while her minuter features are the subjects of endless logomachy among the crowd of devotees who pay acceptable offerings at her shrine.

The advantages of the eclectic spirit are many, various, and important. We have already alluded to its cementing and fraternizing power. It is in every desirable respect an assimilating element. It indues the soul with an elective energy, by which the virtuous principle within sympathizes with every particle of excellence, and embraces in its wide attraction every constituent of humanity, wherever and in whomever found, that quivers under a responsive influence.

Would not such a philosophy, if universally embraced, make men more mild and conciliating in their communications and general intercourse with each other? Would it not render them more tolerant of each other's foibles, and cause them to entertain higher and better thoughts of themselves and their race? And in the words of the eloquent and excellent Dr. Parr, would it not dissipate those gloomy views of human folly and human vices, which, by frequent meditation upon them, contract the heart, and infuse lurking and venomous sentiments of general ill-will toward our species; and excite us to take a higher pleasure in contemplating the brighter side of every man's character, his talents, his attainments and his virtues?'

Such a philosophy, so gentle, so impartial, so magnanimous, cannot be unfriendly to truth. Gross error could not arise from a spirit so fair; could not dwell with elements so unlike the causes which produce and the effects which followed a perverted state of mind. Such a philosophy would in fact remove numerous obstacles that now exist to impede the discovery of what is commendable and admirable in human beings and human works. It would enlarge the circle of the mind, give a panoramic power and unparalleled acuteness to its perceptions of truth, and reward the gaze of the sincere worshipper in her sanctuary with many a vision of glory, and many an object of loveliness.

The mental habituation of seeking for good in every thing,' instead of looking out for evil, will exert a marvellous influence upon the complexion of our general views of mankind. How different the picture that Nature shows to two observers of opposite feelings! To her amateur, whose eye is ever restless in pursuit of beautiful and agreeable objects, she turns the gayest, happiest attitude of things,' and unfolds, in clearer light and stronger lines, the harmonious volume of the universe. The form of beauty,' to borrow the splendid idea of Akenside, forever smiles at his heart.' The same thought has been expressed by the poet Gay, in language of inimitable elegance and pathos, when describing the feelings of one just freed from the irksome imprisonment of a sick bed, and permitted to enjoy once more the scenery of

nature:

'The simplest note that swells the gale,

The meanest flowret of the vale;

The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.'

The same principle affects the mind as it expatiates over the broad field of our common humanity, giving a richness or a poverty to its conceptions of things, according to the antecedent feelings that either expanded or contracted, exhilarated or saddened, the heart.

The benevolent author of nature has so constituted the world as to make it in almost every respect a constant scene of discipline for its

rational inhabitants — discipline not only of a moral but also of a more general kind, by which taste, reason, ingenuity, and good sense, are continually developed, tried, and improved. Thus it is perhaps a universal truth, that nothing valuable can be possessed without exertion, and in many cases without painful exertion. And it is also a fact that the dulce as well as the utile appears to be subject to the same stern but beneficent law. Whether we reflect upon it or not, much that delights the fancy, gratifies the understanding, and betters the heart, is locked up to all but the good nature that can seek, the good sense that can discern, and the candor that can acknowledge and deserve it.

Is Nature's magnificent show exhibited at once, or to every heartless or thoughtless gaze? Are her indescribable beauties arranged so as to catch the eye at once? Or are they not rather frequently linked with deformity, thrown together in seeming confusion, or half covered by rubbish, requiring the patient labor of a naturalist to search out and find, his skilful hand to arrange them, and even his enthusiasm to detect and to make known their claims to admiration? The charms of the moral landscape are not less mixed with forbidding features, and not less invisible to the eye that carelessly scans, or peevishly examines them. But he who will not give his neighbour credit for a virtue, which there is good evidence to believe he really possesses, because forsooth there exist with it serious imperfections in his character, acts the sapient part of him who refuses to look at a flower, because of the ugly weeds that grow around it. If the botanist or the mineralogist find one good specimen, or a new species, in a locality, they do not condemn it as perfectly barren. On the contrary, they always have kind feelings toward that spot. And is not this the true spirit to be cherished by all who would decide upon the characteristics of their fellow men?

