men of Lapland, who wrapped him in their furs, and ministered to his necessities with kindness and gentle words of compassion. Lovely to the home The authors of "Gaities and Gravities," give it | winter, seemed the diminutive, smoke-stained woas their opinion, that no object of sight is regarded by us as a simple, disconnected form, but that an instantaneous reflection as to its history, purpose, or associations, converts it into a concrete one-a pro-sick heart of Park seemed the dark maids of Sego, cess, they shrewdly remark, which no thinking being can prevent, and which can only be avoided by the unmeaning and stolid stare of "a goose on the common, or a cow on the green." The senses and the faculties of the understanding are so blended with, and dependent upon, each other, that not one of them can exercise its office alone, and without the modification of some extrinsic interference or suggestion. Grateful or unpleasant associations cluster around all which sense takes cognizance of: the beauty which we discern in an external object is often but the reflection of our own minds. as they sung their low and simple song of welcome beside his bed, and sought to comfort the white stranger, who had "no mother to bring him milk, and no wife to grind him corn." O! talk as we may, of beauty as a thing to be chiselled from marble or wrought out on canvass,-speculate as we may upon its colors and outlines, what is it but an intellectual abstraction, after all? The heart feels a beauty of another kind;-looking through the outward environment, it discovers a deeper and more real loveliness. This was well understood by the old painters. In their pictures of Mary, the Virgin Mother, the beauty which melts and subdues the gazer, is that of the soul and the affections—uniting the awe and myste What is Beauty, after all? Ask the lover, who kneels in homage to one who has no attractions for others. The cold on-looker wonders that he can call that unclassic combination of features, and that awk-ry of that mother's miraculous allotment with the ward form, beautiful. Yet so it is. He sees, like Desdemona, her "visage in her mind," or her affections. A light from within shines through the ex ternal uncomelinesss, softens, irradiates and glorifies it. That which to others seems common-place and unworthy of note, is to him, in the words of Spenser, "A sweet, attractive kind of grace, irrepressible love, the unutterable tenderness of young maternity-Heaven's crowning miracle with Nature's holiest and sweetest instinct. And their pale Magdalens, holy with the look of sins forgiven, how the divine beauty of their penitence sinks into the heart? Do we not feel that the only real deformity is sin, and that goodness evermore hallows and sanctifies its dwelling place? When the soul is at rest. when the passions and desires are all attuned to the divine harmony, "Spirits moving musically To a lute's well ordered law," The lineaments of Gospel books." "Handsome is that handsome does-hold up your heads, girls!" was the language of Primrose in the play, when addressing her daughters. The worthy matron was right. Would that all my female readers, who are sorrowing foolishly because they are do we not read the placid significance thereof in the not in all respects like Dubufe's Eve, or that Statue human countenance? I have seen," said Charles of the Venus, "which enchants the world," could Lamb, "faces upon which the dove of peace sat be persuaded to listen to her. What is good look- brooding." In that simple and beautiful record of ing, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking good? Be a holy life, the Journal of John Woolman, there is good, be womanly, be gentle-generous in your a passage of which I have been more than once resympathies, heedful of the well-being of all around minded in my intercourse with my fellow beings:you, and my word for it, you will not lack kind "Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their words of admiration. Loving and pleasant associations faces, who dwell in true meekness. There is a harwill gather about you. Never mind the ugly reflec-mony in the sound of that voice to which divine love tion which your glass may give you. That mirror gives utterance." has no heart. But quite another picture is yours Quite the ugliest face I ever saw was that of a on the retina of human sympathy. There the beau. woman whom the world calls beautiful. Through ty of holiness, of purity, of that inward grace which its "silver veil" the evil and ungentle passions lookpasseth show," rests over it, softening and mellowed out, hideous and hateful. On the other hand, ing its features, just as the full, calm moonlight melts those of a rough landscape into harmonious lovelinesss. Hold up your heads, girls!" I repeat after Primrose. Why should you not?