ard of scholarship, the wider range of study, the popularization of the regular course, and the founding of a system of College Prizes, have all been steps in a progress not only proper but needful; and thus, though these have been an occasion of evil to the Societies, the remedy does not begin there. We do not, indeed, affirm that it begins with, or requires, the entire abolition of those class societies, which have preeminently caused the decline. What we do affirm as our abiding conviction is this; the needed reform demands that the Public Literary Society be ranked as next in importance to the Recitation and Lecture. It demands that nothing be allowed to oppose these highest interests. If the abuse of any pleasure or pursuit trangresses this law, then let the abuse be corrected. If there be a necessary conflict, let the pursuit be abandoned. And finally, let the Societies themselves, putting aside their factitious standards of success, find their boasted glory in realizing the true ends for which, as literary organizations, they exist.

In closing this discussion we only ask, that if we have seemed to any to have drawn the present in too sombre colors, the blame may be suspended until the picture has been placed side by side with the reality. If we have failed to point out the true causes of declension, it is only because our honest reflection and observation has misled us. If we have placed too high an estimate upon the value of the Literary Societies, it is because we have spoken from the fullness of grate. ful recollection. Our confidence in their future existence and progress is unshaken. For our hope is not in any renown which has immortalized the past, but in the preeminent utility which makes them still a blessing and a power. Never, indeed, was there such necessity for precisely the discipline they are capable of conferring, as at the present day. The scholar can no longer dwell in the "serene and secret mountain top" of his aspiring thoughts, but must enter the stern conflict and stand face to face with grim reality. He finds he must bring the severity of classicism and the slow processes of the schools, into contact with the issues that affect humanity, or they will lose their arterial freshness. And thus uniting in their natural harmony the duties of the Study and Public Debate, he comes forth, at last, versatile in acquirements, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful in all the relations of life.

L. T. C.

The Hymn of Iges.

HEAR those grand, triumphant voices
Chanting e'er that hymn sublime!
See that host of star-crowned heroes
Marching through the fields of Time!
'Tis the Army of the Ages,

They of faith and courage strong, Who with pen, and tongue, and falchion, Battled with the tyrant Wrong.

Prophets, Warriors, Sages, Martyrs,
Men who dared, and men who fought,
Men of patient, brave endeavor,

Men high-browed with lofty thought. Some in dungeons prayed and wrestled; With their blood some sealed their vow;

Ye may know them by their glory,
By the flame upon their brow.

All undaunted, on they struggled
Through the long and gloomy night,
Till they hailed amid the darkness
Streakings of the morning light;
Till up-sprung Truth's golden harvest,
From the martyr ashes strown,

Till the Right dashed off her fetters,
Hurled the Wrong from off the throne.

Now they march, one host triumphant,
Clad in bright, immortal youth,
Trampling o'er the graves of Error,
God-like in the living Truth.
Hark! again swells forth the anthem,
"Tis the Pæan of blest souls,
Fraught with joy and holy triumph,
Glorious to the stars it rolls.

Let us listen to those voices

'Mid our weak and wandering cries. We too march, one mighty legion,

"Tween the vast eternities.

And before us walks an angel,
Pointing to that distant land,
Where, for aye, the great Ideal,
Sits enthroned at God's right hand.

Shall we linger, idly gazing,

With the multitude aside,

While the Truth stands 'mid the soldiers,

Mocked, and scourged, and crucified?

Shall we build unhallowed altars

To a Falsehood hoary grown,
While the world speeds ever onward,
Nearer to the central throne?

Upward then, ye workers, upward!
Shouting nobler battle-cries,
Wielding stronger, truer weapons,
Winning fuller victories.

Upward through the mist and darkness,

To the ever-broadening light!

Sing, O conquering host of Ages

Breathe on us thy hallowed might!

W. W. B.

Spaulding's English Literature.

BY WILLIAM SPAULDING, A.M.,

PROFESSOR OF LOGIC, RHETORIC AND METAPHYSICS IN THE UniVERSITY OF SAINT ANDRews.

"Hule, thu axest me, (ho seide,)

Gif ich kon eni other dede,

Butë singen in sumer tide,

And bringë blissë for and wide.
Wi axestu of craftës mine?"*

THIS "Prose Poem," which has become so popular with lovers of hyperbolic mélange among us, that you can scarce enter the sanctum of the Senior, but you find his table graced with the volume, cannot

* Spl. Eng. Lit., Pt. II, Cap. III, Sec 4, p. 123.

but claim a notice among your critical pages, dear Lit., where so many literary stars have risen and set.

