tions and superogating arguments of my ignorant opponent on the other side.

The law expressly declares, gentlemen, in the beautiful language of Shakspeare, that where no doubt exists of the guilt of the prisoner, it is your duty to lean upon the side of justice and fotch him in unblameworthy. If you keep this fact in view in the case of my client, gentlemen, you will have the honor of making a friend of him and all his relations, and you can allers look upon this occasion, and reflect with pleasure that you did as you would be done by; but if, on the other hand, you disregard this great principle of law, and set at naught my eloquent remarks, and fotch him in guilty, the silent twitches of conscience will follow you over every fair corn-field, I reckon, and my injured and down-trodden client will be pretty apt to light on you some of these dark nights, as a gray cat lights on a sassar of new milk.

SEEDS.

We are sowing, daily sowing,
Countless seeds of good and ill,
Scattered on the level lowland,
Cast upon the windy hill,-
Seeds that sink in rich brown furrows,
Soft with heaven's gracious rain;
Seeds that rest upon the surface
Of the dry, unyielding plain;
Seeds that fall amid the stillness
Of the lonely mountain glen;
Seeds cast out in crowded places,
Trodden under foot of men;
Seeds by idle hearts forgotten,
Flung at random on the air;
Seeds by faithful souls remembered,
Sown in tears and love and prayer;

Seeds that lie unchanged, unquickened,
Lifeless on the teeming mould;
Seeds that live and grow and flourish
When the sower's hand is cold.

By a whisper sow we blessings,
By a breath we scatter strife;
In our words and looks and actions
Lie the seeds of death and life.

Thou who knowest all our weakness,
Leave us not to sow alone!
Bid Thine angels guard the furrows
Where the precious grain is sown,
Till the fields are crowned with glory,
Filled with mellow ripened ears,
Filled with fruit of life eternal

From the seed we sowed in tears.

Check the froward thoughts and passions,
Stay the hasty, heedless hands;
Lest the germs of sin and sorrow
Mar our fair and pleasant lands!
Father, help each weak endeavor,
Make each faithful effort blest,
Till Thine harvest shall be garnered,
And we enter into rest.

ST. PIERRE TO FERRARDO.--J. SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

An extract from the drama of "The Wife," adapted for recitation. St. Pierre, having possessed himself of Ferrardo's dagger, compels him to sign a confession of his villainy.

Know you me, duke? Know you the peasant boy
Whom, fifteen years ago, in evil hour,

You chanced to cross upon his native hills;

In whose quick eye you saw the subtle spirit
Which suited you, and tempted it? He took
Your hint, and followed you to Mantua

Without his father's knowledge,-his old father,
Who, thinking that he had a prop in him

Man could not rob him of, and Heaven would spare,
Blessed him one night, ere he lay down to sleep,
And, waking in the morning, found him gone!

[Ferrardo tries to rise.

Move not, or I shall move! You know me.
Oh, yes! you trained me like a cavalier-
You did, indeed! You gave me masters, duke,
And their instructions quickly I took up,
As they did lay them down! I got the start
Of my contemporaries !—not a youth

Of whom could read, write, speak, command a weapon,
Or rule a horse, with me! You gave me all—
All the equipments of a man of honor--
But soon you found a use for me, and made
A slave, a profligate, a pander, of me!

I charge you keep your seat!

[Ferrardo rising.

Ten thousand ducats?

What, duke! Is such your offer? Give me, duke,
The eyes that looked upon my father's face,
The hands that helped my father to his wish,
The feet that flew to do my father's will,
The heart that bounded at my father's voice,
And say that Mantua were built of ducats,
And I could be its duke at cost of these,

I would not give them for it! Mark me, duke!
I saw a new-made grave in Mantua,
And on the head-stone read my father's name!
To seek me, doubtless, hither he had come—
To seek the child that had deserted him-
And died here, ere I knew it. Heaven, alone,
Can tell how far he strayed in search of me!
Upon that grave I knelt an altered man,
And, rising thence, I fled nor had returned,
But tyrant hunger drove me back again
To thee to thee!-my body to relieve,

At cost of my dear soul! I have done thy work-
Do mine! and sign me that confession straight.
I'm in thy power, and I'll have thee in mine!
There is the dial, and the sun shines on it,
The shadow on the very point of twelve—
My case is desperate! Your signature
Of moment is most vital to my peace!
My eye is on the dial! Pass the shadow
The point of noon, the breadth of but a hair,
As can my eye discern-and, that unsigned,
The steel is in thy heart! I speak no more!

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE-CHARLES PHILLIPS.

He is fallen! We may now pause before that splen did prodigy, which towered among us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon

NUMBER FOUR.

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the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A mind, bold, independent, and decisive; a will despotic in its dictates; an energy that distanced expedition; and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character, the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell.

Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledge no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity! With no friend but his sword and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank and wealth and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest, he acknowledged no criterion but success, he worshiped no god but ambition, and, with an Eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry.

Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the pope; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; and, in the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse and wore without shame the diadem of the Cæsars. Through this pantomime of policy, fortune played the clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest theories took the color of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama.

Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory; his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny; ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But, if his fortune

was great, his genius was transcendent; decision flashed upon his counsels; and it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adoption. His person partook the character of his mind-if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacle that he did not surmount; space no opposition that he did not spurn; and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity.

The whole continent trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became commonplace in his contemplation; kings were his people, nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were titular dignitaries of the chessboard. Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as adamant.

It mattered little whether in the field or in the drawing-room, with the mob or the levee, wearing the Jacobin bonnet or the iron crown, banishing a Braganza or espousing a Hapsburg, dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic, he was still the same military despot.

In this wonderful combination, his affectations of literature must not be omitted. The jailer of the press, he affected the patronage of letters; the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy; the persecutor of authors and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning. Such a medley of contradictions and, at the same time, such an individual consistency, were