no others that the England of Queen Anne lives again. And yet our minds instinctively attest the truth of the judgment which Macaulay has pronounced, that "while such events can hardly be said to form a plot, yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humor, such pathos, such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, that they charm us on the hundredth perusal." Nor are we prepared to quarrel with Horace Walpole for saying that since Falstaff, there is nothing in literature to rival Sir Roger de Coverley.

We have spoken of the Spectator as Addison; nor could we do otherwise without reversing the verdict of five generations. We have somewhere seen a wise remark of Dr. Johnson, that "while Addison wrote half the Spectator and there was all England to write the other half, yet not half of this other half is good." Of Steele, in particular, it is undoubtedly true that he was a writer of eminent ability, purer than Dryden, wittier than Congreve; nay, the distance is probably not greater between Addison and Steele, than between Steele and every other essayist of his time. But from the public voice to private judgment there is no appeal, and the public voice, in unmistakable tones, has assigned to Addison all the glory of their common work.

It is probable that this glory is heightened by the novelty of the enterprise, and by the skill with which it met the wants and rebuked the vices of the times. The Tatler was an experiment. It only discovered or at most it only partially explored the broad field of which the Spectator took immediate and full possession. The task which confronted the new periodical was indeed disheartening. It found society rotten in its corruption, and it undertook with the principles of a more than human morality to lift and restore it. It found literature loathsome with the trail of Wycherly and Swift, and it sought to purify that literature itself and the corrupt taste of the community that clamored for and applauded it. And it is not too much to say that it accomplished both. For underneath the learning of Addison, underneath his refinement and his literary culture, there lay an earnest christian purpose. If he brought again to light the beauties which age had covered up in the old English ballads, he brought to light also the strong love of virtue, which licentiousness had covered up in English hearts. He taught the sneering courtier that it was possible to be a christian without ceasing to be a gentleman, and the frowning Puritan that it was possible to be a gentleman without ceasing to be a christian. Though among the first wits and not the last satirists of his day, he never employed his wit to ridicule morality or his satire to

caricature the Church. But that deep religious fervor which made his death so memorable, is equally manifest in all his writings; not less in his wittiest rebukes of the foibles and vices of court and people, than in the religious meditations of Saturday morning, which Macaulay assures us will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon. It is now a hundred and fifty years since, in that venerable mansion, still standing in the midst of London, whose ancient turrets and carved and gilded chambers carry us back to the days of William and the Revolution, of Cromwell and the Long Parliament, the "gentle pen" of the brilliant essayist was laid aside and the loving heart of the christian philanthropist grew still. Within this period many new names have arisen and many revolutions have occurred in the world of letters. The Times has taken the place of the Spectator beside the coffee on the breakfast table of Milord, and Pickwick has almost driven Sir Roger from the stage. But when we look back over the long line of illustrious authors who, since the reign of Elizabeth, have carried the literature of England to a more than Roman, a more than Grecian fame, we may find greater orators and scholars, greater poets and satirists, many whose works are more widely read, a few whose memories are more widely cherished, than his, whose literary career we have been reviewing; but in all that splendid company we shall look in vain for one in whom the candid critic has found so much to praise and the malignant critic so little to condemn, who has affected a more complete and permanent reform in literature and in morals, and who has left to posterity a more faultless example, a more enduring memory, or a more stainless name.

E. B. C.

Dream-Doomed.

A maid upon the lonely beach,

All in the silent, summer day,

With wide blue eyes fixed far away,
And small hands clinging each to each.

All day she wanders by the sea;

What are the ways of men to her,
Whose soul is busy with the stir
Of never-resting memory?

For there had glanced a passing gleam
Of love all hopeless on her way,
And life's up-springing April day
God's hand had darkened with a dream.

The mist floats on the desert's face,

And lake and isle all lustrous moulds,-
But when withdrawn its billowy folds,

How bare and desolate the place!

Why should she live? The life above

Can scarce be sadder than her own; But shall she die? For death alone Can still the fluttering wing of love.

When darkness on the ocean hangs,

She hears the loud surf tumbling in, The loose stones jostling with a din Like wild beast clashing-to his fangs.

Under the leaden morning sky,

She sees from off the toppling comb The mad wind snatching flecks of foam To whirl them wildly drifting by.

And when, as daylight disappears,

The large moon upward moveth slow, It seems to waver, shrink and grow, Trembling through such a mist of tears.

But when the evening zephyrs blow

A music borne from off the sea, She mingles with the melody A plaintive song, all soft and low.

Calmly the night comes down on all the land,
Faintly the twilight glimmers o'er the sea,
Sadly the lingering ripples kiss the sand,

So sad I pace the beach and wait for thee.

Soft steal the muffled inland echoes here,

A sound of church-bells trembles on the lea,So softly, muffled memories meet the ear,

And seem to mock me as I wait for thee.

Solemnly still the great, calm stars glow on, And all the broad fair heaven leans silently, While slumberous Ocean's undulous undertone Still whispers with me as I wait for thee.

We have chosen to place the following thoughts under the title above, not because it fully covers the ground we design to tread, but because it will furnish a convenient name for our article and indicate the topic to which we wish especially to direct attention. It is the writer's desire

to speak a few sincere and earnest words to his neighbors and friends in College, touching the interests of our two Public Societies, and particularly the system of Prize Debates connected with these Societies.

We are very far from joining the present popular outcry against our Public Literary Societies, or from admitting the utter desperation and abandonment of their present condition, and still farther from trusting the diagnosis so flippantly put forth by sundry quasi members whose sole evidence of membership is most likely to be found in the records of the admission of Freshmen, two, three, or four years since. There are some amongst us, who, setting aside the tests of reason and experience, gravely assert that if our Linonia and Brothers "are not actually dead, they ought to be."* It will not seem strange that those who utter this dictum should attempt to demonstrate their wisdom by showing the "physical impossibility," that two hundred and fifty men should speak in one evening! As if this were, or any one claimed it to be, a condition of the vigorous and successful existence of our Public Societies. It is as manifestly undesirable as impossible, that all, or nearly all the members of the Societies should make speeches on every evening they meet. It is a prime fallacy to suppose that such is the intent, or that such is the only discipline which the debates afford. The proper and legitimate aim of those who frequent these and similar Societies, no doubt is, to cultivate and acquire skill in public speaking. But is this to be sought only by speaking in every debate of the year? Is the atmosphere and genius of a great Debating Society's hall worth nothing to the student of oratory? Is it time wasted to sit with closed lips and study the salient points or the defects of another's speaking? Silence, thoughtful, long-continued silence is not seldom the period of deepest and truest discipline.. Fisher Ames, that model of the public debater, speaking of a Club to which he was attached in his youth, says, "I never spoke three consecutive minutes in this Club, but its presence and example discovered and fostered in me, beyond all other influences, the passion for public speaking."

No student could afford to speak in every debate, if he were seeking to gain the highest proficiency in public speaking. It would not be in his power to make such preparation, to turn over and ponder his theme with such care and fullness as to make his public utterance valuable to himself or his associates. It is the height of mental cruelty and dissipation to make, or to attempt to make a speech when one has

*See Yale Lit. Mag. for Oct, 1860, Art. on "Linonia and Brothers." VOL. XXVI. 10*