saw ecstasy so visible in a human being; his eloquence exhausted
the whole vocabulary of national rapture. "I was his friend, his brother,
his preserver. I was the best, the ablest, the noblest of men." But when I
attempted to escape from this overflow of gratitude, by observing on the
very simple nature of the service, his recollection returned, and he
generously endeavoured, with equal zeal, to dissuade me from an enterprise
of which the perils were certainly neither few nor trifling. He was now in
despair at my obstinacy. The emigration of the French princes had not
merely weakened their cause in France, but had sharpened the malice of
their enemies. Their agents had been arrested in all quarters, and any man
who ventured to carry on a correspondence with them, was now alike in
danger of assassination and of the law. After debating the matter long,
without producing conviction on either side, it was at length agreed to
refer the question to Mordecai, whom Lafontaine now formally acknowledged
to be master of the secret on both sides of the Channel.

* * * * *

A VISION OF THE WORLD.

BY DELTA.

A blossom on a laurel tree--a cloudlet on the sky
Borne by the breeze--a panorama shifting on the eye;
A zig-zag lightning-flash amid the elemental strife--
Yea! each and all are emblems of man's transitory life!
Brightness dawns on us at our birth--the dear small world of home,
A tiny paradise from which our wishes never roam,
Till boyhood's widening circle brings its myriad hopes and fears,
The guileless faith that never doubts--the friendship that endears.

Each house and tree--each form and face, upon the ready mind
Their impress leave; and, in old age, that impress fresh we find,
Even though long intermediate years, by joy and sorrow sway'd,
Should there no mirror find, and in oblivion have decay'd.
How fearful first the shock of death! to think that even one
Whose step we knew, whose voice we heard, should see no more the sun;
That though a thousand years were ours, that form should never more
Revisit, with its welcome smiles, earth's once-deserted shore!

Look round the dwellings of the street--and tell, where now are they
Whose tongues made glad each separate hearth, in childhood's early day;
Now strangers, or another generation, there abide,
And the churchyard owns their lowly graves, green-mouldering side by side!
Spring! Summer