ROBERT TREAT PAINE, jr., once regarded as among the great masters of English verse, was born at Taunton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of December, 1773. His father, an eminent lawyer, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, held many honorable offices under the State and national governments. The family removed to Boston when the poet was about seven years old, where he received his early education. He entered Harvard University in 1788, where his career was brilliant and honorable: no member of his class was so familiar with elegant English literature, or with the ancient languages; and his poetical exercises won many and just praises. He was assigned the post of poet at the college exhibition in the autumn of 1791, and at the Commencement in the following year. After receiving his diploma he entered the countingroom of Mr. James Tisdale, in Boston; but, as he was no way suited to the pursuit of business, he soon after abandoned the place, to rely upon his pen for the means of living. In 1794 he established the " Federal Orrery," a political and literary gazette, which he conducted for two years. At the opening of the Federal-street Theater, Boston, in 1794, he furnished a prize prologue, and afterward became intimate with persons connected with the stage, which led to his marriage to Miss BAKER, an actress, in 1795. This having rendered him unpopular, he unfortunately became intemperate. His poetical abilities, however, again led to his temporary elevation. For the "Invention of Letters," written at the request of the president of Harvard University, he received fifteen hundred dollars; for "The Ruling Passion," a poem recited before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, but little less; and for the above poem, which he entitled "Adams and Liberty," seven hundred and fifty dollars. He read law with Chief-Justice PARSONS, was admitted in 1802, and commenced practice with great success; but he unfortunately soon after returned to his unsettled mode of life, and died on the 13th of November, 1811. His works were collected by CHARLES PRENTISS, and published at Boston, in 1812, in one large svo. volume. PAINE wrote with remarkable facility. On exhibiting the above poem, at the house of a friend, it was pronounced imperfect, as the name of WASHINGTON was omitted. The poet mused a moment, called for a pen, and immediately wrote the 8th stanza, which is, perhaps, the best in the song. 1. 113. THE MARSEILLES HYMN. E sons of France, awake to glory! Hark! hark! what myriads bid you rise! march on! all hearts resolved 2. Now, now, the dangerous storm is rolling, Which treacherous kings, confederate raise The avenging sword unsheathe! March on march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death! 4. With luxury and pride surrounded, Their thirst of power and gold unbounded— The avenging sword unsheathe! March on! march on! all hearts resolved 4. O Liberty! can man resign thee, Once having felt thy generous flame? The avenging sword unsheathe! march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death! ROUGET DE LISLE. JOSEPH ROUGET DE LISLE was born May 10th, 1760, at Lons-le-Saunier, in the department of Jura. He was an officer in the French Revolution, and ever 07 THIVE cherished republican principles. He is best known as the author of the "Marseillaise," or "Marseilles Hymn," which he wrote and set to music in one night, at Strasburg, in the winter of 1791-1792. This became the national song of the French patriots, and was famous in Europe and America. Its author, however, was imprisoned in the Reign of Terror, and only escaped the scaffold by the fall of Robespierre. On the restoration of the Bourbons it was suppressed but the revolution of 1830 called it up anew, and Louis PHILIPPE bestowed on the author a pension of fifteen hundred francs from his private purse. ROUGET De LISLE published other pieces, both in prose and verse. He died in 1836 A 114. PAUL FLEMMING RESOLVES. ND now the sun was growing high and warm. A little chapel, whose door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming to enter and enjoy the grateful coolness. He went in. There' was no one there. The walls were covered with paintings and sculpture of the rudest kind, and with a few funeral tablets. There was nothing there to move the heart to devotion; but in that hour the heart of Flemming was weak,-weak as a child's. He bowed his stubborn knees and wept. And oh! how many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride, and unrequited love, were in those tears, through which he read on a marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, this singular inscription: "LOOK NOT MOURNFULLY INTO THE PAST: IT COMES NOT BACK AGAIN. WISELY IMPROVE THE PRESENT: IT IS THINE. GO FORTH TO MEET THE SHADOWY FUTURE, WITHOUT FEAR, AND WITH A MANLY HEART." 2. It seemed to him as if the unknown tenant of that grave had opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of consolation, which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. The stone was rolled away from the door of his heart; death was no longer there, but an angel clothed in white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more bleared with tears; and, looking into the bright, morning heaven, he said, "I WILL BE STRONG!" 3. Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painful lõngings to behold once more the faces of their departed friends; and as they gaze upon them, lying there so peacefully with the semblance that they wore on earth, the sweet breath of heaven 'There (thår).- Rudest (rôd' est).- Nothing (nůth'ing). touches them, and the features crumble and fall together, and are but dust. So did his soul then descend for the last' time into the great tomb of the past, with painful longings to behold once more the dear faces of those he had loved; and the sweet breath of heaven touched them, and they would not stay, but crumbled away and perished as he gazed. They, too, were dust. And thus, far-sounding, he heard3 the great gate of the past shut behind him as the divine poet did the gate of paradise, when the angel pointed him the way up the holy mountain; and to him likewise was it forbidden to look back. 4. In the life of every man, there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these sudden changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently' without sufficient cause. It was so with Flemming, and from that hour forth he resolved that he would no longer veer with every shifting wind of circumstance; no longer be a child's plaything in the hands of fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to lean on others; but to walk self-confident and self-possessed: no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires; but to live in the resent wisely, alike forgetful of the past, and careless of what the mysterious future might bring. And from that moment he was calm,' and strong; he was reconciled with himself! 5. His thoughts turned to his distant home beyond the sea. An indescribable, sweet feeling rose within him. "Thither will I turn my wandering footsteps," said he; "and be a man among men, and no longer a dreamer among shadows. Henceforth be mine a life of action and reality! I will work in my own sphere nor wish it other than it is. This alone is health and happiness. This alone is life 'Life that shall send A challenge to its end, And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!' 'Låst.—a Påst.—3 Heard (hễrd).—' Earth (ẻrth).—-* Ap pår' ent ly.— Care' less." Cālm - Work (werk). 6. "Why have I not made these sage reflections, this wise resolve, sooner? Can such a simple result spring only from the long and intricate process of experience? Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the book of human life, to light the fires of passion with, from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number, and to remember, faintly at first, and then more clearly, that upon the earlier pages of that book was written a story of happy innocence, which he would fain read over again. Then come listless irresolution, and the inevitable inaction of despair; or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still remain, a more noble history than the child's story, with which the book began." H. W. LONGFELLOW. HENRY WADSWorth LongfeLLOW was born in the city of Portland, Maine, on the 27th of February, 1807. He entered Bowdoin College at fourteen, and graduated in due course. He soon after commenced the study of law, in the office of his father, the Hon. STEPHEN LONGFELLOW, but being appointed professor of modern languages at Bowdoin, in 1826, he sailed for Europe to prepare himself for the duties of his office, where he passed three years and a half. On nis return, he entered upon the labors of instruction. Mr. LONGFELLOW being elected professor of modern languages and literature in Harvard College, in 1835, resigned his place in Brunswick, and went a second time to Europe, to make himself better acquainted with the subjects of his studies in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. On his return home, in 1836, he immediately entered upon his labors at Cambridge, where he has since resided. In 1854 he resigned his professorship at Harvard. His earliest poems were written for "The United States Gazette," printed in Boston, while he was an under-graduate, from which period he has been recognized as among the first writers of prose and verse of the nineteenth century. During his subsequent residence at Brunswick, hs wrote several elegant and very able papers for the "North American Review," translated "Coplas de Manrique," and published " Outre Mer," a collection of agreeable tales and sketches, chiefly written during his first residence abroad. "Hyperion," a romance, appeared in 1839, and "Kavanagh," another prose work, in 1848. The first collection of his poems was published in 1839, entitled "Voices of the Night." His "Ballads and other Poems" followed in 1841; "The Spanish Student," a play, in 1843; "Poems on Slavery," in 1844; "The Belfry of Bruges, and other Poems," in 1845; Evangeline, a Tale of Arcadie," in 1847; "The Sea and Fireside," in 1849; "The Golden Legend," in 1851; and "Hiawatha," in 1855. In 1845 he published "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," the most complete and satisfactory work of the kind that has ever appeared in any language. "The Skeleton in Armor" is one of the longest and most unique of his original poems. "Hiawatha," his longest poem, which is purely original and American, has been republished in England, and has met with a popularity, both in Europe and America, not surpassed by any poem of the present century. The high finish, gracefulness, and vivid beauty of his style, and the moral purity and earnest humanity portrayed in his verse, excite the sympathy and reach the heart of the public. |