"The shaft! the shaft!" they wildly crie_The Canadian Elocutionist Designed for the Use of Colleges, Schools and Self Instruction, Together with a Copious Selection in Prose and Poetry of Pieces Adapted for Reading, Recitation and Practice

And as they ran they passed a cave,

Where stood a father by his son--

The child had found a living grave,

And lay among the shattered coal,

His little life had almost sped.

"Fly! fly! For there may yet be time!"

The father calmly, firmly said:

"Nay; I'll stay with the lad."

He had no hurt; he yet might reach

The blessed sun and light again.

But at his feet his child lay bound,

And every hope of help was vain.

He let deliverance pass him by;

He stooped and kissed the little face;

"I will not leave thee by thyself,

Ah! lad; this is thy father's place."

So Self before sweet Love lay slain.

In the deep mine again was told

The story of a father's love.

Older than mortal man is old;

For though they urged him o'er and o'er,

To every prayer he only had

The answer he had found at first,

"Nay; I'll stay with the lad."

And when some weary days had passed,

And men durst venture near the place,

They lay where Death had found them both,

But hand in hand, and face to face.

And men were better for that sight,

And told the tale with tearful breath;

There was not one but only felt,

The man had died a noble death,

And left this thought for all to keep--

If earthly fathers can so love,

Ah, surely, we may safely lean

Upon the Fatherhood above!

_Lillie E. Barr._

* * * * *

MARY MALONEY'S PHILOSOPHY.

"What are you singing for?" said I to Mary Maloney.

"Oh, I don't know, ma'am, without it's because my heart feels happy."

"Happy are you, Mary Maloney? Let me see; you don't own a foot of land in

the world?"

"Foot of land, is it?" she cried, with a hearty Irish laugh; "oh, what a

hand ye be after joking; why I haven't a penny, let alone the land."

"Your mother is dead!"

"God rest her soul, yes," replied Mary Maloney, with a touch of genuine

pathos; "may the angels make her bed in heaven."

"Your brother is still a hard case, I suppose."

"Ah, you may well say that. It's nothing but drink, drink, drink, and

beating his poor wife, that she is, the creature."

You have to pay your little sister's board."

"Sure, the bit creature, and she's a good little girl, is Hinny, willing to

do whatever I axes her. I don't grudge the money what goes for that."

"You haven't many fashionable dresses, either, Mary Maloney."

"Fashionable, is it? Oh, yes, I put a piece of whalebone in my skirt, and

me calico gown looks as big as the great ladies. But then ye says true, I

hasn't but two gowns to me back, two shoes, to me feet, and one bonnet to

me head, barring the old hood you gave me."

"You haven't any lover, Mary Maloney."

"Oh, be off wid ye--ketch Mary Maloney getting a lover these days, when the

hard times is come. No, no, thank Heaven I haven't got that to trouble me

yet, nor I don't want it."

"What on earth, then, have you got to make you happy? A drunken brother, a

poor helpless sister, no mother, no father, no lover; why, where do you get

all your happiness from?"

"The Lord be praised, Miss, it growed up in me. Give me a bit of sunshine,

a clean flure, plenty of work, and a sup at the right time, and I'm made.

That makes me laugh and sing, and then if deep trouble comes, why, God

helpin' me, I'll try to keep my heart up. Sure, it would be a sad thing if

Patrick McGrue should take it into his head to come an ax me, but, the Lord

willin', I'd try to bear up under it."

_Philadelphia Bulletin._

* * * * *

THE POLISH BOY.

Whence came those shrieks, so wild and shrill,

That like an arrow cleave the air,

Causing the blood to creep and thrill

With such sharp cadence of despair?

Once more they come! as if a heart

Were cleft in twain by one quick blow,

And every string had voice apart

To utter its peculiar woe!

Whence came they? From yon temple, where

An altar raised for private prayer

Now forms the warrior's marble bed,

Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.

The dim funereal tapers throw

A holy lustre o'er his brow,

And burnish with their rays of light

The mass of curls that gather bright

Above the haughty brow and eye

Of a young boy that's kneeling by.

What hand is that whose icy press

Clings to the dead with death's own grasp,

But meets no answering caress--

No thrilling fingers seek its clasp?

It is the hand of her whose cry

Rang wildly late upon the air,

When the dead warrior met her eye,

Outstretched upon the altar there.

Now with white lips and broken moan

She sinks beside the altar stone;

But hark! the heavy tramp of feet

Is heard along the gloomy street;

Nearer and nearer yet they come,

With clanking arms and noiseless drum.

They leave the pavement. Flowers that spread

Their beauties by the path they tread

Are crushed and broken. Crimson hands

Rend brutally their blooming bands.

Now whispered curses, low and deep,

Around the holy temple creep.

The gate is burst. A ruffian band

Rush in and savagely demand,

With brutal voice and oath profane,

The startled boy for exile's chain.

The mother sprang with gesture wild,

And to her bosom snatched the child;

Then with pale cheek and flashing eye,

Shouted with fearful energy,--

"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread

Too near the body of my dead!

Nor touch the living boy--I stand

Between him and your lawless band!

No traitor he--but listen! I

Have cursed your master's tyranny.

I cheered my lord to join the band

Of those who swore to free our land,

Or fighting, die; and when he pressed

Me for the last time to his breast,

I knew that soon his form would be

Low as it is, or Poland free.

He went and grappled with the foe,

Laid many a haughty Russian low;

But he is dead--the good--the brave--

And I, his wife, am worse--a slave!

Take me, and bind these arms, these hands,

With Russia's heaviest iron bands,

And drag me to Siberia's wild

To perish, if 'twill save my child!"

"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,

Tearing the pale boy from her side;

And in his ruffian grasp he bore

His victim to the temple door.

"One moment!" shrieked the mother, "one;

Can land or gold redeem my son?

If so, I bend my Polish knee,

And, Russia, ask a boon of thee.

Take palaces, take lands, take all,

But leave him free from Russian thrall.

Take these," and her white arms and hands

She stripped of rings and diamond bands,

And tore from braids of long black hair

The gems that gleamed like star-light there;

Unclasped the brilliant coronal

And carcanet of orient pearl;

Her cross of blazing rubies last

Down to the Russian's feet she cast.

He stooped to seize the glittering store;

Upspringing from the marble floor;

The mother, with a cry of joy,

Snatched to her leaping heart the boy!

But no--the Russian's iron grasp

Again undid the mother's clasp.

Forward she fell, with one long cry

Of more than mother's agony.

But the brave child is roused at length,

And breaking from the Russian's hold,

He stands, a giant in the strength

Of his young spirit, fierce and bold.

Proudly he towers, his flashing eye,

So blue and fiercely bright,

Seems lighted from the eternal sky,

So brilliant is its light.

His curling lips and crimson cheeks

Foretell the thought before he speaks.

With a full voice of proud command

He turns upon the wondering band.

"Ye hold me not! no, no, nor can;

This hour has made the boy a man.

The world shall witness that one soul

Fears not to prove itself a Pole.

"I knelt beside my slaughtered sire,

Nor felt one throb of vengeful ire;

I wept upon his marble brow--

Yes, wept--I was a child; but now

My noble mother on her knee,

Has done the work of years for me.

Although in this small tenement

My soul is cramped--unbowed, unbent

I've still within me ample power

To free myself this very hour.

This dagger in my heart! and then,

Where is your boasted power, base men?"

He drew aside his broidered vest,

And there, like slumbering serpent's crest,

The jewelled haft of a poinard bright,

Glittered a moment on the sight.

"Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave!

Think ye my noble father's glaive,

Could drink the life blood of a slave?

The pearls that on the handle flame,

Would blush to rubies in their shame.

The blade would quiver in thy breast,

Ashamed of such ignoble rest!

No; thus I rend thy tyrant's chain,

And fling him back a boy's disdain!"

A moment, and the funeral light

Flashed on the jewelled weapon bright;

Another, and his young heart's blood

Leaped to the floor a crimson flood.

Quick to his mother's side he sprang,

And on the air his clear voice rang--

"Up, mother, up! I'm free! I'm free!

The choice was death or slavery:

Up! mother, up! look on my face,

I only wait for thy embrace.

One last, last word--a blessing, one,

To prove thou knowest what I have done,

No look! No word! Canst thou not feel

My warm blood o'er thy heart congeal?

Speak, mother, speak--lift up thy head.

What, silent still? Then thou art dead!

Great God, I thank thee! Mother, I

Rejoice with thee, and thus to die."

Slowly he falls. The clustering hair

Rolls back and leaves that forehead bare.

One long, deep breath, and his pale head

Lay on his mother's bosom, dead.

_Mrs. Ann S. Stephens._

* * * * *

THOUGH LOST TO SIGHT, TO MEMORY DEAR.

Sweetheart, good-bye! the flutt'ring sail

Is spread to waft me far from thee,

And soon before the favouring gale

My ship shall bound upon the sea.

Perchance, all desolate and forlorn,

These eyes shall miss thee many a year;

But unforgotten every charm--

Though lost to sight, to memory dear.

Sweetheart, good-bye! one last embrace;

O, cruel fate, two souls to sever!

Yet in this heart's most sacred place

Thou, thou alone shalt dwell forever;

And still shall recollection trace

In fancy's mirror, ever near,

Each smile, each tear--that form, that face--

Though lost to sight, to memory dear.

_Ruthven Jenkyns._

* * * * *

THE AGUE.

Once upon an evening bleary,

While I sat me dreaming, dreary,

In the parlour thinking o'er

Things that passed in days of yore,

While I nodded, nearly sleeping,

Gently came something creeping,

Creeping upward from the floor.

"'Tis a cooling breeze," I muttered,

"From the regions 'neath the floor:

Only this and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember--

It was in that wet September,

When the earth and every member

Of creation that it bore,

Had for weeks and months been soaking

In the meanest, most provoking,

Foggy rain, that without joking,

We had ever seen before.

So I knew it must be very

Cold and damp beneath the floor,

Very cold beneath the floor.

So I sat me, nearly napping,

In the sunshine, stretching, gaping,

With a feeling quite delighted

With the breezes 'neath the floor,

Till I felt me growing colder,

And the stretching waxing bolder,

And myself now feeling older,

Older than I felt before;

Feeling that my joints were stiffer

Than they were in days of yore,

Stiffer than they'd been before.

All along my back, the creeping

Soon gave place to rustling, leaping,

As if countless frozen demons

Had concluded to explore

All the cavities--the varmints!--

'Twixt me and my nether garments,

Through my boots into the floor:

Then I found myself a shaking,

Gently shaking more and more,

Every moment more and more.

'Twas the ague; and it shook me

Into heavy clothes, and took me

Shaking to the kitchen, every

Place where there was warmth in store,

Shaking till the china rattled,

Shaking till the morals battled;

Shaking, and with all my warming,

Feeling colder than before;

Shaking till it had exhausted

All its powers to shake me more.

Till it could not shake me more.

Then it rested till the morrow,

When it came with all the horror

That it had the face to borrow,

Shaking, shaking as before,

And from that day in September--

Day which I shall long remember--

It has made diurnal visits,

Shaking, shaking, oh! so sore,

Shaking off my boots, and shaking

Me to bed if nothing more,

Fully this if nothing more.

And to-day the swallows flitting

Bound my cottage see me sitting

Moodily within the sunshine

Just inside my silent door,

Waiting for the ague, seeming

Like a man forever dreaming,

And the sunlight on me streaming,

Casts no shadow on the floor,

For I am too thin and sallow

To make shadows on the floor,

Never a shadow any more.

* * * * *

THE OLD MAN IN THE MODEL CHURCH.

Well, wife, I've found the model church! I worshipped there to-day!

It made me think of good old times before my hairs were gray;

The meetin' house was fixed up more than they were years ago,

But then I felt, when I went in, it wasn't built for show.

The sexton didn't seat me away back by the door;

He knew that I was old and deaf, as well as old and poor;

He must have been a Christian, for he led me boldly through

The long aisle of that crowded church to find a pleasant pew.

I wish you'd heard the singin'; it had the old-time ring;

The preacher said, with trumpet voice: "Let all the people sing!"

The tune was "Coronation," and the music upward rolled,

Till I thought I heard the angels striking all their harps of gold.

My deafness seemed to melt away; my spirit caught the fire;

I joined my feeble, trembling voice with that melodious choir,

And sang as in my youthful days: "Let angels prostrate fall;

Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all."

I tell you, wife, it did me good to sing that hymn once more;

I felt like some wrecked mariner who gets a glimpse of shore;

I almost wanted to lay down this weather-beaten form,

And anchor in that blessed port, forever from the storm.

The prech'en? Well, I can't just tell all that the preacher said;

I know it wasn't written; I know it wasn't read;

He hadn't time to read it, for the lightnin' of his eye

Went flashin' 'long from pew to pew, nor passed a sinner by.

The sermon wasn't flowery; 'twas simple gospel truth;

It fitted poor old men like me; it fitted hopeful youth;

'Twas full of consolation, for weary hearts that bleed;

'Twas full of invitations to Christ and not to creed.

How swift the golden moments fled, within that holy place;

How brightly beamed the light of heaven from every happy face;

Again I longed for that sweet time, when friend shall meet with friend,

"When congregations ne'er break up, and Sabbath has no end."

I hope to meet that minister--that congregation, too--

In that dear home beyond the stars that shine from heaven's blue;

I doubt not I'll remember, beyond life's evenin' gray,

The happy hour of worship in that model church to-day.

Dear wife, the fight will soon be fought--the victory soon be won;

The shinin' goal is just ahead; the race is nearly run;

O'er the river we are nearin', they are throngin' to the shore,

To shout our safe arrival where the weary weep no more.

_John H. Yates_.

* * * * *

THE YOUNG GRAY HEAD.

I'm thinking that to-night, if not before,

There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton roar.

It's brewing up, down westward; and look there!

One of those sea-gulls! ay, there goes a pair;

And such a sudden thaw! If rain comes on

As threats, the water will be out anon.

That path by the ford is a nasty bit of way,

Best let the young ones bide from school to-day.

The children join in this request; but the mother

resolves that they shall set out--the two girls, Lizzie and

Jenny, the one five, the other seven. As the dame's will

was law, so--

One last fond kiss--

"God bless my little maids," the father said,

And cheerily went his way to win their bread.

Prepared for their journey they depart, with the

mother's admonition to the elder--

"Now mind and bring

Jenny safe home," the mother said. "Don't stay

To pull a bough or berry by the way;

And when you come to cross the ford hold fast

Your little sister's hand till you're quite past,

That plank is so crazy, and so slippery

If not overflowed the stepping stones will be;

But you're good children--steady as old folk,

I'd trust ye anywhere." Then Lizzie's cloak

(A good gray duffle) lovingly she tied,

And amply little Jenny's lack supplied

With her own warmest shawl. "Be sure," said she,

"To wrap it round, and knot it carefully,

(Like this) when you come home--just leaving free

One hand to hold by. Now, make haste away--

Good will to school, and then good right to play."

The mother watches them with foreboding, though she knows not why. In a

little while the threatened storm sets in. Night comes, and with it comes

the father from his daily toil--There's a treasure hidden in his hat--

A plaything for the young ones he has found--

A dormouse nest; the living ball coil'd round

For its long winter sleep; all his thought

As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught

But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes,

And graver Lizzie's quieter surprise,

When he should yield, by guess, and kiss, and prayer,

Hard won, the frozen captive to their care.

No little faces greet him as wont at the threshold; and to his hurried

question--

"Are they come?"--t'was, "No,"

To throw his tools down, hastily unhook

The old crack'd lantern from its dusky nook

And, while he lit it, speak a cheering word

That almost choked him, and was scarcely heard,--

Was but a moment's act, and he was gone

To where a fearful foresight led him on.

A neighbour goes with him, and the faithful dog follows

the children's tracks.

"Hold the light

Low down, he's making for the water. Hark!

I know that whine; the old dog's found them, Mark;"

So speaking, breathlessly he hurried on

Toward the old crazy foot bridge. It was gone!

And all his dull contracted light could show

Was the black void, and dark swollen stream below;

"Yet there's life somewhere--more than Tinker's whine--

That's sure," said Mark, "So, let the lantern shine

Down yonder. There's the dog and--hark!"

"O dear!"

And a low sob came faintly on the ear,

Mocked by the sobbing gust. Down, quick as thought,

Into the stream leaped Ambrose, where he caught

Fast hold of something--a dark huddled heap--

Half in the water, where 'twas scarce knee deep

For a tall man: and half above it propped

By some old ragged side piles that had stop't

Endways the broken plank when it gave way

With the two little ones, that luckless day!

"My babes! my lambkins!" was the father's cry,

_One little voice_ made answer, "Here am I;"

'Twas Lizzie's. There she crouched with face as white,

More ghastly, by the flickering lantern light,

Than sheeted corpse. The pale blue lips drawn tight,

Wide parted, showing all the pearly teeth,

And eyes on some dark object underneath,

Washed by the turbid waters, fix'd like stone--

One arm and hand stretched out, and rigid grown,

Grasping, as in the death-grip, Jenny's frock.

There she lay, drown'd.

They lifted her from out her watery bed--

Its covering gone, the lovely little head

Hung like a broken snowdrop all aside,

And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied

Leaving that free about the child's small form,

As was her last injunction--"fast and warm,"

Too well obeyed--too fast! A fatal hold,

Affording to the scrag, by a thick fold

That caught and pinned her to the river's bed.

While through the reckless water overhead,

Her life breath bubbled up.

"She might have lived,

Struggling like Lizzie," was the thought that rived

The wretched mother's heart when she heard all,

"But for my foolishness about that shawl."

"Who says I forgot?

Mother! indeed, indeed I kept fast hold,

And tied the shawl quite close--she

Can't be cold--

But she won't move--we slept--I don't know how--

But I held on, and I'm so weary now--

And its so dark and cold! Oh, dear! oh, dear!

And she won't move--if father were but here!"

All night long from side to side she turn'd,

Piteously plaining like a wounded dove.

With now and then the murmur, "She won't move,"

And lo! when morning, as in mockery, bright

Shone on that pillow--passing strange the sight,

The young head's raven hair was streaked with white!

_Mrs. Southey._

* * * * *

SCENE AT NIAGARA FALLS.

It is summer. A party of visitors are just crossing the iron bridge that

extends from the American shore to Goat's Island, about a quarter of a mile

above the Falls. Just as they are about to leave, while watching the stream

as it plunges and dashes among the rocks below, the eye of one fastens on

something clinging to a rock, caught on the very verge of the Falls.

Scarcely willing to believe his own vision, he directs the attention of his

companions. The terrible news spreads like lightning, and in a few minutes

the bridge and the surrounding shore are covered with thousands of

spectators. "Who is he?" "How did he get there?" are questions every person

proposed, but answered by none. No voice is heard above the awful flood,

but a spy-glass shows frequent efforts to speak to the gathering multitude.

Such silent appeals exceed the eloquence of words; they are irresistible,

and something must be done. A small boat is soon upon the bridge, and with

a rope attached sets out upon its fearless voyage, but is instantly sunk.

Another and another are tried, but they are all swallowed up by the angry

waters. A large one might possibly survive; but none is at hand. Away to

Buffalo a car is despatched, and never did the iron horse thunder along its

steel-bound track on such a godlike mission. Soon the most competent life-

boat is upon the spot. All eyes are fixed upon the object, as trembling and

tossing amid the boiling white waves it survives the roughest waters. One

breaker past and it will have reached the object of its mission. But being

partly filled with water and striking a sunken rock, that next wave sends

it hurling to the bottom. An involuntary groan passes through the dense

multitude, and hope scarcely nestles in a single bosom. The sun goes down

in gloom, and as darkness comes on and the crowd begins to scatter,

methinks the angels looking over the battlements on high drop a tear of

pity on the scene. The silvery stars shine dimly through their curtain of

blue. The multitude are gone, and the sufferer is left with his God. Long

before morning he must be swept over that dreadful abyss; he clings to that

rock with all the tenacity of despair, and as he surveys the horrors of his

position strange visions in the air come looming up before him. He sees his

home, his wife and children there; he sees the home of his childhood; he

sees that mother as she used to soothe his childish fears upon her breast;

he sees a watery grave, and then the vision closes in tears. In imagination

he hears the hideous yells of demons, and mingled prayers and curses die

upon his lips.

No sooner does morning dawn than the multitude again rush to the scene of

horror, Soon a shout is heard: he is there; he is still alive. Just now a

carriage arrives upon the bridge, and a woman leaps from it and rushes to

the most favourable point of observation. She had driven from Chippewa,

three miles above the Falls; her husband had crossed the river night before

last, and had not returned, and she fears he may be clinging to that rock.

All eyes are turned for a moment toward the anxious woman, and no sooner is

a glass handed to her fixed upon the object than she shrieks, "Oh, my

husband!" and sinks senseless to the earth. The excitement, before intense,

seems now almost unendurable, and something must again be tried. A small

raft is constructed, and, to the surprise of all, swings up beside the rock

to which the sufferer had clung for the last forty-eight hours. He

instantly throws himself full length upon it. Thousands are pulling at the

end of the rope, and with skillful management a few rods are gained toward

the nearest shore. What tongue can tell, what pencil can paint, the anxiety

with which that little bark is watched as, trembling and tossing amid the

roughest waters, it nears that rock-bound coast? Save Niagara's eternal

roar, all is silent as the grave. His wife sees it and is only restrained

by force from rushing into the river. Hope instantly springs into every

bosom, but it is only to sink into deeper gloom. The angel of death has

spread his wings over that little bark; the poor man's strength is almost

gone; each wave lessens his grasp more and more, but all will be safe if

that nearest wave is past. But that next surging billow breaks his hold

upon the pitching timbers, the next moment hurling him to the awful verge,

where, with body, erect, hands clenched, and eyes that are taking their

last look of earth, he shrieks, above Niagara's eternal roar, "Lost!" and

sinks forever from the gaze of man.

_Charles Tarson._

* * * * *

"CURFEW MUST NOT RING TO-NIGHT."

Slowly England's sun was setting o'er the hilltops far away,

Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day,

And the last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,--

He with footsteps slow and weary, she with sunny, floating hair;

He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she with lips all cold and white,

Struggled to keep back the murmur,--

"Curfew must not ring to-night."

"Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,

With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp and cold,

"I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die,

At the ringing of the curfew--and no earthly help is nigh;

Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white

As she breathed the husky whisper,--

"Curfew must not ring to-night"

"Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton, every word pierced her young heart

Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly, poisoned dart.

"Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;

Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour;

I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right,

Now I'm old I still must do it,

Curfew it must ring to-night."

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,

And within her secret bosom, Bessie made a solemn vow.

She had listened while the judges read without a tear or sigh,

"At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."

And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright--

In an undertone she murmured,--

"Curfew must not ring to-night."

She with quick steps bounded forward, sprung within the old church door,

Left the old man treading slowly paths so oft he'd trod before;

Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow,

Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro;

And she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light,

Up and up--her white lips saying--

"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

She has reached the topmost ladder, o'er her hangs the great dark bell;

Awful is the gloom beneath her, like a pathway down to hell.

Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging, 'tis the hour of curfew now

And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.

Shall she let it ring? No, never! Flash her eyes with sudden light,

And she springs and grasps it firmly--

"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

Out she swung, far out, the city seemed a speck of light below,

'Twixt heaven and earth her form suspended, as the bell swung to and fro,

And the sexton at the bell rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,

But he thought it still was ringing fair young Basil's funeral knell.

Still the maiden clung most firmly, and with trembling lips and white,

Said to hush her heart's wild beating,--

"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

It was o'er, the bell ceased swaying, and the maiden stepped once more

Firmly on the dark old ladder, where for hundred years before,

Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done

Should be told long ages after, as the rays of setting sun

Should illume the sky with beauty; aged sires with heads of white,

Long should tell the little children,

Curfew did not ring that night.

O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him and her brow,

Full of hope and full of gladness, has no anxious traces now.

At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;

And her face so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow pale and worn,

Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eye with misty light:

"Go, your lover lives," said Cromwell,

"Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

* * * * *

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.

Here were not mingled, in the city's pomp,

Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom;

Judgment awoke not here her dismal trump,

Nor sealed in blood a fellow-creature's doom;

Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb.

One venerable man, beloved of all,

Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom,

To sway the strife, that seldom might befall;

And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.

How reverend was the look, serenely aged,

He bore, this gentle Pennsylvanian sire,

Where all but kindly fervours were assuaged,

Undimmed by weakness' shade, or turbid ire!

And though, amidst the calm of thought, entire,

Some high and haughty features might betray

A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire

That fled composure's intellectual ray,

As Aetna's fires grow dim before the rising day.

I boast no song in magic wonders rife;

But yet, O Nature! is there naught to prize,

Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life?

And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies

No form with which the soul may sympathize?--

Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild

The parted ringlet shone in sweetest guise,

An inmate in the home of Albert smiled,

Or blessed his noonday walk;--she was his only child.

The rose of England bloomed on Gertrude's cheek:--

What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire

A Briton's independence taught to seek

Far western worlds; and there his household fire

The light of social love did long inspire;

And many a halcyon day he lived to see,

Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,

When fate had reft his mutual heart--but she

Was gone;--and Gertrude climbed a widowed father's knee.

A loved bequest;--and I may half impart

To them that feel the strong paternal tie,

How like a new existence to his heart

That living flower uprose beneath his eye,

Dear as she was from cherub infancy,

From hours when she would round his garden play,

To time when, as the ripening years went by,

Her lovely mind could culture well repay,

And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.

I may not paint those thousand infant charms;

(Unconscious fascination, undesigned!)

The orison repeated in his arms,

For God to bless her sire and all mankind;

The book, the bosom on his knee reclined;

Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,

(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind!)

All uncompanioned else her heart had gone,

Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.

_Campbell._

* * * * *

AN AUTUMN DAY.

But now a joy too deep for sound,

A peace no other season knows,

Hushes the heavens, and wraps the ground,--

The blessing of supreme repose.

Away! I will not be, to-day,

The only slave of toil and care;

Away! from desk and dust, away!

I'll be as idle as the air.

Beneath the open sky abroad,

Among the plants and breathing things,

The sinless, peaceful works of God,

I'll share the calm the season brings.

Come thou, in whose soft eyes I see

The gentle meaning of the heart,--

One day amid the woods with thee,

From men and all their cares apart;--

And where, upon the meadow's breast,

The shadow of the thicket lies,

The blue wild flowers thou gatherest

Shall glow yet deeper near thine eyes.

Come,--and when 'mid the calm profound,

I turn those gentle eyes to seek,

They, like the lovely landscape round,

Of innocence and peace shall speak.

Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade;

And on the silent valleys gaze,

Winding and widening, till they fade

In yon soft ring of summer haze.

The village trees their summits rear

Still as its spire; and yonder flock,

At rest in those calm fields, appear

As chiselled from the lifeless rock.

One tranquil mount the scene o'erlooks,

Where the hushed winds their Sabbath keep,

While a near hum from bees and brooks,

Comes faintly like the breath of sleep.--

Well might the gazer deem, that when,

Worn with the struggle and the strife,

And heart-sick at the sons of men,

The good forsake the scenes of life,--

Like the deep quiet, that awhile

Lingers the lovely landscape o'er,

Shall be the peace whose holy smile

Welcomes them to a happier shore!

_Bryant._

* * * * *

SONNET.

Our love is not a fading earthly flower:

Its wingèd seed dropped down from Paradise,

And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower

Doth momently to fresher beauty rise.

To us the leafless autumn is not bare,

Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green:

Our summer hearts make summer's fullness where

No leaf or bud or blossom may be seen:

For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,

Love,--whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,

Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I

Into the infinite freedom openeth,

And makes the body's dark and narrow grate

The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate.

_James Russell Lowell._

* * * * *

BABY'S VISITOR.

My baby boy sat on the floor;

His big blue eyes were full of wonder

For he had never seen before

That baby in the mirror door--

What kept the two, so near, asunder?

He leaned toward the golden head

The mirror border framed within,

Until twin cheeks, like roses red,

Lay side by side; then softly said,

"I can't get out; can you come in?"

_Atlanta Constitution._

* * * * *

A PRAYER.

God! do not let my loved one die,

But rather wait until the time

That I am grown in purity

Enough to enter Thy pure clime

Then take me, I will gladly go,

So that my love remain below!

Oh, let her stay! She is by birth

What I through death must learn to be,

We need her more on our poor earth

Than Thou canst need in heaven with Thee;

She hath her wings already: I

Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly.

Then, God, take me! we shall be near,

More near than ever, each to each:

Her angel ears will find more clear

My earthly than my heavenly speech;

And still, as I draw nigh to Thee,

Her soul and mine shall closer be.

_James Russell Lowell._

* * * * *

THERE'S NOTHING TRUE BUT HEAVEN.

This world is all a fleeting show,

For man's illusion given;

The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,

Deceitful shine, deceitful flow--

There's nothing _true_ but Heaven.

And false the light on glory's plume,

As fading hues of even;

And love, and hope, and beauty's bloom,

Are blossoms gathered for the tomb--

There's nothing _bright_ but Heaven.

Poor wanderers of a stormy day,

From wave to wave we're driven;

And fancy's flash, and reason's ray,

Serve but to light the troubled way--

There's nothing _calm_ but Heaven.

_Moore._

* * * * *

HOME SONG.

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;

Home-keeping hearts are happiest,

For those that wander they know not where

Are full of trouble and full of care;

To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,

They wander east, and they wander west,

And are baffled and beaten and blown about

By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;

To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;

The bird is safest in its nest;

O'er all that flutter their wings and fly

A hawk is hovering in the sky;

To stay at home is best.

_H. W. Longfellow._

* * * * *

SAVED.

Crouching in the twilight-gray,

Like a hunted thing at bay,

In his brain one thought is rife:

Why not end the bootless strife?

Who in God's wide world would weep,

Should he brave death's dreamless sleep?

Hark! a child's voice, soft and clear,

Pulsing through the gloaming drear;

And the word the singer brings

Like a new evangel rings;

"Jesus loves me! this I know,"

Swift his thoughts to childhood go.

Memories of a mother's face

Bending to her boy's embrace,

And the boy at eventide

Kneeling by the mother's side,

Like "sweet visions of the night"

Fill the lonesome place with light,

While the singer's tender trill--

"Jesus loves me! loves me still"--

Hovers in the dreamlit air

Like an answer to the prayer.

Offered in those happy days

When he walked in sinless ways.

"Jesus loves me!" Can it be

His, this _benedicite_?

Is there One who knows and cares?

One who all his sorrow shares?

"Jesus loves me!" While the song

Guileless lips with joy prolong,

Lo! a soul has ceased its strife,

Reconciled to God and life.

_Mary B. Sleight._

* * * * *

SONG OF BIRDS.

Did you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?

Did you ne'er think who made them, and who taught

The dialect they speak, where melodies

Alone are the interpreters of thought?

Whose household word are songs in many keys,

Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught;

Whose habitations in the tree-tops even

Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

Think, every morning, when the sun peeps through

The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the, grove,

How jubilant the happy birds renew

Their old melodious madrigals of love!

And, when you think of this, remember, too,

'Tis always morning somewhere, and above

The awakening continents, from shore to shore,

Somewhere the birds are singing evermore!

_Longfellow._

* * * * *

JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL.

'Twas in the summer of '46 that I landed at Hamilton, fresh as a new pratie

just dug from the "old sod," and wid a light heart and a heavy bundle I sot

off for the township of Buford, tiding a taste of a song, as merry a young

fellow as iver took the road. Well, I trudged on and on, past many a

plisint place, pleasin' myself wid the thought that some day I might have a

place of my own, wid a world of chickens and ducks and pigs and childer

about the door; and along in the afternoon of the sicond day I got to

Buford village. A cousin of me mother's, one Dennis O'Dowd, lived about

sivin miles from there, and I wanted to make his place that night, so I

enquired the way at the tavern, and was lucky to find a man, who was goin'

part of the way an' would show me the way to find Dennis. Sure, he was very

kind indade, and when I got out of his wagon, he pointed me through the

wood and told me to go straight south a mile an' a half, and the first

house would be Dennis's.

"An' you have no time to lose now," said he, "for the sun is low, and mind

you don't get lost in the woods."

"Is it lost now," said I, "that I'd be gittin, an' me uncle as great a

navigator at iver steered a ship across the thrackless say! Not a bit of

it, though I'm obleeged to ye for your kind advice, an thank yez for the

ride."

An' wid that he drove off an' left me alone. I shouldered my bundle

bravely, an' whistling a bit of tune for company like, I pushed into the

bush. Well, I went a long way over bogs, and turnin' round among the bush

and trees till I began to think I must be well nigh to Dennis's. But, bad

cess to it! all of a sudden, I came out of the woods at the very identical

spot where I started in, which I knew by an ould crotched tree that seemed

to be standin' on its head an' kicking up its heels to make divarsion of

me. By this time it was growing dark, and as there was no time to lose, I

started in a second time, determined to keep straight south this time and

no mistake. I got on bravely for awhile, but och hone! och hone! it got so

dark I couldn't see the trees, and I bumped me nose and barked me shins,

while the miskaties bit me hands and face to a blister; and after tumblin'

and stumblin' around till I was fairly bamfoozled, I sat down on a log, all

of a trimble, to think that was lost intirely, and that maybe a lion or

some other wild craythur would devour me before morning.

Just then I heard somebody a long way off say, "Whip poor Will!" "Bedad!"

sez I, "I'm glad it isn't Jamie that's got to take it, though it seems its

more in sorrow than in anger they're doin' it, or why should they say,

'poor Will?' and sure they can't be Injin, haythen, or naygur, for its

plain English they're afther spakin?"

Maybe they might help me out o' this, so I shouted at the top of my voice,

"A lost man!" Thin I listened. Prisintly an answer came.

"Who: Whoo! Whooo!"

"Jamie Butler, the waiver," sez I, as loud as I could roar, an' snatchin'

up me bundle an' stick, I started in the direction of the voice. Whin I

thought I had got near the place I stopped and shouted again, "A lost man!"

"Who! Whoo! Whooo!" said a voice right over my head.

"Sure," thinks I, "it's a quare place for a man to be at this time of

night; maybe it's some settler scrapin' sugar off a sugar bush for the

childher's breakfast in the mornin'. But where's Will and the rest of

them?" All this wint through me head like a flash, an' thin I answered his

enquiry.

"Jamie Butler, the waiver," sez I; "and if it wouldn't inconvanience your

honour, would yez be kind enough to step down and show me the way to the

house of Dennis O'Dowd?"

"Who! Whoo! Whooo!" sez he.

"Dennis O'Dowd!" sez I, civil enough, "and a dacent man he is, and first

cousin to me own mother."

"Who! Whoo! Whooo!" sez he again.

"Me mother!" sez I, "and as fine a woman as ever peeled a biled pratie wid

her thumb nail, and her maiden name was Molly McFiggin."

"Who! Whoo! Whooo!"

"Paddy McFiggin! bad luck to your deaf ould head, Paddy McFiggin, I say--do

you hear that? And he was the tallest man in all the county Tipperary,

excipt Jim Doyle, the blacksmith."

"Who! Whoo! Whooo!"

"Jim Doyle the blacksmith," sez I, "ye good for nothin' naygur, and if yez

don't come down and show me the way this min't I'll climb up there and

break ivery bone in your own skin, ye spalpeen, so sure as me name is Jimmy

Butler!"

"Who! Whoo! Whooo!" sez he, as impident as iver.

I said niver a word, but layin' down me bundle, and takin' me stick in me

teeth, I began to climb the tree. Whin I got among the branches I looked

quietly round till I saw a pair of big eyes just forninst me.

"Whist," sez I, "and I let him have a taste of an Irish stick," an' wid

that I let drive an' lost me balance an' came tumblin' to the ground,

nearly breaking me neck wid the fall. Whin I came to me sinsis I had a very

sore head wid a lump on it like a goose egg, and half me Sunday coat-tail

tore off intirely. I spoke to the chap in the tree, but could get niver an

answer at all, at all.

Sure, thinks I, he must have gone home to rowl up his head, for I don't

throw me stick for nothin'.

Well, by this time the moon was up and I could see a little, and I

detarmined to make one more effort to reach Dennis's.

I went on cautiously for awhile, an' thin I heard a bell. "Sure," sez I,

"I'm comin' to a settlement now, for I hear the church bell." I kept on

toward the sound till I came to an ould cow wid a bell on. She started to

run, but I was too quick for her, and got her by the tail and hung on,

thinkin' that maybe she would take me out of the woods. On we wint, like an

ould country steeple chase, till, sure enough, we came out to a clearin'

and a house in sight wid a light in it. So leavin' the ould cow puffin and

blowin' in a shed, I wint to the house, and as luck would have it, whose

should it be but Dennis's?

He gave me a raal Irish, welcome, and introduced me to his two daughters--

as purty a pair of girls as iver ye clapped an eye on. But whin I tould him

me adventure in the woods, and about the fellow who made fun of me, they

all laughed and roared, and Dennis said it was an owl.

"An ould what," sez I.

"Why, an owl, a bird," sez he.

"Do you tell me now!" sez I. "Sure it's a quare country and a quare bird."

And thin they all laughed again, till at last I laughed myself, that hearty

like, and dropped right into a chair between the two purty girls, and the

ould chap winked at me and roared again.

Dennis is me father-in-law now, and he often yet delights to tell our

children about their daddy's adventure wid the owl.

* * * * *

THE QUAKER WIDOW.

Thee finds me in the garden, Hannah,--come in! 'Tis kind of thee

To wait until the Friends were gone, who came to comfort me.

The still and quiet company a peace may give indeed,

But blessed is the single heart that comes to us in need.

Come, sit thee down! Here is the bench where Benjamin would sit

On First-day afternoons in spring, and watch the swallows flit:

He loved to smell the sprouting box, and hear the pleasant bees

Go humming round the lilacs and through the apple-trees.

I think he loved the spring: not that he cared for flowers: most men

Think such things foolishness,--but we were first acquainted then,

One spring: the next he spoke his mind: the third I was his wife,

And in the spring (it happened so) our children entered life.

He was but seventy-five! I did not think to lay him yet

In Kennett graveyard, where at Monthly Meeting first we met.

The Father's mercy shows in this: 'tis better I should be

Picked out to bear the heavy cross--alone in age--than he.

We've lived together fifty years. It seems but one long day,

One quiet Sabbath of the heart, till he was called away;

And as we bring from meeting-time a sweet contentment home,

So, Hannah, I have store of peace for all the days to come.

I mind (for I can tell thee now) how hard it was to know

If I had heard the spirit right, that told me I should go;

For father had a deep concern upon his mind that day,

But mother spoke for Benjamin,--she knew what best to say.

Then she was still; they sat awhile: at last she spoke again,

"The Lord incline thee to the right!" and "Thou shalt have him, Jane!"

My father said. I cried. Indeed it was not the least of shocks,

For Benjamin was Hicksite, and father Orthodox.

I thought of this ten years ago, when daughter Ruth we lost;

Her husband's of the world, and yet I could not see her crossed.

She wears, thee knows, the gayest gowns, she hears a hireling priest!

Ah, dear! the cross was ours; her life's a happy one, at least.

Perhaps she'll wear a plainer dress when she's as old as I,--

Would thee believe it, Hannah? once _I_ felt temptation nigh!

My wedding-gown was ashen silk, too simple for my taste:

I wanted lace around the neck, and ribbon at the waist.

How strange it seemed to sit with him upon the women's side!

I did not dare to lift my eyes: I felt more fear than pride;

Till, "in the presence of the Lord," he said, and then there came

A holy strength upon my heart, and I could say the same.

I used to blush when he came near, but then I showed no sign;

With all the meeting looking on, I held his hand in mine.

It seemed my bashfulness was gone, now I was his for life;

Thee knows the feeling, Hannah,--thee, too, hast been a wife.

As home we rode, I saw no fields look half so green as ours;

The woods were coming to leaf, the meadows full of flowers;

The neighbours met us in the lane, and every face was kind,--

'Tis strange how lively everything comes back upon my mind.

I see, as plain as thee sits there, the wedding-dinner spread;

At our own table we were guests, with father at the head,

And Dinah Passmore helped us both,--'twas she stood up with me,

And Abner Jones with Benjamin,--and now they're gone, all three!

It is not right to wish for death, the Lord disposes, best.

His spirit comes to quiet hearts, and fits them for His rest;

And that He halved our little flock was merciful, I see:

For Benjamin has two in heaven and two are left with me.

Eusebius never cared to farm,--'twas not his call, in truth,

And I must rent the dear old place, and go to daughter Ruth.

Thee'll say her ways are not like mine,--young people now-a-days

Have fallen sadly off, I think, from all the good old ways.

But Ruth is still a Friend at heart; she keeps the simple tongue,

The cheerful, kindly nature we loved when she was young;

And it was brought upon my mind, remembering her, of late,

That we on dress and outward things perhaps lay too much weight.

I once heard Jesse Kersey say, a "spirit clothed with grace,

And pure, almost, as angels are, may have a homely face.

And dress may be of less account; the Lord will look within:

The soul it is that testifies of righteousness or sin."

Thee mustn't be too hard on Ruth: she's anxious I should go,

And she will do her duty as a daughter should, I know.

'Tis hard to change so late in life, but we must be resigned;

The Lord looks down contentedly upon a willing mind.

_Bayard Taylor_.

* * * * *

CUDDLE DOON.

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht,

Wi' mickle faucht an' din;

"Oh, try and sleep, ye waukrife rougues,

Your faither's comin' in."

They never heed a word I speak;

I try to gie a froon,

But aye I hap them up, an' cry,

"Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon."

Wee Jamie wi' the curly head--

He aye sleeps next the wa',

Bangs up an' cries, "I want a piece"--

The rascal starts them a'.

I rin' an' fetch them pieces, drinks;

They stop awee the soun',

Then draw the blankets up an' cry,

"Noo, weanies, cuddle doon."

But ere five minutes gang, wee Rab

Cries out frae' neatn the claes,

"Mither, mak' Tarn gie ower at ance,

He's kittlin wi' his taes.",

The mischief's in that Tam for tricks,

He'd bother half the toon,

But aye I hap them up an' cry,

"Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon."

At length they hear their faither's fit,

An' as he steeks the door

They turn their faces to the wa',

While Tam pretends to snore.

"Hae a' the weans been gude?" he asks

As he pits off his shoon,

"The bairnies, John, are in their beds,

An' lang since cuddle doon."

An' just afore we bed oursel's,

We look at oor wee lambs;

Tam has his airm roun' wee Rab's neck,

An' Rab his airm roun' Tam's.

I lift wee Jamie up the bed,

An' as I straik each croon

I whisper, till my heart fills up,

"Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon."

The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht.

Wi' mirth that's dear to me;

But sune the big warl's cark an' care

Will quaten doon their glee.

Yet come what will to ilka ane

May He who sits aboon,

Aye whisper, though their pows be bauld,

"Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon."

_Alexander Anderson._

* * * * *

PER PACEM AD LUCEM.

