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of business and toil. The educated radicalism of England found an organ in these journals, whose tone harmonized with their sympathies. High as is Mr. Howitt's literary reputation, it is as a political and social reformer that his name will be the most widely known. His 'History of Priestcraft,' published in 1834, while he lived at Nottingham, and of which more than 20,000 copies have been sold, gave him éclat in a new field, brought him some money, which he needed, and an election of alderman of that town, which he did not want at all. Four years afterwards he published 'Colonization and Christianity,' which led to the formation of the British Indian Society, to the abolition of slavery in the peninsula of Hindostan, and to efforts to relieve from oppression, and stimulate to enterprise, the myriads that swarm in that long-neglected portion of the empire. Mr. Howitt's writings in behalf of complete suffrage, religious toleration, and Irish relief are as honorable to the benevolence of his heart as are his numerous literary works to the fertility of his genius."

WILLIAM COWPER.

There is scarcely any ground in England so well known in imagination as the haunts of Cowper at Olney and Weston; there is little that is so interesting to the lover of moral and religious poetry. There the beautiful but unhappy poet seemed to have created a new world out of unknown ground, in which himself and his friends, the Unwins, Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh, the Throckmortons, and the rest, played a part of the simplest and most natural character, and which fascinated the whole public mind. The life, the spirit, and the poetry of Cowper, present, when taken together, a most singular combination. He was timid in his habit, yet bold in his writing; melancholy in the tone of his mind, but full of fun and playfulness in his correspondence; wretched to an extraordinary degree, he yet made the whole nation merry with his John Gilpin and other humorous writings; despairing even of God's mercy and of salvation, his religious poetry is of the most cheerful and even triumphantly glad kind:

"His soul exults, hope animates his lays, The sense of mercy kindles into praise." Shrinking from the world, he yet dared to lash this world, from which he shrunk, with the force of a giant, and the justice of more than an Aristides. Of the Church, he yet satirized severely its errors and the follies of its ministers; in political opinion he was free and indignant against oppression. The negro warmed his blood into a sympathy that produced the most effective strains

on his behalf-the worm beneath his feet shared in his tender-
ness. Thus he walked through life, shunning its tumults and
its highways, one of its mightiest laborers. In his poetry there
was found no fear, no complaining; often thoroughly insane,
nothing can surpass the sound mind of his compositions; haunted
by delusions even to the attempt at suicide, there is no delusion
in his page. All there is bright, clear, and consistent. Like
his Divine Master, he may truly be said to have been bruised for
our sakes. As a man, nervous terrors could vanquish him and
unfit him for active life; but, as a poet, he rose above all nerves,
all terrors, into the noblest heroism, and fitted, and will continue
to fit, others for life so long as just and vigorous thought, the
most beautiful piety, and the truest human sympathies command
the homage of mankind. There is no writer who surpasses Cow-
per as a moral and religious poet. Full of power and feeling, he
often equals in solemn dignity Milton himself. He is as impres-
sive as Young, without his epigrammatic smartness; he is as
fervently Christian as Montgomery; and in intense love of nature
there is not one of our august band of illustrious writers who
surpasses him.
He shows the secret of his deep and untiring
attachment to nature in the love of Him who made it.

"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,
And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain
That hellish foes, confederate for his harm,
Can wind around him, but he casts it off
With as much ease as Samson his green withes.
He looks abroad into the varied field

Of Nature, and, though poor, perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And smiling say, 'My Father made them all!'
Are they not his by a peculiar right,

And by an emphasis of interest his,

Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,

Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love
That planned, and built, and still upholds a world
So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?

Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap

The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good

In senseless riot; but ye will not find

In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance,

A liberty like his, who, unimpeached

Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong,
Appropriates nature as his Father's work,
And has a richer use of yours than ye.
He is indeed a freeman; free by birth
Of no mean city, planned or ere the hills
Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea
With all his roaring multitude of waves."

The Task, Book V.

The writings of Cowper testify everywhere to that grand sermon which is eternally preached in the open air; to that Gospel of the field and the forest, which, like the Gospel of Christ, is the voice of that love which overflows the universe; which puts down all sectarian bitterness in him who listens to it; which, being perfect, "casts out all fear," against which the gloom of bigots and the terrors of fanatics cannot stand. It was this which healed his wounded spirit beneath the boughs of Yardley Chase, and came fanning his temples with a soothing freshness in the dells of Weston. When we follow his footsteps there, we somewhat wonder that scenes so unambitious could so enrapture him; but the glory came from within, and out of the materials of an ordinary walk he could raise a brilliant superstructure for eternity.

Homes and Haunts of British Poets.

THE TRUE DIGNITY OF LABOR.

