EXTRACT XVII.-In connection with Oratory, we quote the celebrated Adjuration of Demosthenes, in the speech on the Crown; probably the greatest effort ever made to soothe and reconcile men under calamity and defeat. Demosthenes had himself been the chief adviser of strenuous resistance to Philip; the resistance had been unsuccessful, and yet he claimed honor for the intentions and the exertions of those engaged in it. 66 "If I then undertook to say that it was I that brought you to "entertain sentiments worthy of your ancestors, there is no man "but could justly blame me. [Delicate insinuation; he would be "blamable if he claimed the credit of infusing patriotic sentiments; "these existed independent of him.] I assert that such tendencies are your own; I declare that before my time the Athenian State "was thus minded. Yet I do say, that I too have had a share in "the several transactions themselves. But this man (Eschines), "by censuring everything, and urging you to bitterness against me "as the author of the alarms and dangers of the State, seeks to rob "me of my present honor, and deprives you of your everlasting "fame. For if ye condemn Ktesiphon, on the ground that my pol"icy has not been for the best, ye will then appear to have commit❝ted error, and not merely to have suffered reverses by the unkind"ness of Fortune. But ye cannot, ye cannot have erred, O Athe"nians, in braving peril for the safety, the liberty of all. No! By "your ancestors who fronted danger at Marathon, and stood ar"rayed at Platea, by those who fought on sea at Salamis, and at “Artemisium, and by the many other gallant men, lying interred in "the public sepulchres; whom all alike the city held worthy of "honor and buried; and not alone the successful and the victors! "With justice; since all did the work of brave men, though each "had the fortune that the Deity assigned him." The orator has here skilfully touched the most powerful chords in the minds of his audience, and, trusting to the effects of his address, has dared the highest flight of figurative boldness. EXTRACT XVIII. The following lines from the "Pleasures of Hope" exemplify the Poetic Figures and Qualities. I select for notice the more important points. "At summer's eve, when Heaven's aërial bow Spans, with bright arch, the glittering hills below, EX. XVIII.] CAMPBELL'S PLEASURES OF HOPE. 339 These lines contain a description individualized by the point of time given ('at summer's eve'), and enlivened by circumstances of action-spans with bright arch,'' turns the musing eye,' ' mingles with the sky.' The touches conveyed in 'bright arch,' ' glittering hills,' 'sun-bright summit,' are graphically selected, and can be easily realized; if there be anything to object to, it is the three-fold iteration of the one idea of light. 66 'Why do those hills of shadowy tint appear More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?" Another graphic touch that does not require much labor of comprehension. 'Shadowy tint' is not very happy; and 'sweet' is scarcely the word. 'Smiling near' is mere filling up. The rhyme falls upon insignificant words; a fault not always avoidable, but worth remarking on, as a great effect may be attained by as signing the position of emphasis to something really emphatic. "Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue." The first line is a stroke of felicitous condensation; the three abstract nouns are vivified by a familiar and forcible verb; the melody is good; and a sentiment is conveyed in a line. The succeeding line calls for no special remark. "Thus, with delight, we linger to survey The promis'd joys of life's unmeasured way;" A good line might have been made out of these two, by omitting the subjective designations, 'with delight,' 'promis'd joys,' and combining the remaining figures. "Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene More pleasing seems than all the past hath been." Space and time are here mixed in one figure, with a confusing effect. The occasional lameness of rhyme could not be better shown than by bringing under its emphasis such a word as 'been? "And every form that Fancy can repair Notwithstanding the profusion of abstract nouns, the language is telling through action. The reference of the concluding word 'there' is not obvious. "What potent spirit guides the raptur'd eye To pierce the shades of dim futurity?" The interrogation is suitably introduced; but the language is somewhat in excess; 'potent spirit,' 'raptur'd eye,' ' shades of dim futurity.' "Can Wisdom lend, with all her boasted power, The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?" We have had 'lend' already, and there are words more apt in this connection. The language is otherwise unexceptionable; and the rhyme brings into prominence two important words. The order of the sentence is good. "Ah no! she darkly sees the fate of man, Her dim horizon bounded to a span;" The first line is both simple and effective. The second iterates 'darkly' in 'dim;' the mixture of the two figures of darkness and contraction is not favorable to a distinct conception; and the word 'span,' made energetic by the rhyme, is not in keeping with a contracting and vanishing effect; it has already been used for the wide compass of the rainbow. "Or, if she holds an image to the view, 'Tis Nature pictured too severely true." The second line could hardly be improved. The rhyme gives emphasis to a really emphatic word; equally good, but not better, would have been the ending 'truthfully severe.' The first line is enfeebled by the weak complement of the verb-holds to the view' -receiving the place of honor and the stress of rhyme. These last six lines afford a good example of Contrast; after which the main theme is resumed with increased effect. Such contrasts are matter of delicate handling in poetry. When they are the painful obverse of a joyous subject, the principles of Art require them to be kept within the narrowest limits. In Thomson's "Castle of Indolence," Book I., the poet introduces into his picture of delicious quietism, a contrasting description of the harshness of labor such as to damp the enjoyment of the scene, while it can hardly be deemed requisite for the mass of readers, all too familiar with the subject. The present contrast of Campbell's is not too painful, nor too protracted, to be redeemed, and more than redeemed, by the heightened glow of the main subject. "With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light, That pours remotest rapture on the sight; The adjective 'sweet' adds no force to the line, whose language otherwise is apt, and its arrangement perfect. In spite of the EX. XVIII.] CAMPBELL'S PLEASURES OF HOPE. 341 drawbacks of alliteration and abruptness of sound, the combination 'remotest rapture' is energetically concise; the conciseness and originality pass off the noun, although a word so easily lending itself to sentimental inflation. The place of emphasis is not filled by an unimportant phrase. "Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way, That calls each slumbering passion into play.' The first line is admirable in every respect. The participial adjective construction 'bewildered way,' is here set off by the choice of the strongest and aptest epithet. The second line by no means supports the first. The figure is departed from, and another introduced having only a loose connection. 'Slumbering passion' is not very original; 'calling into play' is not very poetical, nor in special harmony of figure; and the complement into play' is still less adapted to the closing place. We give now the splendidly soaring climax : "Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime Peal'd their first notes to sound the march of Time, Notice first the grammar shaped to the period. The invocation contains nothing more than aptness to the subject, which can always redeem the triteness of the phraseology. A fine coherent figure is then worked up (the sphere-music being allowed for the occasion), from the vocabulary of the highest sublime. "When all the sister planets have decayed; EXTRACT XIX. We give a portion of Coleridge's Mont Blanc, to be studied for the various arts involved in the poetic rendering of Nature. "Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause An ebon mass; methinks thou piercest it, O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, Didst vanish from my thought; entranced in prayer, I worshipped the invisible alone." EXTRACT XX.—It is interesting now to compare with still-life Description, at its utmost sublimity, the greater impressiveness of action. The passage is Byron's Thunderstorm. "The sky is changed!—and such a change! O night, EXTRACT XXI.-Dyer's "Grongar Hill" is reckoned one of the best Descriptive poems of the language. A very few lines will show how indispensable activity, real or fictitious, is to a good poetical description. "Now I gain the mountain's brow, Old castles on the cliff's arise, |