As e'er took toll on the river,
When barons, perched in their castles high,
On the valley would keep a watchful eye,
And pounce on travellers with their cry,
"The Rhine-dues! down! deliver!"

And crack their crowns for any delay
In paying down. And that, by the way,
About as correctly as I know,
Is the origin true of an ancient phrase
So frequently heard in modern days,
When a gentleman quite reluctantly pays,--
I mean, "To come down with the rhino."

A LEGEND OF MARYLAND

"AN OWRE TRUE TALE."

The framework of modern history is, for the most part, constructed
out of the material supplied by national transactions described in
official documents and contemporaneous records. Forms of government
and their organic changes, the succession of those who have
administered them, their legislation, wars, treaties, and the
statistics demonstrating their growth or decline,--these are the
elements that furnish the outlines of history. They are the dry
timbers of a vast old edifice; they impose a dry study upon the
antiquary, and are still more dry to his reader.

But that which makes history the richest of philosophies and the most
genial pursuit of humanity is the spirit that is breathed into it by
the thoughts and feelings of former generations, interpreted in
actions and incidents that disclose the passions, motives, and
ambition of men, and open to us a view of the actual life of our
forefathers. When we can contemplate the people of a past age
employed in their own occupations, observe their habits and manners,
comprehend their policy and their methods of pursuing it, our
imagination is quick to clothe them with the flesh and blood of human
brotherhood and to bring them into full sympathy with our individual
nature.

History then becomes a world of living figures,--a theatre that
presents to us a majestic drama, varied by alternate scenes of the
grandest achievements and the most touching episodes of human
existence.

In the composing of this drama the author has need to seek his
material in many a tangled thicket as well as in many an open field.
Facts accidentally encountered, which singly have but little
perceptible significance, are sometimes strangely discovered to
illustrate incidents long obscured and incapable of explanation. They
are like the lost links of a chain, which, being found, supply the
means of giving cohesion and completeness to the heretofore us