the people of the north. This wall reached from the Euxine to the Caspian Sea.

1. With awful walls, far-glooming, that possess'd

The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian fountains, Doolkarnein, the dread Lord of East and West,

Shut up the northern nations in their mountains; And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew, Trumpets he set, huge beyond dreams of wonder, Craftily purpos'd, when his arms withdrew,

To make him thought still hous'd there, like the
thunder;

And it so fell; for when the winds blew right,
They woke the trumpets to their calls of might.

2. Unseen, but heard, their calls the trumpets blew, Ringing the granite rocks, their only hearers, Till the long fear into religion grew,

And never more those heights had human darers. Dreadful Doolkarnein, was an earthly god;

His walls but shadow'd forth his mightier frowning; Armies of giants at his bidding trod

From realm to realm, king after king discrowning. When thunder spoke, or when the earthquake stirr'd, Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard.

3. But when the winters marr'd the mountain shelves,
And softer changes came with vernal mornings,
Something had touch'd the trumpets' lofty selves,
And less and less rang forth their sovereign warnings;
Fewer and feebler; as when silence spreads

In plague-struck tents, where haughty chiefs left
dying,

Fail by degrees upon their angry beds,

Till, one by one, ceases the last stern sighing. One by one, thus, their breath the trumpets drew, Till now no more the imperious music blew.

4. Is he then dead? Can great Doolkarnein die?
Or can his endless hosts elsewhere be needed?
Were the great breaths that blew his minstrelsy
Phantoms, that faded as himself receded?
Or is he anger'd? Surely he still comes;
This silence ushers the dread visitation;
Sudden will burst the torrent of his drums,
And then will follow bloody desolation.

So did fear dream; though now, with not a sound
To scare good hope, summer had twice crept round.

5. Then gather'd in a band, with lifted eyes,

The neighbours, and those silent heights ascended. Giant, nor aught blasting their bold emprize,

They met, though twice they halted, breath suspended;

Once, at a coming like a god's in rage

With thunderous leaps; but 'twas the piled snow,
falling;

And once, when in the woods, an oak, for age,
Fell dead, the silence with its groan appalling.
At last they came where still, in dread array,
As though they still might speak, the trumpets lay.

6. Unhurt they lay, like caverns above ground,

The rifted rocks, for hands, about them clinging, Their tubes as straight, their mighty mouths as round And firm, as when the rocks were first set ringing. Fresh from their unimaginable mould

They might have seem'd, save that the storms had stain'd them

With a rich rust, that now, with gloomy gold

In the bright sunshine, beauteously engrain'd them. Breathless the gazers look'd, nigh faint for awe, Then leap'd, then laugh'd. What was it now they saw?

7. Myriads of birds. Myriads of birds, that fill'd

The trumpets all with nests and nestling voices!

The great, huge, stormy music had been still'd
By the soft needs that nurs'd those small sweet noises!
O thou Doolkarnein, where is now thy wall?

Where now thy voice divine and all thy forces?
Great was thy cunning, but its wit was small

Compar'd with Nature's least and gentlest courses. Fears and false gods may fright the realms awhile; But Heaven and Earth abide their time and smile. -Leigh Hunt (1784-1859).

1. This pre-eminent light of the modern world in mathematical and astronomical science, was born at Colsterworth, in the county of Lincoln, on Christmas Day, 1642. Even his boyhood was devoted to science, and his sports were scientific experiments; for his time

was chiefly spent in constructing models of clocks, windmills, and other articles of nice and accurate calculation in mechanics, so that, while at school at Grantham, his lodging-room was a workshop that resounded with continual hammering. He even improved the kites of his school-fellows by contriving their shapes and proportions, and adjusting the string upon mathematical principles. All this was accompanied with such superiority of intellectual power in other departments, that when he pleased, he could outstrip his companions at their daily tasks, and was soon at the head of the school.

2. At the age of eighteen he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he quickly arrested the attention not only of his fellow-students, but of Dr. Isaac Barrow, by his rapid proficiency in mathematics. His regular study of Euclid, it has been said, was at first animated by a desire to examine the so-called science of astrology; but on having tested it by severe calculation, and discovered its emptiness, he threw both it and Euclid aside, and advanced to higher pursuits. The first result of these studies was his New Method of Infinite Series and Fluxions, which was published in Latin. In 1664, he turned his attention to the improvement of telescopes; and having procured a prism, he detected, by careful observation, the fallacy of Des Cartes' doctrine of colours, upon which he published his New Theory of Light and Colours. The plague having broke out at Cambridge in 1665, Newton retired to his own house in the country, where he prosecuted his studies in solitude; and while thus occupied, his great theory of gravitation first suggested itself to his mind by the fall of an apple from a tree, while he was sitting in the garden. It was this trifling incident that revolutionized science, and led to the publication of Newton's System of the World, which formed the chief part of his Principia. Thus, the foundation of all his stupendous discoveries was laid when he was only twenty-four years of age.

3. The career of Sir Isaac Newton after this period, and the works which he published illustrative of his dis

coveries in the laws of nature and the science of astronomy, would of themselves require a lengthened chapter; it is enough to state that, being revolutions, they met with their full share of envy and opposition. But they established themselves at last as immutable truths, and the reflective world, upon which they dawned like a sunshine, was lost in delight and wonder. "Does Mr. Newton eat, or drink, or sleep like other men?" exclaimed the Marquis de l'Hospital, himself a very eminent mathematician: "I represent him to myself as a great celestial genius entirely disengaged from matter" The amiable and accomplished Queen Caroline (wife of George II.), who took great delight in the philosopher's society, declared herself happy in having come into the world at a time which put it into her power

to

converse with him. Honours, both literary and political, were conferred upon Newton'; he was appointed professor of mathematics at Cambridge, sent to parlia ment as one of its representatives, made warden of the mint, and invested with knighthood; but these distinctions, which he did not need, and which are now seldom remembered, were themselves honoured by his accepting them. His life, which was extended to his eighty-fifth year, was employed in the same philosophical researches, until its termination on March 20, 1727, when he died, leaving behind him a renown which can only perish with that universe of whose laws of action he was the inspired expounder.-Comprehensive History of England.

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.

1. As through the garden's desert paths I rove,
What fond illusions swarm in every grove!
How oft, when purple evening tinged the west,
We watched the emmet to her grainy nest;
Welcomed the wild bee home on weary wing,
Laden with sweets the choicest of the spring!