O, YOUNG Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best,
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none;
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for store,
He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall,

Among bride's-men and kinsmen, and brothers and all : Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword (For the poor craven bridegroom spoke never a word),

O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ?

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied ;
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide, -
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up,
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup,
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.

He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;

E

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whispered, ""T were better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,

When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near; So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,

So light to the saddle before her he sprung!

She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran:
There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ?

THE LAST MINSTREL.

THE way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seemed to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy :
The last of all the Bards was he,
Who sung of Border chivalry;
For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
No more, on prancing palfrey borne,
He caroled, light as lark at morn;
No longer, courted and caressed,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He poured, to lord and lady gay,
The unpremeditated lay:

Old times were changed, old manners gone; A stranger fills the Stuarts' throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.
A wandering harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his way from door to door;
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a King had loved to hear.

THE LOVE OF COUNTRY.

BREATHES there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land? Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell!
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim :
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

SOME feelings are to mortals given,
With less of earth in them than heaven:
And if there be a human tear
From passion's dross refined and clear,
A tear so limpid and so meek,
It would not stain an angel's cheek,
'Tis that which pious fathers shed.
Upon a duteous daughter's head!

SYDNEY SMITH.

1771-1845.

SYDNEY SMITH's name is a synonym of wit; but he has left behind him evidences of far higher mental powers than those which are called into exercise in the effort to amuse. He was born at Woodford, Essex, England, in 1771, and died in 1845. He was educated at Oxford, took holy orders and held a curacy in Wiltshire; in 1796 he removed to Edinburgh, where, in conjunction with Brougham and other distinguished men, he founded the Edinburgh Review. Removing to London in 1804, he continued to write for the Review, and speedily won a brilliant reputation as a critic. Ecclesiastical preferment frequently came to him, and at the time of his death he was Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's Cathedral. His writings were mainly in the form of sermons; but he wrote many notable letters on political and religious questions which go far toward justifying Mr. Everett's opinion that if he (Smith) "had not been known as the wittiest man of his day, he would have been accounted one of the wisest." It is believed that his Letters on Catholic Emancipation were largely instrumental in pushing that measure to success. Macaulay said of him: "He is universally admitted to have been a great reasoner, and the greatest master of ridicule that has appeared among us since Swift."

THE PLEASURES OF KNOWLEDGE.

IT is noble to seek Truth, and it is beautiful to find it. It is the ancient feeling of the human heart, that knowledge is better than riches; and it is deeply and sacredly true. To mark the course of human passions as they have flowed on in the ages that are past; to see why nations have risen, and why they have fallen; to speak of heat, and light, and the winds; to know what man has discovered in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; to hear the chemist unfold the marvelous properties that the Creator has locked up in a speck of earth; to be told that there are worlds so distant from our own, that the quickness of light, traveling from the world's creation, has never yet reached us; to wander in the creations of poetry, and grow warm again with that eloquence which swayed the democracies of the Old World; to go up with great reasoners to the First Cause of all, and to perceive, in the midst of all this dissolution and decay and cruel separation, that there is one thing unchangeable, indestructible, and everlasting; it is worth while in the days of our youth to strive hard for this great discipline; to pass sleepless nights for it; to give up for it laborious days; to spurn for it present pleasures; to endure for it afflicting poverty; to wade for it through darkness, and sorrow, and contempt, as the great spirits of the world have done in all ages and all times.

I appeal to the experience of any man who is in the habit of exer

cising his mind vigorously and well, whether there is not a satisfaction in it which tells him he has been acting up to one of the great objects of his existence? The end of nature has been answered: his faculties have done that which they were created to do, - not languidly occupied upon trifles, not enervated by sensual gratification, but exercised in that toil which is so congenial to their nature, and so worthy of their strength.

A life of knowledge is not often a life of injury and crime. Whom does such a man oppress? with whose happiness does he interfere ? whom does his ambition destroy? and whom does his fraud deceive? In the pursuit of science he injures no man, and in the acquisition he does good to all. A man who dedicates his life to knowledge, becomes habituated to pleasure which carries with it no reproach: and there is one security that he will never love that pleasure which is paid for by anguish of heart, his pleasures are all cheap, all dignified, and all innocent; and, as far as any human being can expect permanence in this changing scene, he has secured a happiness which no malignity of fortune can ever take away, but which must cleave to him while he lives, ameliorating every good, and diminishing every evil of his existence.

I solemnly declare, that, but for the love of knowledge, I should consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher preferable to that of the greatest and richest man in existence; for the fire of our minds is like the fire which the Persians burn on the mountains, - it flames night and day, and is immortal, and not to be quenched! Upon something it must act and feed, upon the pure spirit of knowledge,

or upon the foul dregs of polluting passions.

Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love coeval with life, what do I say but love innocence; love virtue; love purity of 'conduct; love that which, if you are rich and great, will sanctify the providence which has made you so, and make men call it justice; love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes; love that which will comfort you, adorn you, and never quit you, - which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conception, as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain that may be your lot in the outer world, that which will make your motives habitually great and hon