your useless vats and liquor casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire in honor of the Town Pump. And, when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon this spot. Such monuments should be erected everywhere, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. Now listen for something very important is to come next. 8. There are two or three honest friends of mine-and true friends, I know they are-who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, and take up the honorable cause of the Town Pump, in the style of a toper fighting for his brandy bottle? 9. Or, can the excellent qualities of cold water be not otherwise exemplified, than by plunging, slapdash, into hot water, and wofully scalding yourselves and other people? Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare which you are to wage-and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives-you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep, calm well of purity which may be called my soul. And whenever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains. 10. One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old. Hold out your vessel, my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher, as you go; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink-"SUCCESS TO THE TOWN PUMP!" CIII.-CHILDREN-WHAT ARE THEY? JOHN NEAL. 1. What are children? Step to the window with me. The street is full of them. Yonder a school is let loose, and here, just within reach of our observation, are two or three noisy little fellows, and there another party mustering for play. Some are whispering together, and plotting so loudly and so earnestly as to attract everybody's attention, while others are holding themselves aloof, with their satchels gaping so as to betray a part of their plans for to-morrow afternoon, or laying their heads together in pairs for a trip to the islands. Look at them, weigh the question I have put to you, and then answer it as it deserves to be answered :—what are children? 2. To which you reply at once without any sort of hesitation, perhaps," Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined;" or "Men are but children of a larger growth;" or, peradventure, "The child is father of the man." And then perhaps you leave me, perfectly satisfied with yourself and with your answer, having "plucked out the heart of the mystery," and uttered, without knowing it, a string of glorious truths. 3. Among the children who are now playing together, like birds among the blossoms of earth, haunting all the green shadowy places thereof, and rejoicing in the bright air, happy and beautiful creatures, and as changeable as happy, with eyes brimful of joy, and with hearts playing upon their little faces like sunshine upon clear waters; among those who are now idling together on that slope, or pursuing butterflies together on the edge of that wood, a wilderness of roses, you would see not only the gifted and the powerful, the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious and the renowned, the long-lived and the long-to-be-lamented of another age; but the wicked and the treacherous, the liar and the thief, the abandoned profligate and the faithless husband, the gambler and the drunkard, the robber, the burglar, the ravisher, the murderer, and the betrayer of his country. The child is father of the man. 4. Among them and that other little troop just appearing, children with yet happier faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of the future,-the mothers of nations,-you would see the founders of states and the destroyers of their country, the steadfast and the weak, the judge and the criminal, the murderer and the executioner, the exalted and the lowly, the unfaithful wife and the broken-hearted husband, the proud betrayer and his pale victim, the living and breathing portents and prodigies, the embodied virtues and vices of another age and another world,—and all playing together! Men are but children of a larger growth. 5. Even fathers and mothers look upon children with a strange misapprehension of their dignity. Even with the poets, they are only the flowers and blossoms, the dewdrops or the playthings of earth. Yet "of such is the kingdom of heaven." The Kingdom of Heaven! with all its principalities and powers, its hierarchies, dominations, thrones! The Savior understood them better; to him their true dignity was revealed. Flowers! They are the flowers of the invisible world; indestructible, self-perpetuating flowers, each with a multitude of angels and evil spirits underneath its leaves, toiling and wrestling for dominion over it! '6. Blossoms! They are the blossom of another world, whose fruitage is angels and archangels. Or dew-drops! They are dew-drops that have their source, not in the chambers of the earth, nor among the vapors of the sky, which the next breath of wind or the next flash of sunshine may dry up forever, but among the everlasting fountains and inexhaustible reservoirs of mercy and love. Playthings! If the little creatures would but appear to us in their true shape for a moment! We should fall upon our faces before them, or grow pale with consternation, or fling them off with horror and loathing. 7. Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these little creatures, with hearts fresh from the gardens of the sky, in their first and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while they are indeed a mystery,-a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful mystery! 8. Then why not pursue the study for yourself? The subjects are always before you. No books are needed, no costly drawings, no lectures, neither transparencies nor illus trations. Your specimens are all about you. They come and go at your bidding. They are not to be hunted for along the edge of a precipice, on the borders of the wilderness, in the desert, nor by the sea-shore. They abound, not in the uninhabited or unvisited place, but in your very dwellinghouses, about the steps of your doors, in every street of every village in every green field, and every crowded thoroughfare. CIV. THE BRAVE AT HOME. THOMAS B. READ. 1. The maid who binds her warrior's sash One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles, And Fame shall never know her story,— 2. The wife who girds her husband's sword The bolts of war around him rattle,— Was poured upon a field of battle. 3. The mother who conceals her grief When to her breast her son she presses, With no one but her secret God To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod Received on Freedom's field of honor. Guard Thou its folds till Peace shall reign,- Join our loud anthem, PRAISE TO THEE! CVI. THE WILL OF ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC. WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT. 1. On the 12th of October, 1504, Queen Isabella executed that celebrated testament which reflects so clearly the peculiar qualities of her mind and character. She begins with prescribing the arrangements for her burial. She orders her remains to be transported to Granada, to the Franciscan monastery of Santa Isabella in the Alhambra, and there |