It neither God nor man hath bid thee cloak thy good,

When a seasonable word would set thee in thy sphere, that all might see thy brightness.

Ausribe the honour to thy Lord, but be thou jealous of that honour,

Nor think it light and worthless, because thou mayst not wear it for thyself:

Remember thy grand prerogative is free unshackled utterance,

And suffer not the floodgates of secrecy to lock the full river of thy speech.

Come, I will show thee an affliction, unnumbered among this world's sorrows,

Yet real, and wearisome, and constant, embittering the cup of life.

There be, who can think within themselves, and the fire burneth at their

heart,

And eloquence waiteth at their lips, yet they speak not with their tongue :
There be, whom zeal quickeneth, or slander stirreth to reply,
Or need constraineth to ask, or pity sendeth as her messengers,
But nervous dread and sensitive shame freeze the current of their speech:
The mouth is sealed as with lead, a cold weight presseth on the heart,
The mocking promise of power is once more broken in performance,
And they stand impotent of words, travailing with unborn thoughts:
Courage is cowed at the portal: wisdom is widowed of utterance;
He that went to comfort is pitied; he that should rebuke, is silent.
And fools who might listen and learn, stand by to look and laugh;
While friends, with kinder eyes, wound deeper by compassion,
And thought, finding not a vent, smouldereth, gnawing at the heart,
And the man sinketh in his sphere, for lack of empty sounds.
There be many cares and sorrows thou hast not yet considered,
And well may thy soul rejoice in the fair privilege of speech;
For at every turn to want a word,-thou canst not guess that want,
It is as lack of breath or bread: life hath no grief more galling.

Come, I will tell thee of a joy, which the parasites of pleasure have not known,

Though earth, and air, and sea, have gorged all the appetites of sense. Behold, what fire is in his eye, what fervour on his cheek!

That glorious burst of winged words!-how bound they from his tongue! The full expression of the mighty thought, the strong triumphant argu

ment,

The rush of native eloquence, resistless as Nagara,

The keen demand, the clear reply, the fine poetic image,

The nice analogy, the clenching fact, the metaphor bold and free,
The grasp of concentrated intellect, wielding the omnipotence of truth,
The grandeur of his speech, in his majesty of mind!

Champion of the right,-patriot, or priest, or pleader of the innocent

cause,

Upon whose lips the mystic bee hath droped the honey of persuasion, (21) Whose heart and tongue have been touched, as of old, by the live coal from the altar,

How wide the spreading of thy peace, how deep the draught of thy pleasures!

To hold the multitude as one, breathing in measured cadence,
A thousand men with flashing eyes, waiting upon thy will;
A thousand hearts kindled by thee with consecrated fire,
Ten flaming spiritual hecatombs offered on the mount of God:
And now a pause, a thrilling pause,-they live but in thy words,-
Thou hast broken the bounds of self, as the Nile at its rising,
Thou art expanded into them, one faith, one hope, one spirit,
They breathe but in thy breath, their minds are passive unto thine,
Thou turnest the key of their love, bending their affections to thy purpose,
And all, in sympathy with thee, tremble with tumultuous emotions.
Verily, O man, with truth for thy theme, eloquence shall throne thee with
archangels.

OF READING.

ONE drachma for a good book, and a thousand talents for a true friend :-
So standeth the market where scarce is ever costly:

Yea, were the diamonds of Golconda common as shingles on the shore,
A ripe apple would ransom kings before a shining stone:
And so, were a wholesome book as rare as an honest friend,

To choose the book be mine: the friend let another take.

For altered looks and jealousies and fears have none entrance there:
The silent volume listeneth well, and speaketh when thou listest:

t praiseth thy good without envy, it chideth thine evil without malice,
t is to thee thy waiting slave, and thine unbending teacher.
Need to humour no caprice, need to bear with no infirmity;

Thy sin, thy slander, or neglect, chilleth not, quencheth not, its love;
Unalterably speaketh it the truth, warped not by error nor interest;
For a good book is the best of friends, the same to-day and for ever.

To draw thee out of self, thy petty plans and cautions,

To teach thee what thou lackest, to tell thee how largely thou art blest, fo lure thy thought from sorrow, to feed thy famished mind,

To graft another's wisdom on thee, pruning thine own folly ;
Choose discreetly, and well digest the volume most suited to thy case,
Touching not religion with levity, nor deep things when thou art wearied.
Thy mind is freshened by morning air, grapple with science and phi ̧
losophy;

Noon hath unnerved thy thoughts, dream for a while on fictions;
Gray evening sobereth thy spirit, walk thou then with worshippers;
But reason shall dig deepest in the night, and fancy fly most free.
O books, ye monuments of mind, concrete wisdom of the wisest ;
Sweet solaces of daily life; proofs and results of immortality;
Trees yielding all fruits, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
Groves of knowledge, where all may eat, nor fear a flaming sword;
Gentle comrades, kind advisers; friends, comforts, treasures;
Helps, governments, diversities of tongues; who can weigh your worth?—
To walk no longer with the just; to be driven from the porch of science;
To bid long adieu to those intimate ones, poets, philosophers, and teachers;
To see no record of the sympathies which bind thee in communion with

the good;

To be thrust from the teet of Hint who spake as never man spake ;

To have no avenue to heaven but the dim aisle of superstition;

To live as an Esquimaux, in lethargy; to die as the Mohawk, in igno

ance:

O what were life, but a blank? what were death, but a terror?

What were man, but a burden to himself? what were mind, but misery? Yea, let another Omar burn the full library of knowledge, (**)

And the broad world may perish in the flames, offered on the ashes of it

wisdor

OF WRITING.

THE pen of a ready writer, whereunto shall it be likened ?

Ask of the scholar, he shall know,-to the chains that bird a Proteus: Ask of the poet, he shall say,—to the sun, the lamp of heaven;

Ask of thy neighbour, he can answer, to the friend that telleth my thought• The merchant considereth it well, as a ship freighted with wares;

The divine holdeth it a miracle, giving utterance to the dumb.

It fixeth, expoundeth, and disseminateth sentiment;

Chaining up a thought, clearing it of mystery, and sending it bright into the world.

To think rightly, is of knowledge; to speak fluently, is of nature ;
To read with profit, is of care; but to write aptly, is of practice.
No talent among men hath more scholars and fewer masters:

For to write is to speak beyond hearing, and none stand by to explain.
To be accurate, write; to remember, write; to know thine own mind, write.
And a written prayer is a prayer of faith; special, sure, and to be answered.
Hast thou a thought upon thy brain, catch it while thou canst;

Or other thoughts shall settle there, and this shall soon take wing:
Thine uncompounded unity of soul, which argueth and maketh it immortal
Yieldeth up its momentary self to every single thought;

Therefore, to husband thine ideas, and give them stability and substance
Write often for thy secret eye: so shalt thou grow wiser.

The commonest mind is full of thoughts; some worthy of the rarest;
And could it see them fairly writ, would wonder at its wealth.
O precious compensation to the dumb, to write his wants and wishes!
O dear amends to the stammering tongue, to pen his burning thoughts
To be of the college of Eloquence, through these silent symbols;
To pour out all the flowing mind without the toil of speech;
To show the babbling world how it might discourse more sweetly;
Το
prove that merchandise of words bringeth no monopoly of wisdom;
To take sweet vengeance on a prating crew, for the tongue's dishonour,
By the large triumph of the pen, the homage rendered to a writing.
With such, that telegraph of mind is dearer than wealth or wisdom,
Enabling to please without pain, to impart without humiliation.

Fair girl, whose eye hath caught the rustic penmanship of love,

Let thy bright bow and blushing cheek confess in this sweet hour,-
Let thy fun heart, poor guilty one, whom the scroll of pardon hath just

reached,

Thy wet glad face, O motner, with news of a far-off child,—

Thy strong and manly delight, pilgrim of other shores,

When the dear voice of thy betrothed speaketh in the letter of affection.—
Let the young poet exulting in his lay, and hope (how false) of fame,
While, watching at deep midnight, he buildeth up the verse,―
Let the calm child of genius, whose name shall never die,

For that the transcript of his mind hath made his thoughts immortal,-
Let these, let all, with no faint praise, with no light gratitude, confess
The blessings poured upon the earth from the pen of a ready writer.

Moreover, their preciousness in absence is proved by the desire of their presence:

When the despairing lover waiteth day after day,

Looking for a word in reply, one word writ by that hand,

And cursing bitterly the morn ushered in by blank disappointment:
Or when the long-looked-for answer argueth a cooling friend,

And the mind is plied suspiciously with dark inexplicable doubts,

While thy wounded heart counteth its imaginary scars,

And thou art the innocent and injured, that friend the capricious and in fault:

Or when the earnest petition, that craveth for thy needs

Unheeded, yea, unopened, tortureth with starving delay:

Or when the silence of a son, who would have written of his welfare,

Racketh a father's bosom with sharp-cutting fears:

For a letter, timely writ, is a rivet to the chain of affection.
And a letter untimely delayed, is as rust to the solder.

The pen, flowing with love, or dipped black in hate,

Or tipped with delicate courtesies, or harshly edged with censure,
Hath quickened more good than the sun, more evil than the sword,
More joy than woman's smile, more woe than frowning fortune;

And shouldst thou ask my judgment of that which hath most profit in the world,

For answer take thou this, The prudent penning of a letter.

Thou hast not lost an hour, whereof there is a record;

A written thought at midnight shall redeem the livelong day.