We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came very near expressing interest sometimes, even admiration. It was hard to keep from it. We succeeded, though. Nobody else ever did, in the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered, nonplussed. He walked his legs off, uearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last,-a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him:"See, genteelmen!-Mummy! Mummy!" The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever. "Ah,-Ferguson,-what did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was?" "Name?-he got no name!-Mummy!-'Gyptian mummy!" "Yes, yes. Born here?" "No. Gyptian mummy." Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?" "No!not Frenchman, not Roman!-born in Egypta!" "Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy-mummy. How calm he is, how self-possessed! Is-ah!—is he dead ?” Oh, sacre bleu! been dead three thousan' year!” The doctor turned on him savagely:- 64 'Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as this? Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose your vile secondhand carcasses on us! Thunder and lightning! I've a notion to-to-if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!-or, by George, we'll brain you!" We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman. However, he has paid us back, partly, without knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored, as well as he could to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say. Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering subject we have had yet. sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society We shall be very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are S. C. Clemens. harassed with doubts. THE CHILDREN. WHEN the lessons and tasks are all ended, And when they are gone, I sit dreaming When the glory of God was about me, Oh! my heart grows weak as a woman's, They are idols of hearts and of households; Oh! these truants from home and from heaven, And I know how Jesus could liken The kingdom of God to a child. 118 I ask not a life for the dear ones, All radiant, as others have done, I would pray God to guard them from evil, But a sinner must pray for himself. The twig is so easily bended, I have banished the rule and the rod; I have taught them the goodness of knowledge, My heart is a dungeon of darkness, Where I shut them from breaking a rule ; My love is the law of the school. I shall leave the old house in the autumn, I shall miss them at morn and at eve, Charles Dickinson CLARENCE'S DREAM. Clarence. OH, I have passed a miserable night, Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches. Thence we looked toward England. and, in falling, Struck me, that sought to stay him, overboard, Into the tumbling billows of the main. Oh Heaven! Methought what pain it was to drown All scattered in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men's skulls and in those holes Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony? Clar. No, no! my dream was lengthened after life; Oh, then began the tempest to my soul! I passed, methought, the melancholy flood, The first that there did greet my stranger soul SEIZE on him, furies! take him to your torments!" Shakspeare. THE DEATH OF HAMILTON. A SHORT time since, and he, who is the occasion of our sorrows, was the ornament of his country. He stood on an eminence, and glory covered him. From that em nence he has fallen suddenly, forever fallen. His intercourse with the living world is now ended; and those who would hereafter find him, must seek him in the grave. There, cold and lifeless, is the heart which just now was the seat of friendship; there, dim and sightless, is the eye, whose radiant and enlivening orb beamed with intelligence; and there, closed forever, are those lips, on whose persuasive accents we have so often, and so lately hung with transport. From the darkness which rests upon his tomb there proceeds, methinks, a light, in which it is clearly seen, that those gaudy objects which men pursue are only phantoms. In this light how dimly shines the splendor of victory-how humble appears the majesty of grandeur! The bubble, which seemed to have so much solidity, has burst; and we again see, that all below the sun is vanity. True, the funeral eulogy has been pronounced, the sad and solemn procession has moved, the badge of mourning has already been decreed, and presently the sculptured marble will lift up its front, proud to perpetuate the name of Hamilton, and rehearse to the passing traveller his virtues, just tributes of respect, and to the living useful;— but to him, moldering in his narrow and humble habitation, what are they? How vain! how unavailing! Approach, and behold, while I lift from his sepulchre its covering! Ye admirers of his greatness-ye emulous of his talents and his fame-approach, and behold him now. How pale! how silent! No martial bands admire the adroitness of his movements; no fascinating throng weep, and melt, and tremble at his eloquence! Amazing change! A shroud, a coffin, a narrow, subterraneous cabin-this is all that now remains of Hamilton! And is this all that remains of him? During a life so transi tory, what lasting monument, then, can our fondest hopes erect! |