图书图片
PDF
ePub

LAFAYETTE discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. He invented nothing in science. He disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws of nature. Born and educated in the highest order of feudal nobility, under the 5 most absolute monarchy of Europe, in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities at the moment of attaining manhood, the principles of republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from 10 above.

He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty. He went to another hemisphere to defend her. He became one of the most effective cham15 pions of our independence; but that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have divided us.

In the events of our revolution, and in the form of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and 20 perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form of government. He wished to add nothing to it. He would gladly have abstracted nothing from it. Instead of an imaginary Utopia, he took a practical existing model, in actual operation here, and never attempted 25 or wished more than to apply it faithfully to his own country.

It was not given to Moses to enter the promised land; but he saw it from the mount of Pisgah. It was not given to Lafayette to witness the consummation of his wishes in 30 the establishment of a republic, and the extinction of all hereditary rule in France. His principles were in advance of the age and hemisphere in which he lived. The life of the patriarch was not long enough for the development of his whole political system.

35

This is not the time or the place for a disquisition upon the comparative merits, as a system of government, of a

republic, and a monarchy surrounded by republican institutions. Upon this subject there is among us no diversity of opinion; and if it should take the people of France another half century of internal and external war, of daz5 zling and delusive glories, of unparalleled triumphs, humiliating reverses, and bitter disappointments, to settle it to their satisfaction, the ultimate result can only bring them to the point where we have stood from the day of the Declaration of Independence, to the point where Lafayette 10 would have brought them, and to which he looked as a consummation devoutly to be wished. Then, and then only, will be the time when the character of Lafayette will be appreciated at its true value throughout the civilized world.

15

When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institutions of France; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it 20 came, then will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafayette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full development of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors and perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and 25 thenceforward, till the hour when the trump of the archangel shall sound to announce that time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind.

CXXI. HYMN OF PRAISE BY ADAM AND EVE.

MILTON.

[JOHN MILTON was born in London, December 9, 1608, and died November 8, 1674. His is one of the greatest names in all literature; and of course it would be impossible in the compass of a brief notice like this to point out, except in the most cursory manner, the elements of his intellectual supremacy. His "Comus," "Lycidas,""L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and " Arcades," were written before he was thirty years old; "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Regad," and "Samson Agonistes" were all published after his fifty-ninth year, and many years after he had been totally blind. His prose works were the growth of the intermediate period.

Milton's early poetry is full of morning freshness, and the spirit of unworn youth; the "Paradise Lost" is characterized by the highest sublimity, the most various learning, and the noblest pictures; and the "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes" have a serene and solemn grandeur, deepening in the latter into austerity; while all are marked by imaginative power, purity, and elevation of tone, and the finest harmony of verse.

His prose works, which are partly in Latin and partly in English, were for the most part called forth by the ecclesiastical and political controversies of the stormy period in which he lived. They are vigorons and eloquent in style, and abound in passages of the highest beauty and loftiest tone of sentiment.

Milton's character is hardly less worthy of admiration than his genius. Spotless in morals; simple in his tastes; of ardent piety; bearing with cheerfulness the burdens of blindness, poverty, and neglect; bending his genius to the humblest duties, -he presents an exalted model of excellence, in which we can find nothing to qualify our reverence, except a certain severity of temper, and perhaps a somewhat impatient and intolerant spirit.

The following passage is from the fifth book of "Paradise Lost."]

THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty! Thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair! Thyself how wondrous then,
Unspeakable! who sittest above these heavens,

5 To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak, ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels; for ye behold him, and with songs
10 And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing; ye in heaven,
On earth join all ye creatures to extol

Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,

If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day, that crownest the smiling morn
With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere,
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
5 Thou sun, of this great world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climbest,
And when high noon hast gained; and when thou fallest,
Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise

10 From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honor to the world's great Author rise;
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
15 Rising or falling, still advance his praise.

His praise, ye winds that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,
20 Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls; ye birds,
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
25 The earth and stately tread or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, morn or even,

To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord, be bounteous still
30 To give us only good; and if the night
Have gathered aught of evil or concealed,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

CXXII. SONG OF THE GREEKS.

CAMPBELL.

[These stirring lines were written while the struggle between the Greeks and Turks was going on, which ended in the establishment of Greece as an Independent kingdom.]

1 AGAIN to the battle, Achaians!

Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;

Our land, - the first garden of Liberty's tree,
It hath been, and shall yet be, the land of the free;
For the cross of our faith is replanted,

The pale dying crescent is daunted,

And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves
May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves.
Their spirits are hovering o'er us,

And the sword shall to glory restore us.

2

Ah! what though no succor advances,

[merged small][ocr errors]

Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances

Are stretched in our aid? Be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone!
For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,
By the virgins they 've dragged from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,
That, living, we shall be victorious,

Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious.

A breath of submission we breathe not:

The sword that we 've drawn we will sheathe not:

Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,

And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.
Earth may hide, waves engulf, fire consume us;
But they shall not to slavery doom us.

If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves:
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,

« 上一页继续 »