I do not ask, O Lord! that life may be

A pleasant road;

I do not ask that Thou wouldst take from me

Aught of its load:

I do not ask that flowers should always spring

Beneath my feet;

I know too well the poison and the sting

Of things too sweet.

For one thing only, Lord, dear Lord! I plead:

Lead me aright--

Though strength should falter, and though heart should bleed--

Through Peace to Light.

I do not ask, O Lord! that Thou shouldst shed

Full radiance here;

Give but a ray of peace, that I may tread

Without a fear.

I do not ask my cross to understand,

My way to see,--

Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,

And follow Thee.

Joy is like restless day, but peace divine

Like quiet night.

Lead me, O Lord! till perfect day shall shine,

Through Peace to Light.

_Adelaide Anne Procter._

* * * * *

THE NEWSBOY'S DEBT.

Only last year, at Christmas time, while pacing down the city street,

I saw a tiny, ill clad boy--one of the many that we meet--

As ragged as a boy could be, with half a cap, with one good shoe,

Just patches to keep out the wind--I know the wind blew keenly too:

A newsboy, with a newsboy's lungs, a square Scotch face, an honest brow,

And eyes that liked to smile so well, they had not yet forgotten how:

A newsboy, hawking his last sheets with loud persistence; now and then

Stopping to beat his stiffened hands, and trudging bravely on again.

Dodging about among the crowd, shouting his "Extras" o'er and o'er;

Pausing by whiles to cheat the wind within some alley, by some door.

At last he stopped--six papers left, tucked hopelessly beneath his arm--

To eye a fruiterer's outspread store; here, products from some country farm;

And there, confections, all adorned with wreathed and clustered leaves

and flowers,

While little founts, like frosted spires, tossed up and down their mimic

showers.

He stood and gazed with wistful face, all a child's longing in his eyes;

Then started as I touched his arm, and turned in quick, mechanic wise,

Raised his torn cape with purple hands, said, "Papers, sir? _The

Evening News!"_

He brushed away a freezing tear, and shivered, "Oh, sir don't refuse!"

"How many have you? Never mind--don't stop to count--I'll take them all;

And when you pass my office here, with stock on hand, give me a call."

He thanked me with a broad Scotch smile, a look half wondering and half

glad.

I fumbled for the proper "change," and said, "You seem a little lad

To rough it in the streets like this." "I'm ten years old on Christmas-day!"

"Your name?" "Jim Hanley." "Here's a crown, you'll get change there across

the way.

"Five shillings. When you get it changed come to my office--that's the

place.

Now wait a bit, there's time enough: you need not run a headlong race.

Where do you live?" "Most anywhere. We hired a stable-loft to day.

Me and two others." "And you thought, the fruiterer's window pretty, hey?"

"Or were you hungry?" "Just a bit," he answered bravely as he might.

"I couldn't buy a breakfast, sir, and had no money left last night."

"And you are cold?" "Ay, just a bit; I don't mind cold." "Why, that is

strange!"

He smiled and pulled his ragged cap, and darted off to get the "change."

So, with a half unconscious sigh, I sought my office desk again;

An hour or more my busy wits found work enough with book and pen.

But when the mantel clock struck six I started with a sudden thought,

For there beside my hat and cloak lay those six papers I had bought.

Why where's the boy? and where's the 'change' he should have brought an

hour ago?

Ah, well! ah, well! they're all alike! I was a fool to tempt him so,

Dishonest! Well, I might have known; and yet his face seemed candid too.

He would have earned the difference if he had brought me what was due.

"But caution often comes too late." And so I took my homeward way.

Deeming distrust of human kind the only lesson of the day.

Just two days later, as I sat, half dozing, in my office chair,

I heard a timid knock, and called in my brusque fashion, "Who is there?"

An urchin entered, barely seven--the same Scotch face, the same blue eyes--

And stood, half doubtful, at the door, abashed at my forbidding guise.

"Sir, if you please, my brother Jim--the one you give the crown, you know--

He couldn't bring the money, sir, because his back was hurted so.

"He didn't mean to keep the 'change.' He got runned over, up the street;

One wheel went right across his back, and t'other forewheel mashed his feet.

They stopped the horses just in time, and then they took him up for dead,

And all that day and yesterday he wasn't rightly in his head.

"They took him to the hospital--one of the newsboys knew 'twas Jim--

And I went, too, because, you see, we two are brothers, I and him.

He had that money in his hand, and never saw it any more.

Indeed, he didn't mean to steal! He never stole a pin before.

"He was afraid that you might think, he meant to keep it, anyway;

This morning when they brought him to, he cried because he couldn't pay.

He made me fetch his jacket here; it's torn and dirtied pretty bad;

It's only fit to sell for rags, but then, you know, it's all he had.

"When he gets well--it won't be long--if you will call the money lent.

He says he'll work his fingers off but what he'll pay you every cent."

And then he cast a rueful glance at the soiled jacket where it lay,

"No, no, my boy! take back the coat. Your brother's badly hurt you say?

"Where did they take him? Just run out and hail a cab, then wait for me.

Why, I would give a thousand coats, and pounds, for such a boy as he!"

A half-hour after this we stood together in the crowded wards,

And the nurse checked the hasty steps that fell too loudly on the boards.

I thought him smiling in his sleep, and scarce believed her when she said,

Smoothing away the tangled hair from brow and cheek, "The boy is dead."

Dead? dead so soon? How fair he looked! One streak of sunshine on his hair.

Poor lad! Well it is warm in Heaven: no need of "change" and jackets there.

And something rising in my throat made it so hard for me to speak,

I turned away, and left a tear lying upon his sunburned cheek.

_Anon._

* * * * *

SANDALPHON.

Have you read in the Talmud of old,

In the Legends the Rabbins have told,

Of the limitless realms of the air,--

Have you read it,--the marvellous story

Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,

Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

How erect, at the outermost gates

Of the City Celestial he waits,

With his feet on the ladder of light,

That, crowded with angels unnumbered,

By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered

Alone in the desert at night?

The Angels of Wind and of Fire

Chant only one hymn, and expire

With the song's irresistible stress;

Expire in their rapture and wonder,

As harp strings are broken asunder

By music they throb to express.

But serene in the rapturous throng,

Unmoved by the rush of the song,

With eyes unimpassioned and slow,

Among the dead angels, the deathless

Sandalphon stands listening breathless

To sounds that ascend from below;--

From the spirits on earth that adore,

From the souls that entreat and implore;

In the fervour and passion of prayer;

From the hearts that are broken with losses,

And weary with dragging the crosses

Too heavy for mortals to bear.

And he gathers the prayers as he stands,

And they change into flowers in his hands,

Into garlands of purple and red,

And beneath the great arch of the portal,

Through the streets of the City Immortal,

Is wafted the fragrance they shed.

It is but a legend I know,--

A fable, a phantom, a show,

Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;

Yet the old mediaeval tradition,

The beautiful, strange superstition,

But haunts me and holds me the more.

When I look from my window at night,

And the welkin above is all white,

All throbbing and panting with stars,

Among them majestic is standing,

Sandalphon, the angel, expanding

His pinions in nebulous bars.

And the legend, I feel, is a part

Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,

The frenzy and fire of the brain,

That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,

The golden pomegranates of Eden,

To quiet its fever and pain.

_Longfellow._

* * * * *

HAGAR IN THE WILDERNESS

The morning broke.--Light stole upon the clouds

With a strange beauty.--Earth received again

Its garment of a thousand dyes; and leaves,

And delicate blossoms, and the painted flowers,

And every thing that bendeth to the dew,

And stirreth with the daylight, lifted up

Its beauty to the breath of that sweet morn.

All things are dark to sorrow; and the light

And loveliness, and fragrant air, were sad

To the dejected Hagar. The moist earth

Was pouring odours from its spicy pores;

And the young birds were singing as if life

Were a new thing to them: but oh! it came

Upon her heart like discord; and she felt

How cruelly it tries a broken heart,

To see a mirth in any thing it loves.

The morning passed; and Asia's sun rode up

In the clear heaven, and every beam was heat.

The cattle of the hills were in the shade,

And the bright plumage of the Orient lay

On beating bosoms, in her spicy trees.

It was an hour of rest!--But Hagar found

No shelter in the wilderness; and on

She kept her weary way, until the boy

Hung down his head, and opened his parched lips

For water; but she could not give it him.

She laid him down beneath the sultry sky;--

For it was better than the close, hot breath

Of the thick pines,--and tried to comfort him;

But he was sore athirst; and his blue eyes

Were dim and bloodshot; and he could not know

Why God denied him water in the wild.--

She sat a little longer; and he grew

Ghastly and faint, as if he would have died.

It was too much for her. She lifted him,

And bore him farther on, and laid his head

Beneath the shadow of a desert shrub;

And, shrouding up her face, she went away,

And sat to watch, where he could see her not,

Till he should die; and watching him, she mourned:--

"God stay thee in thine agony, my boy!

I cannot see thee die; I cannot brook

Upon thy brow to look,

And see death settle on my cradle joy.

How have I drunk the light of thy blue eye

And could I see thee die?

"I did not dream of this, when thou wast straying

Like an unbound gazelle, among the flowers,

Or wiling the soft hours,

By the rich gush of water-sources playing,

Then sinking weary to thy smiling sleep,

So beautiful and deep.

"Oh no! and when I watched by thee, the while,

And saw thy bright lip curling in thy dream,

And thought of the dark stream

In my own land of Egypt, the far Nile,

How prayed I that my fathers' land might be

A heritage for thee!

"And now the grave for its cold breast hath won thee,

And thy white delicate limbs the earth will press;

And oh! my last caress

Must feel thee cold, for a chill hand is on thee--

How can I leave my boy, so pillowed there

Upon his clustering hair"

* * * * *

She stood beside the well her God had given

To gush in that deep wilderness, and bathed

The forehead of her child until he laughed

In his reviving happiness, and lisped

His infant thought of gladness at the sight

Of the cool plashing of his mother's hand.

_N. P. Willis_

* * * * *

THE MODEL WIFE

His house she enters there to be a light,

Shining within when all around is night,

A guardian angel o'er his life presiding,

Doubling his pleasures and his cares dividing:

Winning him back when mingling with the throng

Of this vain world we love, alas, too long,

To fireside's happiness and hours of ease,

Blest with that charm, the certainty to please;

How oft her eyes read his! Her gentle mind

To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined;

Still subject--ever on the watch to borrow

Mirth of his mirth and sorrow of his sorrow.

_Ruskin_

* * * * *

"GOODBYE."

Falling leaf and fading tree,

Lines of white in a sullen sea,

Shadows rising on you and me--

The swallows are making them ready to fly.

Goodbye, Summer! Goodbye!

Goodbye!

Hush! A voice from the far away!--

"Listen and learn," it seems to say,

"All the to-morrows shall be as to-day."

The cord is frayed and the cruse is dry.

The ink must break and the lamp must die.

Goodbye, Hope! Goodbye!

Goodbye!

What are we waiting for? Oh! my heart,

Kiss me straight on the brows and part!

Again! again! My heart! my heart!

What are we waiting for, you and I?

A pleading look--a stifled cry--

Goodbye forever! Goodbye!

Goodbye!

_Whyte Melville_.

MAKIN' AN EDITOR OUTEN 0' HIM.

"Good morning, sir, Mr. Printer; how is your body today?

I'm glad you're to home, for you fellers is al'ays a runnin' away.

But layin' aside pleasure for business, I've brought you my little boy, Jim;

And I thought I would see if you couldn't make an editor outen o' him.

He aint no great shakes for to labour, though I've laboured with him a

good deal,

And give him some strappin' good arguments I know he couldn't help but to

feel;

But he's built out of second-growth timber, and nothin' about him is big,

Exceptin' his appetite only, and there he's as good as a pig.

I keep him a carryin' luncheons, and fillin' and bringin' the jugs,

And take him among the pertatoes, and set him to pickin' the bugs;

And then there is things to be doin' a helpin' the women indoors;

There's churnin' and washin' o' dishes, and other descriptions of chores;

But he don't take to nothin' but victuals, and he'll never be much, I'm

afraid.

So I thought it would be a good notion to larn him the editor's trade.

His body's too small for a farmer, his judgment is rather too slim,

But I thought we perhaps could be makin' an editor outen o' him!

It aint much to get up a paper, it wouldn't take him long for to learn;

He could feed the machine, I am thinkin', with a good strappin' fellow to

turn.

And things that was once hard in doin', is easy enough now to do;

Just keep your eye on your machinery, and crack your arrangements right

through.

I used for to wonder at readin', and where it was got up, and how;

But 'tis most of it made by machinery, I can see it all plain enough now.

And poetry, too, is constructed by machines of different designs,

Each one with a gauge and a chopper, to see to the length of the lines;

An' since the whole trade has growed easy, 'twould be easy enough, I've

a whim,

If you was agreed, to be makin' an editor outen o' Jim!"

The Editor sat in his sanctum and looked the old man in the eye,

Then glanced at the grinning young hopeful, and mournfully made a reply:

"Is your son a small unbound edition of Moses and Solomon both?

Can he compass his spirit with meekness, and strangle a natural oath?

Can he leave all his wrongs to the future, and carry his heart in his cheek?

Can he do an hour's work in a minute, and live on a sixpence a week?

Can he courteously talk to an equal, and brow-beat an impudent dunce?

Can he keep things in apple-pie order, and do half-a-dozen at once?

Can he press all the springs of knowledge, with quick and reliable touch?

And be sure that he knows how much to know, and knows how not to know too

much?

Does he know how to spur up his virtue, and put a check-rein on his pride?

Can he carry a gentleman's manners within a rhinoceros hide?

Can he know all, and do all, and be all, with cheerfulness, courage,

and vim?

If so, we, perhaps, can be makin' an editor outen o' him.'"

The farmer stood curiously listening, while wonder his visage o'erspread,

And he said: "Jim, I guess we'll be goin', he's probably out of his head."

_Will M. Carleton._

* * * * *

THE ARMADA.

Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise;

I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,

When that great fleet invincible against her bore in vain,

The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain.

It was about the lovely close of a warm summer day,

There came a gallant merchant ship full sail to Plymouth Bay;

Her crew had seen Castile's black fleet, beyond Aurigny's isle,

At earliest twilight, on the waves lie heaving many a mile,

At sunrise she escaped their van, by God's especial grace;

And the tall _Pinta_, till the noon, had held her close in chase.

Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall;

The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecombe's lofty hall;

Many a light fishing bark put out to pry along the coast;

And with loose rein, and bloody spur, rode inland many a post.

With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old sheriff comes,

Behind him march the halberdiers, before him sound the drums;

The yeomen, round the market cross, make clear an ample space,

For there behoves him to set up the standard of her Grace;

And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance the bells,

As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon swells.

Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient crown,

And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay lilies down!

So stalked he when he turned to flight, on that famed Picard field,

Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and Caesar's eagle shield:

So glared he when at Agincourt, in wrath he turned to bay,

And crushed and torn, beneath his claws, the princely hunters lay.

Ho! strike the flagstaff deep, sir knight! Ho! scatter flowers, fair maids!

Ho, gunners! fire a loud salute! Ho, gallants! draw your blades!

Thou, sun, shine on her joyously; ye breezes, waft her wide;

Our glorious _semper eadem_, the banner of our pride.

The fresh'ning breeze of eve unfurled that banner's massy fold--

The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty scroll of gold:

Night sank upon the dusky beach, and on the purple sea;

Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.

From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford bay,

That time of slumber was as bright, as busy as the day;

For swift to east, and swift to west the warning radiance spread--

High on St Michael's Mount it shone--it shone on Beachy Head;

Far o'er the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire,

Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire.

The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering waves,

The rugged miners poured to war, from Mendip's sunless caves;

O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew,

And roused the shepherds of Stonehenge--the rangers of Beaulieu.

Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out from Bristol town;

And, ere the day, three hundred horse had met on Clifton Down.

The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night,

And saw o'erhanging Richmond Hill, the streak of blood-red light;

Then bugle's note, and cannon's roar, the death-like silence broke,

And with one start, and with one cry, the royal city woke;

At once, on all her stately gates, arose the answering fires;

At once the wild alarum clashed from all her reeling spires;

From all the batteries of the Tower pealed loud the voice of fear,

And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back a louder cheer;

And from the furthest wards was heard the rush of hurrying feet,

And the broad streams of pikes and flags dashed down each roaring street:

And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din,

As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in;

And eastward straight, from wild Blackheath, the warlike errand went;

And roused, in many an ancient hall, the gallant squires of Kent:

Southward, from Surrey's pleasant hills, flew those bright couriers forth;

High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor, they started for the north;

And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded still;

All night from tower to tower they sprang, they sprang from hill to hill;

Till the proud peak unfurled the flag o'er Derwent's rocky dales;

Till like volcanoes, flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales;

Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern's lonely height;

Till streamed in crimson on the wind, the Wrekin's crest of light;

Till broad and fierce, the star came forth, on Ely's stately fane,

And town and hamlet rose in arms, o'er all the boundless plain;

Till Belvoir's lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent,

And Lincoln sped the message on, o'er the wide vale of Trent:

Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt's embattled pile,

And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.

_Lord Macaulay._

* * * * *

TRIAL SCENE FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

DUKE. You hear the learned Bellario, what he writes;

And here, I take it, is the doctor come.--

_Enter_ PORTIA, _dressed like a doctor of laws._

Give me your hand: Came you from old Bellario?

POR. I did, my lord.

DUKE. You are welcome: take your place.

Are you acquainted with the difference

That holds this present question in the court?

POR. I am informed thoroughly of the cause.

Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?

DUKE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.

POR. Is your name Shylock?

SHYLOCK. Shylock is my name.

POR. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;

Yet in such rule that the Venetian law

Cannot impugn you, as you do proceed.--

You stand within his danger, do you not? [_To_ ANT.

ANTONIO. Ay, so he says.

POR. Do you confess the bond?

ANT. I do.

POR. Then must the Jew be merciful.

SHY. On what compulsion must I? tell me that.

POR. The quality of mercy is not strain'd;

It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the heart of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this--

That in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much,

To mitigate the justice of thy plea;

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice

Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

SHY. My deeds upon my head: I crave the law,

The penalty and forfeit of my bond.

POR. Is he not able to discharge the money?

BASSANIO. Yes, here I tender it for him in the court

Yea, twice the sum: if that will not suffice,

I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er,

On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart:

If this will not suffice, it must appear

That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you,

Wrest once the law to your authority:

To do a great right do a little wrong:

And curb this cruel devil of his will.

POR. It must not be; there is no power in Venice

Can alter a decree established:

'Twill be recorded for a precedent;

And many an error, by the same example,

Will rush into the state: it cannot be.

SHY. A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel

O wise young judge, how do I honour thee!

POR. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.

SHY. Here 'tis, most reverend doctor, here it is.

POR. Shylock, there's thrice thy money offer'd thee.

SHY. An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven:

Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?

No, not for Venice.

POR. Why, this bond is forfeit;

And lawfully by this the Jew may claim

A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off

Nearest the merchant's heart:--be merciful;

Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.

SHY. When it is paid according to the tenour.

It doth appear you are a worthy judge;

You know the law, your exposition

Hath been most sound: I charge you by the law

Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,

Proceed to judgment: by my soul I swear

There is no power in the tongue of man

To alter me: I stay here on my bond.

ANT. Most heartily I do beseech the court

To give the judgment.

POR. Why then, thus it is:

You must prepare your bosom for his knife.

SHY. O noble judge! O excellent young man!

POR. For the intent and purpose of the law

Hath full relation to the penalty,

Which here appeareth due upon the bond.

SHY. 'Tis very true: O wise and upright judge!

How much more elder art thou than thy looks.

POR. Therefore, lay bare your bosom.

SHY. Ay, his breast.

So says the bond;--Doth it not, noble judge?

Nearest his heart, those are the very words.

POR. It is so. Are there balance here, to weigh

The flesh?

SHY. I have them ready.

POR. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge

To stop his wounds, lest he should bleed to death.

SHY. Is it so nominated in the bond?

POR. It is not so express'd; but what of that?

'Twere good you do so much for charity.

SHY. I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond.

POR. Come, merchant, have you anything to say?

ANT. But little; I am arm'd, and well prepar'd,--

Give you your hand, Bassanio; fare you well!

Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you;

For herein fortune shows herself more kind

Than is her custom: it is still her use,

To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,

To view with hollow eye, and wrinkled brow,

An age of poverty; from which lingering penance

Of such a misery doth she cut me off.

Commend me to your honourable wife;

Tell her the process of Antonio's end,

Say, how I lov'd you, speak me fair in death;

And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge

Whether Bassanio had not once a love.

Repent not you that you shall lose your friend,

And he repents not that he pays your debt;

For, if the Jew do cut but deep enough,

I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.

BASS. Antonio, I am married to a wife,

Which is as dear to me as life itself;

But life itself, my wife, and all the world,

Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;

I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all

Here to this devil, to deliver you.

POR. Your wife would give you little thanks for that,

If she were by, to hear you make the offer.

GRATIANO. I have a wife, whom I protest I love;

I would she were in heaven, so she could

Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.

NER. 'Tis well you offer it behind her back;

The wish would make else an unquiet house.

SHY. These be the Christian husbands: I have a daughter;

Would any of the stock of Barrabas

Had been her husband, rather than a Christian! [_Aside_.

We trifle time: I pray thee pursue sentence.

POR. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine;

The court awards it, and the law doth give it.

SHY. Most rightful judge.

FOR. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast;

The law allows it, and the court awards it.

SHY. Most learned judge!--A sentence; come, prepare.

POR. Tarry a little;--there is something else.--

This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;

The words expressly are a pound of flesh:

Then take thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;

But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods

Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate

Unto the state of Venice.

GRA. O upright judge!--Mark, Jew!--O learned judge!

SHY. Is that the law?

POR. Thyself shall see the act:

For as thou urgest justice, be assur'd

Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest.

GRA. O learned judge!--mark, Jew; a learned judge!

SHY. I take this offer then,--pay the bond thrice,

And let the Christian go.

BASS. Here is the money.

POR. Soft.

The Jew shall have all justice;--soft;--no haste;--

He shall have nothing but the penalty.

GRA. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!

POR. Therefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh.

Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less nor more,

But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more,

Or less, than just a pound,--be it so much

As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance,

Or the division of the twentieth part

Of one poor scruple,--nay, if the scale do turn

But in the estimation of a hair,--

Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.

GRA. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!

Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip.

POR. Why doth the Jew pause? take thy forfeiture.

SHY. Give me my principal, and let me go.

BASS. I have it ready for thee; here it is.

POR. He hath refus'd it in the open court;

He shall have merely justice, and his bond.

GRA. A Daniel, still say I; a second Daniel!--

I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.

SHY. Shall I not have barely my principal?

POR. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture,

To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.

SHY. Why then the devil give him good of it!

I'll stay no longer question.

POR. Tarry, Jew;

The law hath yet another hold on you.

It is enacted in the laws of Venice,--

If it be proved against an alien,

That by direct or indirect attempts

He seeks the life of any citizen,

The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive

Shall seize one half his goods: the other half

Comes to the privy coffer of the state;

And the offender's life lies in the mercy

Of the duke only, 'gainst all other voice.

In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st:

For it appears by manifest proceeding,

That, indirectly, and directly too,

Thou hast contriv'd against the very life

Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd

The danger formerly by me rehears'd.

Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke.

GRA. Beg that thou may'st have leave to hang thyself:

And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,

Thou hast not left the value of a cord;

Therefore, thou must be hanged at the state's charge.

DUKE. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,

I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it

For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;

The other half comes to the general state,

Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.

POR. Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.

SHY. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that:

You take my house, when you do take the prop

That doth sustain my house; you take my life,

When you do take the means whereby I live.

POR. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?

GRA. A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake.

ANT. So please my lord the duke, and all the court,

To quit the fine for one half of his goods;

I am content, so he will let me have

The other half in use, to render it,

Upon his death, unto the gentleman

That lately stole his daughter;

Two things provided more,--That for this favour,

He presently become a Christian;

The other, that he do record a gift

Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd

Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.

DUKE. He shall do this; or else I do recant

The pardon that I late pronounced here.

POR. Art thou contented, Jew; what dost thou say?

SHY. I am content.

POR. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.

SHY. I pray you give me leave to go from hence:

I am not well; send the deed after me,

And I will sign it.

DUKE. Get thee gone, but do it.

GRA. In christening, thou shalt have two godfathers;

Had I been judge, thou should'st have had ten more,

To bring thee to the gallows, not the font.

[Exit SHYLOCK.

_Shakespeare._

* * * * *

THE FAITHFUL HOUSEWIFE.

I see her in her home content,

The faithful housewife, day by day,

Her duties seem like pleasures sent,

And joy attends her on her way.

She cares not for the loud acclaim

That goes with rank and social strife.

Her wayside home is more than fame;

She is its queen--the faithful wife.

When summer days are soft and fair,

And bird-songs fill the cottage trees,

She reaps a benison as rare,

As her own gentle ministries.

Peace shrines itself upon her face,

And happiness in every look;

Her voice is full of charm and grace,

Like music of the summer brook.

In winter when the days are cold,

And all the landscape dead and bare,

How well she keeps her little fold,

How shines the fire beside her chair!

The children go with pride to school,

The father's toil half turns to play;

So faithful is her frugal rule,

So tenderly she moulds the day.

Let higher stations vaunt their claim,

Let others sing of rank and birth;

The faithful housewife's honest fame

Is linked to the best joy on earth.

* * * * *

SCENE FROM RICHELIEU.

Enter JULIE DE MORTEMAR

RICHELIEU. That's my sweet Julie! why, upon this face

Blushes such daybreak, one might swear the morning

Were come to visit Tithon.

JULIE (_placing herself at his feet_). Are you gracious?

May I say "Father?"

RICH. Now and ever!

JULIE. Father!

A sweet word to an orphan.

RICH. No; not orphan

While Richelieu lives; thy father loved me well;

My friend, ere I had flatterers (now I'm great,

In other phrase, I'm friendless)--he died young

In years, not service, and bequeathed thee to me;

And thou shalt have a dowry, girl, to buy

Thy mate amid the mightiest. Drooping?--sighs?--

Art thou not happy at the court?

JULIE. Not often.

RICH, (_aside_). Can she love Baradas? Ah! at thy heart

There's what can smile and sigh, blush and grow pale,

All in a breath! Thou art admired--art young;

Does not his Majesty commend thy beauty--

Ask thee to sing to him?--and swear such sounds

Had smoothed the brow of Saul?

JULIE. He's very tiresome,

Our worthy King.

RICH. Fie! Kings are never tiresome

Save to their ministers. What courtly gallants

Charm ladies most?--De Sourdioc' Longueville, or

The favorite Baradas?

JULIE. A smileless man--

I fear and shun him.

RICH. Yet he courts thee!

JULIE. Then

He is more tiresome than his Majesty.

RICH. Right, girl, shun Baradas. Yet of these flowers

Of France, not one, in whose more honeyed breath

Thy heart hears Summer whisper?

_Enter_ HUGUET.

HUGUET. The Chevalier De Mauprat waits below.

JULIE. (_starting up_). De Mauprat!

RICH. Hem! He has been tiresome too!--Anon. [_Exit_ HUGUET.

JULIE: What doth he?

I mean--I--Does your Eminence--that is--

Know you Messire de Mauprat?

RICH. Well!--and you--

Has he addressed you often?

JULIE. Often? No--

Nine times: nay, ten;--the last time by the lattice

Of the great staircase.(_In a melancholy tone_.) The

Court sees him rarely.

RICH. A bold and forward royster!

JULIE. _He_? nay, modest,

Gentle and sad, methinks,

RICH. Wears gold and azure?

JULIE. No; sable.

RICH. So you note his colours, Julie?

Shame on you, child, look loftier. By the mass,

I have business with this modest gentleman.

JULIE. You're angry with poor Julie. There's no

cause.

RICH. No cause--you hate my foes?

JULIE. I do!

RICH. Hate Mauprat?

JULIE. Not Mauprat. No, not Adrien, father.

RICH. Adrien!

Familiar!--Go, child; no,--not _that_ way;--wait

In the tapestry chamber; I will join you,--go.

JULIE. His brows are knit; I dare not call him

father! But I _must_ speak. Your Eminence--

RICH. (_sternly_). Well, girl!

JULIE. Nay,

Smile on me--one smile more; there, now I'm happy.

Do not rank Mauprat with your foes; he is not,

I know he is not; he loves France too well.

RICH. Not rank De Mauprat with my foes?

So be it.

I'll blot him from that list.

JULIE. That's my own father. [_Exit_ JULIE.

_Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer._

* * * * *

"DIOS TE GUARDE."

FROM THE SPANISH.

