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ed him; when he waked, he still babbled of green fields.

me.

"Did Robinson Crusoe ever come back to his father and mother?" he says to "Poor boy! poor boy! I went to sea when I was young. Father and mother didn't like it. Came back after a four-years' voyage, and off again, soon as the ship had unloaded, on another trip up the Channel: took all my money to fit out. Might have had the CustomHouse, if there had been anybody to speak for me; would have done my work well, and maybe had kept it thirty or forty years. Should be glad to creep into a hay-mow and pay somebody to feed me. Wish old Uncle Jack was good for somethin' besides work, work, nothin' but hard work! Wish he could talk and say somethin'.

"Now that was good, sensible poetry you were reading, wasn't it? Good stuff? Couldn't hear a word of it: poor old fellow can't hear much now. Wish my father had lived longer; he would have told me things; he used to be different to me. I could have been a sight of comfort to him in mathematics." (His father died when the son was fifty years old; the thirty years he had lived since seemed a long life to the old man.) "Mayn't I look at the poetry?"

"Yes, Aunt thinks there is a difference between fresh and stale eggs."

"But I mean, Marm, that some are thin-shelled, some rough, some round, some peaked: a hen lays 'em just so all her life. Ever see a difference?"

It is an open question.

Then turning to the master of the house,

"Do you like choc'late, Sir? Well, how you going to fix it when you haven't got any milk? Well, you just beat up an egg, and pour on the choc'late, boiling hot, stirring all the time, and you won't want any milk, Sir. That was what kept me alive aboard the

Ranger." Now comes the story of the Ranger. He was getting in years, he said, and wanted a home for his old age; so he built him a boat. He put a little open stove in it, because an open fire felt kind o' comfortable to his toes. He named it the Ranger; because when he was a little boy he took a long walk to the beach with his father, the little Iulus following with unequal steps, and they saw a shipwrecked vessel, named the Ranger, and he liked the name. He kept that name in his heart many years. When at last, by dint of much saving and scraping together, much hoeing of Indian corn, the old stocking-foot was at last filled,

I found the place for him, "New all the little odd bits, poured out and England."

"Yes, the farmer takes lots of comfort, walking on the road, foddering cattle, cutting wood."

Uncle Jack believes heartily in New England corn, and in the planting and hoeing of Indian corn he takes great delight not to corn-laws, but to Indian corn, the talk always drifts.

"I hear you are going to plant a couple of acres of corn, Sir. Glad of it. This is an excellent dish of tea, Marm. This bread tastes like my mother's bread; baked in a bake-kettle. These mangoes are nice, such as we used to have."

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Turning to Aunt Sarah, he says, — "Did you ever notice a difference in eggs, Marm?"

counted up, came to enough to speak to the ship-builder. Oh, the model! how the old man's brain worked over that! Then the timber, - each was a chosen piece; oak, apple, cherry, pine, each tree sent a stick. The home was builded, was launched, was christened: The Ranger. Alas, it was an ill-omened name to him! Brave and young was he in heart, and loved right well his tossing, rolling home; and many a hard gale did he ride out in her alone, old as he was.

Too old was he to be trusted on the treacherous deep; and friends (?) advised and counselled, and the home of his old age was sold. (He never got the pay!) Now, with restless, wandering feet, he makes long tramps, trying to collect old debts. Kind-hearted old man that he is,

thinking always he is hard on 'em when he gets a promise to pay! A wife has been sick; perhaps he had better not ask for it now. His ox has died; maybe he had better wait. Fumbling over old papers in his pocket-book, muttering something about a pension: he was on the list, but was never called out, or somebody took his place.

Poor old Uncle Jack, with his dream of a pension, his dream of an office, his dream of a home in a boat! With him many a dream has gone down the stream."

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May some friendly hand at last close his eyes to that last long sleep, when his turn comes to heave down!

He is always finding Indian arrowheads and hatchets and pestles. He picks full pails of the nicest-looking huckleberries. He is always dressed in clean, tidy clothes, a little scant and well patched. He pats me on the head and says, "Didn't know you were Evelyn's sister; thought it was a little three-year old." About to tell me a sad story he had read in the newspaper, he stops suddenly and says, "Believe I won't tell you, dear!" "Did you hear the newspipe has broke?" when the Atlantic Telegraph Cable parted. He had plans for shoving off the Leviathan when it stuck.

Shall I not tell you he brings me a little bunch of eels of his own spearing? that you must be careful at table he has enough to eat, he takes such small pieces? that he is altogether a sparse man? has rows of pins on his sleeve that he picks up?- -an old-fashioned man, whose type is fast fading out from these "fast," "steep" times. He tells a story of a

stream of black flies which came so thick and so fast pouring on, he looked as long as he darst to. Yet he can tell a good, big story yet, and when somebody was talking of turtles of good size, jumped up suddenly, "Did you ever see a terrapin, Sir?" and then walked round the long dining-table to tell how big he was and how high he stood on his feet. "When I was in the West Indies, Sir

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lish hay-mow and pay somebody to feed

me!"