Even in eclipse, the sun must be surveyed through a smoked glass; so we must approach this literary Drummond-light with caution; for, though the rays have not yet come to a focus, they may at any time, and the smaller the focus, the more intense the fusion of ideas. This may be a philosophical paradox; but only remember that this work denies philosophy, and we find the aptitude. We are at a loss for magnifying power enough to resolve this intellectual nebula; and apropos of nebula, the author's style has fallen into such a milky-way, that he has become decidedly a scholastic wet-nurse. Our author is like a porcupine; the more his quills fly, the more defenceless he is. He is like a bird, for the higher he flies, the rarer the medium that sustains him. He is like a fish-Why? Because his most fin ished efforts are scale-y. So much for him in the light of Natural History. But we want an analytic discussion of his merits. Patience, gentle Reader; we must not be hasty, for "the magnificent panorama does not meet the eye at once, as a scenic spectacle is displayed, on the rising of the curtain," but, "standing at the point which we have now reached, we must wait for the unveiling of its features, as we should watch while the mists of dawn, shrouding a beautiful landscape, melt away before the morning sun."* That is the idea. Look at the mist which surrounds the title. "Do you see it ?"-Well, wait a minute.— Now look at it again. It is true, that it is like the vapor which arose out of the little brass pot in the Arabian story; but the pot had the seal of Solomon on it, and the vapor wasn't all smoke," after all.— What are those characters revealed through the circumambient mists? Ah!-Oh!-Yes!-WILLIAM-SPAULDING.-Why! The man celebrated for Prepared Glue, and Cephalic Pills. Hail! Physicio-billposter. Welcome! Thou princely Advertiser.-No. Wrong.-A. M.-The Pill and Glue man is not an A. M.-PROFESSOR OF LOGIC. Open his work and read. Mightier than all these forces, in outward show, and strong in its slow and silent workings on the hearts of the nation, was the influence exerted by the Reformation, which, now completed, had moulded the polity of the English Church into the form it was destined to retain. More gentle than the gales that blew from the new-found islands of the ocean, was the spirit which pure religion breathed, or should have breathed, over the face of society;

66

*Spl. Eng. Lit., Pt. III, Cap. III, Sec. 1, p. 196.

and ten-fold more welcome was, or should have been, the voice that announced freedom of spiritual thought, than the loudest blast with which a herald's trumpet ever ushered in a proclamation of civil liberty."*

"Plato, thou reasonest well." Oh! astute Logician! Logic and Poetry. Sisters, join your hands.-The gods preserve your life, Mr. Spaulding, and we shall have Locke in hexameters. A new era opens to the scholar: A few more authors of this school, and you will hear the mother lulling her babe to rest with,

Hey diddle diddle,

แ 'Ambiguous middle," etc.,

and the school girl playing Euclid on the piano.

But, the mist is still dissolving. What!-Professor of RHETORIC too? We see it all. This is the secret of those glowing vagaries. Hence those enthusiastic ambiguities. What a knowledge of distinctions! What an acute perception of ability you display, Professor, as you tell us of the poetry and baldness, the spirit and insipidity of the same author! What discrimination you exercise in criticism of character! You remind me of the fabled executioner, who was so skilful with his scimetar, that his victims did not know when to stop breathing, till he told them. Would the worthies, of whom you treat, were living to enjoy your negative compliments and sympathizing reproofs! Is Algebra added to your other accomplishments? I fear not. For had you been aware that plus and minus, on the same side of the equation, cancel, you would have been saved the anguish of so many conservative spasms. But, with all of your excellencies, you need to correct one or two little points in your style, viz.: Remember, first, tautology is not poetry; second, that ambiguity is not philosophy. And, if I was you, I would not cultivate anti-climax, when I made a strong point; but, as you don't make strong points, this may be allowable.

But see; another substantive is unfolded, amidst the vanishing clouds-METAPHYSICS.-Why, Mr. Professor, according to your own account, you might fill all the Chairs of a Western College; but, this is too much. We, on this side of the continent, can swallow almost everything; but we can't go this. We don't see it, Horatio. We've read your book.

VOL. XXVIII.

* Spl. Eng. Lit., Pt. III, Cap. III, Sec. 3, p. 200.

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