In the best blood that warms thy vein.
Now, truce, farewell! and ruth, begone!
Yet think not that by thee alone,
Proud chief! can courtesy be shown.
Though not from copse, or heath, or cairn,
Start at my whistle clansmen stern,
Of this small horn one feeble blast
Would fearful odds against thee cast.
But fear not-doubt not-which thou wilt-
We try this quarrel hilt to hilt."
Then each at once his falchion drew,
Each on the ground his scabbard threw,
Each looked to sun, and stream, and plain,
As what he ne'er might see again;
Then, foot and point and eye opposed,
In dubious strife they darkly closed.

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu,
That on the field his targe he threw,
Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide
Iad death so often dashed aside;
For, trained abroad his arms to wield,
Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield.
He practised every pass and ward,
To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard;`
While, less expert, though stronger far,
The Gael maintained unequal war.
Three times in closing strife they stood,
And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood;
No stinted draught, no scanty tide,
The gushing flood the tartans dyed.

Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain,

And showered his blows like wintry rain;
And as firm rock, or castle roof,
Against the winter shower is proof,

The foe, invulnerable still,

Foiled his wild rage by steady skill,

Till at advantage ta'en, his brand

Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand;

And, backward borne upon the lea.

Brought the proud chieftain to his knee.
"Now, yield thee, or, by him who made

The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade I'
"Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy!
Let recreant yield, who fears to die."—
Like adder darting from his coil,
Like wolf that dashes through the toil,

Like mountain-cat who guards her young,
Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung;

Received, but recked not of a wound,
And locked his arms his foeman round.
Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own!
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown!
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel,
Through bars of brass and triple steel!

They tug! they strain!-down, down they go,
The Gael above, Fitz-James below.
The chieftain's gripe his throat compressed,
His knee was planted in his breast;
His clotted locks he backward threw,
Across his brow his hand he drew,
From blood and mist to clear his sight,
Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright!
But late and fury ill supplied
The stream of life's exhausted tide,
And all too late the advantage came
To turn the odds of deadly game;
For, while the dagger gleamed on high,
Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye.
Down came the blow! but in the heath
The erring blade found bloodless sheath.
The struggling foe may now unclasp
The fainting chief's relaxing grasp:
Unwounded from the dreadful close,
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose.

EXAMPLES FOR IRELAND.-T. F. MEAGHER.

OTHER nations, with abilities far less eminent than those which you possess, having great difficulties to encounter, have obeyed with heroism the commandment from which you have swerved, maintaining that noble order of exist ence, through which even the poorest state becomes an instructive chapter in the great history of the world.

Shame upon you! Switzerland-without a colony, without a gun upon the seas, without a helping hand from any court in Europe has held for centuries her footing on the Alps-spite of the avalanche, has bid her little territory sustain, in peace and plenty, the children to whom she has given birth-has trained those children up in the arts that contribute most to the security, the joy,

the dignity of life-has taught them to depend upon themselves, and for their fortune to be thankful to no officious stranger-and, though a blood-red cloud is breaking over one of her brightest lakes, whatever plague it may portend, be assured of this-the cap of foreign despotism will never again gleam in the market-place of Altorff!

Shame upon you! Norway-with her seanty popula tion, scarce a million strong-has kept her flag upon the. Cattegat has reared a race of gallant sailors to guard her frozen soil-year after year has nursed upon that soil a harvest to which the Swede can lay no claim-has saved her ancient laws-and to the spirit of her frank and hardy sons commits the freedom which she rescued from the allied swords, when they hacked her crown at Freder ickstadt!

Shame upon you! Greece-"whom Goth, nor Turk, nor Time hath spared not"-has flung the crescent from the Acropolis-has crowned a King in Athens whom she calls her own-has taught you that a nation should never die-that not for an idle pageant has the blood of heroes flowed that not to vex a school-boys brain, nor smoulder in a heap of learned dust, has the fire of heaven issued from the tribune's tongue!

Shame upon you! Holland-with the ocean as her foe --from the swamp in which you would have sunk your graves, has bid the palace, and the warehouse costlier than the palace, rear their ponderous shapes above the waves that battle at their base-has outstripped the merchant of the Rialto-has threatened England in the Thameshas swept the channel with her broom-and, though for a day she reeled before the bayonets of Dumouriez, she sprang to her feet again and struck the tri-color from her dykes!

And you-you, who are eight millions strong-you, who boast at every meeting that this island is the finest which the sun looks down upon-you, who have no threatening sea to stem, no avalanche to dread—you, who say that you could shield along your coast a thousand sail, and be the princes of a mighty commerce-you, who by the magic of an honest hand, beneath each summer sky, might cull a plentous harvest from your soil, and with the sickle strike away the scythe of death-yon, who have

no vulgar history to read-you, who can trace, from field to field, the evidences of civilization older than the Conquest the relics of a religion far more ancient than the Gospel-you, who have thus been blessed, thus been gifted, thus been prompted to what is wise and generous and great-you will make no effort-you will whine, and beg, and skulk, in sores and rags, upon this favored land -you will congregate in drowsy councils, and then, when the very earth is loosening beneath your feet, you will bid a prosperous voyage to your last grain of corn-you will be beggared by the million-you will perish by the thous and, and the finest island which the sun looks down upon, amid the jeers and hootings of the world, will blacken into a plague-spot, a wilderness, a sepulchre.

MISS MALONY ON THE CHINESE QUESTION.

Оcu! don't be talkin'. Is it howld on ye say? An' didn't I howld on till the heart of me was clane broke entirely, and me wastin' that thin you could clutch me wid yer two hands. To think o' me toilin' like a nager, for the six year I've been in Ameriky-bad luck to the day I iver left the owld counthry! to be bate by the likes o' them! (faix an' I'll sit down when I'm ready, so I will, Ann Ryan, an' ye'd better be listnin' than drawin' your remarks) an' is it meself, with five good characters from respectable places, would be herdin' wid the haythens? The saints forgive me but I'd be buried alive sooner'n put up wid it a day longer. Sure an' I was the granehorn not to be lavin' at onct when the missus kim into me kitchen wid her perlaver about the new waiter man which was brought out from Californy. "He'll be here the night," says she, "and Kitty, it's meself looks to you to be kind and patient wid him for he's a furriner," says she, a kind o' lookin' off. "Sure an' it's little I'll hinder nor interfare wid him nor any other, mum," says I, a kind o' stiff, for I minded me how these French waiters, wid their paper collars and brass rings on their fingers, isn't company for no gurril brought up dacint and honest. Och!

sorra a bit I knew what was comin' till the missus walked into me kitchen smilin', and says kind o' schared: "Here's Fing Wing, Kitty, an' you'll have too much sinse to mind his bein' a little strange." Wid that she shoots the doore, and I, misthrusting if I was tidied up sufficient for me fine buy wid his paper collar, looks up and-howly fathers! may I niver brathe another breath, but there stud a rale haythen Chineser a-grinnin' like he'd just come off a tay-box. If you'll belave me, the crayture was that yaller it 'ud sicken you to see him; an' sorra a stich was on him, but a black night-gown over his trowsers, and the front of his head shaved claner nor a copper biler, and a black tail a-hangin' down from behind, wid his two feet stook into the haythenestest shoes you ever set eyes on. Och! but I was up stairs before you could turn about, a-givin' the missus warnin', and only stopt wid her by her raisin' me wages two dollars and playdin' wid me how it was a Christian's duty to bear wid haythins, and taich 'em all in our power-the saints save us! Well, the ways and trials I had wid that Chineser, Ann Ryan, I could'nt be tellin'. Not a blissed thing cud I do, but he'd be lookin' on wid his eyes cocked up'ard like two poomp-handles, an' he widdout a speck or smitch o' whishkers on him, an' his finger nails full a yard long. But it's dyin' you'd be to see the missus a larnin' him, and he grinnin' an' waggin' his pig-tail (which was pieced out long wid some black stoof, the haythen chate!) and gettin' into her ways wonderful quick, I don't deny, imitatin' that sharp, you'd be shurprised, an' ketchin' an' copyin' things the best of us will do a-hurried wid work, yet don't wan't comin' to the knowledge of the family-bad luck to him!

Is it ale wid him? Arrah, an' would I be sittin' wid a haythen, an' he a-atin' wid drum sticks-yes, an' atin' dogs an' cat's unknownst to me, I warrant you, which it is the custom of them Chinesers, till the thought made me that sick I could die. An' didn't the crayture proffer to help me a wake ago come Toosday, an' me a foldin' down me clane clothes for ironin', an' fill his haythin mouth wid water, an' afore I could hinder, squirrit it through his teeth stret over the best linen table-cloth, and fold it up tight, as innercent now as a baby, the dirrity baste! But the worrest of all was the copyin' he'd be doin' till ye'd