ofound and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliss of nature; brings back the freshness of early feeling; vives the relish of simple pleasures; keeps unquenched the thusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being; rees youthful love; strengthens our interest in human nature vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings; reads our sympathies over all classes of society; knits us by w ties with universal being; and, through the brightness of prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. We are aware, that it is objected to poetry, that it gives ong views and excites false expectations of life, peoples e mind with shadows and illusions, and builds up imagina n on the ruins of wisdom. That there is a wisdom, ainst which poetry wars,—the wisdom of the senses, which kes physical comfort and gratification the supreme good, d wealth the chief interest of life,—we do not deny; nor do deem it the least service which poetry renders to mankind, at it redeems them from the thraldom of this earthborn udence. In But, passing over this topic, we would observe, that the mplaint against poetry, as abounding in illusion and decepn, is, in the main, groundless. In many poems there is ore of truth, than in many histories and philosophic theories. he fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest ities; and its flashes often open new regions of thought, d throw new light on the mysteries of our being. etry, when the letter is falsehood, the spirit is often proindest wisdom. And if truth thus dwells in the boldest tions of the poet, much more may it be expected in his deeations of life; for the present life, which is the first stage the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry; d it is the high office of the bard, to detect this divine ment among the grosser labors and pleasures of our earthly Eng. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise, tame and te. To the gifted eye, it abounds in the poetic. The ections which spread beyond ourselves, and stretch far into urity; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to m the soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innont and irrepressible joy of infancy: the bloom and buoy azzling hopes of youth, the throbbings of the t first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness arth; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and nd fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, and urity, and the tones and looks which only a rt can inspire ;-these are all poetical. It is not e poet paints a life which does not exist. He and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal ests and condenses its volatile fragrance; brings cattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined ent joys. And in this he does well; for it is that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subphysical gratifications, but admits, in measures be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights higher being. er of poetry to refine our views of life and hapore and more needed as society advances. It is ithstand the encroachments of heartless and arers, which make civilization so tame and uninIt is needed to counteract the tendency of physiI which being now sought, not, as formerly, for gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts, ew development of imagination, taste and poetry, men from sinking into an earthly, material, Epi LESSON CXLVII. stitutions favorable to intellectual Improvement.E. EVERETT. energy has been equally diffused by sterner level er marched in the van of a revolution-the nature Native character, nd the providence of God. nd quickness of mind, are not of the number of and accomplishments, that human institutions polize within a city's walls. In quiet times, they d perish in the obscurity, to which a false organizaciety consigns them. In dangerous, convulsed, and g times, they spring up in the fields, in the village hamand on the mountain tops, and teach the surprised favorof human law, that bright eyes, skilful hands, quick perions, firm purpose, and brave hearts, are not the excluappanage of courts. ur popular institutions are favorable to intellectual imement, because their foundation is in dear nature. They ot consign the greater part of the social frame to torpidind mortification. They send out a vital nerve to every aber of the community, by which its talent and power, it or small, are brought into living conjunction and strong pathy with the kindred intellect of the nation; and every ression on every part vibrates, with electric rapidity, ugh the whole. They encourage nature to pérfect her k; they make education, the soul's nutriment, cheap; y bring up remote and shrinking talent into the cheerful 1 of competition; in a thousand ways, they provide an auice for lips, which nature has touched with persuasion; y put a lyre into the hands of genius; they bestow on all deserve it, or seek it, the only patronage worth having, only patronage that ever struck out a spark of "celestial ‚”—the patronage of fair opportunity. This is a day of inproved education; new systems of ching are devised; modes of instruction, choice of studies, ptation of text-books, the whole machinery of means, e been brought in our day under severe revision. But e I to attempt to point out the most efficacious and comhensive improvement in education, the engine, by which greatest portion of mind could be brought and kept ler cultivation, the discipline which would reach farthest, deepest, and cause the word of instruction not to ead over the surface, like an artificial hue, carefully laid but to penetrate to the heart and soul of its objects,—it ald be popular institutions. Give the people an object in moting education, and the best methods will infallibly be gested by that instinctive ingenuity of our nature, which vides means for great and precious ends. Give the people object in promoting education, and the worn hand of lawill be opened to the last farthing, that its children may by means denied to itself. LESSON CXLVIII. After a Tempest.-BRYANT. ad been a day of wind and storm ;- he vast plain lay girt by mountains vast, rops glistened on the trees around, shadows on the tall grass were not stirred, a shower of diamonds, to the ground, aken by the flight of startled bird; Is were warbling round, and bees were heard flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung ssiped, as he hastened ocean-ward; ay oak, the squirrel, chiding, clung, g, from the ground the grasshopper upsprung. beneath the leaves, that kept them dry, any a glittering insect here and there, ed up and down the butterfly, eemed a living blossom of the air. cks came scattering from the thicket, where nt rain had pent them; in the way groups of damsels frolicsome and fair; er swung the scythe or turned the hay, the heavy swaths his children were at play. scene of peace; and, like a spell, And glassy river, and white waterfall, And happy living things that trod the bright And beauteous scene; while, far beyond them all, On many a lovely valley, out of sight, ́as poured from the blue heavens the same soft, golden light. I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene An emblem of the peace that yet shall be, Too long, at clash of arms amid her bowers, And pools of blood, the earth has stood aghast― The storm; and sweet the sunshine when 'tis past. LESSON CXLIX. The Rejected.-T. H. BAYLEY. or have me! Not love me! Oh, what have I said? re never was lover so strangely misled. jected! and just when I hoped to be blessed! u can't be in earnest ! It must be a jest. member-remember how often I've knelt, plicitly telling you all that I felt, d talked about poison in accents so wild, very like torture, you started—and smiled. |