The captain jested a moment, then
  He waved his hand and bowed to his men
      With a single word, “Disbanded,”
  And galloped away with three or four
  Stout men-at-arms to the nearest shore,
  Where a gallant array not long before
      With the king in pride had landed.

  He coasted around, went up the Rhine,
  So famous then for robbers and wine,
      So famous now as a ramble. 
  The wine and the robbers still are there;
      But they rob you now with a bill of fare,
  And gentlemen bankers “on the square”
      Will clean you out, if you gamble.

  He built him a Schloss on—­something-Stein,
  And became the first of as proud a line
      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.