Give me but one drink of water,
And let then arrive the worst!"

4. In his hand he took the goblet;
But awhile the draught forbore,
Seeming doubtfully the purpose
Of the foeman to explore.

5. Well might then have paused the bravest―
For, around him, angry foes,
With a hedge of naked weapons,
Did that lonely man inclose.

6. "But what fear'st thou?" cried the caliph; "Is it, friend, a secret blow?

Fear it not! our gallant Moslems

No such treacherous dealing know.

7. "Thou may'st quench thy thirst securely, For thou shalt not die before

Thou hast drunk that cup of water-
This reprieve is thine-no more!"

8. Quick the satrap dashed the goblet Down to earth with ready hand, And the liquid sank forever,

Lost amid the burning sand.

9. "Thou hast said that mine my life is,
Till the water of that cup

I have drained; then bid thy servants
That spilled water gather up!"

10. For a moment stood the caliph
As by doubtful passions stirred—

Then exclaimed: "Forever sacred
Must remain a monarch's word.

11. "Bring another cup, and straightway
To the noble Persian give:
Drink, I said before, and perish-

Now I bid thee drink and live!"

R. C. Trench.

CIX. THE TEACHERS OF MANKIND.

THERE is nothing which the adversaries of im

provement are more wont to make themselves merry with than what is termed the "march of intellect;" and here I will confess, that I think, as far as the phrase goes, they are right. It is a very absurd, because a very incorrect, expression. It is little calculated to describe the operation in question. It does not picture an image at all resembling the proceedings of the true friends of mankind. It much more resembles the progress of the enemy of all improvement.

2. The conqueror moves in a march. He stalks onward with the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of war"-banners flying, shouts rending the air, guns thundering, and martial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded and the lamentations for the slain.

3. Not thus the school-master, in his peaceful vocation. IIe meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to bless mankind; he slowly gathers round him those who are to further their execution; he quietly, though firmly, advances in his humble path,

laboring steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up by the roots all the weeds of vice.

4. His is a progress not to be compared with any thing like a march; but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable, than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won. Such men-men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind-I have found laboring conscientiously, though perhaps obscurely, in their blessed vocation wherever I have gone.

5. I have found them, and shared their fellowship, among the daring, the ambitious, the ardent, the indomitably active French; I have found them among the persevering, resolute, industrious Swiss; I have found them among the laborious, the warm-hearted, the enthusiastic Germans; I have found them among the high-minded, but enslaved Italians; and in our own country, God be thanked, their number everywhere abounds, and is every day increasing.

6. Their calling is high and holy; their fame is the property of nations; their renown will fill the earth in after ages, in proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times. Each one of these great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, performs his appointed course, awaits in patience the fulfillment of the promises, and, resting from his labors, bequeaths his memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, and sleeps under the humble but not inglorious epitaph, commemorating one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy." Henry Brougham.

CX. THE DIVER.

The original of the story on which Schiller founded this ballad is to be found in Kircher. Schiller has preserved all that is striking in the legend, and ennobled all that is commonplace. The name of the diver was Nicholas, surnamed the Fish. The king appears to have been either Frederic I. or Frederic II. of Sicily, and the date about 1300.

H, where is the knight or the squire so bold,

I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold,

And o'er it already the dark waters flow;
Whoever to me may the goblet bring,

Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king."

2. He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep,
That, rugged and hoary, hung over the verge
Of the endless and measureless world of the deep,
Swirled into the maëlstrom that maddened the surge.
"And where is the diver so stout to go-

I ask ye again-to the deep below?"

3. And the knights and the squires that gathered around,
Stood silent-and fixed on the ocean their eyes;

They looked on the dismal and savage profound,
And the peril chilled back every thought of the prize.
And thrice spoke the monarch—“The cup to win,
Is there never a wight who will venture in?"

4. And all as before heard in silence the king—

Till a youth with an aspect unfearing but gentle,
'Mid the tremulous squires-stepped out from the ring,
Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle;
And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder,
On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder.

5. As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave
One glance on the gulf of that merciless main,
Lo! the wave that forever devours the wave,
Casts roaringly up the charybdis again;

And as with the swell of the far thunder-boom,
Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom.

6. And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars,

As when fire is with water commixed and contending; And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars,

And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending; And it never will rest, nor from travail be free, Like a sea that is laboring the birth of a sea.

7. Yet at length comes a lull o'er the mighty commotion,
And dark through the whiteness and still through the
swell,

The whirlpool cleaves downward and downward in ocean
A yawning abyss, like the pathway to hell;
The stiller and darker the further it goes,
Sucked into that smoothness, the breakers repose.

8. The youth gave his trust to his Maker! Before

That path through the riven abyss closed again,
Hark! a shriek from the gazers that circle the shore,-
And, behold! he is whirled in the grasp of the main,
And o'er him the breakers mysteriously rolled,
And the giant-mouth closed on the swimmer so bold.

9. All was still on the height, save the murmur that went
From the grave of the deep, sounding hollow and fell,
Or save when the tremulous sighing lament

Thrilled from lip unto lip, "Gallant youth, fare thee
well!"

More hollow and more wails the deep on the ear—
More dread and more dread grows suspense in its fear.

10. If thou shouldst in those waters thy diadem fling,

And cry, "Who may find it shall win it and wear'
God wot, though the prize were the crown of a king—
A crown at such hazard were valued too dear.

For never shall lips of the living reveal
What the deeps that howl yonder in terror conceal.

11. Oh, many a bark, to that breast grappled fast,

Has gone down to the fearful and fathomless grave;