Let the old cradle rest in the garret. It has earned its quiet. The hands that shook up its pillow have quit work. The foot that kept the rocker in motion is through with its journey. The face that hovered has been veiled from mortal sight. Cradle of blessed memories! Cradle that soothed so many little griefs! Cradle that kindled so many hopes! Cradle that rested so many fatigues! Sleep now thyself, after so many years of putting others to sleep!

One of the great wants of the age is the right kind of a cradle and the right kind of a foot to rock it, We are opposed to the usurpation of “patented selfrockers." When I hear a boy calling his grandfather "old daddy," and see the youngster whacking his mother across the face because she will not let him have ice-cream and lemonade in the same stomach, and at some refusal holding his breath till he gets black in the face, so that to save the child from fits the mother is compelled to give him another dumpling, and he afterward goes out into the world stubborn, willful, selfish and intractable,—I say that boy was brought up in a "patented self-rocker." The old-time mother would have put him down in the old-fashioned cradle, and sung to him,

"Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber,
Holy angels guard thy bed;"

and if that did not take the spunk out of him would have laid him in an inverted position across her lap, with his face downward, and with a rousing spank made him more susceptible to the music.

When a mother, who ought to be most interested in training her children for usefulness and heaven, gives her chief time to fixing up her back hair, and is worried to death because the curls she bought are not of the same shade as the sparsely-settled locks of her own raising; and culturing the dromedarian

hump of dry-goods on her back till, as she comes into church, a good old elder bursts into laughter behind his pocket-handkerchief, making the merriment sound as much like a sneeze as possible; her waking moments employed with discussions about polonaise, and vert-de-gris velvets, and ecru percale, and fringed guipure, and poufs, and sashes, and rose-de-chêne silks, and scalloped flounces; her happiness in being admired at balls and parties and receptions, you may know that she has thrown off the care of her children, that they are looking after themselves, that they are being brought up by machinery instead of loving hands-in a word, that there is in her home a "patented selfrocker!"

So far as possible, let all women dress beautifully: so God dresses the meadows and the mountains. Let them wear pearls and diamonds if they can afford it: God has hung round the neck of His world strings of diamonds, and braided the black locks of the storm with bright ribbons of rainbow. Especially before and right after breakfast, ere they expect to be seen of the world, let them look neat and attractive for the family's sake. One of the most hideous sights is a slovenly woman at the breakfast table. Let woman adorn herself. Let her speak on platforms so far as she may have time and ability to do so. But let not mothers imagine that there is any new way of successfully training children, or of escaping the old-time self-denial and continuous painstaking.

Let this be the commencement of the law suit:

OLD CRADLE

versus

PATENTED SELF-ROCKER.

Attorneys for plaintiff all the cherished memories of the past.

Attorneys for the defendant-all the humbugs of the present.

For jury-the good sense of all Christendom. Crier, open the court and let the jury be empaneled.

B

THE DIVER.

SCHILLER.

ARON or vassal, is any so bold

As to plunge in yon gulf, and follow,

Through chamber and cave, this beaker of goldWhich already the waters whirlingly swallow? Who retrieves the prize from the horrid abyss Shall keep it: the gold and the glory be his!"

So spake the king, and incontinent flung-
From the cliff, that, gigantic and steep,
High over Charybdis's whirlpool hung,

A glittering wine-cup down in the deep;
And again he asked: "Is there one so brave

As to plunge for the gold in the dangerous wave?"

And the knights and the knaves all answerless hear
The challenging words of the speaker;
And some glance downwards with looks of fear,

And none are ambitious of winning the beaker. And a third time the king his question urges"Dares none, then, breast the menacing surges ?"

But the silence lasts unbroken and long;

When a Page, fair-featured and soft,
Steps forth from the shuddering vassal-throng,
And his mantle and girdle already are doffed:
And the groups of nobles and damsels nigh
Envisage the youth with a wondering eye.

He dreadlessly moves to the gaunt crag's brow,
And measures the drear depth under ;-
But the waters Charybdis had swallowed, she now
Regurgitates, bellowing back in thunder;

And the foam, with a stunning and horrible sound,
Breaks its hoar way through the waves around.

And now, ere the din rethunders, the youth
Invokes the great name of God;

And blended shrieks of horror and ruth

Burst forth as he plunges headlong unawed: And down he descends through the watery bed, And the waves boom over his sinking head.

Now, wert thou even, O Monarch! to fling

Thy crown in the angry abyss,

And exclaim, "Who recovers the crown shall be king!" The guerdon were powerless to tempt me, I wis; But hark!-with a noise like the howling of storms, Again the wild water the surface deforms.

When, lo! ere as yet the billowy war,

Loud raging beneath, is o'er,

An arm and a neck are distinguished afar-
And a swimmer is seen to make for the shore;
And hardily buffeting surge and breaker,
He springs upon land with the golden beaker.

Now bearing the booty triumphantly,

At the foot of the throne he falls,

And he proffers his trophy on bended knee;
And the king to his beautiful daughter calls,
Who fills with red wine the golden cup,
While the gallant stripling again stands up:

"All hail to the King! Rejoice, ye who breathe Wheresoever Earth's gales are driven!

For ghastly and drear is the region beneath;

And let man beware how he tempts high Heaven! Let him never essay to uncurtain to light What destiny shrouds in horror and night.

"But the God I had cried to answered me
When my destiny darkliest frowned,
And He showed me a reef of rocks in the sea,
Whereunto I clung, and there I found

On a coral crag, the goblet of gold,

Which else to the lowermost crypt had rolled.

"And there I hung, aghast and dismayed, Among skeleton larvæ; the only

Soul conscious of life--despairing of aid

In that vastness untrodden and lonely.

But the maelstrom grasped me with arms of strength, And upwhirled and upbore me to daylight at length."

Then spake to the page the marveling king—
"The golden cup is thy own,

But I promise thee further this jeweled ring,
That beams with a priceless hyacinth stone,
Shouldst thou dive once more, and discover for me
The mysteries shrined in the cells of the sea."

Now the king's fair daughter was touched and grieved, And she fell at her father's feet

"O father! enough what the youth has achieved! Expose not his life anew, I entreat!

If this your heart's longing you cannot well tame,
There are surely knights here who will rival his fame."

But the king hurled downwards the golden cup;
And he spake, as it sank in the wave—
"Now, shouldst thou a second time bring it me up,
As my knight, and the bravest of all my brave,
Thou shalt sit at my nuptial banquet, and she
Who pleads for thee thus thy wedded wife shall be!"

Then the blood to the youth's hot temples rushes,
And his eyes on the maiden are cast,

And he sees her at first overspread with blushes,
And then growing pale and sinking aghast ;

So, vowing to win so glorious a crown,

For life, or for death, he again plunges down!

The far-sounding din returns amain,

And the foam is alive as before,

And all eyes are bent downward. In vain! in vain! The billows indeed re-dash and re-roar;

But, while ages shall roll, and those billows shall thunder,

That youth shall sleep under!

LA FAYETTE.

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

HILE we bring our offerings to the mighty

chivalrous spirits of other shores, who shared with them the hour of weakness and woe? Pile to the clouds the majestic column of glory; let the lips of those who can speak well hallow each spot where the