whose path lay through the great region of ideas, and whose dominion was over the mind.

5. If such were the tendency of that great invention which leaped or bridged the barriers separating mind from mind, and heart from heart, who shall calculate its effect in promoting private happiness? Books,-light-houses erected in the great sea of time,-books, the precious depositories of the thoughts and creations of genius; books by whose sorcery times past become times present, and the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes; these were to visit the firesides of the humble, and lavish the treasures of the intellect upon the poor.

6. Could we have Plato, and Shakspeare, and Milton, in our dwellings, in the full vigor of their imaginations, in the full freshness of their hearts, few scholars would be affluent enough to afford them physical support; but the living images of their minds are within the eyes of all. From their pages their mighty souls look out upon us in all their grandeur and beauty, undimmed by the faults and follies of earthly exist ence, consecrated by time.

7. Precious and priceless are the blessings which books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the noblest spirits, through the most sublime and enchanting regions,-regions which, to all that is lovely in the forms and colors of earth,

"Add the gleam,

The light that never was on sea or land,

The consecration and the poet's dream."

8. A motion of the hand brings all Arcadia* to sight. The war of Troy can, at our bidding, rage in the narrowest chamber. Without stirring from our firesides, we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth, or soar into realms where Spenser's shapes of unearthly beauty flock to meet us, where Milton's angels peal in our ears the choral hymns of

*A country of ancient Greece, in the center of the Peloponnesus

Paradise. Science, art, literature, philosophy, all that man has thought, all that man has done, the experience that has been bought with the sufferings of a hundred generations,— all are garnered up for us in the world of books.

9. There, among realities, in a "substantial world," we move with the crowned kings of thought. There our minds have a free range, our hearts a free utterance. Reason is confined within none of the partitions which trammel it in life. The hard granite of conventionalism melts away as a thin mist. We call things by their right names. Our lips give not the lie to our hearts. We bend the knee only to the great and good. We despise only the despicable; we honor only the honorable.

10. In that world, no divinity hedges a king; no accident of rank or fashion ennobles a dunce, or shields a knave. There, and almost only there, do our affections have free play. We can select our companions from among the most richly gifted of the sons of God, and they are companions who will not desert us in poverty, or sickness, or disgrace.

11. When every thing else fails,-when fortune frowns, and friends cool, and health forsakes us,-when this great world of forms and shows appears a "two-edged lie, which seems but is not," when all our earth-clinging hopes and ambitions melt away into nothingness,

"Like snow-falls on a river,

One moment white, then gone forever,”

we are still not without friends to animate and console us,friends, in whose immortal countenances, as they look out upon us from books, we can discern no change; who will dignify low fortunes and humble life with their kingly presence; who will people solitude with shapes more glorious than ever glittered in palaces; who will consecrate sorrow and take the sting from care; and who, in the long hours of despondency and weakness, will send healing to the sick heart, and energy to the wasted brain,

12. Well might Milton exclaim, in that impassioned speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, where every word leaps with intellectual life: "Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden the earth; upon but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose for a life beyond life!"

EXERCISE LXXXI.

WALTER SCOTT.

ELLEN, THE LADY OF THE LAKE.

1.

But scarce again his horn he wound,

2.

When, lo! forth starting at the sound,
From underneath an aged oak

That slanted from the islet rock,
A damsel, guider of its way,
A little skiff shot to the bay,
That round the promontory steep
Led its deep line in graceful sweep,
Eddying, in almost viewless wave,
The weeping willow twig to lave,
And kiss, with whispering sound and slow,
The beach of pebbles bright as snow.

The boat had touched this silver strand,

Just as the hunter left his stand,

And stood concealed amid the brake
To view this Lady of the Lake.
The maiden paused, as if again

She thought to catch the distant strain.
With head up-raised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart,

Like monument of Grecian art,

3.

In listening mood, she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.

And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,

Of finer form, or lovelier face!

What though the sun with ardent frown,
Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown?
The sportive toil, which, short and light,
Had dyed her glowing hues so bright,
Served too in hastier swell to show
Short glimpses of a breast of snow;
What though no rule of courtly grace
To measured mood had train'd her pace
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew;
E'en the slight harebell raised its head
Elastic from her airy tread :

?

What though upon her speech there hung The accents of the mountain-tongue(p.) Those silvery sounds, so soft, so dear, The list'ner held his breath to hear!

4.

A chieftain's daughter seemed the maid;
Her satin snood, her silken plaid,

Her golden brooch such birth betrayed.
And seldom was a snood amid

Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid,

Whose glossy black to shame might bring
The plumage of the raven 's wing;
And seldom o'er a breast so fair
Mantled a plaid with modest care;
And never brooch the folds combined
Above a heart more good and kind.
Her kindness and her worth to spy,
You need but gaze on Ellen's eye;

5.

Not Katrine, in her mirror blue,
Gives back the shaggy banks more true
Than every free-born glance confessed
The guileless movements of her breast;
Whether joy danced in her dark eye,
Or woe or pity claimed a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion poured a prayer,
Or tale of injury called forth
The indignant spirit of the North.
One only passion unrevealed

With maiden pride the maid concealed,
Yet not less purely felt the flame,-
O, need I tell that passion's name?

EXERCISE LXXXII.

THE ITALIAN EXILE.

1. When the minstrel is sorrowful, sad is the lay,
You
may smile on his song, but his soul is away;
For no theme can excite this cold fancy of mine,
So far from the land of the olive and vine.

2. There passion breathes out from the lyre and the lute, And the voice of their melody never is mute;

Love stamps on the forehead of Beauty its seal,
On cheeks that can burn and on hearts that can feel.

3. Years vanish,-their trace on my brow you behold,
And my heart has to beauty grown careless and cold;
Yet of all sweet impressions that linger there yet,
The daughters of Florence it last will forget.

4. Ye Pilgrims of Beauty, from barbarous lands,
Behold where the model* of loveliness stands;

* The Venus de Medici. See Note, page 141.