-Every mother's daughter of you can be beautiful. You can envelope yourselves in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual beauty, through which your otherwise plain faces will look forth like those of angels. Beautiful to Ledyard, stiffening in the cold of a Northern there are faces which the multitude at the first glance pronounce homely, unattractive, and such as "nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill; not for the world would I have one feature changed; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories; they are beautiful through their associations; nor are they any the less welcome, that with my admiration of them, "the stranger intermeddleth not.” A CHRISTMAS HYMN. BY ALFRED DOMMETT. It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea. No sound was heard of clashing wars,Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain : Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign, 'T was in the calm and silent night, The senator of haughty Rome Impatient urged his chariot's flight, From lordly revel rolling home : Triumphal arches gleaming swell His breast with thoughts of boundless sway; What recked the Roman what befell A paltry province far away, In the solemn midnight, Within that province far away, Fallen through a half-shut stable-door O, strange indifference! low and high Drowsed over common joys and cares; The earth was still,-but knew not why The world was listening,-unawares. How calm a moment may precede One that shall thrill the world for ever! To that still moment, none would heed, Man's doom was linked no more to sever, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago. It is the calm and solemn night! A thousand bells ring out, and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness, charmed and holy now! The night that erst no shame had worn, To it a happy name is given; For in that stable lay, new-born, The peaceful prince of earth and heaven, In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago! THE GOOD PART THAT SHALL NOT BE TAKEN AWAY. BY HENRY W. LONG FELLOW. She dwells by Great Kenhawa's side, In valleys green and cool; Her soul, like the transparent air She reads to them at eventide, And oft the blessed time foretells When all men shall be free; And musical, as silver bells, Their falling chains shall be. And following her beloved Lord, In decent poverty, She makes her life one sweet record For she was rich, and gave up all Of those who waited in her hall, Long since, beyond the Southern Sea Now earns her daily bread. It is their prayers, which never cease, That clothe her with such grace; Their blessing is the light of peace That shines upon her face. So should we live, that every hour Esteeming sorrow,-whose employ Far better than a barren joy. R. M. MILNES. NOT ON THE BATTLE FIELD. BY JOHN PIERPONT. "To fall on the battle field, fighting for my dear countrythat would not be hard.-MS. in Miss Bremer's "Neighbors." O, no, no,-let me lie Not on a field of battle, when I die! Let not the iron tread Of the mad war-horse crush my helmed head, Nor let the reeking knife, That I have drawn against a brother'slife, Be in my hand, when death Thunders along, and tramples me beneath Or gory felloes of his cannon's wheels. From such a dying bed, Though o'er it float the stripes of white and red, And the bald Eagle brings The clustered stars upon his wide-spread wings, To sparkle in my sight, O, never let my spirit take her flight. I know that beauty's eye Is all the brighter where gay penants fly, And sunshine flashes on the lifted lance :- And people shouted, till the welkin rung, Who on the battle-field have found a grave;- Have grateful hands piled monumental stones. Some of these piles I've seen :— The one at Lexington, upon the green, Where the first blood was shed, That to my country's independence led; And others, on our shore, "The battle monument," at Baltimore, And that on Bunker's Hill, Aye, and abroad, a few more famous still : Thy Tomb," Themistocles, That issue from the gulf of Salamis : And thine, too, have I seen, The mound of earth, Patroclus, robed in green, Sheep climb and nibble over, as they stroll, Such honors grace the bed, Jknow, whereon the warrior lays his head, And hears, as life ebbs out, The conquered flying, and the conqueror's shout. What is a column, or a mound, to him? The mellow notes of bugles? What the roll Of drums? No-let me die As it goes by me, stirs my thin, white hair, The death-damp, as it gathers, and the skies My soul to their clear depths! Or, let me leave Wife, children, weeping friends are gathered, And holy hymning shall my soul prepare With kindred spirits-spirits who have blessed By labors, cares, and counsels for their good. And in my dying hour, When riches, fame, and honor, have no power Or from my lips to turn aside the cup, O, let me draw refreshment from the past! With peace and joy, along my earthly track, That I have scattered there, in virtuous deeds, And, though no grassy mound Or granite pile, say 'tis heroic ground, Still will I hope-vain hope, perhaps !-that those The wanderer reclaimed, the fatherless,— With the poor prisoner, and the poorer slave,- That they may die like him, whose bones are mouldering there. SONNET. BY WILLIAM W. STORY. Be of good cheer, ye firm and dauntless few, chime With the great harmony, beyond all time! IGNORANCE OF THE LEARNED. BY WILLIAM HAZLITT. "For the more languages a man can speak, learned reader to lay down his book and think for himself. He clings to it for his intellectual support; and his dread of being left to himself is like the horror of a vacuum He can only breathe a learned atmosphere, as other men breathe common air. He is a borrower of sense. He has no ideas of his own, and must live on those of other people. The habit of supplying our ideas from foreign sources "enfeebles all internal strength of thought," as a course of dram-drinking destroys the tone of the stomach. (Like those that write the characters) left handed. The faculties of the mind, when not exerted, or Yet he that is but able to express No sense at all in several languages, Will pass for learneder than he that's known The description of persons who have the fewest ideas of all others are mere authors and readers. It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else. A lounger who is ordinarily seen with a book in his hand, is (we may be almost sure) equally without the power or inclination to attend either to what passes around him, or in his own mind. Such a one may be said to carry his understanding about with him in his pocket, or to leave it at home on his library shelves. He is afraid of venturing on any train of reasoning, or of striking out any observation that is not mechanically suggested to him by passing his eyes over certain legible characters; shrinks from the fatigue of thought, which, for want of practice, becomes insupportable to him; and sits down contented with an endless wearisome succession of words and half-formed images, which fill the void of the mind, and continually efface one another. Learning is, in too many cases, but a foil to common sense; a substitute for true knowledge. Books are less often made use of as "spectacles" to look at nature with, than as blinds to keep out its strong light and shifting scenery from weak eyes and indolent dispositions. The book-worm wraps himself up in his web of verbal generalities, and sees only the glimmering shadows of things reflected from the minds of others. Nature puts him out. The impressions of real objects, stripped of the disguises of words and voluminous round-about descriptions, are blows that stagger him; their variety distracts, their rapidity exhausts him; and he turns from the bustle, the noise and glare and whirling motion of the world about him (which he has not an eye to follow in its fantastic changes, nor an understanding to reduce to fixed principles) to the quiet monotony of the dead languages, and the less startling and more intelligible combinations of the letters of the alphabet. It is well, it is perfectly well. "Leave me to my repose" is the motto of the sleeping and the dead. You might as well ask the paralytic to leap from his chair and throw away his crutch, or, without a miracle, to take up his bed and walk," as expect the when cramped by custom and authority, become listless, torpid, and unfit for the purposes of thought or action. Can we wonder at the languor and lassitude which is thus produced by a life of learned sloth and ignorance; by poring over lines and syllables that excite little more idea or interest than if they were the characters of an unknown tongue, till the eye closes on vacancy, and the book drops from the feeble hand! I would rather be a a wood-cutter, or the meanest hind, that all day "sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and at night sleeps in Elysium," than wear out my life so, 'twixt dreaming and awake. The learned author differs from the learned student in this, that the one transcribes what the other reads. The learned are mere literary drudges. If you set them upon original composition, their heads turn, they know not where they are. The indefatigable readers of books are like the everlasting copiers of pictures, who, when they attempt to do any thing of their own, find they want an eye quick enough, a hand steady enough, and colours bright enough, to trace the living form of nature. Any one who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape. It is an old remark, that boys who shine at school do not make the greatest figure when they grow up and come out into the world. The things, in fact, which a boy is set to learn at school, and on which his success depends, are things which do not require the exercise either of the highest or the most useful faculties of the mind. Memory (and that of the lowest kind) is the chief faculty called into play, in conning over and repeating lessons by rote in grammar, in languages, in geography, arithmetic, &c., so that he who has the most of this technical memory, with the least turn for other things, which have a stronger and more natural claim upon his childish attention, will make the most forward school-boy. The jargon containing the definitions of the parts of speech, the rules for casting up an account, or the inflections of a Greek verb, can have no attraction to the tyro of ten years old, except as they are imposed as a task upon him by others, or from his feeling the want of sufficient relish or amusement in other things. A lad with a sickly constitution, and no very active mind, who can just retain what is pointed out to him, and has not of men or things. He thinks and cares nothing about