her groping under the smoke clouds; we saw her nearing the other brig, and were all on tiptoe. The air cleared a little, and we could see them ship oars and go up the side. Then we set our blood dripping with cheers again, we who were wounded there on the deck of the Lawrence. Lieutenant Yarnell ordered her one flag down. As it sank fluttering, we groaned. Our dismay went quickly from man to man. Presently we could hear the cries of the wounded there below. A man came staggering out of the cockpit, and fell to his hands and knees, creeping toward us and protesting fiercely, the blood dripping from his mouth between curses. "Another shot would sink her," Yarnell shouted. 66 Let 'er sink," said D'ri. "Wish t' God I c'u'd put my foot through 'er bottom. When the flag goes down I wan't t' go tew.' The British turned their guns; we were no longer in the smoky paths of thundering canister. The Niagara was now under fire. We could see the dogs of war rushing at her in leashes of flame and smoke. Our little gunboats, urged by oar and sweep, were hastening to the battle front. We could see their men, waist-high above bulwarks, firing as they came The Detroi and the Queen Charlotte, two heavy brigs of the British line, had run afoul of each other. The Niagara, signalling for close action, bore down upon them. Crossing the bow of one ship and the stern of the other, she raked them with broadsides. We saw braces fly and masts fall in the volley. The Niagara sheered off, pouring shoals of metal on a British schooner, stripping her bare. Our little boats had come up, and were boring into the brigs. In a brief time-it was then near three o'clock -a white flag, at the end of a boarding-pike, fluttered over a British deck. D'ri, who had been sitting awhile, was now up and cheering as he waved his crownless hat. He had lent his flag, and, in the fiurry, some one dropped it overboard. D'ri saw it fall, and before we could stop him he had leaped into the sea. I hastened to his help, tossing a rope's end as he came up, swimming with one arm, the flag in his teeth. I towed him to the landing-stair and helped him over. Leaning on my shoulder, he shook out the tattered flag, its white laced with his own blood. Each grabbed a tatter of the good flag, pressing hard upon D'ri, and put it to his lips and kissed it proudly. Then we marched up and down, D'ri waving it above us-a bloody squad as ever walked, shouting loudly. D'ri had begun to weaken with loss of blood, so I coaxed him to go below with me. The battle was over; a Yankee band was playing near by. "Perry is coming! Perry is coming!" we heard them shouting above. A feeble cry that had in it pride and joy and inextinguishable devotion passed many a fevered lip in the cockpit. There were those near who had won a better peace, and they lay as a man that listens to what were now the merest vanity. Perry came, when the sun was low, with a number of British officers, and received their surrender on his own bloody deck. I remember, as they stood by the ruined bulwarks and looked down upon tokens of wreck and slaughter, a dog began howling dis mally in the cockpit. LORD BACON FRANCIS BACON (Viscount St. Alban), jurist and philosopher, born in London, 1561; died 1626. He studied three years at Cambridge University and then entered the diplomatic service. In 1618 he was made Lord Chancellor. His essays appeared in 1597. His histories of Henry VII, Henry VIII and Elizabeth rank next in importance. His philosophical works have received the commendation of the scholars of four centuries. TRANSLATION OF THE 137TH HENAS we sat all sad and desolate, WHEN By Babylon upon the river's side, Eased from the tasks which in our captive state Our harps we had brought with us to the field, But soon we found we failed of our account, Did cause afresh our wounds to bleed again; As for our harps, since sorrow struck them dumb, Asking of us some Hebrew songs to hear: Taunting us rather in our misery, Alas (said we) who can once force or frame Hierusalem, where God his throne hath set, Shall any hour absent thee from my mind? Then let my right hand quite her skill forget, Then let my voice and words no passage find; Nay, if I do not thee prefer in all That in the compass of my thoughts can fall. Remember thou, O Lord, the cruel cry Of Eden's children, which did ring and sound, Inciting the Chaldean's cruelty, "Down with it, down with it, even unto the ground." And thou, O Babylon, shalt have thy turn That thy proud walls and towers shall waste and burn, Yea, happy he that takes thy children's bones, THE LIFE HE World's a bubble, and the Life of Man In his conception wretched, from the womb, Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years Who then to frail mortality shall trust, Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest, Courts are but only superficial schools The rural parts are turn'ed into a den And where's a city from foul vice so free, Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, Those that live single, take it for a curse, Some would have children: those that have them, moan Or wish them gone: What is it, then, to have, or have no wife, Our own affection still at home to please To cross the seas to any foreign soil, Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease What then remains, but that we still should cry For being born, or, being born, to die? OF LOVE HE stage is more beholding to love than the life THE of men; for as to the stage, love is even matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) VOL. I-7 |