deserted fireside of home! How often has the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep! How has expectation darkened into anxiety, anxiety into dread, and dread into despair! Alas! not one memento may ever return for love to cherish. All that may ever be known is, that she sailed from her port," and was never heard of more."

3. The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the evening, when the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden storms that will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat in the cabin, round the dull light of a lamp, that made the gloom more ghastly, every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I was particularly struck with a short one related by the captain.

EI

4. "As I was once sailing," said he, "in a fine, stout ship, across the banks of Newfoundland, one of those heavy fogs which prevail in those parts rendered it impossible for us to see far ahead, even in the day-time; but at night the weather was so thick that we could not distinguish any object at twice the length of the ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a constant watch forward to look out for fishing-smacks, which are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks.

5. "The wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were going at a great rate through the water. Suddenly the watch gave the alarm of 'A sail ahead!' It was scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She was a small schooner, at anchor, with her broadside towards us. The crew were all asleep, and had neglected to hoist a light. We struck her just amidships. The force, the size and weight, of our vessel, bore her down below the waves; wc passed over her, and were hurried on our

course.

6. "As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three half-naked wretches, rushing from her cabin; they just started from their beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry mingling with

the wind. The blast that bore it to our ears swept us out of all further hearing. I shall never forget that cry! It was some time before we could put the ship about, she was under such headway. We returned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place where the smack had anchored. We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We fired signal-guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of any survivors; but all was silent we never saw or heard anything of them more."

---

Regulus, a Roman consul, having been defeated in battle and taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, was detained in captivity five years, and then sent on an embassy to Rome to solicit peace, under a promise that he would return to Carthage if the proposals were rejected. These it was thought he would urge in order to obtain his own liberty; but he urged contrary and patriotic measures on his countrymen, and then, having carried his point, resisted the persuasions of his friends to remain in Rome, and returned to Carthage, where a martyr's death awaited him. Some writers say that he was thrust into a cask covered over on the inside with iron spikes, and thus rolled down hill. The following scene presents Regulus just as he has made known to his friends in Rome his resolution to return to Carthage.

Sertorius. STAY, Roman, in pity! — if not for thy life, For the sake of thy country, thy children, thy wife.

Thy captors of Carthage vouchsafed thee release,

Not to urge Rome to war but to lead her to peace

Thou return'st to encounter their anger, their rage;

No mercy expect for thy fame or thy age!

Regulus. To my captors one pledge, and one only, I gave: TO RETURN, though it were to walk into my grave!

No hope I extended, no promise I made,

Rome's senate and people from war to dissuade.

If the vengeance of Carthage be stored for me now,

I have reaped no dishonor, have broken no vow.

Sert. They released thee, but dreamed not that thou wouldst fulfil

A part that would leave thee a prisoner still:

They hoped thy own danger would lead thee to sway

The councils of Rome a far different way;

Would induce thee to urge the conditions they crave,
If only thy freedom, thy life-blood, to save.
Thought shudders the torment and woe to depict
Thy merciless foes have the heart to inflict !
Remain with us, Règʻulus! do not go back !
No hope sheds its ray on thy death-pointing track. ·
Keep faith with the faithless?—The gods will forgive
The balking of such. O! live, Regulus, live!

Reg. With the consciousness fixed in the core of
That I had been playing the perjurer's part?
With the stain ever glaring, the thought ever nigh,
That I owe the base breath I inhale to a lie?
O, never! let Carthage infract every oath,
Be false to her word and humanity bōth,
Yět never will I in her infamy share,

Or turn for a refuge to guilt from despair!

my

Sert. O think of the kindred and friends who await

To fall on thy neck, and withhold thee from fate;

O! think of the widow, the orphans to be,

And let thy compassion plead softly with me.

heart

Reg. O, my friend! thou canst soften, but canst not subdue ;

To the faith of my soul I must ever be true.

If my honor I cheapen, my conscience discrown,

All the graces of life to the dust are brought down;

All creation to me is a chaosEI once more

No heaven to hope for, no God to adore!

And the love that I feel for wife, children, and friend,

Has lost all its beauty, and thwarted its end.

Sert. Let thy country determine.

Were I free to obey, would be păramountTM still!

I

go to my doom for my country alone;

My life is my country's - my honor, my own!

Sert. O, Regulus! think of the pangs in reserve!

Reg. What menace should make me from probity swerve? Sert. Refinements of pain will these miscreants find

To daunt and disable the loftiest mind.

Reg. And 't is to a Roman thy fears are addressed !
Sert. Forgive me. I know thy unterrified breast.
Reg. Thou know'st me but human-
As thyself, or another, the searchings of pain.

as weak to sustain

This flesh may recoil, and the anguish they wreak

Chase the strength from my knees, and the hue from my cheek;
But the body alone they can vanquish and kill;
The spirit immortal shall smile at them still!
Then let them make ready their engines of dread,
Their spike-bristling cask, and their torturing bed;
Still Regulus, heaving no recreänt breath,
Shall greet as a friend the deliverer Death!
Their cunning in torture and taunt shall defy,
And hold it a joy for his country to die!

Original.

1. I HAVE mentioned puns. They are, I believe, what I have denominated them - the wit of words. They are exactly the same to words that wit is to ideäs, and consist in the sudden discovery of relations in language.

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2. A pun, to be perfection in its kind, should contain two distinct meanings: the one, common and obvious; the other, more remote: and in the notice which the mind takes of the relation between these two sets of words, and in the surprise which that relation excites, the pleasure of a pun consists.

3. Miss Hamilton, in her book on education, mentions the instance of a boy so very neglectful that he never could be brought to read the word "patriarchs; " but whenever he met with it he pronounced it "partridges." A friend of the writer observed to her that it could hardly be considered a mere piece of negligence; for it appeared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was "making game" of the patriarchs.

4. Now, here are two distinct meanings contained in the same phrase: for to make game of the patriarchs is to laugh at them; or to make game of them is, by a very extravagant and laugh. able sort of ignorance of words, to rank them among pheasants, partridges, and other such delicacies, which the law takes under its protection, and calls “game; " and the whole pleasure derived from this pun consists in the sudden discovery that two such different meanings are ref'erable to one form of expression. 5. I have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad

repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas, that it is very deservedly driven out of good company.

6. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance, which seems, for a moment, to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them: it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution, it has been at last got under, and driven into cloisters from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge REV. SYDNEY SMITH.

into the light of the world.

1. JOAN OF ARC, surnamed the Maid of Orleans, from her heroic defence of that city, was born about the year 1411, in the little hamlet of Domremy, near the river Meuse, in France, where her house is still preserved as a national relic. Her parents were humble and honest peasants.

2. At that time the kingdom of France was nothing more than a province conquered by the English, who treated the inhabitants with great severity. The young and unfortunate King of France, Charles the Seventh, beheld, day by day, his possessions taken from him, and his people persecuted.

3. The calamitous state of the nation was a subject of great concern, even11 in the little, obscure village where Joän dwelt; and in her prayers she never forgot France and its rightful monarch. It chanced that a prophecy was current that a virgin should rid France of its enemies; and this prophecy seems to have been realized by its effect upon the mind of Joan.

4. Such was her enthusiasm, such her perseverance, that, after many difficulties and rebuffs, she gained access to Charles the Seventh, and induced him to give her the rank of a military commander, and allow her to go to raise the siege of Or'le-ans. She assumed a military cos'tume, and, on the 3d of May, 1429, actually entered the besieged city at the head of a convoys of

*To raise a siege" is to cause a besieging army to relinquish their attempt to take a city by that mode of attack.