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And savage men, more murderous' still than they;
While oft in whirls' the mad tornado flies,
Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.

6. Far different these from every former scene,—
The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green,
The breezy covert of the warbling grove,

That only shelter'd thefts of harmless love.
Good Heaven! what sorrows gloom'd that parting day
That call'd them from their native walks away;
When the poor exiles, every pleasure past,

Hung round the bowers, and fondly look'd their last,
And took a long farewell, and wish'd in vain
For seats like these beyond the western main;
And shuddering still to face the distant deep,
Return'd and wept, and still return'd to weep!
7. The good old sire the first prepared to go
To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;
But for himself, in conscious virtue brave,
He only wish'd for worlds beyond the grave.
His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears,
The fond companion of his helpless years,
Silent went next, neglectful of her charms,
And left a lover's for her father's arms.

With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes,
And bless'd the cot where every pleasure rose;
And kiss'd her thoughtless babes with many a tear,
And clasp'd' them close, in sorrow doubly dear;
While her fond husband strove to lend relief,
In all the silent manliness of grief.

8. Oh, Luxury! thou cursed' by Heaven's decree,
How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy!
Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigor not their own.

'Murderous (måễr' der ůs). —-2 Whirls (wherle).—3 Clåsped.—' Cursed (kårst).

At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass' of rank, unwieldy woe;

Till, sapp'd their strength, and every part unsound, Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round 9. E'en now the devasta'tion is begun,

And half the business of destruction done;
E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand,
I see the rural virtues leave the land.

Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail,
That, idly waiting, flaps with every gale,
Downward they move, a melancholy band,
Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand.
Contented Toil, and hospitable Care,
And kind connubial Tenderness, are there;
And Piety, with wishes placed above,
And steady Loyalty, and faithful Love.

10. And thou, sweet Poetry! thou loveliest maid,
Still first to fly, where sensual joys invade!
Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame,
To catch the heart, or strike for honest Fame:
Dear, charming nymph, neglected and decried,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse' of every virtue, fare thee well.

11. Farewell; and oh! where'er thy voice be tried,
On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side,
Whether where equinoctial fervors3 glow,
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow,
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time,
Redress the rigors of the inclement clime;
And slighted Truth, with thy persuasive strain,
Teach ĕrring man to spurn the rage of gain;
Teach him, that States, of native strength possess'd,

'Mass.- Nurse (ners).- Fer' vor.

Though very poor, may still be very bless'd;
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay,
As ocean sweeps the labor'd mole away;
While self-dependent power can time defy,
As rocks resist the billows and the sky.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH, one of the most pleasing English writers of the eighteenth century, was born at Pallas, Ireland, in November, 1728. He was of a Protestant and Saxon family which had long been settled in Ireland. At the time of Oliver's birth, his father with difficulty supported his family on what he could earn, partly as a curate and partly as a farmer. Soon after, he was presented with a living, worth about £200 a-year, near the village of Lissoy, in Westmeath county, where the boy passed his youth and received his preparatory instruction. In his seventeenth year Oliver went up to Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar. He was quartered, not alone, in a garret, on the window of which his name, scrawl ed by himself, is still read with interest. He neglected the studies of the place, stood low at the examinations, and led a life divided between squalid distress and squalid dissipation. His father died, leaving a mere pittance. Oliver obtained his bachelor's degree, and left the university. He was now in his twentyfirst year; it was necessary that he should do something; and his education seemed to have fitted him to do nothing of moment. He tried five or six professions, in turn, without success. He went to Edinburgh in his twenty-fourth year, where he passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lectures, and picked up some superficial information about chemistry and natural history. Thence he went to Leyden, still pretending to study physic. He left that celebrated university in his twenty-seventh year, without a degree, and with no property but his clothes and his flute. His flute, however, proved a useful friend. He rambled on foot through Flanders, France, and Switzerland, playing tunes which everywhere set the peasantry dancing, and which often procured for him a supper and a bed. In 1756 the wanderer landed at Dover, England, without a shilling, without a friend, and without a calling. After several expedients failed, the unlucky adventurer, at thirty, took a garret in a miserable court in London, and sat down to the lowest drudgery of literature. In the succeeding six years he produced articles for reviews, magazines, and newspapers; children's books; "An Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe;" a "Life of Beau Nash," an excellent work of its kind; a superficial, but very readable "History of England ;" and "Sketches of London Society." All thess works were anonymous; but some of them were well known to be Goldsmith's. He gradually rose in the estimation of the booksellers, and became a popular writer. He took chambers in the more civilized region of the Inns of Court, and became intimate with Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and other eminent men. In 1764 he published a poem, entitled "The Traveler." It was the first work to which he put his name; and it at once raised him to the rank of a legitimate English classic. Its execution, though deserving of much praise, is far inferior to the design. No philosophic poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, and at the same time so simple. Soon after his novel, the "Vicar of Wakefield," appeared, and rapidly obtained a popularity which is likely to last as long as our language. This was followed by a dramatic piece, entitled the "Good-natured Man." It was acted at Covent Garden in 1768, but was coldly received. The author, however, cleared by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright, no less than £500. In 1770 appeared the " Deserted Village." In diction and

versification, this celebrated poem is fully equal, perhaps superior, to "The Traveler." In 1773, Goldsmith tried his chance at Covent Garden with "She Stoops to Conquer," an incomparable farce in five acts, which met with unprecedented success. While writing the "Deserted Village" and "She Stoops to Conquer," he compiled, for the use of schools, a "History of Rome," by which he made £300; a "History of England," by which he made £600; a " History of Greece," for which he received £250; and a "Natural History," for which the booksellers covenanted to pay him 800 guineas. He produced these works by selecting, abridging, and translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing language, what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too dry for boys and girls. His compilations are widely distinguished from the compilations of ordinary bookmakers. He was a great, perhaps an unequaled master of the arts of selection and condensation. He died on the 4th of April, 1774, in his forty-sixth year.

51. LETTERS.

BLESSED be letters!-they are the monitors, they are also

the comforters, and they are the only true heart-talkers. Your speech, and their speeches, are conventional; they are moulded by circumstances; they are suggested by the observation, remark, and influence of the parties to whom the speaking is addressed, or by whom it may be overheard. Your truest thought is modified half through its utterance by a look, a sign, a smile, or a sneer. It is not individual; it is not in'tegral: it is social and mixed,-half of you, and half of others. It bends, it sways, it multiplies, it retires, and it advances, as the talk of others presses, relaxes, or quickens.

2. But it is not so with Letters:-there you are, with only the soulless pen, and the snow-white, virgin paper. Your soul is measuring itself by itself, and saying its own sayings: there are no sneers to modify its utterance,-no scowl to scare; nothing is present but you and your thought. Utter it then freely-write it down-stamp it-burn it in the ink!-There it is, a true soul-print!

3. Oh, the glory, the freedom, the passior of a letter! It is worth all the lip-talk of the world. Do you say, it is studied, made up, acted, rehearsed, contrived, artistic? Let me see it then; let me run it over: tell me age, sex, circumstances, and I will tell you if it be studied or real; if it be the merest lip-slang put into words, or heart-talk blazing on the paper.

4. I have a little packet, not very large, tied up with narrow

crimson ribbon, now soiled with frequent handling, which far into some winter's night I take down from its nook upon my shelf, and untie, and open, and run over, with such sorrow and such joy, such tears and such smiles, as I am sure make me, for weeks after, a kinder and holier man.

5. There are in this little packet letters in the familiar hand of a mother what gentle admonition-what tender affection! God have mercy on him who outlives the tears that such admonitions and such affection call up to the eye! There are others in the budget, in the delicate and unformed hand of a loved and lost sister;-written when she and you were full of glee, and the best mirth of youthfulness: does it harm you to recall that mirthfulness? or to trace again, for the hundredth time, that scrawling postscript at the bottom, with its i's so carefully dotted, and its gigantic t's so carefully crossed, by the childish hand of a little brother?

6. I have added latterly to that packet of letters: I almost need a new and longer ribbon; the old one is getting too short. Not a few of these new and cherished letters, a former Reverie has brought to me; not letters of cold praise, saying it was well done, artfully executed, prettily imagined-no such thing; but letters of sympathy-of sympathy which means sympathy.

7. It would be cold and dastardly work to copy them; I am too selfish for that. It is enough to say that they, the kind writers, have seen a heart in the Reverie-have felt that it was real, true. They know it: a secret influence has told it. What matters it, pray, if literally there was no wife, and no dead child, and no coffin, in the house? Is not feeling, feeling; and heart, heart? Are not these fancies thronging on my brain, bringing tears to my eyes, bringing joy to my soul, as living as any thing human can be living? What if they have no material type-no objective form? All that is crude, a mere reduction of ideality to sense-a transformation of the spiritual to the earthy—a levcling of soul to matter.

8. Are we not creatures of thought and passion? Is any thing about us more earnest than that same thought and passion? Is there any thing more real,-more characteristic of that great and dim destiny to which we are born, and which may be written down in that terrible word-FOREVER? Let those who will,

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