Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846
"Yes," said he, "I tell you that our affairs look rather ticklish – can't deny it – but that is the only thing that will bring the people to their senses. Santa Anna may destroy the colonies, but it won't be Sam Houston's fault. Instead of at once assembling, the militia stop at home with their wives – quite comfortable in the chimney-corner – think that a handful of volunteers can whip ten thousand of these half-bloods. Quite mistaken, gentlemen – quite mistaken. You see it now – the brave fellows are gone – a scandal it is for us – and the enemy is at our heels. Instead of seeing four or five thousand of our people here, there are thirteen hundred – the others are minding the shop – making journeys to the Sabine. Can't help it, comrades, must retire to the Brazos, into the forests – must be off, and that at once."
"Stop, general, that ain't sense," cried a man, with a cap made out of a wild-cat's skin; "not a step backwards – the enemy must soon come, and then we'll whip 'em so glorious, that it will be a pleasure to see it; the miserable vampires that they are!"
"A fight! a fight!" shouted the surrounding throng. "For Texas, now or never!"
"Sam Houston is not of that opinion, my fine fellows," answered the general, "and it is not his will to fight. Sam will not risk the fate of the republic in a single foolhardy battle. The broad woods of the Brazos shall do us good service. Though you are brave, and willing to risk your lives, it would be small benefit to the country if you lost them. No, my boys, we'll give it to the vermin, never fear, they shall have it, as sure as Sam Houston stands in his own shoes."
"It's impossible for us to go back, General," cried another speaker; "can't be – must at 'em! What, General, our richest plantations lie between the Colorado and the Brazos, and are we to abandon them to these thieves? Old Austin8 would rise out of his grave if he heard the footsteps of the murderers upon the prairie. No, General – must be at them – must conquer or die!"
"Must conquer or die!" was echoed through the crowd; but the old general sat whittling away, as cool as a cucumber, and seemed determined that the next victory he gained should be in his own camp.
"Boys," said he – and he stood up, took another quid, shut his knife, and continued – "Boys, you want to fight – very praiseworthy indeed – your courage is certainly very praiseworthy; – but suppose the enemy brings artillery with him, can you, will you, take the responsibility of giving battle before our tardy fellow-citizens come up to reinforce us? How will you answer it to your consciences, if the republic falls back under the Mexican yoke, because an undisciplined mob would not wait the favourable moment for a fight? No, no, citizens – we must retire to the Brazos, where our rifles will give us the advantage; whilst here we should have to charge the enemy, who is five times our strength, in the open prairie. Don't doubt your courage, as you call it – though it's only foolhardiness – but I represent the republic, and am answerable to the whole people for what I do. Can't allow you to fight here. Once more I summon you to follow me to San Felipe and all who wish well to Texas will be ready in an hour's time. Every moment we may expect to see the enemy on the other side of the river. Once more then – to the banks of the Brazos!"
The old general walked off to his tent, and the crowd betook themselves to their fires, murmuring and discontented, and put their rifles in order. But in an hour and a half, the Texian army left their camp on the Colorado. Sam Houston had prevailed, and the next evening he and his men reached San Felipe, and, without pausing there, marched up the river. On the 30th March the first squadron of the enemy showed itself near San Felipe. The inhabitants abandoned their well-stored shops and houses, set fire to them with their own hands, and fled across the river. The Mexicans entered the town, and their rage was boundless when, instead of a rich booty, they found heaps of ashes. Houston had now vanished, and his foes could nowhere trace him, till he suddenly, and of his own accord, reappeared upon the scene, and fell on them like a thunderbolt, amply refuting the false and base charge brought against him by his enemies, that he had retreated through cowardice. But to this day, it is a riddle to me how he managed to reduce to obedience the unruly spirits he commanded, and to induce them to retreat across the Brazos to Buffalo Bayou. Of one thing I am certain – only Sam Houston could have done it; no other man in the republic.
Mr Ehrenberg escaped from all his perils in time to share the rejoicings of the Texians at the final evacuation of the country by the Mexican army. And certainly they had cause for exultation, not only at being rid of their cruel and semi-barbarous oppressors, but in the persevering gallantry they had displayed throughout the whole campaign, during which many errors were committed and many lives uselessly sacrificed, but of which the close was nevertheless so glorious to those engaged in it. Unskilled in military tactics, without discipline or resources, the stubborn courage of a handful of American backwoodsmen proved an overmatch for Santa Anna and his hosts, and the fairest and freshest leaf of the Mexican cactus was rent from the parent stem, never to be reunited.9
THE MOTHER AND HER DEAD CHILD
With ceaseless sorrow, uncontroll'd,
The mother mourn'd her lot;
She wept, and would not be consoled,
Because her child was not.
