he has had since Captain Dacres (the father of the present admiral and commander of the Channel fleet) attacked the Constitution.

The Resistance and Defence are more dangerous than the Warrior and Prince, simply because they are more manageable. They also are only partially iron-clad, and draw too much water to act freely in any of our harbors. Their speed, with full steam, is about nine knots; with canvas the Resistance is the best, and her consort the slowest of all the ironclads.

THE MONITORS AND THE ROYAL OAK."

do not desire to underrate their power to inflict damage upon our coasts and hurt us; but I am now quite satisfied that we have nothing to fear from any iron-clads in the British navy. The ships of the Channel fleet cannot cope with our monitors and raft batteries in our own harbors, and will fail if they make the attempt.

LAIRD'S RAMS.

The two ships built by Laird for the Confederates, if properly armed, would be more dangerous to us than all the ships of the Channel fleet. And unless the British Ad

ers of England and Scotland will supply the other powers of Europe with iron-clad fleets which will eclipse those of Great Britain. Austria, reckoning in iron-clads, has become one of the first naval powers of Europe. Messrs. Napier, of Glasgow, are building three magnificent frigates for the Turkish Government that are in every way, except hulk, superior to the Warrior and Black Prince. The latter ship was built by that eminent firm, but on a furnished model and specifications, that gave them no opportunity to exhibit their skill otherwise than in faithful and finished work.

If there is any virtue in four-and-a-half-miralty bestirs itself, the private ship-buildinch plating the Royal Oak is by far the most formidable ship of the lot. She should stand a hammering from one or all of the other ships long enough to destroy them, being iron-clad all round. She is a razeed line-of-battle ship; her sides tumble home, her ends are clumsy, and in the distance she looks not unlike our Ironsides. The resemblance ceases when you get alongside and on deck. The Royal Oak has no bomb-proof deck, and carries, like the other ships, a mass of incumbrances in the shape of masts, spars, rigging, boats, and other appendages of a sea-going frigate. She is a slow sailer and rolls fearfully-to an extent indeed, that will prevent her venturing across the Atlantic. As the Oak is the pioneer of a class of converted iron-clads, which includes the Caledonia, Prince Consort, and others nearly ready for service, it is satisfactory to know that she is not a sea-going ship, and is therefore useless for aggressive warfare against us. Divested of spars and other-to her-useless appendages, this ship will make a useful battery for English harbor defence. Looking at these ships as possible foes, I

The British iron-clads are armed with the British naval gun, the 68-pounder, and a few Armstrong rifled guns-110-pounders being the heaviest.

The 68 is a favorite gun in their service, especially with the gunners, who all, as far as I talked with them, prefer it to the large Armstrongs. They speak of the 68 as good enough for them, and shake their heads at the mention of our 15-inch guns.

PAUL JONES.

Ir is a curious and unsuspected fact that solar light is defective as to the showing of colors. Those shown by the spectrum in the sodium flame are invisible in daylight. This is a providential defect; for otherwise we should be confounded by a perpetual display of colors in the air.

by the rotation of masses of iron in the neighborhood of powerful permanent magnets generates the current of electricity, which ignites pieces of carbon intensely, thus producing the light.

COUNT WALEWSKI is occupying his involunLIGHTHOUSE illumination produced by a mag-tary leisure in writing a "History of Poland," netic electric apparatus has been in successful for which he will make use of many hitherto unoperation at the South Foreland and Dungeness known documents and other papers. It will, of beacon for two years. Currents of air produced course, be ultra-Polish in its tendency.

VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS.

THROUGH night to light !—And though to mortal

eyes

Creation's face a pall of horror wear, Good cheer! good cheer! The gloom of midnight flies;

Then shall a sunrise follow, mild and fair.

Through storm to calm !-And though his thun-
der-car

The rumbling tempest drive through earth and
sky,

Good cheer! good cheer! The elemental war
Tells that a blessed healing hour is nigh.

Through frost to spring!-And though the biting
blast

Of Eurus stiffen nature's juicy veins, Good cheer! good cheer! When winter's wrath is past,

Soft murmuring spring breathes sweetly o'er the plains.

