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Now, all this, sculpture has embodied in perpetual marble, and every association touched upon in the description might spring up in a well-instructed mind, while contemplating the insulated figure which personifies the expiring champion. Painting might take up the same subject, and represent the amphitheatre thronged to the height with ferocious faces, all bent upon the exulting conqueror and his prostrate antagonist-a thousand for one of them sympathizing rather with the transport of the former than the agony of the latHere, then, sculpture and painting have reached their climax; neither of them can give the actual thoughts of the personages whom they exhibit so palpably to the outward sense, that the character of those thoughts cannot be mistaken. Poetry goes further than both; and when one of the sisters had laid down her chisel, the other her pencil, she continues her strain; wherein, having already sung what each has pictured, she thus reveals that secret of the sufferer's breaking heart, which neither of them could intimate by any visible sign. But we must return to the swoon of the dying man:

"The arena swims around him, he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout that hail'd the wretch who won.
"He heard it, but he heeded not, his eyes

Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize,
-But, where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother:-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday;

All this rush'd with his blood." #

Myriads of eyes had gazed upon that statue; through myriads of minds all the images and ideas connected with the combat and the fall, the spectators and the scene, had passed in the presence of that unconscious marble which has given immortality to the pangs of death; but not a soul among all the beholders through eighteen centuries, not one had ever before thought of the "rude hut," the "Dacian mother," the "young barbarians." At length came the poet of passion; and, looking down upon "The Dying Gladiator," (less as what it was than what it represented,) turned the marble into man, and endowed it with human affections: then, away over the Apennines and over the Alps, away, on the wings of irrepressible sympathy, flew his spirit to the banks of the Danube, where, "with his heart," were the "eyes" of the victim, under the night-fall of death; for "there were his young barbarians all at play, and there their Dacian mother." This is nature; this is truth. While the conflict continued, the combatant thought of himself only; he aimed at nothing but victory: when life and this were lost, his last thoughts, his sole thoughts, would turn to his wife and his little children.

Lecture Eirst.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PROSE AND VERSE.

There is reason as well as custom in that conventional simplicity which best becomes prose, and that conventional ornament which is allowed to verse; but splendid ornament is no more essential to verse than naked simplicity is to prose. The gravest critics place tragedy in the highest rank of poetical achievements:—

"Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy,

With sceptred pall, come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,

Or the tale of Troy divine."-Il Penseroso.

Yet the noblest, most impassioned scenes are frequently distinguished from prose only by the cadence of the verse, which, in this species of composition, is permitted to be so loose, that, where the diction is the most exquisite, the melody of the rhythm can scarcely be perceived, except by the nicest ear. King Lear, driven to madness by the ingratitude and cruelty of his two elder daughters, is found by the youngest, Cordelia, asleep upon a bed in a tent in the French camp, after having passed the night in the open air, exposed to the fury of the elements during a tremendous thunder-storm. A physician and attendants are watching over the sufferer. While the dutiful daughter is pouring out her heart in tenderness over him, recounting his wrongs, his afflictions, and the horrors of the storm, the king awakes: but we will take the scene itself. some inquiries concerning his royal patient, the physician asks:

"So please your majesty,

That we may wake the king? He hath slept long.
Cordelia. Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed
I' the sway of your own will. Is he array'd?
Gentleman.-Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep,
We put fresh garments on him.

Physician.-Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
I doubt not of his temperance.

Cordelia. Very well.

After

Physician. Please you draw near.

Louder the music there!

Cordelia.-Oh, my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

Kent.-Kind and dear princess!

Cordelia. Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challenged pity of them. Was this a face

To be exposed against the warring winds?

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross lightning?

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Mine enemy's dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire. And wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack! alack!
'Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once

Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.

Physician.-Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.

Cordelia. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?
Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave:-
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire.

Cordelia.-Sir, do you know me?

Lear. You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?
Cordelia. Still, still far wide.

Physician.-He's scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

Lear. Where have I been?
I am mightily abused.
To see another thus.
I will not swear these
I feel this pin prick.
Of my condition!

Cordelia.-Oh look upon me, sir!

Where am I? Fair daylight

I should even die with pity
I know not what to say.
are my hands; let's see.
Would I were assured

And hold your hands in benediction o'er me:-
Nay, sir, you must not kneel.

Lear.-Pray, do not mock me;

I am a very foolish, fond old man,

Fourscore and upward; and, to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful; for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is; and all the skill I have

Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,
For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia !

Cordelia.-And so I am; I am."

