leges, if for no farther end. But this should not exclude an intimacy with the modern at the same time. It would be better were both perused together. The resembling features and peculiarities of their language might thus be brought in contrast, and both become familiar with less toil and more pleasure. A full knowledge of either is not to be expected in the short space the student is confied to the groves of the College or Academy. Here only the fabric of science and literature can receive its foundation. To raise up the structure is the work of after years, but let the base at least be laid. If it be not begun here, it may be neglected ever afterwards. An introduction in all needful branches, is required by the great majority,—those who are to enter the active duties of life. To such the modern tongues will be far more useful. 'Tis only the devotees of letters, the secluded few, who may venture to omit here, the study of these and explore the ancient to their lowest depths. But this pursuit may be followed to a vicious extent. He who is deeply versed in these remote languages, is liable without the strictest caution, to corrupt his own. Foreign idioms, are apt to creep insensibly into his style and destroy, by degrees, that native purity he should so carefully preserve. Stranger words and phrases will likewise be introduced, until his language is, at last, a compound of discrepancies and irregularities—its orthography anomalous, its rules of utterance contradictory.

Such has been particularly the case with the English. When it was deemed barren, its writers stocked it with a liberal importation of Latin and Greek terms. Successors following the example, either through mistaken zeal or foppish pedantry, brought over whole hosts of foreign auxiliaries, and flooded it with burdensome supplies. Even the coining of new names for the arts and sciences, has, in many instances, tended but to make these more difficult and repulsive, as likewise to vitiate our vernacular. What it has gained in copiousness, or rather exuberance, it has lost in purity, simplicity and strength. Still it possesses redeeming qualities in its previous resources. A refined language should have an ample supply for all its wants-all besides is superfluous, yea, a dead weight to embarrass and encumber. An individual may have more wealth than he can use, so may this. Among several words of nearly the same import, one is always the best, why then have a multiplicity? Though we desire the benefit of euphony as well as force, yet for this purpose two or three are enough; besides, men of taste doubt not, in most cases, between energy and agreeable sound. A number of words similar in sense, increases also the difficulty of selection, and frequently begets perplexity and hesitation, while he who has but one or two sets, as the light-armed soldier wields his weapons, can handle them with greater ease and dexterity. Hence, the most ready and rapid

writers, the most fluent speakers, as has well been said, are those, who possess the scantiest stock of words. Another evil of this rage for exotics, has been to root out the original settlers, the good old words of our fathers. Many of these short and significant terms have been obliged to yield to their supplanters, of greater length and possessing less force or even harmony. Our primitive Saxon-English words are our best. They combine all the requisites of strength and expressiveness, joined with a wild native sweetness. We shall see this truth in our finest specimens, both of prose and poetry. And why should it not be so? These "household words" are the sounds to which we have been wont from infancy. With these have we associated with the kind friend and boon companion, beguiling many a past hour of social fellowship and convivial joy. With these ofttimes have we uttered the heartfelt welcome, the tender farewell. Theirs was the music our young ears drank in as we listened, in the fireside circle, to the mystic legend or the thrilling tale; theirs, too, was the melody with which a fond parent lulled us to repose. Yea, in them are blended our fondest remembrances, with them oft comes back to mind, once happy voices-now hushed for ever. All our best feelings bid us cherish these "sweet memorials of a former age."

Finally, while we study other languages, let us by no means neglect the noblest of all-the language of ourselves, of our father land. It is much to be regretted that upon this, there has been bestowed too little pains. Many who have pried deep into the mysteries of the olden tongues have been strangely ignorant of the one they themselves uttered.

Adepts for their sagacity in unravelling the intricate meanings and in dragging to light the hidden beauties of the dead, they have been blind to the charms of the living-all unconscious of the secret might, the unwakened energies that slumbered in their mother tongue. A part of the time and toil spent upon ancient authors, might have been better employed upon our own language and literature; yet, if the works of antiquity required so much labor to make them known and appreciated, they need less now, since the task has been so fully accomplished. A different path lies open to the literary aspirant and the scholar,-a road where failure is less shameful and triumph more certain. He will have competitors, yet the way is broad enough for all, and competition will only stimulate fresh exertion. It should, then, be the chief aim, the pride of every Englishman, need I say American,-to cultivate and perfect his language, to scrutinize its structure, and search where lies its mastery. If he hopes for that reversion beyond the grave,- —a name,—let him employ it as the material from which to build his "mental pyramid," inscribed with his renown. Thus may he stamp duration on his language in the same characters

that engrave his own immortality. It behooves him, too, as he toils for the meed, to be well versed in the classic writings of his own nation, those imperishable records of their existance and glory. He may rove the world of literature, to seek out its beauties and blossoms, but after all, he will find none fairer, none sweeter than adorn his own loved land. Does the young minstrel long to hearken to the soul-stirring warblings of the muses, let him hear them in the strains of his Island bards. Does the infant orator thirst after the pure streams of "eloquence divine," let him imbibe the torrents of impassioned feeling and o'er mastering reason which burst from a Chatham, a Fox, a Burke, a Sheridan, and a Henry,-those mighty spirits on whose words of power, awe-struck multitudes hung with wonder and admiration. In becoming acquainted with these, his youthful bosom will be kindled with the high ambition of rivaling their efforts, by best using that speech in which they achieved them. But above all will he be prompted to put forth renewed exertions in its improvement, from beholding its prospects. For what true son of his ancestors can contemplate the ultimate extension of his English language, without emotions of pride and exultation. Britain, the now empress of the main, stretches her scepter of dominion to the farthest climes of the East, while her freeborn daughter reigns ascendant in the West.

