lder on the dusty ground.
To the higher rooms approaching, still we find the new encroaching
On the old; the Moderns poaching coolly on the Ancients' land.
NIEBUHR'S stern determination many an ancient reputation
Tumbles from its lofty station; HARDOUIN'S sacrilegious hand
Threatens Virgil; SHEPHERD scarce will let one ancient father stand.
Nay, our predecessors hearing our approach, and greatly fearing
Hurt from us, on our appearing, mostly haste to give us way;
BREWSTER with delight is glowing, laurels won from NEWTON showing;
CUVIER yields his wreath to OWEN, DAVY _his_ to FARADAY;
HUME does homage to MACAULAY; FIELDING welcomes THACKERAY.
But though on the topmost story now we stand, we know our glory
Shall at best be transitory; brief our triumph is, though proud,
For, far down the mountain glancing, rays, that set for us, are dancing
On the rapidly advancing columns of a mighty crowd;
As their leaders cheer them on we hear them shouting long and loud.
That, as ours was, so their race is; that their course our track defaces;
That they crave our hard-won places; thrills us like a sudden flame;
And the high celestial chorus once again descending o'er us,
As of old it would implore _us_, sings, to urge _them_ on, the same
Strain of "Hasten, favoured mortals! Hasten to the House of Fame!"

* * * * *

NEW AMERICAN MOVEMENT.

[Illustration]

Somebody writing from Naples, about Music, to a fashionable
contemporary, says:--

"I know, too, more than half-a-dozen Americans who have left their
gold cupidity behind them, and are now in Italy, living in small
dirty back rooms with a piano-forte, practising _solfeggios_, with
the intention of becoming singers of Italian opera."

The development and cultivation of music in the soul of America may,
perhaps, tend to arrest the progress of Filibusterism, and other
stratagems and spoils; including the spoliation of black liberty: and to
render the airs which JONATHAN sometimes gives himself--on the fishery
question for instance--tolerable. But it will in all probability produce
results yet more extraordinary. A go-ahead people will not be content to
stop short at operas and concerts. Music will be utilized; applied to
political and social purposes; employed to enhance the charms of
eloquence, and adorn the wisdom of statesmanship. Patriots will sing
bravuras at caucus or in Congress on beha