day-shall I forget it ever?-ye were present;-I had fought long and well. Exhausted as I was, your munerator, your lord of the games, bethought him, it were an equal match to set against me a new man, younger and lighter than I, but fresh and valiant. With Thracian sword and buckler, forth he came, a beautiful defiance on his brow! Bloody and brief the fight. "He has it!" cried the people; habet! habet!" But still he lowered not his arm, until, at length, I held him, gashed and fainting, in my power. I looked around upon the Podium, where sat your senators and men of state, to catch the signal of release, of mercy. But not a thumb was reversed. To crown your sport, the vanquished man must die! Obedient brute that I was, I was about to slay him, when a few hurried words—rather a welcome to death than a plea for life-told me he was a Thracian. I stood transfixed. The arena vanished. I was in Thrace, upon my na tive hills! The sword dropped from my hands. I raised the dying youth tenderly in my arms. O, the magnanimity of Rome! Your haughty leaders, enraged at being cheated of their death-show, hissed their disappointment, and shouted, "Kill!" I heeded them as I would heed the howl of wolves. Kill him?-They might have better asked the mother to kill the babe, smiling in her face. Ah! he was already wounded unto death; and, amid the angry yells of the spectators, he died. That night I was scourged for disobedience. I shall not forget it. Should memory fail, there are scars here to quicken it.

Well; do not grow impatient. Some hours after, finding myself, with seventy fellow-gladiators, alone in the amphitheater, the laboring thought broke forth in words. I said, -I know not what. I only know that, when I ceased, my comrades looked each other in the face-and then burst forth the simultaneous cry-"Lead on! lead on, O Spartacus!" Forth we rushed,-seized what rude weapons chance threw in our way, and to the mountains speeded. There, day by day, our little band increased. Disdainful Rome sent after us a handful of her troops, with a scourge for the slave SpartaTheir weapons soon were ours. She sent an army; and down from old Vesuvius we poured, and slew three thousand. Now it was Spartacus the dreadful rebel! A larger army, headed by the Prætor, was sent, and routed; then another still. And always I remembered that fierce cry, riving my heart, and calling me to "kill!" In three pitched battles have Í not obeyed it? And now affrighted

cus.

Rome sends her two consuls, and puts forth all her strength by land and sea, as if a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal were on her borders!

Envoys of Rome! To Lentulus and Gellius bear this message: "Their graves are measured!" Look on that narrow stream, a silver thread, high on the mountain's side! Slenderly it winds, but soon is swelled by others meeting it, until a torrent, terrible and strong, it sweeps to the abyss, where all is ruin. So Spartacus comes on! So swells his force, small and despised at first, but now resistless! On, on to Rome we come! The gladiators come! Let Opulence tremble in all his palaces! Let Oppression shudder to think the oppressed may have their turn! Let Cruelty turn pale at thought of redder hands than his! O! we shall not forget Rome's many lessons. She shall not find her training was all wasted upon indocile pupils. Now, begone! Prepare the Eternal City for our games!

Ex. CLXXXV.-SPIRITUAL VISITATIONS.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

THE doctrine of departed spirits returning to visit the scenes and beings, which were dear to them during the body's existence, though it has been debased by the absurd superstitions of the vulgar, in itself is awfully solemn and sublime.

However lightly it may be ridiculed, yet, the attention involuntarily yielded to it, whenever it is made the subject of serious discussion, and its prevalence in all ages and countries, even among newly discovered nations that have had no previous interchange of thought with other parts of the world, prove it to be one of those mysterious and instinctive beliefs, to which, if left to ourselves, we should naturally incline.

In spite of all the pride of reason and philosophy, a vague doubt will still lurk in the mind, and, perhaps, will never be eradicated, as it is a matter that does not admit of positive demonstration. Who yet has been able to comprehend and describe the nature of the soul; its mysterious connection with the body; or in what part of the frame it is situated? We know merely that it does exist: but whence it came, and

when it entered into us, and how it is retained, and where it is seated, and how it operates, are all matters of mere speculation, and contradictory theories. If then, we are thus ignorant of this spiritual essence, even while it forms a part of ourselves, and is continually present to our consciousness, how can we pretend to ascertain or deny its powers and operations, when released from its fleshly prison house?

