the door and saw, to his surprise and terror, the Empress prostrate upon the floor. She was without sense or motion. Physicians were sent for, and consternation prevailed. All the means possible were resorted to, but without effect. She was still alive; her heart was found still to beat. Paul, her son and successor, arrived in the evening. His mother still breathed. About ten the next evening, the Empress appeared suddenly to revive, and began to rattle in the throat. The imperial family hastened to her. At

FRIAR IVES AT ACRE.

last she gave a lamentable shriek, and died, after having continued for thirtyseven hours in a state of insensibility.

The body of the Emperor Peter i was brought from the convent and crowned, and the two coffins lay in state till they were removed to the Citadel Church of tombs for the sovereigns of Russia, where they now lie with the sovereigns of Russia, on the floor of the church, in sight of all who go there as spectators or as worshippers at that memorable historic spot.

[See Joinville's "Memoirs of St. Louis," Part II., for, this anecdote, which is quoted by Bishop Taylor in his "Great Exemplar," Part III., discourse 14th.]

THE weary day is ended now,

And cool night winds fan cheek and brow;
The restless crowd, no longer pent
In heated chambers, wanders out,
The air is filled with merriment,

With lute, and harp, and song, and shout.
A noisy time, a festive night!

A thousand lamps are glitt'ring bright,
While in the blue vault overhead

The lamps of Heaven their radiance shed.
Soldiers and seamen here are seen,
Steel helmets bright, and turbans green,
The Saracen's dark supple grace,
The Frank's blue eyes and fair-skinn'd face.
Amid the tide of human lives,

Pass'd, shadow-like, from street to street,
With rope-girt gown, and sandall'd feet,
The Breton friar, Father Ives.
He goes, a message from the King
Unto the Sultan's lords* to bring.
Soon as the morrow's dawn shall break,
Back to Damascus they must take
Their way, and he with them depart,
That wand'ring friar of steadfast heart.
Bright is his eye, and glad his mood;
What if fierce bands of Bedouins rude
Beset his path, his life-blood shed?-
Shall not the Martyr's crown await
His brow, at Heav'n's own golden gate!
His weary feet, shall they not tread
Above the stars that shine o'erhead ?-
What though they tear him limb from limb?-
He hears e'en now the angels' hymn,
And fragrant breezes, soft as balm,
Waft o'er his soul celestial calm.

Onward, engross'd with thoughts like these,
Through Acre's marble palaces
And lighted halls, astir with song
And noisy revelry, along

He quickly pass'd, until his feet

The Sultan of Damascus had sent to King Louis, offering his alliance. Friar Ives le Breton was to return with the ambassadors, and declare the King's mind to the Sultan he was chosen for the task on account of his knowledge of Saracenic.

Tread in a narrow, silent street.
Here, in the hush, he starts to meet
A woman; tall, nor old, nor young,
For though Time's hand its snows had flung
Her locks of sable hair among,

The fire of youth gleam'd in her eye;
Erect her form, her bearing high,

Though scant and mean the robe she wore.
One hand a vase of water bore,

And in the left beheld the Friar

A vessel fill'd with coals of fire.

He gazed upon her, and would fain

Have asked, "Wherefore these vessels twain ?”

To his unspoken thought replies

She, fixing on him her dark eyes;

666

Wherefore this water?'-mark me well! With it I'll quench the flames of hell!

666 Wherefore this fire?'-list thou and learn!The joys of Paradise to burn!

That henceforth men may serve my Lord
Neither for hope of a reward,

Nor fear of punishment abhorr'd:

But freely yield their hearts-the whole-
As He requires of every soul.

Is He not worthy? Brighter far

The Day-spring, than yon brightest star?
Our Maker, Saviour, Helper, He,
The mystic undivided Three,
From lifeless clay his creatures made,
And when we sold ourselves, He paid
Our ransom, died, and to the grave
Went down, our guilty souls to save.
Now wash'd from sin with heavenly dew,
Each day we fall, each day anew
We soil ourselves, and yet He deigns
In us to dwell, and cleanse our stains.
We love our friends, ay, well, and long,
Enduring many a bitter wrong,
Fickle or selfish they, yet still,
Spite all neglect, love them we will:
Love, why? Because we hope their hands
May shower rich gifts upon us?-no!
Not human love insult we so!
Love, for the sake of what we find
Within them lovely, true, and kind.
He, the Desired among all lands,
Has He no beauty? He, our King,
Glorious in red appareling,

Chief 'mong ten thousand? fairer than
The fairest of the sons of man?

