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Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
When they who help'd thee flee in fear,
Die full of hope and manly trust,

Like those who fell in battle here.

Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet's mouth is peal'd
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.

THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.

O FREEDOM! thou art not, as, poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap

With which the Roman master crown'd his slave

When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,

Arm'd to the teeth, art thou; one mailed hand

Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarr'd

With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are strong with struggling.

Power at thee has launch'd

His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;

They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven.
Merciless power has dug thy dungeon deep,

And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,

Have forged thy chain; yet, while he deems thee bound,
The links are shiver'd, and the prison-walls
Fall outward: terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.

Thy birthright was not given by human hands:
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him,
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes; and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrow on the mountain-side,
Soft with the deluge. Tyranny himself,
Thy enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obey'd,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.

Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years,
But he shall fade into a feebler age;

Feebler, yet subtler. He shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His wither'd hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send

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Quaint maskers, wearing fair and gallant forms,
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread
That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms
With chains conceal'd in chaplets. Oh! not yet
Mayst thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by
Thy sword; nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps,
And thou must watch and combat till the day
Of the new earth and heaven.

JOHN NEAL.

JOHN NEAL was born in Portland, Maine, October 25, 1793. In 1818, he went to Baltimore, and engaged in the dry-goods business with John Pierpont; but, being unsuccessful, he turned his attention to literature, and commenced his career by writing for the "Portico" a series of critical essays on the works of Byron. In 1818, he published his first novel, Keep Cool, written, as he says, "chiefly for the discouragement of duelling." The Battle of Niagara, with other Poems ; Otho, a tragedy in five acts; and Goldau, the Maniac Harper, successively followed. He also wrote a large part of "The History of the American Revolution, by Paul Allen," as Allen had announced it, received subscriptions for it, and was too lazy to finish it. Four novels, Logan, Randolph, Errata, Seventy-Six, followed in rapid succession. Written in haste, and with but little care, they are now neglected; though at the time they made so favorable an impression that some of them were republished in England. This induced the writer to embark for that country, where he arrived in January, 1824. He very soon became a contributor to various periodicals, making his first appearance in "Blackwood's Magazine," for which he wrote a series of interesting and piquant articles on American writers. He also published, while abroad, his novel Brother Jonathan.

After remaining three years in Great Britain, he returned to his native city, and soon commenced the publication of a weekly newspaper, called "The Yankee," which, not meeting with much encouragement, was, in about a year, merged in "The New England Galaxy." In 1828, he published Rachel Dyer, a story, the subject of which is "Salem Witchcraft." This was followed by Authorship, by a New-Englander over the Sea; The Down-Easters; and Ruth Elder. In all these works there is great power and much originality; but, setting all method and style at defiance, they will not survive the life of the author.2 Some of his occasional essays, however, as well as a few pieces of poetry written for the magazines, possess great merit, and ought to be preserved. A volume of

1 See page 225, Life of Joseph T. Buckingham.

2" John Neal's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at every thing. They occupy all the provinces of letters, and are nearly useless from being spread over too much ground."- Whipple's Essays.

selections from his works might be made that would be a valuable contribution to our literature. Mr. Neal now (1859) resides in Portland.

CHILDREN-WHAT ARE THEY?

The street

What are children? Step to the window with me. is full of them. Yonder a school is let loose, and here, just within reach of our observation, are two or three noisy little fellows, and there another party mustering for play. Some are whispering together, and plotting so loudly and so earnestly as to attract everybody's attention, while others are holding themselves aloof, with their satchels gaping so as to betray a part of their plans for tomorrow afternoon, or laying their heads together in pairs for a trip to the islands. Look at them, weigh the question I have put to you, and then answer it as it deserves to be answered:- What are children?

To which you reply at once, without any sort of hesitation, perhaps," Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined;” or, “ Men are but children of a larger growth;" or, peradventure, “The child is father of the man." And then perhaps you leave me, perfectly satisfied with yourself and with your answer, having "plucked out the heart of the mystery," and uttered, without knowing it, a string of glorious truths. ***

Among the children who are now playing together, like birds among the blossoms of earth, haunting all the green shadowy places thereof, and rejoicing in the bright air, happy and beautiful creatures, and as changeable as happy, with eyes brimful of joy and with hearts playing upon their little faces like sunshine upon clear waters; among those who are now idling together on that slope, or pursuing butterflies together on the edge of that wood, a wilderness of roses, you would see not only the gifted and the powerful, the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious and the renowned, the long-lived and the long-to-be-lamented of another age; but the wicked and the treacherous, the liar and the thief, the abandoned profligate and the faithless husband, the gambler and the drunkard, the robber, the burglar, the ravisher, the murderer, and the betrayer of his country. The child is father of the man.

Among them and that other little troop just appearing, children with yet happier faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of the future, the mothers of nations, you would see the founders of states and the destroyers of their country, the steadfast and the weak, the judge and the criminal, the murderer and the executioner, the exalted and the lowly, the unfaithful wife and the

broken-hearted husband, the proud betrayer and his pale victim, the living and breathing portents and prodigies, the embodied virtues and vices of another age and another world, and all playing together! Men are but children of a larger growth. ***

Even fathers and mothers look upon children with a strange misapprehension of their dignity. Even with the poets, they are only the flowers and blossoms, the dew-drops or the playthings, of earth. Yet" of such is the kingdom of heaven." The Kingdom of Heaven! with all its principalities and powers, its hierarchies, dominations, thrones! The Saviour understood them better; to him their true dignity was revealed. Flowers! They are the flowers of the invisible world; indestructible, self-perpetuating flowers, with each a multitude of angels and evil spirits underneath its leaves, toiling and wrestling for dominion over it! Blossoms! They are the blossoms of another world, whose fruitage is angels and archangels. Or dew-drops! They are dewdrops that have their source, not in the chambers of the earth, nor among the vapors of the sky, which the next breath of wind, or the next flash of sunshine, may dry up forever, but among the everlasting fountains and inexhaustible reservoirs of mercy and love. Playthings! If the little creatures would but appear to us in their true shape for a moment! We should fall upon our faces before them, or grow pale with consternation, or fling them off with horror and loathing.

What would be our feelings to see a fair child start up before us a maniac or a murderer, armed to the teeth? to find a nest of serpents on our pillow? a destroyer, or a traitor, a Harry the Eighth, or a Benedict Arnold, asleep in our bosom? A Catherine or a Peter, a Bacon, a Galileo, or a Bentham, a Napoleon, or a Voltaire, clambering up our knees after sugar-plums? Cuvier laboring to distinguish a horse-fly from a blue-bottle, or dissecting a spider with a rusty nail? La Place trying to multiply his own apples, or to subtract his playfellow's gingerbread? What should we say to find ourselves romping with Messalina, Swedenborg, and Madame de Staël? or playing bo-peep with Murat, Robespierre, and Charlotte Corday? or puss puss in the corner with George Washington, Jonathan Wild, Shakspeare, Sappho, Jeremy Taylor, Alfieri, and Harriet Wilson? Yet stranger things have happened. These were all children but the other day, and clambered about the knees, and rummaged in the pockets, and nestled in the laps of people no better than we are. But if they could have appeared in their true shape for a single moment, while they were playing together, what a scampering there would have been among the grown folks! How their fingers would have tingled! Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these little creatures, with hearts fresh from the gardens of the sky, in

their first and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while they are indeed a mystery,-a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful mystery!

Then why not pursue the study for yourself? The subjects are always before you. No books are needed, no costly drawings, no lectures, neither transparencies nor illustrations. Your specimens are all about you. They come and go at your bidding. They are not to be hunted for, along the edge of a precipice, on the borders of the wilderness, in the desert, nor by the sea-shore. They abound not in the uninhabited or unvisited place, but in your very dwelling-houses, about the steps of your doors, in every street of every village, in every green field, and every crowded thoroughfare.

EDWARD ROBINSON.

THIS renowned philologist and traveller, the son of Rev. William Robinson, who was pastor of the Congregational Church at Southington, Connecticut, for forty-one years, was born at that place on the 10th of April, 1794. He was destined for mercantile life, but, being on a visit to his uncle, at Clinton, Oneida County, New York, early in 1812, he concluded to enter Hamilton College, which had just been chartered. Accordingly, in the fall, he joined the first Freshman class, and graduated in 1816, with the highest honors. In October of the next year he was appointed tutor in his Alma Mater, where he remained a year, teaching the mathematics and the Greek language. In the latter part of the year 1818, he was married to the youngest daughter of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, and sister of the late President Kirkland, of Harvard University. She died in the following July, and Mr. Robinson remained in Clinton, pursuing his studies, for two years longer.

In December, 1821, he went to Andover, Massachusetts, and after being here two years, without having been connected with the seminary, he was appointed assistant instructor, and continued such till 1826, translating in the mean time, from the Latin, 66 Wahl's Clavis Novi Testamenti," or Lexicon of the New Testament.

In the summer of 1826, he went to Europe, and spent four years in travelling, combined with hard study, in the mean time (1828) marrying the youngest daughter of Professor Ludwig von Jacob, of Halle. On his return home in 1830, he was appointed Professor Extraordinary of Sacred Literature in the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1831, he commenced the publication of the "Biblical Repository," of which he was the editor and chief contributor for four years. In 1833 appeared his translation of "Buttman's Greek Grammar," and in 1836, his new Lexicon of the New Testament, and his translation of the "Hebrew Lexicon of Gesenius."

In 1837, Dr. Robinson was appointed Professor of Biblical Literature in the Union Theological Seminary, in the city of New York, the position which he still

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