We cannot hope for very speedy progress in this matter, so large a share of its advancement depending upon general, real and proper musical cultivation; but if each one interested will think the matter over seriously and intelligently, and do the little that may lie in his power, a beginning will have been made, which may in the end lead to grand, beautiful, and most precious results.
APHORISM.—NO. IX.
Our Saviour says of life: 'I have power to lay it down, and power to take it again.' We have not such power in our own hands; but our Lord holds it for us, so that our position is independent of the world, and of the power of evil, just as His was; and as in His case He did resume more than He laid down, so will be given to us by the same Almighty hand more than any creature has to surrender for the highest objects of existence.
Such doctrine, I may add, is not, in its essence, merely Christian: it has been the common sentiment of our race, that one of the highest privileges of our being is to sacrifice ourselves, in various modes and degrees, for the good of our fellow men; and those who cheerfully do this, even if it be in the actual surrender of life, are esteemed blessed, as they are also placed above others in the ranks of honorable fame, and held to be secure of the final rewards of a heavenly state.
LITERARY NOTICES.
Life of William Hickling Prescott. By George Ticknor. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864.
There are no discordant voices on either side of the Atlantic with regard to the literary merits of William H. Prescott. Truth, dignity, research, candor, erudition, chaste and simple elegance, mark all he has ever written. His noble powers were in perfect consonance with his noble soul. His strict sense of justice shines in all its brilliancy, in his evident desire to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, of every character appearing in his conscientious pages. No current of popular prejudice, however strong, swerves him from his righteous path; no opportunity for glitter or oratorical display ever misleads him; no special pleading bewilders his readers; no 'might is right' corrupts them. His genius is pure, dramatic, and wide; his comprehension of character acute and clear; his characterization of it, chiselled and chaste; his ready comprehension of magnanimous deeds evinces his own magnanimity; his correct understanding of various creeds and motives of action proves his own wide Christianity; chivalry was known to him, because he was himself chivalrous; and we have reason to rejoice that the field in and through which his noble faculties were developed, was the vast and varied one of history. We doubt if any one ever read his works without forming a high conception of the character of their author, a conception which will be found fully realized in the excellent Life given us by George Ticknor. If no one is qualified to write the Life of a man, save one who has familiarly lived with him, who but Mr. Ticknor could have given us such a biography of Prescott? This advantage, together with the similarity of literary tastes, the common nationality in which their spheres of labor lay, their long friendship, their congeniality of spirit, with the mental qualifications brought by Mr. Ticknor to his task of love, renders his production one of inestimable value. It is indeed full of sweet, grave charm, and thoroughly reliable. In these pages we see how it was that no man ever found fault with or spoke disparagingly of Prescott—we find the reason for it in the perfect balance of his conscientious and kindly character. He was in the strictest sense of the words 'lord of himself,' mulcting himself with fines and punishments for what he regarded as his derelictions in his labors, compelling himself to pursue the tasks which he had determined to achieve. There is no more interesting record than that of his constant struggles to conquer the effects of his growing blindness, none more inspiriting than the results of his efforts. He loved and lived among his books; his last request was that his body should be placed among them ere it was given to the grave.
This delightful biography, which has been received so warmly, both at home and abroad, was originally published in an elegant quarto volume, illustrated in the highest style of art, and an edition was printed which was considered quite too large for the present times. But the edition was soon exhausted, and Messrs. Ticknor & Fields have now given us the Life in a 12mo volume, thus placing it within the means of all readers. We rejoice at this, because Prescott belongs to us all: while his life is dear to the scholar and lover of his kind, it furnishes some of the most important lessons to Young America. Such a man is a true national glory. We close our imperfect notice with a short extract from Mr. Ticknor's preface: 'But if, after all, this memoir should fail to set the author of the 'Ferdinand and Isabella' before those who had not the happiness to know him personally, as a man whose life for more than forty years was one of almost constant struggle—of an almost constant sacrifice to duty, of the present to the future—it will have failed to teach its true lesson, or to present my friend to others as he stood before the very few who knew him as he was.