elements into nobler action and more perfect results. Of the poetical principle, the philosophy of life in New England makes little account. Emblems of the past do not invite our gaze down the vistas of time. Reverence is seldom awakened by any object, custom, or association. The new, the equal, the attainable, constantly deaden our faith in infinite possibilities. Life rarely seems miraculous, and the commonplace abounds. There is much to excite, and little to chasten and awe. We need to see the blessedness of a rational conservatism, as well as the inspiring call for reform. There are venerable and lovely agencies in this existence of ours which it is sacrilege to scorn. The wisdom of our renowned leaders in all departments is too restless and conscious to be desirable; and it would be. better for our boasted "march of mind," if, like the quaint British essayist, a few more were dragged along in the procession." An extravagant spirit of utility invades every scene of life however sequestered. We attempt not to brighten the grim features of care, or relieve the burdens of responsibility. The daughter of a distinguished law professor in Europe was in the habit of lecturing in her father's absence. To guard against the fascination of her charms, which it was feared would divert the attention of the students, a curtain was drawn before the fair teacher, from behind which she imparted her instructions. Thus do we carefully keep out of sight the poetical and veil the spirit of beauty, that we may worship undisturbed at the shrine of the practical. We ever seek the light of knowledge; but are content that no fertilizing warmth lend vitality to its beams. When the returning pilgrim approaches the shores of the new world, the first sign of the vicinity of his native land is traced in hues of rare glory on the western sky. The sunsets grow more and more gorgeous as he draws near, and while he leans over the bulwarks of a gallant vessel, (whose matchless architecture illustrates the mechanical skill of her birth-place), and watches their shifting brilliancy, it associates itself with the fresh promise and young renown of his native land; and when from the wide solitude of the Atlantic, he plunges once more amid her eager crowds, it is with the earnest and I must think patriotic wish, that with her prosperous activity might mingle more of the poetry of life! But what the arrangements of society fail to provide, the individual is at liberty to seek. Nowhere are natural beauty and grandeur more lavishly displayed than on this continent. In no part of the world are there such noble rivers, beautiful lakes, and magnificent forests. The ermine robe of winter is, in no land, spread with more dazzling effect, nor can the woodlands of any clime present a more varied array of autumnal tints. Nor need we resort to the glories of the universe alone. Domestic life exists with us in rare perfection; and it requires but the heroism of sincerity and the exercise of taste, to make the fireside as rich in poetical associations as the terrace and verandah of southern lands. Literature, too, opens a rich field. We can wander through Eden to the music of the blind bard's harp, or listen in the orange groves of Verona, beneath the quiet moonlight, to the sweet vows of Juliet. Let us, then, bravely obey our sympathies, and find in candid and devoted relations with others, freedom from the constraints of prejudice and form. Let us foster the enthusiasm which exclusive intellectual cultivation would extinguish. Let us detach ourselves sufficiently from the social machinery to realize that we are not integral parts of it; and thus summon into the horizon of destiny those hues of beauty, love and truth, which are the most glorious reflections of the soul! HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT'S LET- [WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT, the elder brother of Baron Alexander von Humboldt, a German statesman and scholar, 1767-1835, was educated at Berlin and Göttingen. He was a traveller and a diplomatist, and a devoted student of antiquities, æsthetics and philosophy. He was Prussian minister resident at Rome, from 1801-1808, after which he organized public education in Prussia, and established the university of Berlin. Associated with Stein in political reform and the uniting of Germany and Austria against Napoleon, Talleyrand declared him one of the ablest statesmen in Europe. His writings (all in German) were upon the Malay languages and classic subjects, and a Treatise upon Government (translated London, 1854). His "Letters to a Lady" (2 vols., Lond., 1849), are remarkable for refined thought and expression.] BERLIN, January, 1828. The departure of the year has always a certain touch of solemnity in it,-greater, in my opinion, than a birthday, as well as quite different from it. The latter has reference only to an individual, and even for him it is but one departure among those of the whole year. But the new year is a renewal of epochs to all, and it accordingly awakens a universal sympathy. The year itself, including the period which has just left us, and that which is newly arrived, is regarded as a person of whom we take leave as well as whom we greet. Each year has its own historical events which weave themselves into our personal fate even when we have taken no share in them, as when we, almost by involuntary effort, just remember to have heard, by the merest accident, of some public occurrence or other. It is, however, no simple fancy that the years are fortunate or unfortunate for mankind, or that men are in the habit of considering them as they fall under the one class or the other. In this remark I do not allude to great misfortunes, but