afternoon, and the sun was just setting in a cloudless sky, when the captain's order came, to prepare, with all haste, for a storm. The barometer was falling rapidly.

7. We were all surprised at the extent and hurry of the preparations, for even the oldest sailors had perceived no threatening in the heavens. But suddenly the sky grew dark; the storm was upon us; the thunder rolled, and the lightning was terrific. For a minute or two all seemed confusion; but the captain's orders had been rapidly given, and were implicitly obeyed, so that we were prepared,and not a moment too soon. It was that little tube of mercury in the pilot-house that had given the warning; and, had it not been for that, we might have been lost.

8. The next morning Dr. Edson gave us a talk about hurricanes, and cyclones, and the uses of the barometer in giving warning of approaching storms; and Prof. Howard quoted numerous passages from the poets, descriptive of storms, both on land and at sea. Among them was Byron's description of a thunder-storm in the Alps :

"Far along,

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the live thunder. Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud."

9. Then there was Ariel's description, in Shakspeare's Tempest, of the manner in which that "tricksy spirit” managed the storm that so nearly overwhelmed the king's ship. But the one that most nearly described the tempest that we encountered, was the following:

Verse 8.-Why the expression, "Leaps the live thunder" ?—Why "found a tongue"?-Why "Jura answers"?- Why "call to her aloud"?--V. 9. Why "deep-voiced thunder" ?-The meaning of evanes'cent.-Why "sheets of gold"?

"The sky grew darker. Soon came booming on

The deep-voiced thunder, whilst at distance rolled
The wild wind's dirge-like and yet tempest tone;

And lightning's evanescent sheets of gold
Burst, in their anger, from the cloud's huge fold."
T. D. English.

V.-St. Helena.

1. As we came within sight of the rugged and frowning heights of the little island of St. Helena, which is scarcely ten miles broad in its greatest extent, we were reminded, by Prof. Howard, of these lines of the poet Montgomery, written while Napoleon's remains still rested there:—

"St. Helena's dungeon-keep

Scowls defiance o'er the deep;
There a hero's relics sleep."

2. Our steamer came to anchor at Jamestown, on the north-west coast, although it is often difficult for sailing vessels, proceeding southward, to enter the harbor. Jamestown was long an important port for vessels coming from the East Indies, to take in supplies; but that trade has been almost wholly taken away, of late years, by the opening of the Suez Canal, through which the largest vessels now pass between the Mediterranean on the one side, and the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean on the other.

3. Our chief attraction at St. Helena was Longwood, the residence of Napoleon during his exile, and the place of his death. We visited the house occupied by him during the weary years of his imprisonment; again and again we went over the grounds in which he had taken his walks; we sought out every nook and corner associated with his name; and we carried away with us specimens of the rocks of the island, and some flowers that were found growing near the place in which the great exile had been buried.

4. After the removal of the remains of the hero to Paris, in 1840, agreeably to the wish expressed in his last will, the government of France bought the house at Longwood that had been occupied by him, and the valley in which he had been buried, and appointed a perpetual guard to watch over them with appropriate military honors.

5. Much of the time occupied in our voyage from St. Helena to the Cape of Good Hope was devoted to long and frequent discussions about the character and history of Napoleon but I must pass by all this, merely writing out for you one or two of the many poetical selections that were read to us. The first one that I copy is entitled Napoleon at St. Helena: but it would be far more interesting if I could give you the remarks with which the Professor accompanied the reading of it, for they embraced the whole of Napoleon's history while he was on the island, and his treatment by the English officials who were placed over him to guard against the possibility of his escape. You must recollect that this piece was written while Napoleon was a prisoner at St. Helena.

VI.-Napoleon at St. Helena.

1. But where is he, the modern, mightier far,"
Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;
The new Sesostris," whose unharnessed kings,
Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,
And spurn the dust o'er which they crawled of late,
Chained to the chariot of the chieftain's state?

2. Yes, where is he, the champion-and the child Of all that's great or little, wise or wild?

a Mightier far than Alexander, to whom the preceding lines referred. Sesostris, the great Egyptian conqueror.

Whose game was empires, and whose stakes were

thrones,

Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones?

Behold the grand result in yon lone isle,
And, as thy nature urges, weep or smile.

3. Smile to behold the eagle's lofty rage

Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage:
Smile to survey the queller of the nations
Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations:
Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,
O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted wines;
O'er petty quarrels upon petty things:-
Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings?
Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,
A surgeon's statement, and an earl's harangues.

a

4. A bust delayed, a book refused, can shake
The sleep of him who kept the world awake.
Is this, indeed, the tamer of the great,
Now slave to all could tease or irritate-
The paltry jailer and the prying spy,
The staring stranger with his note-book nigh?
Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great:
How low, how little, was this middle state,
Between a prison and a palace, where

How few could feel for what he had to bear!

5. Though, save the few fond friends, and imaged face Of that fair boy' his sire shall ne'er embrace,

a

Napoleon was greatly annoyed by the restraints—many of them quite unnecessary, and dishonorable to the English government—that were imposed upon him during his captivity.

b Napoleon's son by his second wife, Maria Louisa of Austria. He never saw his father after the latter's banishment, and died in 1832.

None stand by his low bed-though even the mind
Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind,
Smile for the fettered eagle breaks his chain,“
And higher worlds than this are his again.-Byron.

6. Prof. Howard read to us several accounts, from different writers, of the death-scene of the great Emperor. We learn that, on the day of his death, as night came on, and the sufferer grew rapidly worse, a terrific storm raged over the island. As the mourning members of the household knelt around the dying bed, it was evident that the spirit of Napoleon, doubtless excited by the noise of the tempest without, was deliriously engaged in a strife more terrible than that of the elements. The words "head of the army," (spoken in French,) the last that escaped from his lips, intimated that his thoughts were watching the current of a heavy fight. "It was about eleven minutes before six in the evening," says his English biographer, Walter Scott, "that Napoleon expired."-" Even the very minute of the death of such a man it is thought necessary to put on record," remarked Dr. Edson.-To close the accounts of this striking scene, the Professor read to us the following:

VII.-Death of Napoleon.

1. Wild was the night; yet a wilder night
Hung round the soldier's pillow:

In his bosom there waged a fiercer fight
Than the fight on the wrathful billow.

2. A few fond mourners were kneeling by,
The few that his stern heart cherished;
They knew, by his glazed and unearthly eye,
That life had nearly perished.

a In allusion to his death.