CXXX.-NATURE'S GENTLEMAN.

WHOм do we dub as gentleman? The knave, the fool, the brute,
If they but own full tithe of gold, and wear a courtly suit!
The parchment scroll of titled line, the ribbon at the knee,
Can still suffice to ratify and grant such high degree:
But Nature, with a matchless hand, sends forth HER nobly born,
And laughs the paltry attributes of wealth and rank to scorn;
She molds with care a spirit rare, half human, half divine,
And cries, exulting, "Who can make a gentleman like mine?"
She may not spend her common skill about the outward part,
But showers her beauty, grace, and light upon the brain and
heart;

She may not choose ancestral fame his pathway to illume;

The sun that sheds the brightest day may rise from mist and gloom:

Should fortune pour her welcome store and useful gold abound,
He shares it with a bounteous hand, and scatters blessings round;
The treasure sent is rightly spent, and serves the end designed,
When held by Nature's gentleman, the good, the just, the kind.
He turns not from the cheerless home where sorrow's offspring
dwell;

He'll greet the peasant in his hut, the culprit in his cell;
He stays to hear the widow's plaint of deep and mourning love;
He seeks to aid her lot below, and prompt her faith above:
The orphan child, the friendless one, the luckless, or the poor,
Will never meet his spurning frown, or leave his bolted door;
His kindred circles all mankind; his country all the globe;
An honest name his jeweled star, and truth his ermine robe.
He wisely yields his passions up to reason's firm control;
His pleasures are of crimeless kind, and never taint the soul;
He may be thrown among the gay and reckless sons of life,
But will not love the revel scene, or heed the brawling strife.
He wounds no breast with jeer or jest, yet bears no honeyed
tongue :

He's social with the gray-haired one, and merry with the young;
He gravely shares the council speech, or joins the rustic game,
And shines as Nature's gentleman, in every place the same.

No haughty gesture marks his gait, no pompous tone, his word; No studied attitude is seen, no palling nonsense heard;

He'll suit his bearing to the hour; laugh, listen, learn, or teach; With joyous freedom in his mirth, and candor in his speech: He worships God with inward zeal, and serves him in each deed; He would not blame another's faith, nor have one martyr bleed; Justice and Mercy form his code; he puts his trust in Heaven; His prayer is, "If the heart, mean well, may all else be forgiven !"

Though few of such may gem the earth, yet such rare gems there are,

Each shining in his hallowed sphere, as virtue's polar star; Though human hearts too oft are found all gross, corrupt, and dark,

Yet, yet some bosoms breathe and burn, lit by Promethean spark:

There are some spirits nobly just, unwarped by pelf or pride, Great in the calm, but greater still when dashed by adverse tide; They hold the rank no king can give; no station can disgrace; Nature puts forth HER gentlemen, and monarchs must give place.

CXXXI.-BERNARDINE DU BORN.

PLANTAGENET; (Plan-taj ́-e-net,) a dynasty of English kings.
KING HENRY sat upon his throne,

And, full of wrath and scorn,

His eye a recreant knight surveyed,
Sir Bernardine du Born.

And he that haughty glance returned,
Like a lion in his lair,

And loftily his unchanged brow
Gleamed through his crisp-ed hair.

"Thou art a traitor to the realm!
Lord of a lawless band!

The bold in speech, the fierce in broil,
The troubler of our land!

Thy castles and thy rebel towers
Are forfeit to the crown;

And thou beneath the Norman ax

Shall end thy base renown!

"Deign'st thou no word to bar thy doom,

Thou with strange madness fired?

Hath reason quite forsook thy breast?"
Plantagenet inquired.

Sir Bernard turned him toward the king,
And blenched not in his pride;

"My reason failed, most gracious liege,
The year Prince Henry died."

Quick, at that name, a cloud of woe
Passed o'er the monarch's brow;
Touched was that bleeding chord of love,
To which the mightiest bow;

And backward swept the tide of years;
Again his first-born moved;

The fair, the graceful, the sublime,
The erring, yet beloved.

