More pangs and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.

Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries: but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of—say, I taught thee,
Say, Wolsey-that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor-
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition :
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee:
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell! Thou fall'st a blesséd martyr.

Serve the king: and—

Pr'ythee, lead me in:

There! take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe,
And my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, He would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies!

197. THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.

CHARLES LAMB.

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Talking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her,-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate I left my friend abruptly;
Left him to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced around the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,

Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces.

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

198.-WHO STOLE THE BIRD'S NEST?

LYDIA MARIA CHILD.

Te-whit! te-whit! te-whee! Will you listen to me? Who stole four eggs I laid, and the nice nest I made? "Not I," said the cow, "moo-oo!

Such a thing I'd never do.

I gave for you a wisp of hay,

And did not take your nest away.
Not I," said the cow, "moo-oo!
Such a thing I'd never do."

Te-whit! te-whit! te-whee! Will you listen to me?
Who stole four eggs I laid, and the nice nest I made?
Bob-o-link! bob-o-link! Now, what do you think?
Who stole a nest away from the plum tree, to-day?
"Not I," said the dog, "bow-wow!

I wouldn't be so mean as that, now!
I gave hairs the nest to make,

But the nest I did not take.

Not I," said the dog, "bow-wow!

I wouldn't be so mean as that, now!"

Te-whit! te-whit! te-whee! Will you listen to me? Who stole four eggs I laid, and the nice nest I made? Bob-o-link! bob-o-link! Now, what do you think? Who stole a nest away from the plum-tree, to-day? "Coo-coo! coo-coo! coo-coo! Let me speak a word, too: Who stole that pretty nest from little yellow-breast?” "Not I," said the sheep, "oh, no!

I wouldn't treat a poor bird so;
I gave wool the nest to line,

But the nest was none of mine.

Baa! baa!" said the sheep, "oh, no!
I wouldn't treat a poor bird so."

Te-whit! te-whit! te-whee! Will you listen to me?
Who stole four eggs I laid, and the nice nest I made?
Bob-o-link! bob-o-link! now, what do you think?
Who stole a nest away from the plum tree to-day?
"Coo-coo! coo-coo! coo-coo! Let me speak a word, too:
Who stole that pretty nest from little yellow-breast?"
"Caw! caw!" cried the crow, "I should like to know
What thief took away a bird's nest to-day?"

"Cluck! cluck! cluck!" said the hen; "don't ask me again;
Why, I haven't a chick would do such a trick;

We all gave her a feather, and she wove them together;
I'd scorn to intrude on her and her brood.

Cluck! cluck!" said the hen; "don't ask me again."

"Chirr-a-whirr! chirr-a-whirr! We'll make a great stir!
Let us find out his name, and all cry: For shame!"
"I would not rob a bird," said little Mary Green:
"I think I never heard of anything so mean.'
"'Tis very cruel, too," said little Alice Neal :

"I wonder if he knew how sad the bird would feel?"

A little boy hung down his head,

And went and hid behind the bed,
For he stole that pretty nest
From poor little yellow-breast;
And he felt so full of shame,

He didn't like to tell his name.

199.-SELECT PASSAGES IN PROSE.

OUR NATIONAL BANNER.

All hail to our glorious ensign! courage to the heart and strength to the hand, to which, in all time, it shall be entrusted! May it ever wave first in honor, in unsullied glory and patriotic hope, on the dome of the Capitol, on the country's stronghold, on the intented plain, on the wave-rocked topmast. Wheresoever, on the earth's surface, the eye of the American shall behold it, may he have reason to bless it! On whatsoever spot it is planted, there may freedom have a foothold, humanity a brave champion, and religion an altar. Though stained with blood in a righteous cause, may it never, in any cause, be stained with shame. Alike, when its gorgeous folds shall wanton in lazy holiday triumphs on the summer breeze, and its tattered fragments be dimly seen through the clouds of war, may it be the joy and pride of the Ameri

can heart. First raised in the cause of right and liberty, in that cause alone may it forever spread out its streaming blazonry to the battle and the storm. Having been borne victoriously across a mighty continent, and floating in triumph on every sea, may virtue, and freedom, and peace, forever follow where it leads the way!

AGE OF PROGRESS.

Everett.

The age of chivalry has gone. An age of humanity has come. The horse, whose importance, more than human, gave the name to that early period of gallantry and war, now yields his foremost place to man. In serving him, in promoting his elevation, in contributing to his welfare, in doing him good, there are fields of bloodless triumph, nobler far than any in which the bravest knight ever conquered. Here are spaces of labor, wide as the world, lofty as heaven. Let me say, then, in the benison once bestowed upon the youthful knight,—Scholars, jurists, artists, philanthropists, heroes of a Christian age, companions of a celestial knighthood, "Go forth. Be brave, loyal, and successful!'' And may it be our office to light a fresh beacon-fire sacred to truth! Let the flame spread from hill to hill, from island to island, from continent to continent, till the long lineage of fires shall illumine all the nations of the earth, animating them to the holy contests of Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Love.

AN OLD HEMLOCK.

Sumner.

I have something more to say about trees; and I have brought down this slice of hemlock to show you. Tree blown down in the year 1852. Twelve feet and a half round, fair girth ;-nine feet, where I got my section, higher up. This is a wedge, going to the centre, of the general shape of a slice of apple-pie in a large and not opulent family. Length, about eighteen inches. I have studied the growth of this tree by its rings, and it is curious. Three hundred and forty-two rings. Started, therefore, about A. D. 1510. The thickness of the rings tells the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate was slow,—then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550 it began to grow very slowly, and so continued for about seventy years. In 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714; then for the most part slowly until 1786, when it started again and grew pretty well and uniformly until within the last dozen years, when it seems to have got on sluggishly. Look here! Here are some human lives laid down against the periods of its growth, to which

they corresponded. This is Shakspeare's. The tree was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches when he died. A little less than ten inches when Milton was born; seventeen when he died. Then comes a long interval, and this thread marks out Johnson's life, during which the tree increased from twenty-two to twenty-nine inches in diameter. Here is the span of Napoleon's career ;-the tree doesn't seem to have minded it. I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this section. I have seen many silent preachers, never one like this. How much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings of one of those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on earth, and where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the stolid apathy of vegetable being, which remembers all human history as a thing of yesterday in its own dateless existence !

EACH AND ALL.

Holmes.

That man is not perfect who is so in and for himself alone. An essential part of true manhood is in the relationships that he sustains to other beings, in the midst of whom and with reference to whom his life is lived.

nor strong, for himself alone.

Man is not great, nor rich,

He is not, then, to make these the occasions for lording it over his fellows. The poor, the ignorant, the low, are not stepping-stones, nor lawful plunder; they are brothers to be respected and helped. He must use the advantage of his high position as a means of lifting up those beneath him. He is bound to help the weak by as much as he is stronger than they. His debt to all men is limited only by his superiority to them. Paul saw the law, when he wrote, "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise."

DEFINITE TRAINING.

Savage.

I know well the common censure by which objections to the various futilities of so-called education are met by the men who have been ruined by them,—the common plea that anything does to "exercise the mind upon." It is an utterly false one. The human soul, in youth, is not a machine of which you can polish the cogs with any kelp or brick-dust near at hand; and, having got it into working order, and good, empty, oiled serviceableness, start your immortal locomotive, at twenty-five years old or at thirty, express for the Strait Gate, on the Narrow Road. The whole period of youth is one essentially of formation, edification, instruction. I use the words with their weight in them; intaking of stores, establishment in vital