THE OLD PSALM-TUNE.

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

YOU asked, dear friend, the other day,

YOU

Why still my charméd ear

Rejoiceth in uncultured tone

That old psalm-tune to hear.

I've heard full oft, in foreign lands,
The grand orchestral strain,
Where music's ancient masters live,
Revealed on earth again :

Where breathing, solemn instruments,
In swaying clouds of sound,
Bore up the yearning, trancéd soul,

Like silver wings around;

--

I've heard in old St. Peter's dome,
When clouds of incense rise,
Most ravishing the choral swell
Mount upward to the skies.

And well I feel the magic power,
When skilled and cultured art

Its cunning webs of sweetness weaves
Around the captured heart.

But yet, dear friend, though rudely sung,

That old psalm-tune hath still

A pulse of power beyond them all

My inmost soul to thrill.

Those tones, that halting sound to you,

Are not the tones I hear;

But voices of the loved and lost
Then meet my longing ear.

And friends that walk in white above
Come round me like a cloud,
And far above those earthly notes
Their singing sounds aloud.

There may be discord, as you say;
Those voices poorly ring;

But there's no discord in the strain
Those upper spirits sing.

For they who sing are of the blest,
The calm and glorified,

Whose hours are one eternal rest
On heaven's sweet floating tide.

Their life is music and accord;

Their souls and hearts keep time In one sweet concert with the Lord, One concert vast, sublime.

And through the hymns they sang on earth
Sometimes a sweetness falls,

On those they loved and left below,

And softly homeward calls.

Bells from our own dear fatherland,
Borne trembling o'er the sea
The narrow sea that they have crossed,
The shores where we shall be.

O sing, sing on! beloved souls;
Sing cares and griefs to rest;
Sing, till entranced we arise

To join you 'mid the blest.

O, THUS forever sing to me!

O, thus forever!

The green bright grass of childhood bring to me,

Flowing like an emerald river,

And the bright blue skies above!

O, sing them back as fresh as ever,

Into the bosom of my love,

The sunshine and the merriment,
The unsought, evergreen content,
Of that never cold time,

The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went
Through and through the old time!

J. R. LOWELL.

200

THE LOST BOOKS OF LIVY.

[It is well known that all the books of the Middle Ages were written by monks, and preserved in manuscript; printing being then an unknown art. These patient scribes had plenty of leisure, and not unfrequently an eye for artistic beauty, especially in the gorgeous style. Hence many monastic manuscripts were richly illuminated, as the phrase is, with Initial Letters of silver or gold, often surrounded with quaint devices, painted in glowing tints of blue, crimson, and purple. Paper was not then invented, and parchment was scarce. Monks generally held Greeks and Romans in contempt, as heathen, and therefore did not scruple to supply themselves with writing material by erasing the productions of classic authors. Early in the nineteenth century it was announced that Signor Maio, an Italian librarian, had discovered valuable Greek and Latin fragments concealed under monkish manuscripts, and that, by chemical processes, he could remove the later writing and bring the ancient to the surface. In this way, "The Republic," of Cicero, deemed one of his finest works, was brought out from under a Commentary of St. Augustine on the Psalms of David. Such parchments are called Palimpsests ; from two Greek words, which signify erased and re-written. The discovery was very exciting to the scholastic world, and many learned men entered into it with absorbing interest. Several of the books of Livy's lively and picturesque History of Rome are lost; and it was a cherished hope among scholars that they might be discovered by this new process. This explanation is

necessary to help some readers to a right understanding of the following story, which is abridged and slightly varied from an English book, entitled, "Stories by an Archæologist."]

M

Y dear friend, Dubois d'Erville, whose

talents might have rendered him remarkable in any walk of literature, allowed the whole of his faculties to

At

be absorbed in days, nights, years of research, upon one special point of literary interest. school, he had become imbued with a love for classic authors, which, with regard to his favorite Livy, kindled into a passion. He sought eagerly for accounts of discoveries of lost works in palimpsest manuscripts. Finally, he relinquished all other objects of pursuit, and spent many years traversing Europe and Asia, visiting the public libraries and old monasteries, in search of ancient manuscripts. After a long time, when he was forgotten by family, friends, and acquaintances, he returned to Paris. Little was known of his wanderings; but there was a rumor that he formed a romantic marriage, and that his devoted wife had travelled with him among the monasteries of Asia Minor, encountering many hardships and dangers. No one but himself knew where she died.

When he returned to Paris, he brought with him an only child, a girl of nineteen. She had memorable beauty, and great intelligence; but these were less noticed than her simple manners, and tender devotion to her father, whom she almost