He had read our greater poets, indeed, but without thought of imitating; and rather from the general curiosity to inspect all celebrated monuments of the human mind than from that especial predilection for verse which is too common in childhood and youth to be any sure sign of a poet.

But now these melodies, unknown to all the world beside, rang in his ear, mingled with his thoughts,--set, as it were, his whole life to music.

He read poetry with a different sentiment,--it seemed to him that he had discovered its secret.

And so reading, the passion seized him, and "the numbers came." To many minds, at the commencement of our grave and earnest pilgrimage, I am Vandal enough to think that the indulgence of poetic taste and revery does great and lasting harm; that it serves to enervate the character, give false ideas of life, impart the semblance of drudgery to the noble toils and duties of the active man.

All poetry would not do this,--not, for instance, the Classical, in its diviner masters; not the poetry of Homer, of Virgil, of Sophocles; not, perhaps, even that of the indolent Horace.