Help! help!-He's gone-Oh! fearful woe,
Such screams to hear, such sights to see;
My brain! my brain! I know, I know,
I am not mad, but soon shall be!

Yes, soon! for, lo, you! while I speak,
Mark how yon demon's eye-balls glare!
He sees me !-now, with dreadful shriek,
He whirls a serpent high in air.
Horror! the reptile strikes his tooth
Deep in my heart, so crushed and sad!
Ay, laugh ye fiends! I feel the truth,
Your task is done! I'm mad! I'm mad!

LESSON CXL.

THE DYING BRIGAND.

Brigands, or bandits, have been a fruitful theme of poems and romances, but the bandit of the poet and novelist is as unnatural a being as an ogre or a fairy. Woman, too, ivy-like, has no doubt often clung to worthless objects, because supported by them, with a constancy worthy of a better cause, but no American female, at least, is in any danger of emulating such examples. The following anonymous piece is well written, and affords an advanced pupil a fine chance for effect. He must imagine the brigand mortally wounded, and his bride, attentive to catch his parting accents, his last look, while with his carbine, and a determination of voice and manner which can not be mistaken, she keeps back a circle of police officers, who are eager to rush upon their prostrate victim.

She stood before the dying man,

And her eye grew wildly bright-
"Ye will not pause for a woman's ban
Nor shrink from a woman's might;
And his glance is dim that made you fly;
As ye before have fled :—

Look, dastards!—how the brave can die—
Beware!-he is not dead!

By his blood you have tracked him to his lair,
Would you bid the spirit part?—
He that durst harm one single hair,
Must reach it through my heart.
I can not weep, for my brain is dry,—
Nor plead, for I know not how;
But my aim is sure, and the shaft may fly,
And the bubbling life blood flow.

Yet leave me, while dim life remains,
To list his parting sigh;
To kiss away those gory stains,
To close his beamless eye!
Ye will not! no-he triumphs still,
Whose foes his death-pangs dread-
His was the power-yours but the will:-
Back! back! he is not dead!

His was the power that held in thrall,
Through many a glorious year,
Priests, burghers, nobles, princes, all
Slaves worship, hate or fear:
Wrongs, insults, injuries thrust him forth
A bandit chief to dwell;-

How he avenged his slighted worth,
Ye, cravens, best may tell!

His spirit lives in the mountain breath,
It flows in the mountain wave;
Rock-stream-hath done the work of death,

Yon deep ravine-the grave !—

That which hath been, again may be !—

Ay, by yon fleeting sun,

Who stirs no morning ray shall see :

His sand of life has run!"

Defiance shone in her flashing eye,

But her heart beat wild with fear;-
She starts the bandit's last faint sigh
Breaths on her sharpened ear—
She gazes on each stiffening limb,
And the death damp chills her brow;
"For him I lived, I die with him!
Slaves! do your office now!"

LESSON CXLI.

THE ROVER.

The rover is to the sea what the brigand or bandit is to the land, and the following piece resembles the preceding. The poem is a good exercise in elocution, and the pupil has only to bear in mind that a Rover is only a pirate, and a Brigand a robber, notwithstanding all the embellishments of poetry. The authoress is Miss E. COOKE.

I'm afloat! I'm afloat on the fierce rolling tide,
The ocean's my home! and my bark is my bride!
Up-up with my flag! let it wave o'er the sea;
I'm afloat! I'm afloat, and the rover is free!

I fear not the monarch-I heed not the law;
I've a compass to steer by, a dagger to draw;
And ne'er as a coward or slave will I kneel,
While my guns carry shot, or my belt bears a steel!

Quick-quick-trim her sails; let her sheets kiss the wind;

And I warrant we'll soon leave the sea-gull behind;
Up-up with my flag! let it wave o'er the sea!
I'm afloat! I'm afloat! and the rover is free!

The night gathers o'er us; the thunder is heard;
What matter? our vessel skims on like a bird;
What to her is the dash of the storm-ridden main?
She has braved it before, and will brave it again!

The fire-gleaming flashes around us may fall;

They may strike: they may cleave; but they can not appal.

With lightnings above us, and darkness below,

Through the wild waste of waters right onward we go!

Hurrah! my brave crew! ye may drink; ye may sleep;
The storm-fiend is hushed; we're alone on the deep;
Our flag of defiance still waves o'er the sea;
Hurrah, boys! hurrah, boys! the rover is free!

LESSON CXLII.

THE GIPSY'S TENT.

The Gipsys are a tribe of vagabonds that are supposed to have come from Asia into Europe, and are remarkable for having preserved their national peculiarities in the midst of foreigners. They are a thievish, idle, filthy tribe; but, bad as they are, the comparisons instituted in the second stanza are not entirely without reason. The poem may be spoken by a male or a female pupil. It was written by Miss E. СООКЕ.

Our fire on the turf, and our tent 'neath a tree-
Carousing by moonlight, how merry are we!
Let the lord boast his castle, the baron his hall,
But the house of the gipsy is widest of all.

We may
shout o'er our cups, and laugh loud as we will,
The echo rings back from wood, welkin, and hill;
No joys seem to us like the joys that are lent
To the wanderer's life and the gipsy's tent.

Some crime and much folly may fall to our lot;
We have sins, but pray where is the one who has not!
We are rogues, arrant rogues :-yet remember! 'tis rare
We take but from those who can very well spare.
You may tell us of deeds justly branded with shame,
But if great ones heard truth you could tell them the

same:

And there's many a king would have less to repent, If his throne were as pure as the gipsy's tent.

Pant ye
for beauty? Oh, where would ye seek
Such bloom as is found in the tawny one's cheek?
Our limbs, that go bounding in freedom and health,
Are worth all your pale faces and coffers of wealth.
There are none to control us; we rest or we roam;
Our will is our law, and the world is our home :
E'en Jove would repine at his lot, if he spent
A night of wild glee in the gipsy's tent.

LESSON CXLIII.

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON WHOLLY AMERICAN.

The following unequalled sketch of the character of Washington, is extracted from Webster's address on Bunker Hill, at the completion of the monument. It is, in fact, the Peroration, or conclusion, of that remarkable address.

America has furnished to the world the character of WASHINGTON! And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.

WASHINGTON! "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen !” WASHINGTON is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country and its institutions. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not, that by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be, WASHINGTON!

This structure, now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem. of his character. His public virtues and public princi