tory, and of all that is transporting in human hope is to be sacrificed on the altars of a Satanic ambition, and thus disappear forever amid the night and tempest of revolution, then will I feel-(and who shall estimate the desolation of that feeling?)—that the sun has indeed been stricken from the sky of our lives, and that, henceforth, we shall be wanderers and outcasts, with naught but the bread of sorrow and penury for our lips, and with hands ever outstretched in feebleness and supplication, on which, in any hour, a military tyrant may rivet the fetters of a despairing bondage. May God in his infinite mercy save you and me, and the land we so much love, from the doom of such a degradation.

No contest so momentous as this has arisen in human history, for, amid all the conflicts of men and of nations, the life of no such government as ours has ever been at stake. Our fathers won our independence by the blood and sacrifice of a seven years' war, and we have maintained it against the assaults of the greatest power upon earth; and the question now is, whether we are to perish by our own hands, and have the epitaph of suicide written upon our tomb. The ordeal through which we are passing must involve immense suffering and losses for us all, but the expenditure of not merely hundreds of millions, but of billions, will be well made, if the result shall be the preservation of our institutions.

Could my voice reach every dwelling in the United States, I would implore its inmates-if they would not have the rivers of their prosperity shrink away, as do unfed streams beneath the summer heats— to rouse themselves from their lethargy, and fly to the rescue of their country, before it is everlastingly too late. Man should appeal to man, and neighborhood to neighborhood, until the electric fires of patriotism shall flash from heart to heart, in one unbroken current throughout the land It is a time in which the workshop, the office, the counting-house, and the field may well be abandoned for the solemn duty that is upon us, for all these toils will but bring treasure, not for ourselves, but for the spoiler, if this revolution is not arrested. We are all, with our every earthly interest, embarked in mid-ocean on the same common deck. The howl of the storm is in our ears, and "the lightning's red glare is painting hell on the sky," and while the noble ship pitches and rolls under the lashings of the waves, the cry is heard that she has sprung aleak at many points that the rushing waters are mounting rapidly in the hold. The man who, at such an hour, will not work the pumps, is either a maniac or a monster.

J. HOLT.

THE NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY. ·

[The reader will find in this piece an excellent opportunity for practicing himself in rapid utterances and changes of tone and action. It should be delivered in a serious, matter-of-fact manner.]

A man in many a country town we know,
Professes openly with death to wrestle;
Entering the field against the grimly foe,
Armed with a mortar and a pestle.
Yet some affirm no enemies they are,
But meet just like prize-fighters in a fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother;
So (many a suffering patient saith),
Though the apothecary fights with Death,
Still they're sworn friends to one another.

His fame full six miles round the country ran.

In short, in reputation he was solus;

All the old women called him "a fine man!"

His name was Bolus.

Benjamin Bolus, though in trade

(Which oftentimes will genius fetter),
Read works of fancy, it is said,

And cultivated the belles lettres.

And why should this be thought so odd?
Can't men have taste who cure a phthisic?

Of poetry though patron god,

Apollo patronizes physic.

Bolus loved verse and took so much delight in 't,
That his prescriptions he resolved to write in 't.
No opportunity he e'er let pass

Of writing the directions on his labels
In dapper couplets, like Gay's fables,

Or, rather, like the lines in Hudibras.

Apothecary's verses!-and where's the treason?
'T is simply honest dealing; not a crime;
When patients swallow physic without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.

He had a patient lying at death's door,

Some three miles from the town,-it might be four; To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article

In pharmacy, that's called cathartical.

And on the label of the stuff

He wrote this verse,

Which one would think was clear enough,

And terse:

"When taken,

To be well shaken."

Next morning early, Bolus rose,
And to the patient's house he goes
Upon his pad,

Who a vile trick of stumbling had:
It was, indeed, a very sorry hack;
But that's of course

For what's expected from a horse
With an apothecary on his back?
Bolus arrived, and gave a doubtful tap,
Between a single and a double rap.

Knocks of this kind

Are given by gentlemen who teach to dance;

By fiddlers, and by opera-singers;

One loud, and then a little one behind,

As if the knocker sell by chance

Out of their fingers.

The servant lets him in with dismal face
Long as a courtier's out of place—
Portending some disaster;

John's countenance as rueful looked and grim,
As if the apothecary had physicked him,
And not his master.

"Well, how's the patient?" Bolus said; John shook his head.

'Indeed!—hum! ha!-that's very odd!

He took the draught?" John gave a nod.

"Well, how? what then? speak out, you dunce!"

..

Why, then," says John, we shook him once

"Shook him!-how?" Bolus stammered out.

"We jolted him about "—

"Zounds! shake a patient, man!—a shake won't do."—

"

No, sir, and so we gave him two."

"Two shakes! odd's curse!

""Twould make the patient worse."

"It did so, sir, and so a third we tried.”—

"Well, and what then?"-"Then, sir, my master died."

GEORGE COLEMAN.

THE NANTUCKET SKIPPER.

Many a long, long year ago,

Nantucket skippers had a plan

of finding out, though "lying low,"

How near New York their schooners ran,

They greased the lead before it fell,

And then by sounding through the night, Knowing the soil that stuck so well,

They always guessed their reckoning right.

A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim,
Could tell, by tasting, just the spot;
And so below he'd "douse the glim,"

After, of course, his "something hot."

Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock,

This ancient skipper might be found;
No matter how his craft would rock,

He slept, for skippers' naps are sound.

The watch on deck would now and then

Run down and wake him, with the lead;
He'd up, and taste, and tell the men
How many miles they went ahead.

One night 'twas Jotham Marden's watch,
A curious wag,-the peddler's son;
And so he mused (the wanton wretch!)
"To-night I'll have a grain of fun.

"We're all a set of stupid fools,

To think the skipper knows, by tasting,

What ground he's on; Nantucket schools

Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!"

And so he took the well-greased lead,

And rubbed it o'er a box of earth,

That stood on deck,—a parsnip-bed,-

And then he sought the skipper's berth.

"Where are we now, sir? Please to taste,'
The skipper yawned, put out his tongue,

Opened his eyes in wondrous haste,

And out upon the floor he sprung!

The skipper stormed and tore his hair,

Thrust on his boots and roared to Marden:

"Nantucket's sunk, and here we are

Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!'

JAMES T. FIELDS.

OUR GUIDE IN GENOA AND ROME.

European guides know about enough English to tangle everything up so that a man can make neither head nor tail of it. They