all good men would say that the punishment, instead of being too cruel, was only too long deferred. 6. But, for sufficient reasons, I will a while postpone the blow. Then will I doom thee, when no man is to be found, so lost to reason, so depraved, so like thyself, that he will not admit the sentence was deserved. While there is one man who ventures to defend thee, live! 7. But thou shalt live so beset, so hemmed in, so watched, by the vigilant guards I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the Republic without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper. Thou shalt be seen and heard when thou dost not dream of a witness near. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason; the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. 8. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret projects clear as noonday, what canst thou now devise? Proceed, plot, conspire as thou wilt; there is nothing thou canst contrive, propose, attempt, which I shall not promptly be made aware of. Thou shalt soon be convinced that I am even more active in providing for the preservation of the State, than thou in plotting its destruction! CICERO. XXIX.-A GREYPORT LEGEND, 1797. I. HEY ran through the streets of the seaport town, THEY They peered from the decks of the ships where they lay The cold sea-fog that came whitening down Was never as cold or white as they. "Ho, Starbuck and Pickney and Tenterden! Run for your shallops, gather your men, Scatter your boats on the lower bay." II. Good cause for fear! In the thick mid-day Filled with children in happy play, III. Said a hard-faced skipper, “God help us all! And she lifted a quavering voice and high, IV. The fog drove down on each laboring crew, Veiled each from each and the sky and shore; There was not a sound but the breath they drew, And the lap of water and creak of oar; And they felt the breath of the downs, fresh blown O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone, But not from the lips that had gone before. V. They come no more. But they tell the tale For the signal they know will bring relief,— VI. It is but a foolish shipman's tale, A theme for a poet's idle page, But still when the mists of doubt prevail, F. BRET HARTE XXX.-TWO VIEWS OF CHRISTMAS. SCROOGE and his NEPHEW. Scene.-The Counting-Room of Scrooge. Nephew. A merry Christmas, uncle! Scrooge. Bah! humbug! Neph. Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean that, I am sure? Scrooge. I do. Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! Neph. Uncle! Scrooge. Nephew, keep Christmas time in your own way, and let me keep it in mine. Neph. Keep it! But you don't keep it! Scrooge. Let me leave it alone, then. Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you! Neph. There are many good things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round,-apart from the veneration due to its sacred origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that,—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the ɔnly time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-travellers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it! Scrooge. You're quite a powerful speaker, sir. I wonder you don't go into Parliament. Neph. Don't be angry, uncle. Come! to-morrow. Scrooge. I'll see you hanged first. Dine with us Scrooge (contemptuously). Because you fell in love!-Good afternoon! Neph. Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now? Scrooge. Good afternoon! Neph. I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends? Scrooge. Good afternoon! Neph. I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So, A Merry Christmas, uncle! Scrooge. Good afternoon! Neph. And A Happy New-Year! Scrooge. Good afternoon! [Exit Nephew. CHARLES DICKENS XXXI.-THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR. I. YOME, see the Dolphin's anchor forged; 't is at a white heat COME, now; The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though on the forge's brow The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound; II. The windlass strains the tackle chains, the black mound heaves below, And red and deep a hundred veins burst out at every throe; "Hurrah!" they shout-"leap out!-leap out!" bang, bang, the sledges go. III. Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load! IV. Swing in your strokes in order, let foot and hand keep time; V. In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last, |