It certainly requires more good taste, and more accurate discernment, to see the good than the bad traits in a fellow being; to see the qualities that adorn, than those that disfigure his mind. Why it is so, it may be difficult to show, except upon the supposition that the present world is intended as a school for justice, impartiality, candor, and all the other exercises of the virtuous principle. The fact preaches a plain doctrinecaution in pronouncing upon and against others. It utters a caveat against censoriousness, prejudice, et id omne genus. It points to the eclectic spirit as the only genuine catholicon for the disease of calumny.

Nor would this be making a compromise with error, or weakening the immutable distinctions of morality, as might possibly be insinuated. No it would, on the contrary, render those distinctions broader and more respected. It would make the insignia of virtue so illustrious, that its most diminutive feature might be recognised and revered. Must we be identified with the haters of goodness, because we are willing to recognise it, even in dangerous proximity with its arch enemy? come under the same category with 'publicans and sinners,' because we are willing to acknowledge a common humanity with them, and look with pleasure upon the few gleams of moral day that light up occasionally the dark chambers of their souls? We indeed believe that there are few men in whom good does not predominate over evil. Error is in many cases the guiltless product of a wrong education, of accident, of any thing else than determined obliquity of intellect, and persevering enmity to truth. What is error,' says that great philoso

pher, whom we have before quoted so often, but a part of truth taken for the whole truth?' In fact these two elements frequently live and die together the dividing lines are frequently indeterminable, and the separation might be equally difficult and hazardous. But yet, like the iron and the clay in Nebuchadnezzar's image, though they cleave they do not incorporate.

These considerations should lead us to adopt the noble sentiment of Brown, that the more important the difference, the greater, not the less, will be the indulgence of him who has learned to trace the sources of human error.'

But the lesson of toleration has always been a difficult one for mankind to acquire. The world was a long time learning that very plain doctrine, that difference of heads is not incompatible with union of hearts, and that it is not necessary to hate or to persecute every one with whom it is impossible to coincide in opinion. It is not less

mysterious to many, even now-a-days, how any one can adopt a part of any particular system of belief, and not the whole of it. Feeling perfectly sure, that if the case were their own, they could not take without taking all, they naturally conclude others to be liable to the same awkward necessity. Innocent of the remotest idea of such a thing as discrimination of mind, they forget that the same principles that lead one to sympathize with a truth, would naturally destroy the probability of any such sympathy with a contiguous error. Such is certainly a morbid feeling, and does not spring from an enlightened love of truth. Truth is not honored by a faith so timid and unenterprising. We must trust something to its own superior might; something to the eternal principles of right and wrong in the human breast, and the inherent tendencies of common reason to settle down at last on the terra firma of sound conclusions.

On the great questions of human duty, most fair and well-disposed men are found to correspond in sentiment. There is, it is true, now and then to be seen, even among those whom we have no reason for suspecting to belong to a different class, striking anomalies, and strange anamorphisms, both in principles and actions; but even here, the matériel is the same; the grand facts of consciousness, and the reason, though not the reasoning, the same; the great law of general uniformity amidst endless variety seems to prevail not less in the moral than in the physical developments of man. The common party of mankind' understand the same moral dialect, and, to use the language of Lord Bacon, in relation to the schoolmen, for the most part harmonize, where all is good and proportionable,' and differ only in those distinctions and decisions which end in monstrous altercations, and barking questions.'

The eclectic spirit, we repeat, is not that indiscriminate liberality which makes no distinctions between truth and error. It is abhorrent. of such a motionless indifference, such a stark neutrality of mind. But the tendency of its genius and its philosophy is to seek and to love every thing that is good, in every place:

VOL. VIII.

'To seize on truth, where'er 'tis found,
On Christian or on heathen ground;
Among our friends, among our foes,
Neglect the prickle, and assume the rose.'

52

W. H.

WHEN night upon her starry throne
Held undisputed sway and lone,
And moonlight to the trembling wave
A soft but spectral radiance gave,
He seized, with iron grasp, his chain,
As if endued with giant strength,
And after many efforts vain,
While glowing madness fired his brain,
From bondage burst at length.
The cunning Corsair heard the sound
Of strong link breaking, with a clang,
And stealing lightly, with a bound
Upon his frenzied victim sprang;
His right arm, used to felon deed,
The Corsair raised with ready skill—
One thrust of his stiletto freed

The crazed one from his load of ill.
The pleading look and wild appeal
Of Zillah could not stay the steel;
She saw him fall, and from his side
The red stream gush in bubbling tide,
Then fell herself, as if the blade
A sheath of her own breast had made,
While fearfully his spouting gore
The white robe purpled, that she wore.
Her ear heard not the gurgling sound
Of hungry waters closing round,
As hastily the ruffian cast

His victim to the ocean vast.
Or marked the grim exulting smile
That lighted up his face the while:
Extended on the deck she lay

As if the war of life was over,
As if her soul had fled away,
To realms of never-ending day,
To join the spirit of her lover.

She woke at last from her long swoon
To hope that death would triumph soon,
And the mad pulses of her frame

With icy touch for ever tame:

She woke with features ashy white,

And wildly gazed upon the plank

That deeply, freely in the night
The crimson of his veins had drank;
Then raising heavenward her eye
In still, expecting posture stood,
As if a troop from realms on high
Were coming down with battle songs,

To wash out sternly in the blood
Of coward hearts, her many wrongs:
No tear-drop came to her relief
In that wild, parching hour of grief:
The tender plant of love she knew

Would into verdure break no more-
The spot was arid where it grew
In green luxuriance before.

She knew henceforth her lot below
Would be to quaff the cup of pain-
On thing of earth she could not throw

The sunlight of her smile again.
The voice was still whose melting tone
Had vied in sweetness with her own-
The hiding wave had closed above
The only object of her love :

In many hearts the gloomy sway
Of sorrow lessens day by day,
Until the charms of life at last
Blot out remembrance of the past:
As winds may kiss the trampled flower,
And lift again its bruised leaf,
So time with his assuaging power,

May stay the wasting march of grief:
But hearts in other bosoms beat
Where anguish finds a lasting seat-
That heal not with the lapse of time:
Too delicately strung for earth,
Whose chords can never after chime
With peals of loud unmeaning mirth.
Weeks flew and Zillah in their flight
Strove oft, but vainly, to forget
The horrors of that fatal night,
When her beloved star, whose light
Made bondage pleasant, set.
No murmur from the lip outbroke,
Though suddenly her cheek grew thin
No quick, convulsive start bespoke
The desolating fire within.
Her dark eye rested on the wave
By day, and in the hush of eve
As if ere long the wet sea cave
Her buried one would leave,
And drifting suddenly in view,
His murderer with dread subdue!

LOFERIANA.

NUMBER ONE.

H.

WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT IT TAKES A GENIUS TO EMBELLISH THE DOLCE Far niente.'

THIS man is freed from servile bands,
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,

And having nothing, yet hath all.

WOTTON.

THE learned D'Israeli dwells with a modest complacency on his introduction of the term 'father-land' into the vocabulary of his native tongue. The word is expressive, and imbued with touching associations; and its worthy usher is entitled to much praise for its naturalization in the republic of English literature. But to whom we are indebted for the equally expressive though less exalted term loafer, I have not been able to ascertain, though a word of recent origin and exclusively American. Not only is it not registered in the latest editions of Johnson and Walker, but even our own learned philologist, Dr. Webster, has not deigned it a niche in his noble vocabulary of the 'universal Yankee nation'. an omission, by-the-by, a little discreditable to his patriotism, since the vader-landt' of the popular neophyte is the same with his own.

After searching in vain among numerous native authors for the

*SAM. II. xxi, 10.