become one of her greatest sons. Religion rejoices serenely, with joy unspeakable, in the final escape of Vincent de Paul. Exposed in the public square of Tunis to the inspection of the trafficers in human flesh, this illustrous Frenchman was subjected to every vileness of treatment; like a horse, compelled to open his mouth, to show his teeth, to trot, to run, to exhibit his strength in lifting burthens, and then, like a horse, legally sold in market overt. Passing from master to master, after a protracted servitude, he achieved his freedom, and regaining France, commenced that resplendent career of charity by which he is placed among the great names of Christendom. Princes and orators have lavished panegyrics upon this fugitive slave; and the Catholic Church, in homage to his extraordinary virtues, has introduced him into the company of saints. LXIII. THE JAGUAR HUNT. J. T. TROWBRIDGE. ATLANTIC MONTHLY. The dark jaguar was abroad in the land; His strength and his fierceness what foe could withstand? The breath of his anger was hot in the air, And the white lamb of Peace he had dragged to his lair. Then up rose the Farmer; he summoned his sons : Oh, their hearts, at the word, how they tingled and stirred! This traitor, we know him! for when he was younger, Then said one, "He must die! "He must die!" And they took up the cry. "For this last crime of his he must die! he must die!" But the slow eldest-born sauntered sad and forlorn, For his heart was at home on that fair hunting-morn. "I remember," he said, "how this fine cub we track The dark jaguar on a bough in the brake Crouched, silent and wily, as lithe as a snake: They spied not their game, but, as onward they came, Through the dense leafage gleamed two red eyeballs of flame. Black-spotted, and mottled, and whiskered, and grim, All so still that you saw but just one tawny paw Then shrilled his fierce cry, as the riders drew nigh, Oh, then there was carnage by field and by flood! Now the din of the conflict swells deadly and loud, With wide nostrils smoking, and flanks dripping gore, As onward they thundered through forest and glen, In April, sweet April, the chase was begun; It was April again, when the hunting was done: Then the monster stretched all his grim length on the ground; His life-blood was wasting from many a wound; Amid heaps of the whitening bones of his prey. Then up spoke the slow eldest son, and he said, But the farmer flung back the false words in his face; "So rapine and treason forever shall cease!" And they washed the stained fleece of the pale lamb of Peace; In a wonderful raiment of ravishing light! Peace is raised from the dead! In the radiance shed LXIV. THE DEMON OF THE FIRE. E. A. POE. In the deepest depth of midnight, while the sad and solemn swell Faintly, falteringly floating o'er the sable waves of air That were thro' the midnight rolling, chafed and billowy with the tolling- As the last, long, lingering echo of the midnight's mystic chime, In a quivering sigh departed; from my couch in fear I started; On the red hearth's reddest center, from a blazing knot of oak, Speechless, struck with stony silence, frozen to the floor I stood, Till methought my brain was hissing with that hissing, bubbling blood; Till the demon seemed to name me-then a wondrous calm came o'er me; Then as in death's seeming shadow, in the icy fall of fear I lay, stricken, came a hoarse and hideous murmur to my ear; "How I revel on the prairie! how I roar among the pines! "I am Monarch of the Fire! I am Vassal King of Death! I command the Eternal Fire! Higher! higher! higher! higher! Then a sombre silence shut me in a solemn, shrouding sleep, And the martins, from the edges of the lichen-lidded lodges, Shimmered through the russet arches, where the light in torn files marches Like a routed army struggling through the serried ranks of oak. Thro' my ivy-fretted casements, filtered in a tremulous note, From the tall and stately linden, where the robin swelled his throat- Ah! the fiendish fire had smouldered to a white and formless heap, And I bowed and said, "All power is of God-of God alone!" LXV. LOVE AND LATIN. "Amo, Amare, Amavi, Amatum.” Dear girls, never marry for knowledge, (Though that, of course, should form a part,) Let me tell you a fact that is real O, he talked of the Greeks and the Romans, By means of a thousand strange herbs, Derived from the roots-of Greek verbs. |