Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1838-09-21
Fragments from Gov. Evereu's Williams College
Address.
SHAKESPEARE.

SHAKESPEARE.
With reverence as deep as honesty or
maniness permits for the master genluses
OF our race,-a reverence noursbed by the
fond and never intermittcd study Of their
works. may say that catch from this
very study of their writings and characters,
a conception, that, high as they rose, they
might have risen higher. ! can sometimes
behold the soil Of the world upon their
snow white robes, and the rust of human
passion upon the glitering edge of their
wit. 1t was long ago said of the Roman
critic, that the good Homer sometimes
mods and Shakespeare, the most brilliant
example unguestionaby Of triumph over
the defects of education. mental and
moral-too often exhibits traces Of both.
As he floats on eagles wings along what
he molly calls the brightest heaven of in.
yontion,' he is sometimes borne, by an un-
chastened taste, into misty region where
the understanding endeavors in vain to fol.
low him, and sometimes. Us he swms with
swallows ease and swiflness along the
ground, too confident Of his power to soar
when he will up to the rosy gates of the
mornng-he stoops, and stoops, aad stoops,
till the tips Of his graceful pinions are sadly
draggled in the mire.
HOMER.
Not ray of pure spiritual illumination
shines through the sweet visions OF the
father of poetry. The light of his genius,
like that of the moon as he describes it in
the eighth Had, is serene, transparent, and
heavenly fair it streams into the deepest
gaGes and settles on The mountain tops of
the material and social world but for all
that concerns the spiritual nature, it is
cold,watery, and unquickening. The great
test Of the elevation Of the poets mind,
and of the refinement Of the age in which
he lives. is the distnctness, with which
he conceives the spiritual world. In
all else he may be the observer, the recor.
der, the painter; but in this dread sphere
he must assume the province, which his
name imports; he must be the maker--c Gre
ating his own spiritua| world BY the highest
action of his mind, upon all the exter-
nal and internal materials Of thought. II
ever there was poetical vision calculated
not to purify, and TO exalt, but abase, it is
the the visit Of Ulysses TO the lower regions
The ghosts the Illustrious departed are
drawn before him by the reeking fumes o
the recent sacrifice; and the hero stand.
guard with his drawn sword, to drive
away the shade of his own mother from the
CORY trench, over which she hovers, hank
ering after the raw blood. Does it require
an essay on the laws Of the human mind tt
ehew, that the intellect which contem
plates the great mystery Of our being, un
der this ghastly and frivolous imagery. ha
never been born to a spiritual life, no
caught glimpse of the highest heaven 0
poetry?
DANTE.
In Dante, for the first time in an unin
spired bard, the dawn of spiritual da
breaks upon US. Although the shadows
superstition rest upon him, yet the strair
of the prophets were in his ears, and tn
light of divine truth-strong though clou(
ed-was in his soul. As we stand wit
him on the threshold Of the world Of so
rows, and read the awful inscription ov
the portal, chill from the valley Of Il
shadow Of death comes over the heart
The compass OF poetry contains no ina!
which surpasses this dismal inscription
solemn grandeur-nor is there any whe
more delicious strain of tender poet
beauty than that of the distant vesper b.
which seems to mourn for the departi
day, as it is heard by the traveller ID
leaving his home. But Dante lived in
age when crhstianity-fI may SO speak
was paganized. Much of his poem, su
stance as we'll as ornament, is heather.
Too much of his inspiration is drawn fro
the stormy passions of life. The warm
with which he glowed is too often /
kindng of scorn and indignation, burnt
under sense of ntolerable wrong. Il
hottest muse may string his Tyre, but it
too often the incensed partlzan Il
sweeps the strings. The divine come
as he calls his wenderfu! work is much
il mere mortal satire.