274 THE LANGUAGE OF PASSION', 



sensibility. The productions of Byron, with more than a mirror''s truth, 

 reflect the lineaments of the man. The gloomy, misantliropic, mysteri- 

 ous Manfred, roaming over the dizzy heights of the ice-mantled moun- 

 tain, where the startled Chamois hunter feared to tread, and smiling at 

 the terrors of the thundering avalanche, or the desolate Childe Harold, 

 standing like a fiend in mockery over the tombs of classic Greece, are 

 but transcripts of the difTerenl states of the poet's mind. Love was the 

 ruling passion of Robert Burns — Love of Home, of bonny Scotland and 

 her fair lassies. He took his first lessons in Love and Poetry simulta- 

 neously, and his Tutor was his partner in the harvest-field, who, in his 

 own language, was a "bonnie sweet, sousie lass."' It was while listen- 

 ing to her dulcet voice and picking out the cruel thistles from her small 

 hands, that he imbibed that "delicious passion" which he has celebrated 

 with such -charming simplicity and sweetness. 



Then may we not conclude that the Language of Passion is highly 

 poetical 't Grief, Joy, Revenge, Pity and Love, are the divinities that inspire 

 the poet's song; under their influence he strikes his sounding lyre and 

 his strain flows sad, melancholy and pensive — wild, joyous and glee- 

 some — deep, intense and absorbing — sweet, soothing and entrancing — 

 rich, melodious, and fascinating, according to the passion that sways his 

 breast. 



The language of Passion is also highly eloquent. Look at the ab- 

 original tribes of America, rude, unpolisiied, unlettered savages as they 

 are, yet when their passions are once fully excited, their eloquence flows 

 with a force and an impetuosity that art may in vain attempt to rival. 

 See the manly form of the chief slowly arise — a mild halo of dignity 

 playing gracefully around his august countenance — he speaks — 



"With voice as low, as gentle and caressing 

 As e'er won maiden's lip in moonlit bower." 



But anon ! and the scowl is gathering on his swarthy brow ! darker and 

 still darker it grows, until it becomes as portentous as the summer storm- 

 cloud : the lightning glances of his fiery eye flash with electric rapidity 

 to the hearts of his auditors : his voice swells to the highest pitch of its 

 powerful compass, and the listening hills reverberate his thunder-tones 

 of indignation. 



As a striking example of the power of rude but impassionate elo- 

 quence, look at the first Crusade. An obscure, monk returning from a 

 pilgrimage to our Savior's tomb, conceives the grand design of arming 

 Europe under the ensign of the Cross and expelling the ferocious Turk 

 from the Holy City. What a chimerical idea! a poor, illiterate, unknown 

 bigot, machinating the overthrow of those armies, whose every battle 



