advances, and the fondness of his liking for them makes him constantly produce them in lights and relations as little foreseen by himself as they are by his readers. The knight, who seems to have been originally intended for a parody of the Amadis, becomes gradually a detached, separate, and wholly independent personage, into whom is infused so much of a generous and elevated nature, such gentleness and delicacy, such a pure sense of honor, and such a warm love for whatever is noble and good, that we feel almost the same attachment to him that the barber and the curate did, and are almost as ready as his family was to mourn over his death. The case of Sancho is again very similar, and perhaps in some respects stronger. At first, he is introduced as the opposite of Don Quixote, and used merely to bring out his master's peculiarities in a more striking relief. It is not until we have gone through nearly half of the First Part that he utters one of those proverbs which form afterwards the staple of his conversation and humor; and it is not until the opening of the Second Part, and, indeed, not till he comes forth, in all his mingled shrewdness and credulity, as governor of Barataria, that his character is quite developed and completed to the full measure of its grotesque yet congruous proportions.

Cervantes, in truth, came at last to love these creations of his marvellous power as if they were real, familiar personages, and to speak of them and treat them with an earnestness and interest that tend much to the illusion of his readers. Both Don Quixote and Sancho are thus brought before us, like such living realities, that at this moment the figures of the crazed, gaunt, dignified knight, and of his round, selfish, and most amusing esquire, dwell bodied forth in the imaginations of more, among all conditions of men throughout Christendom, than any other of the creations of human talent. The greatest of the great poets-Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, Milton-have no doubt risen to loftier heights, and placed themselves in more imposing relations with the noblest attributes of our nature; but Cervantes-always writing under the unchecked impulse of his own genius, and instinctively concentrating in his fiction whatever was peculiar to the character of his nation-has shown himself of kindred to all times and all lands; to the humblest degrees of cultivation as well as to the highest; and has thus, beyond all other writers, received in return a tribute of sympathy and admiration from the universal spirit of humanity for one of the most remarkable monuments of modern genius. But though this may be enough to fill the measure of human fame and glory, it is not all to which Cervantes is entitled; for, if we would do him the justice that would have been dearest to his own spirit, and even if we would ourselves fully comprehend and enjoy the whole of his Don Quixote, we

should, as we read it, bear in mind that this delightful romance was not the result of a youthful exuberance of feeling, and a happy external condition, nor composed in his best years, when the spirits of its author were light and his hopes high; but that -with all its unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright views of the world, and his cheerful trust in goodness and virtue -it was written in his old age, at the conclusion of a life nearly every step of which had been marked with disappointed expectations, disheartening struggles, and sore calamities; that he began it in a prison, and that it was finished when he felt the hand of death pressing heavy and cold upon his heart. If this be remembered as we read, we may feel, as we ought to feel, what admiration and reverence are due, not only to the living power of Don Quixote, but to the character and genius of Cervantes; if it be forgotten or underrated, we shall fail in regard to both.

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

THIS finished poet and graceful prose-writer was born in Boston on the 26th of October, 1791. He was educated in his native city, and placed at an early age in a mercantile house, and at the age of twenty-one engaged in business on his own account. After a few years, he was elected cashier of the Globe Bank, in Boston, which office he still holds.

Mr. Sprague is an eminent and encouraging example of the union of large business capacity and exact business habits with a love of literature and signal success in its pursuit. He was born a poet, and no forms of the counting-house or of the bank could repress his native genius. He early published a series of prologues, which attracted much attention, and in 1823 was a successful competitor for the Prize Ode at an exhibition in Boston in honor of Shakspeare. On the 4th of July, 1825, he delivered an oration before the inhabitants of Boston, which is above the ordinary productions of that character. In 1827, he delivered an admirable Oration before the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance; and in 1829, a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, entitled Curiosity. This is the longest of his poetical productions, and has many passages of signal beauty. In 1830, he pronounced an ode at the Centennial Celebration of the settlement of Boston, which has, perhaps, a little more finish than the "Shakspeare Ode;" but it displays not so much spirit, vigor,

With the exception of Gray's "Bard" and "Progress of Poesy," and two or three of Collins's odes, I think this ode superior to any thing of the kind in our language, not excepting Dryden's celebrated "Alexander's Feast." In beauty, in vigor, in happy allusions and pertinent illustrations, it is quite equal to Dryden's, while it has none of those gross associations which are a sad blemish in its great prototype.

or genius. Besides these, Mr. Sprague has written many smaller pieces, which have fully sustained his early reputation.'

SHAKSPEARE ODE.

God of the glorious Lyre!

Whose notes of old on lofty Pindus rang,
While Jove's exulting choir

Caught the glad echoes and responsive sang,-
Come! bless the service and the shrine
We consecrate to thee and thine.

Fierce from the frozen north,
When Havoc led his legions forth,

O'er Learning's sunny groves the dark destroyers spread:
In dust the sacred statue slept,
Fair Science round her altars wept,
And Wisdom cowl'd his head.

