Page images
PDF
EPUB

that they nourished Him; of the waters, that they refreshed Him; of us men, that He lived and died among us, yea, that He lived and died for us; that He assumed our flesh and blood, and carried it to the highest heavens, where it shines as the eternal ornament and wonder of the creation of God.

Time would fail us to recount the measures by which the way was prepared for the Revolution: the stamp act; its repeal, with the declaration of right to tax America; the landing of troops in Boston, beneath the battery of fourteen vessels of war, lying broadside to the town, with springs on their cables, their guns loaded and matches smoking; the repeated insults, and finally the massacre of the fifth of March, resulting from this military occupation, and the Boston Port Bill, by which the final catastrophe was hurried on.

Contrasted faults through all his manners reign.
Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain ·
Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue;
And e'en in penance, planning sins anew.

He who felt the wrong, and had the might,
His own avenger, girt himself to slay:
Beside the path the unburied carcass lay:
The shepherd by the fountain of the glen,
Fled, while the robber swept his flecks away,
And slew his babes.

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware.

In rustic solitude 'tis sweet

The earliest flowers of spring to greet;*
The violet from its tomb;

The strawberry, creeping at your feet;
The sorrel's simple bloom.

Peace to the just man's memory: let it grow

Greener with years, and blossom through the flight
Of ages: let the mimic canvas show

His calm, benevolent features; let the light

Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the sight
Of all but heaven; and in the book of fame

The glorious record of his virtues write,

And hold it up to men, and bid them claim

A palm like his, and catch from him the hallowed flame.

Those ages have no memory, but they left

A record in the desert: columns strown

On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft,
Heaped like a host in battle overthrown;
Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone
Were hewn into a city; streets that spread
In the dark earth, where never breath has blown
Of heaven's sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread
The long and perilous ways; the cities of the dead.

Semi-Interrogative and Semi-Exclamatory, Declarative
Part, given with the Partial Close.

Praise and thanksgiving are the most delightful business of heaven; and God grant that they may be our greatest delight, our most frequent employment on earth!

The whole force of this Titanic villany came down with a terrific crash upon your ranks, who had so little agency in nurturing it; and what wonder if some should have been swept away by the avalanche!

He would take, however, if they pleased, the other

*This clause might have been more closely connected with the following clauses, had not the author preferred to dwell on each picture.

alternative: he would suppose every man charged in the estimate really employed, and that it was necessary to keep eighty thousand on the defensive, that three thousand might be brought into the field: need there anything else be urged to prove the ruinous tendency of the American war?

He did not mean absolutely to say, that so many were actually in the service; perhaps not a tenth part of them could be produced; but the account of them was to be seen on the table; and what language could properly describe the fraudulent conduct of ministers in imposing so grievous a burden on the people without necessity?

He sacrificed everything he had in the world: what could we ask more?

He who maims my person affects that which medicine may remedy; but what herb has sovereignty over the wound of slander? He who ridicules my poverty, or reproaches my profession, upbraids me with that which industry may retrieve, and integrity may rectify; but what riches shall redeem the bankrupt fame?

Suppose that, out of compliment to the mockers of missionary zeal, we relinquished its highest, and, indeed, its identifying object; suppose we confined our efforts exclusively to civilization, and consented to send the plough and the loom instead of the cross; and admitting that, upon this reduced scale of operation, we were as successful as could be desired, till we had even raised the man of the woods into the man of the city, and elevated the savage into the sage,-what, I ask, have we effected, viewing man, as, with the New Testament in our hands, we must view him in the whole range of his existence?

So thought Palmyra; where is she!

Hard lot of man, to toil for the reward

Of virtue, and yet lose; but wherefore hard?

He clothes the lily, feeds the dove;

The meanest insect feels his care:
And shall not man confess his love-
Man, his offspring and his heir?

Ye call these red-browed brethren
The insects of an hour,

Crushed like the noteless worm amidst
The regions of their power;

Ye drive them from their fathers' lands;
Ye break of faith the seal :
But can ye from the court of Heaven
Exclude their last appeal?

It was the pleasant harvest-time
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,
And the old swallow-haunted barns—
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams-
Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.*

Parenthesis, Partial or Perfect Close.

The next night we were introduced at the Prince of Craon's assembly (he has the chief power in the Grand Duke's absence).

Let the bishop be one that ruleth well his own house: having his children in subjection: (for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) not a novice, lest being lifted. up with pride he fall into condemnation of the devil.

It is proper to give the second, third, seventh and eighth lines with the rising slide, but the effect is better with the partial close.

The air was mild as summer, all corn was off the ground, and the skylarks were singing aloud (by the way, I saw not one at Keswick, perhaps because the place abounds in birds of prey).

A certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. (It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.) Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick."

Know, then, this truth (enough for man to know):*
Virtue alone is happiness below.

She was one

Fit for the model of a statuary

(A race of mere impostors when all's done:
I've seen much finer women, ripe and real,

Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal).

CHAPTER VI.

COMBINED INFLECTIONS-WAVE OF ACCENT AND WAVING

SLIDE.

THE WAVE OF ACCENT.

Accentual waves are those slight undulations of the voice in ordinary reading and speaking which result from the greater pressure applied to a particular syllable, distinguishing it from others in the same word. They may be readily detected by the ear in any sentence

The bend is proper after this parenthesis, as it does not make complete sense, but the partial close makes it more emphatic.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »