joyousness of life.

But, according to our author, none of the great names in literature have
ever proclaimed the evangel of cheerfulness in all its health and
purity. The world as yet has never been fit to receive it. Years may
pass before it will be fully unfolded. Society is still in its earliest
March spring. The fresh winds which blow are still wild and chill; the
nights are long and dreary; and during these gloomy hours, the ancient
crone still relates horrible legends to believing ears. If the elder or
wiser ones only half believe them, most of the listeners still shiver at
their weird, grotesque poetry, and when they make new songs for
themselves, the old demoniac strains still linger on the air, showing
the origin of their earliest lays.

In order to illustrate the lack of true joyousness in the literature of
the world, Mr. Leland takes a rapid survey of some of the most
distinguished writers in ancient and modern times. Aristophanes, he
maintains, did not possess the genuine element in question. Allowing the
claims of the great satirist to genius, he had not reached the perennial
springs of cheerfulness in the depths of the human soul. In his gayest
arabesques, we trace the eternal line of life, but the deep, monotonous
echo of death is always nigh. He still had the sorrows which grieve the
strong humorist of every age. He could not escape the deep woe of seeing
social right and human happiness trodden under foot by tyranny; and
folly and ignorance, pain and sorrow were the great foundation stones on
which the gay temple of Grecian beauty was built. For every free citizen
who wandered through the groves of the Academy, holding high converse
with Plato, and revelling in the enjoyment of the divinest beauty in
nature and art, there was an untold multitude of slaves and barbarians,
into whose lives was crowded every element of bitterness.

But surely, the great sage of humor, glorious Father Rabelais, of later
days, was an exception to the prevailing rule of joyousness in
literature? Not at all, contends our author. To the young mind which
hungers for truth and joy, there is something irresistibly fascinating
and persuasive in the jolly philosophy and reckless worldly wisdom of
Rabelais. But after all, it will not do. It is anything but attainable
by most of the world. It demands good cheer and jovial company. But it
dies out in the desert, and is stifled among simple, vulgar associates.
Rabelais believed that