It swelled his little throat, and gushed from him with thrilling force and plenty; and every time he checked his song to think of its theme,--the green meadows, the quiet stealing streams, the clover he first soared from, and the spring he loved so well,--a loud sigh from many a rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart, told how tight the listeners had held their breath to hear him. And when he swelled with song again, and poured with all his soul the green meadows, the quiet brooks, the honey-clover, and the English spring, the rugged mouths opened and so stayed, and the shaggy lips trembled, and more than one tear trickled from fierce, unbridled hearts down bronzed and rugged cheeks. Sweet home! And these shaggy men, full of oaths and strife and cupidity, had once been white-headed boys, and most of them had strolled about the English fields with little sisters and little brothers, and seen the lark rise and heard him sing this very song. The little playmates lay in the churchyard, and they were full of oaths and drink, and passions and remorses, but no note was changed in this immortal song. And so, for a moment or two, years of vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the memory, and the past shone out in the song-shine; they came back bright as the immortal notes that lighted them,--those faded pictures and those fleeted days; the cottage, the old mother’s tears when he left her without one grain of sorrow; the village church and its simple chimes,--ding-dong-bell, ding-dong-bell, ding-dong-bell; the clover-field hard by, in which he lay and gambolled while the lark praised God overhead; the chubby playmates that never grew to be wicked; the sweet, sweet hours of youth, innocence, and home. SWEET HOME. JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. MID pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home! A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere. Home, home, sweet home! There’s no place like home! An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain! O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again! The birds singing gayly that came at my call;-- Give me them and that peace of mind, dearer than all! Home, home, sweet home! There’s no place like home! ANTONY’S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS. SHAKESPEARE. For a sketch of the life of Shakespeare, see page 117. FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones: So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault; And grievously hath Cæsar answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,-- For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men,-- Come I to speak in Cæsar’s funeral.