strange, so much obscure, or void of mean- Ch.
ing; so much is at variance with the conven- El.
tional ideas and expectations of the reader,
that, in his weariness and vexation of mind,
he passes heedlessly over passages, which, if Ch.
presented to him singly, would have arrested El.
him by their beauty, and in his disgust at
what seem to him mere masses of antiquarian
lore, he is apt to overlook the splendor of the
gems they contain.

To choose out these gems, to render, in our own language, these passages, encumbered by no longer explanations than are necessary to make their subjects intelligible, occasionally illustrating their train of idea by similar expressions in other writers, is our endeavor. Ample, indeed, are the stores which the volume of the Grecian drama offers for our selection, and we may hope that their native brilliancy and sweetness will not be altogether lost, though they need must suffer much by removal into a foreign and harsher soil, and still more by the unskilfulness of the transplantor.

The following passage from the Orestes of Euripides, (line 140,) represents a sister watching by the sick couch of her brother. The Chorus of Argive damsels enter to console her.*

ΗΛΕΚΤΡΑ, ΧΟΡΟΣ.

ΗΛ. Είγα σίγα, λεπτὸν ἴχνος ἀρβύλης

τίθετε, μὴ ψοφεῖτε, μὴ 'στω κτύπος

Ch.

El.

Ch.

El.

Ch.

El.

The subjoined lines from the Agamemnon (1178), are part of the prophetic wailings of Cassandra before entering the palace to meet the death which she knows is there prepared for her. The poet has previously represented her pouring forth broken lamentations for her country's fall, mingled with forebodings of her own impending fate, and that of the victor whose triumph she decked. The Chorus

ànопрò Bar' Exεis anoпρó poi koiras, &c.&c. struck with awe at these indistinct presages of

ELECTRA. CHORUS.

El. Softly, not an echo waking,

With light-falling sandal tread,
Not a sound the stillness breaking-
Farther, farther from the bed.
Ch. At thy bidding see we go.
El.

Ch.

El.

Dear companions, faint and low
As the thin reed's whisperings,
Let your voices to me flow-

Lo each flute-liket accent springs,
From my lips most faintly.

So,
Gently speak-move lightly round him,
Tell me why ye've hither crept,
Slumber now indeed hath bound him,
But 'tis long since last he slept.
Ch. What, beloved one, is his state?
El. What, alas! shall I relate?
This to declare is alone in
My power, yet he doth live,
By that low and broken moaning-
What baleful tidings dost thou give!
Break not, unless we wish him dead,
The calm upon his eyelids spread;
Now enjoying sweet and deep
The gracious blessedness of sleep-

Ch.

El.

*

*

*

*Perhaps Schlegel's description of this scene is the most short and vivid that can be given. "Orestes, after the murder of his mother, lies on a bed sick with anguish of soul and madness. Electra sits at his feet. She and the chorus tremblingly expect his awaking." + See Musgrave on the word ὑπόροφον,

calamity to their monarch, have questioned her further, but complained of the obscurity of her words. In reply, she alludes to the horrors that in preceding generations had desolated and devoted to the avenging powers the royal mansion of the Tantalidæ.

THE POLITICIAN.

A SKETCH.

"He has had strange delusions, talked of battles, Monopolyes and levyings of taxes."

INJURED LOVE, OR CRUEL HUSBAND.

"Turn him to any cause of policy,
The gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's years,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences."
SHAKSPEARE.

be inferred from our exordium, an ardent politician in the troubled sea of politics

"He lives, and moves, and has his being." They are the be-all and the end-all of his existence, the aim and scope of his being, the nucleus from which all his hopes, and thoughts, and feelings radiate.

We are decidedly of opinion that "the child is father to the man." Wordsworth asserts it; and all history and experience prove and corroborate its truth and justice. We know that Pope "lisped in numbers,”—that Napoleon in childhood (if one like he ever were a child) constructed mimic fortresses of WERE We required to pronounce an opinion snow and defended them with a warmth which on that often mooted point-that questio vexa- threatened annihilation to the frail material ta-which has given exercise to the polemical of which they were composed; and, when we powers of the philosophers of every age-we are supplied with that important desideratum allude to the celebrated question, as to what to English literature-a full, true, and partiis the one peculiar and distinctive character-cular life of Burke-not he of the “Sublime istic in man, the bipes implume of Plato-we and Beautiful," and the "Reflections”—clashould at once, fearlessly, boldly, and without rum et venerabile nomen-but Burke of anatohesitation, though with all that modesty mical celebrity-we doubt not, for a moment, which forms so essential an ingredient in our character, reply, "Man is a political animal; in that he is himself alone;' there is the point of distinction, the line of demarcation between man as a sentient intellectual animal and the beasts which want discourse of reason.'"

