open it now, after having examined its rusty old clasps, and look at its frontispiece. It would bear a strange comparison with our modern steel cuts; and then those countenances.-Wonder if "the succession of ages" has produced any "new formations" in physiognomies. Angels must have been plenty then, for who ever saw an old picture without them? Yet now their visits are proverbially "few and far between." But that lightning! those angles beat Euclid and Legendre. We have heard of sharp roofed houses called lightning cutters, and surely the architect must have stolen the pattern from one of these old pictures. And now more serious thoughts succeed as we examine closely the volume. The mere manual labor of writing such a work, is no light task. Often did the hand ache, and almost refuse to transcribe for the brain the thoughts it had originated. But the physical labor of its composition could have borne no comparison with the intellectual. Its antique type and crowded page must be a repository of thought; for in olden time the chemistry of literature was but little understood, whereby a few, a very few thoughts could be so diluted as to fill a huge folio. Never a word of it can we read; yet it must be that there is much which it would be better to know spread abroad upon those closely printed leaves. He It may be a book of travels, or a history, and its author have seen much of the world. He may have mused among the relics of old cities, visited places consecrated to classic story and classic song. may have stood amid the crumbling arches of the Colosseum when the full Italian moon bathed every object in its mellow, mournful light, or have seen a column, worn by the touch of time, suddenly loose itself from its station, and fall into utter ruins. With a soul inspired by recollections of the past would he seek his study, and transcribe to his volume those sentiments, "mournful yet pleasant to the soul." What a strange compound is this nature of ours! not alone do the thoughts of others influence us; not alone does the fire, which burns on the heart of the eloquent, impart its genial warmth to the hearer; but the beautiful creations of art, the solemn temple, with its dim religious light, the breathing marble fashioned to faultless form, the work of men who lived long years ago,-each tells its story to the listening spirit; a story which none shall heed so faithfully as the historian-that dramatist of nations. But we may be mistaken, and the book be a treatise on some dif ficult point in theology. Doubtless it was the work of a monk; at least those strange pencilings upon the margin of some of the pages would thus indicate. Never mind; it is still a work of thought; for theology has had the benefit of the oldest, as well as the keenest thinkers. The author was not afraid to read whatever had been previously written upon the subject, lest he should not be an original writer. His work was not like a last year's almanac, very good then, but now altogether worthless. Every school or sect of both Grecian and Roman philosophy had been thoroughly explored; every beautiful dream of mythology unravelled, and the truths it had taught gathered into a halo around the central sun of Christianity. To wage the war of opinion sucessfully, there is need not only to know the truth, but its antagonist error. There is a warrior's sword, and there is also a warrior's shield. But if it was the work of a monk, must there not be many things in it harmful and ascetic? And what if there be such? hast thou no care to know how thy fellow men thought and wrote? Besides, there can not but be many a rich gem in so rare a casket; for it was not always, as now, an antique. We must learn to soften the light of our meridian sun before we suffer it to fall upon the scanty remains of other days. It may be that if any production of the present age shall escape oblivion, others will have more cause to smile, than now do we at this old volume. But the book has been well used, which is the next excellence to being well written; well used, we say-not like a family Bible, carefully covered with green baize, and only taken down on a Sunday ;— but like the loved testament of the aged Disciple which guided his devotions, inspired faith, and was the soft pillow to support his head when he laid himself down to die. Yes! that old volume has been much studied. In the time when books were few, and were used not to think for the reader, but to incite to reflection, doubtless it was held as a great treasure, and many an hour-midnight hour too—was spent in its perusal. Our book has made us tell a strange tale. We had only intended to make the associations it so often suggests, the introduction to another subject; but we cannot enter upon that now. We will only say that we have a few volumes of the "Library of Old English Prose Writers," and highly do we prize them. One, at least, bears marks of having been read and re-read many times. It is the "Works of Jeremy Taylor," a splendid collection of jewelled thoughts, beautifully conceived, and beautifully said. The form is prose, but the spirit is pure poetry. It is not distinguished by an occasional brilliancy of expression, or unusual collocation of words-the only excellence of much which is written. It is the work of a mind of no ordinary make. His religion had taught him high aspirations, and he had meditated among the deep things of God, until his soul had been wedded to truth and love. Rich in illustration, fervent and apt in comparison, he wrote for the heart. A religion itself poetry, a genius exalted in its every conception, and an enthusiasm never faulty constitute what we had almost called a Trinity in the mind which possesses them. One passage we must transcribe,-not because the best,-but because in the days of our earlier boyhood, we expended upon it many a warm gush of love. He is speaking of sins in their influence upon the good man's prayers. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learnad music and motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here below. So is the prayer of a good man; when his affairs required business, then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words went up towards a cloud, and his thoughts pulled them back again and made them without intention; and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but he must be content to lose the prayer, and he must recover it when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God." The same beauty of illustration is found throughout the entire volume. Such a style could have been formed only by a careful study of the best Grecian models. Old books are indeed prizes; there is an air of simplicity and yet grandeur about them. A book, like a will, is all the better after the author's death; and reading such an one, is not " idle time idly spent." There are a few other vols. of the old authors upon our table, but we must leave them, fervently thankful that they have come down to us and rejoicing in that "strong magic which giveth us a life in all past time." E. "Now pass thou forward as thou wert wont, and Douglass will follow thee or die! With these words Douglass threw from him the heart of Bruce, into midbattle against the Moors of Spain." Forward, thou proud and kingly heart, Where the war plumes wildly dance; Through their shatter'd ranks shall our war steeds prance! Pass on, thou kingly heart. THERE have been dreamers in all ages, and there are dreamers still. Life's duties are pushed aside, and the enigmas of the universe brought forward for solution. They discover that life is a mystery, and death a dream. And yet there are, who boldly assert that even our belief in God will soon be like that in spectres,-that we shall all ere long clearly see that the Universe is a self-moving machine; the Æther a Gas; Deity a Force, and the Second world-a Coffin!* Of the originality of such men, about which we hear so much, we do not speak with a curse; but while we endeavor to show that it is not the true originality of Genius, we would send on high our prayer that a Divine power may brush away the darkness which has gathered over their vision and their hopes. Others there are who lift the veil and send forth a voice prophetic of man's nature, relations, destiny. They call him a young angel; and if he raise his head wreathed with a garland of glory won in some field of Time, somewhat above the multitude, perchance a demi-god. A few proclaim him to be an expanded monkey, taught to play his pranks awhile, and then destined to sink into nonentity. But the truth seems to be he is neither a god nor an ape. A genius is not different from a fully unfolded man. There is a vast range of intellect in the collective human race; and yet the length of that link in the chain of animated existence that would reach from man to the brute, which some style his pro-genitor, is not shorter than that which connects him with the spirit that harps his ceaseless music before the throne of the Infinite. It is not a short stride from the Hottentot to Newton. There are constitutional differ Richtenberg and Jean Paul. |