THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Estate of 
 Ernst and Eleanor 
 van L\5ben Sels 
 
CATHCART'S LITERARY READER. 
 
" Some books art to be tasted, others to be twaihwed, and some few to be chewed and 
 digested. That is, some books are to be read only in farts ; others, to be read, but not curi- 
 ously ; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also 
 
 may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others Reading maketh a 
 
 /ull man ; conference, a ready man ; and writing, an exact man. And there/ore, if a 
 man write little, he had need have a great memory ; i/ he confer little, he had need have a 
 present wit ; and if he reads little, he had need have much running, to seem to know that 
 he doth not. Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathematics, subtle ; natural 
 philosophy, deep ; moral, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to contend." 
 
 BACON'S ESSAYS. 
 
ffl)e ;3imcritiiu (Educational Jkcvies. 
 
 THE 
 
 LITERARY READER: 
 
 TYPICAL SELECTIONS FROM SOME OF THE BEST 
 
 BRITISH AND AMERICAN AUTHORS, 
 
 FXOM SHAKESPEARE TO THE PRESENT TIME, 
 
 CI)conologicalls ^rrangcb ; 
 
 WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCHES, 
 AND NUMEROUS NOTES, 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 By GEORGE R. CATHCART. 
 
 NEW YORK AND CHICAGO: 
 
 IVISON, BLAKI \'\N, TAYLOR, AND COMPANY. 
 
 1877. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congrew, in the year 1874, 
 
 BY IVI80N, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR, A CO., 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washingtcm. 
 
 (kfH^ cuc^ /rt^' rV/^^ 
 
 EDUC.- 
 PSYCH. 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT 
 
PREFACE. kibrz^^-^' 
 
 The compiler of this work has not designed to make a compendium 
 of English Literature, but to provide the means of acquiring a fair 
 knowledge of that literature, for those who may not be able to procure 
 a regular course of study on the subject. So far as gradation is 
 concerned, the book is intended to fill the place usually occupied by 
 the " Sixth " or " Advanced " Reader. The extracts will be found of 
 suitable length, and in other respects well adapted, it is hoped, for this 
 purpose. In the ordinary catalogue of common-school studies literature, 
 practically, holds but a humble place : its value to the mass of scholars 
 has been underestimated, and it has been esteemed a branch of knowl- 
 edge really useful only to the few who aspire to a '* liberal education." 
 Public sentiment has fortunately undergone a change touching this mat- 
 ter, within a few years ; and in the hope of furthering that change and 
 confirming literature in its true place among school studies, this book 
 has been prepared. The people of the United States are, above all others, 
 a nation of readers, and no thoughtful person need be told how potent 
 in the formation of character and in the shaping of the national life 
 is the influence of books. The rapid increase of our schools in numbers 
 and efficiency, the multiplication of public hbraries, and the ever-growing 
 volume of new publications, indicate beyond the possibility of doubt that, 
 practical people though we are, we find in books the chief source of our 
 intelligence and national strength. Books embody the accumulated wis- 
 dom of ages ; in them we have the garnered experience of centuries long 
 past ; in them we find, so to speak, formulas for our guidance, prccedenta 
 in the conduct of our fathers, which time has stamped with the validity of 
 rules. Human nature is, in effect, unchanged since the earliest days of 
 the world ; and the record of ita thought and manifestations, which consti* 
 
 459 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 tutes the history of civilization, is the most precious inheritance that could 
 have come down to us. The literature of a nation is its history in the 
 subtlest form ; and he who intelligently reads it apprehends the spirit of 
 the time, while history itself gives him only results. Literature is, indeed, 
 the most faithful expression of the national spirit, wliich seems to inspire 
 and inform it ; and the reader of this volume can readily trace in the chron- 
 ologically arranged extracts from her writers the many stages that mark 
 the vicissitudes of England's thought : religion, pohtics, general culture, 
 all disclose their changing features in the theology, the poetry, and the drama 
 of succeeding centuries. 
 
 EhgUsh Literature, it is hardly necessary to say, antedates the time at 
 which our extracts begin. Its birth is generally assigned to the last half 
 of the fourteenth century. Three chief forces produced it, — classical learn- 
 ing, the influence of Itahan culture, and Norman poetry, known as Romance 
 literature, which was gradually introduced into England after the Conquest . 
 But of this period — and of the earlier centuries to wliich belong the Saxon 
 poem of Beowulf, Caedmon's paraphrase of Scripture, the Ecclesiastical 
 History of the Venerable Bede (who Uved 673-735), Layaraon's "Brut, 
 the metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, etc., etc. — it has been 
 thought best to reproduce in this volume no representative fragments, for 
 the reason that these archaic writings are valuable only to the professed 
 scholar. The same reason operates, less powerfully indeed, to exclude 
 specimens of Chaucer's poems. He was, it is true, the founder of Eng- 
 lish literature, and the first who demonstrated that the Enghsh language 
 was susceptible of forcible and harmonious arrangement in rhythmical 
 form. But his writings present serious obstacles to the ordinary reader 
 in their multitude of obsolete words and phrases, and an acquaintance with 
 them may properly follow the study of more modem writers. Moreover, 
 the reform which he inaugurated in letters was not steadily progressive. 
 The century immediately following his life was notably barren of literary 
 growth ; a barrenness mainly due to the stern repression of free inquiry 
 by the ecclesiastical authorities, and secondarily to the prevalence of civil 
 wars, which diverted attention from the peaceful pursuit of letters. Near 
 the close of this century, however, printing was introduced into England, 
 as if in preparation for the season of intellectual activity which was ne-ar 
 at hand. Tliis season is known as the Elizabethan age, the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, and has been called the creative period in English literature. 
 
PEEFACE. VU 
 
 It may be regarded as the legitimate result of the Reformation, which 
 loosened the bonds that had trammeled men's minds, and encouraged free 
 investigation and free expression. It has three representatives, par excel- 
 lence, — Hooker of the theological spirit. Bacon of the philosophical, and 
 Shakespeare of the poetic and dramatic. With the last of these, " the 
 most illustrious of the sons of man," our series of glimpses at English 
 literary history begins. 
 
 As even the merest mention of all distinguished writers was obviously 
 impracticable, it has been attempted, in the preparation of this volume, to 
 introduce those of the number who most faithfully and forcibly represent 
 the several stages and departments of English literature. In Shakespeare 
 we see a delegate at large from every literary interest known in his time ; 
 Milton gives voice to the thoughtful and devout poetry of Puritanism; 
 Swift illustrates the power of satire with a brilliancy that has never been 
 surpassed ; Addison inaugurates the revival of classicalism in literature, 
 and gives the world a pattern of rigid, though beautiful, accuracy in style ; 
 Johnson exemplifies ponderousness in matter and manner, and leaves a 
 lasting impress on English letters ; Goldsmith, more thoroughly than auy 
 writer had done before his time, transfuses himself into his writings, 
 reveahng his own gentle, genial, and poetical nature in his books with 
 almost unequaled fidelity of portraiture ; Gibbon, first of all Englishmen, 
 demonstrated the power of the historian, not only to rescue the past, but 
 to mold the future. But the catalogue is too long to be thus continued. 
 What is here left undone, the student may profitably do for himself, re- 
 cording briefly his judgment of each writer and specifying his distinguisliing 
 Services or office in literature. 
 
 As helps to hi.story, these brief interviews with typical representatives of 
 different periods cannot fail to be valuable. To the epics of Homer we 
 are largely indebted for our knowledge of the politics, theology, and social 
 customs of the Greeks and Trojans ; and our debt for similar acquisitions 
 to English writers of early times, though rarely acknowledged, is even 
 greater. Chaucer gives us pictures of a life that, but for him, we could 
 only imagine, — a life in which rude ecclesiasticism held unquestioned 
 dominion. Dryden describes or suggests the vicissitudes of religious faith 
 that were the most conspicuous feature of English life in his time, and the 
 I>ervading corruption that demoralized all classes. Coleridge enlightens us 
 as to the first movements of that spirit of free inquiry whose results have 
 
Vm PREFACE. 
 
 pre-eminently distinguished the nineteenth century. It would be easy to 
 enlarge upon this point if space permitted ; but a little reflection will con- 
 vince the intelligent reader that the literature of a nation is its true his- 
 tory : it is spontaneous and unprejudiced, while formal liistorical narratives 
 arc invariably colored by prejudice, personal, political, or theological. If 
 Hume's and Macaulay's and Fronde's Histories were suddenly destroyed, 
 the sur\'iving general literature of England would afford ample materials 
 for their reconstruction. 
 
 American Literature has a liberal representation in The Literaky 
 Reader, which presents one feature that may be said to be unique ; that 
 is, its recognition of distinctively scientific writers as contributors to letters. 
 In its early days science was dry and almost repellent to all save its favored 
 students ; but its modern exponents have not failed to see the importance of 
 introducing it in an attractive guise, and the writings of Agassiz, Tyudall, 
 Gray, Dana, Maury, Huxley, and others abound in passages of marked 
 beauty even when judged according to the standards of pure literature. 
 Tliis feature of the work seems to mark not only a due acknowledgment 
 of the growing love for scientific study in this country, but also a welcome 
 addition to the treasures of literature. 
 
 Wliile this work is primarily intended for the use of schools, as a text- 
 book by the use of which the learner may acquire, simultaneously, profi- 
 ciency in reading, and no inconsiderable famiharity with what may be 
 called the headlands of English literature, it will, it is believed, also be 
 found serviceable by the general reader. One who desires to acquaint 
 himself with the best literary products of the Anglo-Saxon intellect will find 
 in these pages a convenient and agreeable introduction to them. Indeed, 
 the book may fitly be described as a collection of samples wliich set forth 
 the peculiar qualities of the chief literary fabrics of England and America, 
 made during nearly three hundred years. 
 
 The compiler acknowledges, with pleasure, his obligations to Mr. S. R. 
 
 Crocker, the accomplished editor of the Literary World, for much valuable 
 
 literary assistance, and also to Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co., Messrs. 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., and others, for their 
 
 courtesy in permitting the use of selections from their copyright editions 
 
 of American writers. 
 
 G. R. C. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ADAM AND EVES MORNING HYMN Milton 13 
 
 ADDRESS TO STUDENTS, AN Tyndall 860 
 
 AGED STRANGER, THE »»" IIarte 401 
 
 AGRICULTURE Gebelk 253 
 
 AIR AND SEA, THE Uavrx 183 
 
 ALEXANDER SELKIRK Cowpkr 41 
 
 AMATEUR WRITERS Holmes 227 
 
 AMERICA THE OLD WORLD Aqassiz 202 
 
 AMERICAN INDIAN TRADITIONS OF THE SPIRIT- 
 WORLD Addison 19 
 
 AMERICAN UNION, THE Webster B8 
 
 ANNABEL LEE Pok 246 
 
 ARABIA Gibbon 43 
 
 AUGUSTUS C;ESAR Merivale 223 
 
 BANNOCKBURN Burns 55 
 
 BAREFOOT BOY, THE Wiiittier 218 
 
 BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL Webster 83 
 
 BELFRY PIGEON, THE Willis 188 
 
 BELLS, THE Pok 247 
 
 BOOK OF JOB, THE Froude 319 
 
 BOONDER Bret Harte 399 
 
 BOY AND THE OWLS, THE Wordsworth 67 
 
 BROOK. THE Tenntson 238 
 
 BUGLE SONG, THE Tenntson 289 
 
 BURNING OF ROME Mkrivalk 229 
 
 CHANGELING, THE Lowell 339 
 
 CHAR.\CTER OF WASHINGTON jEmsRSON 49 
 
 CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE Tenntson 384 
 
 CHARM OF THE RATTLESNAKE SiMMs 190 
 
 CIVIC BANQUETS IN ENGLAND Hawthorne 156 
 
 CLAUDE MELNOTTE'S APOLOGY AND DEFENSE . Lttton 188 
 
 CLOUDS, THE Roskin . .889 
 
 COFFEE PLANTATION IN BRAZIL. A Aqassiz . . IW 
 
 COLONIZATION OF AMERICA . . Prescott 128 
 
 COMING AND GOING ... . . Beechrr 896 
 
 COMMON THOUGHT. A Timrod 898 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 rONni.TATION WITH AMFRTr.V . 
 
 
 . . BU«KB 
 
 . . 37 
 
 ( VA ni iiii; ( iiii.iu'.KN, Tin; . 
 
 
 . . Mrs. BKOwiriNo . . 
 
 . . 198 
 
 DAY IN I.oMxtN. A 
 
 
 . . Bayakd Tatlok . . 
 
 . . .s:s 
 
 Di; M) CALM IN Tin: TROPICS . 
 
 
 . . COLKRIDGE .... 
 
 
 l>i;\I) HOSE, A 
 
 
 . . Mrs. Brown I. \q . . 
 
 . . I'jj 
 
 1>I:a1I1 of ABSALOM 
 
 
 . . Willis 
 
 . . ls5 
 
 DEATH OF LONG TOM COFFIN . 
 
 
 . . Cooper . . 
 
 . . m 
 
 DEATH OF lllE FIX)WER8 . . . 
 
 
 . . Brtaivt 
 
 . . ii(] 
 
 1>KCAY OF ( IIIV \! li(Mv vi \ 1 iM 
 
 FNF . . . 
 
 . Hi RKE 
 
 . . :^y 
 
 DFCl-IoN AND \:\\ K(-1 . . . . 
 
 
 . . ^TKl-HENS 
 
 . . •:-9 
 
 DECI.AHMTON ol 1 N M.I'FN Hl.Nc 
 
 i: . . . . 
 
 . . I'AIITON .... 
 
 , 
 
 DESFIU FD \ Il.l.\(,!; 
 
 
 . . (iuI.D.xMITII ... 
 
 ^ 
 
 DISA-IFK 
 
 
 . . Lo.KCrELLOW. . . . 
 
 . . -Jl;. 
 
 DIXON 11 \ 1 IM ,. v-i i.A- . . 
 
 
 
 
 I)l'>ro\ Fill (»1 VMFiUCA . 
 
 
 1 r .... 
 
 . . '.)G 
 
 . . nr, 
 
 Di^t o\ \ \[\ (11 nu; MISSISSIPPI 
 
 i;i\FK . 
 
 l)ISCO\ ].]\\ OF rilF PACIFIC oci 
 
 .AN. . . . 
 
 . . llKI.I-S 
 
 . . •■'.■::i 
 
 insMAi- ^WAMP, iin; 
 
 
 . . Lykll 
 
 . . i:;2 
 
 DK LYDGATE 
 
 
 . . Geo. Ei.ioT . . 
 
 '■■'■') 
 
 EDITOR, THE 
 
 
 . . Grlelet . . 
 
 . :'A 
 
 KNC.I.AND 
 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 9 
 
 FNOCIl AUIiFN vin i'W i:i , k i m . 
 
 
 . . TvNNV'r.N 
 
 . . 238 
 
 F^CI 111 \F, ir. , 
 
 
 . . .Mi> I: . 
 
 . . 34« 
 
 FXFCl ITON (*. . . M 
 
 TTi: , . . 
 
 . . C.\kLii.t 
 
 . . 1?1 
 
 FXFCF IToN Ol -li; •' 1 
 
 Ill: . . . . 
 
 
 ■p 
 
 '   ''■ ' ' 1! \ r \Ni) \ , ,, M . . 
 
 
 
 iii: niiiii) 
 
 
 . . TllvrKKR.VY .... 
 
 -.'■7 
 
 o«..' ' ' " '^••'I>FIV . . . 
 
 
 . . Emke.son 
 
 . . F-.:5 
 
 GRI 
 
 
 . . PoPK 
 
 . . 2i 
 
 Gri.i - !,! \v 
 
 
 . . M.mrt 
 
 . . 178 
 
 llAMI F.rs -Ol 
 
 
 
 . . 6 
 
 UKAD W1NI> IN 1 IN Vi 1 VNTIC 
 
 A . . . . 
 
 
 2^} 
 
 inniRF.W P.A( F, TIIF 
 
 . . DI.SK.\KLI 
 
 . . 171 
 
 HERO OF Tin: lu rcii UFriBLic 
 
 , THE. . . 
 
 . . Motley 
 
 . . 316 
 
 HISTORIC PKo(,i;i:-N 
 
 
 . . Motley 
 
 . . 307 
 
 HOME 
 
 
 . . Goldsmith .... 
 
 . . 36 
 
 How ( ! RTAIX PLANTS CAI^FF;, 
 
 
 . . Gray 
 
 . . 240 
 
 HFMAN PUoCUi;-^. THF I.AW oF 
 
 
 
 . . 266 
 
 ICHAPOl^ ( RANF 
 
 
 . . Irving 
 
 . . 89 
 
 IMPoRTANCF OF MFTHoD . . . 
 
 
 
 ^.1 
 
 INDIAN ADOPTION. THE . . . 
 
 
 . . Cooper 
 
 . . 1(9 
 
 INDIAN >F\^<ACRF.< OF THE EARLY SETTLERS . 
 
 i.N Vocation and introduction to paradise 
 
 LOST 
 
 I SAW TTn:i: wffp 
 
 JOHN CHINAMAN 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE 
 
 B.\>CROFT 143 
 
 MiLTO.N 10 
 
 Byko.v 108 
 
 Bret Hakte 397 
 
 Dana SOI 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 KUBLA KHAN Coleeidge 71 
 
 LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE Tennyson 8S6 
 
 LAST IIOIRS OF LITTLE PAUL DOMBEY .... Dickens 277 
 
 LAST MINSTREL, THE Scott 66 
 
 LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP Lonqfellow 218 
 
 LOCHINVAR: L.VDY HERON'S SONG Scott 67 
 
 LOVE: A SONNET Mas. Browning . . . . 1»7 
 
 LOVE OF COUNTRY Scorr 66 
 
 LOVE OF GLORY Scmnkb 268 
 
 LOVER'S, A, DREAM OF HOME Lvtton 170 
 
 MAIDEN WITH A MILKING-PAIL, A Jean Ingelow S76 
 
 MAN WAS MADE TO .MOURN BtKNS 61 
 
 MAUD MULLER Whittier 214 
 
 MAY MORNING Milton 13 
 
 MERCY Shakespeare 8 
 
 MIND, THE SliAKESPEARE 9 
 
 MODERN GREECE Byron 10* 
 
 MONTHS, THE Beecher 294 
 
 MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE Hawthorne 159 
 
 MOTHERS WAIL, A Timrod 394 
 
 MY G.\RDEN ACQUAINTANCE Lowell 335 
 
 NAPOLEON BON AP.ARTE Emerson 150 
 
 MGHT VIEW OF A CITY Carlyle 123 
 
 NOBLE SAVAGE, THE Dickens 283 
 
 OCEAN, THE Byron 106 
 
 OF .V THE AIRTS THE WIND CAN BLAW .... Blr.ns 66 
 
 ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS Lowell 841 
 
 ORIGIN OF ROAST-PIG Lamb 79 
 
 OTHELLO'S SPEECH TO THE SENATE Shakespeare 3 
 
 PAL.\CE, A, IN A VALLEY Johnson 26 
 
 PATRICK HENRY ON CONCILIATION WITH ENG- 
 
 L.\ND Parton 867 
 
 PERFECTION Shakespeare 9 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS AND PROJECTORS Dean Swirr 14 
 
 PICKWICKS EXTR.\ORDINARY DILEMMA .... Dicke.ns 272 
 
 PILGRIMS PROGRESS, BUNYAN'S Macaulat 141 
 
 PLEASURES OF KNOWLEDGE Stdnet Smith 68 
 
 POLONIUS'S ADVICE TO HIS SON Shakespeare 7 
 
 PRLSEXT CONDITION OF MAN VINDICATED . . Popb 23 
 
 rRoiiRESS OF ENGLAND Macaulay 139 
 
 PSALM OF LIFE. A LoNorELLOW 210 
 
 PURITANS. THE . . . Macaulat 136 
 
 PURITY OF CIIARACTKU . . . Beecher 300 
 
 R.VVEN, EXTR.VCT FROM THE . Pok 847 
 
 Iu:\niNG . Helps S86 
 
 lUiloRMER. THE . Greeley . . »9 
 
 !:: N or TERROR Carlyle 185 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 RELIEF OF LEYDEN Motley 312 
 
 KETURN OF COLUMBUS Pmscott 101 
 
 REVOLUTION . Lvtton 16i 
 
 ROME Byko> 106 
 
 ROME AJiD ST. PETER'S Bataed Tatlor .... 888 
 
 RUTH WOKDSWOSTH 58 
 
 SAGACITY OF THE SPIDER Goldsmith U 
 
 SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT Stdket Smrn 71 
 
 SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION Hl-xlet "s; 
 
 SEA, THE Emeisow 154 
 
 SEVEN AGES OF MAN . miakespeaee 7 
 
 SEVEN TIMES ONE . Jeam Ixgelow 374 
 
 SEVERED FRIENDSHIP Coleridge 78 
 
 SHADED WATER, THE Simms 193 
 
 SHIP OF STATE, THE LoKorELLOW 210 
 
 SHIPWRECK, THE iJtKOW 103 
 
 SLEEP Mis. Beow.mm. .... 196 
 
 SOLITARY REAPER, THE Wordsworth 61 
 
 SPRING Timrod 393 
 
 STORMING THE TEMPLE OF MLXICO Prescott 131 
 
 STUDY OF LANGUAGE Mrs. Le Vert 344 
 
 SURRENDER OF GRENADA Ltttom 165 
 
 THANATOPSIS Brtawt 117 
 
 THE MAJORS ADVICE TO HIS NEPHEW .... Thacrerat 261 
 
 TO A W.VTERFOWL BRiAirr 119 
 
 TOMB OF ROBERT BRUCE Scott 65 
 
 TYRANNY OF MISS ASPHYXIA Mrs. Stowe •2^4 
 
 UNDER THE VIOLETS Holmes 2:32 
 
 VALLEY AND CITY OF MEXICO Prescott 126 
 
 WASHINGTON, EUXOGIUM ON Webster 85 
 
 WATER Rlsrin 329 
 
 WELUNGTON, EULOGIUM ON . . .^ Disraeli 174 
 
 WINNING OF JULIET Shakespeare 3 
 
 WINTER Whittier 221 
 
 WIT AND WISDOM Std.ney Smith 70 
 
 WOLSEY ON THE VICISSITUDES OF LIFE .... Shakespeare 5 
 
 WORLDLY PICTURE, A George Eliot 362 
 
 WRECK OF THE HESPERUS Losgpellow 207 
 
 YUSSOUF Lowell 338 
 
 VOCABULARY 403 
 
 DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS 413 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS 
 
 Addison, Joseph 19 
 
 AoASsiz, Louis J. U 199 
 
 Banckoft, George 143 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward 294 
 
 Browning, Mrs 195 
 
 Bryant, "William Cullen 116 
 
 Burns, Robert 51 
 
 Burke, Edmund 37 
 
 Byron, Lord 102 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas 121 
 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 72 
 
 Cooper, James Fenimore 109 
 
 CowpER, "William 41 
 
 Dana, James D 301 
 
 Dickens, Charles 272 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin 171 
 
 Eliot, George 355 
 
 Emerson, Ralph "Waldo 150 
 
 Froude, James Anthony 317 
 
 Greeley, Horace 251 
 
 Gibbon, Edward 43 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver 31 
 
 Gray, Asa 240 
 
 Harte, Bret 897 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniei 155 
 
 Helps, Sir Arthur 823 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 227 
 
 Huxley, Thomas H 887 
 
 Lnoelow, Jean 374 
 
 Irving, WAsniNGTf)N 89 
 
 jKPrKRsoN, Thomas 49 
 
 Johnson, Samuel 26 
 
 Lamb, Charles 79 
 
 Lb Veet, Mrs. Octatia Walton 344 
 
XIV INDEX OP AUTHORS. 
 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 207 
 
 Lowell, James Russell 335 
 
 Lyell, Sir Charles 132 
 
 Lytton, Lord (Bulwee) 162 
 
 Macaulay, T. B. (Lord) 136 
 
 Maury, Matthew Foxtaint: 178 
 
 Merivale, Charles 222 
 
 Milton, John 10 
 
 Motley, John Lothrop 307 
 
 Parton, James 367 
 
 PoE, Edgar Allan 245 
 
 Pope, Alexander 23 
 
 Prescott, William II 126 
 
 RusKiN, John 329 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter 63 
 
 Shakespeare, William 1 
 
 SIMMS, William Gilmork 190 
 
 Smith, Sydney 68 
 
 Stephens, Alexander H 289 
 
 Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher. 284 
 
 Sumner, Charles 266 
 
 Swift, Dean 14 
 
 Taylor, Bayard 378 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred 234 
 
 Thackeray, W. M 257 
 
 Timrod, Henry 392 
 
 Tyndall, John 350 
 
 Webster, Daniel 83 
 
 Whittier, John Grbenleaf 214 
 
 Willis, Nathaniel Parker 185 
 
 Wordsworth, William 57 
 
Cathcart's Literary Reader. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 1564- 1616. 
 
 William Shaxzsfeau, dramatist and po«t, was born at Stratford-on-Avon, England, in 
 \pril, 15M. Of his early life almost nothing is known. It is believed that he was a student 
 111 the free school at Stratford, and that in his youth he assisted his father in tlie latter's busi- 
 ness, which was that of a wool-dealer and glover. That he formally entered upon any dertuite 
 railing we have no proof; but critics have found evidence in his writings of his familiarity with 
 various professions : Malone, one of his acutest commentators, firmly insisted that Shake3))eare 
 was a lawyer's clerk. At the age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, then eight years his 
 senior. Of this union only a vague report that it proved uncongenial has come down to us. In 
 1586 or 13'<7 Shakespeare secniB to liave gone to I/ondon, and two years later app«irs as one of 
 the propnrtors of the Blackfriars Theater. In the few years next following he became known 
 as a playwright, and in 159.1 he published his first poem, Venus and Adonis. The dates of publi- 
 cation of his plays arc not settled beyond doubt ; but the best authorities place Henry VI. first 
 and The Tempest last, all included between 1589 and 1611. Shakespeare was an actor as well as 
 a writer of plays, and remained on the stage certainly as late as 1003. Two years later he 
 bou;.'!it a handsome house at Stratford, and livetl therein, enjoying the friendship and respect of 
 his neighbors till his death in 1616. 
 
 Meager as is the foregoing sketch, it yet emboilies, with a few trifling exceptions, all the known 
 facts as to Shakespeare's life. A mist seems to have settled over " the most illustrious of the 
 sons of man," almost wholly hiding his personality from curious and admiring posterity. Of 
 many of his contemporary writers,, and of some who preceded him, comparatively full particulars 
 have come down to us. Edmund Spenser stands out conspicuous among the bright lights of 
 the Elizabethan age ; the genial face and the personal habits of " rare Ben Jonson " are almost 
 familiar to us , and even of Chaucer, the father of English literature, we possess a reasonably 
 .distinrt jwrtraiture ; but Shakespeare, Ike tnan, is lost to us in the darkness of the past In hit 
 works, however, he lives, and will live while written recortls survive. 
 
 The name of Shakespeare is so pre-eminently famous, standing out in the firmament of litera- 
 ture "like the moon among the lesser stars," that no attempt to ronvcy an idea of his greatness 
 seems to be nccessar)- here. We content ourselves, therefore, with quoting the opinions of a few 
 of tbo^e who have l>ecn worthy to judge him. 
 
 Dr Samuel Johnson says : " The stream of time, which it eontinoally washing the disaolrable 
 f.iliru* of other poet*, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare." 
 
 ThMiim* 1)( Qiiiii.-ey says : " In the gravest sense it may be nfflrmetl of Shakespeare that he is 
 amont? the iiKxleni luxuries of life ; it was his prerogative to have thought more finely and more 
 extensively than all other poets combined." 
 
 Ix>rd Jeffrey says : " More full of wisdom and ridicnle and sagaeity than all the moraltsta that 
 ever existed, he is more wild. air>-, and inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the 
 poets of all regions and ages of the world." 
 
 Lord Maoiulay pronounced Shakespeare " the greatest poet that ever bved," and ( 
 1 A 
 
Othello, the play from which our first selection is takeu, as " perhaps the greatest work in the 
 world." 
 
 Thomas Carlylc bears this characteristic testimony : " Of this Shakespeare of ours, perhaps the 
 opinion one sometimes hears a little idolatrously expressed is. in fact, the right one ; I think the 
 best judgment is slowly pointing to the conclusion that Shakespeare is the chief of all poets 
 hitherto, the greatest intellect who, m our recorded world, has left record of himself in tlic way 
 of literature. On the wholr, 1 know not such a power of vision, such a faculty of thought, if we 
 take all the characters of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth, placid, joyous strength, 
 all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil, unfathomable sea ! " 
 
 OTHELLO'S SPEECH TO THE SENATE. 
 Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 
 My very noble and approved good masters, — 
 That I have ta'en away this ohl man's daughter, 
 It is most true ; true, I have married her ; 
 The very head and front of my offending ^ 
 Hath tliis extent, no more. Rude am I in speech, 
 And little blessed with the set phrase of peace ; 
 For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith. 
 Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used 
 Their dearest action in the tented field ; 
 And little of this great world can I speak. 
 More than pertains to feats of broil and battle ; 
 And therefore little shall I grace my cause 
 In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, 
 I will a round unvarnished tale deliver 
 Of my whole course of love ; what drugs, what charms. 
 What conjuration, and what mighty magic 
 (Por such proceeding I am charged withal), 
 I won his daughter with. 
 
 Her father loved me ; oft invited me ; 
 
 Still questioned me the story of my life. 
 
 From year to year ; the battles, sieges, fortunes. 
 
 That I have passed. 
 
 I ran it through, even from my boyish days. 
 
 To the very moment that he bade me tell it. 
 
 Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, 
 
 Of moving accidents by flood and field, 
 
 Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach ; 
 
 Of being taken by the insolent foe. 
 
 And sold to slavery ; of my redemption thence, 
 
SHA&ESPEABE. 
 
 And portance in my travel's history ; 
 
 Wherein of antres vast, anil deserts idle, 
 
 Rough (pian-ies, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven. 
 
 It was my hint to spwik ; — such was the process ; — 
 
 And of the cannibals that each other eat. 
 
 The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear, 
 
 Would Desdemona seriously incline : 
 
 But still the house affairs would draw her thence ; 
 
 Which ever as she could with haste despatch. 
 
 She 'd come again, and with a greedy ear 
 
 Devour up my discourse : which I observing, 
 
 Took once a pliant hour, and found good means 
 
 To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart. 
 
 That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, 
 
 Whereof by parcels she had something heard. 
 
 But not intent ively. I did consent ; 
 
 And often did beguile her of her tears, 
 
 When I did speak of some distressful stroke 
 
 That my youth suffered. My story being done, 
 
 She gave me for my pains a world of sighs : 
 
 She swore — In faith, 't was strange, 't was passing strange ; 
 
 'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful : 
 
 She wished she had not heard it ; yet she wished 
 
 That Heaven had made her such a man : she thanked me ; 
 
 And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, 
 
 I should but teach him how to tell my story. 
 
 And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I spake : 
 
 She loved me 'for the dangers I had passed ; 
 
 And I loved her, that she did pity them. 
 
 This only is the witchcraft I have used. 
 
 THE wnnnNO of jtjliet.* 
 
 Juliet. Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face : 
 Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek, 
 For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. 
 
 • An fxtrwt from tlw VoTe fcene in the pirdni. in the play of Bomfo amd Jnliel. 
 unbtucad^ at night, h diaoorered by Jnliet listening to her declaration of lore for him. 
 
CATHUAKl S l-llhUAUY READER. 
 
 Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny 
 What I have spoke : but farewell compliment ! 
 Dost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say, Ay : 
 And I will take thy word ; yet, if thou swear st. 
 Thou mayst prove false ; at lovers' perjuries, 
 They say, Jove laughs. O gentle Komeo, 
 If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully : 
 Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, 
 I *11 frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, 
 So thou wilt woo ; but else, not for the world. 
 In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond ; 
 And therefore thou mayst think my 'havior light. 
 But trust me, gentleman, I '11 prove more true 
 Than those that have more cunning to be strange. 
 I should have been more strange, I must confess, 
 But that thou overheard'st, ere I was 'ware. 
 My true love's passion : therefore pardon me ; 
 And not impute this yielding to light love. 
 Which the dark night hath so discovered. 
 
 Romeo. Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear. 
 That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops — 
 
 Juliet. O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon. 
 That monthly changes in her circled orb, 
 Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. 
 
 Romeo. What shall I swear by ? 
 
 Juliet. Do not swe^r at all, 
 
 Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self. 
 Which is the god of my idolatry. 
 And I '11 believe thee. * 
 
 Romeo. If my heart's dear love — 
 
 Juliet. Well, do not swear : although I joy in thee, 
 I have no joy of this contract to-night ; 
 It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden : 
 Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be 
 Ere one can say, It lightens. Sweet, good night ! 
 This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, 
 May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. 
 Good night, good night ! as sweet repose and rest 
 Come to thy heart, as that within my breast ! 
 
SUAKESPEAEE. 
 
 Romeo. O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied ? 
 
 Juliet. What satisfaction canst thou have to-night? 
 
 Romeo. Tlie exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine. 
 
 Juliet. I gave thee mine before thou didst request it : 
 And yet I would it were to give again. 
 
 Romeo. Wouldst thou withdraw it ? for what purpose, love? 
 
 Juliet. But to be frank, and give it thee again. 
 And yet I wish but for the thing I have : 
 My bounty is as boundless as the sea, 
 My love as deep ; the more I give to thee, 
 The more I have, for both are infinite. 
 
 WOLSEY ON THE VICISSITUDES OF LIFE.* 
 
 Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness. 
 This is the stjite of man ; to-day he puts forth 
 The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, 
 And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; 
 The third day comes a frost, a killing frost ; 
 And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely 
 His greatness is a-ripening, — nips his root. 
 And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, 
 Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
 This many summers in a sea of glory ; 
 But far Ix^yond my depth ; my high-blown pride 
 At length broke under me ; and now has left me, 
 AVeary, and old with service, to the mercy 
 Of a rude stream, that nmst forever hide me. 
 Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye ; 
 I feel my heart new opened : O, how wretched 
 Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors ! 
 There is, Ix'twixt that .smile we would aspire to. 
 That sweet aspt^ct of princes, and their ruin, 
 More pangs and fears, than wars or women have ; 
 And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
 Never to hope again. 
 
 • Cardinal Wobey wm ooe of the hig hfst offleen of King Henry VITI. of England. Bdng 
 taddealy deprived of all hit honora by the king, and conacqaenUy diagnced, Shakespeare rep- 
 reMBta hin aa uttering thia tpeerh on retiring froni office. 
 
CATHCAlil b LITERARY READER. 
 
 HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY. 
 
 To be, or not to be, — that is the question : — 
 
 Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer 
 
 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ; 
 
 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. 
 
 And, by opposing, end them ? — To die, — to sleep, — 
 
 No more ; — and, by a sleep, to say we end 
 
 The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks 
 
 That flesh is heir to, — 't is a consummation 
 
 Devoutly to be wished. To die ; — to sleep ; — 
 
 To sleep ! perchance to dream ; — ay, there 's the rub : 
 
 For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 
 
 When we have shuffled off" this mortal coil. 
 
 Must give us pause ; there 's the respect 
 
 Tliat makes calamity of so long life : 
 
 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
 
 The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
 
 The pangs of despised love, the law's delay. 
 
 The insolence of office, and the spurns 
 
 That patient merit of the unworthy takes. 
 
 When he himself might his quietus make 
 
 With a bare bodkin ? who would fardels bear. 
 
 To grunt and sweat under a weary life ; 
 
 But that the dread of something after death, — 
 
 The undiscovered country, from whose bourn 
 
 No traveler returns, — puzzles the will ; 
 
 And makes us rather bear those ills we have, 
 
 Than fly to others that we know not of? 
 
 Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 
 
 And thus the native hue of resolution 
 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ; 
 
 And enterprises of great pith and moment. 
 
 With this regard, their currents turn awry. 
 
 And lose the name of action. 
 
SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 POLONITIS'S ADVICE TO HIS SON. 
 
 Give thy thoughts no tongue. 
 Nor any unproportioned tliought his act. 
 Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. 
 The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried. 
 Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel ; 
 But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 
 Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware 
 Of entrance to a quarrel ; but, being in, 
 Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee. 
 Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice : 
 Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 
 Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, 
 But not expressed in fancy ; rich, not gaudy ; 
 For the apparel oft proclaims the man ; 
 And they in France, of the best rank and station. 
 Are most select and generous, chief in that. 
 Neither a borrower nor a lender be : 
 For loan oft loses both itself and friend ; 
 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 
 This above all, — to thine own self b(; true ; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day. 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man. 
 Farewell ; my blessing season this in thee. 
 
 THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN. 
 
 All the world 's a stage, 
 And. all the men and women merely players : 
 They have their exits and their entrances ; 
 And one man in his time plays many parts, 
 His acts being seven ages. At first, the Infant, 
 Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. 
 And then, the whining School-boy, with his satchel, 
 And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
 Unwillingly to school. And then, the Lover, 
 Sighing like furnace, %vith a woful Ixdlad 
 Made to his mistress* eyebrow. Then a Soldier ; 
 
CATHCART^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 Full of strange oaths, and Ixardfd like tlic p;ird, 
 
 Jealous ill lioiior, sudden and {[iiick in ([uarrd, 
 
 Seeking the bubble rL-piitation 
 
 Even in the cannon's nioutli. And then, the Justice, 
 
 In fair round belly, with good capon lined, 
 
 With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut. 
 
 Full of wise saws and modern instances ; 
 
 And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts 
 
 Into tile lean and slippiTrd i'antaloon, 
 
 AVitli spectacles on nose, and pouch on side; 
 
 Ills youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide 
 
 For his shrunk shank ; and his biL: manly voice, 
 
 Turninir aiirain toward cliildish treble, pipes 
 
 And wlii>tles in his sound. Last scene of all. 
 
 That ends this strange eventful iiistory, 
 
 Is second childishness and mere oblivion, 
 
 Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. 
 
 MEECY. 
 
 The quality of Mercy is not strained ; 
 
 It droppcth, as the pintle rain from lieaven, 
 
 Upon ihe })laee beneath. It is twice hh >sed ; 
 
 It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 
 
 'T is mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes 
 
 The tlironed monarch better than his ercjw n. 
 
 His scepter shows the force of temporal power. 
 
 The attribute to awe and majesty, 
 
 "Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 
 
 But mercy is above this sccptered sway, — 
 
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, 
 
 It is an attribute to God himself: 
 
 And earthly power doth then sliow likest God's, 
 
 When mercy sca>,)iis ju>tice. Therefore, Jew, 
 
 Thouirh justice be thy ple^i, consider this, — 
 
 That, in the course of justice, none of us 
 
 Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy ; 
 
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
 
SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 ENGLAND. 
 
 This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, 
 
 This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 
 
 This other Eden, demi-paradise ; 
 
 This fortress, built by Nature for herself. 
 
 Against infection and the hand of war ; 
 
 This happy breed of men, this little world ; 
 
 This precious stone set in the silver sea, 
 
 Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
 
 Or as a moat defensive to a house. 
 
 Against the envy of less happier lands, 
 
 This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. 
 
 THE MIND. 
 
 For 't is the mind that makes the body rich : 
 And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds. 
 So honor peereth in the meanest habit. 
 What ! is the jay more precious than the lark. 
 Because his feathers are more beautiful ? 
 Or is the adder better than the eel, 
 Because his painted skin contents the eyes ? 
 O no, good Kate : neither art thou the worse 
 For this poor furniture and mean array. 
 
 PERFECTION. 
 
 To gild refin(?d gohl, to |j!iint the lily. 
 
 To throw a perfume on the violet, 
 
 To smooth the ice, or add another hue 
 
 Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light 
 
 To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, 
 
 Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. 
 
10 CATHCAET's LITERAEY EEADEE. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 1608- 1674. 
 
 John Mii-to!» — (ri«n»« */ renfrabile tumen—vrta born in London in December, 1608, and 
 died November, 1674. He waa the son of John Milton, a respectable scrivener. The younger 
 John entered Christ's College, Cambridge, at the age of sixteen, and became distinguished during 
 his University career for his brilliant poetical abilities. lie was destined for the service of tlie 
 Church ; but, on arriving at manhood, he found — to quote his own words — " what tyranny 
 bad invaded the Church, and that he who would take orders must subscribe Slave." He 
 therefore turned bis thoughts to the law, but soon abandoned it, and gave his undivided atten- 
 tion to literature. The death of his mother, in 1637, affected his health, and he sought to restore 
 it by travel. He visited several continental countries, and, while in Italy, made the acquaint- 
 ance of Galileo. Returning to England in 16:^9, he found the nation in a fever of political ex- 
 citement, and lost no time in declaring himself with reference to the momentous questiuns then 
 under discussion. In 1641 and 16t'2 he published his first polemical treatises, which made a 
 profound impression. In 1643 be was married to Mary Powell ; but the union, like Shake- 
 speare's, proved a rather unhappy one. The lady was volatile, and fond of gayety, and her 
 family were enthusiastic Royalists, while Milton waa a stem Puritan. Soon after the marriage 
 a separation took phice ; but at last a reconciliation was effected, and the partnership was re- 
 newed. Several of his political pamphlets brought Milton into prominence, and led to his being 
 appointed, in 1649, Latin Secretary to the Council of State, which office he held eight years. 
 During that period he wrote bis famous EikomokloiUs, and several other books. In 1653 his 
 wife died, and three years later he married again, finding, it is believed, real happiness in his 
 new relation. In 1660 the monarchy was re-established, and thenceforward be took no con- 
 spicuous part in politics. Having lost bis aeoond wife, be took a third in 1664, who survived 
 him nearly fifty years, dying in 1727. 
 
 His most famous composition, Paradise Lost, was written after be had become totally blind, 
 which happened in 1652, it being dictated to his daughter. It is worthy of note that the whole 
 remuneration received by the poet and his family for this poem, which ranks among the grand- 
 est in the world, was only twenty -eight pounds, about one hundred and forty dollars. 
 
 Paradise Lost represents the only successful attempt ever made to construct a drama whose 
 principal personages are supernatural ; in this character it stands alwve others unapproached. 
 To the student it offers a field whose exploration never ceases to be delightful and remunerative. 
 It is the finest flower of one of the greatest minds that ever commanded the reverence of the 
 world ; and in design, if not in execution, is the noblest poetical product of human genius. 
 
 THE INVOCATION AND INTEODUCTION TO PAEADISE LOST. 
 
 Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
 With loss of Eden, till one <?reater Man 
 Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
 Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top 
 Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire 
 That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, 
 In the beginning how the Heavens and Earth 
 Rose out of Chaos : or, if Sion hill 
 
HILTON. 11 
 
 Delight thee more, and Siloa*s brook that flowed 
 Fast by the oracle of God, I thence 
 Invoke thy aid to ray adventurous song, 
 That with no middle flight intends to soar 
 Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues 
 Things unatteuipted yet in prose or rhyme. 
 And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer 
 Before all temples the upright heart and pure. 
 Instruct me, for thou know'st ; thou from the flrst 
 Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 
 r)ove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss. 
 And matl'st it pregnant : what in me is dark 
 Illumine ; what is low raise and support ; 
 That to the height of this great argument 
 I may assert eternal Providence, 
 And justify the ways of God to man. 
 
 S{iy first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view. 
 Nor the deep tract of Hell ; say first, what cause 
 Moved our grand parents, in tliat happy state, 
 Favored of Heaven so highly, to full off 
 From their Creator, and transgress his will. 
 For one restraint, lords of the world besides ? 
 Who first seduced them to that foul revolt ? 
 The infernal serpent ; he it was, whose guile. 
 Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceivetl 
 The mother of mankind, what time his pride 
 Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host 
 Of rebel angels ; by whose aid, aspiring 
 To set himself in glory above his peers. 
 He trusted to have equaled the Most High, 
 If he opposed ; and, with ambitious aim 
 Against the throne and monarchy of God, 
 Raised impious war in Heaven, and Iwttle proud. 
 With vain attempt. Him the Almighty power 
 Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, 
 With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
 To bottomless perdition ; tliere to dwell 
 In adamantine chains and penal fire. 
 Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. 
 
12 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 ADAM AND EVE'S MORNING HYMN. 
 
 These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, 
 
 A]rni;^^litv ! Tliiiie this uiiivrrsal frame, 
 
 Thus vvoiulrous fair; Tlisxll how wondrous then! 
 
 Unspeakable, who sit'st above these heavens 
 
 To n? iTivi^^ililc, or dimly seen 
 
 hi ihisi ihv h)\srst works; yet these declare 
 
 Thy goodness Ix-vond thouirht, and power divine. 
 
 Speak, ye who Ix-st can ttll, y sons of light. 
 
 Angels ; for y 1m hoUl him, and with songs 
 
 And choral symphonies, day without night, 
 
 Cirele his throne rejoicing ; ye, in Heaven : 
 
 On I'.arth join, all ye creatniv<. to t xtol 
 
 Him tirst, him last, him midst, and without end. 
 
 Pairest of stors, last in the train of night, 
 
 If Intt.r tliou l)rh)iiL^ not to tlif (hiwii, 
 
 iSmc pK'dL'-c ()f(hiv, tli;.t i rown'.-t the sniilinir "Morn 
 
 With tliy l)riuiit «ircltt, praise liini in tliy sjjhcrc. 
 
 While day arises, that sweet hour of prime. 
 
 Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and soul. 
 
 Acknowledge him thy greater ; sound his jiraise 
 
 In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st. 
 
 And when high noon hast gained, and when thou fall'st. 
 
 Moon, that now meet'st thi orient Sun, now fly'st. 
 
 With the fixed stars, fixed in tlieir orb that flies; 
 
 And ye five other wandtrin^i: tires, that move 
 
 In mystic dance not without song, resound 
 
 His praise, who out of darkness called up light. 
 
 Air, and ye elenients. the ehh^sr Itirtli 
 
 Of Nature's womb, that in cpiaternion run. 
 
 Perpetual circle, mnltiforni ; and mix 
 
 And nourish all thinus : ]ct yonr ceaseless change 
 
 Vary to our great ^laker still new praise. 
 
 Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise 
 
 From hill or steaniii^p: lake. (ln>ky or irray. 
 
 Till the Sun paint yonr tle(\ y skirts with gold, 
 
 In honor to the Avorld's n:reat Author rise; 
 
 Whether to deck with clouds the nncolored skv. 
 
MILTON. 13 
 
 Or wet the thirsty Earth with falling showers. 
 
 Rising or falling still advance his praise. 
 
 His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow, 
 
 J^rwithe soft or loud ; and wave your tops, ye pines, 
 
 With every })lant, in sign of worship, wave. 
 
 Fountiiins, and ye that warble as ye flow. 
 
 Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. 
 
 Join voices, all ye living souls : ye birds, 
 
 That singing up to Heaven-gate ascend, 
 
 ]ifar on your wings and in your notes his praise. 
 
 Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk 
 
 The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep ; 
 
 Witness if I be silent, morn or even. 
 
 To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade. 
 
 Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise. 
 
 Hail, universal Lord, be bounteous still 
 
 To give us only good ; and if the night 
 
 Have gathered aught of evil or concealed. 
 
 Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark ! 
 
 KAT M0SNIN6. 
 
 Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger. 
 Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her 
 The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
 The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. 
 
 Hail bounteous May ! that dost inspire 
 
 Mirth, and youth, and warm desire ; 
 
 Woods and groves are of thy dressing. 
 
 Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing. 
 Thus we salute thee with our early song. 
 And welcome thee and wish thee long. 
 
 How charming is divine philosophy ! 
 
 Not harsh and cnd)bed, as dull fools suppose. 
 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute. 
 
 And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, 
 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns. 
 
14 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 DEAN SWIFT. 
 1667-1745. 
 
 Jonathan Swift, commonlj known as Dean Swift, was born in Dublin, in Norember, 18«7, 
 and died in October, 1745. He was not proud of bis native land, but emphatically declared that 
 his birth in Ireland was a " perfect accident," and lost no opportunity of reviling that country. 
 At Dublin University, where he was matriculated. Swift distinguished himself l)y his coutcmpt 
 for college laws, and neglect of his studies ; and (Mily by special grace did he receive his degree 
 of B. A., in 168S. He entered the family of Sir William Temple in the capacity of secretary- ; in 
 the sanie household " Stella," immortalized in Swift's books, was a waiting-maid. King William 
 took a fimcy to Swift on account of the letter's services in making the sovereign acquainted with 
 asparagus, and offered him the command of a troop of horse. But the favor was declined. 
 In 16&4 Swift was admitted to deacon's orders, and a few years later went tu Ireland as chap- 
 lain to Lord Berkeley. Here he occupied various ecclesiastical offices, and in 1713 was made 
 Dean of St. Patrick's. He began his career in literature as a writer of political tracts, and was 
 secretly employed by the government to write in its behalf. In 1704 he published T%e Tale 
 of a Tuh. From titat time till 1735 he was a resident of England, and mainly engaged in 
 political controversy. In 1726 appeared Gmllieer't Trutela, and at frequent intervals thereaf- 
 ter, his other writings, prose and poetry. In 1740 be evinced the first symptoms of the madness 
 which clouded his ck>sing years. The story of his life is a sad one, and goes f»x to encourage the 
 belief that sometimes, if not always, retribution comes w this life upon the wrong-doer. Swift's 
 career was supremely selfish ; nothing was suffered to stand in the way of his interest and 
 gratification ; ever)body feared him, and nobody, save the three women whose names he lias 
 linked with his own, and whose unfaltering affection he requited so brutally, — with these excep- 
 tions, nobody lored him. His hfe furnishes an impressive lesson, the gist of which is, that a 
 man cannot make himself happy by exclusive devotion to himself. 
 
 As to Swift's rank as a writer it is not easy to define it ; but of his extraordinary abilities there 
 is no chance for doubt. He was, perhaps, the greatest master of satire tliat has ever written 
 the English language. His originality is remarkable ; no writer of his time, probably, borrowed 
 so little from his predecessors ; and his versatility — for he succeeded in evcr>- department of 
 literature that he attempted — is not less wonderful. All things considered, his Gullirer's 
 Travels must be regarded as bis greatest work, though several eminent critics, including Hal- 
 lam, liave found it inferior to The Tale of a Tub. Perhaps these words of Lord Jeffrey best 
 embody the general estimate of Dean Swift as a literary man : " In humor and in irony, and in 
 the talent of debasing and defiling what he hated, we join with the world in thinking the Dean 
 of St Patrick's without a rival." We give an eftract from Gulliver's Travels, which illustrates 
 his best manner as a satirist. 
 
 FHILOSOPHEBS AND FBOJECTOBS. 
 
 I WAS received ven^ kindly bv the warden, and went for many days 
 to the academy. Ever}' room liath in it one or more projectors, and 
 I believe I coidd not be in fewer than five hundred rooms. 
 
 The first man I saw was of a meager aspect, with sooty hands and 
 face, his hair and beard long, ragged, and singed in several places. 
 His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same color. He had been 
 eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, 
 which were to be put into vials hermetically sealed, and let out to 
 
DEAN SWIFT. 16 
 
 warm the air in raw, inclement summers. He told me he did not 
 doubt in eight years more that he sliould be able to supply the 
 govenior's gardens with sunshine at a reasonable rate ; but he com- 
 plained that the stock was low, and entreated me to give him some- 
 thing as an encouragement to ingenuity, especially since this had been 
 a very dear season for cucumbers. I made him a small present, for 
 my lord had furnished me with money, on purpose, because he knew 
 their pmctice of begging from all who go to see them. 
 
 I saw another at work to calcine ice into gunpowder, who likewise 
 showed me a treatise he had written concerning the malleability of 
 tire, which he intended to publish. 
 
 There was a most ingenious architect, who had contrived a new 
 method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working 
 downwards to the foundation ; which he justified to me by the like 
 practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider. 
 
 In another apartment I was highly pleased with a projector who 
 had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the 
 charges of ploughs, cattle, and labor. The method is this : in an 
 acre of ground, you bury, at six inches distance, and eight deep, a 
 quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other masts or vegetables, 
 wlicreof these animals are fondest; then you drive six hundred or 
 more of them into the field, where in a few days they will root up the 
 whole ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing. It 
 is true, upon exj)eriment they found the chaise and trouble very great, 
 and they had little or no crop. However, it is not doubted that this 
 invention may be capable of great improvement. 
 
 I went into another room, where the walls and ceilings were all 
 hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artist to 
 go in and out. At my entrance he called aloud to me not to disturb 
 his webs. He lamented the fatal mistake the world luid been so long 
 in, of using silk-worms, while we had such plenty of domestic insects, 
 who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to 
 weave as well as spin. And he proposed, further, that by employing 
 spiders, the charge of dyeing silks would be wholly saved ; whereof I 
 was fully convince<l when he showed me a vast numl)er of flies most 
 beautifully colored, wherewith he fed his spiders; assuring us that 
 the webs would take a tincture from them ; and as he had them of 
 all hues, he hoped to fit everyl)ody*s fancy, as soon as he could find 
 proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous 
 matter, to jHrr a consistence to the threads. 
 
16 CATHCAET^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 There was an astronomer who had undertaken to place a sun-dia\ 
 upon the great weathercock on the town-house, by adjusting the 
 annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun, so as to answer and 
 coincide with all accidental turning of the winds. 
 
 I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my reader 
 with all the curiosities I observed, being studious of brevity. 
 
 I ha<l hitherto only seen one side of the academy, the other being 
 appropriateil to the advancers of speculative learning, of whom I 
 shall say something when I have mentioned one illustrious person 
 more who is called among them the universal artist. He told us he 
 had been thirty years employing his thoughts for the improvement of 
 human life. He had two large rooms full of wonderful curiosities, and 
 fifty men at work ; some were condensing air into a dry tangil)le sub- 
 stance, by extracting the niter, and letting the aqueous or fluid parti- 
 cles percolate ; others, softening marble for pillows and pin-cushions ; 
 others, petrifying the hoofs of a living horse to preserve them from 
 foundering. The artist himself was at that time busy upon two great 
 designs ; first, to sow land with chaff, wherein he affirmed the true 
 seminal virtue to be contained, as he demonstrated by several experi- 
 ments, which I was not skillful enough to comprehend. The other 
 was, by a certain composition of gums, minerals, and vegetables, out- 
 wardly applied, to prevent the growth of wool upon two young lambs, 
 and he hoped in a reasonable time to propagate the breed of naked 
 sheep all over the kingdom. 
 
 We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I 
 have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided. 
 
 The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty 
 pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly 
 upon a frame which took up the greatest part of both the length and 
 breadth of the room, he said, perhaps I might wonder to see him 
 employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge by practical 
 and mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of 
 its usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble, exalted 
 thought never sprang in any other man's head. Every one knew how 
 lalK)rious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences, whereas, 
 by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, 
 and with a little bodily labor, may write books in philosophy, poetry, 
 politics, law, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance 
 from genius or study. He then led me to the frame, about the sides 
 
D£AN 8WIFT. IT 
 
 whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, 
 placed ill the middle of the room. The superficies * was composed of 
 several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than 
 others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits 
 of wood were covered on every square with paper pasted on them ; 
 and on these papers were written all the words of their language in 
 tlieir several mcx)ds, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. 
 The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his 
 engine at work. The pupils, at his conunand, took each of them hold 
 of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of 
 the frame, and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of 
 the words was entirely clianged. He then commanded six-and-thirty 
 of the kds to read the several lines softly as they appeared upon 
 the frame, and where they found three or four words together that 
 might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining 
 boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, 
 and at every turn the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted 
 into new places as the square bits of wood moved upside down. 
 
 Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labor ; 
 and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio, already 
 collected, of broken sentences, which he in tend wl to piece together, and 
 out of those rich materials to give the world a complete body of all 
 arts and sciences, which, however, might be still improved, and much 
 expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing 
 five hundred such frames in I^agado, and oblige the managers to 
 contribute in common their several collections. 
 
 He assured me that this invention had employed all his thoughts 
 from his youth ; that he hatl emptied the whole vocabulary into his 
 frame, and made the strictest computation of the general proportion 
 then* is in Iwoks, between the numbers of particles, nouns, and verbs, 
 anil other parts of speech. 
 
 I mmle my humblest acknowledgments to tliis illustrious person 
 for his great communicativeness, and promised, if ever I had tlie good 
 fortune to return to my native country, that I would do him 
 justice, as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine, the form and 
 contrivance of which T desired leave to delineate upon paper. I told 
 him, although it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal 
 inventions from each other, who had thereby at least this advantage, 
 
 * The nrihee; the exterior pert or boe of » (hiag. 
 
18 cATuc art's literaky beadeb. 
 
 that it became a controversy which was the right owner, yet I would 
 take such caution that he should have the honor entire without a 
 rival. 
 
 We next went to the school of languao^es, where three professors 
 sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country. 
 
 The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables 
 into one, and leaving out verbs and participles ; because, in reality, all 
 things imaginable are but nouns. 
 
 The other was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatso- 
 ever ; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health as 
 well as brevity : for it is plain that every word we speak is in some 
 degree a diminution of our lungs by cx)rrosion, and consequently con- 
 tributes to the shortening of our lives. An expedient was therefore 
 offered, that since words are only names for things, it would be more 
 c»nvenient for all men to carry about them such things as were 
 necessary to express the partit nlar business they are to discourse on. 
 And this invention woul* y have taken place, to the great case 
 
 as well as health of the surycct, ii the women, in conjunction with the 
 vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless 
 they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after 
 the maimer of their forefathers ; such constant irreconcilable enemies 
 to science are the common people. 
 
 The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is 
 owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words ; for whoever 
 is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt 
 in speaking to hesitate upon the choice of both ; whereas common 
 speakers have oidy one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe 
 them in ; and these are always ready at the mouth ; so people come 
 faster out of church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at 
 the door. 
 
 An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of 
 money and hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked " Why 
 he would hoard up those round shining things that he could make no 
 use of? " " Why," said the jackdaw, " my master has a whole chest 
 full, and makes no more use of them than I." 
 
ADDISON. 19 
 
 ADDISON. 
 1672- 1719. 
 
 Joszm ADDTSO!f was born in 1672, and died in 1719- Hi* name is a sjnonjrm of rhctoriad 
 elegance ; and to say that the stvle of a composition is " Addisonian " is to give it the higlieit 
 praise for tinisb and classic regularity. Addison's style, however admirable it may have seemed 
 to his contemporaries, cannot safely be taken as a model by a writer of the present day : it is too 
 cold and elaborate, and conveys an idea of formality which is not in harmony with the spirit of 
 our time. Addison's fame as a writer rests mainly on his contributions to the Spectator, Tat- 
 ter, and Guardian, periodicals which clearly illustrate the manners and morals of the time, and 
 which contain many of the finest specimens of English literary workmanship. To these period- 
 icals Addison was the principal contributor, and with these his name will have its most enduring 
 association, lie was a poet and a dramatist ; but, except perhaps his tragedy of Cuto, his efforts 
 in these departments of litemturc are not held in very high esteem by the authorities of to-day. 
 Addison led an easy and somewhat luxurious life. He held a high ottice in the government, had 
 an ample income, and in the literary society of tliat brilliant period occupied, by general ac- 
 quiescence, the foremost rank. No student of English literature can afford to neglect the essays 
 of Addison, which illustrate the very best literary achievementa of English writers, in delicacy 
 of sentiment and felicity of expression. 
 
 AMEBICAN INDIAN TBADITIONS OF THE SFUUT-WOSU). 
 
 The American Indians believe that all creatures have souls, not only 
 men and women, but brutes, vegetables, nay, even the most inanimate 
 things, as stocks and stones. They believe the same of all the works 
 of art, as of knives, boats, looking-glasses ; and that, as any of these 
 things perish, their souls go into another world, which is inhabited 
 by the gliosts of nren and women. For this reason they always pkce 
 by the corpse of their dead friend a bow and arrow, that he may make 
 use of the souls of them in the other world, as he did of their wooden 
 bodies in this. How absurd soever such an opinion as this may 
 appear, our European philosophers have maintained several notions 
 altogether as improbable. I shall only instance Albertus Magnus,* 
 who in his dissertation upon the loadstone, observing that fire will 
 destroy its magnetic virtues, tells us that he took particular notice 
 of one as it lay glowing amidst an heap of burning coals, and that 
 lie perceivetl a certain blue vapor to arise from it, which he believed 
 uiiglit be the substantial form : tlmt is, in our West-Indian phrase, 
 the soul of the magnet. 
 
 Th - • Tulition among tlie Indians, that one of their country- 
 
 • .\ iMiiiiMii nil rnar and bishop of fhe eleventh century. He was an eminent n 
 nnd matbenwlician. and it Mid to hare beta a Marcher after the philosopher's stone. 
 
20 cathcaet's literaby reader. 
 
 men descended in a vision to the great ^repository of souls, or, as we 
 call it here, to the other world ; and that upon his return he gave his 
 friends a distinct account of everj'thing he saw among those regions 
 of the dead. A friend of mine, whom I have formerly mentioned, 
 prevailed upon one of the interpreters of the Indian kings, to inquire 
 of them, if possible, what tradition they have among them of this 
 matter; which, as well as he could learn by those many questions 
 which he asked them at several times, was in substance as follows. 
 
 The visionary, whose name was Marraton, after having traveled for 
 a long space under an hollow mountain, arrived at lengtli on the 
 confines of this world of spirits, but could not enter it by reason of 
 a thick forest made up of bushes, brambles, and pointed thorns, so 
 interwoven with one another, that it was impossible to find a passage 
 through it. Whilst he was looking about for some track or pathway 
 that might be worn in any part of it, he saw a huge lion couched 
 under the side of it, who kept his eye upon him in the same posture 
 as when, he watches for his prey. The Indian immediately started 
 back, whilst the lion rose with a spring, and leaped towards him. 
 Being wholly destitute of all other weapons, he stooped down to take 
 up a huge stone in his hand ; but to his infinite surprise grasped 
 nothing, and found the supposed stone to be only the apparition of 
 one. If he was disappointed on this side, he was as much pleased 
 on the other, when he found the lion, which had seized on his left 
 shoulder, had no power to hurt him, and was only the ghost of that 
 ravenous creature which it appeared to be. He no sooner got rid 
 of his impotent enemy, but he marched up to the wood, and after 
 having surveyed it for some time, endeavored to press into one part 
 of it that was a little thinner than the rest ; when again, to his great 
 surprise, he found the bushes made no resistance, but that he walked 
 through briers and brambles with the same ease as through the open 
 air ; and, in short, that the whole wood was nothing else but a wood 
 of shades. He immediately concluded that this huge thicket of thorns 
 and brakes was designed as a kind of fence or quickset hedge to the 
 ghosts it enclosed ; and that probably their soft substances might be 
 torn by these subtle points and prickles, which were too weak to make 
 any impressions in flesh and blood. With this thought he resolved 
 to travel through this intricate wood ; when by degrees he felt a gale 
 of perfumes breathing upon him, that grew stronger and sweeter in 
 proportion as he advanced. He had not proceeded much farther, 
 
ADDISON. 21 
 
 when he observed the thorns and briers to end, and give place to a 
 thousand l>eautifiil ^t'cn trees covered with blossoms of the finest 
 scents and colors, that formed a wilderness of sweets, and were a 
 kind of lining to those rugged scenes which he had before passed 
 through. As he was coming out of this delightful part of the wood, 
 and entering upon the plains it enclosed, he saw sevend horsemen 
 rushing by him, and a little while after heard the cry of a pack of 
 dogs. He liad not listened long before he saw the apparition of a 
 milk-white steed, with a young man on the back of it, atlvancing upon 
 full stretch after the souls of about an hundred beagles, tliat were 
 hunting down the ghost of an hare, which ran away before them with 
 an unspeakable swiftness. As the man on the milk-white steed came 
 by him, he looked upon him very attentively, and found him to be 
 the young prince Nicharagua, who died about half a year before, and 
 by reason of his great virtues was at that time lamented over all the 
 western parts of America. 
 
 He had no sooner got out of the wood, but he was entertained 
 with such a landscape of floweiy plains, green meadows, running 
 streams, sunny hills, and shady vales, as were not to be represented 
 by his own expressions, nor, as he said, by the conceptions of others. 
 This happy region was peopled with innumerable swarms of spirits, 
 who applied themselves to exercises and diversions, according as their 
 fancies led them. Some of them were tossing the figure of a coit; 
 others were pitching the shadow of a bar ; others were breaking the 
 apparition of a horse; atid multitudes employing themselves upon 
 ingenious handicrafts with the souls of departed utensils, for that is 
 the name which in the Indian hmguage they give their tools when 
 they are burned or broken. As he traveled through this delightfid 
 scene, he was very often tempted to pluck the flowers that rose every- 
 where al)out him in the greatest variety and profusion, having never 
 seen several of them in his own country ; but he quickly found, that 
 though they were objects of his sight, they were not liable to his 
 touch. He at length came to the side of a great river, and being a 
 good fisherman himself, stood upon the banks of it some time to look 
 upon an angler that had taken a great many shapes of fishes, which 
 lay fl<mncing up and down by him. 
 
 I should have told my rejuler that this Indian had been formerly 
 married to one of the greatest beauties of his country, by whom he 
 had 8e\'erel children. This couple were so famous for their love and 
 
22 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 constancy to one another, that the Indians to this day, when thcv 
 gfive a married man joy of his wife, wish they may live together likt 
 Marraton and Yaratilda. Marraton had not stood long by the fisher- 
 man, when he saw the shwlow of his beloved Yaratilda, who had for 
 some time fixed her eyes upon him before he discovered her. Her 
 arms were stretched out towards him, floods of tears ran down her 
 eyes : her looks, her hands, her voice called him over to her ; and 
 at the same time seemed to tell him that the river was irapassabl*. 
 Who can describe the passion, made up of joy, sorrow, love, desin-. 
 astonishment, that rose in the Indian upon the sight of his dear 
 Yaratilda ? He could express it by nothing but his tears, which ran 
 like a river down his cheeks as he looked uix)n her. He had not 
 stood in this posture long, before he plunged into the stream tluit 
 lay before him ; and finding it to be nothing but the phantom of a 
 river, walked on the bottom of it till he rose on the other side. At 
 his approach Yaratihla flew into his arms, whilst Marraton wished 
 himself disencumbered of that body which kept her from his embraces. 
 After many questions and endearments on l)oth sides, she conducted 
 him to a bower which she had dressed with all the ornaments that 
 could be met with in those blooming regions. She ha<l raatle it gay 
 beyond imagination, and was every day adding something new to it. 
 As Marraton stood astonished at the unspeakable beauty of her habi- 
 tation, and ravished with the fragrancy that came from every part of 
 it, Yaratilda told him that she was preparing this bower for his 
 reception, as well knowing that his piety to his God, and his faithful 
 dealing towards men, would certainly bring him to that happy place, 
 whenever his life should be at an end. She then brought two of her 
 cliildren to him, who died some years before, and resided with her in 
 the same delightful bower ;* advising him to breed up those others 
 which were still with him in such a manner, that they might hereafter 
 all of them meet together in this happy place. 
 
 The tradition tells us further, that he had afterwards a sight of 
 those dismal habitations which are the portion of ill men after death ; 
 and mentions several molten seas of gold into which were plunged 
 the souls of barbarous Europeans, who put to the sword so many 
 thousands of poor Indians for the sake of that precious metal. But 
 having already touched upon the chief points of this tradition, and 
 exceeded the measure of my paper, I shall not give any further account 
 of it. 
 
POPE. 23 
 
 POPE. 
 1688- 1744. 
 
 Alkxaxdek Pope, the most eminent poet of his time, was born in 1688, and died in 17*4. 
 He was blessed with a fair share of wealth, and lived in luxurions retirement in iiis villa at 
 Twirki-uhmu. Afflicted with a bodily deformity, touching which he was keenly sensitive, he 
 nuiii:liil but httlc in the great world, but contented himself with the society which sought him 
 m lii* home. He was emphatically a Uterary man, giving his wliole time and thought to literary 
 jiursuits. Notoriously petulant, a peculiarity which his feeble health goes far toward excusing. 
 Ik- was continually involved in quarrels with contcmpornry writers ; and some of his most 
 brilliant poems were written under the inspiration of personal animosity. His greatest work 
 was the translation of Homer, which in most respects remains unsurpassed by any previous or 
 subsequent version. Of his original compositions The Essay on Man is that by which be is 
 best known. From this work we take onr extracts. 
 
 THE PEESENT CONDITION OF MAN VINDICATED. 
 
 Heaven from all creatiires hides the book of Fate, 
 All but the page prescribed, their present stiite ; 
 From bnites what men, from men what spirits know. 
 Or who could suffer being here below ? 
 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
 Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ? 
 Pleased to the last, he crops tiie flowor\' food, 
 And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. 
 blindness to the future ! kindly given, 
 That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven ; 
 Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, 
 A hero perish or a sparrow tall ; 
 •"" Atoms or systems into niin hurled. 
 
 And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 
 
 Hope humbly, then, with trembling pinions soar ; 
 Wait the great teacher. Death ; and God adore. 
 What future bliss, he gives not thee to know. 
 But gives that hope to l)e thy blessing now. 
 Hope springs eternal in the human breast ; 
 Man never is, but always to be blest ; 
 The soul, unea.sy and confined from home, 
 Rests and expatiates in a life to come. 
 
 Lo the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
 Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind ; 
 
24 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 His soul proud Science never taught to stray 
 Far as the solar walk, or milky way ; 
 Yet simple Nature to his hope has given, 
 Behind the cloud-topped hill, a humbler heaven ; 
 Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 
 Some happier island in the watery waste, 
 Where slaves once more their native land behold, 
 No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. 
 To BE, contents his natural desire, 
 He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire: 
 But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
 His faithful dog shall bear him company. 
 Go, wiser thou ! and in thy scale of sense 
 Weigh thy opinion against Providence ; 
 Call imperfection what thou fanciest such. 
 Say, here he gives too little, there too much : 
 Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust. 
 Yet cry, if Man 's unhappy, God 's unjust ; 
 If man alone engross not Heaven's high care. 
 Alone ma<le perfect here, immortal there : 
 Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, 
 Re-judge his justice, be the God of God. 
 In Pride, in reasoning Pride, our error lies ; 
 All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. 
 Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes. 
 Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. 
 Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell. 
 Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel : 
 And who but wishes to revert the laws 
 Of Order sins against the Eternal Cause. 
 
 GEEATWESS. 
 
 Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
 , Fortune in men has some small difference made : 
 One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade ; 
 The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned. 
 The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned. 
 
POPE. 25 
 
 •• What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl ? " 
 
 I '11 tell you, friend ! a wise man and a fool. 
 
 You '11 find, if once the monarch acts the monk, 
 
 Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, 
 
 Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow ; 
 
 The rest is all but leather or prunella. 
 
 Go ! if your ancient but i«^noble blood 
 
 Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood. 
 
 Go ! and pretend your family is young, 
 
 Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. 
 
 What can ennoble sots or slaves or cowards ? 
 
 Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards. 
 
 Look next on greatness ! say where greatness lies ? 
 " Where, but among the heroes and the wise ? " 
 Heroes are much the same, the point 's agreed, 
 From Macedonia's madman to the Swede ;   
 The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find 
 Or make an enemy of all mankind ! 
 Not one looks backward, onward still he goes. 
 Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose. 
 No less alike the politic and wise ; 
 All sly slow things, with circumspective eyes : 
 Men in their loose unguarded hours they take. 
 Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. 
 But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat ; 
 *T is phrase absurd to call a villain great : 
 Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave. 
 Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. 
 Who noble ends by noble means obtains. 
 Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains. 
 Like good Aurclius let him reign, or bleed 
 Like Socrates, that man is great indeed. 
 
 The kllnsion is to Alexander the Great and Charles XII. of Sweden. Pope bonowed the 
 I from MandeA'ille's Fmile of tk« Beet. 
 
26 cathcaet's liteeaey readee. 
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 1709- 1784. 
 
 Samcicl JoHirsoif, one of the great iitenry men of his tirar, was horn in 1709 and died in 1781. 
 He compiled a celebrated DietiomMfy ^ the Engiuk Language and wrote poenu, moral and 
 eontrovertial, eaaays and bio?r»nhii-« in<^lading the well-known Litct of Ike PoeU. He was the 
 eoBtemporar)' of Goldsmitb, '■ ian, and many famous literary men and women, among 
 
 whom he eqjoyed a tort of |>t yielded rather to hia arrogance than to his merits. His 
 
 maaners were incredibly rude, au«i Li* general demeanor positively bearish, but his intellectual 
 greatneas is beyond question. His prose writings are notnl for their formality of style and rigor 
 of thought Like Addison, he has ftimiehed an adjective descriptive of literary style ; and to be 
 " Johnsonian " is to be ponileroiu and grandioae. RatseUt, Frimce of Jiytsinia, an allegorical 
 story from whieh we take oar extracts, is perhaps the most familiar of his compositions to 
 the general reader. Dr. Johnson was a man of rigorous intdlect, acute and argumentative, 
 bat narrow in his views, dogmatic and positive in hia aaaertions. He was respected, but 
 not loved. His biography, written by his hnmble friend Boawell, gives a full and %-irid por- 
 trait of him as a man and a writer. 
 
 A PALACE IN A VALLEY. 
 
 Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue 
 with eageniess the phantoms of hope ; who expect that age will 
 perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the pres- 
 ent day will be supplied by the morrow ; attend to the history of 
 Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. 
 
 Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperor in whose 
 dominions the Father of Waters begins his course ; whose bounty 
 pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over half the world 
 the harvests of Egypt. 
 
 Acconling to the custom which has descended from age to age 
 among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Basselas was confined in a 
 private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian 
 royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne. 
 
 The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined 
 for the residence of the Abyssinian princes was a spacious valley in 
 the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, of 
 which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage by 
 which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under a rock, 
 of which it has long been disputed whether it was the work of nature 
 or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by 
 a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed 
 with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massy 
 that no man could without the help of engines open or shut them. 
 
DR. JOHNSON. 27 
 
 From the mountains on eveiy side rivulets descended that filled 
 nil the valley with venlure and fertility, and formed a lake in the 
 middle inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every 
 fowl whom Nature has tauj^ht to dip the wing in water. This lake 
 disohar<;ed its superfluities by a stream which entered a dark cleft 
 of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with dreatlful noise 
 from precipice to precipice till it was heard no more. 
 
 The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks of 
 the brooks were diversified with flowers; every blast shook spices 
 from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the ground. 
 All animals that bite the grass, or browse the shnib, whether wild 
 or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, secured from beasts of 
 prey by the mountains which confined them. On one part were 
 flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on another, all beasts of 
 chase frisking in the lawns ; the sprightly kid was bounding on the 
 n)cks, the subtle moiikey frolicking among the trees, and the solemn 
 elephant reposing in the shade. All the diversities of the world were 
 brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and its evils 
 extracted and excluded. 
 
 Tlie valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with the 
 necessaries of life ; and all delights and superfluities were added at 
 the annual visit which the emperor paid his children, when the iron 
 gate was opened to the sound of music ; and during eight days every 
 one that resided in the valley was required to propose whatever might 
 contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of 
 attention, and lessen the tediousness of time. Every desire was 
 immediately granted. All the artificers of pleasure were called to 
 gladden the festivity ; the musicians exerted the power of harmony, 
 and the dancers showed their activity before the princes, in hope 
 that they should pass their lives in this blissful captivity, to which 
 those only were admittetl whose performance was thought able to 
 add novelty to luxury. Such was the appearance of security and 
 delight which this retirement aff*onled, that they to whom it was 
 new always desired that it might be perpetual; and as those on 
 whom the iron gate had once clos<'d were never suflVred to return, 
 the cff'ect of long experience could not be known. Thus every year 
 produced new schemes of delight, and new competitors for impris- 
 onment. 
 
 The palace stood on an eminence raised about thirty pace* above 
 
28 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 the surface of the lake. It was divided into many squares or courts, 
 built with greater or less magnificence, according to the rank of those 
 for whom they were designed. The roofs were turned into arches of 
 massy stone, joined by a cement that grew harder by time, and the 
 building stood from centui-y to century deriding the solstitial rains 
 and equinoctial hurricanes, without need of reparation. 
 
 This house, which was so large as to be fully known to none but 
 some ancient officers who successively inherited the secrets of the 
 place, was built as if Suspicion herself had dictated the plan. To 
 every room there was an open and secret passage ; every square had 
 a communication with the rest, either from the upper stories by 
 private galleries, or by subtermnean passages from the lower apart- 
 ments. Many of the columns had unsuspected cavities, in which a 
 long race of monarchs had deposited their treasures. They then 
 closed up the opening with marble, which was never to be removed 
 but in the utmost exigencies of the kingtlom ; and recorded their 
 accumulations in a book which was itself concealed in a tower not 
 entered but by the emperor, attended by the prince who stood next 
 in succession. 
 
 THE DISCONTENT OF HA88ELA8. 
 
 Here the sons and daughters of Abyssinia lived only to know the 
 soft vicissitudes of pleasure and repose, attended by all that were 
 skillful to delight, and gratified with whatever the senses can enjoy. 
 Tliey wandered in gardens of fragrance, and slept in the fortresses of 
 security. Every art was practiced to make them pleased with their 
 own condition. The sages who instructed them told them of nothing 
 but the miseries of public life, and described all beyond the moun- 
 tains as regions of calamity, where discord was always raging, and 
 where man preyed upon man. 
 
 To heighten their opinion of their own felicity, they were daily 
 entertained with songs, the subject of which was the hxippy valley. 
 Their appetites were excited by frequent enumerations of different 
 enjoyments, and revelry and merriment was the business of every 
 hour from the dawn of morning to the close of even. 
 
 These methods were generally successful ; few of the princes had 
 ever wished to enlarge their bounds, but passed their lives in full 
 conviction that they had all within their reach that art or nature 
 
DE. JOHNSON. £9 
 
 could bestow, and pitied those whom fate had excluded from this seat 
 of tranquillity, as the sport of chauce and the slave of misery. 
 
 Thus they rose in the morning and lay down at night, pleased with 
 each other and with themselves, — all but Rasselas, who in the twenty- 
 sixth year of his age began to withdraw himself from their pastimes 
 and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and silent meditation. 
 He often sat before tables covered with luxury, and forgot to taste 
 the dainties that were placed before him; he rose abruptly in the 
 midst of the song, and hastily retired beyond the sound of music. 
 His attendants observed the change, and endeavored to renew his 
 love of pleasure. He neglected their officiousncss, repulsed their 
 invitations, and spent day after day on the banks of rivulets sheltered 
 with trees, where he sometimes listened to the birds in the branches, 
 sometimes observed the fish playing in the stream, and anon cast his 
 eyes upon the pastures and mountains filled with animals, of which 
 some were biting the herbage, and some sleeping among the bushes. 
 
 This singidarity of his humor m.'ule him much observed. One 
 of the sages, in whose conversation he had formerly delighted, 
 followed him secretly, in hope of discovering the cause of his disquiet. 
 Rasselas, who knew not that any one was near him, having for some 
 time fixed his eyes upon the goats that were browsing among tlie 
 rocks, began to compare their condition with his own. 
 
 " What," said he, " makes the difference between man and all the 
 rt^t of the animal creation ? Every beast that strays beside me has 
 tlie same corporal necessities with myself: he is hungry and crops 
 fhf irrass, he is thirsty and drinks the stream; his thirst and hunger 
 ire appeased, he is satisfied and sleeps: he rises again and is hun- 
 u^ry ; he is again fed and is at rest. I am hungry and thirsty, like 
 him; but when thirst and hunger cease I am not at rest: I am, 
 like him, pained with want; but am not, like him, satisfied with 
 fullness. The intermediate hours are tedious and gloomy ; I long 
 again to be hungr\-, that I may again quicken my attention. The 
 l)Inls peck the berries or the corn, and fly away to the groves, where 
 they sit in seeming happiness on the branches, and waste their lives in 
 tuning one unvaried series of sounds. I likewise cm\ call the lutanist 
 and singer, but the souiuls that pleased me yesterday weary me 
 to-day, and will grow more wearisome to-morrow. I can discover 
 within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its 
 proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man surely has 
 
3U 
 
 8ome latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he 
 has some desires distinct from sense, which must be satisfied before 
 he can be happy." 
 
 After this he lifted up his head, and seeing; the moon rising, 
 walked toward the palace. As he passed through the fields, and saw 
 the animals around him, " Ye," said he, ** are happy, and need not 
 envy me that walk thus among you, burdened with myself; nor do I, 
 ye gentle beings, envy your felicity, for it is not the felicity of man. 
 I have many distresses from which ye are free ; I fear pain when 1 
 do not feel it ; I sometimes shrink at evils recollected, and sometimes 
 start at evils anticipated : surely the equity of Providence has bal- 
 anced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments." 
 
 With observations like these the prince amused himself as he 
 returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look that 
 discovered him to feel some complacence in his own piTspicacity, and 
 to receive some solace of the miseries of life from consciousness of the 
 delicacy with which he bewailed them. He mingled cheerfully in the 
 diversions of the evening, and all rejoiced to find that his heart was 
 lightened. 
 
 We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the 
 luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving 
 barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of re- 
 ligion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impos- 
 sible if it were endeavored, and would be foolish if it were possible. 
 Wliatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes 
 the past the distant, or the future predominate over the present, ad- 
 vances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my 
 friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct ris indifferent and 
 unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, 
 bravery, or virtue. The man is little to be envied whose patriotism 
 would not gain force on the plains of Marathon,* or whose piety 
 would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona.f — Journey to the 
 Hebrides. 
 
 * Mabathox. Among the noted battles of ancient times ; fought between the Greeks and 
 Persians 490 b. c. 
 