We know that this opinion which we have propounded will be the father to much curious disquisition; with a 'prophetic soul,' and an eye which penetrates through the dim vista of increasing years, we see that it will be fiercely attacked, eagerly contested, and sought to be demolished and overthrown. Be it so; by that will its truth be at once attested and established. "What is writ is writ," and we are prepared to defend it at the pen's point, but this is not the time, nor the place,

nor the occasion.

In candor, we admit that we have been somewhat hastily delivered of this proposition; the period of its gestation has been of the shortest, "brief as woman's love," it has been

"Sent into the world but half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionably,"

but we shall perceive the latent seeds, if not decided indications, of that ardent and intense love of physiological research, that devotedness to scientific pursuits, compared to which he valued not his life "at a pín's fee,” which has obtained for him a name which the "world will not willingly let die," and enriched with a new word the proverbial poetry of the English language. Be that, however, as it may, and it is but a mere speculative opinion, the rule is sufficiently established, and Hampden Little was not destined to prove an exception.

We dislike exceedingly, and therefore, of course, hesitate to become too didactic, but for which we should venture to make the profound remark, that a school is, in fact, an epitome of the universe, a "picture in little" of the world at large; in it are displayed the same passions (or at all events the germs of the same passions) and the same feelings, tempered and modified, of course, by circumstances, the same love of despotism and exercise of tyrannical sway on the one part, and the same open and fierce resistance or deeply-nurtured and concealed dislike on the other, by which mankind ingeniously contrive to embitter that small portion of time that we would at once recal it till "another which is to them allotted on this "distracted and a better" opportunity, but that on reflec-globe;" our school (academy "the wise it tion it strikes us, that it will serve indifferent-call,") for it was there we first became acly well as a type and prefiguration of that quainted with Hampden, was not exempt flourish of trumpets which (on the stage at least) is always used to herald the advent of a great character. And, if to give up his time, and talents, and energies, to labor as if it were a labor of love, to devote himself with a concentrated singleness of purpose to the task of enlightening his fellow men on their political wrongs and the modus operandi of their redress; we say, if to be all this, and more than this, be to be great, then he whose history we are about to communicate confidentially to the world truly merits that much coveted appellation. Sydney Hampden Little, for in those names he rejoices, is, as may

from the common lot. We were not without our feuds, our factions, and our little intestine warfares. On one of these occasions it was that Little's genius as a statesman first made itself apparent there had been some little disagreements-(we use the word 'little' relatively, for "those little things are great to little men")-at our school, and the secession, or, rather, deposition of one of the ushers, and the arrival and usurpation of another, (who from an unfortunate habit of "scenting the morning air" more frequently than agreeably, obtained from us of the "adverse faction" the sobriquet of "Sniffle,”)