From the foundation of the world there has been a tendency to look down upon labor, and upon those who live by it, with contempt, as though it were something mean and ignoble. This is one of those vulgar prejudices which have arisen from considering everything vulgar that was peculiar to the multitude. Because the multitude have been suffered to remain too long rude and ignorant, everything associated with their condition has been confounded with the circumstances of this condition. The multitude were, in their rudeness and ignorance, mean in the public estimation, and the labor of their hands was held to be mean too. Nay, it has been said that labor is the result of God's primary curse, pronounced on man for his disobedience. But that is a great mistake. God told Adam that the ground was cursed for his sake, but not that his labor was cursed. He told him that in the sweat of his face he should eat his bread till he returned to the ground. But so far from labor partaking of the curse, it was given him as the means of triumphing over the curse. The ground was to produce thorns and thistles, but labor was to extirpate these thorns and thistles, and to cover the face

of the earth with fruit-trees and bounteous harvests. And labor has done this labor has already converted the earth, so far as its surface is concerned, from a wilderness into a paradise. Man eats his bread in the sweat of his face, but is there any bread so sweet as that, when he has only nature to contend with, and not the false arrangements of his fellow-men? So far is labor from being a curse, so far is it from being a disgrace; it is the very principle which, like the winds of the air, or the agitation of the sea, keeps the world in health. It is the very life-blood of society, stirring in all its veins, and diffusing vigor and enjoyment through the whole system. Without man's labor, God had created the world in vain! Without our labor, all life, except that of the rudest and most savage kind, must perish. Arts, civilization, refinement, and religion must perish. Labor is the grand pedestal of God's blessings upon earth; it is more like man and the world itself—it is the offspring and the work of God.

So then, labor, instead of being the slave and the drudge, is really the prince and the demigod. It is no mean species of action, but it is, in truth, a divine principle of the universe, issuing from the bosom of the Creator, and for the achievement of his most glorious purpose, the happiness of all his creatures. Who was and is the first great laborer? It is God himself! In the far depths of the unexplored eternity of the past God began his labors. He formed world after world, and poised them in infinite space, in the beautiful language of Shelley, like

"Islands in the ocean of the world."

From that time to the present there is every rational cause to believe that he has gone on laboring. He is the great laborer of eternity; and it is the highest of possible honors to be admitted to labor with him. There is no patent of nobility which can confer a glory like this. When he had finished his labor on our planet, his last and noblest work being man, he conferred on him a partnership in his labors. He handed down to him the great chain of labor, and bade him encircle the world with it. He elected us as his successors here; and, from that time to this, the great family of man has gone on laboring with head and hand in a myriad of ways, carrying out, by the unceasing operations of intellect and mechanic skill, by invention and construction, the designs of the Almighty for the good of his creatures. Can there positively be a sight more delightful to the great unseen but watchful Father of the Universe than that of all his countless

rational creatures busy at the beneficent scheme of boundless labors, out of which springs the gladness of all life?

After the lapse of thousands of years, and when the cunning and the proud had cast a base stigma on that which God had created good and the medium of good, Christ came, and what were his remarkable words? "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Thus again, the revelation of the Gospel was also a grand revelation of the dignity of labor. It was acknowledged to be a principle exercised by the Divinity itself. Every one who labored was made to appear, not the slave of man, but the fellowlaborer of God. Where, then, is the meanness of labor? If God himself does not disdain to use it, shall we? If God seems even to glory in his labors, shall we be ashamed of ours? No! Labor is, as we have asserted, a divine principle of the universe; it is the most honorable thing on the earth, and next to God himself, it is the most ancient in heaven.

All honor then to labor, the offspring of Deity; the most ancient of ancients, sent forth by the Almighty into these nether worlds; the most noble of nobles! Honor to that divine principle which has filled the earth with all the comforts, and joys, and affluence that it possesses, and is undoubtedly the instrument of happiness wherever life is found. Without labor, what is there? Without it, there were no world itself. Whatever we see or perceive-in heaven or on the earth-is the product of labor. The sky above us, the ground beneath us, the air we breathe, the sun, the moon, the stars-what are they? The product of labor. They are the labors of the Omnipotent, and all our labors are but a continuance of His. Our work is a

divine work. We carry on what God began. We build up, each in his own vocation, the grand fabric of human honor and human happiness, exercising all our faculties and powers, physical and intellectual, and the result is—What?—

The scene of all our glories, the sum of all our achievements as a race, everything which history can tell, which art has accomplished, which science has exhumed from the depths of oblivious darkness, which embellishes our abodes, and animates us to still greater victories in the cause of man and mind.

What a glorious spectacle is that of the labor of man upon the earth! It includes everything in it that is glorious. Look round, my friends, and tell me what you see that is worth seeing that is not the work of your hands, and of the hands of your fellows the multitude of all ages ?

What is it that felled the ancient forests and cleared vast morasses of other ages? That makes green fields smile in the

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