of three and four every Tuesday I am prepared to receive them. Gentlemen, often in great numbers, come and go, chat with each other, and act as they please. A porter shows them into the room, and they retire from it when they choose, without ceremony. At their first entrance they salute me, and I them, and as many as I can I talk to."

An English gentleman after visiting President Washington wrote: "There was a commanding air in his appearance which excited respect and forbade too great a freedom toward him, independently of that species of awe which is always felt in the moral influence of a great character. In every movement, too, there was a polite gracefulness equal to any met with in the most polished individuals of Europe, and his smile was extraordinarily attractive.. . . It struck me no man could be better formed for command. A stature of six feet, a robust but well-proportioned frame calculated to stand fatigue, without that heaviness which generally attends great muscular strength and abates active exertion, displayed bodily power of no mean standard. A light eye and full — the

His nose

very eye of genius and reflection. appeared thick, and though it befitted his other features was too coarsely and strongly formed to be the handsomest of its class. His mouth was like no other I ever saw: the lips firm, and the underjaw seeming to grasp the upper with force, as if its muscles were in full action when he sat still."

Such Washington appeared to those who saw and knew him. Such he remains to our vision. His memory is held by us in undying honor. Not only his memory alone but also the memory of his associates in the struggle for American Independence. Homage we should have in our hearts for those patriots and heroes and sages who with humble means raised their native land now our native land- from the depths of dependence, and made it a free nation. And especially for Washington, who presided over the nation's course at the beginning of the great experiment in self-government and, after an unexampled career in the service of freedom and our human kind, with no dimming of august fame, died calmly at Mount Vernon - the Father of his Country.

G. W. PARKE CUSTIS. Adapted by H. W. MABIE.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD

THE muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,

And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumèd heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed

The red stains from each brow,

And the proud forms, by battle gashed, Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, and flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;
No war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps his great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe.
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,

Knew well the watchword of that day

Was "Victory or death."

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;

T

And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the gory tide;

Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

'Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their fathers' gore
His first-born laurels grew,

And well he deemed the sons would

Their lives for glory too.

pour

Full many a norther's breath has swept

O'er Angostura's plain,

And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its moldered slain.
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,

Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound