present hour, it is the total disregard of self, when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.

The star of Napoleon was just rising to its zenith as that of Washington passed away. In point of military genius Napoleon probably equalled, if he did not exceed, any person known in history. In regard to the direction of the interests of a nation, he may have occupied a very high place. He inspired an energy and vigor in the veins of the French people which they sadly needed after the demoralizing sway of centuries of Bourbon kings. With even a small modicum of the wisdom so prominent in Washington, he, too, might have left a people to honor his memory down to the latest times. But it was not so to be. Do you ask the reason? It is this. His motives of action always centred in self. His example gives a warning, but not a guide. Had Napoleon copied the example of Washington, he would have been the idol of all later generations in France; for Washington to have copied the example of Napoleon, would have been simply impossible.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

THE RAJAH'S CLOCK.

(By permission.)

RAJAH BALPOORA, Prince of Jullinder,

Reigned in the land where the Five Rivers ran ;
A lordly tyrant, with none to hinder
His wildest pleasure or maddest plan.

His hall was beauty, his throne was splendor,
His meat was dainties of every zone,
Nor ever a joy that wealth can render,

His whimsical fancy left unknown.
For afar, in sight of his palace windows,
His realm was gardens on every

* Rajah, Ra'-jah or Rä'-jah.

hand;

THE RAJAH'S CLOCK.

And the feet of a hundred thousand Hindoos
Came and went at his least command.
But one thing, worthy his pride to show it,

Among his treasures eclipsed them all;
'Twas the marvel of sage and the praise of poet,
The wonderful clock in his palace hall.

Brain and fingers of matchless cunning,
Patiently planned the strange machine,-
Framed, and balanced, and set it running,
With a living heart in its wheels unseen.
Behind the dial, the iron pallet

Counted the seconds and just below
Hung a silver gong, and a brazen mallet
For every hour had a brazen blow

;

And near, like windrowed leaves in the weather,
Or battle-wrecks at a charnel door,

Lay mock men's limbs all huddled together,
In a shapeless heap on a marble floor!
And when the dial-hands creeping, pointed
The smallest hour on the disk of day,
Click! from the piecemeal pile, rejointed,
A new-made manikin jumped away!
Nimble-handed, a small, trim figure,

Briskly he stooped where his work begun,
Seized a mallet with nervous vigor,

And loud on the echoing gong struck one. Clang!—and the hammer that made the clamor

Dropped, and lay where it lay before,

267

And the arms of the holder fell off at the shoulder,
And his head went rolling down to the floor,
And the little man tumbled, and cracked, and crumbled,
Till the human shape that he lately bore,
With a shiver and start all rattled apart,
And vanished-as if to rise no more.

Dead! ere the great bell's musical thunder

In the listening chambers throbbed away—

(No eye discovered the hidden wonder
That dreaming under the ruins lay),
Dead as the bones in the prophet's valley,
Waiting with never a stir or sound,

While the pendulum's tick, tick, tick, kept tally,
And the busy wheels of the clock went round,
Till another hour, to its limit creeping,

Its sign those bodiless limbs shot thro',
And a pair of manikins swift upleaping,
Loud on the echoing gong struck two.
Clang! Clang!-and the brazen hammers.
Dropped, and lay where they lay before,

And the arms of the holders fell off their shoulders,
And their heads went rolling down to the floor,
And the little men tumbled, and cracked, and crumbled,
And vanished-as if to rise no more.

Still as the shells of the sea-floor, sleeping
Countless fathoms the waves below;
Still as the stones of a city, heaping

The path of an earthquake ages ago,
Lay the sundered forms; but steadily swinging,
Beat the slow pendulum, tick, tick, tick,
Till lo, at the third hour, suddenly springing,

Rose three men's limbs with a click, click, click,

And, joined together, by magic gifted,

In stature perfect and motion free, The trio, each with his mallet lifted,

Loud on the echoing gong struck three.
Clang Clang! Clang!-and the hammers
Dropped, and lay where they lay before,

And the arms of the holders fell off their shoulders,
And their heads went rolling down to the floor.
And the little men tumbled, and cracked, and crumbled,
And vanished-as if to rise no more.

And as many as each hour's figure numbered

So many men of that small brigade,

THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 269

Whose members the marble floor encumbered,

Made themselves, and as soon unmade;
Till at noon rose all, and, each one swinging
His brazen sledge by its brazen helve,
Set all the rooms of the palace ringing

As their strokes on the silver gong told twelve.

Rajah Balpoora, prince of Jullinder,

Died. But the great clock's tireless heart
Beat on; and still in that hall of splendor

The twelve little sextons played their part.
And the wise who entered the palace portal,
Read in the wonder the lesson plain :
Every human hour is a thing immortal,
And days but perish to rise again.
From the grave of every life we saddened

Comes back the clamor of olden wrongs,

And our deeds that other souls have gladdened
Ring from the past like angel songs.

THERON BROWN, IN GOOD CHEER.

THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. Note 115.

THE glories of the age of Charles V. must find their true source in the measures of his illustrious predecessors. It was in their court that Boscan, Mendoza, and the other master spirits were trained, who molded Castilian literature into the new and more classic forms of later times. It was under Gonsalvo de Cordova that Leyva, Pescara, and those great captains with their invincible legions were formed, who enabled Charles V. to dictate laws to Europe for half a century; and it was Columbus who not only led the way, but animated the Spanish navigator with the spirit of discovery. Scarcely was Ferdinand's reign brought to a close

before Magellan completed what that monarch had projected, the circumnavigation of the Southern continent. The victorious banners of Cortes had already penetrated into the golden realms of Montezuma; and Pizarro, a few years later, following up the lead of Balboa, embarked on the enterpise which ended in the downfall of the splendid dynasty of the Incas.

Thus it is that the seed sown under a good system continues to yield fruit in a bad one. The splendors of foreign conquest in the boasted reign of Charles V. were dearly purchased by the decline of industry at home and the loss of liberty. The patriot will see little to cheer him in this "golden age" of the national history, whose outward show of glory will seem to his penetrating eye only the hectic brilliancy of decay. He will turn to an earlier period, when the nation, emerging from the sloth and license of a babarous age, seemed to renew its ancient energies, and to prepare like a giant to run its course and glancing over the long interval since elapsed, during the first half of which the nation wasted itself on schemes of mad ambition and in the latter has sunk into a state of paralytic torpor, he will fix his eyes on the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, as the most glorious epoch in the annals of his country.

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT.

Note 116.

ALFRED THE GREAT.

Ir is not without reason that we look back upon Alfred as the typical English king. Both in his greatness and in his imperfections Alfred represents his people: patient, resolute, inexorably attached to duty, and truth, with a certain practical sagacity, but over-careless of logical consistency and sacrificing thought to fact, the future to the moment.

The State Church, which we owe to Alfred, confounding