honor and munificence worthy the greatness of his services. The Spanish nobility came from all the provinces to meet him. He made a triumphal entry as a prince of future kingdoms.

ΕΙ

2. The Indians, brought over by the squadron as a living proof of the existence of new races of men in these newly-discovered lands, marched at the head of the procession, their bodies painted with divers colors, and adorned with gold necklaces and pearls. The animals and birds, the unknown plants, and the precious stones collected on those shores, were exhibited in golden basins, carried on the heads of Moorish or Negro slaves.

3. The cager crowd pressed close upon them, and wondrous tales were circulated around the officers and companions of Columbus. The admiral himself, mounted on a richly-caparisoned charger, presented by the king, next appeared, accompanied by a numerous cavalcade of courtiers and gentlemen. All eyes were directed toward the man inspired of Heaven, who first had dared to lift the veil of Ocean. People sought in his face for a visible sign of his mission, and thought they could discern one.

4. The beauty of his features, the thoughtful majesty of his countenance, the vigor of youth joined to the dignity of riper age, the combination of thought with action, of strength with experience, a thorough appreciation of his worth, combined with piety toward God, and with gratitude toward his sovereigns, who awarded him the honor which he brought them as a conqueror, made Columbus then appear (as those relate who saw him enter Barcelona) like a prophet, or a hero of Holy Writ or Grecian story,

5. None could compare with him," they say; "all felt him to be the greatest or the most fortunate of men.” Ferdinand and Isabella received him on their throne, shaded from the sun by a golden canopy. They rose up before him, as though he had beer an inspired messenger. They made him sit on a level with themselves, and listened to the solemn and circumstantial account at his voyages.

5 At the end of his recital, which habitual eloquence had zolored with his exuberant imagination, and impregnated with

fervid enthusiasm, the king and queen, moved even to tears, fell on their knees and repeated the "Te Deum," a hymn of thanks giving, for the greatest conquest that the Almighty had ever yet vouchsafed to sovereigns.

7. Couriers were instantly despatched to carry the wondrous news and fame of Columbus to all the courts of Europe. The obscurity with which he had until then been surrounded changed to a brilliant renown, filling the earth with his name. His dis covery became the subject of conversation for the world. This was in the year 1493.

Lamartine

XLIV.

THE PRIEST AND THE MULBERRY-TREE.

1. DID you hear of the curate who mounted his mare, And merrily trotted along to the fair?

Of creature more tractable none ever heard ;

In the height of her speed she would stop at a word,
And again with a word, when the curate said " Hey,"
She would put forth her mettle and gallop away.

2. As near to the gates of a city he rode,

While the sun of September all brilliantly glowed,
The good man discovered, with eyes of desire,
A mulberry-tree in a hedge of wild brier;

High up on a bough,194 might have tempted a brute,
Large, glossy and black, hung the beautiful fruit.

3 The curate was hungry, and thirsty to boot:

He shrunk from the thorns, though he longed for the fruit;
With a word he arrested his courser's keen speed,

Then stood up erect on the back of his steed;
On the saddle he stood, while the creature kept still,
And he gathered the fruit till he'd taken his fill.

1. " Sure, never," he said, "was a creature so rare!
How docile, how true, is this excellent mare!
See, here now I stand," and he gazed all around.
"As safe and as steady as if on the ground;

Yet how had it been, if some fellow this way

Had, dreaming no mischief, but chanced to say Hey!" 5 He stood with his head in the mulberry-tree,

And he spoke out aloud in the height of his glee;
At the sound of his "hey!" the mare made a push,
And down went the priest in the wild brier-bush;
He remembered too late, on his thorny green bed,
"Much that well may be thought cannot wisely be said.”
Anon.

1. WHEREFORE idle when the harvest, beckoning,
Nods its ripe tassels to the brightening sky?
Arise and labor ere the time of reckoning,

Ere the long shadows and the night draw nigh.
2. Wherefore idle? —Swing the sickle stoutly!-
Bind thy rich sheaves exultingly and fast!
Nothing dismayed, do thy great task devoutly –
Patient and strong, and hopeful to the last!

