While yet her cheek was bright with summer bloom, Re-gave the sword, but not the hand that drew Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on, At last the thread was snapped,-her head was bowed; Life dropped the distaff through her hands serene; And loving neighbors smoothed her careful shroud, While death and winter closed the autumn scene. THE LAST DAYS OF THE EMPEROR OTHO. C. CORNELIUS TACITUS, the great Roman historian, whose birth is of uncertain date, wrote in the first century of the Christian era. He acquired great reputation both as an orator and as an author. His "Agricola" is a charming biography of his father-in-law. His "Manners of the Germans," "History" and "An nals" constitute his other works, all of which evince a powerful mind, and a skill in condensation sufficiently rare among historians ancient or modern. Otho, in the mean time having taken his resolution, waited, without trepidation, for an account of the event. First, rumors of a melancholy character reached his ears; soon after, fugitives, who escaped from the field, brought sure intelligence that all was lost. The fervor of the soldiers staid not for the voice of the emperor; they bade him summon up his best resolution: there were forces still in reserve, and in their prince's cause they were ready to suffer and dare the utmost. Nor was this the language of flattery: impelled by a kind of frenzy and like men possessed, they were all on fire to go to the field and restore the state of their party. The men who stood at a distance stretched forth their hands in token of their assent, while such as gathered round the prince clasped his knees; Plotius Firmus being the most zealous. This officer commanded the prætorian guards. He implored his master not to abandon an army devoted to his interest; a soldiery who had undergone so much in his cause. "It was more magnanimous," they said, "to bear up against adversity, than to shrink from it; the brave and strenuous sustained themselves upon hope, even against the current of fortune, the timorous and abject only allowed their fears to plunge them into despair." While uttering these words, accordingly as Otho relaxed or stiffened the muscles of his face, they shouted or groaned. Nor was this spirit confined to the prætorians, the peculiar soldiers of Otho; the detachment sent forward by the Moesian legions brought word that the same zeal pervaded the coming army, and that the legions had entered Aquileia. Whence it is evident that a fierce and bloody war, the issue of which could not have been foreseen by the victors or the vanquished, might have been still carried on. Otho himself was averse to any plans of prosecuting the war, and said: "To expose to further perils such spirit and such virtue as you now display, would, I deem, be paying too costly a price for my life. The more brilliant the prospects which you hold out to me, were I disposed to live, the more glorious will be my death. I and Fortune have made trial of each other; for what length of time is not material; but the felicity which does not promise to last, it is more difficult to enjoy with moderation. Vitellius began the civil war; and he originated our contest for the princedom. It shall be mine to establish a precedent by preventing a second battle for it. By this let posterity judge of Otho. Vitellius shall be blest with his brother, his wife, and children. I want no revenge, nor consolations. Others have held the soyereign power longer; none have resigned it with equal fortitude. Shall I again suffer so many of the Roman youth, so many gallant armies, to be laid low, and cut off from the commonwealth? Let this resolution of yours to die for me, should it be necessary, attend me in my departure; but live on yourselves. Neither let me long obstruct your safety, nor do you retard the proof of my constancy. To descant largely upon our last moments is the act of a dastard spirit. Hold it as an eminent proof of the fixedness of my purpose, that I complain of no man: for to arraign gods or men, is the part of one who fain would live." Having thus declared his sentiments, he talked with his friends, addressing each in courteous terms, according to his rank, his age, or dignity, and endeavored to induce all, the young in an authoritative tone, the old by entreaties, to depart without loss of time, and not aggravate the resentment of the conquerors by remaining with him. His countenance serene, his voice firm, and endeavoring to repress the tears of his friends pile: not from any consciousness of guilt, nor from fear; but in emulation of the bright example of their prince, and to show their affection. At Bedriacum, Placentia, and other camps, numbers of every rank adopted that mode of death. A sepulchre was raised to the memory of Otho, of ordinary structure, but likely to endure. as uncalled-for, he ordered boats or carriages of the soldiers slew themselves at the funeral for those who were willing to depart. Papers and letters, containing strong expressions of duty toward himself, or ill-will toward Vitellius, he committed to the flames. He distributed money in presents, but not with the profusion of a man quitting the world. Then, observing his brother's son, Salvius Cocceianus, in the bloom of youth, and distressed and weeping, he even comforted him, commending his duty, but rebuking his fears: "Could it be supposed that Vitellius, finding his own family safe, would refuse, inhumanly, to return the generosity