Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1874-03-06

weak and vain, as an ocean rock to tn
empty froth and form that are cast upol
it by the transient storm. Certainly h
shows in none of his works any sense o
social degradation he seems ever on goot
and friendly terms with himself n tn
rest of the world. Whilst he would "no
fatter Neptune for his trident, nor Jov
for his power to thunder, " he never vouch
safed a thunderbolt Of anger at the stole
dullness which exalts rank above genius
nor so much as the summer lightning o
his playful humor, at the titled snobber.
that considered it condescenslon to speak
to William Shakespeare in the street.
OF
ROBERT BURNS,
who lived nearer our own time, we know
more than of Shakespeare ; of him, as he has
been described, "a low brow, palpitatina
with thought and suffering, eyes shivering
in their round CRIBS, with emotion, like the
star Venus in the orange West, nostrils
slightly curved upward, dusky skin, black
masses Of hair, and dimpled, undecisive
chin, and cheek" Imagination, vivid as
lightning, a strong understanding, his
book the ballad poetry of Scotland, an AZ
dent temperament, poetry that sintensiies
common sense and &goes directly to the
heart he has been called a "bucolic mon
ster,'' san inspired clodpole, yet clodpole
still, y and yet, exclaim ms one "What did
the British governm ent do for this chief
glory of her literature? Turned thesweet
est music Scotland ever saw into the cur
rent Of the whiskey cask, and let Robert
| cheeseman's bunghole.' Yet, i'll this bat
tie of life, the frowns Of the great could
not have degraded this noble soul, if it had
to itself been true. The external conflict
with adverse fortune is but the roar Of a
thunder storm over two armies engaged in
deadly strife, compared with that inward
struggle which every man must fight, in
which the Good aud Evil Principles of the
Universe contend for mastery in which
Passion wars with Reason, Vice with Vir-
tue, Hope with Despair, in which the
heart is the battle field in which Victory
is Heaven, Defeat is He'll in which now
dark troops of Demons cast black shadows
athwart the field, and now clarion trum-
pets, sound from on high, and angels with
bright pinions, and harp in hand lean over
the battlements of Heaven, eager to sound
a trumpet note and make the towers of
the new Jerusalem culver with amelodious
| chant of victory. None more keenly feel
these internal struggles than the sensitive
and Imaginative children of genius, none
more than Burns, vino could write the
Cotter's Saturday Nigh yet whose whole
life was a struggle against the passions of
his peculiar temperament, against which
he tugged, and pull the oars and struggled,
like some strong rover against an insidi-
Gus current, that bears him to a cataract,
until at last the force of the current pre-
vailed, and he struggled no longer, but
calmly awaited his fate, looked with utter
able woe upon the green fields and flowers
tntU 1ro swept ny, upuI tho heHnostnad of
his infancy, yet all the while singing strains
of strange, exhilarant melody, strains that
the lark might sing at the gate of Heaven
and which mingled their birdlike sweet
ness with the roar of the waterfall that
made him it's everlasting prey.
If we look again upon this great battle
field of Life, another figure rises up before
us, burly, broad-shouldered, passionate,
vicious, ali, here is a man who has seen
wars and fightings, wars with conscience.
wars with poverty, wars with society. 1t il
JOHN BUNYAN,
born in the dregs of English social life,
"a bright star Of genius rising, radiant
and full orbed out of the mud and slime OF
chaos" An author unconscious OF his
own power, causing beautiful creations to
rise around him, that shall last till the ply.
steal glories Of the universe expire. "A
wonderful book for a tinker, T" said some OF
the critics of the Pilgrims Progress; yes.
a wonderful book, a book which children
love to read, and the opening passage OF
which DR.. johnson has compared to the
first line of Dante, and whose author
Campbell has likened to Spencer, and whom
Coleridge, Macauly and Southey have
placed upon an intellectual throne to which
all the world does reverence. Yet, this
man of genius, ssin common with poets
painters, sculptors, musicians, inventors
philosophers, astronomers, and all scientl
fc and esthetic men, was socially despls
ed" 1t is not probable that he took more
note of that than Shakespeare. The glori
GUS dreamer, within his prison walls, was
uicifa1 bu fo1p,c lilo fhnCa which Poma ff
Paul and Silas, in their chains, and his alb
stracted mind wandered away from the
perishing aristocracies of the earth, to thu
beautiful and eternal hierarchies of thu
skies. How he has described those hier
arches, what fightings on this battle field
what contests with Devils, and witt
Giants, with alternate hopes and fears, sue
cesses and reverses, till we feel, as We fee
IN reading the pilgrimage of Israel through
the desert that here is a.picture OF the ex
perience of every human heart, and of none
more than Of his who dreamed that tru'
dream, and who was himself a hero, no
alone DER the ills of life, but over the evi
propensities of powerful nature, and who
throwing down his intellectual crown a
the foot OF Calvary, as if, with all itssllin
, ing jewels, it were a child's plaything
, found his greatest joy and ambition, il
crossing that mysterious river, a man re
deemed, a sinner saved, aud received b.
shining angels upon the hill side of I'm
mortality.
: STRANGE Characterization. IS. G.
eNews," Feb. II: ''There is a lady il
7 Columbia who went there formedical treat
, ment. and who. it is stated, had not, up tt
Wednesday last, eaten any kind of foo
! since last August. Several physicians arr