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forms before the eye. But the extempore speaker, | who is to invent as well as to utter, to carry on an operation of the mind as well as to produce sound, enters upon the work without preparatory discipline, | and then wonders that he fails ! |

If he were learning to play on the flute for public exhibition, what hours and days would he spend in giving facility to his fingers, and attaining the power of the sweetest and most expressive execution! If he were devoting himself to the organ, | what months and years would he labor, | that he might know its compass, and be master of its keys, and be able to draw out, at will, all its various combinations of harmonious sound, and its full richness and delicacy of expression! And yet he will fancy that the grandest, the most various and most expressive of all instruments, | which the infinite Creator has fashioned by the union. of an intellectual soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon without study or practice; he comes to it a mere uninstructed tyro, and thinks to manage all its stops, and command the whole compass of its varied and comprehensive power! He finds himself a bungler in the attempt, is mortified at his failure, | and settles it in his mind for ever, that the attempt is vain.

Success in every art, | whatever may be the natural talent, is always the reward of industry and pains.. But the instances are many, of men of the finest natural genius, whose beginning has promised much, but who have degenerated wretchedly as they advanced, because they trusted to their gifts, and made no efforts to improve. That there have never been other men of equal endowments with Demosthenes and Cicero, none would venture to suppose; but who have so devoted themselves to their art, or become equal in excellence? | If those great men had been content, like others, to continue as they began, i and had never made their persevering efforts for improve

ment, what would their countries have benefited from their genius, or the world have known of their fame? · They would have been lost in the undistinguished crowd ¦ that sunk to oblivion around them. |

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENACHERIB.

(BYRON.)

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, I
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; |
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, |
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. |
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen: |
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, |
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. |
For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, [
And breath'd in the face of the foe as he pass'd; i
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heav'd, and for ever were

still!

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide, | But through them there roll'd not the breath of his

pride; |

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, | And cold as the spray on the rock-beating surf. |

And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, |

With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; |
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, |
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. ¡

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; |
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! |

LOCHIN VAR.*

(SCOTT.)

O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, |
Through all the wide border his steed was the best; |
And save his good broadsword, he weapon had none,
He rode all unarm’d, | and he rode all alone. |
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, |
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. |

He staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late: |
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, |
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. |

So, boldly he entered the Netherby hall, |

Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:

Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword, |
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,) |
"O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,|
Or to dance at our bridal, young lord Lochinvar ?" |

"I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied ; |
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;†|
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. |
There are maidens in Scotland, more lovely by far, |
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." |

* The ballad of Lochinvar is in a very slight degree founded on a ballad called "Katharine Janfarie," which may be found in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border."

† See the novel of Redgauntlet, for a detailed picture of some of the extraordinary phenomena of the spring-tides in the Solway Fritn.

The bride kiss'd the goblet; the knight took it up, I
He quaff'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup. I
She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh, |
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,
"Now tread we a measure!" | said young Lochinvar. |

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, |
That never a hall such a galliarda did grace:|
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, |
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and
plume; }

And the bride-maidens whisper'd, ""T were better by far

To have match'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." |

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, | When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood near;

So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, |
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!|

"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush and scaur;b

They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. |

There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan; |

Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran:

There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, I But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. [ So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,

Have ye e'er heard of gallant, like young Lochinvar! |

a

ს Gål'yård. Skår, a craggy, stony hill; a cliff, cleft, or divi sion, or separation in a bank, hill, or any thing else.

CASABIANCA.*

(MRS. HEMANS.)

The boy stood on the burning deck, |
Whence all but him had fled ; |
The flame that lit the battle's wreck, |
Shone round him o'er the dead. I

Yet beautiful and bright he stood, |
As born to rule the storm; ¦
A creature of heroic blood, |

A proud, though child-like form. ¡

The flames roll'd on he would not go,'
Without his father's word; |
'That father, faint in death below, i
His voice no longer heard. |

He call'd aloud-"Say, father, say |
If yet my task is done?" |

He knew not that the chieftain lay |
Unconscious of his son. |

"Speak, father!" | once again he cried, |
"If I may yet be gone!" |
And but the booming shots replied,

And fast the flames roll'd on. I

Upon his brow he felt their breath, I

And in his waving hair;

And look'd from that lone post of death,
In still, yet brave despair.

*Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the battle of the Nile,) after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

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