small beginnings. I cannot conceive why Phrenology, a science founded on the irregular excrescences of the head, by whatsoever means raised, should unblushingly accept the life-long efforts of such men as Gall, Combe, and Spurzheim, and should have been allowed to beget a professorship in a European University, while a so much more practical and sensible science, as that of the Philosophy of Noses, should be suffered to wait for so humble a pioneer-advocate as myself. Yet the fall of an apple led to the discovery of the principle of gravitation, and I take courage that if I fall by the promulgation of this science, a principle of full as much practical advantage and beauty may thereby be brought to light and disseminated. Should your sympathy run in the way of publishing this introduction to my doctrine, you shall have the remaining position of it shortly; so shall this Philosophy of Noses become at last a popular science, and he who first projects it remain behind it (as is becoming in every man) his nose.

GRAY'S "ELEGY, WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD."

Or the English poets of the last century, there are few who have attained to greater distinction than Gray, and of his writings there is no part that has been so universally popular as his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." It is the style and matter of this poem that will constitute my subject at the present time.

There is no place calculated to excite deeper and more profitable emotions in the mind, than a graveyard, and especially such an one as is represented in this poem. In the splendid cemetery, where the rich and great lie buried, and which wealth has been lavished, and taste and art exhausted to beautify, the thoughts are frequently distracted from more serious subjects, by admiration of some lofty monument, or sculptured column, or exquisitely proportioned statue, placed there to show the rank of the deceased; to maintain a sort of aristocracy, even amongst the dead.

Or perhaps on seeing the tomb of some distinguished warrior or statesman, the mind is carried back to the time in which he lived, to the scenes in which he acted, and while it dwells upon these, it loses the feelings which the simple contemplation of a grave might awaken.

And when we visit the last resting place of those whom we have loved, the sense of affliction often crowds every other emotion from the soul. We think-we can think only of those whom we have lost; of the mother, or sister, or brother who is there. Our minds will turn to the last moments of the departed relative or friend, to the last sigh that he heaved, the last look that he gave, the last word that he spoke, and to the one all-absorbing thought that they were the last. But these feelings, interesting as they are, are not the ones which our poet has

endeavored to portray. He wished simply to express the thoughts which would naturally arise in the mind of a reflecting stranger on visiting a country churchyard, where merely the plain farmers and mechanics and laborers of the hamlet were buried.

The plot of this poem, if it can be called a plot at all, is exceedingly simple. A young man is walking at the dusk of the evening towards the village burying-ground. He seems to have been the prey of disappointment or melancholy; and the scene around him--the glimmering, fading landscape; the farmers returning home from their work; the stillness of the evening, interrupted only by the droning flight of the beetle, or the faint sound of the bells from some distant flock-is one that peculiarly harmonizes with his feelings. He comes to the churchyard; and as he looks upon the graves of the "rude forefathers of the hamlet," imagination takes him back to the obscure and humble scenes of their lives-to the days when they were full of strength and life and joy; and as he stands above their mouldering remains, he thinks of the transitory nature of all human enjoyments; he reflects that the tomb is the destiny of all, of the rich and honored, as certainly as of the poor and unknown, and thus rebukes the haughtiness of the great and proud:

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour;

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

The sentiment contained in this verse is by no means original with Gray, nor was it probably intended to be so. It had been uttered a thousand times, and in a thousand different forms, before this poem was written. The utmost that he could have aimed at, was to clothe it in new and more elegant language than it had been before, and for one I certainly never remember to have seen it expressed more beautifully, except perhaps in those well-known lines of Moore:

"And false the light on glory's plume,

As fading hues at even;

And love, and hope, and beauty's bloom,

Are blossoms gathered for the tomb;

There's nothing bright but heaven."

But if the honors which are shown during life are empty and useless, how much more are those that are lavished upon the dead! For what satisfaction can it give the corpse to be clothed in fine and costly linen? what ease to be laid on a luxurious couch? or what gratification to be placed in a gorgeously-ornamented coffin? Or what pleasure can the splendid hearse, with its sable steeds and their liveried driver, its varnished sides and nodding plumes, give to the lifeless passenger within? Or how can he hear the lofty panegyrics pronounced by the orator at his burial, or read the flattering epitaph engraved upon his tomb, or see the noble monument erected over him? Such are the thoughts which occur to our hero as he exclaims

"Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?"

He does not, however, intend to reprove the desire of the living to do honor to the dead. It is a wish natural to all men to pay some kind tribute to the memory of those whom they have loved and respected in life. When a friend or benefactor dies, all the affection that he has shown, all the good that he has done for us, and all our unkindness and ingratitude to him, come rushing back upon the soul; and since we cannot now go to the departed spirit, and tell it of our deep, heart-felt repentance for what we have done or left undone, we would put some inscription upon his tombstone, or plant some flower or shrub upon his grave, to show to the world our regret for the past, unavailing as it is, or delude ourselves for awhile with the pleasing fancy, that we are conferring a benefit upon the cold sleeper beneath.

So when a patriot dies, the nation for which he has lived and for which perhaps he has died, would make a semblance of atonement for the calumnies and slanders which too often she has allowed to be heaped upon him, or the undeserved neglect with which she has treated him while living, by the pompous procession, the solemn dirge, and lofty eulogy at his funeral, or by the marble carved in his likeness, or the majestic column raised above his tomb.

It is not this feeling which the poet rebukes. It is the pride of rank and station, contemptible as it is at any time, carried out where we should most expect that the realization of great and solemn truths would expel such vanities from the mind. He tells those who move in the higher walks of society not to ridicule the efforts of the poor and uneducated to give expression to feelings common to all humanity. "Even these bones," he says, as he pictures to himself the cheap, unpolished grave-stones, with the misproportioned images and unmusical poetry carved upon them

"Yet even these bones from insult protect,

Some frail memorial still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

"Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,

To teach the rustic moralist to die."

Yes, to stand by such a grave, to lean upon the stone and weep, to read over and over again the inscription which in an unconcerned and better taught spectator might excite only a smile by its inelegance, often affords a purer consolation to the afflicted heart, than where the professed gardener, and architect, and poet have exhausted their skill. The tears that are shed may fall as lightly upon the unornamented turf, as upon a bed of roses. The sighs that are breathed may be

wafted as gently through the unpruned trees of the forest, as through well-trimmed evergreens and willows. And the prayers that arise for strength to bear the bereavement, may ascend as acceptably to heaven from under a coarse, ill-cut garment, as from beneath the more fashionable garb of woe.

But I have passed by a part of the poem, which, from its beauty as well as the frequency with which we hear it quoted, demands certainly as much of our attention as any other. I allude to that in which he refers to the fact that men of great natural endowments are often placed in circumstances which give them little opportunity to exhibit them. And there is certainly no truth which we see more frequently exemplified than this. The works of nature, unlike those of man, are frequently done without any apparent object. No man ever builds a house, unless he thinks that it will be inhabited, or sows a field without the intention of reaping it, or makes a tool without the expectation that it will be used, or constructs a road or a bridge, unless he supposes that some one will travel over it. But nature apparently lavishes her gifts equally, whether they administer to the wants of any one or not. The sun shines as brightly and the rains fall as plentifully upon the uninhabited wilderness as upon the garden and fruitful field. The soil over which not a plough ever passes, is as fertile as that which is taxed to its utmost to contribute to the support of a crowded population. And the rivers upon which not even the canoe of the savage has ever been launched, are as broad and deep as those which bear upon their bosom the commerce of the world. So in her more beautiful and perfect works,

"Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

So also has she acted with regard to man, in creating and assigning him his station in the world. To prove this, we have only to take the history of distinguished men, and show what they might have been, had their circumstances been often only in a very slight degree different from what they were. Take, for instance, such men as Alexander, and Cæsar, and Napoleon Buonaparte; and can we not easily imagine them placed where their names would never have been heard, or their influence felt, out of the circle of their own personal acquaintance? And if we say this of men of undoubtedly great natural endowments like these, how much more shall we say it of the majority of the kings and potentates of the earth, of the children, and idiots, and madmen, who simply on account of their parentage frequently wield the sceptre over millions of the race!

Nay, even in a country like ours, where we should expect that intrinsic worth would be of most avail, how often do we see men raised almost by chance to the most honorable and responsible stations! as, for instance, a man without any effort of his own, or any qualifications, real or pretended, for the office, placed upon the floor of congress; or a plain western lawyer, without any particular talents or popularity,

suddenly elevated by the force of circumstances to the chief magistracy of the nation.

But to return. We had arrived at the point where the stranger is represented as speaking of the inextinguishable dread of death-of the strong desire to remain a little longer on the earth, which is never entirely obliterated from the human soul.

"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?"

There is no part of the poem which has more claim to originality, and at the same time which is more true to nature, than this. The last lingering look! We have all of us read of the last look of the exile, as he is forced from his native land, from wife and children and the comforts of home, perhaps to dwell in a cold and cheerless clime, amongst strangers, where he shall never again see the faces or even hear the names of the companions of his better days. Oh, how much is there in that look, that lingering look! How much of affection, how much of anguish, as the tender recollections of childhood and youth and riper years flit across his memory, and the bitter thought comes home to him, that there are no more such scenes reserved for him in the dark and cloudy future!

We have seen too the last look of the emigrant described, as he leans over the side of the outward-bound vessel, and strains his eyes to catch one more glimpse at the group of friends, amongst whom, perhaps, are his aged father and mother, or his brothers and sisters, upon the shore; and when he can no longer distinguish their forms, he gazes at the beloved land that he is leaving; and when that too disappears in the distance, his attention is caught by some fog or mist upon the horizon, that he supposes is a part of the shore, and he keeps his eyes fixed upon that, till he finds that it is an illusion, and then turns away sad and disconsolate. He is going, it is true, willingly; it is true that he has anticipations of comforts and prosperity in the land to which he is bound, that he never knew at home. But he feels that he is leaving his parents and his people behind him, and he knows that it will be a great while, may be not at all, that he will see them again. And there is a sadness in the reflection, which even the prospect of greater ease and abundance away from them cannot dissipate.

But the last lingering look of the departing spirit! Who can describe its emotions as it takes its journey to

"The undiscovered country from whose bourne

No traveler returns!"

What affecting remembrances must crowd upon it, even when, like the emigrant, it goes from the abode of want and strife and misery, to a land of peace and plenty, perhaps to the bosom of some dear friend who has gone there before it! Though gentle breezes waft it over an