whatever is vast in nature, splendid in intellect, or lofty in morals. Or, to express the same idea somewhat varied, in the language of a critic of antiquity, "that alone is truly sublime, of which the conception is vast, the effect irresistible, and the remembrance scarcely if ever to be erased." But although philosophers only, have written about this emotion, they are far from being the only men who have felt it. The untutored peasant, when he has seen the autumnal tempest collecting between the hills, and, as it advanced, enveloping in misty obscurity, village and hamlet, forest and meadow, has tasted the sublime in all its reality; and, whilst the thunder has rolled and lightning flashed around him, has exulted in the view of nature moving forth in her majesty. The untaught sailor boy, listlessly hearkening to the idle ripple of the midnight wave, when on a sudden he has thought upon the unfathomable abyss beneath him, and the wide waste of waters around him, and the infinite expanse above him, has enjoyed to the full, the emotion of sublimity, whilst his inmost soul has trembled at the vastness of its own conceptions. But why need I multiply illustrations from nature? Who does not recollect the emotions he has felt, whilst surveying aught in the material world, of terror or of vastness? And this sensation is not produced by grandeur in material objects alone. It is also excited on most of those occasions in which we see man tasking, to the uttermost, the energies of his intellectual or moral nature. Through the long lapse of centuries, who, without emotion, has read of LEONIDAS and his three hundred throwing themselves as a barrier before the myriads of Xerxes, and contending unto death for the liberties of Greece! But we need not turn to classic story to find all that is great in human action; we find it in our own times and in the history of our own country. Who is there of us that even in the nursery has not felt his spirit stir within him, when with child-like wonder he has listened to the story of WASHINGTON ? And although the terms of the narrative were scarcely intelligible, yet the young soul kindled at the thought of one man's working out the deliverrance of a nation. And as our understanding, strengthened by age, was at last able to grasp the detail of this transaction, we saw that our infantine conceptions had fallen far short of its grandeur. O if an American citizen ever exults in the contemplation of all that is sublime in human enterprise, it is when, in bringing to mind the men who first conceived the idea of this nation's inde pendence, he beholds them estimating the power of her oppressor, the resources of her citizens, deciding in their collected might that this nation should be free, and through the long years of trial that ensued, never blenching from their purpose, but freely redeeming the pledge which they had given, to consecrate to it, "their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor." It is not in the field of patriotism only that deeds have been achieved to which history has awarded the palm of moral sublimity. There have lived men, in whom the name of patriot has been merged in that of philanthropist; who, looking with an eye of compassion over the face of the earth, have felt for the miseries of our race, and have put forth their calm might to wipe off one blot from the marred and stained escutcheon of human nature; to strike off one form of suffering from the catalogue of human woe. Such a man was HOWARD. Surveying our world, like a spirit of the blessed, he beheld the misery of the captive, he heard the groaning of the prisoner. His determination was fixed. resolved, single handed, to guage and to measure one form of unpitied, unheeded wretchedness, and, bringing it out to the sunshine of public observation, to work its utter extermination. And he well knew what this undertaking would cost him. He knew what he had to hazard from the infections of dungeons, to endure from the fatigues of inhospitable travel, and to brook from the insolence of legalized oppression. He knew that he was devoting himself upon the altar of philanthropy, and he willingly devoted himself. He had marked out his destiny, and he hastened its accomplishment, with an intensity "which the nature of the human mindforbade to be more, and the character of the individual forbade to be less." Thus he commenced a new era in the history of benevolence. And hence the name of HOWARD will be associated with all that is sublime in mercy, until the final consummation of all things. Such a man is CLARKSON, who looking abroad, beheld the sufferings of Africa, and, looking at home, saw his country stained with her blood. We have seen him, laying aside the vestments of the priesthood, consecrate himself to the holy purpose of rescuing a continent from rapine and murder, and erasing this one sin from the book of his nation's iniquities. We have seen him and his fellow philantropists for twenty years never waver from their purpose. We have seen them persevere amidst neglect, and obloquy, and contempt, and persecution, until the cry of the oppressed, having roused the sensibilities of the nation, the "Island Empress" rose in her might and said to this foul traffic in human flesh, thus far shalt thou come, and no farther. THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET. BY ALBERT G. GREENE. O'ER a low couch the setting sun had thrown its latest ray, By wasting pain, till time and toil its iron strength had spent. 66 They come around me here, and say my days of life are o'er, That I shall mount my noble steed and lead my band no more; They come, and to my beard they dare to tell me now, that I, Their own liege lord and master born, that I, ha! ha! must die. And what is death? I've dared him oft before the Paynim spear,― Think ye he's entered at my gate, has come to seek me here? I've met him, faced him, scorned him, when the fight was raging hot, I'll try his might—I'll brave his power; defy, and fear him not. |