Summer time, school exhibitions;
Fairs and pleasure trips in autumn,
Rare festivities in winter.
And sometimes there were dissensions,
In this era of my story.
One disastrous feud was raging,
In the year of eighteen fifty,
And continued with great venom,
Through two years or more of bloodshed.
Yet the spirit of improvement
Tarried not for man's caprices.
Duties, taxes, trade, and commerce,
Public gala days and triumphs,
Dances, weddings, and storm-parties,
Floral festivals and music,
Or the promenading concert,
Lent a pleasing variation.
Or a serenade by moonlight,
Or a picnic, or band-meeting,
(It was Landram's skillful "Saxhorn,")
Or the famed association,
Called the Literary Circle,
Where was wit, and sense, and humor,
Where were readers and were critics,
Where were essays and selections,
In the style of choice belles-lettres.
And the weekly local paper,
In the year of fifty-seven.
Tells the story of the changes,
Tells the story of the pleasures,
Notes the firmer grasp of fashion,
Notes the new, intruding customs.
'Tis the "Sentinel" presiding
O'er the city's daily doings,
The "American Sentinel" watching
All the curious innovations.
And the interesting columns
Show contributors in numbers,--
Many writers of the city
Furnished items and productions.
Roscius, Citizen, and Alma,
Ida, Claude, and Regulator,
Many signatures unnoted,
Many noms de plume forgotten,
Filled the sheet with spicy reading,
With discussion, fact, and fancy,
Prose and poetry and fiction,
Rhyme and riddle and acrostic,
All the sorrows and the blessings,
All misfortunes and successes,
All the city's daily doings.

And the moons were waxing, waning,
As the cycle brought its changes.

[4]George W. Dunlap, Jr., purchased this Institute in 1874, and
established a graded school for young ladies.

CANTO X.
1861-1865.
CIVIL WAR.

Eighteen hundred one and sixty,
Rolls its direful weight upon us;
Now the horoscope of nations,
Opens wide its omens to us.
In the mystic stars of fortune,
Of the western constellation,
Of the grand, united countries,
On the continent of freedom,
The astrologer now gazes
On a weird and crimson shadow.
Stars of fixed and cruel brightness,
Stars of fitful gleam and