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Inquisition; and the feudal system, with its whole train. of tyrannic satellites, has fled for ever.

10. Kings may learn from him, that their safest study, as well as their noblest, is the interest of the people: the people are taught by him, that there is no despotism so stupendous, against which they have not a resource; and, to those who would rise upon the ruins of both, he is a living lesson, that, if ambition can raise them from the lowest station, it can also prostrate them from the highest. PHILLIPS.

1.

LESSON LXII.

A Portrait of Lord Byron.

A man of rank, and of capacious soul;
Who riches had, and fame beyond desire:
An heir of flattery, to titles born,
And reputation, and luxurious life.
Yet not content with ancestorial name;
Or to be known, because his fathers were;
2. He on this height hereditary stood,

And gazing higher, purposed in his heart
To take another step. Above him seemed
Alone the mount of Song-the lofty seat
Of canonized bards; and thitherward,
By Nature taught, and inward melody,
In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye.

3. No cost was spared. What books he wished, he read:
What sage to hear, he heard: what scenes to see,
He saw.
And first in rambling school-boy days,
Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes,
And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks;
And maids, as dew-drops pure and fair, his soul
With grandeur filled, and melody, and love.
Then travel came, and took him where he wished.
4. He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp:
And mused alone on ancient mountain brows;
And mused on battle-fields, where valour fought
In other days; and mused on ruins gray

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With years: and drank from old and fabulous wells;
And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked;
And mused on famous tombs; and on the wave
Of ocean mused; and on the desert waste.

5.

6.

He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced. As some vast river of unfailing source,

Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed,
And opened new fountains in the human heart.
Where fancy halted, weary in her flight,

In other men, his fresh as morning rose,

And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home,
Where angels bashful looked.

Others, though great,
Beneath their argument seemed struggling; whiles
He from above descending, stooped to touch

The loftiest thought; and proudly stooped, as though
It scarce deserved his verse. With Nature's self
He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty.
7. Stood on the Alps, stood on the Appennines,
And with the thunder talked, as friend to friend;
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist the lightning's fiery wing,
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance seemed-
Then turned, and with the grasshopper, who sung
His evening song, beneath his feet, conversed.

8. Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters were; Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms,

His brothers, younger brothers, whom he scarce
As equals deemed. All passions of all men,
The wild and tame, the gentle and severe;
All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane;
All creeds; all seasons, Time, Eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was feared by man,
He tossed about, as tempest, withered leaves,
Then smiling looked upon the wreck he made.
9. With terror now he froze the cowering blood;
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness:
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud: gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet.
So Ocean from the plains, his waves had late

To desolation swept, retired in pride,
Exulting in the glory of his might,

And seemed to mock the ruin he had wrought.

!

POLLOX.

LESSON LXIII.

Eulogy on William Penn.

1. William Penn stands the first among the lawgivers, whose names and deeds are recorded in history. Shall we compare him with Lycurgus, Solon, Romulus, those founders of military commonwealths, who organized their citi zens in dreadful array against the rest of their species, taught them to consider their fellow-men as barbarians, and themselves as alone worthy to rule over the earth? What benefit did mankind derive from their boasted institutions?

2. Interrogate the shades of those who fell in the mighty contests between Athens and Lacedæmon, between Carthage and Rome, and between Rome and the rest of the universe. But see William Penn, with weaponless hand, sitting down peaceably with his followers in the midst of savage nations, whose only occupation was shedding the blood of their fellow-men, disarming them by his justice, and teaching them, for the first time, to view a stranger without distrust.

3. See them bury their tomahawks, in his presence, so deep that man shall never be able to find them again. See them, under the shade of the thick groves of Coaquannock, extend the bright chain of friendship, and solemnly promise to preserve it as long as the sun and moon shall endure. See him then, with his companions, establishing his commonwealth on the sole basis of religion, morality, and universal love, and adopting, as the fundamental maxim of his government, the rule handed down to us from heaven, Glory to God on high, and on earth peace and good will to men.

4. Here was a spectacle for the potentates of the earth to look upon, an example for them to imitate. But the potentates of the earth did not see, or, if they saw, they turned away their eyes from the sight; they did not hear,

or, if they heard, they shut their ears against the voice 'which called out to them from the wilderness.

The character of William Penn alone sheds a never-fading lustre on our history DU PONCEAU.

LESSON LXIV.

The Elder's Funeral.

1. How beautiful to the eye and to the heart rise up, in a pastoral region, the green, silent hills from the dissolving snow-wreaths that yet linger at their feet! A few warm, sunny days, and a few breezy and melting nights, have: seemed to create the sweet season of spring out of the winter's bleakest desolation.

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2. We can scarcely believe that such brightness of verdure could have been shrouded in the snow, blending itself, as it now does, so vividly with the deep blue of heaven. the revival of nature, our own souls feel restored. Happiness becomes milder, meeker, and richer in pensive thought; while sorrow catches a faint tinge of joy, and reposes itself on the quietness of earth's opening breast.

3. Then is youth rejoicing, manhood sedate, and old age resigned. The child shakes his golden curls in his glee; he of riper life hails the coming year with temperate exultation, and the eye, that has been touched with dimness, in the general spirit of delight, forgets or fears not the shadows of the grave.

4. On such a vernal day as this did we, who had visited the Elder on his death-bed, walk together to his house in the Hazel-glen, to accompany his body to the place of burial. On the night he died, it seemed to be the dead of winter. On the day he was buried, it seemed to be the birth of spring. The old pastor and I were alone for a while, as we pursued our path up the glen, by the banks of the little burn.

5. It had cleared itself off from the melted snow, and ran so pellucid a race, that every stone and pebble was visible in its yellow channel. The willows, the alders, and the birches, the fairest and the earliest of our native hill trees, seemed almost tinged with a verdant light, as if they were budding; and beneath them, here and there,

peeped out, as in the pleasure of new existence, the primrose, lonely, or in little families and flocks.

6. The bee had not yet ventured to leave his cell, yet the flowers reminded one of his murmur. A few insects were dancing in the air, and here and there some little moorland bird, touched at the heart with the warm, sunny change, was piping his love-sweet song among the braes.

7. It was just such a day as a grave, meditative man, like him we were about to inter, would have chosen to walk over his farm in religious contentment with his lot. That was the thought that entered the pastor's heart, as we paused to enjoy one brighter gleam of the sun in a little meadow-field of peculiar beauty.

8. "This is the last day of the week, and on that day often did the Elder walk through this little happy kingdom of his own, with some of his grandchildren beside and around him, and often his Bible in his hand. It is, you feel, a solitary place; all the vale is one seclusion; and often have its quiet bounds been a place of undisturbed meditation and prayer."

9. We now came in sight of the cottage, and beyond it the termination of the glen. There the high hills came sloping gently down; and a little waterfall, in the distance, gave animation to a scene of perfect repose. We were now joined by various small parties coming to the funeral through openings among the hills; all sedate, but none sad, and every greeting was that of kindness and peace.

10. The Elder had died full of years; and there was no need why any out of his own household should weep. A long life of piety had been beautifully closed; and, therefore, we were all going to commit the body to the earth, assured, as far as human beings may be so assured, that the soul was in heaven.

11. As the party increased on our approach to the house, there was even cheerfulness among us. We spoke of the early and bright promise of spring; of the sorrows and the joys of other families; of marriages and births; of the new school-master; of to-morrow's Sabbath.

12. There was no topic, of which, on any common occasion, it might have been fitting to speak, that did not now perhaps occupy, for a few moments, some one or other of the group, till we found ourselves ascending the green sward before the cottage, and stood before the bare branches M

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