The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there; O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car Departed spirits of the mighty dead! Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled! Friends of the world! restore your swords to man, Yes, thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see LESSON CLXXX.-NAPOLEON AT REST.-JOHN PIERPONT. His falchion flashed along the Nile ; His hosts he led through Alpine snows; O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while, 5 10 15 20 25 Here sleeps he now, alone! Not one, Has ever seen or sought his grave. Behind this sea-girt rock, the star, High is his couch;—the ocean flood, Alone he sleeps! The mountain cloud, That night hangs round him, and the breath Of morning scatters, is the shroud That wraps the conqueror's clay in death. Pause here! The far-off world, at last, Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones, And to the earth its mitres cast, Lies powerless now beneath these stones. Hark! comes there, from the pyramids, And Europe's hills, a voice that bids The world he awed to mourn him?-No: The only, the perpetual dirge That's heard there, is the sea-bird's cry,— The cloud's deep voice, the wind's low sigh. LESSON CLXXXI.-NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.-DR. CHANNING. Such was Napoleon Bonaparte. But some will say, he was still a great man. This we mean not to deny. But we would have it understood, that there are various kinds or orders of greatness, and that the highest did not belong 5 to Bonaparte. There are different orders of greatness. Among these the first rank is unquestionably due to moral greatness, or magnanimity; to that sublime energy, by which the soul, smitten with the love of virtue, binds itself indissolubly, for life and for death, to truth and duty; espouses as its own the interests of human nature; scorns all meanness and defies all peril; hears in its own conscience a voice louder than threatenings and thunders; 5 withstands all the powers of the universe, which would sever it from the cause of freedom, virtue, and religion; reposes an unfaltering trust in God in the darkest hour, and is ever "ready to be offered up" on the altar of its country or of mankind. Of this moral greatness, which 10 throws all other forms of greatness into obscurity, we see not a trace or a spark in Napoleon. Though clothed with the power of a God, the thought of consecrating himself to the introduction of a new and higher era, to the exaltation of the character and condition of his race, seems never 15 to have dawned on his mind. The spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice seems not to have waged a moment's war with self-will and ambition. His ruling passions were singularly at variance with magnanimity. Moral greatness has too much simplicity, is too unostentatious, too 20 self-subsistent, and enters into others' interests with too much heartiness, to live a day for what Napoleon always lived, to make itself the theme, and gaze, and wonder of a dazzled world. Next to moral, comes intellectual greatness, or genius in 25 the highest sense of that word; and by this, we mean that sublime capacity of thought, through which the soul, smitten with the love of the true and the beautiful, essays to comprehend the universe, soars into the heavens, penetrates the earth, penetrates itself, questions the past, anti30 cipates the future, traces out the general and all-comprehending laws of nature, binds together by innumerable affinities and relations all the objects of its knowledge, and, not satisfied with what is finite, frames to itself ideal excellence, loveliness, and grandeur. This is the great35 ness which belongs to philosophers, inspired poets, and to the master spirits of the fine arts. Next comes the greatness of action; and by this we mean the sublime power of conceiving and executing bold and extensive plans; constructing and bringing to bear on 40 a mighty object a complicated machinery of means, energies, and arrangements, and accomplishing great outward effects. To this head belongs the greatness of Bonaparte, and that he possessed it, we need not prove, and none will be hardy enough to deny. A man who raised himself from obscurity to a throne, who changed the face of the world, who made himself felt through powerful and civilized nations, who sent the terror of his name across seas and oceans, whose will was pronounced and feared as des5 tiny, whose donatives were crowns, whose ante-chamber was thronged by submissive princes, who broke down the awful barrier of the Alps, and made them a highway, and whose fame was spread beyond the boundaries of civilization to the steppes of the Cossack, and the deserts of the 10 Arab; a man, who has left this record of himself in history, has taken out of our hands the question whether he shall be called great. All must concede to him a sublimo power of action, an energy equal to great effects. LESSON CLXXXII.-THE THUNDER STORM. -WASHINGTON [Scenery in the Highlands, on the River Hudson.] In the second day of the voyage, they came to the Highlands. It was the latter part of a calm, sultry day, that they floated gently with the tide between these stern moun5 tains. There was that perfect quiet, which prevails over nature, in the languor of summer heat; the turning of a plank, or the accidental falling of an oar, on deck, was echoed from the mountain side, and reverberated along the shores; and, if by chance, the captain gave a shout of 10 command, there were airy tongues that mocked it, from every cliff. Dolph gazed about him, in mute delight and wonder, at these scenes of nature's magnificence. To the left, the Dunderberg reared its woody precipices, height over 15 height, forest over forest, away into the deep summer sky. To the right, strutted forth the bold promontory of Antony's Nose, with a solitary eagle wheeling about it; while beyond, mountain succeeded to mountain, until they seemed to lock their arms together, and confine this 20 mighty river in their embraces. There was a feeling of quiet luxury in gazing at the broad, green bosoms, here and there, scooped out among the precipices; or at woodlands high in air, nodding over the edge of some beetling bluff, and their foliage all transparent in the yellow sun25 shine. In the midst of his admiration, Dolph remarked a pile of bright snowy clouds, peering above the western heights It was succeeded by another, and another, each seemingly pushing onwards its predecessor, and towering, with dazzling brilliancy, in the deep blue atmosphere: and now muttering peals of thunder were faintly heard, rolling be5 hind the mountains. The river, hitherto still and glassy, reflecting pictures of the sky and land, now showed a dark ripple at a distance, as the breeze came creeping up it. The fish-hawks wheeled and screamed, and sought their nests on the high dry trees; the crows flew clamorously 10 to the crevices of the rocks; and all nature seemed conscious of the approaching thunder-gust. The clouds now rolled, in volumes, over the mountain tops; their summits still bright and snowy, but the lower parts of an inky blackness. The rain began to patter down 15 in broad and scattered drops; the wind freshened, and curled up the waves; at length, it seemed as if the bellying clouds were torn open by the mountain tops, and complete torrents of rain came rattling down. The lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and streamed quivering against 20 the rocks, splitting and rending the stoutest forest trees. The thunder burst in tremendous explosions; the peals were echoed from mountain to mountain; they crashed upon Dunderberg, and then rolled up the long defile of the Highlands, each headland making a new echo, until old 25 Bull Hill seemed to bellow back the storm. For a time, the scudding rack and mist, and the sheeted rain, almost hid the landscape from the sight. There was a fearful gloom, illumined still more fearfully by the streams of lightning, which glittered among the rain-drops. 30 Never had Dolph beheld such an absolute warring of the elements; it seemed, as if the storm was tearing and rending its way through this mountain defile, and had brought all the artillery of heaven into action. LESSON CLXXXIII.-CLASSICAL LEARNING.-JOSEPH STORY. The importance of classical learning to professional education, is so obvious, that the surprise is, that it could ever have become matter of disputation. I speak not of its power in refining the taste, in disciplining the judg 5 ment, in invigorating the understanding, or in warming the heart with elevated sentiments; but of its power of direct, positive, necessary instruction. Until the eigh teenth century, the mass of science, in its principal |