From 1708 he held a fellowship at Oxford. In 1730 his college presented him to the rectory of Welwyn, in Hertfordshire, valued at £300 a year. In 1781 he married a widow, the daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, which proved a happy union. Lady Elizabeth Young died in 1741; and her husband is supposed to have begun soon afterward the composition of the "Night Thoughts." Of his numerous works published previous to this period, the best are his satires, which were collected in 1728, under the title of The Love of Fame the Universal Passion," and "The Revenge," a tragedy, which appeared in 1721. Sixty years of labor and industry had strengthened and enriched his genius, and augmented the brilliancy of his fancy, preparatory to writing "Night Thoughts." The publication of this poem, taking place in sections, was completed in 1746 It is written in a highly artificial style, and has more of epigrammatic point than any other work in the language. Though often brilliant at the expense of higher and more important qualities, the poet introduces many noble and sublime passages, and enforces the truths of religion with a commanding energy and per suasion. The fertility of his fancy, the pregnancy of his wit and knowledge, the striking and felicitous combinations everywhere presented, are truly remarkable. Young died in April, 1765, at the advanced age of eighty-four. A II. 113. PAUL FLEMMING RESOLVES. ND now the sun was growing high and warm. A little chapel, whose door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming to enter and enjoy the grateful coolness. He went in. There was no one there. The walls were covered with paintings and sculpture of the rudest kind, and with a few funeral tablets. There was nothing there to move the heart to devotion; but in that hour the heart of Flemming was weak,-weak as a child's. He bowed his stubborn knees and wept. And oh! how many disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how much of wounded pride, and unrequited love, were in those tears, through which he read on a marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, this singular inscription: "LOOK NOT MOURNFULLY INTO THE PAST : IT COMES NOT BACK AGAIN. WISELY IMPROVE THE PRESENT: IT IS THINE. GO FORTH TO MEET THE SHADOWY FUTURE, WITHOUT FEAR, AND WITH A MANLY HEART. 2. It seemed to him as if the unknown tenant of that grave had opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of consolation, which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. The stone was rolled away from the door of his heart; death was no longer there, but an angel clothed in white. He stood up, and his eyes were no more bleared with tears; and, looking into the bright, morning heaven, he said, "I WILL BE STRONG!" 3. Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painful longings to behold once more the faces of their departed friends; and as they gaze upon them, lying there so peacefully with the semblance that they wore on earth, the sweet breath of heaven touches them, and the features crumble and fall together, and are but dust. So did his soul then descend for the last time into the great tomb of the past, with painful longings to behold once more the dear faces of those he had loved; and the sweet breath of heaven touched them, and they would not stay, but crumbled away and perished as he gazed. They, too, were dust. And thus, far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the past shut behind him as the divine poet did the gate of paradise, when the angel pointed him the way up the holy mountain; and to him likewise was it forbidden to look back. 4. In the life of every man, there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost mirăculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these sudden changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause. It was so with Flemming, and from that hour forth he resolved that he would no longer veer with every shifting wind of circumstance; no longer be a child's plaything in the hands of fate, which we ourselves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to lean on others; but to walk self-confident and self-possessed: no longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait the fulfilment of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires; but to live in the present wisely, ǎlike forgetful of the past, and careless of what the mysterious future might bring. And from that moment he was calm, and strong; he was reconciled with himself! 5. His thoughts turned to his distant home beyond the sea. An indescribable, sweet feeling rose within him. “Thither will I turn my wandering footsteps," said he ; "and be a man among men, and no longer a dreamer among shadows. Henceforth be mine a life of action and reality! I will work in my own sphere nor wish it other than it is. This alone is health and happiness. This alone is life 'Life that shall send A challenge to its end, And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend!' 6. "Why have I not made these sage reflections, this wise resolve, sooner? Can such a simple result spring only from the long and intricate process of experience? Alas! it is not till time, with recklèss hand, has torn out half the leaves from the book of human life, to light the fires of passion with, from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number, and to remember, faintly at first, and then more clearly, that upon the earlier pages of that book was written a story of happy innocence, which he would fain read over again. Then come listless irresolution, and the inevitable inaction of despair; or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still remain, a more noble history than the child's story, with which the book began. LONGFELLOW. HENRY WADSWORTHI LONGFELLOW was born in the city of Portland, Maine, on the 27th of February, 1807. He entered Bowdoin College at fourteen, and graduated in due course. He soon after commenced the study of law, in the office of his father, the Hon. Stephen Longfellow, but being appointed professor of modern languages at Bowdoin, in 1826, he sailed for Europe to prepare himself for the duties of his office, where he passed three years and a half. On his return, he entered upon the labors of instruction. Mr. Longfellow being elected professor of modern languages and literature in Harvard College, in 1835, resigned his place in Brunswick, and went a second time to Europe, to make himself better acquainted with the subjects of his studies in Denmark, Sweden, and Germany. On his return home, in 1836, he immediately entered upon his labors at Cambridge, where he has since resided. In 1854 he resigned his professorship at Harvard. His earliest poems were written for "The United States Gazette," printed in Boston, while he was an under-graduate, from which period he has been recognized as among the first writers of prose and verse of the nineteenth century. During his subsequent residence at Brunswick, he wrote several elegant and very able papers for the "North American Review," translated "Coplas de Manrique," and published "Outre Mer," a collection of agreeable tales and sketches, chiefly written during his first residence abroad. Hyperion," a romance, appeared in 1839, and "Kavanagh," another prose work, in 1848. The first collection of his poems was published in 1839, entitled "Voices of the Night." His "Ballads and other Poems" followed in 1841; "The Spanish Student," a play, in 1843; "Poems on Slavery," in 1844; "The Belfry of Bruges, and other Poems," in 1845; "Evangeline, a Tale of Arcadie," in 1817; "The Sea and Fireside," in 1849; "The Golden Legend," in 1851; "Hiawatha," in 1855; and "Tales of a Wayside Inn," in 1863. In 1845; he published "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," the most complete and satisfactory work of the kind that has ever appeared in any language. "The Skeleton in Armor "is one of the longest and most unique of his original poems. "Hiawatha," his longest poem, which is purely original and American, has been republished in England, and has met with a popularity, both in Europe and America, not surpassed by any poem of the present century. The high finish, gracefulness, and vivid beauty of his style, and the moral purity and earnest humanity por trayed in his verse, excite the sympathy and reach the heart of the public. D III. 114. ODE TO ADVERSITY. AUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, The bad affright, afflict the best! 2. When first thy sire to send on earth And både to form her infant mind. Stern, rugged nurse! thy rigid lōre What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe. 3. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer friend, the flattering foe: By vain Prosperity received, To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. 4. Wisdom in sable garb arrayed, Immersed in rapturous thought profound, And Měl'ancholy, silent maid, With leaden eye that loves the ground, Warm Charity, the general friend, And Pity, dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear. 5. Oh! gently on thy suppliant's head, Dread goddess, lay thy chastening hand! Not in thy Gorgon' terrors clad, With thundering voice, and threatening mien, 6. Thy form benign,' O goddess, wear, To soften, not to wound,' my heart. What others are, to feel; and know myself a man. GRAY. THOMAS GRAY was born in London in 1716. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge. When his college education was completed, Horace Walpole induced him to accompany him in a tour through France and Italy; but a misunderstanding taking place, Gray returned to England in 1741. His father being dead, he went to Cambridge to take his degree in civil law, though he was possessed of sufficient means to enable him to dispense with the labor of his profession. He settled himself at Cambridge for the remainder of his days, only leaving home when he made tours to Wales, Scotland, and the lakes of Westmoreland, and when he passed three years in London for access to the library of the British Muscum. His life thenceforth was that of a scholar. His "Ode to Eton College," published in 1747, attracted little notice; but the "Elegy in a Country Church-yard," which appeared in 1749, became at once, as it will always continue to be, one of the most popular of all poems. Most of his odes were written in the course of three years following 1753; and the publication of the collection in 1757 fully established his reputation. His poems, flowing from an intense, though not fertile imagination, inspired by the most delicate poetic feeling, and elaborated into exquisite terseness of diction, are among the most splendid ornaments of English literature. His "Letters," published after his death, are admirable specimens of English style, full of quiet humor, astute, though fas tidious criticism, and containing some of the most picturesque pieces of de scriptive composition in the language. He became professor of modern history at Cambridge, in 1768. He died by a severe attack of the gout in 1771. 'Gorgon, the Gorgons, in heathen mythology, were frightful beings, that had hissing serpents instead of hair upon their heads; and they had wings, brazen claws, and enormous teeth. Their names were Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa. The head of 2 Be nign', gracious; kind. |