5.

6.

7.

But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour,
Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power.
Here, as I take my solitary rounds,

Amid thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.

In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs-and God has given my share,I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, Amid these humble bowers to lay me down; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting by repose: I still had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return, · and die at home at last.

O blessed retirement! friend to life's decline,
Retreat from care, that never must be mine,

How blessed is he who crowns, in shades like these
A youth of labor with an age of ease;

Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly!
So on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.

LESSON XLII.

SELECT PARAGRAPHS.

1. A SONG OF MAY.-W. G. CLARK.

1. The sun looketh forth from the halls of the morning,
And flushes the clouds that begird his career;

He welcomes the gladness and glory, returning
To rest on the promise and hope of the year:
He fills with rich light all the balm-breathing flowers;
He mounts to the zenith, and laughs on the wave;
He wakes into music the green forest bowers,

And gilds the gay plains which the broad rivers lave.

2. Alas, for my weary and care-haunted bosom!

The spells of the spring-time arouse it no more; The song in the wild-wood, the sheen of the blossom, The fresh-swelling fountain, their magic is o'er ! When I list to the stream, when I look on the flowers, They tell of the past with so mournful a tone, That I call up the throngs of my long-vanished hours, And sigh that their transports are over and gone.

2. GENIUS CONSECRATED TO RELIGION.—J. WILSON.

How beautiful is genius when combined
With holiness! Oh, how divinely sweet

The tones of earthly harp, whose chords are touched
By the soft hand of Piety, and hung
Upon Religion's shrine, there vibrating
With solemn music in the ear of God!

3. MARY MAGDALENE AT THE SEPULCHER. MRS. HEMANS.

Weeper! to thee how bright a morn was given,
After thy long, long vigil of despair,

When that high voice which burial rocks had riven,
Thrilled with immortal tones the silent air!
Never did clarion's royal blast declare

Such tale of victory to a breathless crowd,
As the deep sweetness of one word could bear
Into thy heart of hearts, O woman! bowed
By strong affection's anguish!-One low word -

66

Mary!"—and all the triumph wrung from death Was thus revealed! and thou that so hadst erred, So wept, and been forgiven, in trembling faith Didst cast thee down before th' all-conquering Son, Awed by the mighty gift thy tears and love had won!

LESSON XLIII.

INFLUENCE OF ATHENIAN LITERATURE. MACAULAY.

[The reader may point out the commencing and concluding series in this piece, and tell how they should be read. See Rule 11, p. 127.]

1. I would hope that there may yet appear a writer, who may despise the present narrow limits, and assert the rights of history over every part of her natural domain. Should such a writer engage in that enterprise, he will record, indeed, all that is interesting and important in military and political transactions; but he will not think any thing too trivial for the gravity of history, which is not too trivial to promote or diminish the happiness of man.

2. He will portray in vivid colors the domestic society, the manners, the amusements, and the conversation of the Greeks; he will not disdain to discuss the state of agriculture, of the mechanical arts, and of the conveniences of life; the progress of painting, of sculpture, and of architecture, will form an important part of his plan; but above all, his attention will be given to the history of that splendid litera

ture, from which has sprung all the strength, the wisdom, the freedom, and the glory of the western world.

3. If we consider merely the subtilty of disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression, which characterize the great works of Athenian. genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable but what shall we say when we reflect, that from hence have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the vast accomplishments and the brilliant fancy of Cicero ;* the withering fire of Juvenal; † the plastic imagination of Dante; the humor of Cervantes; § the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supreme and universal excellence of Shakspeare? *

4. All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country, and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, and for the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in their midst, inspiring, encouraging, and consoling them. It was by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless bed of Pascal; T in the tribune of Mirabeau ;* in the cell of Galileo; ** and on the scaffold of Sidney.††

*

* Cic ́e-ro, Ba'con, Shaks'peare, E-ras'mus, and Mir'a-beau. See notes on pp. 67, 29, and 131.

↑ Ju ́ve-nal, a Roman poet, celebrated for the spirit, boldness, and elegance of his satires.

Dan'te, an Italian poet, born at Florence, 1265, and died in 1321.

§ Cer-van'tes, a celebrated Spanish writer. He died in 1616.

Butler, an English poet, who wrote satires. He died in 1680.

¶ Pas'cal, (Blaize,) a Frenchman, eminent as a mathematician, and a zealous friend of the Christian religion as taught by the Jansenists. He was born in 1623, and died in 1662.

** Gal-i-le'o, a most eminent philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, and the inventor of the telescope; born at Florence, 1564. He was imprisoned as a heretic, for teaching that the sun, and not the earth, is in the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves by a diurnal motion. He died, 1642, aged seventy-eight.

tt Sid'ney, (Algernon,) a celebrated English republican, and a martyr to liberty. He was unjustly executed for treason in 1678.

5. But who shall estimate her influence on private happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to engage; to how many the studies which took their rise from her, have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in sickness, society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at the bar; in the senate; in the field of battle; in the schools of philosophy.

6. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain; wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep, there is exhibited in its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens.

7. Surely it is no exaggeration to say, that no external advantage is to be compared with that purification of the intellectual eye, which gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental world; all the hoarded treasures of the primeval dynasties; all the shapeless ore of its yet unexplored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have, for more than twenty centuries, been annihilated; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; her language into a barbarous jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable.

8. And, when those who have rivaled her greatness shall have shared her fate; when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents; when the scepter shall have passed away from England; when, perhaps, travelers from distant regions, shall in vain labor to decipher on some moldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief; shall hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the ruined dome of our proudest temple; and shall see a single, naked fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand masts, - her influence and