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pened, and he desired her advice as to what they should ask of the king for a reward; and he called together his council, and they sat upon a tree, and they each desired a different thing. Some wished for a long tail; some wished for blue and green feathers; some wished to be as large as ostriches; some wished for one thing and some for another; and they debated till the going down of the sun, but they could not agree together. Then the king of the hoopoes, with the queen, went apart, and she said to him, "My dear lord and husband, listen to my words: and as we have preserved the head of King Solomon, let us ask for crowns of gold on our heads, that we may be superior to all other birds." And the words of the queen, and the princesses, her daughters, prevailed; and the king of the hoopoes presented himself before King Solomon, and desired of him that all hoopoes should wear golden crowns upon their heads.

Then Solomon said, "Hast thou considered well what it is thou desirest?" And the hoopoe said, "I have considered well, and we desire to have golden crowns on our heads." So King Solomon said, "Golden crowns ye shall have; but, behold, thou art a foolish bird; and when the evil days shall come upon thee, and thou seest the folly of thy heart, return here to me, and I will give thee help." So the king of the hoopoes left the presence of King Solomon with a golden crown upon his head. And all the hoopoes had golden crowns, and were exceeding proud and haughty. Moreover they went to the lakes and the pools, and walked by the margin of the water that they might admire themselves, as in a glass. And the queen of the hoopoes gave herself airs, and sat upon a twig, refusing to speak to the other birds who had been her friends, because they were but vulgar birds, and she wore a crown on her head.

Now there was a certain fowler who set traps for birds; and he put a piece of a broken mirror into his trap, and a hoopoe that went in to admire herself was caught. The fowler looked at it and saw the shining crown upon its head; so he wrung off

its head, and took the crown to Issachar, the son of Jacob, the worker in metal; and he asked him what it was. Issachar said it was 66 a crown of brass." And he gave the fowler a quarter of a shekel for it, and desired him, if he found more, to bring them to him, and tell no man thereof. So the fowler caught some more hoopoes, and sold their crowns to Issachar; until one day he met another man who was a jeweller, and showed him several of the hoopoes' crowns. The jeweller told him that they were pure gold, and he gave the fowler a talent of gold for four of them.

Now, when the value of these crowns was known, the fame of them went abroad, and in all the land of Israel was heard the twang of bows and the whirling of slings; bird lime was made in every town; and the price of traps rose in the market. Not a hoopoe could show its head but it was slain or taken captive; and the days of the hoopoes were numbered. Then their minds were filled with sorrow and dismay, and ere long few were left to bewail their cruel destiny. At length, flying by stealth through the least frequented places, the king of the hoopoes went to King Solomon, and stood before the steps of the golden throne, and with tears and groans related the misfortune which had happened to his race.

So King Solomon looked kindly upon the king of the hoopoes, and said, "Behold, did I not warn thee of thy folly in desiring to have crowns of gold? Vanity and pride have been thy ruin. But now that a memorial may remain of the service which. thou didst render unto me, your crowns of gold shall be changed into crowns of feathers, that ye may walk unharmed on the earth."

Now, when the fowlers saw that the hoopoes no longer wore crowns of gold on their heads, they ceased from the persecution of their 1ace; and from that time forth the family of the hoopoes have flourished and increased, and have continued in peace unto the present day.

14

XLV. ANECDOTES OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION.

WARBURTON.

WHEN Missolonghi was beleaguered by the Turkish forces, Marco Botzaris commanded a garrison of about twelve hundred men, who had barely fortifications enough to form breastworks. Intelligence reached the Greek leaders that the Egyptian army, under Ismail Pacha, was about to form a junction with the formidable besieging host. A parade was ordered; the garrison, "faint and few, but fearless still," scarcely amounted to one thousand men. Marco Botzaris told them of the destruction that impended over Missolonghi, proposed a sortie, and announced that it should consist only of volunteers, as the expedition was a "forlorn hope." Volunteers! The whole garrison stepped forward as one man, and demanded the posi of honor and of death. "I will only take the Thermopytæ number," said their leader, and selected the three hundred that were nearest to him.

In the dead of night this devoted band marched out in six divisions, and placed themselves, in profound silence, round the Turkish camp. Their orders were simply, "When you hear my bugle blow, seek me in the pacha's tent."

Marco Botzaris, disguised as an Albanian bearing despatches to the pacha from the Egyptian army, passed unquestioned through the Turkish camp, and was only arrested by the sentinels around the pacha's tent, who informed him that he must wait till morning. Then wildly through the stillness of the night that bugle blew; faithfully it was echoed from without; and the war cry of the avenging Greek broke upon the Moslem's ear. From every side that terrible storm seemed to burst at once; shrieks of agony and terror swelled the tumult. The Turks fled in all directions, and the Grecian leader was soon surrounded by his comrades. Struck to the ground by a musket ball, he had himself raised on the shoulders of two Greeks, and, thus supported, he pressed on the flying enemy.

