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'And, oh! when I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, How will its love for thee, as I depart,

Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token! It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, To see thee, Absalom!

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And now, farewell! 'T is hard to give thee up,
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee:-
And thy dark sin!-Oh! I could drink the cup,

If from this wo its bitterness had won thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,
My erring Absalom!'

He covered up his face, and bowed himself
A moment on his child: then, giving him
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer;
And, as a strength were given him of God,
He rose up calmly, and composed the pall
Firmly and decently, and left him there,
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.

CONTRAST BETWEEN MR. CANNING AND MR. BROUGHAM.

European Magazine.

THOUGH Canning and Brougham resembled each other, in standing foremost and alone in their respective parties, they were in every other respect opposed as the zenith and nadir, or as light and darkness.

This difference extended even to their personal appearance. Canning was airy, open, and prepossessing: Brougham seemed stern, hard, lowering, and almost repulsive. The head of Canning had an air of extreme elegance: that of Brougham was much the reverse; but still, in whatever way it was viewed, it gave a sure indication of the terrible power of the inhabitant within. Canning's features were handsome; and his eye, though deeply ensconced under his eyebrows, was full of sparkle and gaiety. The features of Brougham, were harsh in the extreme; while his fore

head shot up to a great elevation, his chin was long and square; his mouth, nose, and eyes, seemed huddled together in the centre of his face-the eyes absolutely lost amid folds and corrugations; and while he sat listening, they seemed to retire inward, or to be veiled by a filmy curtain, which not only concealed the appalling glare, which shot away from them when he was aroused, but rendered his mind and his purpose a sealed book to the keenest scrutiny of man.

Canning's passions appeared upon the open champaign of his face, drawn up in ready array, and moved to and fro at every turn of his own oration, and every retort in that of his antagonist: those of Brougham remained within, as in a citadel which no artillery could batter, and no mine blow up; and even when he was putting forth all the power of his eloquence, when every ear was tingling at what he said, and while the immediate object of his invective was writhing in helpless and indescribable agony, his visage retained its cold and brassy hue; and he triumphed over the passions of other men, by seeming to be wholly without passion himself. The whole form of Canning was rounded, and smooth, and graceful; that of Brougham, angular, bony, and awkward. When Canning rcse to speak, he elevated his countenance, and seemed to look round for the applause of those about him, as a thing dear to his feelings; while Brougham stood coiled and concentrated, reckless of all but the power that was within himself.

From Canning there was expected the glitter of wit and glow of spirit-something showy and elegant: Brougham stood up as a being whose powers and intentions were all a mystery,-whose aim and effect no living man could divine. You bent forward to catch the first sentence of the one, and felt human nature elevated in the specimen before you: you crouched and shrunk back from the other, and dreams of ruin and annihilation darted across your mind. The one seemed to dwell among men, to join in their joys, and to live upon their praise: the other appeared a son of the desert, who had deigned to visit the human race, merely to make it tremble at his strength.

The style of their eloquence, and the structure of their orations, were just as different. Canning chose his words for the sweetness of their sound, and arranged his periods for the melody of their cadence; while, with Brougham, the more hard and unmouthable the better. Canning ar

ranged his words like one who could play skilfully upon that sweetest of all instruments, the human voice; Brougham proceeded like a master of every power of reasoning and of the understanding. The mode and allusions of the one were always quadrible by the classical formulæ; those of the other could be squared only by the higher analysis of the mind: and they rose, and ran, and pealed, and swelled on and on, till a single sentence was often a complete oration within itself; but still, so clear was the logic, and so close the connexion, that every member carried the weight of all that went before, and opened the way for all that was to follow after.

The style of Canning was like the convex mirror, which scatters every ray of light that falls upon it, and shines and sparkles in whatever position it is viewed: that of Brougham was like the concave speculum, scattering no indiscriminate radiance, but having its light concentrated into one intense and tremendous focus. Canning marched forward. in a straight and clear track,-every paragraph was perfect in itself, and every coruscation of wit and of genius was brilliant and delightful;—it was all felt, and it was felt at once. Brougham twined round and round in a spiral, sweeping the contents of a vast circumference before him, and uniting and pouring them onward to the main point of attack. When he began, one was astonished at the wildness and the obliquity of his course; nor was it possible to comprehend, how he was to dispose of the vast and varied materials which he collected by the way: but as the curve lessened and the end appeared, it became obvious that all was to be efficient there

THE SAME CONTINUED.

SUCH were the rival orators, who sat glancing hostility and defiance at each other, during the early part of the session for 1823;-Brougham, as if wishing to overthrow the Secretary, by a sweeping accusation of having abandoned all principle for the sake of office; and the Secretary ready to parry the charge, and attack in his turn. An opportunity at length offered; and it is the more worthy of being

recorded, as being the last terrible personal attack, previous to that change in the measures of the cabinet, which, though it had been begun from the moment that Canning, Robinson, and Huskisson came into office, was not at that time perceived, or at least admitted and appreciated.

Upon that occasion, the oration of Brougham was, at the outset, disjointed and ragged, and apparently without aim or application. He careered over the whole annals of the world, and collected every instance in which genius had degraded itself at the footstool of power, or principle had been sacrificed for the vanity or the lucre of place; but still there was no allusion to Canning, and no connexion that ordinary men could discover with the business before the House. When, however, he had collected every material which suited his purpose,-when the mass had become big and black, he bound it about and about with the cords of illustration and of argument; when its union was secure, he swung it round and round, with the strength of a giant and the rapidity of a whirlwind, in order that its impetus and its effect might be the more tremendous; and, while doing this, he ever and anon glared his eye, and pointed his finger, to make the aim and the direction sure.

Canning himself was the first that seemed to be aware, where and how terrible was to be the collision; and he kept writhing his body in agony, and rolling his eyes in fear, as if anxious to find some shelter from the impending bolt. The House soon caught the impression, and every man in it was glancing his eye fearfully, first toward the orator, and then towards the Secretary. There was, save the voice of Brougham, which growled in that under tone of muttered thunder, which is so fearfully audible, and of which no speaker of the day was fully master but himself, a silence as if the angel of retribution had been flaring in the face of all parties the scroll of their personal and political sins. A pen,which one of the secretaries dropped upon the matting, was heard in the remotest part of the House; and the voting members, who often slept in the side-galleries during the debate, started up, as though the final trump had been sounding them to give an account of their deeds.

The stiffness of Brougham's figure had vanished; his features seemed concentrated almost to a point; he glanced toward every part of the House in succession; and, sounding the death-knell of the Secretary's forbearance and prudence, with both his clenched hands upon the table, he

hurled at him an accusation more dreadful in its gall, and more torturing in its effects, than ever had been hurled at mortal man within the same walls. The result was instantaneous-was electric: it was as when the thunder-cloud descends upon some giant peak-one flash, one peal-the sublimity vanished, and all that remained was a small and cold pattering of rain. Canning started to his feet, and was able only to utter the unguarded words, 'It is false!' to which followed a dull chapter of apologies. From that moment, the House became more a scene of real business, than of airy display and angry vituperation.

CHARACTER OF OLIVER CROMWELL.--Cowley.

WHAT can be more extraordinary than that a person of private birth and education, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes-nor of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the abilities to execute so great a design, as the subverting one of the most ancient and best established monarchies in the world? That he should have the power and boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death? Should banish that numerous and strongly allied family? Cover all these temerities under a seeming obedience to a parliament, in whose service he pretended to be retained? Trample, too, upon that parliament, in their turn, and scornfully expel them, as soon as they gave him ground of dissatisfaction? Erect in their place the dominion of saints, and give reality to the most visionary idea, which the heated imagination of any fanatic was ever able to entertain? Suppress again that monster in its infancy, and openly set up himself above all things, that ever were called sovereign in England? Overcome first all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice? Serve all parties patiently for awhile, and command them all victoriously at last? Overrun each corner of the three nations, and subdue, with equal facility, both the riches of the South, and the poverty of the North? Be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and be adopted a brother to the gods of the earth? Call together parlia

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