My hero, as I subsequently learned, is no hero at all, but a commonplace young man who has some connection with the building of that pretty granite bridge which will shortly span the crooked little lake in the Public Garden. When I think of the cool ingenuity and readiness with which Mr. H----built up his airy fabric on my credulity, I am half inclined to laugh; though I feel not slightly irritated at having been the unresisting victim of his Black Art. 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 days (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. And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth The word of God is said, Once more, "Let there be light!"--Son of the South, Lift up thy honored head, Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert More than by birth thy own, Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt By grateful hearts alone. The moated wall and battle-ship may fail, But safe shall justice prove; Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail The panoply of love. Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace, Thy future is secure; Who frees a people makes his statue's place In Time's Valhalla sure. Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar Stretches to thee his hand Who, with the pencil of the Northern star, Wrote freedom on his land. And he whose grave is holy by our calm And prairied Sangamon, From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm To greet thee with "Well done!" And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet, And let thy wail be stilled, To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat Her promise half fulfilled. The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still, No sound thereof hath died; Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will Shall yet be satisfied. The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long, And far the end may be; But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong Go out and leave thee free. MY VISIT TO SYBARIS. It is a great while since I first took an interest in Sybaris. Sybarites have a bad name. But before I had heard of them anywhere else, I had painfully looked out the words in the three or four precious anecdotes about Sybaris in the old Greek Reader; and I had made up my boy's mind about the Sybarites. When I came to know the name they had got elsewhere, I could not but say that the world had been very unjust to them!