ried me on his shoulder; when she knelt down, and heard my prayer, and gave me, in bed, my "good-night" kiss-did they ever think that all their care for an only son could come to this? Foolish again! No sense in tears, and gnashing the teeth! and yet, somehow, I haven't thought of them so, for years; I never knew them, till now! How fondly, how blindly, they trusted me! When I should have been in my bed asleep, I slipp'd from the window, and down the tree, and sow'd for the harvest which now I reap

And Jennie-how could I bear to leave her? If I had but wish'd -but I was a fool! My heart was fill'd with a thirst and a fever which no sweet airs of heaven could cool. I can hear her asking: "Have you heard?" But mother falters, and shakes her head: "O Jennie ! Jennie! Never a word! What can it mean? He must be dead!"

Light-hearted, a proud, ambitious lad, I left my home that morning in May; what visions, what hopes, what plans I had! And what have I-where are they all-to-day? Wild fellows, and wine, and debts, and gaming, disgrace, and the loss of place and friend; and I was an outlaw, past reclaiming; arrest, and sentence, and-this is the end!

"Five years!" Shall ever I quit this prison? Homeless, an outcast, where shall I go? Return to them?-like one arisen from the grave that was buried long ago!...All is still; 'tis the close of the week; I slink through the garden, I stop by the well; I see him totter, I hear her shriek!-What sort of a tale will I have to tell?

But here I am! What's the use of grieving? "Five years!"-Will it be too late to begin? Can sober thinking and honest living still make me the man I might have been ? I'll sleep: Oh, would I could wake tomorrow in that old room-to find, at last, that all my trouble, and all their sorrow, are only a dream of the night that is past!

IX.-BEAUTIFUL SNOW.-J. W. Watson.

OH! the snow, the beautiful snow! filling the sky and earth below; over the housetops, over the street, over the heads of the people you meet; dancing-flirting-skimming along:-Beautiful snow! it can do no wrong; flying to kiss a fair lady's cheek-clinging to lips in frolicsome freakbeautiful snow from the heaven above, pure as an angel, gentle as love! Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow! how the flakes gather and laugh as they go, whirling about in maddening fun-it plays in its glee with every one chasing-laughing-hurrying by, it lights on the face and it sparkles the eye; and the dogs, with a bark and a bound, snap at the crystals that eddy around: the town is alive, and its heart in a glow, to welcome the coming of beautiful snow!

How blithely the crowd goes swaying along, hailing each other with humour and song! how the gay sledges like meteors flash by, bright for a moment, then lost to the eye; ringing-swinging-dashing they go. over the crust of the beautiful snow: snow so pure when it falls from the sky, as to make one regret to see it lie to be trampled in mud by the crowd passing by-to be trampled and tracked by thousands of feet, till it blends with the filth in the horrible street!

Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell-fell like the snow-but from heaven to hell; fell, to be trampled as filth of the street; fell, to be scoffed, to be spit on, and beat; pleading-cursing-dreading to die, selling my soul to whoever would buy; dealing in shame for a morsel of

bread-hating the living and fearing the dead...Merciful God, have I fallen so low? and yet I was once like the beautiful snow!

Once I was fair as the beautiful snow, with an eye like its crystal-a heart like its glow; once I was loved for my innocent grace-flattered and sought for the charms of my face! Father-mother-sisters-all, God and myself-I have lost by my fall! The veriest wretch that goes shivering by, will make a wide sweep lest I wander too nigh: for all that is on, or about me, I know, there is nothing that's pure as the beautiful

snow.

How strange it should be that this beautiful snow, should fall on a sinner with nowhere to go! How strange it should be, when the night comes again, if the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain! Fainting-freezing-dying alone, too wicked for prayer, too weak for a moan to be heard in the streets of the crazy town (gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down); to lie, and to die, in my terrible woe, with a bed, and a shroud, of the beautiful snow!"

Helpless and foul as the trampled snow, sinner! despair not! for mercy stoops low to rescue the soul that is lost in sin, and raise it to life and to pureness again. Groaning--bleeding-dying for thee, the Crucified hung on the cursed tree! His accents of pity fall soft on thine ear" Is there mercy for me? Will He heed my weak prayer? O God! in the stream, that for sinners doth flow, wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow!"

X.-A LEGEND OF ANTRIM.Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee.

THE Lady of Antrim rose with the morn, and donned her grandest gear, And her heart beat fast, when a sounding horn announced two suitors

near:

Hers was a heart so full of pride that love had little room;

And, 'faith! I would not wish such bride for all her beautiful bloom! One suitor there came from the Scottish shore, long, and lithe, and grim;

And a younger one from Dunluce hoar-and the Lady inclined to him: "But hearken, ye nobles both," she said, as soon as they did dine“The hand must prove its chieftainry that putteth a ring on mine. "But not in the Lists, with armèd hands must this devoir be done; Yet he who wins my broad, broad lands their Lady may count as won! Ye both were born upon the shore-were bred upon the sea; Now let me see you ply the oar, for the land you love-and me! "The Chief that first can reach the strand may mount at morn and ride;

And his long day's ride shall bound his land,—and I shall be his bride!"...

The Irish Wooer felt hope in each vein, as the bold, bright Lady spoke, But the young Scotch Chief eyed his rival again, and bowed, with a bargeman's stroke.

'Tis summer upon the Antrim shore-the shore of shores it is

Where the white old rocks deep caves arch o'er, unfathomed by man. I wis!

