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Poetry," as Madame De Stael has beautifully expressed it, "is the apotheosis of sentiment." But this deification of sublime conceptions costs the priest of nature not a little for the transfiguration of simple ideas into splendid imagery; no little wear and tear of mind and body, no small outlay of fervid feelings. No trifling expenditure of vital energy is required for the translation of fine thoughts from the regions of earth to those of heaven, and by the time that worlds of invention have been exhausted and new imagined, the poet has commonly abridged his life to immortalise his name. The old metaphysicians had an odd idea of the mental faculties, and especially of imagination, but which is fully as intelligible as any other psychological theory. They believed, we are told by Hibbert, that the soul was attended by three ministering principles-common sense, the moderator, whose duty it was to control the sensorium-memory, the treasurer, whose office it was to retain the image collected by the senses-and fancy, the handmaid of the mind, whose business it was to recall the images which memory retained, and to embody its conceptions in various forms. But as this handmaid was found to be very seldom under the control of the moderator, common sense, they attributed the constant communication between the heart and brain to the agency of the animal spirits which act through the nerves, as couriers between both. At one period conveying delightful intelligence, at other times melancholy tidings, and occasionally altogether misconceiving the object of their embassy. By this means both head and heart were often led astray, and in this confusion of all conceived commands and all concocted spirits-the visions of poets, the dreams of invalids, and the chimeras of superstition, had their origin. The greatest

truths may be approached by the most fanciful vehicles of thought. Be these chimeras engendered where they may, in whatever pursuit the imagination is largely exercised, enthusiasm and sensibility are simultaneously developed, and these are qualities whose growth cannot be allowed to exuberate without becoming unquestionably unfavourable to mental tranquillity, and consequently injurious to health.

Again, we find the cool dispassionate enquiries of moral philosophy, which are directed to the nature of the human mind, and to the knowledge of truths whose tendency is to educate the heart by setting bounds to its debasing passions, and to enlarge the mind by giving a fitting scope to its ennobling faculties, are those pursuits which tend to elevate, and at the same time to invigorate, our thoughts, and have no influence but a happy one on life. We need not be surprised to find the moral historians occupying the second place in the list of long-lived authors.

But, if the list of natural philosophers consisted solely of astronomers, the difference would be considerably greater between their ages and those of the poets, for the longevity of professors of this branch of science is truly remarkable. In the Times Telescope for 1833, there is a list of all the eminent astronomers, from Thales to those of the last century; and out of eighty-five only twenty-five had died under the age of sixty, five had lived to between ninety and a hundred-eighteen between eighty and ninety-twenty-five between seventy and eighty-seventeen between sixty and seventy-ten between fifty and sixty-five between forty and fiftyand four between thirty and forty. In no other pursuit does the biography of men of genius exhibit a longevity

at all to be compared to this. No other science, indeed, tends so powerfully to raise the mind above those trivial vexations and petty miseries of life, which make the great amount of human evil. No other science is so calculated to spiritualise our faculties, to give a character of serenity to wonder, which never suffers contemplation to grow weary of the objects of its admiration. The tyranny of passion is subdued, the feelings tranquillised; all the trivial concerns of humanity are forgotten when the mind of the astronomer revels in the magnificence of "this most excellent canopy, the air; this brave o'erhanging firmament-this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire;" when he beholds worlds on worlds of diversified forms, rolling in fields of immeasurable space the planets that encircle the sovereign of our skies; the queen of night, that walks in beauty along the starry plain of heaven, and the innumerable specks, that may be suns to other systems! When he reflects on the display of the Almighty power and wisdom, in the immutability of the laws which regulate the motions of every orb; the wonderful velocity of some planets, and the astonishing precision of the complicated movements of the satellites of others, his faculties are bound up in astonishment and delight; but every emotion of his heart is an act of silent homage to the Author of this stupendous mechanism. Though he advances to the threshold of the temple of celestial knowledge, he knows the precincts which human science cannot pass; reason tells him, these are my limits, "so far may I go but no farther" but he turns not away like the vain metaphysician, bewildered by fruitless speculations; for the voice of the spirit, that lives and breathes within him, encourages the hope that futurity will unveil the mysteries

which now baffle the comprehension of science and phi-
losophy. There glitters not a star above his head that
is not an argument for his immortality; there is not a
mystery he cannot solve that is not a motive for deserv-
ing it.
And to the brightest luminary in the heavens,
in the confidence of that immortality, he may say in the
beautiful language of Campbell,

"This spirit shall return to him,
That gave its heavenly spark,
Yet think not, sun, it shall be dim
When thou thyself art dark!
No; it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,
By him recalled to breath,
Who captive led captivity,
Who robbed the grave of victory,

And took the sting from death."

CHAPTER IX.

LONGEVITY OF JURISTS AND DRAMATISTS.

The lists of the law authors and the dramatists present a striking contrast in respect of age. Here we find a difference of one hundred and forty-six years: the gentlemen of the gown being so much longer lived than those of the sock and buskin. And here, again, the unfavourable influence of pursuits, in which imagination is largely exercised, is to be observed. Though law has occasionally to do with fiction, it is only in Ireland that it has to deal with fancy; so that the gentlemen of this profession have little to apprehend from the influence we have just spoken of; nevertheless, the result of this calculation in favour of the longevity is what we certainly did not expect. Generally speaking, no professional people have less salubrious countenances, or more of the sickly cast of thought in their complexions, than lawyers; and if Hygeia were to descend upon earth with the emblem of health in her right hand, in quest of halfa-dozen wholesome looking votaries, Westminster-hall is the last place the daughter of Esculapius would think of visiting. That famous letter of Xilander, the lawyer, prefixed to the work of Plembius "De tuenda valetudine togatorum," has admirably described the ills and incommodities of that sort of life which the members of the legal profession generally lead. The work is so rare in this country, that we have been induced to transcribe the greater portion of the prefatory epistle. "I readily

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