Ha! yonder they rush where the death-dealing stream, Over-pent, waits their gleam, To shiver the city with earthquake!--Who, _who_ Will adventure, mid-flame, and unfasten the screw,-- Set the fiend loose, and save us so?--Fireman, you, _You_ willing?--Would God you might hazard it!-- Nay, The red tongues are licking the faucets now: Stay! --Too late,--'tis too late! If ruin comes, wait Its coming: To go, is to perish:--Hold! Hold! You are young,--I am old,-- You've a wife, too--and children?--O God! he is gone Straight into destruction! The pipes, men! On, on, Play the water-stream on him,--full--faster--the whole! And now--Christ save his soul! III. --I stifle--I choke; And _he_,--Heaven grant that he smother in smoke Ere the fearful explosion comes. Hark! What's the shout? --_Is he saved_?--_Is he out?_ --Did he compass his purpose,--the Hero?--_(One_ name To-night we shall write on the records of fame,-- The perilous deed was so noble!) Why here On my cheek is a tear, Which not a whole city in ashes could claim! --His name, now: _Can nobody tell me his name?_ M. J. P. UNPUBLISHED LETTER FROM LORD NELSON TO LADY HAMILTON. [It has been a matter of congratulation that the destruction by the Boston fire was confined to buildings and other property representing simply the wealth of the city, and did not extend to its monuments or its artistic and literary treasures. The exceptions are, in fact, comparatively small in amount, yet they are such as must excite a general regret. The contents of the studios in Summer street, and the collection of armor, unique in this country, bequeathed by the late Colonel Bigelow Lawrence to the Boston Athenaeum, and temporarily deposited at 82 Milk street, could not perish without awaking other feelings besides that of sympathy with their past or prospective possessors. A similar loss was that of many of the books and manuscripts amassed by the historian Prescott, and comprising the collections pertaining to the Histories of the Conquest of Mexico and Peru and of Philip II. The manuscripts were comprised in some thirty or forty folio volumes, and consisted of copies or abstracts of documents in the public archives and libraries of Europe, in the family archives of several Spanish noblemen, and in private collections like that at Middle Hill. The printed books, of which there were perhaps a thousand, included many of great value and not a few of extreme rarity. A large mass of private correspondence was also consumed. We are not yet informed whether the same fate has befallen a small but very choice collection of autographs, embracing letters written or signed by Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles