ly converted into national advantage.-But it is upon the kingdoms which, in the face of perfect knowledge, in scorn of remonstrances that might wake the stones to feel, in treacherous evasion of treaties, in defiance of even the base bargains in which they exacted the money of this country to buy off the blood of the African, have still carried on the trade, that undisguised and unmitigated vengeance may have fallen, and be still falling. The three great slave-traders, whom it has been found impossible to persuade or to restrain, are France, Spain and Portugal. And in what circumstances are the colonies for whose peculiar support this dreadful traffic was carried on? France has totally lost St. Domingo, the finest colony in the world, and her colonial trade is now a cipher. Spain has lost all; Portugal has lost all. Mexico, South America and the Brazils are severed from their old masters for ever. And what have been the especial calamities of the sovereigns of those countries? They have been, all three, expatriated, and the only three. Other sovereigns have suffered temporary evil under the chances of war; but France, Spain and Portugal have exhibited the peculiar shame of three dynasties at once in exile :— the Portuguese flying across the sea, to escape from an enemy in its capital, and hide its head in a barbarian land; -the Spanish dethroned, and sent to display its spectacle of mendicant and decrepit royalty through Europe ;—and the French doubly undone ! The first effort of Louis XVIII., on his restoration, was to reëstablish the slave-trade. Before twelve months were past, he was flying for his life to the protection of strangers! On the second restoration, the trade was again revived. All representations of its horrors, aggravated as they are now by the lawless rapacity of the foreign traders, were received with mock acquiescence, and real scorn. And where are the Bourbons now? And what is the peace or the prosperity of the countries that have thus dipped their guilty gains in human miseries? They are three vast centres of feud and revolutionary terror :-Portugal with an unowned monarch, reigning by the bayonet and the scaffold, with half her leading men in dungeons, with her territory itself a dungeon; and fierce, retaliation and phrenzied enthusiasm hovering on her frontiers, and ready to plunge into the bosom of the land; -Spain torn by faction, and at this hour watching every band that gathers on her hills, as the signs of a tempest that may sweep the land from the Pyrenees to the ocean;— and France in the first heavings of a mighty change, that man can no more define than he can set limits to the heaving of an earthquake, or the swell and fury of a deluge. Other great objects and causes may have their share in those things. But the facts are before mankind. LESSON LXIX. The Playthings.-MISS GOULD. "OH! mother, here's the very top That brother used to spin ; The vase with seeds I've seen him drop To call our robin in; The line that held his pretty kite, His bow, his cup and ball, The slate on which he learned to write, "My dear, I'd put the things away LESSON LXX. Mutability of earthly Things.-N. A. REVIEW. [From the Spanish of DON JORge Manrique.] O LET the soul her slumbers break- How soon this life is passed and gone, Swiftly our pleasures glide away; The moments that are speeding fast, Our lives are rivers, gliding free Thither all earthly pomp and boast Thither the mighty torrents stray, There all are equal; side by side This world is but the rugged road So let us choose that narrow way From realms of love. Our birth is but the starting place, When, in the mansions of the blest, Tell me, the charms that lovers seek In the clear eye and blushing cheek, O'er rosy lip and brow of snow,- The cunning skill, the curious arts, These shall become a heavy weight, When Time swings wide his outward gate To weary age. Where are the high-born dames-and where Their gay attire, and jewelled hair, And odors sweet? Where are the gentle knights that came To kneel, and breathe love's ardent flame Low at their feet? Where is the song of Troubadour- They loved of yore? Where is the mazy dance of old, The flowing robes, inwrought with gold, So many a duke of royal name, Marquis and count of spotless fame, And baron brave, That might the sword of empire wield— Their deeds of mercy and of arms; O Death, thy stern and cruel face, Unnumbered hosts, that threaten nigh, High battlements, entrenched around- And covered trench, secure and deep,- When thou dost battle in thy wrath, And thy strong shafts pursue their path LESSON LXXI. A Scene from the Brothers.-WORDSWORTH. The elder of two brothers, after several years' absence in foreign lands, returns to his native village, and stops in the church-yard, and at length enters into conversation with the parish priest. Leonard. You said his kindred all were in their graves, And that he had one brother Priest. That is but A fellow tale of sorrow. From his youth James, though not sickly, yet was delicate; 1 |