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Would tread your infectious chamber (think on that),
I, though your prince—

CES.

PRI.

I

gave

In pity!

Hear me speak.

that healing medicine to your lips,
Which, wanting, you had died. I tended you,
And was your nurse through many a sultry night:
For you were quite abandoned. 'Twas not well,
I own, to risk my safety, for I was

A crowned prince: yet, oh! 'tis not for you
To blame. Well! you recovered, and could use
Your sword again: you tried it 'gainst my blood
(My nephew then), and I forgave it.

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That I forgave it. Then a most mean wish

(You wished my wealth) possessed you. I could never, I own it, have guessed at that.

CES.

My lord! My father! oh! once more believe me. I Do not deserve you should: but if you can Once again credit me—

I will not pain your love:
Nay more, I will deserve it-I can die

Now, for my mind has grown within this hour
To firmness: yet, I now could wish to live,
To show you what I am.

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The world will blame me, but I'll try you still:
You cannot have the heart (for you have one)
Again to hurt me. Once, imperial Cæsar
Upon the young deluded °Cinna, laid

His absolute pardon: 'twas a weight that he
Could ne'er shake off. Cesario, thus from
My soul I do forgive you.

B. W. PROCTOR.

CCVIII. THE BELL OF THE ATLANTIC.

TOLL, toll, toll!

Thou bell by billows swung,

And, night and day, thy warning words

Repeat with mournful tongue!

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Mother and nursling sweet,

Reft from the household's throng;
There's bitter weeping in the nest
Where breathed their soul of song.

Toll for the hearts that bleed

'Neath misery's furrowing trace;
Toll for the hapless orphan left
The last of all his race!
Yea, with thy heaviest knell,
From surge to rocky shore,
Toll for the living,-not the dead,
Whose mortal woes are o'er.

Toll, toll, toll!

O'er brecze and billow free;
And with thy startling lore instruct
Each rover of the sea.

Tell how o'er proudest joys

May swift destruction sweep,

And bid him build his hopes on high,

Lone teacher of the deep!

MRS. L. H. °SIGOURNEY.

CCIX.-A LEAP FOR LIFE.

A COLD shudder ran through my veins as the word reached my ear. I cast my eyes up-it was too true! The adventurous boy, after resting on the royal cross-trees, had been seized with a wish to go still higher, and, impelled by one of those impulses by which meu are sometimes instigated to place themselves in situations of imminent peril, without a possibility of good resulting from the exposure, he bad climbed the sky-sail pole, and, at the moment of my looking up, was actually standing on the main-truck! a small circular piece of wood on the very summit of the loftiest mast, and at a height so great from the deck that my brain turned dizzy as I looked up at him. The reverse of Virgil's line was true in this instance. It was comparatively easy to ascend-but to descend--my head swam round, and my stomach felt sick at the thought of the perils comprised in that one word. Thêre was nothing above him or around him but the empty âir-and beneath him, nothing but a point, a mere point-a small, unstable wheel, that seemed no bigger from the deck than the

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"button on the end of a foil, and the taper sky-sail pole itself scarcely larger than the blade.

Dreadful temerity! If he should attempt to stoop, what could he take hold of to steady his descent? His feet quite covered up the small and fearful platform that he stood upon, and beneath that, a long, smooth, naked spar, which seemed to bend with his weight, was all that upheld him from destruction. An attempt to get down from "that bad eminence," would be almost certain death; he would inevitably lose his equilibrium, and be precipitated to the deck, a crushed and shapeless mass. Such was the nature of the thoughts that crowded through my mind as I first raised my eye, and saw the terrible truth of Jake's exclamation. What was to be done in the pressing and horrible exigency? To hail him, and inform him of his danger, would be but to insure his ruin. Indeed, I fancied that the rash boy already perceived the imminence of his peril; and I half thought that I could see his limbs begin to quiver, and his cheek turn deadly pale. Every moment I expected to see the dreadful catastrophe. I could not bear to look at him, and yet could not withdraw my gaze. A film came over my eyes, and a faintness over my heart. The atmosphere seemed to grow thick, and to tremble and waver like the heated air around a furnace; the mast appeared to totter, and the ship to pass from under my feet. I myself had the sensations of one about to fall from a great height, and making a strong effort to recover myself, like that of a dreamer, who fancies he is shoved from a precipice, I staggered up against the bulwarks. When my eyes were once turned from the dreadful object to which they had been riveted, my sense and consciousness came back. I looked around me-the deck was already crowded with people.

The intelligence of poor Bob's temerity had spread through the ship like wildfire-as such news always will-and the officers and crew were all crowding to the deck to behold the appalling—the heart-rending spectacle. Every one, as he looked up, turned pale, and his eye became fastened in silence on the truck-like that of a spectator of an execution on the gallows-with a steadfast, unblinking, and intense, yet abhorrent gaze, as if momentarily expecting a fatal termination to the awful suspense. No one made a suggestion— no one spoke. Every feeling, every faculty seemed to be absorbed and swallowed up in one deep, intense emotion of agony. Once the first lieutenant seized the trumpet, as if to hail poor Bob, but he had scarce raised it to his lips, when his arm dropped again, and sank listlessly down beside him, as if from a sad consciousness of the utter 'inutility of what he had been going to say. Every soul in the ship was now on the spar-deck, and every eye was turned to the maintruck.

At this moment there was a stir among the crew about the gang

way, and directly after another face was added to those on the quarterdeck--it was that of the commodore, Bob's father. He had come alongside in a shore boat, without having been noticed by a single eye, so intense and universal was the interest that had fastened every gaze upon the spot where poor Bob stood trembling on the awful verge of fate. The commodore asked not a question, uttered not a syllable. He was a dark-faced, austere man, and it was thought by some of the midshipmen that he entertained but little affection for his However that might have been, it was certain that he treated him with precisely the same strict discipline that he did the other young officers, or if there was any difference at all, it was not in favor of Bob. Some who pretended to have studied his character closely, affirmed that he loved his boy too well to spoil him, and that, intending him for the arduous profession in which he had himself risen to fame and eminence, he thought it would be of service to him to experience some of its privations and hardships at the outset.

son.

The arrival of the commodore changed the direction of several eyes, which now turned on him to trace what emotions the danger of his son would occasion. But their scrutiny was foiled. By no outward sign did he show what was passing within. His eye still retained its severe expression, his brow the slight frown which it usually wore, and his lip its haughty curl. Immediately on reaching the deck, he had ordered a marine to hand him a musket, and with this stepping åft, and getting on the lookout-block, he raised it to his shoulder, and took a deliberate aim at his son, at the same time hailing him, without a trumpet, in his voice of thunder. "Robert!" cried he, "jump! jump overboard! or I'll fire at you!" The boy seemed to hesitate, and it was plain that he was tottering, for his arms were thrown out like those of one scârcely able to retain his balance. The commodore raised his voice again, and in a quicker and more energetic tone, cried, "Jump! 'tis your only chance for life."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth, before the body was seen to leave the truck and spring out into the air. A sound, between a shriek and a groan, burst from many lips. The father spoke notsighed not--indeed he did not seem to breathe. For a moment of intense agony a pin might have been heard to drop on deck. With a rush like that of a cannon ball, the body descended to the water, and before the waves closed over it, twenty stout fellows, among them several officers, had dived from the bulwarks. Another short period of bitter suspense ensued. It rose-he was alive! his arms were seen to move! he struck out towards the ship!-and despite the discipline of a man-of-war, three loud huzzäs, an outburst of unfeigned and unrestrainable joy from the hearts of our crew of five hundred men, pealed through the air, and made the 'welkin ring.

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