I speak of those minor errors in every undertaking-the disappointment of joyful expectations which have been formed either in one way or another; just as there are days, for example, in which we do everything unskilfully, each moment brings forth something disastrous; we say what we ought not, and, as often happens in a dream, we never arrive at the object after which we are aspiring. All that is certainly less dependent on fortune than on man himself, who always forms his own lot. It often depends on our first impressions of the year, which may weaken our confidence in our future fortunes, or even inspire us with fear or at least with anxiety. The whole matter is sometimes a mere fancy. Thus it is with the date of the year. When it contains many odd numbers, one has, as it were, every reason for entertaining a sort of apprehension of disaster; but when, on the other hand, we have such beautifully even numbers as in 1828, we become inspired with a certain joyful assurance, and embark in such a year with a cheerful feeling, as in a passage-boat, from whose fair proportions and equipments we gather a sort of promise that we shall be transported safely to the shore of the next year. When I said that each one shaped his own destiny, I uttered an old proverb, certainly of Pagan origin, but which has a very just meaning when taken in the Christian sense of the phrase. I speak, that is to say, of our inward fate of the sentiment with which I intend to undertake a long journey in the latter half of March, and will not return for six months. My youngest daughter, as you know, is married to M. Von Bulow, who is at present Prussian ambassador at London. He has been there for several months, and my daughter wishes to follow him with her two little girls. My wife, my eldest daughter, and myself, mean to accompany them. We shall go by Paris, stop there for some time, and afterwards proceed to London, where we shall remain for six weeks. From London, my wife, my eldest daughter, and myself, will return to Paris, and proceed by Strasburg and Munich to Gastein. It is now eleven years, at least, since I was in Paris, and when I quitted it the last time by night, I thought I should never return. I looked with the same feeling at the rocky coast of England when I left it in the year 1818. Fate has strangely ordered that I should again unexpectedly see these places, and that my son-in-law should occupy the same situation which I then filled. He will probably remain a long time in London, which may be an inducement to me to repeat my visits fre quently.-My return to Paris and London has just recalled to my thoughts that some one has very prettily said, that we gladly visit those places only which we have known in earlier years. The remark has arisen from a very accurate observation of things, for it is certainly true, and it does honour to the feelings of man. We regard places as we do men, and we feel a desire to visit those people only with whom we are already | others, that we have every reason to culti acquainted. The joy which the starry heavens communicate to your tranquil life gives an additional pleasure, since it has been elevated and increased by the expression of mine. I gladly answer your questions, at least as far as I am able. I can scarcely understand why the countless number of the stars, the infinity of space, in one word, the boundlessness of creation should have in earlier times appeared fearful to you, and I rejoice that this feeling has left you. The greatness of nature is one of the most exalting, cheering, and gladdening ideas which I know; still more, however, is this true of the greatness of the Creator. Should we ever be obliged to allow that the idea of greatness awakens in us a depressive feel ing, yet it recovers its elevating and benign influence when it is considered in connection with the boundless goodness which expresses itself in all the works of creation. În general, however, it is only physical power and greatness which inspire us with a feeling in some sense terrible and oppressive. But if there be seen an infinite physical insight in the creation and the universe, much more is there manifest a moral force which rules in everything. This form of power, however, which is the really sublime species of it, always enlarges the spiritual capacity of man, makes him breathe more freely, and even appears to him in the mild aspects of comfort, help, and shelter. One may say with truth, that this creative almighty greatness lets itself be seen equally in everything, and excites ever the same admiration by its attractive strength. But one may with equal truth maintain, that it reveals itself in the stars of heaven with peculiar simplicity. The celestial bodies strike the fancy more powerfully; everything connected with them is to be explained only by number and measurement, while yet they baffle both through their infinity. It is exactly because these bodies are so simple in their relations as to throw us back on mathematics for an explanation, that we better realize the extent of the sky than the magnitude of the earth with the creatures that inhabit it. Farewell, and reckon on my unalterable sympathy. H. Life is a gift which always comprises so much that is valuable to one's self, and, if we be willing, so much that is useful for vate a disposition not only to pass it in cheerfulness and mental satisfaction, but, from a real sense of duty, to do everything in our power to embellish and render it ad vantageous both to ourselves and others. Earnestness in life, even when carried to an extreme, is something very noble and great; but it must not be allowed to disturb the common business of life, else it will yield only bitterness and produce