with the spirit of Christianity, and with the instincts of a noble manhood.

8. What, then, about the crow? What are the charges which all the year round justify men in pronouncing him an outlaw, under the ban? Simply this that he destroys grain. He pulls up newlyplanted seed, and he feeds himself in autumn from the farmers' grain! But what, after all, does that amount to? When has it ever seriously disturbed even a single crop, or tithed a single harvest? It has compelled men to plant over portions of fields a second time, and it has saved the farmer from harvesting a few bushels of grain in the autumn.

9. This is the whole of the crow's offending. But the crow earns the right to do this. For at least ten or eleven months of the year the crow lives chiefly upon animal food, and almost the whole of this consists of insects and animals that would otherwise prey upon the farmer. If ever a day comes when all the birds which have kept down the insects, the grubs, and the petty animals that destroy crops, shall bring in their bills, it will go near to bankrupt some farmers and gardeners. Nature holds an immense uncollected debt over every man's head.

10. Aside from this special question of profit and loss, we have a warm side towards the crow, he is so much like one of ourselves. He is lazy, and that is human. He is cunning, and that is human. He takes advantage of those weaker than himself, and that is so man-like! He is sly, and hides for to-morrow what he can't eat to-day, showing a real human providence. He learns tricks much faster than he does useful things, showing a true boy na

ture. He thinks his own color the best, and loves to hear his own voice, which are eminently human traits. He will never work when he can get another to work for him-a genuine human trait. He eats whatever he can lay his claws upon, and is less mischievous with a full stomach than when hungry, and that is like man. He is at war with all living things except his own kind, and with them when he has nothing else to do. No wonder men despise crows. They are too much like men. Take off their wings, and put them in breeches, and crows would make fair average men. Give men wings, and reduce their smartness a little, and many of them would be almost good enough to be crows.

1. WHEN Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,

And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then, from his mansion in the sun,
She called her eagle bearer down,

And gave into his mighty hand.
The symbol of her chosen land!

2. Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form,
To hear the tempest-trumpings loud,
And see the lightning's lances driven,

When strive the warriors of the storm
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven!
Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given
To guard the banner of the free,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
To ward away the battle stroke,
And bid its blendings shine afar,
Like rainbows on the cloud of war,
The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high,
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on.
Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet,
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn;
And, as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance,
And when the cannon mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud,
And gory sabres rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink beneath

Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

4. Flag of the seas! on ocean wave

Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the swelling sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

5. Flag of the free heart's hope and home!
By angel hands to valor given;
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!

LXXIX. - ICHABOD CRANE'S RIDE.

AN EXTRACT FROM SLEEPY HOLLOW.

IRVING.

1. THE revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels, mounted on pillions1 behind their

favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually died away. The late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted.

2. Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking 2 a hen-roost rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and, with several hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping.

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3. It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travel homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarrytown. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watchdog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm-house away among the hills. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping un comfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed.

4. The night grew darker and darker, the stars