XLI.-UNION AND LIBERTY.

FIRST VOICE.

FA

VLAG of the heroes who left us their glory,

Borne through our battle-fields' thunder and flame, Blazoned in song and illumined in story,

Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame!

ALL.

Up with our banner bright,

Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore;

While through the sounding sky,

Loud rings the nation's cry,— Union and Liberty !-one evermore!

SECOND VOICE.

Light of our firmament, guide of our nation,

Pride of her children, and honored afar, Let the wide beams of thy full constellation

Scatter each cloud that would darken a star!

THIRD VOICE.

Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee,

Bearing the standard of Liberty's van?
Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee,

Striving with men for the birthright of man!

FOURTH VOICE.
Yet, if by madness and treachery blighted,

Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, Then, with the arms of thy millions united,

Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law!

ALL.

Lord of the Universe! shield us and guide us,

Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun! Thou hast united us, who shall divide us ?

Keep 118, O keep us, the Many in One!

Up with our banner bright,

Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore;

While through the sounding sky,

Loud rings the nation's cry, -
Union and Liberty !-one evermore!

0. W. HOLMES.

XLII.-SYMPATHY WITH THE GREEK'S.

A

ND has it come to this? Are we so humbled, so low,

so debased, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Greece,—that we dare not articulate our detestation of the brutal excesses of which she has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend some one or more of their imperial and royal majesties? If gentlemen are afraid to act rashly on such a subject, suppose, Mr. Chairman, that we unite in an humble petition, addressed to their majesties, beseeching them, that of their gracious condescension, they would allow us to express our feelings and our sympathies.

2. How shall it run? “We, the representatives of the FREE people of the United States of America, humbly approach the thrones of your imperial and royal majesties, and supplicate that, of your imperial and royal clemency,”'

-I cannot go through the disgusting recital! My lips have not yet learned to pronounce the sycophantic language of a degraded slave!

3. Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven ? at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils ?

4. If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly whilst all this is perpetrated on a Christian

people, in its own immediate vicinity, in its very presence let us at least evince that one of its remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to Christian wrongs, and capable of sympathy for Christian sufferings; that in this remote quarter of the world there are hearts not yet closed against compassion for human woes, that can pour out their indignant feelings at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and every modern tie.

5. Sir, an attempt has been made to alarm the committee by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediterranean; and a wretched invoice of figs and opium has been spread before us to repress our sensibilities and to eradicate our humanity. Ah! sir, “what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ?”- or what shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade, and lose its liberties ?

HENRY CLAY.

Through all the long midsummer day
The meadow-sides are sweet with hay.
I seek the coolest sheltered seat,
Just where the field and forest meet,-
Where grow the pine-trees tall and bland,
The ancient oaks austere and grand,
And fringy roots and pebbles fret
The ripples of the rivulet.

III.

I watch the mowers, as they go
Through the tall grass, a white-sleeved row.
With even stroke their scythes they swing,
In tune their merry whetstones ring.
Behind, the nimble youngsters run,
And toss the thick swaths in the sun.
The cattle graze, while, warm and still,
Slopes the broad pasture, basks the hill,
And bright, where summer breezes break,
The green wheat crinkles like a lake.

IV.

The butterfly and humble-bee
Come to the easant woods with me;
Quickly before me runs the quail,
Her chickens skulk behind the rail;
High up the lone wood-pigeon sits,
And the woodpecker pecks and flits,
Sweet woodland music sinks and swells,
The brooklet rings its tinkling bells,
The swarming insects drone and hum,
The partridge beats his throbbing drum.
The squirrel leaps among the boughs,
And chatters in his leafy house,
The oriole flashes by; and, look !
Into the mirror of the brook,
Where the vain bluebird trims his coat,
Two tiny feathers fall and float.

V.

As silently, as tenderly,
The down of peace descends co me.
O, this is peace! I have no need
Of friend to talk, of book to read :
A dear Companion here abides ;
Close to my thrilling heart He hides;
The holy silence is His voice:
I lie and listen, and rejoice.

J. T. TROWBRIDGE. XLIV.-CHARACTER OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

THE

THE advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other

malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues ? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues ?

2. And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood !

3. We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers

at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.

4. For ourselves, we own that we do not understand the common phrase, a good man, but a bad king. We can as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or å good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in estimating the character of an individual, leave out of our consideration his conduct in the most important of all