 + loNA. One of the western islands of Scotland. Interesting for the ruins of its ancient 
 religious edifices, established by St. Columba 565 A. D. 
 
GOLDSMITH. 31 
 
 GOLDSMITH. 
 
 1729- 1774. 
 
 I:c thf long and brilliant list of writers who have made enduring contributions to English lit- 
 erature there is no dearer name than tliat of Oliver Goldsmith. He seems the personal friend 
 : all who read his writings, and those who are familiar with the strange, sad story of his life 
 iirrish his memory with a tender affection. lie was bom in Ireland in 1729 and died in 177-*, 
 spending most of his life in London, where he enjoyed the friendship of Johnson and other 
 eminent authors. Ilis early career was full of vicissitudes ; he sauntered through the first years 
 of manhood with empty pockets and smiling lips, studying medicine by fits and starts, wandcr- 
 1'^ through Europe, winning his bread by the exercise of his musical talents, and at last settling 
 ...wn in London to the miserable lot of a literary hack. But he made friends wherever he M-ent ; 
 that he won and retained the warm friendship of Samuel Johnson, a notoriously selfish man, ia 
 pnot positive of the strength of his fascinations. He wrote his most famous works almoat 
 literally under the pressure of hunger ; the manuscript of one of them was sold to discharge an 
 vrcution, while the officers of the law waited in the author's lodgings. Goldsmith's nature was 
 . luincntly lovable ; there was no bitterness or guile in it ; he loved his fellows and was in turn 
 Ixlovcd. The qualities of his heart, as well as those of his intellect, are manifest in his writings, 
 and give them the sweetness that the highest intellectual power or culture could not impart. 
 In Tkf near of Wakefield his name will live forever, and, so long as poetry survives. The Trat- 
 eler and 7TU DaerUd Village will be read and admired. Ilis versatility was astonishing ; he was 
 a poet, a novelist, an essayist, and an historian, and won fame in each department of effort. Well 
 has it been said of him, that " he touched nothing which he did not adorn." 
 
 THE SAGACITY OF THE SPIDEE. 
 
 Of all the solitary insects I liave ever remarked, the spider is the 
 most sagacious, and its actions, to me, who have attentively consid- 
 red thcni, seem almost to exceed belief. This insect is formed by 
 nature for a sUttc of war, not only upon other insects, but upon each 
 other. For this state nature seems perfectly well to have formed it. 
 Its head and breast are covertxl with a strong natural coat of mail, 
 which is impenetrable to the attempts of every other insect, and its 
 Ix'lly is enveloped in a soft pliant skin, which eludes the sting even of 
 a wasp. Its legs are terminated by strong claws, not unlike those of 
 the lobster; and their vast length, like spears, serves to keep every 
 -sailant at a distance. 
 
 Not worse funiished for observation than for an attack or defense, 
 it has several ryes, large, transparent, and covered with a homy sub- 
 stance, which, however, do<»s not impede its vision. Besides this, it 
 :> furnished with a forceps alx)ve the mouth, which senes to kill or 
 M'cure the prey already caught in its claws or its net. 
 
 Such are the implements of war with which the body i^ ini medi- 
 ately furnished ; but its net to entangle the enemy seems to be what 
 
82 cathcart's lttbeary reader. 
 
 it chiefly trusts to, and what it takes most pains to render as complete 
 as possible. Nature has furnished the body of this little creature 
 with a glutinous liquid, which, proceeding from the lower extremity 
 of the body, it spins into a thread, coarser or finer as it chooses to 
 contract its sphincter.* In order to fix its threads when it begins to 
 weave, it emits a small drop of its liquid against the wall, which, 
 hardening by degrees, sen'es to hold the threatl veiy firndy. Tlieii 
 receding from the first point, as it recedes the thread lengthens ; and 
 when the spider has come to the place where the other end of the 
 thread shouUl be fixed, gathering up with its claws the thread, which 
 would otherwise be too skck, it is stretched tightly, and fixed in the 
 same manner to the wall as before. 
 
 In this manner it spins and fixes several threads parallel to each 
 other, which, so to speak, ser^e as the warp to the intended web. 
 To form the woof, it spins in the same manner its thread, transversely 
 fixing one end to the first thread that was spun, and which is always 
 the strongest of the whole web, and the other to the wall. All these 
 threads, being newly spun, are glutinous, and therefore stick to each 
 other wherever they happen to touch ; and in those parts of the web 
 most exposed to be torn our natural artist strengthens them, by 
 doubling the thread sometimes six-fold. 
 
 Thus far naturalists have gone in the description of this animal : 
 what follows is the result of my own observation upon that species of 
 insect called the house-spider. I perceived, about four years ago, a 
 large spider in one comer of my room, making its web, and though 
 the maid frequently leveled her fatal broom against the labors of 
 the little animal, I had the good fortune then to prevent its destruc- 
 tion, and, I may say, it more than paid me by the entertainment it 
 liiForded. 
 
 In three days the web was with incredible diligence completed ; ' 
 nor coidd I avoid thinking that the insect seemed to exult in its new 
 abode. It frequently traversed it round, and examined the strength 
 of every part of it, retired into its hole, and came out very frequently. 
 The first enemy, however, it had to encounter, was another and a 
 much larger spider, which having no web of its own, and having 
 probably exhausted all its stock in former labors of this kind, came 
 to invade the property of its neighbor. Soon, then, a terrible encoun- 
 ter ensued, in which the invader seemed to have the victory, and the 
 
 * SPHiNCTim. A muscle that contracts or shuts the mouth of an orifice. 
 
GOLDSMITH. 33 
 
 laborious spider was obliged to take refuge in its hole. Upon this I 
 perceived the victor using every art to draw the enemy from its 
 stroiij^hold. He seemed to go otf, but quickly returned, and when 
 He found all arts vain, began to demolish the new wtb without mercy. 
 This brought on another battle, and, contrary to my expectations, the 
 laborious spider became conqueror, and fairly killed his antagonist. 
 
 Now, then, in peaceful possession of what was justly its. own, it 
 waited three days with the utmost impatience, repairing the breaches 
 of its web, and taking no sustenance that I could perceive. At last, 
 however, a large blue fly fell into the snare, and struggled hard to get 
 l(X)se. The spider gave it leave to entangle itself as much as possible, 
 but it seemed to be too strong for the cobweb. I must own I was 
 LCreatly surprised when I saw the spider immediately sally out, and in 
 less than a minute weave a net round its aiptive, by which the motion 
 of its wings was stopj)ed, and when it was fairly hampered in this 
 manner, it was seized and dragged into the hole. 
 
 In this manner it lived, in a precarious state, and nature seemed to 
 have fitted it for such a life ; for upon a single fly it subsisted for 
 more than a week. I once put a wasp into the net, but when the 
 spider came out in order to seize it as usual, upon perceiving what 
 kind of an enemy it had to deal with, it instantly broke all the bands 
 tliat held it fast, and contributed all that lay in its power to disen- 
 gage so formidable an antagonist. When the wasp was at liberty, 
 I expected the spider would have set about repairing the breaches 
 tiiat were made in its net ; but those, it seems, were irreparable, 
 wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new one 
 begun, which was completed in the usual time . 
 
 I had now a mind to try how many cobwebs a single spider could 
 furnish ; wherefore I destroyed this, and the insect set about another. 
 When I destroy etl the other also, its whole stock seemed entirely ex- 
 hausted, and it could spin no more. The arts it made use of to 
 support itself, now deprived of its great means of subsistence, were 
 indeed surprising. I have seen it roll up its legs like a baU, and lie 
 motionless for hours together, but cautiously watching all the time ; 
 when a fly happened to approach sufficiently near, it would dart out 
 all at once, and often seize its prey. 
 
 Of this life, however, it soon began to grow weary, and resolved to 
 invade the possession of some other spider, since it could not make a 
 web of its own. It formed an attack upon a neighboring fortifica- 
 2* c 
 
'64: CATHCAET S LITEIIAEY READER. 
 
 tion, with great vigor, and at first was vigorously repulsed. Not 
 daunted, however, with one defeat, in this manner it continued to lay 
 siege to another's web for three days, and at length, having killed the 
 defendant, actually took possession. When smaller flics happen to 
 fall into the snare, the spider does not sally out at once, but vcrv 
 patiently waits till it is sure of them; for upon his immediate! \ 
 approaching, the terror of his appearance might give the captive 
 strength sufficient to get loose; the manner, then, is to wait patiently 
 till, by ineifectuxU and impotent struggles, the captive has wasted all 
 his strength, and then he becomes a certain and easy conquest. 
 
 The insect I am now describing livexl three years ; evciy year ii 
 changed its skin, and got a new set of legs. At first it dreaded my 
 approach to it^ web ; but at last it became so familiar as to take a fly 
 out of my hand, and upon my touching any part of the web, would 
 immediately leave its hole, prepared either for a defense or an attack. 
 
 THE DESEBTED VILLAGE. 
 
 Sweet Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, 
 
 Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain. 
 
 Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid 
 
 And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed ; 
 
 Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease. 
 
 Seats of my youth, when every sport could please ; 
 
 How often have I loitered o'er thy green. 
 
 Where humble happiness endeared each scene ; 
 
 How often have I paused on every charm, — 
 
 The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm. 
 
 The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
 
 The decent church that topped the neighboring hill. 
 
 The hawthorn bush, with scats beneath the shade. 
 
 For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 
 
 How often have I blest the coming day. 
 
 When toil remitting lent its turn to play. 
 
 And all the village train, from labor free, 
 
 Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree. 
 
 While many a pastime circled in the shade, 
 
 The young contending as the old surveyed ; 
 
 And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground. 
 
GOLDSMITH. ^6 
 
 And sleights of art and feats of strength went round ; 
 
 And still as each repeated pleasure tired, 
 
 Succeeding sports the mirthful band inspired. 
 
 The dancing pair that simply sought renown, 
 
 By holding out, to tire each other down ; 
 
 The swain mistrustless of his smutted face. 
 
 While secret laughter tittered round the place ; 
 
 The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love. 
 
 The matron's glance that would those looks reprove, — 
 
 These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these. 
 
 With sweet succession, taught even toil to please ; 
 
 These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed. 
 
 These were thy charms — But all these charms are fled. 
 
 Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn. 
 Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ; 
 Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, 
 And desolation saddens all thy green ; 
 One only master grasps the whole domain, 
 And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain ; 
 No more thy glassy brook reflects the day. 
 But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way ; 
 Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
 The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest ; 
 Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, 
 And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 
 Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all. 
 And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall ; 
 And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand. 
 Far, far away thy child ron loave the land. 
 
 Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay ; 
 Princes and lords may flourish or may fade ; 
 A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; 
 But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, 
 When once destroyed, can never be supplied. 
 
 A time there was, ere England's griefs began. 
 
oO LATHCAKi S LilhUAUi KLADLR. 
 
 When every rood of gjoiind maintained its man ; 
 For liim light lalx)r spread her wholesome store, 
 Just gave what life required, but gave no more ; 
 His best companions, innoftince and health. 
 And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 
 
 But times arc altered ; tradt-'s untWling train 
 Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain ; 
 Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose. 
 Unwieldy wealth and cumberous pomp repose: 
 And every want to luxury allied. 
 And every pang that folly pays to pride. 
 Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, 
 Those calm desires that asked but little room. 
 Those healthful sports that graced the peaceful scene. 
 Lived in each look, and brightened all the green ; 
 These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, 
 And rural mirth and manners are no more. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 But where to find that happiest spot below. 
 Who can direct, when all pretend to know ? 
 The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone 
 Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own ; 
 Extols the treasures of his stormy seas. 
 And his long nights of revelry and ease : 
 The naked negro, panting at the line, 
 Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine. 
 Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave. 
 And thanks his gods for all the good they gave. 
 Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, 
 His first, best country ever is at home. 
 And 'yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, 
 And estimate the blessings which they share, 
 Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find 
 An equal portion dealt to all mankind ; 
 As difterent good, by art or nature given. 
 To different nations makes their blessing even. 
 
BURKE. 37 
 
 BURKE. 
 
 1730- 1797. 
 
 F.DMrND BuKKK w»» bom in Publin in 1730 and died in 17^7- Vnlikc his j^rrat confcm- 
 l>..r:iry. Pitt, he VM not a jrouthful prodigy, but was a warm-hearted boy of apparently average 
 tuuilcctual capacity. Having graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, he went to London and 
 entered upon the study of law. But the profession did not suit him, and he soon abandoned it, 
 and devoted himself to literary labors. His first considerable work was an essay entitled A 
 Vimdicatiom of Natural Society. It was a parody on the works of Lord Bolingbrokc, who had 
 niaiutained that natural religion is sufficient for man, and that he docs not need a revelation. 
 Hit second book was one which gave him permanent and honorable flame, — Ah Inquiry into the 
 OriijiH of our Ideas oh the Sublime and BeoMtiful. In 1769 Burke returned to Ireland as private 
 strntary to William Gerard Hamilton (known in history as " Single-Speech Hamilton "), Chief 
 "^i < rrinry to the Lord Lieutenant. He held Ids place but a short time, and left it to become Sec- 
 1 1' my to the Marquis of Rockingham. Soon obtaining a scat in Parliament he began the bril- 
 li.-iiit political career the particulars of which are familiar to all. He was especially prominent 
 III tin- debates upon the American War, and displayed a more thorough knowledge of the subject 
 thnii any of his eolleagues. In \19li a political scheme, of which he was the organizer, having 
 faded, he retired to private life. Burke was not a popular man -, he alienated his closest friends 
 by the singularity and obstinacy of his opinions ; but remembering that Goldsmith loved him, and 
 tlni he had befriended George Crabbe in the hour of the latter's extremity, we cannot doubt tliat 
 he had a kiad heart.' A* a writer Burke stands in the very front rank. We give extracts from 
 one of hi* speediei oa the Americaa War, and from his very celebrated essay, Reflectiom oh the 
 
 ON CONCILIATION WITH AMEEICA * 
 
 My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from 
 common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal 
 protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong 
 as links of iron. Let the Colonies always keep the idea of their civil 
 rights associated with your government ; — they will cling and grap- 
 ]>le to you ; aud no force under heaven will l)e of power to tear tliem 
 from tlieir allegiance. But let it be once understood, that your gov- 
 ernment may be one thing and their privileges another ; that these 
 two things may exist without any mutual relation : the cement is 
 gone ; the cohesion is loosened ; and everything hastens to decay and 
 dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign 
 authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred tem- 
 ple conswnited to our common faith, wherever the chosen race and 
 xms of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towanls 
 you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have ; the 
 
 * During Ihi* Revolutionary War, Burke was a member of the British Parlinment. He op- 
 posfd the r(XTcive policy of George III., being in favor of conciliation. 
 
88 cathcart's literabt reader. 
 
 more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedi- 
 ence. Slavery they v&n have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in 
 every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from 
 Prussia. But, until you become lost to* all feeling of your true inter- 
 est and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but 
 you. This is the commodity of price, of which you have the monop- 
 oly. This is the true act of navigation, which binds to you the com- 
 merce of the Colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of 
 the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break 
 that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the 
 unity of the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination, as 
 that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your suffer- 
 ances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great 
 securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of 
 office, and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the 
 things that hold together the great contexture of this mysterious 
 whole. These things do not make your government. Dead instru- 
 ments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English com- 
 munion that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit 
 of the English constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, 
 pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the empire, 
 even down to the minutest member. 
 
 Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in 
 England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the land tax act which 
 raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote "in the committee of 
 supply, which gives you your army ? or that it is the mutiny bill, 
 which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It 
 is the love of the people ; it is their attachment to their government, 
 from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institu- 
 tion, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into 
 both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base 
 rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 
 
 All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to 
 the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians, who have 
 no place among us ; a sort of people who think that nothing exists 
 but what is gross and material ; and who therefore, far from being 
 qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit 
 to tuni a wheel in the machine. JBut to men truly initiated and 
 rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which, in the 
 
BURKE. 
 
 89 
 
 opinion of such men ns 1 have mentioned, have no substantial exist- 
 ence, are in truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity in politics 
 is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds 
 tro ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with 
 zt!al to fill our places as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought 
 to auspicate our public proceedings on America with the old warning 
 of tlie Church, Sursum Cor da ! * We ought to elevate our minds to 
 tlie greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has 
 called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our 
 ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire ; 
 and have made the most extensive, and the only honorable conquests, 
 not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the 
 happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as 
 we liave got an American empire. English privileges have made it 
 all that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all it can be. 
 
 TEE DECAT OF CHIYALBOUS SEiniMEirr.t 
 
 It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen 
 of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles ; and surely never 
 lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more de- 
 lightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and 
 cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, — glittering 
 like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy. O, what a 
 revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without 
 emotion that elevation and that fall ! Little did I dream when she 
 added titles of venenition to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful 
 love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote 
 against disgrace concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I 
 should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of 
 gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers. I thought 
 ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge 
 even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry 
 is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calcidators has sur- 
 rn(l((l ; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, 
 
 * SvBSVM CoiDA, Ufl mp ycmr krnrU. 
 
 t This is jiutly esUiiiated as one of the flnest rlwtoried piaw|eri b oor UmguKe. It 
 rrfrn to the execntion of Marie Antoinette, wife of Loaia XVI., and Queen of Prance. She was 
 Kuillntined by the Jaroliin* in 17^1, during the eclehrated French Rcralution. The 
 about the " afe of chi\idry " and the " ^eay defenae of Halions " hai-e become Auuoai. 
 
40 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 n( V( r more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and s( x, 
 that proud submission, that dignified obedience, tliat subordination 
 (>r tlu heart, which kept alive, even in scTvitude itself, the spirit of an 
 exahrd iVcfdoiii. 'i'lic u. ' ran- of lilV, the clicap defense of 
 
 nations, the nurse of mauls Muiinu-nt and heruic enterjirise. is ut'iu- ! 
 It is gou( , tliat sensibility of prineiple, that chastity of honor, which 
 felt a stain like a wound, wliieh inspired courage whilst it mitigated 
 fenH'ity, which ennobled whatcvir it touched, and under which vice 
 iisrit lost lialf its evil, by losing all its grossness. 
 
 This mixed syst( ni of opinion and sentiment had its origin in tlu 
 ancient ehivalrj' ; and the prineiple, though varied in its appearance 
 )iv the >ii\iii^' state of human affairs, subsisted and inflmnetd 
 throui;h a long succession of generations, even to the time we live in. 
 If it should ever be totally extinguished, the loss 1 fear would be 
 great. It is this which has jxivt-u its character to modern Kurojx'. 
 It is this which has distini^uished it uiuh-r all its forms ot" i^overi - 
 nu'iit, and di>tinu:uished it to its advantat^c, from the >t;.lts of A-i 
 and possibly from those states which flourished in the most brilliant 
 periods of the antique world. It was this which, without confound- 
 ini:: rank<, had produced a nol)h' ((jualitv, and han(h'd it dowTi 
 through all tlu' gradations of social life. It was this opinion which 
 mitigated kings into companions, and raised private men to be fellows 
 with kings. Witluuit force, or opposition, it subdued the fierceness 
 of pride and power; it obliircd sovcrcipis to submit to the soft collar 
 of social esteem, compclh-d stern authority to s\d)iuit to eKir.uice, and 
 gave a dominating vanquisher of kws, to be subdued by manners. 
 
 But now all is to Ik^ changed. All the pleasing illusions, which 
 made ])o\ver irentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the (liti"er- 
 cnt shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated 
 into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, 
 are to Ix' dissolved ])V this new coiupK riniz; empire of light and reason. 
 All the decent drapery of life is to bt; rudely torn off. All the 
 superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrolje of a moral imagination, 
 which the heart oavus and tlie understanding ratifies as necessary to 
 cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to 
 diunity in our own estimation, are to be cx])lodcd as a ridiculous, 
 absurd, and antiquated fashion. 
 
COWPER. 41 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 1731 -i8oa 
 
 William Cowm mm born in 1731 and died in 1800. His life was a sad one, and his last 
 years were shadowed by a mental gloom which almost amounted to insanity. His thoughts 
 dwelt on somber themes, and his jkh-'iiis, with a few exceptions, are didactic to an unpleasant 
 degree. It is not easy to understand how the same mind could have given birth to the melan< 
 choly imaginings which constitute the staple of his verse, and the warm, free humor of John 
 Gilpin's Ride. Morbid and unsocial though he was, Cowper was able to win and retain the 
 liearty attachment of a few friends, in whose tender care he passed the closing years of his life. 
 Though not one of tht greatest English poets, G)wper holds and will hold an honorable place. 
 His sentiments were always elevated, and his expression graceful, if not exceptionally brilliant 
 or vigorous. He is emphatically the poet for thoughtful minds. One of his best-known poems 
 is Alexander Selkirk, of which we give some specimen stanzas. 
 
 ALEXANDER SELKIRK.* 
 
 I AM monarch of all 1 survey. 
 
 My right there is none to dispute ; 
 From the center all round to the sea 
 
 I am lord of the fowl and the brute. 
 
 Solitude, where are the charms 
 That sages have seen in thy face ? 
 
 Better dwell in the midst of alarms 
 Than reign in this horrible place. 
 
 1 am out of humanity's reach ; 
 
 I must finish my journey alone ; 
 Never hear the sweet music of speech — 
 
 I start at the sound of my own. 
 The beasts that roam over the plain 
 
 My form with indifference see ; 
 They are so unacquainted with men, 
 
 Their tameness is shocking to me. 
 
 Society, friendship, and love, 
 
 Divinely bestowed upon man, 
 O had I the wings of a dove, 
 
 How soon would I taste you again ! 
 
 • Alexawdkb S«lki«« wm • Scottish sailor, who. baring qumlMl on one of his vojafM 
 with his captain, was left, in 17(H, on the uninhsbitwi island of Joan Femandex. where be 
 remained for more than four years before his rescue. Selkirk's adventures, it is said, soggeated 
 V) Defoe the cclebnted ronuuiee of JMuwpm Cnuot, with which aU yoHii people nre fcmiliar. 
 
^2 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 My sorrows I then might assuage 
 In the ways of religion and truth ; 
 
 Might learn from the wisdom of age, 
 And be cheered by the sallies of youth. 
 
 Eeligion ! what treasure untold 
 
 Besides in that heavenly word ! 
 More precious than silver and gold, 
 
 Or all that this earth can afford. 
 But the sound of the church-going bell 
 
 These valleys and rocks never heard, — 
 Never sighed at the sound of a knell. 
 
 Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared. 
 
 Te winds that have made me your sport, 
 
 Convey to this desolate shore 
 Some cordial endearing report 
 
 Of a land I shall visit no more. 
 My friends, do they now and then send 
 
 A wish or a thought after me ? 
 O tell me I yet have a friend. 
 
 Though a friend I am never to see. 
 
 How fleet is a glance of the mind ! 
 
 Compared with the speed of its flight. 
 The tempest itself lags behind, 
 
 And the swift-winged arrows of light. 
 When I think of my outi native laud, 
 
 In a moment I seem to be there ; 
 But, alas ! recollection at hand 
 
 Soon hurries me back to despair. 
 
 But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest ; 
 
 The beast is laid down in his lair ; 
 Even here is a season of rest. 
 
 And I to my cabin repair. 
 There 's mercy in every place ; 
 
 And mercy, encouraging thought ! 
 Gives even affliction a grace. 
 
 And reconciles man to his lot. 
 
OIBBON. 43 
 
 GIBBON. 
 
 1737-1794- 
 
 Edward Gibbon, the historian, was bora in Surrey, England, in 1^37, and died in 17M. 
 He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, but remained only a short time. A.t an early age he 
 liccame deqily interested in religion, and devoted himself to study, relieving the t£dium of his 
 labors by assiduous courtship of Mademoiiclle Curchod, whose acquaintance he made in Switzer- 
 land. The lady inclined to him ; but her father did not, and she finally married M. Necker, 
 and became the mother of Madame de Stael. In 1759 he returned to England and was 
 11 huittcd into the most cultivated society. Two years later he published in French an Essay on 
 tti.- Study of lAteraturt, which attracted but little attention in England. In 1763 he went to 
 li:»ii.i-, and became the intimate* friend of Helvetius, D'Alcmlwrt, Diderot, and other eminent 
 lucu. The next year he went to Rome, and there conceived the project of writing the history of 
 Tkf Dfcline and Fall of Ike Roman Empire. In 1776 the first volume of this great work was 
 published, and at once made him famous. His attacks on Christianity called out many severe 
 ril)ukc8, which enhanced the popular interest in his book. The concluding volumes of the 
 Historj- appeared in 17»7- The author's last literary work was his own Autobiography, which 
 has been pronounced the finest specimen of that kind of composition in the English language. 
 Till- graces of Gibbon's style have always been the subject of wonder and admiration. In his 
 History he is stately and magnificent; in his Autobiography he is easy, spirited, and charming. 
 1 h'- style of his History has been censured by some critics for its excessive eUboration, and iu 
 upuknce of French phrases ; but the general verdict of literary authorities of his own and later 
 ages awards him the highest rank among English historians as a master of the hinguage. 
 
 ABABIA. 
 
 In the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level of sand is inter- 
 sected by shai-p and naked mountains ; and the face of the desert, 
 without shade or shelter, is scorched by the direct and intense rays 
 of a tropical sun. Instead of refreshing breezes, the winds, particu- 
 larly from the southwest, diffuse a noxious and even deadly vapor; 
 the hillocks of sand which they alternately raise and scatter are com- 
 pared to the billows of the ocean, and whole caravans, whole annies, 
 have been lost and burii^d in the whirlwind. The common benefits 
 of water are an object of desire and contest ; and such is the scarcity of 
 wood, that some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element 
 of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which fertilize the soil, 
 and convey its produce to the adjacent regions ; the torrents that fall 
 from the hills are imbibed by the thirsty earth ; the rare and hardy 
 plants, the tamarind or the acacia, that strike their roots into the clefts 
 of the rocks, are nourishwl by the dews of the night : a scanty supply 
 of rain is collected in cisterns and aqurdnrts : the wells and springs 
 are the secret treasure of the desert ; and the pilgrim of Mecca,* 
 
 * Mkcca. a dty in Arabia and the birthplace of Mahomet, • eelebr»ted religions tearber and 
 pretended nroohet. Ijorn about 7M) a. n. He was the feoader of one of the most widely diffused 
 
44 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 after many a dry and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of the 
 waters, which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such is 
 the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia. The 
 experience of evil enhances the value of any local or partial enjoy- 
 ments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a stream of fresh water. 
 are sufficient to attract a colony of sedentary Arabs to the fortunate 
 spots which can afford food and refreshment to themselves and 
 their cattle, and which encourage their industry in the cultivation 
 of the palm-tree and the vine. The high lands that border on the 
 Indian Ocean are distinguished by their superior plenty of wood and 
 water: the air is more temperate, the fruits are more delicious, the 
 animids and the human race more numerous : the fertility of the soil 
 invites and rewanls the toil of the husbandman ; and peculiar gifts of 
 frankincense and coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants 
 of the woHd. 
 
 Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and original 
 country of the hone ; the climate most propitious, not indeed to the 
 size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of that generous animal. The 
 merit of the Barb, the Spanish, and the English breed, is derived 
 from a mixture of Arabian blood; the Bedoweensf preserve, with 
 superstitious care, the honors and the memory of the purest race : 
 the males are sold at a high price, but the females are seldom alien- 
 ated : and the birth of a noble foal was esteemed, among the tribes, 
 as a subject of joy and mutuid congratulation. These horses are 
 educated in tents, among the children of the Arabs, with a tender 
 familiarity, which trains them in the habits of gentleness and attach- 
 ment. They are accustomed only to walk and to gallop : their 
 sensations are not blunted by the incessant abuse of the spur and the 
 whip : their powers are reserved for the moments of flis^ht and 
 pursuit : but no sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the 
 stimip, than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind : and if 
 their friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they instantly stop till 
 he has recovered his seat. In the sands of Africa and Arabia the 
 camel is a sacred and precious gift. That strong and patient beast 
 of burden can perform, without eating or drinking, a journey of 
 several days ; and a reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large 
 
 religions of the globe. (See Giblxn's Decline and Fall of the Roma* Empire, Chap. I., and 
 Irring's Mahomrt and his Successors.) 
 
 f Bedoweens, Bedociks. a tribe of nomadic Arabs who live in tents, and are scattered 
 over the deserts of Arabia, Egypt, and parts of Africa. 
 
GIBBON. 45 
 
 kig, a fifth stomach of the animal, whose Ixxly is imprinted with the 
 marks of servitude : the larger breed is capable of transporting a 
 weight of a thousand p)unds ; and the dromedary, of a lighter and 
 more active frame, outstrips the fleetest courser in the race. Alive or 
 (Irad, almost every part of the camel is serviceable to man : her milk 
 is plentiful aud nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the taste 
 '{' veal ; and the long hair, which falls each year and is renewed, is 
 ( oarsely manufactured into the garments, the furniture, and the tents 
 of the Bedoweens. 
 
 The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme of 
 praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of controversy 
 transform this singular event into a prophecy and a miracle, in 
 favor of the posterity of Ishmael.* Some exceptions, that can neither 
 l)e dissembled nor eluded, render this mode of reasoning as indis- 
 creet Jis it is superfluous. Yet these exceptions are temporary or 
 local ; the body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most 
 powerful monarchies; the armies of Sesostrisf and Cyrus, J of 
 Pompey^ and Trajan, || could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; 
 the present sovereign of the Turks may exercise a shadow of juris- 
 diction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship of a people 
 whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious 
 causes of their freedom are inscril)ed on the character and country of 
 the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, their intrepid valor had 
 been severely felt by their neighbors, in off"ensive and defensive war. 
 The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in 
 the habits and discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep 
 and camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe ; but the martial 
 youth, under the bantier of the emir, is ever on horseback, and in 
 the lield, to practice the exercise of the bow, the javelin, and the scym- 
 etar. The long memory of their independence is the firmest pledge 
 of its perp<'tuity, and succeeding generations are atiimated to prove 
 their descent, and to maintain their inheritance. In the more simple 
 stat«' of the Arabs, the nation is free, because each of her sons dis- 
 dains a base submission to the will of a master. His breast is forti- 
 
 • IsiiMASL. Soa of Abraham aad Hagar, and the inppoaed anceator of the Arabians. 
 
   Snosrais. An Egyptian kinjc and warrior. 
 
 X Ctbc«. TIm faaiider of the Persian Empire ; one of the great warricHra mcntioaed ia the 
 Bible. 
 I PoMrcT. A tuaooM Bonao general, bom 106 b. c. (See PtmUu-ch't Liwet.) 
 I Tmakx. A Bonaa OBpoor, bom S2 a d. 
 
46 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 fied with the austere virtues of courage, patience, and sobriety ; the 
 love of independence prompts him to exercise the habits of self-com- 
 mand ; and the fear of dishonor guards him from the meaner appre- 
 hension of pain, of danger, and of death. The gravity and firmness 
 of the mind is conspicuous in his outward demeanor : his speech is 
 slow, weighty, and concise ; he is seldom provoked to laughter ; his 
 only gesture is that of stroking his beard, the venerable symbol of 
 manhood ; and the sense of his own importance teaches him to accost 
 his equals without levity, and his superiors without awe. 
 
 AEABIA {continued). 
 
 The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accus- 
 tomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy ; and the 
 poverty of the land has intrmluced a maxim of jurisprudence which 
 they believe and practice to the present hour. They pretend that, in 
 the division of the earth, the rich and fertile climates were assigned 
 to other branches of the human family ; and that the posterity of the 
 outlaw Ishmael might recover, by fraud or force, the portion of 
 inheritance of which he had been unjustly deprived. According to 
 the remark of Pliny,* the Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft 
 and merchandise : the caravans that traverse the desert are ransomed 
 or pillaged ; and their neighbors, since the remote times of Job and 
 Sesostris, have been the victims of their rapacious spirit. If a 
 Bedoween discovers from afar a solitary traveler, he rides furiously 
 against him, crying, with a loud voice, " Undress thyself, thy aunt 
 (my wife) is without a garment." A ready submission entitles him to 
 mercy : resistance will provoke the aggressor, and his own blood must 
 expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in legitimate defense. 
 
 The nice sensibility of honor, which weighs the insult rather than 
 the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the quarrels of the Arabs : the 
 honor of their women, and of their beardn, is most easily wounded ; 
 an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the 
 blood of the offender ; and such is their patient inveteracy, that they 
 expect whole months and years the opportunity of revenge. 
 
 Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs, their language is 
 derived from the same original stock with the Hebrew, the Syriac, 
 and the Chaldean tongues : the independence of the tribes was 
 
 * Plikt. a Roman historian. 
 
GIBBON. 47 
 
 marked by their peculiar dialects ; but each, after their own, allowed 
 a just preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In 
 Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection of language outstripped 
 the refinement of manners; and her speech could diversify the 
 fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a serpent, the five 
 hundred of a lion, the thousand of a sword, at a time when this 
 copious dictionary was intrusted to the memory of an illiterate people. 
 The monuments of the Homcrites were inscribed with an obsolete 
 and mysterious character ; but the Cufic letters, the groundwork of 
 the present English alphabet, were invented on the banks of the 
 Euphrates ; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a 
 stranger who settled in that city after the birth of Mahomet. The 
 arts of grammar, of meter, and of rhetoric were unknown to the 
 freeborn eloquence of the Arabians ; but their penetration was sharp, 
 their fancy luxuriant, their wit strong and sententious, and their 
 more elaborate compositions were addressed with energy and effect 
 to the minds of their hearers. The genius and merit of a rising poet 
 was celebrated by the applause of his own and kindred trilxjs. The 
 Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of the age ; and if 
 they sympathized with the prejudices, they inspired and crowned the 
 virtues, of their countrymen. The indissoluble union of generosity 
 and valor was the darling theme of their song; and when they pointed 
 their keenest satire against a despicable race, they affirmed, in the 
 bitterness of reproach, that the men knew not how to give, nor the 
 women to deny. The same hospitality, which was practiced by 
 Abraham, and celebrated by Homer, is still renewed in the camps of 
 the Arabs. The ferocious Bcdoweens, the terror of the desert, em- 
 brace, without inquiry or hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide 
 in their honor and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and 
 respectful : he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his host ; and, 
 after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his way, with thanks, with 
 blessings, and, p<*rhaps, with gifts. The heart and hand arc nmre 
 largely expanded by the wants of a brother or a friend ; but the 
 heroic acts that could deserve the public applause must have sur- 
 passed the narrow measure of discretion and experience. A dispute 
 liad arisen, who, among the citizens of Mecca, was entitled to the 
 prize of generosity ; and a successive application was made to the 
 three who were deemed most worthy of the (rial. AMallah, the son 
 of Ablns, had undertaken a distant journey, and his foot was in the 
 
48 cathcart's literaky reader. 
 
 stirrup when he heard the voice of a suppliant. " O son of the uncle 
 of the apostle of God, I am a traveler, and in distress ! " He in- 
 stantly dismounted to present the pilgrim with his camel, her rich 
 caparison, and a purse of four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only 
 the sword, either for its intrinsic value, or as a gift of an honored 
 kinsman. The servant of Kais informed the second suppliant tlmt 
 his master was asleep ; but he immediately added, " Here is a purse 
 of seven thousand pieces of gold (it is all we have in the house) ; and 
 here is an order, that will entitle you to a camel and a slave " : the 
 master, as soon as he awoke, praised and enfranchised his faithful 
 steward, with a gentle reproof, that by respecting his slumbers he 
 had stinted his bounty. The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah, 
 at the hour of pniyer was supporting his steps on the shoulders of 
 two skves. " Alas ! " he replied, " my coffers are empty ! but these 
 you may sell: if you refuse,.! renounce them." At these words, 
 pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall with his staff. 
 The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian virtue ; he 
 was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful robber : 
 forty camels were roasted at his hospitable feast ; and at the prayer 
 of a suppliant enemy he restored both the captives and the spoil. 
 The freedom of his countrj^men disdained the laws of justice ; they 
 proudly indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity and benevolence. 
 
 It was on that day or rather night, of the 27th June, 1787, 
 between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last line of 
 the last page of the Jlise and Fall of the Roman Empire in a summer- 
 house in my garden.* After laying down my pen, I took several 
 turns in a covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the 
 country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the 
 sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the 
 waters, and all nature was silent. I vdW, not dissemble the first 
 emotions of joy on recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the estab- 
 lishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober 
 melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an 
 everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, what- 
 soever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian 
 must be short and precarious. 
 
 * Gibbon was then lining at Lausanne. Switzerland. 
 
JEFF£RSON. 49 
 
 JEFFERSON. 
 1743-1826. 
 
 Thomas Jeitcsson wn» Imrn in Virginia in 1743 and died in 1826. He will lire forerer in 
 ' )>«• memory of Americans as the author of The Declaration of Independence. He was President 
 the United States, 1801-9; was Governor of Virginia, Member of Congress, Minister to 
 inrr. Secretary of State, etc. He is best known in literature by his Notes'on Firginia, 
 > I>rinted in Paris m 17H2 ; but none of his writings afford a clearer idea of his style 
 . s this extract from his view of the character of Washington. lion. Edward Everett 
 r...-a..n . •' On JefTersoD rests the imperishable renown of having penned the Declaration 
 To have been the instrument of expressing, in one brief, decisive act, the con- 
 mi resolution of a whole family of States ; of unfolding, in one all-important mani- 
 -i4>, ihj causes, the motives, and tlie justification of this great movement in human affairs ; 
 have )>cen permitted to give the impress and peculiarity of his mind to a charter of public 
 ' *• )istine«l to an importance in the estimation of men equal to anything human ever 
 . i>archment or expressed in the visible signs of thought ; — this is the glory of Thomas 
 
 CHARACTEE OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first 
 (ler; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of New- 
 •n,* Bacon,t or Locke ; % and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever 
 •under. It was slow in operation, l)eing little aided by invention or 
 imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of 
 liis otticers, of the advantage he derived from councils of war, where, 
 hniring all suggestions, he selected whatever was best ; and certainly 
 MO general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if de- 
 iiiged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan 
 >v;is dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in a readjust- 
 iDtnt. The consequence was, that he often failed in the field, and 
 I rely against an enemy in station, as at Boston and York. He was 
 uapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest uncon- 
 ' rn. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, 
 iH'ver acting until every circtimstance, every consideration, was ma- 
 turely weighed ; refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, 
 •ing through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His 
 itegrity was most pure, his justice tlie most inflexible I have ever 
 
 • NrwTOK. An illustrious English philosopher and mathematician, bom 1(M2. (See Brew- 
 ' tmn of Sir lnuie Vnetcm.) 
 
 X. One of the greatest lawyen and phUoMphen that ever lived, bom 1661. (See 
 * UtfMoftke Lord CkmneeUon.) 
 KK. The author of the celebrated Awy <m tk* Htmtm VrndtnUmding, hom in Engfauid. 
 
60 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 known ; no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or 
 hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense 
 of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was natu- 
 rally irritable and high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained 
 a firm and habitual ascendency over it. If ever, however, it broke its 
 bounds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he 
 was honorable, but exact ; liberal in contributions to whatever prom- 
 ised utility ; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects, 
 and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in 
 its aflfections ; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave 
 him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was 
 fine, his stature exactly what one would wish ; his deportment easy, 
 erect, and noble, the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful 
 figure that could be seen on horseback. Although in the circle of his 
 friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free 
 share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, 
 possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of words. In 
 public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short, 
 and embarrassed. Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy 
 and correct style. This he had acquired by conversation with the 
 world, for his education was merely reading, writing, and common 
 arithmetic, to which he added surveying at a later day. His time 
 was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agri- 
 culture and English histor)'. His correspondence became necessarily 
 extensive, and with journalizing his agricultural proceedings occupied 
 most of his leisure hours within doors. On the whole, his character 
 was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent ; 
 and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine 
 more completely to make a man great, and to place him in the same 
 constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an 
 everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny and merit 
 of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous 
 war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its 
 councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms and 
 principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train ; 
 and of scrupulously obeying the laws thro\igh the whole of his career, 
 civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no 
 other example. 
 
BURNS. 
 1759- 1796. 
 
 RoBEKT BtniNs. the son of a small farmer, was bom near Ayr, Scotland, in 1769, and died in 
 I7M. He manifested at an early age an eager appetite for learning ; but his opportunities for 
 trratifying it were few : in the country school he gained the rudiments of au education in English 
 brancht-a, and in later life learned something of French, Latin, and the higher mathematics. It 
 IS worthy of note that one of his favorite books, in boyhood, was Shakespeare's Plays. At the 
 nge of sixteen he began to write verses, striving to express in rhyme the emotions excited by 
 his first affair of the heart. These youthful compositions were circulated in manuscript among 
 his acquaintances, and tinally came to the notice of some persons of literary taste, who persuaded 
 Bums to publish a volume. The venture brought him fame at once, and twenty pounds, one 
 hundred dollars, m money. He visited Edinburgh on invitation of Dr. Blacklock, and was well 
 received m the brilliant society of that city. A second edition of his poems, published in 1787, 
 ^ ii-lded him a profit of seven hundred pounds. But his gain in fame and money from his visit to 
 
 iic Scottish capital^as more than offset by his acquisition of the dissolute habits which were 
 licstined to impede his literary progress and ultimately to bring him to an early grave. His rank 
 among poets it is not easy to determine, though I/ord Byron and Allan Cunningham placed him 
 among the first. It is probable that in their estimates they regarded his promise rather than his 
 "-rforroance. But it may safely be said that of all poets who have sprang from the people, receiv- 
 
 ■■\^ alnioat no aid from education, he was surely the greatest. He was the poet of passion and 
 fling : bat his utterances were simple and natural, and owed none of their force nr beauty to 
 
 LPt. Hu poems glow with tenderness and the love of freedom, and are rich in a rare, pare 
 humor that none have known how to imitate. 
 
 MAW WAS MADE TO MOUBN. 
 
 When chill November's surly blast 
 
 Made fields and forests bare, 
 One evening, as I wandered forth 
 
 Along the banks of Ayr, 
 I spied a man whose aged step 
 
 Seemed weary, worn with care : 
 His face was furrowed o'er with years, 
 
 And hoary was his hair. 
 
 " Young stranger, whither wanderest thou ? 
 
 Began the reverend sage ; 
 " Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain. 
 
 Or youthful pleasures rage ? 
 Or haply, prest with cares and woes. 
 
 Too soon thou hast began 
 To wander forth, with me, to mourn 
 
 The miseries of man ! 
 
b'Z CATHCAET^S UTERAEY KEADEE. 
 
 " The 8un that overhangs yon moors, 
 
 Outspreading far and wide, 
 Where hundreds lal)or to support 
 
 A haughty lordling's pride, — 
 I Ve seen yon wear}' winter sun 
 
 Twice forty times return ; 
 And every time has added proofs 
 
 That man was made to mourn. 
 
 " O man, while in thy early years. 
 
 How prodigal of time ! 
 Misspending all thy precious hours, 
 
 Thy glorious youthful prime ! 
 Alternate follies take the sway : 
 
 Licentious passions burn ; 
 Which tenfold force gives Nature's law, 
 
 That man was made to mourn. 
 
 " Look not alone on youthful prime. 
 
 Or manhood's active might ; 
 Man then is useful to his kind. 
 
 Supported in his right ; 
 But see him on the edge of life. 
 
 With cares and sorrows worn, 
 Then age and want, O ill-matched pair ! 
 
 Show man was made to mourn. 
 
 *' A few seem favorites of fate. 
 
 In pleasure's lap carest ; 
 Yet think not all the rich and great 
 
 Are likewise truly blest. 
 But O, what crowds in every land. 
 
 All wretched and forlorn. 
 Through weary life this lesson learn. 
 
 That man was made to mourn. 
 
 •' Many and sharp the numerous ills. 
 Inwoven with our frame. 
 
 More pointed still we make ourselves, 
 Kegret, remorse, and shame ! 
 
BURNS. 63 
 
 And man, whose hcavcn-erectcd face 
 
 The smiles of love adoni, 
 Man's inhumanity to man 
 
 Makes countless thousands mourn I 
 
 " See yonder poor, o'erlabored wight. 
 
 So abject, mean, and vile, 
 Who begs a brother of the earth 
 
 To give him leave to toil ; 
 And see his lonlly fellow-worm 
 
 The ppor petition spurn. 
 Unmindful though a weeping wife 
 
 And helpless offspring mourn. 
 
 " If I *m designed yon lordling's slave, — 
 
 By Nature's law designed, — 
 Why was an independent wish 
 
 E'er planted in my mind ? 
 If not, why am I subject to 
 
 His cruelty or scorn ? 
 Or why has man the will and power 
 
 To make his fellow mourn ? 
 
 " Yet let not this too much, my son. 
 
 Disturb thy youthful breast : 
 This partial view of human-kind 
 
 Is surely not the best ! 
 The poor, oppressed, honest man 
 
 Had never, sure, been Iwni, 
 Had there not been some recompense 
 
 To comfort those that mourn ! 
 
 " O Death ! the poor man's dearest friend, 
 
 Tlie kindest and the best ! 
 Welcome the hour my aged limbs 
 
 Are laid with thee at rest. 
 The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow, 
 
 From pomp and pleasure torn ; 
 But O, a blest relief to those 
 
 That wearj-laden mourn ! " 
 
54 cathcart's literaky reader. 
 
 FOE A' THAT, AKD A' THAT. 
 
 Is there, for honest poverty, 
 
 That hangs his h«id, and a* that ? 
 The coward-skve, we pass him by. 
 And dare be poor, for a' that ! 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 Our toils obscure, and a' that ; 
 The rank is but the guinea's stamp ; 
 The man 's the gowd for a' that. 
 
 What tho* on hamely fare we dine. 
 Wear hodden-gray, and a* that ; 
 Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, 
 A man 's a man, for a' that. 
 For a* that, and a' that. 
 
 Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
 The honest man, tho' ne'er sae poor, 
 Is king o' men for a* that. 
 
 Ye see yon birkie, ca*ed a lord, 
 
 Wha struts, and stares, and a' that ; 
 Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 
 He 's but a coof for a' that ; 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 His riband, star, and a' that. 
 The man of independent mind. 
 He looks and laughs at a' that. 
 
 A king can mak a belted knight, 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that ; 
 But an honest man 's aboon his might, 
 Guid faith, he maunna fa' that ! 
 For a' that, and a' that. 
 
 Their dignities, and a' that. 
 The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth. 
 Are higher ranks than a' that. 
 
 Then let us pray that come it may, 
 As come it will for a' that, 
 
BURNS. 55 
 
 That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth. 
 May bear the gree, and a* that ; 
 For a' that, and a' that, 
 
 It 's coming yet, for a' that ; 
 
 That man to man, the warld o'er. 
 
 Shall brothers be for a' that. 
 
 BAKHOCKBUBN.* 
 
 At Bannockbum the English lay, — 
 The Scots they were na far away. 
 But waited for the break o' day 
 That glinted in the east. 
 
 But soon the sun broke through the heath 
 And lighted up that field o' death, 
 When Bnice, wi' saul-inspiring breath. 
 His heralds thus addressed : — 
 
 " Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
 Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, 
 Welcome to your gory bed. 
 Or to glorious victory ! 
 
 " Now 's the day, and now *s the hour ; 
 See the front of battle lour ; 
 See approach proud Edward's power, — 
 Edward ! chains and slavery ! 
 
 *' Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
 Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
 Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
 
 Traitor ! coward ! turn and flee I 
 
 '• Wha for Scotknd's king and law 
 Freedom's sword will strongly draw. 
 Freeman stand, or freeman fa', 
 Caledonia ! on wi* me ! 
 * Bamrockbuk]*. See Dot^ page 68. 
 
56 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 " By oppression's woes and pains ! 
 By your sons in servile chains I 
 We will drain our dearest veins, 
 
 But they shall be — shall be free ! 
 
 *' Lay the proud usurpers low I 
 Tyrants fall in every foe ! 
 Liberty 's in every blow ! 
 
 Forward ! let us do or die 1 '* 
 
 OF A' THE AIBT8 THE WIKD CAN BLAW. 
 
 Of a* the airts the wind can blaw, 
 
 I dearly like the west, 
 Por there the bonnie lassie lives, 
 
 The lassie I lo'c best : 
 Though wild woods ^row, and rivers row. 
 
 And mony a hill l)etween ; 
 Baith day and night, my fancy's flight 
 
 Is ever wi' my Jean. 
 
 I see her in the dewy flowers, 
 
 I see her sweet and fair : 
 I hear her in the tunefu' birds, 
 
 I hear her charm the air : 
 There 's not a bonnie flower that springs, 
 
 By fountain, shaw, or green ; 
 There *8 not a bonnie bird that sings. 
 
 But minds me o* my Jean. 
 
 But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
 You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
 Or like the snowflake in the river, 
 A moment white, — then melts forever ; 
 Or like the borealis race, 
 That flit ere you can point their place ; 
 Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
 Evanishing amid the storm. 
 
W0RD8W0ETH. 57 
 
 WORDSWORTH. 
 
 1770- 1850. 
 
 William Wordswokth, a proraincnt member of the Lake school of poets, was born in Cum* 
 riand. Eujiand, in 1770, and died in 1850. He was the son of an attorney, and studied at St 
 John's College, Cambridge. He spent some time in France and Gernmn) , and in 1799 fixed his 
 liome — which was presided over by his sister IXjrothy (his faithful "guide, philosopher, and 
 friend," throughout his long life) — at Grmsmere. Here he lived till 1808. In 1813 he removed 
 )ii«i household gods to Rydal Mount, which was ever after his residence, and is closely associated 
 \v tth the most notable products of his genius. He was a favorite of fortune, having inherited a 
 iinfortable estate, and for some years holding a lucrative oflice under government. In 184.3 he 
 IS appointed Poet Laureate, succeeding Southey, and received the pension of £ 300 attached to 
 lUat dignity as long as he lived. He was married in 1803 to Mary Hutchinson, who survived 
 him, dying in 1859, at the great age of eighty-eight. In his early manhood Wordsworth was 
 Tiflionary and radical, professing republicanism, and avowing himself an admirer of the prin- 
 ciples which were illustrated in the French Revolution ; but, as often happens, age tempered his 
 fenor, and during the latter half of his life he was unfaltering in his political and religious con- 
 wrvatisni. His first liook, ../n Erening Walk, an epistle in verse, was published in 1793 ; his 
 ■eeond, Detcriptiwt Skelcket, published in the same year, was cordially praised by Coleridge. 
 Between 17W and 1814 several editions of his poenu were issued, receiving praise and censure ii» 
 nearly equal proportions. When The Excursion appeared, in 1814, Lord Jeffrey said of it : " This 
 will never do ; it is longer, weaker, and tamer than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other productions." 
 On the other liand, William Hazlitt pronounced it almost unsurpassed " in power of intellect, 
 lofty conception, and depth of feeling." On the whole, it must be said that during Wordsworth's 
 life, or at least until within a few years prior to his death, the judgment of the critics on his 
 poetry was in effect unfavorable; but with the great public his writings steadily gained popular- 
 ity. One of the principal reasons for the hostility of the critics was, no doul)t, his energetic pro- 
 teat, by precept and example, against the ronumtic school of poetry, which, conspicuously repre- 
 sented by Byron, was then in high favor. He endeavored, to demonstrate the superiority of 
 simplicity in thought and expression, and in the effort incurred the reproach of silliness. Dur- 
 - the last twenty years, however, a more candid and accurate estimate of his work has been 
 ..ide. and the deliberate judgment of the reading worid has assigned him an enviable rank among 
 Knglisli poets of the nineteenth century. One of the most prominent characteristics of his poeti- 
 cnl genius is imaginative power, in which quality so high an authority as Coleridge has affirmed 
 tliat he was surpassed only by Shnkcsp<>arc. His mind was strongly phik)sophicaI. and his writ- 
 -'» exhibit a rare union of philosophical and poetical elements. They arc distinctively contem- 
 ilive, and will always be admired for their faithful interpretation of nature. It is not easy to 
 • cify Wordsworth's best composition : The ExcurtioH is perhaps the greatest ; but to the com- 
 •n mind some of his lyrics and ballads are most admirable. Among them arc Bart Leap Well, 
 >alom Cuckoo, Tke Bunks 0/ tht Wye, Ruth, etc. Some critics have designated The Solitary 
 aptr as his finest poem. 
 
 THE BOY LKD THE OWLS. 
 
 There was a Boy ; ye knew him well, ye cliffs 
 And islands of Winander ! many a time, 
 At evening, when the earliest stars began 
 To move along the edges of the hills, 
 Rising or setting, would he stand alone, 
 Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake; 
 And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands 
 3^ 
 
58 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth 
 
 Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, 
 
 Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, 
 
 That they might answer him ; and they would shout 
 
 Across the watery vale, and shout again, 
 
 Eesponsive to his call, with quivering peals, 
 
 And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud 
 
 Redoubled and redoubled ; concourse wild 
 
 Of mirth and jocund din ! And, when a lengthened pause 
 
 Of silence came and baffled his best skill, 
 
 Tlien, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung 
 
 Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 
 
 Has carried far into his heart the voice 
 
 Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene 
 
 Would enter unawares into his mind 
 
 With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, 
 
 Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received 
 
 Into the bosom of the steady lake. 
 
 This Boy was taken from his mates, and died 
 
 In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. 
 
 Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale 
 
 Where he was bom : the grassy churchyard hangs 
 
 Upon a slope above the village school ; 
 
 And through that churchyard when my way has led 
 
 On summer evenings, I believe that there 
 
 A long half-hour together I have stood 
 
 Mute, — looking at the grave in which he lies ! 
 
 ETJTH. 
 
 When Ruth was left half desolate. 
 Her father took another mate ; 
 And Ruth, not seven years old, 
 ^ A slighted child, at her own will 
 
 Went wandering over dale and hill. 
 In thoughtless freedom bold. 
 
 And she had made a pipe of straw. 
 And from that oaten pipe could draw 
 
WORDSWORTH. 59 
 
 All sounds of winds and floods ; 
 Had built a bower upon the green, 
 As if she from her birth had been 
 An infant of the woods. 
 
 Beneath her father's roof, alone 
 
 She seemed to live ; her thoughts her own ; 
 
 Herself her own delight ; 
 
 Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay, 
 
 And passing thus the livelong day. 
 
 She grew to woman's height. 
 
 Thete came a youth from Gtjorgia's shore, — 
 
 A military casque he wore. 
 
 With splendid feathers dressed ; 
 
 He brought them from the Cherokees ; 
 
 Tlie feathers nodded in the breeze, 
 
 And made a gallant crest. 
 
