for us to be brave. There is no alternative but victory or death! and, if it must be death, who would not rather encounter it in battle than in flight? The immortal gods could give no stronger incentive to victory. Let but these truths be fixed in your minds, and once again I proclaim, you are conquerors !

O, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?

WILLIAM KNOX.

0, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade-
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the higb"
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie:
The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blessed
Each, all are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye
Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who have loved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of Heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same that our fathers have been;
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen ;
We drink the same stream, and we view the same sun,
And run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death that we shrink from our fathers would shrink
To the life that we cling to they also would cling,
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died-ay! they died; and we, things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death;
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud-
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?

A SONG OF THE OAMP.

BAYARD TAYLOR

“Give us a song !" the soldiers cried,

The outer trenches guarding, When the heated guns of the camp allied

Grew weary of bombarding.

The dark Redan, in silent scoff,

Lay grim and threatening under: And the tawny mound of the Malakoff

No longer belched its thunder.

There was a pause. A guardsman said,

“We storm the forts to-morrow; Sing, while we may; another day

Will bring enough of sorrow."

They lay along the battery's side,

Below the smoking cannonBrave hearts from Severn and from Clydo,

And from the banks of Shannon.

They sang of love, and not of fame :

Forgot was Britain's glory;
Each heart recalled a different name,

But all sang “ Annie Laurie."

Voice after voice caught up the song,

Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem rich and strong,

Their battle-eve confession.

Dear girll her name he dared not speak;

But as the song grew louder, Something upon the soldier's cheek

Washed off the stains of powder.

Beyond the darkening ocean burned

The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned

How English love remembers.

And once again a fire of hell

Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot and burst of shell,

And bellowing of the mortars!

And Irish Nora's eyes are dim

For a singer dumb and gory,
And English Mary mourns for him

Who sang of "Annie Laurie."

Sleep, soldiers ! still in honored rest

Your truth and valor wearing;
The bravest are the tenderest

The loving are the daring.

POLONIUS TO LAERTES.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

My blessing with you! And'these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thoạ familiar, but by no means vulgar: The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel ; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledg'd comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; ...
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all, to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

RIOHELIEU AND FRANCE.

SIR E. BULWER LYTTON. My liege, your anger can recall your trust, Annul my office, spoil me of my lands, Rifle my coffers; but my name, my deeds, Are royal in a land beyond your sceptre. Pass sentence on me, if you will; from kings, Lo, I appeal to time! Be just, my liege. I found your kingdom rent with heresies And bristling with rebellion ; lawless nobles And dreadless serfs; 'England fomenting discord; Austria, her clutch on your dominion; Spain Forging the prodigal gold of either Ind To armèd thunderbolts. The arts lay dead; Trade rotted in your marts; your armies mutinous, Your treasury bankrupt. Would you now revoke Your trust ? so be it! and I leave you sole, Supremest monarch of the mightiest realm From Ganges to the icebergs. Look withoutNo foe not humbled! Look within the Arts Quit, for our school, their old Hesperides, The golden Italy! while throughout the veins Of your vast empire flows in strengthening tides Trade, the calm health of nations! Sire, I know That men have called me cruel; . .