McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader Part 51

Zampieri, Domenichino (b. 1581, d. 1641), was one of the most celebrated of the Italian painters.

XCVI. INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. (344)

John Caldwell Calhoun, 1782-1850. This great statesman, and champion of southern rights and opinions, was born in Abbeville District, South Carolina. In the line of both parents, he was of Irish Presbyterian descent. In youth he was very studious, and made the best use of such opportunities for education as the frontier settlement afforded. He graduated at Yale College in 1804, and studied law at Litchfield, Connecticut. In 1808 he was elected to the Legislature of South Carolina; and, three years later, he was chosen to the National House of Representatives. During the six years that he remained in the House, he took an active and prominent part in the stirring events of the time. In 1817 he was appointed Secretary of War, and held the office seven years.

From 1825 to 1832 he was Vice President of the United States. He then resigned this office, and took his seat as senator from South Carolina. In 1844 President Tyler called him to his Cabinet as Secretary of State; and, in 1845, he returned to the Senate, where he remained till his death.

During all his public life Mr. Calhoun was active and outspoken. His earnestness and logical force commanded the respect of those who differed most widely from him in opinion. He took the most advanced ground in favor of "State Rights," and defended slavery as neither morally nor politically wrong. His foes generally conceded his honesty, and respected his ability; while his friends regarded him as little less than an oracle.

In private life Mr. Calhoun was highly esteemed and respected. His home was at "Fort Hill," in the northwestern district of South Carolina; and here he spent all the time he could spare from his public duties, in the enjoyments of domestic life and in cultivating his plantation. In his home he was remarkable for kindness, cheerfulness, and sociability.

To comprehend more fully the force and bearing of public opinion, and to form a just estimate of the changes to which, aided by the press, it will probably lead, politically and socially, it will be necessary to consider it in connection with the causes that have given it an influence so great as to ent.i.tle it to be regarded as a new political element. They will, upon investigation, be found in the many discoveries and inventions made in the last few centuries.

All these have led to important results. Through the invention of the mariner's compa.s.s, the globe has been circ.u.mnavigated and explored; and all who inhabit it, with but few exceptions, are brought within the sphere of an all-pervading commerce, which is daily diffusing over its surface the light and blessings of civilization.

Through that of the art of printing, the fruits of observation and reflection, of discoveries and inventions, with all the acc.u.mulated stores of previously acquired knowledge, are preserved and widely diffused. The application of gunpowder to the art of war has forever settled the long conflict for ascendency between civilization and barbarism, in favor of the former, and thereby guaranteed that, whatever knowledge is now acc.u.mulated, or may hereafter be added, shall never again be lost.

The numerous discoveries and inventions, chemical and mechanical, and the application of steam to machinery, have increased many fold the productive powers of labor and capital, and have thereby greatly increased the number who may devote themselves to study and improvement, and the amount of means necessary for commercial exchanges, especially between the more and the less advanced and civilized portions of the globe, to the great advantage of both, but particularly of the latter.

The application of steam to the purposes of travel and transportation, by land and water, has vastly increased the facility, cheapness, and rapidity of both: diffusing, with them, information and intelligence almost as quickly and as freely as if borne by the winds; while the electrical wires outstrip them in velocity, rivaling in rapidity even thought itself.

The joint effect of all this has been a great increase and diffusion of knowledge; and, with this, an impulse to progress and civilization heretofore unexampled in the history of the world, accompanied by a mental energy and activity unprecedented.

To all these causes, public opinion, and its organ, the press, owe their origin and great influence. Already they have attained a force in the more civilized portions of the globe sufficient to be felt by all governments, even the most absolute and despotic. But, as great as they now are, they have, as yet, attained nothing like their maximum force. It is probable that not one of the causes which have contributed to their formation and influence, has yet produced its full effect; while several of the most powerful have just begun to operate; and many others, probably of equal or even greater force, yet remain to be brought to light.

When the causes now in operation have produced their full effect, and inventions and discoveries shall have been exhausted--if that may ever be--they will give a force to public opinion, and cause changes, political and social, difficult to be antic.i.p.ated. What will be their final bearing, time only can decide with any certainty.

That they will, however, greatly improve the condition of man ultimately, it would be impious to doubt; it would be to suppose that the all-wise and beneficent Being, the Creator of all, had so const.i.tuted man as that the employment of the high intellectual faculties with which He has been pleased to endow him, in order that he might develop the laws that control the great agents of the material world, and make them subservient to his use, would prove to him the cause of permanent evil, and not of permanent good.

