BRUCE AND THE SPIDER.

BERNARD BARTON,

One of the very few Quakers who have shown any capacity and predilection for literature, the great majority of the Society of Friends having always shown more inclination for making money than for making books. Bernard Barton, who was styled the "Quaker Poet," was born near London in 1784, and when twenty-six years of age removed to Woodbridge, in Suffolk, where he was employed for many years as clerk in a bank, and where he died in 1849. At one time he proposed to abandon his calling for literary pursuits, but was persuaded not to do so by Lord Byron. His poems are the productions of "a fine and cultivated, rather than of a bold and original mind."

[There are none of us, whether boys or men, girls or women, who do not often need exhortation and encouragement to persevere in the course of that struggle through existence from birth to death, which has been aptly called the "battle of life," and the remembrance of the following poem and the incident it records will doubtless furnish moral support to many who are about to read it now, even when all seems wrapped in darkness that no cheering ray can pierce, and the fire of Hope has dwindled to the merest spark. In such a case as this was Robert Bruce, when the success of a little spider, that had been six times baffled in its attempt to bridge a space from beam to beam with a thread finer than the finest silk which should serve as a foundation for its cunningly-devised web, roused the despairing monarch to fresh exertions, which were rewarded by welcome success. The story of King Robert Bruce, briefly told, is this. When Margaret the "Maid of Norway," the grand-daughter of Alexander III. of Scotland, died on her way to Scotland to take possession of the throne as her grandfather's successor, the crown was claimed by no less than twelve competitors. Of these the principal were John Baliol, great-grandson of David, earl of Huntingdon, the brother of William surnamed the Lion, and Robert Bruce his grandson. Baliol was descended from David's eldest daughter, and claimed the crown by virtue of representing the senior branch of the family; while Bruce derived his descent from David's youngest daughter, and asserted his right because he was nearer of kin to Alexander III. than Baliol was. The rival claimants agreed to refer the decision of the question to Edward I. of England, who decided in favour of Baliol, because

this unwarlike prince had promised, if he were elected, to hold the Scottish realm as Edward's vassal. This was in 1292. Four years after, he was dethroned by Edward, who sought to make Scotland an appanage of England in reality. This roused Wallace and Robert Bruce to action; and on the death of the latter, his son, who bore the same name, came forward in the room of his father and claimed the throne as his right. After the execution of Wallace in London the Scotch accepted him as their leader, and crowned him at Scone in 1306. For many years his power was but nominal; he lost battle after battle, and was even compelled to quit his kingdom, but being induced to persevere by the example of a spider whose success in fixing its thread after several trials he is said to have witnessed when hiding from the English in a barn, he rallied his scattered forces, and after a series of less important successes won the battle of Bannockburn, which destroyed for a long time the supremacy of the English in Scotland, and enabled the chivalrous King and General to enjoy his own in peace and security.]

FOR Scotland's and for freedom's rights
The Bruce his part had played,

In five successive fields of fight
Been conquered and dismayed:
Once more against the English host
His band he led, and once more lost
The meed for which he fought:
And now from battle, faint and worn
The homeless fugitive forlorn
A hut's lone shelter sought.

And cheerless was that resting-place
For him who claimed a throne;

His canopy devoid of grace,

The rude, rough beams alone:
The heather couch his only bed,
Yet well I ween had slumber fled
From couch of eider-down!
Through darksome night till dawn of day,
Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay,

Of Scotland and her crown.

The sun rose brightly, and its gleam
Fell on that hapless bed,

And tinged with light each shapeless beam
Which roofed the lowly shed;
When looking up with wistful eye,
The Bruce beheld a spider try
His filmy thread to fling

From beam to beam of that rude cot;
And well the insect's toilsome lot
Taught Scotland's future king.

Six times his gossamery thread
The wary spider threw ;
In vain the filmy line was sped,
For powerless or untrue

Each aim appeared, and back recoiled
The patient insect, six times foiled
And yet unconquered still;
And soon the Bruce, with eager eye,
Saw him prepare once more to try
His courage, strength, and skill.

One effort more-his seventh, and last!
The hero hailed the sign!

And on the wished-for beam hung fast
That slender, silken line.

Slight as it was, his spirit caught
The more than omen, for his thought

The lesson well could trace

Which even "he who runs may read "—
That perseverance gains its meed,

And patience wins the race.

HENRY, prince of Scotland, son of DAVID I. of Scotland, had issue-1. MALCOLM IV. (d. 1165). 2. WILLIAM the Lion (d. 1214); and, 3. DAVID, Earl of Huntingdon. From WILLIAM the Lion was descended MARGARET, the Maid of Norway, who succeeded her grandfather, Alexander III., in 1285, and died in 1290, aged 7 years. The most conspicuous claimants of the Scottish crown at her decease were the descendants of DAVID, Earl of Huntingdon, John Baliol and Robert Bruce.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT,

One of the most eminent poets of America, whose poems are noted for their national spirit, tenderness, grace, delicacy of sentiment, and beauty of description. He was born in the State of Massachusetts in 1794, and is still living. His principal poems are "The Ages" and "Thanatopsis." [The sad story of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, is told in a few words in the 21st chapter of the 2nd book of the Prophet Sam

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uel. Her sons, with the sons of Michal, had been given up to the vengeance of the Gibeonites, and after their death the loving mother, crouching under the gibbet on which her boys had suffered, watched their corpses blackening in the sun, from the beginning of harvest until the water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.'

Who were the Gibeonites, let us ask, and why were they permitted to hang the two sons of Rizpah and the five sons of Michal, seven lads who had never done personal harm to one of their tribe?

Rather more than four hundred years before this event, the forty years' wanderings of the children of Israel had been brought to a close, and Joshua, the successor of Moses, was permitted to lead them in triumph into the promised land. Kings and fenced cities fell before them in all directions as they marched onwards into Canaan-the chosen instruments of God's vengeance against the original possessors of the land for their heinous crimes against man and against their Maker. Among the people of the land were the Gibeonites, the inhabitants of Gibeon, who, when they saw that Jericho and Ai were taken, and that none of the nations of the Canaanites were able to make head against the common foe, sought to accomplish by craft and cunning what other tribes had failed to do by valour and strength of muscle.

And this is what they did to save their lives, and secure an abiding-place in the land of their fathers. Although the cities were not more than three days' journey from the point that Joshua and the hosts of Israel had reached, they sent some of the chief men of the city as ambassadors to Joshua, dressed in old garments and patched shoes, and carrying dry and mouldy bread in old sacks, and some empty leathern skins that served as wine bottles in the East in those days (and even now in many parts of the world), old and rent and bound up,-and coming to Joshua with a lie in their mouth, and pretending that their shabby clothes and mouldy bread were the results of many days' travel from a far distant country, persuaded Joshua to make peace with them and permit them to live.

This was a hasty, unwise, and rash act on the part of Joshua and the princes of the Israelites, but they acted on their own responsibility, without asking counsel at the mouth of the Lord, and broke bread with the Gibeonites and swore that it should be as they wished. Thus they committed themselves to the Gibeonites by two of the most solemn and binding obligations. First,