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It seem'd the laurel chaste, and stubborn oak,
And all the gentle trees on earth that grew,
It seem'd the land, the sea, and heav'n above,
All breath'd out fancy sweet, and sigh'd out love.
Through all this music rare and strong consent

Of strange allurements, sweet 'bove mean and measure,
Severe, firm, constant, still the knights forth went,
Hard'ning their hearts 'gainst false enticing pleasure,
"Twixt leaf and leaf their sight before they sent,

And after crept themselves at ease and leisure,
Till they beheld the queen sit with their knight
Beside the lake, shaded with boughs from sight.

217.-THE VICTORIES OF LOVE.

HERMAN HOOKER.

[HERMAN HOOKER, a native of Rutland County, in the State of Vermont, was ordained in the Episcopal Church of America; but has retired from the discharge of his pastoral duties through continued ill-health. He has written two works- The Philosophy of Unbelief' and 'The Uses of Adversity,' from the latter of which the following is an extract.]

Love is represented as the fulfilling of the law--a creature's perfection. All other graces, all divine dispensations contribute to this, and are lost in it as in a heaven. It expels the dross of our nature; it overcomes sorrow; it is the full joy

of our Lord.

Let us contemplate its capacities and resources as applied to the experience of life. Property and business may fail, and still the eye of hope may fix itself on other objects, and confidence may strengthen itself in other schemes; but when death enters into our family, and loved ones are missing from our sight, though God may have made their bed in sickness, and established their hope in death, nothing can then relieve us but trust and love. Philosophy and pleasure do but intrude upon and aggravate our grief. But love, the light of God, may chase away the gloom of this hour, and start up in the soul trusts, which give the victory over ourselves. The harp of the spirit, though its cords be torn, never yields such sweet notes, such swelling harmony, as when the world can draw no music from it. How often do we see strokes fall on the heart, which it would be but mockery for man to attempt to relieve, and which yet served to unlock the treasures of that heart, and reveal a sweetness to it which it had not known before. See that mother. She loves and mourns as none but a mother can. Behold the greatness and the sweetness of her grief! Her child is dead, and she says, "It is well with me, and it is well with my child. It is well because God has taken him; He has said, 'Of such is the kingdom of Heaven,'-that he doth not willingly afflict; and I know it must be well." Can there be any greatness greater than this? Did ever any prince at the head of invincible armies win a victory like it? Her heart is in heaviness and her home is desolated; but she has been to her heavenly Father, and unbosomed her griefs before him. There is peace on her saddened countenance, peace in her gentle words; the peace of God has come down, and is filling her trusting soul. How sweet and soft is her sorrow, and how it softens and awes without agitating others!

It is related that on a small, and rocky, and almost inaccessible island, is the residence of a poor widow. The passage of the place is exceedingly dangerous to vessels, and her cottage is called the "Lighthouse," from the fact that she uniformly keeps a lamp burning in her little window at night. Early and late she may be scen trimming her lamp with oil, lest some misguided bark may perish through her neglect. For this she asks no reward. But her kindness stops not here. When

any vessel is wrecked, she rests not till the chilled mariners come ashore to share her little board, and be warmed by her glowing fire. This poor woman in her younger, perhaps not happier days, though happy they must have been, for sorrow cannot lodge in such a heart, witnessed her husband struggling with the waves and swallowed up by the remorseless billows

"In sight of home and friends who thronged to save."

This directed her benevolence towards those who brave the dangers of the deep; this prompted her present devoted and solitary life, in which her only, her sufficient enjoyment is in doing good *. Sweet and blessed fruit of bereavement! What beauty is here! a loveliness I would little speak of, but more revere! a flower crushed indeed, yet sending forth its fragrance to all around! Truly, as the sun seems greatest in his lowest estate, so did sorrow enlarge her heart, and make her appear the more noble the lower it brought her down. We cannot think she was unhappy, though there was a remembered grief in her heart. A grieved heart may be a richly stored one. Where charity abounds, misery cannot.

"Such are the tender woes of love,
Fost'ring the heart they bend."

A pious lady who had lost her husband was for a time inconsolable. She could not think, scarcely could she speak, of any thing but him. Nothing seemed to take her attention but the three promising children he had left her, singing to her his presence, his look, his love. But soon these were all taken ill, and died within a few days of each other; and now the childless mother was calmed even by the greatness of the stroke. The hand of God was thus made visible to her. She could see nothing but his work in the dispensation. Thus was the passion of her grief allayed. Her disposition to speak of her loss, her solemn repose, was the admiration of all beholders. The Lord hath not slain her; he had slain what to some mothers is more than life-that in which the sweets of life were treasured up-that which she would give life to redeem; and yet could she say, "I will trust in Him." As the lead that goes quickly down to the ocean's depth, ruffles its surface less than lighter things, so the blow which was strongest did not so much disturb her calm of mind, but drove her to its proper trust.

