blood of England! but the house of mourning ever adjoins the house of joy, and the wail of sorrow ever mingles with the voice of gladness: the cypress and the laurel are intimately blended. Yes; as great events must always proceed slowly,- and surely the reconquering of a country is one of them, so, though reverses may befall our heroic "thin red line," their ultimate and crowning success, however tardy, shall be the inevitable issue. But what saith our Poetess"The hurricane hath might

Along the Indian shore,

And far by Ganges' banks at night

Is heard the tiger's roar;

But let the sound roll on!

It hath no tone of dread

For those that from their toils are gone,-
There slumber England's dead.

The warlike of the isles,

The men of field and wave!

Are not the rocks their funeral piles,
The seas and shores their grave?

Go, stranger! track the deep ---
Free, free the white sail spread!
Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not England's dead."

Proud and noble, yet withal mournful lines- at this time in particular possessing a significancy the most intense and thrilling.

And now to approach my conclusion; though I find it difficult to disengage my thoughts from Poetry, and, in addition, most cordially sympathise with the full idea of the stanza

66

I never spoke the word farewell

But with an utterance faint and broken;

A heart-sick yearning for the time

When it shall never more be spoken."

I would, by way of resumé, then, desire to impress upon the minds of all, that just

66 As for some dear familiar strain
Untired we ask, and ask again,
Ever in its melodious store
Finding a spell unheard before,"

so, intellectual gratifications altogether, among which Poetry occupies a most princely position, are the only ones that inspire the love of their ceaseless cultivation, and that never ultimately pall. They are as pure as they are exquisite. And I would observe that Poetry is by no means a mere frivolous accomplishment (as

It is at once a

some have imagined) - the trifling amusement of a few leisure hours: it has been the study and delight of mankind in all ages. The nervous words that the author of "The Peloponnesian War" puts into the mouth of Pericles, referring to the urgent necessity of Athens keeping up its naval strength and superiority, may with the greatest propriety be used of the Poetical, in effect, the Literary pursuit-"It does not admit of being cultivated just when it may happen, as a kind of a bye-work, but rather does not even allow of anything else being a bye-work to it." The thirst for it belongs to the immortality of Man. consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. Well has Lord Falkland observed, "I do pity unlearned gentlemen on a rainy day," since sensual and vain diversions require much preparation, perhaps, and, beyond a doubt, are as evanescent as they are unproductive. In Mrs. Gore's forcible language, "The wise one who of old framed the exhortation, Soul, take thine ease!' was probably aware by experience that the ease of the great man," of the voluptuary, "is seldom easy to take; nay, that souls able to command the enjoyments of this world have almost more occasion for exhortation to enjoy themselves than the

6

H

Lazarus at their gates." For joy is not gathered twice in a life, as the roses of Postum twice in a year. Besides the pleasure, there is always remorse from the indulgence of our passions-passions that stupify still more than they enslave. The Ettrick Shepherd has an excellent couplet,

66

Knowledge, alone, avails the human kind,

For all beyond the grave are joys of Mind;"

and Sir William Hamilton's well known motto, prefixed
to his edition of Reid's works, was, "On earth there
is nothing great but Man; in Man there is nothing
great but Mind." Pervaded with the good impression
these passages convey, and remembering with Fene-
lon that, though the hours are long, life is short; the
sincere lover of Literature cultivates and adores it for
its own sake alone, and it rewards his affection to
the very uttermost. It makes him a denizen of all
nations-a cotemporary of all ages-an inhabitant of
every country: the world has been created for him.
Montesquieu frequently loved to observe, that he never
experienced a chagrin which a single hour's reading
did not dissipate. So great is the talismanic power
of Literature and literary yearning!
And all can, in

O

some degree, partake of its blessed effect. It was a favourite aphorism of Sir WALTER SCOTT, that the literary character, with its every duty, was perfectly reconcileable with the habits of a man of business and man of the world. This is a splendid truth, and let us lovingly embrace it—

"Seize upon truth where'er 't is found,
Among your friends, among your foes,
On Christian or on heathen ground;
The flower 's divine, where'er it grows;

Neglect the thistle and assume the rose."

Finally as I commenced with a recitation in the golden language of Poesy, by way of introduction to a Lecture that, I fondly hope, has not totally failed of imparting some degree of interest, can I close my paper more appropriately than by a quotation from our own essentially English poet, CRABBE, so felicitously designated by Lord BYRON,

"Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best."

It flows thus, calm and unruffled, as Cleopatra in her state galley sailing down the Cydnus;

"Comforts, yea! joys ineffable they find,

Who seek the prouder pleasures of the mind: