hath envied humble Toil;

If they were right, why let us burn our books,

And sit us down, and play the fool with Time,

Mocking the prophet Wisdom's high decrees,

And walling this trite Present with dark clouds,

'Till Night becomes our Nature; and the ray

Ev'n of the stars, but meteors that withdraw

The wandering spirit from the sluggish rest

Which makes its proper bliss. I will accost

This denizen of toil."

--From Eugene Aram, a MS. Tragedy.

"A wicked hag, and envy's self excelling

In mischiefe, for herself she only vext,

But this same, both herself and others eke perplext."

...............

"Who then can strive with strong necessity,

That holds the world in his still changing state,

.................

Then do no further go, no further stray,

But here lie down, and to thy rest betake."

--Spenser.

Few men perhaps could boast of so masculine and firm a mind, as, despite
his eccentricities, Aram assuredly possessed. His habits of solitude
had strengthened its natural hardihood; for, accustomed to make all the
sources of happiness flow solely from himself, his thoughts the only
companion--his genius the only vivifier--of his retreat; the tone and
faculty of his spirit could not but assume that austere and vigorous
energy which the habit of self-dependence almost invariably produces;
and yet, the reader, if he be young, will scarcely feel surprise that
the resolution of the Student, to battle against incipient love, from
whatever reasons it might be formed, gradually and reluctantly melted
away. It may be noted, that the enthusiasts of learning and reverie
have, at one time or another in their lives, been, of all the tribes
of men, the most keenly susceptible to love; their solitude feeds their
passion; and deprived, as they usually are, of the more hurried and
vehement occupations of life, when love is once admitted to their
hearts, there is no counter-check to its emotions, and no escape from
its excitation. Aram, too, had just arrived at that age when a man
usually feels a sort of revulsion in the current of his desires. At
that age, those who have hitherto pursued love, begin to grow alive to
ambition; those who have been slaves to the pleasures of life, awaken
from the dream, and direct their desire to its interests. And in the
same