what was at the time believed to be the morning of the last day the enfeebled garrison could possibly hold out, the wife of a superior officer (and it is she who is supposed to tell the pathetic tale) had gone to the lines to render such aid as she might be able, accompanied by the wife of a subaltern officer in the same regiment. This last poor young woman had fallen into a state of nervous excitement during the siege, and for the last few days a constant fever had preyed upon her. Her mind wandered at times,—she thought, she dreamed of home, her heart in fact was in her distant highlands. At length overcome with fatigue, she wrapped herself in her plaid; threw herself on the ground, her head resting on the lady's knee, and fell asleep, praying only to be waked uppoor soul. "when her father should come home from the ploughing." In a short time, in spite of the continual roar of the cannons and bursting of the shells, the lady herself sunk to sleep also. Suddenly, however, she was awakened by an unearthly but a rapturous scream; and beheld the young woman starting to her feet,- her arms raised, her head bent forward in the most earnest attitude of listening. Soon a look of wild and intense delight broke over her countenance, she grasped the lady's hand, and drawing her close to her side, exclaimed in frantic joy, "Dinna ye hear it, dinna ye hear it, I'm no dreaming, it's the slogan of the Highlanders, the Campbells are coming, we are saved, we are saved!”

The warfare of life has its perils, its sufferings, its extremities, its rescues, as urgent, as narrow as the warfare of arms. The greatest dangers, the most deplorable sacrifices, the most thrilling escapes, are not those of the tented field or "the imminent deadly breach." It is not necessary to go to the antipodes, and search amidst the crash of old effete despotisms, for scenes of horror which make the blood run cold at their bare mention. Here in the heart of our great cities, here in the neighborhood of spacious squares and magnificent avenues, here within the shadow of palatial walls, hundreds, thousands of our fellow-creatures are beleaguered this moment by the gaunt and ruthless legions of want and temptation. I venture to say that within a quarter of a mile of this magnificent

building, crowded as it is with so much of the prosperity, the intelligence, the glowing life of this mighty metropolis, there are men and women, who have not partaken a regular meal this day; whose shivering limbs are covered with rags that do not deserve the name of clothes; - their children crying for the bread which their wretched parents cannot give them. No resources, no friends to man the walls of their defence;a stern, hand to hand, all but desperate fight with the merciless foe. Poor creatures, born with all your susceptibilities and wants; some of them to all your hopes and expectations, clasped in their infancy to bosoms as fond and warm as those which nursed you into health, strength, and beauty;their memories running back in their delirious dreams to homes as pleasant as those which sheltered your childhood,— overtaken by calamity, by disease, by the hard times;-besieged, shut in by the dreadful enemy. The fires of necessity (fiercer than those which spout from roaring artillery or rage like an open hell along the embattled lines) girding them round; nearer and nearer, hotter and hotter, with every feverish unfed morning's light and every fainting evening's watch; the last piteous appeal for employment unsuccessfully made; the ill-spared cloak stripped from the shivering shoulders; the last sorely needed blanket torn from the miserable bed and taken to the pawnbroker's; the last fond trifles of better days, the poor little gold ring, which her sailor brother put upon her finger when he went upon the voyage from which he never came back, the bracelet of flaxen hair cut from the head of a little sister, as she lay in her coffin, white as the pale roses that decked it; — the cherished locket that clasped the tenderer secret of her young affections (for these poor creatures have hearts as warm as any that beat in those glittering rows), the very Bible that her mother placed in her trunk, when joyous and hopeful, loaded with the blessed burden of a parent's tears and prayers and benedictions, she left her native village for the city; all pawned, all bartered for bread, all parted with for ever. Oh Heavens!

VOL. III.

*The Academy of Music in New York.

76

how can they bear it? How can virtue, conscience, holy shame itself hold out under another day's craving, gnawing hunger, another night's hateful, devilish temptation? They will, they must give way. Oh Christian men, and still more, dear Christian women, have mercy upon them! Let them, as they are just about to fall "like stars that set to rise no more,” — let them hear in the distance the footsteps of manly aid, let hope come softly rustling to the strained ear like the flutter of an angel's wing, in the robes of matronly and maiden sympathy flying to their rescue, and from the lips of your poor sisters just ready body and soul to perish, let the blessed cry be heard, "We are saved, we are saved!"

DEDICATION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.*

MR. MAYOR:

IN behalf of the Trustees of the City Library, I receive with extreme pleasure the keys which you have placed in my hands. The completion of the noble building, which the city government now confides to our care, is an event to which the Trustees have looked forward with the greatest interest, and which they now contemplate with the highest satisfaction. They deem themselves especially honored in their connection with an institution, for whose use this stately and commodious edifice has been erected, and which they doubt not is destined to be instrumental of the highest good to the community, and to reflect lasting credit upon the liberality, public and private, with which it has been founded and endowed.

The city of Boston, owing to peculiar circumstances in its growth and history, has been at all times, as I think, beyond most cities in the world, the object of an affectionate attachment on the part of its inhabitants; a feeling entitled to respect and productive of good, even if it may sometimes seem. to strangers over-partial in its manifestations. It is not merely its commanding natural situation, the triple hills on which it is enthroned, its magnificent bay and harbor, and the group of islands and islets that sparkle like emeralds on their surface; not merely this most admirable common, which opens before

* A Speech delivered on the 1st of January, 1858, in presence of the municipal authorities, at the dedication of the new building erected for the Free Public Library of the city of Boston, His Honor the Mayor (A. H. Rice) presiding.

our windows, delightful even at this season of the year, and affording us in summer, in its noble malls and shady walks, all that the country can boast of cool and beautiful and salubrious, transported to the heart of the city, "the poor man's pleasure-ground," as it has been well called, though a king might envy it;-nor the environs of our city of surpassing loveliness, which enclose it on every side in kindly embrace; it is not solely nor principally these natural attractions which endear Boston to its citizens. Nor is it exclusively the proud and grateful memories of the past,-of the high-souled fathers and mothers of the land, venerable in their self-denying virtues, majestic in the austere simplicity of their manners, conscientious in their errors, who, with amazing sacrifices and hardships never to be described, sought out new homes in the wilderness, and transmitted to us delights and blessings which it was not given to themselves to enjoy; - of those who in succeeding generations deserved well of their country, the pioneers of the Revolution, the men of the stamp act age, whose own words and acts are stamped on the pages of history, in characters never to be effaced;-of those who, when the decisive hour came, stood forth in that immortal HALL, the champions of their country's rights, while it scarcely yet deserved the name of a country; it is not exclusively these proud and grateful associations, which attach the dutiful Bostonian to the city of his birth or adoption.

No, Mr. Mayor, it is not exclusively these, much as they contribute to strengthen the sentiment. It has its origin, in no small degree, in the personal relation in which Boston places herself to her children; in the parental interest which she cherishes in their welfare, which leads her to take them by the hand almost from the cradle,-to train them up in the ascending series of her excellent free schools; watching over them as a fond father watches over the objects of his love and hope; in a word, to confer upon them a firstrate school education at the public expense. Often have I attempted, but with very partial success, both in this country and in Europe, to persuade inquiring friends from the countries and places where no such well-organized system of pub