LESSON IV.

The Chinese Prisoner.-PERCIVAL.

A CERTAIN emperor of China, on his accession to the throne of his ancestors, commanded a general release of all those who were confined in prison for debt. Amongst that number was an old man, who had fallen an early victim to adversity, and whose days of imprisonment, reckoned by the notches which he had cut on the door of his gloomy cell, expressed the annual circuit of more than fifty suns.

With trembling limbs and faltering steps, he departed from his mansion of sorrow: his eyes were dazzled with the splendor of the light; and the face of nature presented to his view a perfect paradise. The jail in which he had been imprisoned, stood at some distance from Pekin, and to that city he directed his course, impatient to enjoy the caresses of his wife, his children, and his friends.

Having with difficulty found his way to the street in which his decent mansion had formerly stood, his heart became more and more elated at every step he advanced. With joy he proceeded, looking eagerly around; but he observed few of the objects with which he had been formerly con versant. A magnificent edifice was erected on the site of the house which he had inhabited; the dwellings of his neighbors had assumed a new form; and he beheld not a single face of which he had the least remembrance.

An aged beggar who with trembling knees stood at the gate of a portico, from which he had been thrust by the insolent domestic who guarded it, struck his attention. He stopped, therefore, to give him a small pittance out of the bounty with which he had been supplied by the emperor, and received, in return, the sad tidings, that his wife had fallen a lingering sacrifice to penury and sorrow; that his children were gone to seek their fortunes in distant or unknown climes; and that the grave contained his nearest and most valuable friends.

Overwhelmed with anguish, he hastened to the palace of his sovereign, into whose presence his hoary locks and mournful visage soon obtained admission; and casting himself at the feet of the emperor, "Great Prince," he cried, "send me back to that prison from which mistaken mercy has delivered me! I have survived my family and friends, and even in the midst of this populous city I find myself in a dreary solitude. The cell of my dungeon pro

tected me from the gazers at my wretchedness; and whilst secluded from society, I was the less sensible of the loss of its enjoyments. I am now tortured with the view of pleasure in which I cannot participate; and die with thirst, though streams of delight surround me."

LESSON V.

The Contrast: or Peace and War.-ATHENEUM.

PEACE.

LOVELY art thou, O Peace! and lovely are thy children, and lovely are the prints of thy footsteps in the green valleys.

Blue wreaths of smoke ascend through the trees, and betray the half-hidden cottage: the eye contemplates wellthatched ricks, and barns bursting with plenty the peasant laughs at the approach of winter.

White houses peep through the trees; cattle stand cooling in the pool; the casement of the farm-house is covered with jessamine and honey suckle; the stately green-house exhales the perfume of summer climates.

Children climb the green mound of the rampart, and ivy holds together the half demolished buttress.

The old men sit at their doors; the gossip leans over her counter; the children shout and frolic in the streets.

The housewife's* stores of bleached linen, whiter than snow, are laid up with fragrant herbs; they are the pride of the matron, the toil of many a winter's night.

The wares of the merchant are spread abroad in the shops, or stored in the high-piled ware houses; the labor of each profits all; the inhabitant of the north drinks the fragrant herb of China; the peasant's child wears the webs of Hindostan.

The lame, the blind, and the aged, repose in hospitals; the rich, softened by prosperity, pity the poor; the poor, disciplined into order, respect the rich.

Justice is dispensed to all. Law sits steady on her throne, and the sword is her servant.

WAR.

They have rushed through like a hurricane; like an army of locusts they have devoured the earth; the war has fallen like a water spout, and deluged the land with blood.

*Pron. huz'-wif's.

The smoke rises not through the trees, for the honors of the grove are fallen; and the hearth of the cottager is cold; but it rises from villages burned with fire, and from warm ruins, spread over the now naked plain.

The ear is filled with the confused bellowing of oxen, and sad bleating of over-driven sheep; they are swept from their peaceful plains; with shouting and goading are they driven away; the peasant folds his arms, and resigns his faithful fellow-laborers.

The farmer weeps over his barns consumed by fire, and his demolished roof, and anticipates the driving of the win

ter snows.

On that rising ground, where the green turf looks black with fire, yesterday stood a noble mansion; the owner had said in his heart, here will I spend the evening of my days, and enjoy the fruit of my years of toil: my name shall descend with mine inheritance, and my children's children shall sport under the trees which I have planted.—The fruit of his years of toil is swept away in a moment; wasted, not enjoyed; and the evening of his days is left desolate.

The temples are profaned: the soldier's curse resounds in the house of God: the marble pavement is trampled by iron hoofs: horses neigh beside the altar.

Law and order are forgotten: violence and rapine are abroad: the golden cords of society are loosed.

Here are the shriek of wo and the cry of anguish; and there is suppressed indignation bursting the heart with silent despair.

The groans of the wounded are in the hospitals, and by the road-side, and in every thicket; and the housewife's web, whiter than snow, is scarcely sufficient to stanch the blood of her husband and children.-Look at that youth, the first-born of her strength; yesterday he bounded as the roe-buck; was glowing as the summer-fruits; active in sports, strong to labor; he has passed in one moment from youth to age; his comeliness is departed; helplessness is his portion, for the days of future years. He is more de

crepit than his grandsire, on whose head are the snows of eighty winters; but those were the snows of nature; this is the desolation of man.

Every thing unholy and unclean comes abroad from its lurking-place, and deeds of darkness are done beneath the eye of day. The villagers no longer start at horrible

* Pron. harth.

sights; the soothing rites of burial are denied, and human - bones are tossed by human hands.

No one careth for another; every one, hardened by misery, careth for himself alone.

Lo these are what God has set before thee; child of reason! son of woman! unto which does thine heart incline?

LESSON VI.

Parallel between Pope and Dryden.-JOHNSON.

POFE professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole life with unvaried liberality; and perhaps nis character may receive some illustration, if he be comnared with his master.

Integrity of understanding, and nicety of discernment, were not allotted in a less proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration: when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it from his mind; for, when he had no pecuniary interest he had no further solicitude.

Pope was not content to satisfy; he desired to excel, and therefore always endeavored to do his best; he did not court the candor, but dared the judgment of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from others, he shewed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven.

For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with

such regard to the times as might hasten their publication, were the two satires of Thirty-eight of which Dodsley told me, that they were brought to him by the author, that they might be fairly copied. "Every line," said he," was then written twice over; I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time afterwards to me for the press, with every line written twice over a second time."

His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandoned them: what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the Iliad, and freed it from some of its imperfections; and the Essay on Criticism received many improvements after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered without adding clearness, elegance, or vigor. Pope had perhaps the judgment of Dryden; but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope.

In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes véhement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the sithe and levelled by the roller.

Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred, that of this