ttentions
auri-cu-lar and pe-coo-niar-ry. _Adio_, until I have the play-shure of
seein' you oncet more.'

'I tell you what, Rocjean,' said Caper, as he came out from the
panorama, 'America has but a POOR SHOW in the Papal dominions.'

* * * * *

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY.

Grand with all that the young earth had of vigorous and queenly to adorn
her, rich with the spoils of victories not all bought with battle-axe
and sword, stately with a pride that had won its just and inalienable
majesty from elastic centuries of progress and culture, History, the
muse to whom fewest songs were sung, yet whose march was music's
sublimest voice, trembled upon the brink of the Dark Ages, and leaped,
in her armor, into the abyss of ignorance before her. A poetry the
purest, an art the noblest, a religion deeply symbolical, a freedom bold
and magnificent, had given to the world-histories of those early days a
melody varied and faultless, a form flowing yet well-defined, an
earnestness that was sacred, a truth that was divine. A philosophy rich
and largely suggestive had made the great men of Greece and Rome alert,
vigilant, penetrating, before luxury and oppression had dragged them
down to ruin and ignorance; and at last Ambition, splendid but
destructive, becoming the world's artist, blended the midnight tints of
decline and suffering with the carnation of triumph and liberty, and
cast over the pictures of History the Rembrandt-like shadows, heavy and
wavering, that add a fearful intensity to their charms.

To these eras, once splendid and promising, succeeded a night, long,
hopeless, disastrous. Its hours were counted by contentions, its
darkness was deepened by crime. The sun had set upon a mighty empire,
regnant upon her seven hills, glorious with conquest, drunken with
power: when the day dawned upon the thousandth year of the Christian
era, its crumbled arches and moss-grown walls alone testified to the
truth of History that had survived the universal destruction.

And now came the age of knight and paladin, of crusades and talismans.
The rough, vigorous life that had been developing at the North,
exuberant with a strength not yet so mature that it could be employed in
the wise and practical pursuits of civilized life, burst forth into an
enthusiasm half military, half religious, that pervaded all ranks, but
was 'mightiest in the mighty.' The Saxons, fair-haired, with wild blue
eyes, whence looked a