And my deep debt for life preserved,
A better meed have well deserved:
Can nought but blood our feud atone?
Are there no means?" "No, stranger, none!
And hear to fire thy flagging zeal—
The Saxon cause rests on thy steel;
For thus spoke fate by prophet bred
Between the living and the dead:
'Who spills the foremost foeman's life,
His party conquers in the strife.'
“Then, by my word," the Saxon said,
"The riddle is already read:

Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff-
There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff;
Thus fate has solved her prophecy,

Then yield to fate, and not to me."

Dark lightning flashed from Roderick's eye-
"Soars thy presumption then so high,
Because a wretched kern ye slew,
Homage to name to Roderick Dhu?
He yields not, he, to man nor fate!
Thou add'st but fuel to my hate:
My clansman's blood demands revenge.
Not yet prepared? By heaven, I change
My thought, and hold thy valor light
As that of some vain carpet-knight,
Who ill deserved my courteous care,
And whose best boast is but to wear
A braid of his fair lady's hair."

"I thank thee, Roderick, for the word!
It nerves my heart, it steels my sword;
For I have sworn this braid to stain
In the best blood that warms thy vein.
Now, truce, farewell! and ruth, begone!
Yet think not that by thee alone,
Proud chief! can courtesy be shown.
Though not from copse, or heath, or cairn,

Start at my whistle clansmen stern,

Of this small horn one feeble blast
Would fearful odds against thee cast.

But fear not - doubt not- which thou wiltWe try this quarrel hilt to hilt."

Then each at once his falchion drew,

Each on the ground his scabbard threw,
Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain,
As what he ne'er might see again;
Then, foot and point and eye opposed,
In dubious strife they darkly closed.

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu,
That on the field his targe he threw,
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide
Had death so often dashed aside;
For, trained abroad his arms to wield,
Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield.
He practised every pass and ward,
To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard;
While, less expert, though stronger far,
The Gael maintained unequal war.
Three times in closing strife they stood,
And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood;
No stinted draught, no scanty tide,
The gushing flood the tartans dyed.

Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain,
And showered his blows like wintry rain;
And as firm rock, or castle roof,
Against the winter shower is proof,

The foe, invulnerable still,

Foiled his wild rage by steady skill,
Till at advantage ta'en, his brand

Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand;
And, backward borne upon the lea,
Drought the proud chieftain to his knee.
"Now, yield thee, or, by him who made

The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade!
"Thy threats, thy mercy I defy!

Let recreant yield, who fears to die."

Like adder darting from his coil,
Like wolf that dashes through the toil,
Like mountain-cat who guards her young,
Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung;
Received, but recked not of a wound,
And locked his arms his foeman round.
Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own!
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown!
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel,
Through bars of brass and triple steel!

They tug, they strain ! — down, down they go,
The Gael above, Fitz-James below.
The chieftain's gripe his throat compressed,
His knee was planted in his breast;
His clotted locks he backward threw,
Across his brow his hand he drew,
From blood and mist to clear his sight,
Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright!
But hate and fury ill supplied

The stream of life's exhausted tide,
And all too late the advantage came,
To turn the odds of deadly game;
For, while the dagger gleamed on high,
Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye.
Down came the blow! but in the heath
The erring blade found bloodless sheath.
The struggling foe may now unclasp
The fainting chief's relaxing grasp:
Unwounded from the dreadful close,
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose.

THE STRENGTH OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.

HE enemies of popular right and power have been pointing

THE

to the dreadful proof which is afforded in America, that an extended suffrage is a thing to be shunned as the most calamitous thing possible to a country. I will not refer to the speeches that have dealt with this question in this manner, or to the news

papers which have so treated it. I believe now that a great many people in this country are beginning to see that those who have been misleading them for the last two or three years have been profoundly dishonest or profoundly ignorant. If I am to give my opinion upon it, I should say that that which has taken place in America within the last three years affords the most triumphant answer to charges of this kind. Let us see the Government of the United States. I might say a good deal in favor of it in the South even, but we will speak of the Free States. In the North they have a suffrage which is almost what would here be called a manhood suffrage. There are frequent elections, vote by ballot, and ten thousand, twenty thousand, and one hundred thousand persons vote at an election. Will anybody deny that the Government at Washington, as regards its own people, is the strongest government in the world at this hour? And for this simple reason: because it is based on the will, and the good will, of an instructed people. Look at its power! I am not now discussing why it is, or the cause which is developing this power; but power is the thing which men regard in these old countries, and which they ascribe mainly to European institutions; but look at the power which the United States have developed! They have brought more men into the field, they have built more ships for their navy, they have shown greater resources than any nation in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look at the order which has prevailed at their elections, at which, as you see by the papers, fifty thousand, or one hundred thousand, or two hundred and fifty thousand persons voting in a given State, with less disorder than you have seen lately in three of the smallest boroughs in England. Look at their industry. Notwithstanding this terrific struggle, their agriculture, their manufactures and commerce proceed with an uninterrupted success. They are ruled by a President, chosen, it is true, not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but from the people, and the one whose truthfulness and spotless honor have claimed him universal praise; and now the country that has been vilified through half the organs of the press in England during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, as an example to be shunned by many of your statesmen that country, now in mortal strife, affords a haven and a home for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the old Governments of Europe; and, when this mortal strife is over —

when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when the Union is cemented afresh-for I would say, in the language of one of our own poets addressing his country,

"The grave's not dug where traitor hands shall lay,

In fearful haste, thy murdered corpse away"

then Europe and England may learn that an instructed democracy is the surest foundation of government, and that education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true happiness among any people.

Through the green plain they marching came!
Measureless spread, like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
Looks are bent on the shaking ground,
Hearts beat low with a knelling sound;
Swift by the breast that must bear the brunt,
Gallops the major along the front:

"Halt!"

And fettered they stand at the stark command,

And the warriors, silent, halt!

See the smoke, how the lightning is cleaving asunder!

Hark! the guns, peal on peal, how they boom in their thunder!
From host to host, with kindling sound,

The shouting signal circles round:
Ay, shout it forth to life or death,
Freer already breathes the breath!
The war is waging, slaughter is raging,
And heavy through the reeking pall
The iron death-dice fall!

Nearer they close-foes upon foes;
"Ready!". from square to square it goes.
The dead men lie bathed in the weltering blood;
And the living are blent in the slippery flood,