3. The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow, across the road.

4. She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin-cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge: "" a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."

5. He spoke of the grass, and flowers, and trees,
Of the singing-birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,

And her graceful ankles, bare and brown,
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

6. Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be !
He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
My father should wear a broadcloth coat,
My brother should sail a painted boat.
I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,

And the baby should have a new toy each day.
And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."

7. The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still:
"A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.
Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:

No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words."

8. But he thought of his sister, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

9. He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
10. Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead ;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms;
And the proud man sighed with a secret pain,-
"Ah, that I were free again!

Free as when I rode that day

Where the barefoot maiden raked the hay."

11. She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and scrrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer's sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And heard the little spring-brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,
And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
12. Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls :
The weary wheel to a spinet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty, and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been."

13. Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge !
God pity them both! and pity us all,

Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN!"

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies

Deeply buried from human eyes;

And in the hereafter, angels may

Roll the stone from its grave away.

CXXIV.-ON RECOGNIZING THE INDEPENDENCE OF

GREECE, 1824.

CLAY.

1. ARE we so low, so base, so despicable, that we may not express our horror, articulate our detestation, of the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth, or shocked high Heaven, with the ferocious deeds of a brutal soldiery, set on by the clergy and followers of a fanatical and inimical religion, rioting in excess of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens? If the great mass of Christendom can look coolly and calmly on, while all this is perpetrated on a Christian People, in their own vicinity, in their very presence, let us, at least, show that, in this distant extremity, there is still some sensibility and sympathy for Christian wrongs and sufferings; that there are still feelings which can kindle into indignation at the oppression of a People endeared to us by every ancient recollection, and every modern tie. But, Sir, it is not first and chiefly for Greece that I wish to see this measure adopted.

2. It will give them but little aid, that aid purely of a moral kind. It is, indeed, soothing and solacing, in distress, to hear the accents of a friendly voice. We know

this as a People. But, Sir, it is principally and mainly for America herself, for the credit and character of our common country, that I hope to see this resolution pass it is for our own unsullied name that I feel. What appearance, Sir, on the page of history, would a record like this make: "In the month of January, in the year of our Lord and Saviour 1824, while all European Christendom beheld with cold, unfeeling apathy the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the Congress of the United States,—almost the sole, the last, the greatest repository of human hope and of human freedom, the representatives of a Nation capable of bringing into the field a million of bayonets,-while the freemen of that Nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, its fervent prayer for Grecian success : while the whole Continent was rising, by one simultaneous motion, solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking the aid of Heaven to spare Greece, and to invigorate her arms while temples and senate-houses were all resounding with one burst of generous sympathy;-in the year of our Lord and Saviour,-that Saviour alike of Christian Greece and of us,—a proposition was offered in the American Congress, to send a messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with an expression of our good wishes and our sympathies ;-and it was rejected!"

3. Go home, if you dare,-go home, if you can,—to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down! Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments: that, you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, affrighted you: that the spectres of cimeters, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you, and alarmed you; and, that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by National Independence, and by humanity! I cannot bring myself to believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of this House.

CXXV.-MEN ALWAYS FIT FOR FREEDOM.

T. B. MACAULAY.

1. THERE is only one cure for the evils which newlyacquired freedom produces,-and that cure is freedom! When a prisoner leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day he is unable to discriminate colors, or recognize faces; but the remedy is not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder Nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage; but let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it.

2. In a few years men learn to reason: the extreme violence of opinion subsides: hostile theories correct each other: the scattered elements of truth cease to conflict, and begin to coalesce; and, at length, a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a selfevident proposition, that no People ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim! If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may, indeed, wait forever!

CXXVI.-RAIN ON THE ROOF.

COATES KINNEY.

1. WHEN the humid showers gather over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness gently weeps in rainy tears,
'Tis a joy to press the pillow of a cottage chamber bed,
And listen to the patter of the soft rain overhead.

2. Every tinkle on the shingles has an echo in the heart,
And a thousand dreary fancies into busy being start;
And a thousand recollections weave their bright hues into woof,
As I listen to the patter of the soft rain on the roof.

3. There in fancy comes my mother, as she used to years agone,
To survey the infant sleepers ere she left them till the dawn.