nevertheless. Yes, the earth moves, and the planets move, and the mighty waters move, and the great sweeping tides of air move, and the empires of men move, and the world of thought moves, ever onward and upward to higher facts and bolder theories. The Inquisition may seal thy lips, but they can no more stop the progress of the great truth propounded by Copernicus and demonstrated by thee, than they can stop the revolving earth.

Close now, venerable sage, that sightless, tearful eye; it has seen what man never before saw; it has seen enough. Hang up that poor little spyglass; it has done its work. Not Herschel nor Rosse has comparatively done more. Franciscans and Dominicans deride thy discoveries now, but the time will come when from two hundred observatories in Europe and America the glorious artillery of science shall nightly assault the skies, but they shall gain no conquests in those glittering fields before which thine shall be forgotten. Rest in peace, great Columbus of the heavens, like him scorned, persecuted, broken-hearted; in other ages, in distant hemispheres, when the votaries of science, with solemn acts of consecration, shall dedicate their stately edifices to the cause of knowledge and truth, thy name shall be mentioned with honor.

Ibid.

THE HEAVENS BEFORE AND AFTER DAWN.

I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence to Boston; and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene midsummer's night-the sky was without a cloud -the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades just above the horizon shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly-discovered glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady pointers far beneath the pole looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign.

Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the

smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sisterbeams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels hidden from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state.

Ibid.

THE UNIVERSAL BOUNTIES OF PROVIDENCE.

A celebrated skeptical philosopher of the last century-the historian, Hume-thought to demolish the credibility of the Christian Revelation by the concise argument: "It is contrary to experience that a miracle should be true, but not contrary to experience that testimony should be false." Contrary to experience that phenomena should exist which we cannot trace to causes perceptible to the human sense, or conceivable by human thought! It would be much nearer the truth to say that within the husbandman's experience there are no phenomena which can be rationally traced to anything but the instant energy of creative power.

Did this philosopher ever contemplate the landscape at the close of the year, when seeds, and grains, and fruits have ripened, and stalks have withered, and leaves have fallen, and winter has forced her icy curb even into the roaring jaws of Niagara, and sheeted half a continent in her glittering shroud, and all this teeming vegetation and organized life are locked in cold and marble obstructions, and, after week upon week, and month upon month, have swept, with sleet, and chilly rain, and howling storm, over the earth, and riveted their crystal bolts upon the door of nature's sepulchre-when the sun at length begins to wheel in higher circles through the sky, and softer winds to breathe over melting snows-did he ever behold

the long-hidden earth at length appear, and soon the timid grass peep forth; and anon the autumnal wheat begin to paint the field, and velvet leaflets to burst from purple buds, throughout the reviving forest, and then the mellow soil to open its fruitful bosom to every grain and seed dropped from the planter's hand-buried, but to spring up again, clothed with a new, mysterious being; and then, as more fervid suns inflame the air, and softer showers distil from the clouds, and gentler dews string their pearls on twig and tendril, did he ever watch the ripening grain and fruit, pendent from stalk, and vine, and tree; the meadow, the field, the pasture, the grove, each after his kind, arrayed in myriad-tinted garments, instinct with circulating life; seven millions of counted leaves on a single tree,' each of which is a system whose exquisite complication puts to shame the shrewdest cunning of the human hand; every planted seed and grain, which had been loaned to the earth, compounding its pious usury thirty, sixty, a hundred fold-all harmoniously adapted to the sustenance of living nature, the bread of a hungry world; here, a tilled cornfield, whose yellow blades are nodding with the food of man; there, an unplanted wilderness -the great Father's farm-where He "who hears the raven's cry" has cultivated, with His own hand, His merciful crop of berries, and nuts, and acorns, and seeds, for the humbler families of animated nature; the solemn elephant, the browsing deer, the wild pigeon, whose fluttering caravan darkens the sky, the merry squirrel, who bounds from branch to branch, in the joy of his little life-has he seen all this? Does he see it every year, and month, and day? Does he live, and move, and breathe, and think, in this atmosphere of wonder-himself the greatest wonder of all, whose smallest fibre and faintest pulsation is as much a mystery as the blazing glories of Orion's belt? And does he still maintain that a miracle is contrary to experience? If he has, and if he does, then let him go, in the name of Heaven, and say that it is contrary to experience that the august Power which turns the clods of the earth into the daily bread of a thousand million souls, could feed five thousand in the wilderness.

Address before the New York Agricultural Society, October 9, 1857.

'Johnson's Chemistry of Common Life, i. p. 13.

40*

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THIS distinguished poet and political philosopher was born in Cummington, Hampshire county, Massachusetts, on the 3d of November, 1794. His father, Dr. Peter Bryant, of that place, was one of the most eminent physicians of the day, and was also distinguished for his general scholarship, and for cultivated and refined taste. When, therefore, the son began early to show marks of genius, and a fondness for literary pursuits, he found in his father an able and skilful instructor to criticize and encourage his youthful productions.

When only ten years of age, Mr. Bryant produced several small poems, which, though bearing, of course, the marks of immaturity, were thought of sufficient merit to be published in a neighboring newspaper, the "Hampshire Gazette." After going through the usual preparatory studies, he entered the sophomore class of Williams College, in 1810, and for two years pursued his studies with commendable industry, being distinguished, more especially, for his fondness of the classics. Anxious, however, to begin the profession which he had chosen the law-he procured an honorable dismission at the end of the junior year, and entered the office of Judge Howe, of Worthington, and afterwards that of the Hon. William Baylies, of Bridgewater, and in 1815 was admitted to practice at the bar of Plymouth.

But Mr. Bryant did not, during the period of his professional studies, neglect the cultivation of his poetic talents. In 1808, before he entered college, he had published, in Boston, a satirical poem which attracted so much attention that a second edition was demanded in the course of the next year. But what gave him his early, enviable rank as a poet was the publication, in the "North American Review," in 1817, of the poem "Thanatopsis," written four years before, in 1812. That a young man, not yet nineteen, should have produced a poem so lofty in conception, and so beautiful in execution; so full of chaste language, and delicate and striking imagery; and, above all, so pervaded by a noble and cheerful religious philosophy, may well be regarded as one of the most remarkable examples of early maturity in literary history. Nor did this production stand alone: the "Inscription for an Entrance into a Wood" followed in 1813; and the "Waterfowl" in 1816. In 1821, he wrote his longest poem, "The Ages," which was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College, and soon after published in Boston in connection with his other poems.

The appearance of this volume at once established the fame of Mr. Bryant as one of the very first, if not THE first of American poets.

In 1822, Mr. Bryant married Miss Fairchild, of Great Barrington, Mass., whither he had removed to prosecute his profession. But though skilful and successful as a lawyer, the toils of the profession did not harmonize with his fine moral and poetic sensibilities, and in 1825 he removed to New York, to commence a career of literary effort.' His fame, which had preceded him, soon procured for him the editorship of the "New York Review," which he managed, in connection with other gentlemen, with great industry and talent. About the same time he joined Gulian C. Verplanck, Robert Sands, and Fitz Greene Halleck, and several young artists of the city, in the production of an annual, called "The Talisman," which, for beauty and variety of contents, has not yet been surpassed.

In 1827, Mr. Bryant became an editor of the "New York Evening Post," which at that time had taken no decided stand in the politics of the day. Mr. Bryant soon infused into its columns a portion of his own originality and spirit, and in a short time it showed its sympathies with the so-called "Democratic" party, and with signal ability advocated the measures of that party, in relation to banks, the tariff, free trade, internal improvements, &c.; and no paper upon that side, in the Union, had an equal influence. Mr. Bryant continued not only to advocate its general views, but also to adhere to its tactics, until within a few years, when it abandoned its first principles, and the principles of its founders, and became more and more the ally of the slave power. Then the free and independent spirit of Bryant could not endure such an alliance, and he divorced himself from it, and devoted his fine talents to the cause of republican freedom. But notwithstanding the noble independence, the high-toned principles, the varied learning he has shown for many years, as the conductor of so distinguished a literary and political journal as the "Evening Post," it is as a poet he will be longest remembered, most honored, and most loved.?

'He might have said, as Sir Walter Scott did on quitting the law: "There was no great love between us at the beginning, and it pleased Heaven to decrease it on further acquaintance."

For criticisms of Mr. Bryant's poetry, read articles in "Democratic Review," vols. 7 and 10; North American Review," vols. 13, 34 and 55; "Christian Examiner," vols. 22 and 33; American Quarterly Review," vol. An elegant edition of Mr. Bryant's poems, arranged by himself, and richly illustrated, has just been published by Appleton & Co.

20.