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The following inscription was found in the Catacombs upon the tomb of the Architect of the Coliseum:

Thus thou keepest thy promises, O Vespasian! the rewarding with death of him, the crown of thy glory in Rome. Do rejoice, Gaudentis! the cruel tyrant promised much, but Christ gave thee all, who prepared thee such a mansion.

EFORE Vespasian's regal throne

Skilful Gaudentis stood;

"Build me," the haughty monarch cried,

"A theatre for blood.

I know thou'rt skilled in mason's work,
Thine is the power to frame
Rome's Coliseum vast and wide,
An honor to thy name.

"Over seven acres spread thy work,

And by the gods of Rome,
Thou shalt hereafter by my side

Have thy resplendent home.

A citizen of Roman rights,

Silver and golden store,

These shall be thine; let Christian blood
But stain the marble floor."

So rose the Amphitheatre,

Tower and arch and tier;

There dawned a day when martyrs stood Within that ring of fear.

But strong their quenchless trust in God, And strong their human love,

Their eyes of faith, undimmed, were fixed On temples far above.

And thousands gazed, in brutal joy,

To watch those Christians die-But one beside Vespasian leaned, With a strange light in his eye.

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What thoughts welled up within his breast

As on that group he gazed,

What gleams of holy light from heaven,

Upon his dark soul blazed!

Had he by password gained access
To the dark Catacomb,

And learned the hope of Christ's beloved,
Beyond the rack, the tomb?

The proud Vespasian o'er him bends,
"My priceless architect,
To-day I will announce to all

Thy privilege elect

A free-made citizen of Rome."
Calmly Gaudentis rose,
And folding, o'er his breast, his arms,
Turned to the Saviour's foes;
And in a strength not all his own,
With life and death in view,
The fearless architect exclaimed,
"I am a Christian too."

Only a few brief moments passed,
And brave Gaudentis lay

Within the Amphitheatre,
A lifeless mass of clay.

Vespasian promised him the rights
Of proud Imperial Rome;

But Christ with martyrs crowned him king,
Beneath heaven's cloudless dome.

THE BATTLE OF IVRY.

OW glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom ali
glories are!

And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King
Henry of Navarre!

Now let there be the merry sound of music and the dance,

Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vales, O pleasant land of France!

And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of

the waters,

Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters;

As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy, For cold and stiff and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.

Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war.

Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry and King Henry of Navarre !

Oh, now our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day,

We saw the army of the League drawn out in long ar

ray;

With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers, And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish

spears!

There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our | And then we thought on vengence, and all along our land! van,

And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in "Remember St. Bartholomew !" was passed from man his hand;

to man;

And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's em- But out spake gentle Henry, then-" No Frenchman is purpled flood,

my foe;

And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his Down, down with every foreigner! but let your breth blood; ren go."

And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate Oh, was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in of war, war,

To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre. As our sovereign lord, King Henry, the soldier of Nə

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A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,

A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snowwhite crest.

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding star,

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Na

varre.

Now, God be praised, the day is ours! Mayenne hath

turned his rein,

D'Aumale hath cried for quarter--the Flemish Count is slain;

Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale;

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History and poetry celebrate no sublimer act of devotion than that of Albert G. Drecker, the watchman of the Passaic River

draw-bridge, on the New York and Newark Railroad. The train was due, and he was closing the draw when his little child fell into the deep water. It would have been easy enough to rescue him, if the father could have taken the time, bu. aiready the thundering train was at hand. It was a cruel agony. His child could be saved only at the cost of other lives committed to his

care. The brave man did his duty, but the child was drowned.

The pass at Thermopyla was not more heroically kept. RECKER, the draw-bridge keeper opened wide

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The dangerous gate to let the vessel
through;

His little son was standing by his side,
Above Passaic river, deep and blue ;
While in the distance, like a moan of pain,
Was heard the whistle of the coming train.
At once brave Drecker worked to swing it back—
The gate-like bridge, that seems a gate of death;
Nearer and nearer, on the slender track,

Came the swift engine, puffing its white breath.
Then, with a shriek, the loving father saw
His darling boy fall headlong from the draw.

The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and Either at once down in the stream to spring

cloven mail

And save his son, and let the living freight

Rush on to death, or to his work to cling,

And leave his boy unhelped to meet his fate; Which should he do? Were you, as he was tried, Would not your love outweight all else beside?

And yet the child to him was full as dear

As yours may be to you-the light of eyes, A presence like a brighter atmosphere,

The household star that shone in love's mild skies

Yet side by side with duty, stern and grim,
Even his child became as nought to him.

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My last sight upon earth may be
To see that ensign fly!"
Meanwhile the shapeless iron mass
Came moving o'er the wave,
As gloomy as a passing hearse,
As silent as the grave.

Her ports were closed; from stem to stern
No sign of life appeared:

We wondered, questioned, strained our eyes,
Joked every thing, but feared.

She reached our range. Our broadside rang;
Our heavy pivots roared;

And shot and shell, a fire of hell,
Against her side we poured.

God's mercy! from her sloping roof
The iron tempest glanced,

As hail bounds from a cottage-thatch,
And round her leaped and danced;

Or when against her dusky hull
We struck a fair, full blow,
The mighty, solid iron globes
Were crumbled up like snow.

On, on, with fast increasing speed,
The silent monster came,
Though all our starboard battery
Was one long line of flame.

She heeded not; no guns she fired;
Straight on our bows she bore;
Through riving plank and crashing frame
Her furious way she tore.

Alas! our beautiful, keen bow,
That in the fiercest blast
So gently folded back the seas,
They hardly felt we passed.

Alas! alas! my Cumberland,

That ne'er knew grief before, To be so gored, to feel so deep The tusk of that sea-ooar:

Once more she backward drew apace;
Once more our side she rent,
Then, in the wantonness of hate,
Her broadside through us sent.

The dead and dying round us lay,
But our foemen lay abeam;
Her open port-holes maddened us,
We fired with shout and scream.

We felt our vessel settling fast;

We knew our time was brief: "Ho! man the pumps !" But they who worked And fought not, wept with grief.

From captain down to powder-boy,

No hand was idle then :

Two soldiers, but by chance aboard,
Fought on like sailor men.

And when a gun's crew lost a hand,
Some bold marine stepped out,
And jerked his braided jacket off,
And hauled the gun about.

Our forward magazine was drowned,

And up from the sick-bay

Crawled out the wounded, red with blood,

And round us gasping lay;—

Yes, cheering, calling us by name,

Struggling with failing breath
To keep their shipmates at the post
Where glory strove with death.

With decks afloat and powder gone,
The last broadside we gave
From the guns' heated iron lips
Burst out beneath the wave.

So sponges, rammers, and handspikes—
As men-of-war's men should-
We placed within their proper racks,
And at our quarters stood.

* Up to the spar deck! save yourselves!"
Cried Selfridge. "Up, my men!
God grant that some of us may live
To fight yon ship again!”

We turned: we did not like to go;
Yet staying seemed but vain,
Knee-deep in water; so we left;

Some swore, some groaned with pain.

We reached the deck. There Randall stood:
"Another turn, men-so!"
Calmly he aimed his pivot gun:
"Now, Tenny, let her go!"

It did our sore hearts good to hear
The song our pivot sang,
As rushing on from wave to wave
The whirring bomb-shell sprang.

Brave Randall leaped upon the gun,
And waved his cap in sport;

"Well done! well aimed! I saw that shell
Go through an open port!"

It was our last, our deadliest shot;
The deck was overflown;

The poor ship staggered, lurched to port,
And gave a living groan.

Down, down, as headlong through the waves
Our gallant vessel rushed;

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'HE breeze had been fresh all day, with more sea than usual, and they had made great progress. At sunset they had stood again to the west, and were ploughing the waves at a rapid rate, the Pinta keeping the head, from her su perior sailing. The greatest animation prevailed throughout the ships: not an eye was closed that night. As the evening darkened, Columbus took his station on the top of the castle or cabin on a high poop of his vessel, ranging his eye along the dusky horizon, and maintaining an intense and unremitting watch. About ten o'clock, he thought he beheld a light glimmering at a great distance. Fearing his eager hopes might deceive him, he called to Pedro Gutierrez, gentleman of the king's bedchamber, and inquired whether he saw such a light; the latter replied in the affirmative. Doubtful whether it might not yet be some delusion of the fancy, Columbus called Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, and made the same inquiry. By the time the latter had ascended the round-house, the light had disappeared. They saw it once or twice afterwards in sudden and passing

gleams, as if it were a torch in the bark of a fisher man, rising and sinking with the waves, or in the hand of some person on shore, borne up and down as he walked from house to house. So transient and uncertain were these gleams, that few attached any importance to them; Columbus, however, considered them as certain signs of land, and, moreover, that the land was inhabited.

They continued their course until in the morning. when a gun from the Pinta gave the joyful signal of land. It was first descried by a mariner named Rodrigo de Triana; but the reward was afterwards adjudged to the admiral for having previously perceived the light. The land was now clearly seen about two leagues distant; whereupon they took in sail, and lay to, waiting impatiently for the dawn.

The thoughts and feelings of Columbus in this little space of time must have been tumultuous and intense. At length, in spite of every difficulty and danger, he had accomplished his object. The great mystery of the ocean was revealed; his theory, which had been the scoff of sages, was triumphantly established; he had secured to himself a glory durable as

the world itself.

It is difficult to conceive the feelings of such a man at such a moment, or the conjectures which must have thronged upon his mind, as to the land before him, covered with darkness. That it was fruitful was evident from the vegetables which floated from its shores. He thought, too, that he perceived the fragrance of aromatic groves. The moving light he had beheld proved it the residence of man. But what were its inhabitants? Were they like those of the other parts of the globe; or were they some strange and monstrous race, such as the imagination was prone in those times to give to all remote and unknown regions? Had he come upon some wild island far in the Indian Sea; or was this the famed Cipango itself, the object of his golden fancies? A thousand speculations of the kind must have swarmed upon him, as, with his anxious crews, he waited for the night to pass away, wondering whether the morning light would reveal a savage wilderness, or dawn upon spicy groves, and glittering fanes, and gilded cities, and all the plendor of oriental civilization.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

THE GREAT DISCOVERY.

TEER on, bold sailor; wit may mock thy soul that sees the land,

And hopeless, at the helm, may droop the weak and weary hand;

Yea, trust the guiding God, and go along the floating graves;

Though hid till now, yet now behold the new world o'er the seas!

With genius, nature stands in solemn union still,
And ever what the one foretells, the other shall ful
fill.
FREDERIC SCHILLER,

UR

SHERIDAN'S RIDE.

P from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good, broad highway leading down;
And there through the flush of the morning light.
A steed as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight.
As if he knew the terrible need,
He stretched away with his utmost speed ;
Hills rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering south,
The dust, like smoke from he cannon's mouth;
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed, and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,

Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind,
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire.
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire;
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

Yet ever, ever to the west, for there the coast must The first that the General saw were the groups lie, Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops; And dim it dawns, and glimmery dawns, before thy What was done-what to do-a glance told him both, reason's eye;

And striking his spurs, with a terrible oath,

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