folks, ole folks, you better go to bed,
You only put the mischief in the young folks' head."

* * * * *

AUTUMN SONG.

In Spring the Poet is glad,
And in Summer the Poet is gay;
But in Autumn the Poet is sad,
And has something sad to say:

For the wind moans in the wood,
And the leaf drops from the tree;
And the cold rain falls on the graves of the good,
And the cold mist comes up from the sea:

And the Autumn songs of the Poet's soul
Are set to the passionate grief
Of winds that sough and bells that toll
The dirge of the falling leaf.

* * * * *

THE FALL OF AUSTRIA.

The great characteristic of aristocracies, according to their admirers,
is prudence; and even democrats do not deny the soundness of the claim
thus put forward in their behalf. They are cautious, and if they seldom
accomplish anything brilliant, neither do they put everything to hazard.
If they gain slowly, they keep long what they have. Did not Venice
endure so long that, when she perished as a nation, within living
memory, she was the oldest of great communities? And was she not the
most perfect of all aristocratically governed nations? Was she not the
admiration of those English republicans of the seventeenth century whose
names are held in the highest honor wherever freedom is worshipped?
Aristocracies have their faults, but they outlast every other kind of
government, and therefore are objects of reverence to all who love
order. The Roman Republic was aristocratical in its polity, and all that
is great in Roman history is due to the ascendency of the Senate in the
government; and when the Forum populace began to show its power, the
decay of the commonwealth commenced, and did not cease till despotism
was established,--the natural effect of the resistance of the many to
the government of the few being the formation of the government of one.
England's polity is, and for ages has been, aristocratical. Not even the
passage of the Reform Bill materially lessened the power of the
aristocracy; and the declaration of Earl Grey, the father of the
measure, that it would be found the most aristocratical of measures,--as
he was one of the most aristocratical of men,--does not seem so absurd
now as it appeared four-and-thirty years since, when we note how
difficult it now is to lower the franchise in Britain. The firmest