Seek we a hero? Who hath stood,
Like Him, alone, in conflict sore?
Our Isaac, up the hill, the wood
For his own sacrifice He bore;
Our Joseph, by his brethren sold,
For paltry silver, weigh'd and told,
Pass'd from death's dungeon to a throne,
The vile will He as brethren own!
Our Moses, He redeemed us free
From bondage and from misery,
And, faithfully and gently, leads
His people through the desert sand,

With bread from heav'n the hungry feeds,
Until they reach the Promised Land;
Our Joshua, truly Saviour! He
Still cheers us on to victory!

Our Samson, glorious, strong! betray'd!
Through his great love a captive made!
Purple his raiment, for He trod
Alone the wine-press of our God,
Alone the wrath Divine He bare;
Say now, what hero may compare
With Him? Or is it Love ye seek?
His tenderness what tongue can speak?
Our King of Peace! Behold Him crown'd
With thorns upon that solemn day
When on the Cross the Victim bound
For very love sigh'd life away,
That day when-second Eve-his bride
Was born from out his riven side,

Whence streams of blood and water ran
To cleanse and heal the sons of man,
Oh, see the ruby drops run down,
Slow trickling from that cruel crown!
See his pierced hands outstretch'd to call
To his embrace all humankind!
His wounded heart open to all!
And when we, faithless and unkind,
Turn backward, choosing paths of ill,
Those bleeding feet pursue us still.
Go on thy way; I follow mine;
Thy dreams of Paradise resign;
I tell thee, with this fire I'll burn
Thine Eden with its fragrant flowers,
Its golden streets and shady bowers
Into a wilderness I'll turn,

Sooner than, blind one! thou shouldst miss

'Mid toys like these, supremest bliss,

Sooner than Him thus slighted see,

The Lord who lived and died for me.

Oh, King of Beauty, when shall I
Thy face behold?-for love I die!
Without thee, Paradise were Hell,

With thee, 'twere Heaven in Hell to dwell!”

The Breton friar pass'd on, alone,
The woman from his side has gone.
I know not, yet methinks that friar
Must henceforth holiest thoughts inspire.
With single mind I see him pass
'Mid heathens, Christians, oft, alas!
Like heathens, aliens to the love
That daily woos our hearts above.
I see him striving all to bring
Unto the love of Love's own King,
And were that woman child of earth,
Or gave his guardian-angel birth
To vision-form, his soul to bear
Into a purer, higher air,

Oh, would that we, in our cold days,
Thus our low-drooping hearts could raise,

From where I, on my couch, am laid,
No changing prospect greets mine eye,
And from my casement are displayed
But housetops and the murky sky;
I hear the city's echoing din-
A contrast to the quiet within.
Amidst a crowd of hopes and fears,
My mind will wander back again
To other scenes and other years,

Whose memories alone remain;
That only shadows on me cast
Of all the sunshine of the past.

'Tis summer in the country fields-
In verdant beauty nature smiles,
Each varied scene new pleasure yields,

And from the world the heart beguiles, Teaching us folly to despise,

And, with contentment to be wise.

Though here with patience nigh outworn,
I can admire in fancy still
The beauty of the waving corn,

The music of the purling rill;
Through all the past my steps retrace,
And present times and scenes displace.
To wander through the shady lane,

To dream along the silent riverShall I e'er know such days again,

Or have they fled away for ever? Oh what is learning, friendship, wealth, Deprived of Heaven's great blessing-health?

In my distress, for aught unfit,

May I perceive a wise design; In patience to my lot submit,

My will to that of Heaven resign; And while I wish all pain removed, Let not the event pass unimproved.

-Chambers's Journal.

THE WORKER.

"HARD is the lot of the worker,
His heart had need be brave,
With death in life to wrestle
From the cradle to the grave.
Sternly the sorrows meet him
In the thick of the mortal fray;

But the night must serve for weeping-
Work must be done to-day."

