LITTLE NELL'S FUNERAL.

In its mest pathetic and beautiful passages, the prose of Dickens runs eas. ily and naturally into rhyme and meter, and shows him to be a poet no less than a novelist, of high order. This tendency of his writing is very vividly illustrated by the account of the funeral of Little Nell, in the " Old Curiosity Shop," which is appended exactly as it stands in the book, with the exception of a few slight verbal alterations.

And now the bell,-the bell

She had so often heard by night and day,
And listened to with solemn pleasure,
E'en as a living voice,-

Rung its remorseless toll for her,
So young, so beautiful, so good.

Decrepit age, and vigorous life,

And blooming youth, and helpless infancy,

Poured forth,-on crutches, in the pride of strength
And health, in the full blush

Of promise, the mere dawn of life,

To gather round her tomb. Old men were there,
Whose eyes were dim

And senses failing,

Grandames, who might have died ten years ago,
And still been old,-the deaf, the blind, the lame,
The palsied,

The living dead in many shapes and forms,
To see the closing of this early grave.

What was the death it would shut in,

To that which still could crawl and keep above it!

Along the crowded path they bore her now;
Pure as the new fallen snow

That covered it; whose day on earth
Had been as fleeting.

Under that porch, where she had sat when Heaven
In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot,
She passed again, and the old church
Received her in its quiet shade.

They carried her to one old nook,

Where she had many and many a time sat musing,
And laid their burden softly on the pavement.
The light streamed on it through

The colored window,-a window where the boughs
Of trees were ever rustling

In the summer, and where the birds

Sang sweetly all day long.

Charles Dickens.

ARTEMUS WARD AT THE TOMB OF SHAKSPEARE.

I've been lingerin by the Tomb of the lamentid Shakspeare.

It is a success.

I do not hesitate to pronounce it as such.

You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you think its publication will subswerve the causo of litteratoor, you may publicate it.

I told my wife Betsey, when I left home, that I should go to the birthplace of the orthur of Otheller and other Plays. She said that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn't care where I went. "But," I said, “don't you know he was the greatest Poit that ever lived? Not one of these common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter, about the Roses as growses, and the breezes as blowses- but a Boss poit-also a philosopher, also a man who knew a great deal about everything."

Yes. I've been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birthplace of Shakspeare. Mr. S. is now no more. He's been dead over three hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly proud of him. They cherish his mem'ry, and them as sell picturs of his birthplace, &c, make it prof'tible cherisin it. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom.

"And this," I said, as I stood in the old church-yard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, "this marks the spot where lies William W. Shakspeare. Alars! and this is the spot where-"

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'You've got the wrong grave," said a man,-a worthy villager; "Shakspeare is buried inside the church."

"Oh," I said, "a boy told me this was it." The boy larfed and put the shillin I'd given him into his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards the street.

I pursood and captered him, and after talking to him a spell in a skarcastic stile, I let him went.

William Shakspeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the commentaters, Shaksperian scholars, etsetry, are

T

agreed on this, which is about the only thing they are agreed on in regard to him, except that his mantle hasn't fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough to hurt said poet or dramatist much. And there is no doubt if these commentaters and persons continner investigatin Shakspeare's career, we shall not, in doo time, know any thing about it at all. When a mere lad little William attended the Grammer School, because, as he said, the Grammer School wouldn't attend him. This remarkable remark, coming from one so young and inexperunced, set peple to thinkin there might be something in this lad. He subsequently wrote Hamlet and George Barnwell. When his kind teacher went to London to accept a posi tion in the offices of the Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow pupils to deliver a fare well address. "Go on, sir," he said, "in a glorus career. Be like a eagle, and soar, and the soarer you get the more we shall all be gratified! That's so."

C. F. Brown.

THE IRISHWOMAN'S LETTER.

And shure, I was tould to come in till yer honor,
To see would ye write a few lines to me Pat,
He's gone for a soger, is Misther O'Conner,
Wid a sthripe on his arm, and a band on his hat.

And what 'ill ye tell him? shure it must be aisy
For the likes of yer honor to spake with the pen,
Tell him I'm well, and mavourneen Daisy,

The baby, yer honor,) is better again.

For when he wint off, so sick was the crayther
She niver hilt up her blue eyes till his face;
And when I'd be cryin he'd look at me wild like,
And ax "would I wish for the country's disgrace."

So he left her in danger, and me sorely gravin,
And followed the flag wid an Irishman's joy;,
And it's often I drame of the big drums a batin,
And a bullet gone straight to the heart of my boy.

Tell him to sind us a bit of his money,

For the rint and the docther's bill, due in a wake, And-shure there's a tear on your eyelashes, honey, I' faith I've no right with such fradom to spake.

I'm over much thrifling, I'll not give ye trouble,
I'll find some one willin-oh, what can it be?
What's that in the newspaper folded up double?
Yer honor, don't hide it, but rade it to me.

Dead! Patrick O'Conner! O God, it's some ither, Shot dead! shure 'tis a wake scarce gone by, And the kiss on the chake of his sorrowin mother, It hasn't had time yet, yer honor, to dry.

Dead! dead! O God, am I crazy?

Shure it's brakin my heart ye are, tellin me so, And what en the world will I do wid poor Daisy? O what can I do? where can I go?

This room is so dark I'm not seein yer honor;
I think I'll go home. And a sob, hard and dry,
Rose up from the bosom of Mary O'Conner,
But never a tear drop welled up to her eye.

NOT ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.

O no, no,-let me lie

Not on a field of battle, when I die.

Let not the iron tread

Of the mad war-horse crush my helmed head;
Nor let the reeking knife,

That I have drawn against a brother's life,
Be in my hand when death

Thunders along, and tramples me beneath
His heavy squadron's heels,
Or gory felloes of his cannon's wheels.

From such a dying bed,

Though o'er it float the stripes of white and red, And the bald eagle brings

The clustered stars upon his wide-spread wings, To sparkle in my sight,

O, never let my spirit take her flight!

I know that beauty's eye

Is all the brighter where gay pennants fly,
And brazen helmets dance,

And sunshine flashes on the lifted lance;
I know that bards have sung,

And people shouted till the welkin rung,
In honor of the brave

Who on the battle-field have found a grave.

I know that o'er their bones
Have grateful hands piled monumental stones.
Some of those piles I've seen:
The one at Lexington, upon the green
Where the first blood was shed,
And to my country's independence led;
And others on our shore,

The "Battle Monument" at Baltimore,
And that on Bunker's Hill.

Ay, and abroad a few more famous still:
Thy "tomb" Themistocles,
That looks out yet upon the Grecian seas,
And which the waters kiss

That issue from the gulf of Salamis;
And thine too have I seen,

Thy mound of earth, Patroclus, robed in green,
That like a natural knoll,

Sheep climb and nibble over as they stroll,
Watched by some turbaned boy,
Upon the margin of the plain of Troy.

Such honors grace the bed,

I know, whereon the warrior lays his head,
And hears, as life ebbs out,

The conquered flying, and the conqueror's shout
But, as his eye grows dim,

What is a column or a mound to him?

What, to the parting soul,

The mellow note of bugles? What the roll
Of drums? No, let me die

Where the blue heaven bends o'er me lovingly,
And the soft summer air,

As it goes by me, stirs my thin, white hair,
And from my forehead dries

The death damp as it gathers, and the skies
Seem waiting to receive.

My soul to their clear depths. Or let me leave