Many careless, straggling footsteps, To the grave his corpse besped, Here at last his course outgave; Welcome haven from all affliction Ever is the pauper's grave. The stone, rough-hewn with scant inscription, Carved by some untutored hand, Broken in two close-by doth stand; Nor on throne of marble seated Doth the muse o'er him lament; Eve'n with earth will be his dwelling, But for all, an angel keepeth Behind him lay the gray Azores, "My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his cheek. "What shall I say, brave Adm'rl, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day, 'Sail on! sail on ! sail on! and on!'" They sailed and sailed, as the wind might blow, Until at last the blanched mate said: "Why now not even God would know Should I and all my men fall dead. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dark seas is gone. Now speak, brave Adm'rl, speak and say-” He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!" They sailed. They sailed. Then spoke the mate: "This mad sea shows its teeth to-night. "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!" Then, pale and worn, he kept the deck Of all dark nights! And then a speck- It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. THE TWO GLASSES. There stood two glasses, filled to the brim, THE ORIGIN OF YANKEE Doodle. I can tell of banquet, and revel, and mirth, "From the heads of kings I have torn the crowL From the heights of fame I have hurled men down I have blasted many an honoured name, "I have made the arm of driver fail, And your might and power are over all.' 213 derly appointments of the regulars, was published some years ago in a musical magazine printed in Boston, in which article it is stated that he recommended the song as a well-known piece of military music to the officers of the militia. The joke succeeded, and Yankee Doodle was hailed with acclamation as their own march. This account, no doubt is somewhat apocryphal, as there is no song; the tune in the United States is a march; there are no words to it of a national character. The only words ever affixed to the air in this country are the following doggerel quatrain: Yankee doodle came to town He stuck a feather in his hat It has been asserted by English writers that the air and words of these lines are as old as Cromwell's time. The only alteration is in making "Yankee Doodle" of what was ',Nan kee Doodle." It is asserted that the tune will be found in the "Musical "Nankee Doodle" was intended to apAntiquites of England, and that ply fo Cromwell, and the other lines were designated to "allude to his going into Oxford, with a single plume fastened in a knot called maca roni." The tune was known in New England before the revolution as "Lydia Fisher's jig," a name derived from a famous lady who lived in the reign of Charles II., and which has The origin of "Yankee Doodle" is been perpetuated in the following by tiquarians desire. The statement that the air was composed by Dr. Shackburg in 1755, when the colonial troops united with the British regulars near Albany, preparatory to the the French posts of Niagara and Frontenac, and that it was produced in derision of the old-fashioned equipments of the provincial soldiers, attack on 88 s contrasted with the neat and or The mannner in which the tune came to be adopted by the Americans is shown in the following letter of Rev. W. Gordon. Describing the battle of Lexington and Concord, before alluded to he says: "The brigade under Lord Percy marched out (of Boston), playing, by way of contempt 'Yankee Doodle.' They were afterwards told that they had been made to dance to it." It is most likely that "Yankee Doodle" was originally derived from Holland. A song with the following burden has long been in use among the laborers, who in the time of harvest migrate from Germany to the Low Countries, where they receive for their work as much buttermilk as they can drink, and a tenth of the grain secured by their exertions: Yanker didel, doodle deun Eidel dudel lauter, Bottermilk ank tanther. That means we suppose, buttermilk and a tenth.-Christian at Work. INDEPENDENCE. The Americans seeing that King George would never come to terms, declared that they weuld no longer submit to English rule at all, but would make America a free country and govern themselves. For although they had not meant to do this in the beginning of the trouble, they now saw it was the only thing that could be done. Representatives from all parts of the colonies met at Philadelphia, and there drew up a Declaration of Independence, in which they explained the reasons for their action, and there declared that the American colonies should be from that time an independent nation, forever free from English government. It was on July 4, 1776, that they adopted this declaration, so that July 4, has been celebrated ever since as the nation's birthdaay. The declaration was read in all the towns amid ringing of bells and universal rejoicing, and thus the rebellion of the colonies against England became a revolution, or complete change of government. Some troops were sent from England, and the colonies prepared for a long and desperate struggle. Volunteers came thronging fromthe hills of New England, the valley of the Hudson, the plantations of Virginia, and the rice-fields of the Carolinas; the colonists had found out that there can only be strength in union. The war went on, and the Americans had the hardest part of the struggle still to come. They had but little money, and often suffered for food and clothing. While the English army was well fed and comfortably clothed, the Americans in winter quarters at Valley Forge, went hungry and ragged leaving the prints of their bleeding feet in the snow, and encouraged only by the brave heart of Washington, who amid the universal discouragement still kept on his way, calm, resolute, and incapable of despair. But better days dawned. Robert Morris of Philadelphia devoted his large private fortune to the expenses of the army. Soon after there was a great victory at Saratoga, through which a large part of the English army under Gen. Burgoyne had to surrender to the Americans. From this time the Americans gained courage and hope as one victory followed another, and finally, on Oct. 19, 1781, the English General, Lord Cornwallis, surrenderyd his army to Washington at Yorktown, Va., and thus ended the war. -Child's Stories in American History. r FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS. FROM SMALL BEGINNINGS. It is a trite saying that many great works rise from very small beginnings. A few words from Elwood, conversing with Milton at Chalfont St. Giles, led to the composition of the "Paradise Regained," which the poet, with curious parental perversity, preferred to its predecesor; and every child has been told that Newton was started on the path which led to his deduction of the principle of gravity, and all the philosophy therein implied, by receiv ing a falling apple on his pate as he sat under a tree in the country. Gibbon first conceived theidea of writingthe "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" one autumn evening in the Eternal City, as he sat, he tells us, "musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Ju piter." 