CAUSE OF OUR PLEASURE IN BEAUTY.

Then tell me, for ye know,
Does beauty ever deign to dwell where health
And active use are strangers? Is her charm
Confess'd in aught, whose most peculiar ends
Are lame and fruitless? Or did nature mean
This pleasing call the herald of a lie;
To hide the shame of discord and disease,
And catch with fair hypocrisy the heart
Of idle faith? O no: with better cares
Th' indulgent mother, conscious how infirm
Her offspring tread the paths of good and ill,
By this illustrious image, in each kind
Still most illustrious where the object holds
Its native powers most perfect, she by this
Illumes the headstrong impulse of desire,
And sanctifies his choice. The generous glebe,
Whose bosom smiles with verdure, the clear tract
Of streams delicious to the thirsty soul,
The bloom of nectar'd fruitage ripe to sense,
And every charm of animated things,
Are only pledges of a state sincere,
Th' integrity and order of their frame,
When all is well within, and every end

Accomplish'd. Thus was beauty sent from heaven,
The lovely ministress of truth and good

In this dark world: for truth and good are one,
And beauty dwells in them, and they in her,
With like participation. Wherefore, then,
O sons of earth! would ye dissolve the tie?
O wherefore, with a rash, impetuous aim,
Seek ye those flowery joys with which the hand
Of lavish fancy paints each flattering scene
Where beauty seems to dwell, nor once inquire
Where is the sanction of eternal truth,

Or where the seal of undeceitful good,

To save your search from folly! Wanting these,
Lo! beauty withers in your void embrace,

And with the glittering of an idiot's toy

Did fancy mock your vows.

THE SUPERIORITY OF MORAL OVER NATURAL BEAUTY.1

Thus doth beauty dwell

There most conspicuous, e'en in outward shape,
Where dawns the high expression of a mind:
By steps conducting our enraptured search

1 Our poet is exceedingly infelicitous in giving, as an illustration of this fine subject, the historical fact of the assassination of Julius Cæsar by Brutus and the rest of the conspirators. In a moral point of view, it was an atrocious murder, utterly unjustifiable: and in a political point of view, it was highly inexpedient. For however unscrupulous Cæsar was in his means to attain power; when obtained, few men have used it with more wisdom or clemency. In every great quality how superior was he to the hollow-hearted, selfish Augustus! The former, for instance, spared Cicero, his enemy, and the main stay of the party of Pompey; the latter sacrificed him, though professedly a friend, to the vengeance of Antony.

To that eternal origin, whose power,

Through all th' unbounded symmetry of things,
Like rays effulging from the parent sun,

This endless mixture of her charms diffused.

Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven!)
The living fountains in itself contains

Of beauteous and sublime: here, hand in hand,
Sit paramount the graces; here enthroned,
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs,
Invites the soul to never-fading joy.

Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres,
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;
And speak, O man! does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate
The strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the crowd of patriots; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove,

When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country hail?

For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,

And Rome again is free!

TASTE.

What then is taste, but these internal powers
Active, and strong, and feelingly alive

To each fine impulse? a discerning sense
Of decent and sublime, with quick disgust
From things deform'd, or disarranged, or gross
In species? This, nor gems, nor stores of gold,
Nor purple state, nor culture can bestow;
But God alone, when first his active hand
Imprints the secret bias of the soul.

He, mighty Parent! wise and just in all,
Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven,
Reveals the charms of nature. Ask the swain
Who journeys homeward from a summer day's
Long labor, why, forgetful of his toils

And due repose, he loiters to behold

The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds,

O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,

His rude expression and untutor❜d airs,

Beyond the power of language, will unfold

The form of beauty smiling at his heart,

How lovely! how commanding! But though Heaven
In every breast hath sown these early seeds
Of love and admiration, yet in vain,
Without fair culture's kind parental aid,
Without enlivening suns, and genial showers,
And shelter from the blast, in vain we hope
The tender plant should rear its blooming head.
Or yield the harvest promised in its spring.

Nor yet will every soil with equal stores
Repay the tiller's labor: or attend

His will, obsequious, whether to produce
The olive or the laurel. Different minds
Incline to different objects: one pursues
The vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;
Another sighs for harmony and grace,

And gentlest beauty. Hence, when lightning fires
The arch of heaven, and thunders rock the ground,
When furious whirlwinds rend the howling air,
And ocean, groaning from his lowest bed,
Heaves his tempestuous billows to the sky;
Amid the mighty uproar, while below
The nations tremble, Shakspeare looks abroad
From some high cliff, superior, and enjoys
The elemental war. But Waller longs,
All on the margin of some flowery stream,
To spread his careless limbs amid the cool
Of plantain shades, and to the listening deer
The tale of slighted vows and love's disdain
Resound soft-warbling all the livelong day:
Consenting zephyr sighs; the weeping rill
Joins in his plaint, melodious; mute the groves;
And hill and dale with all their echoes mourn.
Such and so various are the tastes of men.

CONCLUSION.

O! blest of Heaven, whom not the languid songs Of luxury, the siren! not the bribes

Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils

Of pageant honor, can seduce to leave

Those ever-blooming sweets, which, from the store
Of nature, fair imagination culls

To charm th' enliven'd soul! What though not all
Of mortal offspring can attain the heights
Of envied life; though only few possess
Patrician treasures or imperial state;
Yet nature's care, to all her children just,
With richer treasures and an ampler state,
Endows, at large, whatever happy man
Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp,
The rural honors his. Whate'er adorns
The princely dome, the column and the arch,
The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him, the Spring
Distils her dews, and from the silken gem
Its lucid leaves unfolds: for him, the hand
Of Autumn unges every fertile branch

With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn.
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;
And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow. not a cloud imbibes

The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure unreproved. Nor thence partakes
Fresh pleasure only: for th' attentive mind,
By this harmonious action on her powers,
Becomes herself harmonious: wont so oft
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order to exert

Within herself this elegance of love,

This fair inspired delight: her temper'd powers
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien.
But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze

On nature's form, where, negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that eternal majesty that weigh'd

The world's foundations; if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye; then mightier far

Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms
Of servile custom cramp her generous powers?
Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth

Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to nature, to the winds

And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons: all declare
For what th' eternal Maker has ordain'd
The powers of man: we feel within ourselves
His energy divine: he tells the heart,

He meant, he made us to behold and love

What he beholds and loves, the general orb

Of life and being; to be great like him,

Beneficent and active. Thus the men

Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself

Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,

With his conceptions, act upon his plan;
And form to his the relish of their souls.

THOMAS GRAY. 1716-1771.

THIS most eminent poet and distinguished scholar was born in London in 1716. After receiving the first portion of his classical education at Eton, he entered the University of Cambridge, where he continued five years; after which he travelled, as companion with Horace Walpole, through France and part of Italy. At Reggio, however, these ill-assorted friends parted in mutual dislike, and Gray proceeded alone to Venice, and there remained only till he was provided with the means of returning to England. As to the cause of the separation, Walpole was afterwards content to bear the blame. "Gray," said he," was too serious a companion for me: he was for antiquities, &c., while I was for perpetual balls and plays; the fault was mine."

แ

Two months after his return to England, his father died in embarrassed circumstances, and Gray returned to Cambridge, where he prosecuted his studies, with an ardor and industry seldom equalled, to the end of his life. In 1742 he produced his "Ode to Spring," and in the autumn of the same year he wrote the "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," and the Hymn to Adversity;" but he did not publish them till some years after. They were circulated among his friends, who were, of course, delighted with them, and they received from their gifted author touches and re-touches, till they were brought to the perfection in which we now have them. So slow was he in poetical composition, that his next ode, "On the Death of a favorite Cat," was not written till 1747. In 1750 appeared his most celebrated poen., the "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard." Few poems were ever so popular. It soon ran through eleven editions, and has ever since been one of those few, favorite pieces that every one has by heart.

In 1757 the office of poet-laureate, made vacant by the death of Cibber, was offered to Gray, but declined. The same year he published his two odes on "The Progress of Poesy," and "The Bard." Though they showed to a still higher degree the power and the genius of the poet, and were felt to be magnificent productions, they were not so popular, because they were less understood. In 1768, the Professorship of History at Cambridge becoming vacant, it was conferred upon our poet, than whom a person of greater and more extensive scholarship could not be found at that time in England. But his habitual indolence in writing unfitted him for the office; for though he retained it till his death, he delivered no lectures. In the spring of 1770 illness overtook him, as he was projecting a tour in Wales; but recovering, he was able to effect the tour in the autumn. But the next year, 1771, on the 24th of July, he was seized with an attack of gout in the stomach, from which, as an hereditary complaint, he had long suffered; and died on the 30th of the same month, in the fifty-fifth year of his age.

The life of Gray is one singularly devoid of interest and variety, even for an author. It is the life of a student giving himself up to learning, account. ing it as an end itself, and "its own exceeding great reward." He devoted his time almost exclusively to reading: writing was with him an exception, and that, too, a rare one. His life was spent in the acquisition of knowledge. At the time of his death, "he was perhaps the most learned man in Europe. He was equally acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science, and that not superficially, but thoroughly. He knew every branch of history, both natural and civil; had read all the original historians of England, France, and Italy; and was a great antiquary. Criticism, metaphysics, morals, politics, made a principal part of his plan of study; voyages and travels of all sorts were his favorite amusement: and he had a fine taste in painting, prints, architecture, and gardening."8

As a poet, though we cannot assent to the enthusiastic encomium of his ardent admirer and biographer, Mr. Matthias, 3 that he is "second to none,"

1 He himself prefixed to them a quotation from Pindar, þwvavra ovverosiv, “vocal to the Intelligent alone."

£ From a sketch of his life by the Rev. William Temple. "I am sorry," says the excellent Dr. Berttie, in writing to a friend, "you did not see Mr. Gray on his return: you would have been much pleased with him. Setting aside his merit as a poet, which, however, in my opinion, is greater than any of his contemporaries can boast, in this or any other nation, I found him possessed of the most exact taste, the soundest judgment, and most extensive learning."

Works, by T J. Matthias, 2 vols. quarto; "he best edition.