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emptied into the bay, without the least injury to other property. "All things were conducted with great order, decency, and perfect submission to government." The people around, as they looked on, were so still that the noise of breaking open the tea chests was distinctly heard. A delay of a few hours would have placed the tea under the protection of the admiral at the Castle. After the work was done, the town became as still and calm as if it had been holy time. The men from the country that very night carried back the great news to their villages.

CVII.-THE LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP.

LONGFELLOW.

*

ALL is finished! and at length

Has come the bridal day

Of beauty and of strength.

To-day the vessel shall be launched!

With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched,
And o'er the bay,

Slowly, in all his splendors dight,

The great sun rises to behold the sight.

The ocean old,

Centuries old,

Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled,

Paces restless to and fro,

Up and down the sands of gold.

His beating heart is not at rest;

And far and wide

With ceaseless flow

His beard of snow

Heaves with the heaving of his breast.

He waits impatient for his bride.

There she stands,

With her foot upon the sands

Decked with flags and streamers gay,
In honor of her marriage day,

Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending,
Round her like a veil descending,

Ready to be

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And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,

"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray;
Take her to thy protecting arms,

With all her youth and all her charms."

How beautiful she is! how fair

She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, O ship!

Through wind and wave, right onward steer!

The moistened eye, the trembling lip,

Are not the signs of doubt or fear.

Sail forth into the sea of life,
O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity,
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness, and love, and trust,
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives,
Something immortal still survives!

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge, and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.

Fear not each sudden sound and shock;
'Tis of the wave, and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale.
In spite of rock and tempest roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea:

Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,

Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,

Are all with thee are all with thee.

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This speech of Ulysses is from the play of Troilus and Cressida, in which the incidents and characters are taken from, or suggested by, the Iliad of Homer; and it is one of the triumphs of Shakspeare's unequalled genius, that he has treated so familiar a subject in a manner so original. The character of Ulysses, especially, is drawn with great skill and power.

In the play, as in Homer's epic, Achilles is represented as having, from a quarrel with Agamemnon, withdrawn from all coöperation with the army, and as living in sulky solitude among his own troops. The object of the other leaders is to induce him to join them and act with them once more. Ulysses instructs the generals and officers to pass Achilles by without any notice. Achilles is naturally chafed at this neglect, and when Ulysses appears, the latter skilfully induces him to remark upon it. He then addresses this speech to Achilles, as if it were the immediate suggestion of the moment. The young reader will notice how adroitly this is managed. Ulysses has to deal with a haughty and undisciplined spirit, who would have been only confirmed in his wrong course by any thing like a scolding or a lecture; but the shrewd speaker contrives to administer the lesson without wounding the self-love of the pupil. How admirably, too, those arguments and considerations are pressed upon Achilles which would be most likely to influence an ambitious young man, with whom love of glory was the ruling passion!

Shakspeare stands alone in the variety and comprehensiveness of his powers. He is like four or five men of the highest class of genius blended into one. He had the imagination of Milton and the philosophical glance of Bacon; he was as great an orator as Demosthenes, and as wise as Franklin.]

TIME hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes;

Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done. Persev'erance, dear my lord,

Keeps honor bright. To have done, is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail,

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honor travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast; keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or edge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;

Or, like a gallant horse, fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,

O'errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours;

For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. Let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,

More laud than gilt † o'erdusted.

The present eye praises the present object.

CIX. THE WORTH OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.

EVERETT.

BUT I am met with the great objection, What good will the monument do? I beg leave to exercise my birthright as a Yankee, and answer this question by asking two or three more, to which, I believe, it will be quite as difficult to furnish a satisfactory reply. I am asked, What good will the monument do? and I ask, What good does any thing do? What is good? Does any thing do any good? The persons who suggest this objection of course think that there are some projects

* That is, all mankind agree in this one natural trait.
+ Gilt here means gold.

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