as ever, and that his metrical skill increased at the close of his life. These admirable poems shed a glory on the last days of the poet, who died on the 1st of May, 1700. For an extended description of Dryden's poetical endowments, the reader is referred to the 66th Exercise, p. 243.

2.

3.

SECTION XXXIII.

I.

171. HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY.

10 be-or not to be-that is the question!
Whether tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them. To die—to sleep ;—
No more? and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished! To die-to sleep :

To sleep! perchance to dream! Ay; there's the rub;
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause!

There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con'tumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ?

Who would fardels bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,-
That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns,-puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?

4. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

T must be so-Plato, thou reasonest well!

IT

SHAKSPEARE.

Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;

'Tis Heaven itself, that points out a hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

2. Eternity!-thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,—
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works,-He must delight in virtue ;
And that which He delights in must be happy.

1 Marcus Porcius Cato, greatgrandson of Cato the Censor, was born B. C. 95. From his youth he was celebrated for his bravery, virtue, decision, severity, and harshness of character. He was the principal supporter of Cicero in his measures for suppressing the Catilinerian conspiracy; and on the commencement of civil war, in B. C. 49, he joined the party of Pompey against Cæsar. After the defeat of the former, Cato proceeded to Africa, where the hopes

of the republican party were finally extinguished by the battle of Thapsus, April 6th, B. C. 46. Failing to inspire his countrymen, who were collected at Utica, with courage to endure a siege, he resolved not to outlive the downfall of the republic. After providing for the safety of his friends, and spending the greater part of the night in perusing Plato's Phædo, he inflicted on himself the wound of which he died, in the fortyninth year of his age.

But when? or where?
I'm weary of conjectures,

3. Thus am I doubly armed.

This world was made for Cæsar.
this must end them.

[Laying his hand on his sword.
My death' and life,

My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to my end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

ADDISON.

JOSEPH ADDISON, the eldest son of an able and learned clergyman, was born at his father's rectory of Milston, in Wiltshire, England, on the first day of May, 1672. He was educated chiefly at the Charter-house and at Oxford, and distinguished himself as a writer of Latin verse. He took his master's degree in 1693, and held a fellowship from 1699 to 1711. He first appeared in print by contributing English verses, some of which are original, and others translations from the classics, to Dryden's Miscellanics. Political encouragement from the whig party, soon after induced him to write a poem complimenting King William on the campaign in which he took Namur. A pension, procured for him by Lord Somers, enabled him, in 1699, to visit the Continent, where he resided for three years. The best of his poems, a "Letter from Italy," was written in 1701, while he was still abroad; and his "Travels in Italy," his first extended prese work, exhibited his extensive knowledge, and his skill and liveliness in composition. Soon after his return to England he wrote "The Campaign," a poem celebrating Marlborough's victory at Blenheim, which, receiving extraordinary applause, secured him an appointment, in 1704, as one of the commissioners of appeal in excise. He became an under secretary of state in 1706, and secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1709, about a year and a half before the dismissal of the ministry which he served. From the autumn of 1710 till the end of 1714, four of the best years of his life, the opposition having deprived him of office, Addison's principal employment was the composition of his celebrated Periodical Essays. In 1709 he began to furnish papers for the "Tattler," a periodical conducted by his schoolfellow and friend, Richard Steele, writing, in all, more than sixty of the two hundred and seventy-one essays which the work contained. On the first day of March, 1711, these two writers commenced the "Spectator," which appeared every week-day till the 6th day of December, 1712. The two contributing almost equally, seem together to have written not very much less than five hundred of the papers. On the cessation of the "Spectator," Steele set on foot the "Guardian," which, started in March, 1713, came to an end in October, with its one hundred and seventy-fifth number, fifty-three of the papers

1

Death, bane, and the first this, refer to his sword; and life. antidote nd the second this, to the book he held in his hand.

being Addison's. In point of style the two friends resembled each other very closely, when dealing with familiar objects; but, in the higher tones of thought and composition, Addison showed a mastery of language raising him very decisively, not above Steele only, but above all his contemporaries. In April, 1713, he brought on the stage his tragedy of "Cato," which was rendered so immensely popular, partly through political considerations, as to raise the reputation of the author to its highest point. The accession of George I. occurring in the latter part of 1714, restored the whigs to power, and thus again diverted Addison from literature to politics. After acting as secretary to the regency, he was made one of the lords of trade early in 1715. Owing, it is said, to the influence of his wife, the Countess-dowager of Warwick, whom he had married a few months before, he was induced to become one of the two principal secretaries of state in 1717; but ill health caused him to resign, eleven months after his appointment, from which period he received a pension of £1500 a year. He died at Holland House, on the 17th of June, 1719. His body, after lying in state, was interred in the poet's corner of Westminster Abbey.

HOW

III.

173 SELECT PASSAGES IN 'PROSE.

I. EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR.-TILLOTSON.1

OW often might a man, after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground befōre they would fall into an exact poëm, yeã, or so much as make a good discourse in prose! And may not a little book be as easily made by chance, as this great volume of the world?How long might a man be in sprinkling colors upon a canvas with a careless hand, before they could happen to make the exact picture of a man! And is a man easier made by chance than this picture ?-How long might twenty thousand blind men, which should be sent out from the several remote parts of England, wander up and down before they would all meet upon Salisbury Plains, and fall into rank and file in the exact order of an army! And yet this is much more easy to be imagined, than how the innumerable blind parts of matter should rendezvous' themselves into a world.'

II. NATURE PROCLAIMS A DEITY.-CHATEAUBRIAND.1

THERE is a God! The herbs of the valley, the cedars of the mountain, bless him; the insect sports in his beam; the bird sings him in the foliage; the thunder proclaims him in the heavens; the ocean declares his immensity;-man alone has said, There is no God! Unite in thought at the same instant the most beautiful objects in nature. Suppose that you see, at once, all the hours of the day, and all the seasons of the year, -a morning of spring, and a morning of autumn-a night bespangled with stars, and a night darkened by clouds-meadows enameled with flowers-forests hoary with snow-fields gilded by the tints of autumn,-then alone you will have a just conception of the universe!

While you are gazing on that sun which is plunging into the vault of the West, another observer admires him emerging from the gilded gates of the East. By what inconceivable power does that aged star, which is sinking fatigued and burning in the shades of the evening, reäppear at the same instant fresh and humid with the rosy dew of the morning? At every hour of the day, the glorious orb is at once rising, resplendent as noonday, and setting in the west; or, rather, our senses deceive us, and there is, properly speaking, no East or West, no North or South, in the world.

III. THE UNBELIEVER.-CHALMERS.

I PITY the unbeliever-one who can gaze upon the grandeur, and glory, and beauty of the natural universe, and behold not the touches of His finger, who is over, and with, and above all; from my very heart I do commiserate his condition. The unbeliever!-one whose intellect the light of revelation never penetrated; who can gaze upon the sun, and moon, and stars, and upon the unfading and imperishable sky, spread out so magnificently above him, and say all this is the work of chance!

The heart of such a being is a drear and cheerless void. In him, mind-the god-like gift of intellect is debased, destroyed; all is dark-a fearful chaotic labyrinth, raylèss, cheerless, hopeless! No gleam of light from heaven penetrates the blackness of the horrible delusion; no voice from the Eternal bids the

1 Chateaubriand, (shå tỏ bre ôn), a noted French writer and statesman, author of the "Genius of

Christianity," was born in Brittany, in 1769, and died in Paris, in 1848, at nearly the close of his 80th year.