direct the crew to the spot. The signals were not misunderstood by Maxwell, whose feet were already roasted on the deck.

The fierce fire still kept the engine in furious action, impelling the vessel onward; but this could not have lasted above another minute, and during the interval he run her into the open space, and alongside a 'ledge of rocks, upon which every creature got safe on shore all unscathed, except the self-devoted one, to whom all owed their lives. Had he flinched for a minute, they must all have perished.

"ANONYMOUS.

XXIV. THE STORM PAINTER IN HIS DUNGEON.

MIDNIGHT and silence deep!
The air is filled with sleep,

With the stream's whisper, and the citron's breath;
The fixed and solemn stars

Gleam through my dungeon bars

Wake, rushing winds! this breezeless calm is death!

Ye watch-fires of the skies!
The stillness of your eyes

Looks too intensely through my troubled soul;
I feel this weight of rest

An earth-load on my breast

Wake, rushing winds, awake! and dark clouds roll!

I am your own, your child,
O ye, the fierce, the wild,

And kingly tempests !-will ye not arise?

Hear the loved spirit's voice

That knows not to rejoice

But in the peal of your strong harmonies.

By sounding ocean-waves,

And dim Calabrian caves,

And flashing torrents, I have been your mate;
And with the rocking pines

Of the olden Apennines,

In your dark path stood fearless and elate.

Your lightnings were as rods,

That smote the deep abodes

Of thought and vision—and the stream gushed free;

Come, that my soul again

May swell to burst its chain-
Bring me the music of the sweeping sea!

Within me dwells a flame,

An eagle caged and tame,

Till called forth by the harping of the blast;
Then is its triumph's hour,

It springs to sudden power

As mounts the billow o'er the quivering mast,

Then, then, the canvas o'er,
With hurried hand I pour

The lava-waves and gusts of my own soul!
Kindling to fiery life

Dreams, worlds of pictured strife—

Wake, rushing winds, awake! and dark clouds roll!

Wake, rise! the reed may bend,
The shivering leaf descend,

The forest branch give way before your might;

But I, your strong compeer,

Call, summon, wait you here—

Answer, my spirit!-answer, storm and night!

MRS. FELICIA D. "HEMANS.

XXV. THE GLACIERS.

"So pleased at first, the towering Alps we try,
Mount o'er the vales, and seem to tread the sky,

The eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last:

But those attained, we tremble to survey

The growing labors of the lengthened way:

The increasing prospect tires our wondering eyes.

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise."-POPE.

Ir was reserved for this age of enterprise to disclose the secret wonders of the Superior Alps. The enormous ridges clothed with a depth of perpetual snow, often crowned with sharp obelisks of granite, styled by the Swiss, horns, or needles; the dreadful chasms of some thousand feet in perpendicular height, over which the däuntless traveler sometimes stands on a shelf of frozen snow; the glaciers, or seas of ice, sometimes exceeding thirty or forty miles in length; the sacred silence of the scenes before unvisited, except by the 'chamois or goat of the rock; the clouds, and sometimes the thunderstorm, passing at a great distance below; the extensive prospects

which reduce kingdoms as it were to a mass; the pure elasticity of the air, exciting a kind of incorpo real sensation, are all novelties in the history of human adventure.

To enumerate the natural curiosities of Switzerland would be to Cescribe the country. The Alps, the glaciers, the vast precipices, the descending torrents, the sources of the rivers, the beautiful lakes and 'cataracts, are all natural curiosities of the greatest singularity and most sublime description.

Of late the glaciers have attracted peculiar attention; but those seas of ice intersected with numerous deep °fissures, owing to sudden cracks which resound like thunder, must yield in sublimity to the stupendous summits clothed with ice and snow, the latter often descending in what are called avalanches, or prodigious masses, which, gathering as they slide, sometimes overwhelm travelers, and even villages. Nay, the mountains themselves will sometimes burst, and overwhelm whole towns; as happened in the memorable instance of Pleurs, near Chiaocuna, in which thousands perished, and not a vestige of a building was left; nor are recent instances, though less tremendous, wholly unknown.