High rose the houses, a great human hive,
Crowded from roof to base with busy life,

While in the stifling courts the children swarmed.

A chill, gray day died blank and colorless
Within the narrow walls that hedged a home,
Amid those close-pent dwellings, as out-worn
A twice-made mother, on the bed of birth,
Trembled her life away.

The light was gone;
And the poor chamber held the pomp of death-
More awful than the majesty of kings-
Before set free from labor, to his home
The father came, and first there greeted him
Faint cries of new found life, and then he passed
Into that silent presence.

From his sight

The nurse, a simple neighbor, bore the babe
And left him with his sorrow and the night.
Low in a corner lay his little lad,

Whose seven blithe years had brought no bitterness
Like this bad day's: for never in his pain
Had she been pitiless; nor, until now,
Unanswering to his cries. For he had cried,
"I'm hungry," and she had not stretched her hands;
"I'm weary," and she drew him not to rest,
With touch of tender kisses on his hair.
Now, wearied out with weeping wilderment,
He slept.

Between the sleeping and the dead
The strong man bowed himself and took his place
To watch the night out.

Covered, still, and white,

It lay-that awful burden-on the bed

He should have shared. He did not lift the shroud
To look upon the lifeless face, or press
Its lips with unfelt kisses; did not stain

Its whiteness with a tear. Beside him lay
Her one ring-worn throughout those wedded years,
From fingers stiffening in the clasp of death
Withdrawn; and as he gently lifted it

A sudden strangeness fell on all his life,
And made it blank through all its soulless days,
But left, like hill-tops lifted thro' a flood,
The living hours of love.

The boy awoke
And saw him sit there; slept, and woke again;

And there he sat and loomed out of the dark
Until he seemed a giant to the child.
The chequered moonlight fell across the floor,
Leaving the death-bed curtained by the dark
And awful mysteries of life and death,
Confused, impenetrable, undefined,
Hovered about the boy, and he would fain
Have called upon his father in the night,
But that he seemed a portion of the dread,
The unappeasable, appealless fate

That held him, and should hold him ever more.
Then he bethought him of his prayer, and said
"Our Father," and so slept until the dawn.
And in the faint dawn he was sitting there,
Who never once had drowsed nor drooped his head
Nor groaned for any anguish of his soul-
But when the morning sun looked in, he rose
With sweat-drops on his forehead.

Four scorpions! which instead of cloistered death,
Have stung me into life! How long may't be
Since silver censers flung their incense up,
And in full choir a sound of voices rose,
Chanting their even-song, and praising God-
"In that our brother here was dead and lives?"
Then came the organ's surging symphony,
And I, a unit 'midst the tonsured crowd,
Passed on, a monk; while in my ear there rung
Those four short, burning words, "She was not
false!"

Oh! fiend incarnate, that could urge me on,
E'en to the very brink and see me plunge-
Then, seeing, whisper what would else have saved
A life-long misery.

They brought me here
To pray and keep the vigil of St. John;
To make thanksgiving-What was it he said,
The reverend preacher who discoursed to-day?
"Many indeed are called, but chosen few."
Chosen and this the Vigil of St. John,
When trembling maidens to the fountain come
To view their future husbands mirrored there:
She, too, perhaps, may be amidst the throng?
Ah! me, I shall go mad. How long is it
Since I have grovelled here? It seems to me
Well nigh a life-time since they came and brought
The dim oil-lamp, that flickers near my head.
How heavily their flabby, naked feet
Came whilom flapping through the corridor!
"Our brother prays, " quoth one; the other said
(Poking the lamp's wick with his finger-tip)
"In truth I marvel not that he is moved;
An angel's self might have been stirred to hear
My Lord the Bishop as he preached to-day."
Poor souls! if they could have but read my heart,
It would have seared even their inert gross flesh
Into a flame of fear. I recollect,

On my young sister Isa's wedding day,
Our mother smiled, and said it brought to her
Again the freshness of her buried youth.
Great God! see! here is my own youth, unspent,
Living a death. Alas! no more for me
The silvery laughter of fair mirthful girls,
Like distant bells across the breezy downs;
No more the soft hands' thrilling touch, that sends
The young hot life-blood rushing through the veins;
Never again that interchange of looks.
The key-note of two souls in unison.
"Out puling mourner," cries the moralist:
"Is it a crumpled rose-leaf in thy path
O'er which thou wailest?-what is youth and
love?-

Hast thou not in thee something more than these,
Thy soul, immortal, indestructible?"

