Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

"Ask the swain

Who journeys homewards, from a Summer-day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils
And due repose, he loiters to behold

The sunshine gleaming, as through amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky; full soon I ween
His rude expression and untútor❜d airs,
Beyond the powers of language, will unfold
The form of Beauty smiling at his heart,
How lovely! how commanding !"

Nothing can be more obvious and natural than the connection between what are termed the useful arts and the fine arts; and hence is derived a strong inducement for encouraging the latter. The carpenter, the mason, nay, the mechanic of every description, will improve in the propriety and elegance of his design, and the excellence of his workmanship, by having placed before him models formed with correct proportion, with elegant symmetry, with true taste. By constantly observing what is just and beautiful, a desire of imitating it is excited; a spirit of emulation arises, and superior genius displays itself in the most ordinary works. Instead of immense piles of brick and mortar heaped together, without any unity or propriety of design, or justness of proportion, where expense is substituted for taste, and gaudy ornament for true elegance, we shall have the plain, chaste, but beautiful productions of legitimate architecture.

Nor is it only in constructing our dwellings and public edifices that the aid of the fine arts is necessary. It is equally required in selecting and disposing the internal decorations and furniture; which are sometimes, even in the houses of the most fashionable, most ridiculous and shocking. Those mechanics, therefore, who are employed in these services, have the most indispensable occasion for cultivating their talents, and improving their

taste; especially while their employers are resolved not to do so. It is from the stores of antiquity this improvement is to be drawn. It may surprise some to learn, that most of the ornaments introduced to the persons and houses of the wealthy and the gay, under the irresistible recommendation of being "new fashions," are really some thousand years old; purloined from the relics of former ages. The brilliant trinket that sheds its lustre from the bosom of a modern belle, performed the same kind office for some damsel, equally fair, who, centuries agone, mouldered to imperceptible atoms. How various! how inexhaustible is the profit and pleasure to be derived from the studies of antiquity!

THE INDIAN SUMMER.

BY JAMES Me HENRY.

Twas noon, and mild and beauteous shone the day,
For meek November smil'd as sweet as May!
As, from a casement, Ellen and her sire,
An Indian Summer's lingering charms admire,
Which Freedom's land can more serenely cheer,
Than all the seasons of the circling year.

'Tis true, the wood's gay verdure is withdrawn,
The faded leaves lie scatter'd o'er the lawn;
"Tis true, the maize, the pride of cultur'd fields,
No more its fring'd and tassel'd grandeur yields;
Nor the wild warblers of the earlier year,
From woodland coverts hill and valley cheer:
Yet the bright sun a kindlier glory sheds,
O'er heaven's expanse a milder azure spreads,
Save when the ruddy morn, or balmy eve
Through screens of downy mist his smiles receive.
Then flits th' ethereal gauze before the view,
And shows the moving scene in purple hue;
The mountain glimmers through the prospect dim,
Rocks, woods, and streams in fairy landscape swim;
More sprightly zephyrs wanton in the shades,
And livelier wild deer bound along the glades;
And fresher springs than Summer heats allow,
Yield purer
dews and sweeter murmurs now;
Now wand'ring birds in airy journeys rove,

And beasts, disporting, march in many a drove ;

All animation joys to be alive,

And dying swarms to sweeter life revive !—
A sacred feeling, grateful and serene,

At nature's cheering gray, and fading green,

O'er man's pleas'd soul enlivening influence throws,
As oft life's lamp burns brighter at its close,
And much it feels this Pennsylvanian charm,
Whose smiles the year's declining age can warm!

CLAIMS OF THE GREEKS.

BY DR. BEDELL.

THIS fair and flourishing city in which we dwell contains but few more souls than did Scio. If your sympathy can be roused by the contrast of your own condition, change but the scene of action, and put yourselves in their place. No, my friends, not the boldest stretch of your imagination could give to the picture, glowing all it might be, any features which could possibly resemble the dreadful original. But let imagination rule for a moment, and suppose an overwhelming force of barbarians, bursting upon your defenceless city. They fire it in every quarter-your houses are given to the fury of the element-the sacred temples of religion are roofless and desolate the institutions of piety and liberality echo nothing but the shrieks of the despairing and the dying. If you fear to perish in the flames of your houses, crowd your streets the unresisting victims of a fiercer element -that fire which rages in the bosom of your foe. Escape is denied observe around an indiscriminate slaughter, which spares neither age nor sex-helpless decrepitude nor weeping infancy. There, observe the wife torn from the bosom of her husband, and cruelly murdered before his eyes; there, the husband cut down by some relentless arm, while he held to his palpitating heart the trembling, almost lifeless partner of his sorrows there, the father or the brother as they fled to the protection of

« AnteriorContinuar »