"What! is it lawful, then," the dolt inquired,
"To kill the flies in this here town?"
"The man's an ass!-a pretty question this!
Lawful? you booby! to be sure it is.

You've my authority, where'er you meet them,
To kill the rogues, and, if you like it, eat them."
"Zooks!" cried the rustic, "I'm right glad to hear it.
Constable, catch that thief! may I go hang

If yonder blue-bottle (I know his face)
Isn't the very leader of the gang

That stole the cream ;-let me come near it."

This said, he started from his place,

And aiming one of his sledge-hammer blows
At a large fly upon the judge's nose,
The luckless blue-bottle he crush'd,
And gratified a double grudge;

For the same catapult completely smash'd
The bottle-nose belonging to the judge.

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.

H. W. LONGFEllow.

It was the schooner Hesperus

That sailed the wintry sea;

And the skipper had taken his little daughter

To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,

And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,

That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm,

His pipe was in his mouth,

And he watched how the veering flaw did blow,

The smoke now west, now south.

Then up and spake an old sailor-
Had sailed the Spanish Main-
"I pray thee put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the north-east;
The snow fell hissing in the brine,

And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain

The vessel in its strength;

She shuddered and paused like a frightened steed, Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither-come hither, my little daughter, And do not tremble so;

For I can weather the roughest gale

That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her in his seaman's coat,
Against the stinging blast;

He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

Oh! father! I hear the church-bells ring-
Oh! say, what may it be ?"

""Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"
And he steered for the open sea.

"Oh! father! I hear the sound of guns; Oh! say, what may it be?"

"Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

"Oh! father! I see a gleaming light;

Oh! say,

what may it be?"

But the father answered never a word-
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,

The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands, and prayed That saved she might be;

And she thought of Christ who stilled the wave On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surr
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck;

And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool;

But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank-
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the black sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,

To see the form of a maiden fair
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;

And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow;
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

THE CONFEDERATE SPY.

J. T. TROWBridge.

[There can be little doubt that one of the results of the termination of the late civil war in America will be the cropping up of a vast amount of desultory literature appertaining thereto. Happy it will be for the peace and goodwill of the re-United States if the same conciliatory spirit pervades it that characterizes the counsels of the wise President who now rules the destinies of the great Republic. This course would not only be generous but just, for one side must for many a long day remain silent on the subject. Only when the time arrives when the stirring events of the last four years can be calmly discussed as history, may thoughtful minds venture to give free expression to their causes and effects, and to descant on that inner life of the nation whose throes found vent in a widely-spread, though unsuccessful, revolution. Of its detail, contemporary history, the press, may furnish abundant material; but time-distance will be necessary to enable the future student of American history to reflect calmly on its results, which may or may not, but which, we trust, will be, conducive to the happiness of a nation with which English thought, feeling, and interests must ever be indissolubly mingled.

One of the earliest instalments of the literature we have indicated has reached us in the shape of a novel entitled "The Three Scouts," by Mr. J. T. Trowbridge. It is spiritedly and dashingly

written, but, as might be expected, is thoroughly Union and antislavery in its tendencies. We extract a scene, in which it is shown how a Federal youth is taken prisoner, and how he obtains his release. The incident being complete in itself, well told, and very startling, will form a ten minutes' reading highly calculated to interest and rivet the attention of an audience.]

THE sun set upon the city; upon the white tents of the patriot camps encircling it, stretching for miles over the sombre hills like a chain of snow drifts, and upon the lonely sentinels of the distant outposts. Night came on. The soldiers in their canvas city slept; while far-away mothers, sisters, wives, in their comfortable homes, dreamed of the loved ones here.

Did Fred's mother sleep that night? Did she dream of her darling boy resting upon the hard ground with those of the guard who rested, or watching with those who watched? Did she see him start from deep sleep late in the night, and, leaping up with his comrades, answer to his low-spoken name?

The fires

They are going to relieve the sentinels. are out, and in silence and darkness they proceed along the shadowy side of the ridge. They mount towards its crest, in the direction of some dwarfish trees faintly defined against the dim sky. Suddenly a voice behind challenges.

"Halt!" The party halts.

"Who goes there?

"Relief," is the low response.

"Advance, sergeant, with the countersign."

The sergeant advances, and whispers the magic word in the ear of the challenger. The latter in turn whispers it in the ear of the soldier who relieves him. The new sentinels take their places; the old ones fall into the rear of the relieving party, as it marches on. Then all is silence again on the dark crest of the ridge.

Fred is stationed near some low cedar-trees that screen the pickets there from the enemy's observation. He is not alone: he has old Joel for a companion.