rators stretch and exercise their inactive muscles. They
lie for hours to have their feet twigged, their arms flexed, and all the
different muscles of the body worked for them, because they are so
flaccid and torpid that the powers of life do not go on. Would it not be
quite as cheerful and less expensive a process, if young girls from
early life developed the muscles in sweeping, dusting, ironing, rubbing
furniture, and all the multiplied domestic processes which our
grandmothers knew of? A woman who did all these, and diversified the
intervals with spinning on the great and little wheel, never came to
need the gymnastics of Dio Lewis or of the Swedish motorpathist, which
really are a necessity now. Does it not seem poor economy to pay
servants for letting our muscles grow feeble, and then to pay operators
to exercise them for us? I will venture to say that our grandmothers in
a week went over every movement that any gymnast has invented, and went
over them to some productive purpose too.

Lastly, my paper will not have been in vain, if those ladies who have
learned and practise the invaluable accomplishment of doing their own
work will know their own happiness and dignity, and properly value their
great acquisition, even though it may have been forced upon them by
circumstances.

SHAKSPEARE.

APRIL 23, 1864.

"Who claims our Shakspeare from that realm unknown,
Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep,
Where Genoa's deckless caravels were blown?
Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep;
Shall warring aliens share her holy task?"
The Old-World echoes ask.

O land of Shakspeare! ours with all thy past,
Till these last years that make the sea so wide,
Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast
Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride
In every noble word thy sons bequeathed
The air our fathers breathed!

War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife,
We turn to other days and far-off lands,
Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life,
Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands
To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,--
Not his the need, but ours!

We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,--
Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark,
While others only note that day is gone;
For him the Lord of light the cur