will find little usefulness and less pleasure in it. The greater part of every human assemblage is composed of those, who would be the unobserved of observers.' It is amongst these, therefore, that the teacher must look for much of his satisfaction. Nor is it enough that he should be entirely unprejudiced by the total absence of external beauty. If he would enjoy all the happiness which is destined for him, he must not be too soon startled or discouraged by the appearance of moral deformity. He must neither desist nor despair, even when there is no evidence of any impression having been made by his advice and example, and his pupil returns again and again to the pursuits and companions which have been so often pointed out as dangerous and sinful. If the scholar carry into the midst of them a feeling that there is one eye, which, so situated, he could not bear to meet; one voice which would be raised against such abomination, something has been effected. The simple phrase, 'If He had been there,' which I have heard in reference to a teacher from childish lips that had been often polluted, had in it a recognition of virtue which would tell upon the future character. A feeling may take possession of the mind, though for a time it may not be perceived that it had so much as entered it. It may often and often be suppressed by the allurements of vicious pleasures, and the deceitfulness of sin; but it will revive, not only in the time of sickness and sorrow, but amidst the excitement of the festal board, and the fascinations of the turf and of the gaming table. The guilty one will never be as though he had not known it. It may keep one spot in his heart unpolluted it may be the foundation-stone upon which angels may rear a superstructure of holiness and love. It has been said by one of our popular writers, that there is no trade or profession so ill paid as that of the schoolmaster. If there be no payment but such as Simon Magus would have offered, or Shylock would have accepted, so it often is; but is there no reward in such a hope as hath been described? Is it nothing to meet in the walks of life those who sat with us in the summer's sunshine and in the brightness of the winter's hearthto look into the eyes in which we have so often kindled the gleam of intelligence to hear again the voices which have spoken to us in the fulness of childhood's confidence? Is it nothing to meet with those touching instances of affection and sympathy, which are more or less the portion of every teacher who has fulfilled the duties of his calling with kindness and singleness of heart? Is it nothing to feel that we have given the direction to energies which will be working out good for humanity, when, with us, the green tree shall have become the dry? Are not these payments-rewards worthy Heaven to bestow and man to receive? God could have granted nothing better to my youth than to have had the training of his immortal offspring ;-I ask nothing better of him for my age, than that I may have cause for an humble confidence that my labour has not been altogether in vain; that I have done nothing to disgrace a name, which to me is peaceful, and beautiful, and holy in its associations; and which was borne by him who is the Saviour of mankind, the name of TEACHER. S. J. W. THE PLEASURES OF BENEVOLENCE. A POEM BY WILLIAM HAMILTON DRUMMOND, D.D. M.R.I.A. Hunter, London; Wakeman, and Hodges and Smith, Dublin. THE great recommendation of this poem is the charm of the subject, and the felicitous skill with which the author has illustrated the Divine goodness. The Muse cannot be more nobly employed than in vindicating the ways of God to man her sublime harp the universe, from whose thousand cords she calls forth a high and solemn hymn responsive to his praise! Such a hymn we have in The Pleasures of Benevolence,' which may be classed with the Pleasures of Hope,' and 'of Memory,' though in style, if not in design and execution, it is more like The Pleasures of Imagination.' It has not the exquisite polish of Campbell, nor the powerfully graphic delineations of Rogers, nor the high-souled flights of Akenside: without these loftier qualities, however, it is not deficient in the graces of elegant diction and poetical embellishment. The versification is smooth, and often melodious, though sometimes, from its great diffuseness, it sounds more like eloquent rhythmical prose than measured numbers. The sentiments are always pure, glowing often with ardent feeling, and often sparkling with bright thoughts, but seldom breathing the deep fervour of impassioned poetry. The author appears to us, indeed, in some passages, more an orator than a poet, and the flowers which are thrown over his pages are not sufficiently bathed in Castalian dew-they are the flowers of rhetoric, rather than of the muse. His power of illustration is great, arising from a highly cultivated mind, enriched with various stores of knowledge, gathered from the ample fields of fable, history, philosophy, science, religion, and nature; and his command of language is very extensive. He is evidently well acquainted with classical literature, and warmly attached to it, as we trace in several passages of his poem resemblances to classical authors, sometimes assuming the form of free imitations, at others only of indirect allusion. We cannot doubt that the following verses, descriptive of the benevolence of the Deity, diffusing tranquillity and joy over the face of nature, were suggested by those, inimitable for their exquisite beauty, which we shall subjoin, from the fine opening of the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius, who represents Venus, or Love, as exerting a similar influence: The all these, in various guise, Her mandate wait-and, as she comes, the heavens Te, Dea, te fugiunt venti; te nubila cœli, Significant initum, perculsa dorda tua vi.'—De Re. Nat. lib. i. v. 6—13. Thee, Goddess, thee, the blasts of winter fly, And unlock'd zephyrs genial breezes play, The wing'd inhabitants of air delighted feel, Through their fond breasts thy gentle influence steal, Theban Swan' of Drummond, is a phrase borrowed from Horace's Dircæan Swan,' a beautiful metaphor expressive of the lofty genius of Pindar, who is described by the Latin poet as soaring in the clouds. Multa Dircæum levat aura cycnum, Tendit, Antoni, quoties in altos Nubium tractus.'-Carm. lib. iv. Od. 2. v. 25-7. 'A strong gale raises the Dircaan swan, Antonius, oft as he soaring flies To the high regions of the clouds.' The resemblance to another passage of Horace in that we are about to quote is still stronger-it is, indeed, almost a literal translation: 'I will forbid the man, who shall divulge The sacred rites of mystic Ceres, cre Beneath the beams of the same roof to dwell, Or loose the fragile bark, with me.' Other instances of resemblance might, had we room, be given. 6 6 The love of classical literature has led Dr. Drummond to cast many of his words, also, in a classic mould: to some of these we object, as too far removed from common use and apprehension, such as perduring' (p. 33), antepast' (p. 33), omnigenous' (p. 40), serrate (p. 41), desiccate' (p. 92), regurgitate' (p. 95), internecine" (p. 105), &c. These are hard, if not harsh, words, more pleasing to Roman than English ears and such, too, of a different kind, are maugre' (p. 63), &c. from its very frequent occurrence apparently a favouriteand 'undazed' (p. 87), as well as dazed' (p. 106). Readers in general have no sympathy with foreign and unusual words of this description; and, when numerous, they give a pedantic air to poetry, which should have none of the stiffness of the schools about it, if its office be to please as well as instruct. Even instruction cannot be conveyed in this form without becoming repulsive words of foreign construction and learned length should, therefore, be avoided, except where they are absolutely necessary to the explanation of the subject, as in works of science, in which technical terms are employed. Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum.'-Hor. De Art. Poet. v. 49. There is another reason for not using them-offending the ears, or not understood by the mind, they do not reach the heart. The hearer, or reader, is not affected by words with which he is not familiar-the writer who uses them addresses him in a foreign language which he does not comprehend: such words as omnigenous' and 'internecine' excite no ideas in him, and cannot by any possibility produce any emotion, except such as the author would least wish to raise. The poet, then, who desires to carry along with him the sympathies of his reader, whether it be his design to work on the passions or the imagination, must address himself to him in language which custom has rendered familiar to his ear, and with which all his ideas and affections are associated. On this principle Horace condemns the high-flown expressions, the sesquipedalian, the foot-and-a-half words of stage rhodomontade, directing the tragic hero to express his griefs in speech lowered to the capacities of the people, sermone pedestri, if he is anxious to touch their hearts by his complaints: 'Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba, Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela,'-Hor. De Art. Poet. v. 97, 8, We have noticed another fault in Dr. Drummond's style, which may also, perhaps, be referred to his admiration of the ancients a harsh construction of words, as in the awkward inversion of the pronoun what,' in numerous passages: the two following instances will serve as an exemplification of this prevailing fault : when in courts thou might'st have thrown What lustre round thee!-p. 52. oft from contrast flows What rich intense delight!'-p. 120. Besides imitations of Grecian and Roman authors, there are parts of this poem too nearly resembling, either in diction or in sentiment, celebrated passages in our own classic poets, though not servile copies of them. There is enough of originality in these parts to vindicate the author from the charge of plagiarism, and they appear rather accidental resemblances than studied imitations. The impression, however, they produce on the reader's mind, is injurious to the writer, as they bring before it, in splendid contrast, some of the finest compositions of our first-rate poets, bright fragments of whose thoughts or phraseology seem occasionally stuck in the fabric of a less gifted bard, who knows not so well how to build the lofty rhyme.' These are honest strictures. There is much in the poem that we admire, besides the spirit of piety to God and love to man which has dictated every line in it, and thrown an amiable charm over the whole composition, quite after our own heart. Were eloquent declamation, varied learning, and well-constructed versification poetry, this would be a perfect poem ; but poetry requires lofty and original conception, bold metaphors, striking comparisons, picturesque descriptions, impassioned sentiments-imagination that can create, pathos that can melt, genius that can entrance, pouring forth in the fervour of its enthusiasm, in the glow of its inspiration, thoughts that breathe and words that burn,' and in these this poem is deficient. Occasional passages, however, it contains, of great merit, in which some of the higher qualities we have represented as constituting the essence of poetry are not wanting. The author is not destitute of elegant fancy and refined taste, as every page he has written satisfactorily proves. He occasionally dips his pencil in the bright colours of poetic diction, and clothes his conceptions in the rich drapery of language, as in this finely-executed portrait of an angel: At the sound I stood 6 Amazed and rapt, when the voluminous cloud |