dismembered trunks, outspread, gore-clothed, lifeless; brains bursting from crushed skulls, blood gushing from sabred necks,-severed heads, whose mouths mutter rage amidst the palsying of the last agony.

He hears the mingled cry of anguish and despair, issuing from a thousand bosoms, in which a thousand bayonets turn, the convulsive scream of anguish from heaps of mangled, half-expiring victims, over whom the heavy . artillery wheels lumber, and crush into one mass, bone and muscle and sinew, - while the fetlock of the warhorse drips with blood starting from the last palpitation of the burst heart, on which the hoof pivots.

"This is not earth"-would not such a celestial stranger exclaim?· -"this is not earth". "this is hell!" "This is not man! but demon, tormenting demon.”

Thus exclaiming, would he not speed away to the skies, -his immortal nature unable to endure the folly, the crime, and the madness of man?

"NOT ON THE BATTLE FIELD."—John Pierpont.

[An example of the intense "Expression" arising from vivid delineation, accompanied by profound and affecting sentiment]

Oh! 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's life,
Be in my hand, when death

Thunders along, and tramples me beneath
His heavy squadron's heels,

Or gory felloes of his cannon 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,

Oh! never let my spirit take her flight!

I know that Beauty's eye

Is all the brighter where gay pennants fly,
And brazen helmets dance,

And sunshine flashes on the lifted lance;
I know that bards have sung,

And people shouted till the welkin rung
In honor of the brave

Who on the battle-field have found a grave.

Such honors grace the bed,

I know, whereon the warrior lays his head,
And hears, as life ebbs out,

The conquered flying, and the conqueror's shout.—
But as his eye grows dim,

What is a column or a mound to him?

What, to the parting soul,

The mellow note of bugles? What the roll
Of drums? No: let me die

Where the blue heaven bends o'er me lovingly,
And the soft summer air,

As it goes by me, stirs my thin white hair,
And from my forehead dries

The death-damp as it gathers, and the skies
Seem waiting to receive

My soul to their clear depths! Or let me leave
The world, when round my bed

Wife, children, weeping friends, are gathered,
And the calm voice of

prayer

The human brotherhood

By labors, cares, and counsels for their good.

And in my dying hour,

When riches, fame, and honor, have no power
To bear the spirit up,

Or from my lips to turn aside the cup

That all must drink at last,

Oh! let me draw refreshment from the past!

Then let my soul run back,

With peace and joy, along my earthly track,
And see that all the seeds

That I have scattered there, in virtuous deeds,
Have sprung up, and have given,

Already, fruits of which to taste in heaven!
And though no grassy mound
Or granite pile say 't is heroic ground
Where my remains repose,

Still will I hope- vain hope, perhaps !—that those
Whom I have striven to bless,

The wanderer reclaimed, the fatherless,

May stand around my grave,

With the poor prisoner, and the poorest slave,
And breathe an humble prayer,

That they may die like him whose bones are mouldering there.

RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE THE VITAL ELEMENT OF POETRY.Carlyle.

[An example of "Expression" affected by noble sentiment and elevated diction.]*

Burns was born poor, and born also to continue poor; for he would not endeavor to be otherwise: this it had been well could he have once for all admitted, and considered as finally settled. He was poor, truly; but hundreds, even of his own class and order of mind, have been poorer, yet have suffered nothing deadly from it: nay, his own father had a far sorer battle with ungrateful destiny than his was; and he did not yield to it, but died courageously warring, and, to all moral intents, prevailing, against it.

True, Burns had little means, had even little time for poetry, his only real pursuit and vocation; but so much the more precious was what little he had. In all these

* Passages like the above form useful elements for practice in the appropriate style of oratory on occasions such as those of literary anniversaries and similar festivals.]

external respects his case was hard; but very far from the hardest. Poverty, incessant drudgery, and much worse evils, it has often been the lot of poets and wise men to strive with, and their glory to conquer. Locke was banished as a traitor; and wrote his Essay on the Human Understanding, sheltering himself in a Dutch garret. Was Milton rich or at his ease, when he composed Paradise Lost? Not only low, but fallen; not only poor, but impoverished; "in darkness and with dangers compassed round," he sang his immortal song, and found fit audience, though few." Did not Cervantes finish his work, a maimed soldier, and in prison? Nay, was not the Araucana, which Spain acknowledges as its Epic, written without even the aid of paper; on scraps of leather, as the stout fighter and voyager snatched any moment from that wild warfare?

And what then had these men, which Burns wanted? Two things; both which, it seems to us, are indispensable for such men. They had a true, religious principle of morals; and a single not a double aim in their activity. They were not self-seekers and self-worshippers; but seekers and worshippers of something far better than self. Not personal enjoyment was their object; but a high, heroic idea of religion, of patriotism, of heavenly wisdom, in one or the other form, ever hovered before them; in which cause, they neither shrunk from suffering, nor called on the earth to witness it as something wonderful; but patiently endured, counting it blessedness enough so to spend and be spent. Thus the “goldencalf of self-love," however curiously carved, was not their Deity; but the invisible goodness, which alone is man's reasonable service. This feeling was as a celestial fountain, whose streams refreshed into gladness and beauty all the provinces of their otherwise too desolate existence. In a word, they willed one thing, to which all other things were subordinated, and made subservient; and therefore they accomplished it. The wedge will rend rocks; but

its edge must be sharp and single: if it be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces, and will rend nothing.

Part of this superiority these men owed to their age; in which heroism and devotedness were still practised, or, at least, not yet disbelieved in: but much of it likewise they owed to themselves. With Burns, again, it was different. His morality, in most of its practical points, is that of a mere worldly man; enjoyment, in a finer or coarser shape, is the only thing he loves and strives for. A noble instinct sometimes raises him above this; but an instinct only, and acting only for moments. He has no religion in the shallow age where his days were cast, religion was not discriminated from the "New" and "Old Light" forms of religion; and was, with these, becoming obsolete in the minds of men. His heart, indeed, is alive with a trembling adoration; but there is no temple in his understanding. He lives in darkness and in the shadow of doubt. His religion, at best, is an anxious wish; like that of Rabelais, "a great Perhaps."

He loved poetry warmly, and in his heart; could he but have loved it purely and with his whole undivided heart, it had been well. For poetry, as Burns could have followed it, is but another form of wisdom, of religion; is itself wisdom and religion. But this, also, was denied him. His poetry is a stray, vagrant gleam, which will not be extinguished within him, yet rises not to be the true light of his path, but is often a wildfire that misleads him. It was not necessary for Burns to be rich, to be, or to seem, independent; but it was necessary for him to be at one with his own heart; to place what was highest in his nature, highest also in his life; "to seek within himself for that consistency and sequence, which external events would forever refuse him." He was born a poet; poetry was the celestial element of his being, and should have been the soul of all his endeavors. Lifted into that serene ether, whither he had wings given him to mount, he would have needed no other elevation.