At length, Olympian lord of morn,
The raven veil of night was torn,

When, through golden clouds descending,

Thou didst hold thy radiant flight,

O'er Nature's lovely pageant bending,
Till Avon roll'd, all sparkling, to thy sight!

There, on its bank, beneath the mulberry's shade,
Wrapp'd in young dreams, a wild-eyed minstrel stray'd.
Lighting there, and lingering long,
Thou didst teach the bard his song;
Thy fingers strung his sleeping shell,
And round his brows a garland curl'd;
On his lips thy spirit fell,

And bade him wake and warm the world.

Then Shakspeare rose!
Across the trembling strings

His daring hand he flings,

And lo! a new creation glows!

There, clustering round, submissive to his will,
Fate's vassal train his high commands fulfil.—

Madness, with his frightful scream,
Vengeance, leaning on his lance,
Avarice, with his blade and beam,

Hatred, blasting with a glance,

Remorse that weeps, and Rage that roars,

And Jealousy that dotes, but dooms, and murders, yet adores.
Mirth, his face with sunbeams lit,

Waking laughter's merry swell,

"Charles Sprague wrote for me but little in The Token; yet that was of diamond worth."—Goodrich's Recollections. Read articles on his poetry in "North American Review," xix. 253, xxxix. 313, lii. 533. A beautiful edition of his Poems and Prose Writings has been published by Ticknor & Fields, Boston.

Arm in arm with fresh-eyed Wit,

That waves his tingling lash, while Folly shakes his bell.

Despair, that haunts the gurgling stream,
Kiss'd by the virgin moon's cold beam,
Where some lost maid wild chaplets wreathes,

And, swan-like, there her own dirge breathes,

Then, broken-hearted, sinks to rest,

Beneath the bubbling wave that shrouds her maniac breast.

Young Love, with eye of tender gloom,
Now drooping o'er the hallow'd tomb
Where his plighted victims lie,—
Where they met, but met to die;
And now, when crimson buds are sleeping,
Through the dewy arbor peeping,

Where Beauty's child, the frowning world forgot,
To Youth's devoted tale is listening,

Rapture on her dark lash glistening,

While fairies leave their cowslip cells and guard the happy spot. Thus rise the phantom throng,

Obedient to their Master's song,

And lead in willing chains the wondering soul along.
For other worlds war's Great One sigh'd in vain,-
O'er other worlds see Shakspeare rove and reign!
The rapt magician of his own wild lay,
Earth and her tribes his mystic wand obey.
Old Ocean trembles, Thunder cracks the skies,
Air teems with shapes, and tell-tale spectres rise;
Night's paltering hags their fearful orgies keep,
And faithless Guilt unseals the lip of Sleep;
Time yields his trophies up, and Death restores
The moulder'd victims of his voiceless shores.
The fireside legend and the faded page,

The crime that cursed, the deed that bless'd an age,
All, all come forth,-the good to charm and cheer,
To scourge bold Vice, and start the generous tear;
With pictured Folly gazing fools to shame,

And guide young Glory's foot along the path of fame.
Lo! hand in hand,

Hell's juggling sisters stand,

To greet their victim from the fight;
Group'd on the blasted heath,
They tempt him to the work of death,

Then melt in air, and mock his wondering sight.

In midnight's hallow'd hour

He seeks the fatal tower,

Where the lone raven, perch'd on high,
Pours to the sullen gale

Her hoarse, prophetic wail,

And croaks the dreadful moment nigh.

See, by the phantom dagger led,

Pale, guilty thing!

Slowly he steals, with silent tread,

And grasps his coward steel to smite his sleeping king!

Life's smoking crimson on his hands,
And in his felon heart the worm of wild despair!

Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering!

There fit the slaves of conscience round,
With boding tongue foul murders numbering;
Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound.
In his dream of blood for mercy quaking,
At his own dull scream behold him waking!
Soon that dream to fate shall turn:

For him the living furies burn;

For him the vulture sits on yonder misty peak,
And chides the lagging night, and whets her hungry beak.
Hark! the trumpet's warning breath
Echoes round the vale of death.
Unhorsed, unhelm'd, disdaining shield,
The panting tyrant scours the field.
Vengeance! he meets thy dooming blade!
The scourge of earth, the scorn of Heaven,
He falls unwept and unforgiven,

And all his guilty glories fade.

Like a crush'd reptile in the dust he lies,
And Hate's last lightning quivers from his eyes!

Behold yon crownless king,—

Yon white-lock'd, weeping sire,—
Where heaven's unpillar'd chambers ring,

And burst their streams of flood and fire!
He gave them all,-the daughters of his love;
That recreant pair! they drive him forth to rove,
In such a night of woe,

The cubless regent of the wood
Forgets to bathe her fangs in blood,
And caverns with her foe!

Yet one was ever kind;

Why lingers she behind?

O pity!-view him by her dead form kneeling,
Even in wild frenzy holy nature feeling.
His aching eyeballs strain

To see those curtain'd orbs unfold,
That beauteous bosom heave again;
But all is dark and cold.
In agony the father shakes;

Grief's choking note

Swells in his throat,

Each wither'd heart-string tugs and breaks!