Poverty, neglect, and all evil, save the desecration of himself and his art, were a small matter to him: the pride and the passions of the world lay far beneath his feet; and he looked down alike on noble and slave, on prince and beggar, and all that wore the stamp of man, with clear recognition, with brotherly affection, with sympathy, with pity. Nay, we question whether for his culture as a poet, poverty and much suffering, for a season, were not absolutely advantageous. Great men, in looking back over their lives, have testified to that effect. "I would not for

much," says Jean Paul, "that I had been born richer." And yet Paul's birth was poor enough; for, in another place, he adds: "the prisoner's allowance is bread and water; and I had often only the latter." But the gold that is refined in the hottest furnace, comes out the purest; or, as he himself has expressed it, "the canary-bird sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in a darkened cage."

A man like Burns might have divided his hours between poetry and virtuous industry; industry which all true feeling sanctions, nay, prescribes, and which has a beauty, for that cause, beyond the pomp of thrones: but to divide his hours between poetry and rich men's banquets, was an ill-starred and inauspicious attempt. How could he be at ease at such banquets? What had he to do there, mingling his music with the coarse roar of altogether earthly voices, and brightening the thick smoke of intoxication with fire lent him from heaven? Was it his aim to enjoy life? To-morrow he must go drudge as an Exciseman! We wonder not that Burns became moody, indignant, and at times an offender against certain rules of society; but rather that he did not grow utterly frantic, and "run a muck" against them all. How could a man, so falsely placed, by his own or others' fault, ever know contentment, or peaceable diligence, for an hour? What he did, under such perverse guidance, and what he for

bore to do, alike fill us with astonishment at the natural strength and worth of his character.

Doubtless there was a remedy for his perverseness : but not in others; only in himself; least of all in simple increase of wealth and worldly respectability.

EMBLEMS.-James Montgomery.

[An example of "Expression" and "Variation," as produced by vivid sentiment. The successive stages of the style of elocution, in the reading of this piece, are those which indicate seriousness, solemnity, and awe.]

An evening-cloud, in brief
suspense,
Was hither driven and thither;
It came I know not whence,

And went I knew not whither:
I watched it changing in the wind,
Size, semblance, shape and hue,
Fading and lessening,- till behind

It left no speck in heaven's deep blue.

Some slid down singly, here and there,

Like tears, by their own weight overborne;
At length the film itself collapsed; and where
The pageant glittered, lo! a naked thorn.

What are the living? Hark! a sound
From the grave and cradle crying,
By earth and ocean echoed round,
"The living are the dying!"

From infancy to utmost age,
What is man's line of pilgrimage?
The pathway to Death's portal:
The moment we begin to be,
We enter on the agony;

The dead are the immortal;
They live not on expiring breath,
They only are exempt from death.

Cloud-atoms, sparkles of a falling star,
Dew-drops, or films of gossamer we are:
What can the state beyond us be?

Life?-Death ?— Ah! no,

a greater mystery!—

What thought hath not conceived, ear heard, eye seen;

Perfect existence from a point begun;

Part of what GOD's eternity hath been:

Whole immortality belongs to none

But HIM, the first, the last, the Only One!

THE SUN'S ECLIPSE. (July 8, 1842.(-Horace Smith. [The reading of this piece calls for the successive "Expression" of awe, terror, horror, and joy, as elicited by description, in the form of poetry.] 'Tis cloudless morning; but a frown misplaced,

Cold, lurid, strange,

Her summer smile from Nature's brow hath chased:

What fearful change,

What menacing catastrophe is thus
Ushered by such prognostics ominous?

Is it the life of day, this livid glare,

Death's counterpart?

What means the withering coldness in the air,
That chills my heart,

And what the gloom portentous that hath made
The glow of morning a funeral shade?

O'er the Sun's disk, a dark orb wins its slow,
Gloom-deepening way,

Climbs,-spreads,— enshrouds,—extinguishes,—and lo!
The god of day

Hangs in the sky, a corpse! The usurper's might
Hath stormed his throne, and quenched the life of light!

A pall is on the earth; — the screaming birds
To covert speed,

Bewildered and aghast; the bellowing herds
Rush o'er the mead;

While men,- pale shadows in the ghastly gloom,—
Seem spectral forms just risen from the tomb.

Transient, though total, was that drear eclipse:
With might restored,

The Sun regladdened earth;—but human lips
Have never poured

In mortal ears the horrors of the sight

That thrilled my soul that memorable night.

To every distant zone and fulgent star

Mine eyes could reach,

And the wide waste was one chaotic war:

O'er ail and each,

Above-beneath - around me

- everywhere

Was anarchy, convulsion,- death, - despair.

'Twas noon;

and yet a deep unnatural night

Enshrouded heaven,

Save where some orb unsphered, or satellite

Franticly driven,

Glared as it darted through the darkness dread,
Blind, rudderless, unchecked, unpiloted.

A thousand simultaneous thunders crashed,

As here and there,

Some rushing planet 'gainst another dashed,
Shooting through air

Volleys of shattered wreck, when both, destroyed,
Foundered and sank in the engulfing void.

Others self-kindled, as they whirled and turned,
Without a guide,

Burst into flames, and rushing as they burned
With range more wide,

Like fire-ships that some stately fleet surprise,
Spread havoc through the constellated skies.

While stars kept falling from their spheres, as though The heavens wept fire,

Earth was a raging hell of war and woe,

Brute force was law,-justice, the assassin's knife.

From that fell scene my space-commanding eye
Glad to withdraw,

I pierced the empyrean palace of the sky,
And shuddering saw

A vacant throne, a sun's extinguished sphere,-
All else a void,-dark, desolate, and drear.

"What mean," I cried, "these sights unparalleled,
These scenes of fear?"

When lo! a voice replied; and nature held
Her breath to hear-

"Mortal! the scroll before thine eyes unfurled
Displays a soul-eclipse, - an atheist world!"

I woke my dream was o'er! What ecstasy
It was to know

That God was guide and guardian of the sky,
That man below,

Deserved the love I felt, I could not speak

The thrilling joy whose tears were on my cheek!