OUR BLUE-EYED BOY.

WE had a child, a blue-eyed boy,
Born on a bright May morn;
A thousand phantasies were ours
The day that child was born.
His eye was joyous even then;
His lip learned music soon;
We fancied him a full-grown man
Before the end of June!

Years blessed him with joy and grace, Oh, how we loved that boy!

His laugh was like a voice in dreams,
So musical with joy.

His glorious hair hung gaily back,
Shading a forehead bold;

We wondered how that brow would look
When our brave boy grew old.

Grew old! Yes, we had pictured him
A worn and weary one,

A good old man with locks of grey,
Whose work of life was done;
And when we had been sleeping years,
Calmly and solemnly,

We fancied then our gentle son

An honoured man would be!

'Twas the third summer; he was sad One August afternoon,

And much we wondered that the boy
Had left his play so soon;
But as he laid him in her arms
Where he was always blest,
We fancied he was weary, and
So laid him down to rest.

He slept and woke, but now his eye
Gleamed with a fitful light;

And while his soul seemed full of day,
Our souls were full of night.

For he was joyous while our hearts
Were beating heavily;

He spoke of rest, of calm, deep rest-
We knew our boy would die.

A while he lingered at the point
Where the two pathways part,
As half uncertain which to hear,
His FATHER or his heart:

This called him back, to walk with ns
The weary, rugged road;
That to take rest upon the arm

Of our ascended God.

He turned to us, as if to join
Our company once more,
And with the joy of loving ones
Our hearts were running o'er.
He smiled-a holy, godly smile;
He spoke one heavenly tone;
And reached his tiny arms to us:
One clasp-and he was gone!

Long by the matchless clay we watched;
That clay was all he left;

Nor till the morning came could we
Believe we were bereft.

Yet once again our fancies had
Free rein to wander given:
We fancied now our dove-eyed boy
Grown to a saint in heaven.

We often talk of him and weep,
My gentle wife and I,

But know that for our blue-eyed boy
'Twas blessedness to die.

We fancy now those faint sad smiles,

So frequent in his play,

Have burst into an angel's wings
And borne our boy away.

THE BATTLE FIELD OF WATERLOO.

WHEN I was a little boy, war, horrid war, was raging with all its force and violence among the nations of Europe, and though it never reached England, yet we had a great deal to do with it; and had then, and now have, and shall have for a long time to come, millions of hard-earned money to pay for the expence of it-more money every year have we now to pay for that dreadful war, than would maintain all the poor with comfort, educate all the ignorant children, and provide for all poor idiots in the land. And so it always is, that when men do wrong, they must suffer for it-their sin will find them out.

But let me tell you about what I used to hear when I was a boy, and I heard of such things as soon as I could recollect hearing of anything-I used to hear of great battles, and like all other silly little boys I thought they were wonderful and glorious things. The first public event, however, which I recollect, was a rejoicing for peace in the year 1802, nearly fifty years ago, and then all the houses were illuminated by candles in the windows, and a great bonfire of tar barrels was made in the market-place, and the church bells rang out their merry peals, and every body seemed pleased and delighted because peace was made. But this did not last long, for I think it was only about two years afterward that war burst out again with renewed fury, and the next news which came was, that a "glorious victory" had been obtained by Lord Nelson over the French and Spaniards, in which hundreds of men and boys had been killed, or blown to pieces, or dreadfully wounded, and Nelson himself killed. But he died, they said, "in the arms of victory," and so the houses were illuminated again, and the bonfires blazed, and the church bells rang, and the windows of the peace-loving Quakers were broken because they would not illuminate their houses in token of rejoicing for this "glorious victory."

Ah, a glorious victory was it! I wonder what many a widow who had lost her husband, and many a mother who had lost her lad in that bloody seafight, thought about its being a glorious victory? they, poor things, could not rejoice, and every sound of the clanging bells would only make their heart ache more. But silly boys, and thoughtless lads, and foolish men, said it was a grand affair.

After this I remember that we had every now and then news of more “glorious victories,” as they were falsely and wickedly called. If the old postman, who came in every evening about half past six o'clock on horseback, fired his pistol on the bridge, the whole town was in commotion directly. Out they poured, men, women, and children, without hats, caps, or bonnets, from street, and lane, and alley, shouting, "Another Victory-Another Victory!" And as the old postman rode up the street, in his soldier-like dress, with a great helmet on his head covered with blue ribbons, a sword by his side, and a pair of big horse pistols in the pockets of his saddle before him, half drunk and silly himself, the people crowding round him and shouting and huzzaing-the scene was enough to fill any good man's heart with sorrow that so many people could be found ready to rejoice over the sufferings and death of their fellow creatures.

Well as I grew up to be a young man, still we heard every year of "glorious victories" obtained by Lord Wellington in Spain, all of which were accompanied by such exhibitions of uproarous exultation— scenes such as no man less than thirty years old in England has ever seen, and such I hope as no boy born in England will ever see again.

But I must tell you something about the man who was at the head of all this turmoil and fighting; surely the world will never see such another. There had been such before him. Let us hope that there never

THE BATTLE FIELD OF WATERLOO.

may be one come after him. Happy will it be for the world if there is not.

Napoleon Bonaparte was that man. He was the son of a lawyer, and was born on the island of Corsica, in 1769, the same year the Duke of Wellington was born in, but it would have been better for the world if he had never been born. He was sent to school to learn to be a soldier, and he soon showed that he had, like the tiger of the forest, a taste for blood. He was first called out into action at Toulon, and to shew how little from the first he thought of human life and human sufferings, he laughed when a cannon ball cut in two one of his own companions who was engaged to be married in a few days. Then he went to Paris, when the first revolution was raging-got placed in command of the soldiers, and slaughtered many thousands of the people in the streets. Then he was made a General, and led the soldiers of France into Italy, and fought and won many great battles. Then he went to Egypt and did the same, and then returned to Europe and fought and won many great battles, until nearly all the nations were subject to his power. Then he got made Emperor, and made his brothers kings, and had more power at his command than any man ever had since the world began. He now put away his wife, a beautiful woman, because she had no children, and demanded and obtained the daughter of the Emperor of Austria for his wife, by whom he had a son, whom he made King of Rome.

Soon he quarrelled with the Emperor of Russia, and went against him to battle with such an army as the world had never seen collected together before. And he went on, killing the Russians or driving them before him, till he planted his standard on the towers of the ancient city of Moscow. He had now conquered nearly all the nations of Europe, and some have said that he impiously scrawled this sentence with his sword on the walls of the Kremlin