asunder and has forfeited her throne in Germany. Spain, a hundred years ago the first colonial empire in the world, has lost her colonies and conquests, and sunk into a thirdrate power. France, which little more than a hundred years ago possessed Canada, Louisiana, the Mississippi Valley, the island of Mauritius, and a strong hold in Hindustan, has lost all these possessions, and exchanged her vineyards and corn-fields on the Rhine for the snows of Savoy and the sands of Algiers. Piedmont and Prussia, on the other hand, have sprung into the foremost rank of nations. Piedmont has become Italy, with a capital in Milan and Venice, Florence and Naples, as well as in Rome. Still more striking and more glorious has been the growth of Prussia. A hundred years ago Prussia was just emerging into notice as a small but well-governed and hard-fighting country, with a territory no larger than Michigan, and a population considerably less than Ohio. In a hundred years this small but well-governed and hardfighting Prussia has become the first military power on earth. Prussia, during these hundred years, has carried her arms into Finland, Crim Tartary, the Caucasus, and the Mohammedan Khanates, extending the White empire on the Caspian, and Euxine, and along the Oxus and Jaxartes into Central Asia. Vaster still have been the marches and the conquests of Great Britain - her command of the ocean giving her facilities which are not possessed by any other power. Within a hundred years or thereabouts, she has grown from a kingdom of ten millions of people into an empire of two hundred and twenty millions, with a territory covering nearly one-third of the earth. Hardly less striking than the progress of Russia and England has been that of the United States. Starting with a population no larger than that of Greece, the Republic has advanced so rapidly that in a hundred years she has become the third power as to size of territory, the fourth as to wealth of population in the world. Soil and population are the two prime elements of power. Climate and fertility count for much; nationality and compactness count for more; but still the natural basis of growth is land, the natural basis of strength of population. Taking these two elements together, the Chinese

were, a hundred years ago, the foremost family of mankind. They held a territory covering three millions of square miles, and a population counting more than four hundred millions of souls. But what a change has taken place! China has been standing still, while England, Russia, and America have been conquering, planting, and annexing lands.-The White Conquest.

OANE, GEORGE WASHINGTON, an American

clergyman and poet; born at Trenton, N. J., May 27, 1799; died at Burlington, N. J., April 27, 1859. He was graduated from Union College in 1818, and was admitted to Holy Orders in 1821. He officiated for three years in Trinity Church, New York; in 1824 was appointed professor at Washington College (now Trinity College), Hartford, Conn. In 1828 he became assistant minister, and subsequently rector, of Trinity Church, Boston. In 1832 he was elected Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of New Jersey, and soon afterward established St. Mary's Hall, at Burlington, N. J., and later founded Burlington College. In 1824 he published a volume of poems entitled Songs by the Way; and in 1840 Sermons and Charges. In 1860 was published a collection of his Poetical Works, Sermons, and Miscellaneous Writings, with a Memoir by his son, W. C. Doane.

"The Lark, my child.

The morn has but just looked out and smiled,
When he starts from his humble, grassy nest,

And is up and away, with the dew on his breast,
And a hymn in his heart to yon pure bright sphere,
To warble it out in his Maker's ear.

Ever, my child, be thy morn's first lays
Tuned, like the Lark's, to thy Maker's praise.'

"What is that, Mother?"

"The Dove, my son;

And that low, sweet voice, like the widow's moan, Is flowing out from her gentle breast,

Constant and pure, by that lonely nest,

As the wave is poured out from some crystal urn, For the distant dear one's quick return.

Ever, my son, be thou like the Dove:

In friendship as faithful, as constant in love."

"What is that, Mother?"—

"The Eagle, boy,

Proudly careering in his course of joy;
Firm, in his own mountain vigor relying;
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying;
His wing on the wind, and his eye on the sun,
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward - right on
Boy, may the Eagle's flight ever be thine,

Onward and upward-true to the line."

What is that, Mother?"

"The Swan, my love-
He is floating down from his native grove:
No loved one now, no nestling nigh;
He is floating down by himself to die.
Death darkens his eye, it unplumes his wings;
Yet the sweetest song is the last he sings.-
Live so, my love, that when death shall come,
Swan-like and sweet, it may waft thee home."

OBELL, SYDNEY THOMPSON, an English poet;

born at Cranbrook, Kent, April 5, 1824; died at Nailsworth, Gloucester, August 22, 1874. At the age of twelve he entered the office of his father, a wine-merchant of Cheltenham. In 1848 he published his first poem, The Roman, under the nom de plume of "Sydney Yendys" (the last name being his baptismal name reversed). This was followed in 1850 by Balder. These poems found numerous admirers, and the author was looked upon by many as the coming poet of his day; they were, however, sharply criticised and travestied by Aytoun in his Firmilian. His subsequent productions were Sonnets on the War, in conjunction with Alexander Smith (1855); England in Time of War (1856), and England's Day (1871).

He occupied a foremost place among the modern minor poets of England in the class with Philip James Bailey, George Gilfillan, Stanyan Bigg, Alexander Smith, and Gerald Massey. One of the distinguishing features of Dobell's style is discontented criticism of the existing order of society, and an undercurrent of complaint at the mystery of existence. His writings are marked by passionate love of nature and political liberty, originality, and an absence of humor.

THE RUINS OF ANCIENT ROME.

Upstood

The hoar unconscious walls, bisson and bare,
Like an old man deaf, blind, and gray, in whom
The years of old stand in the sun, and murmur
Of childhood and the dead. From parapets
Where the sky rests, from broken niches — each
More than Olympus- for gods dwelt in them —

Below from senatorial haunts and seats

Imperial, where the ever-passing fates

Wore out the stone, strange hermit birds croaked forth
Sorrowful sounds, like watchers on the height
Crying the hours of ruin. When the clouds
Dressed every myrtle on the walls in mourning,
With calm prerogative the eternal pile
Impassive shone with the unearthly light
Of immortality. When conquering suns
Triumphed in jubilant earth, it stood out dark
With thoughts of ages: like some mighty captive
Upon his death-bed in a Christian land

And lying, through the chant of psalm and creed
Unshriven and stern, with peace upon his brow,
And on his lips strange gods.

Rank weeds and grasses,

Careless and nodding, grew, and ask no leave,

Where Romans trembled. Where the wreck was saddest, Sweet pensive herbs, that had been gay elsewhere,

With conscious mien of place rose tall and still,

And bent with duty. Like some village children
Who found a dead king on a battle-field,
And with decorous care and reverent pity
Composed the lordly ruin, and sat down
Grave without tears. At length the giant lay,
And everywhere he was begrit with years.
And everywhere the torn and mouldering Past
Hung with the ivy. For Time, smit with honor
Of what he slew, cast his own mantle on him,
That none should mock the dead.

No force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye,
Who North or South, on East or Western land,
Native to noble sounds, say Truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, Love for love, and God

For God; O ye who in eternal youth

Speak, with a living and creative flood, This universal English, and do stand

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