For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the powers of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves, by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring, on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have beer. answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

The Burial of Moses.

"And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no mar knoweth of his sepulcher to this day."-Deut. XXXIV: 6.

By Nebo's lonely mountain,

On this side Jordan's wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave;
But no man dug that sepulcher,
And no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod,

And laid the dead man there

That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the tramping,
Or saw the train go forth;
Noiselessly as the day-light

Comes when the night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun,—

Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves, -
So, without sound of music

Or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain crown
The great procession swept.

Perchance the bald old eagle,

On grey Beth-peor's height, Out of his rocky eyrie,

Looked on the wondrous sight; Perchance the lion, stalking,

Still shuns the hallowed spot:

For beast and bird have seen and heard That which man knoweth not.

Lo when the warrior dieth,

His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed and muffled drum, Follow the funeral car.

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,

While peals the minute gun.

Amid the noblest of the land

Men lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place,

With costly marble dressed,

In the great minster transept,
Where lights like glories fall,

And the choir sings and the organ rings
Along the emblazoned wall.

This was the bravest warrior

That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced, with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honor?
The hill side for his pall;
To lie in state while angels wait
With stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave;

And God's own hand in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave,

In that deep grave, without a name,

Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again—O wondrous thought! –

Before the judgment day,

And stand with glory wrapped around

On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life
With the incarnate Son of God.

O lonely tomb in Moab's land,
O dark Beth-peor's hill,

Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.

God hath his mysteries of grace,

Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep

Of him he loved so well.

Mrs. Alexander.

The Dying Christian to his Soul.
Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, O quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
"Sister spirit, come away!"
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?

The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring;

Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!

O Grave! where is thy victory?

O Death! where is thy sting?

Alexander Pope

From the Honeymoon.

Duke. You are welcome home.

Jul. Home! You are merry; this retired spot

Would be a palace for an owl!

Duke. 'Tis ours.

Jul. Ay, for the time we stay in it.

Duke. By Heaven,

This is the noble mansion that I spoke of!

Jul. This! You are not in earnest, though you bear it

With such a sober brow. - Come, come, you jest.

Duke. Indeed I jest not; were it ours in jest,

We should have none, wife.

Jul. Are you serious, sir?

Duke. I swear, as I'm your husband, and no duke.
Jul. No duke?