Puslapio vaizdai
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pleasures within your reach, and when misfortune comes, endure it as an unavoidable evil. He looks upon the changeful scenes of life, without a cheering confidence in the deep wisdom by which they are ordered. That he should have stopped in the region of doubt, the region of vulgar minds-is a matter of wonder and deep regret. Cold hearted speculation may be permitted and expected to wander in darkness. But genius is an inward light, given for the noblest purposes. Those who possess it are, in no humble sense, the messengers of heaven. When will they recognize their high commission, and leave uncertainty behind, and lead on their admirers enthusiastically in the paths of truth?

GREENFIELD HILL.

This village is situated on a commanding eminence in the township and county of Fairfield, Conn. about three miles from Long Island Sound.

VILLAGE of beauty! looking down,

Like a throned queen with emerald crown,
Still points thy gray familiar spire,

Old as the country, its vane's fire,

'Mid the white villas round thy green,

O'er velvet banks that wave serene,
And rows of sycamores' cool shade,
As when, in childhood, here I played.

And still outspreads the mellow view
Of snowy steeples, tapering through
Neat ruffs of trees, and slopes that reach
The faint curve of the yellow beach,
And still the dazzling sunbeams dance
O'er the blue billows' wide expanse,
And, like a pile of gilt clouds, stand,
Yon isle's dim heights of glittering sand.

At twilight hour, when up the hill
Echo to echo, sweet and shrill,
Repeats the bugle of some bark
Unfurling, and glad lovers hark—
Brightly the light-house lamp afar
Twinkles, and seems, at first a star,
And mildly whispering sea-winds blow
Fresh dews upon the wearied brow.

Then watch the red moon, broad and round
Rise slowly from the glassy Sound,

Making it blush, till overhead

Fainting to pearl, brown woodlands shed
Their tints for her's, and the whole sheet,
A silver shield, gleams at your feet,
And poised, as in mid air a sail

Oft glides above its shadow pale.

How charming is thy sylvan height,
In balmy May-time, to the sight
And sense, when apple groves, all bloom,
Like a late snow-fall, join perfume
To the rich odours the south breeze
Wafts from Long Island's blossomed trees,
With sweets that reach into the soul

As if its breath from Eden stole.

Mother of Genius' glorious wing!
Two poets* thou hast taught to sing:
The sacred minstrel, unforgot,
Who sleeps in Learning's scholar spot;
And him, our country's bard and pride,
Who at cold Zarnawica died-
The ocean swells its mountain wave
Between his birthplace and his grave.

And oh! if more than classic grace,

And beauty of the form and face,

With charm of voice, and wealth of mind
That for an angel seemed designed,
Can make the scenery sanctified

Where their possessor lived and died—
Then shall these woods and waters round,
Thy name, loved Hulbert!t long resound.

My own delightful summer home!
Whether at golden noon I roam,
Or eve, when clouds, in purple drest,
Like heavenly castles deck the west,
And stars light up the ebon arch,

Or the lone moon resumes her march-
Not in this lower world is there

A landscape more divine and fair.

* Dr. Dwight who resided here and wrote "Greenfield Hill," and the "Conquest of Canaan" previous to his being chosen President of Yale College; and Joel Barlow, who was born at Reading a short distance from this village, and who partly fitted for college here. He was sent Minister to France in 1811, and soon after died at Zarnawica a village of Poland, on his way to Wilna to meet Napoleon.

To some of the lingering old school gentlemen of Connecticut, and to all who have ever been in his presence, the above tribute to the memory of Dr. Hulbert will not appear extravagant or unmerited.

"Tis sweet to come, and cast a look

At the same scenes-the walk-the brook,
Where oft we roved when red-cheeked boys,
And call to mind our former joys,
Dear playmate's faces, dead and gone,

And some, once fond, now distant grown,

-How we do change! but thou Green Hill,
With smile primeval livest still.

J. H. N.

HOMER.

WHO can read, without emotion, that eloquent epistle of Petrarch, in which he returns thanks to the friend, who had given him a copy of Homer? No one, surely, who has the least relish for liberal studies, can be unmoved by the grave and dignified pathos, with which the Italian poet laments his ignorance of the Greek tongue, and his consequent inability to apply to their best and noblest use the precious volumes with whieh he had been presented; and no one, who has ever felt the impulses of literary enthusiasm, will rashly blame the veneration with which the most accomplished scholar of his times regarded the true and original text of the Father of Poetry, though that text was, to him, a dead letter.

In the age of Petrarch, the Greek language could be acquired, only from the casual and uncertain instruction of some Byzantine ambassador, traveller, or fugitive. In our age and country, it is professedly studied in schools and colleges; yet through the unskilfulness of teachers, the indolence of the taught, the want of time for study, and of motives for exertion, a very large proportion of those who have all the claims to the title of scholars that academic honors and diplomas can give, find their sympathy with Petrarch quickened by the secret sense of their own ignorance; and the few adventurers, who penetrate the mists that enshroud the remains of ancient poetry and philosophy, are impelled, rather by the restless curiosity and high enthusiasm of their own minds, than by the exhortation of teachers, the encouragement of friends, or the hope of reward. In this western world, the classical student must expect little to excite him, save the solitary ardor of his own breast. Like the Roman orator, he must give to his favorite studies those hours, snatched from the tumults and fatigues of business, which others spend in recreation, or luxuriously sleep away in delicious indolence. He must not look to have his path smoothed by the grateful facilities of oral instruction, he must not anticipate the pleasures of social study. The travellers on this road are too infrequent to render each other such kindly

assistance. The living men around him, he will find occupied with the business of to-day, and the prospect of to-morrow. He must invoke aid from the dead. He must learn to say with Cowley,

Come, my best friends, my books, and help me on,

"Tis time that I were gone;

Unpassed Alps stop me, but I'll cut them all,
And march, the Muses' Hannibal.

In other countries, classical learning is better cultivated, and better rewarded; but from the nature of society, it happens in all countries alike, that, of the multitudes who repeat the name and the praises of Homer, by far the larger part know him only through the medium of translations. To the English reader, the Iliad and Odyssey are familiar in the version of Pope, an author whose name, in spite of all his maligners, dead and living, stands high indeed on the rolls of literature, and whose reputation, in the estimate of every judicious critic, increases with every passing year which delays to produce a poet worthy to be his successor. Writers of more sensibility than intellect, despairing ever to reach, perhaps unable to comprehend, the vigorous and majestic sense of Pope, pretend to despise it, and dignify with the name of genius, their own feeble and insipid prettiness. Their censure cannot affect him, nor ought it to surprise us. What wonder, that the insects of literature, delighted with their own spotted wings, and microscopic beauties, contemplate unmoved the swan-like flights, and liquid harmony of our great moral poet?

The lovers of Homer will pardon this digression in praise of his translator. As a translator, Pope has done wonders; yet it must be confessed, there is much truth in the common observation, that his translation does not present a perfect image of Homer. This, perhaps, was a defect inherent in the undertaking, and the poet is not to be blamed for not accomplishing what was impossible. After all, his departures from the original are principally in lesser things. The story, the incidents, the sentiments and the similes are faithfully copied; and those, who are familiar with the version of Pope, can easily follow the few cursory observations we are going to make. In the eyes of the scholar, the name of Homer will irradiate dulness itself; and the more general reader, tired perhaps, of the sublime mysticism, the profound obscurity, the vague generalities, the cloudy declamation and transcendental metaphysics, the dull paradox and eternal cant of fashionable criticism, may not be unwilling to see an example, how unworthy soever, of that plain and quiet style of comment, which was taught and practised by the wits of France and England, before reviews, monthly or quarterly, were invented. The brightest stars sometimes suffer an eclipse, and we may hope, that it is only a temporary disorder, not a permanent disturbance of the system, which leads so many of our contemporaries to speak with

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unqualified contempt of this school of critics. Judged by the severest rules, their merits were not small. They did not, indeed, accurately distinguish between the universal laws of taste, and the mere technical forms of their favorite authors; their fancy, it may be, was barren, their science limited, their genius not comprehensive; yet they did not want a certain fund of good sense; they had carefully studied the operations of the mind, and the play of the passions; they had imbibed much of the spirit of classical antiquity. If they sometimes fail to entertain and instruct, they never attempt to bewilder; they never seek to dress up nonsense in the guise of philosophy, or to hide a want of meaning under a rhapsody of words; what they have to tell, they express with an agreeable perspicuity; if they never blaze out with resplendent lustre, they always shed a clear and steady light; merits, perhaps which many will undervalue, but which will not be undervalued by those, who have been perplexed, and dazzled, and led astray by the dancing meteors of modern philosophy. ·

Of Homer's life and history we know almost nothing. He who immortalized others, left no information concerning himself. Yet of a poet so illustrious, we might expect some memorials; and that he did not want contemporaries, able to preserve and transmit his history, is proved by the numerous poems, both heroic and comic, the productions of very early times, of which we find mention in ancient authors, (for the poems themselves perished in the wreck of Greek literature, during the middle ages), many of which were vulgarly ascribed to Homer himself. But poets so careless of their own fame that their very names have perished, were not likely to be solicitous about the reputation of a brother bard; and it is tradition alone, which has informed us of the name, the country, and the age of Homer. Men are everywhere so much alike, and the actual varieties of life are so few, that we often find the events of one age, the best possible commentary on the history of another. What we know of the metrical romances of the middle ages, may be made to shed light on the history of the heroic poetry of ancient Greece; or what amounts to the same thing, our acknowledged ignorance concerning works so famous in the literary annals of comparatively recent times, may help to reconcile us to our ignorance of Homer and his contemporary poets. The names and history of the authors of these romances, who appear to have resembled, in many curious particulars, the bards of the early Greeks, are involved in the greatest obscurity; and European antiquaries find as much difficulty in ascertaining the age and authorship of the romance of Sir Percival or The Four Sons of Aymon, as did the grammarians of Athens or Alexandria in settling to their satisfaction the date and origin of the lesser Iliad, the Cecrops, or the Epigoni. Had some one of these romances rivalled

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