its more refined but evanescent joys; and in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happiness, is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artificial I anners, which make civilization so tame and uninteresting. It is needed to counteract the tendency of physical science, which, being now sought, not, as formerly, for intellectual gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts, requires a new developement of imagination, taste and poetry, to preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material, epicurean life.

Our remarks in vindication of poetry have extended beyond our original design. They have had a higher aim than to assert the dignity of Milton as a poet, and that is, to endear and recommend this divine art to all who reverence, and would cultivate and refine their nature.

Eloquent Appeal in Favour of the Greeks.-NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.*

THERE is an individual, who sits on no throne, in whose veins no aristocratic blood runs, who derives no influence from amassed or inherited wealth, but who, by the simple supremacy of mind, exercises, at this moment, a political sway, as mighty as that of Napoleon at the zenith of his power. Indebted for his own brilliant position to the liberality of the age, which is shaking off the fetters of ancient prejudices, this literal ruler by the grace of God can feel no deference for most of the maxims, by which the

The article, from which this extract is taken, is ascribed to the pen of the Hon. Edward Everett. Little did its author imagine, while thus eloquently apostrophizing the prime minister of England, that he was so soon to be withdrawn by the mysterious band of the Almighty from that wide sphere of power and benevolence, to which the "liberality of the age" had exalted him.-ED

neutrality of England in the wars of Grecian liberty is justified. How devoutly is it to be wished, that the pure and undying glory of restoring another civilized region to the family of Christendom, could present itself in vision to the mind of this fortunate statesman; that, turning from his fond but magnificent boast, that he had called into existence a new world in the Indies, he would appropriate to himself the immortal fame, which could not be gainsaid, of having recalled to life the fairest region of Europe. He has but to speak the word within the narrow walls of St. Stephen's, and the sultan trembles on his throne. He has but to speak the word, and all the poor scruples and hypocritical sophistries of the continental cabinets vanish into air. Let him then abandon the paltry chase of a few ragamuffin Portuguese malecontents, and follow a game, which is worthy of himself and the people whose organ he is. Let him pronounce the sentence of expulsion from Europe of the cruel and barbarous despotism, which has so long oppressed it. The whole civilized world will applaud and sanction the decree; he will alleviate an amount of human suffering, he will work out a sum of human good, which the revolutions of ages scarcely put it within the reach of men, or governments, to avert or effect. He will encircle his plebeian temples with a wreath of fame, compared with which the diadem of the monarch whom he serves is worthless dross.

At all events, there they are, a gallant race, struggling, single-handed, for independence; an extraordinary spectacle to the world! With scarcely a government of their own, and without the assistance of any established power, they have waged, for six years, a fearfully contested war against one of the great empires of the earth. When Mr. Canning lately held out the menace of war against those continental nations who should violently interfere with the English system, he sought to render the menace more alarming, by calling it "a war of opinions," in which the discontented of every other country would rally against their own government under the banners of Great Britain. On this menace, which, considering the quarter from whence i'

proceeds, comes with somewhat of a revolutionary and disorganizing tone, we have now no comment to make. The war Bow raging in Greece is, in a much higher and better sense, a war of opinion which has actually begun; and in which the unarrayed, the unofficial, and, we had almost said, the individual efforts and charities of the friends of liberty throughout Christendom are combatting, and thus far successfully, the barbarous hosts of the Turk. Deserted as they have been by the governments to whom they naturally looked for aid; by Russia, who tamely sees the head of the Russian church hung up at the door of his own cathedral; by England, the champion of liberal principles in Europe, and the protectress of the Ionian Isles; by the Holy Alliance, that takes no umbrage at the debarkation of army after army of swarthy infidels on the shores of a Christian country;-the Greeks have still been cheered and sustained by the sympathy of the civilized world. Gallant volunteers have crowded to their assistance, and some of the best blood in Europe has been shed in their defence. Liberal contributions of money have been sent to them across the globe; and, while we write these sentences, supplies are despatched to them from various parts of our ow country, sufficient to avert the horrors of famine for another season. The direct effect of these contributions, great as it is, (and it is this which has enabled the Greeks to hold out thus far,) is not its best operation. We live in an age of moral influences. Greece, in these various acts, feels herself incorporated into the family of civilized nations; raised out of the prison-house of a cruel and besot ted despotism, into the community of enlightened states Let an individual fall in with and be assailed by a superior force in the lonely desert, on the solitary ocean, or beneath the cover of darkness, and his heart sinks within him, as he receives blow after blow, and feels his strength wasting in the unwitnessed and uncheered struggle: but let the sound of human voices swell upon his ear, or a friendly sail draw nigh, and life and hope revive within his bosom. Nor is human nature different in its operation in the large masses of men. Can any one doubt, that, if the Greeks, instead of being placed where they are, on a renowned arena, in sight of the civilized world,-visited, aided, ap

plauded as they have been, from one extreme of Christendom to the other,—had been surrounded by barbarism, seIcluded in the interior of the Turkish empire, without a medium of communication with the world, they would have been swept away in a single campaign? They would have been crushed; they would have been trampled into the dust; and the Tartars, that returned from the massacre, would have brought the first tidings of their struggle. This is our encouragement to persevere in calling the attention of the public to this subject. It is a warfare in which we all are or ought to be enlisted. It is a war of opinion, and of feeling, and of humanity. It is a great war of public sentiment; not conflicting (as it is commonly called to do) merely with public sentiment operating in an opposite direction, but with a powerful, barbarous, and despotic government. The strength and efficacy of the public sentiment of the civilized world are now, therefore, to be put to the test on a large scale, and upon a most momentous issue. It is now to be seen whether mankind, that is, its civilized portion,-whether enlightened Europe and enlightened America will stand by, and behold a civilized Christian people massacred en masse; whether a people that cultivate the arts which we cultivate,—that enter into friendly intercourse with us,-that send their children to our schools,-that translate and read our historians, philosophers and moralists,-that live by the same rule of faith, and die in the hope of the same Saviour, shall be allowed to be hewn down to the earth in our sight, by a savage horde of Ethiopians and Turks. For ourselves, we do not believe it. An inward assurance tells us that it cannot be. Such an atrocity never has happened in human affairs, and will not now be permitted. As the horrid catastrophe draws near, if draw near it must, the Christian governments will awaken from their apathy. If governments remain enchained by reasons of state, the common feeling of humanity among men will burst out, in some effectual interference. And if this fail, why should not Providence graciously interpose, to prevent the extinction of the only people, in whose churches the New Testament is used in the original tongue? Is it not a pertinent subject of inquiry with those, who administer the religious

charities of this and other Christian countries, whether the entire cause of the diffusion of the Gospel is not more closely connected with the event of the struggle in Greece, than with any thing else, in any part of the world? Is not the question whether Greece and her islands shall be Christian or Mahometan, a more important question than any other, in the decision of which we have the remotest agency? Might not a well-devised and active concert among the Christian charitable societies in Europe and America, for the sake of rescuing this Christian people, present the most auspicious prospect of success, and form an organization adequate to the importance and sacredness of the object? And can any man, who has humanity, liberty, or Christianity at heart, feel justified in forbearing to give his voice, his aid, his sympathy, to this cause, in any way in which it is practicable to advance it.

Small as are the numbers of the Greeks, and limited as is their country, it may be safely said, that there has not, since the last Turkish invasion of Europe, been waged a war, of which the results, in the worst event, could have been so calamitous, as it must be allowed by every reflecting mind, that the subjugation and consequent extirpation of the Greeks would be. The wars that are waged between the states of Christendom, generally grow out of disputed titles of princes, or state quarrels between the governments. Serious, changes no doubt take place, as these wars may be decided one way or the other. Nations, formerly well governed, may come under an arbitrary sway; or a despotic be exchanged for a milder government. But, inasmuch as victor and vanquished belong to the same civilized family; and the social condition, the standard of morality, and the received code of public law, are substantially the same in all the nations of Europe; no irreparable disaster to the cause of humanity itself can ensue from any war, in which they may be engaged with each other Had Napoleon, for instance, succeeded in invading and conquering England, (and this is probably the strongest case that could be put,) after the first calamities of invasion and conquest were past, which must in all cases be much the same, no worse evils would probably have esulted to the cause of humanity, than the restoration of