tary champion he had perhaps no superior; but others appear to have originated and perfected the measures to which in either House of Congress he gave the support of his potent logic, fertile illustration, aggressive repartee, and scathing sarcasm. We do not now recall a single one of the great and momentous acts of Congress which were passed in his time, of which he can certainly be pronounced the author. Yet his activity was prodigious, and it was a strange freak of his complicated character to bring before the House or Senate, through others, proposi tions which he thought essential. His hand could often be recognized in motions and resolutions offered on all sides of the chamber, and often by members with whom he was not known to be familiar.

The courage of Mr. Conkling, moral as well as personal, was of a heroic strain. After his mind was made up, he feared no odds, and he asked no favor. He dared to stand out against his own party, and he, a Republican, had the nerve to confront and defy the utmost power of a Republican Administration. There was something magnanimous, too, in the way he bore misfortune. After the death of a distinguished man, with whom he had been very intimate, it was ascertained that his estate, instead of being wealthy, was bankrupt. Mr. Conkling was an endorser of his notes for a large sum of money, and saying calmly, "He would have done as much for me," he set himself to the laborious task of earning the means to pay off the debt. He paid it in no long time, and we don't believe that any man ever heard him murmur at the necessity.

In social life Mr. Conkling endeared himself to his intimates, not only by the qualities which we have endeavored to describe and indicate, but by the richness of his conversation, and the wit and humor-sometimes rather ponderous-with which it was seasoned, and by the stores of knowledge which he revealed. His reading had been extensive, especially in English literature, and his memory was surprisingly tenacious. Many of the most impressive passages of oratory and of literature he could repeat by heart. He was fond of social discussion on all sorts of questions, and liked no one the less who courteously disagreed with him.

As a lawyer, we suppose that his great ability was in cross-examina tion and with juries. The exigencies and the discursive usage of politi cal life prevented that arduous, persevering application to pure law which is necessary to make a great jurist; but his intellectual powers were so vigorous and so accurate that he made up the deficiencies of training and habit, and no one can doubt that, if he had given himself to the law alone, he would have gained a position of the very highest distinction. As it was, the most eminent counsel always knew that he had a formidable antagonist when Mr. Conkling was against him; and every court listened to his arguments, not merely with respect, but with instruction.

We shall be told, of course, that the supreme fault of this extraordinary mind was imperfection of judgment; and when we consider how largely his actions were controlled by pride and passion, and especially by resentment, we must admit that the criticism is not wholly without foundation. There was also in his manner too much that might justify the belief that often he was posing for effect, like an actor on the stage: and we shall not dispute that so at times it may have been. But there are so few men who are entirely free from imperfection, and so many who inherit from their ancestors characteristics which ought to be disapproved, that we may well overlook them when they are combined with noble and admirable gifts. And after all has been said, even those whom he opposed most strenuously, and scorned or resisted most unrelentingly, may remember that we all are human, while they let fall a tear and breathe a prayer to heaven as the bier of Roscoe Conkling passes on its way to the grave.

William Wetmore Story.

BORN in Salem, Mass., 1819.

CLEOPATRA.

[Graffiti d' Italia. 1868.]

HERE, Charmian, take my bracelets:

They bar with a purple stain

My arms; turn over my pillows-
They are hot where I have lain :
Open the lattice wider,

A gauze o'er my bosom throw,
And let me inhale the odors

That over the garden blow.

I dreamed I was with my Antony,
And in his arms I lay;

Ah, me! the vision has vanished

The music has died away.

The flame and the perfume have perished

As this spiced aromatic pastille

That wound the blue smoke of its odor

Is now but an ashy hill.

Scatter upon me rose-leaves,

They cool me after my sleep,

And with sandal odors fan me

Till into my veins they creep; Reach down the lute, and play me A melancholy tune,

To rhyme with the dream that has vanished And the slumbering afternoon.

There, drowsing in golden sunlight,
Loiters the slow smooth Nile,
Through slender papyri, that cover
The wary crocodile.

