"The Man without a Country" is the story of Philip Nolan, a young officer of the United States army. On account of his intimacy with Aaron Burr, he was court-martialed and, having expressed the wish never to hear the name of his country again, was banished and sentenced to live upon a government boat, where no one was allowed to mention his country. * * * * * LOVE OF COUNTRY (From "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," Canto VI.) SIR WALTER SCOTT Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said:-- "This is my own, my native land!" Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch concentered all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. * * * * * NAPOLEON BONAPARTE CHARLES PHILLIPS He is fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered among us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A mind, bold, independent, and decisive,--a will despotic in its dictates--an energy that distanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character--the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell. Flung into life in the midst of a revolution that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledge no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity! With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank and wealth and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interest--he acknowledged no criterion but success--he worshiped no God but ambition, and, with an Eastern devotion, he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate; in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the Crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the Cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the Republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism.