Here's the first-born of a queen ;
Here's a slant-eyed Mandarin.
Would I polish off Japan?

Would I greet this famous man,
Prince or Prelate, Sheik or Shah?
Figaro çi and Figaro là !

Would I just this once comply?—

So they teased and teased till I
(Be the truth at once confessed)
Wavered, yielded,- did my best."

Thus he has gratified his friends and the public from time to time, ever since the first of February, 1845, when he wrote a song for the dinner given to Charles Dickens by the young men of Boston, at which time, weaving together the memory of the greatest dramatist and the rising story-teller, he spoke of the "dewy blossoms" that wave in the "glorious island of the sea,"

"Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb

And Nelly's nameless grave."

Here, I must leave my subject incomplete, for I am not a prophet, and a prophet only can tell what new laurels Dr. Holmes will yet win. But if he should leave us now, he would always be remembered as one who, in many ways, had distinguished himself above his fellows. As a professional man, he has been thorough and successful; as a man of letters, versa

tile, brilliant, of the highest culture; as a citizen, patriotic; as a man, an exemplification of elegance of manner and kindliness of heart. May he live many years, and teach others by his example to practice his virtues !

Though I am not a prophet, there was one living in England just three hundred years ago, who, it almost seems to me, had Dr. Holmes in mind when he wrote the following lines, with which I will close:

"A merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal ·
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest ;
Which his fair tongue, (conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished,
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

"May he live

Longer than I have time to tell his years.
Ever beloved and loving may his rule be!
And when old Time shall lead him to his end,
Goodness and he fill up one monument!'

D

WALT WHITMAN.

URING the summer heats of the Centennial

year, a little child less than a year old fell ill and died in its house, in Camden, New Jersey. The funeral was different from most funerals no sermons, no singing, no ceremony. In the middle of the room the dead lay in a white coffin made fragrant with a profusion of fresh geranium leaves and tube roses. For over an hour, the little children from the neighborhood kept coming in silently, until the room was nearly filled. Some were not tall enough to see the face of the dead baby, and had to be lifted up to look. Near the head of the coffin, in a large chair, sat an old man, with snow-white hair and beard. The children pressed about him, one at each side of him encircled in his arms, while a beautiful little girl

was seated in his lap. After gazing wonderingly and intently at the scene about her, she looked up in the paternal face bending over her, as if to ask the meaning of Death. The old man understood the child's thought, and said:

"You don't know what it is, do you, my dear?" then added, "neither do we."

The dead baby was the nephew and namesake of the poet, Walt Whitman, the old man who sat in the great chair with little children gathered about him. So his being a special lover of children, understanding, and sympathizing with them, perhaps, as only a poet may, and nursing, cheering and helping them when sick, as perhaps poets rarely do, or can, must add a peculiar fitness and charm to a sketch of him, especially for young readers.

To go back to the beginning of his life, will take us into a farm house at West Hills, Long Island, about thirty miles from New York city, where the poet was born, May 31, 1819. His father was of English descent, his ancestors being among the first English emigrants that settled on Long Island four or five generations ago. The Whitmans were farmers, both the men and women laboring with their own hands. A famous friend of the poet, thus describes his paternal home:

"The Whitmans lived in a long story-and-a-half house, hugely timbered, which is still standing. A great smoke-canopied kitchen, with vast hearth and chimney, formed one end of the house. The existence. of slavery in New York at that time, and the possession by the family of some twelve or fifteen slaves, house and field servants, gave things quite a patriarchal look. The very young darkies could be seen, a swarm of them, toward sundown, in this kitchen, squatted in a circle on the floor, eating their supper of pudding and milk. In the house, and in food and furniture, all was rude, but substantial. No carpets nor stoves were known, and no coffee, and tea or sugar only for the women. Rousing woodfires gave both warmth and light on winter nights. Pork, poultry, beef, and all the ordinary grains and vegetables were plentiful. Cider was the men's common drink and used at meals. The clothes were mainly homespun. Journeys were made by both men and women on horseback. Books were scarce. The annual copy of the Almanac was a treat, and was pored over through the long winter evenings."

It was in this home the poet's father, Walter Whitman, was born. He was a large, quiet, serious man, very kind to children and animals. He was a good citizen, parent and neighbor. The poet's mother,