’Excellencies, the last hole A-mer-i-cain.  ’Tis the stoo-pen-doss Signora-pippi rivaire in all its mag-gnif-fi-cent booty.  What is that cockatoo doing there?  He is taking a fly. You do not see the fly?  I mean a flight. What is that bust to flin-ders?  That is a stim-boat was carryin’ on too much stim, and the stim, which is made of coal, goes, off like gun-pow-dair if you put lights onto it.  This is a fir-ful and awe-fool sight.  The other stim-boat is not bustin’, it is sailin’.  What is that man behind the whil-house with the cards while another signer kicks into him on his coat-tails, I do not know.  It is steel the sportifs of the artiste.’

’Excel-len-cies, the last hole.  ’Tis the be-yu-ti-fool bustin’—­no, not bustin’, but ex-plo-sion of Vee-soov-yus.  You can see the sublime sight, un-terrupt-ted be me ex-play-nations.  I thank you for your attentions 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.