every effort, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be forever vain and impotent; doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop were landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms-never, never, never!

37.-L'ALLEGRO.

JOHN MILTON.

Hence, loathéd Melancholy.

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born!

In Stygian cave forlorn,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings;

There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou goddess fair and free,

In heaven y-clept Euphrosyne,

And, by men, heart-easing Mirth.

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee

Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,

Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as ye go,

On the light fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee

The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,

To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;

Then to come in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweetbrier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine.

There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry,
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes, with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus' self may heave his head
From golden slumber on a bed

Of heapt Elysian flowers, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quite set free
His half regain'd Eurydice.

38.-ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

We

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated-can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. are met to dedicate a portion of that field as the final restingplace of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living

and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

39.-LABOR IS WORSHIP.

MRS. F. S. OSGOOD.

Pause not to dream of the future before us;
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us;
Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus,

Unintermitting goes up into heaven!

Never the ocean wave falters in flowing;
Never the little seed stops in its growing;
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing,
Till from its nourishing stem it is riven.
"Labor is worship!"-the robin is singing;
"Labor is worship!"-the wild bee is ringing:
Listen! that eloquent whisper upspringing

Speaks to thy soul from out Nature's great heart.
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower;
From the rough sod blows the soft-breathing flower;
From the small insect, the rich coral bower;

Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part.
Labor is life! 'Tis the still water faileth;
Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth;

Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ;
Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon.

Labor is glory!—the flying cloud lightens;

Only the waving wing changes and brightens;

Idle hearts only the dark future frightens;

Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in tune'
Labor is rest from the sorrows that greet us,
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill.

Work-and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow;
Work-thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow;
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow;
Work with a stout heart and resolute will!
Labor is health! Lo! the husbandman reaping,
How through his veins goes the life-current leaping,
How his strong arm, in its stalwart pride sweeping,
True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides!
Labor is wealth-in the sea the pearl groweth ;
Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth;
From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth ;
Temple and statue the marble block hides.

Droop not, though shame, sin and anguish are round thee! Bravely fling off the gold chain that hath bound thee! Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee!

Rest not content in thy darkness-a clod! Work-for some good, be it ever so slowly; Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly; Labor!-all labor is noble and holy;

Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God!

40.-RIENZI'S ADDRESS.

M. R. MITFORD.

Friends: I come not here to talk. Ye know too well
The story of our thraldom;—-we are slaves!
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights
A race of slaves! He sets, and his last beam
Falls on a slave!-not such as, swept along
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame;

But base, ignoble slaves-slaves to a horde
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots, lords

Rich in some dozen paltry villages

Strong in some hundred spearmen-only great

In that strange spell-a name! Each hour, dark fraud, Or open rapine, or protected murder,

Cries out against them. But this very day,

An honest man, my neighbor-there he stands-
Was struck-struck like a dog, by one who wore

The badge of Ursini! because, forsooth,
He tossed not high his ready cap in air,
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts,
At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men,
And suffer such dishonor? Men, and wash not
The stain away in blood? Such shames are common.
I have known deeper wrongs. I, that speak to ye—

I had a brother once-a gracious boy,
Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,
Of sweet and quiet joy; there was the look
Of heaven upon his face which limners give
To the beloved disciple. How I loved
That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years,
Brother at once and son! He left my side,
A summer bloom on his fair cheeks, a smile
Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour
That pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried
For vengeance! Rouse, ye Romans! rouse, ye slaves!
Have ye brave sons? Look, in the next fierce brawl,
To see them die! Have ye fair daughters? Look
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained,
Dishonored! and if ye dare call for justice,
Be answered by the lash! Yet this is Rome,
That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne
Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans!
Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman
Was greater than a king!—and once again-
Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread
Of either Brutus !—once again I swear,
The Eternal City shall be free!

41.—BEAUTY OF THE CLOUDS.
JOHN RUSKIN.

It is a strange thing how little, in general, people know about the sky. It is that part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works; and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organization; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered if, once in three days or thereabouts, a great, ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with, perhaps, a film of morning and evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives when nature is not producing, scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect