dream, outwatching the Bear with thrice-great Hermes, surrounded by strange old arms and instruments, and maps of voyages, and plans of battles, and the abstruse library which the “Harleian Miscellany” still records;—­leave him to hunt and play at tennis, serve in the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Board of Trade;—­leave him to experiment in alchemy and astrology, in hydraulics, metallurgy, gunpowder, perspective, quadrants, mezzotint, fish-hooks, and revolvers;—­leave him to look from his solitary turret over hills and fields, now peaceful, but each the scene of some wild and warlike memory for him;—­leave him to die a calm and honored death at sixty-three, outliving every companion of his early days.  The busy world, which has no time to remember many, forgets him and remembers only the slain and defeated Hampden.  The brilliant renown of the Prince was like the glass toys which record his ingenuity and preserve his name; the hammer and the anvil can scarcely mar them, yet a slight pressure of the finger, in the fatal spot, will burst them into glittering showers of dust.  The full force of those iron times beat ineffectual upon Rupert;—­Death touched him, and that shining fame sparkled and was shattered forever.

* * * * *

SPRING.

  Ah! my beautiful violets,
     Stirring under the sod,
  Feeling, in all your being,
     The breath of the spirit of God
  Thrilling your delicate pulses,
     Warming your life-blood anew,—­
  Struggle up into the Spring-light;
     I’m watching and waiting for you.

  Stretch up your white arms towards me,
     Climb and never despair;
  Come! the blue sky is above you,
     Sunlight and soft warm air. 
  Shake off the sleep from your eyelids,
     Work in the darkness awhile,
  Trust in the light that’s above you,
     Win your way up to its smile.

  Ah! do you know how the May-flowers,
     Down on the shore of the lake. 
  Are whispering, one to another,
     All in the silence, “Awake!”
  Blushing from under the pine-leaves,
     Soon they will greet me anew,—­
  But still, oh, my beautiful violets,
     I’ll be watching and longing for you.

THE STEREOSCOPE AND THE STEREOGRAPH.

Democritus of Abdera, commonly known as the Laughing Philosopher, probably because he did not consider the study of truth inconsistent with a cheerful countenance, believed and taught that all bodies were continually throwing off certain images like themselves, which subtile emanations, striking on our bodily organs, gave rise to our sensations.  Epicurus borrowed the idea from him, and incorporated it into the famous system, of which Lucretius has given us the most popular version.  Those who are curious on the matter will find the poet’s description at the beginning of his fourth book.  Forms, effigies, membranes, or films, are the nearest representatives of the terms applied to these effluences.  They are perpetually shed from the surfaces of solids, as bark is shed by trees. Cortex is, indeed, one of the names applied to them by Lucretius.