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Aid it, paper; aid it, type;

come.

Aid it, for the hour is ripe,

And our earnest must not slacken
Into play;

Men of thought, and men of action,
Clear the way.

The age of Chivalry has gone. An age of Humanity has The Horse, whose importance more than human, gave the name to that early period of gallantry and war,* 10 now yields his foremost place to Man. In serving him, in promoting his elevation, in contributing to his welfare, in doing him good, there are fields of bloodless triumph, nobler far than any in which the bravest knight ever conquered. Here are spaces of labor, wide as the world, lofty 15 as heaven. Let me say, then, in the benison once bestowed upon the youthful knight, Scholars! jurists! artists! philanthropists! heroes of a Christian age, companions of a celestial knighthood, "Go forth, be brave, loyal, and successful!"

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And may it be our office to-day to light a fresh beaconfire on the venerable walls of Harvard, sacred to Truth, to Christ, and the Church, -to Truth Immortal, to Christ the Comforter, to the Holy Church Universal. Let the flame spread from steeple to steeple, from hill to hill, from 25 island to island, from continent to continent, till the long lineage of fires shall illumine all the nations of the earth; animating them to the holy contests of KNOWLEDGE, JusTICE, BEAUTY, LOVE.

LXVI. -ADDRESS TO THE SUN.

OSSIAN.

O THOυ that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! thy everlasting

Chivalry is derived from cheval, the French word for a horse.

light? Thou comest forth, in thy awful beauty, and the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone: who can be a companion of thy course? The oaks of the 5 mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven; but thou art forever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy course. When the world is dark with tempests; when thunder rolls, and lightning 10 flies; thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian, thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more, whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west. But thou art, perhaps, like me, for 15 a season, and thy years will have an end. Thou shalt

sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then O sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark and unlovely; it is like the glimmering light of the moon, when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist 20 is on the hills; the blast of the north is on the plain, the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

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[MR. WILLIS is a living American writer in prose and verse. He is a grad uate of Yale College, of the class of 1827. Ilis prose writings fill many volumes, comprising travels, tales, essays, sketches of life and manners, and descriptions of natural scenery. His style is airy and graceful, his perception of beauty keen and discriminating, and his descriptive powers of a high order. Few men can present a visible scene, a landscape, or a natural object more dis. tinctly to the eye. His poetry has the same general characteristics. It is sweet, flowing, and musical, and, in its best specimens, marked by truth of sentiment and delicacy of feeling. IIe has been for many years one of the editors of the "Home Journal," a weekly newspaper published in New York, and has resided upon the Hudson River. The fine sketches of the scenery in

* A member of the senior class in Yale College,

his neighborhood which have from time to time appeared in his paper have thrown a new interest over that noble river, already graced with so many historical and literary associations.

Mr. Willis, of late years, has written less poetry than could be wished by those who remember and admire the grace and sweetness of so many of his early productions.]

1 YE'VE gathered to your place of prayer,
With slow and measured tread:

Your ranks are full, your mates all there—
But the soul of one has fled.

He was the proudest in his strength,
The manliest of ye all;

Why lies he at that fearful length,
And ye around his pall?

2 Ye reckon it in days, since he
Strode up that foot-worn aisle,
With his dark eye flashing gloriously,
And his lip wreathed with a smile.
O, had it been but told you then,
To mark whose lamp was dim,
From out yon rank of fresh-lipped men,
Would ye have singled him?

3 Whose was the sinewy arm, which flung Defiance to the ring?

4

Whose laugh of victory loudest rung,

Yet not for glorying?

Whose heart, in generous deed and thought,

No rivalry might brook,

And yet distinction claiming not?

There lies he go and look!

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Like life

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save deeper light and shade

We'll not disturb them now.

Tread lightly for 't is beautiful,

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Death's blow has felled your champion

He waiteth here his God!

Ay-turn and weep· 't is manliness

To be heart-broken here

For the grave of one, the best of us.
Is watered by the tear.

LXVIII. THE FUTURE OF AMERICA.

WEBSTER.

[Conclusion of a Discourse delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22, 1820, in commemoration of the first settlement in New England.]

LET us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed in its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its 5 principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political

and literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend their influence still more widely; in the full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceable spirit of Christianity.

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power of 10 God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for 15 our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the rock of 20 Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas.

We would leave, for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the bless25 ings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men. And 30 when, from the long distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward, and warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet 35 them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of Being.

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