his next-door neighbours, but he is deeply read in the tribes and castes of the Hindoos and Calmuc Tartars. Hecan hardly find his way into the next street, though he is acquainted with the exact dimensions of Constantinople and Pekin. He does not know whether his oldest acquaintance is a knave or a fool, but he can pronounce a pompous lecture on all the principal characters in history. He cannot tell whether an object is black or white, round or square, and yet he is a professed master of the laws of optics and the rules of perspective. He knows as much of what he talks about, as a blind man does of colours. He cannot give a satisfactory answer to the plainest question, nor is he ever in the neither sagacity to distinguish nor spirit to enjoy for himself, will generally be at the head of his form. An idler at school, on the other hand, is one who has high health and spirits, who has the free use of his limbs, with all his wits about him, who feels the circulation of his blood and the motion of his heart, who is ready to laugh and cry in a breath, and who had rather chase a ball or a butterfly, feel the open air in his face, look at the fields or the sky, follow a winding path, or enter with eagerness into all the little conflicts and interests of his acquaintances and friends, than doze over a musty spelling-book, repeat barbarous distichs after his master, sit so many hours pinioned to a writing-desk, and receive his reward for the loss of time and pleasure in paltry prize-medals at Christmas and Mid-right in any one of his opinions, upon any one mat summer. There is indeed a degree of stupidity which prevents children from learning the usual lessons, or ever arriving at these puny academic honours. But what passes for stupidity is much oftener a want of interest, of a sufficient motive to fix the attention, and force a reluctant application to the dry and unmeaning pursuits of school-learning. The best capacities are as much above this drudgery, as the dullest are beneath it. Our men of the greatest genius have not been most distinguished for their acquirements at school or at the university. ture. ter of fact that really comes before him, and yet he "Th' enthusiast Fancy was a truant ever." Gray and Collins were among the instances of this wayward disposition. Such persons do not think so highly of the advantages, nor can they submit their imaginations so servilely to the trammels of stricting and palpable. scholastic discipline. There is a certain kind and degree of intellect in which words take root, but into which things have not power to penetrate. A mediocrity of talent, with a certain slenderness of moral constitution, is the soil that produces the most brilliant specimens of successful prize-essayists and Greek epigrammatists. It should not be forgotten, that the most equivocal character among modern politicians was the eleverest boy at Eton. Learning is the knowledge of that which is not generally known to others, and which we can only derive at second-hand from books, or other artificial sources. The knowledge of that which is before us or about us, which appeals to our experience, passions and pursuits, to the bosoms and businesses of men, is not learning. Learning is the knowledge of that which none but the learned know. He is the most learned man who knows the most of what is farthest removed from common life and actual observation, that is of the least practical utility, and least liable to be brought to the test of experience, and that, having been handed down through the greatest number of intermediate stages, is the most full of uncertainty difficulties, and contradictions. It is seeing with the eyes of others, hearing with their ears, and pinning our faith on their understandings. The learned man prides himself in the knowledge of names and dates, A mere scholar, who knows nothing but books, must be ignorant even of them. "Books do not teach the use of books." How should he know anything of a work, who knows nothing of the subject of it? The learned pedant is conversant with books only as they are made of other books, and those again of others, without end. He parrots those who have parroted others. He can translate the same word into ten different languages, but he knows nothing of the thing which it means in any one of them. He stuffs his head with authorities built on authorities, with quotations quoted from quotations, while he locks up his senses, his understanding, and his heart. He is unacquainted with the maxims and manners of the world; he is to seek in the characters of individuals. He sees no beauty in the face of nature or of art. To him the mighty world of eye and ear" is hid; and knowledge," except at one entrance, quite shut out." His pride takes part with his ignorance; and his self-importance rises with the number of things of which he does not know the value, and which he therefore despises as unworthy of his notice. He knows nothing of pictures ;—“ of the colouring of Titian, the grace of Raphael, the purity of Domenichino, the corregiescity of Correggio, the learning of Poussin, the airs of Guido, the taste of the Caracci, or the grand contour of Michael |