poetic fame has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many he seems only a poet, when in truth he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and modern learning, and able to master, to mould, to impregnate with his own intellectual power, his great and He had not learned the supervarious acquisitions.

ficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superficial age; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest he should oppress and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which could give freshness to all truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts; which could bind together, by living ties and mysterious affinities, the most remote discoveries; and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude materials which other minds had collected. Milton had that universality which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed, almost from infancy, to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fastidiousness, which disdain all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, in whatever soil, or in whatever age it has burst forth, and poured out its fulness. He understood too well the right, and dignity, and pride of creative imagination, to lay on it the lovers of the Greek or Roman school. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius. He felt that poetry was a universal presence. Great minds

CHARACTER OF HAMILTON.

were every where his kindred. He felt the enchantment of oriental fiction, surrendered himself to the strange creations of "Araby the blest," and delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was embodied. Accordingly, his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness, contributions from all regions under heaven.

LESSON XXXVI.

1. CHARACTER OF HAMILTON.-Ames.

It is rare that a man who owes so much to nature, descends to seek more from industry; but he seemed to depend on industry as if nature had done nothing for him. His habits of investigation were very remarkable; his mind seemed to cling to his subject till he had exhausted it. Hence the uncommon superiority of his reasoning powers-a superiority that seemed to be augmented from every source and to be fortified by every auxiliary-learning, taste, wit, imagination and eloquence. These were embellished and enforced by his temper and manner, by his fame and his virtues. It is dif ficult, in the midst of such various excellence, to say in what particular the effect of his greatness was most manifest. No man more promptly discerned truth; no man more clearly displayed it: it was not merely made visible, it seemed to come bright with illumination from his lips. But prompt and clear as he was,-fervid as

Demosthenes, like Cicero full of resource, he was not less remarkable for the copiousness and completeness of his argument, that left little for cavil, and Some men take their strongest nothing for doubt. argument as a weapon, and use no other; but he left nothing to be inquired for-nothing to be answered. He not only disarmed his adversaries of their pretexts and objections, but he stripped them of all excuse for having urged them: he confounded and subdued as well as convinced. He indemnified them, however, by making his discussion a complete map of his subject, so that his opponents might, indeed, feel ashamed of their mistakes, but they could not repeat them.

The most substantial glory of a country is in its virtuous great men: its prosperity will depend on its docility to learn from their example. That nation is fated to ignominy and servitude, for which such men have lived in vain. Power may be seized by a nation that is yet barbarous; and wealth may be enjoyed by one that it finds or renders sordid; the one is the gift and the sport of accident, and the other is the sport of power. Both are mutable, and have passed away without leaving behind them any other memorial than ruins that offend taste, and traditions that baffle conjecture. But the glory of Greece is imperishable, or will last as long as learning itself, which is its monument: it strikes an everlasting root, and bears perennial blossoms on its grave. The name of Hamilton would have honored Greece in the age of Aristides. May Heaven, the guardian of our liberty, grant that our country may be fruitful of Hamiltons, and faithful to their glory.

2. AUTUMN.-Paulding.

The summer passed away, and Autumn began to hang out his many-colored flag upon the trees, that smitten by the nightly frosts, every morning exhibiteġ less of the green, and more of the gaudy hues, that mark the waning year in our western climate. The farmers of Elsingburgh were out in their fields, bright and early, gathering in the fruits of their spring and summer's labors, or busily employed in making their cider; while the urchins passed their holidays in gathering nuts to crack by the winter's fire. The little quails began to whistle their autumnal notes; the grasshopper, having had his season of idle sport and chirping jollity, began now to pay the penalty of his thoughtless improvidence, and might be seen sunning himself at mid-day, in melancholy silence, as if anticipating the period when his short and merry race would be run. Flocks of robins were passing to the south, to seek a more genial air; the sober cattle began to assume their rough, wintry coat, and to put on that desperate appearance of ennui, with which all nature salutes the approach of winter. The little blue-bird alone, the last to leave us, and the first to return in the spring, sometimes poured out his pensive note, as if bidding farewell to the nest where it had reared its young.

3. SPRING.-Paulding.

Now the laughing, jolly spring began sometimes to show her buxom face in the bright morning; but ever and anon, meeting the angry frown of Winter, loath to

resign his rough sway over the wide realm of nature, she would retire again into her southern bower. Yet, though her visits were but short, her very look seemed to exercise a magic influence. The birds began slowly to expand their close winter folds; the dark and melancholy woods to assume an almost imperceptible purple tint; and here and there a little chirping blue-bird hopped about the orchard of Elsingburgh. Strips of fresh green appeared along the brooks, now released from their icy fetters; and nests of little variegated flowers, nameless, yet richly deserving a name, spring up in the sheltered recesses of the leafless woods. By and by, the shad, the harbinger at once of spring and plenty, came up the river before the mild southern breeze; the ruddy blossoms of the peach-tree exhibited their gorgeous pageantry; the little lambs appeared frisking and gambolling about the sedate mother; young, innocent calves began their first bleatings; the cackling hen announced her daily feat in the barn-yard with clamorous astonishment; every day added to the appearance of that active vegetable and animal life, which nature presents in the progress of the genial spring; and, finally, the flowers, the zephyrs, and the warblers, and the maiden's rosy cheeks, announced to the eye, the ear, the senses, the fancy, and the heart, the return and the stay of the vernal year.

4. PATRICK HENRY'S ELOQUENCE AND HUMOR.-Wirt.

Hook was a Scotchman, and a man of wealth, and suspected of being unfriendly to the American cause. During the distresses of the American army, consequent on the joint invasion of Cornwallis and Philips in 1781, a commissary of the army had taken two of Hook's steers