THE SOUL OF ELOQUENCE.

97

But other days and other fortunes came-an evil power! They bore against it cheerfully, and hoped for better times, but ruin came at last; and the old soldier left his own dear home, and left it for a prison! 'Twas in June. -one of June's brightest days; the bee, the bird, the butterfly, were on their lightest wing; the fruits had their first

tinge of summer light; the sunny sky, the very leaves seemed glad; and the old man looked back upon his cot and wept aloud. They hurried him away from the dear child that would not leave his side. They led him from the sight of the blue heaven and the green trees into a low, dark cell, the windows shutting out the blessed sun with iron grating; and for the first time he threw him on his bed, and could not hear his Isabel's good night! But the next morn she was the earliest at the prison gate, the last on whom it closed; and her sweet voice

and sweeter smile made him forget to pine, notwithstanding his deep sorrow. She brought him every morning fresh wild flowers; but every morning he could mark her cheek grow paler and more pale, and her low tones get fainter and more faint, and a cold dew was on the hand he held. One day he saw the sunshine through the grating of his cell-yet Isabel came not; at every sound his heart-beat took away his breath-yet still she came not near him! But one sad day he marked the dull street through the iron bars that shut him from the world; at length he saw a coffin carried carelessly along, and he grew desperate--he forced the bars, and he stood on the street free and alone! He had no aim, no wish for liberty; he only felt one want to see the corpse that had no mourners. When they set it down, ere it was lowered into the new-dug grave, a rush of passion came upon his soul, and he tore off the lid-he saw the face of Isabel, and knew he had no child! He lay down by the coffin quietly-his heart was broken!

THE SOUL OF ELOQUENCE.

JOHANN W. GOETHE.

OW shall we learn to sway the minds | Do you seek genuine and worthy fame?

of men

By eloquence?-to rule them, to

persuade ?

Reason and honest feeling want no arts
Of utterance, ask no toil of elocution!
And, when you speak in earnest do you need

A search for words? Oh! these fine holiday Of hearers with communicated power,

phrases,

In which you robe your worn-out commonplaces,

In vain you strive, in vain you study

earnestly!

Toil on forever, piece together fragments,

These scraps of paper which you crimp and Cook up your broken scraps of sentences, curl And blow, with puffing breath, a struggling light,

And twist into a thousand idle shapes,

ashes;

These filigree ornaments, are good for Glimmering confusedly now, now cold in nothing,Cost time and pains, please few, impose on no Startle the school-boys with your meta

one;

Are unrefreshing as the wind that whistles, In autumn, 'mong the dry and wrinkled leaves.

phors,

And, if such food may suit your appetite,
Win the vain wonder of applauding child-

ren,

If feeling does not prompt, in vain you But never hope to stir the hearts of men, strive.

If from the soul the language does not come,
By its own impulse, to impel the hearts

And mould the souls of many into one,
By words which come not native from the
heart!

T

Pluck the daisies,
Sing their praises;

Friendship with the flowers some noble thought

begets.

Come forth and gather these sweet elves,
(More witching are they than the fays of old,)
Come forth and gather them yourselves;
Learn of these gentle flowers whose worth is
more than gold.

Come forth on Sundays;
Come forth on Mondays;

Come forth on any day;

Children, come forth to play :

Worship the God of nature in your childhood;
Worship him at your tasks with best endeavor;
Worship him in your sports; worship him ever;
Worship him in the wildwood;
Worship him amidst the flowers;

In the greenwood bowers;

Pluck the buttercups, and raise
Your voices in his praise!

THE GHOSTS OF LONG AGO.

MRS. J. H. RIDDELL.

HE ghosts of the long ago-laid and buried, as you fancied, years and years since, friends,-though your present sight may fail to discern them, they are traveling with you still, a ghastly company. While you drive in your carriage along life's smoothest turnpike-roads, or pace, footsore and weary, over the flinty by-paths of existence, past events are skipping on beside you, mocking, jeering, at your profound self-delusion. Shall fleet steeds leave them behind? Shall liveried servants keep them at bay? Shall an unsuccessful existence, drawing to a still more unsuccessful close, be able to purchase their forbearance? Nay, invisible now, they shall be visible some day; voiceless, they shall yet find tongues; despised, they shall rear their head and hiss at you; forgotten, they shall reappear with more strength than at their first birth; and when the evil day comes, and your power, and your energy, and your youth and your hope, have gone, they shall pour the overflowing drop into your cup, they shall mingle fennel with your wine, they shall pile the last straw on your back, they shall render wealth valueless and life a burden; they shall make poverty more bitter, and add another pain to that which already racks you; they shall break the

100

THE FARMER AND THE COUNSELLOR.

breaking heart, and make you turn your changed face to the wall, and gather up your feet into your bed, and pray to be delivered from your tormentors by your God, who alone knows all.

Wherefore, young man, if you would ensure a peaceful old age, be careful of the acts of each day of your youth; for with youth the deeds thereof are not to be left behind. They are detectives, keener and more unerring than ever the hand of sensational novelist depicted; they will dog you from the hour you sinned till the hour your trial comes off. You are prosperous, you are great, you are "beyond the world," as I have heard people say, meaning the power or the caprice thereof; but you are not beyond the power of events. of events. Whatever you may think now, they are only biding their time; and when you are weak and at their mercy, when the world you fancied you were beyond has leisure to hear their story and scoff at you, they will come forward and tell all the bitter tale. And if you take it one way, you will bluster and bully, and talk loud, and silence society before your face, if you fail to still its tattle behind your back; while if you take it another way, you will bear the scourging silently, and cover up the marks of the lash as best you may, and go home and close your door, and sit there alone with your misery, decently and in order, till you die.

THE FARMER AND THE COUNSELLOR.

COUNSEL in the "Common Pleas,"

Who was esteemed a mighty wit,
Upon the strength of a chance hit,
Amid a thousand flippancies,
And his occasional bad jokes,
In bullying, bantering, browbeating,
Ridiculing and maltreating
Women, or other timid folks;
In a late cause, resolved to hoax
A clownish Yorkshire farmer-one
Who by his uncouth look and gait,
Appeared expressly meant by fate
For being quizzed and played upon.

So having tipped the wink to those
In the back rows,
Who kept their laughter bottled down,
Until our wag should draw the cork-
He smiled jocosely on the clown,
And went to work.

"Well, Farmer Numskull, how go calves at

York?"

'Why-not, sir, as they do wi' you;
But on four legs instead of two."
"Officer," cried the legal elf,
Piqued at the laugh against himself,

"Do, pray, keep silence down below
there!

Now look at me, clown and attend,
Have I not seen you somewhere, friend?"
"Yees, very like, I often go there."

"Our rustic's waggish quite lanconic,"
(The counsel cried, with grin sardonic,)

"I wish I'd known this prodigy,
This genius of the clods, when I

On circuit was at York residing.
Now, farmer, do for once speak true,
Mind, you're on oath, so tell me, you
Who doubtless think yourself so clever,
Are there as many fools as ever

JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL.

101

JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL.

T was in the summer of '46 that I landed at Hamilton, fresh as a new pratie just dug from the "ould sod," and wid a light heart and a heavy bundle I sot off for the township of Buford, tiding a taste of a song, as merry a young fellow as iver took the road. Well, I trudged on and on, past many a plisint place, pleasin' myself wid the

thought that some day I might have a place of my own, wid a world of chickens and ducks and pigs and childer about the door; and along in the afternoon of the sicond day I got to Buford village. A cousin of me mother's, one Dennis O'Dowd, lived about sivin miles from there, and I wanted to make his place that night, so I inquired the way at the tavern, and was lucky to find a man who was goin' part of the way an' would show me the way to find Dennis. Sure he was very kind indade, an' when I got out of his wagon he pointed me through the wood and tould me to go straight south a mile an' a half, and the first house would be Dennis's. "An' you've no time to lose now,"

said he, "for the sun is low, and mind you don't get lost in the woods."

"Is it lost now," said I, "that I'd be gittin, an' me uncle as great a navigator as iver steered a ship across the thrackless say! Not a bit of it, though I'm obleeged to ye for your kind advice, and thank yez for the ride."

Well, I

An' wid that he drove off an' left me alone. I shouldered me bundle bravely, an' whistlin' a bit of tune for company like, I pushed into the bush. went a long way over bogs, and turnin' round among the bush an' trees till I began to think I must be well nigh to Dennis's. But, bad cess to it! all of a sudden I came out of the woods at the very identical spot where I started in, which I knew by an ould crotched tree that seemed to be standin' on its head and kickin' up its heels to make divarsion of me. By this time it was growin' dark, and as there was no time to lose, I started in a second time, determined to keep straight south this time and no mistake. I got on bravely for a while, but och hone! och hone! it got so dark I couldn't see the trees, and I bumped me nose and barked me shins, while