"He that endures for what his conscience knows Not to be ill, doth from a patience high Look on the only cause whereto he owes Those sufferings, not on his misery; The more he endures the more his glory grows, Which never grows from imbecility; Only the best composed and worthiest hearts God sets to act the hardest and constant'st parts." Such an enthusiasm shows clearly on what a key the young man had set his life purposes, and what he was looking for in his life battle. Another poem which bears reiterated marks and dates, is to Lady Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of which these lines are a sample: "He that of such a height hath built his mind, And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind Of vanity or malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same; What a fair seat hath he! from whence he may The boundless wastes and wilds of man survey! "And while distraught ambition compasses And is compassed; whilst as craft deceives And is deceived; while man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And the inheritance of desolation leaves To great expecting hopes; he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture in impiety." These verses are so marked with Mr. Beecher's life habits of thought, with his modes of expression, that they show strongly the influence which these old poets had in forming both his habits of thought and expression. His mind naturally aspired after heroism, and from the time that he gave up his youthful naval enthusiasm he turned the direction of the heroic faculties into moral things. In the course of the sophomore year, Mr. Beecher was led, as a mere jovial frolic, to begin a course of investigation which colored his whole after life. A tall, grave, sober fellow had been reading some articles on Phrenology, on which Spurzheim was then lecturing in Boston, and avowed himself a convert. Quick as thought, the wits of college saw in this an occasion for glorious fun. They proposed to him with great apparent earnestness that he should deliver a course of lectures on the subject in Beecher's room.