Ursini; because, forsooth, ch dishonor? men, and wash not entleness, of calmest hope, quiet joy; there was the look pon his face, which limners give ed disciple. How I loved s boy! Younger by fifteen years, ve sons? Look, in the next fierce brawl, uled the world! Yet we are Romans. t elder day, to be a Roman than a king! And once, again,walls, that echoed to the tread rutus! once again, I swear, city shall be free; her sons vith princes. (Entering.) What be ye, n stern and watchful mystery, eath the vail of night, and start tranger's foot? >mans. nd wherefore 7 countrymen ? r freedom. Ang. Surely hou art Cola di Rienzi? Rie. Ay, the voice he traitor voice. Ang I know thee by the words. ho, save thyself, in this bad age, when man es prostrate like yon temple, dared conjoin he sounds of Rome and freedom? Rie. I shall teach he world to blend those words, as in the days g tear-drops on thy cheeks, and thy young hand Ang. Hear me, Rienzi. ven now my spirit leaps up at the thought fhose brave storied days-a treasury matchless visions, bright and glorified, aling the dim lights of this darkling world ith the golden blaze of heaven, but past and gone, clouds of yesterday, as last night's dream. Rie. A dream! Dost see yon phalanx, still and stern? hundred leaders, each with such a band, › armed, so resolute, so fixed in will, ait with suppressed impatience till they hear he great bell of the capitol, to spring t once on their proud foes. Join them. > other change, within our peaceful streets, reason with them-warn them. their answer 1, the gibbet, or the axe rt of power. Why, I have reasoned; n the ear; and, low and hoarse, LESSON CXLVI. Dignity and Excellence of the Poctical Art.-CHANNING. POETRY seems to us the divinest of all arts; for it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment, which is deepest and sublimest in human nature; we mean, of that thirst or aspiration, to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something purer and lovelier, something more powerful, lofty and thrilling, than ordinary and real life affords. No doctrine is more common among Christians than that of man's immortality; but it is not so generally understood, that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the future plant in the seed. As a necessary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the bounds of its earthly prisonhouse, and seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen and ideal being. This view of our nature, which has never been fully developed, and which goes farther towards explaining the contradictions of human life than all others, carries us to the very foundation and sources of poetry. He who cannot interpret, by his own consciousness, what we now have said, wants the true key to works of genius. He has not penetrated those sacred recesses of the soul, where poetry is born and nourished, and inhales immortal vigor, and wings herself For her heaven-ward flight. In an intellectual nature, framed For progress and for higher modes of being, there must be creative energies, powers of original and ever-growing thought; and poetry is the form in which these energies are chiefly manifested. It is the glorious prerogative of this art, that it "makes all hings new" for the gratification of a divine insu IL ndeed finds its elements in what it actually sees and experiences, in the worlds of matter and mind; but it combines and blends these into new forms, and according to new affinties; breaks down, if we may so say, the distinctions and ure; imparts to material objects life, and sentiotion, and invests the mind with the powers s of the outward creation; describes the surverse in the colors which the passions throw epicts the soul in those modes of repose or agiderness or sublime emotion, which manifest its ore powerful and joyful existence. To a man nd prosaic character, the mind may seem lawworkings; but it observes higher laws than it -the laws of the immortal intellect; it is trying g its best faculties; and in the objects which it in the emotions which it awakens, anticipates of progressive power, splendor, beauty and haphich it was created. lingly believe that poetry, far from injuring sociof the great instruments of its refinement and It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness 7 with what is pure and noble. In its legitimate efforts, it has the same tendency and aim witr ; that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poemade the instrument of vice, the pander of baa ut when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and much of its power; and even when poetry is encentiousness or misanthropy, she cannot wholly rue vocation. Strains of pure feeling, touches of images of innocent happiness, sympathies with tue, bursts of scorn or indignation at the hollowworld, passages true to our moral nature, often n immoral work, and show us how hard it is for rit to divorce itself wholly from what is good. as a natural alliance with our best affections. It the beauty and sublimity of the outward creation soul. It indeed portrays, with terrible energy, es of the passions; but they are passions which ghty nature, which are full of power, which comand excite a deep, though shuddering sympathy. endency and purpose is, to carry the mind beyond the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life; to a purer element; and to breathe into it more |