his companions, he cuts and climbs again. The graduations of his ascending scale grow wider apart. He measures his length at every gain he cuts. The voices of his friends wax weaker and weaker, till their words are finally lost on his ear. He now, for the first time, casts a look beneath him. Had that glance lasted a moment, that moment would have been his last. He clings with a convulsive shudder to his little niche in the rock. An awful abyss awaits his almost certain fall. He is faint with severe exertion, and trembling from the sudden view of the dreadful destruction to which he is exposed. His knife is worn half-way to the haft. He can hear the voices, but not the words, of his terror-stricken companions below. What a moment! What a meager chance to escape destruction! There was no retracing his steps. It is impossible to put his hands into the same niche with his feet, and retain his slender hold a moment.

5. His companions instantly perceive this new and fearful dilemma, and await his fall with emotions that "freeze their young blood." He is too high, too faint, to ask for his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, to come and witness or avert his destruction. But one of his companions anticipates his desire. Swift as the wind, he bounds down the channel, and the situation of the fated boy is told upon his father's hearth-stone.

6. Minutes of almost eternal length roll on; and there are hundreds standing in that rocky channel, and hundreds on the bridge above, all holding their breath, and awaiting the fearful catastrophe. The poor boy hears the hum of new and numerous voices both above and below. He can just distinguish the tones of his father, who is shouting with all the energy of despair, "William! William! don't look down! Your mother, and Henry, and Harriet, are all here praying for you! Don't look down! Keep your eye toward the top!" The boy did not look down. His eye is fixed like a flint toward Heaven, and his young heart on him who reigns there.

K

7. He grasps again his knife. He cuts another niche, and another foot is added to the hundreds that remove him from the reach of human help from below. How carefully he uses his wasting blade! How anxiously he selects the softest places in that vast pier! How he avoids every flinty grain! How he economizes his physical powers, resting a moment at each gain he cuts. How every motion is watched from below. There stand his father, mother, brother, and sister, on the very spot, where, if he falls, he will not fall alone.

8. The sun is now half way down the west. The lad has made fifty additional niches in that mighty wall, and now finds himself directly under the middle of that vast arch of rocks, earth, and trees. He must cut his way in a new direction, to get from under this overhanging mountain. The inspiration of hope is dying in his bosom: its vital heat is fed by the increased shouts of hundreds perched upon cliffs and trees, and others, who stand with ropes in their hands on the bridge above, or with ladders below. Fifty gains more must be cut, before the longest rope can reach him. His wasting blade strikes again into the limestone. The boy is emerging painfully, foot by foot, from under that lofty arch.

9. Spliced ropes are ready in the hands of those who are leaning over the outer edge of the bridge. Two minutes more and all will be over. The blade is worn to the last half inch. The boy's head reels: his eyes are starting from their sockets. His last hope is dying in his heart his life must hang upon the next gain he cuts. That niche is his last. At the last faint gash he makes, his knife, his faithful knife, falls from his nerveless hand, and ringing along the precipice, falls at his mother's feet. An involuntary groan of despair runs like a death-knell through the channel below, and all is still as the grave.

10. At the hight of nearly three hundred feet, the devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart and closing eyes to commend his soul to God. 'Tis but a moment-there!—one

foot swings off!—he is reeling-trembling-toppling over into eternity! Hark! a shout falls on his ear from above! The man who is lying with half his length over the bridge, has caught a glimpse of the boy's head and shoulders. Quick as thought, the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking youth. No one breathes. With a faint convulsive effort, the swooning boy drops his arms into the noose. Darkness comes over him, and with the words, God! and mother! whispered on his lips just loud enough to be heard in heaven, the tightening rope lifts him out of his last shallow niche. Not a lip moves while he is dangling over that fearful abyss: but when a sturdy Virginian reaches down and draws up the lad, and holds him up in his arms before the tearful, breathless multitude, such shouting, such leaping and weeping for joy, never greeted the ear of human being so recovered from the yawning gulf of eternity.

XCV.-SOLILOQUY OF A DRUNKARD'S WIFE.

1. TIME was, when much he loved me;
When we walked out, at close of day, t' inhale
The vernal breeze. Ah, well do I remember,
How, then, with careful hand, he drew my mantle
Round me, fearful lest the evening dews

Should mar my fragile health. Yes, then his eye
Looked kindly on me when my heart was sad.

How tenderly he wiped my tears away,

While from his lips the words of gentle soothing
In softest accents fell!

2. How blest my evenings too, when wintery blasts

Were howling round our peaceful dwelling!

Oh, it was sweet, the daily task performed,

By the sweet hearth and cheerful fire, to sit
With him I loved: to view with glistening eye,
And all a parent's fondness, the budding graces
Of our little ones.

3. Then ye had a father,

My lovely babes, my more than helpless orphans.

Your mother more than widowed grief has known:
Yes, sharper pangs than those who mourn the dead,
Seized on my breaking heart, when first I knew
My lover, husband-oh, my earthly all—
Was dead to virtue; when I saw the man
My soul too fondly loved, transformed to brute.
Oh, it was then I tasted gall and wormwood!

4. Then the world looked dreary: fearful clouds
Quick gathered round me: dark forebodings came:
The grave, before, was terror; now it smiled:

I longed to lay me down in peaceful rest,
There to forget my sorrows. But I lived,

And, oh, my God! what years of woe have followed!

I feel my heart is broken. He who vowed

To cherish me-before God's altar vowed

Has done the deed. And shall I then upbraid him—
The husband of my youthful days-the man

To whom I gave my virgin heart away?
Patient I'll bear it all.

5. Peace, peace, my heart!

'Tis almost o'er. A few more stormy blasts,

And then this shattered, broken frame will fall,

And sweetly slumber where

The wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest.

XCVI.-BINGEN ON THE RHINE.

1. A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,

MRS. NORTON.

There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears;
But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed away,
And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say.
The dying soldier faltered, as he took that comrade's hand,
And he said, "I never more shall see my own, my native land:
Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends of mine,
For I was born at Bingen-at Bingen on the Rhine.

2. "Tell my brothers and companions, when they meet and crowd around

To hear my mournful story in the pleasant vineyard ground,

That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was done,

Full many a corse lay ghastly pale, beneath the setting sun.

And midst the dead and dying, were some grown old in wars,
The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many scars:
But some were young-and suddenly beheld life's morn decline;
And one had come from Bingen-fair Bingen on the Rhine!

3. "Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old age,
And I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home a cage:
For my father was a soldier, and even as a child

My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild;
And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard,

I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's sword,
And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine,
On the cottage-wall at Bingen-calm Bingen on the Rhine!

4. "Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head, When the troops are marching home again, with glad and gallant tread; But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast eye,

For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die.

And if a comrade scek her love, I ask her in my name

To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame;

And to hang the old sword in its place (my father's sword and mine),
For the honor of old Bingen-dear Bingen on the Rhine!

5. "There's another-not a sister: in the happy days gone by,

You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye:

Too innocent for coquetry,-too fond for idle scorning,

Oh! friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning: Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon be risen

My body will be out of pain-my soul be out of prison),

I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine

On the vine-clad hills of Bingen-fair Bingen on the Rhine!

6. "I saw the blue Rhine sweeping along-I heard, or seemed to hear

The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear;

And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill,

The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and still;
And her glad blue eyes were on me as we passed with friendly talk
Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remembered walk,
And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine:

But we'll meet no more at Bingen-loved Bingen on the Rhine!"

7. His voice grew faint and hoarser, his grasp was childish weak,-His eyes put on a dying look,—he sighed and ceased to speak:

His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled,—

The soldier of the Legion, in a foreign land—was dead!