But now! nor beautiful design, nor out- the Conscript Fathers who sat around ward splendor, nor intrinsic worth, can him, but saw nothing save the settled save all her gorgeous trophies from the mien of deep despair. The heaving uprooting and scattering storm. No breast, the trembling hands, the sudden private abode nor public monument can start whenever a shout resounded from furnish a retreat to shield the trembling the streets, betrayed the sinking of his citizens against the ruthless invader; heart, the fear to die though nobly. The nor God's own altar protects the conse- cries from outside resound louder and crated vessels from the grasp of profane louder, the dreaded foe draws nearer and hands. nearer, and now their deafening clamor is heard within the hall. They are here, they line the walls, but no effort is made to check them, or to enrage them still more. Through the streets, men are now wandering houseless and starving, whose illustrious names once made whole kingdoms tremble. Patrician matrons that moved along at morning, followed by Oh! could the spirits of the heroic such a suite as Oriental Queens might dead have lifted from their ancient have looked upon with envy, driven tombs the heads laid low while guarding rudely forth from their luxurious homes, their native lands from the foul tyranny now kneel and beseech protection of of Rome, and seen the triumph of their their slaves. Woe! woe, to the City of children! Had they witnessed her Conthe Seven Hills! Time has been when script Fathers standing in chains within she saw the greedy flames consume her the very halls of all their olden pride, homes, and her children depart into would they have laughed the fallen opgloomy exile, and yet she rose youthful pressor to scorn in his sore distress and and radiant from her ashes to more bitter shame, or mute with astoni hment glorious life-she was still the mother, scarce believed the sight to be more and the home of the conquerors of the than a fitful dream! world. But now her spirit is broken, and her pride is beaten down, and trampled in the dust. Her haughtiest nobles are bought and sold like beasts of burden by a horde of savage serfs, and her last Emperor sits on a throne which he is destined never to fill again. There was a vast hall in the Capitol, well-known to crownless kings who came thither to grace the triumphs of their Odoacer marked the scene with kindconquerors, and to victorious generals ling anger; he rose and stamped his who hung their trophies on its historic foot with rage. "Heavens! is there not walls. There the Roman Senators were of all those vile slaves that bathed the gathered to hold their last Assembly. dwelling-floor with the warm blood of Odoacer marked their downcast and sor-youthful innocence, that slew the priest rowful looks with savage exultation. at the altar, and used his skull as a cup Beneath a canopy of velvet and gold, to mock his rites-is there not one to free was beheld seated in state, the youthful the outraged world from yon last reptile Emperor-Romulus Augustulus. Ever of a brood of vipers? Some soothsayer and anon he turned an anxious look upon has bewitched the accursed fools, or There arose now a fearful clamor. "Down with their Emperor! Let his blood atone for the death of those his hellish legions have slaughtered in our homes. Justice wills the deed, Religion blesses it!" Still none of all the armel hundreds there durst touch him; his hour was not come, his fate was not sealed in heaven. else they would fight for the privilege of soul; he dared not open his lips, or lift striking, and gaining everlasting fame his eyes to meet the lightnings of that by the blow! It would not be so could heaven-illuminated brow. The shadow they but hear my voice, or this good of his own death had been called up by steel were not so far away." He ground the words of the holy Seer, and as it fell his teeth, and half unsheathed his wea- upon his soul, it cooled the fever of pon as he spoke, but the Hermit checked anger, and stiled the utterings of rehis angry ravings, and holy zeal lit up venge. It was, therefore, with more wilhis face, as he said to the Chief. "Shame lingness to feel for another's woe, that he on him who would break the bruised reed, who would still bathe his hands in blood, though all, aye, more than all has been granted him, that the wildest ambition could dream of. raised his eyes again and looked in he direction pointed out by the uplifted forefinger of his mysterious companion. Along the banks of the yellow Tiber moved a band of Northern warriors, in whose midst, despoiled of every mark of his former dignity, followed by only a few attendants in the day of his sorrow, walked the young Augustulus. The rose had fled from his cheek, and his countenance wore the expression of heartfelt misery. "There," said the hermit, "is "Son of Edicon! blush for thy baseness; nor rouse by wanton cruelty the slumbering thunderbolts of heaven. Where now are the conquerors who wreaked on hapless Rome the vengeance of the Lord! He used the scourge, and cast it from him when the day of wrath had gone by. See proud Alaric stricken the object of your revenge." The Chief by him fall suddenly to the plain. See Ricimer the Lord of Emperors writhe in the iron grasp of death, with none beside his couch to cool his burning brow, or soothe him in the hour of his direst need! "The bow of Attila is broken;"* to what avail did barbarous minstrels chant their songs over his remains, and rehearse the hundred victories of the dreaded scourge of God? Funeral hymns did not reach his clay-cold ear, nor could the noise and glare of pompous rites gladden the spirit summoned before the judgment-seat of the Most High. Learn thou betimes, King Odoacer, not to follow these men through crooked paths to an inglorious end. Know that if thou shut out gentle pity from thy heart the Lord thy God hath sworn by his own name, that at the hour of thy death thou shalt not find that mercy denied by thee to another." Thus See how he turns from his melancholy spoke the inspired man. His words path, a long, last look to Rome! It is barbarian's not alone for his own loss he bends his abashed even the proud could not help relenting at the sight. * "Arcus Attila contritus est." comely head and drops a tear upon that | before the shrine once feared so much strange ground; his grief is for the fall by all mankind. The power that broke of a mighty empire, and in the Roman now the monarch mourns!" Even while he spoke, they saw him turn again his eyes toward the capitol, which glittered with the helmets of barbarian soldiers, ranged along its battlements. He paused for a few moments and waved his hand to bid a last, an eternal farewell, then kept his onward path, until a green thicket hid him from their sight. Then soft compassion found a way at length to Odoacer's heart. His eyes still rested on the spot where he had last beheld the exiled monarch, and he generously vowed his hand would never be rudely lifted up to press the brimming cup of bitterness commended to his lips. his sceptre in the hands of the last Emperor of Rome shall wrest the bolts, too long usurped, from the grasp of her lying Jove. Eternal night will draw a curtain over the mysteries of Eleusina, and the wrath of Pagan Mars will be nothing but a schoolboy's jest. "But will the mighty life of this great empire perish with its last sovereign, and the dreaded name of the city of the Seven Hills be told with that of a fallen Nineveh, whose dust is now the sport of the winds of the desert, and of once famous Persepolis, the Persian's pride, now the solitary den of the roaming lion ?" While he spoke thus, the night breeze murmured softly through the shrubs and wild-flowers around-the firmament knew not a cloud to spot its vivid blue "Learn, O King of the Heruli," the hermit now said, "from the fate of yon unhappy boy, that foul wrong and high--and the stars came forth in myriads handed oppression seek in vain to escape and poured their silvery light upon the from the avenging justice of heaven. slumbering Alps. Far away to eastThe rod falls slowly, but heavily and ward the moon's fair crescent rose to surely upon the offender, and the sins of the horizon from the bosom of the deep. the father are visited upon his offspring. The hermit's right arm was extended toThou hast seen the downfall of that ward the walls of Rome. The chief majestic power against which the whole gazed in silence upon the stately mass. world in arms has been for ages leagued Over its square and palaces was thrown together in yain. The crown of Imperial a thin silvery mist, from which at interRome is crushed; her sceptre is broken vals arose a dome, a shapely column, or in twain; her throne lies in the dust, to a tapering obelisk, that pointed in solirise no more for ever! Men will laugh |tary grandeur toward the sky. But all and deem him mad who first goes forth beside lay curtained beneath that silent to announce her final downfall. Still a haze. Some spell, all undefined yet greater fall is near at hand; even now powerfully felt, hung on the air, diffused before my vision its closing scenes arise. itself abroad, and in the meshes of its Not Rome alone has ceased her haughty unseen net enwrapt the soul that paused rule over all the earth, but those vain to contemplate what lay beneath that gods whose hundred temples rose to shade. The hermit, like one whom ingrace her capital, shall soon be hurled spiration fills with holy ecstasy, caught from their altars, and from the sunny a prophet's fire from the sight. "No," shores of the Tyrrhene Sea to the win- he loudly exclaimed, "Queen of the try waves of the Danube, not one shall world, thy glory shall not be a breath, be found to bow his head in worship a sound, a dream upon the earth! The skill! The shield of religion shall guard thy gates from harm, and ward off irreverent approach with rays of piercing light. The heavenly warriors who stand upon the mountain of God shall keep watch and ward around thee; they shall raise the red right arm to strike down any sacrilegious offender who should seek to wrest from thy hand the charter of thy sacred rights. Thou shalt go forth age after age conquering and to conquer, thy name, "the Eternal." Thy children shall witness the rise, triumph, and downfall of new nations and empires; and the birth and death of cities whose mysterious names are known only in heaven. Thou meanwhile unchanged, wilt reign the mighty mistress of the world. The hour that sounds thy knell shall quench the sun, blot out the stars from heaven and witness the sight of the last of mankind breathing his last prayer to God." wonders of thy future days loom up and overawe me with their majestic presence. After this aged head shall have been laid low in the tomb, and gathered to my fathers, this weary spirit shall have ceased to wail for thee, filled with the vigor of eternal youth, thou shalt reign a Queen, the noblest Queen of all the earth. What though the effete old Pagan Empire fall, dragged by its own weight down into the marsh of festering vice that encompasses its feet. The tribes that now press on against thee from the stony hills and the misty caverns of the north, shall furnish thee with fresh materials out of which to mould a greater and more lasting empire still. I see the form of Christendom come forth, where nothing but the scattered wrecks and crumbling ruins of the Pagan world now cumber the ground. I see the glorious edifice, thy work-all thine-rise towering from its rocky base, and spr ad its ample wings from shore to shore. I see the nations gather from afar; from where the sun begins his daily race to where his evening glories gild the sky. They come not arrayed he turned, the hermit had disappeared one against the other, they move, not stepping to the measured notes of warlike instruments, but advancing hand in hand, the song of peace upon their lips, they meet to blend their prayers with thine, and burn incense upon thy consecrated shrines. Vain, vain the attempt to overcome thee by human force or The voice of the hermit died softly away like the last notes of a lute. The king of the Northmen looked toward the city, but deeper shadows had settled upon it, and he saw it no longer. When from his side. He raised his eyes to the starry firmament above, remained some moments absorbed in thought, and then treading reverently as if the place beneath his feet were holy ground, he wended his way slowly down the mountain side a wiser and better man than when he came up at morning. It is not fashionable to think of the al political sermons from well-paid minend of human life. Brainless fops and isters. What a thrill of horror would languishing belles are too finely con- run through all Fifth-avenuedom were stituted to hear of death or what comes the existence of a place of eternal torafter without a serious shock to their ments to be boldly proclaimed from fragile nerves. Religion is a a very the wealth endowed meeting-houses with pleasant thing in its way, when it which that section of the great metropoonly means brilliant fairs and sensation-lis is graced. VOL. IV.-21. HONOR. BY WILLIAM J. M'CLURE. Loftily Knight Honor reared, Passion spread its horrors round, Yet firmly fixed on righteous ground, Of noble mien, his presence glows, BALLOONS. BY ANTHONY D'AVALON. The history of ærial navigation as re-infinite stretch would be opened, and to man the glory of the conquest of all the elements. The minds of men were dazzled by the flood of light let suddenly upon the world, but on its passing away, were confounded to know that their success had been only partial and their glory temporary; for the science of æronautics, except in some few particulars, has not materially improved since then. lated by F. Marion, a French author, possesses a great deal of interest, not only for the man of science, who perceives there the grasping in some degree by the human mind of the secrets of nature, but also for the ordinary reader who simply desires to be pleased and instructed. When the brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier first made public the invention of the balloon, in 1783, the wildest vagaries were indulged in of the conquest Probably from the earliest ages, though of the skies by this new means of loco- few references to such a subject appear motion; and voyages by man to the in ancient records, men had dreamed of planet and stars, through incredible raising themselves above the earth and space, were regarded only as a matter of moving quickly through the air, but time and consequent improvement in its had made but insignificant attempts at construction. To science new vistas of ærial navigation. We read in classic |