Flow on, bright shining Thames. A good brave man hath walked aforetime on your margent, himself as bright, and usefull, and delightsome as be you, sweet river. And like you, he never murmured; like you, he upbore the weary, and gave drink to the thirsty, and reflected heaven in his face. I'll not swell your full current with any more fruitless tears. There's a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. He now rests beside it. Good Christian folks, as they hereafter pass this spot, upborne on thy gentle tide, will, maybe, point this way, and say--"There dwelt Sir Thomas More;" but whether they doe or not, _vox populi_ is a very inconsiderable matter, for the majority are evil, and "_the people_ sayd, Let him be crucified!" Who would live on theire breath? They hailed St. Paul as Jupiter, and then stoned him and cast him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. Theire favourite of to-day may, for what they care, goe hang himself to-morrow in his surcingle. Thus it must be while the world lasts; and the very racks and scrues wherewith they aim to overcome the nobler spiritt, onlie test and reveal its power of exaltation above the heaviest gloom of circumstance. _Interfecistis, interfecistis hominem omnium Anglorum optimum._ THE FLYING ARTIST. Karl Herwitz is a German. He is about fifty years of age, and one of the most original of characters. Since I have known him, I have passed whole nights in listening to his adventures, which are in general as instructive as they are amusing. Married at a very early age, he left the military career for that of inventions. He had a most marvelous talent for conceiving novel machines, often of practical utility; but his soul was set upon perfecting a flying machine. To this he had devoted nearly his whole life. He made models, he tried experiments, he brought to bear all his prodigious knowledge of mathematics on the subject of traveling in air, with an enthusiasm, a childish earnestness, which is not uncharacteristic of genius. He studied every natural law which was likely to advance him toward the consummation of all his hopes and desires, namely, the ability to fly. At one time his little garden was turned into an aviary. He filled it with birds of various kinds, to study the mechanism of their powers of flight. There was the eagle and the dove, the vulture and the sparrow, all of which were made subservient to his darling object. He has often explained all this to me. "The Golden Eagle," he once said, "can cleave the air at the rate of forty miles an hour. Now, if I can succeed in imitating the mechanism by which he travels in space, exactly and efficiently, of course, my machine will move in the air at the same pace." What could I say? No argument, no warning availed. Still he went on, hoping and working, and buying expensive tools and materials. He completed aerial ships one after another; and although none of them answered, he was never discouraged.