Mute Nature seems to hear The woods, the waters, and each silent star : What, that can thus enchain their earnest ear, Bring'st thou of untold tidings from afar ? Is it of new, green lands Of fresh-lit worlds, that in the welkin burn? Or the lost Pleiad to the skies return? Nay thy complaining voice Mourns nature changing with the changing years; Beauty and bloom beguiled thy wanderings; For thou mad'st love unto the virgin flowers, Sighing through green woods and by laughing springs. Now on the earth's cold bed, Fallen and faded, waste their forms away, And all around the withered leaves are shed, Mementos mute of nature's sad decay! Vain is the breath of morn; Vainly the night-dews on their couches weep; Vainly thou call'st them, while above them borne ; They slumber darkly an unending sleep! Thus, too, the fair and young, Exulting dreamers in their youthful bloom, Oft hast thou marked how into life they've sprung, Then sunk to silence and the rayless tomb. And many a sable train Have gathered sadly round their cold remains, With tears, and sighs, and wailings; all in vain : These can not loose nor break Death's icy chains! Empires have risen in might, And peopled cities through the outspread earth, And thou hast passed them at the hour of night, Listing the sounds of revelry and mirth. 30 OUR COTEMPORARIES. "Multa ferunt venientes anni commoda secum Multa recedentes adimunt."-Hor. It is the prerogative of our successors alone to settle the character and trace the influence of events now enacting. Whether the vaunted triumphs of the enthusiast in politics, morals and science, shall then, completely realized, stand out upon the sober record of history, or whether they will furnish themes for satire and raillery against new visionaries, will have passed from speculation into an unbiassed and irreversible decision. The fevered pulse will then have ceased to beat; the mantling flush of excitement, kindled from the unholy fires of prejudice and passion, will have sunk over these, and whatever is accidental, temporary and local, will be laid the pall of forgetfulness; while intellectual greatness and moral worth, untarnished by cotemporary detraction and obloquy, will rise with fresh and augmenting praise. Hurried along as we are by that living crowd which, allowing none to stop, presses on with undiminished ardor and numbers, we are apt to estimate the result of present efforts by the jargon cry of the distempered, the interested, or the malevolent. Forgetful of the relations of one age to another, and the necessary dependence of cause and effect, as clearly marked in the progress of human events as in the material universe, we fondly imagine that Providence has interposed to raise us to a vantage ground immeasurably higher than that of our predecessors, or that a fortuitous combination of circumstances have so changed the features of society, that we stand out totally distinct from and independent of past generations. That in all the essential elements of improvement, we are far in advance of those who have preceded us, would be blindness to deny; but that we have many traits in common with them, moulded in part by their agency, is equally true. They err, we think, most radically who see in the comparative progress of modern science, whether political, philosophical, or mental, the development of principles and modes of action adapted to the nature and wants of men for ages to come. The friend of rational freedom must rejoice, and all must admire the rapidity with which the results of the reformation have diffused themselves through all the ramifications of society; assailing the time-hallowed and decrepit institutions of feudal nations, and totally changing or modifying the character and forms of governments less guarded by the almost invincible barriers of interested prejudice and hereditary estates. Too great deference, also, cannot be paid to those independent philanthropists and thinkers, who defended and advanced the doctrine of religious emancipation as struck out by Luther and his compeers; who rescued it from the enervating embrace of civil power, or by their jealous watchfulness, maintained its purity and fervor. But while we honor the energy alike of the principle and the men who have enstamped it upon every branch of existing knowledge, and upon so many diversified interests, it must be remembered, that every generation is, to some extent, an innovator upon the cherished opinions of the preceding; that transition is the necessary result of deepening light and intelligence; and that in an age where thought is chafing against every thing that is older than to-day, no one can calculate upon the permanency of existing theories, much less upon the unchanged duration of those tangible forms in which the present genius and habits of the people are enshrined. We mean not to decry that liberal spirit which breathes in the literature and politics of this century. Hallowed as it is by past trophies, omnipotent to pull down hoary-headed error, and identified with all that is great in national and mental achievement, it could never meet censure but from the bigot or the despairing advocate of kingly authority. We would only combat that overweening confidence, which in this, as in every past era, marks the present as the focus to which all former series of improvements converge, and back to which all future successes will point-which would believe that the track just carved out is that which, with the chart that we shall bequeath, our successors will undeviatingly follow. It was not until the invention of the telescope, that spots were descried upon the disc of the sun; so by means of history, after times have detected blots upon the face of that orb of civilization, which, for the last eighteen centuries, has revolved with increasing light and splendor from the east to the west. We will not pretend to any prescience in deciding upon the phases which this century will exhibit to those whose business it will be to determine its true characteristics; we lay no claim to that "sight purged with rue and euphrasy"-we only propose to note a few of those indications