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most none. But in the creation of enmities he was terribly successful. Not so much at first, but increasingly as years went on, a state of ceaseless, vigilant hostility became his normal condition. From the time when he fairly entered upon the long struggle against slavery, he enjoyed few peaceful days in the House. But he seemed to thrive upon the warfare, and to be never so well pleased as when he was bandying hot words with slave-holders and the Northern supporters of slave-holders. When the air of the House was thick with crimination and abuse he seemed to suck in fresh vigor and spirit from the hate-laden atmosphere. When invectives fell around him in showers, he screamed back his retaliation with untiring rapidity and marvellous dexterity of aim. No odds could appall him. With his back set firm against a solid moral principle, it was his joy to strike out at a multitude of foes. They lost their heads as well as their tempers, but in the extremest moments of excitement and anger, Mr. Adams's brain seemed to work with machine-like coolness and accuracy. With flushed face, streaming eyes, animated gesticulation, and cracking voice, he always retained perfect mastery of all his intellectual faculties. He thus became a terrible antagonist, whom all feared, yet fearing could not refrain from attacking, so bitterly and incessantly did he choose to exert his wonderful power of exasperation. Few men could throw an opponent into wild, blind fury with such speed and certainty as he could; and he does not conceal the malicious gratification which such feats brought to him. A leader of such fighting capacity, so courageous, with such a magazine of experience and information, and with a character so irreproachable, could have won brilliant victories in public life at the head of even a small band of devoted followers. But Mr. Adams never had, and apparently never wanted followers. Other prominent public men were brought not only into collision but into comparison with their contemporaries. But Mr. Adams's individuality was so strong that he can be compared with no one. It was not an individuality of genius nor to any remarkable extent of mental qualities; but rather an individuality of character.- John Quincy Adams.

OSCHUS, a Greek poet who flourished at
Syracuse, in Sicily, about 160 B.C. He was

probably a contemporary of Theocritus, and certainly a pupil of Bion. Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus form the Syracusan school of pastoral poetry, and their works are usually printed together in one small volume. The extant works of Moschus consist of four Idyls and a few fragments. The Elegy upon Bion about half of which is here given was evidently in Milton's mind when he composed his Lycidas.

ELEGY FOR BION.

Begin, Sicilian Muses, now begin the dirge.

Wail, let me hear you wail, ye woodland glades, and wail
Ye Dorian streams; ye rivers all for Bion weep,
Bion, the loved. All ye green things of earth lament;
Mourn him, ye groves; and sadly breathe yourselves away,
Ye clustered flowers; redden, ye roses, in your grief;
Wax red, ye anemones; and thou, hyacinth,

In sad tone lisp the letters upon thee inscribed,
And to thy tinted petals add a deeper Ai!
For he is dead

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- the most beloved singer - dead.

Begin, Sicilian Muses, now begin the dirge.

Ye nightingales, that 'mid the shaking leaves lament;
To the Sicilian founts of Arethusa tell

That Bion, the loved swain, is dead, and that with him
The song hath ceased-expired the Dorian minstrelsy.

Begin, Sicilian Muses, now begin the dirge.

Who now upon thy pipe shall play, O trebly mourned?
Who now upon thy pipe shall dare to place his lips?
For still thy lips are breathing still their breath sur-

vives;

Echo among the reeds still feeds upon thy notes.
To Pan shall I present thy pipe? Nay, for perchance
Even he would fearful be to touch his lips thereto,
Lest, after thee, he but the second prize should win.

Begin, Sicilian Muses now begin the dirge.

This, Meles, thou most musical of rivers, this
Is thy second sorrow, this thy newest love,

Of old thou didst thy Homer lose; men say that thou
Didst wail thy goodly son with floods of falling tears,
And the salt sea didst with thy lamentation fill;
And now again dost thou bemoan another son,
And with another sorrow thou dost waste away.

They both were lovers of the fountains: Homer quaffed
From the Pegasean fount, from Arethusa
Bion was wont to drink. One sang of Thetis's son,
And the Atridæ, of Tyndaraus's daughter sang.
But not of warlike deeds or tears the other sang;
Tending his herds, of Pan he sang; of herdsmen sang.

Begin, Sicilian Muses, now begin the dirge.

Each famous city mourns thee, Bion, mourn all towns:
Ascia for thee more than for her Hesiod grieves;
Baotian Hylas doth far less for Pindar wail;
Not for Alcæus did sweet Lesbos so much mourn,
Nor the fair Ceian town her bard, Simonides;
For thee, more than for Archilochus, Paros moans;
Instead of Sappho's, Mytilene sings thy songs.
For thee Sicilidas, the pride of Samos, weeps;
Once smiling Lycidas, now deep lamenting, groans
With the Cydonians, Philetus wails at Cos

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Beside the river Halys; Theocritus weeps
Among the Syracusans. But for thee I raise.
The sad Ausonian strain: I who no stranger am

To thy loved rural song; who am inheritor

Of that sweet Dorian minstrelsy which thou didst teach Thy pupils. To others thou didst indeed bequeath

Thy wealth; but unto me, more honored, left thy song.

Begin, Sicilian Muses, now begin the dirge.

Ai! Ai! The mallows in the garden lying dead,
Or the green parsley, or the anise, crisp and sweet,
They have another life, and in the coming year
Spring forth. But we, the great, the valiant, or the wise
Of men, when once we die, within the hollow ground
We sleep the still, the endless, unawakening sleep.
Thou likewise shall voiceless lie; while the Nymphs
ordain

That the hoarse frog shall croak on eternally.

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When winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more,
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind. But when the roar
Of ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of earth and its deep woods, where, interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea,
Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen. But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook, murmuring.
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.

- Translation of PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

OSEN, JULIUS, a German poet and dramatist; born at Marienei, Voigtland, Saxony, July 8, 1803; died at Oldenburg, October 10, 1867. He was privately educated at home until the age of fourteen; then at the gymnasium of Plauen;

and afterward at the University of Jena. He traveled in Italy in 1824; and in 1826 he made a special visit to Florence and Venice. In the following year he went to Leipsic, where he passed his examination in law at the university. He went home for a while; but seeing little prospect of earning a living at the law, and being reduced to extreme poverty, he became very despondent. The July Revolution, however, aroused him, and he went back to Leipsic and got out his novel George Venlot. He held a public office in Kohren from 1831 to 1834, when he removed to Dresden to practice law. In 1844 he was appointed official playwright at the Court theatre of Oldenburg, where he spent the rest of his life. His best-known poem is Ahasver (1838), a philosophical treatment of the legend of the Wandering Jew. His Gedichte were published in 1836. Of his philosophical historical dramas the best are Die Bräute von Florenz Der Sohn des Fürsten Kaiser Otto III.; Heinrich der Finkler; Cola Rienzi, and Herzog Bernhard von Weimar. In these, his ideas concerning the philosophy of history are illustrated by the representative personages of the plays.

THE STATUE ABOVE THE CATHEDRAL DOOR

Forms of saints and kings are standing
The cathedral door above;

Yet I saw but one among them

Who hath soothed my soul with love.

In his mantle, wound about him,
As their robes the sowers wind,
Bore he swallows and their fledglings,
Flowers and weeds of every kind.

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