required for war purposes by taxation and loans, and so restricting the paper-money issues. After the war, however, the latter were contracted far too rapidly, and commercial ruin was the result. But it is impossible, within the compass of the present skeleton sketch, to examine and compare the respective financial courses the two nations pursued under somewhat similar conditions, although such an examination and comparison would be a useful study for our legislators at Washington, the great majority of whom have, during the last decade, exhibited a deplorable unfamiliarity with the principles of political economy, and finance especially; but much knowledge of this kind was not to be expected from the Congress of a Republic that can hardly be said to have had a national debt before 1862. Since that time this country has been the school of financiers, and signs of improvement are at length becoming visible here and there in Congress. This is not saying much, however, for the wisdom of that body in fiscal matters, but "it is never too late to mend." The country is to be congratulated upon the improving condition of its finances, notwithstanding all the tinkering to which, from time to time, they have been subjected; and, in view of its constant and rapid growth, its debt and currency are dwindling from day to day as surely though imperceptibly - as the drifting iceberg melts away beneath the shining sun.

KINAHAN CORNWALLIS.

THE LADY RIBERTA'S HARVEST.*

I.

N the days of eld there was wont to be,

IN

On the jagged coast of the Zuyder Zee,

A city so grand and rich and fair,

It seemed as the wealth of the world was there.

Each year from its ports were galleons sent

To distant island and continent.

To lands that under the tropics lay,-
Ind and the fabled far Cathay,
In search of all treasures new and rare,
Gathered from earth and sea and air.
And back they voyaged, so laden full,
With fairy fabrics from old Stamboul,

With orient woods that breathed out balms,

Since the above was written, I have seen the same subject treated at much greater length, and with fine elaboration, in a recent American magazine.-M. J. P.

With broidered stuffs from the realm of palms,
With shawls from the marts of Ispahan,
With marvellous lacquers from strange Japan,—
That through their traffic on every sea,
So royal its merchants grew to be,
That even Venetian lords became
Half covetous of the city's fame.

II.

The Lady Riberta's fleet was great;

And year by year it had brought her store, Until so queenly had grown her state,

Her palaces scarce held room for more.
Her feasts- no prince in the realms around
Had service so rich, or food so fine,

As daily her ample tables crowned;
And proud she was of her luscious cates,

And her spiced conserves, and her priceless wine,

And her golden salvers and golden plates:

For all the land or the sea could bring,
Was hers, for the fairest furnishing.

III.

It fell one day, that a stranger came,
As the Lady Riberta's board was spread;
With letters from one of noble name :

In the musky East was his home, he said
And over the world and up and down,

Through many a city and outland town,
He had roamed, and on every hand had heard
Of Lady Riberta's state; that so

In his heart a secret yearning stirred

To find if the truth were told or no. Up rose, at his word, the Lady's pride, And into her grand refection hall She led the stranger, and at her side

She bade him be seated in sight of all.

IV.

Gold, silver and crystal around him gleamed;
The daintiest dishes before him steamed:
The choicest of flesh and fish and bird,—
Fruits with the flush of the tropic sun
Veining them through ;- pomegranates rare
As ever were fed on Eastern air;

And olives and figs and grapes and limes,
And oranges from the sunniest climes,

Were offered: The stranger would have none;
Nor spake he in praise a single word.

V.

"Doth anything lack," with chafe, at last,
The hostess queried,-" from the repast?"
Gravely the guest then made reply:—
"Lady, since thou hast questioned, I,
Daring to speak the truth alway,
Even in such a presence, say
Something is wanting. I have sate
Oft at the tables of rich and great,

Nor marked such splendor as this: but yet,
I marvel me much thou should'st forget
The world's one best thing: For 'tis clear,
Whatever beside, it is not here."

Over and over, her ships were sent

To distant island and continent,

In quest of the most delicious things

That ever have sated the mouths of kings:
But none of the daintiest cates they brought
Seemed quite the marvel the Lady sought.
At length from his last long voyage came
The first of her captains. He told her how
His vessel had sprung aleak, and bow

And stern were merged, till the gathering mould
Had spoiled the flour within the hold;

And nothing was left but wine and meat

Through weary weeks for his men to eat.

