"What would'st thou with me, gentle one!" "Say, then, who art thou?" At her side "My name is MARGARET." She replied, "Lady dear! As Portress at the convent gate." "I too," the nun replied, "as one And am to all the convent known, Reflected in that glorious nun, The dress the same that she has worn; Struck down with speechless ecstasy, "I heard and granted thy request, I left the mansion of the blest Thy features, person, office, dress; And did the duty of thy place, And daily made report of all In order to the principal. "Behold! where still at every shrine The votive taper stands; The dress that once thou wor'st is thine, The keys are in thy hands: Thy fame is clear, thy trial o'er : In hours of danger thought on thee!" A lightning flash!-a thunder peal!- An ample passage spreads; And lo! descending angels come To guard their queen in triumph home, The while the echoing minster rings The Virgin-Mother passed; A radiant smile she cast; And MARGARET saw, with streaming eyes And watched it till, from earthly view, THE YOUNG AMERICAN SCION of a mighty stock! Hands of iron,-hearts of oak,Follow with unflinching tread Where the noble fathers led. Craft and subtle treachery, Gallant youth! are not for thee: Follow thou in word and deeds Where the God within thee leads. Honesty with steady eye, Prudent in the council train, Where the dews of night distil Upon Vernon's holy hill; Where above it, gleaming far, Freedom lights her guiding star, Thither turn the steady eye, Let thy noble motto be Laugh at danger far or near; Spurn at baseness,-spurn at fear; Still with persevering might, Speak the truth, and do the right. So shall peace, a charming guest Happy if celestial favor SAMUEL GILMAN. [Born, about 1791.] SAMUEL GILMAN, D.D. was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where his father had been successfully engaged in commerce, until the capture of several vessels in which he was interested, by the French, in 1798, reduced him to bankruptcy, with loss of health perhaps, for he died soon after, leaving a widow with four small children. Among these SAMUEL was the only son, and his mother, determining to educate him in the best nanner possible, placed him in the family of the Reverend STEPHEN PEABODY, of Atkinson, New Hampshire, a remarkable character, of whom Dr. GILMAN has given an interesting account in an article in "The Christian Examiner" for 1847, entitled "Reminiscences of a New England Clergyman at the Close of the Last Century." Having been prepared for college by Mr. PEABODY, he entered Harvard in 1807, in the same class with N. L. FROTHINGHAM and EDWARD EVERETT. He was graduated in 1811, and was afterwards, from 1817 to 1819, connected with the college as a tutor; but in the latter year he was married to Miss CAROLINE HowARD, who, as Mrs. GILMAN, has been so creditably distinguished in literature, and removed to Charleston, South Carolina, where he has ever since resided, as pastor of the Unitarian church of that city. Of Dr. GILMAN's earlier writings none received more attention than a series of able papers contributed to the "North American Review," while he was a tutor at Cambridge, on the philosophical "Lectures" of Dr. THOMAS BROWN. About the same time he translated in a very elegant manner several of the satires of BOILEAU, which he also printed in the "North American Review." After his removal to Charleston he completed his version of BOILEAU, and sent the MS. to Mr. MURRAY, of London, for publication, but by some mischance it was lost, and no efforts have since availed for its recovery. In 1829 he gave to the public his "Memoirs of a New England Village Choir," a little book remarkable for quiet and natural humor, presenting a picture, equally truthful and amusing, of village life in New England in the first quarter of this century. He has more recently published elaborate and thoughtful papers in the reviews, on "The Influence of One National Literature upon Another," "The Writings of EDWARD EVERETT," and other subjects, besides literary and theological discourses, biographies, essays, and translations, all executed with taste and scholarly finish. THE SILENT GIRL. SHE seldom spake; yet she imparted Her air, her look, her rest, her actions, Were voice enough for her: Why need a tongue, when those attractions Our inmost hearts could stir? She seldom talked, but, uninvited, And oft her hands our ears delighted, And oft when converse round would lan guish, Ask'd r unasked, she read Some tale of gladness or of anguish, And so our evenings sped. She seldom