Through strife to peace!-And though, with bristling front,

A thousand frightful deaths encompass thee, Good cheer! good cheer! Brave thou the bat

tle's brunt,

For the peace-march and song of victory. Through sweat to sleep!-And though the sultry

noon,

With heavy, drooping wing, oppress thee now, Good cheer! good cheer! The cool of evening

soon

Shall lull to sweet repose thy weary brow. Through cross to crown!-And though thy spirit's life

Trials untold assail with giant strength,
Good cheer! good cheer! Soon ends the bitter

strife

And thou shalt reign in peace with Christ at length.

Through woe to joy !-And though at morn thou

weep,

And though the midnight finds thee weeping still,

The Shepherd loves

Good cheer! good cheer!
his sheep:
Resign thee to the watchful Father's will.

Through death to life!—And through this vale

of tears,

And through this thistle-field of life, ascend To the great supper in that world whose years Of bliss unfading, cloudless, knows no end. Kosegarten.

TO ROBERT GOULD SHAW,

BURIED BY SOUTH CAROLINIANS UNDER A PILE

OF TWENTY-FOUR NEGROES.

ON Alaric, buried in Busento's bed,

NOTHING is our own: we hold our pleasures
Just a little while, ere they are fled:
One by one life robs us of our treasures;
Nothing is our own except our dead.

They are ours, and hold in faithful keeping
Cruel life can never stir that sleeping,
Safe forever, all they took away.
Cruel time can never seize that prey,

Justice pales; truth fades; stars fall from
heaven;

No true crown of honor can be given,
Human are the great whom we revere:

Till the wreath lies upon a funeral bier.

How the children leave us and no traces
Linger of that smiling angel band;
Gone, forever gone; and in their places,
Weary men and women stand.

Yet we have some little ones, still ours;

They have kept the baby smile we know,
Which we kissed one day, and hid with flowers,
On their dead white faces long ago.

When our joy is lost and life will take it,
Then no memory of the past remains,
Save with some strange, cruel sting, that makes it
Bitterness beyond all present pains.

Death, more tender-hearted, leaves to sorrow
We shall find, in some far bright to-morrow,
Still the radiant shadow-fond regret :
Joy that he has taken, living yet.

Is love ours, and do we dream we know it,
Bound with all our heart-strings, all our own?
Any cold and cruel dawn may show it,
Shattered, desecrated, overthrown.

Only the dead hearts forsake us never :
Love, that to death's loyal care has fled,

Is thus consecrated ours forever,
And no change can rob us of our dead.

The slaves the stream who turned were butch-So when fate comes to besiege our city,

ered thrown,

That, so his grave eternally unknown,

No mortal on the Sourge of God might tread.

Dim our gold, or make our flowers fall,
Death, the angel, comes in love and pity,
And to save our treasures, claims them all

MARK'S MOTHER.

MARK'S MOTHER.

BY FRANCES BROWNE.

MARK, the miner, is full fourscore,
But blithe he sits at his cottage door,
Smoking the trusty pipe of clay,
Which hath been his comfort many a day,

In spite of work and weather;
It made his honest heart amends

For the loss of strength and the death of friends;
It cheered his spirit through the lives.
And management of three good wives-
But now those trying times are done,
And there they sit in the setting sun,
Mark and his pipe together.

From harvest-field and from pasture-ground,
The peasant people have gathered round;
The times are rusty, the news is scant,
And something like a tale they want
From Mark's unfailing store;
For he is the hamlet's chronicle,
And when so minded, wont to tell
Where their great uncles used to play--

How their grandames looked on the wedding
day-

With all that happened of chance and change,
And all that had passed ofgreat or strange,

For seventy years before.

But on this evening, it is plain,

Mark's mind is not in the telling vein,
He sits in silence and in smoke,

With his thoughts about him like a cloak

Wrapped tight against the blast;
And his eye upon the old church spire,
Where falls the sunset's fading fire-
And all the friends his youth had known
Lie round beneath the turf and stone,
While a younger generation try
To touch the keys of his memory

With questions of the past.

"Good Mark! how looked the Lady Rose,
Whose bower so green in our forest grows,
Whom old men name with a blessing still
For the torrent's bridge, and the village mill,
And the travellers' wayside well?"
"Like my good mother, neighbors dear,
How long she lies in the churchyard here!”
Well, Mark, that bishop of kindly rule,

Who burned the stocks and built the school,

How looked his grace when the church was

new?

Neighbors, like my good mother, too,

As those who saw could tell."

Then, Mark, the prince, who checked his train, When the stag passed through your father's

grain!"

"Good neighbors, as I live, his look, The light of my blessed mother's took,

As he bade them spare the corn."