We had a friend loved and lovely. He had genius and learning. He had all qualities, great and small, blending in a most attractive whole-a character as much to be loved as admired, as truly gentle as it was great, and so combining opposite excellencies that each was beautified by the other. Between him and her who survives him there was a reciprocity of taste and sympathy-a living in each other, so that her thoughts seemed but the pictures of his-her mind but a glass that showed the very beauty that looked into it, or rather became itself that beauty-dying in his dying she did not all die. Her love, the heart's animation, lifted her up; her sense of loss was merged for a while in her love and confidence of his good estate. In strong and trusting thoughts of him as a happy spirit, and of God as his and her portion, she rested as in a cloud. A falling from this elevation, was truly a coming to one's self from God-a leaving of heaven for earth. Let her tell the rest in words as beautiful as they are true to nature: "My desolating loss I realise more and more. For many weeks his peaceful and triumphant departure left such an elevating influence on my mind, that I could only think of him as a pure and happy spirit. But now my feelings have become more selfish, and I long for the period to arrive, when I may lie down by his side and be reunited in a nobler and more enduring union than even that which was ours here."

This anecdote has supplied Miss Martineau with the most interesting character of her little tale, 'The Billow and the Rock!'-Ed.

Thus does the mind, when it ceases to look upward, fall from its elevation. Thus is the low note of sadness heard running through all the music of life, when ourselves are the instruments we play upon. The sorrow that deepens not love, and runs not off with it, must ever flood the spirit and bear it down. Our best and sweetest life, that which we live in the good of others, is richly stocked with charities. The life which we live in ourselves, that which depends on our stores, is master only of chaff and smoke, when they are taken away, and destitute of that last relieving accommodation, a resigned spirit. The young man whom Jesus told to sell all his goods, and give to the poor, and he should have treasure in heaven, should be truly enriched-" was sad at that saying." He understood not the riches of love, which never feels itself so wealthy as when it has expended all in obedience to the commands it honours; never so well furnished against want and sorrow, as when best assured of the approbation of its object. In that we are creatures, we see how poor we must be, having nothing laid up in the Creator. Selfishness is poverty; it is the most utter destitution of a human being. It can bring nothing to his relief; it adds soreness to his sorrows; it sharpens his pains; it aggravates all the losses he is liable to endure, and when goaded to extremes, often turns destroyer and strikes its last blows on himself. It gives us nothing to rest in or fly to in trouble; it turns our affections on ourselves, self on self, as the sap of a tree descending out of season from its heavenward branches, and making not only its life useless, but its growth downward.

If there is any thing about us which good hearts will reverence, it is our grief on the loss of those we love. It is a condition in which we seem to be smitten by a Divine hand, and thus made sacred. It is a grief, too, which greatly enriches the heart, when rightly borne. There may be no rebellion of the will, the sweetest sentiments towards God and our fellow-beings may be deepened, and still the desolation caused in the treasured sympathies and hopes of the heart gives a new colour to the entire scene of life. The dear affections which grew out of the consanguinities and connections of life, next to those we owe to God, are the most sacred of our being; and if the hopes and revelations of a future state did not come to our aid, our grief would be immoderate and inconsolable, when these relations are broken by death.

But we are not left to sorrow in darkness. Death is as the fore-shadowing of life. We die that we may die no more. So short too is our life here, a mortal life at best, and so endless is the life on which we enter at death, an immortal life, that the consideration may well moderate our sorrow at parting. All who live must be separated by the great appointment, and if the change is their gain, we poorly commend our love to them, more poorly our love to Christ, who came to redeem them and us, for the end of taking us to his rest, if we refuse to be comforted. Yes, it is selfish to dwell on our griefs, as though some strange thing had happened to us, as though they were too important to be relieved, or it were a virtue to sink under them. I would revere all grief of this kind; yet I would say there is such a thing as a will of cherishing it, which makes it rather killing than improving in its effect. This may be done under a conceit of duty or gratitude to the dead. It may be done as a sacrifice to what we deem is expected of us, or as a thing becoming in the eyes of others. But that bereavement seems rather sanctified which saddens not the heart over much, and softens without withering it; which refuses no comfort or improvement we can profitably receive, and imposes no restraints on the Ang hopes of the heart; which, in short, gives way and is lost in an overgrowth kind and grateful affections.

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218.-PROGRESS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.

JEFFREY.

By far the most considerable change which has taken place in the world of letters, in our days, is that by which the wits of Queen Anne's time have been gradually brought down from the supremacy which they had enjoyed, without competition, for the best part of a century. When we were at our studies, some twenty-five years ago, we can perfectly remember that every young man was set to read Pope, Swift, and Addison, as regularly as Virgil, Cicero, and Horace. All who had any tincture of letters were familiar with their writings and their history; allusions to them abounded in all popular discourses and all ambitious conversation; and they and their contemporaries were universally acknowledged as our great models of excellence, and placed without challenge at the head of our national literature. New books, even when allowed to have merit, were never thought of as fit to be placed in the same class, but were generally read and forgotten, and passed away like the transitory meteors of a lower sky; while they remained in their brightness, and were supposed to shine with a fixed and unalterable glory.

