But this depends upon ourselves. Nations, like individuals, are free agents. We can go upwards or downwards; we can hail our Messiah or we can reject him; and in order that we may mount not sink in the scale of moral being, it is desirable that we should not permit ourselves to be bound down too closely and too continually to the local and temporary but exciting exigencies of the present hour, that pecuniary and political subjects should not engross too much of our attention, lest we become altogether “of the earth, earthy.” Music, poetry, painting, sculpture, eloquence and science, the fine performances of a Forrest or a Kean, have a tendency to mingle with our daily and (when too exclusively persisted in) narrowing and degrading occupations; something that turns the spirit another way, and fills, refreshes and intellectualizes the character. Such articles as that alluded to on the wonderful and still scarcely appreciated excellences of Shakspeare, will be as softening and reviving in their effects upon thousands of minds, parched and hot under the influence of merely mechanical employments, or interested and selfish impressions, as a plentiful summer shower is to nature, when burnt and withered with a long drought. The reading of this article has turned me again for a few evenings to my most favorite author, and raised many new ideas in my mind, which is always the case when I open those fascinating pages. I propose to furnish, in several papers, some of the thoughts which crowd upon me while reading him. I cannot bear to read him alone. It is like listening to an oration from the fiery lips of Cicero in an empty hall, or hearing Channing address deserted aisles. I want a circle to share those streams of light; I want to feel that the music-waves roll to the hearts of others beside myself. It almost seems selfish to brood over delights so ethereal, to gaze on vistas so resplendent, to enter a temple so gorgeous and so vast without some one at my side to call on in the moment of rapture. There is, moreover, in the article of the Edinburgh Review, the following extraordinary annunciation.