There is a spot in that laurel bower

Where the sunbeams fall in a golden shower,
And through the clusters of blossoms pale
Sweeps the free current of the gale.
Full in the path of the zephyr's sighs
The stony shell of a tortoise lies:*
Time, and the touches of decay
Have mouldered the softer parts away;
But the rigid chords of the sinews still
Are tightly strained o'er the hollow shell;
And the air, as it vibrates o'er the strings
Bears their rich tones upon its wings.

Soon as the trembling notes expire,
The god, transported, grasps the lyre,
And lightly bounding down the glade,
Speeds him to Issa, scornful maid.

Tired of the chase, the nymph reclines
Beneath the shade of tendrilled vines,
Where the soft southwest, from its pinions flings
The perfume of all odorous things.
Hermes bends his plumed head,

Veils his eyes as if in dread,
Sinks to earth upon his knee,
At her side, adoringly :

Places so the mottled shell

That the zephyr's fitful swell

Freely o'er the chords may thrill.

It comes! it passes!-wild music rings

At its flying touch, from the quivering strings.

The nymph, enchanted, heard the wind-notes wild
To Hermes murmured, 'I am thine'—and smiled:
The god, transported, clasped her to his breast,
And owned his sorrows soothed, his labors blest.

AREM.

TRUTH THE AIM OF AN AUTHOR.

THERE is a very striking contrast between our writers of the present day, and those great authors who shone during the last two or three centuries. While we have been advancing in general knowledge, and in the various departments of science, we seem to have lost that literary genius and taste which so distinguished our ancestors. Our writers are wanting in that honest

good sense, that simple, and natural feeling, that royal might of intellect, which singly, or united, we almost always see in the standard writers of our literature. There is less of the free soul, and the strong reason, now, than there used to be.

When men first began to compose, their feelings were wild, and unchained as the mountain wind. Hence it is, that we always find the earliest literature of every original nation, marked by a sublime beauty, and by a disregard of the petty rules of civilized imbecility. But when society has become more closely bound together, and men's intellects have become whetted and polished by continual contact; when the knowledge of the world, and what is in it and around it is extended, the literature is changed. We then have an era, marked by the union of the energy, and, now chastened, boldness of earlier years, with the industry, activity, and acuteness, of a later, and more elegant age. During such a period, did Milton and Shakspeare write. It was a day of transition in the national mind, which was wakened and strengthened by a stirring and sturdy conflict.

The times with us are different. Many of the present day seem to write and speak, merely for the sake of doing so, because it is the fashion, or because they think thereby to gain reputation or wealth. Indeed, which way soever we turn, whether to the discussions in the public journals, to the speeches in Congress, or in our various popular assemblies, we cannot fail to be struck with the almost universal want of a sincere, and strong love of truth. To this cause can be traced, I think, the worst faults of our writers.

For, in the first place, it is very clearly seen in the unmeaning length and artificial, tinsel style of many of their productions.

He who intelligently esteems, and ardently seeks for truth, conscious of how much there is to be found and presented to the world, prizes time too highly to be willing to stop and sport with his readers, or to astound and petrify them with his erudition and eloquence. He has something to tell, and it is told. He has a mark to hit, and plants his bullet there; while others less wise and more ambitious, scatter their small shot round about it, in noisy but innocent confusion. He has sought for clear and definite ideas, and has got them. They occupy a definite space, and have a perceptible weight and meaning.

The lack of this principle appears, likewise, in that great want of moderation and modesty which our writers so often show. There is almost always a sort of humility, or at least a charity of opinion, discernable in the writings of those whose aim it is to find and unfold the truth. They are men who comprehend themselves so well, their own liability to err, and the difficulties, so numerous, in their way, that they are willing to weigh with frankness and care, the opinions of others. They never seem to

take it for granted, that reason and wisdom dwell with them. alone, or that their Maker has gifted them with the sole power of judging, and the sole right to dictate and decide what is expedient or just. There may be warmth of feeling without passion. The subject often requires it, and no man of good feelings and benevolent purpose, can restrain it. But the advice of Bolingbroke is good: "Write as you live, without passion; and build your reputation, as you build your happiness, on the foundations of truth."

The mass of light literature that is so eagerly sought for, and consumed at the present day, speaks sadly for the taste that is abroad in the country. The mind that can take delight in reading, and meditating on works of this stamp, can have little real relish for truth, and, it is to be feared, is but poorly able to comprehend or to find it. For these outrage all truth; and he who can see and feel this is at once disgusted. For the same reason that he loves Shakspeare and Milton, and can linger with admiration on their pages; that he delights to "live along their lines," and luxuriate over the beauty, and strength of their language, the deep sublimity of their conceptions, and the true characters they have drawn; for this reason, does he put away in displeasure and sorrow, such superlative farces on human nature. And yet, these devourers of love, and daggers, and nonsense, imagine that they are studying "style," or searching out the "secret springs of action," or cultivating the "finer feelings," and would fain have others believe it too. But the truth is, that there are few things that so belittle the soul as the reading of such works. If they displayed any of that high, native romance of feeling, so richly eloquent in the great English poetess; any of the intellect of De Stael, or of that consummate knowledge of men which has so distinguished Sir Walter Scott, the case would be different. As they are, their natural tendency is to beget a puling sentiment, and sickly taste, wholly unworthy of a man and a scholar.

