to the picture, and above all, by a multitude of beautiful similes, which impart no small portion of their own fire and spirit to the relation, which they adorn. These similes are drawn, principally, from hunting, agriculture and pastoral life, and while they serve to enliven his poem, they at the same time show Homer's close observation of all that was doing around him, and his unequalled felicity in describing all that he saw.

If any would learn, what lessons of policy and morals Homer teaches, how he excels Chrysippus and Crautor, and all the wisdom of the Porch and the Academy, let them read Horace's epistle to Lollius. Besides satisfying their curiosity, they may there learn how admirably well one poet can praise another; and they will find there, maxims so wise and philosophy so eloquent, as will convince them, that whatever may be Homer's merits, he is not the only poet to be read by those who are in search of moral improvement.

On the whole it is difficult, not to join in the elegant eulogium which Paterculus has pronounced. The succeeding times, (the historian had just been speaking of the Ionic migration) were illustrated, by the splendid genius of Homer; a man great without example. So magnificent is his subject, so majestic his verse, that he alone seems to merit the name of poet. He was great in every respect, but greatest in this, that as he imitated no one himself, so no one has been able to imitate him. If we except Archilocus, Homer is the only author, who has at once discovered and perfected a new species of composition. This great poet, it is said, was born blind, but if any one believes the fable, he must surely be destitute himself of all his senses. "*

We find in his poems, a complete description of the times in which he lived. He has woven the religion of his country into the texture of his story. In the siege of Troy, he has displayed all that was known of the art of war. The funeral of Patroclus gave him an opportunity of depicting the curious rites and ceremonies, observed in burying the dead, a matter, in every age of Greece, considered of the utmost importance. While relating the adventures of Ulysses and Telemachus, the poet often touchingly describes the pleasing interchanges of hospitality; and on these and other occasions, he introduces all the geographical and naval knowledge of his age. He has left us finished pictures of the men, the manners and the polity of the times. It is, perhaps, not going too far, to say, with an ancient critic, that the Iliad and Odyssey, apart from their poetical

* Clarisimum deride Homeri illuxit ingenium, sine exemplo maximum, qui, magnitudine operis et fulgore carminum, solus appellari poeta meruit; in quo hoc maximum est, quod neque ante illum, quem ille imitaretur, neque post illum, qui eum imitari potest, inventus est. Neque quemquam alium, cujus operis primus auctor fuerit, in eo perfectissimum, praeter Homerum et Archilochum, reperiemus.. quem si quis cæcum genitum, putat, omnibus sensibus orbus est.-C. V. Paterculi, lib. i. cap. 5.

merits, are a magazine of universal knowledge. The philosopher regards, with an eager and scrutinizing curiosity, the oldest monuments of pagan antiquity; the poet contemplates, with fervid admiration, the oldest, richest, raciest of poems; and the most careless student must possess little of that divine mind which so distinguishes the old bard, who reads the poems of Homer without becoming familiar with the character, the manners, the curious livelihood of the early Greeks, without finding his mind filled with sublime and beautiful images, instructed in human nature, strengthened by precepts of prudence and morality, astonished and delighted by a work of genius which all succeeding ages have regarded as marking the utinost bound of human effort.

NIAGARA.

How am I lost? and whither am I borne ?
Methought as on the beetling cliff I stood,
Gazing intently on the fearful scene,
Like a wild pageant it at once dissolv'd,
And dunnest night came o'er me; and I fell
Headlong, how far! never to rise again.
But lo, it bursts upon the view once more!
The roar of waters, the dark-tumbling flood,
The bounding spray and all-involving mist,
And the wide-yawning gulf beneath my feet,—
The war of elements anew proclaim,
And wake to ecstacy the astonish'd soul.
Yet where, amid the uproar dread around,
Where shall the eye an instant find repose?
If on the mighty stream which sweeps amain
The tribute of its ocean-lakes, I gaze-
Waves press on waves forever as before,
To be ingulf'd as soon. If o'er the brink,

The shudd'ring brink, I bend, to scrutinize
The wonders there, and eye the drear profound—
What but a whirlpool vast do I behold,
And sea of foam that never knows a calm!
Or, upward gazing, what but cloud on cloud
Of spray resplendent issuing from the abyss,
This way and that perpetually convolv'd,
Yet glowing with ethereal tints, as heaven's
Own bow, most beautiful. Fir'd at the view-
Alike with beauty, grandeur, terror fir'd―
At once I break the long continued spell,

Fly the charm'd spot, seize every point, and take
My fill of rapture. Nor with this content,

Down the rude steep I urge my vent'rous steps,
And to the o'erwhelming flood's appalling verge
Trembling advance: but oh, as thence I lift
My eye, what sight stupendous overawes
The aching sense! Straight from my feet a wall
Of adamant, of vast immeasured curve,
Its front upheaves immoveable and huge,
Towering to heaven; whence, like a rushing sea,
Bearing the whirlwind on its skirts, descends
The mighty deluge! Dreadful is the shock-
Earth trembles, and the affrighted deep recoils !
As when the thirsty clouds converging o'er
The sea, the subtle element attract,

And then upon the tempest's wing upborne,
Mid the wild heavens to battle rush sublime-
Down comes with thundering crash the liquid world,
And hill and valley instantly submerg'd,

The waters roll tumultuous to the main.

