Poeta nascitur, Orator fit.-MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY

POETRY is the frolic of invention, the dance of words. and the harmony of sounds. Oratory consists in a judicious disposition of arguments, a happy selection of terms, and a pleasing elocution. The object of poetry is to de light, that of oratory to persuade. Poetry is truth, but it is truth in her gayest and loveliest robes, and wit, flattery, hyperbole, and fable, are marshalled in her train. Oratory has a graver and more majestic port, and gains by slow advances and perseverance, what the poet takes by suddenness of inspiration, and by surprise. Poetry requires ge nius; eloquence is within the reach of talent. Seriousness becomes one, sprightliness the other. The wittiest poets have been the shortest writers; but he is often the best orator, who has the strongest lungs, and the firmest legs. The poet sings for the approbation of the wise and the pleasure of the ingenious; the orator addresses the multitude, and the larger the number of ears, the better for his purpose; and he who can get the most votes most thoroughly understands his art. Bad verses are always abominable: but he is a good speaker who gains his cause. Bards are generally remarkable for generosity of nature; orators are as often notorious for their ambition. These er. joy most influence while alive; those live longest after death. Poets are not necessarily poor; for Theocritus and Anacreon, Horace and Lucian, Racine and Boileau, Pope and Addison, rolled in their carriages, and slept in palaces: yet it must be confessed, that most of the poetical tribe have rather feared the tap of the sheriff, than the damnation of critics. The poverty of a poet takes nothing from the richness and sweetness of his lines; while an orator's success is not infrequently promoted by his wealth. Nevertheless, were I poor, I would study eloquence, that I might be rich; had I riches, I would study poetry, that I might give a portion of immortality to both. Could I write no better than Blackmore, I would sometimes versify; but were I privileged to soar upon the daring wing of Dryden's muse, I would not keep my pinions continually spread.

Intellectual Qualities of Milton.-CHANNING.

IN speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, we may begin by observing that the very splendour of his poetic fame has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many he seems only a poet, when in truth he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and modern learning, and able to master, to mould, to impregnate with his own intellectual power, his great and various acquisitions. He had not learned the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest he should oppress and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which could give freshness to old truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts; which could bind together, by living ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discoveries; and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude materials which other minds had collected. Milton had that universality which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed, almost from infancy, to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fastidiousness, which disdain all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, in whatever soil, or in whatever age it has burst forth, and poured out its fulness. He understood too well the right, and dignity, and pride of creative imagination, to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman school. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius He felt that poetry was a universal presence, Great minds were every where his kindred. He felt the enchantment of oriental fiction, surrendered himself to the strange creations of "Araby the blest," and delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was imbodied. Accordingly, his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness contributions from all regions under heaven.

Nor was it only in the department of imagination, that his acquisitions were vast. He travelled over the whole field of knowledge, as far as it had then been explored. His various philological attainments were used to put him in possession of the wisdom stored in all countries where the intellect had been cultivated. The natural philosophy, metaphys ics, ethics, history, theology and political science of his own and former times were familiar to him. Never was there a more unconfined mind; and we would cite Milton as a practical example of the benefits of that universal culture of intellect, which forms one distinction of our times, but which some dread as unfriendly to original thought. Let such remember, that mind is in its own nature diffusive. Its object is the universe, which is strictly one, or bound together by infinite connexions and correspondencies; and, accordingly, its natural progress is from one to another field of thought; and, wherever original power or creative genius exists, the mind, far from being distracted or oppressed by the variety of its acquisitions, will see more and more bearings, and hidden and beautiful analogies in all the objects of knowledge, will see mutual light shed from truth to truth, and will compel, as with a kingly power, whatever it understands to yield some tribute of proof, or illustration, or splendour, to whatever topic it would unfold.

National Recollections the Foundation of national Character. EDWARD EVERETT.

AND how is the spirit of a free people to be formed, and animated, and cheered, but out of the store-house of its historic recollections? Are we to be eternally ringing the changes upon Marathon and Thermopyla; and going back to read in obscure texts of Greek and Latin of the exemplars of patriotic virtue? I thank God that we can find them nearer home, in our own country, on our own soil;— that strains of the noblest sentiment that ever swelled in the breast of man, are breathing to us out of every page of our country's history, in the native eloquence of our mother tongue;-that the colonial and provincial councils

of America exhibit to us models of the spirit and character, which gave Greece and Rome their name and their praise among the nations. Here we ought to go for our instruction; the lesson is plain, it is clear, it is applicable. When we go to ancient history, we are bewildered with the difference of manners and institutions. We are willing to pay our tribute of applause to the memory of Leonidas, who fell nobly for his country in the face of his foe. But when we trace him to his home, we are confounded at the reflection, that the same Spartan heroism, to which he sacrificed himself at Thermopyla, would have led him to tear his own child, if it had happened to be a sickly babe,-the very object for which all that is kind and good in man rises up to plead, from the bosom of its mother, and carry it out to be eaten by the wolves of Taygetus. We feel a glow of admiration at the heroism displayed at Marathon, by the ten thousand champions of invaded Greece; bu we cannot forget that the tenth part of the number were slaves, unchained from the work-shops and door-posts of their masters, to go and fight the battles of freedom. I do not mean that these examples are to destroy the interest with which we read the history of ancient times; they possibly increase that interest by the very contrasts they exhibit. But they do warn us, if we need the warning, to seek our great practical lessons of patriotism at home; out of the exploits and sacrifices of which our own country is the theatre; out of the characters of our own fathers. Them we know,-the high-souled, natural, unaffected, the citizen heroes. We know what happy firesides they left for the cheerless camp. We know with what pacific habits the dared the perils of the field. There is no mystery, no romance, no madness, under the name of chivalry, about them. It is all resolute, manly resistance for conscience' and liberty's sake, not merely of an overwhelming power, but of all the force of long-rooted habits and native love of order and peace.

Above all, their blood calls to us from the soil which we tread; it beats in our veins; it cries to us not merely in the thrilling words of one of the first victims in this cause,"My sons, scorn to be slaves !"-but it cries with a still more moving eloquence-" My sons, forget not your fa

thers!" Fast, oh! too fast, with all our efforts to prevent it, their precious memories are dying away. Notwithstanding our numerous written memorials, much of what is known of those eventful times dwells but in the recollections of a few revered survivors, and with them is rapidly perishing unrecorded and irretrievable. How many prudent counsels, conceived in perplexed times; how many heart-stirring words, uttered when liberty was treason, how many brave and heroic deeds, performed when the halter, not the laurel, was the promised meed of patriotic daring, are already lost and forgotten in the graves of their authors! How little do we,-although we have been permitted to hold converse with the venerable remnants of that day, how little do we know of their dark and anx.ous hours; of their secret meditations; of the hurried and perilous events of the momentous struggle! And while they are dropping around us like the leaves of autumn, while scarce a week passes that does not call away some member of the veteran ranks, already so sadly thinned, shall we make no effort to hand down the traditions of their day to our children; to pass the torch of liberty,-which we received in all the splendour of its first enkindling,bright and flaming, to those who stand next us on the line; so that, when we shall come to be gathered to the dust where our fathers are laid, we may say to our sons and our grandsons, "If we did not amass, we have rot squandered your inheritance of glory?"

Extract from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.-IRVING,

ON a fine autumnal morning, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on a lofty stool, from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohib ited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins; such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, flycages, and