Tell me, politician, how long did a shadow of a colony on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children? was it hard labor and spare meals? was it disease? was it the tomahawk? was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea? was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible, that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise yet to be fulfilled, so glorious? EDWARD EVERETT (1794-1865) was a distinguished American orator and statesman. He filled at various times the positions of President of Harvard College, Minister to England, and Secretary of State. To err is human; to forgive, divine. POPE. ORPHEUS WITH HIS LUTE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ORPHEUS with his lute made trees, Every thing that heard him play, Hung their heads, and then lay by. Fall asleep, or hearing, die. Or'pheus, in Greek story, a wonderful musician, singer, and poet. It the waters, and the trees with his music. is said that he charmed the beasts, killing care, that is, care that kills. THE PEN EDWARD BULWER LYTTON BENEATH the rule of men entirely great The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold The arch enchanter's wand!—itself a nothing But taking sorcery from the master's hand To paralyze the Cæsars and to strike The loud earth breathless! Take away the swordStates can be saved without it. FORTUNE ALFRED TENNYSON TURN, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down ; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd; And his the Dusk's first minted stars JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY was born in Indiana in 1852. Many of his best poems are upon childhood and nature. 1 From Riley's "Child's Rhymes,” by permission of the Bobbs-Merrill Co. THE TAKING OF QUEBEC ELIOT B. G. WARBURTON THE closing scene of French dominion in Canada was marked by circumstances of deep and peculiar interest. The pages of romance can furnish no more striking episode than the battle of Quebec. The skill and daring of the plan which brought on the combat, and the success and fortune of its execution, are unparalleled. A broad, open plain, offering no advantages to either party, was the field of fight. The contending armies were nearly equal in military strength, if not in numbers. The chiefs of both were men already of honorable fame. France trusted firmly in the wise and chivalrous Montcalm; England trusted hopefully in the young and heroic Wolfe. The magnificent stronghold which was staked upon the issue of the strife stood close at hand. For miles and miles around, the prospect extended over as fair a land as ever rejoiced the sight of man —mountain and valley, forest and waters, city and solitude, grouped together in forms of almost ideal beauty. Quebec stands on the slope of a lofty eminence on the left bank of the St. Lawrence. A table-land extends westward from the citadel for about nine miles. The portion of the heights nearest the |