LESSON CLXIX. Dirge of Al'aric, the Visigoth, Who stormed and spoiled the city of Rome, and was afterwards buried in the channel of the river Busentius, the water of which had been diverted from its course that the body might be interred.-EVERETT. WHEN I am dead, no pageant* train Ye shall not raise a marble bust Ye shall not pile, with servile toil, Nor yet within the common soil Lay down the wreck of Power to rest; But the mountain stream shall turn, And lay its secret channel bare, And hollow, for your sovereign's urn, My gold and silver ye shall fling Back to the clods, that gave them bir; But when beneath the mountain tide, * Pron. pad'-junt. Ye shall not rear upon its side Pillar or mound to mark the spot; My course was like a river deep, And where I went the spot was cursed, Nor blade of grass again was seen Where Alaric and his hosts had been.* See how their haughty barriers fail In judgment my triumphal car; And vengeance sat upon the helm, Across the everlasting Alp I poured the torrent of my powers, And feeble Cæsars shrieked for help In vain within their seven-hilled towers; I quenched in blood the brightest gem That glittered in their diadem, And struck a darker, deeper die In the purple of their majesty, *See the note on page 390. ta as in far. And både my northern banners shine My course is run, my errand done : Of glory that adorns my name; My course is run, my errand done— wait: LESSON CLXX. Lines written on visiting the beautiful burying-ground at ·New Haven.-N. FROTHINGHAM. O! WHERE are they, whose all that earth could give Here sunk the honored, vanished the endeared; This the last tribute love to love could pay, Not *Attila was the king of the Huns, and, for many years, in the first half of the fifth century, was the terror both of Constantinople and Rome. long after the death of Alaric, he invaded the Roman empire, at the head of half a million of barbarians, and with fire and sword laid waste many of its most fertile provinces. Into the bold sketch of Alaric, which is given in this Dirge, the poet, in the license of his art, has thrown some of the distinguishing features of Attila. It may be well to advise the youthful reader, that, as a matter of sober history, it was Attila, and not Alaric, who used to say that the grass never grew where his horse had trod; and that it was not Alaric, but Attila, who was called the Scourge of God. With this appellation the king of the Huns was so well pleased that he adopted it as one of his titles of honor. Why deck these sculptured trophies of the tomb? Yet powerless man revōlts from ruin's reign; And reared o'er mouldering dust the mountain pyramid. Sink, mean memorials of what cannot die! My sacred griefs for joy and friendship fled. LESSON CLXXI. Some account of the character and merits of John Playfuir, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh.-JEFFREY. Ir has struck many people, we believe, as very extraor dinary, that so eminent a person as Mr. Playfair should have been allowed to sink into his grave in the midst of us, without calling forth almost so much as an attempt to commemorate his merit, even in a common newspaper; and that the death of a man so celebrated and beloved, and at the same time so closely connected with many who could well appreciate and suitably describe his excellencies, should be left to the brief and ordinary notice of the daily obituary. No event of the kind certainly ever excited more general sympathy; and no individual, we are persuaded, will be longer or more affectionately remembered by all the classes of his fellow-citizens and yet it is to these very circumstances that we must look for an explanation of the apparent neglect with which his memory has been followed. We beg leave to assure our readers, that it is merely from an anxiety to do something to gratify this natural im patience, that we presume to enter at all upon a subject, to which we are perfectly aware that we are incapable of doing justice. For, of Mr. Playfair's scientific attainments-of his proficiency in those studies to which he was peculiarly devoted, we are but slenderly qualified to judge; but, we believe, we hazard nothing in saying that he was one of the most learned mathematicians of his age, and among the first, if not the very first, who introduced the beautiful discoveries of the later continental geometers to the knowledge of his countrymen, and gave their just and true place, in the scheme of Europe'an knowledge, to those important improvements by which the whole aspect of the abstract sciences has been renovated since the days of our illustrious Newton. If he did not signalize himself by any brilliant or original invention, he must at least be allowed to have been a most generous and intelligent judge of the achievements of others, as well as the most eloquent expounder of that great and magnificent system of knowledge which has been gradually evolved by the successive labors of so many gifted individuals. He possessed, indeed, in the highest degree, all the characteristics both of a fine and powerful undertanding -at once penetrating and vigilant-but more distinguished, perhaps, for the caution and sureness of its march, than for the brilliancy or rapidity of its movements and guided and adorned through all its progress by the most genuine enthusiasm for all that is grand, and the justest taste for all that is beautiful, in the truth or the intellectual energy with which he was habitually conversant. Mr. Playfair was not merely a teacher; and has fortunately left behind him a variety of works, from which other generations may be enabled to judge of some of those qualifications which so powerfully recommended and endeared him to his contemporaries. It is, perhaps, to be regretted that so much of his time, and so large a proportion of his publications, should have been devoted to the subjects of the Indian Astronomy, and the Huttonian Theory of the Earth. For though nothing can be more beautiful or instructive than his speculations on those curious topics, it cannot be dissembled that their results are less conclusive and satisfactory than might have been desired; and that his doctrines, from the very nature of their subjects, are more questionable than we believe they could possibly have been on any other topic in the whole circle of the sciences. A juster estimate of Mr. Playfair's talent, and a truer pic |