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2. It was not by vile loitering in ease

That Greece obtained the brighter palm of art, That soft yet ardent Ath'ens learnt to please,

To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart,
In all supreme! complete in every part!
It was not thence majestic Rome arose,

And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart!
For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows;
Renown is not the child of indolent repose.
3. Had unambitious mortals minded naught

But in loose joy their time to wear away,-
Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought,
Pleased on her pillow their dull heads to lay,-
Rude Nature's state had been our state to-day :
No cities e'er their towery fronts had raised,
No arts had made us opulent and gay;

With brother-brutes the human race had grazed;
None e'er had soared to fame, none honored been, none praised.
4. But should your hearts to fame unfeeling be,
If right I read, you pleasure all require :
Then see how best may be obtained this fee,
How best enjoyed this, nature's wide desire.
Toil and be glad! let In'dustry inspire
Into your quickened limbs her buoyant breath!
Who does not act is dead ;-absorpt entire
In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath :
O leaden-hearted men, to be in love with death!
5. Ah! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven,

When drooping health and spirits go amiss?
How tasteless then whatever can be given!
Health is the vital principle of bliss,

And exercise of health. In proof of this,
Behold the wretch who slugs his life away,

Soon swallowed in disease's sad abyss,

While he whom toil has braced, or manly play,

Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day.

6. O, who can speak the vigorous joy of health,

Unclogged the body, unobscured the mind?
The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth,

The temperate evening falls serene and kind.
In health the wiser brutes true gladness find.
See! how the younglings frisk along the meads,

As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind;
Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds;
Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasaunce breeds?
7. There are, I see, who listen to my lay,

Who wretched sigh for virtue, yet despair.

66 All may

be done," methinks I hear them say,
"Even death despised by generous actions fair,-
All, but for those who to these bowers repair!
Their every power dissolved in luxury,

To quit of torpid sluggishnèss the lair,

And from the powerful arms of slōth get free— 'Tis rising from the dead :-Alas!-it can not be!" 8. Would you, then, learn to dissipate the band

Of these huge threatening difficulties dire,
That in the weak man's way like lions stand,
His soul appall, and damp his rising fire?
Resolve-resolve! and to be men aspire.
Exert that noblèst privilege,-alone

Here to mankind indulged ;-control desire :
Let godlike Reason, from her sovereign throne,
Speak the commanding word, I WILL!—and it is done.

THE

IV.

53. STUDY.

JAMES THOMSON.

THE favorite idea of a genius among us, is of one who never studies, or who studies, nobody can tell when-at midnight, or at odd times and intervals-and now and then strikes out, at a heat, as the phrase is, some wonderful production. This is a character that has figured largely in the history of our literature, in the persons of our Fieldings, our Savages,' and our Steeles

1 Richard Savage, a poet of considerable merit, born 1698, in London, died 1743. He was intimate with Johnson, who wrote an admirable Life of him.

Richard Steele, the principal author of the "Tattler," the "Spectator," the "Guardian," and other periodical papers, an Irishman by birth, born in 1671, and died in 1729.

210

"loose fellows about town," or loungers in the country, who slept in ale-houses and wrote in bar-rooms, who took up the pen as a magician's' wand to supply their wants, and when the pressure of necessity was relieved, resorted again to their carousals.

2. Your real genius is an idle, irregular, vagabond sort of personage, who muses in the fields or dreams by the fireside; whose strong impulses-that is the cant of it-must needs hurry him into wild irregularities or foolish eccentricity; who abhors order, and can bear no restraint, and eschews all labor: such a one, for instance, as Newton or Milton! What! they must have been irregular, else they were no geniuses!

3. "The young man," it is often said, "has genius enough, if he would only study." Now the truth is, as I shall take the liberty to state it, that genius will study, it is that in the mind which does study; that is the věry nature of it. I care not to say that it will always use books. All study is not reading, any more than all reading is study. Study, says Cicero, is the voluntary and vigorous application of the mind to any subject.

4. Such study, such intense mental action, and nothing else, is genius. And so far as there is any native predisposition about this enviable character of mind, it is a predisposition to that action. This is the only test of the original bias; and he who does not come to that point, though he may have shrewdness, and readiness, and parts, never had a genius.

5. No need to waste regrets upon him, as that he never could be induced to give his attention or study to any thing; he never had that which he is supposed to have lost. For attention it is -though other qualities belong to this transcendent' power— attention it is, that is the very soul of genius: not the fixed eye, not the poring over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an action of the mind which is steadily concentrated upon one ide'a or one series of ideas,-which collects in one point the rays of the soul till they search, penetrate, and fire the whōle train of its thoughts.

'Magician, (ma jish′an), one who is skilled in the art and science of putting into action the power of spirits or the secret operation of natural causes.

of Rome, a distinguished orator, writer, rhetorician, and philosopher, born at Arpinum in B. c. 106, beheaded B. C. 43.

3 Trans cend' ent, surpassing;

* Marcus Tullius Cicero, Consul very excellent.

6. And while the fire burns within, the outward man may indeed be cold, indifferent, and negligent,-absent in appearance; he may be an idler, or a wanderer, apparently without aim or intent; but still the fire burns within. And what though "it bursts forth" at length, as has been said, "like volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force?" It only shows the intenser action of the elements beneath. What though it breaks like lightning from the cloud? The electric fire had been collecting in the firmament through many a silent, calm, and clear day. 7. What though the might of genius appears in one decisive blow, struck in some moment of high debate, or at the crisis of a nation's peril? That mighty energy, though it may have heaved in the breast of a Demosthenes,' was once a feeble infant's thought. A mother's eye watched over its dawning. A father's care guarded its early growth. It soon trod with youthful steps the halls of learning, and found other fathers to wake and to watch for it,-even as it finds them here.

8. It went on; but silence was upon its path, and the deep strugglings of the inward soul marked its progress, and the cherishing powers of nature silently ministered to it. The elements around breathed upon it and "touched it to finer issues." The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and ripened its expanding faculties. The slow revolutions of years slowly added to its collected treasures and energies; till in its hour of glory, it stood forth embodied in the form of living, commanding, irresistible eloquence!

9. The world wonders at the manifestation, and says, "Strange, strange, that it should come thus unsought, unpremeditated, unprepared!" But the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it, than there is in the towering of the preeminent forest-tree, or in the flowing of the mighty and irresistible river, or in the wealth and the waving of the boundless harvest.

DEWEY.

ORVILLE DEWEY, D.D., was born in Sheffield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, March 28th, 1794. His father was a farmer, occupying a highly respectable position as a citizen. He entered Williams College, in his native county, at the age of seventeen, where he gained a high position. He was thorough in all his studies. Rhetoric he cultivated with uncommon perseverance. He was critical and severe upon his own literary productions, revising and pruning with

1 De mos' the nes, the greatest of Greek orators, was born at Athens, B. c. 382, and died B. C. about 322.

His orations present to us the models which approach the nearest to perfection of all human productions.

a fidelity which gained him preeminence in his class, as already attaining a style of classic strength and purity. He was graduated in 1814, with the highest honors of the institution, having received the appointment of Valedictorian. He pursued his professional studies at Andover Theological Seminary. In 1823 he received and accepted a call to become pastor of a Unitarian Church in New Bedford, where he remained ten years. During this period he lectured frequently, and wrote for the press. He first visited Europe for the improvement of his health in June, 1833, where he spent a year. After his return, he published some results of his travels in a volume entitled, "The Old World and the New." This book contains some of the best criticisms on painting, on music, on sculpture, on men, things, and places; and more than all, views of society, of government, of the tendency of monarchical institutions, and of the condition of the European people, which are sound, comprehensive, and deeply interesting. On his return from Europe he was settled over "The Second Congregational Unitarian Society" of New York. In 1842 he again went abroad for his health, taking his family with him. He passed two years in France, Italy, Switzerland, and England. In 1848, his health again failing, he dissolved his connection with his church. Since that time he has occasionally preached and lectured in nearly all the large cities of the Union. All, except his late writings, are bound in one volume, published at London, in 1844. His productions since that period are published in New York, in three volumes, except his latest, "The Problem of Human Destiny," which appeared in 1864. Dr. Dewey has great depth of thought. His imagination is rich, but not superfluous; ready, but not obtrusive. His style is artistic and scholarly. His periods are perfectly complete and rounded, yet filled by the thought; the variety is great, yet a symmetry prevails; and in general we find that harmony between the thoughts and their form which should always obtain.

B

SECTION X.

I.

54. LETTERS.

LESSED be letters!-they are the monitors, they are also the comforters, and they are the only true heart-talkers. Your speech, and their speeches, are conventional; they are molded by circumstances; they are suggested by the observation, remark, and influence of the parties to whom the speaking is addressed, or by whom it may be overheard. Your truëst thought is modified half through its utterance by a look, a sign, a smile, or a sneer. It is not individual: it is not in'tegral: it is social and mixed,-half of you, and half of others. It bends, it sways, it multiplies, it retires, and it advances, as the talk of others presses, relaxes, or quickens.

2. But it is not so with Letters :-there you are, with only

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