ISAIAH. ISAIAH SAIAH was the most sublime of the Hebrew prophets. He flourished about 740 B. C., and is said to have lived in Jerusalem, near the temple. Isaiah was a contemporary of Archilochus of Lydia, the first of the Greek lyric poets, selections from whom will be found on page 39, Vol. IV., of this work. THE MESSIAH. FROM THE HEBREW OF ISAIAH. Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned. every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he strickAnd he made his grave with the wicked, en. and with the rich in his death; because he deceit had done no violence, neither was any in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. KING JAMES'S TRANSLATION. UNDER THE COLISEUM. HOW much pathetic interest is gathered in Von Piloty's picture! A martyr, a Christian, a woman! Roman augurs have pronounced her doom, and have descended under the arena to see it executed; for such is the pleasure of the immortal gods. But one, struck with pity-which is akin to love lingers to see the beautiful features smiling in death, a picture which will dwell in his memory as long as he lives. Few Few years shall elapse before the scene shall be changed: the sign of the Crucified on labarum and on shield shall lead Roman armies to Christian victory, and the figure of the dead martyr shall rise to be a living saint in the roll of those who endured the cross and despised the shame. TRIBUTE TO WEBSTER. THEY say he was ambitious. Yes, as Ames said of Hamilton, "there is no doubt that he desired glory, and that, feeling his own force, he longed to deck his brow with the wreath of immortality.” But I believe he would have yielded his arm, his frame to be burned, before he would have sought to grasp the highest prize of earth by any means, by any organization, by any tactics, by any speech, which in the least degree endangered the harmony of the system. They say, too, he loved New England. duties was his true country." Dearly he NEITHER religious ceremonies nor the loved you, for he was grateful for the open arms with which you welcomed the stranger and sent him onward and upward. But when the crisis came and the winds were let loose, and that sea of March wrought and was tempestuous," then you saw that he knew even you only as you were, American citizens; then you saw him rise to the true nature and stature of American citizenship; then you read on his brow only what he thought of the whole republic; then you saw him fold the robes of his habitual patriotism around him and counsel for all-for all. So, then, he served you: "to be pleased with his service was your affair, not his." And now what would he do, what would he be, if he were here to-day? I do not presume to know. But what a loss we have in him! liberal donations of the prince could efface from the minds of men the prevailing opinion that Rome was set on fire by his own orders. The infamy of that horrible transaction still adhered to him. In order, if possible, to remove the imputation, he determined to transfer the guilt to others. For this purpose he punished with exquisite torture a race of men detested for their evil practices by vulgar appellation commonly called Christians. The name was derived from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius suffered under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea. By that event the sect of which he was the founder received a blow which for a time checked the growth of a dangerous superstition; but it revived soon after, and spread with recruited vigor, not only in Judea, the soil that gave it birth, but even in the city of Rome, the common sink into which everything infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world. I have read that in some hard battle, when the tide was running against him and his ranks were breaking, some one in the agony of a need of generalship exclaimed, “Oh for Nero proceeded with his usual artifice. an hour of Dundee !" So say I, “Oh for an He found a set of profligate and abandoned hour of Webster now! oh for one more roll wretches who were induced to confess themof that thunder inimitable, one more peal of selves guilty, and on the evidence of such that clarion, one more grave and bold coun- men a number of Christians were convicted sel of moderation, one more throb of Amer--not, indeed, on clear evidence of their having set the city on fire, but rather on account of their sullen hatred of the whole human race. They were put to death with exquisite cruelty, and to their sufferings Nero added mockery and derision. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and left to be devoured by dogs, others were nailed to the cross, numbers were burnt alive, and many, covered over with inflammable matter, were lighted up when the day declined, to serve as torches during the night. For the convenience of seeing this tragic spectacle, the emperor lent his own gardens. He added the sports of the circus and assisted in person, sometimes driving a curricle and occasionally mixing with the rabble in his coachman's dress. At length the cruelty of these proceedings filled every breast with compassion. Humanity relented in favor of the Christians. The manners of that people were, no doubt, of a pernicious tendency, and their crimes called for the hand of justice; but it was evident that they fell a sacrifice, not for the public good, but to glut the rage and cruelty of one man only. ness it owes to the Browns. For centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way, they have been subduing the earth in most English countries and leaving their mark in American forests and Australian uplands. Wherever the fleets and armies of England have won renown, there stalwart sons of the Browns have done yeomen's work. The Browns are a fighting family. One may question their wisdom or wit or beauty, but about their fight there can be no question. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are going, there the Brown who is nearest must shove in his carcass. And these carcasses for the most part answer very well to the characteristic propensity; they are a square-headed and snake-necked generation, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest and thin in the flank, carrying carrying no lumber. no lumber. Then, for clanship, they are as bad as Highlanders; it is amazing the belief they have in one another. With them there is nothing like the Browns, to the third and fourth generation. "Blood is thicker than water" is one of their pet sayings. They can't be happy unless they are always meeting one another. Never were such people for family gatherings which, were you a stranger or sensitive, you might think had better not have been gathered together. For during the whole time of their being together they luxuriate in telling one another their minds on whatever subject turns up, and their minds are wonderfully antagonist and all their opinions are downright beliefs. Till you've been among them some time and understand them, you can't think but that they are quarrelling. Not a bit of it; they love and respect one another ten times the more after a good set family arguing-bout, and go back, one to his | The withered body of a girl was brought, curacy, another to his chambers and another to his regiment, freshened for work and more than ever convinced that the Browns are the height of company. This family training, too, combined with their turn for combativeness, makes them eminently quixotic. They can't let anything alone which they think going wrong. They must speak their mind about it, annoying all easy-going folk, and spend their time. and money in having a tinker at it, however hopeless the job. It is an impossibility to a Brown to leave the most disreputable lame dog on the other side of a stile. Most other folk get tired of such work. The old Browns, with red faces, white whiskers and bald heads, go on believing and fighting to a green old age. They have always a crotchet going till the old man with the scythe reaps and garners them away for troublesome old boys, as they are. And the most provoking thing is that no failures knock them up, or make them hold their hands, or think you or me, or other sane people, in the right. Failures slide off them like July rain off a duck's back-feathers. Jem and his whole family turn out bad and cheat them one week, and the next they are doing the same things for Jack; and when he goes to the treadmill and his wife and children to the workhouse, they will be on the lookout for Bill to take his place. THOMAS HUGHES. Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime, And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid But when they had unloosed the linen band was found, Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand, ground, Did wondrous show of starry blossoms bear, air. With such strange arts this flower did allure Forsook the cup where he was wont to For not a thing of earth it seemed to be, In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white At its own beauty, hung across the stream; The purple dragon-fly had no delight With its gold-dust to make his wings Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss, For love of it the passionate nightingale Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king, And the pale dove no longer cared to sail Through the wet woods at time of blossoming, But round this flower of Egypt sought to float With silvered wing and amethystine throat. While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue | It never feels decay, but gathers life snows, And the warm south with tender tears of dew Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos uprose Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie. But when o'er wastes of lily-haunted field The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune, And, broad and glittering like an argent shield, High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon, Did no strange dream or evil memory make Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake? Ah no! To this bright flower a thousand years Seemed but the lingering of a summer's day; It never knew the tide of cankering fears Which turn a boy's gold hair to withered gray, The dread desire of death it never knew, rue. For we to death with pipe and dancing go, Nor would we pass the ivory gate again, As some sad river wearied of its flow Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men, Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea, We mar our lordly strength in barren strife With the world's legions, led by clamorous Care; air; We live beneath Time's wasting sovereignty: It is the child of all eternity. W OSCAR WILDE. THE POOR MAN'S FLOWER. ANDERING along his weary way, In dirty tatters meanly dressed, A beggar-man one summer day Seemed hastening to some place of rest. No smile was on his withered face: It naught but anxious care exprest; Grim Poverty had left its trace, And inly rankled at his breast; Yet in his coat that weary hour The poor man nursed a cherished flower. 'Twas no choice plant in hothouse bred And guarded with a tender care; To that unhappy man of care, Where all beside is meet and bright, So touching to the gazer's sight, That star amidst the gloom of night- |