Its pleasures past, for what can last
In life's fast shifting station.

We have enjoyed, nor unemployed,
Our elocution lessons;

Your brilliant style that does beguile
From drudgery the essence.

We do admire your plan entire,
And mode of criticising;
Your fluent tongue, as it has rung
With eloquence enticing.

The timid one that's just begun

To study recitation,

You do allure, with success sure,
To higher emulation.

You have the heart, besides the art
Of spying all the honey
In ev'ry flow'r about your bow'r,
Should it be dark or sunny.

And while you tell, with magic spell,
The weak points (not in thunders),
We drink them up in sugar'd cup,
The physic working wonders.

You've taught us when, and yet again,
Our lung-power to restrain,
At passage soft, nor soar aloft
When we should quiet remain.

And like a pin, to shew therein
The point of ev'ry word;
Nor by address to make a mess
With emphasis absurd.

At commas keep the voice from sleep,
A moment pausing there;

But colons bold require a hold—

Two seconds to make them square.

We change the voice, from tasteful choice,
At paragraphs and breaks,

As rule will shew, by which we go
Preserved from gross mistakes.

And pause again, with voice or pen,
At dash or exclamation;

But periods need a slower speed,
Four times the length their station.

The article or particle

The definite one I mean-
We sound it full, as goes the rule,
When before vowels seen.

For direction with inflexion,
The rising and the falling,
The question will, if we have skill,
Dictate its proper calling.

We make a pause before a clause
Beginning with a question;
And when it's put we give it root
By waiting, for digestion.

According to importance due
To simile or quotation,

We read them fast, if that's their caste,
Or slow, if higher station.

We don't pretend to comprehend,

Or put in operation,

All rules of verse, and then rehearse
In their exact rotation.

"Twill never do to weary you,

With rhyming conversation;

So I refuse to let the muse

Obtain such condemnation.

It cheers the heart, this noble art,
We hold in estimation,

It stores the mind with gold refined,
Deserving commendation.

From narrow self, and worldly pelf,
It draws, by its attraction,
To good and great of head estate,
And heart, the compaction..

The gems of yore and modern lore
Shall deck the cranium bright,
Their sparkle, too, of learned hue
Will afford us much insight.

We also know, and are not slow

To give our teacher credit,

For his good rules to train the schools,
The method he has said it.

Which guide through plight, with steady light
Of teaching skill explicit;

Attuning all, both great and small,

The pieces we elicit.

Should fate restore the blessing o'er

By sending you next session,

We'll seize the prize, to get more wise
In elocution lesson.

This humble rhyme, though not sublime,
I leave to your compassion,
You'll lenient be to all you see

Which may not suit your fashion.

And may your name, with all its fame,
Be carried through long ages,
Acting as charm from any harm
To elocution pages.

Long may you be, deservedly,
Reciters' pattern pillar,

While I conclude, with gratitude,
Your pupil, AGNES MILLER.

Cic. OUR long dispute must close. Take one proof more

Of this rebellion. Lucius Catiline

Has been commanded to attend the senate.

He dares not come! I now demand your votes!

Is he commended to exile?

Here I repeat the charge, to gods and men,
Of treasons manifold;-that, but this day,
He has received dispatches from the rebels;
That he has leagued with deputies from Gaul
To seize the province; nay, he has levied troops,
And raised his rebel standard; that, but now,

A meeting of conspirators was held
Under his roof, with mystic rites and oaths,
Pledged round the body of a murdered slave.
To these he has no answer.

Cat. Conscript fathers!

I do not rise to waste the night in words:
Let that plebeian talk; 'tis not my trade:

But here I stand for right!—Let him shew proofs !—
For Roman right! though none, it seems, dare stand
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there!
Cling to your master,-judges, Romans, slaves!
His charge is false! I dare him to his proofs
You have my answer: let my actions speak!

Cic. Deeds shall convince you! Has the traitor done?
Cat. But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong;
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honour on me,-turning out
The Roman from his birthright, and for what?
To fling your offices to every slave;

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb;
And having wound their loathsome track to the top
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Rome,
Hang hissing at the nobler men below.

Cic. This is his answer! Must I bring more proofs ? Fathers, you know their lives not one of us,

But lives in peril of his midnight sword.

Lists of proscription have been handed round,
In which your properties are made

Your murderer's hire.

Fathers of Rome! If men can be convinced

By proof, as clear as daylight, here it is!

Look on these letters! Here's a deep-laid plot
To wreck the provinces; a solemn league,

Made with all form and circumstance. The time
Is desperate, all the slaves are up,--Rome shakes!—
The heavens alone can tell how near our graves
We stand even here! The name of Catiline
Is foremost in the league. He was their king.
Tried and convicted traitor! Go from Rome!

Cat. Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones!
Fling down your sceptres !-take the rod and axe,
And make the murder, as you make the law!

Cic. Give up the record of his banishment.

Cat. Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free
From daily contact of the things I loathe?
"Tried and convicted traitor!"-who says this?
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?
Banished? I thank you for 't!

I held some slack allegiance till
But now my sword's my own.

It breaks my chain ! this hour,—

Smile on, my lords!

I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs,
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,
To leave you in your lazy dignities!

But here I stand and scoff you!-here I fling
Hatred and full defiance in you face!

Your consul's merciful. For this, all thanks!

He dares not touch a hair of Catiline!

Con. (Reads.) "Lucius Sergius Catiline, by the decree of the senate, your are declared an enemy and alien to the state, and banished from the territory of the commonwealth!"

Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple!

Cat. "Traitor!" I go,-but I return! This trial! Here I devote your senate!-I've had wrongs,

To stir a fever in the blood of age,

And make the infant's sinews strong as steel.

This day's the birth of sorrows! This hour's work

Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my lords!
For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes hot from Tartarus! all shames and crimes;
Wan treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ;
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked rebellion, with the torch and axe,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones;
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night,
And massacre seals Rome's eternal grave?-Croly.

A STORM AT SEA.

[By kind permission of Messrs. CHAPMAN & HALL.]

"DON'T you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of London, "a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one like it."

"Nor I-not equal to it," he replied. "That's wind, sir. There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long."