“When to his airy hall my father’s voice
  Shall call my spirit, happy in the choice,
  When poised upon the gale my form shall ride,
  Or dark in mist descend the mountain-side,
  Oh, may my shade behold no sculptured urns
  To mark the spot where dust to dust returns,
  No lengthened scroll, no praise-encumbered stone! 
  My epitaph shall be my name alone. 
  If that with honor fail to crown my clay,
  Oh, may no other fame my deeds repay! 
  That, only that, shall single out the spot
  By that remembered, or by that forgot.”

The inscription upon the tablet, after his name and title, designates him as the Author of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” who died while aiding the cause of Liberty in Greece:  thus striking the noblest notes in a powerful, eccentric, blotted score, as the fundamental chord of Byron’s requiem.

* * * * *

THE LAST CHARGE.

  Now, men of the North! will you join in the strife
  For country, for freedom, for honor, for life? 
  The giant grows blind in his fury and spite,—­
  One blow on his forehead will settle the fight!

  Flash full in his eyes the blue lightning of steel,
  And stun him with cannon-bolts, peal upon peal! 
  Mount, troopers, and follow your game to its lair,
  As the hound tracks the wolf and the beagle the hare!

  Blow, trumpets, your summons, till sluggards awake! 
  Beat, drums, till the roofs of the faint-hearted shake! 
  Yet, yet, ere the signet is stamped on the scroll,
  Their names may be traced on the blood-sprinkled roll!

  Trust not the false herald that painted your shield: 
  True honor to-day must be sought on the field! 
  Her scutcheon shows white with a blazon of red,—­
  The life-drops of crimson for liberty shed!

  The hour is at hand, and the moment draws nigh! 
  The dog-star of treason grows dim in the sky! 
  Shine forth from the battle-cloud, light of the morn,
  Call back the bright hour when the Nation was born!

  The rivers of peace through our valleys shall run,
  As the glaciers of tyranny melt in the sun;
  Smite, smite the proud parricide down from his throne,—­
  His sceptre once broken, the world is our own!

* * * * *

NORTHERN INVASIONS.

Northern Invasions, when successful, advance the civilization of the world.

It would not be difficult to present from all history a mass of illustrations of this thesis wellnigh sufficient in themselves to establish it.  And there is no doubt that the principles of human nature, which appear in those illustrations, can be set in such order as to prove the thesis beyond a question.  The softness of Southern climates produces, in the long run, gentleness, effeminacy, and indolence, or passionate rather than persevering effort.  It produces, again, the palliatives