was the occasion of a contest in comparison had been the custom from time immemorial to which all the celebrated feuds of ancient to supply those "ancient and trusty gentleor of modern days, the Guelphs and the Ghi- men," the nightly watch, every third year belines, the Capulets and Montagues, and with a warm and comfortable watch-coat. though last not least, the Bardells and Shilli- There was, however, a party who objected beers, were mere child's play and puddles in rather loudly to this arrangement, sanctioned a storm: we reserve the history in full for a as it was by prescriptive usage, and who infuture opportunity, and shall merely observe, sisted most strenuously on the biennial disthat both parties were in no slight degree tribution of the "woollen conveniencies" it happy when Hampden arose to act as media-was a fierce contest, that of the biennials and tor. His genius seemed to rise with the occa- triennials, and annually as the weather got sion: he harangued and he declaimed, he colder and colder, the disputants waxed penned protocols and composed epigrams: warmer and warmer: at length the winter of he, as my Lord Clarendon has it, "had a 18- proving more severe than any one in heart to conceive, a head to plan, and a hand the recollection of that mysterious gentleman to execute" every possible expedient that the who always acts as umpire on those occaoccasion could require: he literally "form- sions, we mean "the oldest inhabitant," it ed, composed, and directed the whole:" he was determined to bring the matter to a was the presiding genius-the Magnus Apol- speedy issue, and a night, the 13th of Novemlo. Need we recount the result to the party ber, "be it aye remembered i' the calendar," to which he particularly attached himself? was the night fixed for its discussion in the We were a joint in his tail-were victorious, vestry; the leader on the triennial side was and they upon the opposition side were com- old Swiggs, the brewer, a rather frothy orator, pelled to acknowledge the supremacy of, and and fortunately for his future fame, Sydney bow in token of submission to the usurper, Hampden Little was the Coryphæus of the Sniffle. "From what trivial causes great "Carlists," or advocate of the Charlies. On events arise!" henceforward Hampden took that night he delivered that remarkable ora. the lead-he was acknowledged premier of tion which has procured for him so conspicuthe academy, and when he left it some short ous a niche in the temple of fame, and entime after to occupy a desk in the counting- rolled his name proudly among those which house of his father, a wealthy merchant, the the world delighteth to honor. We regret whole school felt that they had lost the "no- that the sketch, which is the only record of blest Roman of them all."

that eloquent speech, is meagre and imperfect On leaving school, our different destina- to a degree, but much that is there omitted tions in life placed a wide distance between has been supplied to us by oral testimony, us: yet, although we heard not from him di- and it truly appears to our apprehension to rectly, it was almost a matter of impossibility have been sublime. The exordium is magto take up a newspaper which did not "prate nificent-the orator appeals to the sympaof his whereabout:" no public meeting could thies of his auditors in behoof of those "poor, assemble, no matter for what purpose or on forlorn old men, fourscore and upwards," what occasion, whether to disseminate the whose cause he humbly advocates; he useth blessings of rum and true religion among the that remarkable expression, so often since natives of Timbuctoo, to preserve the suttees quoted, that the eyes of (not of Europe, but) in the east from immolation by the funeral the whole civilized world is upon them; he pile, or the sootees in the west from destruc- goes on to describe in language most awfully tion by narrow chimneys; we say, no matter pathetic, the freezing condition of his protefor the occasion-no meeting could congre-gés, and the comforts and advantages of gate at which Sydney Hampden Little failed warm frieze coats; he diverges most graceto add his "most sweet voice," at first, when a mere sciolist, modestly to propose "that Mr. Potts be requested to take the chair," or "that the thanks of this meeting be given to Mr. Snooks," and, latterly, as he began to get more confidence, as a rather copious and somewhat long-winded orator.

fully into a history of the cloth trade in general; he launches into the most fierce and bitter sarcasm, and glides into the most polished irony; he, with a peculiar combination of happiness and elegance, designates his rival, the brewer, by the felicitous appellation of "Swipes;" he lets drop some slight We now approach the great epoch in his inuendos, some delicate hints, by which, allife-the momentous era, which has earned though concealed by flowers of the most cunfor him an undying fame, and obtained for ning periphrasis, the inquiring mind may inhim a reputation which endureth for ever. fer that his, Swiggs' mother, like the old We allude to his speech on the celebrated lady in Macbeth, "was a godly woman, more GREAT COAT QUESTION: so well must the often on her knees than on her feet," in whole affair be known, that it will appear al- short, a charwoman, and concludes a most most a matter of supererogation to give the powerful and magniloquent peroration by details; but it may chance that there are two casting on the table-yea, even before their or three of the rising generation to whom the eyes one of the coats, "a three-years old," full particulars are not quite familiar, and, therefore, for their sakes we will, even at the risk of being thought tedious, as briefly as may be, give a slight outline of the event.

In the parish in which Hampden lived, it 15

VOL. XV.

as he contemptuously called it, "Rent with the strife of many a well-fought field;" the effect was as the shock of electricity-the force of eloquence could no further go, and we doubt if a greater sensation was created

by the exhibition of the mangled cloak of of his dream." With the increasing claims Cæsar or the mangled body of Lucretia, the of his domestic duties, (for he happened dagger of Burke, or the hat of Corporal since his marriage to have a son and heir,) Trim. Is it necessary for us to recount the result? Can it be doubted his cause triumphed? and he gained and well deserved the title of "the watchman's friend."

there came a wonderful alteration in his notions of right and wrong. He began to discover that, after all, and equalization of property was clearly not the intention of Providence; he had some faint notion, that more "He won it nobly, may he wear it long." than one class was absolutely necessary for Indeed he took so lively an interest in them the working of the machine; and was comand their concerns, "they looked so like his pelled to admit that all kings were not necesfather as they slept," that he actually pro- sarily despots, nor all laws unjust and opposed in the full flush of confidence in his pressive, in short, for why should we conceal victory, that they shoud each be supplied the fact?-from a "Whig, and something nightly with a basin of coffee at the expense more," he has become a Tory, and nothing of the parish, and had (to use a college less, for he quite disdains and repudiates the phrase) "crammed" himself for his speech affectation of the title of Conservative. It on the occasion, by getting by rote the whole may be said, and reasonably too, that in narhistory of the coffee-tree, which he meant rating so great a change in his political creed, to introduce, but some evil-disposed person we have been altogether too abrupt, pursuing having hinted to those venerable gentlemen the even tenor of our brief sketch as though that coffee has an anti-soporific effect, they it were a matter of no moment, and conseall, with one accord, rejected his proffered quently deserving of no particular remark; kindness, but were willing to compromise for to which objection, all that we can say is beer: as, however, there was very little to be said about beer, and the carrying his motion would have the effect of giving a good order to his rival, Swiggs, he refused to agree, and so the coffee fell to the ground.

His genius now began to take a more lofty flight.

this, that, in point of fact, the change itself was not gradually developed, nor of slow growth, but was as sudden, as unmarked by any of the usual indications, the diagnosis, of so potent a transition, and as swiftly-wrought as one of the tricks of a Christmas pantomime, as the change of season in a Russian climate, where a glance at the landscape before you retire to rest at night, presents to your view "one perfect and entire " scene of wintry desolateness, to be succeeded in the most summary manner possible, at the hour of your rising, by the carolling of birds, and the balmy breezes, and the verdancy of spring.

On the well known principle that "extremes meet," perhaps this ought not to excite any very great degree of surprise, and, indeed, the same phenomenon has exhibited itself in persons of far higher rank than Sydney Hampden Little, and yet has passed unheeded by, without our special wonder."

66

Sydney is now some fifty, or by'r lady, nearer to threescore" and although his opinions have so completely changed, unfor tunately his predilection for politics burns as fiercely as ever; he pursues it

to be the mere Demosthenes of a parochial vestry: he thought that "his demerits might speak unbonneted to a higher fortune than that that he had reached." There were the wrongs of a suffering nation to be redressed; the iniquities of those decked in purple and fine linen and sitting in high places to be exposed and held up to public reprobation; and conceiving that his duty, Hampden was not the man to shrink from its performance, "though hell itself did gape, and bid him hold his peace." He left his own business to take care of itself, while he, with the selfdevotedness of "Curtius," cast himself into the gulf of public affairs. He was hic et unique; he attended at every debating club, at every political meeting. He made orations, he denounced tyrants, he more than insinuated treason; he spoke of equal laws and degrading distinctions; about vengeance on oppressors; he mysteriously hinted at new Cromwells and more modern Bruti, and and will neither read, nor think, nor conwound up all by calling his hearers base he- verse on any other description of subject lots and degraded slaves, upon which that whatever. Every night during the sessions many-headed monster, the mob, threw up their greasy caps, and yelled, and shouted, and "aggravated their voices," and vocife rated, proving to a demonstration that although their liberties might be in danger their lungs were perfectly safe. Fortunately he had some short time before espoused a maid with a handsome fortune; we say fortunately, for, to tell the truth, owing to the neglect of his business, he was just on the verge of bankruptcy while devising means to liquidate the

national debt. And now

66

a change came o'er the spirit

"With all that hot and burning zeal,
Which old and fiery converts feel,"

of Parliament, is he to be seen, perched up in a corner of the gallery of the House of Commons, and he declares it is a pity that the sitting does not continue all the year round. When he meets a friend in the street, he scruples not to catch him by the button, (forming a tableau vivant of the Frontispiece to Chesterfield's Advice to his Son,) and gives him viva voce, a brief abstract of the speech of Peel, or the letter of O'Connell; and he lately called on a friend, who was indulging in all the luxury of woe, having just lost a wife, and two thousand a-year annuity, and insisted on