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been crushed in dumb despair, by the memory of our fathers and their blood in our veins, it calls upon us, each and all, to be faithful to the trust which God has committed to our hands.

3. That fine natures should here feel their energies palsied by the cold touch of indifference, that they should turn to Westminster Abbey* or the Alps, or the Vatican,† to quicken their flagging pulses, is of all mental anomalies the most inexplicable. The danger would seem to be rather that the spring of a sensitive mind may be broken by the weight of obligation that rests upon it, and that the stimulant, by its very excess, may become a narcotic3.

4. The poet must not plead his delicacy of organization as an excuse for dwelling apart in trim gardens of leisure, and looking at the world only through the loopholes of his retreat. Let him fling himself, with a gallant heart, upon the stirring life, that heaves and foams around him. He must call home his imagination from those spots on which the light of other days has thrown its pensive charm, and be content to dwell among his own people. The future and the present must inspire him, and not the past. He must transfer to his pictures the glow of morning, and not the hues of sunset.

5. He must not go to any foreign Pharpar or Abana‡ for the sweet influences which he may find in that familiar stream, on whose banks he has played as a child, and mused as a man. Let him dedicate his powers to the best interests of his country. Let him sow the seeds of beauty along that dusty road, where humanity toils and sweats in the sun. Let him spurn the baseness which ministers food to the passions, that blot out in man's

* WEST-MIN'STER AB'BEY. A church in London, where there are monuments to many of England's great men.

† VAT'I-CĂN. A palace and museum of art in Rome.

PHÄR PAR AND AB'A-NA. Names of rivers in Syria. See 2 Kings v. 12.

soul the image of God. Let not his hands add one seduc. tive charm to the unzoned form of pleasure, nor twine the roses of his genius around the reveller's wine-cup.

6. Let him mingle with his verse those grave and high elements befitting him around whom the air of freedom blows, and upon whom the light of heaven shines. Let him teach those stern virtues of self-control and self-renunciation, of faith and patience, of abstinence and fortitude,

which constitute the foundations alike of individual happiness, and of national prosperity. Let him help to rear up this great people to the stature and symmetry of a moral manhood. Let him look abroad upon this young world in hope and not in despondency.

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7. Let him not be repelled by the coarse surface of material life. Let him survey it with the piercing insight of genius, and in the reconciling spirit of love. Let him find inspiration wherever man is found; in the sailor singing at the windlass'; in the roaring flames of the furnace; in the dizzy spindles of the factory; in the regular beat of the thresher's flail; in the smoke of the steamship; in the whistle of the locomotive. Let the mountain wind blow courage into him. Let him pluck, from the stars of his own wintry sky, thoughts, serene as their own light, lofty as their own place. Let the purity of the majestic heavens flow into his soul. Let his genius soar upon the wings of faith, and charm with the beauty of truth.

1 IN-TEL-LECT'U-AL.

ting to the intellect.

Mental; rela- | NAR-COTIC. A chemical agent producing sleep or stupor.

2 A-NŎM'A-LIE§. Irregularities, devi- WIND'LASS. A machine for drawing

ations from rule.

towards itself heavy burdens.

XLVI.-THE PINE TREE SHILLINGS.

HAWTHORNE.

[Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American author, remarkable for his original genius and the transparent beauty of his style. He was born July 4, 1804, and died May 19, 1864. This lesson is taken from a work written by him, called the Whole History of Grandfather's Chair. An old man is represented as possessed of a curious old chair, which had been brought to New England with the earliest settlers from Europe. His grandchildren ask him to relate the adventures of this chair; and in doing so, he tells them anecdotes of men distinguished in early New England history, into whose hands he imagines the chair to have successively passed.]

1. CAPTAIN JOHN HULL was the mint-master of Massachusetts, and coined all the money that was made there. This was a new line of business; for, in the earlier days of the colony, the current coinage consisted of gold and silver money of England, Portugal, and Spain. These coins being scarce, the people were often forced to barter their commodities instead of selling them.

2. For instance, if a man wanted to buy a coat, he perhaps exchanged a bear-skin for it. If he wished for a barrel of molasses, he might purchase it with a pile of pine boards. Musket bullets were used instead of farthings'. The Indians had a sort of money, called wampum, which was made of clam-shells; and this strange sort of specie was likewise taken in payment of debts by the English settlers. Bank bills had never been heard of. There was not money enough of any kind, in many parts of the country, to pay the salaries of the ministers; so that they sometimes had to take quintals of fish, bushels of corn, or cords of wood, instead of silver or gold.

3. As the people grew more numerous, and their trade, one with another, increased, the want of current money was still more sensibly felt. To supply the demand, the General Court passed a law for establishing a coinage of shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Captain John Hull was appointed to manufacture this money, and was to

have about one shilling out of every twenty to pay him for the trouble of making them.

4. Hereupon all the old silver in the colony was handed over to Captain John Hull. The battered silver cans and tankards, I suppose, and silver buckles, and broken spoons, and silver buttons of worn-out coats, and silver hilts of swords that had figured at court, — all such curious old articles were doubtless thrown into the melting-pot together. But by far the greater part of the silver consisted of bullion from the mines of South America, which the English buccaneers — who were little better than pirates had taken from the Spaniards, and brought to Massachusetts.

5. All this old and new silver being melted down and coined, the result was an immense amount of splendid shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Each had the date, 1652, on the one side, and the figure of a pine tree on the other. Hence they were called pine tree shillings. And for every twenty shillings that he coined, you will remember, Captain John Hull was entitled to put one shilling into his own pocket.

6. The magistrates soon began to suspect that the mintmaster would have the best of the bargain. They offered him a large sum of money if he would but give up that twentieth shilling which he was continually dropping into his own pocket. But Captain Hull declared himself perfectly satisfied with the shilling.

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7. And well he might be ; for so diligently did he labor, that, in a few years, his pockets, his money bags, and his strong-box were overflowing with pine tree shillings. This was probably the case when he came into possession of grandfather's chair; and as he had worked so hard at the mint, it was certainly proper that he should have a comfortable chair to rest himself in.

8. When the mint-master had grown very rich, a young

man, Samuel Sewell by name, came a-courting to his only daughter. His daughter-whose name I do not know, but we will call her Betsey-was a fine, hearty damsel, by no means so slender as some young ladies of our own days. On the contrary, having always fed heartily on pumpkin pies, doughnuts, Indian puddings, and other Puritan dainties, she was as round and plump as a pudding herself.

9. With this round, rosy Miss Betsey did Samuel Sewell fall in love. As he was a young man of good character, industrious in his business, and a member of the church, the mint-master very readily gave his consent. "Yes, you may take her," said he, in his rough way; "and you'll find her a heavy burden enough!"

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10. On the wedding day, we may suppose that honest John Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons of which were made of pine tree shillings. The buttons of his waistcoat were sixpences; and the knees of his smallclothes were buttoned with silver threepences. Thus attired, he sat with great dignity in grandfather's chair; and, being a portly old gentleman, he completely filled it from elbow to elbow. On the opposite side of the room, between her bridemaids, sat Miss Betsey. She was blushing with all her might, and looked like a full-blown peony or a great red apple.

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11. There, too, was the bridegroom, dressed in a fine purple coat and gold lace waistcoat, with as much other finery as the Puritan laws and customs would allow him to put on. His hair was cropped close to his head, because Governor Endicott had forbidden any man to wear it below the ears. But he was a very personable' young man; and so thought the bridemaids and Miss Betsey herself.

12. The mint-master also was pleased with his new sonin-law, especially as he had courted Miss Betsey out of

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