brings to us a sort of reflection, like the second rainbow, a milder degree of these original pleasures. Here then is the wide and beautiful domain of poetry, to express and thus to awaken the passions; to give utterance to the sentiments, and thus to refine and exalt them; to call into exercise, and thus strengthen the sympathies, to point out and delineate beauty, to call up from the buried treasures of the past the stores of memory and imagination,-this is the high and glorious office of poetry, for which it has claimed and received in all ages, the highest homage of the human heart.

The first sentiment which called poetry into being was patriotism. I ought perhaps, rather to call it an affection, for it is too strong a feeling to rank with the fainter emotions which are denominated sentiments. Few of us ever become fully aware of the strength of those ties which bind our hearts to our country. There are occasions, however, which bring it out, and show us that it dwells in the very centre of our being. We live in an age of comparative peace. We love it for its own sake, and for the advantages it brings. We abhor the scenes of carnage and

blood, of violence and plunder, which war never fails to occasion. We live, moreover, under the mild reign of the Prince of Peace. Nay, we form peace societies, and meet together and talk with rapture of a universal millenium. But let us hear that one of our fellow citizens has been wronged, or falsely imprisoned by the public authorities of a foreign nation, let us hear that our flag has been insulted or our territory invaded, and the blood boils in our veins, a spirit rises within us that nothing can repress. The ignoble advantages of trade and gain are flung to the winds as nothing worth, blood and treasure weigh but as the small dust of the balance, and the cry of war rolls like thunder from one end of the continent to the other.

If you would know the depth of the sentiment of patriotism, go travel in a foreign land, journey on day after day, week after week, and see nothing but strange men, and stranger manners, costumes, and habits. You come at length in sight of a noble city. Your eye wanders in admiration and delight over its spires, it towers, its battlements and fortifications, till at last among the groves of masts which people its harbor, it catches a

glimpse of the star spangled banner, in whose folds float the honor, the majesty, and the power of your country. Your tongue is motionless, but your streaming eyes and heaving bosom will tell more eloquently than words how much you love your country.

It was this deep and overpowering sentiment that first found utterance through poetry. The first song, of which we have any record, was chaunted upon the shores of the Red Sea, after a great national deliverance. Standing as the Hebrews did in safety, and surveying the sea through which they had passed, covered with the wrecks of their enemies, human nature could not keep silence. The voice of joy and gratitude broke forth, and it spoke in poetry.

"And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dances, and Miriam answered them,"

"Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously, The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."

Or as another poetess of our own times has rendered it into modern verse;

"Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea, Jehovah hath triumphed, his people are free."

At a later period Hebrew patriotism spake once more through poetry, but it was in another strain. It was when the glorious ages of the nation were over, and had become a tale of other times. It was when the daughter of Zion, plucked up from her native seats, was borne away into captivity. It was when she paused in her journey to slavery, and with streaming hair and dust upon her head sat down by the rivers of Babylon.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof;

For they that carried us away captive required of

us a song,

And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion,

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,

Let my right hand forget her cunning!

If I do not remember thee,

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!
If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy!"

In the same manner it was patriotism that first kindled poetry among the Greeks. It

was love of country which led Homer to sing the exploits of the heroes of Greece before the walls of Troy, and thus to become the first spark in kindling the intellect of that wonderful people. Of Athens, the oldest poetic fragment we have is a sort of hymn, composed in celebration of the assassination of a tyrant. It was the standing dinner song for centuries to the whole people; and it has been said by one who knew human nature well, that if Brutus could have composed as good a one on the death of Cæsar, Rome would never have relapsed under the tyranny of the emperors. Soon after the establishment of the Athenian republic by Solon, Pisistratus a demagogue, by a mean flattery of the people, usurped the government, and made himself the tyrant of Athens. But though a usurper, his government was on the whole mild and liberal, and he was permitted to die in possession of the supreme authority. His sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, attempted to tread in his footsteps, but in vain. They inherited all their father's tyranny with none of his virtues. A conspiracy was formed to rid the city of them, and re-establish a free government. Two