Tis summer-the long white lines of foam roll lazily to the beach ;
And man and maid from every home their eyes o'er the waters stretch.
On Glenarm's lofty battlements sitteth the Lady fair,

And the warm west wind blows softly through the links of her golden hair.

The boats in the distant offing are marshalled prow to prow;
The boatmen cease their scoffing, and bend to the rowlocks now;
Like glory-guided steeds they start-away o'er the waves they bound;—
Each rower can hear the beating heart of his brother-boatman sound!
Nearer! nearer! on they come-row, M'Donald, row!

For Antrim's princely castle-home, its lands and its Lady-row!
The Chief that first can grasp the strand may mount at morn and ride.
And his long day's ride shall bound his land, and she shall be his
bride!"

He saw his rival gain apace, he felt the spray in his wake

He thought of her who watch'd the race,-more dear for her dowry's sake!

Then he drew his skein from out its sheath, and lopp'd off his left hand; In its quivering shocks, as it jerked in death, he hurled it to the strand!

"The Chief that first can grasp the strand, may mount at morn and

ride!"

Oh, fleet is the steed which the bloody hand through Antrim's glens doth guide!...

And legends tell that the proud Ladye would fain have been unbanned; For, the Chieftain, who proved his chieftainry, lorded both wife and land!

XI-THE LAY OF THE BRAVE CAMERON.-Professor Blackie. AT Quatre-Bras, when the fight ran high, stout Cameron stood, with wakeful eye; eager to leap, as a mettlesome hound, into the fray with a plunge and a bound. But Wellington, lord of the cool command, held the reins with a steady hand, saying: "Cameron, wait! you'll soon have enough, giving the Frenchmen a taste of your stuff- when the Cameron men are wanted."

Now hotter and hotter the battle grew, with tramp, and rattle, and wild halloo; and the Frenchmen poured, like a fiery flood, right on the ditch where Cameron stood. Then Wellington flashed, from his steadfast stance, on his Captain brave a lightning glance, saying, " Cameron, now have at them, boy! take care of the road to Charleroi-where the Cameron men are wanted!"

Brave Cameron shot like a shaft from a bow, into the midst of the plunging foe; and with him the lads whom he loved, like a torrent sweeping the rocks in its foamy current; and he fell the first in the fervid fray, where a deathful shot had shore its way; but his men pushed on where the work was rough, giving the Frenchmen a taste of their stuff - where the Cameron men were wanted!

Brave Cameron then, from the battle's roar, his foster-brother stoutly bore, his foster-brother with service true,-back to the village of Waterloo. And they laid him on the soft green sod, and he breathed his spirit there to God; but not till he heard the loud

hurrah of victory billowed from Quatre-Bras-where the Cameron men were wanted!

By the road to Ghent they buried him then, this noble chief of the Cameron men; and not an eye was tearless seen that day beside the alley green: Wellington wept, the iron man; and from every eye in the Cameron clan the big round drop in bitterness fell, as, with the pipes he loved so well, his funeral wail they chanted.

And now he sleeps (for they bore him home, when the war was done, across the foam) beneath the shadow of Nevis Ben, with his sires, the pride of the Cameron men. Three thousand Highlandmen stood round, as they laid him to rest in his native ground, -the Cameron brave, whose eye never quailed, whose heart never sank, and whose hand never failed, where a Cameron man was wanted!

XII.

-THE RIDE FROM GHENT.

-Robert Browning

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped! Dirck galloped! we galloped all three!

"Good speed!" cried the Watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
Speed!" echoed the wall, to us galloping through ;

66

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast!

Not a word to each other! we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place :
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight:
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right;
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit-
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit!

'Twas moonset at starting; but, while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew, and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffield, 'twas morning as plain as could be;

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past;
And I saw my stout galloper, Roland, at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, as the other looked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence,-ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes, which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards, in galloping on!

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely! the fault's not in her!
We'll remember at Aix"-for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and staggering knees,

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So we were left galloping, Joris and I,

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till, over by Dalhem, a dome-spire sprang white,
And "Gallop!" gasped Joris, “for Aix is in sight!

"How they'll greet us!"-And, all in a moment, his roan,
Rolled neck and crop over, lay dead as a stone;

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-socket's rim.
Then I cast loose my buff-coat-each holster let fall—
Shook off both my jack-boots-let go belt and all—
Stood up in the stirrup-leaned-patted his ear-
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang-any noise, bad or good-
Till, at length, into Aix, Roland galloped and stood!

And all I remember is, friends flocking round,

As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine-
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent!

XIII.—SHERIDAN'S RIDE.-Thomas Buchanan Read.

Up from the South at break of day, bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, the affrighted air with a shudder bore, like a herald in haste to the Chieftain's door, the terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,-telling the battle was on once more, and Sheridan twenty miles away!

And wilder still those billows of war thundered along the horizon's bar; and louder yet into Winchester rolled the roar of that red sea uncontrolled, making the blood of the listener cold; as he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, and Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town-a good broad highway leading down; and there, through the flash of the morning light, a steed, as black as the steeds of night, was seen to pass with eagle flight; as if he knew the terrible need, he stretched away with his utmost speed: hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay, with Sheridan fifteen miles away!

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering South, the dust like smoke from the cannon's mouth; or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. The heart of the steed, and the heart of the master, were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, impatient to be where the battle-field calls; every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, with Sheridan only ten miles away!

Under his spurning feet, the road like an arrowy Alpine river flowed;