God keep thee safe, my dear,

From every harm,

Close in the shelter of

His mighty arm!

So, when thou must look out

Over earth's noise and rout

May thy calm soul be free

From all alarm.

Or if He shall ordain,

He, the Most Wise,

That woe shall come, that tears

Shall dim thine eyes,

May He still hold thee near,

Dispelling doubt and fear,

Giving thy prostrate heart

Strength to arise.

And when His night comes, love,

And thou must go,

May He still call to thee,

Tenderly, low,

Cradled upon His breast

Sinking to sweetest rest,

God have thee safe, my dear,

And keep thee so.

* * * * *

TO HER HUSBAND;

_Written in the prospect of death_, 1640.

How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend,

How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,

We both are ignorant. Yet love bids me

These farewell lines to recommend to thee,

That, when that knot's untied that made us one,

I may seem thine, who in effect am none.

And, if I see not half my days that's due,

What Nature would God grant to yours and you.

The many faults that well you know I have

Let be interred in my oblivious grave;

If any worth or virtue is in me;

Let that live freshly in my memory.

And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms,

Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms;

And, when thy loss shall be repaid with gains,

Look to my little babes, my dear remains,

And, if thou lov'st thyself or lovest me,

These oh, protect from stepdame's injury!

And, if chance to thine eyes doth bring this verse,

With some sad sighs honour my absent hearse,

And kiss this paper, for thy love's dear sake,

Who with salt tears this last farewell doth take.

_Anne Bradstreet_

* * * * *

PASSING AWAY

Was it the chime of a tiny bell,

That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,

Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell,

That he winds on the beach so mellow and clear,

When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,

And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep,

She dispensing her silvery light,

And he his notes as silvery quite,

While the boatman listens and ships his oar,

To catch the music that comes from the shore?--

Hark! the notes on my ear that play,

Are set to words! as they float, they say,

"Passing away! passing away!"

But, no; it was not a fairy's shell,

Blown on the beach so mellow and clear:

Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell

Striking the hours that fell on my ear,

As I lay in my dream: yet was it a chime

That told of the flow of the stream of Time,

For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung,

And a plump little girl for a pendulum, swung,

(As you've sometimes seen, in a little ring

That hangs in his cage, a canary bird swing)

And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet,

And as she enjoyed it, she seemed to say,

"Passing away! passing away!"

Oh, how bright were the wheels, that told

Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow!

And the hands as they swept o'er the dial of gold

Seemed to point to the girl below.

And lo! she had changed;--in a few short hours,

Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers,

That she held in her outstretched hands, and flung

This way and that, as she, dancing, swung

In the fullness of grace and womanly pride,

That told me she soon was to be a bride;

Yet then, when expecting her happiest day,

In the same sweet voice I heard her say,

"Passing away! passing away!"

While I gazed on that fair one's cheek, a shade

Of thought, or care, stole softly over,

Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made,

Looking down on a field of blossoming clover.

The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush

Had something lost of its brilliant blush;

And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels,

That marched so calmly round above her,

Was a little dimmed--as when evening steals

Upon noon's hot face:--yet one couldn't but love her;

For she looked like a mother whose first babe lay

Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day;

And she seemed in the same silver' tone to say,

"Passing away! passing away!"

While yet I looked, what a change there came!

Her eye was quenched, and her cheek was wan;

Stooping and staffed was her withered frame,

Yet just as busily swung she on:

The garland beneath her had fallen to dust;

The wheels above her were eaten with rust;

The hands, that over the dial swept,

Grew crook'd and tarnished, but on they kept;

And still there came that silver tone

From the shrivelled lips of the toothless crone,

(Let me never forget, to my dying day,

The tone or the burden of that lay)--

"PASSING AWAY! PASSING AWAY!"

_Pierpont_.

FROM THE FIRST ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

How far wilt thou, O Catiline, abuse our patience? How long shall thy

madness outbrave our justice? To what extremities art thou resolved to push

thy unbridled insolence of guilt! Canst thou behold the nocturnal arms that

watch the palatium, the guards of the city, the consternation of the

citizens; all the wise and worthy clustering into consultation; this

impregnable situation of the seat of the senate, and the reproachful looks

of the fathers of Rome? Canst thou, I say, behold all this, and yet remain

undaunted and unabashed? Art thou sensible that thy measures are detected?

Art thou sensible that this senate, now thoroughly informed, comprehend the

full extent of thy guilt? Point me out the senator ignorant of thy

practices, during the last and the proceeding night: of the place where you

met, the company you summoned, and the crime you concerted. The senate is

conscious, the consul is witness to this: yet mean and degenerate--the

traitor lives! Lives! did I say? He mixes with the senate; he shares in our

counsels; with a steady eye he surveys us; he anticipates his guilt; he

enjoys his murderous thoughts, and coolly marks us out for bloodshed. Yet

we, boldly passive in our country's cause, think we act like Romans if we

can escape his frantic rage.

Long since, O Catiline! ought the consul to have doomed thy life a forfeit

to thy country; and to have directed upon thy own head the mischief thou

hast long been meditating for ours. Could the noble Scipio, when sovereign

pontiff, as a private Roman kill Tiberius Gracchus for a slight

encroachment upon the rights of this country; and shall we, her consuls,

with persevering patience endure Catiline, whose ambition is to desolate a

devoted world with fire and sword?

There was--there was a time, when such was the spirit of Rome, that the

resentment of her magnanimous sons more sternly crushed the Roman traitor,

than the most inveterate enemy. Strong and weighty, O Catiline! is the

decree of the senate we can now produce against you; neither wisdom is

wanting in this state, nor authority in this assembly; but we, the consuls,

we are defective in our duty.

_Cicero._

* * * * *

THE INEXPERIENCED SPEAKER.

The awkward, untried speaker rises now,

And to the audience makes a jerking bow.

He staggers--almost falls--stares--strokes his chin--

Clears out his throat, and.. ventures to begin.

"Sir, I am.. sensible"--(some titter near him)--

"I am, sir, sensible"--"Hear! hear!" (they cheer him).

Now bolder grown--for praise mistaking pother--

He pumps first one arm up, and then the other.

"I am, sir, sensible--I am indeed--

That,.. though--I should--want--words--I must proceed

And.. for the first time in my life, I think--

I think--that--no great--orator--should--shrink--

And therefore,--Mr. Speaker,--I, for one--

Will.. speak out freely.--Sir, I've not yet done.

Sir, in the name of those enlightened men

Who sent me here to.. speak for them--why, then..

To do my duty--as I said before--

To my constituency--I'll ... say no more."

* * * * *

SKETCHES OF AUTHORS.

ADDISON, JOSEPH, born May 1st, 1672, at Milston, Wiltshire, son of the Rev.

Lancelot Addison, was educated at the Charterhouse and at Magdalen College,

Oxford. He was destined for the church, but turned his attention to

political life, and became eventually a member of parliament, and in 1717,

one of the principal Secretaries of State. He first rose into public

notice, through his poem on the battle of Blenheim, written in 1704, and

entitled, _The Campaign_. He was chief contributor to _The

Spectator_. His tragedy of _Cato_, produced in 1713, achieved a

great popularity, which, however, has not been permanent. He died on June

17th, 1719. As an observer of life, of manners, of all shades of human

character, he stands in the first class.

ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY, an American poet, born at Portsmouth, New

Hampshire, 1836. He has been an industrious worker on the newspaper press,

and is the author of Baby Bell, a beautiful poem of child-death. He has

published his collected poems under the title of _Cloth of Gold_, and

of _Flower and Thorn_. He is also a prose writer of considerable note,

having an exquisite humour. His published novels are _Prudence

Palfrey_, _The Queen of Sheba_, _The Still-water Tragedy_,

etc.

AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE, an eminent critic and poet, born in

Fifeshire, Scotland, in 1813. He studied law, and was appointed Professor

of Rhetoric in Edinburgh University in 1845, and was closely connected with

_Blackwood's Magazine_ for many years. He was a poet of the highest

order, and his _Execution of Montrose_, and the _Burial March of

Dundee_, are two noble historical ballads. He was author of the

celebrated _Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers_, _Bon Gaultier

Ballads_, _Firmilian_, _a Spasmodic Tragedy_, _Bothwell_,

_Poland, and other Poems_, _The Life and Times of Richard Coeur de

Lion_, etc. Died August 4th, 1865.

BEECHER, HENRY WARD, a celebrated author and divine, born at Litchfield,

Connecticut, on the 24th of January, 1813. He studied at Amherst College,

where he graduated in 1834. In 1847, he became pastor of Plymouth Church

(Congregational), Brooklyn. He is one of the most popular writers, and most

successful lecturers of the day in the United States. He has published,

_Lectures to Young Men, Life Thoughts_, a novel entitled

_Norwood_, etc.

BRONTE, CHARLOTTE (Currer Bell). A popular English novelist, born at

Thornton, Yorkshire, April 21st, 1816, was a daughter of the Rev. Patrick

Bronté. In 1846, in conjunction with her sisters--Anne and Emily--

published a small volume of poems. It was as a writer of fiction, however,

that Charlotte achieved her great success, and in 1848, her novel of

_Jane Eyre_, obtained great popularity, and brought the talented

author well merited fame. She afterwards published _Shirley_ and

_Villette_, both very successful works. In June, 1854, she married the

Rev. Arthur B. Nicholls, but after a brief taste of domestic happiness, she

died at Haworth, March 31st, 1855. _The Professor_, her first

production (written in 1846), was published in 1856, after her death.

BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, one of the most gifted female poets that have

ever lived, the daughter of Mr. Barrett, an opulent London merchant, born

near Ledbury, Herefordshire, about 1807. She began to write verse when only

ten years of age, and gave early proofs of great poetical genius. At the

age of seventeen, she published _An Essay on Mind, with other Poems_,

and her reputation was widely extended by _The Seraphim and other

Poems_, published in 1838. In 1846, she was married to Robert Browning,

the poet, and they lived for many years in Italy. In 1851, she published

_Casa Guidi Windows_, the impressions of the writer upon events in

Tuscany, and in 1856, appeared _Aurora Leigh_, a poem, or novel in

verse, which is greatly admired. "The poetical reputation of Mrs.

Browning," says the _North British Review_ (February, 1857), "has been

growing slowly, until it has reached a height which has never before been

attained by any modern poetess." She died at Florence, June 29th, 1861.

BROWNING, ROBERT, a distinguished English poet, born at Camberwell, London,

in 1812. He was educated at the University of London, and in 1836 published

his first poem, _Paracelsus_, which attracted much attention by its

originality. He has been a voluminous writer, and of all his works,

_Pippa Passes_, and _The Blot in the Scutcheon_, are perhaps the

best. The _Ring and the Book_ appeared in 1868. He is considered by

some critics as one of the greatest English poets of his time, but is not

very popular.

BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN, an American poet, born at Cummington,

Massachusetts, November 3rd, 1794. At the age of ten years he made very

creditable translations from the Latin poets, which were printed, and at

thirteen he wrote _The Embargo_, a political satire which was never

surpassed by any poet of that age. He wrote _Thanatopsis_ when but

little more than eighteen, and it is by many considered as his finest poem.

In 1826 he became one of the editors of the _Evening Post_, which he

continued to edit until his death. He published a complete collection of

his poems in 1832, and in 1864. Among his prose works are, _Letters of a

Traveller_, and in 1869 he published a translation of Homer's

_Iliad_, which is an excellent work. Washington Irving says of Bryant:

"That his close observation of the phenomena of nature, and the graphic

felicity of his details, prevent his descriptions from becoming

commonplace." He died June 12th, 1878.

BURNS, ROBERT, the national poet of Scotland, was the son of a small

farmer, and was born near the town of Ayr, on January, 25th, 1759. His

early life was spent in farming, but he was about emigrating to the West

Indies, when the publication of a volume of his poems, in 1786, which were

very favourably received, determined him on remaining in his native land,

and he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he made the acquaintance of the

distinguished men of letters of that famous city. His reception was

triumphant, and a new edition of his poems was issued, by which he realised

more than £500. In 1788 he was married to Miss Jean Armour (Bonnie Jean),

and soon after obtained a place in the excise, and in 1791 he removed to

Dumfries, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died on July 21st,

1796. Nature had made Burns the greatest among lyric poets; the most

striking characteristics of his poetry are simplicity and intensity, in

which qualities he is scarcely, if at all, inferior to any of the greatest

poets that have ever lived. "No poet except Shakespeare," says Sir Walter

Scott, "ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant

emotions with such rapid transitions."

BYROM, DR. JOHN, an English poet, born at Kersal, near Manchester, in 1691.

He contributed several pieces to the _Spectator_, of which the

beautiful pastoral of _Colin and Phoebe_, in No. 603, is the most

noted. He invented a system of shorthand, which is still known by his name.

Died at Manchester in 1763.

BYRON, GEORGE GORDON NOEL (Lord), an English poet and dramatist of rare

genius, was born in London, January 22nd, 1788. He was educated partly at

Harrow, and in 1805 proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge. While at

College he published, in 1807, his _Hours of Idleness_, a volume of

juvenile poems, which was severely criticised in the _Edinburgh

Review_. Two years later he published his reply, _English Bards_

and _Scotch Reviewers_, a satire which obtained immediate celebrity.

In 1812 he gave the world the fruits of his travels on the continent, in

the first two Cantos of _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_. The success of

this was so extraordinary that, as he tells us, "he awoke one morning and

found himself famous." He then took his seat in the House of Lords, but

soon lost his interest in politics. In 1813 he published _The Giaour_,

and _The Bride of Abydos_, and in 1814, _The Corsair_. In

January, 1815, he married Anne Isabella Milbank, only daughter of Sir Ralph

Milbank, but the marriage was an unhappy one, and she returned to her

father's in the January of 1816. In April, 1816, Byron left his country

with the avowed intention of never seeing it again, and during his absence

he published, in rapid succession, the remaining cantos of _Childe

Harold_, _Mazeppa_, _Manfred_, _Cain_,

_Sardanapalus_, _Marino Faliero_, _The Two Foscari_,

_Werner_, and _Don Juan_, besides many other smaller poems.

During his residence on the Continent, his sympathies for Grecian liberty

became strongly excited, and he resolved to devote all his energies to the

cause, and left Italy in the summer of 1823. He arrived in Missolonghi on

January 10th, 1824. On February 15th he was seized with a convulsive fit,

which rendered him senseless for some time. On April 9th he got wet, took

cold and a fever, on the 11th he grew worse, and on the 19th he died,

inflammation of the brain having set in. Among the most remarkable

characteristics of Byron's poetry, two are deserving of particular notice.

The first is his power of expressing intense emotion, especially when it is

associated with the darker passions of the soul. "Never had any writer,"

says Macaulay, "so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn,

misanthropy and despair.... From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation,

there is not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master."

CAMPBELL, THOMAS, an eminent British poet, born at Glasgow in 1777. In 1799

he published _The Pleasures of Hope_, of which the success has perhaps

had no parallel in English literature. He visited the continent in 1800 and

witnessed the battle of Hohen-linden, which furnished the subject of one of

his most exquisite lyrics. _Gertrude of Wyoming_, published in 1809,

is one of his finest poems. He wrote several spirited odes, etc., and other

literary work, has placed his fame on an enduring basis. He died at

Boulogne, in 1844, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

CARY, ALICE, an American author, born near Cincinnati, Ohio, about 1822.

She first attracted attention by her contributions to the _National

Era_, under the name of Patty Lee; she afterwards published several

volumes of poems and other works, including _Hagar_, _Hollywood_,

etc. Her sketches of Western Life, entitled _Clovernook_, have

obtained extensive popularity. She died, February 12th, 1871.

CARY, PHOEBE, a sister of Alice, has also contributed to periodical

literature and in 1854 published a volume entitled _Poems and

Parodies_. She died July 31st, 1871.

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, an eminent English poet and critic, born at

Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, October 21st, 1772. In 1796, he published a

small volume of poems and in 1797, in conjunction with Mr. Wordsworth, he

formed the plan of the Lyrical Ballads, for which he wrote the _Ancient

Mariner_. In 1800 he removed to Keswick, where he resided in company

with Wordsworth and Southey, the three friends receiving the appellation of

the Lake Poets. He wrote several excellent works, of which

_Christabel_ is the best. He led a somewhat wandering life and died on

July 25th, 1834. As a poet, he was one of the most imaginative of modern

times, and as a critic his merits were of the highest order.

COLLINS, WILLIAM, an eminent English lyric poet, born at Chichester, in

1720. He was a friend of Dr. Johnson, who speaks well of him. His best

known work is his excellent ode on, _The Passions_, which did not

receive the fame its merits deserve. Before his death, which occurred in

1756, he was for some time an inmate of a lunatic asylum.

COWPER, WILLIAM, a celebrated English poet, originally intended for a

lawyer, and appointed as Clerk of the Journals in the House of Lords at the

age of 31 years, but his constitutional timidity prevented him from

accepting it. He had to be placed in a lunatic asylum for some time. He was

born at Berkhampstead in 1731. In 1767 he took up his abode at Olney, in

Buckinghamshire, where he devoted himself to poetry, and in 1782 published

a volume of poems, which did not excite much attention, but a second

volume, published in 1785, stamped his reputation as a true poet. His

_Task, Sofa, John Gilpin_, are works of enduring excellence. In 1794

his intellect again gave way, from which he never recovered, and he died at

Dereham, in Norfolk, April 25th, 1800.

CROLY, REV. GEORGE, a popular poet, born in Dublin in 1780. He was for many

years rector of St. Stephen's, Wallbrook, London, and was eminent as a

pulpit orator. His principal works are: _The Angel of the World_; a

tragedy, entitled _Cataline_, _Salathiel,_ etc. He died November

24th, 1860.

DICKENS, CHARLES, one of the most successful of modern novelists, was born

at Landport, Portsmouth, February 7th, 1812. Intended for the law, he

became a most successful reporter for the newspapers, and was employed on

the _Morning Chronicle_, in which paper first appeared the famous

_Sketches by Boz_, his first work. The _Pickwick Papers_ which

followed, placed him at once in the foremost rank of popular writers of

fiction. His novels are so well known that any list of their titles is

superfluous. In 1850 he commenced the publication of _Household

Words_, which he carried on until 1859 when he established _All the

Year Round_, with which he was connected until his death, which occurred

very suddenly at his residence. Gad's Hill, Kent, on June 9th, 1870. He

left his latest work, _The Mystery of Edwid Drood_, unfinished, and it

remains a fragment. It was not merely as a humorist, though that was his

great distinguishing characteristic, that Dickens obtained such unexampled

popularity. Be was a public instructor, a reformer and moralist. Whatever

was good and amiable, bright and joyous in our nature, he loved, supported

and augmented by his writings; whatever was false, hypocritical and

vicious, he held up to ridicule, scorn and contempt.

DRYDEN, JOHN, a celebrated English poet, born at Aldwinckle,

Northamptonshire, August 9th, 1631. He was educated at Trinity College,

Cambridge, where he received his degree of M.A. He removed to London in

1657, and wrote many plays, and on the death of Sir William Davenport he

was made poet laureate. On the accession of James II. Dryden became a Roman

Catholic and endeavoured to defend his new faith at the expense of the old

one, in a poem entitled The Hind and the Panther. At the Revolution he lost

his post, and in 1697 his translation of _Virgil_ appeared, which, of

itself alone is sufficient to immortalize his name. His ode, _Alexander's

Feast_, is esteemed by some critics as the finest in the English

language. He died May 1st, 1700.

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, one of the most distinguished ornaments of English

literature, born at Pallas, Ireland, in 1728. He studied at Trinity

College, Dublin and afterward at Edinburgh. He traveled over Europe, on

foot, and returned to England in 1756, and settled in London. It was not

until 1764 that he emerged from obscurity by the publication of his poem

entitled _The Traveller_. In the following year appeared his beautiful

novel of the _Vicar of Wakefield_. In 1770 he published _The

Deserted Village_, a poem, which in point of description and pathos, is

beyond all praise. As a dramatist he was very successful and he produced

many prose works. He died in London on the 4th of April, 1774.

GRAY, THOMAS, an English poet of great merit, born in London in 1716. He

was educated at Eton and Cambridge and in 1738 entered the Inner Temple,

but never engaged much in the study of the law. In 1742 he took up his

residence in Cambridge, where, in 1768, he became professor of modern

history. The odes of Gray are of uncommon merit, and his _Elegy in a

Country Churchyard_ has long been considered as one of the finest poems

in the English language. He died in July, 1771. He occupied a very high

rank in English literature, not only as a poet, but as an accomplished

prose writer.

HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE, an American poet, born at Guildford, Conn., July 8th,

1790. He became a clerk in the office of J. J. Astor, and employed his

leisure moments in the service of the Muses. In 1819, in conjunction with

his friend, Joseph R. Drake, he wrote the celebrated _Croaker Papers_,

a series of satirical poems which brought him into public notice. On his

martial poem, _Marco Bozzaris_, published in 1827, his fame

principally rests, although he has written other pieces of great merit. He

died November 19th, 1867.

HARTE, FRANCIS BRET, a native of Albany, N.Y., has written short stories

and sketches of Californian life, and several poems in dialect, of which

_The Heathen Chinee_, is the most celebrated. He possesses great wit

and pathos, and has been very successful in novel writing, and also in

writing for the stage.

HEMANS, FELICIA DOROTHEA, an excellent English poet, born at Liverpool,

September 25th, 1794, was the daughter of a merchant named Browne. Her

first volume of poems was published in 1808. In 1812 she married Capt.

Hemans, but the marriage was a very unhappy one and they separated in 1818.

She is the most touching and accomplished writer of occasional verse that

our literature has yet to boast of. "Religious truth, moral purity and

intellectual beauty, ever meet together in her poetry." She died in Dublin,

in 1835.

HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL, M.D., a distinguished American poet, author and

wit, was born at Cambridge, Mass., August 29th, 1809. He studied law, but

soon left it for medicine, and took his degree of M.D. in 1836. In 1847, he

was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Harvard University. He

early began writing poetry, publishing a collected edition of his poems in

1836. He is a genuine poet, and as a song writer, has few if any superiors

in America, excelling in the playful vein. He is best known by his series

of excellent papers, contributed to the _Atlantic Monthly_, under the

title of _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, published in 1857-8;

_The Professor at the Breakfast Table_ and the _Poet at the

Breakfast Table_. He has also written some successful novels, one of

which, _The Guardian Angel_, is one of the best American novels yet

produced. He has also written able works on subjects connected with his

profession.

HOOD, THOMAS, a famous poet, humorist and popular author, born in London in

1798. He was the son of a bookseller, served an apprenticeship as an

engraver, but soon betook himself to literature. In 1821 he was sub-editor

of the _London Magazine_. His novels and tales were less successful than

his humorous works. Among his most popular poems are:--_The Song of the

Shirt, The Bridge of Sighs_ and the _Dream of Eugene Aram_. In the

latter years of his life--which was one of prolonged suffering--he was

editor of _The New Monthly Magazine_. As a punster he is unrivalled,

and some of his serious poems are exquisitely tender and pathetic. In all

his works a rich current of genial humour runs, and his pleasant wit, ripe

observation and sound sense have made him an ornament to English

literature. He died March 3rd, 1845.

HUNT, J. H. LEIGH, a popular English poet, born at Southgate, near London

October 19th, 1784. He early turned his attention to literature, and

obtained a clerkship in the War Office, which he resigned in 1808, to

occupy the joint editorship (along with his brother John) of the

_Examiner_. Their boldness in conducting this paper led to their being

imprisoned for two years and fined £500 each, for some strictures on the

Prince Regent which appeared in its columns. He was a copious writer and

his productions occupy a wide range. _Rimini_, written while in

prison, is one of his best poems. Prof. Wilson styles Hunt "as the most

vivid of poets and the most cordial of critics." He died August 28th, 1859.

INGELOW, JEAN, a native of Ipswich, Suffolk, born about 1826, is the author

of several volumes of poems, the first of which ran through 14 editions in

five years. She wrote _A Story of Doom_ and other poems, published in

1867, _Mopsa the Fairy_ in 1869, and several prose stories, etc.

IRVING, WASHINGTON, a distinguished American author and humorist, born in

New York City, April 3rd, 1783. He studied law and was admitted to the bar,

but soon abandoned the legal profession for literature. In 1809 he

published his Knickerbockers History of New York, a humorous work which was

very successful. His works, are very numerous, including the famous

_Sketch Book, The Alhambra, Conquest of Granada, Life of Columbus, Life

of Washington_, etc., etc. For easy elegance of style, Irving has no

superior, perhaps no equal, among the prose writers of America. If

Hawthorne excels him in variety, in earnestness and in force, he is,

perhaps, inferior to Irving in facility and grace, while he can make no

claim to that genial, lambent humour which beams in almost every page of

Geoffrey Cravon. He died November 28th, 1859.

LAMB, CHARLES, a distinguished essayist and humorist, born in London, Feby.

18th, 1775, and educated at Christ's Hospital. In 1792 he became a clerk in

the India House, a post he retained for 33 years. He was a genial and

captivating essayist and his fame mainly rests on his delightful _Essays

of Elia_, which were first printed in the _London Magazine_. His

complete works include two volumes of verse, the _Essays of Elia,

Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets_, etc., etc. For quaint, genial

and unconventional humour, Lamb has, perhaps, never been excelled. He died

December 27th, 1834.

LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH, the most popular and artistic of all American

poets, was born in Portland, Maine, Feby. 27th, 1807. He graduated at

Bowdoin College in 1825, and one year afterwards was offered the

professorship of Modern Languages at that Institution, which he occupied

until 1835, when he accepted that of professor of Modern Languages at

Harvard, which he continued to hold until 1854, when he resigned the chair.

His poetical works are well known and are very numerous, the most noted of

his longer pieces being _Evangeline, The Golden Legend, Hiawatha,

Courtship of Miles Standish_, etc. All his poetical works are

distinguished by grace and beauty, warmed by a greater human sympathy than

is displayed in the writings of the majority of eminent poets. He relies

chiefly for his success on a simple and direct appeal to those sentiments

which are common to all mankind, to persons of every rank and of every

clime. He wrote only three prose works, _Outre-Mer, Hyperion and

Kavanagh_, and a few dramas, all of which deserve to rank with the best

American productions. _Evangeline_ is considered "to be the most

perfect specimen of the rhythm and melody of the English hexameter." He

died at Cambridge, Mass., March 24th 1882.

LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, a distinguished American poet, critic and scholar,

born in Cambridge, Mass., February 22nd, 1819. He graduated from Harvard,

in 1838, and was admitted to the bar, but soon abandoned law as a

profession and devoted himself to literature. His _Biglow Papers_

first made him popular, in 1848. In 1857, on the establishment of the

_Atlantic Monthly_, he was made editor of that popular magazine. His

prose works consisting chiefly of critical and miscellaneous essays, "show

their author to be the leading American critic, are a very agreeable union

of wit and wisdom, and are the result of extensive reading, illuminated by

excellent critical insight." His humour is rich and unrivalled and he seems

equally at home in the playful, the pathetic, or the meditative realms of

poetry. In 1880, he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary to Great Britain,

which office he held until 1885.

LYTTON, LORD, Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton, a distinguished

novelist, poet, dramatist and politician, was born May, 1805. He was the

son of William Earle Bulwer, and owes his chief fame to his novels, some of

which are among the best in the English language, notably _The Caxtons,

My Novel, What will He do with It?_ and _A Strange Story_. As a

playwright he was equally successful; he was the author of The Lady of

Lyons--the most popular play of modern days;--_Richelieu, Not so Bad as we

Seem_, the admirable comedy of _Money_, etc. A man of prodigious

industry he showed himself equal to the highest efforts of literature;

fiction, poetry, the drama, all were enriched by his labours. As a

politician he was not quite so successful. In 1866 he was raised to the

peerage as Baron Lytton. He assumed the name of Lytton, his mother's maiden

name, in 1844, on succeeding to the Knebworth estates. He died January

18th, 1873, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

LYTTON, EDWARD ROBERT BULWER, The son of the preceding author, better known

perhaps by his _nom de plume_, Owen Meredith, born November 8th, 1831.

He entered the diplomatic service in 1849. and has represented the British

Government with great distinction. His chief works are _Clytemestra,

Lucile, The Wanderer, Fables in Song, The Ring of Amasis_, a prose

romance, etc.

MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, a celebrated historian, orator, essayist and

poet, was born at Rothley Temple, Lincolnshire, October 26th, 1800. From

his earliest years he exhibited signs of superiority and genius, and earned

a great reputation for his verses and oratory. He studied law and was

called to the Bar, commencing his political career in 1830, and in 1834 he

went to India, as a member of the Supreme Council, returning in 1838 to

England, where for a few years he pursued politics and letters,

representing Edinburgh in the House of Commons, but being rejected, on

appearing for re-election, he devoted himself to literature. During the

last twelve years of his life his time was almost wholly occupied with his

_History of England_, four volumes of which he had completed and

published, and a fifth left partly ready for the press when he died.