spake; but she would listen With all the signs of soul; Her cheek would change, her eye would glisten Who did not understand and love her, Little she spake; but dear attentions She checked our wants by kind preventions, And, twining, she would give her mother The same to father, sister, brother, All round-nor would one miss. She seldom spake-she speaks no longer; 'Tis well for us that ties no stronger Awaken memory's woes For oh! our hearts would sure be broken, Already drained of tears, If frequent tones, by her outspoken. Still lingered in our ears. CHARLES SPRAGUE. [Born, 1791.] CHARLES SPRAGUE was born in Boston, on the twenty-sixth day of October, in 1791. His father, who still survives, was one of that celebrated band who, in 1773, resisted taxation by pouring the tea on board several British ships into the sea. of the most vigorous and beautiful lyrics in the English language. The first poet of the world, the greatness of his genius, the vast variety of his scenes and characters, formed a subject well fitted for the flowing and stately measure chosen by our author, and the universal acquaintance with the writings of the immortal dramatist enables every one to judge of the merits of his composition. Though to some extent but a reproduction of the creations of SHAKSPEARE, it is such a reproduction as none but a man of genius could effect. Mr. SPRAGUE was educated in the schools of his native city, which he left at an early period to acquire in a mercantile house a practical knowledge of trade. When he was about twenty-one years of age, he commenced the business of a merchant on his own account, and continued in it, I. believe, until he was elected cashier of the Globe Bank, one of the first establishments of its kind in Massachusetts. This office he now holds, and he has from the time he accepted it discharged its duties in a faultless manner, notwithstanding the venerable opinion that a poet must be incapable of successfully transacting practical affairs. In this period he has found leisure to study the works of the greatest authors, and particularly those of the masters of English poetry, with which, proba-ings. "Curiosity" was published in Calcutta a few bly, very few contemporary writers are more familiar; and to write the admirable poems on w...h is based his own reputation. The first productions of Mr. SPRAGUE which attracted much attention, were a series of brilliant prologues, the first of which was written for the Park Theatre, in New York, in 1821. Prize theatrical addresses are proverbially among the most worthless compositions in the poetic form. Their brevity and peculiar character prevents the development in them of original conceptions and striking ideas, and they are usually made up of commonplace thoughts and images, compounded with little skill. Those by Mr. SPRAGUE are certainly among the best of their kind, and some passages in them are conceived in the true spirit of poetry. The following lines are from the one recited at the opening of a theatre in Philadelphia, in 1822. "To grace the stage, the bard's careering mind Hate shuts his soul when dove-eyed Mercy pleads; The ode recited in the Boston theatre, at a pageant in honour of SHAKSPEARE, in 1823, is one The longest of Mr. SPRAGUE's poems is entitled Curiosity." It was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, in August, 1829. It is in the heroic measure, and its diction is faultless. The subject was happily chosen, and admitted of a great variety of illustrations. The descriptions of the miser, the novel-reader, and the father led by curiosity to visit foreign lands, are among the finest passages in Mr. SPRAGUE'S writ years ago, as an original work by a British officer, with no other alterations than the omission of a few American names, and the insertion of others in their places, as SCOTT for COOPER, and CHALMERS for CHANNING; and in this form it was reprinted in London, where it was much praised in some of the critical gazettes. The poem delivered at the centennial celebration of the settlement of Boston, contains many spirited passages, but it is not equal to "Curiosity" or "The Shakspeare Ode." Its versification is easy and various, but it is not so carefully finished as most of Mr. SPRAGUE'S productions. "The Winged Worshippers," "Lines on the Death of M. S. C.," "The Family Meeting," "Art," and several other short poems, evidence great skill in the use of language, and show him to be a master of the poetic art. They are all in good taste; they are free from turgidness; and