NOTE.--This selection is an extract from "A Disquisition on Government."

Mr. Calhoun expected to revise his ma.n.u.script before it was printed, but death interrupted his plans.

XCVII. ENOCH ARDEN AT THE WINDOW. (347)

Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892, was born in Somerby, Lincolnshire, England; his father was a clergyman noted for his energy and physical stature.

Alfred, with his two older brothers, graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first volume of poems appeared in 1830; it made little impression, and was severely treated by the critics. On the publication of his third series, in 1842, his poetic genius began to receive general recognition. On the death of Wordsworth he was made poet laureate, and he was then regarded as the foremost living poet of England. "In Memoriam,"

written in memory of his friend Arthur Hallam, appeared in 1850; the "Idyls of the King," in 1858; and "Enoch Arden," a touching story in verse, from which the following selection is taken, was published in 1864.

In 1883 he accepted a peerage as Baron Tennyson of Aldworth, Suss.e.x, and of Freshwater, Isle of Wight.

But Enoch yearned to see her face again; "If I might look on her sweet face again And know that she is happy." So the thought Haunted and hara.s.sed him, and drove him forth, At evening when the dull November day Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.

There he sat down gazing on all below; There did a thousand memories roll upon him, Unspeakable for sadness. By and by The ruddy square of comfortable light, Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house, Allured him, as the beacon blaze allures The bird of pa.s.sage, till he mildly strikes Against it, and beats out his weary life.

For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, The latest house to landward; but behind, With one small gate that opened on the waste, Flourished a little garden, square and walled: And in it throve an ancient evergreen, A yew tree, and all round it ran a walk Of shingle, and a walk divided it: But Enoch shunned the middle walk, and stole Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence That which he better might have shunned, if griefs Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.

For cups and silver on the burnished board Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth: And on the right hand of the hearth he saw Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees; And o'er her second father stooped a girl, A later but a loftier Annie Lee, Fair-haired and tall, and from her lifted hand Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring To tempt the babe, who reared his creasy arms, Caught at and ever missed it, and they laughed: And on the left hand of the hearth he saw The mother glancing often toward her babe, But turning now and then to speak with him, Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong, And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled.

Now when the dead man come to life beheld His wife, his wife no more, and saw the babe, Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness.

And his own children tall and beautiful, And him, that other, reigning in his place, Lord of his rights and of his children's love, Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, Because things seen are mightier than things heard, Staggered and shook, holding the branch, and feared To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry, Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

He, therefore, turning softly like a thief, Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot, And feeling all along the garden wall, Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, Crept to the gate, and opened it, and closed, As lightly as a sick man's chamber door, Behind him, and came out upon the waste.

And there he would have knelt but that his knees Were feeble, so that falling p.r.o.ne he dug His fingers into the wet earth, and prayed.

"Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence?

O G.o.d Almighty, blessed Savior, Thou That did'st uphold me on my lonely isle, Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness A little longer! aid me, give me strength Not to tell her, never to let her know.

Help me not to break in upon her peace.

My children too! must I not speak to these?

They know me not. I should betray myself.

Never!--no father's kiss for me!--the girl So like her mother, and the boy, my son!"

There speech and thought and nature failed a little, And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced Back toward his solitary home again, All down the long and narrow street he went Beating it in upon his weary brain, As tho' it were the burden of a song, "Not to tell her, never to let her know."

NOTE.--Enoch Arden had been wrecked on an uninhabited island, and was supposed to be dead. After many years he was rescued, and returned home, where he found his wife happily married a second time. For her happiness, he kept his existence a secret, but soon died of a broken heart.

XCVIII. LOCHINVAR. (350)

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; And save his good broadsword, he weapon had none, He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone!

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar!

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Eske River where ford there was none; But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late: For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar!

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall, Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all: Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword-- For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word-- "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;-- Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide-- And now am I come, with this lost love of mine, To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.

There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up, He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup.

She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.

He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; And the bridemaidens whispered, "'Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near, So light to the croup the fair lady he swung, So light to the saddle before her he sprung!

"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur: They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran; There was racing and chasing on Cann.o.bie Lee, But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war, Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

-- Walter Scott.

NOTES.--The above selection is a song taken from Scott's poem of "Marmion." It is in a slight degree founded on a ballad called "Katharine Janfarie," to be found in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border."