without an exception, the ancient families of this country, the descendants of the statesmen, and lawyers, and heroes of the revolution (our only real aristocracy), are poor. The rich class are, in the great majority of cases, sprung originally from the lowest class, who have acquired wealth by cunning and pernicious habits; without education, without sentiment; governed by no laws of courtesy, subservient to no dictates of the Spiritual Philosophy; coarse-minded and coarsemannered, but clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day. With such as these, poverty of spirit and want of pelf are synonymous terms. The poor rich man and the rich poor man are the most perplexing problems.

Authors and professed scholars, excluded as in great measure they are from amassing a fortune, and ill paid for their elaborate labors, are among the objects of especial pity, not to say contempt (pitiable truly, and returning upon the contemner) of these bloated minions of Dives. They would patronize merit, and condescend to take genius by the hand. Contemptible arrogance! ye meanest of the mean, ignoble souls, whose highest privilege it is to be immortalized to posterity by the classic scorn of the indignant human creature you would protect; the true joys of the scholar, the calm life of the thinker, the grateful occupations of the author are unknown to you. Thriftless men, who in any other occupation would have succeeded as ill, and incapables, who should as soon have attempted shoemaking as authorship, have managed to reflect a most undeserved odium on those pursuits, which adorn wealth and elevate poverty, which beautify science and invigorate business. Worthily and in sincerity pursued, what occupation is so full of utility, as well as of delight, as literature. A mode of life that leads to reflection

and self-denial; that fosters humanity and begets an enlarged curiosity; that inclines equally to serious, resolved action, and to a gay, cheerful temper; which teaches to confine our wants and limit our desires, but at the same time to expand the affections, and to fortify the will; a mode of life that consecrates its followers as a select body of liberal spirits; that unites the cultivation of the highest faculties with the performance of the commonest duties; that inspires a sense of reverence in the dullest souls, and fascinates the roving eye of pleasure; employments, in fine, which form alone the worthiest labors of the wisest and best-these constitute the occupations and fill the hours of the scholar.

The literary life is never so happily spent as in a condition of moderate competence and in the enjoyment of social happiness. The wealthiest scholar, even if a man of genius, is obliged, from the nature of his position, and to avoid the scandal of meanness, or the odium of an unsociable disposition, to live in a manner abhorrent to his tastes and literary habits. He must live splendidly, when he would prefer elegance and quiet; he must entertain the indifferent and the inquisitive, where he had rather be surrounded by the chosen friends of his youth. In a word, the rich scholar must live like a mere rich man, and is in danger of sinking the first character in the second. Wealth has obscured genius which would have been drawn out by exertion; at least as often as talent has been obscured by misfortune.

A great error, though a very frequent one, is, that utter solitude and celibacy are suited to the man of letters. That the greatest works require long meditation and perfect repose is true. No less true is it that the periodical critic and essayist must pursue his labors in a state of serenity and partial retirement. The true literary life is a quiet existence. No

genuine scholar ever yet loved a crowd. Yet he loves society for conversation, and masses for observation of manners. He loves chiefly domestic pleasures; the good wife has often assisted, and never yet impeded, the occupations of her husband. The inmates of his dwelling learn to respect his hours of solitude and study. A judicious disposal of his time will leave the master his own master, and the experiences of domesticity will prove more rich and abundant than the knowledge of the hackney courtier or politician.

Privacy may boast of its heroes and heroism that a public scene cannot display. We look in the wrong place for truly great characters; we seek them in high stations, but seldom find them there. Maguanimity, like eloquence, is often found where we least expect it. There are more heroical actions occurring every day in the retirement of private life than are to be seen on the great public stage of the world. There is more of fortitude exhibited, more of patience in suffering, more true benevolence, a nobler charity, a wider and wiser generosity, deeper affection, and higher aims than the mind of a mere worldling can conceive. The reason is plain. The greatest intellects seek repose from vain struggles of ambition and inefficient plans of improvement. The gravest business of life, rightly viewed, is a mere farce, and those pleasing labors and endearing adversities, that make up a private life of contented trial and consequent happiness, are in fact higher and of more real importance. Domestic life is the only field for a certain class of virtues, by no means the least in value. These are of the softer and milder kind, amiable and attractive. Home is the school of the affections, as the world affords the test of the will and intellect. In that embowered valley bloom the sweet flowers of heart's-ease and contented joy.

The life of Wordsworth might be proposed as a model to the author who loves letters rather than a literary reputation, who prefers fame to fashion—not only to the poet but to the bumblest prose writer, do we propose it. His fine maxim should be engraven on the heart of every true student"Plain living, and high thinking." De Quincy, who published his recollections of the lake poets some years since, in Tait's Magazine, has described the life of the Miltonic Bard, as simple to frugality. He resided in a small cottage with his wife and sister; his guest was conducted into the largest room in the house, smaller than an ordinary bed-room, and which had another occupant, Wordsworth's eldest boy. The common sitting-room was half parlor and half kitchen. The great poet, like a good man, a lover of simple pleasures, delighted in his kettle's "faint undersong." His library was very small within doors, but without, what immense folios were his daily reading-the grand mountain scenery of his neighborhood. Nature is Wordsworth's library, or at least wisest commentator. Were he never so rich he could possess no pictures like the landscape around him. Even his friend, the fine painter, Sir George Beaumont, might only copy this original. And for company, what more needed he, to whom grand thoughts in rich abundance came flocking at his call; who possessed such an admirable sister and so excellent a wife. Southey was but a few hours' journey distant. Coleridge was sometimes his guest. There too came Hazlitt and Charles Lamb, and there ever abided guardian angels of the poet, the spirits of humanity and philosophy, in strict alliance with the Genius of Poesy!

None but a poor-spirited fool ever esteemed a man the less for his poverty, and pity, in such cases, is insult. The compassion is a glozing apology for the indulgence of purse pride,

the meanest form of Satan's favorite sin, and which he must heartily despise. He who devotes a life to letters cannot expect wealth competency is the most he can look for, a thorough education, in it widest sense, for his children, and a comfortable, though confined maintenance for those dearest to him and least fitted to struggle with misfortune. A fair example and an honorable fame is a richer legacy than a large fortune without either. Most fortunate he who can unite all. But the spirit of study is adverse to the spirit of accumulation. A man with one idea, and that of moneymaking, can hardly fail, from one dollar, of realizing a million. But a man of many ideas, of a comprehensive spirit, and of aspiring views, can never contract his manly mind to the circumference of a store or factory. In his fixed and awful gaze at the wonders of creation, or in his rapt ecstasy at the celestial harmony of poesy, opportunities of profit will slip by, the golden moments of barter escape. His purse is lighter, it must be confessed; but he has gained a richer accession of fancies and feelings than the world can give or take away.

VIII.

CHAPTER ON SOME OLD AND LATER ENGLISH SONNETS.

THE sonnet is of Italian origin, and was imported into England from that country by the Earl of Surrey,

"that renowned lord,

Th' old English glory bravely that restor❜d,

That prince and poet (a name more divine),"