"Where'er the sun warms or the tempest lowers," there these two kindred people have stamped, by their prowess and daring, the impress of their character. Yes, there are felt the benign effects of their laws and their language; but that language will not stop here. The days of its mightiest triumph are yet to come. It is sweeping on with the tide of English improvement, spreading still wider and waxing yet stronger. Even now, it is swelling in regions where "Morn smiles in her rising;" already the wild glens of the Rocky Mountains have caught its accents, and the green vales of Oregon are beginning to reverberate the echoes. Soon shall it be heard in the whole earth. It shall go up in prayers from all the wilds of Asia; it shall be chanted in strains of devotion through every island of the Pacific. It shall startle the darkest abodes of Paganism and superstition, coming like the voice of a friend to the benighted and oppressed. The light of heaven shall attend its advancement; the blessings of freedom and reformation crown its influence. May all who claim it as their own, strive to render it worthy its promised destiny.

384

FAREWELLS.

THERE are other farewells for the saddened heart
Than the frequent ones where the loving part;
There are other times, and of darker hue,
When the soul is wrung with the last adieu;
Scarce an hour of our life can escape the spell,
O'er our feelings thrown, by that word, farewell!

Farewell to the ship, that hath spread her sail,
To be borne from port on the sea-ward gale;
She is leaving the blessings of home behind,
She has cast her hopes on the faithless wind,
And danger and storm she must struggle through—
Oh! who will return of her parting crew?

Farewell, farewell, to the rosy light,
When the sun is setting in burning might,
And the clouds are darkening the azure sky,
With the robes of their shadowy company,
And the storm is ready to burst and roar,
With a rage and fury ne'er roused before.

Farewell to the snows and the north-wind's breath,
When nature awakes from her wintery death,

And the groves with the songs of the wild-birds ring, And the fields are gay with blossoming,

And joy and life are on hill and plain,

As the south-wind breathes o'er the earth again.

Farewell to the flowers, and the genial sun,
When the summer months have their courses run;
When the glory of autumn has from us gone,
And ice-mailed winter comes storming on,
To reign o'er the mountains and fields alone,
Where the ripened harvest but lately shone.

Farewell to rest and to childhood's joy,
In the noble heart of th' aspiring boy,
When the trumpet of fame hath called him far
To the slaughter fields of glorious war,
And his brow is scathed with ambition's fever,
That consumes its victim or burns forever.

Farewell to peace and to happy homes,
When the deluge of war in thunder comes,
And over the earth in a rushing flood
Is poured the tempest of fire and blood,
And the gore unavengéd reeks to the skies,
Where the martyr of liberty bravely dies.

Farewell to innocence, love, and truth,
In the gay, unthinking, misguided youth,
When evil ones have his heart betrayed,
And his steps have first from duty strayed;
Farewell to the peace that was ever his,
When he sought in virtue his happiness.

Farewell to bloom on the restless brow,
Where genius' fire hath begun to glow,—
The hours of wearisome, torturing thought,
The forms of beauty, but vainly sought,
The wasting of sorrow and feelings lone—
All these must be borne by that hopeless one.

Farewell to the world, to friends, to all,

When the soul hath burst from its earthly thrall,
And away, away, like light it flies,

On angels' wings to its native skies,

Or descends, to fiends, and to darkness given,
Shut out from hope, and shut out from heaven.

THE NATURALIST.

It was a beautiful fall morning as a traveller journeyed along a solitary road by the banks of Cayuga Lake. The Indian summer had lingered longer than usual. The rich and variegated foliage yet remained to decorate the forest trees, and the rippling wave sparkled with thousand-fold reflection beneath the brightness of the sun. The birds warbled forth their sweet notes with unwonted rapture, and instead of chirping, at intervals, the dirge of the coming winter, seemed to catch inspiration from the scene, and recall the fullness of their earliest lays. Stillness, unbroken save by the gentle murmur of the waters, the songs of the feathered tribes, and the slight wail of the autumnal breeze, as if betokening that the gorgeous livery which now arrested the eye of the wanderer was soon to be displaced, reigned over the scene. The glowing eye of the traveller bespoke one who was accustomed to gaze on nature with delight, and as it wandered over the glorious landscape it seemed animate with emotion. He reached at last a point which commanded one of the most attractive views of the lake, where, shaded from the heat of the sun, he gazed on a scene of surpassing beauty. Although he seemed to enjoy its rich glory, yet care occasionally marked his countenance, telling that other thoughts than those which harmonized with the quiet reigning around, dwelt within him. Perchance, it was sadly contrasting nature's rest with different scenes where strife and passion held their sway. Or, it might have been, that