startled to hear one of our party, a frontiersman born, intoning these words of sombre majesty:-- "'Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest A Sultan to the realm of death addressed. The Sultan rises and the dark Ferrash Strikes, and prepares it for another guest." I thought that sublime setting of primeval forest and pouring canon was worthy of the lines; I am sure the dewless, crystalline air never vibrated to strains of more solemn music. Certainly our poet can never be numbered among the great popular writers of all times. He has told no story; he has never unpacked his heart in public; he has never thrown the reins on the neck of the winged horse, and let his imagination carry him where it listed. "Ah! the crowd must have emphatic warrant." Its suffrages are not for the cool, collected observer, whose eye no glitter can ever dazzle, no mist suffuse. The many cannot but resent that air of lofty intelligence, that pale and subtle smile. But he will hold a place forever among that limited number who, like Lucretius and Epicurus--without rage or defiance, even without unbecoming mirth--look deep into the tangled mysteries of things; refuse credence to the absurd, and allegiance to the arrogant authority, sufficiently conscious of fallibility to be tolerant of all opinions; with a faith too wide for doctrine and a benevolence untrammelled by creed, too wise to be wholly poets, and yet too surely poets to be implacably wise. [Loud cheers.] RUTHERFORD B. HAYES NATIONAL SENTIMENTS [Speech of Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States, at the first annual banquet of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1880. The President of the Society, Benjamin D. Silliman, in introducing him, said: "Gentlemen, we are honored this evening by the presence of an illustrious descendant of New England, the Chief Magistrate of the Nation. [Cheers.] He is about retiring from his high position, with the respect, admiration and the gratitude of the people for the great wisdom, the pure purpose, the steady will and the unwavering firmness with which he has administered the government, preserved its honor and secured its property. [Loud cheers.] I propose to you, as our first toast, 'The President of the United States.'"]