ON THE EXCAVATIONS OF THE ROMAN BATHS AT BATH. Re-printed from the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archæological Society. Vol. VIII., part I. Leland, on his visit to Bath in the year 1530, with tolerable fulness describes the baths, and after completing his description of the King's Bath goes on to say "Ther goith a sluse out of this Bath and servid in Tymes past with Water... more...

TO BELGIUM Our tears, our songs, our laurels—what are these  To thee in thy Gethsemane of loss,Stretched in thine unimagined agonies  On Hell's last engine of the Iron Cross. For such a world as this that thou shouldst die  Is price too vast—yet, Belgium, hadst thou soldThyself, O then had fled from out the earth  Honour for ever, and left only Gold. Nor diest thou—for soon shalt... more...

CHAPTER I Description of Farmer Oak—An Incident When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun. His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young man of... more...

JACK. I wish to note, and to suggest to students in ethnology, the Query, how it comes to pass that John Bull has a peculiar propensity to call things by his own name, his familiar appellative of Jack? Of all the long list of abbreviations and familiar names with which times past and present have supplied us, that which honest Falstaff found most pleasing to his ears, "Jack with my familiars!"... more...

THE EXTINCT. If it is a scene of painful interest, as surely it is to a well-constituted mind, to stand by and watch the death-struggles of one of the nobler brutes,—a dog or an elephant, for example,—to mark the failing strength, the convulsive throes, the appealing looks, the sobs and sighs, the rattling breath, the glazing eye, the stiffening limbs—how much more exciting is the interest with... more...

Riding at ease in the lazy afternoon sunshine a single troop of cavalry was threading its way in long column of twos through the bold and beautiful foothills of the Big Horn. Behind them, glinting in the slanting rays, Cloud Peak, snow clad still although it was late in May, towered above the pine-crested summits of the range. To the right and left of the winding trail bare shoulders of bluff, covered... more...

CHAPTER I MY LEARNED BROTHER   "Conflagratam An° 1677. Fabricatam An° 1698. Richardo Powell Armiger Thesaurar." The words, set in four panels, which formed a frieze beneath the pediment of a fine brick portico, summarised the history of one of the tall houses at the upper end of King's Bench Walk and as I, somewhat absently, read over the inscription, my attention was divided between... more...

THE LITTLE GOLD MINERS OF THE SIERRAS. Their mother had died crossing the plains, and their father had had a leg broken by a wagon wheel passing over it as they descended the Sierras, and he was for a long time after reaching the mines miserable, lame and poor. The eldest boy, Jim Keene, as I remember him, was a bright little fellow, but wild as an Indian and full of mischief. The next eldest child,... more...

* This story is set down exactly as it was told by theIsland Chronicler. Well, I wish you could have been here in Mrs. Gunning's day. She was the oddest woman on Mackinac. Not that she exerted herself to attract attention. But she was such a character, and her manners were so astonishing, that she furnished perennial entertainment to the few families of us constituting island society. She was an... more...

CHAPTER I. INDUSTRIAL AMERICA AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR A comprehensive survey of the United States, at the end of the Civil War, would reveal a state of society which bears little resemblance to that of today. Almost all those commonplace fundamentals of existence, the things that contribute to our bodily comfort while they vex us with economic and political problems, had not yet made their... more...