 From Indian blood you deem him sprung : 
 Ah, no ! he spake the English tongue. 
 And bore a soldier's name ; 
 And, when America was free 
 From battle and from jeopardy. 
 He 'cross the ocean came. 
 
 With hues of genius on his cheek. 
 In finest tones the youth could speak. 
 — While he was yet a boy, 
 The moon, the glory of the sun. 
 And streams that murnmr as they run. 
 Had been liis dearest joy. 
 
 He was a lovely youth ! I guess 
 
 The panther in the wilderness 
 
 Was not so fair as he ; 
 
 And, when he chose to sport and play. 
 
 No dolphin ever was so gay 
 
 Upon the tropic sea. 
 
(>(; CATH cart's LITERARY RJiADER. 
 
 Among the Indians he had fought ; 
 And with him many tales he brought 
 Of pleasure and of fear ; 
 Such tides as, told to any maid 
 By such a youth, in the green shade. 
 Were perilous to hear. 
 
 He told of girls, a happy rout ! 
 
 Who quit their fold with dance and shout, 
 
 Their pleasant Indian town. 
 
 To gather strawberries all day long ; 
 
 Returning with a choral song 
 
 When daylight is gone down. 
 
 He spake of plants divine and strange 
 That every hour their blossoms change. 
 Ten thousand lovely hues ! 
 With budding, fading, fadetl flowers. 
 They stand the wonder of the bowers, 
 From mom to evening dews. 
 
 He told of the magnolia, spread 
 High as a cloud, high overhead ! 
 The cypress and her spire ; 
 — Of flowers that with one scarlet gleam 
 Cover a hundred leagues, and seem 
 To set the hills on fire. 
 
 The youth of green savannas spake. 
 And many an endless, endless lake. 
 With all its fairy crowds 
 Of islands, that together lie 
 As quietly as spots of sky 
 Among the evening clouds. 
 
 And then he said, " How sweet it were 
 
 A fisher or a hunter there, 
 
 A gardener in the shade, 
 
 Still wandering with an easy mind 
 
WORDSWORTH. Gl 
 
 To build a household fin\ an<l fiiul 
 A home in every glade ! 
 
 " What days and what sweet years ! Ah me ! 
 
 Our life were life indeed, with thee 
 
 So passed in quiet bliss, 
 
 And all the while," said he, " to know 
 
 That we were in a world of woe. 
 
 On such an earth as this ! 
 
 " Sweet Ruth ! and could you go with me 
 
 My helpmate in the woods to be. 
 
 Our shed at night to rear ; 
 
 Or run, my own adopted bride, 
 
 A sylvan huntress at my side, 
 
 And drive the flying deer ! 
 
 " Beloved Ruth — " No more he said, 
 
 The wakeful Ruth at midnight shed 
 
 A solitary tear : 
 
 She thought again, — and did agree . 
 
 With him to sail across the sea. 
 
 And drive the flying deer. 
 
 " And now, as fitting- is and right. 
 We in the church our faith will plight, 
 A husband and a wife." 
 Even so they did ; and T may say 
 That to sweet Ruth that happy day 
 Was more than human life. 
 
 THE SOLITART REAPER. 
 
 Behold her single in the field, 
 Ton solitary Highland Lass ! 
 Reaping and singing by herself; 
 Stop here, or gently pass ! 
 Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 
 And sings a melancholy strain ; 
 
i'.i cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 O listen ! for the vale profound 
 Is overflowing with the sound. 
 
 No nightingale did ever chant 
 More welcome notes to weary bknds 
 Of travelers in some shady haunt 
 Among Arabian sands ; 
 No sweeter voice was ever heard 
 In springtime from the cuckoo-bird. 
 Breaking the silence of the seas 
 Among the farthest Hebrides. 
 
 Will no one tell me what she sings ? 
 Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 
 For old, unhappy, far-off things, 
 And battles long ago : 
 Or is it some more humble lay, 
 Familiar matter of to-day ? 
 Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 
 That has been, and may be again. 
 
 Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang 
 As if her song could have no ending ; 
 I saw her singing at her work, 
 And o'er the sickle bending ; 
 I listened till I had my fill ; 
 And as I mounted up the hill 
 The music in my heart I bore 
 Long after it was heard no more. 
 
SCOTT. 63 
 
 SCOTT. 
 1771-1832. 
 
 Si» Walte« Scott, the mo«t famons of historical novelists, was born in Edinburgh in 1771 
 and died in ltiA'2. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, read law, and in \19i was called 
 to the bar. In 1799 he was ap|)ointed Sheriff, in 1806 was made Clerk of the Court of Session, 
 and in 1820, when he was forty-nine years old, received a baronetcy. His first literary effort 
 was a translation of some of Burger's ballads, which was pabliahed in 1796- Other translations 
 followed, with three or four original poems ; hut not untU 1805 did Scott attain the place of 
 literarr eminence which he forever after held and adorned. His first grand success was The 
 Lay of the L4ut Minstrel, which appeared in that year, and was received with almost universal 
 praise. Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, Rokeby, and other poems, were issued in quick suc- 
 cession, each continuing his poetical reputation and spreading his fame. But Scott is better 
 known to the world as a novelist than as a poet, and a few words descriptive of his remarkable 
 career in fiction seem to be necessary to the completeness of this sketch. In 1814 Waterley 
 VM iwaed at Edinburgh, and instantly attracted attention. No author's name appeared on the 
 tiUe-ptge, and the public was left in a state of painful doubt as to the source of so brilliant a 
 book. Its perplexity was naturally increased, the next year, by the appearance of Guy Man- 
 mtrimg, and. at brief intervals, of its successors. Scott was suspected of the authorship of these 
 books, but stoutly denied it ; and not till many years later did he confess the truth. Space will 
 not permit us to dwell upon the pecuniary troubles which clouded the last years of the great 
 novelist. In all the history of literature there is no record of such lalwrs as his ; one admires 
 «( lofty sense of honor, bis unyielding fortitude, and his almost superhuman power of applica- 
 <n with equal waniith. The secret of Scott's success may be said to lie in his felicitous em- 
 ployment of common topics, images, and expressions, such as all readers can appreciate. Another 
 •onrce of his strength was his intense nationality : no writer before him had so vividly illustrat- 
 ed the characteristics of Scottish life and character. His novels were and are popular because 
 ' .-y deal with real life, and avoid the meditative and speculative habits which are wearisome 
 < the common reader. Not conspicuously surpassing all other novelists in single qualities, 
 Scott yet possessed and combined all the qualities necessary for his work in such nice and 
 hannonioos a4iastmcnt as has never been witnessed in any other man. While his novels fasci- 
 nate and entertain with an enduring yet indescribable charm, they also convey much valuable 
 information as to the life of the times of which they treat 
 
 THE TOMB OF ROBEBT BBXJCB * 
 
 Such of the Scottish knights as remained alive returned to their 
 wn country. They brought back the heart of the Bruce and the 
 iiones of the good Lord James. These last were interred in the 
 rhurrh of St. Bride, where Thomas Dickson and Douglas held so 
 terrible a Palm Sunday. The Bnice's heart was buried Mow the 
 high altar in Melrose Abbey. As for his body, it was laid in the 
 sepulcher in the midst of the church of Dunfermline, under a marble 
 
 • Bobert Bruce, King of Scots, was bom in 15J7*. He was a man of great valor, and waged, 
 with ranring fortune, incessant war against the English. He finally gained a derisive victory 
 w>r the army of Edward II. at the fiunoos battle of Bannockbnm in 1314. which resulted in 
 he independcaee of Scotland. 
 
64 CATllCAr I's I 1 1 i.i; \ \:\ i: i \iii i:. 
 
 stone. But the church becoi wai 1> ruinous, and the roof 
 
 faUinfi^ down with aire, the laouuunnl was broken to pieces, and 
 nobody could tell when- it stood. But a little while ago, when they 
 were repairing the cliunh at nuiifcnnlinc. and removing tin- nil)l)i>li, 
 lo ! tiny found fnignients of tiic marble tomb of Robert Bruce. Then 
 th«y lK'«,^n to dip: farther, thinkinjr to discover the body of this cele- 
 brated nioiianli ; ami at length they caiiu to tlu skeleton of a tall man, 
 and they knew it must l)c that of King Robert, l)oth as he was known 
 to have been buried in a winding-sheet of cloth of gold, of which 
 many fragments were found about this skelct(.ii. and also because the 
 breastbone appeared to have been sawed through, in order to take out 
 the heart. So orders were sent from the King's Court of Exchequer 
 to guard the bones carefully, uutil a new tom"b should be prepared, 
 into which they were laid with profound respect. A great many 
 gentlemen and 1 idii ^ attnidrd. and almost all the common people 
 in the neigh lx)rhood ; and as the church could not hold half the 
 numl>crs. the people were allowed to pass throujrh it, one after an- 
 otli( 1, that each one, the poorest as well as tin ri< Ik -t. might see all 
 tliat n maincd of the great King Robert Bruce, who restored the 
 6iotti>li nioiianliy. Many {X'ople shed tears ; for there was the 
 wasted skull which once was the head that thought so wisely and 
 boldly for his country's deliverance ; and there was the dry bone 
 which had once been the sturdy arm that killed Sir lit nn de Bohun, 
 between the two armies, at a single blow, on tin- i v. ninir before the 
 battle of Bannockbuni.* 
 
 It is more than five hundred years since the body of Bruce was 
 first laid into the tomb ; and how many, many millions of men have 
 died since that time, whose bones could not be recognized, nor their 
 names known, any more than tliox- of iidVrior animal^: It was a 
 great thini; to see that the wi-doui. courage, and palriutisni of a 
 Kiiii: could presen-e him tor such a long time in the memory of the 
 people over whom he once reigned. But then, my dear child, you 
 must remember, that it is only desirable to be rememl^red for praise- 
 worthy and patriotic action-, such as those of Robert Bruce. It 
 woidd be better for a prince to be forgotten like the meanest peasant, 
 than to be recollected for actions of tyranny or oppression. 
 
 * See Burns's poem, page 55. 
 
SCOTT. 65 
 
 LOCHnrVAE. — LADY HEBOFS SONG. 
 
 O, YorN(i Ijocliinvar is come out of the west, 
 Tlirouj^h oil the wide IJonler his steed was the best, 
 And save his good broadsword he weapons had none ; 
 He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 
 So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war. 
 There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 
 
 He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone. 
 
 He swam the Eske river where ford there was none ; 
 
 But, ere he alighted at Nether by gate. 
 
 The bride had consented, the gallant came late : 
 
 For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war. 
 
 Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 
 
 So boldly he entered the Netherby hall, 
 
 Among bride's-mcn and kinsmen, and brothers and all : 
 
 Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 
 
 ( For the poor craven bridegroom spoke never a word), 
 
 " O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war. 
 
 Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ? " 
 
 " I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied ; — 
 Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide, — 
 And now I am come, with this lost love of mine. 
 To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
 There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far. 
 That would gla<lly Ix; bride to the young Jjochinvar." 
 
 The bride kissed the goblet ; the knight took it up. 
 He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. 
 She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh. 
 With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye. 
 He took her soft hand, ere her mother could Iwir, — 
 '• Now tread we a measure ! " said young lioch invar. 
 
 So stately his fonn, and so lovely her face. 
 That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 
 
66 CATHCARt's LITEllAKY READER. 
 
 While her mother did fret, and her father did fume. 
 And the bridejnx)om stood dangling his lx)nnet and plume ; 
 And the bride-maidens whispered, " 'T were better by far 
 To Iiave matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." 
 
 One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
 
 When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near ; 
 
 So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung, 
 
 So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 
 
 *' She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur; 
 
 They *U have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. 
 
 There was mounting *mong Graemes of the Netherby clan ; 
 
 Forsters, Fen wicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran : 
 
 There was racing, and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, 
 
 But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 
 
 So daring in love, and so dauntless in war. 
 
 Have ye e*er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar ? 
 
 THE LAST MIKSTBEL. 
 
 The way was long, the wind was cold, 
 Tlic Minstrel was infirm and old ; 
 His withennl check, and tresses gray, 
 Seemed to have known a better day ; 
 The harp, his sole remaining joy. 
 Was carried by an orphan boy : 
 The last of all the Bards was he. 
 Who sung of Border chivalry ; 
 For, well-a-day ! their date was fled. 
 His tuneful brethren all were dead ; 
 And he, neglected and oppressed. 
 Wished to be with them, and at rest. 
 No more, on prancing palfrey borne. 
 He caroled, light as lark at mom ; 
 No longer, courted and caressed. 
 High placed in hall, a welcome guest. 
 He poiu-ed, to lord and lady gay. 
 The impremeditated lay : 
 
SCOTT. 
 
 Old times were changed, old manners gone ; 
 A stranger fills the Stuarts' throne ; 
 The bigots of the iron time 
 Had called his harmless art a crime. 
 A wanderiii}^ harper, scorned and poor, 
 He begged his way from door to door ; 
 And tuned, to please a peasant's ear, 
 The harp a King had loved to hear. 
 
 THE LOVE OF COUHTEY. 
 
 Breathes there the man with soul so dead. 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 
 This is my own, my native land ? 
 Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned 
 As home his footsteps he hath turned, 
 
 From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
 For him no minstrel raptures swell ! 
 High though his titles, proud his name, 
 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim : 
 Despite those titles, power, and pelf. 
 The wretch, concentered all in self. 
 Living, shall forfeit fair renown. 
 And doubly dying, shall go down 
 To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
 Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 
 
 67 
 
 Some feelings are to mortals given, 
 
 With less of earth in them than heaven : 
 
 And if there be a human tear 
 
 From passion's dross refined and clear, 
 
 A tear so limpid and so meek, 
 
 It would not stain an angel's cheek, 
 
 'T is that which pious fathers shed 
 
 Upon a duteous daughter's head ! 
 
68 cathcart's litb&ary reader. 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 1771-1845. 
 
 Stdnet Smith's name lit qmonym of irit ; bat he has Irfl behind him eridencetof &r 
 higher menUl power* thHi tkoM whieh are oaUeil into exerctie in the effort to amuse. He was 
 born at Woodford, Essex, England, in 1771. and died in ItHA. lie was educau-d at Oxford, took 
 holy orders and held a curacy in Wiltshire ; in 17tM he removed to Edinburgh, where, in conjunc- 
 tion with Brougham and other iitt'ng^*^'**' men, he feanded the BUmkurgh Rerinc. Benio\ing 
 to London in 1804, he oontmned to write for the Review, and speedily won a brilliant reputation 
 as a critic Efrlfiiat^iftil preferment frequently came to him, and at the time of his death he 
 was Canon BMideatiuy of St Paul's Cathedral His writings were mainly in the form of ser- 
 mons : but he wrote many notable letters oa pditkal and reUgioos questions which go far to- 
 ward justifying Mr. Everett's opinion that if he (Smith) " had not been known as the wittiest 
 x nmk of his day, he would hare been accounted one of the wisest" It is believed that his Let- 
 ters on CatboUc Emancipation were largely instrumental in pushing that measure to success. 
 Macaulay said of him : " He is unirersally admitted to hare been a great reasoner, and the 
 greatest master of ridicule that has appeared among us since Swift" 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 It is noble to seek Truth, and it is beautiful to find it. It is the 
 ancient feeling of the human heart, that knowledge is better than 
 riches ; and it is deeply and sacredljf true. To mark the course of 
 human passions as they have flowed on in the ages that are past ; to 
 see why nations have risen, and why they have fallen ; to speak of 
 heat, and light, and the winds ; to know what man has discovered in 
 the heavens above and in the earth beneath ; to hear the chemist 
 unfold the marvelous properties that the Creator has locked up in a 
 speck of earth ; to be told that there are worlds so distant from our 
 own, that the quickness of light, traveling from the world's creation, 
 has never yet reached us ; to wander in the creations of poetry, and 
 grow warm again with that eloquence which swayed the democracies 
 of the Old World ; to go up with great reasoners to the First Cause 
 of all, and to perceive, in the midst of all this dissolution and decay 
 and cruel separation, that there is one thing unchangeable, indestruc- 
 tible, and everlasting ; — it is worth while in the days of our youth 
 to strive hard for this great discipline ; to pass sleepless nights for 
 it ; to give up for it laboriotis days ; to spurn for it present pleasures ; 
 to endure for it afflicting poverty ; to wade for it througli darkness, 
 and sorrow, and contempt, as the great spirits of the world have done 
 in all ages and all times. 
 
 I appeal to the experience of any man who is in the habit of exer- 
 
SYDNEY SMITH. 69 
 
 cising his mind vigorously and well, whether there is not a satisfac- 
 tion in it which tells him he has been actiiij^ up to one of the ji^reat 
 objects of his existence ? The end of nature has been answered : his 
 faculties have done that which they were cn^attxi to do, — not lan- 
 g:uidly occupied upon trifles, not enervated by sensual gratification, 
 but exercised in tliat toil which is so congenial to their nature, and 
 so worthy of their strength. 
 
 A life of knowledge is not often a life of injury and crime. Whom 
 does such a man oppress? with whose happiness does he interfere? 
 whom does his ambition destroy? and whom does his fraud deceive? 
 In the pursuit of science he injures no man, and in the acquisition 
 he does good to all. A man who dedicates his life to knowledge, 
 becomes habituated to pleasure which carries with it no reproach : 
 and there is one security tliat he will never love that pleasure which 
 is paid for by anguish of heart, — his pleasures are all cheap, all dig- 
 nified, and all innocent ; and, as far as any human l)eing can expect 
 pennani'iice in this changing scene, he has secured a happiness which 
 no malignity of fortune can ever take away, but which must cleave to 
 him while he lives, ameliorating every good, and diminishing every 
 evil of his existence. 
 
 I solennily declare, that, but for the love of knowledge, I should 
 consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher preferable to that 
 of the greatest and richest man in existence ; for the fire of our minds 
 is like the fire which the Persians burn on the mountains, — it flames 
 night and day, and is immortal, and not to be quenched ! Upon 
 something it must act and fee?d, — upon the pure spirit of knowledge, 
 or upon the foul dregs of pollnting passions. 
 
 Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love 
 knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love co- 
 eval with life, what do I say but love innocence ; love virtue ; love 
 purity of conduct ; love that which, if you are rich and great, will 
 8.irirtify the providence which has made you so, and make men call it 
 justice ; love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty 
 nsjM'ctable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the metui- 
 ness of your fortunes ; love that which will comfort you, adorn you, 
 and never quit you, • — which will open to you the kingdom of thought, 
 ami all the lK)undless n^ions of conception, as an asylum against the 
 cnuUy, tiu; injustici*, and the pain that may be your lot in the outer 
 world, — that which will make your motives habitually great and bon- 
 
70 cathcart's literary rkadi I:. 
 
 oral)li'. and lii^lit up in an instant a tliousaiul noble disdains at the 
 very thou^^ht of im aniu-^s and of fraud? 
 
 Therefore, if any young man have eml)arked his life in the pursuit 
 of knowled^n-, let him go on without (iouluiiiL'' nr t"r;:riii-- ilir cvrni : 
 let liiin not Ik* intimi(hite(l bv the cheerhss beginnings of knowledge, 
 by iIh; darkness from whieh she sprincrs, by the difficulties which 
 hover around her, by the wnt i- in wliich sIk dwdls, 
 
 by the want and sorrow whi oh - n, ,i,im- iwuiiicy in her train; but 
 let liiin rv.r foilou hrr as tin- AnLTcl that guards him, and cs the 
 Genius (,t his life. She will bring him out at last into the light of 
 day, and txlilbit Mm to the world coiiiDr. IwikIvc In Mfdiiln luonts, 
 Irrtih- i ill in imaLrni.r iident 
 
 and powcrlui above his fellows in all lin k lations and m all the 
 offices of life. 
 
 WIT AKD WISDOM. 
 
 Till i:i is an association in mms minds between didlncss and wis- 
 dom, amu-( nit lit and folly, which has a very powerfid influence in 
 decision upon cliaraHer, and is not overromr without considerable 
 
 difficulty. Ttic reason is. that the ontirard ^iirii^ <)t' a dull man and a 
 wise man an- tin- same, and so are the on! u aid -iiun^ ot" a frivolous 
 man ami a uiity man : and we are not to t-xprct that the majority 
 will be di-jxisfd to look to much hiur*' than the oiitwafd sign. I 
 beli(;ve the fact to be, that wit is very seldom the only eminent quality 
 which resides in the mind of any man ; it is commonly accompanied 
 by many otl - of every (ltscri])tion. and ouLrht to be consid- 
 
 ered as a strong evidence of a fertile and superior understanding. 
 Almost all the great poets, orators, and statesmen of all times have 
 been witiy. 
 
 The mcaniuir of an extraordinary man is. that he is eight men, not 
 one man ; that lu' has as mueh wit as if he had no sense, and as much 
 sense a? if he had no wit ; that his conduct is as judicious as if he 
 were the dullest of human beinsrs, and his imasrination as brilliant 
 as if lie were irretrievably ruined. ])Ut when wit is combined with 
 sense and information ; when it is sot^eiied by benevolence, and 
 restrained by strong principle ; wlien it is in the hands of a man 
 who can use it and despise it, who can be witty, and somethimr much 
 better tliau witty, who loves honor, justiee. decency, good-nature, 
 moralitv, and religion, ten thousand times b,tTer than wit; — wit is 
 
SYDNEY SMITH. 71 
 
 then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature. There is no more 
 interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different 
 1 liaracters of men ; than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing 
 ilii^nity, unfreezing coldness, — teaching age and care and pain to 
 -mile, — extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and 
 t Imrming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it 
 penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradu- 
 ally bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of 
 wine and oil, giving evciy man a glad heart and a shining counte- 
 Genuine and innocent wit like this is surely iXxa Jlavor of the 
 
 : .' Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his 
 
 life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and 
 laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and 
 to " chann his painful steps over the burning marie." 
 
 8CIEKCE OF GOVEENMENT. 
 
 It would seem that the science of government is an unappropriated 
 region in the universe of knowledge. Those sciences with which the 
 passions can never interfere are considered to be attainable only by 
 >tudy and by reflection ; while there are not many young men who 
 
 loubt of their ability to make a constitution, or to govern a kingdom, 
 it the same time there cannot, perhaps, be a more decided proof of a 
 Miperticial understanding than the depreciation of those diffieulties 
 which are insepjirable from the science of govenmient. To know well 
 the local and the natural man ; to track the silent march of human 
 
 tfairs; to seize, with happy intuition, on those great laws which 
 I. [Tiilate the prosperity of empires; to reconcile principles to circum- 
 -t IK ts, and be no wiser than the times mil permit ; to anticipate the 
 - of ever)' speculation upon the entangled relations and awkwanl 
 :ii('xity of real life; and to follow out the theorems of the senate 
 to the daily comforts of the cottage, is a task which they will fear 
 most who know it best, — a task in which the great and the good 
 have often failed, and which it is not only wise, but pious and just, in 
 common men to avoid. 
 
 I 
 
72 CATHCART*8 LITERARY READER. 
 
 COLEEIDGE. 
 1772- 1834. 
 
 Samdki. Tatu>b CoutmiDGK wu born at Ottery 8t Maiy, Denmshire, where his Father was 
 vicar, in 177>» and died in 1S34. He tpeot tvo yean at Jesaa Collcfe, Cambridge, but did 
 not complete his ooone. A little later, being in London without resources or eniploYmcnt, he 
 enllsteid in a dnfooB reftment. One day he wrote a Latin rerae on the stable-wall, which fact 
 eoning to the knowledge of his captain, the latter procured his discharge from the serrice. 
 Coleridge at once entered on a literary and political career, publishing his first work, Tlu Fall of 
 Moht^turrt, Jm HiHtrieml Dntma^ in 1794, and soon after several pamphlets in which he ad\-o- 
 cited dfmociatte aad UnitnmB doctrinca. With Soatiiey and Lovell he projected a Paatiaoe- 
 racy to be eatablished in Pennsylvania, but the scheme eame to naught, and Coleridge settled 
 down as a writer on the Mormug Pott, in support of the government In 1798 he visited 
 Germany and studied then diligently. In 1SI2 his series of Essays, called TV Friatd, was pub- 
 lished, and in 1816 CkrisUM. He had acquired the habit of opium-eating, which obtained the 
 BMateryorer him and reduced him to a condition of unprodurtivr indolmre. He passed the 
 last eighteen years of his life in retirement. So able a judge as I)e Quineey has said that Cole- 
 ridge's was " the Urgest and most spacious intellect, the subtlest and most comprehensive, that 
 has yet existed among men." He excelled in every department of literature, and several of 
 his poems rank among the finest in otu language. As a coiiTenationist he has never been 
 equaled. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF METHOD. 
 
 What is that which first strikes us, and strikes -us at once, in a 
 man of education, and which, ainon<? educated men, so instantly dis- 
 tinguishes the man of superior mind, tliat (as was observed with emi- 
 nent propriety of tlie late Edmund Burke) '* we cannot stand under 
 the same archway durino: a shower of rain, without finding him out"? 
 Not the weight or noveUy of his remarks ; not any unusual interest 
 of facts communicated by him : for we may suppose both the one and 
 the other precluded by the shortness of our intercourse, and the trivi- 
 ality of the subjects. The difference will \)e impressed and felt, 
 though the conversation should be confined to the state of the weather 
 or the p{ivement. Still less will it arise from any peculiarity in his 
 words and phrases. Unless where new things necessitate new terms, 
 he will avoid an unusual word as a rock. It must have been among 
 the earliest lessons of his youth, that the breach of this precept, at all 
 times hazardous, becomes ridiculous in the topics of ordinary conver- 
 sation. There remains but one other point of distinction possible; 
 and this must be, and in fact is, the true cause of the impression made 
 on us. It is the unpremeditated and evidently habitual arrangement 
 of his words, grounded on the habit of foreseeing, in each integral 
 part, or (more plainly) in every sentence, the whole that he then in- 
 
COLERIDGE. 7 '3 
 
 tends to communicate. However irregular and desultory his talk, 
 there is method in the fragments. 
 
 Listen, on the other hand, to an ignorant man, though perhaps 
 shrewd and able in his particular calling, whether he be describing 
 or relating. We immediately perceive, that his memory alone is 
 called into action ; and that the objects and events recur in the nar- 
 ration in the same order, and with the same accompaniments, however 
 accidental or impertinent, in which they had first occurred to the 
 narrator. The necessity of taking breath, the efforts of recollection, 
 and the abrupt rectification of its failures, produce all his jmuses ; 
 and with exception of the " and then," the " and there," and the 
 still less significant, "and so," they constitute likewise all his con- 
 nections. 
 
 Our discussion, however, is confined to method as employed in the 
 formation of the understanding, and in the constructions of science 
 and literature. It would indeed be superfluous to attempt a proof of 
 its importiince in the business and economy of active or domestic 
 life. From the cotter's hearth or the workshop of the artisan to the 
 palace or the arsenal, the first merit, that which admits neither sub- 
 stitute nor equivalent, is, that everything be in its place. Where this 
 charm is wanting, every other merit either loses its name, or becomes 
 an additional ground of accusation and regret. Of one, by whom it 
 is eminently possessed, we say proverbially, he is like clock-work. 
 The resemblance extends beyond the point of regularity, and yet falls 
 short of the truth. Both do, indeed, at once divide and announce 
 the silent and otherwise indistinguishable lapse of time. But the 
 man of methodical industry and honorable pursuits does more; he 
 realizes its ideal divisions, and gives a character and individuality to 
 its moments. If the idle are described as killing time, he may be 
 justly said to call it into life and moral being, whiles he makes it the 
 distinct object not only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He 
 organizes the hours, and gives them a soul ; and that, the very essence 
 of whicli is to fleet away, and evermore to have been, he takes up into 
 his own permanence, and communicates to it the imperishaWeness of 
 a spiritual nature. Of the good and faithful terra nt, whose energies, 
 thus directetl, are thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed, that he 
 lives in time, than that time lives in him. His days, months, and 
 years, as the stops and punctual marks in the reconls of duties |)er- 
 formed, will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant when 
 time itself shall be no more. 
 4 
 
74 cathcart's literaey reader. 
 