But who shall paint the inimitable scene,
Where Nature in a realm yet all her own,
Seems in unrivall'd majesty enthron'd!
As well, with magic of sweet sounds, the bard
To frenzy wrought, might hope there to detain
Yon glorious setting sun: lo! hovering o'er
The forest's verge, it sinks-while dusky night
Too hastily advancing, shuts the scene.
Darkness and Solitude-mysterious Powers!
At such an hour as this, how do ye seize
Upon the trembling soul! I feel the earth
Is without foothold; while a voice amidst
The roar eternal, seems to sound its doom!

But see! amid the East a light! the full orb'd moon
Which there, majestic rising, sheds o'er heaven
And earth a milder day; and now, as if
Enchanted, pours upon the lapsing flood
Her brightest beams. The falling waves
Imbibe the effulgence, and in volumes vast
Descend like liquid silver;-till, as they
Impinge with headlong force below, they break,
Swift shatter'd in ten thousand parts-fly off
Diverse or upward curl in snowy mist
Far 'mid the blue serene. The breeze that like
A living stream seems ever gushing up,
Plays with the forest leaf; on either hand,

And from the opposing isle,* majestic trees

Lift high their verdant screens-here veil'd in night—
There glitt'ring amid showers of spray-while o'er

The rocks, the banks, upon the loftiest heights,

And deep within the bosom of the abyss,
The light and shade their magic force exert,
And in mysterious grandeur wrap the scene.

O miracle of Nature! though amid

The boundless wild for ages thou hast been
From distant worlds conceal'd, yet myriad eyes
On thee have gaz'd. The proud, unconquer'd tribes,
That fearless roam'd the shadowy forest, caught
Far off thy wondrous music, and approach'd
With reverence the scene: while from thy crags
The eaglet peer'd,-or, taught full soon to tempt
Thy troubled air, his vigorous pinions shook,
And screaming wild, amid the ethereal void

Swift vanish'd. Yet with the bright morn once more
Shall he return, and in thy rainbows sport,

Or up to heaven shall mount' to drink the sun.'
But ah! those dark-eyed men-where now are they?
With thy returnless waves forever gone!

Yet thou in all thy grandeur still remain'st

To mock our withering race. Say! when the world
Sprang out of chaos, and the stars look'd down
Enamour'd of the virgin earth, did then

Thy thundering voice the trembling echoes wake?
Or hath the subtle miner, Time, earth's old
Foundations sapp'd, and with her giant walls
Let fall thy floods?-Within the Eternal Mind
The images of all that's beautiful

And fair, of wondrous and sublime, repose;

Till as thou will'st, O God! they seize, they fire
The enraptur'd sight. This beauteous orb, which thou

In thy beneficence didst call to light,

Thou gav'st to man; and, glorious to behold,
Around its outstretch'd continents didst pour
Thy world of waters. Storms the ocean lash
And wake it into wrath; as soon to peace
Again 'tis lull'd; but when thou badst unlock
The mountain-springs, outgush'd the impetuous floods
That leap exulting from their heaven-built seats,
And with eternal thunders shake the vales!

* Goat Island.

P. H.

THE CHARACTER OF GOETHE.

MEMOIRS OF GOETHE, written by himself. J. & J. Harper, N. York.

IT has been well remarked, that of all histories Autobiography is the least likely to be honest. The difficulty which first occurs to the mind, however, is not, we apprehend, the greatest. Nothing is more natural, and therefore excusable, than the disposition to flatter one's own likeness, and we can easily conceive the necessity of a stern nerve, for the drawing to the life of weaknesses which may have been successfully concealed, and passions which have, perhaps, flashed upon here and there an observer, but are not credited to us by the general tongue. A much greater obstacle exists, we suspect, in the difficulty of sitting to ourselves for a portrait, and catching the wonted expression of our own features. It is next to impossible to get sufficiently rid of one's identity-to stand aside like a third person and measure one's own stature and proportions coolly and definitely. The very attempt to fix upon a feature alters it. You may as well arrest your own shadow, or look for the unconscious and natural expression of your face in a mirror. By a strong effort you may sometimes conjure up, for a moment, to your mind's eye, your own distinct image, but it closes upon you instantly again, like a phantom that will not be held off, and your glance has not settled upon it before it is incorporated again with yourself and become invisible. Besides, we believe there is no possibility of a thorough self knowledge. A high degree of it, even, is exceedingly rare. Most men know less of themselves than they can see at a glance in the character of others; and though the occasional sympathies of life, and its temporary feelings of every description may be wholly understood and felt by the sufferer, and by him only, yet these are but the effects of the principles of character which lie far deeper, and he who feels the whole measure of their bitterness often knows least of their origin. It is a singular truth, that the heart deceives itself more than it deceives others. Self love early brings on that inner blindness to which the dim and mingled lines of character appear confused, and pride and necessity and ambition, and all the negative virtues and plausible vices, have a convenient diffusiveness which easily spreads their slight leaven over the whole mass of motive, and gives it a general and indefinite color of nobleness and truth. No man who is not utterly abandoned, ever believed himself guilty of an action of unqualified baseness. He could not have committed it without first silencing his scruples by some of those