It cannot be doubted that the whole of this scene is poetry of the highest proof; and yet, except in the passage referring to the storm, (in which those wonderful lines descriptive of the lightning might have been struck out by the flash itself,) there is scarcely a phrase which could not have been employed in the humblest prose record of this conversation. Try the experiment: break up the rhythm, the only thing that constitutes the lines verse, and mark the issue; the same sentiments will remain, in nearly the same words; yet the latter being differently collocated, and wanting the inimitable cadence of such verse as none but Shakspeare has been able to construct, the charm will be broken, and the pathos subdued, though no mutilation could destroy it. How much the power of poetry

depends upon the nice inflections of rhythm alone, may be proved by taking the finest passages of Milton or Shakspeare, and merely putting them into prose, with the least possible variation of the words themselves. The attempt would be like gathering up dewdrops, which appear jewels and pearls on the grass, but run into water in the hand: the essence and the elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and the form are gone.

Lecture Third.

THE PERMANENCE OF WORDS.

An cloquent, but extravagant writer has hazarded the assertion that "words are the only things that last for ever.” 1 Nor is this merely a splendid saying, or a startling paradox, that may be qualified by explanation into commonplace; but with respect to man, and his works on earth, it is literally true. Temples and palaces, amphitheatres and catacombs-monuments of power, and magnificence, and skill, to perpetuate the memory, and preserve even the ashes, of those who lived in past ages-must, in the revolutions of mundane events, not only perish themselves by violence or decay, but the very dust in which they perish be so scattered as to leave no trace of their material existence behind. There is no security beyond the passing moment for the most permanent or the most precious of these; they are as much in jeopardy as ever, after having escaped the changes and chances of thousands of years. earthquake may suddenly engulf the pyramids of Egypt, and leave the sand of the desert as blank as the tide would have left it on the sea-shore. A hammer in the hand of an idiot may break to pieces the Apollo Belvidere, or the Venus de Medici, which are scarcely less worshipped as miracles of art in our day than they were by idolaters of old as representatives of deities.

An

Looking abroad over the whole world, after the lapse of nearly six thousand years, what have we of the past but the words in which its history is recorded? What, besides a few mouldering and brittle ruins, which time is imperceptibly touching down into dust, what, besides these, remains of the glory, the grandeur, the intelligence, the supremacy of the Grecian republics, or the empire of Rome? Nothing but the words of poets, historians, philosophers, and orators, who, being dead, yet speak, and in their immortal works still maintain their dominion over inferior minds through all posterity. And these intellectual sovereigns not only govern our spirits from the tomb by the power of their thoughts, but their very voices are heard by our living cars in the accents of their mother-tongues. The beauty, the eloquence, and art of these

The late Mr. William Hazlitt.

collocations of sounds and syllables, the learned alone can appreciate, and that only (in some cases) after long, intense, and labo rious investigation; but, as thought can be made to transmigrate from one body of words into another, even through all the languages of the earth, without losing what may be called its personal identity, the great minds of antiquity continue to hold their ascendency over the opinions, manners, characters, institutions, and events of all ages and nations through which their posthumous compositions have found way, and been made the earliest subjects of study, the highest standards of morals, and the most perfect examples of taste, to the master-minds in every state of civilized society. In this respect the "words" of inspired prophets and apostles among the Jews, and those of gifted writers among the ancient Gentiles, may truly be said to "last for ever."

Retrospect of Literature.

JOHN WILSON, 1788.

JOHN WILSON, the distinguished Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, was born in the year 1783, in the town of Paisley. He was the son of an opulent manufacturer, and received his elementary education at Glasgow University, whence, in due time, he was transferred to Magdalene College, Oxford. Here his poetical genius was developed, and he carried off the Newdigate Prize from a vast number of competitors for the best English poem of fifty lines. To fine genius and great powers of literary acquisition, he added a remarkable taste for gymnastic exercises and athletic sports. After being four years at Oxford, he purchased a small but beautiful estate, named Elleray, on the banks of Lake Windermere, where he went to reside. "He married, built a house and a yacht, enjoyed himself among the magnificent scenery of the lakes, wrote poetry, and cultivated the society of Wordsworth." At this period he published the first of his beautiful poems, "The Isle of Palms," a volume that placed him at once by the side of some of our most elegant modern poets. Subsequently he became a member of the Scottish bar, and in a few years received the appointment to that chair which he has so long filled with honor. His permanent reputation will rest upon his prose writings. His contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine" raised the whole tone and character of magazine literature-for in tnis he poured forth the riches of his fancy, learning, and taste; displaying also the peculiarities of his sanguine and impetuous temperament. The most valuable of these contributions have been published in three volumes, under the title of "The Recreations of Christopher North." His poetical works have been collected in two volumes, consisting of the "Isle of Palms" and "The City of the Plague," and several smaller pieces.1

"The grand characteristics of the poetry of Wilson are delicacy of sentiment, and ethereal elegance of description. He refines and elevates whatever he touches; and if in his hands

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