All this, however, we take it, is now pretty well altered; and in so far as persons of our antiquity can judge of the training and habits of the rising generation, those celebrated writers no longer form the manual of our studious youth, or enter necessarily into the institution of a liberal education. Their names, indeed, are still familiar to our ears; but their writings no longer solicit our habitual notice, and their subjects begin already to fade from our recollection. Their high privileges and proud distinctions, at any rate, have evidently passed into other hands. It is no longer to them that the ambitious look up with envy, or the humble with admiration; nor is it in their pages that the pretenders to wit and eloquence now search for allusions that are sure to captivate, and illustrations that cannot be mistaken. In this decay of their reputation they have few advocates and no imitators : and, from a comparison of many observations, it seems to be clearly ascertained, that they are declined considerably from "the high meridian of their glory," and may fairly be apprehended to be "hastening to their setting." Neither is it time alone that has wrought this obscuration; for the fame of Shakspere still shines in undecaying brightness: and that of Bacon has been steadily advancing and gathering new honours during the whole period which has witnessed the rise and decline of his less vigorous successors.

There are but two possible solutions for phenomena of this sort. Our taste has either degenerated-or its old models have been fairly surpassed; and we have ceased to admire the writers of the last century, only because they are too good for us-or because they are not good enough. Now, we confess, we are not believers in the absolute and permanent corruption of national taste; on the contrary, we think that it is, of all faculties, that which is most sure to advance and improve with time and experience; and that, with the exception of those great physical or political disasters which have given a check to civilisation itself, there has always been a sensible progress in this particular; and that the general taste of every successive generation is better than that of its predecessors. There are little capri3RD QUARTER.

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cious fluctuations no doubt, and fits of foolish admiration or fastidiousness, which cannot be so easily accounted for: but the great movements are all progressive : and though the progress consists at one time in withholding toleration from gross faults, and at another in giving their high prerogative to great beauties, this alteration has no tendency to obstruct the general advance; but, on the contrary, is the best and the safest course in which it can be conducted.

We are of opinion, then, that the writers who adorned the beginning of the last century have been eclipsed by those of our own time; and that they have no chance of ever regaining the supremacy in which they have thus been supplanted. There is not, however, in our judgment, any thing very stupendous in this triumph of our contemporaries; and the greater wonder with us is, that it was so long delayed, and left for them to achieve. For the truth is, that the writers of the former age had not a great deal more than their judgment and industry to stand on; and were always much more remarkable for the fewness of their faults than the greatness of their beauties. Their laurels were won much more by good conduct and discipline, than by enterprising boldness or native force ;-nor can it be regarded as any very great merit in those who had so little of that inspiration of genius, to have steered clear of the dangers to which that inspiration is liable. Speaking generally of that generation of authors, it may be said that, as poets, they had no force or greatness of fancy-no pathos, and no enthusiasm ;—and, as philosophers, no comprehensiveness, depth, or originality. They are sagacious, no doubt, neat, clear, and reasonable, but for the most part cold, timid, and superficial. They never meddle with the great scenes of nature or the great passions of man; but content themselves with just and sarcastic representations of city life, and of the paltry passions and meaner vices that are bred in that lower element. Their chief care is to avoid being ridiculous in the eyes of the witty, and, above all, to eschew the ridicule of excessive sensibility or enthusiasm-to be at once witty and rational themselves, with as good a grace as possible; but to give their countenance to no wisdom, no fancy, and no morality, which passes the standards current in good company. Their inspiration, accordingly, is nothing more than a sprightly sort of good sense; and they have scarcely any invention but what is subservient to the purposes of derision and satire. Little gleams of pleasantry and sparkles of wit glitter through their compositions; but no glow of feeling-no blaze of imagination--no flashes of genius ever irradiate their substance. They never pass beyond "the visible diurnal sphere," or deal in any thing that can either lift us above our vulgar nature, or ennoble its reality. With these accomplishments, they may pass well enough for sensible and polite writers,-but scarcely for men of genius; and it is certainly far more surprising, that persons of this description should have maintained themselves, for near a century, at the head of the literature of a country that had previously produced a Shakspere, a Spenser, a Bacon, and a Taylor, than that, towards the end of that long period, doubts should have arisen as to the legitimacy of a title by which they laid claim to that high station. Both parts of the phenomenon, however, we dare say, had causes which better expounders might explain to the satisfaction of all the world. We see them but imperfectly, and have room only for an imperfect sketch of what we see.

Our first literature consisted of saintly legends and romances of chivalry, though Chaucer gave it a more national and popular character, by his original descriptions of external nature, and the familiarity and gaiety of his social humour. In the time of Elizabeth, it received a copious infusion of classical images and ideas; but it was still intrinsically romantic, serious, and even somewhat lofty and enthusiastic, Authors were then so few in number, that they were looked upon with a sort of veneration, and considered as a kind of inspired persons; at least they were not

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