Stop! ere thine hour of dalliance be over;
Ere Health abandon thee, and quench her light
In the dark stream of death, (the faithless rover!)
Ere Hope herself take flight
Down to the depths of that dark-flowing river,
Whose sombre shores are clothed in endless night;
Ere thou be wrested from us—and for ever!
Blotted, like some loved planet, from our sight!
And, save the ties
That not e'en Destiny itself can sever,
A feeble reminiscence or a name
Be all thou leav'st us of thee 'neath the skies—
Or some rude stone, perchance, to greet our eyes,
And, with its speechless eloquence proclaim:
'Here lies
Another victim to thy love, O Fame!'
Philadelphia, 1837.J. S. D. S.
[WHO WOULD BE A SCHOLAR?]
'A strange question!' says one: let such a reader turn to the next article. 'And a pretty foolish one,' mutters a second: let him do likewise. Who would be a scholar? 'Sure enough!' whispers one, in whom the question finds an echo, (and we know there are such;) him, and all of like sympathy, we invite to meditate a moment with us on the trials of the scholar.
Let it not be feared that we are about to disparage learning; although it should not be forgotten, that we have the highest authority on our side, when we venture to speak of evil and hardship in connection with that which is pronounced 'a weariness to the flesh;' and the classic muse is with us, when we claim it as a universal fact, that 'no one is satisfied with his lot, but each one sighs for change.' The tired soldier exclaims, 'happy tradesman!' and the tradesman, 'happy soldier!' The bard who vies with Homer, both in antiquity and honor, places the beggar and the poet in the same category; for it is the object of one of his noble hexameters to say, that
'Beggar envies beggar, and bard envies bard.'
Does not our question appear to some to border on profanity? There are those who are wont to feel that Mind and all its achievements are more sacred than the things of sense. And this is in some measure true. But why is not the toil and plodding of the scholar as earthly as any other? We must insist that it is; and we claim that an unfounded presumption in favor of mental effort, as such, be not suffered to face us on the threshold of our argument.
Go with us then—for our appeal shall be to actual examination—to the chamber of the philologist. A cadaverous being dwells there; his sepulchral voice bids us enter, and his sepulchral look—shall we say welcomes us? No! The heart, the social principle, has perished in this atmosphere of dusty lore. You enter. Before a table piled with books, sits the genius loci. On either side of him stands a chair, loaded with huge volumes, and others stand on end upon the floor around. As you place your hat upon a dust-covered volume which lies in the window, you catch the title, '—— on the Digamma.' As you take your seat, you have in view the worn titles of other venerable tomes; 'Scholia in Homerum,' 'De Metris Choricis,' 'De Dialecto Ionicâ,' 'Tenebræ Lycophrontis,' etc., etc. Shall we record a portion of the conversation? After the usual salutation, and the partial return of the student's mind to present realities, we begin: