All around him, crowd as minions, Thrones and sceptres, and dominions, Kings and Queens; Ages past and ages present, Lord and dame, and prince and peasant, His demesnes! Approach! young bard hesperian, Welcome to the heights empyrean, Thou did'st sing, Ere yet thy trembling fingers Struck where fame immortal lingers, In the string. Kneel! I am the bard of Avon, And the Realm of song in Heaven Is my own; Long thy verse shall live in story, And thy Lyre I crown with glory, And a throne! [Decoration] XXIII. _SCIENCE, LITERATURE AND ART DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY._ Looking back into the past, and exploring by the light of authentic history, sacred as well as profane, the characteristics of former ages, the merest tyro in learning cannot fail to perceive that certain epochs stand prominently out on the "sands of time," and indicate vast activity and uncommon power in the human mind. These epochs are so well marked that history has given them a designation, and to call them by their name, conjures up, as by the wand of an enchanter, the heroic representatives of our race. If, for instance, we should speak of the era of Solomon, in sacred history, the memory would instantly picture forth the pinnacles of the Holy Temple, lifting themselves into the clouds; the ear would listen intently to catch the sweet intonations of the harp of David, vocal at once with the prophetic sorrows of his race, and swelling into sublime ecstasy at the final redemption of his people; the eye would glisten at the pomp and pageantry of the foreign potentates who thronged his court, and gloat with rapture over the beauty of the young Queen of Sheba, who journeyed from a distant land to seek wisdom at the feet of the wisest monarch that ever sat upon a throne. We should behold his ships traversing every sea, and pouring into the lap of Israel the gold of Ophir, the ivory of Senegambia, and the silks, myrrh, and spices of the East. So, too, has profane history its golden ages, when men all seemed to be giants, and their minds inspired.