Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

associations were with the cloisters of Canterbury, (that spot, to my eye, of matchless beauty,) the garden vales of Devonshire, the valley of the Wye, and the glades of Rydal. His latest memory of this earth was of beautiful England in her summer garb of verdure. The last words he ever wrote were in a letter of the 20th September to his venerable friend, Mrs. Wordsworth, thanking her and his English friends generally for all she and they had done for him.

The rest is soon told.

ocean.

On the 20th of September, 1854, Mr. Reed, with his sister, embarked at Liverpool for New York, in the United States steam-ship Arctic. Seven days afterward, at noon, on the 27th, when almost in sight of his native land, a fatal collision occurred, and before sun-down, every human being left upon the ship had sunk under the waves of the The only survivor who was personally acquainted with my brother, saw him about two o'clock P.M.; after the collision, and not very long before the ship sank, sitting, with his sister, in the small passage aft of the dining saloon. They were tranquil and silent, though their faces wore the look of painful anxiety." They probably afterwards left this position, and repaired to the promenade deck. For a selfish struggle for life, with a helpless companion dependent upon him, with a physical frame unsuited for such a strife, and, above all, with a sentiment of religious resignation which taught him in that hour of agony, even with the memory of his wife and children thronging in his mind, to bow his head in submission to the will of God, for such a struggle he was wholly unsuited;

66

and his is the praise, that he perished with the women and children.

Nor can I conclude this brief narrative without the utterance of an opinion, expressed in no asperity, and not, I hope, improperly intruded here—my opinion, as an American citizen, that, in all the history of wanton and unnecessary shipwreck, no greater scandal to the science of navigation, or to the system of marine discipline, ever occurred than the loss of the Arctic and her three hundred passengers. There is but one thing worse, and that is the absence of all laws of the United States either to prevent the recurrence of such a catastrophe; to bring to justice those, if there are any such, who are responsible; or, at least, to secure a judicial investigation of the actual facts.

The news of Mr. Reed's death was received with deep and intense feeling in the city of his birth, his education, and active life. Philadelphia mourned sincerely for her son; and no tribute to his memory, no graceful expression or act of sympathy to his family, was withheld. For them all there are no adequate words of gratitude.

Returning with renewed health and refreshed spirits, with a capacity not only for intellectual enjoyment, but professional usefulness, enlarged by observation of other institutions and intercourse with the wise and good of the Mother country, especially those who had made education in its highest branches the study and business of their lives, Professor Reed, we may well believe, would have resumed his American duties with new zeal and efficiency. Not that I for one moment imagine he had become in

[graphic]

fected with the folly of fancying that a system of foreign University education, in any of its forms, could or ought to be transplanted here; but, I have no doubt, that observation of thorough training and accurate scholarship, the combination of moral and intellectual discipline such as is seen abroad, and especially in Great Britain, would have raised still higher in his mind the aims at which American students and American institutions of learning should be directed.

By his early death-for he was but forty-six years of age -all these hopes were doomed to disappointment. The most that can now be done is to give to the world these fragmentary memorials of his studious life; and for them I beg an indulgent and candid criticism.

WILLIAM B. REED.

PHILADELPHIA, February 1st, 1855.

Henry Reed.

FOR many days our eyes have seaward wander'd,
As if to search the Ocean o'er and o'er,
And tender hearts have sorrowfully ponder'd,
"Shall we behold his gentle face no more?"
The silent Sea no glad response returning,

66

We cry, "O Sun! that lightest nature's face,

Dost thou not shine upon some favour'd place Where he is tost for whom our souls are yearning?" No answering voice allays our trembling fears, And long anxiety gives way to tears.

Beneath the waves o'er which great ships go flitting,
He waits the day when Ocean yields her dead;
And loving sighs and bitter drops are shed

By desolate ones around his hearthstone sitting;
And, while they mourn the gifted and the good,
The general grief shows holy brotherhood.

THOS. MACKELLAR.

LECTURES

ON

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

LECTURE I.-INTRODUCTORY.*

Principles of Literature.

Object, to assist and guide students-Necessity of systematic studyJudicious criticism-True aims and principles of literature-Choice of books-Its difficulties-Aim of this course of lectures to remove them-All books not literature-Accurate definition of literatureIts universality-Izaak Walton-Addison-Charles Lamb-Lord Bacon-Clarendon-Arnold-Spenser and Shakspeare-Southey and Wordsworth-Belles-lettres not literature-Literature not an easy, patrician pleasure-Its danger as to practical life-Its influence on character-De Quincey's definition-Knowledge and Power -Influence on female character-True position of woman-Tennyson's Princess-Novel-reading-Taste, an incorrect term-Henry Taylor-Cowper-Miss Wordsworth-Coleridge's philosophy.

THIS course of lectures is prepared in the hope of doing some service in connection with the abundant and precious literature which lies about us in our English speech. The plan has been, in some measure, prompted to my thoughts by applications not unfrequently made to me for advice and guidance in English reading. There is a stage

* Delivered in the Chapel Hall of the University, January 3, 1850.

« ZurückWeiter »