trembling hills and reverberating mountains of the country round, the proclamation of victory!-the first triumph of Young Freedom over the arms of her haughty oppressor.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?

Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours.
The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain,
Calls not, from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on

men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will

come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side:

In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours,
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

HENRY WHARTON'S ESCAPE.

BY JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.

(From "The Spy.")

[JAMES FENIMORE COOPER: An American novelist; born at Burlington, N.J., September 15, 1789; died September 14, 1851, at Cooperstown, N.Y., whither his father had removed about 1790, it being then a wild frontier region. Cooper attended Yale College for three years, when he was expelled; shipped as a common sailor, and became a lieutenant in the navy. Later in life he visited Europe, and was United States consul at Lyons (1826-1829). Among his most popular novels are : "The Spy" (1821), "The Pilot," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Prairie," "The Red Rover," "The Bravo," "The Pathfinder," "The Deerslayer," "Wing and Wing," "Wyandotte," and "Satanstoe." He also wrote a "Naval History of the United States" (1839), "Lives of Distinguished American Naval Officers" (1846).]

IN a country settled, like these States, by a people who fled their native land and much-loved firesides, victims of consciences and religious zeal, none of the decencies and solemnities of a Christian death are dispensed with, when circumstances will admit of their exercise. The good woman of the house was a strict adherent to the forms of the Church to which she belonged; and having herself been awakened to a sense of her depravity by the ministry of the divine who harangued the people of the adjoining parish, she thought it was from his exhortations only that salvation could be meted out to the short-lived hopes of Henry Wharton. Not that the kindhearted matron was so ignorant of the doctrines of the religion which she professed as to depend theoretically on mortal aid for protection; but she had, to use her own phrase, “sat so long under the preaching of good Mr. -," that she had unconsciously imbibed a practical reliance on his assistance, for that which her faith should have taught her could have come from the Deity alone. With her, the consideration of death was at all times awful; and the instant that the sentence of the prisoner was promulgated, she dispatched Cæsar, mounted on one of her husband's best horses, in quest of her

clerical monitor. This step had been taken without consulting either Henry or his friends; and it was only when the services of Cæsar were required on some domestic emergency, that she explained the nature of his absence. The youth heard her, at first, with an unconquerable reluctance to admit of such a spiritual guide; but as our view of the things of this life becomes less vivid, our prejudices and habits cease to retain their influence; and a civil bow of thanks was finally given in requital for the considerate care of the well-meaning woman.

The black returned early from his expedition, and, as well as could be gathered from his somewhat incoherent narrative, a minister of God might be expected to arrive in the course of the day. The interruption that we mentioned in our preceding chapter was occasioned by the entrance of the landlady. At the intercession of Dunwoodie, orders had been given to the sentinel who guarded the door of Henry's room, that the members of the prisoner's family should, at all times, have free access to his apartment; Cæsar was included in this arrangement, as a matter of convenience, by the officer in command; but strict inquiry and examination was made into the errand of every other applicant for admission. The major had, however, included himself among the relatives of the British officer; and one pledge, that no rescue should be attempted, was given in his name for them all. A short conversation was passing between the woman of the house and the corporal of the guard, before the door that the sentinel had already opened in anticipation of the decision of his non-commissioned commandant.

"Would you refuse the consolations of religion to a fellowcreature about to suffer death?" said the matron, with earnest zeal. "Would you plunge a soul into the fiery furnace, and a minister at hand to point out the straight and narrow path?"

"I'll tell you what, good woman," returned the corporal, gently pushing her away; “I've no notion of my back being a highway for any man to walk to heaven upon. A pretty figure I should make at the pickets, for disobeying orders. Just step down and ask Lieutenant Mason, and you may bring in the whole congregation. We have not taken the guard from the foot soldiers but an hour, and I shouldn't like to have it said that we know less of our duty than the militia."

"Admit the woman," said Dunwoodie, sternly, observing, for the first time, that one of his own corps was on post.