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time, this holding communion with spirits yet unembodied, this view of the stream of our thoughts mingling with the vast intellectual current that moves towards eternity, controlling events adding to the improvement and advancing the progress of mankind, all presents a scene of amazing and surpassing interest. It is a mighty and majestic vision, animated and increased in power by its truth-the assurance of its reality-the consciousness that we are only looking on what we are and are to be, unaccompanied by a doubt, unalloyed by the degrading sense that we are wandering with conjecture and listening to the flattery of our fancy and our wishes. These are the pictures with which imagination peoples the minds of these great men: but this is not the only use and tendency of this faculty. In the gloom and dullness of the closet, with nothing near him save the beings that he has himself called into life, the philosopher or the poet may enjoy these scenes. He can see men, as bees go to and fro from the hive to the flowers, drawing nourishment and draining the life from the labours of his intellect: he can see them bending with gratitude over the results of toil that withered and exhausted the spirit which went through it, and enjoy all in the solitary tranquillity of his soul. It is what he worked for; it is what he hoped for; it is what he felt and knew would be his, and it is all he asks. But imagination, besides being thus the solace to the wasting energies of these laborious men, is the impelling faculty of their efforts. It gives a spring and vigour to the drooping powers of reason, and inspires reflection with a portion of its own quenchless fire: it animates dying hope: it sets loose all the ardour and warmth that sometimes fail in the bosoms where they glow the most strongly it never allows the common and low things of life to disenchant it, or eat into it and destroy with their degrading cares. The view we have taken has often struck us forcibly, in reflecting on how much and how much more might be revealed to the governing intellects of the world, than to their inferiors. Those who are disposed to doubt, and deny that the thing is possible, can have but a very imperfect or a very humble idea of the nature of mind: nor do they feel what a wonderful creation it is, nor how powerful and marvellous an agent in human interests. But let one who is capable of throwing himself beyond the materiality that hems him in, reflect and ponder on what he sees and feels, and then ask himself, what else exists and endures but mind, the pure ethereality, the perfect beauty of intellect? We are aware, that with a large portion of mankind, the animal instincts seem to rule; and that, so far as appearances go, they are not capable of or destined for a higher destiny. With one who is sceptical of our philosophy, this is evidence enough of what man is and is to be. Mere isolated VOL. XX.- -NO. 39.

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instances of superiority, however immense it may be, do not in their opinion alter the condition. The view of the intellectual character of the mass overrules all countervailing testimony. Great intellect, they think, is mere accident; does not change the condition hereafter of those who have it, or those who want it; does not enlarge the prospects, or elevate the hopes; but man is still permitted to remain in doubt, and view all through the medium of his fears, and cloud all with the gloom of his despondency. There is certainly something fearful in seeing the curse under which the mass of men labour, and something too, to mere reason, that is calculated to create hesitation in deciding on his real nature. But we disregard such scruples. It is enough, apart from revelation, if at times great minds do appear. The inferior can cling to and gather around them, with the assurance of an equal fate, but they must be satisfied only to follow, and, from the narrow bounds in which their souls are confined, ever to be unable to do more than conjecture as to the experiences of men of great genius; to suspect, but never to know, how deep and strong are those inward impulses, those secret sources of knowledge that reveal, with the readiness and force of instinct, much that other men can neither conceive nor attain. It seems a law with man, that in proportion to the degree of mind and its improvement, is the strength with which these developements are made. With the higher and more inspired natures, the struggle between the spiritual and the mortal elements decays or ceases. The excess of the one overpowers the other they are, therefore, ever carried forwards, and listen to an inward voice whose tones seem the echo of their own aspirations. They do not hesitate to reply in the affirmative to the questions of the poet:

"Hears not also mortal life?

Hear not we, unthinking creatures!
Slaves of folly, love, or strife,
Voices of two different natures?

Have not we too ?—yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognized intelligence!

Often as thy inward ear
Catches such rebounds, beware,
Listen, ponder, hold them dear,
For of God-of God they are."

No class of men is so likely to feel these things as poets. Their acute sensibility and openness to impression, their ardent minds and eager imaginations, their warmth and depth of feeling, their ready and restless enthusiasm, urge them to be ever seeking what they have not; to hope for more from life, and

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anticipate more beyond it, than other men; to turn the faint glimmerings of a future, and the gentle whispers that breathe through the longings of the heart, into the strong assurance of a truth, the entire certainty of a reality. This disposition is a part of their nature. Earth and its grandeurs, the majesty of night and the silent skies, the loveliness and power spread wide through creation, sink deep into their souls, and mingle with their affections, but create, from the painful sense of individual insignificance, the desire to erect a mansion in the heavens and blend with that which is immortal. They feel that all the glory and the pomp which surround them are not enough; there is still a vacancy, a want, which, though they cannot express it, is ever craving, and which causes the world, and all that is beautiful in it, to pass by them like the dying darkness of shadows. This is partly owing to impetuosity of feeling, causing disappointment, the usual reaction of excessive hope, and in part to the melancholy which belongs to their nature, and which, sleeping in their bosoms, comes forth at times, veiling the life and gladness of their hearts. This melancholy belongs to all mankind, for there can be but few, however intellectually contemptible, who are not sometimes made aware of the existence, within and around them, of something more than their mortal life. But with the higher order of genius, in the midst of and in despite of the most profound resignation, gloom and despair shroud their cheerful hours. Even when imagination is throwing forth its broad and fiery lights, this sadness intervenes and shades (as passing clouds darken the brilliancy of the heavens and the beauty of earth at the same moment,) the gleams of joy which the world can create, the glad expectations which the mind can form. What this melancholy exactly may be, or whence it comes, it is not easy to say. It is not the result of experience or reflection, nor because we have tried the hazards of fortune and fallen before them; nor because we have gained all that man and life can give, and have found their emptiness. It appears an instinct, though nurtured and increased by an acute sensibility. It exists in very early youth, and not unfrequently decides the character and career. With one who reflects on what he knows, or feels, or sees, it is a state almost inevitable. There is not a spot that may not produce it, for all speak from their silent dust of the past. Half the earth is covered with ruins, and its surface, like the face of man, shows the waste and decay of time. It seems little more than a vast mausoleum, spread over with the fragments of mighty nations, the broken walls of cities, the massive remnants of fallen temples, the forgotten graves and dying grandeur of myriads, once breathing men. Desolation every where meets the eye and sinks deep into the heart, and our feelings sadden

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at the view of what shadows we are. arise from the sight of all that is beautiful and perfect, and here the feeling is much more delicate, as more mind is required to make the observation. Scenes of desolation, to a considerable extent, can act on the grosser and duller intelligences, but when the attention is awakened by something in nature or the mind of man, that does not attract common perceptions, then a more refined and more powerful intellect is required fully to appreciate and admire. To detect and trace beauty wherever it may exist, and however concealed, exacts either a natural and innate conception of its forms, or a taste cultivated by education and long familiarity with objects that contain it. But the very genius that creates the power to admire, is accompanied by a sensibility that lays us open to feel; and thence a beautiful scene in nature, loveliness imaged in the human face, the harmony and grace of poetry, its pathos and sublimity, that raise in us the highest admiration of the mind, which thus yields up its treasures, are accompanied by a sense of despair. Whatever we dwell on produces despair, and all life seems but the ebb and flow of sadness to minds capable of the highest feelings and noblest thoughts. It appears a sort of homage to the Great Spirit of the universe, since it lowers all opinion of ourselves, and makes us feel how insufficient and insignificant we really are. Wordsworth, in one of his minor pieces, shows how the happy and contented mind is exposed to the sudden inrush of gloom, even when all without is bright with animation, and all within would be so but for the rapid and changeful colourings of the fancy.

"I was a traveller then upon the moor:

I saw the hare that raced about with joy ;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar,
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy;
The pleasant season did my heart employ:
My old remembrances went from me wholly,
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

But as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight

In our dejection do we sink as low:

To me that morning did it happen so;

And fears and fancies thick upon me came ;

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Dim sadness, and blind thoughts I knew not, nor could name.

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky,

And I bethought me of the playful hare;
Even such a happy child of earth am I,
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;

Far from the world I walk, and from all care:
But there may come another day to me-
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

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My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good:
But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call

Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,

The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough along the mountain side;
By our own spirits are we deified:

We poets in our youth begin in gladness,

But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness."

In these lines, where the feeling is so simply and truly expressed, who can trace the links of association, and yet who does not feel that all is natural, if not common? A traveller in solitude, and a poet traversing a lonely moor; nature, with her tranquil beauty; the joy and gladness of external life swimming before him, sinking deep into his thoughts, and rousing the musing mood of sadness. The woods, and roar of distant waters; the songs of birds; the sun, calm and bright; the still air, and deep silence, are the elements of the feeling; and under such circumstances, and in such solitary communing with ourselves, the mind courses to and fro through the past, and casts itself into the future, whence those who reflect strongly on the hazards of existence, however gay the present, bring doubt and solicitude, or, like the poet, though happy in every relation, foresee, another day, "solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty."

Thus it is that melancholy shadows and subdues the brightness of every thing; still it is the necessary, as it seems to be the constant, companion of all genius. Like death, it reminds us of our frailty; as this operates to declare and keep in view the brevity of existence, the other brings down the pride of intellect. The conceit, the disposition to presume on our powers, and to exalt their objects, is humbled and made to die away with a sense of shame. But to those who have founded less expectation on their efforts, if they are right judging, and have accurately measured themselves, it need cause neither hesitation nor fear. Their courage should be built on humility; on the consciousness that they can do but little, and have but a short time in which to do that little; on the assurance that no intellectual labour is without some result; that mind is all sufficient and all effectual, and that it is the only element which suffers no dissolution, is impaired by no decay, nor drops into the waste and mass of earthly things without avail, without bringing fruit, or going through change. Its progress is ever

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