households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you; now he is augmented, set free, and given to all. Before he was yours: he is ours. He has died from the family that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or neglected; and it shall by-and-by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an ancient hero, that he did more for this country by his death than by his whole life.

Neither are they less honored who shall bear through life the marks of wounds and sufferings. Neither epaulet nor badge is so honorable as wounds received in a good cause. Many a man shall envy him who henceforth limps. So strange is the transforming power of patriotic ardor, that men shall almost covet disfigurement. Crowds will give way to hobbling cripples, and uncover in the presence of feebleness and helplessness. Buoyant children shall pause in their noisy games, and with loving reverence honor those whose hands can work no more, and whose feet are no longer able to march except upon that journey which brings good men to honor and immortality. Oh, mother of lost children! sit not in darkness nor sorrow for those whom a nation honors. Oh, mourners of the early dead! they shall live again, and live forever. Your sorrows are our gladness. The nation lives because you gave it men that love it better than their own lives. And when a few more days shall have cleared the perils from around the nation's brow, and she shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty, with justice upon her forehead, love in her eyes, and truth upon her lips, she shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to her heart, and whose life, given to her, shall live with her life till time shall be no more.

Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and every lake shall cherish its honored register; and till the mountains are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow, and till the clouds are weary of replenishing springs, and the springs forget to gush, and the rills to sing,-shall their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are inscribed upon the book of national remembrance.

FOURTH OF JULY ORATION.

Fellow-citizens: This is the ever adorable, commemorable, and patriotic Fourth of July. This am the day upon which the American Eagle first chawed up its iron cage, and, with a Yankee Doodle scream, pounced upon its affrighted tyrants and tore up their despotic habiliments into a thousand giblets.

This, fellow-citizens, am the Fourth of July,-a day worthy to be the first day of the year, and a day which will be emblazoned by our latest posterity, when all other days have sunk into oblivious non compos mentis.

This, fellow-citizens, am the day when our ancestral progenitors unanimously fought, bled, and died, in order that we and our children's children might cut their own vine and fig tree without being molested or daring to make any one afraid.

This am the Fourth of July, fellow-citizens, and who is there that can sit supinely downward on this prognostic anniversary, and not revert their mental reminiscences to the great epochs of the Revolution-the blood bespangled plains of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Yorktown-and follow the heroic heroes of those times through trackless snows, and blood-stained deserts, to the eternal mansions of free trade and sailor's rights; to the adorable enjoyments of the privileges and prerogatives, which falls like heavenly dew upon every American citizen, from the forests of Maine to the everglades of Florida, and from the fisheries of the Atlantic coast to the yellow banks of California, where the jingling of the golden boulders mixes up with the screams of the catamount, and the mountain goat leaps from rock to rock-and-and where-and-and-I thank you, fellowcitizens, for your considerable attention.

THE PICKET GUARD.-LAMAR FONTAINE
"All quiet along the Potomac," they say,
"Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman off in the thicket."

'Tis nothing,—a private or two, now and then,
Will not count in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost, only one of the men
Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night,

Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
Their tents, in the rays of the clear autumn mon,
Or the light of the watchfires, are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind,
Through the forest-leaves softly is creeping;
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard-for the army is sleeping.

There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,

As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep;
For their mother-may Heaven defend her!

The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then,
That night, when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips; when low-murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken.

Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,

And gathers his gun closer up to its place
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree;
The footstep is lagging and weary;

Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shades of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it night-wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle-" Ah! Mary, good-by!"
And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night,

No sound save the rush of the river;

While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead-
The picket's off duty forever.

OVER THE RIVER.-MRS. J. M. WINTON.

Over the river they beckon to me,

Loved ones who crossed to the other side; The gleam of their snowy robes I see,

But their voices are drowned by the rushing tide. There's one with ringlets of sunny gold,

And eyes the reflection of heaven's own blue;
He crossed in the twilight gray and cold,

And the pale mist hid him from mortal view.
We saw not the angels that met him there;
The gate of the city we could not see;
Over the river, over the river,

My brother stands waiting to welcome me.

Over the river the boatman pale

Carried another, the household pet;
Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale-
Darling Minnie! I see her yet!

She closed on her bosom her dimpled hands,
And fearlessly entered the phantom bark;
We watched it glide from the silver sands,

And all our sunshine grew strangely dark.
We know she is safe on the further side,
Where all the ransomed and angels be;
Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores,

Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;

We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a glimpse of the snowy sail;

And lo! they have passed from our yearning hearts,→ They cross the stream and are gone for aye.

We may not sunder the vail apart

That hides from our vision the gates of day; We only know that their barks no more

Sail with us o'er life's stormy sea;

Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,
They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think when the sunset's gold
Is flashing on river, and hill, and shore,
I shall one day stand by the waters cold
And list to the sound of the boatman's oar.

I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail;
I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand;
I shall pass from sight with the boatman pale
To the better shore of the spirit-land.

I shall know the loved who have gone before,
And joyfully sweet will the meeting be,
When over the river, the peaceful river,
The angel of death shall carry me.

SPARTACUS TO THE ROMAN ENVOYS IN

ETRURIA.

Envoys of Rome, the poor camp of Spartacus is too much honored by your presence. And does Rome stoop to parley with the escaped gladiator, with the rebel ruffian, for whom heretofore no slight has been too scornful? You have come, with steel in your right hand, and with gold in your left. What heed we give the former, ask Cossinius; ask Claudius; ask Varinius; ask the bones of your legions that fertilize the Lucanian plains. And for your gold,-would ye know what we do with that,-go ask the laborer, the trodden poor, the helpless and the hopeless, on our route; ask all whom Roman tyranny had crushed, or Roman avarice plundered. Ye have seen me before; but ye did not then shun my glance as now. Ye have seen me in the arena, when I was Rome's pet ruffian, daily smeared with blood of men or beasts. One day-shall I forget it ever?-ye were present; I had fought long and well. Exhausted as I was, your munerator, your lord of the games, bethought him it were an equal match to set against me a new man, younger and lighter than I, but fresh and valiant. With Thracian sword and buckler, forth he came, a beautiful defiance on his brow! Bloody and brief the fight. “He has it!” cried the people; “habet! habet!" But still he lowered not his arm, until, at length, I held him, gashed and fainting, in my power. I looked around upon the Podium, where sat your senators and men of State, to catch the signal of release, of mercy. But not a thumb was reversed. To crown your sport, the vanquished man must die! Obedient brute that I was, I was about to slay him, when a few hurried words-rather a welcome to death than a plea for life-told me he was a Thracian. I stood transfixed. The arena vanished. I was in Thrace, upon my native hills! The sword dropped from my hands.