They are three vast centres of feud and revolutionary terror :-Portugal with an unowned monarch, reigning by the bayonet and the scaffold, with half her leading men in dungeons, with her territory itself a dungeon ; and fierce retaliation and phrenzied enthusiasm hovering on her frontiers, and ready to plunge into the bosom of the land; -Spain torn by faction, and at this hour watching every band that gathers on her hills, as the signs of a tempest that may sweep the land from the Pyrenees to the ocean ;and France in the first heavings of a mighty change, that man can no more define than he can set limits to the heaving of an earthquake, or the swell and fury of a deluge. Other great objects and causes may have their share in those things. But the facts are before mankind.

LESSON LXIX.

The Playthings.—Miss Gould.

6Oh! mother, here's the very top

That brother used to spin ;
The vase with seeds I've seen him drop

To call our robin in;
The line that held his pretty kite,

His bow, his cup and ball,
The slate on which he learned to write,

His feather, cap, and all !"

LESSON LXX.

Mutability of earthly Things.-N. A. Review.

[From the Spanish of Don JORGE MANRIQUE.]

O LET the soul her slumbers break-
Let thought be quickened and awake :

Awake to see
How soon this life is passed and gone,
And death comes softly stealing on-

How silently!
Swiftly our pleasures glide away;
Our hearts recall the distant day

With many sighs :
The moments that are speeding fast,
We heed not,—but the past, the past,

More highly prize.

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed, boundless sea,

The silent grave :
Thither all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost

In that dark wave;
Thither the mighty torrents stray,
Thither the brook

pursues

its

way,
And tinkling rill :
There all are equal ; side by side
The poor man and the son of pride

Lie calm and still.

This world is but the rugged road
Which leads us to the bright abode

Of peace above :
So let us choose that narrow way
Which leads no traveller's foot astray

From realms of love.

Our birth is but the starting place,
Our life the running of the race:

We reach the goal,
When, in the mansions of the blest,
Death leads to its eternal rest

The weary soul.

Tell me,—the charms that lovers seek
In the clear eye and blushing cheek,

The hues that play
O’er rosy lip and brow of snow,-
When hoary age approaches slow,

Ah! where are they?
The cunning skill, the curious arts,
The glorious strength that youth imparts,

In life's first stage, These shall become a heavy weight, When Time swings wide his outward gate

To weary age.

Where are the high-born damesand where Their gay attire, and jewelled hair,

And odors sweet? Where are the gentle knights that came To kneel, and breathe love's ardent flame

Low at their feet? Where is the

song

of TroubadourWhere are the lute and gay tambour,

They loved of yore?
Where is the mazy dance of old,
The flowing robes, inwrought with gold,

The dancers wore?

So many a duke of royal name,
Marquis and count of spotless fame,

And baron brave,

That might the sword of empire wield-
All these, O Death, hast thou concealed

In the dark grave!
Their deeds of mercy and of arms,
In peaceful days or war's alarms-

When thou dost show,
O Death, thy stern and cruel face,
One stroke of thy all-wowerful mace

Can overthrow.

Unnumbered hosts, that threaten nigh,
Pennon and standard flaunting high,

And flag displayed
High battlements, entrenched around-
Bastion, and moated wall, and mound,

And palisade-
And covered trench, secure and deep,
All these cannot one victim keep,

O Death, from thee,
When thou dost battle in thy wrath,
And thy strong shafts pursue

their path
Unerringly.

LESSON LXXI.

A Scene from the Brothers.—WORDSWORTH.

The elder of two brothers, after several years' absence in foreign lands,

returns to his native village, and stops in the church-yard, and at length enters into conversation with the parish priest.

Leonard. You said his kindred all were in their graves, And that he had one brother

Priest. That is but
A fellow tale of sorrow. From his youth
James, though not sickly, yet was delicate;

And Leonard, being always by his side,
Had done so many offices about him,
That, though he was not of a timid nature,
Yet still the spirit of a mountain boy
In him was somewhat checked; and when his brother
Was gone to sea, and he was left alone,
The little color that he had was soon
Stolen from his cheek; he drooped, and pined, and pined
Leonard. But these are all the graves of full grown

men!
Priest. Ay, sir, that passed away: we took him to us;
He was the child of all the dale ; he lived
Three months with one, and six months with another ;
And wanted neither food, nor clothes, nor love;
And many, many happy days were his.
But, whether blithe or sad, 'tis

my

belief
His absent brother still was at his heart.
And, when he lived beneath our roof, we found
(A practice till this time unknown to him)
That often, rising from his bed at night,
He in his sleep would walk about, and sleeping
He sought his brother Leonard.—You are moved !
Forgive me, sir ; before I spoke to you,
I judged you most unkindly.

Leonard. But this youth,-
How did he die at last?

Priest. One sweet May morning
(It will be twelve years since when spring returns),
He had gone forth among the new-dropped lambs,
With two or three companions, whom their course
Of occupation led from height to height
Under a cloudless sun, till he, at length,
Through weariness, or, haply, to indulge
The humor of the moment, lagged behind.
You see yon precipice ; —it wears the shape
Of a vast building made of many crags;
And in the midst is one particular rock