"Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, "Now yield thee to our grace." 2. Round turn'd he, as not deigning The white porch of his home; 8. "O Tiber father Tiber! To whom the Romans pray, 4. No sound of joy or sorrow Was heard from either bank; They saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, 5 But fiercely ran the current, Swollen high by months of rain; And spent with changing blows; And oft they thought him sinking, 6. Never, I ween, did swimmer, Struggle through such a raging flood But his limbs were borne up bravely And our good father Tiber "Curse on him!" quoth false Sextus; 8. And now he feels the bottom ; And now with shouts and clapping, 9. When the goodman mends his armor, How well Horatius kept the bridge 90. THE EXILE'S RETURN. MRS. SADLIER. 1. MANY changes have passed over the face of the Green Isle since I left its rocky shores, changes public and changes private have taken place among its people-the friends whom I loved and cherished have passed away, ay! every soul; so that, with the aid of my altered appearance, I can pass myself off for a stranger, yet there is something in the very atmosphere which breathes of home. The warm hearts and loving eyes that cheered my boyhood are gone,—the living friends are lost to sight, and I miss their enlivening presence, oh how much !-but the inanimate friends-the old familiar scenes remain. 2. I have taken up my abode in the very house of my nativity-ruined it is, and desolate, yet it is the shell which contained the kernel of my affections. The fields are as green, the sky as changeful, the mountains as grand, the sacred valley as lone and solemn, and, above all, the faith and piety of the people is still the same, simple, earnest, nothing doubting, all-performing. 3. Oh! I am not alone here, one cannot be alone here, with the monuments of ages of faith around, and the same faith ever living and acting among the people. I can go and kneel by the graves of my parents, and pray that my end may be like theirs, and I feel that the penitent tears I shed are acceptable to God, and that the spirits of those over whose ashes I weep, may one day' welcome me in glory, when the last trace of my guilt is effaced by whatever process God pleases. 4. Here, amid the solitude of the desert city, I meditate on the years I passed in a foreign land, and rejoice that the feverish dream is over. Where I herded my goats, a peasant boy, I muse, an old and wrinkled man, on the path of life I have trodden. I stand at the opposite end of existence, and ask myself what is the difference. I have had since what is called "position," I have wealth still-ay! a fortune, but what of that I am old, friendless, childless, and alone, burdened with harrowing recollections, and ready to sink into the grave, unhonored and unknown. 5. I was poor and unlearned in those days which I now look back on with regret, but I had many hearts to love ne; "now," said I bitterly to myself, "I dare not breathe my ame to any hereabouts, for the memory of my crime is traditional among the people, and, did they recognize me, all the wealth I have would not bribe them to look with kindness on him who was once AN APOSTATE. 91. MOUNT ORIENT. GERALD GRIFFIN. 1. THE M'Orients of Mount Orient, gentle reader, were looked upon in our neighborhood as people of high fashion, unbounded literary attainments, and the most delicate sensibility. They had, until within the last two years, spent the greater portion of their life "abroad" (a word which has a portentous sound in our village). On their return to Mount Orient, they occasioned quite a revolution in all our tastes and customs: they introduced waltzing, smoking cigars, &c. I have seen their open carriage sometimes driving by my window, Miss Mimosa M'Orient seated on the coach-box, and Mr. Ajax M'Orient, her brother, occupying the interior in a frieze jacket and a southwester. 2. But what added most to their influence was that both were considered prodigies of intellect. Ajax M'Orient had written poems in which "rill" rhymed to "hill," "beam" to 86 stream," ," "mountain" to "fountain," and "billow" to "wil OW." Nay, it was even whispered that he had formed a design of immortalizing Robert Burns, by turning his poems into good English, and had actually performed that operation upon Tam O'Shanter, which was so much changed for the better, that you would hardly know it again. So that he passed in these parts for a surprising genius. 3. He was likewise a universal critic, one of those agreea ble persons, who know every thing in the world better than anybody else. He would ask you what you thought of that engraving, and on your selecting a particular group for admiration, he would civilly inform you that you had praised the only defect in the piece. Like the host in Horace, who used tc analyze his dishes with his praises in such a manner as to deprive his guests of all inclination to taste them, Ajax would afflict you with pointing out the beauties of a picture, until you began to see no beauty in it. The wind, the sun, was safe from the 4. Nor did nature escape him: walk out with him, and he would commend every lake, and rock, and river, until you wished yourself under ground from him. the air, the clouds, the waters, nothing taint of his villanous commendation. And then his metaphysics; it was all well until he grew metaphysical: so jealous was he of originality on these subjects, that if you assented too hastily to one of his own propositions, ten to one but he would wheel round and assail it, satisfied to prove himself wrong, provided he could prove you wrong also. The navigation of the Red Sea was not a nicer matter than to get through a conversation with Mr. Ajax M'Orient without an argument. 5. On the other hand, Miss Mimosa M'Orient was very handsome, a great enthusiast, an ardent lover of Ireland (unlike her brother, who affected the aristocrat, and curled his lip at O'Connell); with a mind all sunshine and a heart all fire; a soul innocence itself-radiant candor-heroic courage -a glowing zeal for universal liberty—a heart alive to the tenderest feelings of distress-and a mind, to judge by her conversation, imbued with the deepest sentiments of virtue. 6. Miss M'Orient had a near relative living under her pro tection, named Mary de Courcy, who did not seem to have half her advantages. She was rather plain, had no enthusiasm whatever, very seldom talked of Ireland, had so much common sense in her mind that there was no room for sunshine; and as to fire in her bosom, the academy of Lagoda alone, to all appearance, could have furnished artists capable of extracting it. She might be candid, but she had too much reserve to |