richly stored with rare books, paintings, statues, and curiosities gathered from all climes, were the favorite resort of strangers and pilgrims from every part of the world, drawn thither by curiosity, or to testify their homage to the liberal patron of science and the illustrious apostle of liberty. Each of these devoted students became an author. Mr. Fox wrote some highly-commended Latin and Greek poetry, while at school; prepared a few numbers of a paper called "The Englishman," after he became a politician; and in the heighth of his power published a letter to the Electors of Westminster. After his death, his nephew gave to the world, his " History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II.," a mere fragment of his plan of a History of the Revolution of 1688. Though displaying great research and ability, its Thucydidean style exhibits little of that fire which used to electrify the House of Commons. His other writings were confined to official papers. As an author, he is outranked by Mr. Jefferson. The style of the latter is a model of strength, terseness, transparency and grace. His pamphlet of 1774, entitled "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," and addressed to the king, was republished in England under the auspices of Burke, and rapidly run through several editions. His "Notes on Virginia" were republished in England and France, and his numerous Essays on political and philosophical subjects, were extensively read at home and abroad, giving him celebrity as a civilian and devotee of letters and science. His Manual of Parliamentary Practice, prepared when he was Vice-President, is a standard authority in all the legislatures of the country. The four volumes of his posthumous works are replete with instruction and interest to varied classes of readers. His state papers will be cherished by his countrymen while their free institutions endure. Fox was the greatest debater of modern times. Jefferson never reached even a second or third place as an orator. He never aspired to be an eloquent debater, and is not recognized as a public speaker of any grade. This was undoubtedly owing, in a great degree, to an error in his early training. No person, with such a penetrating mind, such stores of knowledge, such self-possession, and such powers of conversation, as belonged to him, need fail of reaching a high, if not the first rank among orators, if he will. Eloquence is not a gift, but an attainment; not an inspiration, but an acquisition. Perfection, or even respectability in the art, can be reached only by the study of the best models, united with unwearied practice. Jefferson was an admirer and student of the rarest models of ancient and modern eloquence. The rest was within himself. He omitted to practice an art whose theory he must have well understood. True, he had a hesitating delivery and a feeble voice. But Fox overcame the former by participating in every debate which occurred in the Commons, and Demosthenes remedied the latter by declaiming against the raging waves on the seashore. Fox was not what, in common phrase, is called "a natural orator." He had to conquer great defects and supply great deficiencies. The means by which he did these he has disclosed. After he had reached the acme of his fame, he said, that on becoming a member of Parliament he resolved to let no question pass, under discussion, without speaking upon it, and to address the House every night. And he added, that he never failed to do so but a few times, and regretted these omissions. Such a resolution would appear absurd in a less robust and cultivated mind, and its execution by a less vigorous and skillful hand would probably result in making the experimenter, not the first debater, but the greatest bore, of his age. Fox's eminently Demosthenean discipline was only an extreme application of the old rule, that "practice makes perfect.' His ambition was to become an orator. He loved the power, but despised the drudgery of office. His road to high station was early obstructed. He took sides with the people against the throne, in the darkest hour of British freedom. His desire to rule a nation, early gave place to his passion for leading a band of followers, of which the country was not worthy. His youthful aspirations to control the policy of a kingdom, were ultimately abandoned for the determination to confound the counsels and conquer the intellects of its rulers. He aimed to become an orator, not in the common-place, nor even in the Ciceronian sense of the term, but an orator that should inform the reason rather than amuse the fancy; that should trace effects down to causes, and causes up to effects; that should convince the judgments and bend the wills, while swaying the feelings and firing the passions, of his auditors. His position as the leader of an Opposition, not less than the texture and temper of his mind, made him rather a debater than an orator. Consequently, his greatest displays were in the reply; his feeblest in the opening. His long service in a minority, and his brief experience as a Minister, rendered him more powerful in attacking the policy of others, than skillful in defending his own. But this defect vanished when advocating the cause of civil and religious freedom. Then his warm soul inspired his capacious intellect, and his mind moved in the sublimity of power when his heart generated the momentum. The distinguishing characteristics of his oratory were penetrating reason, glowing vehemence, and lucid simplicity. These elements constituted that rare union of strength and splendor, which gave him pre-eminence in an age prolific in eloquence. The peerless men whose characters we are observing, were alike remarkable for gentleness of disposition, simplicity of manners, and comprehensive humanity. MacIntosh says of Fox, that "he united in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators." With all his vast acquirements, and when swaying the counsels or shaking the senates of a kingdom, he was as free from vanity, ostentation and arrogance, as a child. He has given a definition of humanity, which he illustrated in his acts. Says he, "True humanity consists not in a squeamish ear, but in listening to the story of human suffering, and endeavoring to relieve it." The kindliness, the modesty, the courtesy of Jefferson, were proverbial. The unvarying placability of his temper, disarmed opponents and won very friends. The philosophic placidity which shone so serenely in his social intercourse, made him the delightful companion of the grave and the thoughtful; and his urbanity, lively conversation, and unaffected interest in their prosperity, won the confidence and inspired the admiration of youth. His services in behalf of the middling and lower classes of society, are the enduring memorials of his benevolence and philanthropy. What more humiliating evidence of the blind malignity of party spirit do our times afford, than the fact that both these men were the objects of the unsparing malevolence of their political opponents, whose bitterness, even the grave of the one and the seclusion of the other, were for a long time insufficient to abate. It is not as the great orator and great writer, that posterity will remember Fox and Jefferson, but as the great actors of their age. Their deeds carried their fame over the world like sunshine; and these will never die. As the mists of prejudice and party clear away, they will disclose few points in the public career of these illustrious statesmen, which their disciples will choose to obliterate or obscure. IN MEMORIAM.* GRIEF, no less than love and joy, has its befitting periods and appropriate expression: the elegy, as well as the ode and song, was early estab lished as one of the legitimate forms of poetry. Having its origin in feelings that in our world can never fail, if genuine it must ever find a response in the human heart; for all, sooner or later, are called to drink of sorrow's wholesome but bitter cup; and it is a law governing not only man, but all creatures capable of feeling, that whatever strongly moves must be expressed. Some cry of pain, some motion of anguish, reveals to the attentive observer the feeling which man more nobly expresses by sorrowful looks and words. The latter, whether spoken or written, are ever the resource and sad relief of the sensitive and suffering spirit. But to him who has been gifted with the power of expressing his sorrows in melodious verse, it becomes a source of inexpressible satisfaction. The bitterness of grief is oft forgotten in the sweetness of the lament. Soothed by his own strain, and borne away by the song which he pours from his heart, he no more remembers the trials and hardships of his earthly lot, but lives in a world of his own beautiful creations—a world which we may yet find far more real than that to which we give the name. So Milton, sitting in blindness, poverty and neglect, held glorious converse with spirits and angels, and man in primeval innocence. So Schiller, in constant bodily suffering and peculiar trials, could forget all, whilst delineating the scenes of Wallenstein and Wilhelm Tell. Max and Thekla, and the Inspired Maid, were to him better society than all the nobles of Germany. And who knows whether Tennyson may not have found as many sweet moments in composing and rehearsing to himself in quiet hours this volume of simple elegies, as from the society of his deeply lamented friend. We shall the more readily admit this, if we remember that it is only the heart that has been purified by affliction, that is capable of the highest and purest enjoyments. So that in this, also, we see the goodness of Him that hath done all things well, in that He not only affords the needed consolation to those who properly bear their griefs, but by means of those very afflictions prepares the heart for new and nobler joys. Thus may life, with all its corroding cares and nameless sorrows, and death, the consummation of its ills, but prepare and lead to an existence, * In Memoriam. By Tennyson. Boston: Ticknor & Co., 1850. where all earthly trials shall be remembered but as the kind admonitions of a wise and loving parent. But if it is a relief to suffering genius to pour forth its grief in fitly chosen words, it is scarcely an inferior solace for the like afflicted, though less gifted, to make those words their own. How many a sorrowing spirit has found comfort in the deep musings of YOUNG! How dear to many a tender, saddened heart, are the pathetic strains of Mrs. HEMANS! Cowper, Goldsmith, and Gray, have each their devoted admirers, who find in their polished verse a sweet diversion from their own pressing cares. And if we turn to the still greater masters, to the sacred strains of David's lyre, or those that fell from Isaiah's hallowed lips, or the sublimity and deep pathos of Job, we recognize the highest source of consolation that poetry and inspiration can confer. The occasion of these poems, as we gather from various allusions, was the death of the author's intimate friend and companion, "A. H. H.," (Arthur H. Hallam,) son of the historian; esteemed and beloved for rare qualities of mind and heart, and betrothed to the poet's sister. He died at Vienna, in 1833, far from his friends and English home. When time, the "healer of human hearts," had somewhat assuaged his grief, and anguish was softened to sorrow, the poet records, in a series of elegiac poems, one hundred and thirty-one in number, the thoughts, moods and feelings connected with this singular bereavement. There are few personal incidents in these poems, but no one who reads them can doubt the reality of the occasion which called them forth, or the sincerity and truthfulness of the delineations. Doubtless this little volume has been the author's intimate companion for many a month and year, and has often supplied the place of his lost friend. It has therefore accomplished one purpose, and that no unimportant one, if it afforded a relief and solace to the mind of the author. But will it afford the same to others? Will it become, like the works we have mentioned, a cherished thing, dear and familiar as household words? We think not. These poems are, in a word, capricious and fanciful. They do not spring from, nor appeal to, what is deepest and most universal in human nature. The very occasion and circumstances of the volume do not seem to be altogether rational or natural. To lament the departed is a sacred duty, as well as sweet relief. But where no ties of blood have been severed, and the relation is entirely one of sympathy and sentiment, to extend one's grief over a period of from ten to twenty years, and its record over more than two hundred pages, indicates a state of mind with which not the many, but only those of similar idiosyncracies, will fully sympathize. There are certain books which may be considered among the necessaries of life; so much so, that it is better, if it must be, to sacrifice a portion of daily comforts rather than do without them. When we see a mourner, in the plainest weeds of woe, inquiring for the "Night Thoughts," or a student, in threadbare garments, asking for a cheap edition of Longfellow, or some poor, pious soul rejoicing that from her hard earnings she has at length saved enough to purchase the dear old Pilgrim's Progress, we recognize these as indications of true fame, and lasting worth in the works so sought. But In Memoriam will never be so regarded. The self-denying sons and daughters of affliction and poverty will never abridge themselves of a single comfort to obtain a copy. It will be read, and portions of it admired, by the refined and cultivated; but few even of those will read it through, or turn to particular pieces so oft as to commit them to memory. The latter we consider a very good test of the value of poetic effusions; so much so, that were certain great works lost, all that is most valuable in them could be recovered from the memories of their admirers. Perhaps could such an event happen to our poetic literature generally, it would not be so great a calamity; it would accomplish at a single stroke what time is silently, but as surely effecting. Notwithstanding what we have said, we would by no means deny that certain portions of these elegiac poems are really beautiful and worthy of the author-such as none but one of the first poets of the age could have written. We will quote the commencement and close of the introductory poem: "STRONG Sou of God, immortal Love, Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours to make them thine. Forgive what seemed my sin in me; Thy creature whom I found so fair. Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Forgive them where they fail in truth, To which we would reply in the beautiful words of Mrs. Hemans: "He that sits above In his calm glory, will forgive the love His creatures bear each other, even if blent With a vain worship; for its close is dim Even with grief, which leads the wrung soul back to him." Can any one fail to admire the pathetic beauty of the following, though a few lines may be a little obscure: |