ments of Milton's mind are steady and progressive: he carries the fancy through successive stages of elevation, and gradually increases the heat by adding fuel to the fire.

The flights of Homer are more sudden and transitory. Milton, whose mind was enlightened by science, appears the most comprehensive he shows more acuteness in his reflections and more sublimity of thought. Homer, who lived more with men, and had, perhaps, a deeper tincture of the human passions, is by far the most vehement and picturesque. To the view of Milton the wide scenes of the universe seem to have been thrown open, which he regards with a cool and comprehensive survey, little agitated, and superior to those emotions which affect inferior mortals. Homer, when he rises the highest, goes not beyond the bounds of human nature: he still connects his descriptions with human passions, and though his ideas have less sublimity, they have more fire. The appetite for greatness-that appetite which always grasps at more than it can contain-is never so fully satisfied as in the perusal of Paradise Lost. In following Milton we grow familiar with new worlds, we traverse the immensities of space, wandering in amazement, and finding no bounds. Homer confines the mind to a narrower circle; but that circle he brings nearer to the eye: he fills it with a quicker succession of objects, and makes it the scene of more interesting action.

A PATRIOTS DUTY TO HIS COUNTRYA

To form an adequate idea of the duties of this crisis, it will be necessary to raise your minds to a level with your station, to extend your views to a distant futurity, and to consequences the most certain, though most remote. By a series of criminal enterprises, by the successes of guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have been gradually extinguished; the subjugation of Holland, Switzerland, and the free towns of Germany has completed that catastrophe; and we are the only people in the eastern hemisphere who are in possession of equal laws and a free constitution. Freedom, driven from every spot on the Continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she always chose for her favorite abode; but she is pursued even here, and threatened with destruction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most exactly, most critically placed, in the only aperture where it can be successfully repelled, in the Thermopylae of the universe. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned, the most important by far of

1 From a sermon preached before a company of volunteers on "The Sentiments proper to the Present Crisis," at Bristol, October 19, 1803,

being the day appointed for a GENERAL FAST. Napoleon was then at the height of his power, and threatened the liberties of all Europe.

sublunary interests,-you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the federal representatives of the human race; for with you it is to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born; their fortunes are intrusted to your care, and on your conduct at this moment depend the color and complexion of their destiny. If liberty, after being extinguished on the Continent, is suffered to expire here, whence is it ever to emerge in the midst of that thick night that will invest it? It remains with you, then, to decide whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous emulation in every thing great and good; the freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations to behold their God; whose magic touch kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence; the freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with innumerable institutions and improvements, till it became a theatre of wonders; it is for you to decide whether this freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral pall, and wrapt in eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your determination. In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves worthy of such a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in the battles of the civilized world. Go, then, ye defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, where God Himself musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success not to lend you her aid; she will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other weapon will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriads of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping will mingle in its ascent to heaven with the shouts of battle and the shock of arms.

While you have every thing to fear from the success of the enemy, you have every means of preventing that success, so that it is next to impossible for victory not to crown your exertions. The extent of your resources, under God, is equal to the justice of your cause. But should Providence determine otherwise, should you fall in this struggle, should the nation fall, you will have the satisfaction (the purest allotted to man) of having performed your part; your names will be enrolled with the most illustrious dead; while posterity, to the end of time, as often as they revolve the events of this period (and they will incessantly revolve them), will turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. I

cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots, of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favorable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth for ever and ever, they will protect Freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labors and cemented with your blood. And Thou, sole Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong, gird on Thy sword, thou Most Mighty, go forth with our hosts in the day of battle! Impart, in addition to their hereditary valor, that confidence of success which springs from Thy presence! Pour into their hearts the spirit of departed heroes! Inspire them with Thine own; and, while led by Thine hand, and fighting under Thy banners, open Thou their eyes to behold in every valley, and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by the same illumination,—chariots of fire, and horses of fire! Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it as aspark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

THE BIBLE.

The Bible is the treasure of the poor, the solace of the sick, and the support of the dying; and, while other books may amuse and instruct in a leisure hour, it is the peculiar triumph of that book to create light in the midst of darkness, to alleviate the sorrow which admits of no other alleviation, to direct a beam of hope to the heart which no other topic of consolation can reach; while guilt, despair, and death vanish at the touch of its holy inspiration. There is something in the spirit and diction of the Bible which is found peculiarly adapted to arrest the attention of the plainest and most uncultivated minds. The simple structure of its sentences, combined with a lofty spirit of poetry,-its familiar allusions to the scenes of nature and the transactions of common life, the delightful intermixture of narration with the doctrinal and preceptive parts, and the profusion of miraculous facts, which convert it into a sort of enchanted ground, its contant advertence to the Deity, whose perfections it renders almost visible and palpable,-unite in bestowing upon it an interest which attaches to no other performance, and which, after_assiduous and repeated perusal, invests it with much of the charm of novelty; like the great orb of day, at which we are wont to gaze with unabated astonishment from infancy to old age. What other book besides the Bible could be heard in public assemblies from year to year, with an attention that never tires and an in

terest that never cloys? With few exceptions, let a portion of the Sacred Volume be recited in a mixed multitude, and, though it has been heard a thousand times, a universal stillness ensues. every eye is fixed, and every ear is awake and attentive. Select if you can, any other composition, and let it be rendered equally familiar to the mind, and see whether it will produce this effect.

