mopyla! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored. hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle! A MODEST WIT. A supercilious nabob of the East Haughty, being great-purse-proud, being rich-- I have forgotten which Had in his family a humble youth, Who went from England in his patron's suite, An unassuming boy, and in truth A lad of decent parts, and good repute. This youth had sense and spirit; But yet, with all his sense, Excessive diffidence Obscured his merit. One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine, Conceived it would be vastly fine To crack a joke upon his secretary. "Young man," he said, "by what art, craft, or trade, Did your good father gain a livelihood?" "He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said, "And in his time was reckoned good." "A saddler, eh! and taught you Greek, Each parasite, then, as in duty bound, The joke applauded, and the laugh went round. At length Modestus, bowing low, Said (craving pardon, if too free he made), Your father's trade!" "My father's trade! Bless me, that's too bad! My father's trade? Why, blockhead, are you mad? My father, sir, did never stoop so low He was a gentleman, I'd have you know." "Excuse the liberty I take," Modestus said, with archness on his brow, "Pray, why did not your father make A gentleman of you?" HAIL! TO THE VETERANS.-N. K. RICHARDSON. Written on the reception of General Meade and his brave soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, in Philadelphia, June, 1865. Welcome them, cheer them, crown them with flowers! Flags flutter out from your lofty towers! Maidens throw smiles to them, skies look bright, Trumpets of brass with a constant bray, As they peal and roar,-welcome home from the fray! At the homeward march of the hosts of the Lord! Trumpets of brass with a constant bray, And ringing bells, shall be merry to-day, As they peal and roar,―welcome home from the fray! Thundering cannon with heated throats, Shall greet your companions in swelling notes! Belching and booming o'er land and sea, Proclaiming to tyrants the home of the Free! They should come until slavery writhed in hell! As they peal and roar,―welcome home from the fray! Beautiful children, your dimpled hands, Must throw kisses to those at whose commands Your country, cemented in blood, shall be The temple of ALL who delight to be free! Spring arches triumphal o'er every street; Place the rose-leaf and laurel 'neath weary feet! Oh! be kind to them, cherish them, nurse them with care, May pass us to-day in the Union blue! Trumpets of brass with a constant bray, As they peal and roar,—welcome home from the fray! HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS. SHAKSPEARE. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus: but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters,-to very rags,-to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant: it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature;-to show virtue her own feature; scorn her own image; and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this overdone or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players, that I have seen play,—and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON DEATH.-SHAKSPEARE. To be, or not to be,-that is the question:- The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; "ALL WE ASK IS TO BE LET ALONE."-H. H. BROWNELL. As vonce I valked by a dismal swamp, There sot an old cove in the dark and damp, A stick or a stone this old cove throwed. And venever he flung his stick or his stone, "Let me alone, for I loves to shy These bits of things at the passers-by; Let me alone, for I've got your tin, Just then came along, on the self-same vay Put down that stick! (You may well look skeered.) "You must have a lesson to stop your tricks, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.-MYRA TOWNSEND. What! would ye swing your brother's form And place the image of your God A dangling victim there? Who gave you power to read his heart, Or know how deep his guilt, Or judge what provocation came |