Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1852-02-28

/ summers day and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith like falling star
On Lemnos the Egean isle
His description of vocal music in the Allegro another
instance of the same kind:
| "And against eating cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
/ Married TO immortal verse;
! Such us the melting soul May pierce
| In notes. with many winding bout
i or linked sweetness long drawn out.
With wanton heed and gddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
| Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
j That Orpheus self may heave his head
| From golden slumber, q bed
OF heapd Elysian flowers and hear
Such strains would have the ear
! OF Pluto, to have quite set free
His hafregained Eurydice"
hardly know any thing which surpasses these exquisite
lines poetica and at the time thoroughly and
absolutely English, and free from all foreign idom
The first three stanzas of Greys Elegy in Country
Church Yard also remarkable for the power and
accuracy with which rural scenery presented by
ing together many objects in one picture
Another poetical instance of the same beauty is the
! " Burial of Sir John Moore"
There remarkable instances of the same skill in
writing in some Of the English prose writer's and espe-
cay in the productions Of Daniel De Foe No boy doubts
that every thing told of Robinson Crusoe is exactly true
because all is Enthusiastically told and doubts
until he is informed of the contrary that the historian
the plague Of London actually all that.he described
although De Foe was not born till afterward.
1t is wel-known saying, that the lie with circum-
stance is exceedingly calculated to deceive and that
rue and i is equally true not only that fictitious history
gains credit and belief by the sku of circumstances
but that true history also may derive much additional
interest from the same source
In general however, historical facts are to be related
with rather close and exclusive regard to SUCH and
such only, are important
The art of historical composition owes its origin to the
institutions of political freedom Under the despotsms
of the Ganges and the Indus, poetry fourished with
Oriental uxurance, from the earliest tines but in the
immense compass of that rich prmeya literature there
is history in the high Of that term The banks
of the Nile crowded with historical monuments and
memorials stretching back into the remotest antiquity
and recent researches have discovered historical records
OF the Pharaohs in the scrolls of papyrus some of them
as ancient the books of Moses.
But in all these there is history composed according
to the principles OF art In Greece the epic song founded
Evolutionary legends long preceded historical composition
remember when thought it the greatest wonder in the
world that the poems of Homer should have been written
at period so remote that the earliest Grecan history
should have given account of their author did not
then know or had not then considered that poecal writ
ng hymns songs accounts of personal adventures like
those OF Hercules and JASON in the nature of things
carrier than regular historical narratives Herodotus in
forms that Homer lived four hundred years before his
time There is, nevertheless something very wonderful
in the poems Of Homer.
In general it is true of the languages of nations that
their earlier ages they contain the substantial bone and
snew characteristic dom yet that they are rough
imperfect, and without polish Thus Chaucer wrote Eng
sh but 1t is what call old English and it has not the
smoohness and uency belonging to the style Of Pope and
Addison And Spenser wrote English, but, though rich
and gorgeous it has not the precision and accuracy Of
those later writer's 1t would that many books must
De written and read and great many tongues and pens
employed before the language of country reaches its
highest polish and perfection Now the wonder is how
language should become perfect the Greek of
Homer at the time when that language could have been
very little written. Doubtless in succeeding ages the
compass Of the Greek tongue enlarged knowledge
became more extended, and things called for
words but within the compass of Grecian knowledge as
existed In the time of Homer it scarcely be ques
toned that the style of Homer quite perfect and po
shed as that OF of his The Of this
apparent anomaly is that language had only been
spoken Tor many centuries, by people of great ingenu
y and extraordinary good TASTE but had been carefully
cultivated by the recitation of poetca compositions
great variety of religious and festive occasions
1t was not until the legislation of Scion had laid the
foundation of free political institutions and these nsttu
tons had unfoded free and powerful and active political
life IN the Athenian Republics until the discussion of
pubic affairs IN the Senate and the popular Assembly,
had created deberatye eloquence and the open admit
nistraton of justice in the courts and under the laws
established by Solon had applied the transactions be-
tween the citizens all the resources of refined logic and
drawn into the sphere Of civil rights and obligations the
power of high forensic oraoryt was until these
s OF the legislative wisdom of Scion had been attained
that the art of history and ourshcd in Greece With
the decline of Grecan liberty began the decline in the art
OF historical composition Histories written under
the Grecian kings of Egypt and long line Of writer's
hourshed under the Byzantine emperors but the high
art OF historical composition, perfected in the
works of Herodotus Thucyddes and Xenophon had per-
ished in the death of political freedom.
The origin progress, and decline of history as an art
were nearly the same in Rome. Salust and Lvy -four
shed at the close of the Republic and the
OF the Empire The great works of Tactus himself are
thought by many beray the beginning of decline in the
art and the later writer's exhibit its fall
The art OF history again revived with the rise of the
Italian Republics and since the revival of literature at
the close of the middle ages will probably found that
three things naturally rise into Importance together that
IS TO say civil liberty eoquence and the Of historical
writing.
Other foundation is not to be laid for authentic history
than well-authentcated facts but on this foundation
structures may be raised of different characteristics
torcal biographical and philosophical One writer may
conhne himself to exact and minute narration another
true to the general story may embesh that story with
more or less of external ornament of eloquence in de-
scrpuon; third, with deeper philosophical spirit may
look INTO the Of events and transactions trace
them with more profound research to their in the
elements OF human nature consider and solve with
more or less success that important question: how
lar the character of individuals has produced public
events or how far the other hand public events have
produced and formed the character Of individuals
therefore one history of the period in human nj
fairs no more renders another history Of the same period
useless or unadysable than the structure OF one temple
forods the erection Of another statue OF Hercules
Apollo Percles should suppress all other attempts to
produce statues Of the same persons.
But, gentlemen, must not dwell longer on these gem
eral topics. We are Americans. We have country all
we are linked to its fates and its fortunes it
is already without it has been the theatre of
of the important Of human transactions and
it may well become to reflect the topics and the
furnished for historical composition in
land have absained this occasion gentlemen from
much comment the histories composed by European