to be tall and slender, with a freckled complexion and hair almost red; but his eyes were clear and blue as the deep sea, and what was his career to be?

12. His career was to be good, and his future life enviable. We find him taking high honors at the military school in the division commanded by the member of a family high in position, and this was an honor. He wore gaiters, stiff collars, and powdered hair, and, by this, he was recognized; and, indeed, he might be known by the word of command, -" March! halt! front!"

13. The old church bell had been long quite forgotten, and no one imagined it would ever again be sent to the melting furnace to be made as it was before. No one could possibly have foretold this. Equally impossible would it have been to believe that its tones still echoed in the heart of the boy from Marbach; or that, one day, they would ring out loud enough and strong enough to be heard all over the world.

14. They had already been heard in the narrow space behind the school wall, even above the deafening sounds of "March! halt! front!" and had chimed so loudly in the heart of the young boy, that he had sung them to his companions, and their tones resounded to the very borders of the country.

15. The old bell was, after a time, carried far away from Marbach and sold as old copper; then sent to Bavaria to be melted in a furnace. And then what happened? In the royal city of Bavaria, many years after, some metal was required for a monument in honor of one of the most celebrated characters which a German people or a German land could produce. And now we see how wonderfully things are ordered. Strange things sometimes happen in this world.

16. In Denmark, in one of those green islands where the beech-woods rustle in the wind, another poor boy was born. He wore wooden shoes, and, when his father

worked in a ship-yard, the boy, wrapped in an old wornout shawl, carried his dinner to him every day. This poor child1 was now the pride of his country; for the sculptured marble, the work of his hands, had astonished the world. To him was offered the honor of forming from the clay a model of the figure of him whose name, "John Christopher Frederick," had been written by his father in the Bible.

17. The bust was cast in bronze, and part of the metal used for this purpose was the old church bell, whose tones had died away from the memory of those at home and elsewhere. The metal, glowing with heat, flowed into the mould, and formed the head and bust of the statue which was unveiled in the square in front of the old castle. The statue represented in living, breathing reality, the form of him who was born in poverty, the boy from Marbach, the pupil of the military school; - Germany's great and immortal poet, who sung of Switzerland's deliverer, William Tell, and of the heaven-inspired Maid of Orleans.2

18. It was a beautiful, sunny day; flags were waving from tower and roof in royal Stuttgard, and the church bells were ringing a joyous peal. One bell was silent; but it was illuminated by the bright sunshine which streamed from the head and bust of the renowned figure of which it formed a part.

19. On this day, just one hundred years had passed since the day on which the chiming of the old church bell at Marbach had filled the mother's heart with trust and joy, the day on which her child was born in poverty, and in a humble home; the same who, in after years, became rich, became the noble woman-hearted poet, a blessing to the world, the glorious, the sublime, the immortal bard, John Christopher Frederick Schiller! Hans Andersen (abridged).

1 The Danish sculptor Thorwaldsen. He came from one of the poorest Danish families.

2 Joan of Arc.

*

CVII. - THE LAY OF THE BELL.1

AST, in its prison-walls of earth,

FAS

Awaits the mould of baked clay.
Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth-

The Bell that shall be born to-day!
Who would honor obtain,

With the sweat and the pain,

The praise that Man gives to the Master must buy!
But the blessings withal must descend from on high!

2. From the fir the fagot take,

Keep it, heap it hard and dry,

That the gathered flame may break
Through the furnace, wroth and high.
When the copper within

Seethes and simmers

the tin,2

Pour quick, that the fluid that feeds the Bell,
May flow in the right course glib and well.

3. See the silvery bubbles spring!

Good! the mass is melting now!

Let the salts we duly bring

Purge the flood, and speed the flow.
From the dross and the scum,

Pure, the fusion must come;

For perfect and pure we, the metal, must keep,
That its voice may be perfect, and pure, and deep.

4. Browning o'er, the pipes are simmering,
Dip this wand of clay 3 within ;

If, like glass, the wand be glimmering,
Then, the casting may begin.

1 Only that portion of this poem is taken which describes the making of a

bell.

2 Copper and tin are the usual ingredients employed in the manufacture of bells.

8 A piece of clay pipe, which becomes vitrified if the metal is sufficiently

heated.

Brisk, brisk, now, and see

If the fusion flow free;

If (happy and welcome, indeed, were the sign)
If the hard and the ductile united combine.

Ha! the flame like a torrent leaps forth from its prison!

6. Now clasped the bell within the clay -
The mould the mingled metals fill
Oh, may it, sparkling into day,

Reward the labor and the skill!

Alas! should it fail,

For the mould may be frail,

And still with our hope must be mingled the fear,
And, ev'n now, while we speak, the mishap may be near!

7. While the mass is cooling now,

Let the labor yield to leisure,

As the bird upon the bough,

Loose the travail to the pleasure.

When the soft stars awaken,

Each task be forsaken!

And the vesper-bell lulling the earth into peace,
If the master still toil, chimes the workman's release!

8. Now, its destined task fulfilled,

Asunder break the prison-mould;
Let the goodly Bell we build,
Eye and heart alike behold.

The hammer down heave,
Till the cover it cleave:

For not till we shatter the wall of its cell

Can we lift, from its darkness and bondage, the Bell.

9. Rejoice and laud the prospering skies!

The kernel bursts its husk

behold,

From the dull clay, the metal rise,
Pure-shining, as a star of gold!

Neck and lip, but as one beam,

It laughs like a sunbeam.

And even the scutcheon, clear-graven, shall tell
That the art of a master has fashioned the Bell!

10. Slowly now the cords upheave her!

From her earth-grave soars the Bell;
Mid the airs of Heaven we leave her!
In the music realm to dwell!

Up- upwards — yet raise

She has risen - she sways.

Fair Bell to our city bode joy and increase,

And oh, may thy first sound be hallowed to PEACE!1

SCHILLER. Translated by Bulwer.

CVIII. RESCUE FROM A CREVASSE.

WE moved briskly along the frozen incline, until, after

a two hours' march, we saw a solitary human being standing on the lateral moraine of the glacier, near the point where we were to quit it for the cave of the Faulberg. At first, this man excited no attention. He stood and watched us, but did not come towards us, until, finally, our curiosity was aroused by observing that he was one of our own men.

2. We approached our porter, but he never moved; `and, when we came up to him, he looked stupid, and did

1 Written in the time of the French war.