1 Like forms and landscapes magical they lay. Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true, 7. Upon his canvas. There Prome'theūs' lay, Of the lame Lem'nian festering in his flesh; Were like the winged god's, breathing from his flight. My hand feels skillful, and the shadows lift Upon the bended heavens-around me play Cy the' ris, a celebrated courtesan, the mistress of Antony, and subsequently of the poet Gallus, who mentions her in his poems under the name of Lycoris. 2 Ac Diana, (di à ́na), an ancient Italian divinity, whom the Romans identified with the Greek Artemis. cording to the most ancient accounts, she was the daughter of Jupiter and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. thology, was son of the Titan Sapetus and Clymene. His name signifies forethought. For offenses against Jupiter, he was chained to a rock on Mount Caucasus, where an eagle con sumed in the daytime his liver, which was restored in each succeedingnight "Lem' ni an, from Lemnos, now Stalimni, an island of the Greek Archipelago, where the lame Hephastus, or Vulcan, the god of fire, is said 3 Jōve, Jupiter, the supreme deity to have fallen, when Jupiter hurled of the Romans, called Zeus by the him down from heaven. Hence the Greeks. workshop of the god is sometimes • Pro mē' theūs, in heathen my placed in this island. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. "Ha! bind him on his back! Look!-as Promē'theus in my picture here! Press down the poisoned links into his flesh! Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now! How fearfully he stifles that short mōan! I pity the dumb victim at the altar- A thousand lives were perishing in thinc- "Hereafter!' Ay-hereafter! A whip to keep a coward to his track! What gave Death ever from his kingdom back Come from the grave to-morrow with that story- 66 No, no, old man! we die Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er, A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone, "Ay-though it bid me rifle My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first 15. 16. 17. Though it should bid me stifle The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, "All-I would do it all Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot- O heavens!--but I appall Your heart, old man! forgive-ha! on your lives "Vain-vain-give 'er! His eye Glazes apace. He does not feel you now— But for one moment-one-till I eclipse Brokenly now-that was a difficult breath- Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head! He shudders-gasps-Jove help him!-so-he's dead." 18. How like a mounting devil in the heart Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once We look upon our splendor and forget The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life Many a falser idol. There are hopes Promising well; and love-touched dreams for some; And passions, many a wild one; and fair schemes 19. Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream, Burning to waste, or, if its light is found, And from Love's věry bosom, and from Gain, 20. Oh, if there were not better hopes than these— Falsehood hath broken will unite no mōre- Finding no worthy altar, must return And die of their own fullness-if beyond Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart May spend itself—WHAT THRICE-MŎCKED FOOLS ARE WE! N. P. WILLIS. SECTION XXII. I. 119. CHARACTER OF SCOTT. AKE it for all and all, it is not too much to say that the char Taxter of Sir Walter Scott is probably the most remarkable on record. There is no man of historical celebrity that we now recall, who combined, in so eminent a degree, the highest qualities of the moral, the intellectual, and the physical. He united in his own character what hitherto had been found incompatible. 2. Though a poët, and living in an ideal world, he was an exact, methodical man of business; though achieving with the most wonderful facility of genius, he was patient and laborious; a mousing antiquarian, yet with the most active interest in the present and whatever was going on around him; with a strong turn for a roving life and military adventure, he was yet chained to his desk more hours, at some periods of his life, than a monkish recluse ;*a man with a heart as capacious as his head; a Tory, brimful of Tac'obitism,' yet full of sympathy and unaffected familiarity with all classes, even the humblèst; a successful author, without pedantry and without conceit; one, indeed, at the head of the republic of letters, and yet with a lower estimate of letters, as compared with other intellectual pursuits, than was ever bazarded before. 3. The first quality of his character, or, rather, that which forms the basis of it, as of all great characters, was his energy. We see it in his early youth, triumphing over the impediments of nature, and in spite of lameness, making him conspicuous in every sort of athletic exercise-clambering up dizzy precipices, wading through treacherous förds, and performing feats of pedestrianism that make one's joints ache to read of. As he advanced in life, we see the same force of purpose turned to higher objects. 4. We see the same powerful energies triumphing over disease at a later period, when nothing but a resolution to get the better of it enabled him to do so. "Be assured," he remarked to Mr. Gillies, "that if pain could have prevented my application to literary labor, not a page of Ivanhoe would have been written. Now if I had given way to mere feelings, and had ceased to work, it is a question whether the disorder might not have taken a deeper root, and become incurable." 5. Another quality, which, like the last, seems to have given tone to his character, was his social or benevolent feelings. His heart was an unfailing fountain, which not merely the distresses, but the joys of his fellow-creatures made to flow like water 6. Rarely indeed is this precious quality found united with the most exalted intellect. Whether it be that nature, chary of her gifts, does not care to shower too many of them on one head ; or that the public admiration has led the man of intellect to set too high a value on himself, or at least his own pursuits, to take 1 'Jǎc' o bit ism, the principles of the adherents of James the Second, of England. |