Do you remember, Estelle, the story we read together once, out of the "Casket" or "Gem," one of those old annuals, where a certain princess was sent to a desolate island, whose maids of honor were all old crones, once distinguished by their wonderful beauty? Her task was to discover each especial grace, long since buried by the rubbish which time and folly had heaped upon it; in each old, yellow, wrinkled hag to find the charm which had once adorned her: as she found the grace, it was transferred to her own youthful person. Slowly and patiently she unwound those wrappedup mummies, and disclosed the gems hidden in those burial-clothes; and returned to her father's court enriched with all those long-buried graces, now revived to their former youthful beauty, and with the added charm which wisdom and patience give.

My task is not so difficult, as I seek virtues, not perishable stuffs. We will learn the history of these thickly crossing wrinkles, that, checkering, map out the face like the streets of a busy city. We will read the story "that youth and observation copied there." Many sit in my chair with weather-beaten looks, but time and want and necessity have ploughed still deeper furrows.

It is not in vain, this brave encounter with the elements, this battle to keep the wolf Want outside the door,- the patient, laborious building up of the small house, made almost a comfortable home by many years of toil, the sufficient meal snatched from Nature by the line or the gun, or wrung from her by hard labor of the hands. Is the face too thin and hard, the lips compressed? Would you turn away from so much patient endurance of a hard lot? Turn again, and read the story the clear eye tells; listen to the words of a deep religious experience which the thin, cracked voice relates: how in visions of the night the Comforter has come to them, and henceforth the way of duty is clear, and the burden of life is

lightened. Will you go with me, dear, into those homely houses, sit with me by the firesides, and hear the simple story of New England's farmers and farmers' wives? We cannot call those poor who are so rich in all the manly virtues, and in the deep experiences of a faithful life.

Uncle Jack stops on his way, going up to get the oxen, and passes the night, -says, “Other people can't find enough to do; for his part, he should like to lie down in the hay-mow and rest,- all worn out, used up. Now Josiah, good, conversable man, knows about geography and the country round. Well, when you've got that, got the best of him,likes variety too well, goes off, leaves the homestead like a dismantled ship. Now, if a man only gets three good days down cellar, that's something. Don't believe 'Siah ever does it. So many notions in's head bothers him." (Uncle Jack is quite right; 'tis not economical to have notions; besides, they are revolutionary,

-

they subvert the order of things.) "Got a cunning little heifer used to have some manners. Lost some of our lambs; read in a book, that, take what care you might, you would lose some lambs at times."To-day he has gone driving the oxen round by Perkins's.

"Had the rheumatism this winter,guess Jack Frost pinched him.” — Ah ! dear old man, an older than Jack Frost has got hold of your aged limbs! Harder pinches old Time gives than any mortal man!

"Used to get a little bird, Harris and me, and roast it, and mother would give us a little apple-sauce in a clam-shell, and we would go off back the island and eat it. Harris was sent to school up to Perkins's; couldn't stay; run away, and borrowed a boat, and came home again; afraid of his father, and hid in the barn. Dug a well in the hay, and they used to lower him down things to eat, and water to drink in scooped-out water-melon rinds."

THE SONG OF FATIMA.

OH, sad are they who know not love,
But, far from passion's tears and smiles,

Drift down a moonless sea, and pass
The silver coasts of fairy isles!

And sadder they whose longing lips
Kiss empty air, and never touch
The dear warm mouth of those they love,
Waiting, wasting, suffering much!

But clear as amber, sweet as musk,
Is life to those whose lives unite:
They walk in Allah's smile by day,
And nestle in his heart by night!

SOMETHING ABOUT HISTORY.

THERE is no kind of writing which is undertaken so much from will and so little from instinct as History. It seems the great resource of baffled ambition, of leisure, of minds disciplined rather than inspired, of men with pecuniary means and without professional obligations. Sympathy with or opposition to an author prompts those thus situated to write criticism; a dominant sentiment inspires poetical composition; and usually an impressive experience suggests adventure in the field of fiction: but we find educated men, in independent circumstances, not remarkable for sensibility to Nature, acute critical perception, or dramatic talent, whose literary aspirations are vague, and who desire to be occupied eligibly, turn to History as the most available vantage-ground, busy themselves with wars and councils that happened ages ago, with kings and soldiers, institutions and adventures, politics and dynasties, so far removed from the associations and interests of the hour, that only a scholar's enthusiasm or ambition could sustain the research or keep alive the enterprise thus voluntarily assumed. It is this objective method and motive that chiefly accounts for the numberless inert and the few vital histories. Like any intellectual task assumed without special fitness therefor or motive thereto,-without a comprehensive grasp of mind that impels to historic exploration, without a patriotic zeal that warms to national heroism,-without, especially, a love of some principle, a conviction of some truth, an admiration of some national development, irresistibly urging the cultivated and ardent mind to seek for the facts, to celebrate the persons, to evolve the truth involved in and manifest through public events, - the annals recorded are but dry chronology, a monotonous, more or less authentic, perhaps quite respectable, but far from a very important or peculiarly interesting work. Thousands of such cum

