of history which has but a slight hold of the feelings, and by a few descriptive touches, make it highly sublime or pathetic. Thus the meagre outline of the apparition of Samuel to Saul on the eve of the fatal battle becomes, in the hands of Byron, a picture to harrow up the soul.

"Thou whose spell can raise the dead,
Bid the prophet's form appear.
'Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom seer!'

"Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud:
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud:
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye;

His hand was wither'd and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare:
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents came.
Saul, saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke."

We read in the Jewish history, that under the reign of Hezekiah, Jerusalem was besieged by Sennacherib, king of Assyria, with an army of overwhelming numbers. The inhabitants were in the greatest consterna

tion, but received assurances of the protection of Jehovah. By some Divine visitation they were all destroyed in one night, and the event is thus briefly described; "And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote the camp of the Assyrians, an hundred and four score and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead men." This event in the few words of the simple narrative is impressive, but in the hands of high poetic genius it becomes one of the most magnificent pictures in all lit

erature.

"The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.

"For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.

"And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride: And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

"And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

"And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!"

There is no other way except that of minute description to awaken the deep sympathies of the human heart. This is one reason of the deadness and indifference of the public mind to the condition and sufferings of numerous classes at our very doors. It is because they are dumb. Ignorance and poverty have kept them mute, and hindered them from sending up a voice into the literature of the world. It was thus with that most interesting but neglected class of our fellow creatures, the seamen, until their condition begun to be described by one of themselves, whom nature had made a poet and

piety made a preacher. I refer to the Rev. Edward Taylor of Boston. It is while listening to him, or reading such a book as that lately put forth by the author of Two Years Before the Mast, that the busy multitude on land learn to realize the fact, that human hearts beat in the forecastle as well as the senatehouse, and the saloon; that those who go down into the sea in ships and see God's wonders in the deep, though assimilated in manners and exterior to the rough elements which they encounter, are by no means destitute of the finest susceptibilities of our nature. It is in this way, I have not the least doubt, that literature is at length to be made the instrument of awakening a powerful interest in behalf of the poor sailor in the hearts of those who are able to meliorate his condition, and by elevating his character be the means of redeeming him from the cowardly and petty tyranny to which he is now subjected. Nay, there will be a literature for the sailors themselves, so that their monotonous and isolated life shall be refreshed and gladdened by the pleasures of knowledge, of thought and imagination.

It is to this strong sympathy with human

nature that many of the most exquisite passages of poetry owe their interest, which appear at first sight to be merely descriptive. It is this, which makes so thrilling Byron's description of the night before the battle of Waterloo.

"There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

"Did ye not hear it?-No; 't was but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet,
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet-
But, hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! arm! it is-it is-the cannon's opening roar.

"Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago