And from that hour I grew

I shall be - thine adorer!

- what to the last Well, this love,

Vain, frantic, guilty, if thou wilt,

became.

A fountain of ambition and bright hope;

I thought of tales that by the winter hearth

Old gossips tell, how maidens sprung from kings

Have stooped from their high sphere; how Love, like Death,
Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook

Beside the scepter. Thus I made my home
In the soft palace of a fairy Future!
My father died; and I, the peasant-born,
Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise
Out of the prison of my mean estate;

And, with such jewels as the exploring mind
Brings from the caves of Knowledge, buy my ransom
From those twin jailers of the daring heart,
Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image,
Glassed in my soul, took all the hues of glory,
And lured me on to those inspiring toils
By which man masters men! For thee, I grew
A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages!
For thee, I sought to borrow from each Grace
And every Muse such attributes as lend
Ideal charms to Love. I thought of thee,
And passion taught me poesy, of thee,
And on the painter's canvas grew the life
Of beauty! - Art became the shadow

Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes!

Men called me vain, some, mad, I heeded not;
But still toiled on, hoped on, for it was sweet,

If not to win, to feel more worthy, thee!

At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour
The thoughts that burst their channels into song,
And sent them to thee, - such a tribute, lady,
As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest.
The name-appended by the burning heart
That longed to show its idol what bright things
It had created yea, the enthusiast's name,

That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn!
That very hour- when passion, turned to wrath,
Resembled hatred most; when thy disdain

The tempters found me a revengeful tool

For their revenge! Thou hadst trampled on the worm, It turned, and stung thee!

A LOVER'S DREAM OF HOME.

NAY, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint
The home to which, could love fulfil its prayer,
This hand would lead thee, listen: a deep vale,
Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world,
Near a clear lake,* margined by fruits of gold
And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies
As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows,
As I would have thy fate!

A palace lifting to eternal summer

Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower
Of coolest foliage musical with birds,
Whose songs should syllable thy name!

At noon

We'd sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder
Why Earth could be unhappy, while the Heaven
Still left us youth and love; we'd have no friends
That were not lovers; no ambition, save
To excel them all in love; we'd read no books
That were not tales of love,

- that we might smile

To think how poorly eloquence of words

Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!

And when night came, amidst the breathless heavens
We'd guess what star should be our home when love
Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light

Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,
And every air was heavy with the sighs
Of orange groves and music from sweet lutes,
And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth

I' the midst of roses! Dost thou like the picture?

* Lake Como.

DISRAELI.

1805

BENJAMIN DISRAELI, the Earl of Beaconsfield, K. G., eminent in literature and politics, was born in London in 1805. He is the son of Isaac Disraeli, author of several unique and valuable books, The Curiosities of Literature, The Calamities of Authors, etc. Benjamin produced his first book, Vivian Grey, a novel of extraordinary merit, in his twenty-first year. After several defeats he was elected to Parliament for the Borough of Maidstone, in 1837, and since that time, when not in high office, has been an active member of the House of Commons. He has three times been Chancellor of the Exchequer, was Prime Minister in 1868, and in February, 1874, on the dissolution of Gladstone's Ministry, was called by the Queen to form a new Cabinet. His literary efforts have been mainly in the line of fiction, and several of his novels rank among the best of the century. Of these may be mentioned The Young Duke, Contarini Fleming, Coningsby, The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, and his latest production, Lothair, which profoundly stirred the literary and political circles of British society. Although Disraeli will be remembered as a statesman rather than as an author, he has shown that he possesses abilities which entitle him to a high place in English literature. In descriptive power he is hardly surpassed by any living writer, and in the exposition of politics, social theories, and the illustration of real public life by means of fictitious personages and incidents, he is without a rival. He is of Jewish descent. Our first extract, taken from Coningsby, is one of the finest tributes ever paid to the Hebrew character, and has special weight and significance as coming from his hand. He was elevated to the peerage in 1876, and in reward for distinguished diplomatic services at the Berlin Congress in 1878, was created a Knight of the Garter, the most illustrious order in the gift of the British crown.

THE HEBREW RACE.

You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits were Jews; that mysterious Russian diplomacy which so alarms Western Europe is organized and principally carried on by Jews; that mighty revolution which is at this moment preparing in Germany, and which will be, in fact, a second and greater Reformation, and of which so little is as yet known in England, is entirely developing under the auspices of Jews, who almost monopolize the professorial chairs of Germany. Neander, the founder of spiritual Christianity, and who is Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Berlin, is a Jew. Benary, equally famous and in the same University, is a Jew. Wehl, the Arabic professor of Heidelberg, is a Jew. Years ago, when I was in Palestine, I met a German student who was accumulating materials for the history of Christianity, and studying the genius of the place; a modest and learned man. It was Wehl; then unknown, since become the first Arabic scholar of the day, and the author of the life of Mohammed. But for the German professors of this race, their name is Legion. I think there are more than ten at Berlin alone.

I told you just now that I was going up to town to-morrow, because I always made it a rule to interpose when affairs of state were on the carpet. Otherwise, I never interfere. I hear of peace and war in newspapers, but I am never alarmed, except when I am informed that the sovereigns want treasure; then I know that monarchs are serious. A few years back we were applied to by Russia. Now, there has been no friendship between the court of St. Petersburg and my family. It has Dutch connections which have generally supplied it, and our representations in favor of the Polish Hebrews a numerous race, but the most suffering and degarded of all the tribes have not been very agreeable to the czar. However, circumstances drew to an approximation between the Romanoffs and the Sidonias. I resolved to go myself to St. Petersburg. I had on my arrival an interview with the Russian Minister of Finance, Count Cancrin; I beheld the son of a Lithuanian Jew. The loan was connected with the affairs of Spain; I resolved on repairing to Spain from Russia. I traveled without intermission. I had an audience immediately on my arrival with the Spanish minister, Señor Mendizabel; I beheld one like myself, a Jew of Aragon.

In consequence of what transpired at Madrid, I went straight to Paris, to consult the President of the French Council; I beheld the son of a French Jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so, for who should be military heroes if not those who worship the Lord of Hosts? "And is Soult a Hebrew?" "Yes, and several of the French marshals, and the most famous; Massena, for example, his real name was Manasseh." But to my anecdote. The consequence of our consultations was, that some Northern power should be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. We fixed on Prussia, and the President of the Council made an application to the Prussian Minister, who attended a few days after our conference. Count Arnim entered the cabinet, and I beheld a Prussian Jew. So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. Favored by nature and by nature's God, we produced the lyre of David; we gave you Isaiah and Ezekiel; they are our Olynthiacs, our Philippics. Favored by nature we still remain; but in exact proportion as we have been favored by nature we have been persecuted by man. After a thousand struggles, after acts of heroic courage that Rome has never equaled, deeds of divine patriotism

we have

that Athens and Sparta and Carthage have never excelled, endured fifteen hundred years of supernatural slavery; during which every device that can degrade or destroy man has been the destiny that we have sustained and baffled.

The Hebrew child has entered adolescence only to learn that he was the Pariah of that ungrateful Europe that owes to him the best part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, all its religion. Great poets require a public; we have been content with the immortal melodies that we sung more than two thousand years ago by the waters of Babylon and wept. They record our triumphs; they solace our affliction. Great orators are the creatures of popular assemblies; we were permitted only by stealth to meet even in our temples. And as for great writers, the catalogue is not blank. What are all the schoolmen, Aquinas himself, to Maimonides?* and as for modern philosophy, all springs from Spinoza! † But the passionate and creative genius that is the nearest link to divinity, and which no human tyranny can destroy, though it can divert it; that should have stirred the hearts of nations by its inspired sympathy, or governed senates by its burning eloquence, has found a medium for its expression, to which, in spite of your prejudices and your evil passions, you have been obliged to bow.

the im

The ear, the voice, the fancy teeming with combinations, agination fervent with picture and emotion, that came from Caucasus, and which we have preserved unpolluted, — have endowed us with almost the exclusive privilege of music; that science of harmonious sounds which the ancients recognized as most divine, and deified in the person of their most beautiful creation. I speak not of the past; though were I to enter into the history of the lords of melody, you would find it the annals of Hebrew genius. But at this moment, even, musical Europe is ours. There is not a company of singers, not an orchestra in a single capital, that are not crowded with our children, under the feigned names which they adopt to conciliate the dark aversion which your posterity will some day disclaim with shame and

* MAIMONIDES. A Jewish Rabbi and philosopher of great celebrity, born in Spain about 1135. He acquired a great reputation for sagacity and learning.

+ SPINOZA. A celebrated pantheistical philosopher born of Jewish parents in Holland, in 1632. At an early age he announced opinions which were considered heretical and for which he was excommunicated by the Jews. He passed his life as a solitary recluse, his character being, according to an eminent writer, "one of the most devout on record, for his life was, in a manner, one unbroken hymn." See Froude's Short Studies on Great Subjects.