Every thing connected with our spiritual nature is full of doubt and difficulty. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made:" we are surrounded by mysteries; and we are mysteries even to ourselves. It is more the manner in which this superstition has been degraded, than its intrinsic absurdity, that has brought it into contempt. Raise it above the frivolous purposes to which it has been applied, strip it of the gloom and horror with which it has been enveloped; and there is none, in the whole circle of visionary creeds, that could more delightfully elevate the imagination, or more tenderly affect the heart. It would become a sovereign comfort at the bed of death, soothing the bitter tear wrung from us by the agony of mortal separation.

What could be more consoling than the i at the souls of those we once loved were permitted to rey and watch over our welfare?—that affectionate and guardian spirits sat by our pillows when we slept, keeping a vigil over our most helpless hours?-that beauty and innocence, which had languished into the tomb, yet smiled unseen around us, revealing themselves in those blest dreams wherein we live over again the hours of past endearments? A belief of this kind would, I should think, be a new incentive to virtue, rendering us circumspect, even in our most secret moments, from the idea that those we once loved and honored, were invisible witnesses of all our actions.

It would take away, too, from that loneliness and destitution, which we are apt to feel more and more as we get on in our pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world, and find that those who set forward with us lovingly, and cheerily, on the journey, have, one by one, dropped away from our side. Place the superstition in this light, and I confess I should like to be a believer in it.-I see nothing in it that is incompatible with the tender and merciful nature of our religion, or revolting to the wishes and affections of the heart. There are departed beings that I have loved as I never again shall love in this world; that have loved me as I never again shall be loved. If such beings do even retain, in their

blessed spheres, the attachments which they felt on earth; if they take an interest in the poor concerns of transient mortality, and are permitted to hold communion with those whom they have loved on earth, I feel as if now, at this deep hour of night, in this silence and solitude, I could receive their visitation with the most solemn but unalloyed delight.

In truth, such visitations would be too happy for this world they would take away from the bounds and barriers that hem us in, and keep us from each other. Our existence is doomed to be made up of transient embraces and long separations. The most intimate friendship-of what brief and scattered portions of time does it consist? We take each other by the hand; and we exchange a few words and looks of kindness; and we rejoice together, for a few short moments; and then days, months, years intervene, and we have no intercourse with each other. Or if we dwell together for a season, the grave soon closes its gates, and cuts off all further communion; and our spirits must remain in separation and widowhood, until they meet again in that more perfect state of being, where soul shall dwell with soul, and there shall be no such thing as death, or absence, or any other interruption of our union.

Ex. CLXXXVI.—EPITAPH ON THE LATE KING OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

W. M. PRAED.

BENEATH the marble, mud or moss,
Whiche'er his subjects shall determine,
Entombed in eulogies and dross,

The island king is food for vermin;
Preserved by scribblers and by salt,
From Lethe and sepulchral vapors,
His body fills his father's vault,

His character the daily papers.

Well was he framed for royal seat;

Kind to the meanest of his creatures;

With tender heart and tender feet,
And open purse and open features;
The ladies say, who laid him out,

And earned thereby the usual pensions,
They never wreathed a shroud about

A corpse of more genteel dimensions.,

He warred with half a score of foes,
And shone-by proxy-in the quarrel;
Enjoyed hard fights and soft repose,

And deathless death and deathless laurel; His enemies were scalped and flayed,

Whene'er his soldiers were victorious;
And widows wept, and paupers paid,
To make their sovereign ruler glorious.

And days were set apart for thanks,
And prayers were said by pious readers;
And laurel lavished on the ranks,

And land was lavished on their leaders; Events are writ by History's pen;

Though causes are too much to care for,Fame talks about the where and when, While Folly asks the why and wherefore.

In peace he was intensely gay,
And indefatigably busy;
Preparing gewgaws every day,

And shows to make his subjects dizzy;
And hearing the report of guns,
And signing the report of jailers,
And making up receipts for buns,
And patterns for the army tailors.

And building carriages and boats,
And streets and chapels and pavilions,
And regulating all the coats,

And all the principles of millions;

And drinking homilies and gin,

And chewing pork and adulation,

And looking backwards upon sin,
And looking forwards to salvation.

The people, in his happy reign,

Were blest beyond all other nations;
Unharmed by foreign axe or chain,
Unhealed by civil innovations;
They served the usual logs and stones,
With all the usual rites and terrors;
And swallowed all their fathers' bones,

And swallowed all their fathers' errors.