Wrapped in flannel bandages, and leaning upon crutches, his dark eyes in their brilliancy enhancing the pallor of his careworn face, as he entered the House, supported on the one side by his son-in-law, and on the other by that younger son who was so soon to add fresh glory to the name of William Pitt, the peers all started to their feet, and remained standing until he had taken his place. In broken sentences, with strange flashes of the eloquence which had once held captive ear and heart, he protested against the hasty adoption of a measure which simply prostrated the dignity of England before its ancient enemy, the House of Bourbon. The Duke of Richmond’s answer, reverently and delicately worded, urged that while the magic of Chatham’s name could work anything short of miracles, yet only a miracle could now relieve them from the dire necessity of abandoning America. Chatham rose to reply, but his overwrought frame gave way, and he sank in a swoon upon the floor. All business was at once adjourned. The peers, with eager sympathy, came crowding up to offer assistance, and the unconscious statesman was carried in the arms of his friends to a house near by, whence in a few days he was removed to his home. There, after lingering between life and death for several weeks, on the 11th of May, and in the seventieth year of his age, Lord Chatham breathed his last. The man thus struck down like a soldier at his post, was one whom Americans, no less than Englishmen, have delighted to honour. _John Fiske_ (_Retold_) DECEMBER 2 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND THE MAGNANIMOUS THE BEST REPUBLICAN IN BRAZIL TO H. M. DOM PEDRO II EMPEROR OF BRAZIL SCHOLAR AND SCIENTIST, PATRON OF ARTS AND LETTERS STERLING STATESMAN AND MODEL MONARCH, WHOSE REIGN OF HALF A CENTURY HAS BEEN ZEALOUSLY AND SUCCESSFULLY DEVOTED TO PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE, AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY THROUGHOUT THE VAST AND OPULENT “EMPIRE OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS” _Dedication by_ FRANK VINCENT FREEDOM IN BRAZIL _With clearer light, Cross of the South shine forth In blue Brazilian skies: And thou, O River, cleaving half the earth, From sunset to sunrise, From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves, Thy joy’s long anthem pour, Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves Shall shame thy pride no more. No fettered feet thy shaded margins press, But all men shall walk free. Where, thou the high-priest of the wilderness, Hast wedded sea to sea._