The words are but too true; though 'tis no "leaf;"
"Tis the whole flower I mourn, and mourn alone.
A young rose, dewy, budding in the morn-
I weep its fragrance lost, its beauty gone.
Life without love is nought,-'tis even as
The body without soul-a fleshy case
To carry aches and pains in. Soon will come
The first white hair the harbinger of change,
To say, Time is, Time was, and Time is past.
Ay, past! for, love extinct, our life remains
(As 'twere a hearth where fire had blazed anon)
In ashes, and my youth is left to me
Like a pressed violet in a folded book;
A remnant of its fragrance breathing still,
To tell of spring-time past, ne'er to return.

Last May I roved with her into the woods:
The winter season o'er, the tender buds
Were shooting on the ash; the scent of Spring
Was round us, over us, and in our hearts;
The firmament a tender turquoise blue;
The cushat-dove was cooing in the grove;
All nature seemed as wooing, where we strayed
Along the sylvan glade. We passed the cairn,
The old gray lichen-covered, mossy stones,
Where conies sport and graze, and at the foot
Of a tall chestnut-tree, upon a couch
Bedecked with primroses and branching ferns

(I at her feet), we sate. Anon there came
Athwart the thick and leafy canopy
Above us spread (now rich with vernal bloom),
A golden sunbeam, whose bright quivering ray,
Touching her brow with living amber glow,
And glancing on her deep, dark, liquid eyes,
Well-springs of truth and maiden purity—
Who calls?"Good brother you are new as yet;
"Tis time for matins. All the brotherhood
Are now assembled, and the Prior waits:
Will't please you come?"
-Macmillan's Magazine.

THOS. HERBERT LEWIN.

BRIEF LITERARY NOTICES.

Dalziel's Illustrated Arabian Nights Entertainments. The text revised and emendated throughout, by H. W. DULCKEN, Ph. D. One hundred illustrations, by J. E. MILLAIS, R. A., A. B. Houghton, Thomas Dalziel, J. D. Watson, John Tenniel, G. J. Pinwell. Engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. London: Ward and Lock.

The Arabian Nights is one of the few books which supply a boundless field of collateral yet wholly independent study by the side of the mere amusement they afford. Read as a string of idle fictions, they still remain a perennial kaleidoscope and literary wonder of elementary human emotion. As in the kaleidoscope we see elementary colors thrown, as it were, at random together, not satisfying art, but producing astonishment, so in the Arabian Nights all the elementary emotions and colors of human nature follow one another in an apparently childlike cycle of innocence, credulity, and bewonderment, yet so as to baffle old and practised eyes in any attempt to unravel the secret of the juxtaposition and obtain the key to their sequence. As the wheel revolves, and fiction follows fiction, color color, we see dove-like gentleness and astounding cruelty, romantic courage and brazen craft, apparently unconscious folly and apparently unconscious wisdom, follow one another with the same arbitrary ease, the same rotatory gravity, the same absence of the slightest clue to the moving hand guiding the colors in their course, and but for the entertainment invariably afforded to the spectator, we had almost said, the same monotony of wonderful effect.

If we endeavor to overcome the dazing influence of the tales themselves, to look with a critical eye upon the sequence of the ideas, if we try to reäscend by analysis and imagination to the springs of authorship, and to reconstruct the society out of which the stories grew, we pass abruptly into another world of thoughts, and tumble at the entrance into a sea of speculation. It seems no solution of the problem to suppose that the stories were in the origin designedly composed to amuse children. If the Boy's Own Book under the same name were the only relic of our civilization three thousand years hence, the doubt whether it was written for children or not would only complicate, not simplify the problem of the reconstruction out of that book of the civilization which gave birth to it. Any floating knowledge Englishmen have of contemporary Asiatic life does not seem to throw much light upon the reconstruction of the society out of which the