W SLEEP THE BRAVE

_By_ WILLIAM COLLINS

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blessed!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

QUEEN VICTORIA

_By_ ANNA MCCALEB

George III, King of England, was by no means fortunate in his sons, for
there was in the most of them little of which a father could be proud.
Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son, was by far the best; he was
honorable, generous and charitable, so much so in fact that he lived far
beyond the small income which his royal father was willing to allow him.
This son married, and to him was born on the twenty-fourth of May, 1819,
in the Palace of Kensington at London, a daughter.

One month after her birth the child was baptized with great ceremony, a
gold font being brought from the Tower for the purpose, and the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London officiating. The
Prince of Wales, at that time acting as Prince Regent in the place of
his father, who was insane, was the chief sponsor for the child, and he
gave her the name of Alexandrina in honor of Alexander, Emperor of
Russia. The Duke of Kent wished her to bear her mother's name also, and
George IV added the name Victoria. "Little Drina," the child was usually
called when she was small, but when she grew older she decided that her
mother's name should stand second to no other, and desired that she be
called simply Victoria. There were uncles and cousins and her own father
between the little princess and the throne, and it did not look as if
her chances of becoming queen were very great, so that people used to
laugh indulgently when the Duke of Kent would produce his baby and say
proudly, "Look at her well; she will yet be Queen of England."

Victoria's father died when she was but eight months old, but the child
knew no lack, for her mother superintended her training and her teaching
in a very wise manner, for she thought that it was possible, if not
probable, that her child would one day have the chief place in the
kingdom, and she wanted to fit her for it. Very simply was the little