shown to himself? By hastening his death," he said, "he should establish a claim upon his clemency; since, not in the extremity of despair, but at a time when the army was clamoring for another battle, he had made his death an offering to his country. For himself, he had gained ample renown, and left to his family enough of lustre. After the Julian race, the Claudian, and the Servian, he was the first who carried the sovereignty into a new family. Wherefore he should cling to life with lofty aspirations, and neither forget at any time that Otho was his uncle, nor remember it overmuch." After this, his friends having all withdrawn, he reposed awhile. When lo! while his mind was occupied with the last act of his life, he was diverted from his purpose by a sudden uproar. The soldiers, he was told, were in a state of frenzy and riot, threatening destruction to all who offered to depart, and directing their fury particularly against Verginius, whom they kept besieged in his house, which he had barricaded. Having reproved the authors of the disturbance, he returned, and devoted himself to bidding adieu to those who were going away, until they had all departed in security. Toward the close of day he quenched his thirst with a draught of cold water, and then ordered two poniards to be brought to him. He tried the points of both, and laid one under his head. Having ascertained that his friends were safe on their way, he passed the night in quiet, and, as we are assured, even slept. At the dawn of day he applied the weapon to his breast, and fell upon it. On hearing his dying groans, his freedmen and slaves, and with them Plotius Firmus, the prætorian præfect, found that with one wound he had dispatched himself. His funeral obsequies were performed without delay. had been his earnest request, lest his head should be cut off and be made a public spectacle. He was borne on the shoulders of the prætorian soldiers, who kissed his hands and his wounds, amidst tears and praises. Some This Such was the end of Otho, in the thirtyseventh year of his age. He was born in the municipal city of Ferentum. His father was of consular rank; his grandfather of prætorian. By the maternal line his descent was respectable, though not equally illustrious. The features of his character, as well in his earliest days as in the progress of his youth, have been already delineated. By two actions, one atrocious and detestable, the other great and magnanimous, he earned an equal degree of honor and infamy among posterity. THE LITTLE MAN ALL IN GREY. JEAN PIERRE DE BERANGER, a French lyric poet, born 1790, died 1857, was one of the most widely popular of French writers. An ardent Republican, his political verses brought him fine and imprisonment, but his independence resisted alike persecution and blandishments. The light spirit, gayety and bonhommie of his poems produce the happiest effects by the most simple and inimitable touches. In Paris a queer little man you may see, Rosy and round as an apple is he, Content with the present, whate'er it may be, "Ma foi! I laugh at the world," says he, "I laugh at the world, and the world laughs at me!" What a gay little man in grey! He runs after the girls, like a great many more, He sings, falls in love and in debt o'er and o'er, Or keeps out of the bailiff's way. Blows his frost-bitten fingers, and merrily feigns Not to care for a fire to-day! "Mu foi! I laugh at the world," says he, "I laugh at the world, and the world laughs at me!" What a gay little man in grey! The prettiest wife one need wish to possess But the world will talk and I must confess That her lovers perchance may pay. Still her husband looks on. Ma foi!" says he,"I laugh at the world, and the world laughs at me!" What a gay little man in grey! Now racked by the gout on his comfortless bed And the priest, with his book and his shaven head, "Ma foi! I laugh at the devil," says he,- TRANSLATED BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS. A PICTURE OF WILD NATURE ON THE MISSISSIPPI. FRANÇOIS AUGUSTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND, a distinguished French writer, boru 1769, died 1848. He visited the United States at the age of twenty-two, and from the primeval forests of the south was drawn the inspiration of some of his most romantic works. His "Atala," (1801)," Genius of Christianity," (1802), "The Martyrs," (1809), and “Journey from Paris to Jerusalem," (1811), are the most valuable of his voluminous works. His ana. French left the pretty appellation of LouisiA thousand other rivers tributaries of the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Illinois, the Arkansas, the Wabache, the Tennessee-enrich it with their mud and fertilize it with their waters. When all these rivers have been swollen by the deluges of winter, uprooted trees, forming large portions of forests torn down by tempests, crowd about their sources. In a short time the mud cements the torn tree together, and they become inchained by creepers which, taking root in every direction, bind and consolidate the debris. Carried away by the foaming waves, the rafts descend to the Mississippi; which, taking possession of them, hurries them down towards the Gulf of Mexico, throws them upon sand-banks, and so increases the number of its mouths. At intervals the swollen river raises its voice whilst passing over the resisting heaps, and spreads its overflowing waters around the colonnades of the forests, and the pyramids of the Indian tombs; and so the Mississippi is the Nile of these deserts. But grace is always united to splendor in scenes of nature: while the midstream bears away towards the sea the dead trunks of pine-trees and oaks, the lateral currents on either side convey along the shores floating islands of pistias and nénuphars, whose yellow roses stand out like little pavilions. Green serpents, blue herons, pink flamingoes, and baby crocodiles embark as passengers on these rafts of flowers; and the brilliant colony unfolding to the wind its golden sails, glides along slumberingly till it arrives at some retired creek in the river. The two shores of the Mississippi present the most extraordinary picture. On the western border vast savannahs spread away style is highly poetical, and his descriptions of natural farther than the eye can reach, and their scenery are eminently fine. France formerly possessed in North America a vast empire, extending from Labrador to the Floridas, and from the shores of the Atlantic to the most distant lakes of Upper Canada. Four great rivers, deriving their sources from the same mountains, divided these immense regions: the River St. Lawrence, which is lost to the east in the gulf of that name; the Western River, whose waters flow on to seas then unknown; the river Bourbon, which runs from south to north into Hudson Bay; and the Mississippi, whose waters fall from north to south into the Gulf of Mexico, The last-named river, in its course of more than a thousand leagues, waters a delicious country called by the inhabitants of the United States the New Eden, to which the VOL. I. waves of verdure, as they recede, appear to rise gradually into the azure sky, where they fade away. In these limitless meadows herds of three or four thousand wild buffaloes wander at random. Sometimes cleaving the waters as it swims, a bison, laden with years, comes to repose among the high grass on an island of the Mississippi, its forehead ornamented with two crescents, and its ancient and slimy beard giving it the appearance of a god of the river, throwing an eye of satisfaction upon the grandeur of its waters, and the wild abundance of its shores. Such is the scene upon the western border; but it changes on the opposite side, which forms an admirable contrast with the other shore. Suspended along the course of the waters, grouped upon the rocks and upon the mountains, and dispersed in the valleys, trees of every form, of every colour, and of 7 every perfume, throng and grow together, stretching up into the air to heights that weary the eye to follow. Wild vines, bignonias, coloquintidas, intertwine each other at the feet of these trees, escalade their trunks, and creep along to the extremity of their branches, stretching from the maple to the tulip-tree, from the tulip-tree to the holly-hock, and thus forming thousands of grottoes, arches, and porticoes. Often, in their wanderings from trees, these creepers cross the arm of a river, over which they throw a bridge of flowers. Out of the midst of these masses, the magnolia, raising its motionless cone, surmounted by large white buds, commands all the forest, where it has no other rival than the palm-tree which gently waves, close by, its fans of verdure. A multitude of animals, placed in these retreats by the hand of the Creator, spread about life and enchantment. From the extremities of the avenues may be seen bears, intoxicated with the grape, staggering upon the branches of the elm-trees; cariboos bathe in the lake; black squirrels play among the thick foliage; mocking-birds, and Virginian pigeons not bigger than sparrows fly down upon the turf reddened with strawberries; green parrots with yellow heads, purple woodpeckers, cardinals red as fire, clamber up to the very tops of the cypress-trees; humming-birds sparkle upon the jessamine of the Floridas; and bird-catching serpents hiss while suspended to the domes of the woods, where they swing about like the creepers themselves. If all is silence and repose in the savannahs on the other side of the river, all here, on the contrary, is sound and motion, peckings against the trunks of the oaks, frictions of animals walking along as they nibble or crush between their teeth the stones of fruits, the roaring of the waves, plaintive cries, dull bellowings and mild cooings, fill these deserts with tender, yet wild harmony. But when a breeze happens to animate these solitudes, to swing these floating bodies, to confound these masses of white, blue, green, and pink, to mix all the colours and to combine all the murmurs, there issue such sounds from the depths of the forests, and such things pass before the eyes, that I should in vain endeavour to describe them to those who have never visited these primitive fields of nature. WINIFREDA. Away, let naught to love displeasing, What, therefore, should I fear, if after death I am sure either not to be miserable or to be happy? Although who is so foolish, though he be young, as to be assured that he will live even till the evening? Nay, that period of life has many more probabilities of death than ours has: young men more readily fall into disease, suffer more severely, are cured with more difficulty, and therefore few arrive at old age. Did not this happen so, we should live better and more wisely, for intelligence, and reflection, and judgment reside in old men, and if there had been none of them, no states could exist at all. But I return to the imminence