2. Innocent and gentle, like others of its tribe, this little creature flits to and fro, in small family groups, over the rocky islets, and along the warm, sandy beaches of the Gulf" Tampa's desert strand."

"On that lone shore loud moans the sea.'

There are certain keys where it loves especially to alight, attracted by the springs which here and there gush up pure and fresh among the coral rocks. The low note. of this bird is more than usually sweet, pure, and mournful in its tone. But the doves are not the only visitors of those rare springs.

3. A few years since pirates haunted the same spots, seeking, like the birds, water from their natural fountains. It chanced one day that a party of those fierce outlaws came to a desolate key to fill their water-casks, ere sailing on some fresh cruise of violence. A little flock of the rose-gray doves — and their flocks are ever few and rare- were flitting and cooing in peace about the rocky basin when the pirates appeared; in affright they took wing, and flew away. The casks were filled, and the ruffian crew rowed their boat off to their craft, lying at anchor in the distance. For some reason, apparently accidental, one of the band remained awhile on the island alone.

4. In a quiet evening hour, he threw himself on the rocks near the spring, looking over the broad sea, where here and there a low desert islet rose from the deep, while the vessel with which his own fate had long been connected lay idle, with furled canvas, in the offing. Presently the little doves, seeing all quiet again, returned to their favorite spring, flitting to and fro in peace,

uttering to each other their low gentle notes, so caressing and so plaintive. It may have been that in the wild scenes of his turbulent career the wretched man had never known the force of solitude. He was now gradually overpowered by its mysterious influences pressing upon heart and mind. He felt himself to be alone with his Maker.

5. The works of the Holy One surrounded him the pure heavens hanging over his guilty head, the sea stretching in silent grandeur far into the unseen distance. One object alone, bearing the mark of man, lay within range of his eye-that guilty craft, which, like an evil phantom, hovered in the offing, brooding sin. The sounds most familiar to him for years had been curse, and ribald jest, and brutal threat, and shriek of death. But now those little doves came hovering about him, uttering their guileless notes of tenderness and innocence. Far away, in his native woods, within sight of his father's roof, he had often listened in boyhood to other doves, whose notes, like these, were pure and sweet.

6. Home memories, long banished from his breast, returned. The image of his Christian mother stood before him. Those little doves, still uttering their low, pure, inoffensive note, seemed bearing to him the far-off echoes of every sacred word of devout faith, of pure precept, of generous feeling, which, in happier years, had reached his ear. A fearful consciousness of guilt came over the wretched man. His heart was utterly subdued. The stern pride of manhood gave way. A powerful tide of contrition swept away all evil barriers. Bitter tears of remorse fell upon the stone on which his head rested.

7. And that was to him the turning-point of life. He rose from the rock a penitent, firmly resolved to retrace his steps to return to better things. By the blessing of God the resolution was adhered to. He broke away from his evil courses, thrust temptation aside, returned to his native soil to lead a life of penitence and honest toil. Many years later, a stranger came to his cabin in the wild forests of the southern country,a man venerable in mien, shrewd and kindly in countenance, wandering through the woods on pleasant errands of his own. The birds of that region were the stranger's object.

8. The inmate of the cabin had much to tell on this subject; and, gradually, as the two were thrown together in the solitude of the forest, the heart of the penitent opened to his companion. He avowed that he loved the birds of heaven; he had cause to love them the doves especially; they had been as friends to him; they had spoken to his heart in the most solemn hour of life. And then came that singular confession. The traveller was Audubon, the great ornithologist, who has left on record in his works this striking incident. In olden times what a beautiful ballad would have been written on such a theme-fresh and wild as the breeze of the forest, sweet and plaintive as the note of the dove!

1 ÖR-NI-THŎL'O-ĢIST.

One versed in 3 ŎFFING. A part of the sea at a distance from the shore, where there is deep water.

ornithology, the science which teaches the natural history and arrangement or classification of birds.

• UL-TRA-MA-RÎNE'. A beautiful blue

color.

[Letitia Elizabeth Landon was born in 1802. In 1838 she married Mr. George Maclean, and in a few months after died at Cape Coast Castle, on the coast of Africa, of which her husband was governor. Between 1821 and 1838 she wrote and published several volumes of poetry and three or four novels. Her poems, graceful and brilliant, were very popular at the time of their first appearance, but most of them are now but little read. The history of Crescentius, the hero of the following poem, is briefly told by Gibbon in the forty-ninth chapter of his history. "In the minority of Otho the Third, Rome made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the consul Crescentius was the Brutus of the republic. From the condition of a subject and an exile, he twice rose to the command of the city, oppressed, expelled, and created the popes, and formed a conspiracy for restoring the authority of the Greek emperors. In the fortress of St. Angelo he maintained an obstinate siege, till the unfortunate consul was betrayed by a promise of safety: his body was suspended on a gibbet, and his head was exposed on the battlements of the castle." This was A. D. 998.]

1. I LOOKED upon his brow: no sign
Of guilt or fear was there;

He stood as proud by that death-shrine
As even o'er despair

He had a power; in his eye
There was a quenchless energy,

A spirit that could dare

The deadliest form that death could take,
And dare it for the daring's sake.

And had that grasp been on the brand,
It could not wave on high

With freer pride than it waved now.
Around he looked with changeless brow

On many a torture nigh,

The rack, the chain, the axe, the wheel,
And, worst of all, his own red steel.

3. I saw him once before: he rode
Upon a coal-black steed,

And tens of thousands thronged the road,
And bade their warrior speed.

His helm, his breastplate were of gold,
And graved with many a dent that told
Of many a soldier deed;

The sun shone on his sparkling mail,
And danced his snow-plume on the gale.

4. But now he stood, chained and alone,
The headsman1 by his side,

The plume, the helm, the charger gone;
The sword, that had defied

The mightiest, lay broken near,
And yet no sign or sound of fear
Came from that lip of pride.
And never king or conqueror's brow
Wore higher look than his did now.

5. He bent beneath the headsman's stroke
With an uncovered eye;

A wild shout from the numbers broke
Who thronged to see him die.

It was a people's loud acclaim 2.
The voice of anger and of shame ;
A nation's funeral cry,

Rome's wail above her only son

Her patriot, and her latest one.

HEADS MAN. An executioner.

|2 AC-CLAIM'. Shout of praise: applause