off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment,-INDEPEND ENCE NOW; AND INDEPENDENCE FOREVER!

XV. THE AMERICAN FLAG.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

1. When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there;
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

2. Majestic monarch of the cloud,

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,
And see the lightning lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storm,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven,-
Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle-stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!

3. Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,

And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,

Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn

To where thy sky-born glories burn;
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud

Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall;
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,
And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

4. Flag of the seas! on ocean wave

Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,

Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea

Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

5. Flag of the free heart's hope and home! By angel hands to valor given;

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us,

With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!

XVI.-NEW ENGLAND AS A PART OF THE

UNION.

RICHARD YATES.

During the troubles attendant upon the great rebellion, those who sympathized with the South were in the habit of charging New England with having originated the difficulties, and of urging the separation of the six Eastern States from the Union. Mr. Yates, then Governor of Illinois, protests against this suggestion in the following words:

I regret that appeals are made to the masses, by a few public presses in the country, for separation from New England. Not a drop of New England blood flows in my veins ; still, I should deem myself an object of commiseration and shame if I could forget her glorious history, if I could forget that the blood of her citizens freely commingled with that of my own ancestors, upon those memorable fields which ushered in the dawn of civil and religious liberty.

not propose to be the eulogist of New England; but she is indissolubly bound to us by all the bright memories of the past, by all the glory of the present, by all the hopes of the future. I shall always exult in the fact that I belong to a Republic in the galaxy of whose stars New England is among the brightest and the best. Palsied be the hand that would sever the ties which bind the East and West.

XVII. THE CONSTITUTION.

ANDREW JACKSON.

We have hitherto relied upon the Constitution as the perpetual bond of our Union. We have received it as the work of the assembled wisdom of the nation. We have trusted to it as the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to it with sacred love as the palladium of our liberties, and, with all the solemnities of religion, have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here, and our hopes of happiness

hereafter, in its defence and support. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution of our country? Did we pledge ourselves to the support of an airy nothing, a bubble that must be blown away by the first breath of disaffection?

XVIIL-THE VALUE OF OUR INSTITUTIONS TO FUTURE TIMES.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

The following is from a speech by Daniel Webster, delivered on the two-hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. He has been speaking of the next succeeding centennial anniversary of the same event, when he breaks forth into the following magnificent apostrophe. It requires the fullest volume of voice:

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise, in your long succession, to fill the places. which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence, where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our human duration. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We wel come you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred and parents and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth.

SELECTIONS FOR READING.

I. TREES.

ALFRED B. STREET.

1. Whether pluming the mountain, edging the lake, eyelashing the stream, roofing the waterfall, sprinkling the meadow, burying the homestead, or darkening leagues of hill, plain, and valley, trees have always "haunted me like a passion." Let me summon a few of them, prime favorites, and familiar to the American forest.

2. The aspen-what soft, silver-gray tints on its leaves, how smooth its mottled bark, its whole shape how delicate and sensitive! You may be sitting on the homestead lawn some summer noon, the trees all motionless, and the hot air trembling over the surface of the unstirred grass. Suddenly you will hear a fluttering like the unloosing of a rapid brook, and looking whence comes the sound, you will see the aspen shaking as if falling to pieces, or as if the leaves were little wings, each striving to fly off. All this time the broad leaf of the maple close by, does not lift even its pointed edges. This soft murmur really sends a coolness through the sultry atmosphere; but while your ear is drinking the music and your eye is filled with the tumultuous dancing, instantly both cease, as if the tree were stricken with a palsy, and the quiet leaves flash back the sunshine like so many fairy mirrors.

3. Next the elm. How noble the lift and droop of its branches! With such graceful downward curves on either side, it has the shape of the Greek vase. Such lavish foliage, also, running down the trunk to the very roots, as if a rich vine were wreathed around it! And what frameworks those branches shape, breaking the landscape beyond into halfoval scenes which look, through the chiar -oscuro, as if beheld through slightly shaded glass. And how finely the elm leans