unshaken heroism. It is a blot upon the fame of France, that it has evinced such criminal ingratitude towards Lamartine. France allowed the cherished home of the boyhood of this temporal saviour of his land—the patrimony of the patriot -to be publicly sold. Oh, unspeakable national disgrace! Shall it be said: that in France, the more the love of mankind, the less appreciation and sympathy with the possessor? How much wanton bloodshed, and inconsolable mourning was saved by the poet Lamartine, in that imminent hour of peril! His love of peace saved France in that great crisis, and caused her to respect the sacredness of Life. Our times have given late and ample proofs (as future history shall surely tell) that heroism is well alive. And remember, heroism is acted poetry. All true heroes must be poets, because magnanimity is poetry. "They never fail who die In a great cause; the block may soak their gore; The Poet often finds language very inadequate. How many are the great Poet's thoughts and fancies, which he is unable to translate from their birth in the soul, into the limits and forms of language. The perpetually active indwelling spirit cannot always reveal itself in song-as the sun is often unable to struggle into light from beneath his heavy pall of clouds, so the poet is too often unable to shew the full light of his soul through the trammels of language. The deep and restless tenderness, softened by a fixed melancholy, by which the heart of the poet is often stirred, is, perhaps, to the finest intellect, often the most difficult of all mental sensations to give palpable and immediate utterance to. How frequently, too, is the Poet unable to shape the abstract imaginings and philosophies which he has thought, and give words to the ideal truths taught to him by contemplating God's works. The more intensely we feel, the less able we are, for the time, to write in reason of our feelings. It is when we are calm again, and look back in the vain effort to revive in thought the most intense in feeling, that we know how faint a transcript of feeling language has the power to reveal, and reason to recall. We refer, of course, to the feelings and thoughts of a poet; because, although the poet cannot give voice at all times to his own great thoughts or deep feelings, yet the heart and mind of the generality of mankind lay open as a book to a Shakspere or a Milton. On passing in review what Shakspere has written, we might almost come to the conclusion, that he was an exception to all other men, in his singular power of forming his every thought into clear language; as he undoubtedly is an exception, in his aloneness in creating thought the highest in excellence ever known to man. Our reason for believing that language trammelled him but little is, that his highest and finest thoughts are so perfectly and simply revealed. The Universe was his vocabulary. Shakspere, by comparison, appears to have been free, even from the accidents of time and age. In his eternally young creationspreserving novelty and freshness through all centuries-we have in his perfect mastery over passion, a clear evincement of his still more wonderful power over, and control in the use and moulding of, language. He was not classical; but he was much higher and much more than classical, for he was earnest, sincere, and original. Homer was not more original than Shakspere; for he was original in every attribute of creative authorship; in thought and fancy, style and feeling. He has translated all the feelings and passions of mankind into a few dramas, and then raised those dramas above the passions and feelings, by vivifying them immortally with the highest thought, and the richest poetry. Shakspere is the world's great case of ONENESS in authorship; and as the sun in each returning season causes the earth to become fruitful, so Shakspere, during each age, will ever cause the mind to teem, and thus act as the Sun of Thought! Sonnet to Shakspere. MIGHTY upraiser of the heart of man! A stream of thought and fancy clear he winds, Through feeling, gaining mastery o'er all minds; Guiding and ruling as no other can. Well may we deem that thou art God inspired- |