This age has been well named by Carlyle, a mechanical age. Men do, in reality, think, speak, and write, as parts of machines, moving together, and dependant on each other; and yet, obey in so doing, no fixed laws, but change with the changing rules of popular custom. They have at last become so civilized, that their souls have lost much of their own native and guiding power. They are cramped and bound tight about by the stiff restraints of an arbitrary fashion, lest they should breathe deeply and full, of the free air, and grow up to a perfect stature and natural proportion. The barbarian speaks as he feels; our civilized man, as it is the fashion to feel. The former may be at one extreme, but the latter is surely at the worse. If it is customary to be unable to comprehend a certain author-he is darker and more obscure than the realms of chaos and old night. If a certain class of men

have begun to prate extravagantly on any subject-at once a thousand ears catch the strain, and a thousand tongues thunder the silly paradoxes over the wide country. Calm eyed, and calm voiced men are few. Our writers receiving their impulse, not from an original, ever active force within, but from the mad momentum of a power without and around, assume language and sentiments that do not properly belong to them. Or at least, they do not write out in the simplicity of their hearts, their own individual, spontaneous feelings, their own original, and calmly digested ideas. Hence, it is plain must proceed much that is artificial and sometimes ridiculous. As in daily life, those who act out their own real candid selves, are seldom or never the objects of sport, so is it in writing. He who writes because his honest, strong convictions force him, is not often foolish or contemptible. I wish to add a few words on the necessity of always seeking the truth in our investigations, in all its extent and exactness, if we would judge aright, and wish to enjoy the quiet fixedness of certainty.

Moral truth, the most important of all, does not, like mathe matical, force itself upon us. The reason probably is, that our perception of the axioms and postulates of morality is slow, dull, and oftentimes false. Here lies the great difficulty. There is danger lest this mental sense be injured so that it deceive, or fail us; for much is required of it. There are many positions in which objects must be seen, and the inward eye must be able to recognize them; there are different mediums through which the light must pass,-the eye must compensate for refraction, and false coloring, and lastly, the organ itself is exceedingly delicate, and by careless using, the nice lenses are easily turned awry, or so fixed in one position, that they can no longer adapt themselves to the ever changing situations in which they are called upon to judge of complex and difficult objects. We may not tamper with our minds. They are sufficiently erring, of necessity, and too much care cannot be taken to keep them in the right course. The river has once broken its bounds, and though its channel be the straightest, and deepest, and its embankments high and strong, there is always some place of weakness-some small stream still flowing from a gap but partly filled. Be watchful and busy, or it will open a way for the whole body of waters; they will be poured out on the plain,-their strength divided, and their purity lost.

With our best endeavors to reach the truth, we sometimes err; and the more careless we are, the oftener do we wander. He who, for any reason, accustoms himself to write against the opinion his honest convictions approve, will, sooner or later, find his perception of truth less quick, and nice. The order and symmetry of his mind is broken up. His habits of thinking become weak and

loose; the exact reverse of that close and compact investigation, which alone is sure to guide aright. He learns to seek for arguments in place of truth, and is ever apprehensive lest the next will overturn all that he has found before. There clings about him continually a shackling fear, nay, almost a consciousness that he has foolishly blundered, which gives rise either to a wavering timidity, or a determined and unmanly obstinacy. Like the stream, his strength is divided, and he wanders blindly on, till lost in the pestilent marshes of error.

Every writer ought, therefore, to make it an unchanging principle of action, to seek the exact truth in the case of each particular subject that comes before him, and having found it, to unfold it. He will then enjoy a quiet, unassuming self respect, and command the confidence and approval of his fellow men. He will escape all those contemptible faults of style, which are the constant marks of a narrow mind, or a narrow soul; and will often, too, show a strength, and self-sustaining loftiness of conception, which will disarm the critic, and oblige him to stop and confess that he has to do with a man. Such an one, he who has this sure consciousness of right, who can feel his vigorous heart at each stroke beat honest blood throughout his frame, alone can walk erect and secure amid friends and foes, through prosperity and adversity. Solicitous for the cause of truth alone, he will see with gladness his own errors uncovered, their ill tendency arrested, and will feel no anxiety lest his works and name should not descend to posterity; convinced that if they deserve it, they will be immortal,-willing that if unworthy, they should die. Such is the spirit our countrymen need. It is that which the greatest and best of men have almost always possessed in a high degree. Thus has it been in Greece, in England, and in America with Socrates, with Milton, Newton, Washington, and ica-with Franklin. It must be so of necessity; for in the one case-the great man is able to compass at a view so large a portion of all truth, to see so clearly the beauty and symmetry of those different parts of the one universe, which are open to his sight, that it would be an outrage on the very laws of his being, it would be going contrary to his own nature, to have a different aim, or a stronger desire. In the case of the good man, from the very fact that he is good, he loves the truth as he loves his God, and seeks to know and follow it as he seeks to know and obey his Maker.

By learning from the example that either of these sets us, our countrymen (and we with them) may avoid the worst faults of bad writers, and reach some of the high excellencies of those whose works are a lasting blessing, and an unfading honor to their native land.