Besides the _History_ and _Essays_, he wrote a collection of

beautiful ballads, including the well-known _Lays of Ancient Rome_. In

1849 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and in 1857,

his honours culminated in his elevation to the peerage as Baron Macaulay.

He died on the 28th of December, 1869.

MILTON, JOHN, An immortal poet, and with the exception of Shakespeare, the

most illustrious name in English Literature, was born in Bread Street,

London, on December 9th, 1608. He graduated at Cambridge, and was intended

for the law or the Church, but did not enter either calling. He settled at

Horton in Buckinghamshire, where he wrote his _Comus, L'Allegro, Il

Penuroso_, and _Lycidas_. He took the side of the Parliament in the

dispute with King Charles I. and rendered his party efficient service with

his pen. About 1654 he became totally blind, and after serving the

Protector as Latin Secretary for four or five years, he retired from public

life in 1657. In 1665, the time of the Great Plague, he first showed the

finished manuscript of his great poem, _Paradise Lost_, which was

first printed in 1667, this immortal work being sold to a bookseller for

£5! He afterwards wrote _Paradise Regained_, but it is, in all

respects, quite inferior to _Paradise Lost_. He died in London, on the

8th of November, 1674.

MOORE, THOMAS, a celebrated poet, born in Dublin, May 28th, 1779, and was

educated at Trinity College in that city. He studied law but never

practised. He published two volumes of poems previous to the production of

_Lalla Rookh_, his masterpiece, which was highly successful and was

published in 1817. His works are very numerous and some of them are

extremely popular, the best being _Lalla Rookh_ and _Irish

Melodies_. As a poet he displays grace, pathos, tenderness and

imagination, but is deficient in power and naturalness. He died February

26th, 1852.

POE, EDGAR ALLAN, a distinguished American poet and prose writer, born in

Baltimore in 1809. He was an entirely original figure in American

literature, his temperament was melancholy, he hated restraint of every

kind and he gave way to dissipation, and his life is a wretched record of

poverty and suffering. But the _Bells, The Raven_ and _Annabel

Lee_, his principal poetical works, are wonderfully melodious,

constructed with great ingenuity, and finished with consummate art. He

wrote several weird prose tales and some critical essays. He died at

Baltimore, under circumstances of great wretchedness, October 7th, 1849.

POPE, ALEXANDER, a popular English poet and critic, born in London, May

22nd, 1688. During his childhood he displayed great ability and resolved to

be a poet. His _Pastorals_ were written at the age of sixteen. He

wrote a large number of poems, the most celebrated being; the _Essay on

Criticism, The Rape of the Lock_ and the _Essay on Man_. He also

published translations of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. His

talent for satire is conspicuous in the _Duncaid_. He possessed little

originality or creative imagination, but he had a vivid sense of the

beautiful, and an exquisite taste. He owed much of his popularity to the

easy harmony of his verse, the keenness of his satire, and the brilliancy

of his antithesis. He has, with the exception of Shakespeare, added more

phrases to the English language than any other poet. He died on the 30th of

May, 1744.

PROCTER, ADELAIDE ANNE, an English poet, born in London, October 30th,

1825. She was a daughter of Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall). She was

a contributor to _Household Words_ and _All the Year Round_, and

published in 1858, a volume of poetry, _Legends and Lyrics_. A second

volume was issued in 1861. She died February 3rd, 1864.

READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN, a distinguished American artist and poet, born in

Pennsylvania, March 12th, 1822. He visited England and also spent several

years in Florence and Rome. He wrote several good poems, but his

_Sheridan's Ride_, brought him more popularity than any of his

previous works. He died May 11th, 1872.

ROGERS, SAMUEL, an eminent English poet, born in London, July 30th, 1763.

He was a rich banker and enabled to devote much leisure time to literature,

of which he was a magnificent patron. His best works are _Pleasures of

Memory, Human Life_, and _Italy_, the last appeared in a

magnificent form, having cost £10,000 in illustrations alone. Died December

18th, 1855.

SAXE, JOHN GODFREY, a humorous American poet, born in Vermont, in 1816. He

has been most successful in classical travesties and witty turns of

language, and he has won a good place as a sonneteer. A complete edition of

his poems (the 42nd) was published in 1881.

SCOTT, SIR WALTER. An illustrious Scotch author, novelist and poet, born in

Edinburgh, August 15th, 1771. He was called to the bar in 1792, and being

in circumstances favourable for the pursuit of literature, he commenced his

poetical career, by translating several poems from the German. In 1805, he

published the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, and became at once one of

the most distinguished poets of the age. It was speedily followed by

_Marmion_ and the _Lady of the Lake_ (1810), and many other

poems, all of which added to his fame. In August, 1813, he was offered the

position of poet-laureate, which he declined. But he was destined to add to

his already great reputation as a poet, by a success equally as great in

the realms of prose fiction. In 1814 appeared _Waverley_, published

anonymously, and its success was enormous. It was quickly followed by the

other volumes of the "Great Unknown," as Scott was now designated,

amounting in all to twenty-seven volumes. In 1820 he was created a baronet

and his degree of success had been unparalleled and had raised him to

apparent affluence, but, in 1826, by the failure of two publishing houses

with which he was connected, he was reduced to bankruptcy. He set himself

resolutely to redeem himself from the load of debt (£147,000) but, although

successful, his faculties gave way before the enormous mental toil to which

they were subjected. He died at Abbotsford, Sept. 21st, 1832. In addition

to the poetical works and the Waverley Novels, Scott was the author of many

other popular works, too well known to need mentioning here.

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM.--The greatest poet of England, born at Stratford-on-

Avon, Warwickshire, April 23rd, 1564. Unfortunately the materials for a

biography of the poet are very meagre, and are principally derived from

tradition. He appears to have been well educated, married very early, when

about nineteen years of age, his wife, Anne Hathaway, being then twenty-

six. Shortly after this he left Stratford for London, where he became an

actor and eventually a writer of plays. His first printed drama (Henry VI.,

part II.) was issued in 1594. In 1597, he purchased the best house in his

native town, and about 1604 he retired to Stratford, where he spent the

last twelve years of life, and where he is supposed to have written many of

his plays, but we have no means of determining the exact order in which

they were composed. He died April 23rd, 1616. His works are of world-wide

fame, and need not be enumerated here. The name is often spelled

SHAKSPEARE.

SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE.--An eminent English poet, born near Horsham, Sussex,

August 4th, 1792. He studied at Oxford, from whence he was expelled for

publishing a _Defence of Atheism_. He made an unhappy marriage and

soon separated from his wife. He published _Queen Mab, Alsator_, and

in 1817 the _Revolt of Islam_. In 1818 he left England, to which he

was destined never to return. In July, 1822, (July 8th), while residing at

Leghorn, he went out on the Gulf of Spezzia, in a sail boat, which was

upset in a squall, and the poet perished. In addition to the poems already

mentioned he wrote _The Cenci_, _Adonais_, _Prometheus_, and

a number of smaller pieces. As a poet he was gifted with genius of a very

high order, with richness and fertility of imagination, but of a vague and

partly unintelligible character.

SHERIDAN, RICHARD BRINSLEY BUTLER.--A celebrated Irish orator and

dramatist, born in Dublin in 1751. He directed his attention to literature,

and in 1775 produced the comedy of _The Rivals_, and several other

pieces. In 1777, his celebrated comedy of _The School for Scandal_,

established his reputation as a dramatic genius of the highest order. He

managed Drury Lane Theatre for some time, and also entered Parliament. His

speech on the impeachment of Warren Hastings is regarded as one of the most

splendid displays of eloquence in ancient or modern times. He died in

London, in July, 1816.

SOUTHEY, ROBERT.--An eminent author and poet, born at Bristol, August 12th,

1774. Intended for the church, he studied at Oxford, but abandoned divinity

for literature. His first poem was _Joan of Arc_, published in 1796.

He was a most voluminous writer, being the author of more than 100 volumes

of poetry, history, travels, etc., and also of 126 papers, upon history,

biography, politics and general literature. His principal works are

_Madoc, Thalaba the Destroyer, The Curse of Kehama_, lives of

_Nelson, Bunyan, John Wesley_, etc., etc. He was appointed poet

laureate in 1813. He died at Keswick, Cumberland, March 21st, 1843.

TENNYSON, ALFRED (Lord Tennyson), a distinguished and the most popular

English poet, born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, August 5th, 1809. He early

displayed poetic genius, his first volume (written in conjunction with his

brother Charles) entitled, _Poems by Two Brothers_, having been issued

in 1827. In 1842, a volume of his poems was published and was most

enthusiastically received, since which period his well-known productions

have been issued at intervals. We need only mention _The Princess, In

Memoriam_, (a record of the poet's love for Arthur Hallam), _Maud,

Idyls of the King, Enoch Arden_, and the dramas of _Queen Mary,

Harold_, etc. In 1833 he was appointed poet-laureate. Refined taste and

exquisite workmanship are the characteristics of all he has written. His

range of poetic power is very wide, and as a describer of natural scenery

he is unequalled, while his rich gift of imagination, his pure and elevated

diction, and his freedom from faults of taste and manner, give him a high

place amongst those who are the great masters of song. He was elevated to

the peerage in January, 1884, as Baron Tennyson.

THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE.--A distinguished English novelist and

humourist, was born in Calcutta, July 18th, 1811. He I was educated at

Cambridge, and at first inclined to be an artist, but after a few years,

devoted himself to literature. He gained popularity as a contributor to

_Punch_, but his progress in popular favour was not rapid, until in

1846, when he published his _Vanity Fair_, one of his best works,

which raised him into the first rank of English novelists. His subsequent

works all tended to enhance his popularity. We need only mention

_Pendennis, the Newcomes, History of Henry Esmond_, the

_Virginians_, etc. He was also a popular lecturer, and his lectures on

the _Four Georges_, and _The English Humourists of the Eighteenth

Century_, were very successful. He edited the _Cornhill Magazine_

from 1860 until April, 1862, when he relinquished it, continuing however to

write for the Magazine. He died somewhat suddenly on December 24th, 1863,

leaving a novel, _Denis Duval_, unfinished. His inimitably graceful

style, in which he has been excelled by no novelist, may be in part due to

his familiarity with Addison, Steele, Swift and their contemporaries. His

pathos is as touching and sincere as his humour is subtle and delicate. His

fame as a novelist has caused his poems to be somewhat neglected, but his

admirable ballads and society verses attain a degree of excellence rarely

reached by such performances.

THOMSON, JAMES.--A celebrated poet, born in Roxburghshire, Scotland,

September 11th, 1700. He went to London to seek his fortune in 1725, and

his poem of _The Seasons_, published in 1726-30, was an important era

in the history of English poetry, as it marked the revival of the taste for

the poetry of nature. Besides the _Seasons_, Thomson wrote some

tragedies, which were failures, also what some critics consider his best

work, _The Castle of Indolence_, published in 1748. He is often

careless and dull, his poetry disfigured by classic allusions to Ceres,

Pomona, Boreas, etc., but he had a genuine love of nature, and his

descriptions, despite their artificial dress, bear the stamp of reality. He

was successful in obtaining a comfortable competence by his literary

exertions, and died August 27th, 1748.

TWAIN, MARK (Samuel Langhorne Clemens.) An American humourist, who has

achieved great popularity, was born in Florida, Missouri, in 1835, and

after an apprenticeship on the "Press," sprang into notice on the

publication of his _Innocents Abroad_, published in 1869, a semi-

burlesque account of the adventures of a party of American tourists in

Europe and the East. _Roughing It_, and other works of his published

subsequently, have been equally successful. The qualities of his style are

peculiar, slyness and cleverness in jesting being his predominant

qualities.

WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF.--The Quaker Poet of America, born December 17th,

1807, near Haverhill, Mass. He passed his early years on his father's farm,

but in 1829 he began to be connected with the "Press" and edited newspapers

until 1839. He early identified himself with the Anti-Slavery movement and

rendered it noble service by his pen and influence. His first work,

_Legends of New England_, was published in 1831. His works are very

numerous, _Maud Müller_ being the best known of his poems, and

_Barbara Frietchie_ of his poems connected with the Civil War. As a

writer of prose he unites strength and grace in an unusual degree, and his

poetic effusions are characterized by intense feeling and by all the spirit

of the true lyric poet.

WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER.--A distinguished American poet and writer,

born at Portland, Maine, January 20th, 1806. He graduated from Yale in

1827 and devoted himself to literature, publishing a volume in that year

which was well received. He wrote between thirty and forty separate

publications, in addition to editing the _Evening Mirror_ and other

periodicals including the _Home Journal_. Though marred by occasional

affectation, the sketches of Willis are light, graceful compositions,

but the artificiality of his poems have caused them to be neglected.

He died at Idlewild, New York, January 20th, 1867.

WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM.--An illustrious English poet, born at Cockermouth,

Cumberland, April 7th, 1770. He studied at Cambridge and took his B. A.

degree in 1791. In 1793 (after a residence for a short time in France) he

produced his first verses, entitled An Evening Walk. In 1798, a small

volume entitled _Lyrical Ballads_, was published in conjunction with

ST. Coleridge, but was not a success. In 1800, he settled in Grasmere,

Westmoreland, where also resided Southey, Coleridge, de Quincy, and Wilson,

to whom the critics applied the term "Lake School." In 1813 he removed to

Rydal Mount, where he published _The Excursion_ in 1814, _The White

Doe of Rylston, Peter Bell, The Waggoner, The Prelude_, etc. In 1843 he

was appointed to succeed Southey as poet-laureate. He is undoubtedly a poet

of the first rank. Regarding Nature as a living and mysterious whole,

constantly acting on humanity, the visible universe and its inhabitants

were alike to him full of wonder, awe and mystery. His influence on the

literature and poetry of Britain and America has been immense, and is yet

far from being exhausted. He died April 23rd, 1850.

YOUNG, EDWARD, An English divine and poet, born at Upham, Hampshire, in

1684. He was educated at Oxford, and in 1727 was ordained and appointed to

the living of Welwyn, Hertfordshire. As a poet he excels most in his

_Night Thoughts_, which abound with ornate images, but are often very

obscure. He wrote several other works. Died in 1765.

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"The shaft! the shaft!" they wildly cried;