his
taste, his acquirements, or his aims, I then begin to doubt, if I have
not before doubted, his ability to write a sentence worth reading, to
make a picture worth looking at, or a song worth hearing.

RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

SPRING.

Spring gives the order, "Forward, march!"
'Tis borne along the eager line;
Breathes through the boughs of rustling larch,
And murmurs in the pine.

"March!" At the sound, impatient, springs
The mountain rill, with rippling glee,
And rolling through the valley, brings
Its tribute to the sea.

"March!" and upon each sunny hill
Old winter's allies, ice and snow,
Start at the music of the rill,
And join its onward flow.

"March!" Down among the fibrous roots
Of oaks we hear the summons ring.
The long-chilled life-blood upward shoots
To hail the coming spring.

"March!" and along each narrow neck,
Across the plain, and up the steep,
The spring tide clears the winter's wreck
With its resistless sweep.

Advancing in unbroken lines,
New allies rush to join its bands,
Till winter, in despair, resigns
The sceptre to its hands.

On southern slopes, in quiet glades,
And where the brooklets murmuring run,
The grass unsheathes its tiny blades
To temper in the sun.

Flora unfurls her banner bright
Above the field of flashing green,
And crocus blooms in lines of light
Throw back the sunlight's sheen.

The birds on every budding tree
Take up anew the old refrain:
The spring has come: rejoice all ye
Who breathe its air again.

H. R. H.

DRIFT-WOOD.

THE TRAVELLERS.

May brings the travelling season. Thanks to steam and Cook, we can all
find time for a trip to Florida or Labrador, if not to Lapland and
Thibet. Travel is a pastime of both sexes, all ages, all sorts and
conditions of men. Lord Bateman was a noble lord, a noble lord he was
of high degree; and, adds the ballad, "he determined to go abroad,
strange countries for to see." Cheek by jowl with Lord Bateman, in the
railroad car, is Samuel Shears, Esq., his lordship's tailor, on the
same errand.

"Pa, I think we ought to go to Paris," says matronly Mrs. Brood.

"Why do you think that, my dear?" asks paterfamilias.

"Because I do," rejoins the lady, wheeling in a circle of small radius.
Impressed by that logic, Brood has his