HENRY MACKENZIE, 1745-1831.

HENRY MACKENZIE, the son of Dr. Joshua Mackenzie, an eminent physician of Edinburgh, was born in that city in 1745. After being educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh, Mr. Mackenzie engaged in the study of the law, and became an attorney in the Court of the Exchequer, in that city, in the latter end of the year 1766. In the year 1771 appeared, anonymously, the work for which he is chiefly celebrated, entitled The Man of Feeling. It rose immediately to great popularity, and was followed, a few years after, by The Man of the World, which, though somewhat inferior to the former, breathes the same tone of exquisite sensibility. In the first-named work, the author paints his hero as constantly obedient to every emotion of his moral sense; in the Man of the World, on the contrary, he exhibits a person rushing headlong into vice and ruin, and spreading misery all around him, by endeavoring to grasp at happiness in defiance of the moral sense. In 1778, having become a member of a new literary society in Edinburgh, he suggested the institution of a new periodical paper similar to the Spectator. The scheme was speedily carried into effect, and the papers, under the title of The Mirror, of which Mr. Mackenzie was the editor, were published in weekly numbers, and were subsequently republished with the names of the authors,' in three duodecimo volumes.

To the Mirror succeeded the Lounger,-a periodical of similar character, and equally successful. Mr. Mackenzie was the most valuable contributor to both these works. His papers are distinguished from all the rest by that sweetness and beauty of style, and tenderness of feeling, which form the peculiar character of his writings. Mr. Mackenzie, in the Lounger, No. 97, was the first to appreciate the genius of Burns, in a review of his poems then recently published, by which the poet was brought into public notice, and prevented from quitting his country, as he intended, for the West Indies. After this, Mr. Mackenzie published a number of dramas; but, though they possessed considerable merit as literary productions, they were not successful on the stage. His celebrity is derived principally from his Essays and his Man of Feeling, which are characterized by a beauty of style, depth of pathos, and delicacy of imagination that will always render them popular. In private life, Mr. Mackenzie "was not more distinguished by the wit with which he enlivened a numerous circle of attached friends, than the benevolence and wisdom with which he counselled and assisted them." This ornament of his native city

1 The "Mirror Club" consisted of Mr. Mac- | Cullen, Mr. Bannatyne, Mr. Macleod, Mr. Aber kenzie (the chief contributor), Mr. Craig, Mr. crombie, Mr. George Home, and a few others

died at Edinburgh, at the advanced age of eighty-six, from the decay of nature rather than from disease, on the 14th of January, 1831.1

Few modern writers have been more fortunate than Mr. Mackenzie in their appeals to the heart; and his fictions in the Mirror hold a conspicuous rank among the best efforts in pathetic composition. The story of La Roche, in Nos. £, 43, and 44, has been frequently republished as a tract. Scarcely, if at all, aferior to this, in true delicacy and pathos, is the touching narration in No. -the Story of Nancy Collins. In humorous delineation, also, Mr. Mackenzie has presented us with various specimens. The descriptions of the Homespun Family in the Mirror, and of the Mushroom Family in the Lounger, are told in Fuch a delicate vein of irony, satire, and humor, as to rival the best papers of that character in the Spectator of Addison.

THE HOMESPUN FAMILY.

To the Author of the “Mirror.”

SIR: Some time ago I troubled you with a letter giving an account of a particular sort of grievance felt by the families of men of small fortunes, from their acquaintance with those of great ones. I am emboldened, by the favorable reception of my first letter, to write you a second upon the same subject.

You will remember, sir, my account of a visit which my daughters paid to a great lady in our neighborhood, and of the effects which that visit had upon them. I was beginning to hope that time and the sobriety of manners which home exhibited would restore them to their former situation, when, unfortunately, a circumstance happened still more fatal to me than their expediThis, sir, was the honor of a visit from the great

tion to -.

lady in return.

I was just returning from the superintendence of my ploughs in a field I have lately enclosed, when I was met on the green before my door by a gentleman (for such I took him to be) mounted upon a very handsome gelding, who asked me, by the appellation of honest friend, if this was not Mr. Homespun's; and, in the same breath, whether the ladies were at home. Í told him my name was Homespun, the house was mine, and my wife and daughters were, I believed, within. Upon this the young uan, pulling off his hat, and begging my pardon for calling me honest, said he was despatched by Lady with her compliments to Mrs. and Misses Homespun, and that, if convenient, she intended herself the honor of dining with them on her return

1A complete edition of his works was pubsted at Edinburgh, in 8 vols. 8vo, in 1808. Sir Walter Scott held the talents of Mr. Mackenzie in great estimation, and, in dedicating to him the novel of Waverley, styled him the otch Addison. In summing up his merits a novelist and essayist, the same high authority observes, "The historian of the Home

spun Family may place his narrative, without fear of shame, by the side of the Vicar of Wakefield; and many passages in those papers, which he contributed to the Mirror and Lounger, attest with what truth, spirit, and ease he could describe, assume, and sustain a variety of characters."