a voice which I took to be that of a child which complained it could not get out. I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, nor child, I went out. In my return I heard the same words repeated twice over, and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage. "I can't get out—I can't get out," said the starling. I stood looking at the bird. "God help thee!" said I; but I'll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turned the cage to get the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis pressed his breast against it as if impatient. "I fear, poor creature," said I, "I cannot set thee at liberty." "No," said the starling, "I can't get out—I can't get out!" Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to Nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastille, and I heavily walked up stairs unsaying every word I had said in going down them. 66 Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery," said I, "thou art a bitter draught, and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. 'Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, Liberty, whom all, in public and in private, worship, whose taste is grateful and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change!" THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. TADDEO GADDI built me. I am old; Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown Were driven from Florence; longer still ago MELROSE BY MOONLIGHT. WALTER SCOTT. If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, When the broken arches are black in night, And each shafted oriel glimmers white; When buttress and buttress, alternately, When silver edges the imagery, And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave; Then go but go alone the while Then view St. David's ruined pile; ON THE PICTURE OF THE LAST SUPPER, AT MILAN. WILLIAM W. STORY. EXTRACTS. Padre Bandelli to the Duke Ludovico Sforza about Leonardo da Vinci. Two steps, your Highness,-let me go before, To the main entrance here so jealously, The work shows talent,-that I must confess; I fear his picture never will be done. 'Tis twenty months since first upon the wall This Leonardo smoothed his plaster, then He spent two months ere he began to scrawl So he went on, month after month the same. A word from your most gracious lips, I feel, Leonardo da Vinci addresses the Duke in his own defence. And say if 'tis an easy task to find, Even among the best that walk this earth, A life's slow growth; and we for many an hour Therefore I wait. Within my earnest thought |