FIRST VOICE.

9 The pilgrim who reaches this valley of tears,
Would fain hurry by, and with trembling and fears,
He is launched on the wreck-covered river!

SECOND VOICE.

10 The traveller, outworn with life's pilgrimage dreary, Lays down his rude staff, like one that is weary, And sweetly reposes forever.

CXXXI.TACT AND TALENT.
LONDON ATLAS.

TALENT is something, but tact is everything. Talent is serious, sober, grave, and respectable: tact is all that, and more too. It is not a sixth sense, but it is the life of all the five. It is the open eye, the quick ear, the judging 5 taste, the keen smell, and the lively touch; it is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles. It is useful in all places, and at all times; it is useful. in solitude, for it shows a man his way into the world; it is useful in society, for it shows 10 him his way through the world.

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Talent is power, tact is skill; talent is weight, tact is momentum; talent knows what to do, tact knows how to do it; talent makes a man respectable, tact will make him respected; talent is wealth, tact is ready money.

For all the practical purposes of life, tact carries it against talent, ten to one. Take them to the theatre, and put them against each other on the stage, and talent shall produce you a tragedy that will scarcely live long enough to be condemned, while tact keeps the house in a roar, 20 night after night, with its successful farces. There is no

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want of dramatic talent, there is no want of dramatic tact; but they are seldom together: so we have successful pieces which are not respectable, and respectable pieces which are not successful.

Take them to the bar, and let them shake their learned curls at each other in legal rivalry. Talent sees its way clearly, but tact is first at its journey's end. Talent has many a compliment from the bench, but tact touches fees from attorneys and clients Talent speaks learnedly and 10 logically, tact triumphantly. Talent makes the world wonder that it gets on no faster, tact excites astonishment that it gets on so fast. And the secret is, that tact has no weight to carry; it makes no false steps; it hits the right nail on the head; it loses no time; it takes all hints; and, 15 by keeping its eye on the weathercock, is ready to take advantage of every wind that blows.

Take them into the church. Talent has always something worth hearing, tact is sure of abundance of hearers ; talent may obtain a living, tact will make one; talent gets 20 a good name, tact a great one; talent convinces, tact converts; talent is an honor to the profession, tact gains honor from the profession.

Take them to court. Talent feels its weight, tact finds its way; talent commands, tact is obeyed; talent is hon25 ored with approbation, and tact is blessed by preferment.

Place them in the senate. Talent has the ear of the house, but tact wins its heart, and has its votes; talent is fit for employment, but tact is fitted for it. Tact has a knack of slipping into place with a sweet silence and glibness of 30 movement, as a billiard ball insinuates itself into the pocket. It seems to know everything, without learning anything. It has served an invisible and extemporary ap prenticeship; it wants no drilling; it never ranks in the awkward squad; it has no left hand, no deaf ear, no blind 35 side. It puts on no looks of wondrous wisdom, it has no air of profundity, but plays with the details of place as

dexterously as a well-taught hand flourishes over the keys of the piano-forte. It has all the air of commonplace, and all the force and power of genius.

[This spirited poem appeared originally in "Blackwood's Magazine." Mr. Ferguson resides in Dublin, and has written several ballads and lyrical poems of considerable merit.

COME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 't is at a white heat now;
The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though on the forge's brow
The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound;
And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round,
All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare;
Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.

The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below,
And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe;
It rises, roars, rends all outright — O Vulcan, what a glow!
"T is blinding white, 't is blasting bright; the high sun shines not so;
The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery, fearful show;
The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy, lurid row
Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe;
As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow
Sinks on the anvil - all about the faces fiery grow-

"Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out-leap out!" bang, bang, the sledges go;

Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low;

A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow;
The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strow
The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow:
And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant " Ho!*

Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load! *
Let's forge a goodly anchor, a bower, thick and broad;
For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode,
And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road;
*Lay on load- - strike heavy blows

The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean poured

From stem to stern, sea after sea, the main-mast by the board;
The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains;
But courage still, brave mariners, the bower yet remains,
And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high,
Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing-here am I!"
Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time;
Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime;
But while ye swing your sledges, sing; and let the burden be,
The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we;
Strike in, strike in; the sparks begin to dull their rustling red;
Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped;
Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array,
For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay;
Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here,"
For the yeo-heave-o, and the heave away, and the sighing seaman's

cheer,

When weighing slow, at eve they go, far, far from love and home, And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam.

In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last,

A shapely one he is and strong, as e'er from cat* was cast.
A trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me,
What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep-green sea!
O deep-sea diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?
The hoary monster's palaces! methinks what joy 't were now
To go plump, plunging down amid the assembly of the whales,
And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails!
Then deep in tangle woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn,
And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn;
To leave the subtle sworder-fish, of bony blade forlorn,
And for the ghastly grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn;
To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles
He lies a lubber anchorage, for sudden shallowed miles;
Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls,
Meanwhile to swing, a buffeting the far astonished shoals
Of his back-browsing ocean calves; or haply in a cove,
Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love,
To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands,
To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands!

* Cat is the nautical name for the tackle used to hoist up the anchor to the cathead, a stout piece of timber projecting from the ship's side.

() broad-armed fisher of the deep, whose sports can equal thine?
The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable line;
And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day,
Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play;
But, shamer of our little sports, forgive the name I gave;
A fisher's joy is to destroy — thine office is to save.

O lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but understand
Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band,
Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend,
With sounds like breakers in a dream, blessing their ancient friend;
O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee,
Thine iron side would swell with pride, thou 'dst leap within the sea!

Give honor to their memories, who left the pleasant strand
To shed their blood so freely for the love of Fatherland —
Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy church-yard grave
So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave —

O, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung,
Honor him for their memory, whose bones he goes among!

CXXXIII.- THE RAVEN.

POE.

[EDGAR ALLAN POE was born in Baltimore, in January, 1811, and died October 7, 1849. He was a man of letters by profession, editor of various periodical publications, and a constant contributor to the press. His life was reckless and unhappy, and his habits dissipated and intemperate. But his genius was marked and original. His prose tales are elaborated with great rhetorical skill, and show an inventive but wild and morbid fancy, without human sympathy or moral feeling. His poetry is remarkable for the subtle music of its language, and the careful melody of its verse; but its tone is not healthy, and its themes are drawn from an unreal and fantastic region. He was a man of extraordinary intellectual powers, but without natural affection, or the sense of duty; and these defects of character are perceptible in his writings.]

ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
""Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
Only this and nothing more."