215 its birth, and in its progress the writer's intentions sometimes undergo astonishing transformations. The germ of the "Old Curiosity Shop" was the story of Little Nell. But the pathetic story, as first imagined, was intended to form only the conclusion to the projected "Master Humphrey's Clock." Dickens wrote to Forster that he thought of lengthening Humphrey, and "closing with the little child-story." But the idea of the old man and his childish guide and protector grew until the machinery of Master Humphrey and his clock were cast aside and the proposed episodical conclusion became the main theme of one of the most popular of Dicken's novels. this sort are familiar to students of Many instances of development of of Dickens. Every one knows how Pickwick itself was intended at first merely as letterpress to accompany sketches which were meant to be the main attraction of the periodical parts, and how the rambling and delightful narrative mastered the plates in a very short time, and thoroughly reversed the original intention. Hawthorne's wonderful romance, "The Scarlet Letter," was suggested by the fact of his finding one day, when rummaging among the dusty papers and records of the old Custom House at Salem, what he calls "a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded." This ragged scrap was in the form of the capital A, and scarlet letter fascinated him, and with light that is thrown, in the biography velopments in Dickens than in many It is more easy to trace these deother authors because of the ample correspondence, on his methods of covered, containing many particulars working and on the immense labor about a certain Hester Prynne, inspir- with which he prepared his books for ed the romance which first made the name of Hawthorne famous. In fiction, especially, is it interesting to observe the way in which a masterpiece may be developed from his enthusiastic public. But the same interesting process may often be observed in connection with the work of other novelists. The germ of George Elliot's novel an uncertain and confused beginning. Adam Bede," was the fight between With the germ of the story in his that hero and Arthur Donnithorne. hands, the novelist is sometimes slow But in this case the fight comes in to see to what it will grow. It is not the middle of the story, and all that always open the process, to the reader to observe but in many cases a story precedes it was introductory thereto, as the remainder of the book was its can be traced from its conception to sequel. Instances of this kind might easily be multiplied. Some scene or incident actually observed in real life, or read about in book or newspaper, is the nucleus around which gathers an accretion of fact and fancy; personages take form and live, shadowy scenes assume the guise of reality, the plot develops, events fall into ordered sequence, and a great book is written. But, whatever potentialities such a germ may contain, the first and chief requisite for its complete development is the fertile brain of genius, wherein it may germinate, and in due time blossom and bring forth fruit.-Globe. INFLUENCE OF A HYMN. "Jesus, lover of my soul." This hymn is acknowledged to be the most generally accepted and beloved of all Christian hymns. One version of its origin is, that one day in the year 1770, Charles Wesley was sitting at his desk in his room, when a little bird pursued by a hawk flew into the room, and took refuge in his boThe poet took his up pen, and wrote these immortal verses. som. four generations, everything comes to the ground again for distribution. But that hymn will go on singing until the last trump brings forth from every land the children of God, and then it will mount up on some lip to the very presence of God." Some one has compiled a list of eminent men who were known to repeat this hymn when dying. Theologians and scholars of every creed are in this list. Dr. Herrick Johnson gives an incident of his hospital work during the war. He came upon a drummer-boy, who was wounded unto death. "What can I do for you, my brave fellow ?" "Sing, 'Jesus, lover of my soul."" A wounded soldier lying near took up the words and began to sing them; while the drummer-boy, too weak to sing, repeated them as his dying prayer, and while they were on his lips, his soul took its flight to the bosom of Jesus. In the winter of of 1872, a Christian worker in New York visited Bellevue Hospital. He was urged by the attendants to see an English sailor in one of the wards, who was near death, and then unable to speak. The softly repeated this hymn in his dull Henry Ward Beecher, when speak ing of his father's love for this hymn, once said: "I would rather have written that hymn of Wesley's, Je-good man leaned over his bed, and sus, lover of my soul,' than to have the fame of all the kings that ever ruled on the earth. It is more glori: ous. It has more power in it. I would rather be the author of that hymn than hold the wealth of the richest man in New York. He will die. He is dead, and does not know it. He will pass, after a little while, out of men's thoughts. What will there be to say of him? What will he have done that will stop trouble, or encourage hope? His money will go to his heirs, and they will divide it. And they will die, and it will go to their heirs. In three or "Jesus, lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly." and continued until he had repeated the entire hymn. He then added other verses of hymns, and suddenly died.-Golden Rule. The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers is always the first to be touched by the thorns.-Moore. |