' but Heaven give us strength to guard the honor of the flag! THACKERAY. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, an English novelist, essayist, and humorist, was born in Calcutta in 1811. His father, who descended from an old family of Yorkshire, was engaged in the civil service of the East India Company. He was sent to England in his seventh year, and placed at the Charterhouse School, London, from which he went to the university of Cambridge, but did not take his degree. He traveled and studied for several years in France, Italy, and Germany. He contributed to several leading magazines, and published works both in prose and verse, commencing before his thirtieth year; but his name was not generally known until he published "Vanity Fair," which was finished in 1848, when he was generally accounted, with Dickens and Bulwer, among the first British novelists. His "Pendennis,” concluded in 1850, and "The Newcomes," in 1855, fully sustained his reputation. In the summer of 1851, he lectured in London before brilliant audiences on "The English Humorists of the 18th Century," the success of which induced him to prepare another series, "The Four Georges," which were first delivered in the principal cities of the United States in 1855-6, and afterward in London and most of the large towns of England and Scotland. In January, 1860, appeared the first number of the “Cornhill Magazine," under his editorial charge, which soon reached a circulation of some one hundred thousand copies. He died December 24th, 1863. TH 2 III. 79. THE PURITANS. HE Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habituälly ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing (nuth'ing) was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. 2. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deïty through an obscuring vail, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. tween the greatest and meanest of mankind Hence originated The difference beseemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the 1 2 'Epaulettes, (&p′ â lêt`). 'Pūri tans, persons, in the time of Queen Elizabeth and her immediate successors, so called in de rision, because they professed to follow the pure word of God, and rejected the ceremonies and government of the Episcopal Church. whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. 3. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poëts, they were deeply read in the oracles of God; if their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life; if their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands: their diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away! 4. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language-nobles by the right of an earlier creätion, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged-on whose slightest actions the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest—who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. 5. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake, empires had risen, and floŭrished, and decayed; for his sake, the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe; he had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God! MACAULAY. THOMAS BABBINGTON MACAULAY, the most attractive, and one of the most learned and eloquent of the essayists and critics of the age, was educated at the University of Cambridge, England, where he took his degree in 1822, after having achieved the highest honors of the university. After leaving the university, he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and was admitted to the bar in 1826. He has been distinguished in politics, as an orator in parliament, and as an able officer of the Supreme Council in Calcutta, India. He returned to England in 1838, and a few years later was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. He is very meritorious as a poet; but his poetical merit dwindles into insignificance in comparison with the unrivaled brilliancy of his prose. His "Essays from the Edinburgh Review" have been published in three volumes. They have attained a greater popularity than any other contributions to the periodical works of the day. His last publication, the "History of England," is written in a style of great clearness, force, and eloquence, and is as popular among all classes as any history of the present century. He was raised to the peerage, as a tribute to his eminent literary merit, in 1857. He died December 28th, 1859. I IV. 80. THE PILGRIM'S VISION. 1. SAW in the naked forest our scattered remnant cast A screen of shivering branches between them and the blast; The snow was falling round them, the dying fell as fast; I looked to see them perish, when lo! the vision passed. 2. Again mine eyes were opened the feeble had waxed strong; The babes had grown to sturdy men, the remnant was a throng. By shadowed lake and winding stream, and all the shores along, The howling demons quaked to hear the Christian's godly song. 3. They slept the village fathers-by river, lake, and shōre, 4. Their Leader rode before them, of bearing calm and high, 5. Once more; the strife was ended, the solemn issue tried ; 6. A crash-as when some swollen cloud cracks o'er the tangled trees! With side to side, and spar to spar, whose smoking decks are these? I know Saint George's blood-red cross, thou Mistress of the Seas; But what is she, whose streaming bars roll out before the breeze. |