3. Wherefore idle?— Labor, not inaction,

Is the soul's birthright and its truest rest.
Up to thy work! 't is Nature's fit exaction
He who toils humblest, bravest, toils the best.

4. Wherefore idle?

EI

- Not a leaf's light rustle
But chides thee in thy vain, inglorious rest;
Be a strong actor in the great world's bustle,
Not a weak minion, or a pampered guest!

XLVI.

THE PIONEERS OF KENTUCKY.

1 IN his peaceful habitation on the banks of the Yadkin river, in North Carolina. Daniel Boone, the illustrious hunter, nad heard Finley, a trader, so memorable as the pioneer,' describe a tract of land west of Virginia, as the richest in

North America or in the world. In May, 1769, leaving his wife and offspring, having Finley as his pilot, and four others as companions, the young man of about three-and-twenty wandered forth through the wilderness of America, "in quest of the country of Kentucky," known to the savages as the "dark and bloody ground," the "middle ground" between the subjects of the Five Nations and the Cherokees.

2 After a long and fatiguing journey through mountain ranges, the party found themselves in June on the Red river, a tribu tary of the Kentucky, and from the top of an eminence surveyed with delight the beautiful plain that stretched to the north-west. Here they built their shelter, and began to reconnoitre the country and to hunt.

3. All the kinds of wild beasts that were natural to America the stately elk, the timid deer, the antlered stag, the wild-cat, the bear, the panther and the wolf- crouched among the canes, or roamed over the rich grasses, which, even beneath the thickest shades, sprang luxuriantly out of the generous soil.

4. The buffaloes cropped fearlessly the herbage,72 or browsed on the leaves of the reed, and were more frequent than cattle in the settlements of Carolina herdsmen. Sometimes there were hundreds in a drove, and round the salt-licks their numbers were amazing.

5. The summer in which, for the first time, a party of white men enjoyed the brilliancy of nature near, and in the valley of the Elkhorn, passed away in the occupations of exploring parties and the chase. But, one by one, Boone's companions dropped off, till he was left alone with John Stewart. They jointly found unccasing delight in the wonders of the forest, till, one evening, near Kentucky river, they were taken prisoners by a band of Indians, wanderers like themselves.

EI

6. They escaped, and were joined by Boone's brother, so that when Stewart was soon after killed by savages, the first victim among the hecatombs of white men slain by them in their des perate battling for the lovely hunting-ground, Boone still had his brother to share with him the dangers and the attractions of

the wilderness; the building and occupying the first cottage in Kentucky.

7. In the spring of 1770, that brother returned to the settlements for horses and supplies of ammunition, leaving the re nowned hunter "by himself, without bread, or salt, or sugar, or even a horse or dog." "The idea of a beloved wife, anxious for his safety, tinged his thoughts with sadness; but otherwise, the cheerful, meditative man, careless of wealth, knowing the use of the rifle, not the plough, of a strong, robust frame, in the vig orous health of early manhood, ignorant of books, but versed in the forest and forest life, ever fond of tracking the deer on foot away from men, yet in his disposition humane, generous and gentle, was happy in the uninterrupted succession of silvan pleasures."

ΕΙ

8. One calm summer's evening, as he climbed a commanding ridge, and looked out upon the remote venerable mountains, and the nearer ample plains, and caught a glimpse in the distance of the Ohio, which bounded the land of his affections with majestic grandeur, his heart exulted in the region he had discovered. "All things were still." Not a breeze so much as shook a leaf. He kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the loin of a buck. He was no more alone than a bee among flowers, but com'muned familiarly with the whole universe of life. Nature was his intimate; and as the roving woodsman leaned confidingly on her bosom, she responded to his intelligence.

88

9. For him the rocks and the fountains, the leaf and the blade of grass, had life; the cooling air, laden with the wild pcrfume, came to him as a friend; the dewy morning wrapped him in its embrace; the trees stood up gloriously round about him, as so many myriads of companions. All forms wore the character of desire or peril. But how could he be afraid? Triumphing over danger, he knew no fear. The perpetual howling of the wolves by night round his cottage, or his bivouac in the brake, was his diversion; and by day he had joy in surveying the various species of animals that surrounded him. He loved the solitude better than the towered city or the hum of business.

10 Near the end of July, 1770, his faithful brother came