XXVIII.—ADDRESS TO THE INDOLENT.

Is not the field, with lively culture green,
A sight more joyous than the dead morass?
Do not the skies, with active ether clean,

And fanned by sprightly zephyrs, far surpass
The foul November fogs, and slumb'rous mass,
With which sad nature veils her drooping face?
Does not the mountain stream, as clear as glass,

Gay dancing on, the putrid pool disgrace?—
The same in all holds true, but chief in human race.

Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven,
When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless then whatever can be given!
Health is the vital principle of bliss,
And exercise of health. In proof of this,
Behold the wretch who slugs his life away,

Soon swallowed in disease's sad abyss,

While he whom toil has braced, or manly play,
Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day.

Oh, who can speak the vigorous joy of health,—
Unclogged the body, unobscured the mind?
The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth
The temperate evening falls serene and kind.
In health the wiser brutes true gladness find:

See! how the younglings frisk along the meads,
As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind;

Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds;
Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasance breeds!
There are, I see, who listen to my lay,

Who, wretched, sigh for virtue, yet despair.
"All may be done," methinks I hear them say,
"Even death despised by generous actions fair,—
All, but for those who to these bowers repair!
Their every power dissolved in luxury,

To quit of torpid sluggishness the lair,

And from the powerful arms of sloth get free'Tis rising from the dead:-Alas!-it can not be!"

Would you, then, learn to dissipate the band

Of these huge, threatening difficulties dire,
That in the weak man's way like lions stand,
His soul appall, and damp his rising fire?
Resolve,-resolve! and to be men aspire.
Exert that noblest privilege,-alone

Here to mankind indulged:-control desire!
Let godlike reason, from her sovereign throne,
Speak the commanding word, I will!—and it is done.

-Thomson,

XXIX. THE DEMAGOGUE.

THE lowest of politicians is that man who seeks to gratify an invariable selfishness by pretending to seek the public good. For a profitable popularity he accommodates himself to all opinions, to all dispositions, to every side, and to every prejudice. He is a mirror, with no face of its own, but a smooth surface from which each man of ten thousand may see himself reflected.

He glides from man to man, coinciding with their views, simulating their tastes, and pretending their feelings: with this one he loves a man; with that one he hates the same man; he favors a law, and he dislikes it; he approves and opposes; he is on both sides at once, and seemingly wishes that he could be on one side more. He attends meetings to suppress intemperance, but at elections makes every grogshop free to all drinkers. He can with equal relish plead most eloquently for temperance, or toss off a dozen glasses of whisky in a dirty doggery.

He thinks that there is a time for every thing, and therefore at one time he jeers and leers, and swears with a carousing blackguard crew; and at another time, professing to have been happily converted, he displays all the various features of devotion. Indeed, he is a capacious Christian— an epitome of faith.

He piously asks the class-leader of the welfare of his charge, for he was always a Methodist, and always will be,— until he meets a Presbyterian, then he is a Presbyterian; however, as he is not a bigot, he can afford to be a Baptist in a good Baptist neighborhood, and with a wink he tells the pious elder that he never had one of his children baptized, not he! He whispers to the Reformer that he abhors all creeds but Baptism and the Bible. After this, room will be found in his heart for the fugitive sects, also, which come and go like clouds in a summer sky.

Upon the stump his tact is no less rare. He roars and bawls with courageous plainness on points about which all agree; but on subjects where men differ, his meaning is nicely balanced on a pivot, that it may dip either way. He depends for success chiefly upon humorous stories. A glowing patriot telling stories is a dangerous antagonist; for it is hard to expose the fallacy of a hearty laugh, and men convulsed with merriment are slow to perceive in what way an argument is a reply to a story: men who will admit that he has not a solitary moral virtue will vote for him, and assist him in obtaining the office to which he aspires.

-H. W. Beecher.

XXX.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

PEACE.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meeting,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war has smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

-Shakespeare.

PHILOSOPHY.

PHILOSOPHY consists not

In airy schemes, or idle speculations;
The rule and conduct of all social life
Is her great province. Not in lonely cells
Obscure she lurks, but holds her heavenly light
To senates and to kings, to guide their councils,
And teach them to reform and bless mankind.

-Thomson.

PRIDE.

PRIDE by presumption bred, when at a height,
Encount'ring with contempt, both march in ire;
And 'twixt 'em bring base cruelty to light:
The loathsome offspring of a hated sire.

A SKULL.

-Earl of Sterlené.

REMOVE yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps;

Is that a temple where a God may dwell?

Why, ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell!
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;

Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul;
Behold through the lack-luster, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,

And passion's host, that never brook'd control:
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?

-Byron.

SLANDER.

'TIS slander

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons,-nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.

-Shakespeare.

XXXI.-PARALLEL BETWEEN POPE AND DRYDEN.

IN acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation; those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either, for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is as a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and leveled by the roller.

Of genius-that power which constitutes a poet, that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert, that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little because Dryden had more, for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs he has not better poems.

Dryden's performances were always hasty-either excited by some external occasion or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without