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ly converted into national advantage.-But it is upon the kingdoms which, in the face of perfect knowledge, in scorn of remonstrances that might wake the stones to feel, in treacherous evasion of treaties, in defiance of even the base bargains in which they exacted the money of this country to buy off the blood of the African, have still carried on the trade, that undisguised and unmitigated vengeance may have fallen, and be still falling.

The three great slave-traders, whom it has been found impossible to persuade or to restrain, are France, Spain and Portugal. And in what circumstances are the colonies for whose peculiar support this dreadful traffic was carried on? France has totally lost St. Domingo, the finest colony in the world, and her colonial trade is now a cipher. Spain has lost all; Portugal has lost all. Mexico, South America and the Brazils are severed from their old masters for ever. And what have been the especial calamities of the sovereigns of those countries? They have been, all three, expatriated, and the only three. Other sovereigns have suffered temporary evil under the chances of war; but France, Spain and Portugal have exhibited the peculiar shame of three dynasties at once in exile :— the Portuguese flying across the sea, to escape from an enemy in its capital, and hide its head in a barbarian land; -the Spanish dethroned, and sent to display its spectacle of mendicant and decrepit royalty through Europe ;—and the French doubly undone !

The first effort of Louis XVIII., on his restoration, was to reëstablish the slave-trade. Before twelve months were past, he was flying for his life to the protection of strangers! On the second restoration, the trade was again revived. All representations of its horrors, aggravated as they are now by the lawless rapacity of the foreign traders, were received with mock acquiescence, and real scorn. And where are the Bourbons now?

And what is the peace or the prosperity of the countries that have thus dipped their guilty gains in human miseries?

They are three vast centres of feud and revolutionary terror :-Portugal with an unowned monarch, reigning by the bayonet and the scaffold, with half her leading men in dungeons, with her territory itself a dungeon; and fierce, retaliation and phrenzied enthusiasm hovering on her frontiers, and ready to plunge into the bosom of the land; -Spain torn by faction, and at this hour watching every band that gathers on her hills, as the signs of a tempest that may sweep the land from the Pyrenees to the ocean;— and France in the first heavings of a mighty change, that man can no more define than he can set limits to the heaving of an earthquake, or the swell and fury of a deluge. Other great objects and causes may have their share in those things. But the facts are before mankind.

LESSON LXIX.

The Playthings.-MISS GOULD.

"OH! mother, here's the very top

That brother used to spin ;

The vase with seeds I've seen him drop

To call our robin in;

The line that held his pretty kite,

His bow, his cup and ball,

The slate on which he learned to write,
His feather, cap, and all!"

"My dear, I'd put the things away
Just where they were before:
Go, Anna, take him out to play,
And shut the closet door.
Sweet innocent! he little thinks
The slightest thought expressed-
Of him that's lost, how deep it sinks
Within a mother's breast!"

LESSON LXX.

Mutability of earthly Things.-N. A. REVIEW.

[From the Spanish of DON JORge Manrique.]

O LET the soul her slumbers break-
Let thought be quickened and awake:
Awake to see

How soon this life is passed and gone,
And death comes softly stealing on-
How silently!

Swiftly our pleasures glide away;
Our hearts recall the distant day
With many sighs:

The moments that are speeding fast,
We heed not, but the past, the past,
More highly prize.

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed, boundless sea,
The silent grave:

Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost
In that dark wave;

Thither the mighty torrents stray,
Thither the brook pursues its way,
And tinkling rill:

There all are equal; side by side
The poor man and the son of pride
Lie calm and still.

This world is but the rugged road
Which leads us to the bright abode
Of peace above:

So let us choose that narrow way
Which leads no traveller's foot astray

From realms of love.

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Our birth is but the starting place,
Our life the running of the race:
We reach the goal,

When, in the mansions of the blest,
Death leads to its eternal rest
The weary soul.

Tell me, the charms that lovers seek

In the clear eye and blushing cheek,
The hues that play

O'er rosy lip and brow of snow,-
When hoary age approaches slow,
Ah! where are they?

The cunning skill, the curious arts,
The glorious strength that youth imparts,
In life's first stage,-

These shall become a heavy weight,

When Time swings wide his outward gate To weary age.

Where are the high-born dames-and where Their gay attire, and jewelled hair,

And odors sweet?

Where are the gentle knights that came To kneel, and breathe love's ardent flame

Low at their feet?

Where is the song of Troubadour-
Where are the lute and gay tambour,

They loved of yore?

Where is the mazy dance of old,

The flowing robes, inwrought with gold,
The dancers wore?

So many a duke of royal name,

Marquis and count of spotless fame,

And baron brave,

That might the sword of empire wield—
All these, O Death, hast thou concealed
In the dark grave!

Their deeds of mercy and of arms;
In peaceful days or war's alarms-
When thou dost show,

O Death, thy stern and cruel face,
One stroke of thy all-powerful mace
Can overthrow.

Unnumbered hosts, that threaten nigh,
Pennon and standard flaunting high,
And flag displayed-

High battlements, entrenched around-
Bastion, and moated wall, and mound,
And palisade-

And covered trench, secure and deep,-
All these cannot one victim keep,
O Death, from thee,

When thou dost battle in thy wrath,

And thy strong shafts pursue their path
Unerringly.

LESSON LXXI.

A Scene from the Brothers.-WORDSWORTH.

The elder of two brothers, after several years' absence in foreign lands, returns to his native village, and stops in the church-yard, and at length enters into conversation with the parish priest.

Leonard. You said his kindred all were in their graves, And that he had one brother

Priest. That is but

A fellow tale of sorrow. From his youth

James, though not sickly, yet was delicate;

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