"The words of the guest then flashed"-he said"Athwart me: The one best thing was bread! And so for a cargo, I was fain

To load the fleet with the finest grain."

VIII.

The Lady Riberta's wrath out-sprang

Like a sword from its sheath, and her keen voice rang
Sharp as a lance-thrust:-"Get thee back,
Thou fool! and lift from the hold each sack,
And spill in the sea thy worthless store,
Nor ever command my galleys more!"

Then came the people who lacked for bread, And prayed that to them, in their need, instead, She would grant the grain: but she heeded none, Nor rested until the deed was done.

IX.

The months passed on: and the harvest sown
In the sea-green fields at length had grown
To a tangle of roots that wove a wide,
Strong net to trap whatever the tide
Dragged in its wake,—the drift and wreck
Of many a splintered mast and deck,
And piles of the buried things there be
Floating in troughs of plunging sea.
And thus, as the years went on, a shoal
Of sand was tided, a sunken mole,
Across the mouth of the port, and so

The galleys were foundered, and to and fro,
No longer went forth; and the merchants sought
Harbors elsewhere for the cargoes brought.
The Lady Riberta's ships went down
In the offing: the city's far renown
Faded and fled,-its commerce dead -
And the Lady Riberta begged for bread.

X.

The billows have held for many a day
Over the city their sullen sway,
And where such traffic was wont to be
Now plunges and chafes the Zuyder Zee.

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

ALL SOULS' NIGHT.

IERRE, thou art unkind to startle me."

"An thou hadst not been gazing so intently into the sea here before us, thou wouldst have seen me as I passed yon rock. Ah, Marie, methinks thou lovest the sea more than aught else."

"Thou art right, Pierre; I love it always. In the early morning when the gray mists and fogs hang over it; in the broad noonlight when every wave is sparkling gloriously; in the soft twilight when the setting sun has left a shimmering light behind; in the moonlight when every silvery beam plays with the tiny drops; and more than ever, perchance, when a cruel west-wind tosses the water to and fro, till by eventide it is a foaming, angry sea, a hungry deep ready to swallow up all who traverse it I love it then with an awesome love, for such was it when it took Armand from me."

She had turned from Pierre and seemed quite to have forgotten his presence. Her dark eyes were fixed with a loving look on the ocean, and she was silent, seeming to commune with her own spirit.

Far out to sea the waves looked gloomy and restless; while on the shore they broke fiercely, and surged to and fro with a melancholy, muttering sound, as if each billow were laden with a shipwrecked soul, destined, in the superstition of the country, to wander on until he finds the spirit of a brother or a friend; and even then, when the two souls meet, they must not pause, they but utter a plaintive murmur and are carried on with the mighty power of the wave, whose wanderings they are doomed to follow. The sky was gray and dismal, and the twilight shed a weird haze over the expanse of sea; the rocks rising in such grotesque shapes on both sides, and the figures of the man and woman standing so motionless.

The young peasant respected Marie's mood but for a moment. Approaching, he touched her gently.

66

Why this blue dress, Marie?"

"Dost thou not know," she answered, without turning towards him, or once removing her eyes from the water -"that yesterday was All Saints' Day, and to-day we mourn for those we have loved, and whom it hath pleased God and the Holy Virgin to call away from earth? Thou knowest for whom I mourn; and as in the sight of Heaven I am the wife of Armand, I wear my mourning-dress of blue, the color of God's sky, where all my hopes are centred. It is not in death that I am sad and mourn, but in life."

There was an inexpressible dejection in her tone, in her very posture. Pierre noticed it: he spoke impatiently.

"Why think of Armand now? He was lost to thee months ago. Dost thou intend to forget him, never?”

"Never!"

A proud light flashed in her eyes as she turned and met his steadily, and the warm blood rushed to her face, but was surging slowly back