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tion, and what have I done for you? I have made you a woman of fashion, of fortune, of rank; in short, I have made you my wife.

LADY TEAZ. Well, then, and there is but one thing more you can make me to add to the obligation that is

SIR PET. My widow, I suppose?
LADY TEAZ. Hem! hem!

SIR PET. I thank you, madam! But don't flatter yourself; for, though your ill-conduct may disturb my peace of mind, it shall never break my heart, I promise you. However, I am equally obliged to you for the hint.

LADY TEAZ. Then why will you endeavor to make yourself so disagreeable to me and thwart me in every little elegant expense? SIR PET. Madam, I say, had you any of these little elegant expenses when you married me?

LADY TEAZ. Nay, Sir Peter; they are all people of rank and fortune, and remarkably tenacious of reputation.

SIR PET. Yes, they are tenacious of reputation with a vengeance, for they don't choose anybody should have a character but themselves. Such a crew! Ah! many a wretch has rid on a hurdle who has done less mischief than these utterers of forged tales, coiners of scandal and clippers of reputation.

LADY TEAZ. What! would you restrain the freedom of speech?

SIR PET. Ah! they have made you just as bad as any one of the society.

LADY TEAZ. Why, I believe I do bear a part with a tolerable grace.

SIR PET. Grace, indeed!

LADY TEAZ. But I vow I bear no malice against the people I abuse: when I say an ill-natured thing, 'tis out of pure humor;

LADY TEAZ. Sir Peter, would you have and I take it for granted they deal exactly me be out of the fashion? in the same manner with me. But, Sir Peter, you know you promised to come to Lady Sneerwell's too.

SIR PET. The fashion, indeed! What had you to do with the fashion before you married me?

LADY TEAZ. For my part, I should think you would like to have your wife thought a woman of taste.

SIR PET. Ay, there again! Taste! Zounds, madam! you had no taste when you married me.

LADY TEAZ. That's very true indeed, Sir Peter; and, after having married you, I should never pretend to taste again, I allow. But now, Sir Peter, since we have finished our daily jangle, I presume I may go to my engagement at Lady Sneerwell's? SIR PET. Ay, there's another precious circumstance: a charming set of acquaintance you have made there.

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THE SPORTSMAN'S STUDY.

OTHING rises to enthusiasm more rapidly than a love of sport, and the enthusiasm thus produced is of a transcendent and all-absorbing nature. The sportsman values the accessories as well as the art the chase, its atmosphere, its objects and means, its implements and instruments, dog, horse, gun, deer, fox, with everything which conduces to the adventure, the danger and the triumph of the course. And when circumstance or season or weather prevents the sport, the huntsman shuts himself in his house, surrounded by the "counterfeit presentment" of its principal elements, to recall the pleasures of the past and to excogitate new plans for "field and flood" in the near future.

Such are the thoughts which rise as we contemplate "The Sportsman's Study." If books are essential to a study, this seems a misnomer. Hounds in the pictures suggest

a foxchase, and setters on the wall and at his feet tell us of well-stocked preserves waiting for his Manton. Rods and reels, net and basket, recall old Izaak Walton. There are the fox's head and brush, to prove that he has been "in at the death;" and the racer, jockey-mounted, passing the stand, shows that our huntsman is a turfman also. In his hand is a book entitled The Sportsman, and so the literature of the study is in keeping with the other surroundings.

All this is not without a sense of sadness: it smacks of bygone days. In this age of crowding and expanding cities, of steam and electricity, he who would accomplish something more than to bear only the name of a sportsman, who would shoot deer and win brushes and gather real memories in his "study," must travel fast and far. Hawking is a lost art; the fox of to-day is not the Reineke Fuchs" of Auld Lang Syne; the deer are fast leaving their herding-grounds before our advancing civilization; and thus the sportsman's study is becoming more and more an ideal picture of a former reality.

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TRIBUTE TO WEBSTER.

THEY say he was ambitious. Yes, as

Ames said of Hamilton, "there is no doubt that he desired glory, and that, feeling his own force, he longed to deck his brow with the wreath of immortality." But I believe he would have yielded his arm, his frame to be burned, before he would have sought to grasp the highest prize of earth by any means, by any organization, by any tactics. by any speech, which in the least degree endangered the harmony of the system. They say, too, he loved New England.

