scious of his intense anxiety, buoyant with life, joyously pursue their rounds of business, their cycles of amusement. The sun slowly climbs the heavens, round and bright and full-orbed. The lone tenant of the mountain-top almost begins to waver in the sternness of his faith as the morning hours roll away. But the time of his triumph, long delayed, at length begins to dawn; a pale and sickly hue creeps over the face of nature. The sun has reached his highest point, but his splendor is dimmed, his light is feeble. At last it comes! Blackness is eating away his round disc. Onward with slow but steady pace the dark veil moves, blacker than a thousand nights. The gloom deepens; the ghastly hue of death covers the universe, the last ray is gone, and horror reigns. A wail of terror fills the murky air, the clangor of brazen trumpets resounds, an agony of despair dashes the stricken millions to the ground, while that lone man, erect on his rocky summit, with arms outstretched to heaven, pours forth the grateful gushings of his heart to God, who had crowned his efforts with triumphant victory. Search the records of our race, and point me, if you can, to a scene more grand, more beautiful. It is to me the proudest victory that genius ever won. It was the conquering of nature, of ignorance, of superstition, of terror, all at a single blow, and that blow struck by a single

arm.

And now do you demand the name of this Alas! what a lesson of the instability of earthly fame are we taught in this simple recital! He who had raised himself immeasurably above his race, who must have been regarded by his fellows as little less than a god, who had inscribed his faine

wonderful man? Alas! what a lesson of the

on the very heavens and had written it in the sun with a "pen of iron and the point of a diamond," even this one has perished from the earth; name, age, country, are all swept into oblivion, but his proud achievement stands. The monument reared to his honor stands, and, although the touch of Time has effaced the lettering of his name, it is powerless, and cannot destroy the fruits of his victory.

Ο

N

ORMSBY M. MITCHEL.

THE BELLE.

Sunday see the haughty maid In all the glare of dress arrayed, Decked in her most fantastic gown Because a stranger's come to town; Heedless at church she spends the day, For homelier folks may serve to pray, And for devotion those may go Who can have nothing else to do. Beauties at church may spend their care in Far other work than pious hearing; They've beaux to conquer, belles to rival : To make them serious were uncivil. For, like the preacher, they each Sunday Must do their whole week's work in one day.

As though they meant to take by blows
The opposing galleries of beaux,
To church the female squadron move
All armed with weapons used in love.
Like colored ensigns gay and fair,
High caps rise floating in the air;
Bright silk its varied radiance flings,
And streamers wave in kissing-strings;
Each bears th' artillery of her charms
Like training-bands at viewing arms.

JOHN TRUMBULL.

RHIANUS.

HIANUS, who lived about 250 or 225 A. D., was a native of Bena, in the island of Crete. He was originally master of the Palæstra, or circus of gymnastic exercises, but was afterward distinguished as a poet and grammarian. He wrote a history of Messene in verse, of which the accuracy is praised by Pausanias, and composed similar historic poems on different Grecian states. Suetonius relates that Tiberius was particularly partial to the poems of Rhianus, and that he placed his bust in the public libraries, among those of the most eminent poets.

The neck with high-reined head, as though

he wooed

Fair-armed Minerva, and had cleft a way To high Olympus' top, that, with the gods There numbered, he might feast in blessed

ness.

But, lo! Destruction, running with soft feet,

Unlooked for and unseen, bows suddenly
The loftiest heads. Deceitfully she steals
In unexpected forms upon their sins;
To youthful follies wears the face of age;
To aged crimes, the features of a maid;
And her dread deed is pleasant in the sight
Of Justice and of him who rules the gods.

CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS.
HIS author was horn about B. c. 86 at

Verona, but was early taken to Rome,

where by his genius he acquired the friendship of Cicero. He satirized Julius Cæsar, who revenged himself, like a man of sense, by asking the satirist to sup with him.

DIRGE TO HIS BROTHER.

FROM THE LATIN OF CAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS.

Slow faring on o'er many a land and sea,
Brother! I come to thy sad obsequy-
The last fond tribute to the dead impart,
And call thee, speechless ashes as thou art,
Alas! in vain! Since faith has ravished

thee

E'en thee, thyself, poor brother, torn from me
By too severe a blow-let this be paid,
This rite of ancestry, to soothe thy shade;
Let this, all bathed in tears, my friendship
tell,

And oh, for ever bless thee, and farewell!

Translation of JOHN NOTT, M. D.

ceased a while,

And Hope, thy sister, ceased

with thee to smile,

fly,

66

wars

Her whiskered pandoors and

her fierce hussars, Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, Pealed her loud drum and twanged her trumpet-horn; Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, Presaging wrath to Poland and to man.

In vain-alas, in vain !—ye gallant few, From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew :

Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time, Sarmatia fell unwept without a crimeFound not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe. Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,

surveyed,

Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid.

"O Heaven," he cried, "my bleeding country save!

career.

Hope for a season bade the world farewell And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell.

there :

plains,

Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains! By that dread name we wave the sword on high,

And swear for her to live, with her to die."

He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayed His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed; Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form,

Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the

storm;

On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin

glow,

His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below; The storm prevails, the rampart yields a

way,

Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay. Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall

A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call; Earth shook, red meteors flashed along the sky,

And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry.