it were, under the shadow of that night which afterwards fell upon him. He was the martyr of his own enthusiasm. But he did not faint or murmur; and when, after a lapse of three years, we find him mentioning the loss of sight to his friend Cyriac Skinner, it is with no expression of sorrow or despair at his lot; no repining at the dispensation of Heaven. He does not bate a jot of heart or hope, but presses forward to the high goal of the race which is before him. Hear the strain of sublime philosophy as it flows from his own lips :

Cyriac, this three years day, these eyes tho' clear

To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot,
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Or man, or woman; yet, I argue not

Against heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, Friend, to have lost them overply'd
In liberty's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side.

This thought might lead me thro' the world's vain

mask,

Content tho' blind, had I no better guide!

"It is, Sir, the fate of men to err, and even Milton was not exempt from the failings of mor

tality. But it becomes us while lamenting the violence and fierceness of his indignation, to remember the disinterested purity and grandeur of his motives; to look back upon the tumult and clamour of those stormy days; and, above all, to judge with impartiality. If we have no other offering for his tomb, let us, at least, sacrifice our prejudices to the Manes of this immortal poetthis sincere and dignified Believer!"

EDWARD LYTTON BULWER

AND

T. M.

A. When we were at Cambridge together, do you remember how the young pedants of our time were wont to consider that all intellect consisted in puzzling, or setting down each other?

L. Ay, they thought us very poor souls, I fancy, for being early wise and ridiculing what they thought so fine. The New Phado.

BULWER.

How insignificant modern literature becomes when compared with the works of those illustrious men who wrote only from an overruling impulse to instruct the world, and were content to live laborious days for a future and immortal reward. Therefore are their brows crowned with the undying amaranth, and their tombs visited by a thousand hearts. The constant estimation of every pursuit, by the emolument to be derived from it, is one of the most marked features of this degraded age-one of those hideous seams that mar the beauty of the time.— Every day witnesses the desolating spread of an Utilitarian spirit, which, not satisfied with banishing poetry from our Commonwealth, would con

L

demn all the heroic desires of the soul to a like ostracism. By these men life is regarded as a great field to be ploughed and sown, rather than a garden for the nurture of tender plants. They would drive the share over Collins, and bury the Faëry Queen. Thus learning and intellect, like the Genii of the Arabian Lamp, are only invoked to minister to our luxury and extravagance. Those pilgrimages which the memory was wont to make into ancient lands, are degraded into journeys of barter and commerce. And who can wonder, when we think more of the equipment than of the knight; more of the garment than of the heart that beats under it. The leper, Poverty, is driven out of the city. Our Paganism is more senseless than that of old; for they knelt before a serpent and a block of wood, yet never bowed the knee to money. And as we are told that the philosopher's stone will not be found by one who seeks it unworthily; so we may be certain that the fruits of learning will never be gathered by a low and grovelling student. It will be well for us to reflect how few works, or worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor cradles." The Latin Inscription, carved by the finger of the infant. Selden, still remains on the lintel of his paternal cottage at Salvington, to mark the lowly home of the illustrious scholar. Well might Livy call Poverty the mother of Virtue. It

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was a toil-worn hand that rocked to sleep the little cares of Latimer and Taylor.

T. M.

After all, how much more blest than the purple Conqueror is that Innocence which can lay its head upon a stone and dream of angels! The world, alas! is too much with us; we are of our age, not above it! No literary Avenger returns into his century, to purify and cleanse it from its harlotries and corruptions. We go on, pitiable victims of habit! wooing mental debility with an unblushing forehead; the nerves of our literature are relaxed and powerless, our refinement has drivelled into effeminacy. Poetry, which Milton regarded as the final end of all study, the monument to be cast out of the collected treasures of life, has dwindled into a stream "of rolling tautologies." Our intellect seems to have shrunk with our books.

BULWER.

a

If we transport ourselves into the company of those eminent men who adorn our earlier literature, how amazed we are at their various erudition, their inexhaustible eloquence, their rare sagacity, their invincible perseverance. What considerate diligence, what midnight watchings, what expense