Bright his hair was, a golden brown,

The time we stood at our mother's knee; That beauteous head, if it did go down, Carried sunshine into the sea!

Out in the fields one summer night

We were together, half afraid,

Of the corn-leaves' rustling, and of the shade

Of the high hills, stretching so still and far,— Loitering till after the low little light Of the candle shone through the open door, And, over the hay-stack's pointed top, All of a tremble, and ready to drop

The first half-hour, the great yellow star
That we, with staring, ignorant eyes,
Had often and often watched to see
Propped and held in its place in the skies
By the fork of a tall red mulberry tree,
Which close in the edge of our flax-field grew,—
Dead at the top,--just one branch full
Of leaves, notched round, and lined with wool,
From which it tenderly shook the dew
Over our head, when we came to play
In its handbreadth of shadow, day after day,
Afraid to go home, sir; for one of us bore
A nest full of speckled and thin-shelled eggs,-
The other, a bird, held fast by the legs,
Not so big as a straw of wheat:

The berries we gave her she wouldn't eat,
But cried and cried, till we held her bill,

So slim and shining, to keep her still.

At last we stood at our mother's knee.
Do you think, sir, if you try,
You can paint the look of a lie?

If you can, pray have the grace
To put it solely in the face
Of the urchin that is likest me;
I think 'twas solely mine, indeed:

But that's no matter,-paint it so;

The eyes of our mother-(take good heed)—
Looking not on the nest-full of eggs,

Nor the fluttering bird, held so fast by the legs,
But straight through our faces, down to our lies,
And oh, with such injured, reproachful surprise,
I felt my heart bleed where that glance went, as though
A sharp blade struck through it.

You, sir, know,

That you on the canvas are to repeat

Things that are fairest, things most sweet,—

Woods and cornfields and mulberry tree,―

The mother, the lads, with their birds, at her knee,
But, oh that look of reproachful woe!

High as the heavens your name I'll shout,

If you paint me the picture, and leave that out.

Scene from the Merchant of Venice.

Belmont. A Room in Portia's House.

Alice Cary.

Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

Por. Good sentences and well pronounced.

Ner. They would be better if well followed.

Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree; such a hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel, the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a

husband. O me! the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that J cannot choose one, nor refuse none?

Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore the lottery that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead (whereof who choosea his meaning, chooses you), will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one whom you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection toward any of these princely suitors that are already come?

Por. I pray thee overname them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and according to my description, level at my affection.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that he can shoe him himself.

Ner. Then, is there the county Palatine.

And you

Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, will not have me choose;" he hears merry tales and smiles not, I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher, when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's-head with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon ?

Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be mocker; but, he! why he hath s horse better than the Neapolitan's; a better bad habit of frowning than the count Palatine. He is every man in no man; if a throstle sing he falls straight a capering; he will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to mad · ness, I should never requite him.

Ner. What say you then to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me nor I him; he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you

will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworta in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but, alas! who can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is suited; I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round-hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his behavior everywhere.

Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbor?

Por. That he hath neighborly charity in him, for he borrowed a ox of the ear, of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able. I think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another.

Ner. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?

Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk; when he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast. And the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Ner. If he should make offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you would refuse to perform your father's will if you should refuse to accept him.

Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket: for if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determinations; which is, indeed, to return to their home and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets.

Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them a fair departure.

Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

Por. Yes, yes; it was Bassanio; as I think, so he was called

Ner. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

Por. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise. How now! What news?

Servant. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the prince of Morocco, who brings word, the prince, his master, will be here to-night.

Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good a heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before. Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.

The National Ensign.

Shakspeare.

Sir, I must detain you no longer. I have said enough, and more than enough, to manifest the spirit in which this flag is now committed to your charge. It is the national ensign, pure and simple; dearer to all our hearts at this moment, as we lift it to the gale, and see no other sign of hope upon the storm cloud which rolls and rattles above it, save that which is reflected from its own radiant hues; dearer, a thousand-fold dearer to us all, than ever it was before, while gilded by the sunshine of prosperity, and playing with the zephyrs of peace. It will speak for itself far more eloquently than I can speak for it.

Behold it!

is articulate.

Listen to it! Every star has a tongue; every stripe There is no language or speech where their voices are not heard. There's magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question of duty. It has a solution for every doubt and perplexity. It has a word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of despondency.

Behold it! Listen to it! It speaks of earlier and of later struggles. It speaks of victories, and sometimes of reverses, on the sea and on the land. It speaks of patriots and heroes among the living and the dead and of him the first and greatest of them all, around whose consecrated ashes this unnatural and abhorrent strife has so