one

A greater and better than all?

adore,

Before whom the hosts of them fallHow he left the choirs and anthems above For earth, in its wailings and woes, To suffer the shame and pain of the cross, And die for the life of his foes?

O Prince of the noble! O Sufferer divine! What sorrow and sacrifice equal to thine?

Have you all

'A bonnie lass' were the words they said When they hung the veil o'er the young bride's head."

A hush fell over the eager tone As she mused a while on the days long flown,

And a dreamlight shone in the tear-dimmed sight

As she looked afar in the fireside light.

With honest heart the deception saw,
For, breaking the silence, he spoke again :
"I didn't say 'bonny,' but 'bony,' gran."
"'Twas 'bony,' was it? I see! I see!
You're not well versed in flattery !".
"I'm very sorry for what I said,"
He cried as he hung his curly head.
She kissed him soft as he lay at rest,
With tired head on her loving breast,
And while the clock ticked silently
She murmured low and musingly:
"Even in age am I still so vain

That the words of truth have a touch of

pain,

When in my face less care might be

If all I'd loved had been true as he?"

EDITH K. PERRY.

TUBAL CAIN.

OLD Tubal Cain was a man of might

In the days when earth was young; By the fierce red light of his furnace bright The strokes of his hammer rung, And he lifted high his brawny hand On the iron glowing clear

shed

In their lust for carnage blind. And he said, "Álas that ever I made, Or that skill of mine should plan,

birth

With mirth and joy may perish; That to which darker hours gave Still more and more we cherish.

Is to slay their fellow-man !"

And for many a day old Tubal Cain

Sat brooding o'er his woe,

And through death's shadowy portal,

Made by adversity sublime;

By faith and hope, immortal.

BERNARD BARTON

this declaration :

64

Romans, we have lost a great battle, our army is cut in pieces, and Flaminius the consul is slain; think, therefore, what is to be done for your safety."

The same commotion which a furious wind causes in the ocean did these words of the prætor produce in so vast a multitude. In the first consternation they could not fix upon anything, but at length all agreed that affairs required the direction of an absolute power, which they called the dictatorship, and that a man should be fixed upon for it who would exercise it with steadiness and intrepidity; that such a man was Fabius Maximus, who had a spirit and dignity of manners equal to so great a command, and besides was of an age in which the vigor of the body is sufficient to execute the purposes of the mind and courage is tempered with prudence.

Pursuant to these resolutions, Fabius was chosen dictator, and he appointed Lucius Minutius his general of the horse. But first he desired permission of the Senate to make use of a horse when in the field. This was forbidden by an ancient law, either because they placed their greatest strength in the infantry, and therefore chose that the commander-inchief should be always posted among them, or else because they would have the dictator, whose power in all other respects was very great, and indeed arbitrary, in this case at least appear to be dependent upon the people. In the next place, Fabius, willing to show the high authority and grandeur of his office in order to make the people more tractable and submissive, appeared in public with twenty-four lictors carrying the fasces before him; and when the surviving consul met him, he sent one of his officers to order him to dismiss his lictors and the other ensigns of his employment, and to join him as a private man. Then, beginning with an act of religion-which is the best of all beginningsand assuring the people that their defeats were not owing to the cowardice of the soldiers, but to the general's neglect of the sacred rites and auspices, he exhorted them to entertain no dread of the enemy, but by extraordinary honors to propitiate the gods. Not that he wanted to infuse into them a spirit of superstition, but to confirm their valor by piety, and to deliver them from

every other fear by a sense of the divine protection. On that occasion he consulted several of those mysterious books of the sybils which contained matters of great use to the state, and it is said that some of the prophecies found there perfectly agreed with the circumstances of those times; but it was not lawful for him to divulge them. However, in full assembly he vowed to the gods a ver sacrum-that is, all the young which the next spring should produce, on the mountains, the fields, the rivers and meadows, of Italy from the goats, the swine, the sheep and the cows. He like wise vowed to exhibit the great games in honor of the gods, and to expend upon those games three hundred and thirty-three thousand sesterces, three hundred and thirty-three denarii, and one third of a denarius, which sum in our Greek money is eighty-three thousand five hundred and eighty-three drachmas and two oboli. What his reason might be for fixing upon that precise number is not easy to determine, unless it were on account of the perfection of the number three, as being the first of odd numbers, the first of plurals, and containing in itself the first differences and the first elements of all numbers. Fabius, having taught the people to repose themselves on acts of religion, made them more easy as to future events. For his own part, he placed all his hopes of victory in himself, believing that Heaven blesses men with success on account of their virtue and prudence; and therefore he watched the motions of Hannibal, not with a design to give him battle, but by length of time to waste his spirit and vigor, and gradually to destroy him by means of his superiority in men and money. To secure himself against the ene

my's horse, he took care to encamp above them on high and mountainous places. When they sat still, he did the same; when they were in motion, he showed himself upon the heights at such a distance as not to be obliged to fight against his inclination, and yet near enough to keep them in perpetual alarm, as if, amidst his arts to gain time, he intended every moment to give them battle. These dilatory proceedings exposed him to contempt among the Romans in general, and even in his own army. The enemy, too, excepting Hannibal, thought him a man of no spirit. He alone was sensible of the keenness of Fabius and of the manner in which he intended to carry on the war, and therefore was determined, if possible, either by stratagem or force, to bring him to a battle, concluding that otherwise the Carthaginians must be undone, since they could not decide the matter in the field, where they had the advantage, but must gradually wear away and be reduced to nothing, when the dispute was only who should be superior in men and money. Hence it was that he exhausted the whole art of war, like a skilful wrestler, who watches every opportunity to lay hold of his adversary. Sometimes he advanced and alarmed him with the apprehensions of an attack; sometimes by marching and countermarching he led him from place to place, hoping to draw him from his plan of caution. But, as he was fully persuaded of its utility, he kept immovable to his resolution. Minutius, the general of the horse, gave him, however, no small trouble by his unseasonable courage and heat, haranguing the army and filling them with a furious desire to come to action and a vain confidence of success.