our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his who visited his dung-hill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury, it is a privilege; it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and disease. It is an instinct and under the direction of reason, instinct is always in the right. I live in an inverted order. They who ought to have succeeded me are gone before me; they who should have been to me as posterity, are in the place of ancestors. I owe to the dearest relation— which ever must subsist in memory-that act of piety which he would have performed to me; I owe it to him to show, that he was not descended, as the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent.

MILTON.

T. B. MACAULAY.

Milton, and to Milton alone, belonged the secrets of the great deep, the beach of sulphur, the ocean of fire; the palaces of the fallen dominations, glimmering through the everlasting shade, the silent wilderness of verdure and fragrance where armed angels kept watch over the sleep of the first lovers, the portico of diamond, the sea of jasper, the sapphire pavement empurpled with celestial roses, and the infinite ranks of the Cherubim, blazing with adamant and gold.

WALK along the crowded streets, and Do I want anything that they are want

T is summer. A party of visitors are just crossing the iron bridge that extends from the American shore to Goat's Island, about a quarter of a mile above the Falls. Just as they are about to leave, while watching the stream as it plunges and dashes among the rocks below, the eye of one fastens on something clinging to a rock— caught on the very verge of the Falls. Scarcely willing to believe his

SCENE AT NIAGARA FALLS.

235

own vision, he directs the attention of his companions. The terrible news spreads like lightning, and in a few minutes the bridge and the surrounding shores are covered with thousands of spectators. "Who is he?" "How did he get there?" are questions every person proposed, but answered by none. No voice is heard above the awful flood, but a spy-glass shows frequent efforts to speak to the gathering multitude. Such silent appeals exceed the eloquence of words; they are irresistible, and something must be done. A small boat is soon upon the bridge, and with a rope attached sets out upon its fearless voyage, but is instantly sunk. Another and another are tried, but they are all swallowed up by the angry waters. A large one might possibly survive; but none is at hand. Away to Buffalo a car is dispatched, and never did the iron horse thunder along its steelbound track on such a godlike mission. Soon the most competent life-boat is upon the spot. All eyes are fixed upon the object, as trembling and tossing amid the boiling white waves it survives the roughest waters. One breaker past and it will have reached the object of its mission. But being partly filled with water and striking a sunken rock, that next wave sends it hurling to the bottom. An involuntary groan passes through the dense multitude, and hope scarcely nestles in a single bosom. The sun goes down in gloom, and as darkness comes on and the crowd begins to scatter, methinks the angels looking over the battlements on high drop a tear of pity on the scene. The silvery stars shine dimly through the curtain of blue. The multitude are gone, and the sufferer is left with his God. Long before morning he must be swept over that dreadful abyss; he clings to that rock with all the tenacity of life, and as he surveys the horrors of his position, strange visions in the air come looming up before him. He sees his home, his wife and children there; he sees the home of his childhood; he sees that mother as she used to soothe his childish fears upon her breast; he sees a watery grave, and then the vision closes in tears. In imagination he hears the hideous yells of demons, and mingled prayers and curses die upon his lips.

No sooner does morning dawn than the multitude again rush to the scene of horror. Soon a shout is heard: he is there he is still alive! Just now a carriage arrives upon the bridge, and a woman leaps from it and rushes to the most favorable point of observation. She had driven from Chippewa, three miles above the Falls; her husband had crossed the river, night before last, and had not returned, and she fears he may be clinging to that rock. All eyes are turned for a moment toward the anxious woman, and no sooner is a glass handed to her, fixed upon the object than she shrieks, "Oh, my husband!" and sinks senseless to the

236

THE SOLDIER'S PARDON.

earth. The excitement, before intense, seems now almost unendurable, and something must again be tried. A small raft is constructed, and, to the surprise of all, swings up beside the rock to which the sufferer has clung for the last forty-eight hours. He instantly throws himself full length upon it. Thousands are pulling at the end of the rope, and with skillful management a few rods are gained toward the nearest shore. What tongue can tell, what pencil can paint, the anxiety with which that little bark is watched, as, trembling and tossing amid the roughest waters, it nears that rock-bound coast? Save Niagara's eternal roar, all is silent as the grave. His wife sees it, and is only restrained by force from rushing into the river. Hope instantly springs into every bosom, but it is only to sink into deeper gloom. The angel of death has spread his wings over that little bark; the poor man's strength is almost gone; each wave lessens his grasp more and more, but all will be safe if that nearest wave is past. But that next surging billow breaks his hold upon the pitching timbers, the next moment hurling him to the awful verge, where, with body erect, hands clenched, and eyes that are taking their last look of earth, he shrieks, above Niagara's eternal roar, "Lost!" and sinks forever from the gaze of

But in rage he had struck a well-merited "Ah, Tom! is it you come to bid me