And ever, cherished by his side,

One chosen friend was near,
To share in boyhood's ardent sport,
Or youth's untamed career;
With him the merry chase he sought,
Beneath the dewy morn,

With him in knightly tourney rode
This Bernardine du Born.

Then, in the mourning father's soul,
Each trace of ire grew dim,
And what his buried idol loved,
Seemed cleansed of guilt to him;
And faintly through his tears he spoke,
"God send his grace to thee!

And, for the dear sake of the dead,
Go forth, unscathed and free."

FROM MRS. SIGOURNEY.

CXXXII.—RICHARD I, AT HIS FATHER'S BIER.

FONTEVRAUD; (pro. Fon-te-vro.)

CŒUR-DE-LION; (pro. Kur-de-Leon,) the lion-hearted. He had been a rebellious son, and was struck with remorse at his father's death. He reformed, and proved a noble king.

TORCHES were blazing clear,

Hymns pealing deep and slow,

Where a king lay stately on his bier,

In the church of Fontevraud.

NEW EC. S.-21

There was heard a heavy clang,

As of steel-girt men the tread ;

And the tombs and the hollow pavement rang
With a sounding thrill of dread;
And the holy chant was hushed awhile,
As, by the torches' flame,

A gleam of arms, up the sweeping aisle,
With a mail-clad leader came.

He came with haughty look,

An eagle-glance and clear,

But his proud heart through its breastplate shook,
When he stood beside the bier!

He stood there still with the drooping brow,
And clasped hands o'er it raised;

For his father lay before him low.

It was Coeur-de-Lion gazed!

He looked upon the dead,

And sorrow seemed to lie,

A weight of sorrow, even like lead,
Pale on the fast-shut eye.

He stooped, and kissed the frozen cheek,
And the heavy hand of clay,

Till bursting words, yet all too weak,
Gave his soul's passion way.

"O, father! is it vain,

This late remorse and deep?
Speak to me, father! once again,
I weep! behold, I weep!
Alas! my guilty pride and ire!

Were but this work undone!

I would give England's crown, my sire,
To hear thee bless thy son.

"Thy silver hairs I see,

So still, so sadly bright!

And father, father! but for me,

They had not been so white!

I bore thee down, high heart! at last,
No longer couldst thou strive;

Oh! for one moment of the past,
To kneel and say, 'Forgive!'

"Thou wert the noblest king,

On royal throne e'er seen;

And thou didst wear, in knightly ring,
Of all the stateliest mien;

And thou didst prove, where spears are proved
In war, the bravest heart.

Oh! ever the renowned and loved

Thou wert; and there thou art!"

FROM MRS. HEMANS.

CXXXIII.-PREVALENCE OF WAR.

WAR is the law of violence: peace, the law of love. That law of violence prevailed without mitigation, from the murder of Abel to the advent of the Prince of Peace. We might have imagined, if history had not attested the reverse, that an experiment of four thousand years would have sufficed to prove, that the rational ends of society can never be attained, by constructing its institutions in conformity with the standard of war. But the sword and the torch had been eloquent in vain.

A thousand battlefields, white with the bones of brothers, were counted as idle advocates in the cause of justice and humanity. Ten thousand cities, abandoned to the cruelty and licentiousness of the soldiery, and burnt, or dismantled, or razed to the ground, pleaded in vain against the law of violence. The river, the lake, the sea, crimsoned with the blood of fellow-citizens, and neighbors, and strangers, had lifted up their voices in vain to denounce the folly and wickedness of war.

The shrieks and agonies, the rage and hatred, the wounds and curses of the battlefield, and the storm and the sack, had scattered in vain their terrible warnings throughout all lands. In vain had the insolent Lysander destroyed the walls and burnt the fleets of Athens, to the music of her own female flute-players. In vain had Scipio, amid