Our And now upon this sparkling sea, our broad Alas! not now beleaguer'd in these walls, La Valette. None! Venice looks calmly on, and sees us Had our brave Order, never touch'd at Rhodes? A desert-charnel House-a home for Forest beasts -echoing the Jackals cry, Or Lions roar, or 'chance her tall Cathedral, Shame-shame, on Venice! Let them gaze on- They work their own undoing.-Let them tear 1 Montreuil. But our scouts who have escap'd the Moslem's, Prepares a force to aid us. 2 La Valette.-Yes aid us, when one by one, our Order Is all gone-when Mahomet's slaves shall Riot in our cities, or 'chance shall fire The lofty piles-a beacon that shall blaze, La Valette.-Hold! No! Not while an arm can strike a blow Our War-cry.-Not while a stone remains The Original. AMID intellectual chaos, how beautiful appear the rays of one twinkling luminary. Order, direction, life itself, are its effects on á disorganized world of mind, that might lie senseless forever, without the soul-stiring influence of its cheerfulness. But how grand would be a flaming globe of pure intelligence, should it suddenly burst from thick obscurity, to shed its effulgence on one unbroken chaotic mass, as it occupies the space destined ere long to glow with richest lustre of the light of genius. Such transforming brilliancy, thus emerging from deep gloom, was never witnessed, in the radiance of a single, unaided, human intellect; but not much inferior to this in grandeur, was the out-breaking of that moral sun of the fifteenth century, whose rays at first, however, only flickered through densest clouds of entire, continuous, mystical error, which enveloped the whole soul of Creation. But soon the clouds began to coil, and roll back into vacuity before his genial heat, while he discovered himself to an awe-struck world, as indeed, the mighty sun of truth. Something similar to the former, were the several gems in the corronet of that intellectnal constellation, which before and after the above mentioned period, did so much to enlarge the boundaries of natural science, and disclose to the philosophic eye, the grand machinery of the physical world, and the then hidden laws of Nature. What such men have accomplished may be seen in the present enlarged views of the world, on almost every subject, which is ever made the object of contemplation. They gave new life to genius, they fired mankind with lofty hopes. They showed not merely the flashes of intellect, but a clear, resplendent light, which thus far, and even will be reflected from the mirrors of ten thousand minds, to the end of time, gathering fresh lustre from every reflection. The present perfection of the sciences, declares their labors. Nature has been unravelled by them. Her laws, though astonishing as much by their accuteness, simplicity and exactness, as by their wonderful operations, are seen as in the brightnes of Noon. Her noblest sons are her mirrors, in whom she discovers to an enraptured world her own unrivaled beauties. These have existed in different ages and under various circumstances, became the prodigies of their age. It was not one mind alone that reared such monumental piles of intellectual greatness. Mind urges mind.-Thought is but the pioneer of thoughts.--Philosophic systems, theories, nay, the entire speculations of centuries, form but simple propositions, or are entirely blotted cut in those succeeding. And thus tardily is truth discovered--thus protracted the process of Discovery. No one dwells constantly, under her influence, when relying only on his own powers of discrimination, to trace her footsteps in his thoughts, or by imagination to mark her progress in the minds of those about us. And so the phenomenon is explained that the mind is less at home, less active, less itself in its own element, than in the world of matter. There must necessarily then, be a copious use of thoughts once unfolded of truths once settled-and a corresponding destitution of original ideas, and less thoroughly-investigating examinations, made for new thruths. Musing thus, and with true scholastic air, closing the organs of vision, that no obtruding idea might gain admittance, by that route, into the audience chamber, Morpheus approached me, and sweetly hushed all disquietude within and noise without; when suddenly appeared to my imaginative vision, an object which seemed invisible, at least to mortal eyes waking; and thus he spoke." Long time I have watched your perplexity, and know well what is that ultima Thule' you would attain. Long have I eyed your spirit as on towering wing it strove to mount the highest source of intellectual light, and with feeble effort, to scale the battlement of truth. She who occupied the highest tower, in stern indignity frowned it down to its accustomed course.-Ah! 'tis vain, 'tis all in vain to think to reach that high estate, with enough of strength to take by siege or storm, the mighty tower. Finite ye are and must have limits to your progression--your eyes can never 'sweep at once the unbounded scheme of things,' nor once perceive that distant goal, to which your ambition aspires. No mortal has yet trod that hollowed ground. Aristotle, Plato, and that radiant host of earthly jewells, did not thus--Des-Cartes not thus, nor Bacon, Locke and others who are the chief gems in the intellectual coronet. They were content, not to face truth in her bright array, but to trace her in her effects, and to disclose her dignified substantiality, as she deigned to sanction their phylosophy. They revealed the operations of Nature-those which had always obtained, in the round of the same causes, and these they called 'truths, Original ideas.' But why may not Columbus say he discovered an ‘idea, '--original too, when he beheld American land? This object had ever existed--but the process of discovery was original. So these voyagers in mental discovery have originated processes to arrive at certain independant principles, which though existent from creation, had never before been known. Yet do they arrogate to themselves the honor of forming them, and well they may, when compared with those countless millions of imitators, who in destitution of intuitive power, too weak to strike out one new course for thought, have merely improved, it may be, the highway trod by the former. Such are not the spirits to dwell in the presence of truth. They discover no natural thought-unable to explore the labyrinthian wanderings of superior minds, or persue similar courses, have contributed their mite to smooth the pathway of others, that forsooth, more precious time might not be lost. not lived in vain, they fill a mighty chasm in the intellectual world, connecting the sublime views and discoveries of the higher order of minds, to those who should be enlightened. These have not then to tug and toil to reach the eminence of philosophers, nor those to descend from their ærial regions of their spirtuality to hold converse with those who are actually of a lower order in the scale of intellectual being. These have But why such difference in men--men of common origin, and› common destination, who have equally the book of Nature to study -her secrets to explore, her operations to trace, and her light to reflect? Go ask the princes of philosophy--ask the statesmen, the phylanthropists, the great in every age, the secret of their great fless. Were they all scholars? Yes, they were the scholars who were worthy of imitation. No studied pageantry, no pomp of barren letters commingled in their halo of glory. Their text book was Nature. They sought her not in the gaudy drapery of fiction, nor i needed the poets skill to animate, diversify, and adorn her scenery, or her work of what kind soever. But pure simple, untarnished Nature, as it came from the hand of the Almighty Architect was their absorbing theme. And were these original minds? their works attest it-here was their superiority; now deeper than common minds could fathom, now loftier than these could soar. But in what were they original? Not in invention, but discovery. They told us not what Nature was, but what she did. That sublime discovery is not to be kenned by finite intelligence. What! shall man ox< } pect the knowledge of his great Original? Shall ye in your flights. for originality, enter the locked chambers of eternal wisdom? Let curiosity, let fierce ambition be gently curbed; let the wild mani. |