cepted his proud alliance. Offspring gladdened his anxious sight; a diadem was placed on its infant brow, and it received the homage of princes, even in its cradle. Now he was indeed a monarch,-a legitimate monarch; a monarch by divine appointment; the first of an endless succession of monarchs. But there were other monarchs who held sway in the earth. He was not content. He would reign with his kindred alone. He gathered new and greater armies from his own land, from subjugated lands. He called forth the young and the brave, one from every household; from the Pyrenees to the Zuyder Zee, from Jura to the ocean. He marshaled them into long and majestic columns, and went forth to seize that universal dominion, which seemed almost within his grasp. But ambition had tempted fortune too far. The nations of the earth resisted, repelled, pursued, and surrounded him. The pageant was ended. The crown fell from his presumptuous head. The wife who had wedded him in his pride, forsook him when fear came upon him. His child was ravished from his sight. His kinsmen were degraded to their first estate, and he was no longer emperor, nor consul, nor general, nor even a citizen, but an exile and a prisoner, on a lonely island in the midst of the wild Atlantic. Discontent attended him there. The wayward man fretted out a few lonely years of his yet unbroken manhood, looking off, at the earliest dawn and the evening's twilight, toward that distant world that had only just eluded his grasp. His heart corroded. Death came, not He unlooked for, though it came, even then, unwelcome. was stretched on his bed within the fort which constituted his prison. A few fast and faithful friends stood around him, with the guards, who rejoiced that the hour of relief from long and wearisome watching was at hand. As his strength wasted away, delirium stirred up the brain from its long and inglorious inactivity. The pageant of ambition returned. He was again a lieutenant and a general, a consul, an emperor of France. He filled again the throne of Charlemagne. His kindred pressed around him, again invested with the pompous pageantry of royalty. The daughter of the long line of kings again stood proudly by his side, and the sunny face of his child shone out from beneath the diadem that encircled his flowing locks. The marshals of the empire awaited his command. The legions of the Old Guard were in the field, their scarred faces rejuvenated, and their ranks, thinned in many battles, replenished. Russia, Prussia, Austria, Denmark, and England gathered their mighty hosts to give him battle. Once more he mounted his impatient charger and rushed forth to conquest. He waved his sword aloft, and cried: "Tête d'Armée!" The feverish vision broke, the mockery was ended. The silver cord was loosed, and the warrior fell back upon his bed a lifeless corpse. The Corsican was not content! 1 Tate darmā. THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER FRANCIS SCOTT KEY NOTE TO THE PUPIL. - During the second war with Great Britain the English sent an expedition to capture the city of Baltimore. To succeed they must first capture Fort McHenry, and the British fleet bombarded it. During the engagement a small party of Americans, Francis Key, among the number, carrying a flag of truce, went out to the British fleet to secure the release of an American citizen who had been taken prisoner. They were detained overnight that they might not be able to give information in regard to what they had seen. The bombardment went on into the night. Mr. Key listened to the sound of the guns, and watched the rockets and bursting bombs. Late at night the guns became silent. Mr. Key was on a vessel far to the rear of the fleet and did not know whether the silence meant the capture of the fort or not. He awaited the morning light with great anxiety, and when the early dawn showed the stars and stripes still floating over Fort McHenry he knew that the attack had failed. While still on the vessel he wrote the song that follows. SAY, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the peril ous fight O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly stream ing? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? And where is that band who so vauntingly swore Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollu tion. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto "In God is our trust; And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave THE AMERICAN FLAG JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE NOTE TO THE PUPIL.. The following poem was written by Joseph Rodman Drake, an American poet of great promise who died at the age of twenty-five. His principal poem is "The Culprit Fay." WHEN Freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And gave Majestic monarch of the cloud, Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, And rolls the thunder drum of Heaven,- To guard the banner of the free, |