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ease) fails them altogether. It is as ab- must be learnt, the rest is a mere consesurd to tell a man with an untaught voice | quence. to read a sermon, or speak a speech impressively, as it would be to tell one who had never touched a pencil to copy the "Transfiguration;" neither possess the means of reproducing that which is within them or which they see. But "elocution" will not do; it is the guidance of the voice that]

We shall be delighted if the measure adopted by the Bishop of Rochester should find imitators, and if it should arouse the public to a deeper interest in one of the most useful and now most neglected branches of education.

THE ADOPTED BIRDS.

BY REV. JOHN TODD, D.D.

"SWITCH, Switch," went the scythes, as the men, early in the morning, were mowing the tall grass. Round the field they went, not minding the grasshoppers that leaped in terror, or the meadow-mice that scampered in the thickest grass. By and by the owner of the field came to them, when one of the men pointed to a little stick which he had stuck in the ground, and said with a laugh, "We cut all before us."

"No harm, I hope."

"Nothing of consequence. But see!"

The gentleman went to the stick, and there found a poor meadow-lark, with her head cut off by the scythe! She was on her nest keeping her little young birds warm, and thus the scythe

took her life. Faithful mother!

The gentleman took up the nest, containing four very small featherless birds. What to do with them he knew not. So he carried them home, and on his way recollected that near his house was a faithful old robin, which had made her nest in the cherry tree, and also that she had just begun to set.

On reaching the tree, there the robin was, to be sure, and he well knew that she must have her own way. So he watched her. In a few hours she flew off to get her food. The moment she was out of sight, the gentleman climbed up and took out the four little blue robin eggs and put the four little larks in their place. Again he took his place to watch.

In a short time Mrs. Robin came flying back to her nest. She went straight to it, and was just going to hop into it, when she looked in. She raised her wings and stood in utter amazement. A few moments ago she had left eggs, and now they were birds! She stood and looked, turning her head one way and then the other, and seeming to scan them very closely. After her amazement had gone past she flew off, and in a few moments came back with the male robin. Then they both poised themselves, one on each side of the nest, and looked in, most earnestly, with raised wings. Sure enough, it was even so! They were birds, and not eggs! Then they began to chatter, as if talking the matter over, and explaining the state of things. How they looked and peered in, and talked ! After a while they flew off in great haste. The gentleman feared it was now all over with the

little orphans. But no! In a very few minutes they both returned, each bringing a worm, with which they began to feed them! They had adopted them, and from that hour they took care of them and raised them.

Does God take care of birds? Yes. And he has promised to take care of his people and their little orphan children, as birds take care of their young.-S. S. Times.

M. DE LAMARTINE had been reported dead, and addresses the following bitter letter to the editor of the Constitutionnel :

"It is of little matter to the world whether I live or whether I die, but it is of great consequence to my creditors. I live only for them. I request you, therefore, to assure everybody that I am tolerably well, and always enjoy good health, notwithstanding the assertion of the chief editor of the Presse, who tells me that I have lived too long. I am of his opinion, but that is not the question. These are things which are said sometimes to oneself, but which well-bred men, as Voltaire says, avoid saying to one's face through politeness in a democracy however little puerile or honorable. That is the reason why I protest, and even dead shall protest, against my death. Life is a duty of honor for me; it is a resolution on my part.

"I have undertaken, and I am pursuing for others more than for myself, a great operation, to depart honorably from this amiable life; it is very dear, very long, and very painful, in order the complete edition of my works, in forty volumes, published by subscription. The success of this undertaking is the security and the bread of those to whom my property might not be sufficient. Persons who might be tempted to subscribe on the faith of my longevity will say to themselves, on reading that I have caused uneasiness to my friends, Let us not subscribe; let us not follow the impulse of our generous hearts, for the author will not have time to complete his work; he is, it is said, going to die. What use is there to subscribe for a dead or for health is a pledge. Take care of it for me." a dying man? You perceive that my good

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M. de Lamartine is renewing Sir Walter Scott's self-sacrifice, but the novelist did not talk quite so much.

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"Now give us lands where the olives grow," Cried the North to the South,

"Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow

I.

WE'RE disposed to make a row,

As it seems to me, just now,

the Count de Paris and his brother, Duke

de Chart-res;

But I cannot understand

they're neither prestidigitators, heroes, saints, Their importance in the land,

nor martyrs.

II.

So far as fighting goes,

I certainly suppose

That though they're brave and cool enough we
still could do without them,
And that Yankee boys as well
Can stand up to shot and shell,

Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyard-row!" So why, pray let me ask, make such a mighty

Cried the North to the South.

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"Yet oh, for the skies that are softer and higher!"

Sighed the North to the South,
"-For the flowers that blaze, and the trees that
aspire,

And the insects made of a song or a fire!"
Sighed the North to the South.

"And oh, for a seer, to discern the same!"
Sighed the South to the North,
"-For a poet's tongue of baptismal flame,
To call the tree and the flower by its name!"
Sighed the South to the North.

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fuss about them?

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"The ORLEANS House," say they,
"Hopes to rise again, one day,

And wants the friendship of the States, to make its
future palmy!"

So the big-wigs make a fuss,
While the truth is simply thus:

That these young men are clever and will orna

ment our Army.

-Vanity Fair.

No. 915.-14 December, 1861.

1. Alexis de Tocqueville,

2. The Doctor's Family. Part 2,

3. Mr. Edw. Atkinson on Cheap Cotton,

4. Massachusetts Day of Thanksgiving,

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Blackwood's Magazine,

501

Spectator,

518

Governor Andrew,

520

N. Y. Evening Post,

522

Saturday Review,

523

526

5. Prof. Hart on Mistakes of Educated Men,

6. Viscount Monck-Governor of Canada,

7. French Princes and French Intrigues in America, London Review,

POETRY.-The Watchers, 482. The Countersign, 482. King Cotton Bound, 500. Infallibility in Error, 500. King Cotton's Remonstrance, 521. The Soldier's Mother, 525. The Knitting of the Socks, 525. Deus Eversor! 528. Bayard Taylor in Memory of Col. Baker, 528. Knitting Socks for our Boys, 528.

SHORT ARTICLES.-Adulteration of Tea, 499. Electric Light, 499. Private Diary of Duke of Buckingham, 499. Substitute for Leather, 517. God Save John Bull, 517. Visiting Cards with a view of your house, 521. Advice from a Gambling-Table, 521. The Minnow Trap, 527. History of Hail Columbia, 527.

NEW BOOKS.

For Better, For Worse. Boston: T. O. H. P. Burnham.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL, SON, & CO., BOSTON.

For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded free of postage.

Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume.

ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a halfin numbers.

ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value.

THE WATCHERS.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

BESIDE a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other's brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watchfires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

"How long!"-I knew the voice of Peace-
"Is there no respite ?-no release ?—
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

"O Lord, how long !-One human soul
Is more than any parchment scroll
Or any flag the winds unroll.

"What price was Ellsworth's, young and brave?
How weigh the gift that Lyon gave?
Or count the cost of Winthrop's grave?

"O brother! if thine eye can see,
Tell how and when the end shall be,
What hope remains for thee or me?"
Then Freedom sternly said: "I shun
No strife nor pang beneath the sun
When human rights are staked and won.
"I knelt with Ziska's hunted flock,
I watched in Toussaint's cell of rock,
I walked with Sidney to the block.
"The moor of Marston felt my tread,
Through Jersey snows the march I led,
My voice Magenta's charges sped.

"But now, through weary day and night,
I watch a vague and aimless fight
For leave to strike one blow aright.

"On either side my foe they own:
One guards through love his ghastly throne,
And one through fear to reverence grown.
"Why wait we longer, mocked, betrayed
By open foes or those afraid

To speed thy coming through my aid?
"Why watch to see who win or fall?-
I shake the dust against them all;
I leave them to their senseless brawl."

"Nay," Peace implored: "yet longer wait;
The doom is near, the stake is great;
God knoweth if it be too late.

"Still wait and watch; the way prepare
Where I with folded wings of prayer
May follow, weaponless and bare."

"Too late!" the stern, sad voice replied,
"Too late!" its mournful echo sighed,
In low lament the answer died.

A rustling as of wings in flight,
An upward gleam of lessening white,
So passed the vision, sound and sight.
But round me, like a silver bell,
Rung down the listening sky to tell
Of holy help, a sweet voice fell.
"Still hope and trust,” it sang ; “the rod
Must fall, the wine-press must be trod,
But all is possible with God!"

-Independent.

THE COUNTERSIGN.

BY FRANK G. WILLIAMS,

Of Company G, Stuart's Engineer Regiment. ALAS! the weary hours pass slow, The night is very dark and still, And in the marshes far below,

I hear the bearded whip-poor-will;

I scarce can see a yard ahead,

My ears are strained to catch each sound

I hear the leaves about me shed,

And the springs bubbling through the ground. Along the beaten path I pace,

Where white rags mark my sentry's track
In formless shrubs I seem to trace

The foeman's form, with bending back;
I think I see him crouching low-
I stop and list-I stoop and peer,
Until the neighboring hillocks grow
To groups of soldiers far and near.
With ready piece I wait and watch,
Until my eyes familiar grown,
Detect each harmless earthern notch,
And turn guerillas into stone:
And then amid the lonely gloom,
Beneath the tall old chestnut trees,
My silent marches I resume,

And think of other times than these. "Halt! Who goes there?" my challenge cry, It rings along the watchful line;

"Relief!" I hear a voice reply

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'Advance, and give the countersign;"
With bayonet at the charge I wait-
The corporal gives the mystic word;
With arms aport I charge my mate,
Then onward pass, and all is well.
But in the tent that night, awake,
I ask, if in the fray I fall,
Can I the mystic answer make

When the angelic sentries call?
And pray that Heaven may so ordain,
Where'er I go, what fate be mine,
Whether in pleasure or in pain,
I still may have the Countersign.

-Philad. Press.

*White rags are frequently scattered along the sentinel's post, of a dark night, to mark his beat.

From The Quarterly Review.

Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis de Tocqueville, Translated from the French by the Translator of Napoleon's Correspondence with King Joseph. London. 1861.

and men of letters, to record the most interesting and definite portions of what has fallen from them in the social interchange of thoughts and feelings. In this there has been no breach of confidence, for the dia

the criticisms and corrections of the interlocutors, who have gladly availed themselves of an occasion through which they might of fer to the world, in a form of autobiography, the frank vindication of past events, and an open expression, otherwise denied to them, of present opinions. Such a facility of communication is no doubt peculiar to a nation which loves, and knows how to talk, and Mr. Senior might wait long before an English minister, even in obscurity or disgrace, would thus reveal himself to his best-trusted companion; but the documents themselves are none the less valuable, and when varied, as are the conversations before us, with much wisdom and pleasantry on social and historical topics, they afford an illustration of character hardly equalled in importance by the most familiar correspondence. The trans

In the winter of 1858-9, there were re-logues have in most cases been submitted to siding in one salubrious spot on the shores of the Mediterranean, three remarkable representatives of the intelligence of the great nations of Europe. There was Lord Brougham, the chief citizen and host of the pleasant town of Cannes, and the two visitors seeking for renewed health under that genial sky were Baron de Bunsen and Alexis de Tocqueville. Of these, our countryman alone retains his vitality of thought and action in a wonderful old age. Ere many months had gone by, the abundant heart and unsatiated spirit of the German scholar and diplomatist whom he knew so well, and, amid many differences, so justly esteemed, had ceased to beat and to aspire. A few weeks of struggle and of suffering were sufficient to exhaust what yet remained of the physical energies of the French philosopher and statesman, who, of all his nota-lation itself, at once faithful and free, is the ble contemporaries, perhaps best deserves the interest and admiration of Englishmen. It is to this aspect of the character of M. de Tocqueville that we would mainly direct the attention of our readers, deriving from the work of M. de Beaumont and other accessible materials whatever may seem conducive to this object.

A word as to M. de Beaumont's original work it consists of a short memoir, of three fragments of travels, of two chapters of the unfinished second volume of the "Ancien Régime et la Révolution," and of selected letters. To these the translator has added Mr. John Mills' accurate version of a remarkable article in the London and Westminster Review on "France before the Revolution," which may be regarded as the foundation of the later edifice-many letters and parts of letters omitted by M. de Beaumont, either as uninteresting to French readers in their references to English politics or as touching too immediately on the present condition of affairs in France-and several reports of conversations between M. de Tocqueville and Mr. Senior. It is now no secret that the exMaster in Chancery has taken advantage of the many opportunities he has had of intimate acquaintance with French statesmen

last act of a long friendship, and betokens a true womanly insight into the spirit of the writer, which no mere scholarship could supply, but which this book especially demands, for it is the story not of a Life, but of a Mind.

There is, indeed, an entire disproportion between the circumstances of this existence and the void occasioned by its loss. Of gentle but not illustrious birth, of independent but moderate means, a traveller in countries already well known, the author of one completed work and one other commenced, an interesting but not effective speaker during some years of indefinite parliamentary opposition to a government which he generally approved, and a minister for some months of a Republic that he neither assisted nor desired to establish, M. de Tocqueville passes away in the meridian of life, and the event is regarded not only as a national disaster, but as a calamity to the dearest interests of mankind. His name is held up to reverence and his character to admiration, not only by the friends whom his personal fascination and delightful qualities had won and retained, or by the small band of comrades who had shared his doctrines and his fortunes, but by statesmen, whose principles he had con

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