Loud laugh the peasants with rustic shout:
"Now, Mark, thy wits are wearing out,
Thy mother was but a homely dame,

With a wrinkled face and a toil-worn frame;
No earthly semblance could she bear
To a bishop learned, and a lady fair,

And a prince to kingdoms born."

WHO, AND WHENCE?

Nor from Jerusalem alone,

To Heaven the path ascends;

As near, as sure, as straight the way
That leads to the eternal day,
From further realms extends:
Frigid or torrid zone.

hat matters how or when we start?
One is the crown to all;

One is the hard but glorious race,
Whatever be our starting place;
Rings round the earth the call
That says, Arise, depart!

From the balm-breathing, sun-loved isles
On the bright Southern sea,

From the dead North's cloud-shadowed pole
We gather the one gladsome goal-
One common home in Thee,

City of sun and smiles!

The cold rough billow hinders none;
Nor helps the calm, fair main ;

The brown rock of Norwegian gloom,
The vendure of Tahitian bloom,
The sands of Misriam's plain,
Or peaks of Lebanon.

As from the green lands of the vine,
So from the snow wastes pale,
We find the ever open road
To the dear city of our God;
From Russian steppe or Burman vale,
Or terraced Palestine.

Not from swift Jordan's sacred stream
Alone we mount above;

Indus or Danube, Thames or Rhone,
Rivers unsainted and unknown-
From each the home of love
Beckons with heavenly gleam.

Not from gray Olivet alone

We see the gates of life;

From Morven's heath or Jungfrau's snow,
We welcome the descending glow
Of pearl and crysolite,

And see the setting sun.

Not from Jerusalem alone

The church ascends to God;

Strangers of every tongue and clime,

Pilgrims of every land and time,

Throng the well-trodden road

That leads up to the throne.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Wash for Walls, 340. Spots on White Marble, 340. Literary Intelligence, 340, 343, 347. Robinson Crusoe's Cup and Chest, 343. What is a Fog? 343. President Lincoln on Shakspeare, 347.

MR. BEECHER IN GREAT BRITAIN.

EVERY loyal American, whatever his opinions respecting the past words and acts of Henry Ward Beecher, will thank him for his work across the water. It is no exaggeration to affirm that the five speeches he has delivered,—in Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and London,--each pursuing its own line of argument and appeal, have done more for our cause in England and Scotland than all that has been before said or written. Mr. Beecher possesses the faculty, beyond any other living American, of combining close, rapid, powerful, practical reasoning with intense passion. His mind is always aglow with his subject, and whatever comes from it, even if it does not flash conviction, is almost sure to kindle sympathy. This, combined with his marvellous power of illustration-marvellous alike for its intense vividness and its unerring pertinency-and with his great flexibility, whereby he adapts himself completely to the exigency of the instant, gives him a rare command over a common audience. Even those who hate, can't help. admiring, and those most steeled with prejudice have to wince in spite of themselves.

No better proof of the power of Mr. Beecher's eloquence need be had than the immense efforts made by the rebel sympathizers, after his first speeches, to shut his lips by force. . . And yet how well he has sustained himself. It was a grand spectacle-in St. George's Hall, Liverpool-when he struggled two livelong hours against that raging sea of insult, taunt, irony, impertinent questioning, blackguardism, curses, hisses, cat-calls, stampings, hootings, yellings-every possible manifestation of hate, every possible form of disorder-a brave sight, we say, this strong-winged bird of the storm matching his might against it-now soaring up to overcome it-now sinking down to undermine it-now dashing in its teeth-now half-choked in the gust of its fury, but always moving onward, and in the end riding triumphant on the very crest of its wildest billows. There has not been a more heroic achievement on any of our fields of battle than the successful delivery of that speech against the odds which opposed it.

It is plain, from the whole tone of the British press, that Mr. Beecher has been instrumental in starting, or at least in hastening, a complete revolution of the popular feeling of the kingdom in favor of our national cause. . . . There is no longer any obstacle to our receiving the friendly advances of the British people with entire good-will. Nobody but an enemy of his race can doubt that it is better that the two great free powers of the world should be friends rather than enemies. Every man who, without sacrifice of principle, promotes this end, is a benefactor. Mr. Beecher, in doing this, while at the same time vindicating our national cause with unflinching spirit, has entitled himself to the gratitude of every right-hearted American.-N. Y. Times.

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