but in submission or slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and let it come! I repeat it, sir: Let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter.

Gentlemen may cry, "Peace! peace!" but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?

What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

-Patrick Henry.

THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE.

'Twas a jolly old pedagogue, long ago,
Tall and slender, and sallow and dry.
His form was bent, and his gait was slow;
His long, thin hair was as white as snow;
But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye;

ΙΟ

And he sang every night, as he went to bed,"Let us be happy down here below:

The living should live, though the dead be dead,"

Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He taught his scholars the rule of three,
Writing, and reading, and history too;
He took the little ones up on his knee,
For a kind old heart in his breast had he,
And the wants of the littlest child he knew.
"Learn while you're young," he often said
"There's much to enjoy, down here below:
Life for the living, and rest for the dead!"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

With the stupidest boys he was kind and cool, Speaking only in gentlest tones;

The rod was hardly known in his school: Whipping, to him, was a barbarous rule, And too hard work for his poor old bones; Besides, it was painful, he sometimes said. "We should make life pleasant, down here below:

The living need charity more than the dead," Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane,
With roses and woodbine over the door.

His rooms were quiet and neat and plain;
But a spirit of comfort there held reign,
And made him forget he was old and poor.
"I need so little," he often said;

"And my friends and relatives here below
Won't litigate over me when I am dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He smoked his pipe in the balmy air,
Every night, when the sun went down,
While the soft wind played in his silvery hair,
Leaving his tenderest kisses there,

On the jolly.old pedagogue's jolly old crown;
And, feeling the kisses, he smiled and said,—
""Tis a glorious world, down here below:
Why wait for happiness till we are dead?"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He sat at his door, one midsummer night,
After the sun had sunk in the west;
And the lingering beams of golden light
Made his kindly old face look warm and bright,
While the odorous night-wind whispered, "Rest!"
Gently, gently, he bowed his head.

There were angels waiting for him, I know:
He was sure of happiness, living or dead,

This jolly old pedagogue, long ago!

-George Arnold.

MR. WINKLE ON SKATES.

Now," said Wardle, after lunch, "what say you to an hour on the ice? We shall have plenty of time."

Capital!" said Mr. Benjamin Allen. "Prime!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Sawyer.

"You skate, of course, Winkle?” said Wardle.

.

"Ye-yes; O, yes!" replied

Mr. Winkle.

out of practice."

"I-I am rather

"O, do skate, Mr. Winkle!" said Arabella. "I like to see it so much!"

"O, it is so graceful!" said another young lady.

A third young lady said it was elegant, and a fourth expressed her opinion that swan-like."

it was

"I should be very happy, I'm sure," said Mr. Winkle, reddening; "but I have no skates."

This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pairs, and the fat boy announced that there was half a dozen more down stairs; whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable.

Old Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and Mr. Weller having shoveled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvelous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices, to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies.

All this time Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his feet, and putting his skates on with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated and entangled state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather less about skates than a Hindu. At length, however, with however, with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.

"Now, then, sir," said Sam, in an encouraging tone, "off with you, and show 'em how to do it."

"Stop, Sam, stop!" said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of Sam's arms with the grasp of a drowning man. "How slippery it is, Sam!"