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120. THE HOLY DEAD.

1. THEY dread no storm that lowers
No perish'd joys bewail;
They pluck no thorn-clad flowers,
Nor drink of streams that fail:
There' is no tear-drop in their eye,
No change upon their brow;
Their placid bosom heaves no sigh,
Though all earth's idols bow.

2. Who are so greatly blest?

From whom hath sorrow fled?
Who share such deep, unbroken rest,
Where all things toil? The dead!
The holy dead. Why weep ye so
Above yon sable bier?

Thrice blessed! they have done with woe,

The living claim the tear.

3. Go to their sleeping bowers,

Deck their low couch of clay

With earliest spring's soft breathing flowers;

And when they fade away,

Think of the amaranth'ine3 wreath,

The garlands never dim,

And tell me why thou fly'st from death,

Or hid'st thy friends from him.

4. We dream, but they awake;
Dread visions mar our rest;

Through thorns and snares' our way we take,
And yet we mourn the blest!

For spirits round the Eternal Throne

How vain the tears we shed!

They are the living, they alone,

Whom thus we call the dead.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

'There (thår).- Share. Am a rå ¡t] 'Îne from amaranth, an im aginary flower that never fades: Lence, infading.— Snares (spårz).— See Biographical Sketch, p. 106.

THE

121. THE POET AND HIS CRITICS.

HE poëm was at length published. Alas, who that knows the heart of an author-of an aspiring one-will need be told what were the feelings of Maldura, when day after day, week after week passed on, and still no tidings of his book. To think it had failed, was wormwood to his soul. "No, that was impossible." Still the suspense, the uncertainty of its fate were insupportable. At last, to relieve his distress, he fastened the blame on his unfortunate publisher; though how he was in fault he knew not. Full of this thought, he was just sallying forth to vent his spleen on him, when his servant announced the Count Piccini.

2. "Now," thought Maldura, "I shall hear my fate: and he was not mistaken; for the Count was a kind of talking gazette. The poem was soon introduced, and Piccini rattled on with all he had heard of it. He had lately been piqued' by Maldura, and cared not to spare him. After a few hollow professions of regard, and a careless remark about the pain it gave him to repeat unpleasant things, Piccini pr.ceeded to pour them out one upon another with ruthless volubility. Then, stopping as if to take breath, he continued, "I see you are surprised at all this; but indeed, my friend, I can not help thinking it principally owing to your not having suppressed your name; for your high reputation, it seems, had raised such extravagant expectations as none but à first-rate genius could satisfy."

3. "By which," observed Maldura, "I am to conclude that my work has failed?" "Why, no-not exactly that; it has only not been praised-that is, I mean in the way you might have wished. But do not be depressed; there's no knowing but the tide may yět turn in your favor." "Then I suppose the book is hardly as yet known?" "I beg your pardon-quite the contrary. When your friend the Marquis introduced it at his last conversazione every one present seemed quite au fait on it, at least they all talked as if they had read it."

4. Maldura bit his lips. "Pray, who were the company?"

1 Piqued (pėkt), offended.- Conversazione (kon ver såt ze ỏ' na), a meeting for conversation. Au fait (ò fà'), expert; well instructed.

"Oh, all your friends, I assure you: Guattani, Martello, Pessuti, the mathematician, Alfieri, Benuci, the Venetian Castelli, and the old Ferrarese Carneseechi: these were the principal, but there were twenty others who had cach something to say." Maldura could not but perceive the malice of this enumeration; but he checked his rising choler. "Well," said he, “if I understand you, there was but one opinion respecting my poem with all this company?”

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5. "Oh, by no means. Their opinions were as various as their characters." "Well, Pessuti-what said he?" Why you know he's a mathematician, and should not regard him. But yet, to do him justice, he is a very nice critic, and not unskilled in poëtry." "Go on, Sir, I can bear it." "Why then, it was P'essuti's opinion that the poem had more learning than genius." "Proceed, Sir." "Martello denied it both; but he, you know, is a disappointed author. Guattani differed but little from Pessuti as to its learning, but contended that you certainly showed great invention in your fable-which was like nothing that ever did, or could happen. But I fear I annoy you.” 6. "Go on, I beg, Sir." "The next who spoke was old Carnesecchi, who confessed that he had no doubt he should have been delighted with the poem, could he have taken hold of it; but it was so en regle,' and like a hundred others, that it put him in mind of what is called a polished gentleman, who talks and bows, and slips through a great crowd without leaving any impression. Another person, whose name I have forgotten, praised the versification, but objected to the thoughts."