She gazed upon its nursery floor,
But there it did not play;
The toys it loved, the clothes it wore,
All void and vacant lay.
Her house, her heart, were dark and drear,
Without their wonted light;
The little star had left its sphere,
That there had shone so bright.
Her tears, at each returning thought,
Fell like the frequent rain;
Time on its wings no healing brought,
And wisdom spoke in vain.
Even in the middle hour of night
She sought no soft relief,
But, by her taper's misty light,
Sate nourishing her grief.
'Twas then a sight of solemn awe,
Rose near her like a cloud;
The image of her child she saw,
Wrapp'd in its little shroud.
It sate within its favourite chair,
It sate and seem'd to sigh,
And turn'd upon its mother there
A meek imploring eye.
"O child! what brings that breathless form
Back from its place of rest?
For well I know no life can warm
Again that livid breast.
"The grave is now your bed, my child —
Go slumber there in peace."
"I cannot go," it answer'd mild,
"Until your sorrow cease.
"I've tried to rest in that dark bed,
But rest I cannot get,
For always with the tears you shed,
My winding-sheet is wet.
"The drops, dear mother, trickle still
Into my coffin deep;
It feels so comfortless and chill
I cannot go to sleep."
"O child those words, that touching look,
My fortitude restore;
I feel and own the blest rebuke,
And weep my loss no more."
She spoke, and dried her tears the while;
And as her passion fell,
The vision wore an angel smile,
And look'd a fond farewell.
THE GREEK AND ROMANTIC DRAMA
The Drama, in its higher branches, is perhaps the greatest effort of human genius. It requires for its successful cultivation, a combination of qualities beyond what is necessary in any other department of composition. A profound and practical acquaintance with human nature in all its phases, and the human heart in all its changes, is the first requisite of the Dramatic Poet. The power of condensed expression – the faculty of giving vent to "thoughts that breathe in words that burn" – the art of painting, by a line, an epithet, an expression, the inmost and most intense feelings of the heart, is equally indispensable. The skill of the novelist in arranging the incidents of the piece so as to keep the attention of the spectators erect, and their interest undiminished, is not less necessary. How requisite a knowledge of the peculiar art called "stage effect," is to the success of dramatic pieces on the theatre, may be judged of by the well-known failures in actual representation of many striking pieces by our greatest tragic writers, especially Miss Baillie and Lord Byron. The eloquence of the orator, the power of wielding at will the emotions and passions of the heart, of rousing alternately the glow of the generous, and the warmth of the tender affections, is not less indispensable. The great dramatic poet must add to this rare assemblage, a thorough acquaintance with the characters and ideas of former times: with the lore of the historian, he must embody in his imaginary characters the incidents of actual event; with the fervour of the poet, portray the transactions and thoughts of past times; with the eye of the painter, arrange his scenery, dresses, and localities, so as to produce the strongest possible impression of reality on the mind of the spectator. Unite, in imagination, all the greatest and most varied efforts of the human mind – the fire of the poet and the learning of the historian, the conceptions of the painter and the persuasion of the orator, the skill of the novelist and the depth of the philosopher, and you will only form a great tragedian. Ordinary observers often express surprise, that dramatic genius, especially in these times, is rare; let the combination of qualities essential for its higher flights be considered, and perhaps the wonder will rather be, that it has been so frequent in the world.
It is a sense of this extraordinary combination of power necessary to the formation of a great dramatic poet, which has rendered the masterpieces of this art so general an object of devout admiration, to men of the greatest genius who have ever appeared upon earth. Euripides wept when he heard a tragedy of Sophocles recited at the Isthmian games; he mourned, but his own subsequent greatness proved without reason, the apparent impossibility of rivalling his inimitable predecessor. Milton, blind and poor, found a solace for all the crosses of life in listening, in old age, to the verses of Euripides. Napoleon, at St Helena, forgot the empire of the world, on hearing, in the long evenings, the masterpieces of Corneille read aloud. Stratford-on-Avon does not contain the remains of mere English genius, it is the place of pilgrimage to the entire human race. The names of persons of all nations are to be found, as on the summit of the Pyramids, encircled on the walls of Shakspeare's house; his grave is the common resort of the generous and the enthusiastic of all ages, and countries, ad times. All feel they can
"Rival all but Shakspeare's name below."
