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6. Upon the whole, there was in this man | something that would create, subvert, | or reform; | an understanding, | a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, | or to break the bonds of slavery asunder; | something to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; | something that could establish, | or overwhelm empire, | and strike a blow in the world, ❘ that should resound through the universe.

LESSON III.

ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.-PROCTOR.
[Sublimity and grandeur.-Rule 6, p. 179.]

1. O thou vast Ocean!-ever-sounding sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!

Thou thing, that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing, till its strength be gone,
Thy voice is like the thunder; and thy sleep
Is like a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west

At once; and on thy heavily laden breast,
Fleets come and go, and shapes, that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and met in strife.

2. The earth hath naught of this; nor chance nor change Ruffles its surface.

Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow;

But in their stated round the seasons come,

And

pass like visions to their viewless home,

And come again, and vanish;

the young spring

Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming,

And winter always winds his sullen horn,
And the wild autumn, with a look forlorn,
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies.

3. Thou only, terrible Ocean, hast a power,

A will, a voice; and in thy wrathful hour,
When thou dost lift thine anger to the clouds,
A fearful and magnificent beauty shrouds

Thy broad, green forehead. If the waves be driven
Backward and forward by the shifting wind,

How quickly dost thou thy great strength unbind,
And stretch thine arms, and war at once with heaven!
Oh! wonderful thou art, great element!

And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent,

And lovely in reposc; thy summer form

Is beautiful; and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,
I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,

Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,

And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach,"Eternity, Eternity, and power."

LESSON IV.

THE ALPS."-CLARK.

[An illustration of sublimity, continued.]

1. Proud monuments of God! sublime ye stand | Among the wonders of his mighty hand,

With summits soaring in the upper sky,

Where the broad day looks down with burning eye;

Alps, mountains in Switzerland.

2.

Where gorgeous
clouds in solemn pomp repose,
Flinging rich shadows on eternal snows.
Piles of triumphant dust, ye stand alone,
And hold in kingly state, a peerless throne.

Like olden conquerors, on high ye rear
The regal ensign and the glittering spear;
Round icy spires, the mists, in wreaths unrolled,
Float ever near, in purple, or in gold;
And voiceless torrents, sternly rolling there,
Fill with wild music, the unpillared air:

What garden, or what hall on earth beneath,

Thrills to such tones, as o'er the mountains breathe?

3. There, through long ages past, those summits shone, Where morning radiance on their state was thrown; There, when the summer-day's career was done,

4.

Played the last glory of the sinking sun;
There, sprinkling luster o'er the cataract's shade,
The chastened moon, her glittering rainbow made;
And, blent with pictured stars, her luster lay,
Where to still vales, the free streams leaped away.

Where are the thronging hosts of other days,
Whose banners floated o'er the Alpine ways; a
Who, through their high defiles, to battle wound,
Where deadly ordnance stirred the heights around?
Gone, like the dream, that melts at early morn,
When the lark's anthem through the sky is borne;
Gone, like the wrecks, that sink in ocean's spray,
And chill oblivion) murmurs, "Where are they?"
5. Yet, "Alps on Alps" still rise; the lofty home.
Of storms, and eagles, where their pinions roam;

• Alpine ways, passes through or among the Alps.

Still, round their peaks, the magic colors lie,

Of morn, and eve, imprinted on the sky;

And still, while kings and thrones, shall fade, and fall,
And empty crowns lie dim upon the pall;

Still, shall their glaciers flash, their torrents roar,
Till kingdoms fail, and nations rise no more.

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1. The importance of classical learning to professional education, is so obvious, that the surprise is, that it could ever have become matter of disputation. I speak not of its power in refining the taste, in disciplining the judgment, in invigorating the understanding, or in warming the heart with elevated sentiments; but of its power of direct, positive, necessary instruction.

2. There is not a single nation from the north to the south of Europe, from the bleak shores of the Baltic to the bright plains of immortal Italy, whose literature is not embedded in the very elements of classical learning. The literature of England is, in an emphatic sense, the production of her scholars; of men who have cultivated letters in her universities, and colleges, and grammar-schools; of men who thought any life too short, chiefly because it left some relic of antiquity unmastered, and any other fame too humble, because it faded in the presence of Roman and Grecian genius.

3. He, who studies English literature without the lights of classical learning, loses half the charms of its sentiments and

• Glaciers, immense masses of ice, formed on the sides of the Alps, or other high mountains.

style, of its force and feelings, of its delicate touches, of its delightful allusions, of its illustrative associations. Who, that reads the poetry of Gray,a does not feel that it is the refinement of classical taste which gives such inexpressible vividness and transparency to his diction? Who, that reads the concentrated sense and melodious versification of Dryden b and Pope,c does not perceive in them the disciples of the old school, whose genius was inflamed by the heroic verse, the terse satire, and the playful wit of antiquity? Who that meditates over the strains of Milton, does not feel that he drank deep at

"Siloa's brook, that flowed

Fast by the oracle of God,-"

that the fires of his magnificent mind were lighted by coals from ancient altars?

4. It is no exaggeration to declare, that he who proposes to abolish classical studies, proposes to render, in a great measure, inert and unedifying, the mass of English literature for three centuries; to rob us of the glory of the past, and much of the instruction of future ages; to blind us to excellencies which few may hope to equal and none to surpass; to annihilate associations which are interwoven with our best sentiments, and give to distant times and countries a presence and reality, as if they were in fact his own.

LESSON VI.

EULOGIUM ON THE SOUTH.-HAYne.

[See Rule 3, p. 168.]

1. If there be one state in the Union, Mr. President, (and I say it not in a boastful spirit,) that may challenge comparison

Gray, (Thomas,) was born in London in 1716, and died in 1771. He wrote some beautiful poems. b Dryden, (John,) an illustrious English poet, died in 1700. •Pope, (Alexander,) a celebrated English poet, born in 1688, and died in 1744.

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