ment of their temple. Here, on the everlasting rock of aberty they will establish the foundation of a free State. Beneath its ungenial wintry sky, principles of social right, institutions of civil government, shall germinate, in which, what seemed the Utopian dreams of visionary sages, are to be more than realized.

But let us contemplate, for a moment, the instruments selected by Providence, for this political and moral creation. However unpromising the field of action, the agents must correspond with the excellence of the work. The time is truly auspicious. England is well supplied with all the materials of a generous enterprise. She is in the full affluence of her wealth of intellect and character. The age of Elizabeth has passed and garnered up its treasures. The age of the commonwealth, silent and unsuspected, is ripening toward its harvest of great men. The Burleighs and Cecils have sounded the depths of statesmanship; the Drakes and Raleighs have run the whole round of chivalry and adventure; the Cokes and Bacons are spreading the light of their master-minds through the entire universe of philosophy and law. Out of a generation of which men like these are the guides and lights, it cannot be difficult to select the leaders of any lofty undertaking; and, through their influence, to secure to it the protection of royalty. But, alas, for New England! No, sir, happily for New England, Providence works not with human instruments. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. The stars of human greatness, that glitter in a court, are not destined to rise on the lowering horizon of the despised colony. The feeble company of Pilgrims is not to be marshalled by gartered statesmen, or mitred prelates. Fleets will not be despatched to convoy the little band, nor armies to protect it. Had there been honors to be won, or pleasures to be enjoyed, or plunder to be grasped, hungry courtiers, midsummer friends, godless adventurers would have eaten out the heart of the enterprise. Silken Buckinghams and Somersets would have blasted it with their patronage. But, safe amidst their unenvied perils, strong in their inoffensive weakness, rich in their untempting poverty, the patient fugitives are permitted to pursue unmolested the thorny paths of tribulation; and, landed at last on the unfriendly shore, the hosts of God, in the frozen mail of December, encamp around the dwellings of the just:

Stern famine guards the solitary coast,

And win er barricades the realms of frost."

While Bacon is attuning the sweetest stra ns of his honeyed eloquence to sooth the dull ear of a crowned pedant, and his great rival, only less obsequious, is on his knees to deprecate the royal displeasure, the future founders of the new republic beyond the sea are training up for their illustrious mission, in obscurity, hardship, and weary exile in a foreign land.

And now-for the fulness of time is come-let us go up once more, in imagination, to yonder hill, and look out upon the November scene. That single dark speck, just discernible through the perspective glass, on the waste of waters, is the fated vessel. The storm moans through her tattered canvas, as she creeps, almost sinking, to her anchorage in Provincetown harbor; and there she lies, with all her treasures, not of silver and gold, (for of these she has none,) but of courage, of patience, of zeal, of high spiritual daring. So often as I dwell in imagination on this scene; when I consider the condition of the Mayflower, utterly incapable, as she was, of living through another gale; when I survey the terrible front presented by our coast to the navigator who, unacquainted with its channels and roadsteads, should approach it in the stormy season, I dare not call it a mere piece of good fortune, that the general north and south wall of the shore of New England should be broken by this extraordinary projection of the Cape, running out into the ocean a hundred miles, as if on purpose to receive and encircle the precious vessel. As I now see her, freighted with the destinies of a continent, barely escaped from the perils of the deep, approaching the shore precisely where the broad sweep of this most remarkable headland presents almost the only point, at which, for hundreds of miles, she could, with any ease, have made a harbor, and this, perhaps, the very best on the seaboard, I feel my spirit raised above the sphere of mere natural agencies. I see the mountains of New England rising from their rocky thrones. They rush forward into the ocean, settling down as they advance; and there they range themselves, as a mighty bulwark around the heaven-directed vessel. Yes, the everlasting God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power, in substantial manifestation, and gathers the merk company of his worshippers as in the hollow of his hand.

THE TWO FRIENDS.-WORDSWORTH.

We talked with open heart and tongue, Affectionate and true;

A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,
Beside a mossy seat;

And from the turf a fountain broke,

And gurgled at our feet.

"Now, Matthew," said I, "let us match This water's pleasant tune

With some old border-song, or catch
That suits a summer's noon;

"Or of the church clock and the chimes
Sing here beneath the shade,
That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made."

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed
The spring beneath the tree;
And thus the dear old man replied,
The gray-haired man of glee.

"No check, no stay, this streamlet fears

How merrily it goes!

"Twill murmur on a thousand years, And flow as it now flows.

"And here, on this delightful day,
I cannot choose but think

How oft, a vigorous man, I lay
Beside this fountain's brink.

"My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirred,

For the same sound was in my ears
Which in those days I heard.

"Thus fares it still in our decay;

And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what age takes away,
Than what it leaves behind.

"The blackbird amid leafy trees,

The lark above the hill,

Let loose their carols when they please, Are quiet when they will.

'With Nature never do they wage
A foolish strife; they see

A happy youth, and their old age
Is beautiful and free.

"But we are pressed by heavy laws,
And often, glad no more,
We wear a face of joy, because
We have been glad of yore.

"If there be one who need bemoan
His kindred laid in earth,

The household hearts that were his own, It is the man of mirth.

"My days, my friend, are almost gone,
My life has been approved;

Aud many love me; but by none
Am I enough beloved."

"Now both himself and me he wrongs,

The man who thus complains!

I live and sing my idle songs
Upon these happy plains.

"And, Matthew, for thy children dead,
I'll be a son to thee!"

At this he grasped my hand, and said,
"Alas! that cannot be."

We rose up from the fountain side;
And down the smooth descent
Of the green sheep-track did we glide;
And through the wood we went.

And, ere we came to Leonard's rock,
He sang those witty rhymes
About the crazy old church clock,
And the bewildered chimes.

LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE.-TENNYSOW.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

Of me you shall not win renown;
You thought to break a country heart
For pastime, ere you went to town.
At me you smiled, but unbeguiled
I saw the snare, and I retired:
The daughter of a hundred Earls,
You are not one to be desired.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

I know you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine,

Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that doats on truer charms; A simple maiden in her flower

Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

Some meeker pupil you must find,
For were you queen of all that is,
I could not stoop to such a mind.
You sought to prove how I could love,
And my disdain is my reply;

The lion on your old stone gates

Is not more cold to you than I.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

You put strange memories in my head, Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies: A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you had hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere;

When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind,

She spake some certain truths of you.

Indeed I heard one bitter word

That scarce is fit for you to hear;

Her manners had not that repose

Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

There stands a spectre in your hall; The guilt of blood is at your door,

You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, Ara, last, you fix'd a vacant stare,

And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,

From yon blue heavens above us bent;
The grand old gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
T' is only noble to be good;

Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.