How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,

Where none can sin against the people's will;
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own!
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abethdin
With more discerning eyes or hands more clean,
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;
Swift of despatch and easy of access.

Oh, had he been content to serve the crown
With virtues only proper to the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppressed the noble seed;
David for him his tuneful harp had strung.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand;
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, a lasting happiness,
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since,
He stood at bold defiance with his prince;
Held up the buckler of the people's cause
Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws.

XXXI. THE LEPER.

(WILLIS.)

Nathaniel Parker Willis was born at Portland, Maine, United States of America, in 1817. He was Editor of the New York Mirror, and afterwards of the Home Journal. His sketches of a European tour, entitled "Pencillings by the Way," are well known.

"ROOM for the leper! room!"-And, as he came The cry passed on-" Room for the leper! room!"Sunrise was slanting on the city's gates,

Rosy and beautiful; and from the hills

The early-risen poor were coming in,
Duly and cheerfully to their toil; and up

Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum
Of moving wheels, and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city-murmur swells,—
Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,
Aching with night's dull silence; or the sick,
Hailing the welcome light and sounds, that chase
The death-like images of the dark away.

66

Room for the leper!" And aside they stoodMatron, and child, and pitiless manhood,-all Who met him on his way,—and let him pass. And onward through the open gate he came, A leper with the ashes on his brow, Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip A covering,-stepping painfully and slow; And with a difficult utterance, like one Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down. Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!"

'Twas now the first

Of the Judean autumn; and the leaves,
Whose shadows lay so still upon his path,
Had put their beauty forth beneath the eye
Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young,
And eminently beautiful; and life
Mantled in elegant fulness on his lip,
And sparkled in his glance; and in his mien
There was a gracious pride that every eye
Followed with benisons;-And this was he!

And he went forth-alone! Not one of all
The many whom he loved, nor she, whose name
Was woven in the fibres of his heart
Breaking within him now, to come and speak
Comfort unto him. Yea, he went his way,
Sick, and heart-broken, and alone, to die!
For, God had cursed the leper!

It was noon,
And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool
In the lone wilderness, and bathed his brow
Hot with the burning leprosy, and touched

The loathsome water to his fevered lips;

Praying that he might be so blest-to die! -Footsteps approached; and with no strength to flee,

He drew the covering closer on his lip,

Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!" and, in the folds
Of the coarse sackcloth shrouding up his face,
He fell upon the earth till they should pass.
Nearer the Stranger came, and, bending o'er
The leper's prostrate form, pronounced his name,
"Helon!"-The voice was like the master-tone
Of a rich instrument,-most strangely sweet;
And the dull pulses of disease awoke,
And, for a moment, beat beneath the hot
And leprous scales with a restoring thrill!—
Helon, arise!"—and he forgot his curse,
And rose and stood before Him.

Love and awe
Mingled in the regard of Helon's eye,
As he beheld the Stranger.-He was not
In costly raiment clad, nor on his brow
The symbol of a princely lineage wore;
No followers at his back,-nor in his hand
Buckler, or sword, or spear;—yet, if he smiled,
A kingly condescension graced his lips,

A lion would have crouched-to in his lair.
His garb was simple, and his sandals worn:
His stature modelled with a perfect grace;
His countenance the impress of a God,
Touched with the opening innocence of a child;
His eye was blue and calm, as is the sky
In the serenest noon; his hair unshorn
Fell to his shoulders; and his curling beard
The fulness of perfected manhood bore.
-He looked on Helon earnestly a while,

As if his heart were moved; and, stooping down,
He took a little water in his hand,

And laid it on his brow, and said, "Be clean!"
And lo! the scales fell from him; and his blood,
Coursed with delicious coolness through his veins;

And his dry palms grew moist, and on his brow
The dewy softness of an infant's stole:
His leprosy was cleansed; and he fell down
Prostrate at Jesus' feet, and worshipped him.

XXXII.—THE FIELD OF WATERLOO.

(BYRON.)

STOP!-for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!—
Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?
Nor column trophied for triumphal show?
None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so,
As the ground was before, thus let it be ;-
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!
And is this all the world has gained by thee,
Thou first and last of fields! King-making victory?

There was a sound of revelry by night,1
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell.—

But hush!-hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell !

Did ye not hear it? No: 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

On with the dance!-let joy be unconfined!

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet-
But hark!-that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! arm! it is-it is-the cannon's opening roar !

1 A ball was given in Brussels the night before the battle of Quatre Bras.

Within a windowed niche of that high hall
Sat Brunswick's fated chieftain: he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well,
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell!1
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which, but an hour ago,
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated: Who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war:
And the deep thunder, peal on peal, afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum,
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star:
While thronged the citizens, with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe! they come! they come!"

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose !
(The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard-and heard too have her Saxon foes!)
-How, in the noon of night, that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring, which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years:

And Evan's, Donald's fame, rings in each clansman's cars!

'He fell at Quatre Bras. 2 Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant, Donald