CHAPTER LVII.-FITZ-GREENE HALLECK-1795-1867.

I.-Biographical.

1. Mr. Halleck was born in Guilford, Connecticut, and was descended, on his mother's side, from John Eliot, "the Apostle of the Indians." He was employed, first, in a New York banking-house, and afterwards as private secretary to John Jacob Astor. In his literary career he was associated with William Cullen Bryant and Joseph Rodman Drake, the latter of whom he joined in posing satirical and society verses under the sobriquet "Croker and Company." His earlier years were passed among the wits of New York, with whom he was a great favorite, while the latter part of his life was spent at his native place in a retirement broken by no effort of his muse except a poem entitled Young America, published in 1864.

2. "I have my own way," remarked Halleck's life-long friend, Mr. Bryant, "of accounting for his literary silence in the latter half of his life. One of the resemblances which he bore to Horace consisted in the length of time for which he kept his poems by him, that he might give them the last and happiest touches. Having composed his poems without committing them to paper, and retaining them in his faithful memory, he revised them in the same manner, murmuring them to himself in his solitary moments, recovering the enthusiasm with which they were first conceived, and in this state of mind heightening the beauty of the thought or of the expression."

3. Mr. Halleck belongs to the school of Pope in musical rhythm, and in clearness and condensation of style, but he allowed himself the metrical irregularities of the modern romantic poets. He wrote a social satire called Fanny, onceived in the manner and measure of Byron's Don Juan.

During the Greek struggle for independence, Halleck visited Europe, of which we have a reminiscence in an ode to Burns, and in Alnwick Castle, published in 1827. The same volume contained one of the most martial lyrics in the language, celebrating the surprise of a Turkish camp by two brothers, one of whom pressed the Pasha to complete rout, while the other, Marco Bozzaris, in the hour of victory, died of his wounds, exclaiming, "Could a Suliote leader die a nobler death?" This celebrated lyric, the principal portion of which we give here, has been translated into modern Greek.

II.-Marco Bozzaris.

1. At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power:

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;

In dreams his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch's signet ring;
Then pressed that monarch's throne—a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden-bird.

2. At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Platæa's day;

And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,

As quick, as far as they.

3. An hour passed on-the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last;

He woke to hear his sentries shriek,

"To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!”
He woke, to die 'midst flame and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud,
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:

"Strike!-till the last armed foc expires;
Strike! for your altars and your fires;
Strike!-for the green graves of your sires;
God, and your native land!"

4. They fought like brave men, long and well; They piled that ground with Moslem slain; They conquered;-but Bozzaris fell,

Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw

His smile when rang their proud hurrah,

And the red field was won,
Then saw in death his eyelids close,
Calmly as to a night's repose-

Like flowers at set of sun.

5. Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath;
Come when the blessèd seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm

With banquet song and dance, and wine;

And thou art terrible :-the tear,

The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear,

Of agony, are thine.

6. But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come, when his task of fame is wrought;
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought;
Come, in her crowning hour-and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight

Of sky and stars to prisoned men;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm,
And orange-groves, and fields of balm,
Blew o'er the Haytian seas.

7. Bozzaris! with the storied brave

Greece nurtured in her glory's time,
Rest thee: there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.

We tell thy doom without a sigh;

For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's,-
One of the few, the immortal names,

That were not born to die.

The Suliotes, divided into about thirty tribes or clans, were warlike Greeks who, in the seventeenth century, fled from the tyranny of the Turks and took possession of the Suli mountains and the adjoining valleys. The night-attack here referred to was made August 19, 1823.

CHAPTER LVIII.-MISCELLANEOUS.

The Book of Proverbs. From "Mosaics of Bible History."

1. The object of the Book of Proverbs, as expressed by the author himself in the opening chapter, is, "to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.”

2. An able critic says, "The Book of Proverbs has, in all ages, been regarded as a great storehouse of practical wisdom. The early fathers were accustomed to call it 'allsufficing' wisdom; and modern writers have been equally filled with admiration at the profound knowledge of human nature displayed in it, its accurate delineations of character, and the wonderful richness and appropriateness of its instructions. Truly, in all points of wisdom, public and private, we may accommodate to the Royal Preacher his own words in another of his works:-'What can the man say that cometh after the king? Even that which hath been said already.'

3. "A proverb once heard remains fixed in the memory. Its brevity, its appositeness, often aided by antithesis, not only insure its remembrance, but, very probably, its recurrence to the mind at the very time when its warning voice may be most needed. It utters in a tone of friendly admonition, of gentle remonstrance, of stern reproof, or of vehement denunciation, its wholesome lesson in the ear of the tried, the tempted, and the guilty."-Dr. Kitto.

4. As to the style of the Book of Proverbs, we find it especially marked by those characteristics which distinguish the poetry of the Hebrews from their prose compositions. Thus, parallel passages are constantly occurring,