7. "Because they were surd ?” "Oh, no, for the opposite reason-because they had all been long ago known to be good. Castelli thought that a bad reason; for his part, he said, he liked them all the better for that-it was like shaking hands with an old acquaintance in every line. Another observed, that at least no critical court could lawfully condemn them, as they could cach plead an alibi Not an alibi, said a third, but a double; so they should be burnt for sorcery. With all my heart, said a

En regle, according to rule; set; stiff.- Al' i bl, elsewhere. To olead an alibi is to show that the accused was in some other place when the crime was committed.

fourth; but not the poor author, for he has certainly satisfied us that he is no conjuror.

8. "Then Castelli-but, 'faith, I don't know how to proceed." "You are over-delicate, Sir. Speak cut, I pray you." "Well, Bennei finished by the most extravagant culogy I ever heard." Maldura took breath. "For he compared your hero to the Apollo Belvedere,' your heroine to the Venus de Medicis, and your subordinate characters to the Diana,' the Hercules, the Antin'oüs, and twenty other celebrated antiques; declared them all equally well wrought, and beautiful-and like them too, equally cold, hard, and motionless. In short, he maintained that you were the boldest and most original poet he had ever known; for none but a hardy genius, who consulted nobody's taste but his own, would have dared, like you, to draw his animal life from a statue gallery, and his vegetable from a hortus siccus."

9. Maldura's heart stiffened within him, but his pride controlled him, and he masked his thoughts with something like composure. Yet he dared not trust himself to speak, but stood looking at Piccini, as if waiting for him to go on. "I believe that's all," said the count, carelessly twirling his hat, and rising to take leave. Maldura roused himself, and, making an effort, said, "No, Sir, there is one person whom you have only named -Alfieri; what did he say?" "NOTHING!" Piccini pronounced this word with a graver tone than usual: it was his fiercest bolt, and he knew that a show of feeling would send it home. Then, after pausing a moment, he hurried out of the room.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON.

WASHINGTON ALLSTON, universally acknowledged as of the first eminence among American painters, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, November

1APOLLO BELVEDERE, a statue of the Greek divinity Apollo. In this the god is represented with commanding but serene majesty; sublime intellect and physical beauty are combined in the most wonderful manner. It was discovered in 1503 at Rettuno, and is now in the vatican at Rome.-- VENUS DE MEDICIS, a statue admired as the perfection of female beauty. It was discovered in the villa of Adijan, at Tivoli, the favorite country-seat of the ancient Romans, and carried to Florence in 1695. —' Diana, see p. 337, note 3.- HERCULES, the most celebrated of all the heroes of antiquity.- ANTINOUS (an tin' o us), a beautiful youth, celebrated as the companion and favorite of Adrian, the Roman emperor, drowned in 182. Hortus siccus, a dry or unproductive garden

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5th, 1779. He received his early education at the school of Mr. ROBERT ROGERS, in Newport, Rhode Island, entered Harvard College in 1796, and received his baccalaureate degree in 1800. Immediately after leaving college he chose his vocation, and as our country at that time furnished few facilities for the study of the fine arts, he embarked for London in 1801, and became a student of the Royal Academy, of which Benjamin West, the distinguished American painter, was then president. Here he remained three years, and then, after a sojourn at Paris, went to Rome, where he resided four years, and became the intimate associate of COLERIDGE. In 1809 he returned to America for a period of two years, which he passed in Boston, where he married the sister of the Rev. Dr. CHANNING. In 1811 he went a second time to England, where his reputation as a painter was now well established. He received by his picture of the “Dead Man raised by the Bones of Elisha" a prize of two hundred guineas, at the British Institute, where the first artists in the world were his competitors. Here he published a small volume, "The Sylphs of the Seasons, and other Poems," which was reprinted in Boston the same year. This year his wife died, an event which affected him deeply. He returned home in 1818, and resumed his residence at Boston. In 1830 he married a sister of RICHARD H. DANA, and removed to Cambridgeport. His lectures on art were commenced about the same period, four only of which were completed, and these did not appear until after his decease. Besides his lectures, his poems, and many short pieces which have since been given to the public, Mr. ALLSTON was the author of Monaldi," a story of extraordinary power and interest, from which the above extract is taken. He died very suddenly, on the night of the 8th of July, 1843, leaving but one paint. ing incomplete, "Belshazzar's Feast, or the Handwriting on the Wall," upon which he had been engaged at intervals for nearly twenty years.

1.

122. To A SKYLARK.

HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!—bird thou never wert,

That from heaven, or near it, pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

2. Higher still, and higher, from the earth thou springèst
Like a cloud of fire; the blue deep thou wingèst,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever, singèst.

3. In the golden lightening of the sunken sun,

O'er which clouds are brightening, thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

4. The pale purple even melts around thy flight:
Like a star of heaven, in the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

5. Keen are the arrows of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows in the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

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