soldiers, was being rowed up past the hostile ramparts and between the steep cliffs which line the St. Lawrence, and there and then, in the stillness of that dark summer night, and on the eve of his glorious victory and immortal death, he repeated to those around him some of the stanzas of the Elegy, and then said, "Well, gentlemen, I had rather be the author of that poem, than take Quebec."

I pass on to my more recent instance. About two months ago, the great American statesman, Mr. Webster, was lying upon his death-bed. Of course, this is not the occasion for estimating the character and qualities of Mr. Webster; upon two points I think there can be little difference of opinion-the force of his intellectual powers, and the affecting and ennobling account we have received of his dying hours. But, from the particulars which are there recorded, we find that even in the intervals of severe pain, even in the languor of decaying nature, even amidst the appropriate and exalted topics of Christian penitence and hope, there was a further craving of the dying man yet unsatisfied. We are told, that he was heard to repeat somewhat indistinctly the words "Poet, poetry -Gray, Gray." His son repeated the first line of the Elegy:

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day."

"That's it, that's it!" exclaimed Mr. Webster.

The book was brought, and other stanzas read, which seemed to give him pleasure.

Surely it is not a slight thing to have satisfied, so far as the world they were about to leave was concerned, the latest aspirations of such a hero as Wolfe, and such a statesman as Webster !

The very popularity and general acceptance of so brief a poem discourages any multiplied quotations from it. The opening description at once puts the village life of England before us, even though the very commencing word "The curfew," is a recollection of obsolete habits. In the second stanza, is there not twilight in the very sounds?

"Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds."

All is so purely appropriate, without being for an instant tame or undignified, which is the great difference to my mind between Gray and more modern schools. Then we have the picture of the specific subject of the poem taken more closely :

"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,

Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

The author of the "Pursuits of Literature," to whom I have already referred, terms the following

the great stanza, and I am inclined to think not improperly:

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike th' inevitable hour:

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

All sermons are here concentrated; and how every expression comes up to the full dignity of the most solemn of all human themes, without the slightest strain or inflation.

You would justly blame me, if I forbore to remind you how it is said, with most eloquent truth :

"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre."

I do not give the couplet on the gem, because I might be told that "purest ray serene" is what we should have called at school a botch; but there is nothing imperfect in the flower :

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

Many of you will be sufficiently familiar with the "village Hampden" and the "mute inglorious Milton," who follow next.

There is much tender beauty in these two

stanzas: