chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions of mbition realized, can all the wealth of a universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the estab lishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate! So thought Palmyra - where is she! So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman! In Lis hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps! The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected, in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was! Who shall say, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty conti nent may not emerge from the horizon, to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant!

61. EULOGY ON LAFAYETTE.-Edward Everett.

There have been those who have denied to Lafayette the name of a great man. What is greatness? Does goodnes, belong to greatness, and make an essential part of it? If it does, who, I would ask, of all the prominent names in history, has run through such a career with so little reproach,

justly or unjustly bestowed? Are military courage and conduct the measure of greatness? Lafayette was intrusted by Washington with all kinds of service, the laborious and complicated, which required skill and patience; the perilous, that demanded nerve: and we see him performing all with entire success and brilliant reputation. Is the readiness to meet vast responsibilities a proof of greatness? The memoirs of Mr. Jefferson show us that there was a moment, in 1789, when Lafayette took upon himself, as the head of the military force, the entire responsibility of laying down the basis of the Revolution. Is the cool and brave administration of gigantic power a mark of greatness? in all the whirlwind of the Revolution, and when, as commander-in-chief of the National Guard, an organized force of three millions of men, who, for any popular purpose, needed but a word, a look, to put them in motion, we behold him ever calm, collected, disinterested; as free from affectation as selfishness; clothed not less with humility than with power. Is the voluntary return, in advancing years, to the direction of affairs, at a moment like that, when, in 1815, the ponderous machinery of the French Empire was flying asunder,-stunning, rending, crushing thousands on every side, a mark of greatness? Lastly, is it any proof of greatness to be able, at the age of seventythree, to take the lead in a successful and bloodless revolution; to change the dynasty; to organize, exercise and abdicate a military command of three and a half millions of men; to take up, to perform, and lay down the most momentous, delicate, and perilous duties, without passion, without hurry, without selfishness? Is it great to disregard the bribes of title, office, money; to live, to labor and suffer for great public ends alone; to adhere to principle under all circumstances; to stand before Europe and America conspicuous, for sixty years, in the most responsible stations. the acknowledged admiration of all good men?.

There is not, throughout the world, a friend of liberty who has not dropped his head when he has heard that Lafayette is no more. Poland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland the South American republics every country where man is struggling to recover his birthright,- have lost a bene factor, a patron, in Lafayette. And what was it, fellowcitizens, which gave to our Lafayette his spotless fame? The love of liberty. What has consecrated his memory in the hearts of good men? The love of liberty. What nerved his youthful arm with strength, and inspired him, in the morning of his days, with sagacity and counsel? The living love of liberty. To what did he sacrifice power, and rank, and country, and freedom itself? To the horror of licentiousness, to the sanctity of plighted faith,― to the love of liberty protected by law. Thus the great principle of your Revolutionary fathers, and of your Pilgrim sires, wast the rule of his life—the love of liberty protected by law.

62. THE TRUE KINGS OF THE EARTH.-John Ruskin.

Mighty of heart, mighty of mind-" magnanimous "--. to be this is indeed to be great in life; to become this unceasingly is indeed to "advance in life"— in life itself— not in the trappings of it. Do you remember that old Scythian custom? How, when the head of a house died. he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence.

Suppose it were offered to you in plain words, as it is offered to you in dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honor, gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive. Suppose the offer were this: You shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only as a rusty group of iron valves. Your life shall fade from you, and sink through the earth into the ice of Caina; but, day by day, your body shall

be dressed more gaily, and set in higher chariots, and have more orders on its breast- crowns on its head, if you will. Men shall bow before it, stare and shout round it; crowd after it up and down the streets; build palaces for it; feast with it at their tables' heads all the night long; your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they do, and to feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and the furrow of the crown edge on the skullWould you take the offer verbally made by the death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you?

no more.

Yet practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure; many of us grasp at it in its fullness of horror. Every man accepts it, who desires to advance in life without knowing what life is; who means only that he is to get more horses, and more servants, and more fortune, and more public honor, and—not more personal soul. He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them

are the true lords or kings of the earth only.

- they, and they

63. THE AMERICAN FLAG.-J. R. Drake.

When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there:
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land,

Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,

To hear the tempest-trumpings loud

And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm,

And rolls the thunder drum of heaven,— Child of the Sun! to thee 'tis given

To guard the banner of the free;
To hover in the sulphur-smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn;
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance:
And, when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud
And gory sabres rise and fall
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall fall beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave.
When Death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back,
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy, splendors fly,
In triumph, o'er his closing eye.