If the combination of qualities necessary to form a first-rate dramatic poet is thus rare, hardly less wonderful is the effort of genius to sustain the character of a great actor. The mind of the performer must be sympathetic with that of the author; it must be cast in the same mould with the original conceiver of the piece. To form an adequate and correct conception of the proper representation of the leading characters in the masterpieces of Sophocles, Shakspeare, or Schiller, requires a mind of the same cast as that of those poets themselves. The performer must throw himself, as it were, into the mind of the author; identify himself with the piece to be represented; conceive the character in reality, as the poet had portrayed it in words, and then convey by acting this second conception to the spectators. By this double distillation of thought through the soul of genius, a finer and more perfect creation is sometimes formed, than the efforts of any single mind, how great soever, could have originally conceived. It may well be doubted whether Shakspeare's conception of Lady Macbeth or Desdemona was more perfect than Mrs Siddons's personation of them; or whether the grandeur of Cato or Coriolanus, as they existed in the original mind of Addison, or the patriarch of the English stage, equalled Kemble's inimitable performances of these characters. Beautiful as were the visions of Juliet and Rosalind which floated before the mind of the Bard of Avon, it may be doubted if they excelled Miss Helen Faucit's exquisite representation of those characters. The actor or actress brings to the illustration of the great efforts of dramatic genius, qualities of a different sort, in addition to those which at first pervaded the mind of the author, but not less essential to the felicitous realization of his conception. Physical beauty, the magic of voice, look, and manner, the play of countenance, the step of grace, the witchery of love, the accents of despair, combine with the power of language to add a tenfold attraction to the creations of fancy. All the arts seem, in such representations, to combine their efforts to entrance the mind, every avenue to the heart is at once flooded with the highest and most refined enjoyment; the noblest, the most elevated feelings: —
"The youngest of the sister arts,
Where all their beauty blends!
For ill can poetry express
Full many a tone of thought sublime;
And painting, mute and motionless,
Steals but a glance of time.
But by the mighty actor brought,
Illusion's perfect triumphs come —
Verse ceases to be airy thought,
And sculpture to be dumb."
That an art so noble as that of dramatic poetry, ennobled by such genius, associated with such recollections, so lofty in its purpose, so irresistible in its effects, should have fallen into comparative decline in this country in the brightest era of its literary, philosophical, and political achievements, is one of those singular and melancholy circumstances of which it seems impossible at first sight to give any explanation. Since the deep foundations of the English mind were stirred by the Reformation, what an astonishing succession of great men in every branch of human thought have illustrated the annals of England! The divine conceptions of Milton, the luxuriant fervour of Thomson, the vast discoveries of Newton, the deep wisdom of Bacon, the burning thoughts of Gray, the masculine intellect of Johnson, the exquisite polish of Pope, the lyric fire of Campbell, the graphic powers of Scott, the glowing eloquence of Burke, the admirable conceptions of Reynolds, the profound sagacity of Hume, the pictured page of Gibbon, demonstrate how mighty and varied have been the triumphs of the human mind in these islands, in every branch of poetry, literature, and philosophy. Yet, strange to say, during two centuries thus marvellously illustrated by genius, intellect, and capacity in other departments of human exertion, there has not been a single great dramatic poet. Shakspeare still stands alone in solitary and unapproachable grandeur, to sustain, by his single arm, the tragic reputation of his country. Authors of passing or local celebrity have arisen: Otway has put forth some fine conceptions, and composed one admirable tragedy; Sheridan sketched some brilliant satires; Miss Baillie delineated the passions with epic power; and genius of the highest order in our times, that of Byron and Bulwer, has endeavoured to revive the tragic muse in these islands. But the first declared that he wrote his dramatic pieces with no design whatever to their representation, but merely as a vehicle of noble sentiments in dialogue of verse; and the second is too successful as a novelist to put forth his strength in dramatic poetry, or train his mind in the school necessary for success in that most difficult art. The English drama, in the estimation of the world, and in its just estimation, still stands on Shakspeare, and he flourished nearly three hundred years ago!