are pervaded by a spirit of good sense, which is unfortunately wanting in much of the verse written in this age. Mr. SPRAGUE has written, besides his poems, an essay on drunkenness, and an oration, pronounced at Boston on the fiftieth anniversary of the declaration of independence; and I believe he contributed some papers to the "New England Magazine," while it was edited by his friend J T. BUCKINGHAM. The style of his prose is florid and much less carefully finished than that of his poetry. He mixes but little in society, and, I have been told, was never thirty miles from his native city. His leisure hours are passed among his books; with the few "old friends, the tried, the true," who travelled with him up the steeps of manhood; or in the quiet of his own fireside. His poems show the strength of his domestic and social affections. CURIOSITY.* Ir came from Heaven-its power archangels knew, When this fair globe first rounded to their view; It regn'd in Eden-when that man first woke, It reign'd in Eden-in that heavy hour And roused the ruling passion of her soul. Ye shall become like Gon,"-transcendent fate! That Gon's command forgot, she pluck'd and ate; Ate, and her partner lured to share the crime, Whose wo, the legend saith, must live through time. For this they shrank before the Avenger's face, For this He drove them from the sacred place; For this came down the universal lot, To weep, to wander, die, and be forgot. It came from Heaven-i reigned in Eden's shades It roves on earth, and every walk ir.vades: It haunts the beggar's nook, the monarch's throne; To all that's lofty, all that's low it turns, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, in 1829 Next it assails him in his top's strange hum, Breathes in his whistle, echoes in his drum; Nor yet alone to trys and tales confined, Who formed a pathway for the obedient sun, In all finds Gon, and finds that Gon all love. Turn to the world-its curious dwellers view, Like PAUL'S Athenians, seeking something new. Be it a bonfire's or a city's blaze, The gibbet's victim, or the nation's gaze, Yet kindred minds alone their flights shall trace, As the sad rumour runs-« The man's reprieved!" Does LANGDON preach ?—(I veil his quiet name Who serves his Gon, and cannot stoop to fame;)No, 'tis some reverend mime, the latest rage, Who thumps the desk, that should have trod the stage Cant's veriest ranter crams a house, if new, When PAUL himself, oft heard, would hardly fill a pew. Lo, where the stage, the poor, degraded stage, Then ten of CHANNING'S lectures can reclaim; Gods! who can grace yon desecrated dome, R Not theirs the blame who furnish forth the treat, But ours, who throng the board and grossly eat; We laud, indeed, the virtue-kindling stage, And prate of SHAKSPEARE and his deathless page; But go, announce his best, on COOPER call, COOPER, "the noblest Roman of them all;" Where are the crowds, so wont to choke the door? "T is an old thing, they 've seen it all before. Pray Heaven, if yet indeed the stage must stand, With guiltless mirth it may delight the land; Far better else each scenic temple fall, And one approving silence curtain all. Despots to shame may yield their rising youth, But Freedom dwells with purity and truth; Then make the effort, ye who rule the stageWith novel decency surprise. the age; Even Wit, so long forgot, may play its part, And Nature yet have power to melt the heart; Perchance the listeners, to their instinct true, May fancy common sense 't were surely some thing new. Turn to the Press-its teeming sheets survey, Big with the wonders of each passing day; Births, deaths, and weddings. forgeries, fires, and wrecks, Harangues, and hail-storms, brawls, and broker: necks; Where half-fledged bards, on feeble pinions, seek Where cruel eulogists the dead restore, And, though ere Christmas both may be forgot, Yet, sweet or bitter, hence what fountains burst. 'Tis this sustains that coarse, licentious tribe Of tenth-rate type-men, gaping for a bribe; That reptile race, with all that's good at strife, Who trail their slime through every walk of life; Stain the white tablet where a great man's name Stands proudly chisell'd by the hand of Fame; Nor round the sacred fireside fear to crawl, But drop their venom there, and poison all. "T is Curiosity-though, in its round, No one poor dupe the calumny has found, Still shall it live, and still new slanders breed; What though we ne'er believe, we buy and read; Like Scotland's war-cries, thrown from hand to hand, To rouse the angry passions of the land. |