Part 50 (1/2)

CHARLES SANGSTER--1822-

My footsteps press where, centuries ago, The Red Men fought and conquer'd; lost and won

Whole tribes and races, gone like last year's snow, Have found the Eternal Hunting-Grounds, and run The fiery gauntlet of their active days, Till few are left to tell the mournful tale: And these inspire us with such wild a down a vale Steep'd in uncertain ht, on their way Towards soht is wrapp'd in mystery profound

We cannot lift the round: We scan the trail of Thought, but all is overcast

THERE WAS A TIME--and that is all we know!

No record lives of their ensanguin'd deeds: The past seerows the ment of a human leaf; A few stray skulls; a heap of human bones!

These are the records--the traditions brief-- 'Twere easier far to read the speechless stones

The fierce Ojibith tornado force, Striking white terror to the hearts of braves!

Theon their course, Compact and steady as the ocean waves!

The fiery Iroquois, a warrior host!

Who were they?--Whence?--And why? no huue can boast!

XCII MORALS AND CHARACTER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

GOLDWIN SMITH--1823-

_From_ COWPER

The world into which Cowper came was one very adverse to him, and at the same time very much in need of him It was a world from which the spirit of poetry seeer proof of this than the occupation of the throne of Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, by the arch-versifier Pope The Revolution of 1688 was glorious, but unlike the Puritan Revolution which it followed, and in the political sphere partly ratified, it was profoundly prosaic Spiritual religion, the source of Puritan grandeur and of the poetry of Milton, was al the Nonconfors, with a decided Unitarian tendency The Church was little better than a political force cultivated and manipulated by political leaders for their own purposes The Bishops were either politicians, or theological pole trophies of victory over free-thinkers as titles to higher prefery as a body were far nearer in character to Trulliber than to Dr

Prilectful of their duties, shamelessly addicted to sinecurism and pluralities, fanatics in their Toryises, cold, rationalistic, and als, if they preached at all The society of the day isand Smollett; hard and heartless polish was the best of it; and not a little of it was _Marriage a la Mode_ Chesterfield, with his soulless culture, his court graces, and his fashi+onable ientleman; but the Wilkeses, Potters, and Sandwiches, whose mania for vice culminated in the hell-fire Club, werethe country squires, for one Allworthy, or Sir Roger de Coverley, there were ion was almost extinct, and assuredly no new morality or sentiment, such as Positivists now proht for himself, and scepticism took formal possession of his mind; but as we see from one of Cowper's letters, it was a coarse scepticisnorance and brutality reigned in the cottage

Drunkenness reigned in palace and cottage alike Ga were the amusements of the people

Political life, which, if it had been pure and vigorous, ht have made up for the absence of spiritual influences, was corrupt from the top of the scale to the bottoarth's _Election_ That property had its duties as well as its rights, nobody had yet ventured to say or think The duty of a gentleman towards his own class was to pay his debts of honor, and to fight a duel whenever he was challenged by one of his own order; towards the lower class his duty was none Though the forives us a description of the candidate at election ti votes, society was intensely aristocratic, and each rank was divided from that below it by a sharp line which precluded brotherhood or sydon, who had asked her to come and hear Whitefield, ”I thank your ladyshi+p for the infor the Methodist preachers; their doctrines are ly tinctured with disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks and do aith all distinctions It is monstrous to be told you have a heart as sinful as the cohly offensive and insulting; and I cannot but wonder that your ladyshi+p should relish any senti I shall be most happy to come and hear your favorite preacher” Her Grace's sentiments towards the common wretches that crawl on the earth were shared, we -ion

It was the age of the cri imprisonment for debt, of the stocks and the pillory, of a Tearnished with the heads of traitors, of the unrefor, of unrestrained tyranny and savagery at public schools That the slave trade was iniquitous hardly any one suspected; even ious took part in it without scruple But a change was at hand, and a still e was in prospect At the tiht, and Whitefield was seventeen With theion, was at hand Johnson, the moral reformer, enty-two

Hoas born, and in less than a generation Wilberforce was to coe resolve with, pouring without stint For what makes manhood dear_

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

XCIII A LIBERAL EDUCATION

THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY--1825-