. The vast reservoirs of ice and snow give birth to many important rivers, whose sources deeply interest curiosity. As an example, the account which Bourrit gives of that of the Rhone may be selected :-. "At length we perceived through the trees a mountain of ice, as splendid as the sun, and flashing a similar light on the environs. This first aspect of the glaciers of the Rhone inspired us with great expectation: a moment afterwards, this enormous mass of ice having disappeared behind thick pines, it soon after met our sight between two vast blocks of rock, which formed a kind of portico. Surprised at the magnificence of this spectacle, and at its admirable contrasts, we beheld it with rapture. At length we reached this beautiful portico, beyond which we were to discover all the glaciers. We arrived. At this sight one would suppose one's self in another world, so much is the imagination impressed with the nature and immensity of the objects.

"To form an idea of this superb spectacle, figure in your mind a scaffolding of transparent ice, filling a space of two miles, rising to the clouds, and darting flashes of light like the sun: nor were the several parts less magnificent and surprising. One might see, as it were, the streets and buildings of a city, erected in the form of an amphitheatre, and embellished with pieces of water, cascades and torrents. The effects were as prodigious as the immensity and the height; the most beautiful azure, the most splendid white, the regular appearance of a thousand pyramids of ice, are more easy to be imagined than described.

"Such is the aspect of the glacier of the Rhone, reared by nature

on a plan which she alone can execute: we admire the majestic course of a river without suspecting that that which gives it birth and maintains its waters may be still more majestic and magnificent.” ANONYMOUS.

XXVI.-ABSALOM'S DREAM.

According to Josephus, the sepulchres of the kings of Israel were filled with immense treasures. The riches left by David are said to have exceeded £800,000,000 Osterling.

METHOUGHT I stood again, at dead of night,

In that rich sepulchre, viewing, alone,
The wonders of the place. My wondering eyes
Rested upon the costly sarcophage

Reared in the midst. I saw therein a form
Like David; not as he appears, but young
And ruddy. In his lovely tinctured cheek,
The vermeil blood looked pure and fresh as life
In gentle slumber. On his blooming brow
Was bound the diadem.

But, while I gazed,

The phantasm vanished, and my father lay there,
As he is now, his head and beard in silver,
Sealed with the pale fixed impress of the tomb.
I knelt and wept. But, when I thought to kiss
My tears from off his reverend cheek, a voice
Cried, "Impious! hold!"—

And suddenly there stood

A dreadful and refulgent form before me,

Bearing the Tables of the Law.

It spake not, moved not, but still sternly pointed
To one command, which shone so fiercely bright,
It seared mine eyeballs.

Presently I seemed

Transported to the desolate wild shore

Of Asphaltites, night, and storm, and fire,
Astounding me with horror. All alone

I wandered; but where'er I turned my eyes,

On the bleak rocks, or pitchy clouds, or closed them,
Flamed that command.

Then suddenly I sunk down, down, methought,
Ten thousand thousand cubits, to a wide
And traveled way, walled to the firmament
On either side, and filled with hurrying nations;
Hurrying they seemed, or hurried by some spell,
Toward a portentous adamantine gate,
Towering before us to the empyrean.

Beside it Abraham sat, in reverend years
And gracious majesty, snatching his "Seed
From its devouring jaws. When I approached,
He groaned forth, "Parricide!" and stretched no aid
To me alone of all his children.

Then,

What flames, what howling fiery billows caught me,

Like the red ocean of consuming cities,

And shapes most horrid; all, methought, in crowns
Scorching as molten brass, and every eye
Bloodshot with agony, yet none had power

To tear them off. With frantic yells of joy,

They crowned me too, and with the pang, I woke.

JAMES A. HILLHOUSE.

XXVII.—SUN, STAND THOU STILL.

SUN, stand thou still! How often is this the prayer of the heart! Oh, why, think some, should rising and setting suns bear me so rapidly out of my youth! so soon take away my pleasures! so soon take away my beauty and my strength! Why do days so pass into weeks, and weeks into years, and years, not creep but fly, until we tremble as we count them! Why is time so inexorably rapid, and so cruel in his rapidity! Why take bloom from the cheek, and 'buoyancy from the step! Why so freeze the blood, and why so bleach the hair! O sun, stand thou still, and let not my life, and all that is fresh and ardent about my life, and in it, be carried off before I have enjoyed them-almost before I have felt them!

O sun, stand thou still! desires another, that I may "pull down my barns and build greater; that I may have wherein to bestow my fruits and my goods; that I may say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years to come; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." O sun, stand thou still, lengthen out the day of toil, that my hirelings and my slaves may work the longer, and that I may grow rich the more abundantly!

9