6. Ye have been very kind and good Of all good things, I would have part; 7. Heaven help me! how could I forget That blossoms here, as well, unseen, -- JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. LXXX. A SCENE ON THE YELLOWSTONE. A GRANDER scene than the lower cataract of the Yellowstone was never witnessed by mortal eyes. The volume seemed to be adapted to all the harmonies of the surrounding scenery. Had it been greater or smaller, it would have been less impressive. The river, from a width of two hundred feet, above the fall, is compressed, by converging rocks, to one hundred and fifty feet, where it takes the plunge. is a few inches 2. The shelf over which it falls is as level and even as a work of art. The height, by actual line measurement, more than three hundred and fifty feet. It is a sheer, compact, solid, perpendicular sheet, faultless in all the elements of grandeur and picturesque beauty. 3. The cañon which commences at the upper fall, half a mile above this cataract, is here a thousand feet in depth. Its vertical sides rise, gray and dark, above the fall, to shelving summits, from which one can look down into the boiling, spray-filled chasm, enlivened with rainbows, and glittering like a shower of diamonds. 4. From a shelf, protruding over the stream, five hundred feet below the top of the cañon, and one hundred and eighty feet above the verge of the cataract, a member of our company, lying prone upon the rock, let down a cord, with a stone attached, into the gulf, and measured its profoundest depths. 5. The life and sound of the cataract, with its sparkling spray and fleecy foam, contrast strangely with the sombre stillness of the cañon a mile below. There, was only darkness, gloom, and shadow: here, all was vivacity, gayety, and delight. One, was the most unsocial, the other, the most social scene in nature. 6. We could talk, and sing, and whoop, waking the echoes with our mirth and laughter in presence of the falls; but we could not thus profane the silence of the cañon. Seen through the cañon below the falls, the river, for a mile or more, is broken by rapids and cascades of great variety and beauty. 7. Between the Lower and Upper Falls, the cañon is from two hundred to nearly four hundred feet deep. The river runs over a level bed of rock, and is undisturbed by rapids, until near the verge of the lower fall. The upper fall is entirely unlike the other, but, in its peculiar character, equally interesting. 8. For some distance above it, the river breaks into frightful rapids. The stream is narrowed between the rocks as it approaches the brink, and bounds with impatient struggles for release, leaping through the stony jaws, in a sheet of snow-white foam, over a precipice nearly perpendicular, one hundred and fifteen feet high. 9. Midway in its descent, the entire volume of water is carried, by the sloping surface of an intervening ledge, twelve or fifteen feet beyond the vertical base of the precipice, gaining therefrom a novel and interesting feature. The churning of the water upon the rocks reduces it to a mass of foam and spray, through which all the colors of the solar spectrum are reproduced in astonishing profusion. 10. What this cataract lacks in sublimity is more than compensated for in picturesqueness. The rocks which overshadow it do not veil it from the open light. It is, up amid the pine foliage which crowns the adjacent hills, the grand feature of a landscape, unrivaled in beauty of vegetation as well as of rock and glen. 11. The two confronting rocks, overhanging the verge at the height of a hundred feet or more, could be readily united by a bridge, from which some of the grandest views of natural scenery in the world could be obtained; while, just in front of the arrowy water and within reaching distance of it, from a table one third of the way. below the brink of the fall-all its nearest beauties and terrors may be caught at a glance. N. P. Langford. LXXXI.. - BE PATIENT. BE patient! oh, be patient! Put your ear against the earth; Listen there how noiselessly the germ o' the seed has birth, — 2. Be patient! oh, be patient! The germs of mighty thought Must have their silent under-growth, must, underground, be wrought; But, as sure as there's a Power that makes the grass appear, Our land shall be green with liberty, the blade-time shall be here. 3. Be patient! oh, be patient! go and watch the wheat-ears grow So imperceptibly that ye can mark nor change nor throe 4. Be patient! oh, be patient! though yet our hopes are green, The harvest-fields of freedom shall be crowned with sunny sheen. Be ripening! be ripening! mature your silent way, Till the whole broad land is tongued with fire on freedom's harvest-day! RICHARD CHEVENIX TRENCH. LXXXII. MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. AFTER the confederate Scotch lords had taken Mary Stuart prisoner, they sent her for safe custody to the castle of Loch Leven, situated on a small island in the middle of the lake of that name. They chose this gloomy place, not only because it was nearly inaccessible, but because the hapless lady would there be in the keeping of that most watchful of all jailers, a mortal enemy. Margaret Erskine, mother of William Douglass, the owner of the castle, hated Mary as an obstacle to her schemes of ambition. 2. Compelled by violence to renounce the crown in favor of her son, she was placed in the most rigorous confinement, and under the strictest guard, to prevent her, not only from effecting her escape, but from holding any sort of communication with the outer world. 3. Many of the sovereigns of Europe were well disposed towards her, but she was not allowed to write to her friends, though she sometimes found an opportunity of doing so while the daughters of her jailor, who shared her chamber, were asleep, or at their meals. The cruelty of these restraints defeated their end; for it touched the very son of her jailer, George Douglas, with compassion for the captive Queen, and led him to form a plan for her escape. 4. It was arranged that the Queen should leave the castle in the dress of the laundress who brought her linen to Loch Leven, and that George Douglas and a number of his partisans should be ready to receive her as soon as she had crossed the lake. The appointed day came; the young man was at his post, and the Queen, thanks to her disguise, had actually reached the boat, when one of the boatmen, struck by the figure of the pretended laundress, attempted to lift her veil, and the hasty gesture with which the Queen resisted his touch, revealed a hand too white and too delicately formed to be that of a hardworking girl. 5. The man, at once, guessed her real rank, but, even at that moment, Mary did not lose her presence of mind. She declared her name and title, and ordered him, on pain of death, to row her across the lake. The name of Margaret Erskine had, however, greater terror for the fellow than that of Mary Stuart; and the Queen was taken back to captivity again. 6. As the penalty of this unfortunate attempt of the 25th March, George Douglas was sent away from the island. This did not, however, make him the less eager to succeed in his noble design; and he confided the Queen to the care of one who was equally devoted to her, |