Let the minstrel's inspiration give His eulogium to the future years. Shall deserve a greater fame than he. Hast thou heard, in Rome's declining day, Which the Coliseum once beheld? As, with shields advanced, the athletes stood. Was there no one in that eager throng To denounce the spectacle of blood? Ay, Telemachus, with swelling frame, Saw the inhuman sport renewed once more. Few among the crowd could tell his name, For a cross was all the badge he wore. Yet, with heart elate and god-like mien Stepped he forth upon the circling sand, And, while all were wond'ring at the scene, Checked the encounter with a daring hand. "Romans," cried he, "let this reeking sod Never more with human blood be stained, Let no image of the living God In unhallowed combat be profaned! Ah! too long has this colossal dome Failed to sink, and hide your brutal shows; Here, I call upon assembled Rome, Now to swear they shall for ever close!" Parted thus, the combatants, with joy, Mid the tumult found the means to fly. In the arena stood the undaunted boy, And, with looks adoring, gazed on high. Pealed the shout of wrath on every side, Every hand was eager to assail. "Slay him! Slay!" a hundred voices cried, Sees he angels, with their eyes of love, Launched against him flew the stones like rain. But he stood and perished—not in vain: Then and there he crushed a bloody creed, Future heroes to as great a deed. Who would question and precede the time. THE FROWARD DUSTER.-R. J. BURDETTE. Ever since my uncle in California left me three hundred thousand dollars, I always wear a linen duster when I travel. I feel as though I could afford it, and society rather demands it of me. Well, the other day I climbed into a train and waited for it to start. By and by I reached into the capacious pockets of that duster, and, in an idle, vagrant kind of a moment, drew forth a Police Gazette, radiant with the usual astonishing display of all kinds of stockings, in all manner of attitudes. Now, I never buy and I never read that journal, and I was amazed to find it in my pocket. I went down again and brought up a couple of beer tickets. Then I raked again, and found a piece of billiard chalk, several grains of coffee, and a bit of lemon peel. It seemed to me that my ordinarily well-behaved and exemplary duster had evidently been out with the boys last night, instead of reposing in the quiet of the coat-room. Curious to know just how far this iniquity went, I reached into another pocket, and found a corkscrew, three dice-reveling in the luxurious affluence of three aces apiece-and a poker deck, containing four kings of spades. I was ashamed of that duster. Not only had it been out with the boys, but it had fallen among thieves, and was itself the meanest thief of tae lot, and unworthy to be called one of the boys. I was almost afraid to examine the last pocket; but I finally sent down the grapple, and up it came with a whisky flask, very empty, but very odorous. I began to wish the train would start, so that I might watch my opportunity and throw that duster, with all its manifold iniquities on its wicked head, into the river. I stealthily felt under the bottle, finding a pair of brass knuckles. That settled it. My duster was irrevocably bad. I would wear it as far as the first river or the first tunnel, and I would never wear it further. Would the train never start? Just then a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I started and looked up expecting to see a policeman. If I had been arrested on any charge-theft, burglary, murder, sheep-stealing, treason, anything-I should have given right in and gone along. I hadn't enough confidence in myself to deny anything. But when I looked up I saw a kind, tender face, and I heard the pleasant voice of a Methodist clergyman. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but I fear you and I have exchanged dusters. I only noticed the change this moment, when I found some letters and lecture-tickets bearing your name in the pockets. The mistake was my own, I have no doubt. I am so very careless, and our dusters are so nearly alike." I was so shocked that I didn't know what to say nor where to look, but I had just enough sense to say yes,—that it was my duster he held in his hands, that I couldn't find my own in the coat-room and took the only one there was left. And then I gave to this good, innocent man the villainous, old, sin-dyed Philistine that had been corrupting my morals all the morning. And then, to sit there and never to look around, but just to listen to that man's exclamations of amazement and horror. First he found the billiard chalk. He didn't know what that was, so he only said "H'm!" Then he found the coffee grains-but he didn't exactly understand them and just said, "Ha!" Then he fished out the corkscrew, and he seemed to comprehend that in a general way, for he said, "What!" in a staccato of astonishment that elicited an encore from the entire audience. The poor man's "Merciful Heavens!" that greeted the appearance of the whisky flask was drowned in a perfect torrent of applause and wild cries of "Go on!" and "More!" And then when he pulled out the Police Gazette and the brass knuckles, he fell back into his seat with an inaudible gasp of horror, and the whole carful of people just rose as one man, and yelled and howled and tramped on their hats, and wanted to get out and tear out the bottom of the car and throw it into the Shenango River to express their feelings. I never saw so great enthusiasm over such a little thing. And the fainting clergyman came to me, holding the disreputable, character-destroying old gallows-bird of a duster in his trembling hands. "Sir," he said, with patient rebuke and pitiful appeal mingling in his tremulous utterance, "Sir But I steeled my heart against him, because I was as innocent as himself, and it was the pulpit and the rostrum for it. "Go 'way," I said, "don't bring it around here! Don't you point that thing at me! "Tain't mine! You claimed it yourself! Don't dare to charge me with it! Throw it under the car! Burn it up! I won't have it! Don't you dare But the clergyman held it out toward me, and raised his right hand appealingly to heaven. Just before the tableau began to tell with the jury, however, the porter came panting down to the train. He had an innocentlooking duster in his hands, with a package of Sundayschool papers bulging in one pocket, and a Moody hymnbook flattening in the other. "Gent'men," he said, "de bar-keeper sent me down, and he say as how somebody has don' run away wid his duster; and he want it sent back, or he make it pow'ful lively for de man what took it ef he hav to come after it hisself." That settled it. The clergyman took his own ulster, and gave up the robe of unrighteousness to the ambassador. The man on the wood-box made a generally consolatory remark about the false and fatal strength of circumstantial evidence. The band played "Benny come back to the farm," and the train pulled out. KEENAN'S CHARGE.-GEO. P. LATHROP. (CHANCELLORSVILLE, MAY, 1863.) The sun had set; The leaves with dew were wet; Down fell a bloody dusk On the woods, that second of May, Where Stonewall's corps, like a beast of prey, "They've trapped us, boys!"— No one staid-but the dead! With curses, shrieks, and cries, Horses and wagons and men Tumbled back through the shuddering glen, And above us the fading skies. There's one hope, still,— Those batteries parked on the bill! "Battery, wheel!" (mid the roar) "Pass pieces; fix prolonge to fire Retiring. Trot!" In the panic dire A bugle rings "Trot "-and no more. The horses plunged, The cannon lurched and lunged, But suddenly rode a form |