boy to court. "You know your rights, prince,' said the French king, "and you would like to be a king. Is it not so?" "Truly," said Prince Arthur, "I should greatly like to be a king! "Then," said Philip, "you shall have two hundred gentlemen who are knights of mine, and with them you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which your uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken possession. I myself meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy." 5. Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau,' EI because his grandmother, Eleanor, was living there, and because his knights said, " Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able to bring the king, your uncle, to terms!" But she was not to be easily taken. She was old enough by this timeeighty; but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur's approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how matters stood, came up to the rescue with his army. So here was a strange family party! The boy-prince besieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging him! 6. This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night, King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised Prince Arthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized the prince himself in his bed. The knights were put in heavy irons," and driven away in open carts, drawn by bullocks, to various dungeons, where they were most inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to death. Prince Arthur was sent to the castle of Falaise. 7. One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking it strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and looking out of the small window in the deep, dark wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle, the king, standing in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim. 8. "Arthur," said the king, with his wicked eyes more on the stone floor than on his nephew,E EIwill you not trust to the gen tleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness, of your loving uncle?"-"I will tell my loving uncle that," replied the boy, "when he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and then come to me and ask the question." The king looked at him and went out. "Keep that boy close prisoner," said he to the warden of the castle. Then the king took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles, how the prince was to be got rid of. Some said, "Put out his eyes and keep him in prison, as Robert of Normandy was kept." Others said, “Have him stabbed." Others, "Have him hanged." Others, “ Have him poisoned." 9. King John, feeling that in any case, whatever was done afterward, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt out, that had looked at him so proudly, while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de Bourg, the warden of the castle, who had a love for him, and was a merciful, tender man, that Hubert could not bear it. To his eternal honor, he prevented the torture from being performed; and, at his own risk, sent the savages away. 10. The chafed and disappointed king bethought himself of the stabbing suggestion next; and, with his shuffling manner and his cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. "I am a gentleman, and not an executioner," said William de Bray, and left the presence with disdain. But it was not difficult for a king to hire a murderer in those days. King John found one for his money, and sent him down to the castle of Falaise. "On what errand dost thou come?" said Hubert to this fellow. "To dispatch young Arthur," he returned. Go back to him who sent thee," answered Hubert, "and say that I will do it!" 11. King John, very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but that he evasively sent this reply to save the prince or gain time, dispatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of Rouen. Arthur was soon forced from the kind Hubert, of whom he had never stood in greater need than EI then, carried away by night, and lodged in his new prison. where, through his grated window, he could hear the deep waters of the river Seine rippling against the stone wall below. 12. One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming, perhaps, of rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the tower He hurriedly dressed himself, and obeyed. When they came to the bottom of the winding-stairs, and the night air from the river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch, and put it out. Then Arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary bōat; and in that boat he found his uncle and one other man. 13. He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. Deaf to his entreaties, they stabbed him, and sunk his body in the river with heavy stones. When the spring morning broke, the tower-door was closed, the boat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and never more was any trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes. Dickens. LIX. - DANGEROUS EFFECTS OF FANCY. 1. WoE to the youth whom Fancy gains, 2. O! teach him, while your lessons last, Tell him, we play unequal game, 3. Two sisters by the goal are set, Transformed, when won, to drossy mould; SCOTT LX. - MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS FROM WASHINGTON'S WRITINGS. 1... BORN in a land of liberty; having early learned its value, having engaged in the perilous conflict to defend it; having, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent establishment in my own country; my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly attracted, whensoever in any country I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom. 2. . . The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a common cause, fought and triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and 83 successes. 3... This government, this offspring of our choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are dūties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of liberty. 4... My policy, in our foreign transactions, has been to cultivate peace with all the world; to observe the treaties with pure and absolute faith; to check every deviation from the line of impartiality; to explain what may have been misapprehended, and correct what may have been injurious to any nation; and, having thus acquired the right, to lose no time in acquiring the ability to insist upon justice being done to ourselves. 5. A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends; and that the most liberal professions of good-will are very far from being the surest marks of it. 1 should be happy if my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them. 6. . . There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists, in the economy and course of nature, an indis ́soluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity. 7. Let us unite in imploring the Supreme Ruler of nations to spread his holy protection over the United States; to turn the machinations of the wicked to the confirming of our constitution; to enable us, at all times, to root out internal sedition, and put invasion to flight; to perpetuate to our country that prosperity which His goodness has already conferred, and to verify the anticipations of this government being a safeguard of human rights. 8. . . In looking forward to that awful150 moment when I must bid adieu to sublunary things, I anticipate the consolation of leaving our country in a prosperous condition. And while the |