It was not thus in other countries, or in former times. Homer was the first, and still is one of the greatest, of dramatic poets; the Iliad is a tragedy arranged in the garb of an epic poem. Æschylus borrowed, Prometheus-like, the divine fire, and embodied the energy of Dante and the soul of Milton in his sublime tragedies. Sophocles and Euripides were contemporary with Pericles and Phidias; the same age witnessed the Clouds of Aristophanes, the death of Socrates, and the history of Thucydides. The warlike and savage genius of the Romans made them prefer the excitement of the amphitheatre to the entrancement of the theatre; but the comedies of Plautus and Terence remain durable monuments, that the genius of dramatic poetry among them advanced abreast of the epic or lyric muse. The names of Alfieri, Metastasio, and Goldoni, demonstrate that modern Italy has successfully cultivated the dramatic as well as the epic muse; the tragedies of the first are worthy the country of Tasso, the operas of the second rival the charms of Petrarch. In the Spanish peninsula, Lope de Vega and Calderon have astonished the world by the variety and prodigality of their conceptions;10 and fully vindicated the title of the Castilians to place their dramatic writers on a level with their great epic poets.
Need it be told that France stands pre-eminent in dramatic excellence; that Corneille, Racine, and Molière, were contemporaries of Bossuet, Massillon, and Boileau; that the tragedies of Voltaire were the highest effort of his vast and varied genius? Germany, albeit the last-born in the literary family of Europe, has already vindicated its title to a foremost place in this noble branch of composition; for Lessing has few modern rivals in the perception of dramatic excellence, and Schiller none in the magnificent historic mirror which he has placed on the stage of the Fatherland. How, then, has it happened, that when, in all other nations which have risen to greatness in the world, the genius of dramatic poetry has kept pace with its eminence in all other respects, in England alone the case is the reverse; and the nation which has surpassed all others in the highest branches of poetry, eloquence, and history, is still obliged to recur to the patriarch of a comparatively barbarous age for a parallel to the great dramatic writers of other states?
The worshippers of Shakspeare tell us, that this has been owing to his very greatness; that he was so much above other men as to defy competition and extinguish rivalry; and that genius, in despair of ever equalling his vast and varied conceptions, has turned aside into other channels where the avenue to the highest distinction was not blocked up by the giant of former days. But a little reflection must be sufficient to convince every candid inquirer, that this consideration not only does not explain the difficulty but augments it. Genius is never extinguished by genius; on the contrary, it is created by it. The divine flame passes from one mind to another similarly constituted. Thence the clusters of great men who, at intervals, have appeared simultaneously and close to each other in the world, and the long intervening periods of mediocrity or imitation. Did the immortal genius of Dante destroy subsequent poetic excellence in Italy? Let Tasso, Ariosto, Metastasio, and Alfieri, answer. Homer did not extinguish Æschylus – he created him. Greek tragedy is little more than the events following the siege of Troy dramatised. The greatness of Sophocles did not crush the rising genius of Euripides – on the contrary, it called it forth; and these two great masters of the dramatic muse thrice contended with each other for the prize awarded by the Athenians to dramatic excellence.11 The great Corneille did not annihilate rivalry in the dramatic genius of France – on the contrary, he produced it; his immortal tragedies were immediately succeeded by the tenderness of Racine, the wit of Molière, the versatility of Voltaire. Lessing in Germany was soon outstripped by the vast mind of Schiller. Michael Angelo, vast as his genius was, did not distance all competitors in Italy; he was speedily followed and excelled by Raphael; and when the boy Correggio saw Raphael's pictures, he said – "I, too, am a painter." Did the transcendent greatness of Burke close in despair the eloquent lips of Pitt and Fox; or the mighty genius of Scott quench the rising star of Byron? We repeat it – genius is never extinguished by genius; it is created by it.
But if the state of dramatic poetry in Great Britain since the time of Shakspeare affords matter of surprise, the late history and present state of the drama, as it appears on the stage, afford subject of wonder and regret. We are continually speaking of the lights of the age, of the vast spread of popular information, of the march of intellect, and the superiority of this generation in intelligence and refinement over all that have gone before it. Go into any of the theatres of London at this moment, and consider what evidence they afford of this boasted advance and superiority. Time was when the versatile powers of Garrick enchanted the audience; and exhibited alternately the perfection of the comic and the dignity of the tragic muse. Mrs Siddons, supreme in greatness, has trod those boards; Kemble, the "last of all the Romans," has, in comparatively recent times, bade them farewell. Miss O'Neil, with inferior soul, but equal physical powers; Kean, with the energy, but unhappily the weaknesses of genius, kept up the elevation of the stage. Talent, and that too of a very high class, genius of the most exalted kind, are not awanting to support the long line of British theatric greatness; the names of Charles Kean, Fanny Kemble, and Helen Faucit are sufficient to prove, that if the stage is in a state of decrepitude, the fault lies much more with the authors or the public, than with the performers.12 But all is unavailing. Despite the most persevering and laudable efforts to restore the dignity of the theatre, and revive the sway of the legitimate drama, in which Mr Macready has so long borne so conspicuous a part, Tragedy in the metropolis is almost banished from the stage. It has been supplanted by the melodrama, dancing, and singing. It has been driven off the field by Timour the Tartar. Drury-Lane, sanctified by so many noble recollections, has become an English opera-house. Covent-Garden is devoted to concerts, and hears the tragic muse no more. Even in the minor theatres, where tragedy is sometimes attempted, it can only be relied on for transient popularity. Its restoration was attempted at the Princess's Theatre in Oxford Street, but apparently with no remarkable success; and the tragedies of Othello and Hamlet, supported by the talent of Macready, required to be eked out by Mrs Candle's Curtain Lectures. We are no strangers to the talent displayed at many of the minor theatres both by the authors and performers; and we are well aware that the varied population of every great metropolis requires several such places of amusement. What we complain of is, that they engross every thing; that tragedy and the legitimate drama are nearly banished from the stage in all but the provincial cities, where, of course, it never can rise to the highest eminence.
All the world are conscious of the reality of this change, and many different explanations have been attempted of it. It is said that modern manners are inconsistent with frequenting the theatre: that the late hours of dinners preclude the higher classes from going to it; that the ladies' dresses are soiled by the seats in the boxes, before going to balls. The austerity of principle, in the strictly religious portion of the community, is justly considered as a great bar to dramatic success; as it keeps from the theatre a large part of society, which, from the integrity and purity of its principles, would, if it frequented such places of amusement, be more likely than any other to counteract its downward tendency. The hideous mass of profligacy which in London, in the absence of the better classes of society, has seized upon the principal theatres as its natural prey, is loudly complained of by the heads of families; and the audience is, in consequence, too often turned into little more than strangers, or young men in quest of dissipation, and ladies of easy virtue in quest of gain. The spread of reading, and vast addition to the amount of talent devoted to the composition of novels and romances, is another cause generally considered as mainly instrumental in producing the neglect of the theatre. Sir Walter Scott, it is said, has brought the drama to our fireside: we draw in our easy-chairs when the winds of winter are howling around us, and cease to long for Hamlet in reading the Bride of Lammermoor. There is some reality in all these causes assigned for the decline of the legitimate drama in this country; they are the truth, but they are not the whole truth. A very little consideration will at once show, that it is not to any or all of these causes, that the decline of the higher branches of this noble art in Great Britain is to be ascribed.
Modern manners, late dinners, ball-dresses, and the Houses of Parliament, are doubtless serious obstacles to the higher classes of the nobility and gentry frequently attending the theatre; but the example of the Opera-house, which is crowded night after night with the élite of that very class, is sufficient to demonstrate, that all these difficulties can be got over, when people of fashion make up their minds to go to a place of amusement, even where not one in ten understand the language in which the piece is composed. The strictness of principle – mistaken, as we deem it, and hurtful in its effects – which keeps away a large and important portion of the middle and most respectable portion of the community, at all times, and in all places, from the theatre, is without doubt a very serious impediment to dramatic success, and in nothing so much so, as in throwing the patronage and direction of its performance into the hands of a less scrupulous part of society. But these strict principles, ever since the Great Rebellion, have pervaded a considerable portion of British society; and yet how nobly was the stage supported during the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century, in the days of Garrick, Siddons, and Kemble! The great number of theatres which are nightly open in the metropolis, and rapidly increasing in all the principal cities of the kingdom, demonstrates, that the play-going portion of the community is sufficiently numerous to support the stage, generally in respectability, at times in splendour. Without doubt, the licentiousness of the saloons of the great theatres in London is a most serious evil, and it well deserves the consideration of Government, whether some means should not be taken for its correction; but is the Opera-house so very pure in its purlieus? and are the habitual admirers of the ballet likely to be corrupted by occasionally seeing Othello and Juliet? The prevailing, and in fact universal, passion for reading novels at home, unquestionably affords an inexhaustible fund of domestic amusement; but does experience prove that the imagination once kindled, the heart once touched, are willing to stop short in the quest of excitement – to be satisfied with imperfect gratification? Novel-reading is as common on the Continent as in this country; but still the legitimate drama exhibits no such appearances of decrepitude in its Capitals. The masterpieces of Corneille and Racine are still constantly performed to crowded houses at Paris; the theatres of Italy resound with the melody of Metastasio, the dignity of Alfieri; and singing and the melodrama have nowhere banished Schiller's tragedies from the boards of Vienna and Berlin.
We have said, that while we appreciate the motives, and respect the principles, which prevent so large a portion of the middle class of society from frequenting the theatre, we lament their determination, and regard it as an evil even greater to the morality than it is to the genius of the nation. In truth, it is founded on a mistaken view of the principles which influence human nature; and it would be well if moralists, and the friends of mankind, would reconsider the subject, before, in this country at least, it is too late. The love of the drama is founded on the deepest, the most universal, the noblest principles of our nature. It exists, and ever will exist. For good or for evil, its influence is immovable. We cannot extirpate, or even tangibly abridge its sway; the art of Æschylus and Shakspeare, of Sophocles and Racine, of Euripides and Schiller, is not to be extinguished by the reputable but contracted ideas of a limited portion of society. God has not made it sweeter to weep with those who weep, than to rejoice with those who rejoice, for no purpose. Look at the Arabs, as they cluster round the story-teller who charms the groups of Yemen, or the knots of delighted faces which surround the Polchinello of Naples, and you will see how universal is the passions in mankind for theatrical representations. But though we cannot eradicate the desire for this gratification, we may degrade its tendency, and corrupt its effects. We may substitute stimulants to the senses for elevation to the principle, or softening of the heart. By abandoning its direction to the most volatile and licentious of the community, we may render it an instrument of evil instead of good, and pervert the powers of genius, the magic of art, the fascinations of beauty, to the destruction instead of the elevation of the human soul.
It is for this reason that we lament, as a serious social and national evil, the long interregnum in dramatic excellence in our writers, and the woful degradation in the direction of dramatic representations at our metropolitan theatres. Immense is the influence of lofty and ennobling dramatic pieces when supported by able and impassioned actors. As deleterious is the sway of questionable or immoral pieces when decked out in the meretricious garb of fancy, or aided by the transient attractions of beauty. Who can tell how much the heart-stirring appeals of Shakspeare have done to string to lofty purposes the British heart; how powerfully the dignified sentiments of Corneille have contributed to sustain the heroic portions of the French character? "C'est l'imagination," said Napoleon, "qui domine le monde." The drama has one immense advantage over the pulpit or the professor's chair: it fascinates while it instructs – it allures while it elevates. It thus extends its influence over a wide and important circle, upon whom didactic precepts will never have any influence. Without doubt, the strong and deep foundations of public morality must be laid in religious and moral instruction; if they are wanting, the social edifice, how fair soever to appearance, is built on a bed of sand. But fully admitting this – devoutly looking to our national Establishment for the formation of public principle – to our schools and colleges for the training of the national intellect – the experienced observer, aware of the sway of active principles over the human soul, will not neglect the subordinate but still powerful aid to be derived, in the great work of elevating and ennobling society, from the emotions which may be awakened at the theatre – the enthusiasm so often excited by tragic excellence. The thing to be dreaded with the great bulk of the spectators – that is, by far the largest portion of mankind – is not their avowed infidelity and their open wickedness; it is the sway of the degrading or selfish passions which is chiefly dangerous. The thing to be feared is, not that they will say there is no God, but that they will live altogether without God in the world. How important, then, that genius should be called in here to the aid of virtue, and the fascinations of the highest species of excellence employed to elevate, where so many causes exist to degrade the soul!