to trace its operations in animating to deeds of noble daring, or its influence on the beautiful productions of art.

3. Milton was warmed by the same generous emotion, and the same conviction that he would be remembered, and felt that there dwelt within him the innate power of rearing a monument which would convey his name to latest times, when he uttered this sentiment: "I began to assent to my friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily upon me, that by labor and intense study, (which I take to be my portion in this life,) joined with the strongest propensity of nature, I might, perhaps, leave something so written to after times, as they should not willingly let it die." Klopstock,2 in one of his best odes, has described the instinctive desire of future reputation, and of living in the memory of posterity, when founded on a virtuous principle. ·

4. "Sweet are the thrills the silver voice of Fame

Triumphant through the bounding bosom darts! And immortality! how proud an aim!

What noble toil to spur the noblest hearts! My charm of song to live through future time,

To hear, still spurning death's invidious stroke, Enraptured choirs rehearse one's name sublime,

E'en from the mansions of the grave invoke: Within the tender heart e'en then to rear

Thee, Love! thee, Virtue! fairest growth of Heaven! Oh, this, indeed, is worthy men's career;

This is the toil to noblest spirits given!"

5. The desire of a grateful remembrance when we are dead, lives in every human bosom. The earth is full of the memorials which have been erected as the effect of that desire; and though thousands of the monuments that had

been reared by anxious care and toil, by deeds of valor on the battle-field, or by early efforts at distinction in the forum, have perished, still we can not traverse a land where the indications of this deep-rooted desire do not meet us on every side. The once lofty column, now broken and decaying; the marble, from which the name has been obliterated by time; the splendid mausoleum, standing over remains long since forgotten; and the lofty pyramidthough the name of its builder is no longer known- each one shows how deeply this desire once fixed itself in some human heart.

6. Every work of art, every temple and statue, every book on which we carelessly cast the eye as we pass along the alcoves of a great library, is probably a monument of this desire to be remembered when life is gone. Every rose or honeysuckle that we plant over the grave of a friend, is but a response to the desire not to be forgotten, which once warmed the cold heart beneath. And who would be willing to be forgotten? Who could endure the thought, that, when he is committed to the earth, no tear would ever fall on his grave; no thought of a friend ever be directed to his tomb; and that the traveler would never be told who is the sleeper there?

7. To this universal desire in the bosom of man to be remembered when he is dead, the living world is not reluctant to respond; for everywhere it manifests such tokens of respect as it deems best suited to perpetuate the memory of the departed. Affection, therefore, goes forth and plants the rose on the grave; rears the marble, molded into breathing forms, over the dust; like Old Mortality,3 cuts the letters deeper when the storms of time efface them; and hands down in verse and song the names of those who have deserved well of mankind.

8. "Patriots have toiled, and in their country's cause
Bled nobly; and their deeds, as they deserve,
Receive proud recompense. We give in charge
Their names to the sweet lyre. The Historic Muse,
Proud of the treasure, marches with it down
To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn,
Gives bond in stone and ever-during brass,
To guard them, and to immortalize her trust.
But fairer wreaths are due, though never paid,
To those who, posted at the shrine of Truth,
Have fallen in her defense."

9. Why is this passion implanted in the human bosom? Why is it so universal? Why is it seen in so many forms? We answer,- It is one of the proofs of man's immortality, the strong, instinctive, universal desire to live, and live forever. It is that to which philosophers have appealed, in the lack of better evidence, to sustain the hope that man would survive the tomb. It is the argument on which Plato rested to sustain his soul in the darkness which enveloped him, and which has been put into the mouth of every school-boy, in the language of Addison":

10. "Whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?

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Or whence this secret dread and inward horror

Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the Soul

Back on herself, and startles at destruction?

'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;

'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.”

11. And while this desire lingers in the human soul, as it always will, man can not forget that he is immortal; and it will be vain to attempt to satisfy him that he wholly

ceases to be when the body dies. He will not, he can not, believe it. He would not always sleep. He would not always be forgotten. He would live again,—live on in the memory of his fellow-man, as long as the flowers can be made to bloom, or the marble to perpetuate his name; and then still live on when "seas shall waste, and skies in smoke decay."

1.

2.

LESSON C.

VANITY OF EARTHLY FAME.

HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

Он, how weak

Is mortal man! how trifling! how confined
His scope of vision! Puffed with confidence,
His phrase grows big with immortality,
And he, poor insect of a summer's day,
Dreams of eternal honors to his name,
Of endless glory and perennial bays!
He idly reasons of eternity,

As of the train of ages; when, alas!
Ten thousand thousand of his centuries
Are, in comparison, a little point

Too trivial for account!

Oh, it is strange,

'Tis passing strange, to mark his fallacies!
Behold him proudly view some pompous pile,
Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies,
And smile, and say, "My name shall live with this
Till Time shall be no more;

while at his feet,

Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust
Of the fallen fabric of the other day
Preaches the solemn lesson !

3.

He should know

That Time must conquer; that the loudest blast
That ever filled Renown's obstreperous trump
Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.
Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom
Of the gigantic pyramid ? or who

Reared its huge walls? Oblivion laughs, and says, "The prey is mine! They sleep, and never more Their names shall strike upon the ear of man!"

WILLIAM MOTHERWELL.

4. What is glory? What is fame?
The echo of a long-lost name;

A breath; an idle hour's brief talk;
The shadow of an arrant naught;
A flower that blossoms for a day,
Dying next morrow;

A stream that hurries on its way,
Singing of sorrow;

The last drop of a bootless shower,
Shed on a sear and leafless bower;
A rose stuck in a dead man's breast,
This is the world's fame at the best!

5. What is fame? and what is glory?
A dream; a jester's lying story,
To tickle fools withal, or be

A theme for second infancy;

A joke scrawled on an epitaph;
A grin at Death's own ghastly laugh;
A visioning that tempts the eye,
But mocks the touch-nonentity;