 But as the importance of method in the duties of social life is 
 incomparably greater, so are its practical elements proportionably 
 obvious, and such as relate to the will far more than to the under- 
 standing. Henceforward, therefore, we contemplate its bearings on 
 the latter. 
 
 The difference between the products of a well-disciplined and 
 those of an uncultivated understanding, in relation to what we will 
 now venture to call the science of method, is often and admirably 
 exhibited by our great dramatist. I scarcely need refer my readers 
 to the Clown's evidence, in the first scene of the second act of 
 Measure for Metmure, or to the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet ' 
 
 The absence of method, which characterizes the uneducated, is 
 occasioned by an habitual submission of the understanding to mere 
 events and images as such, and independent of any power in the 
 mind to classify or appropriate them. The general accompaniments 
 of time and place are the only relations which persons of this class 
 appear to regard in their statements. As this constitutes their lead- 
 ing feature, the contrary excellence, as disting\iishing the well-edu- 
 cated man, must be referred to the contrary habit. Method, there- 
 fore, becomes natural to the mind which has been accustomed to 
 contemplate not things only, or for their own sake alone, but like- 
 wise and. chiefly the relations of things, either their relations to each 
 other, or to the observer, or to the state and apprehensions of the 
 hearers. To enumerate and analyze these relations, with the condi- 
 tions under which alone they are discoverable, is to teach the science 
 of method 
 
 Exuberance of mind, on the one liaiul, interferes with the forms of 
 method ; but sterility of mind, on the other, wanting the spring and 
 impulse to mental action, is wholly destructive of method itself. For 
 in attending too exclusively to the relations which the past or pass- 
 ing events and objects bear to general truth, and the moods of his 
 own thought, the most intelligent man is sometimes in danger of 
 overlooking that other relation, in which they are likewise to be 
 placed to the apprehension and sympathies of his hearers. His 
 discourse appears like soliloquy intermixed with dialogue. But the 
 uneducated and unreflecting talker overlooks all mental relations, 
 both logical and psychological ; and consequently precludes all 
 method which is not purely accidental. Hence the nearer the things 
 and incidents in time and place, the more distant, disjointed, and 
 
COLERIDGE. 76 
 
 impertinent to each other, and to any common purpose, will they 
 appear in his narration ; and this from the want of a staple, or 
 stiirting-post, in the narrator himself; from the absence of the lewling 
 thouo^ht, which, borrowins: a phrase from the nomenclature of legisla- 
 tion, I may not inaptly call the initiative. On the contrary, where 
 the habit of method is present and effective, things the most remote 
 and diverse in time, place, and outward circumstance are brought into 
 mental contiguity and succession, the more striking as the less ex- 
 pected. 
 
 ^ KUBLA KHAS ; OB, A VISION IN A DREAIL* 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 
 
 A stately pleasure-dome decree : 
 
 Where Alph, the sticred river, ran 
 
 Through caverns measureless to man 
 Down to a sunless sea. 
 So twice five miles of fertile ground 
 With walls and towers were girdled round : 
 And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills 
 Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; 
 And here were forests ancient as the hills. 
 Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 
 But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
 Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! 
 
 * ( olrridge makes the folloiring reference to this poem -. " In consequence of a slight indispo* 
 »i(i<>n nn snodyne had be«n presrril>ed for the aathor, from the effect of which he fell asleep in 
 111* rhairat thp moment he was readinf; the following sentence, or words of the same substance, 
 
 ,f, I. ^ i-.-. Ill ,,^^. . jIp^ jj,p Khan Kahia commanded a palace to be built, and astately 
 
 111 thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.' The author 
 
 < tiree hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which 
 
 tiiiu lie tia» the Hiust ririd confidence that he could not hare composed less than from two to 
 
 t)in-r liundrrd lines; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the imagrs rose up 
 
 ' ^ ■' - with a parallel pnxluction of the correspondent expressions, without any 
 
 -ness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct 
 
 ' •■•' liole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down 
 
 the Uum tliat arr hnre preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out and detained 
 
 aliovf an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification. 
 
 ** ' ' " 'taiaedwMie Tague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, 
 
 ')n of MfMtifbt or ten Bcattere<i lines and images, all the rest had passed 
 
 -< on tlie mxhat at a stream into which a stone had been cast, but. alaa I 
 
 n at the latter." The fragment is generally ranked among the 
 
 aiaginattve poetry in our langnage. 
 
76 CATHCART^S LITEUAUY READER. 
 
 A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 
 
 As e'er IxMieath a waning moon was haunted 
 
 By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! 
 
 And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 
 
 As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 
 
 A mighty fountain momently was forced ; 
 
 Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 
 
 Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 
 
 Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail : 
 
 And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 
 
 It flung up momently the sacred river. * 
 
 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 
 
 Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 
 
 Then reached the caverns measureless to man. 
 
 And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean ; 
 
 And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 
 
 Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 
 
 The shadow of the dome of pleasure 
 
 Floated midway on the waves ; 
 
 Where was heard the mingled measure 
 
 From the fountain and the caves. 
 It was a miracle of rare device, 
 A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! 
 
 A damsel with a dulcimer 
 
 In a vision once I saw : 
 
 It was an Abyssinian maid, 
 
 And on her dulcimer she played. 
 
 Singing of Mount Abora. 
 
 Could I revive within me 
 
 Her symphony and song. 
 
 To such a deep delight 't would win me. 
 That with music loud and long, 
 I would build that dome in air, 
 Tliat sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 
 And all who heard should see them there. 
 And all should cry, Beware ! Beware ! 
 
 His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! 
 
 Weave a circle round him thrice. 
 
COLERIDGE. 77 
 
 And close your eyes with holy dread, 
 For he on honey -dew hath fed, 
 And drunk the milk of Paradise. 
 
 DEAD CALM IN THE TBOFICS. 
 
 The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 
 
 The furrow followed free ; 
 
 We were the first that ever burst 
 
 Into that silent sea. 
 
 Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 
 *T was sad as sad could be ; 
 And we did speak only to break 
 The silence of the sea ! 
 
 All in a hot and copper sky. 
 The bloody Sun, at noon, 
 Bight up above the mast did stand. 
 No bigger than the Moon. 
 
 Day after day, day after day, 
 We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean. 
 
 Water, water, everywhere, 
 And all the boards did shrink ; 
 Water, water, everywhere, 
 Nor any drop to drink. 
 
 The very deep did rot : O Christ I 
 That ever this should be ! 
 Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
 Upon the slimy sea. 
 
78 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 SEVERED FBIEKDSHIF. 
 
 Alas ! they had Ix'cn friends in youth; 
 But whispering tongues can poison truth ; 
 And constancy lives in realms above ; 
 And life is thorny ; and youth is vain ; 
 And to be wroth with one we love 
 Doth work like madness in the brain. 
 And thus it chanced, as I divine, 
 With Roland and Sir Ijeoline. 
 Each spake words of high disdain 
 And insult to his heart's best brother : 
 They parted — ne*er to meet again ! 
 But never either found another 
 To free the hollow heart from paining, — 
 They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 
 Like cliflfs which had been rent asunder : 
 A dreary sea now flows between ; — 
 But neither heat nor frost nor thunder 
 Shall wholly do away, I ween, 
 The marks of that which once hath been. 
 
 Flowers are lovely ; love is flower-like ; 
 Friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
 O, the joys that came down shower-like 
 Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 
 
 Ere I was old ! 
 Dew-drops are the gems of the morning. 
 But the tears are of mournful eve ! 
 Where no hope is, life 's a warning 
 That only serves to make us grieve. 
 
 When we are old : 
 That only serves to make us grieve 
 With oft and tedious taking leave. 
 Like some poor nigh-related guest. 
 That may not rudely be dismissed, 
 Yet hath outstayed his welcome while. 
 And tells the jest without the smile. 
 
LAMB. 79 
 
 LAMB. 
 
 1775-1835- 
 
 Craujcs Laxb, the moct dunning essayist and humorist of his time, was bom in London, 
 1775, and died 1835. His litej;ary fame may be said to rest upon E*say» of Elia. Tlic delicate 
 (Trace and flavor of these papers cannot be described. His style has a peculiar and subtle charm 
 which eomes from perfect ease and self-possession, and his humor is of tlie ripest and richest 
 kmd. In all his writings he is a perfect master in delicacy of feeling and liappiness of expres- 
 sion. No other writer, save perhaps Goldsmith, enters so closely into his rcAders' hearts, and 
 so warms them with his genial personality. To all wha know him in his writings he is the dear 
 friend, whose voice we seem to hear and whose smile we seem to see. A terrible tragedy shad- 
 uw-ed his life ; but through its gloom the tender loyalty of his nature shines out with beautiful 
 radiance. 
 
 THE OBIOIK OF BOAST-FIG. 
 
 Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend was obliging 
 enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages 
 ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as 
 they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted 
 at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mu- 
 tations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho- 
 fang, literally the Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, 
 that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the 
 elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following, 
 rhe swineherd Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, 
 us his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the 
 care of his eldest son. Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond 
 of playing with fire, as youngsters of his age commonly are, let some 
 > parks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread 
 the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was 
 reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian 
 make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of much more 
 importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in 
 number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over 
 the East, from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in 
 tlie utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake 
 ')f the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again 
 with a few dry branches, and the kbor of an hour or two, at any 
 lime, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he 
 should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking 
 
"50 CATllCAliX'S LITERARY READER. 
 
 remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nos- 
 trils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could 
 it proceed from ? — not from the burnt cottiige, — he had smelt that 
 smell Iwfore, — inde(xl, this was by no nu'ans the first accident of tin 
 kind which had occurred through the ne«jligence of this uiducky young 
 firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, 
 or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed 
 his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down 
 to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his 
 fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his 
 mouth. Some of the cnimbs of the scorched skin had come away 
 with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, 
 indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted — crackling I 
 Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so nmch 
 now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at 
 length broke into his slow understanding tliat it was the pig that 
 smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious ; and surrendering him- 
 self up to the new-lK)rn pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls 
 of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it do^vn 
 his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smok- 
 ing rafters, armed with rctributory cudgel, and finding how aflairs 
 stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as 
 thick as hail-stones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if tli 
 had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in lu^ 
 lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences 
 he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but 
 he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of 
 it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something 
 like the following dialogue ensued : — 
 
 " You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring ? Is 
 it not enough that you have burnt me down three houses with your 
 dog's tricks, and be hanged to you ! but you must be eating fire, and 
 I know not w^hat ? What have you got there, I say ? " 
 
 " O father, the pig, the pig ! do come and taste how nice the burnt 
 pig eats." 
 
 The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he 
 cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt 
 
 pig- 
 
 Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon 
 
h 
 
 LAMB. 81 
 
 rakwl out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser 
 half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, " Eat, eat, 
 (jit the burnt pig, father, only taste — O Lord!" — with such-like 
 barbarous ejaculations, craujining all the while as if he would choke. 
 
 Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, 
 wavering whether he should not put his son to detith for an unnatund 
 monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his 
 son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted 
 some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for 
 pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion 
 (for the manuscript here is a little tedious), l)oth father and son fairly 
 sat down to the mess, and never left off till they had despatched all 
 that remained of the litter. 
 
 Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the 
 neighlwrs would certaiidy have stoned them for a couple of abomi- 
 nable wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat 
 which God had sent them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. 
 It was observed that Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down more frequently 
 than eyer. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would 
 break out in broad day, others in the night-time. As often as the 
 sow farrowed, so sure was the house of Ho-ti to he in a blaze ; and 
 Ho-ti himself, which was more remarkable, instead of chastising his 
 son, seemed to grow more indulgent to him than ever. At length 
 they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father and 
 son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable assize 
 town. Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced in 
 court, and verdict al)out to Ik; pronounced, when the foreman of the 
 jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood 
 accused, might l)e handed into the box. He handled it, and they all 
 handlexl it; and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo and his father had 
 done l)efore them, and nature prompting to each of them the same 
 remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the clearest charge which 
 judge had ever given, — to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk, 
 strangers, reporters, and all present, — without leaving the box, or 
 any manner of considtation whatever, they brought in a simultaneous 
 verdict of Not Guilty. 
 
 The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest 
 iniquity of the decision ; and when the court was dismissed, went 
 jMivately, and bought up all the pigs that could be had for love or 
 4« p 
 
82 CATHCAar's litkuvky i:km>i;i;. 
 
 money. In a Uw »la\- lu> Lordship's town house was observed to be 
 on fin*. TIk tliii'LT t(MiN w iMi:, and now there \va> noihi""- <-» ^"' ^een but 
 tir.- ill ( \i i-\ (iir.i-tioii. I'uel and pigs grew eiionii'   all over 
 
 the district. The insuranee-ofHces one and all shut up shop. People 
 built slighter and sliirliter eviiv ila\. until it was feared that the very 
 science of anliitrciui-.- uouKI in :iiiii- Ix- lo-l to llie world. 
 
 Thus this custom of lii'iug houses eoulinU((l, till in j)ro(t>> ot time, 
 says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Lo( k» . xsho in;ul< a dis- 
 covery that the flesh of swine, or indeexl of any other animal, im-lii 
 be cooked (A#rr«/, as they called it; without the neeesjbiiy of eoubuui; ^ 
 a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form o! 
 gridiron. Bx)asting by the string or spit came in a century or two 
 later, T for*ret in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes 
 tin ni aiiUM rij>t. do the most useful and seemingly the most obvious 
 arts make their way among mankind. 
 
 Without placine: too implicit faith in the account above givm, ii 
 must be agreed, that it a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experi- 
 ment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be 
 assigned in favor of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse mi^^iit 
 be found in koast PIG. 
 
 Of all tlie delicacies in the whole mundiM edidilisy I will maintain it 
 to be the most di lic.ti . 
 
 In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased to com- 
 pliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry, — a certain obsequious- 
 ness or deferential respect which we are supposed to pay to females as 
 females. 
 
 I shall be disposed to admit this when, in polite circles, I shall see 
 the same attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features as to 
 handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear ; to the woman as she is 
 a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune, or a title. I shall believe 
 it to be something more than a name when a well-dressed gentleman 
 in a wdl-dressed company can advert to the topic of female old arjr 
 without exeltinir. and intendin2: t(j excite, a sneer; when the phra- 
 " auti([uattHl vir<rinity," and sinh a one has " overstood her market, 
 prououiu eil in i^ood company, shall raise immediate oflfense in man or 
 woman that shall hear them spoken. 
 
WEBSTEE. 8;i 
 
 WEBSTER. 
 
 1782 -1852. 
 
 DA!f rxL Wkbstf.r, the mo«t illustrious of American statesmen, was bom in Salisbury, New 
 Hampshire, in llHi. and died at Marshlield, BiassachusetU, in 1852. As an orator and a states- 
 man he IS Jlii. fly known; but his writings, fragmentary though they arc, deservedly rank among 
 the bt^t spt cimens of our literature. Our first extract ii from an article which he contributed 
 to the AVr/A JmericaH RetUw, and the second is from his memorable speech at the centennial 
 celebration of tlie birthday of Washington. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF BXrKKEB HILL.* 
 
 No national drama was ever developed in a more interesting and 
 splendid first scene. The incidents and the result of the battle itself 
 were most important, and indeed most wonderful. As a mere battle, 
 few surpass it in whatever engages and interests the attention. It 
 was fought on a conspicuous eminence, in the immediate neighborhood 
 of a popidous city, and consequently in the view of thousands of spec- 
 tators. The attacking army moved over a sheet of water to the assault. 
 The operations and movements were of course all visible and all dis- 
 tinct. Those who looked on from the houses and heights of Boston 
 liad a fuller view of every important oper.ition and event than can 
 irdinarily be ha<l of any battle, or than can possibly be had of such 
 IS are fought on a more extended ground, or by detachments of troops 
 leting in different places, and at different times, and in some measure 
 indcptmdently of each other. When the British columns were ad- 
 vancing to the attack, the flames of Charlestown (fired, as is generally 
 supposed, by a shell) began to ascend. The spectators, far outnum- 
 bering both armies, thronged and crowded on every height and every 
 point which afforded a view of the scene, themselves constituted a 
 very important part of it. The troops of the two armies seemed like 
 so many combatants in an amphitheater. The manner in which they 
 should acquit themselves was to be judged of, not, as in other cases 
 of military engagements, by reports and future history, but by a vast 
 and anxious assembly already on the spot, and waiting with imspeak- 
 able concern and emotion the progress of the day. In other Iwittles 
 the recollection of wives and children has l>een used as an excitement 
 
 * One of the first, and one of the moat celebrated battles of the ReTolutionary War, firaglU 
 
 me 17, 177&. It is rommemorated by a granite obeluk, two hundred and twenty feet high, 
 
 the batUe-ground in Charlestown. Mass.. the eoraer-atonc of whirh was laid by Lafiiyetie 
 
84 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 to animate the warrior's breast and nerve his arm. Here was not i 
 mere recollection, but an actual presence of them, and other dear con. 
 nections, hanging on the skirts of the battle, anxious and agitated 
 feeling almost as if wounded themselves by every blow of the enemy, 
 and putting forth, as it were, their own strength, and all the energy 
 of their own throbbing bosoms, into every gallant effort of their war- 
 ring friends. But there was a more comprehensive and vastly nii 
 important view of that day's contest than has been mentioned, — a 
 view, indtJcd, which ordinary eyes, bent intently on what was imme- 
 diat^^ly before them, did not embrace, but which was perceived in 
 full extent and expansion by minds of a higher order. Those nit .1 
 who were at the head of the colonial councils, who had been engaged 
 for years in the previous stages of the quarrel with England, and who 
 had been accustomed to look forward to the future, were well apprised 
 of the magnitude of the events likely to hang on the business of that 
 day. They saw in it not only a battle, but the beginning of a civil 
 war of unmeasured extent and uncertain issue. All America and all 
 England were likely to be deeply concerned in the consequences. The 
 individuals themselves, who knew fidl well what agency they had in 
 bringing affairs to this crisis, luul need of all their courage, — not that 
 disreganl of personal safety in which the vulgar suppose true courage 
 to consist, but that high and fixed moral sentiment, that steady and 
 decided purpose, which enables men to pursue a distant end, with a 
 full view of the difficulties and dangers before them, and with a con- 
 viction that, before they must arrive at the proposed end, should they 
 ever reach it, they must pass through evil report as well as good 
 report, and he liable to obloquy as well as to defeat. Spirits that fear 
 nothing else fear disgrace ; and this danger is necessarily encountered 
 by those who engage in civil war. Unsuccessful resistance is not 
 only niin to its authors, but is esteemed, and necessarily so, by the 
 laws of all countries, treasonable. This is the case, at least, till re- 
 sistance becomes so general and formidable as to assume the form of 
 regular war. But who can tell, when resistance commences, whether 
 it will attain even to that degree of success ? Some of those persons 
 who signed the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, described them- 
 selves as signing it " as with halters about their necks." If there 
 were grounds for this remark in 1776, when the cause had become so 
 much more general, how much greater was the hazard when the battle 
 of Bunker HiU was fought ! These considerations constituted, to en- 
 
WEBSTER. 85 
 
 lartrcd and libt-ml iiiiiuU, the moral sublimity of the occasion, while to 
 tlu' outward senses, the movement of armies, the roar of artillery, the 
 hrilliancy of the reflection of a summer's sun from tiie burnished 
 armor of the British columns, and the flames of a burning town, 
 made up a scene of extraordinary grandeur. 
 
 EULOGIUM ON WASHINGTON. 
 
 1 RISE, gentlemen, to propose to you the name of that great man, 
 in commemoration of whose birth and in honor of whose character 
 and services we are here assembled. 
 
 I am sure that I express a sentiment common to every one present 
 when I say, that there is something more than ordinarily solemn and 
 aflVeting on this occasion. 
 
 We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is inti- 
 mately blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the pros- 
 perity, the liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our 
 eoiintr}-. That name was of power to rally a nation, in the hour of 
 thick-thronging public disasters and calamities ; that name shone, 
 amid the storm of war, a lx?acon-light, to cheer and guide the 
 country's friends ; it flamed, too, like a meteor, to repel her foes. 
 That name, in the days of peace, was a loadstone, attracting to 
 itself, a whole people's confidence, a whole people's love, and the 
 whole world's respect ; that name, descending with all time, spreatling 
 over the whole earth, and uttered in all the languages Ix^longing to 
 the trilxjs and races of men, will forever be pronounced with aflfec- 
 tionate gratitude by every one in whose breast there sliall arise an 
 aspiration for human rights and human liberty. 
 
 We perform this grateful duty, gentlemen, at the expiration of a 
 hundred years from his birth, near the place so cherished and 
 beloved by him, when; his dust now reposes, and in the capital 
 which Ix^ars his own immortal i»ame. 
 
 I All expt^riencc evinces that liuman sentiments are strongly affected 
 by associations. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of longer priods 
 of time, naturally fn'shens the recollection, and deepens the impres- 
 sion, of events with which they are historically coimected. Re- 
 liowned places, also, liave a power to awaken feeling, which all 
 acknowledge. No American can pass bv the fields of Bunker Hill, 
 
86 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 surface. Whoever visits them feels the sentiment of love of country 
 kindling anew, as if the spirit that belonged to the transactions which 
 have rendered these places distinguished still hovered round with 
 power to move and excite all who in future time may approach them. 
 But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with 
 which great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime virtues 
 cease to be abstractions, when they become embodied in human 
 character, and exemplified in human conduct, we should be false to 
 our own nature, if we did not indulge in the spontaneous effusions 
 of our gratitude and our admiration. A true lover of the virtue of 
 patriotism delights to contemplate its purest models ; and that love 
 of country may be well suspected which affects to soar so high into 
 the regions of sentiment as to be lost and absorbed in the abstract 
 feeling, and becomes too elevated, or too refined, to glow with fer\'or 
 in the commendation or the love of individuid benefactors. All this is 
 unnatural. It is as if one should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry 
 as to care nothing for Homer   or Milton ; so passionately attached 
 to eloquence as to be indifferent to Tully f and Chatham J ; or such 
 a devotee to the arts, in such an ecstasy with the elements of beauty, 
 proportion, and expression, as to regard the masterpieces of Raphael § 
 and Michael Angelo § with coldness or contempt. We may be 
 assured, gentlemen, that he who really loves the thing itself loves its 
 finest exhibitions. A true friend of his country, loves her friends and 
 benefactors, and thinks it no degradation to commend and commem- 
 orate them. The voluntary outpouring of public feeling made to-day, 
 from the north to the south, and from the east to the west, proves 
 this sentiment to be both just and natural. In the cities and in the 
 villages, in the public temples and in the family circles, among all 
 ages and sexes, gladdened voices to-day bespeak grateful hearts, and a 
 freshened recollection of the virtues of the father of his country. And 
 it will be so in all time to come, so long as public virtue is itself an 
 object of regard. The ingenuous youth of America ynW hold up to 
 themselves the bright model of Washington's example, and study 
 to be what they behold ; they will contemplate his character till all 
 
 * Homer. The greatest of the Greek poets : lived about 915 b. c. The Hiad stands at the 
 head of all epic poetry. 
 
 + TuLLT. More commonly known as Cicero, the famous Roman orator. See Plutarch's Livet. 
 
 t Chatham. An illustrious English statesman and orator, bom I7O8. 
 
 ^ Raphael; Mich.vel Angelo. Celebrated Italians ; the former as a painter, and the latter 
 as a sculptor and architect. Both bom in the latter part of the fifteenth century. 
 
WEBSTER. 87 
 
 its virtues spread out and display themselves to their delighted 
 vision, as the earliest astronomers, the shepherds on the plains of 
 Babylon, gazed at the stars till they saw them form into clusters 
 and constellations, ovirpowering at length the eyes of the beholders 
 with the united blaze of a thousand lights. 
 
 Grentleraen, we are at the point of a century from the birth of 
 Washington ; and what a century it has been ! During its course 
 the human mind has seemed to proceed with a sort of geometric 
 velocity, accomplishing, for human intelligence and human freedom, 
 more than had been done in lives or tens of centuries preceding. 
 Washington stands at the commencement of a new era, as well as 
 at the head of the new world. A century from the birth of Wash- 
 ington has changed the world. The country of Washington has been 
 the theater on which a great part of that change has lx*en wrought ; 
 and Washington himself a principal agent by which it has been accom- 
 plished. His age and his country are equally full of wonders, and of 
 both he is the chief. 
 
 If the prediction of the poet, uttered a few years before his birth, 
 be true ; if indeed it be designed by Providence that the proudest 
 exhibition of human character and human affairs shall be made on 
 this theater of the Western world ; if it be true that, 
 
 " The four first acts already past, 
 A fifth sliall close the drama of the day ; 
 Time's noblest offsprinjc is the last " ; 
 
 how could this imposing, swelling, final scene be appropriately 
 opened, how could its intense interest be adequately sustained, but 
 by the introduction of just such a character as our Washington ? 
 
 Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of liberty 
 was struck out in his own country, which has since kindled into a 
 flame, and shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a century 
 from his birth, the world has changed in science, in arts, in the 
 extent of commerce, in the improvement of navigation, and in all 
 that relates to the civil iziition of man. But it is the spirit of human 
 freedom, the new elevation of individual man, in his moral, social, 
 and political character, leading the whole long train of other im- 
 provements, which has most remarkably distinguished the era. 
 Society, in this century, has not made its progn'ss, like Chinese 
 skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in trifles ; it has not 
 merely hished itself to an increased speed round the old circles of 
 
88 cathcajit's literary reader. 
 
 thought and action ; but it has assumed a new character ; it has 
 raised itseli" from beneath governments to participation in govern- 
 ments ; it has mixed moral and political objects with the dailv 
 pursuits of individual men, and, with a freedom and strength b(?forc 
 altogether unknown, it has applied to these objects the whole power 
 of the human understanding. It has been the era, in short, when 
 the social principle has triumphed over the feudal principle ; when 
 society has maintained its rights against military power, and estab- 
 lished, on foundations never hereafter to be shaken, ite competency 
 to govern itself. 
 
 THE AMEBICAK UNION. 
 
 When my eyes turn to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, 
 may they not see him shining on the broken and dishonored frag- 
 ments of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant, 
 belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds ; or drenched, it may be, 
 in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather 
 behold the gorgeous ensign of the Rt^public, now known and honored 
 throughout the earth, still full high advanced ; its arms and trophies 
 streaming in all their original luster ; not a stripe erased or polluted ; 
 not a single stjir obscured ; bearing for its motto no such miserable 
 interrogatory as " What is all this worth ? " nor those other words 
 of delusion and folly, of Lilxirty first, and Union afterwards, but 
 everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, and blaz- 
 ing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the 
 land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other senti- 
 ment dear to every American heart, — "Liberty and Union, — now 
 and forever, — one and inseparable." 
 