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He did love New Hampshire, that old granite world-the crystal hills, gray and cloudtopped, the river whose murmur lulled his cradle, the old hearthstone, the grave of father and mother. He loved Massachusetts, which adopted and honored himthat sounding seashore, that charmed elmtree sea, that reclaimed farm, that choice herd, that smell of earth, that dear library, those dearer friends; but the "sphere of his

ican feeling, one more farewell address!" And then might he ascend unhindered to the bosom of his Father and his God.

RUFUS CHOATE.

NERO'S PERSECUTION OF THE
CHRISTIANS, A. D. 64.

FROM THE LATIN HISTORIAN CAIUS CORNELIUS
TACITUS.

duties was his true country." Dearly he NEITHER religious ceremonies nor the

loved you, for he was grateful for the open arms with which you welcomed the stranger and sent him onward and upward.

But when the crisis came and the winds were let loose, and that sea of March "wrought and was tempestuous," then you saw that he knew even you only as you were, American citizens; then you saw him rise to the true nature and stature of Amer

ican citizenship; then you read on his brow only what he thought of the whole republic; then you saw him fold the robes of his habitual patriotism around him and counsel for all for all.

So, then, he served you: "to be pleased with his service was your affair, not his." And now what would he do, what would he be, if he were here to-day? I do not presume to know. But what a loss we

have in him!

liberal donations of the prince could. efface from the minds of men the prevailing opinion that Rome was set on fire by his own. orders. The infamy of that horrible transaction still adhered to him. In order, if possible, to remove the imputation, he determined to transfer the guilt to others. For this purpose he punished with exquisite torture a race of men detested for their evil

practices by vulgar appellation commonly called Christians.

By

The name was derived from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius suffered under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judea. that event the sect of which he was the founder received a blow which for a time. checked the growth of a dangerous superstition; but it revived soon after, and spread with recruited vigor, not only in Judea, the soil that gave it birth, but even in the city of Rome, the common sink into which everything infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world.

I have read that in some hard battle, when the tide was running against him and his ranks were breaking, some one in the agony of a need of generalship exclaimed, “Oh for an hour of Dundee !" So say I, "Oh for an hour of Webster now! oh for one more roll of that thunder inimitable, one more peal of that clarion, one more grave and bold counsel of moderation, one more throb of Amer-not, indeed, on clear evidence of their

Nero proceeded with his usual artifice. He found a set of profligate and abandoned wretches who were induced to confess themselves guilty, and on the evidence of such men a number of Christians were convicted

having set the city on fire, but rather on account of their sullen hatred of the whole human race. They were put to death with exquisite cruelty, and to their sufferings Nero added mockery and derision. Some were covered with the skins of wild beasts and left to be devoured by dogs, others were nailed to the cross, numbers were burnt alive, and many, covered over with inflammable matter, were lighted up when the day declined, to serve as torches during the night.

For the convenience of seeing this tragic spectacle, the emperor lent his own gardens. He added the sports of the circus and assisted in person, sometimes driving a curricle and occasionally mixing with the rabble in his coachman's dress. At length the cruelty of these proceedings filled every breast with compassion. Humanity relented in favor of the Christians. The manners of that people were, no doubt, of a pernicious tendency, and their crimes called for the hand of justice; but it was evident that they fell a sacrifice, not for the public good, but to glut the rage and cruelty of one man only.

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ness it owes to the Browns. For centuries, in their quiet, dogged, homespun way, they have been subduing the earth in most English countries and leaving their mark in American forests and Australian uplands. Wherever the fleets and armies of England have won renown, there stalwart sons of the Browns have done yeomen's work.

The Browns are a fighting family. One may question their wisdom or wit or beauty, but about their fight there can be no question. Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are going, there the Brown who is nearest must shove in his carcass. And these carcasses for the most part answer very well to the characteristic propensity; they are a square-headed and snake-necked generation, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest and thin in the flank, carrying no lumber. carrying no lumber. Then, for clanship, they are as bad as Highlanders; it is amazing the belief they have in one another. With them there is nothing like the Browns, to the third and fourth generation. "Blood is thicker than water" is one of their pet sayings. They can't be happy unless they are always meeting one another. Never were such people for family gatherings which, were you a stranger or sensitive, you might think had better not have been gathered together. For during the whole time of their being together they luxuriate in telling one another their minds on whatever subject turns up, and their minds are wonderfully antagonist and all their opinions are downright beliefs. Till you've been among them some time and understand them, you can't think but that they are quarrelling. Not a bit of it; they love and respect one another ten times the more after a good set

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