faces all around; the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints-these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future, but the voice that called her to death, that she heard forever.

THE OLD MINSTREL.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

FROM THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL.”

The way was long, the wind was cold,
The minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek and tresses gray
Seemed to have known a better day;
The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy.

The last of all the bards was he,
Who sung of border chivalry;
For, well-a-day! their date was fled,
His tuneful brethren all were dead;
And he, neglected and oppressed,
Wished to be with them, and at rest.
No more on prancing palfrey borne
He caroled, light as lark at morn;
No longer courted and caressed,
High placed in halls, a welcome guest,
He poured to lord and lady gay
The unpremeditated lay.

Old times were changed, old manners gone, A stranger filled the Stuart's throne;

The bigots of the iron time

Had called his harmless art a crime.
A wandering harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door,
And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.

He passed where Newark's stately tower
Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower;
The minstrel gazed with wishful eye-
No humbler resting-place was nigh.
With hesitating step at last

The embattled portal-arch he passed,
Whose ponderous gate and massy bar
Had oft rolled back the tide of war,
But never closed the iron door
Against the desolate and poor.

The duchess marked his weary pace,
His timid mien and reverend face,
And bade her page the menials tell
That they should tend the old man well;
For she had known adversity,

Though born in such a high degree;

In pride of power, in beauty's bloom, Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!

When kindness had his wants supplied,
And the old man was gratified,
Began to rise his minstrel pride:

And he began to talk anon,

Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,
And of Earl Walter, rest him, God!
A braver ne'er to battle rode:

And how full many a tale he knew
Of the old warriors of Buccleuch :

And would the noble duchess deign
To listen to an old man's strain,

Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak,
He thought even yet, the sooth to speak,
That if she loved the harp to hear,

He could make music to her ear.

The humble boon was soon obtained,
The aged minstrel audience gained;
But when he reached the room of state,
Where she, with all her ladies, sate,
Perchance he wished his boon denied;
For when to tune his harp he tried,
His trembling hand had lost the ease
Which marks security to please;
And scenes, long past, of joy and pain
Came wildering o'er his aged brain-
He tried to tune his harp in vain!

The pitying duchess praised its chime,
And gave him heart and gave him time,
Till every string's according glee

Was blended into harmony.

And then he said he would full fain

He could recall an ancient strain

He never thought to sing again.

And much he wished, yet feared, to try

The long-forgotten melody.

Amid the strings his fingers strayed,
And an uncertain warbling made,
And oft he shook his hoary head.
But when he caught the measure wild,
The old man raised his head and smiled;
And lighted up his faded eye
With all a poet's ecstasy!

In varying cadence, soft or strong,
He swept the sounding chords along:
The present scene, the future lot,
His toils, his wants, were all forgot:
Cold diffidence and age's frost,
In the full tide of song were lost;
Each blank in faithless memory void,
The poet's glowing thought supplied.

big' ot, one prejudiced in favor of one's
own opinion.

mien (men), bearing; manner. men'ial (yal), a servant.

WHAT IS BETTER THAN SLAYING A

DRAGON.

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.

The island of Rhodes had become the home of the Knights of St. John, or Hospitallers, an order of sworn brethren who had arisen at the time of the

Crusades. At first they had been merely monks, who kept open house for the reception of the poor penniless pilgrims who arrived at Jerusalem in need of shelter, and often of nursing and healing. The good monks not only fed and housed them, but did their best to cure the many diseases that they would catch in the toilsome journey in that feverish climate; and thus it has come to pass that the word hospitium, which in Latin only means an inn, has, in modern languages, given birth, on the one hand, to hotel, or lodging-house; on the other, to hospital, or house of healing.

The hospital at Jerusalem was called after St. John the Almoner, a charitable bishop of old, and the brethren were Hospitallers. By and by, when the first Crusade was over, and there was a great need of warriors to maintain the Christian cause in Jerusalem, the Hospitallers thought it a pity that so many strong arms should be prevented from exerting themselves, by the laws that forbade the clergy to do battle, and they obtained permission from the Pope to become warriors as well as monks. They were thus all in one-knights, priests, and nurses; their monasteries were both castles and hospitals; and the sick pilgrim or wounded Crusader was sure of all the best tendance and medical care that the times could afford, as well as of all the ghostly comfort and counsel that he might need, and, if he recovered, he was escorted safely down to the seashore by a party strong enough to protect him from the hordes of robber Arabs.

All this was for charity's sake, and without reward. Surely the constitution of the order was as