BETTER THAN GOLD.-MRS. J. M. WINTON Better than grandeur, better than gold, Better than gold is a conscience clear, Adorn and ennoble a poor man's cot; Better than gold is the sweet repose And the balm that drops on his slumbers deep. A shorter road to the land of dreams. Better than gold is a thinking mind Better than gold is a peaceful home, REGULUS.-T. DALE. Urge me no more—your prayers are vain, The bands that once he led; To vengeance from the dead; Inly I cursed my breath!- I recked not;-could they chain the mind, And there they left me, dark and lone, Then from that living tomb They led me forth,-I thought to die, Oh! in that thought was ecstasy. But no-kind Heaven had yet in store A joy I thought to feel no more, Or feel but in the grave. They deemed perchance my haughtier mood That he who once was brave— They bade me to my country bear Silent their base commands I heard; I go, prepared to meet the worst, They sue for peace,-I bid you spurn I bid you still, with aspect stern, Fools that they were, could not mine eye, Else had they sent this wasted frame, Is yours; she knows it well-and you Ye know no longer it is hers, The empire of the sea ; Ye know her fleets are far and few, And Rome, the bold and free, Shall trample on her prostrate towers, One path alone remains for me;- Then tell not me of hope or life; I have in Rome no chaste, fond wife; One word concenters for the slave- THE GRAVE! REGULUS TO THE CARTHAGINIANS.-E. KEllogg. Regulus was a Roman general, who, in the first Punic war, was taken pris. oner by the Carthaginians, and after a captivity of several years, was sent by hem to Rome, with an embassy to solicit peace, or, at least, an exchange of prisoners. Bu. Regulus earnestly dissuaded his countrymen from both, and, resisting all the persuasions of his friends to remain in Rome, he returned to Carthage, where he is said to have been put to death, with the most cruel tortures. The beams of the rising sun had gilded the lofty domes of Carthage, and given, with its rich and mellow light, a tinge of beauty even to the frowning ramparts of the outer harbor. Sheltered by the verdant shores, an hundred triremes were riding proudly at their anchors, their brazen beaks glittering in the sun, their streamers dancing in the morning breeze, while many a shattered plank and timber gave evidence of desperate conflict with the fleets of Rome. No murmur of business or of revelry arose from the city. The artisan had forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal, the priest the sanctuary, and even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement to mingle with the crowd that, anxious and agitated, were rushing toward the senatehouse, startled by the report that Regulus had returned to Carthage. Onward, still onward, trampling each other under foot, they rushed, furious with anger and eager for revenge. Fathers were there, whose sons were groaning in fetters; maidens, whose lovers, weak and wounded, were dying in the dungeons of Rome, and gray-haired men and matrons, whom the Roman sword had left childless. But when the stern features of Regulus were seen, and his colossal form towering above the ambassadors who had returned with him from Rome; when the news passed from lip to lip that the dreaded warrior, so far from advising the Roman senate to consent to an exchange of prisoners, had urged them to pursue, with exterminating vengeance, Carthage and Carthaginians,-the multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance. But calm, cold, and immovable as the marble walls around him, stood the Roman; and he stretched out his hand over that frenzied crowd, with gesture as proudly commanding as though he still stood at the head of the gleaming cohorts of Rome. The tumult ceased; the curse, half muttered, died upon the lip; and so intense was the silence, that the clanking of the brazen manacles upon the wrists of the captive fell sharp and full upon every ear in that vast assembly, as he thus addressed them: "Ye doubtless thought-for ye judge of Roman virtue by your own-that I would break my plighted oath, rather than, returning, brook your vengeance. I might give reasons fo! this, in Punic comprehension, most foolish act of mine. 1 might speak of those eternal principles which make death for one's country a pleasure, not a pain. But, by great Jupiter! methinks I should debase myself to talk of such high things to you; to you, expert in womanly inventions; to you, well-skilled to drive a treacherous trade with simple Africans for ivory and gold! If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike ancestry, were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your arteries, I had remained at home, and broke my plighted oath to save my life. "I am a Roman citizen; therefore have I returned, that ye might work your will upon this mass of flesh and bones, that I esteem no higher than the rags that cover them. Here, in your capital, do I defy you. Have I not conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels, since first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me crouch and cower before a tamed and shattered senate? The tearing of flesh and rending of sinews is but pastime compared with the mental agony that heaves my frame. "The moon has scarce yet waned since the proudest o Rome's proud matrons, the mother upon whose breast I slep and whose fair brow so oft had bent over me before the noise of battle had stirred my blood, or the fierce toil of war nerved my sinews, did with fondest memory of bygone hours entreat me to remain. I have seen her, who, when my country called me to the field, did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, while the tears fell thick and fast down the hard corselet scales,-I have seen her tear her gray locks and beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me not to return to Carthage; and all the assembled senate of Rome, grave and reverend men, proffered the same request. The puny torments which ye have in store to welcome me withal, shall be, to what I have endured, even as the murmur of a summer's brook to the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach. "Last night, as I lay fettered in my dungeon, I heard a strange ominous sound: it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness clanging as they marched, |