strewing his path with the dead and dying, and reached the rear of the enemy. He shouted aloud, 'Death to the Goths!' in a voice that was distinctly heard amid the clash of swords and lances; and the barbarians, seeing his standard in their rear, imagining themselves surrounded, sounded a retreat. They were pursued, with great slaughter, to the very lines of their encampment, when Theodoric drew off his forces, amid the shouts of thousands who beheld the struggle from the walls.

In the midst of the strife, the convoy safely entered the Carperian Gate. Succors now flowed in from different quarters to the relief of Rome; and the heroism and skill of Antonina afforded seasonable supplies of men and provisions from Isauria, Thrace, and Campania. The miseries of famine were now in turn inflicted on the Goths; and the seven camps of the besiegers were gradually encompassed with the calamities of a siege. To complete the misfortunes of Vitiges, a messenger informed him that his country, from the Appenines to the Hadriatic, was laid waste by the sword; and the fidelity of his wife endangered, by the arts of John the Sanguinary. A fruitless attempt to intoxicate the guards, at the Aurelian Gate, was the last effort of the King of the Goths upon the capital of Italy. One year and nine days after the commencement of the siege, at the hour of midnight, the flames of ten thousand tents announced the despair and retreat of the enemy. As Theodoric stood on the walls, gazing upon the burning camp, his arm was grasped by one who seemed anxious to withdraw his attention from the scene of ruin, which he beheld with delight and wonder.

'Young man!' said the intruder, whom Theodoric recognized at a glance, as Gilimer, 'I have found you at last! Your prowess in arms has spread far and wide; but while I rejoice at your success, I tremble lest the giddy height on which you stand, will only render your destruction more certain. If you would know the secret of your birth, and the dangers which surround you, you may learn it from the lips of Ecebolus, who is now ill of a lingering fever, and is anxious, in his last moments, to impart to you that which from his lips you alone can learn.'

'From none other can I learn this?' inquired Theodoric.

'From no mortal, but him!' replied Gilimer, with an emphasis, a solemnity of tone and manner, which left neither room for doubt or reply.

Then will I go!' exclaimed the youthful hero. A hasty summons to a sick friend,' excused him to the Roman general; and in a brief space he was on his way to the Euphrates, whither we shall follow him, in the second division of this historical narrative of his eventful fortunes.

TRUE TALENT,

TRUE talent is the ray that flings
A novel light o'er common things;

And those who, dead, most followers boast,

Alive, with others differed most.

Think with the crowd, and present blame

Thou shalt escape- and future fame.

THE OAK AND THIE APPLE TREE.

BY T. BARLOW.

AN Oak, standing lone on the side of a hill,
A mile from the farm-house, or more,

Whose branches with verdure o'ershadowed the rill,
Meandering down to the door:

Once said to himself: 'How unhappy am I,

On this barren hill to have grown,

Where tempests which darken the earth and the sky,
Are spent on my branches alone!

'O had I but grown where the Apple-tree grows!
Dressed gaily in elegant flowers;

Where the violet smiles, and the jessamine blows,
And Beauty reclines in her bowers!

'I'll propose to the Apple-tree,' then said the Oak,
To exchange our condition to-day;'

And bowed his rich verdure in gloom, as he spoke,
That verdure to barter away.

On a broad rugged leaf he wrote then in haste,
And the leaf he let fall on the stream,
Which bore it away to the rude rocky waste,

Ere the garden had waked from its dream.

The bright sun arose, and the Apple-tree there
Waved proud in the glory of spring,
As free from all cankering trouble and care,
As a bird on its sun-glancing wing.

A nymph, who in sandals bespangled with dew,
Was dancing 'neath rose bush and vine,
Gave the note to the tree, as she tremblingly flew
To the grove, dark with cedar and pine.

And she sighed her first sigh, as she timidly fled,
A sigh like the first one of youth;

For with maidenly instinct she hoped to have read
Some tale of affection and truth.

The Apple-tree gazed on the message in green,
Read the words it so freely expressed,
And blushed in a million of blossoms, a queen,
Whose beauty and pride are addressed.

The garden was hushed as the breath of a bird,
Mute the zephyr's Eolian song;

While the Apple-tree read, and the flowers all heard,
The Oak's tale of sorrow and wrong.

'Fair Queen of the Garden! my tale shall be brief, (The dew must this letter adorn,)

I write with a heart and a story of grief,

Unnoticed, unfriended, forlorn!

'I feign would exchange my condition for thine,
Leave this hill and its solitude drear,

For the yard where the ivy and holly-branch twine,
And the rose and the lily are near.

'O could I but dress in thy mantle of flowers,
And vie with the lily and rose,

Have the nightingale sing her sweet song in my bowers,
And the nymph seek my shade to repose!

"Then say, canst thou change, with no sorrow, nor sigh?
If this thy approval but meets,

I'll grow a bouquet for each star in the sky,
And load every zephyr with sweets!""

The Apple-tree read the epistle with care,
And hastened to answer it then;

She wrote on a blossom all glowing and fair,
That a favorite blossom had been.

The wind was now coming away from the lake,
(It had slept on the lake all night,)

And it skipped up the fields, over bramble and brake,
As free as a sun-beam or light.

It took the epistle from off the gay bough,
As joy doth a tear from the cheek,
And carried it safe to the Oak, who had now
Prepared for a merrisome week.

A moment the wind seemed to flirt with the leaves,
And sing of the Spring on its lute;

Then went like the smile of a lover, who grieves
That smiles are so transient and mute.

The Oak took the letter, in raptures of joy,
Perused its fair lines o'er and o'er;

Now deeming no sorrow could sadden or cloy
His pleasures, oft saddened before.

'Proud King of the Forest! forgive my surprise;
Dost thou truly sorrow and pine?

Alas! I had thought thee contented and wise,
And had wished thy condition were mine.

There is pleasure in solitude; oft have I longed
To escape from this cluster of trees,

Where branches and blossoms are hidden and thronged,

To grow in the sun and the breeze.

'Where zephyrs which kissed the pure dew from my flowers, Could sing on my branches alone,

And stars looking down through the moon's silver showers, Could watch but the slumbers of one.

'I'll change with thee gladly!- the hill shall be mine!
(Farewell, little wild rose, farewell!)

Come down, if thou scornest that glory of thine,
And with the pale jessamine dwell.'

At the root of the Oak, a moss-covered Stone
Heard both of the letters read o'er,

And his honest old heart impatient had grown,
Till he could be silent no more.

Like the words of some spirit, who rides on the breeze,
To keep note when sad mortals complain,
These words of the Stone to the listening trees
Were spoken-alas! but in vain.

'Ye trees who repine at the verdict of fate,
Who would barter your stations away,
Give ear to a Stone, who has envy nor hate,
To hear his monitions to-day.

'Does the face give its joy to the rapturous heart,
Or the heart throw its smile to the face?
Can nature be gay with the tinsel of art,
Or change with the changes of place?

'I remember a flower, a beautiful flower,
A wild rose, that grew by the stream,
And she longed to blow forth while the evening sun
Set in twilight's effulgent gleam.

'So scorning Aurora and all her array,

Of pure air, sweet perfume, and light,

She opened her charms at the close of the day,
And was killed by the frost of the night.

'Ah! could she have known what the winter-green knows, That the night-frost no pity could show,

She had passed a gay life, as a sweet morning rose,
Nor had longed in the twilight to blow.

'The Apple-tree planted where flourished the Oak,
When the first mountain storm should assail,
Would be stripped of her verdure, uprooted, and broke,
By the force of the pitiless gale.

'O then would she value her fellowship fair,
With violet, daisy, and rose,

And learn, when too late, that her station was there,
That her pride was the worst of her foes.

'But how would the Oak in the garden appear,
With her flowing robe, gorgeous and gay?

Alas! every dew-drop would turn to a tear,
Each blossom a sign of decay.

'Slow, slow would he sicken for sun-light and blast,
The strength of his own native air;

And branch after branch would fall piece-meal at last,
Till he stood in his lone ruin there!

'And then what to him were the nightingale's song,

The odor and bouquet so fair?

He would learn that the heart bears its canker and wrong, That we smile, when no sorrow is there.

'As soon should the tear say it loved not the eye, The song that it loved not the lute,

As the Apple-tree envy a station so high,

Or the Oak sigh for blossom or fruit.

'Be wise then, ye trees, nor seek elsewhere to find
Those joys that bloom only at home;

The sun of all bliss is contentment of mind;
The heart is its cradle and tomb !'

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

'Aн who can hope his line should long
Live in a daily-changing tongue?
We write in sand; our language grows,
And, as the tide, our work o'erflows.'

In closing the first division of the present paper, it was observed, that another and concluding number would be devoted to a consideration of the best means of cultivating an acquaintance with the English language; the danger of corruption to which it is exposed from innovation; with some allusion to British criticism upon the manner in which the English language is written and spoken in America; and an examination of its future prospects, in regard to its prevalence and extension. In reference to the first branch of the subject, we may remark, that undoubtedly the first place is to be assigned to a careful perusal of the best authors, with a special attention to their peculiar turns of thought, and modes of expression. A good style, like good manners, must be formed by frequenting good company, not for the purpose of imitating any particular individual, but of catching the nameless graces of all. A correct taste in regard to fine writing can only be formed, like taste in the fine arts, by the careful inspection of good models. Different writers have different excellencies; and he who would form a correct taste and a good style, must not confine his attention to a few favorite authors; but must suffer his mind to roam, somewhat at large, over the fields of English literature.

A frequent reference to a standard dictionary, in connexion with extensive reading, is also of great importance, in order to the maintenance of purity and propriety of composition. Without such a help, always at hand, and frequently resorted to, there are few persons who would not be in danger of using unauthorized words, or of giving to legitimate words an unauthorized meaning.

In selecting a dictionary as a standard, great judgment and discretion should be exercised. Johuson's dictionary, with its latest improvements, particularly his quarto, possesses many advantages over any others which have ever been written. The idea of supporting and illustrating the meaning of words by quotations from distinguished authors, was a peculiarly happy conception; and this feature in Johnson's dictionary will be highly valued by every critical scholar. The meaning of words is more accurately ascertained by inspecting the manner in which they have been used by good authors, than it can possibly be from any definition. The authority of some authors is superior to that of others; and a means is afforded by this dictionary for distinguishing between words of modern use, and those which must be considered as well nigh obsolete.

Next to a careful perusal of the best classical English writers, with the aid of a good dictionary, the greatest help to a thorough acquaintance with the English will be found in a knowledge of the Latin language. The English has derived more words from the Latin, than from all other foreign sources; and these words are some