of death. What charge is that against old age, since you see it to be common to youth also? I experienced not only in the case of my own excellent son, but also in that of your brothers, Scipio, men plainly marked out for the high est distinction, that death was common to every period of life. Yet a young man hopes that he will live a long time, which expectation an old man cannot entertain. His hope is but a foolish one: for what man can be more foolish than to regard uncertainties as certainties, delusions as truths? An old man indeed has nothing to hope for; yet he is in so much the happier state than a young one; since he has already attained what the other is only hoping for. The one is wishing to live long, the other has lived long. And yet, good gods! what is there in man's life that can be called long? For allow the latest period: let us anticipate the age of the kings of the Tartessii. For there dwelt, as I find it recorded, a man named Arganthonius at Gades, who reigned for eighty years, and lived a hundred and twenty. But to my mind, nothing whatever seems of long duration, in which there is any end. For when that arrives, then the time which has passed has flowed away; that only remains which you have secured by virtue and right conduct. Hours indeed depart from us, and days and years; nor does past time ever return, nor can it be discovered what is to follow. Whatever time is assigned to each to live, with that he ought to be content: for neither need the drama be performed by the actor, in order to give satisfaction, provided he be ap- | proved in whatever act he may be; nor need the wise man live till the plaudite. For the short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably; and if you should advance further, you need no more grieve than farmers do when the loveliness of springtime hath past, that summer and autumn have come. For spring represents the time of youth, and gives promise of the future fruits the remaining seasons are intended for plucking and gathering in those fruits. Now the harvest of old age, as I have often said, is the recollection and abundance of blessings previously secured. In truth everything that happens agreeably to nature is to be reckoned among blessings. What, however, is so agreeable to nature as for an old man to die? which even is the lot of the young, though nature opposes and resists. And thus it is that young men seem to me to die, just as when the violence of flame is extinguished by a flood of water; whereas old men die, as the exhausted fire goes out, spontaneously, without the exertion of any force: and as fruits when they are green are plucked by force from the trees, but when ripe and mellow drop off, so violence takes away their lives from youths, maturity from old men; a state which to me indeed is so delightful, that the nearer I approach to death, I seem as it were to be getting sight of land, and at length, after a long voyage, to be just coming into harbor. Of all the periods of life there is a definite limit, but of old age there is no limit fixed; and life goes on very well in it, so long as you are able to follow up and attend to the duty of your situation, and, at the same time, to care nothing about death; whence it happens that old age is even of higher spirit and bolder than youth. Agreeable to this was the answer given to Pisistratus, the tyrant, by Solon; when on the former inquiring "in reliance on what hope he so boldly withstood him," the latter is said to have answered, "old age." The happiest end of life is thiswhen the mind and the other senses being unimpaired, the same nature, which put it together, takes asunder her own work. As in the case of a ship or a house, he who built them takes them down most easily; so the same nature which has compacted man, most easily breaks him up. Besides, every fastening of glue, when fresh, is with difficulty torn asunder, but easily when tried by time. Hence it is that that short remnant of life should be neither greedily coveted, nor without reason given up: and Pythagoras forbids us to abandon the station or post of life without the orders of our commander, that is of God. There is, indeed, a saying of the wise Solon, in which he declares that he does not wish his own death to be unattended by the grief and lamentation of friends. He wishes, I suppose, that he should be dear to his friends. But I know not whether Ennius does not say with more propriety: "Let no one pay me honor with tears nor celebrate my funeral with mourning." He conceives that a death ought not to be lamented which an immortality follows. Besides, a dying man may have some degree of consciousness, but that for a short time, especially, in the case of an old man, after death, indeed, consciousness either does not exist, or it is a thing to be desired. But this ought to be a subject of study from our youth to be indifferent about death; without which study no one can be of tranquil mind. For die we certainly must, and it is uncertain whether or not on this very day. He, therefore, who at all hours dreads impending death, how can he be at peace in his mind? Concerning which there seems to be no need of such long discussion, when I call to mind not only Lucius Brutus, who was slain in liberating his country; nor the two Decii, who spurred on their steeds to a voluntary death; nor Marcus Atilius, who set out to execution, that he might keep a promise pledged to the enemy; nor the two Scipios, 167359B |