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the main watercourse extends to some convenient direction, and smaller channels are led from it, in branches, to every separate compartment. The water is raised by oxen, attached to a long rope, which passes over a windlass, and is made fast to an enormous leathern bucket. When a great quantity is thus thrown into the reservoir, it spontaneously flows into the principal channel, from whence the gardener conducts it at his pleasure. "The rivers of waters are in his hand; he turneth them whithersoever he will.”

11. When the stream begins to flow from the reservoir, he stations himself at the channel which conveys it to the first compartment, and, removing with his foot a slight mound of earth, directs thither as much water as is requisite for its irrigation. Closing that avenue, he proceeds to the second, thence to the third, and thus onward till all have been visited. This is repeated every morning and evening, and it matters little how large the field is, if the fountain contains a sufficient supply.

12. But, if the space to be irrigated is out of proportion, or the fountain diminished by drouth, vegetation withers, or becomes extinct. The further you recede from the center, the more blighted does every thing appear. The water is too low, the impetus too feeble, to reach the remoter bounds. This constant and laborious process of cultivation explains the inspired description of a tropical region; where "thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs."

13. We know that Lebanon was renowned for its sublime scenery; that its lofty cedars, its plantations of olive, its vineyards, producing the choicest wines, its crystal streams, its fertile vales, and odoriferous shrubberies, combined to form what, in the poetic style of prophecy, is called "its glory." Mount Carmel is proverbial, in the sacred volume, for its unfading verdure and surpassing fertility. Sharon, an extensive plain, to the south of Carmel, celebrated for its vines, flowers, and green pastures, and adorned in early spring with the

white and red rose, the narcissus, the white and the orange lily, the carnation, and a countless variety of other flowers, with its groves of olive and sycamore, is but another name "for excellency" and beauty.

14. But what did the prophet intend to illustrate by these forcible and significant emblems? Doubtless a vision burst upon his mind, no less magnificent than the boundless dispersion of the waters of life, the reclaiming of a desert world, the clothing it with the golden fruits of immortality. Behold, in the heart of the wilderness, a fountain breaks forth. Sterility blossoms, desolation lifts up its head, with “joy and singing."

15. Is not our earth as a great moral desert, whence the "glory and excellency" of Eden have departed? The fruits of righteousness shrank from its forbidden soil. Sin, by its fearful monoply, sought to cover its whole face with tares. How shall this barren waste be redeemed from its desolation? The wise landholder of the East, when he would reclaim a barren jungle to fertility, provides a fountain of water, lets out his ground to husbandmen, and makes them accountable for its improvement. Thus hath the Almighty provided, in our moral desert, a FOUNTAIN of the waters of life, fathomless, boundless, inexhaustible. "O, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God."

EXERCISE CVIII.

JEFFREY'S CHARGE AGAINST LORD BYRON.

JEFFREY.

1. The charge we bring against Lord Byron, in short, is, that his writings have a tendency to destroy all belief in the reality of virtue-and to make all enthusiasm and constancy of affection ridiculous; and this, not so much by direct maxims and examples, of an imposing or seducing kind, as by

the constant exhibition of the most profligate heartlessness in the persons who had been transiently represented as actuated by the purest and most exalted emotions-and in the lessons of that very teacher who had been, but a moment before, so beautifully pathetic in the expression of the loftiest conceptions.

2. When a gay voluptuary descants, somewhat too freely, on the intoxications of love and wine, we ascribe his excesses to the effervescence of youthful spirits, and do not consider him as seriously impeaching either the value or the reality of the severer virtues; and, in the same way, when the satirist deals out his sarcasms against the sincerity of human professions, and unmasks the secret infirmities of our bosoms, we consider this as aimed at hypocrisy, and not at mankind: or, at all events, and in either case, we consider the sensualist and the misanthrope as wandering, each in his own delusion-and are contented to pity those who have never known the charms of a tender or generous affection.

3. The true antidote to such seductive' or revolting views of human nature, is to turn to the scenes of its nobleness and attraction; and to reconcile ourselves again to our kind, by listening to the accents of pure affection and incorruptible honor. But, if those accents have flowed in all their sweetness from the very lips that instantly open again to mock and blaspheme them, the antidote is mingled with the poison, and the draught is the more deadly for the mixture!

4. The reveler may pursue his orgies, and the wanton display her enchantments, with comparative safety to those around them, as long as they know or believe, that there are purer and higher enjoyments, and teachers and followers of a happier way. But, if the priest pass from the altar, with per suasive exhortations to peace and purity still trembling on his tongue, to join familiarly in the grossest and most profane debauchery-if the matron, who has charmed all hearts by the lovely sanctimonies of her conjugal and maternal endearments, glides out from the circle of her children, and gives bold and shameless way to the most abandoned and degrading vices→→

our notions of right and wrong are at once confounded—our confidence in virtue shaken to the foundation-and our reli ance on truth and fidelity at an end forever.

5. This is the charge which we bring against Lord Byron.' We say that under some strange misapprehension as to the truth, and the duty of proclaiming it, he has exerted all the powers of his powerful mind to convince his readers, both directly and indirectly, that all ennobling pursuits, and disinterested virtues, are mere deceits or illusions-hollow and despicable mockeries, for the most part, and, at best, but laborious follies. Religion, love, patriotism, valor, devotion, constancy, ambition-all are to be laughed at, disbelieved in, and despised! and nothing is really good, so far as we can gather, but a succession of dangers to stir the blood, and of banquets and intrigues to soothe it again!

6. If this doctrine stood alone with its examples, it would revolt, we believe, more than it would seduce. But the author has the unlucky gift of personating all those sweet and lofty illusions, and that with such grace and force, and truth to nature, that it is impossible not to suppose, for the time, that he is among the most devoted of their votaries-till he casts off the character with a jerk-and, the moment after he has moved and exalted us to the very hight of our conception, resumes his mockery at all things serious or sublime,-and lets us down at once on some coarse joke, hard-hearted sarcasm, or fierce and relentless personality, as if on purpose to show

"Whoe'er was edified, himself was not,"

or to demonstrate practically as it were, and, by example, how possible it is to have all fine and noble feelings, or their appearance, for a moment, and yet retain no particle of respect for them, or of belief in their intrinsic worth or permanent reality.

EXERCISE CIX.

LORD BYRON

ROBERT POLIOL

1. Take one example, to our purpose quite,
A man of rank, and of capacious soul,
Who riches had, and fame, beyond desire;
An heir of flattery, to titles born,
And reputation, and luxurious life :
Yet, not content with ancestorial name,
Or to be known, because his fathers were,
He on this hight hereditary stood,

2.

And, gazing higher, purposed in his heart
To take another step.

Above him seemed,

Alone, the mount of song, the lofty seat
Of canonized bards, and thitherward,
By Nature taught, and inward melody,
In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye.

No cost was spared. What books he wished, he read;
What sage to hear, he heard; what scenes to see,
He saw.
And first in rambling school-boy days,
Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes,
And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks,
And maids, as dew-drops, pure and fair, his soul
With grandeur filled, and melody, and love.

3. Then travel came, and took him where he wished.
He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp;
And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows;
And mused on battle-fields, where valor fought
In other days; and mused on ruins gray

With years; and drank from old and fabulous wells,
And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked;

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