ber the shelves of libraries and fill the pages of catalogues,- dusted once a year, perhaps, to verify a date, to authenticate the details of a treaty, or fix the statistics of a war, but never read consecutively and with zest, because there was no genuine relation between the writer and his book. He undertook the latter in the spirit of a mechanical job; industry and learning may be embodied therein, but no moral life, no human charm; yet the work is cited with respect, the author enrolled with honor; - whereas, had he sought in poetry or philosophy, in a novel or a drama, thus to occupy and celebrate himself with literature, the failure would have been signal, the attempt ignominious. There is, indeed, no safer investment for middling literary abilities than History; for, if it fail to yield any large harvest of renown, it is comparatively secure from the assaults of ridicule, such as make pretension in other spheres of writing conspicuous.

Even in what are considered the successful exemplars in this department of literature, the errors incident to artificiality, the conventional forms of writing, are patent. Only in passages do we recognize that beauty or truth, that reality and genuineness, which so often wholly pervade a poem, a story, a memoir, or even a disquisition: at some point, the flow incident to wilful instead of soulful utterance becomes apparent;-ambition, pride of opinion, love of display somewhere manifest themselves. It has been Isaid that the chief element of Hume's mental power was skepticism; and, singular as it may appear, his doubts about what are deemed the vital interests of humanity gave a charm to his record of her political vicissitudes; while he made capital of touching "situations," he displayed his own strength of intellect; but, with all this, did not write complete and authentic history. And when analyzed, what was the animus of Gibbon's elabo

rate chronicle? He "spent his time, his life, his energy," says a severe, but just critic, "in putting a polished gloss on human tumult, a sneering gloss on human piety." And who has not felt, in following Macaulay's animated periods and thorough exposition and illustration of some event, trait, or economy,-in itself of little importance and limited value,-how much better it would have been to reserve his brilliant descriptive and keen analytical powers for the grand episodes, the prolific crises, and the leading characters of history, instead of indiscriminately devoting them to a consecutive account of national incidents and persons, both great and small, illustrious and insignificant?

A popular British author of our own day, in order to demonstrate the law of compensation, as regards the literary vocation, cites its inexpensiveness, — arguing, that, whereas the artist must invest capital, however small, in colors, marble, canvas, and studio-hire, and the professional man occupy a costly locality, the author needs but a quire of foolscap and a pen and ink to set up in trade. While there is literal truth in this comparison, the fact is not applicable to historical writing, except in a very limited degree. The preparation of the most successful works in this department, in modern times, has been attended with an outlay impossible to the poor scholar. It has involved the examination and reproduction of voluminous manuscript authorities, distant travel, the purchase of rare books and family papers, and sometimes years of busy reference, observation, and study, lucrative only in prospect. The same amount of culture and facile vigor of composition which less prosperous authors expend on a masterly review would suffice to make them famous historians, if blessed with the pecuniary means to seek foreign sources of information, or gather about them scattered and rare materials where with to weave a chronicle of the past. Hence, not only has History become the chosen field of writers with no special gift for more individual ly inspired kinds of literature, but of the

educated sons of fortune. Accordingly, it is curious to remark the contrast between the lives of historians and those of poets; and in the average circumstances of the former there is some justification for the title of an aristocratic guild in letters. Compare Cowper's humble home at Olney with Gibbon's elegant library at Lausanne, the social environment of Hallam, Grote, or Macaulay with the rustic isolation of Wordsworth, the economies of Shelley, or the life-struggle of Jerrold. Of course, there can thence be inferred no general rule; and the very differences in temperament between inventive and reproductive writers suggest a consequent diversity of habits; but the very idea of historical composition, on an extensive scale and as a permanent occupation, implies the leisure which competency alone yields, the means indispensable for gradual literary achievement, and more or less of the luxury and social position which, when education obtains, usually attend upon these advantages.

It results from these considerations that there is no sphere of literature which is so often the refuge of wealthy scholars, idle men of taste, baffled politicians of independent means, ambitious and wellread but not specially gifted citizens who have inherited comfortable estates. It is so dignified an employment, that it gratifies pride, -so possible without trenchant opinions, that it does not alarm the conservative, servative, so thoroughly respectable, safe, and capable of being made illustrious, so comparatively easy to the fluent but unoriginal mind, and practicable to follow, when methodically carried out, in a stated, regular manner, that we can scarcely be astonished at the alacrity with which such voluntary tasks are undertaken or the steadiness with which they are followed; at the same time, it may be because so few are able to command the means and opportunity, that historical writing is so highly estimated. As a test of intellectual power, a gauge of individual sentiment, an evidence of original genius, it is immeasurably inferior to dramatic, philosophical, or any

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