r times, and other
men, can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place
among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be
written! I have done.

=Mortality=. It takes twenty months to bring man from the
state of embryo, and from that of a mere animal, as he is in
his first infancy, to the point when his reason begins to
dawn. It has taken thirty centuries to know his structure;
it would take an eternity to know something of his soul: it
takes but an instant to kill him.--=Voltaire.=

The Rivals.

By BENSON J. LOSSING.

The late historian, Benson J. Lossing, whose name for a
large part of the last century was connected with historical
authorship and with wood engraving, was born in Dutchess
County, New York, February 12, 1813, and died June 3, 1891.
When a very young man he became editor of a local paper in
Poughkeepsie, and, afterward, with Barritt, under the
familiar signature of "Lossing and Barritt," did a very
large amount of the wood engraving current a generation or
more ago.

Inspired by his editorial and art experience, he began early
to visit the places made notable by the battles and
memorable scenes of the Revolutionary War. Of buildings
connected therewith, or of their falling ruins, he made
sketches. Out of this activity came his famous and still
excellent work, "The Field Book of the Revolution." The
history of our subsequent wars he also treated; and it was
history chiefly that engaged his pen. The one exception was
his publication of the _Casket_, in 1836 or thereabouts,
which in a form similar to that of the _Nation_, was a very
creditable literary and family magazine, conducted in a
popular way, when magazines in this country were few and
unimportant. One does not find, in any account of him apart
from this venture of possibly not over three years'
duration, that he left his purely historical themes.

Very recently, however, THE SCRAP BOOK came across a
somewhat romantic story, with a touch and climax of art and
love in it, which is the product of his pen; though its
style is a little more ambitious and florid than the one for
which he was noted. It tells, with much liberty of
embellishment, the thrilling anecdote of the contest of the
Grecian artists, Zeuxis and Parrhasius. As it was
i