1. WHEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech, further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. 2. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it: they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. 3. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius. itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent: then, self-devotion is eloquent. 4. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object-this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. CVIII.-ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. 1. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day! The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea: GRAY. 2. Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 3. Save, that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain 4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mold'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 5. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow, twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield: Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke : How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! 8. Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 10. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 11. Can storied urn or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death? 12. Perhaps, in this-neglected spot, is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire: 13. But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, And froze the genial current of the soul. 14. Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear: 15. Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 16. The applause of list'ning senates to command, And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes, 17. Their lot forbade; nor, circumscribed alone Their glowing virtues, but their crimes confined: 18. The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide : With incense kindled at the muse's flame. 19. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray: Along the cool, sequestered vale of life, They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 20. Yet e'en these bones, from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still, erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, 21. Their names, their years, spell'd by the unletter'd muse, The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, |