“No, not very," said Fred, puzzled and astonished.

He tried to remember where he had heard that voice. His guard was clad in the ordinary dress of a citizen, and he wore no sword.

“I must tighten this girth a little, if my horse is to carry double,” he said loud enough for the captain's ear, and halted.

He seemed about to dismount. He of the pistols also drew rein, asking if he could be of any assistance.

“No,” said Daniels. “I reckon I'll let it go for the present.”. And he spurred on again, after endeavouring to tighten the girth without dismounting.

During the brief halt the distance between them and the main body had materially increased. Moreover, something else had happened of deep interest to Fred. The horseman, tugging at the strap to which the saddle was buckled, had turned his profile towards his prisoner. Glimpses of the silver east, brightening through the trees, shone upon it, lighting for an instant the russet beard, the calm, resolute face, the deep, quiet eyes, shadowed by the felt-hat. It was the same profile Fred had daguerreotyped upon his memory the evening before, when the suspected stranger turned from him, and walked over the hill into the fiery eye of the sunset.

“ Joel was right: the man is a spy! 'Twas he that guided the rebels ! He had examined our position, and knew just where to make the attack. But I may рау. him yet!” The blood rushed violently to Fred's brain, and these were the thoughts that rushed with it.

“Come, Daniels, we shall be left quite behind!' called the officer.

“I am with you," replied Daniels, spurring forward.

A desperate resolve flashed its light into the boy's soul. To be revenged upon this man, and at the same time to escape! Carefully he withdrew his right hand from the horseman's waist, carefully felt with it in his own pocket, and drew forth a knife. It was a stout knife, with a long, pointed blade. He opened it with

his teeth, behind the shoulder of the spy. Then, with the handle in his grasp and the blade in his sleeve, he softly returned his hand, now closed, to the horseman's waist, and awaited his chance.

"Perhaps the officer will ride on. Oh, to be one minute alone with this villain! I'll strike him with all my might in his neck, tumble him off, snatch the reins,

and away!"

Such were the boy's thoughts, not formed definitely in those words, but passing through his mind in electric flashes.

He saw the possibility of escape clearly enough, provided the officer would take himself out of the way. True, the rebel pickets were passed long ago; it was now broad day; they were in the enemy's country, travelling the open road; and, although it was a good horse they mounted (as he was pleased to observe), he could not hope to gallop back to camp without encountering danger. He seemed to think of everything in an instant of time. He even thought of the glory of such an exploit, and of the delight of writing to his inother about it, when all was over. His plan was firmly outlined in his mind, -to plunge into the woods, and there, abandoning his horse, if necessary, to hide in the thickets from his pursuers, elude the rebel scouts, and make his way back at last, somehow, to the Union lines.

Once more the spy's horse fell behind. with the pistols galloped on after his companions. “Let him pass that ridge !” thought Fred, thoroughly nerved for his purpose, “and then !” He examined the horseman's neck, and thought where he should strike.

' My boy, let me give you a word of advice,” said the spy, in a voice so calm and friendly that Fred felt compelled to wait and listen to him. Besides, the officer was not yet out of sight: nothing would be lost by a little delay.

• Well, sir," said Fred, in a tone he vainly en

The man

a

good Devonshire family, and supported himself by the profession of the law, not relying wholly on dramatic literature for a living. His first plays were produced in partnership with Webster, Decker, and Rowley—the first, entirely his own, "The Lover's Melancholy," in 1628, and the others, "Brother and Sister," “ The Broken Heart,

""'"Love's Sacrifice," “Perkin Warbeck," “Fancies, Chaste and Noble," and "The Lady's Trial," at intervals down to 1639, about which time he is supposed to have died suddenly. Charles Lamb ranked Ford with the first order of poets. Of the reading we have given below Miss Mitford wrote, 'Is there in English poetry anything finer ?'']

Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales
Which poets of an elder time have feign'd
To glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting Paradise.
To Thessaly I came, and living private,
Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early
This accident encounter'd me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.
A sound of music touch'd mine ears, or rather
Indeed entranced my soul; as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw
This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute
With strains of strange variety and harmony
Proclaiming, as it seem'd, so bold a challenge
To the clear cloristers of the woods, the birds,
That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
A nightingale,
Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes
The challenge; and for every several strain
The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang him down.
He could not run divisions with more art
Upon his quaking instrument than she,
The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to.

Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird,
Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, nor notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice.
To end the controversy, in a rapture
Upon his instrument he played so swiftly,
So many voluntaries, and so quick,
That there was curiosity and cunning,
Concord in discord, lines of differing method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.
The bird (ordain'd to be
Music's first martyr) strove to imitate
These several sounds; which when her warbling throat
Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute,
And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness
To see the conqueror upon her hearse
To weep a funeral elegy of tears.
He look'd upon the trophies of his art,
Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes; then sigh'd and cry'd
“ Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge
This cruelty upon the author of it.
Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,
Shall never more betray a harmless peace
To an untimely end :" and in that sorrow,
As he was pashing it against a tree,
I suddenly stept in.

THE POET AND THE ROSE.

John Gay, (John Gay, one of the most genial, gentle, and worthiest of our poets and dramatists, of whom Pope wrote:

“Of manners gentle, of affections mild;

In wit a man, simplicity a child," was born at Barnstaple, Devon, in 1688. He came of a good, but greatly reduced, family; and both parents dying when he

was but six years of age, he was apprenticed to a silk-mercer in London. Disliking the drudgery of a retail shop, he obtained the cancelling of his indentures, and devoted himself to literature. In 1708 he published a poem, in blank verse, called “Wine;": and in 1711 Rural Sports," a descriptive poem, which he dedicated to Pope, through life his admirer and friend. In Gay's time it was the fashion for the nobility to patronize men of letters, and he became domestic secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth. About this time he brought out a comedy, “The Wife of Bath,” which failed. In 1714 he published his "Shepherd's Week," a pastoral, and obtained the post of secretary to Lord Clarendon on his appointment of Envoy-extraordinary to Hanover; but Gay was totally unfitted for public employment, and held the situation for two months only. On his return, he produced several dramatic pieces, with but slight success; but in 1727 his “Beggars' Opera came out, ran for sixty-two successive nights, and not only became the rage at the time, but has remained ever since one of the most popular pieces ever produced on the British stage. Gay cleared 6931. 138. 6d. for his share in the theatre, besides the profits of publication, and soon amassed 3000l. by his writings. This be determined to keep "entire and sacred,” being at the same time received into the house of his early patrons the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. Here he amused himself by adding to his "Fables." "Had Gay written but his “Black-eyed Susan," that one song would have fixed his name in English literature. He died, suddenly, of fever, Dec. 4, 1732, aged 44, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.]

I HATE the man who builds his name
On ruins of another's fame;
Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown,
Imagine that they raise their own;
Thus scribblers, covetous of praise,
Think slander can transplant the bays.
Beauties and bards have equal pride,
With both all rivals are decried :
Who praises Lesbia's eyes and feature,
Must call her sister “awkward creature ;"
For the kind flattery's sure to charm,
When we some other nymph disarm.
As in the cool of early day,
A poet sought the sweets of May,
The garden's fragrant breath ascends,
And

every stalk with odour bends,