Is but the rushing and expanding stream Of thought, of feeling, fed by all the past. Our finest hope is finest memory,

As they who love in age think youth is blest
Because it has a life to fill with love.
Full souls are double mirrors, making still
An endless vista of fair things before
Repeating things behind: so faith is strong
Only when we are strong, shrinks when we shrink.
It comes when music stirs us, and the chords
Moving on some grand climax shake our souls
With influx new that makes new energies.
It comes in swelling of the heart and tears
That rise at noble and at gentle deeds—
At labors of the master-artist's hand
Which, trembling, touches to a finer end,
Trembling, before an image seen within.
It comes in moments of heroic love,
Unjealous joy in joy not made for us—
In conscious triumph of the good within
Making us worship goodness that rebukes.
Even our failures are a prophecy,
Even our yearnings and our bitter tears
After that fair and true we cannot grasp;
As patriots who seem to die in vain
Make liberty more sacred by their pangs.
-A Minor Prophet.

I can unleash my fancy if you wish

And hunt for phantoms: shoot an airy guess
And bring down airy likelihood,—some lie
Masked cunningly to look like royal truth

And cheat the shooter, while King Fact goes free,
Or else some image of reality

That doubt will handle and reject as false.
Ask for conjecture,-I can thread the sky
Like any swallow, but, if you insist,

On knowledge that would guide a pair of feet
Right to Bedmár, across the Moorish bounds,
A mule that dreams of stumbling over stones
Is better stored.

-The Spanish Gypsy.

DESPAIR.

Oh, I am sick at heart. The eye of day,
The insistent summer sun, seems pitiless,
Shining in all the barren crevices

Of weary life, leaving no shade, no dark,
Where I may dream that hidden waters lie;
As pitiless as to some shipwrecked man,
Who, gazing from his narrow shoal of sand
On the wide unspecked round of blue and blue,
Sees that full light is errorless despair.
The insects' hum that slurs the silent dark
Startles and seems to cheat me, as the tread
Of coming footsteps cheats the midnight watcher
Who holds her heart and waits to hear them pause,
And hears them never pause, but pass and die.
Music sweeps by me as a messenger
Carrying a message that is not for me.
The very sameness of the hills and sky
Is obduracy, and the lingering hours

Wait round me dumbly, like superfluous slaves,
Of whom I want nought but the secret news
They are forbid to tell.

C

CHARLES DICKENS.

HARLES DICKENS, novelist aud poet, was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, in Portsmouth at that time, but while Charles was very young, the family moved to London. His mother was a woman of much energy, as well as many accomplishments. She taught her son Latin, and tried to establish a boarding school, to add, if possible, to a small income. But with their united efforts, they could not keep out of distress, and when Dickens was nine years of age the family was living in abject poverty in Camden Town, then one of the poorest London suburbs. Charles was sent out, earning six shillings a week in a blacking warehouse, tying blue covers on pots of paste. For two years the child led a very hard, uncared-for life. Precocious beyond his years, with acute sensibilities and high aspirations, he had many books and formed an ambition to be "a learned and distinguished man." He was self made, indebted largely to circumstances for an education. The streets were a painful study, but in after years they proved to be the best of schools for him, as his destined work was to describe the poorer homes and streets of London, and the many varieties of life, odd and sad, laughter-moving and pitiful, that swarmed therein. Many a clever boy like him, would have become a rogue and vagabond. He did not. Instead of sinking into the depths of wretchedness which he saw, he rose above it, and became one of England's greatest novelists. His first published piece of original writing appeared in the Old Monthly Magazine for January, 1834. From that time on his career was a remarkable one. commenced the publication of the "Pickwick | Papers" in 1836. Eleven aditional papers were published in 1837, and by November of that year the sale reached 40,000. He continued to publish articles, and between April, 1838, and October, 1839 he produced "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby." The list of Charles Dickens's novels are too well known to need mention. Who can forget the "Old Curiosity Shop?" Who has not wept over 'Little Nell" or laughed over "Daniel Quilp?" Those characters alone would have made him fame.

He

In 1858 Dickens began a series of public readings of his own works, appearing in nearly every town of any size in the United Kingdom, and in 1867-68 renewing in this way his acquaintance with the American people. To tell the wealth of his imagination is beyond words, while no one has excelled him as a true painter of manners. His last novel,

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood," he did not live to complete. He was suddenly overcome by a stupor, caused by effusion on the brain, on the evening of June the 8th, 1870, and died the following day. His death took place at "Gadshill Place," a house near the main road between Rochester and Gravesend. As a poet, little has been said of him, yet he wrote and published enough poems to fill a volume. The most important is "The Hymn of the Wiltshire Laborers." That song against oppression has found a loyal response in thousands of hearts. The "Ivy Green" and "A Word in Season" are also well known. In his will he had desired "that he should be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious and strictly private manner, without any public announcement of the time, or place of his burial.” These conditions were observed but his executors did not consider them inconsistent with his receiving the honor of interment in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried on the 14th day of June, 1870. I. R. W.

THE BRITISH LION.

A NEW SONG, BUT AN OLD STORY.

TUNE-The Great Sea-Snake.

Он, p'raps you may have heard, and if not, I'll sing

Of the British Lion free,

That was constantly a-going for to make a spring
Upon his en-e—me;

But who, being rather groggy at the knees,
Broke down, always, before;

And generally gave a feeble wheeze
Instead of a loud roar.

Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw fum,

The British Lion bold!

That was always a-going for to do great things,

And was always being "sold!"

He was carried about, in a carawan,

And was show'd in country parts, And they said, "Walk up! Be in time! He can Eat Corn-Law-Leagues like tarts!" And his showmen, shouting there and then, To puff him didn't fail;

And they said, as they peep'd into his den, "Oh, don't he wag his tail!"'

Now the principal keeper of this poor old beast, WAN HUMBUG was his name,

Would once every day stir him up-at leastAnd wasn't that a game!

For, in Thy rest, so bright and fair,
All tears and sorrows sleep:
And their young looks, so full of care,
Would make Thine Angels weep!

The GOD, who with His finger drew
The Judgment coming on,

Write, for these men, what must ensue,
Ere many years be gone!

Oh GOD, whose bow is in the sky,
Let them not brave and dare,
Until they look (too late) on high,
And see an Arrow there!

Oh GOD, remind them! In the bread
They break upon the knee,
Those sacred words may yet be read,
"In memory of Me!"

Oh GOD, remind them of His sweet
Compassion for the poor,

And how He gave them Bread to eat,
And went from door to door!

SONG.

LOVE is not a feeling to pass away,
Like the balmy breath of a summer day;
It is not-it cannot be-laid aside;
It is not a thing to forget or hide.
It clings to the heart, ah, woe is me!
As the ivy clings to the old oak tree.

Love is not a passion of earthly mould,
As a thirst for honor, or fame, or gold:
For when all these wishes have died away,
The deep, strong love of a brighter day,
Though nourished in secret, consumes the more,
As the slow rust eats to the iron's core.

THE IVY GREEN.

OH a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!

Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.

The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim;
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.

Creeping where no life is seen,

A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings,
To his friend, the huge Oak Tree!