"Quick, Colonel Carpenter! quick! O, for God's sake, quick!" exclaimed the settler, throwing an anguished and beseeching glance over his shoulder towards the other.

The next instant, the powerful frame of the new-comer was bending over the grasped rope; and, in another, both preservers and preserved were on the bridge, from which they had barely time to escape, before it was swept away, with a loud crash, and borne off on the top of the mighty torrent. They were met on the bank by the companions of Woodburn, and the friends of the rescued maiden, who came promiscuously running to the spot when loud and long were the gushing acclamations of joy and gratitude that rang wildly up to heaven at the unexpected deliverance.

JAMES THOMSON.

THOMSON, JAMES, a Scottish poet; born at Ednam, Roxburghshire, September 11, 1700; died at Kew, a suburb of London, August 27, 1748. His poetic faculty developed itself at an early age. At eighteen Thomson was entered as a student of divinity at the University of Edinburgh, but since he could not be both, Thomson resolved to be a poet rather than a clergyman. At the age of something more than twenty, he went up to London, scantily provided with money, and having besides only a few poems, among them some descriptive verses which were published in 1726, under the title "Winter." "Summer" followed in 1727; "Spring" in 1728 and in 1730 the entire poem which we know as "The Seasons" was published by subscription. In 1731 Thomson accompanied the son of Sir Charles Talbot, afterward Lord Chancellor, upon a Continental tour. Upon his return he put forth "Liberty," a rather mediocre poem. His circumstances were straitened for some years until he received the appointment of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands. He now set himself to the work of completing "The Castle of Indolence," which was finished in 1748, very shortly before his somewhat sudden death. Besides the three poems already mentioned, Thomson put forth from time to time some smaller poems. He also tried his hand at dramatic composition, writing the tragedies of "Sophonisba ; "Agamemnon;" "Edward and Leonora; " "Tancred and Sigismunda" (1743); "Coriolanus" (1749).

RULE, BRITANNIA!

(From the Masque of " Alfred.")

WHEN Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sung this strain:-
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;

Britons never will be slaves."

The nations not so blest as thee

Must in their turns to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,

More dreadful from each foreign stroke
As the loud blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
But work their woe, and thy renown.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves."

VOL. XIX.

APRIL RAIN.

(From "The Seasons"- Spring.)

COME, gentle Spring; ethereal mildness, come:
And from the bosom of your dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veiled in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.

O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With innocence and meditation joined

In soft assemblage, listen to my song,
Which thy own season paints; when Nature all
Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.

And see where surly Winter passes off,

Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shattered forest, and the ravished vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,

Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless: so that scarce
The bittern knows his time with bill ingulphed
To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.
The northeast spends his rage, he now shut up
Within his iron cave; the effusive south

Warms the wide air, and o'er the void of heaven
Breathes the big clouds with vernal showers distent.
At first a dusky wreath they seem to rise,
Scarce staining ether: but by fast degrees,
In heaps on heaps, the doubling vapor sails
Along the loaded sky, and mingling deep,
Sits on the horizon round a settled gloom:
Not such as wintry storms on mortals shed,
Oppressing life; but lovely, gentle, kind,
And full of every hope and every joy,
The wish of Nature. Gradual sinks the breeze
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
Is heard to quiver through the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods, diffused
In glassy breadth, seem through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. "T is silence all,
And pleasing expectation. Herds and flocks
Drop the dry sprig, and mute-imploring, eye
The fallen verdure. Hushed in short suspense,
The plumy people streak their wings with oil,
To throw the lucid moisture trickling off;
And wait the approaching sign to strike, at once,
Into the general choir. Even mountains, vales,
And forests seem, impatient, to demand

The promised sweetness. Man superior walks
Amid the glad creation, musing praise,

And looking lively gratitude. At last

The clouds consign their treasures to the fields;
And softly shaking on the dimpled pool
Prelusive drops, let all their moisture flow
In large effusion o'er the freshened world.

From all the boundless furnace of the sky,
And the wide glittering waste of burning sand,
A suffocating wind the pilgrim smites
With instant death. Patient of thirst and toil,
Son of the desert! even the camel feels,
Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast.
Or from the black-red ether, bursting broad,
Sallies the sudden whirlwind. Straight the sands,
Commoved around, in gathering eddies play;
Nearer and nearer still they darkening come;
Till with the general, all-involving storm.
Swept up, the whole continuous wilds arise;
And by their noonday fount dejected thrown,
Or sunk at night in sad disastrous sleep,
Beneath descending hills, the caravan

Is buried deep. In Cairo's crowded streets
The impatient merchant, wondering, waits in vain,
And Mecca saddens at the long delay.

THE INUNDATION.

(From "The Seasons"- Autumn.)

DEFEATING oft the labors of the year,
The sultry south collects a potent blast.
At first the groves are scarcely seen to stir
Their trembling tops, and a still murmur runs
Along the soft-inclining fields of corn;
But as the aerial tempest fuller swells,
And in one mighty stream, invisible,
Immense, the whole excited atmosphere
Impetuous rushes o'er the sounding world,
Strained to the root, the stooping forest pours
A rustling shower of yet untimely leaves.