The lotus lolls on the water,

And opens its heart of gold,
And over its broad leaf pavement
Never a ripple is rolled.
The twilight breeze is too lazy

Those feathery palms to wave,
And yon little cloud is as motionless
As a stone above a grave.

Ah, me! this lifeless nature
Oppresses my heart and brain!
Oh! for a storm and thunder--
For lightning and wild fierce rain!
Fling down that lute-I hate it!

Take rather his buckler and sword,
And crash them and clash them together
Till this sleeping world is stirred.

Hark! to my Indian beauty

My cockatoo, creamy white,

With roses under his feathers-
That flashes across the light.

Look! listen! as backward and forward

To his hoop of gold he clings,

How he trembles, with crest uplifted,

And shrieks as he madly swings!

Oh, cockatoo, shriek for Antony!
Cry, "Come, my love, come home!"
Shriek, "Antony! Antony! Antony!"
Till he hears you even in Rome.

There-leave me, and take from my chamber

That stupid little gazelle,

With its bright black eyes so meaningless,

And its silly tinkling bell!

Take him,-my nerves he vexes

The thing without blood or brain,—

Or, by the body of Isis,

I'll snap his thin neck in twain!

Leave me to gaze at the landscape

Mistily stretching away,

'Where the afternoon's opaline tremors
O'er the mountains quivering play;
Till the fiercer splendor of sunset
Pours from the west its fire,
And melted, as in a crucible,

Their earthy forms expire;

And the bald blear skull of the desert
With glowing mountains is crowned,
That burning like molten jewels

Circle its temples round.

I will lie and dream of the past time,
Eons of thought away,

And through the jungle of memory
Loosen my fancy to play;

When, a smooth and velvety tiger,
Ribbed with yellow and black,

Supple and cushion-footed

I wandered, where never the track
Of a human creature had rustled
The silence of mighty woods,
And, fierce in a tyrannous freedom,
I knew but the law of my moods.
The elephant, trumpeting, started,
When he heard my footstep near,
And the spotted giraffes fled wildly
In a yellow cloud of fear.

I sucked in the noontide splendor,
Quivering along the glade,

Or yawning, panting, and dreaming,
Basked in the tamarisk shade,
Till I heard my wild mate roaring,
As the shadows of night came on,
To brood in the trees' thick branches
And the shadow of sleep was gone;
Then I roused, and roared in answer,

And unsheathed from my cushioned feet My curving claws, and stretched me,

And wandered my mate to greet. We toyed in the amber moonlight, Upon the warm flat sand,

And struck at each other our massive arms

How powerful he was and grand!

His yellow eyes flashed fiercely

As he crouched and gazed at me, And his quivering tail, like a serpent, Twitched curving nervously.

Then like a storm he seized me,

With a wild triumphant cry,

And we met, as two clouds in heaven
When the thunders before them fly.
We grappled and struggled together,
For his love like his rage was rude;
And his teeth in the swelling folds of my neck
At times, in our play, drew blood.

Often another suitor

For I was flexile and fair

Fought for me in the moonlight,

While I lay couching there,

Till his blood was drained by the desert;
And, ruffled with triumph and power,
He licked me and lay beside me

To breathe him a vast half-bour.
Then down to the fountain we loitered,
Where the antelopes came to drink;
Like a bolt we sprang upon them,

Ere they had time to shrink.

We drank their blood and crushed them,
And tore them limb from limb,
And the hungriest lion doubted
Ere he disputed with him.

That was a life to live for!

Not this weak human life,

With its frivolous bloodless passions,
Its poor and petty strife!

Come to my arms, my hero,
The shadows of twilight grow,
And the tiger's ancient fierceness
In my veins begins to flow.
Come not cringing to sue me!

Take me with triumph and power,

As a warrior storms a fortress!

I will not shrink or cower.
Come, as you came in the desert,
Ere we were women and men,
When the tiger passions were in us,
And love as you loved me then!

THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA.

[Roba di Roma. 1862. Revised Edition. 1887.]

ERE, on the spot whence Virgil tells us that Juno surveyed the

HE

ranks of the contending armies, "Laurentum Troumque," and