the words of wisdom which flowed from her pleasant and instructive conversation. He wondered at the transformation, but knew not whence it came. She governed her household with justice and with love, and felt that true happiness which always flows from a consciousness of moral rectitude. Anxiously did she await the day which was to test her improvement by the Magic Mirror. When the day arrived she retired to her chamber and drew it from her casket of jewels, esteeming it the richest and regardless of the external plate, hung the internal one to view. She was so amazed at the change which had been effected, that she heeded not the light step of the Lady of the Crystal Spring, who, true to her word, stood beside her. "Look! Femaqua," she exclaimed, " many of the deformities have disappeared, and oh! what a pretty suit of silken hair has covered the baldness; but I hoped," she added with a discontented air, "that the change would have been perfect-it is not as beautiful as is the external." THE INFANTICIDE. Translated from the German of Schiller. BY J. G. HOLLAND. Hark-the bells are tolling slow and solemn ! Be it so now let the funeral column, Sunny joys farewell! exchanged in sadness "Be patient, Aileen," replied the fairy, "the work thou wouldst perform cannot be done in a day. nor a year, but rather is the work of a life time. Yet persevere-I will be with thee from time to Once my form, the scarlet scarf entwining, time and in the reformation of that once horrid fig-The pure dress of innocence enclosed; ure, we will together watch the progression of wisdom and virtue in the human mind." Femaqua saw Aileen once every year until the change was perfected. The last time she visited her, they were both highly delighted in finding that the interior plate of the Mirror portrayed an image much more beautiful than the exterior--for that had somewhat faded in the hand of Time; while In the tresses of my blonde hair shining, Weep for me, ye who are still untainted; the beautiful portrait on the interior plate was im-Ye for whom the stainless lily blows; "It is to your patience and forbearance, my friend," said Aileen, "that I owe my present undisturbed felicity. Atalbert esteems and loves me; and in my household all is peace and order." The hate that Aileen had previously felt for the fairy was changed to intense love, and she felt sad when Femaqua told her it was unnecessary for her to visit her more. The Lady of the Crystal Spring then bade Aileen a final adieu, taking with her the Magic Mirror, for the uses it might perform to others. She left her, not as she first found her, petulant and discontented, but one of the BEST and happiest of women; and often in after life did Aileen bless the day she first saw the fairy and the Magic Mirror. Indiana. R. R. W. Ye, whom God, with strength sublime, and sainted, Ah! perhaps that reptile heart now flutters Joseph Joseph! may my death-chant rolling, Ah, false man! could not Louisa's weeping.- And the babe-Upon the mother's bosom "Woman, where's my father?" Spoke astounding In thy mother's bosom, hell is burning: Hell-whene'er my eye thy presence misses, Joseph Joseph through thy distant straying, At my feet it lay-in death reposing. And to drown my raging grief depart! Joseph Mercy's throne is still in Heaven!! Trust not, sisters, girlhood's precious flower! THE PRICE OF EXCELLENCE. Excellence of the highest order is possible to man. Excellence in literature is acquired by the same process as in other liberal pursuits. Superlative excellence, literary and moral, may be obtained by ourselves, provided we are willing to pay the fixed and immutable price. These are the general points to which, in this discussion, our attention will be directed. First, it is possible for any man of ordinary endowments to obtain the highest order of excellence. The disposition to distinguish and the capacity to interest ourselves in the true, the beautiful, the good, and the grand, are faculties which are latent in every rational being, and are designed to indicate the choice and conduct of life which is most becoming our nature as moral agents; and nothing is more certain than that the interest we take in surrounding objects, is exactly proportioned to the degree of cultivation which these faculties have received. It may be our blessing, it may be our bane; but for weal or woe, the disposition to soar abure the finite and the actual exists in every mind, and may be employed for the noblest ends. "Ambition! powerful source of good and ill! Secondly, excellence in literature is acquired by the same process as in other liberal pursuits. Innate force of genius is doubtless the primary requisite to success; but with respect to much that appears spontaneous, we should apply the observation of Sir Joshua Reynolds, "that where such 66 excellence is produced with certainty and constan- emulative pupils, but no master can inspire excelcy, it cannot be by chance; for that is not the na-lence, or impart facility to the stupid; the eagle ture of chance; but the rules by which men of can raise only eaglets to the sun. extraordinary parts work, are either such as they Lucian says, that love is of two kinds, the one discover by their own peculiar observation, or of sensual, the other intellectual. The latter was such nice texture as not easily to admit handling, let down from heaven by a golden chain, not by or expressing in words." Quinctilian quotes Pyth- fires, or arrows, inflicting the pains of wounds difagoras as saying, "the theory is nothing without ficult to cure, but