grossing trade, and hazardous speculation. But it is felt abroad in the land, where no deep risks or keen rivalships agitate the people, and no evening assemblies, no theatres nor shows invite them. The long winter evenings pass wearily and heavily in many a habitation. This is a people, then, one might think, ripe for the great modern project of improvement, ripe for Lyceums and library societies; too intelligent to sit down stupidly and think of nothing, and as yet too little supplied with objects. And if the more active classes, in our cities and villages, less need such resorts as we propose, on one account, they need them more on anothFor it were well, if it were possible, to calm down these agitating excitements of trade. It were well, if by any possibility it could be done, to make people feel that there is something valuable in this world besides money. It would be a truly republican project, too, to bring all classes of our citizens together, in the equally ennobling pursuit of knowledge.

er.

Do our people, then, crave entertainment? Nature stands before them as a mighty storehouse of materials. The showman, the manufacturer of fire-works, has nothing like this. It would furnish to the people one grand and perpetual fête. It would open scenes of enchantment, and miracles of art, beyond all that theatre, or royal palace, or the fabled halls of oriental magicians could offer. The entertainment, too, would be comparatively cheap. Less than what it now costs to dress up artificial scenery, and yet, if the theatre could be the noble school that it ought to be, we should not object to it ;-less than what is given to pay for the feats of jugglers, mountebanks, and dancers; and less, far less than what it costs to distil the wholesome fruits of nature into poison, would be sufficient to unfold the secrets and wonders of this mighty treasure-house.

In the light of this contrast indeed, were it fully displayed, the contemplation of human folly would be perfectly overwhelming. If all that has been done, and expended, and lost, by the abuse of nature to purposes of gluttony, intemperance, luxury, vanity, and vitiating entertainment, had been devoted to the knowledge and cultivation of nature; and then, if all the boundless sum of treasure, toil, and life, that has been sacrificed in bloody and barbarous wars, had been converted to the same rational and beneficent use, it is impossible to describe or imagine the improved and happy condition in

which the world would now be found. If all human power, wealth, activity, zeal, and ingenuity had been fairly brought to bear upon the world's improvement and welfare, a scene would have been presented, to which the fabled Arcadia of the poets would be as the simple field to the well cultivated garden. The earth would indeed have been as the garden of God.' Means of communication, means of comfort might have been provided; broad and beaten pathways might have been opened through mountains and forests, to convey the blessings of civilization, and the greetings of affection, to the uttermost regions; fair cities and marble palaces and temples might have risen in every wilderness; rich groves and bowers of peace and contentment might have covered every plain, now barren and desolate, and oftentimes stained with blood. There need have been no ill-constructed habitations, no damp and loathsome hovels, no scantily provided board, no gaunt and haggard visage of hunger, no looped and windowed raggedness'; and, comparatively, there need have been no disease, nor vice, nor misery,—at least, no such frightful masses of these evils, in the whole world. And yet, when we propose to turn the human mind to a consideration of the powers and uses of nature, when we propose to raise it from these dreadful and wasting delusions to knowledge, virtue, and religion, we are asked, as if the world had never proceeded upon any other rule,- What use is there in all these things?'

We say, to religion; and upon the tendency of a knowledge of nature to awaken a rational, habitual, and fervent piety, we must add a few remarks in close.

Among the qualities of the human character, it seems to us that piety has been, least of all, wisely and successfully cultivated. And we speak of the cultivation of piety now, as one of the great interests of mankind. This is not the place to enter into the reasons, why it is to be thus regarded. But that it is a spring of lofty sentiments, a direct source of happiness, a promoter of virtue in its noblest forms; that it is a needful refuge for human weakness, and an interpreter of what would otherwise be life's troubled mystery; that it is, moreover, a most reasonable homage of creatures to their Creator, we shall consider as positions undisputed by those to whom we choose at present to address ourselves.

But although it is thus the interest, and, we might say, the

grandest form of the great interest of every human being, piety, it seems to us, among the body of mankind, has been one of the most inoperative, inconstant, and factitious of all sentiments. Let theologians dispute as they may about human depravity, total or partial, it must be conceded by all, that the Being, whose presence is ever and everywhere most truly with us, whose presence is constantly and most strikingly manifest in every object around us, is least of all present to men's thoughts. Now one reason of the deficiency of that great sentiment, for which, as we believe, there is a natural aptitude in the human breast, is, we doubt not, the want of knowledge, the want of enlarged and distinct ideas. It is not enough to say, in the general, that God is wise, good, and merciful. It is not enough to teach this on set times and occasions. It would not be enough to do this concerning any other being, in whom we wished to awaken a deep and habitual interest. We want statements, specifications, facts, details, that will illustrate the wonderful perfections of the infinite Creator; and these details require to be such as will make their impression every day and hour, as will mingle their suggestions with all the toils and cares of business, and record their instructions on all the paths of life. Men, it is often said, and too truly, are so engrossed with occupation, so oppressed with labor, so agitated by competition, and perplexed with difficulty, that religion is precluded and kept out of sight. What is needed then is, that religious reflections should be mixed up, if possible, with the mass of human pursuits, should start up unbidden on every side, should make their impression, as all deep and abiding impressions are made, by constant and unforced repetition.

Now, it is precisely this want that is supplied by the scientific knowledge of nature. Not that men would think less of their Bible, for thinking more of this knowledge. It would help to explain their Bible, and give a loftier meaning to many of the noblest passages of Holy Writ.' Nature, too, is as truly a manifestation from Heaven as the Scriptures. "Tis elder Scripture, writ by God's own hand.' The knowledge of it could scarcely fail to be a most powerful means of devotion. It is worthy of remark, that those philosophers, in general, who have been students of nature, have been distinguished by a pious reverence for the Author of nature. How without that madness,' which the poet charges upon

6

the un

devout astronomer,' could they escape it? It follows, as inference from premises, as cause from effect. A man, who reads a work of genius, if he comprehends it, unavoidably admires its author. How could a similar, but loftier sentiment fail to arise from a study of the volume of nature!

But this volume has an advantage, in one respect, over all other volumes. It is, as we have already intimated, 'ever open before us, and we may read it at our leisure.' Nay, we must read it, if we understand its language, almost in spite of ourselves. Its line is gone out through all the earth, and its words to the end of the world.' Now of this various, unceasing, omnipresent communication, knowledge, knowledge, we repeat, is the great interpreter. It would make the world a new sphere to us, a sphere of new and nobler influences. Nothing that we remember, besides the direct effect of religious emotion, ever so effectually and entirely placed us in a new world,' as the simple philosophical history of vegetation. Knowledge would write lessons of piety on every leaf. Everyturf would be a fragrant shrine." The earth,

The

in its light, would rear ten thousand altars around us. air we breathe would be incense. And heaven, beyond towering arch or temple's dome, would bear us to contemplations, glorious, sublime, unspeakable, of the adorable Creator.

Jr. B.O. Prabody.

ART. II.-Curiosity; a Poem, delivered at Cambridge, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, August 27, 1829. By CHARLES SPRAGUE. Boston. J. T. Buckingham. 8vo. pp. 30.

If we may believe certain high authorities, it was once thought that poetry required peculiar natural powers; such as are not given to all men, at least in the same measure. The poet, in order to pass muster, was required to possess the highest attributes of mind and the best affections of the heart; to have an eye wide and searching, quick to discern the magnificence and glory of nature, and able to look down into the depths of the soul. Beside the delicate sensibility which voluntary retirement could give him, he was expected to have an acquaintance with all the principles of human action, from the power which lifted and swayed the stormy passions of

the multitude, to the hair-spring which set in motion the wayward ambition of kings. But not to dwell on these easy generalities, it is enough to say, that the poet was the favorite creation of the imagination of the ancients. Their deities were hardly respectable in their character and pretensions; they were nothing more than human agents, exalted to the power and dignity of evil spirits; with more capacity of doing evil, and even less disposition to do good. The poet made the hero; so that he had no rival in the admiration of men; and this may account for the number and greatness of the qualifications required in those who aspired to the sacred name.

For many years this imaginary being has ceased to be found, and grave men have doubted, whether any such ever existed. Certainly, the impression that any peculiar powers are required for the production of poetry is completely done away. The time which Johnson prophesied, in no good humor, is come in this country, if not in his own, when the cook warbles lyrics in the kitchen, and the thresher vociferates his dithyrambics in the barn.' One of the first efforts of our forefathers was to destroy the monopoly of genius, and to impress upon their children the valuable truth, that man could do again whatever man had done. They entered the sacred ground of poetry without putting off their shoes, and made sure of success beforehand, by establishing the principle, that praise was due to well-meant exertion. If an epitaph, an elegy, or even a hymn-book was called for, they considered it not a matter of choice, but of duty, to supply the demand. Even the great epics of our country, in more modern times, were written with the same intrepidity. The writers saw that all other great nations had their distinguished poetical works, and they resolved that their own land should not be without them; if no one else would write them, they would; though they had little leisure for the labor, and for the art itself neither propensity nor vocation.

From their time to the present, Mr Kettell will bear us witness, vast quantities of good merchantable poetry, of which his three volumes are only specimens, have been thrown into the market every year; or rather, we should say, have been produced; for some of the worthies of that collection little dreamed of being translated from the dark corner of a newspaper to a place among the northern stars. The result of