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free debate have any power. General Assembly has in fact been for ages the Parliament, or House of Commons of Scotland-by far the freest she ever had-and has often well supplied to her in times of peril and oppression, the want of every other spiraculum libertatis. It was, we think, in the year 1825, at the close of a warm and prolonged debate in this court, in which Dr. Chalmers had taken a distinguished part, that a member on the opposite side of the house took occasion to twit him in very coarse terms with the change his sentiments had undergone since the commencement of his pamphleteering career, when he had announced his creed upon the subject of clerical duty in the words that have been quoted above. The unmannerly and unfeeling attack was received by the crowded house and overflowing galleries to whom it was addressed, with a general murmur of indignation; and every eye was instantly turned upon its object, who sat with unmoved countenance until the orator had concluded his harangue.

As soon as it was over, he rose; and for a few moments the silence of intense expectation suspended the gazing audience. Dr. Chalmers, we should remark, is not distinguished as an extemporaneous speaker; the ornate and antithetic style of his oratory forbids that fluency which is only compatible with a less ambitious diction; and all his more brilliant addresses, accordingly, are prepared with great care and elaboration. On this occasion, therefore, we dare say, some of his friends, considering the extreme delicacy of his position, and how suddenly and unexpectedly he had been assaulted, awaited his coming defence with some degree of trembling. But never shall we forget the instant and overwhelming triumph of that reply. He acknowledged in the amplest terms the justice of the rebuke that had been administered to him, and expressed his joy that the hour had come, when an opportunity was given him of thus publicly confessing how wrong, how outrageously wrong, had been the estimate

he had formed, in those bygone days, of the littleness of time and the magnitude of eternity. It was humbly, and yet proudly spoken; for the speaker felt, while the words fell from his lips, that he was acquitting himself nobly, and lifting himself to an immeasurable height, even while thus assuming the tone and attitude of sorrow and self-condemnation, above his humiliated assailant. We never witnessed any effect of eloquence like that produced by those few solemn sentences, thus firmly and dignifiedly pronounced, in circumstances that would have covered most men with abashment and confusion. They were followed by a universal storm of applause, in the midst of which the ashamed and mortified Thersites, whose vulgar abuse had been so manfully encountered and so splendidly repelled, endeavored in vain to make himself heard, even in apology for his luckless onset. voice, repeatedly raised, was as often drowned in an outcry of aversion and disgust.

His

It is the distinction of Dr. Chalmers' piety, that it is the piety of high intellect, and can never be mistaken for any thing else. It is as impossible for this distinguished person to throw off his genius as it would be for him to throw off his godliness; and, from this peculiarity of character, he has formed, more perhaps than any other man of his time, a bond of connexion between the two worlds of religion and literature, having a name and a conspicuous rank in each, and being known to give to the one as well as to the other the devotion of all his affections. It is this, after all, that has constituted the secret of the mighty influence he has exercised in his own country especially, where for many years past his name has been with peer and peasant a consecrated sound; and the proudest members of the aristocracies both of literature and of fashion have recognized, in the humble parish minister, their associate and their equal. Still more popular preachers, in the literal sense of the phrase, than he has ever been,

have often arisen in past times, and are possibly to be found even in the present, in that land of fervid and overflowing theology. But he alone has been at once both the orator of the people, and the delight of the most cultivated and searching criticismthe charmer, not less of the appreciating few, than of the merely wondering many. Indeed, placed by the side of his pulpit rivals, his eminence is undoubtedly far more surpassing to the eye of lettered taste than it is, or can be, to that of his plebeian admirThese last behold in him only a little more, perhaps, than the earnestness and vehemence of any of their other favorites, impaired, however, probably rather than augmented in point of effect, by the admixture of much in the matter of his discourses which they can no more understand or sympathize with than if the words were those of an unknown tongue.

ers.

It is not his eloquence, indeed, that has chiefly contributed to make Dr. Chalmers the idol of the multitude, but in some degree the circumstances of his personal history; and, in a far greater, the beauty of his moral character, and his unparalleled exertions, wherever he has gone, as the poor man's pastor and friend. Upon the great body of his auditors, what is richest and best in his eloquence, its originality, its intellectual power, its imaginative glow and coloring, is utterly thrown away. But for tunately for the permanence of his reputation, these high qualities have already lifted him to his proper place in the estimation of those who, though comparatively few in number, are eventually both the only effective diffusers of opinion, and the real makers of fame.

All who have even once heard Dr. Chalmers preach, will acknowledge that the striking and pervading characteristic of his eloquence is its intense originality; and his originality is a very different sort of thing from that elaborate affectation of peculiarity in which Mr. Edward Irving deals. He is all over as natural as he is ori

ginal; his language, its true, is not that of any other writer of the day, but neither is it a servile copy of that of any writer of former days. If you discern the individual in every sentence, you discern his living age also. It is the utterance of a man inspired, not by books, but by his own heart, and the kindred humanity that is around him. It is thus only, we apprehend, that the tones of genuine eloquence are ever to be expressed. You may imitate the sound of anoth-er's voice, but its soul you can never catch; and your music will thus, at best, only amuse the ear, but never touch the heart. Mr. Irving may be a far more skilful elocutionist than Dr. Chalmers, but he is not to be named with him in the same sentence as an orator; at least, if it be the business of our bosoms to say what is oratory.

It is not merely, however, by the more dazzling and meteoric qualities of his mind that Dr. Chalmers has made himself what he is, and done what he has done. With all his imagination and excitability, there is a basis of good sense and homely practical wisdom about his character, which for many years past, at least, has admirably balanced and regulated in him the eccentric tendencies of genius. Without this, his high powers, instead of the good they have done, would have, comparatively speaking, been valueless, or run to waste. It is this that has given, in a great measure, their stability and might to all of them; invigorating his imagination, even while it seemed to control it; and, while it guided his moral sensibilities away from whatever it would have been perilous for them to approach, providing them, at the same time, both with the healthiest nourishment, and the fittest domain wherein to expatiate.

But we have done-although these few hasty paragraphs hardly more than introduce our subject. We are no subscribers to some of the articles of Dr. Chalmers' theology; but would, nevertheless, that the religious

spirit of the age but took in all things the tone that he would give it but borrowed a portion of his liberality, mildness, charity, and boundless and unaffected love for whatever the Creator has scattered over any of his works of the excellent or the beautiful! To whatever extent he has influenced the feelings of the religious world, the effect he has produced has been an ameliorating and an elevating

one; and if it be any service done to Christianity to have awakened to a feeling of her loveliness not a few of the finer spirits of his time, who, but for his eloquent voice, might have lived and died without dreaming that there was aught about her to admire or to care for, few, perhaps, of her apostles have, in this department of exertion, in any modern age, more fully earned their reward.

DIRGE TO THE MEMORY OF MISS ELLEN GEE, OF KEW,

WHO DIED IN CONSEQUENCE OF BEING STUNG IN THE EYE.

PEERLESS, yet hapless maid of Q!

Accomplish'd LN G!

Never again shall I and U
Together sip our T.

For ah! the Fates! I know not Y, Sent midst the flowers a B, Which ven'mous stung her in the I, So that she could not C.

LN exclaim'd," Vile spiteful B! If ever I catch U,

On jess mine, rosebud, or sweet P,
I'll change your stinging Q.

"I'll send you, like a lamb or U,
Across th' Atlantic C,
From our delightful village Q,
To distant ÖYE.

"A stream runs from my wounded I, Salt as the briny C,

As rapid as the X or Y, The OIO, or D.

"Then fare thee ill, insensate B!
Who stung, nor yet knew Y;
Since not for wealthy Durham's C
Would I have lost my I."

They bear with tears fair LN G
In funeral RA,

A clay-cold corse now doom'd to B,
Whilst I mourn her DK.

Ye nymphs of Q, then shun each B,
List to the reason Y!
For should AB CU at T,

He'll surely sting your I.

Now in a grave L deep in Q,
She's cold as cold can B;
Whilst robins sing upon A U,
Her dirge and LEG.

THE DEAF-AND-DUMB PAGE.

EVERARD DELAVAL was the son of a distant relation of the Meynells, who was killed in the Civil War, while a lieutenant in the regiment which Sir Richard, the reigning Meynell of that day, had raised for the king's service. Delaval had always been a poor man, and his little property had been totally dissipated by the exigences of the times; and when he died, leaving a motherless child, that child was not only pennyless, but was deaf and dumb. But he was not friendless; the promise which Sir Richard made to his dying kinsman, of taking care of his boy, was amply redeemed.

It was at Naseby that Delaval fell. It was not long, therefore, before the royal army ceased to exist, and its members were dispersed, some to their homes, and many to wander in exile. Sir Richard had been one of the warmest supporters of the royal cause; he had raised a regiment of cavalry at the very beginning of the war, and had fought at its head from Edgehill to Naseby. A more ardent partisan King Charles had not: but Sir Richard had other feelings also, and, like all his feelings, warm and strong to the last degree. He was married to a woman upon whom he doated, and

his children were the beloved of his soul. Still he had not scrupled to leave them, and pursue the war throughout its course. But now that all was lost-that the war was at an end, and the king put to death, Sir Richard felt that further sacrifice would be of no avail.

The consequence was, that Sir Richard compounded with the parliamentary commissioners; and, by suffering a heavy fine, was allowed to retain possession of his Arlescot estate. Hither, therefore, he retired and he immediately sent for Everard Delaval home. The boy was, at that time, about five years old, and already gave promise of possessing uncommon beauty. He became the plaything of the whole house all admired and loved him on account of his beauty, his liveliness, and his amiable disposition-all pitied him on account of his infirmity. Sir Richard, especially, showed him the greatest favor. He remembered his dying friend's anxiety about this helpless childand how his mind was soothed and relieved by his promise of protection. Sir Richard, however, retained several of his military habits, and had many of the ideas of times obsolete already at his day, but many of the fashions of which he approved, and some of which he even adopted. The recent war, also, had tended to confirm him in his notions concerning how the young gentry should be reared. The breaking out of hostilities had found the immense majority, even of those of gentle blood, unused altogether to arms, and totally untrained to their exercise. Accordingly, he was determined to rear his sons differently, as well as the little orphan who had come under his care. Thus, although, probably, the office had been discontinued in families of his condition since the days of Elizabeth, he constituted little Everard his Page; and partly from Sir Richard always thus designating him seriously-and partly from his children repeating it, half in jest and half in wonder at the novelty, he came to be universally called and

known by the title of "the Page,”— to the almost total supercession of his

name.

Sir Richard was unable, in consequence of the close vigilance of the powers that were, to carry his training to the extent he wished: but, as far as all the military parts of horsemanship went, it was, of course, impossible to restrain him—and, under cover of childish sports, much of the military exercise of the day was also communicated to the boys. In all these the Page was rapidly proficient. His ardor, his vivacity, his playfulness were all equally conspicuous. His intelligence, in despite of his awful privation of the ordinary means of exchanging thought, was extreme; and his ingenuity in devising means to convey his own ideas fully equalled his aptitude in comprehending those of others.

Thus matters went on till the Page was about fourteen years old, when a circumstance occurred from which the fate of his future life was fixed. This was the return to Arlescot of Sir Richard's daughter Emmeline. This young lady had been wholly bred up by an aunt, whose god-daughter she was, and who, having no children herself, had implored her brother to spare her this one of his many. To this he had consented; and, in consequence, Emmeline had resided with this lady from her very infancy till now, when, at the age of seventeen, she was restored, by her aunt's death, to her father's roof.

Emmeline Meynell was, at this time, probably one of the most fascinating beings that it was possible to behold. She was not what is termed regularly handsome; but she was far, far more attractive than many persons who strictly, perhaps, had greater claims to the possession of mere beauty. She was of a figure rather short than otherwise in stature, and of a grace of formation which, always beautiful, was doubly so in motionin which her playful, buoyant, bounding disposition caused it almost constantly to be. The same lively and ardent temperament gave a vivid play

and wonderful variety to her counte- rally shrinking, in consequence of his

nance, which it was but too delightful to gaze on. Now, while the words of wit sprang from her lips, its spirit would flash in her eyes-and her whole face would become irradiated with the expression of a brilliant mind: now it would change from this to that livelier, though less keen, aspect, which joyous yet graceful playfulness lends so delightfully to a young girl's features; and now, again, the look of stern, almost fierce, scorn, which the mention of anything that was base called forth, would prove that the same countenance, so bright, and so sweet, could speak the higher passions as strongly; while the softness and sadness which would pervade it when she was touched, showed that she possessed also in perfection those gentler and more endearing qualities which are, preeminently, the attributes of woman.

When she first arrived at her father's house, her spirits were still chilled, and her manners checked, by the recent loss of her who had stood to her in the place of a mother. But the extreme kindness of all-parents, sisters, brothers-soon dissipated her sadness; for it is one of the most provident laws of Nature, that whatever may be the love borne by the child towards the parents, the bitterness of grief for their loss must ere very long pass away. Without this, indeed, the world would be one scene of mourning: but the fond and grateful remembrance -the recollections of early kindness, and of continued affection-the regretful sigh which springs to the lip when it pronounces the loved name-these feelings, it is to be hoped, never pass from the heart in which Feeling dwells.

Everard had, in spite of his half nickname of the Page, been in truth bred among the young Meynells completely as a brother-and a brother's feelings he had always experienced towards them all. But this brilliant apparition, which now, of a sudden, irradiated the whole scene at Arlescot, was viewed by him very differently. At first he rather feared her. Natu

infirmity, from strangers, who, of course, comprehended him with difficulty, he now found a stranger-and such a stranger !-established in the very centre of the domestic circle in which he lived, and, very naturally, attracting an exceeding share of their notice and attention. Next, he began to admire her extremely, while the fear, in great measure, continued.— "How animated-how brilliant-how expressive!" thought he, one evening, as she was detailing in the most vivid manner some of the things she had seen abroad with her aunt, to her brothers and sisters who surrounded her, anxiously catching every word she uttered-" and how delightedly they are all listening to her!-I wonder what it is she speaks of!-Alas! I cannot listen to her!"-and one of the pangs which, as he grew older, his situation was beginning to cause him, shot across his mind, and that more painfully than usual. "But I can look at her—and her very countenance speaks!-What's that?—what's that?" he (alas! I cannot say said— but) conveyed to one of the sisters who stood by, as a sort of expression of horror seemed to pervade the countenances of all, as though (as he thought) palely reflected from the breathing emotion which was conspicuous in Emmeline's. The girl explained to him that her sister was speaking of the falls of Schaffhausen, which she had seen when on the Continent-and over which she had beheld a boat drawn by the violence of the current. My sister was describing to us the one scream, which the poor man gave, at the moment all was lost

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and that was what made us shudder I never heard anything so horrible!” -"Alas! I cannot hear!" thought poor Everard, as he turned away-and never had his heart been so full at the reflection.

It was explained to Emmeline what questions Everard had been asking— and she, who pitied "the Page" very much, went and fetched some drawings of Switzerland-and showed him

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