which lie open to the view of every observer. The first thing which attracts our notice, in a cursory survey, is a quick and sympathetic movement, in regard to every measure which promises amelioration or change. We have already remarked that feeling so natural to every age, but peculiarly impressed upon this, a conviction that we have developed the ultimate principles of politics and morals. It is due to the spread of intelligence, and to that series of revolutions which, taking its rise in England, has gradually advanced through some of the most remarkable stages that society ever witnessed, that we have now imbibed a belief of our duty to push these principles into universal practice. Another reason, perhaps, of this sanguine and excitable temperament is, that a moral coloring, is given to every progressive enterprise. Religion, in a word, has become democratized. She has renounced, for the most part, the pomp and pageantry of aristocratic exclusiveness, and enlisted herself on the side of reform. In England, it is true, the hierarchy has felt itself bound to uphold a fabric upon which was based its own gorgeous power; yet the history of the Reform bill and other cotemporaneous measures tells how many of the blows, which made that hoary pile tremble, were leveled by those who minister at the altars of a lively, evangelical piety. Religious zeal, when it coöperates in advancing civil improvement, becomes a most vigorous ally-when wrought into enthusiasm by indignities or by prospects of undefined success, it gathers to itself a power which is irresistible. Sensitive to the slightest encroachment upon its rights and interests, it seizes without compunction the excrescent power of those who have employed their unnatural elevation to the purposes of monopoly and oppression. One of the clearest exhibitions of the contagious sympathy of the age may be seen in the existence of so many associations for the promotion of various objects, in their rapid multiplication, their operations and their influences. These, by a reciprocal action, become no mean agents in creating a restless feeling throughout the community, and rendering them alive to a thousand trivial abuses, the correction of which would, perhaps, be better effected by the salutary operation of cool, sober thinking on the part of individuals. We have no war to wage with these associations, so long as they are restricted to their appropriate sphere; preserved from partisan officiousness, they contribute to eradicate selfishness from the heart, and to implant there the seeds of an eager benevolence. Men love wealth too much; and it is the true end alike of philanthropy and a regard for individual happiness, to make them love human nature and its advancement more. Intimately associated with this impulsive feature of the age, and growing out of it, is another no less characteristic. It is a love of popular excitement and passionate appeal. The history of language as connected with the public mind, if traced with attention, would afford an inquiry both curious and instructive. Prolific in the invention of new and intensive words would be found revolutionary and transition periods of society: orators, poets, and essayists, feeling the inadequacy of old expressions to portray the burning emotions of the moment, strike out from their heated minds such words as Byron envied, when standing among the "heaven piercing" Alps: -Could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, and passions, feelings strong and weak, Bear, know, feel, yet breathe-into one word, And that one word were Lightning-I would speak ; Such indeed is the efficacy which revolution, tumult and change give to language; for the judgment is then the plaything of passion, and passion becomes the breath of life. Without any of the sensible effects, we have yet all the feelings incident to a thorough and vital revolution-we are impatient of that staid quietness which waits upon the impassioned scenes of life-we seek the crowd, and love its impetuous and noisy eloquence. Who, that is acquainted with the various stages of literature, does not see a marked difference in the present style of popular writing, bold, dashing, pointed, from the quiet, deliberative air of the old essayists who wrote before the French Revolution. Wisdom was then conveyed in the unrippled channels of thought: now, to be heard, it must be put in antithesis, and flashed upon the mind. Whether this burning restlessness is calculated to produce modes of thinking consonant with the permanent advancement of sobriety, knowledge and virtue, may reasonably be questioned; or whether this excess of action may not come, at length, to supersede all thinking, is still more to be feared. It may, perhaps, be a legitimate inference from the doctrine of induction, that action and experiment shall precede thought; yet that it is a political heresy, fraught with inconceivable mischief, leading to extravagance and unparalleled disorder, history is not entirely without witness. Especially is it important in free governments, deriving their life from public opinion, that there should be encouraged an independent, sober and elevated tone of thought, which should be influenced but not directed by the particular feelings of the times; a tone of thought uncolored by the giddy dogmas of pseudo reformers. There will always be found in free communities, those whose only aim is immediate power, and who to attain this, are ready to amuse and mislead the people, by doctrines which, if promulgated to their own families, they would have the sagacity and good sense to rebuke. Their watchword is action-because under its ambiguous meaning they can most effectually conceal their interested motives. To unmask these specious doctrines-to push to conviction the truth that enlightened thought is the only instrument of wisdom, our writers and legislators must learn to forego the transient and suspicious reputation of moving the passions, and court the power of convincing the judgment. The liberal professions have felt, perhaps, as much as any other branches of learning or pursuits of industry, the impulse of the |