A bullet pierced his brain in the moment of his triumph; but Missolonghi was saved, and the delivery of Greece begun.

Shortly afterwards, Missolonghi was again beleaguered; all hope of successful resistance had vanished. The small remnant of the garrison, placing their wives and children in their centre, cut their way at midnight through the Turkish army, and escaped to the mountains. The aged, and wounded, and infirm, alone remained with some women and children. These assembled round the powder magazine, and calmly waited

"Till morning's sun

Should rise and give them light to die."

At the first dawn the Turks stormed the almost defenceless fortifications, received one faint volley from the Greeks, and rushed on to the work of slaughter. A wounded veteran smiled grimly as he saw them come; with one hand he beckoned them on, with the other he fired his pistol into the powder magazine. The explosion annihilated friend and foe; the remains of the heroic garrison perished; but, Samson-like, they involved their enemies in their own destruction. The name of Missolonghi destroyed, but thus destroyed, became a tower of strength to the Grecian cause.

One more anecdote and I have done. A detachment of one hundred Greeks was hemmed in by a division of the Turkish army in one of the defiles of the Morea. They were summoned to surrender; but they demanded to be allowed to march away with all the honors of war. This was of course refused; night was drawing on, and the attack was postponed till the following morning. One Greek alone passed over to the Turks; he bore a commission from his comrades to tell their countrymen that they had died in the cause of Greece. When morning rose, the pacha found that they had thrown up a breastwork, and presented a very formidable appearance. He then offered them a free passage if they would lay down their arms. "It s too late," said their leader to the aide-de-camp. "Go tell your general how you found us." They had unwound their

silken sashes, and firmly bound themselves to each other, limb to limb, so that their line must remain unbroken in death even. The onslaught took place; seven hundred Turk: fell before the last Greek was sabred; and an officer told me that long afterwards he had gone to see the spot, and found the bleached skeletons of that gallant band still bound together by their silken sashes.

XLVI.-EXTRACTS FROM THOMAS MOORE.

[THOMAS MOORE was born in Dublin, May 28, 1779, and died February 26, 182. His first publication, a translation of the Odes of Anacreon, published in 1800, was received with much favor; and from that time he was constantly before the public, and, as a poet, rose to a popularity second only to that of Byron and Scott. His longest poem, Lalla Rookh, is a brilliant and gorgeous production, glowing with the finest hues of Oriental painting, and true in its details; but it cloys the mind with its excess of imagery and the luxuriant sweetness of its versification. His Loves of the Angels, another poem of some length, was a comparative failure. Moore's greatest strength is shown in his songs, ballads, and lyric effusions. In these, his vivid fancy, his sparkling wit, his rich command of poetical expression, his love of ornament, and his sense of music, find an appropriate sphere of exercise. His Irish Melodies, especially, are of great excellence in their way. They are the truest and most earnest things he ever wrote. In many of his productions there is more or less of make-believe sentiment; but here we feel the pulse of truth. The web of Moore's poetry, however, is more remarkable for the richness of its coloring than the fineness of its texture. He is not a very careful writer, and would not bear a rigid verbal criticism.

Moore's satirical and humorous poems- of which he wrote many-are perhaps entitled to even a higher comparative rank than his serious productions, because they are such genuine and natural expressions of his mind. He was full of wit and animal spirits, and seemed to take positive delight in darting his pointed and glittering shafts against literary and political opponents. In these lighter effusions, also, we do not require the depth of feeling, the moral tone, and the dignity of sentiment, which we seek—and seek in vain — in his serious poetry. Many of them, however, were called forth by the passing occurrences of the day, and have lost their interest with the occasion that gave them birth.

In the latter years of his life, Moore was a diligent laborer in the trade of literature, and wrote many works in prose; among them, Lives of Sheridan and Byron, The Epicurean, a tale, The History of Ireland, a production of much research, The Life of Captain Rock, Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion, &c. His prose writings, in general, have not added much to his literary reputation.

Moore's private character was amiable and respectable on the whole, though he was a little too inclined to pay court to persons of higher social position than himself. He was a devoted and excellent son, and without reproach in his domestic relations. He had some knowledge of music, and sang his own songs with great taste and feeling; and this accomplishment and his brilliant conversational powers made him a great favorite in society.

As Moore's genius is so essentially lyric, a number of single pieces have been selected from his works; for thus a better impression will be given of his powers than by an extract or two from any of his long poems.]

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