from his mind a commentary more pointed, more valuable, than on many occasions the lengthy annotations of the. profound scholar. This slight, dumb sign that mind has been busy there; this proof that some other soul could touch the deepest ground which the deepest wisdom could express, that some auditor could be whose ear could catch the most sacred harmony which the profoundest harper could attune, is magnetism enough to involve a second reader, and to render him participant of the joys of the two predecessors, with the addition of the animating feelings peculiar to himself. To mind the footprints of mind, in an unmindful world, are doubly cheering.

There are occasionally still to be seen on earth giant minds, who bestride the narrow world of literature like a colossus; men of intelligence so living and so penetrating, that they seem to have the key in their own minds to every book. Their minds are enabled to transcend the author's, and to reflect back upon the book a brighter light, and more valuable similitude, as the human form is more estimable than the glass in which it is reflected.

Before we proceed to furnish extracts from these which, we hope not unprofanely, we may call sacred volumes, we would endeavor to give a few examples of the workings of his mind in the mode above mentioned, of contrasting the various authors which from time to time fell under his observation.

These marginal notices being spread over a course of many years, thirty at least, are not all the survey of a mind from one position. Though the central point is constantly expressed in them, there must necessarily be some graduation, during a series of years, in the utterances of a progressive mind. Mr. Greaves had a strong intuition also of the importance of a change in terminology. He evidently had an appreciating perception of the heavy chains, which oft repeated words and phrases throw around the mind, which otherwise were free to express spontaneously the germinations of the births within.

We are the better enabled to do this, as Mr. Greaves published some of these in the year 1827, in the form of a periodical essay, under the title of the Contrasting Magazine, having the assistance of Dr. Biber as editor.

DIRGE.

I.

I SAW the pine trees on the shore
Stand solemn in their dark green shroud,
I heard the winds thy loss deplore,
Whose beauty worlds had fleetly bowed.

Thy beauty! God's own hand did press
Thy rich curls round thy Grecian brow,
And wound thee in lithe loveliness; -
I see thee standing by me now.

I hear thy solemn anthem fall

Of richest song upon my ear,
That clothes thee in thy golden pall,
As this wide sun flows on the mere.

Away'tis autumn in the land,

Though summer decks the green pine's bough, Its spires are plucked by thy white hand,

I see thee standing by me now.

II.

I dress thee in the withered leaves,
Like forests when their day is done,
I bear thee, as the wain its sheaves,
Which crisply rustle in the sun.

Thou trackest me as blood-hounds scent
The wanderer's feet all down the glen;
Thy memory is the monument

That dies not out my heart again.

So swift the circling years run round
Their dizzy course, I hope to hide;
But till they lay me 'neath the ground,
My resting day shall be denied.

Come time

IV.

- come death, and blot my doom
With feller woes, if they be thine,
Clang back thy gates, sepulchral tomb,
And match thy barrenness with mine.

O! moaning wind along the shore,
How faint thy sobbing accents come!
Strike on my heart with maddest roar,
Thou meet'st no discord in this home
33

NO. II.

VOL. III.

Sear, blistering sun, these temple veins,
Blind, icy moon, these coldest eyes,

And drench me through, you winter rains, -
Swell, if ye can, my miseries.

Those dark, deep orbs are meeting mine,
That white hand presses on my brow,
That soft, sweet smile I know, 't is thine,
I see thee standing by me now.

CROMWELL.

THOUGH We grant Oliver to have been but a patching tailor at constitution-mending, we must claim for him a larger fraction of humanity than the ninth, which tradition awards to that useful, man-making class of artisans. Manhood, real, soul-inspired manhood must have abounded more than ordinary under the buff jerkin of that sturdy yeoman. Else how should he, in times when manliness was far from rare, have stood out in bold relief beyond all other figures carved in that pannel of England's history? That portion too, be it remarked, which is of all the most soul-stirring in the perusal. Place the record before the mind of generous youth or aspiring man, and whether coinciding with the Commonwealth doctrines, or not, he shall not fail to be touched by the recital of those twenty years' events.

Great action speaks to all. The universal perception of heroism in Cromwell's character grants him the stamp of true greatness. Great was he in the outward, for in political rank none stood above him; great must he have been in the inward, for of exterior advantages to raise him to outward eminence he had none. His years of education dissipated, his fortune mean, his dress slovenly, his speech disagreeable, his person coarse, how happened it that to the topmost round of ambition's ladder he was enabled to climb ?

Never can it be permitted, that we may conclude the whole English nation at any period to have been so besot

ted, as to be deceived by pretensions for a longer time than is usually given to a nine-days' wonder. At this era, moreover, there was too much acuteness, intelligence, and determination in activity, to allow a hollow usurper to defraud us of our good opinions. If impartiality will not aid Englishmen to see this, nationality must. The cosmopolitan asserts it; the patriot admits it.

Destiny is the sternest master, the blandest friend, the most puzzling guide which men can have. His scholars, at times the most active, are anon the most inert of the human race. He accepts neither assistance nor resistance from his pupils; and when one appears most to be instructing his fellows, the great teacher is most instructing and constructing him. Kings and republicans are equally pupils of a power which, now through external circumstances, now through central life, influences human action to some great event.

Why do they not suffer the embarkation of that moneyless, rough, active, zealous puritan to the more congenial shores of New England? He stands there on the wharf, the ship is about to sail, happy society in perspective is beheld on the other side of the ocean, warm and wealthy friends will accompany him. He may thus escape from a country in which it is difficult to earn one's bread, offensive to express one's thoughts, almost impossible to live a pure life, to one where the outward burdens are lighter, and the new conception, if not the new birth of freedom is realized. He will cease longer to be oppressed by royalty and episcopacy in their strongholds. He aims at a land and a brotherhood where long prayers may consist with long purses, and he may wait duly on the Lord without neglecting his crops.

But no; the sharp, gray-eyed fanatic, humble as he is, must be detained. They issue that royal order in council, sad council for royalism, and he must remain. Thus goes on the work of Destiny. The ball then passes to the other side, and Cromwell becomes the player. Earnestness is a thing not to be annihilated by order in council; and if you will not allow its activity to be manifested in emigration, which is its quiet, natural course in this man, it takes another, and for you more troublesome, form. He is now member of Parliament for the town of Cambridge. Just