injury. I often walk by moonlight. In this cold but always dry air, there is nothing to fear from damps or mists as in the evenings in other seasons. The sky is too beautiful at that time to allow me to miss the enjoyment of it. It is altogether inexpressible how much the heavens contribute to beautify the earth. This is so much the more remarkable as the effect is so simple: only stars and clouds, and that unmeasurable arch which alone is an eternity, in which the soul and the imagination are lost. The earth really shines only in the light which the heavens pour upon it. The superior charm of the climate of Italy over that of Germany does not arise from the richness of the soil or the beauty of the country, but because the sky has quite another appearance-such a deep blue by day, and such an intense black at night, and the stars shining in such abundance. But on the other hand, it is remarkable that the heavens are so beautiful and mild, because at such a distance they affect the eye only as an optical charm, and every other material influence fades away. It is also worthy of observation how we look upon the sky with its hosts of brilliant stars, more as a subject of the mind and fancy, than as a reality. If one could believe a journey among the planets possible, it would be, it appears to me, an object of dread and fear. If we were beyond the limits of our atmosphere, which in its higher regions only is unpleasant, we should come upon the rolling and motion of the gigantic heavenly bodies, which in a clear view, as masses of light and shade, would be equally formidable. A nearer approach, by which many stars would appear larger, is not desirable. The greater lights in greater number would be too uniform, and would outshine the lesser and more distant ones, and make them invisible. I cannot imagine that our nights would be made more beautiful by this earth being attended, like some of the other planets, by more satellites. Saturn's | despair. The narrative breaks off at the most interestring is one in a different form. If we think ing moment of the siege. We give the following from of this as a golden double bridge stretched Pope's translation.] over the heavens, it would present an extraordinary appearance. From all this we may conclude that the heavens, which in a spiritual sense every one wishes near to him, are materially so much more beautiful at a dis tance. WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT. THE SINGLE COMBAT OF HECTOR AND AJAX. THE ILIAD.-BOOK VII. [HOMER, the greatest of epic poets, and the earliest and most eminent author in the literature of Greece, lived at so early a period that no certain record of its date has come down to us, and his birthplace is equally a matter of doubt. Herodotus places his birth about 850 years before Christ, and Aristotle makes him contemporary with the Ionian migration, about 140 years after the Trojan war. That it was many years after that war may be inferred from the frequent reference made by the poet to the superior size and strength of the warriors engaged in the siege of Troy, as a generation which had long before passed away. It is proverbially said that seven cities contended for the honor of being Homer's birthplace, but according to Suidas the list might be nearly doubled. The fame of Homer rests upon his two great poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. Others have been ascribed to him-several hymns to the gods, for example-but though some of these were regarded by the ancients as genuine, they are now rejected as the production of a later age. The common consent of the civilized world has placed his Iliad and Odyssey at an unapproachable height of poetic excellence. All the qualities which make the great poet are there-sublimity, fire, pathos, grace, knowledge of the human heart, the power of vividly representing action to the eye of the mind, and sweetness and majesty of numbers. Notwithstanding the praise which has been bestowed upon the Iliad for the perfection of its plot, there are those who see in it only part of the narrative of the siege of Troy, without any proper conclusion or catastrophe. In his invocation the poet only promises to speak of the wrath of Achilles, and the calamities which it brought upon the Greeks as a consequence of the quarrel between him and Agamemnon. But he gives us much more than this. He relates the quarrel, the withdrawal of Achilles from the army, and the bloody successes of the Trojans while he indulges his anger. But in the nineteenth book Achilles and Agamemnon are reconciled, and then begin the disasters of the Trojans. Their soldiery is slaughtered, their champions are slain -Glaucus, Sarpedon, and finally Hector, and all Troy in So spoke the guardian of the Trojan state, That long had heav'd the weary oar in vain, When now Minerva saw her Argives slain, What cause, O daughter of almighty Jove! I left, for this, the council of the skies: At this agreed, the heav'nly pow'rs withdrew; The gods have spoke it, and their voice is fate. • The thronging troops obscure the dusky fields, What my soul prompts, and what some god commands. Shall stretch your daring champion in the dust; This fierce defiance Greece astonish'd heard, Go then! resolve to earth, from whence ye grew, These words scarce spoke, with gen'rous ardour prest His manly limbs in azure arms he drest: That day, Atrides! a superior hand Had stretched thee breathless on the hostile strand; The king of Greece, an awful band arose: He said, and turn'd his brother's vengeful mind; Thus to the kings he spoke. What grief, what shame Their sons degen'rate, and their race a scorn? What tears shall down thy silver beard be roll'd, I led my troops to Phea's trembling wall. |