words are used with little precision, and opinions pronounced with singular confidence and equal folly.

Or suppose the point to be investigated is the authenticity of Ossian. In the prefaces to the different editions of this poem; in Laing's History of Scotland, Blair's Dissertation, the Report of the Committee of the Highland Society, Dr. Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides, Montgomery's Lectures on General Literature, and the articles which occur in the various periodicals, the student finds a mass of conflicting evidence, which he is to weigh and balance; principles of composition which he must consider and follow out into their minute application to works of genius; peculiarities of national manners and character, and of different periods in the same country, which he must observe and compare. The work itself, too, whose claims to authenticity he undertakes to settle, must be read and re-read; the genuine marks of antiquity and originality carefully noted, whether in the thought, the imagery, or the expression, in allusions to fact and philosophy, or in the spirit of the composition.

Such a process, diligently pursued in reference to a single production, could hardly fail to instruct the reader on a variety of subjects intimately connected with the cultivation of literary taste, and to cherish habits of inquiry and discrimination, of comparison and analysis, in the highest degree important to useful reading. The claim of Ossian to be considered an original Scottish poem of the fourth century, and not a splendid and successful imposture of the eighteenth, must be supported, or disproved, not merely by reference to historical documents and tradition, but, by a careful comparison of the state of manners they describe with the wild and barbarous customs and habits of the age to which they are assigned; by a minute attention to the allusions they contain to civil events and religious institutions; by observing the marks they bear of rudeness or refinement, of native original thought, or of imitation in the genius by which they were produced; by nicely distinguishing

those delicate and impalpable traits of composition, which it is so difficult to define, and yet so necessary to perceive, in order to appreciate the higher beauties in every department of art; and, finally, by considering the probability of such a work having been transmitted, unwritten, through fourteen centuries, and the motives which may have actuated the professed translator. Nor is it one of the least of the advantages of such an investigation, that it exhibits a striking instance of the greatest variety of literary judgment and of the strange contradictions of opinion among intelligent men, upon matters with which they are equally conversant-thus illustrating the importance of understanding the character and mental habits, the education and national or personal partialities of a critic, before we adopt his decisions.

tance.

The only other point on which I would remark, has been already alluded to, and is introduced again, only because of its pre-eminent imporWe refer to the habitual reading of a class of books, whose direct object is to nourish our moral sentiments, and diffuse a Christian spirit over all our mental character. Fortunately the language is full of such works; the only subject of concern is, that the novelties of the press, the mass of exciting periodical literature, which invites attention everywhere, may withdraw too much attention from works less popular in their character, less stimulating in their style, and less constantly urged upon the notice of the student. But let him not fall into the snare here spread for him. Let him keep his heart with all diligence, knowing that out of it are the issues of life. Let some one of the great masters of moral and Christian wisdom be ever on his table; and when he has first of all repaired, every day, to the fountains of devotion and divine benevolence in God's own word, let him commune a little with some kindred spirit of the holy dead, some Baxter or Flavel, or Howe or Cecil, or Thomas à Kempis, nor scorn to be instructed and edified in his ripened youth or age, by the monitors of his childhood, by Watts, or Mason, or Bunyan.

SMILE, as I bow me to thy shrine, oh Sleep!
Weary am I, through climbing labor's hill;
Veil up my senses!-not that I may kill

Scorpions of conscience 'neath thy shadows deep; But that, from thy calm influence, I may reap Peace and refreshment, as thy balms instil Strength to my frame, and all my being fill

With joy, that thou thy watch didst safely keep. Samaritan of life! with pitying smile

When tired Nature fails upon the road, Thou giv'st thy blessing to the sons of toil,

Loos'ning the bandage of their wearying load: Though gold may win it not by chaffering wile, Unisked upon contentment 'tis bestowed.

BY REV. J. N.

DANFORTH.

CHRISTIANITY is a truth, a sublime reality. It is a substantial groundwork of a stupendous superstructure. It has to do with the interests, rather than the fancies of men. It comes in no gorgeous array to fascinate vain minds. It is not an imaginative system, and yet the spirit of high, pure, celestial poetry pervades and animates it. I use the word Christianity in its most extensive sense, as meaning the Revelation from God contained in his sacred word. I see the authors of the purest, the most beautiful, the most sublime poetry, resorting to this original fountain with their golden vessels, to draw their best inspiration thence. And since there is an indissoluble bond between poetry and the sister arts of painting and music, all being founded in Nature, and bearing their own impress as the gifts of God, I behold the great minds that have been engaged about these last two waiting in this temple of God, near the same divine oracle, to obtain the highest subjects, which they may expand upon the canvass, or incorporate into solemn music. These are the waters where genius delights to bathe its wing. The very first announcement of God's word has in it the element of the highest sublimity, as if at man's first introduction to the mighty revelation of God, he should feel his own littleness, and bow in humble adoration before infinite wisdom, knowledge and power. Here we have the vast, the sublime, the incomprehensible. A few simple things are said. A thousand are suggested. The imagination is left-not left, but rather incited; encouraged to expatiate beyond this "visible diurnal sphere," and commune with forms of light and love that have sprung from the hand of God. In silent rapture it listens to the song of the angels, the symphony of "the morning stars," that gem other portions of the creation of God. Creation! This was the grand theme on which the genius of Haydn seized, that he might give to the world the music, and the poetry too, of the works of God. How profound, how awful the darkness of chaos! What a glowing, glorious moment that, when God said, "Let light be, and light was!" It is in the midst of the warmest poetic strains that the Psalmist says: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them

by the breath of his mouth." The host of heaven! The imagination tires in its upward flight. So beautiful, so vast, so impressive is the array, that millions without the knowledge of the true God, have bowed down and worshipped them; as if amid all this "dread magnificence of heaven," there must be enthroned some superior intelligences, whose favor it was important to supplicate.

If now we descend even to our humble earth, and without leaving the epoch of which we have been speaking, contemplate the fresh beauty, and inhale the sweet fragrance of Eden, where God placed man "to dress it and to keep it," and that man made in his own image! placed where all was loveliness to the eye, music to the ear, rapture to every sense; where holiness was linked with immortality, and the sense of existence was but the sense of prolonged enjoyment, and to keep or to lose was within his own choice! Then that vision of beauty in the midst of Paradise, immaculate woman, the fair prototype of all that should follow in her train; the crowned queen of earth's kingdom, the brightest jewel in that crown being the image of God! No wonder the inspired eye of Milton should kindle into a flame when contemplating such a theme of poetry as this. Not even the gloom and disaster of the fall could wither all the beauty that was there. The earth remained-the flowers would still bloom-the crystal waters flow-the ocean roll its massive waves-the green bosom of the earth would smile in the eye of man, while beneath it the seed would quicken into life. And though storms and tempests might rage, they would but purify the atmosphere, while the seasons amid their successive changes, each characteristically different from the rest, would repeat the most impressive lessons to man. Genius, too, would awake at their call, and trace the immortal line as Thomson has done. And when God said, "I do set my bow in the clouds," and the magnificent arch sprang from the plains of Asia, and ascended to mid-heaven, then was realized the imagination's most splendid, most passionate dream of beauty. It seemed as if in those seven brilliant colors, analyzed out of the sun by heaven's prismatic water-drops, God had