enamoring of its beauty the unthe practice." "And," says the younger Pliny, contaminated and pure intellect; exciting by a dis"what means have we to retain what has been creet madness of the soul, as says the tragic poet, taught us, if we put it not in practice?" Excel. those who are near to Jupiter, and who are associlence in writing is won in the same way as in sculp- ated with the gods. To this love all is easy, as in ture, not so much by what is added as by what is the case of Demosthenes,—the tonsure, the cave, taken away. In practice, this rule will apply just the mirror, the sword, the conquering of impediso far as the perfected Apollo is superior to the ments, the learning at a late period of life the art unworked block. No man ever does his best, but of gesture, the strengthening his memory, the conby repeated efforts. Michael Angelo was finishing tempt of tumult, the adding of nights to laborious a statue a friend, returning after a long absence, days. Who is there that knows not how great an and finding him still at his work, exclaimed, "Have orator he came forth after these exertions; enrichyou been idle since I saw you last?" "By no means," replied the sculptor; "I have retouched this part and polished that; I have softened this feature and brought out this muscle; I have given more expression to this lip, and more energy to this limb." Well, well," said his friend, "all these are trifles." "It may be so," replied Angelo," but recollect that trifles make perfection, and that perfection is no trifle." 66 ing his eloquence by thoughts and expressions, establishing the credit of his arguments by the vehemence of his feelings, splendid in his copionsness, exquisite in his choice of words and sentiments, and inexhaustible in the variety of his figures ?" In many instances the sister arts assimilate with each other, and the pictura loquens, and the mula poesis, are synonymous terms. Take any great Let us remember that theoretical knowledge, un-exemplar of excellence, in any department, and aided by manual practice, can never insure success what is his history? Invariably you will find that in any valuable art. We should by no means al- he was no mere passive child of nature; no astute low that man to be an orator who has the best automaton of genius; but he patiently, minutely thoughts imaginable, and who knows all the rules observed, profoundly meditated, till rich stores of of rhetoric, but who has acquired no ability by knowledge blended with his fervid sensibilities, and practice; and can neither compose nor utter an at length burst forth in that stupendous power excellent discourse. Great excellence is a long which crowned him at once a monarch in the kingjourney; but it avails nothing to hoard up neces-dom of thought. He won the palm of excellence sary provisions, and laboriously to study maps of and its attendant honors, simply because he was the route, if we do not actually begin to travel and ready to "scorn delights and love laborious days!" persevere to the goal. "There is no royal road to " As to other points, what God may have determingeometry," said Napoleon, and the remark has a ed for me," said Milton, "I know not; but this I wide application. Careful study of principles, a know, that if he ever instilled an intense love of comprehensive knowledge of facts, and familiarity moral beauty into the breast of any man, he has with the best models, are indispensable for sound instilled it into mine. Ceres, in the fable, purtheories and intelligent practice. sued not her daughter with a greater keenness of In the creation of all beautiful and valuable things, inquiry, than I day and night the idea of perfecthere are two kinds of facility to be acquired, that tion." From such a mind, developed under such of the mind and that of the hand. The first pro-influences, what might we not expect? ceeds from an active temperament, full of fire; the Raphael, the prince of painters, adopted as his second from an accurate knowledge of well-estab- motto, never to pass a day without a new task for lished rules, and skill in their application. The his skill. Hayden, the most original of musicians, possession of the first is indispensable to invention; assiduously fed his imagination with copious stores the second is equally necessary to successful exe- of those ancient and unique airs which abound cution; the height of perfection is attained only among the primitive people of every land. He when both are happily united and diligently applied. prosecuted his musical studies regularly sixteen or The capacity to invent must be native to the soul, eighteen hours per day. Poussin was the greatest the best instruction can never impart it; it is the of the landscape painters of France; when some golden branch of Virgil, which no adventurer could one demanded how he had arrived at such perfecdiscover and bear away, except as he was guided tion, his reply was, "I have neglected nothing." by destiny. Good teachers can greatly improve Claude Lorrain composed his pictures of various It is thus that we breathe the breath of heaven and win a foretaste of immortality. We grow in mental stature only while accumulating materials for the judgment to digest, and for fancy to combine. Before we can achieve any thing valuable, we must habituate ourselves "deeply to drink in the soul of things," and thus raise to loftier heights the goal of our pursuit, and stretch over a wider domain the scope of our thought. draughts, which he had previously made from diver- jewels from every continent and sea, he must with sified and beautiful scenes in the open air; and Ver- enthusiastic industry collect the most precious tronet, to win excellence in delineating the swelling phies to adorn the one glorious idol of his heart. sea, lashed himself to a mast, and painted in the midst of howling storms. The mother of the Gracchi won mature excellence for her sons, by prosecuting their discipline from infancy; and Cicero, late in life, tells us, that it always had been his rule, not to pass a day without the use of his pen and the practice of declamation. It is in this way only, that a master mind obtains the power of masterly execution. Great facility in creating what is really valuable, is never suddenly acquired; the greater the apparent ease, the more certainly we may infer the magnitude of the toil it has cost. "Seldom have I written that in a day," said Coleridge, "the acquisition or investigation of which had not cost me the previous labor of a month." In surveying the world of science, literature and art, we shall every where find like causes, producing like results. Each successful devotee will be frugal, chaste and industrious in all his habits. He will be single in his design and untiring in his toil. It is through the subjugation of the body to the soul, that God has opened a free path to mental wealth that is valuable and moral,-enterprises that are grand. We never see large, beautiful, and luscious fruits growing on a tree which stands in the shade and is encumbered with thorns. Unity of pursuit and freedom from the shackles of vice, are essential to success. Intrinsically our object must be noble and our devotion to it must be strong. When we ardently love our pursuit, exhausting toil becomes a source of delight. "And it is a shameful thing," said Cicero, "to be weary of inquiry, when what we search is excellent." These instances and illustrations are enough to show that excellence in literature is acquired by the same process as in other liberal pursuits. We pass more fully to consider The candidate for enduring fame will labor onceasingly and magnanimously to deserve what he pants to attain. He will remember that indolence is suicidal to success, and that avarice cripples all refined desires. Said one of England's noblest sons, "Were I to love money, I should lose all power of thought; desire of gain deadens the genius of man. I might roll in wealth, and ride in a golden chariot, were I to listen to the voice of parsimony. My business is not to gather gold, but to make glorious shapes, expressing godlike sentiments." One may be endowed with genius, a rare and precious gift; but skill in execution with the pen or living voice, must be obtained at the common price-study and practice. It is impossible to excel in any art, without making its pursuit a habit; and it is impossible to secure this without infinite efforts adroitly diversified. Arbitrary rules are soon learned, but it is only great diligence in their use that can render one practically a master of them. Michael Angelo, when sixty years old, declared that he learned something new every day. Long anterior to this great man, the maxim was established, that the gods give every thing to labor." When one is truly inspired with a literary spirit, he will become an apostle of the sublime and beautiful, and his calling will render him a hero as The third proposition. Superlative excellence, truly as that of the apostle Paul. Bat the modern literary and moral, may be obtained by ourselves, scholar, like that magnificent man, must go to his provided we are willing to pay the unvarying price work with enthusiastic passion and conscious powattached thereto. Human culture is perfected in er. Great things, in our day, are seldom executed, two directions in soaring upward, where the mind because great toil is seldom employed. But, says seeks its ideal in the true, the beautiful, and the Johnson, “excellence in any department can now good; and in excursions outward, where it seeks be attained only by the labor of a life-time; it is actual worth in the history of all nations, and in not to be purchased at a lesser price." This we too the moral progress of every master spirit. It is in often forget, and passively await the contributions efforts to encircle this vast field of research, that of chance, instead of energetically compelling the the mind is expanded, and a bond of union is form-world and all things therein to pay tribute to our ed between the individual aspirant and every link toil. If all our wishes for valuable acquisitions of the chain that binds the sublimities of the uni- were but reduced to efforts worthily made, our verse together. He who most reverences those mental resources would accumulate in wonderful lofty forms in which the human and divine are man- profusion. But without earnestness there can never ifested, and kindles the flames of pure devotion on be any thing valuable earned. He who would bend altars sacred to both, will have his whole being im-the bow of Ulysses, must have more than the imbued with that spirit which garnishes the heavens becile muscles of a babe. All things great and and beautifies the earth. From the remotest re-good arrive at perfection by a slow but perpetual gions and most distant times, like one gathering and sublime process, like the works of God, “who hardens the ruby in a million years, and works in duration, in which Alps and Andes come and go like rainbows." and so was his great successor, Ariosto. Sir Francis Bacon speaks with approbation of the varied means employed by the ancient orators to assist their invention. The genius of Bacon himself, great as he was, would never have made so many original observations, had not his mind been disciplined by the scrutiny of nature and a comprehensive knowledge of books. The uncultivated intellect is a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no valuable crops, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter. The daily food of an original mind is found in the excellencies which may be culled from predecessors of every rank and age. No man can become great, but by appropriating strength from all sources, as an oak takes in vigor from all the elements as it grows. Critical observation and diversified reading give freshness and force to superior mental powers. What is genius," asked Goethe, "but the faculty of seizing and turning to account every thing that strikes us; of coördaining and breathing life into all the materials that Every acquisition in literature, and every triumph of art, the serenest heights of meditation and most exalted degrees of moral improvement, should be regarded but as ascending stages in our progress to the pinnacle of grandeur we were designed to attain. Isolated as we are on this fragment of the universe, and encompassed by the boundless and mysterious unknown, it is still our prerogative as rational creatures, and should be our chief delight, to soar in calm sovereignty above mutable and distracting scenes, where intellect can be, what its possessor has fondly named himself, the god of this lower world. In every instance where such attainments are approximated by the choicest spirits of our race, there is realized what John Foster so admirably described:-" A character stands before us of colossal stature, who presents the lineaments and the powers of man in magnitude, -a magnitude which conceals a numerous crowd of mankind undistinguished behind him. He calls suffer- present themselves; of taking here marble, and ing, discipline; sacrifices, emolument; and, what are usually deemed insuperable obstacles, he names impediments, and casts them out of the way, or vaults over them. His mind seems a focus which concentrates into one ardent beam the languid lights and fires of ten thousand surrounding minds." 66 there brass, and building a lasting monument of them?" The classical reader reanimates antiquity by his vigils; and by the aid of a cultivated imagination, he contemplates the past and anticipates the future. He who strives most to know what others have originated, will be most educated and facile himself to invent. His genius becomes more original in proportion as his acquired resources are copious; as the eagle adds vigor to his wing and fire to his eye the farther he journeys from his nest, and the nearer he approaches the sun. Those who do not read extensively the works of others, will seldom produce any thing of their own worthy of being read. Their mental progress will resemble the navigator who puts to sea without charts. Such a candidate for fame is like an astronomer who, in order to be quite original in his discoveries, refuses to use a telescope. A skilful artist, in appropriating a posture, will make it his own, by throwing over it the charm of graceful fancy and natural elegance. The power of combining and abstracting is an inherent faculty, but industry must have furnished the accurate knowledge of forms and facts, or the most exalted power of combining and abstracting will be utterly useless. Until memory be stored with ideas, no faculty of the mind has the means or occasion to work; it is with respect to rhetorical composition what the painter is without canvass and colors. It is a mistaken notion to suppose that extensive acquisitions are unfavorable to originality. It is the law of our mental nature, as of our physical, to appropriate to itself excellencies from without, and to subsist by the assimilation of the food we devour. Neither the Nile, nor the Rhine, nor the Ohio, derives its waters from its own fountains only. All great rivers receive auxiliaries as they flow, and in the same manner all prolific minds accumulate energies in proportion as they advance. Every thing beautiful belongs to all who have eyes to see it; and all material, from the grossest to the most refined, is legitimately his to use who, in the crucible of consummate genius, can imbue it with original splendor and impart to it a more potent use. No one can acquire a lasting reputation in the departments of science, letters, philosophy or art, who does not gather honey from every flower of the mind. Genius is never smothered under the accumulation of true knowledge; as soon would fire be extinguished by the combustibles that feed its flames. The highest order of intellect is always impelled by aspirations after the infinite, and revels in every kingdom of thought as in a congenial clime. Homer appears the most original of all The musician of one note, and the painter of authors, simply because we have not the means of one tint, could hardly be expected to produce Hantracing his sources of information. Cicero and del's Oratorio of Creation and the pictorial splenVirgil were most familiar with all the best produc- dors of the Vatican. This analogy of painting to tions of antiquity, and were themselves most ori- literary composition, is deserving of being minuteginal among their cotemporaries. Dante, the fatherly traced. In either department, the devotee should of modern literature, was ripe in book knowledge; overlook no kind of knowledge. He must range VOL. XIII-80 |