Canning himself was the first that seemed to be aware, where and how terrible was to be the collision; and he kept writhing his body in agony, and rolling his eyes in fear, as if anxious to find some shelter from the impending bolt. The house soon caught the impression, and every man in it was glancing his eye fearfully, first toward the orator, and then toward the secretary. There was, save the voice of Brougham, which growled in that under tone of muttered thunder, which is so fearfully audible, and of which no speaker of the day was fully master but himself, a silence as if the angel of retribution had been flaring in the face of all parties the scroll of their personal and political sins. A pen, which one of the secretaries dropped upon the matting, was heard in the remotest part of the house; and the voting members, who often slept in the side galleries during the debate, started up as though the final trump had been sounding them to give an account of their deeds.

The stiffness of Brougham's figure had vanished; his features seemed concentrated almost to a point; he glanced toward every part of the house in succession; and, sounding the death-knell of the secretary's forbearance and prudence, with both his clenched hands upon the table, he hurled at him an accusation more dreadful in its gall, and more torturing in its effects, than ever had been hurled at mortal man within the same walls. The result was instantaneous was electric: it was as when the thunder-cloud descends upon some giant peak—one flash, one peal the sublimity vanished, and all that remained was a small and cold pattering of rain. Canning started to his feet, and was able only to utter the unguarded words, "It is false!” to which followed a dull chapter of apologies. From that moment, the house became more a scene of real business, than of airy display and angry vituperation.

ANONYMOUS.

And like a silver clarion rung

The accents of that unknown tongue, "Excelsior!"

In happy homes he saw the light
Of household fires gleam warm and bright:
Above, the spectral glaciers shone;
And from his lips escaped a groan,
"Excelsior!"

Try not the pass !" the old man said, "Dark lowers the tempest overhead; The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" And loud that clarion voice replied, "Excelsior!"

"Oh! stay," the maiden said, "and rest
Thy weary head upon this breast!"
A tear stood in his bright blue eye;
But still he answered, with a sigh,
"Excelsior!"

"Beware the pine-tree's withered branch!
Beware the awful avalanche!"

This was the peasant's last good-night; -
A voice replied, far up the hight,

Excelsior!"

At break of day, as heavenward
The pious monks of Saint Bernard
Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,
A voice cried through the startled air,
"Excelsior!"

A traveler, by the faithful hound,
Half buried in the snow was found,
Still grasping in his hand of ice
That banner with the strange device,
66 "Excelsior!"

There, in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay;
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star-
• Excelsior!"

TONG FELLOW.

WAR-SONG OF THE GREEKS, 1822.

AGAIN to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance;

Our land,

-

the first garden of Liberty's tree It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free; For the cross of our faith is replanted,

The pale dying crescent is daunted,

And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves, May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves Their spirits are hovering o'er us,

And the sword shall to glory restore us.

Ah! what though no succor advances,
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances

Are stretched in our aid?— Be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone:

For we 've sworn by our country's assaulters,
By the virgins they 've dragged from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,
That living, we will be victorious,

Or that dying, our deaths shall be glorious.

A breath of submission we breathe not; The sword that we 've drawn we will sheathe not, Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid, And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.

Earth may hide. waves engulf— fire consume us, But they shall not to slavery doom us: If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves; But we've smote them already with fire on the waves, And new triumphs on land are before us.

To the charge!- Heaven's banner is o'er us!

CAMPBELL.

WHAT IS TIME?

I ASKED an aged man, a man of cares,

Wrinkled, and curved, and white with hoary hairs:
Time is the warp of life," he said, "oh, tell

The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well!”

I asked the ancient, venerable dead,

Sages who wrote, and warriors who had bled:
From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed,
"Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode !"
I asked a dying sinner, ere the tide

Of life had left his veins: "Time!" he replied;
"I've lost it! Ah, the treasure!”—ard he died.
I asked the golden sun, and silver spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years:
They answered, "Time is but a meteor glare!”
And bade us for eternity prepare.

I asked the seasons, in their annual round,
Which beautify, or desolate the ground:
And they replied, (no oracle more wise,)
""T is folly's blank, and wisdom's highest prize!
I asked a spirit lost: but oh, the shriek
That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak!
It cried, "A particle, a speck, a mite
Of endless years, duration infinite!"

Of things inanimate, my dial I

Consulted, and it made me this reply:

66

Time is the season fair of living well,
The path of glory, or the path of hell."
I asked my Bible: and methinks it said,
"Time is the present hour, the past is fled;
Live! live to-day!-to-morrow never yet
On any human being rose or set."

I asked old father Time himself, at last,

But in a moment he flew swiftly past:

His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind

His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.

BOADICEA.

WHEN the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mein,
Counsel of her country's gods;

Sage beneath a spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief,
Every burning word he spoke,
Full of rage and full of grief:

MARSDEK,