BY THOMAS CAMPBELL, AUTHOR OF PLEASURES OF HOPE, ETC.

VOL. XI.

FALLEN as he is, this king of birds still seems
Like royalty in ruins. Though his eyes
Are shut, that look undazzled on the sun,
He was the sultan of the sky, and earth
Paid tribute to his eyrie. It was perched
Higher than human conqueror ever built
His bannered fort. Where Atlas' top looks o'er
Zahara's desert to the equator's line,

From thence the wingéd despot marked his prey,
Above th' encampments of the Bedouins, ere
Their watch-fires were extinct, or camels knelt
To take their loads, or horsemen scoured the plain;
And there he dried his feathers in the dawn,
While yet th' unwakened world was dark below.

There's such a charm in natural strength and power,
That human fancy has for ever paid

Poetic homage to the bird of Jove.

Hence, 'neath his image, Rome arrayed her turms
And cohorts for the conquest of the world.

And figuring his flight, the mind is filled

With thoughts that mock the pride of wingless man.

True the carred aëronaut can mount as high;

But what's the triumph of his volant art?

A rash intrusion on the realms of air.

His helmless vehicle, a silken toy,

A bubble bursting in the thunder-cloud;

His course has no volition, and he drifts

The passive plaything of the wind. Not such
Was this proud bird: he clove the adverse storm,
And cuffed it with his wings. He stopped his flight
As easily as the Arab reins his steed,

And stood at pleasure 'neath Heaven's zenith, like
A lamp suspended from its azure dome;
While underneath him the world's mountains lay
Like mole-hills, and her streams like lucid threads.
Then downward, faster than a falling star,
He neared the earth, until his shape distinct
Was blackly shadowed on the sunny ground;
And deeper terror hushed the wilderness,

To hear his nearer whoop. Then, up again

He soared and wheeled. There was an air of scorn

In all his movements, whether he threw round

His crested head to look behind him, or

Lay vertical, and sportively displayed

The inside whiteness of his wing declined,
In gyres and undulations full of grace,

An object beautifying Heaven itself.

Hereckless who was victor, and above

The hearing of their guns- saw fleets engaged
In flaming combat. It was nought to him

What carnage, Moor or Christian, strewed their decks;

But if his intellect had matched his wings,

Methinks he would have scorned man's vaunted power

To plough the deep; his pinions bore him down

To Algiers the warlike, or the coral groves

That blush beneath the green of Bona's waves;
And traversed in an hour a wider space

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Than yonder gallant ship, with all her sails
Wooing the winds, can cross from morn till eve.
His bright eyes were his compass, earth his chart,
His talons anchored on the stormiest cliff,
And on the very light-house rock he perched,
When winds churned white the waves.

The earthquake's self

Disturbed not him that memorable day,

When, o'er yon table-land, where Spain had built
Cathedrals, cannoned forts, and palaces,

A palsy-stroke of Nature shook Oran,
Turning her city to a sepulchre,

And strewing into rubbish all her homes;
Amidst whose traceable foundations now,

Of streets and squares, the hyæna hides himself.
That hour beheld him fly as careless o'er
The stifled shrieks of thousands buried quick,
As lately when he pounced the speckled snake,
Coiled in yon mallows and wide nettle-fields,
That mantle o'er the dead old Spanish town.

Strange is the imagination's dread delight
In objects linked with danger, death, and pain!
Fresh from the luxuries of polished life,
The echo of these wilds enchanted me;

And my heart beat with joy when first I heard

A lion's rear come down the Lybian wind,

Across yon long, wide, lonely inland lake,

Where boat ne'er sails from homeless shore to shore.

And yet Numidia's landscape has its spots

Of pastoral pleasantness-though far between,
The village planted near the Maraboot's
Round roof has aye its feathery palm trees
Paired, for in solitude they bear no fruits.

Here nature's hues all harmonize; fields white
With alasum, or blue with bugloss - banks
Of glossy fennel, blent with tulips wild,

And sunflowers, like a garment prankt with gold;
Acres and miles of opal asphodel,

Where sports and couches the black-eyed gazelle.
Here, too, the air 's harmonious-deep-toned doves

Coo to the fife-like carol of the lark;

And when they cease, the holy nightingale

Winds up his long, long shakes of ecstacy,

With notes that seem but the protracted sound

Of glassy runnels bubbling over rocks.

'CONFESSION.'

'Let me confess to God, and save my shilling.'-OLD ANECDOTE.

CONFESSION, like physic, mid mortal extremes,
In the hands of a skilful concoctor,
Is an excellent thing for the patient, it seems,
Though not quite so good for the doctor.

Hence some spiritual quacks, in attending their sick,
On the virtues insist of confessions;

But should a small thorn their own consciences prick,
Their sole lenitive pills are professions.

As to tears for our sins, if amendment it work,
An ounce-vial full ample perhaps is;

And too little the Heidelberg tun, if there lurk
At the bottom the seeds of relapses.

PHRENOLOGY MADE EASY:

OR A FEW PLAIN

THOUGHTS ON A MUCH-ABUSED

SCIENCE.

Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear!'

THE phrenologist was but a common observer of nature; be possessed no advantage over other men; and he asserted no claim upon the attention of the world, until, after the minutest observation for years, he solved the great mystery of man's moral and intellectual nature. The puzzle vanished upon the announcement, more than forty years ago, by the illustrious discoverer and founder of the science of phrenology, that each faculty and sentiment of the human mind had its appropriate organ in the brain; that, other things being equal, as a general truth, upon the size of that organ depended its manifestation of power; and that, as a result from these premises, the mental dispositions of men depended upon the organization of their brain, the size and relative proportions of which could in general be ascertained with accuracy during life.

No new characteristic of the human mind did the phrenologist claim to have discovered. He merely traced the demonstration of the faculty or sentiment to its source; he put his finger upon the spot,' and said, 'Here I have discovered the seat of the faculty whose existence was before admitted; here is the source of those waters at whose stream all have drank; here is the cause whose effects every body knew and acknowledged; here I show you the 'local habitation' of that to which you have already given a 'name;' and now go with me through the examination, and among the millions of men, let us pursue the path of investigation, and note the physical and mental resemblances among the different individuals of the human race.' Thus he challenged the scrutiny of the world, and appealing to facts, and to these alone, he has sustained the noble and interesting truths he at first proclaimed, and his science, now emerged from its rude elements, and grown into system, is admitted to rank high among the various branches of human knowledge, by the learned of all the enlightened nations of the earth.

But after all, phrenology is immoral in its tendency, say what you will!' So the objector has ceased to laugh, and commenced a dismal cry against our most excellent philosophy. Well, then, what is the matter? Why, several organs possess very hard names, and lead to the commission of very naughty deeds. Gall denominated one the organ of murder, and another of theft, and therefore a man must murder and steal. This is very bad, certainly; and worse, too, if there was no murder or theft committed before the day of Gall; but it occurs to me that the world knew something of these propensities before the doctor's day, although they did not know exactly where to look for the seat of them.

Now a man born with one leg shorter than the other, is not expected to walk as gracefully as one on whose limbs sit grace and fair proportion; but he can walk, although he is inclined to limp. Well, I tell you that this man is inclined to limp, because one leg is shorter

than the other. Am I to be blamed for having discovered the cause of his lameness? What say you? Why, that I ought to be whipped for the discovery, and the cripple for his lameness! Ought you not rather to thank me for the discovery, and give the lame man a crutch? True, the phrenologist has discovered in the human brain an organ which he has denominated destructiveness:' its office is to inspire energy; its over-manifestation, with ill-balanced sentiments, may lead to the killing of a human being; although, well-regulated, it might only lead to the killing of snakes, or at the most assist a respectable butcher in his vocation; and with benevolence at hand, it might only produce your active business man, who will have every thing done

in season.

So large acquisitiveness may lead to theft or cheating, where conscientiousness is defective; and so will fire burn up all your houses, without water to check the flames. The materials for good and evil pervade the universe. Have we not heat and cold, pain and pleasure, the fatal poison and the certain antidote? There is no good but may be perverted to evil. Man has not a sentiment, propensity, or faculty, but may be made productive of good; and there is not a moral evil in human society, but can be traced to the abuse of a good propensity, or the neglect of a good sentiment, or faculty. Cautiousness is the instinct of self-preservation, and necessary to the preservation of life; but by an over-manifestation, or improper indulgence, it may whisper to the general in the hour of battle,

'He that fights and runs away,
May live to fight another day.'

Self-defence is the law of our nature, and combativeness and destructiveness are the ministers of that law; but should they turn from resistance to aggression, and become aggressors from their proper attacks upon dangerous beasts and reptiles, and destroy the innocent and harmless then there is a perversion of good to the purposes of evil, and the moral agent who thus turns aside, is held responsible for the wrong, as well by the phrenologist as the strictest moralist of the old school.

The love of offspring is admitted to be a good instinct of our nature; but suffer its excessive manifestations to influence the discipline of children, and a 'spoiled child' is an ordinary specimen of the result. Excessive benevolence may deny the demands of justice, and set the culprit free; and on the other hand, justice not properly attempered with benevolence, may become harsh and unlovely, and excite the gentler feelings of our nature to revolt at its exercise. The overaction of veneration, coupled with large marvellousness, may fill the mind with weak superstitions and wild, fanatical delusions; these are certainly no advantage to any body; and yet to call the source of veneration a bad organ, would not be tolerated. It is not condemned, but extolled, if it produce a reasonable religious faith; it is not much abused, if it make but an antiquary or high tory; and destructiveness would never be censured, but complimented, if it was exercised only in the killing of rattle-snakes. Without respectable marvellousness, man would reject many things which it is comfortable to believe; but if it be quite large, he will believe too much, alto

gether. To its excessive manifestation, witches owe their existence, and ghosts their shadowy forms. By it, marvels by land and sea are upheld, and violations of nature's laws accredited.

Suppose a case of hydrophobia should occur in a large city, and that the corporate authority, under the influence of excited cautiousness, should decree the extermination of the canine race. Each man having large destructiveness assails an unhappy dog; a carman endowed with large benevolence arrests the fatal weapon, and preserves the life of a noble animal. Veneration for the sage functionaries who erected the law of extermination, excites to a prosecution of the carman for a violation of its provisions; while conscientiousness, manifested in a love of justice, according to law, condemns the man who acted from a generous impulse to pay a fine for the deed. Now it is not difficult to perceive, that a good sentiment or faculty took the lead at each stage of these proceedings, but nevertheless worked a wrong, from the beginning to the end of the matter.

The utmost that the phrenologist will concede to the objector against the morality of his science, is that it is more difficult for some men to come up to the required degree of moral rectitude than for others. Nay, he will concede that on account of the natural constitutions of some men, and the neglected education of their sentiments, it is extremely difficult for them to refrain from the violation of wholesome moral rules. But these instances are rare, and there is a remedy for them. Moral symmetry does not adorn every body by nature, any more than physical perfection; and a man is no more in fault for having a bad head, than for having an ill-proportioned frame; but the parent who discovers either, and does not assist nature to approach perfection, by every means in his power, is guilty of criminal neglect; and the offspring that is the victim of such negligence, had better never have been born.

The phrenologist has relaxed none of those safe moral rules adopted for the happiness of mankind; but he has added new statutes to the moral code, and enjoined new duties upon parents, teachers, and law-givers. He has aided, by his grand discovery, the surmounting of obstacles hitherto a barrier to the attainment of even a comfortable moral excellence, by some individuals of the human race. It certainly is of some importance to know, that any organ of the mind can be called into or out of action, without the exercise of all the others; that the exercise of an organ will increase its size and activity, upon which depend its power and influence in forming the character of the man. Is here no hope for the moral monster? May not the infant mind be rectified in some degree? May not the youthful propensity be prevented from characterizing the man?

Suppose in a boy it is early discovered that the sentiment of justice is small, acquisitiveness and secretiveness large? Ought not the parent and teacher to know that here is an embryo thief before them? Let them train the subject of this unhappy combination according to his moral wants, and the youth will grow to manhood with a dangerous propensity so trained and modified, as that, instead of plunging him into crime, it makes him the honest possessor of millions, and he dies one of the honored of mankind, leaving his ample fortune as a benefaction to his country's orphans. How like a god! and yet, when young and untutored, how very like a thief!