SHYLOCK'S SOLILOQUY AND ADDRESS. 211 SHYLOCK'S SOLILOQUY AND ADDRESS.-SHAKESPEARE. H ́OW like a fawning publican he looks! I hate him, for he is a Christian; He lends out money gratis, and brings down I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. Even there where merchants most do congregate, Signior Antonio, many a time and oft, About my moneys, and my usances: And all for use of that which is mine own. 66 Shylock, we would have moneys;" you say so, A cur can lend three thousand ducats? or "Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last: 212 THE TWO ROADS. O THE TWO ROADS.-RICHTER. N New Year's night, an old man stood at his window, and looked, with a glance of fearful despair, up to the immovable, unfading heaven, and down upon the still, pure, white earth, on which no one was now so joyless and sleepless as he. His grave stood near him: it was covered only with the snows of age, not with the verdure of youth; and he brought with him out of a whole, rich life, nothing but errors, sins, and diseases; a wasted body; a desolate soul; a heart full of poison; and an old age full of repentance. The happy days of his early youth passed before him, like a procession of spectres, and brought back to him that lovely morning, when his father first placed him on the cross-way of life, where the right hand led by the sunny paths of virtue, into a large and quiet land, full of light and harvests; and the left plunged, by the subterranean walks of vice, into a black cave, full of distilling poison, of hissing snakes, and of dark, sultry vapors. Alas! the snakes were hanging upon his breast, and the drops of poison on his tongue; and he now, at length, felt all the horror of his situation. Distracted, with unspeakable grief, and with face up-turned to heaven, he cried, "My father! give me back my youth! O, place me once again upon life's cross-way, that I may choose aright!" But his father and his youth were long since gone. He saw phantom-lights dancing upon the marshes, and disappearing at the church-yard; and he said, "These are my foolish days!" He saw a star shoot from Heaven, and, glittering in its fall, vanish upon the earth. "Behold an emblem of my career," said his bleeding heart, and the serpent tooth of repentance digged deeper into his wounds. His excited imagination showed him spectres flying upon the roof, and a skull, which had been left in the charnel-house, gradually assumed his own features. In the midst of this confusion of objects, the music of the new year flowed down from the steeple, like distant church melodies. His heart began to melt. He looked around the horizon, and over the wide earth, and thought of the friends of his youth, who now, better and happier than he, were the wise of the earth, prosperous men, and the fathers of happy children; and he said, "Like you, I also might slumber, THE WONDERFUL “ONE-HOSS SHAY." 213 with tearless eyes, through the long nights, had I chosen aright in the outset of my career. Ah, my father, had I hearkened to thy instructions I too might have been happy!” In this feverish remembrance of his youthful days, the skull bearing his features seemed slowly to rise from the door of the charnel-house. At length, by that superstition which, in the New Year's night, sees the shadow of the future, it became a living youth. He could look no longer: he covered his eyes: a thousand burning tears streamed down and fell upon the snow. In accents scarcely audible, he sighed disconsolately: "Oh, days of my youth, return, return!" And they did return. It had only been a hɔrrible dream. But, although he was still a youth, his errors had been a reality. And he thanked God, that he, still young, was able to pause in the degrading course of vice, and return to the sunny path which leads to the land of harvests. Return with him, young reader, if thou art walking in the same downward path, lest his dream become thy reality. For if thou turnest not now, in the spring-time of thy days, vainly, in after years, when the shadows of age are darkening around thee, shalt thou call, "Return, oh beautiful days of youth!" Those beautiful days, gone, gone forever, and hidden in the shadows of the misty past, shall close their ears against thy miserable cries, or answer thee in hollow accents, "Alas! we return no more.". THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY."-0. W. HOLMES. AVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay? HA That was built in such a logical way? It ran a hundred years to a day, And then, of a sudden, it-Ah, but stay, Scaring the parson into fits, Frightening people out of their wits Have you heard of that, I say? Seventeen hundred and fifty-five, 214 THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" That was the year when Lisbon town Saw the earth open and gulp her down, It was on the terrible Earthquake-day Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what, وو But the Deacon swore-(as Deacons do, It should be so built that it couldn't break daown ;— Is only jest To make that place uz strong uz the rest." So the Deacon inquired of the village folk The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees; The hubs from logs from the "Settler's ellum "- THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY." And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips: She was a wonder and nothing less! Children and grandchildren-where were they? EIGHTEEN HUNDRED-it came and found And then came fifty-and FIFTY-FIVE. Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year FIRST OF NOVEMBER-the Earthquake-day.- But nothing local, as one may say. 215 |