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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.

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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;
Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone
Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own
Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold
Beneath me, as it struggles, I behold

Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown
My kindred and companions. Me alone
It moveth not, but is by me controlled.
I can remember when the Medici

Were driven from Florence; longer still ago
The final wars of Ghibeline and Guelph.
Florence adorns me with her jewelry;
And when I think that Michael Angelo
Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.

MELROSE BY MOONLIGHT.

WALTER SCOTT.

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.

When the broken arches are black in night,

And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;

When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seemed framed of ebon and ivory;

When silver edges the imagery,

And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,

And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave;

Then go but go alone the while

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Then view St. David's ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear
Was never scene so sad and fair!

ON THE PICTURE OF THE LAST SUPPER, AT MILAN.

WILLIAM W. STORY. EXTRACTS.

Padre Bandelli to the Duke Ludovico Sforza about Leonardo da Vinci.

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Two steps, your Highness,-let me go before,
And let some light down this dark corridor,
Ser Leonardo keeps the only key

To the main entrance here so jealously,
That we must creep in at this secret door
If we his great Cenacolo would see.

The work shows talent,-that I must confess;
The heads, too, are expressive, every one;
But, with his idling and fastidiousness,

I fear his picture never will be done.

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'Tis twenty months since first upon the wall This Leonardo smoothed his plaster,

then

He spent two months ere he began to scrawl
His figures, which were scarcely outlined, when
Some new fit seized him, and he spoilt them all.
As he began the first month that he came,

So he went on, month after month the same.
At times, when he had worked from morn to night
For weeks and weeks on some apostle's head,
In one hour, as it were from sudden spite,
He'd wipe it out.

A word from your most gracious lips, I feel,
Would greatly quicken Ser Leonardo's zeal,
And we should soon see o'er our daily board,
The Judas finished, and our blessed Lord.

Leonardo da Vinci addresses the Duke in his own defence.
Padre Bandelli, then, complains of me
Because, forsooth, I have not drawn a line
Upon the Saviour's head; perhaps, then, he
Could without trouble paint that head divine.
But think, O Signor Duca, what should be
The pure perfection of our Saviour's face,-
What sorrowing majesty, what noble grace,
At that dread moment when he brake the bread,
And those submissive words of pathos said,
"By one among you I shall be betrayed,"

And

say if 'tis an easy task to find,

Even among the best that walk this earth,
The fitting type of that divinest worth,
That has its image solely in the mind.
Vainly my pencil struggles to express
The sorrowing grandeur of such holiness.
In patient thought, in ever-seeking prayer,
I strive to shape that glorious face within,
But the soul's mirror, dulled and dimmed by sin,
Reflects not yet the perfect image there.
Can the hand do before the soul has wrought?
Is not our art the servant of our thought?
In facile natures fancies quickly grow,
But such quick fancies have but little root.
Soon the narcissus flowers and dies, but slow
The tree whose blossoms shall mature to fruit.
Grace is a moment's happy feeling, Power

A life's slow growth; and we for many an hour
Must strain and toil, and wait and weep, if we
The perfect fruit of all we are would see.

Therefore I wait. Within my earnest thought
For years upon this picture I have wrought,
Yet still it is not ripe; I dare not paint
Till all is ordered and matured within.
Hand-work and head-work have an earthly taint;
But when the soul commands I shall begin.

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