vation as well as to the highest; and has thus, beyond all other writers, received in return a tribute of sympathy and admiration from the universal spirit of humanity.... The romance, however, which he threw so carelessly from him, and which, I am persuaded, he regarded rather as a bold effort to break up the absurd taste of his time for the fancies of chivalry than as anything of more serious import, has been established by an uninterrupted and, it may be said, an unquestioned success ever since, both as the oldest classical specimen of romantic fiction, and as one of the most remarkable monuments of modern genius. But, though this may be enough to fill the measure of human fame and glory, it is not all to which Cervantes is entitled; for, if we would do him the justice that would. have been most welcome to his own spirit, and even if we would ourselves fully comprehend and enjoy the whole of his Don Quixote, we should, as we read it, bear in mind that this delightful romance was not the result of a youthful exuberance of feeling and a happy external condition, nor composed in his best years, when the spirits of its author were light and his hopes high; but that—with all its unquenchable and irresistible humor, with its bright views of the world, and its cheerful trust in goodness and virtue-it was written in his old age, at the conclusion of a life nearly every step of which had been marked with disappointed expectations, disheartening struggles, and sore calamities; that he began it in a prison, and that it was finished when he felt the hand of death pressing heavy and cold upon his heart. If this be remembered as we read, we may feel, as we ought to feel, what admiration and reverence are due not only to the living power of Don Quixote, but to the character and genius of Cervantes; if it be forgotten or underrated, we shall fail in regard to both. KIT CARSON'S RIDE. JOAQUIN MILLER. [Cincinnatus Heine Miller, who has adopted the nom-de-plume above given, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1842. His life, however, is identified with the Far West, and his poetry is the embodiment in verse of the unconventional pioneer life. He accompanied Walker in his buccaneering invasion of Honduras in 1860, and his poetical description of this expedition has many beautiful and highly-animated passages. The poem which we quote below seems full of the spirit of the wild West, and the terrors of a prairie-fire could not be more graphically delineated.] WE lay in the grasses and the sunburnt clover To the Brazos, to where our lodges lay, We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels, To the right and the left, in the light of the sun. Forty full miles, if a foot, to ride, Forty full miles, if a foot, and the devils Of red Comanches are hot on the track When once they strike it. Let the sun go down Holding fast to his lasso. Then he jerked at his steed, And he sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around, And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground; Then again to his feet, and to me, to my bride, While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud, His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud, And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a reed,— "Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed, And speed you, if ever for life you would speed, We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein, Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over again, Rushing fast upon us, as the wind sweeping free Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall, With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein, Rode we on, rode we three, rode we nose and gray nose, Reaching long, breathing loud, as a creviced wind blows: Yet we broke not a whisper, we breathed not a prayer, There was work to be done, there was death in the air, And the chance was as one to a thousand for all. Gray nose to gray nose, and each steady mustang But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder And saw his horse stagger; I saw his head drooping To right and to left the black buffalo came, A terrible surf on a red sea of flame Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reaching higher. The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full And unearthly, and up through its lowering cloud While his keen crooked horns, through the storm of his mane, Like black lances lifted and lifted again; And I looked but this once, for the fire licked through, And he fell and was lost, as we rode two and two. I looked to my left then,-and nose, neck, and shoulder Had once won a whole herd, sweeping everything down She met Revels and me in her perilous flight From the lodge of the chief to the North Brazos side; And said, so half guessing of ill as she smiled, As if jesting, that I, and I only, should ride The fleet-footed Paché, so if kin should pursue |