nd converting one of the United States rooms into a
reservation for the Modocs, and the other into a corral for buffaloes
and grizzly bears. These, with a mustang poet or two from Oregon, a
few Hard-Shell Democrats, a live American daily paper, with a corps
of reporters trained to squeeze themselves through door-cracks
and key-holes, might retrieve the national honor, if shown up
realistically and artistically.

PRENTICE MULFORD.

GHOSTLY WARRIORS.

So strong a resemblance exists between a battle-scene of a mediaeval
Spanish poet and the culminating incidents of Lord Macaulay's _Battle
of the Lake Regillus_, as to justify somewhat extended citations. Of
the Spanish writer, Professor Longfellow says, in his note upon the
extract from the _Vida de San Millan_ given in the _Poets and Poetry
of Europe_, "Gonzalo de Berceo, the oldest of the Castilian poets
whose name has reached us, was born in 1198. He was a monk in the
monastery of Saint Millan, in Calahorra, and wrote poems on sacred
subjects in Castilian Alexandrines." According to the poem, the
Spaniards, while combating the Moors, were overcome by "a terror
of their foes," since "these were a numerous army, a little handful
those."

And whilst the Christian people stood in this uncertainty,
Upward toward heaven they turned their eyes and fixed their thoughts on high;
And there two persons they beheld, all beautiful and bright,--
Even than the pure new-fallen snow their garments were more white.

They rode upon two horses more white than crystal sheen,
And arms they bore such as before no mortal man had seen.

* * * * *

Their faces were angelical, celestial forms had they,--
And downward through the fields of air they urged their rapid way;
They looked upon the Moorish host with fierce and angry look,
And in their hands, with dire portent, their naked sabres shook.

The Christian host, beholding this, straightway take heart again;
They fall upon their bended knees, all resting on the plain,
And each one with his clenched fist to smite his breast begins,
And promises to God on high he will forsake his sins.

And when the heavenly knights drew near unto the battle-ground,
They dashed among the Moors and dealt unerring blows around;
Such deadly havoc there they made the foremost ranks among,
A panic terror spread unto the hindmost of the throng.

Together with these two good knigh