 Our fathers raised their flag against a power to which, for pur- 
 poses of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the liight of her 
 glory, is not to be compared, — a power which has dotted the surface 
 of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose 
 morning drum-beat, following the sun in his course, and keeping pace 
 with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken 
 strain of the martial airs of England. 
 
IRVIMG. 89 
 
 IRVING. 
 
 1 783 -1 859. 
 
 No name m our iiteniry annals is more fondly rherished than (hat of Wnshinirton Irvinj?, one 
 of the earliest and most distinguished of American writers. He was Imm in New York in I7H3, 
 and died at Suunyside, his huuic on the Hudson, in 1850. He began his literary career by con- 
 tributing to the columns of the Morning CAroMule, of which his brother, Dr. PeU-r Irving, was 
 rdiuir. Hu health taihng, be went to Europe, where he remained two years. Un his return bo 
 V '.. bar, but gave little attention to his profession, lit IHO? appeared the first 
 
 .1, ur the U'kim-lt'hattu and Op'tHumt of Launcelot Langttaff and Otkert, a 
 h-ai of light and agreeable character, which was very popular during its 
 fxistencf ut iv»» thiui two years. In lt^9 the faiuous History of New I'ork, by Diedriek Ktuck- 
 trhocker, was published, and had a most cordial reception. The next year Washmgton Irving 
 Ix'cniiu- a {Hirtuer in the mercantile business conducted by his broihcrs ; but in 1»12 the firm 
 faili <l, and the young author returned to literary labors, llie Sketch-Uook appeared m 1819, and 
 (.•st.iljlislK-d his fame in Kn<;land and America. Bracebridge Hall, The Conquett of Granada, Tk4 
 Lf,- .;/ r„lum>jits, anil otlier works, were issued at intervals prior to 1832. In 1842 he was 
 a|i|>tiiiitcd I uitrd .Stales .Minister to Spain, and held that office four years. After his return he 
 vvrutc a Life of Goldtmitk, Thf Life of U'askinglon, Mahomet and hia Succeuora, etc It is safe 
 to say that no .\meriran autlior has been so generally and heartily loved as Washington Irving, 
 and he was as popular in England as at home. But his fame is by no means wholly due to the 
 qualities of his heart , his intellectual powers were of (he first cbss, but were largely controlled 
 by his native amiability, which shed a sunny radiance over all his writings. His style remains 
 to this day a model of ease, grace, and refinement. Our extracts are firom The Skelch-Book and 
 Tht Life qf Colmmhu*. 
 
 ICHABOD CRANE. 
 
 In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the 
 easttrn sliorc of tlio Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river 
 denoniinatcd by the ancient Dutcli navigators the Tappan Zee, and 
 where they always prudently shortened sail, and implored the protec- 
 tion of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market-town 
 or rural port, which by some is callwl Greensburgh, but which is 
 more genendly and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. 
 This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good house- 
 wives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their 
 hnsbands to linger about the village tavern on market-<lays. Be that 
 as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the 
 «ikr of IxM'ng precise and authentic. Not far from this village, per- 
 haps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, 
 among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole 
 world. A small brook glidt's through it, with just murnuir enough to 
 bdl one to repose ; and the ocrasional whistle of a quail, or tapping 
 of a woo(l|)c(kfr, is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon 
 the uniform tnuKjiiillily 
 
iiO c;ATiicAKi's litkraky reader. 
 
 I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squiiTcl-shoot- 
 ing was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the 
 valley. I had wandered into it at noon-time, when all nature is pecu- 
 liarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke 
 the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by 
 the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I 
 might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly 
 away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promis- 
 ing than this little valley. 
 
 From the listless repose of the pkce, and the peculiar character of 
 its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, 
 this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleefv 
 Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Ikns 
 throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence 
 seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. 
 Some say that the place was bewitched by a high Gennan doctor, 
 during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian 
 chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows then' 
 before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson.* 
 Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witch- 
 ing power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, caus- 
 ing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds 
 of marvelous beliefs ; are subject to trances and visions ; and fre- 
 quently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The 
 whole neighboriiood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and 
 twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across 
 the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, 
 with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her 
 gambols. 
 
 The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, 
 and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is 
 the apparition of a figure on horselmck without a head. It is said 
 by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been 
 carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the 
 Revolutionary War ; and who is ever and anon seen by the country 
 folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the 
 wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times 
 to the adjacent roatls, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no 
 
 * Henkt Hudson. An eminent English navigator. He discovered the Hadson River in 1609. 
 
lUVING. 
 
 91 
 
 jrmit distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of 
 those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the 
 tlojiting facts concerning this specter, allege that, the body of the 
 trooptT having been buried in the church-yard, the ghost rides forth 
 to the scene of Iwttle in nightly quest of his head ; and that the rush- 
 ing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a 
 midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get 
 iMick to the church-yard before daybreak. 
 
 Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which 
 has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of 
 shadow^s ; and the specter is known, at all the country firesides, by the 
 name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. 
 
 It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is 
 not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is uncon- 
 sciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. How- 
 ever wider awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy 
 n irion, they are suite, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence 
 of tile air, and l)egin to grow imaginative, — to dream dreams and see 
 ipparitions. 
 
 I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; for it is in 
 such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in 
 the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs 
 remain fixed ; while the great torrent of migration and improvement 
 which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless 
 country sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little 
 nooks of still water which border a rapid stream ; where we may see 
 the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in 
 their mimic harbor, undisturl)ed by the rush of the passing current. 
 Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades 
 of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still fiiul 
 the same tr^'cs aiul the same families vegetating in its sheltered 
 l)osom. 
 
 In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote period of 
 .Vmerican history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy 
 wight of the name of Ichabod Crane ; who sojourned, or, as he ex- 
 pressed it, " tarried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instruct- 
 ing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut ; a 
 State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as 
 lor the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen 
 
92 CATHC art's literary reader. 
 
 and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inap- 
 plicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with nar- 
 row shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out 
 of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his 
 whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and 
 flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe 
 nose, so that it looked like a weathercock, perched upon his spindh- 
 neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding aloiij,^ 
 the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and flut- 
 tering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of 
 famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a 
 cornfield. 
 
 His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely 
 constructed of logs ; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched 
 with leaves of old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured 
 at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the liandle of the door, and 
 stakes set against the window-shutters ; so that, though a thief might 
 get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting: 
 out ; an ide^ most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van 
 Houten, from the mystt-ry of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in 
 a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, 
 with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch-tree growing 
 at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, 
 conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summer's day, 
 like the hum of a beehive, interrupted now and then by the authorita- 
 tive voice of the master, in the tone of menace or command ; or, per- 
 adventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some 
 tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he 
 was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, 
 " Spare the rod and spoil the child." — Ichabod Crane's scholars cer- 
 tainly were not spoiled. 
 
 I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those 
 cruel potentates of the school, who joy in the smnrt of their subjects ; 
 on the contran\ he administered justice with discrimination rather 
 than severity ; taking the burden off the l)acks of the weak, and laying 
 it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at 
 the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence ; but the 
 claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some 
 little, tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch iir.^hin, who sulked 
 
I 
 
 IRVING. 93 
 
 and swelled and gn^w doj^ed and sullen beneath the birch. All this 
 he callfd " doiiijf his duty by their parents " ; and he never inflicted 
 a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory 
 to the smarting urchin, that " he would remember it, and tlmnk him 
 for it, the longest day he had to live." 
 
 ICHABOD CRANE (continued). 
 
 When school-hours were over, he was even the companion and 
 playmate of the larger boys ; and on holiday afternoons would con- 
 voy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty 
 sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the 
 cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his 
 pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would 
 have been scarcely sufficient to funiish him with daily bread, for 
 he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers 
 of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he was, according 
 to country custom in those pjirts, boarded and lodged at the houses 
 of the farmers, whose children he instructed. With these he lived 
 successively a week at a time ; thus going the rounds of the neigh- 
 borhood, with all his worldly efl'ects tied up in a cotton handkerchief. 
 
 That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his nistic 
 patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous 
 burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of 
 Hindering himself l)oth useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers 
 occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms ; helped to make hay ; 
 mended the fences ; took the horses to water; drove the cows from 
 pasture ; cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the 
 dominant dignity and absolute sway with Avhich he lorded it in his 
 little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingra- 
 tiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the 
 children, particularly the youngest ; and like the lion bold, which 
 whilom so magnanimously thc^ lamb did hold, he would sit with a 
 chihl on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours 
 tc^ether. 
 
 In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the 
 neigh l)orhood, and picketl up many bright shillings by instructing the 
 young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him, 
 on Sundays, to take his stition in front of the church gallery, with p. 
 
94 CATHCART*S LITERARY READER. 
 
 band of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried 
 away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resouiidetl 
 far above all the rest of the congregation ; and there are peculiar 
 quavers still "to be heard in that church, and which may even be 
 heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on 
 a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended 
 from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus by divers little make-shifts in 
 that ingenious way which is commonly denominated " by hook and 
 by crook,** the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was 
 thought, by all who understood notliing of the labor of head-work, to 
 have a wonderfully easy life of it. 
 
 The schoolmaster is generally a man of some impoi^tance in the 
 female circle of a rural neighlwrhood ; being considered a kind of idle 
 gentleman-like personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments 
 to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to 
 the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little 
 stir at the tea-table of a farm-house, and the addition of a supernu- 
 merary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a 
 silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in 
 the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among 
 them in the church-yard, between services on Sundays! gathering 
 grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding 
 trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tomb- 
 stones ; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks 
 of the adjacent mill-pond ; while the more bashful country bumpkins 
 hung sheepishly back, envjing his superior elegance and address. 
 
 From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling gazette, 
 carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house ; so 
 that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, 
 moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he 
 had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of 
 Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by 
 the way, he most firmly and potently believed. 
 
 He was, in fact, a mixture of small shrewdness and simple credu- 
 lity. His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, 
 were equally extraotjlinary ; and both had been increased by his 
 residence in this spell-boimd region. No tale was too gross or mon- 
 strous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his 
 school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich 
 
IRVIKO. 95 
 
 ht'tl of clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his 
 school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful tales, until the 
 gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist 
 l)efore his eyes. Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream 
 and awful woodland, to the farm-house where he happened to be 
 quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered 
 his excited inuigination ; the moan of the whip-poor-will * from the 
 hill-side ; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm ; 
 the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden nistling in the 
 thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flics, too, 
 which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then 
 startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his 
 path ; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging 
 his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give 
 up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. 
 His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought, or 
 drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm-tunes ; and the good people 
 of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were 
 often filled with awe, at hexiring his nasal melody, " in linked sweet- 
 ness long.dniwn out," floating from the distant hill, or along the 
 dusky road. 
 
 Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter 
 evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, 
 with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and 
 listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted 
 fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, 
 and pirticularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of 
 the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He woidd delight them 
 equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and 
 portentous sights and sounds in the air, which prevailed in the earlier 
 times of Connecticut ; and would frighten them wofully with specula- 
 tions upon pomets and shooting stars; and with the alarming fact 
 that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were half the 
 time topsy-turvy ! 
 
 But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the 
 chimney-comer of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the 
 {Tackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no specter dared to show 
 
 * The vhip-poor-will U a bini which is only heard at night. It receives Us name from its 
 note, wkkh is tboafht to resemble those words 
 
96 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 his face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk 
 homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst 
 the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night ! — With what wistful 
 look did he eye every trembling my of light streaming across the 
 waste fields from some distant window ! — How often was he ap- 
 palled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted specter, 
 beset his very path ! — How often did he shrink with curdling awe 
 at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet ; 
 and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some un- 
 couth being tramping close behind him ! — and how often was he 
 thix)wn into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among 
 the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his 
 nightly scourings ! 
 
 All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of 
 the mind, that walk in darkness; and thougli he had seen many 
 «pecters in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in 
 divers shapes, in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end 
 to all these evils ; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in 
 despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been 
 crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than 
 ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that 
 was — a woman. 
 
 THE DISCOVEBT OF AMEBICA BY COLUMBUS.* 
 
 It was on Friday morning, the 12th of October, 1492, that Colum- 
 bus first beheld the New World. As the day dawned he saw before 
 him a level island, several leagues in extent, and covered with trees 
 like a continual orchard. Though apparently uncultivated, it was 
 populous, for the inhabitants were seen issuing from all parts of the 
 woods and running to the shore. They were perfectly naked, and, as 
 they stood gazing at the ships, appeared by their attitudes and ges- 
 tures to be lost in astonishment. 
 
 Columbus made signals for the ships to cast anchor, and the boats 
 to be manned and armed. He entered his own boat, richly attired in 
 
 • Cheistopher Columbvs, the discoverer of America, was born at Genoa about 1440. A most 
 interesting and instructive account of his marvelous discoveries and career is gix en in Irving's 
 Life of Columbus and in Prcscott's Ferdinand and Isabella. He died in poverty and neglect, and 
 in ignorance rf the grandeur of his discover}'. He supposed that he liad merely reached remote 
 parts of Asia, having no knowledge whatever that he had discovered a continent 
 
lEVING. flF7 
 
 scarlet, and holding the royal standard ; whilst Martin Alonzo Pinzon 
 and Vincent Janez his brother put off in company in their Ijoats, 
 each with a banner of the enterprise emblazoned with a green cross, 
 having on either side the letters F. and Y., the initials of the Cas- 
 tilian monarihs Fernando and Ysabel, surmounted by crowns. 
 
 As he approached the shore, Columbus, who was disposed for all 
 kinds of agreeable impressions, was delighted with the purity and 
 suavity of the atmosphere, the crystal transparency of the svu, and the 
 extraordinary beauty of the vegetation. He beheld, also, fruits of an 
 unknown kind upon the trees which overhung the shores. On land- 
 ing, he threw himself on his knees, kissed the earth, and returned 
 thanks to God with tears of joy. His example was followed by the 
 rest, w1k)s«' hearts indeed ov.-rrtowed with the same feelings of grati- 
 tude 
 
 Columbus, then rising, drew his sword, displayed the royal stand- 
 ard, and assembling round him the two captains, with Rodrigo de 
 Escolxfdo, notary of the armament, Rodrigo Sanchez, and the rest 
 who hatl landed, he took solemn possession in the name of the Cas- 
 tilian sovereigns, giving the island the name of San Salvador. Having 
 complied with the requisite forms and ceremonies, he called upon all 
 present to take the oath of obedience to him, as admiral and viceroy 
 representing the persons of the sovereigns. 
 
 The feelings of the crew now burst forth in the most extravagant 
 transports. They had recently considered themselves devoted men, 
 hurrying forward to destruction ; they now looked upon themselves as 
 favorites of fortune, and gave themselves up to the most unbounded 
 joy. They thronged around the admiral with overflowing zeal, some 
 endiracing him, others kissing his hands. Those who had been most 
 mutinous and turbulent during the voyage were now most devoted 
 and enthusiastic. Some begged favors of him, as if he had already 
 wmlth and honors in his gift. Many abject spirits, who had out- 
 raged him by their insolence, now crouched at his feet, In'gging 
 pardon for all the trouble they had caused him, and promising the 
 blindest obedience for the future. 
 
 The natives of the island, when, at the dawn of day, they had 
 beheld the ships hovering on their coast, had supposed them monsters 
 which luid issued from the deep during the night. They had crowded 
 to the beach, and watched their movements with awful anxiety. Their 
 veering about, apparently without effort, and the shifting and furling 
 
98 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 of their sails, resembling huge wings, filled them with astonishment. 
 When they beheld their boats approach the shore, and a number of 
 strange beings clad in glittering steel, or raiment of various colors, 
 landing upon the beach, they fled in aflright to the woods. 
 
 Finding, however, that there was no attempt to pursue nor molest 
 them, they gradually recovered from their terror, and approached the 
 Spaniards with great awe, frequently prostrating themselves on the 
 earth, and making signs of adoration. During the ceremonies of 
 taking possession, they remained gazing in timid admiration at the 
 complexion, the beards, the shining armor, and splendid dress of the 
 Spaniards. The admiral particularly attracted their attention, from 
 his commanding height, his air of authority, his dress of scarlet, and 
 the deference which was paid him by his companions; all which 
 pointed him out to be the commander. 
 
 When they had still further recovered from their fears, they ap- 
 proached the Spaniards, touched their beards, and examined their 
 hands and faces, admiring their whiteness. Columbus was pleased 
 with their gentleness and confiding simplicity, and suffered their 
 scrutiny with perfect acquiescence, winning them by his benignity. 
 They now supposed that the ships had sailed out of the crystal firma- 
 ment which bounded their horizon, or had descended from above on 
 their ample wings, and that these marvelous beings were inhabitants 
 of the skies. 
 
 The natives of the island were no less objects of curiosity to the 
 Spaniards, diflfering as they did from any race of men they had ever 
 seen. Their appearance gave no promise of either wealth or civiliza- 
 tion, for they were entirely naked, and painted with a variety of colors. 
 With some it was confined merely to a part of the face, the nose or 
 around the eyes ; with others it extended to the whole body, and gave 
 them a wild and fantastic appearance. 
 
 Their complexion was of a tawny or copper hue, and they were 
 entirely destitute of beards. Their hair was not crisped, like the 
 recently discovered tribes of the African coast, under the same lati- 
 tude, but straight and coarse, partly cut short above the ears, but some 
 locks were left long behind and falling upon their shoulders. Their 
 features, though obscured and discolored by paint, were agreeable; 
 they had lofty foreheads, and remarkably fine eyes. They were of 
 moderate stature and well-shaped ; most of them appeared to be 
 under thirty years of age ; there was but one female with them, quite 
 young, naked like her companions, and beautifully formed. 
 
IRVINO. 99 
 
 As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island at the 
 extremity of India, he called the natives by the general appellation of 
 Indians, which was universally adopted before the true nature of his 
 discovery was known, and has since been extended to all the alwrij^inals 
 of the New AVorld. The islanders were friendly and gentle. Their 
 only arms were lances, hanlened at the end by fire, or pointed with a 
 flint, or the teeth or bone of a fish. There was no iron to be seen, 
 nor did they appear acquainted with its properties ; for when a drawn 
 sword was presented to them, they unguardedly took it by the edge. 
 
 Columbus distributcxl among them colored caps, glass beads, hawks' 
 bells, and other trifles, such as the Portuguese were accustomed to trade 
 with among the nations of the gold-coast of Africa. They received 
 them eagerly, hung the beads round their necks, and were wonder- 
 fully pleased with their finery, and with the sound of the bells. The 
 Spaniards remained all day on shore, refreshing themselves after their 
 anxious voyage amidst the beautiful groves of the island, and returned 
 on board late in the evening, delighted with all they had seen. 
 
 On the following morning, at break of day, the shore was thronged 
 with the natives ; some swam off to the ships, others came in light 
 Iwrks, which they called canoes, formetl of a single tree, hollowed, and 
 capable of holding from one man up to the number of forty or fifty. 
 These they managed dextrously with paddles, and, if overturned, 
 swam about in the water with perfect unconcern, as if in their natural 
 element, righting their canoes with great facility, and baling them 
 with calabashes. 
 
 They were eager to procure more toys and trinkets, not, apparently, 
 from any idea of their intrinsic value, but because everything from the 
 hands of the strangers possessed a supernatural virtue in their eyes, 
 as having been brought from heaven ; they even picked up fragments 
 of glass and earthenware as valuable prizes. They had but few ob- 
 jects to offer in return, except parrots, of which great numl)ers wer^ 
 domesticated among them, and cotton yarn, of which they had abun- 
 dance, and would exchange large balls of five and twenty pounds' 
 weight for the merest trifle. 
 
 They brought also cakes of a kind of breatl called cassava, which 
 constituted a principal part of their food, and was afterwards an im- 
 portant article of provisions with the Spaniards. It was formed from 
 a gn^t root called yuca, which they cultivated in fields. This they 
 cut into small morsels, which they grated or scraped, and strained in 
 
100 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 a press, making a broad, thin cake, which was afu^rwards dried hard, 
 and would keep for a long time, being steeped in water when eaten. 
 It was insipid, but nourishing, though the water strained from it in 
 the preparation was a deadly poison. There was another kind of 
 yucA destitute of this poisonous quality, which was eaten in the root, 
 either boiled or roasted. 
 
 The avarice of the discoverers was quickly excited by the sight of 
 small ornaments of gold, worn by some of the natives in their noses. 
 These the latter gladly exchanged for glass beads and hawks' bells ; 
 and both parties exulted in the bargain, no doubt admiring each 
 other's simplicity. As gold, however, was an object of royal monop- 
 oly in all enterprises of discovery, Columbus forbade any traffic in it 
 without his express sanction ; and he put the same prohibition on the 
 traffic for cotton, reserving to the crown all trade for it, wherever it 
 should be found in any quantity. 
 
 He inquired of the natives where this gold was procured. They 
 answered him by signs, pointing to the south, where, he understood 
 them, dwelt a king of such wealth that he was served in vessels of 
 wrought gold. He understood, also, that there was land to the 
 south, the southwest, and the northwest ; and that the people from 
 the last- mentioned quarter frequently proceeded to the southwest in 
 quest of gold and precious stones, making in their way descents upon 
 the islands, and carrying off the inhabitants. Several of the natives 
 showed him scars of wounds received in battles with these invaders. 
 It is evident that a great part of this fancied intelligence was self- 
 delusion on the part of Columbus ; for he was under a spell of the 
 imagination, which gave its own shapes and colors to every object. 
 
 He was persuaded that he had arrived among the islands de- 
 scribed by Marco Polo,* as lying opposite Cathay, in the Chinese 
 Sea, and he construed everything to accord with the account given of 
 those opulent regions. Thus the enemies which the natives spoke of 
 as coming from the northwest he concluded to be the people of the 
 mainland of Asia, the subjects of the great Khan of Tartary, Who 
 were represented by the Venetian traveler as accustomed to make 
 war upon the islands, and to enslave their inhabitants. The country 
 to the south, abounding in gold, could be no other than the famous 
 island of Cipango ; and the king, who was served out of vessels of 
 
 * Marco Polo. A renowned Venetian traveler, born abont 1252. He was the first European 
 who entered China, or made any extended journey into Central Asia. 
 
IRVING. 101 
 
 ifold, must be the monarch whose magnificent city and gorgeous 
 l)ilair, covered with pUites of gold, had been extolled in such splendid 
 icrius by Marco Polo. 
 
 The island where Columbus had thus, for the first time, set his 
 foot upon the New World, was called by the natives Guanahane. It 
 still rt-tains the name of San Salvador, which he gave to it, though 
 calU'd, by the English, Cat Island. The light which he had seen the 
 evening previous to his making land may have been on Watling's 
 Island, which lies a few leagues to the .east. San Salvador is one of 
 tlie great cluster of the Lucayos or Bahama Islands, which stretch 
 southeast and northwest, from the coast of Florida to Hispaniola, 
 covering the northern coast of Cuba. 
 
 THE RETUEN OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 After a brief interval, the sovereigns requested of Columbus a 
 recital of his adventures. His manner was sedate and dignified, but 
 warmed by the glow of natural enthusiasm. He enumerated the sev- 
 eral islands he had visited, expatiated on the temperate character of 
 the climate, and the capacity of the soil for every variety of produc- 
 tion, appealing to the samples imported by him as evidence of their 
 natural productiveness. He dwelt more at large on the precious 
 metals to be found in these islands, which he inferred less from the 
 specimens actually obtained than from the uniform testimony of the 
 natives to their abundance in the unexplored regions of the inte- 
 rior. Lastly, he pointed out the wide scope afforded to Christian 
 zeal in the illumination of a race of men whose minds, far from being 
 wedded to any system of idolatry, were prepared by their extreme 
 simplicity for the reception of pure and uncorrupted doctrine. The 
 la-t consideration touched lsal)ella's heart most sensibly ; and the 
 ^^llw^• audience, kindhrd with various emotions by the speaker's elo- 
 quence, filled up the perspective with the gorgeous coloring of their 
 own fancies, as ambition or avarice or devotional feeling predomi- 
 nated in their bosoms. When Columbus ceased, the king and queen, 
 to.r( tlier with all present, prostrated themselves on their knees in 
 LMiti fill thanksgivings, while the solemn strains of the Te Deum were 
 |K)ure<l forth by the choir of the royal chapel, as in commemoration of 
 some glorious victory. 
 
}0'1 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 1788- 1824. 
 
 Geokoe GoEOOif. Lord Byron, was bom in 1788 and died in 1834. In youth he was 
 preoockms, manifeating remarkable intellrctual power, but giving evidence also of a wild and 
 tingorenwble temper. Leaving Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age of nineteen, he prepared 
 a volume of poems for publication, which, under the title of Hourt of Idleness, was severely 
 rtdicnled by the Edinburgh Review. A year later appeared Byron's reply, Englith Bmrdt and 
 Scotch Rniewert, one of the most powerful and scorching satires ever written. Raving 
 traveled for two years on the Continent, Byron returned to England, and in 1812 published 
 the first two cantos of Child* Harold, which is generally esteemed his greatest work. In 1816 
 he left EngUnd, which he declared he would never revisit He spent some time at Geneva, 
 with literary friends, and then settled himself in Italy, where he wrote Manfred, the conclud- 
 ing canto of Childe Harold, Maxeppa, and the first part of Don Juan. In 1830 he was 
 •awdated with Shelley and Leigh Hunt in the publication of a periodical called The Liberal, 
 in which The Vuion of Judgment was first printed. In 1823 he went to Greece, where he 
 intended to aid the Greeks in their resistance to Turkish oppression. But his military career 
 was brief; he was seised with epilepsy, and, rheumatic fever ensuing, he died April 19, 1821 
 Byron's character presents one vt the most interesting studies to be found in literary liistorv 
 As a man, we most censure even while we pity him ; as a poet, he claims our fervent ad- 
 adration. His poems are marvels ot energy and spirit, glittering with poetical beauties and 
 qNgrammatie expressions that have become " household words." But a profound morbidness 
 pervades them, and the thoughtful reader feels himself, as he ponders their passionate, 
 defiant, almost savage philosophy, to be in the presence of an unhealthy mind. His poems 
 p os s e s s a peculiar fiucination for the young ; but their charms seem more hollow and unreal 
 to the eye of age and experience. BvTon's life was a series of mistakes ; and, great poet 
 though he was, his hours of happiness were, no douht. fewer than those of the most illiterate 
 peasant. 
 
 THE SHIPWEECK. 
 
 There were two fathers in this ghastly crew. 
 And with them their two sons, of whom the one 
 
 Was more robust and hardy to the view ; 
 But he died early : and when he was gone. 
 
 His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw 
 
 One glance on him, and said, " Heaven's will be done ! 
 
 I can do nothing " ; and he saw him thrown 
 
 Into the deep, without a tear or groan. 
 
 The other father had a weaklier child, 
 
 Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate ; 
 But the boy bore up long, and with a mild 
 
 And patient spirit held aloof his fate : 
 Little he said, and now and then he smiled, 
 
 As if to win a part from off the weight 
 
BY RON. 
 
 He saw increasing on his father's heart, 
 
 With the deep, deadly thought, that they must part. 
 
 And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised 
 His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam 
 
 From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed : 
 
 And when the wished-for shower at length was come. 
 
 And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed. 
 Brightened, and for a moment seemed to roam, ^ 
 
 He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain 
 
 Into his dying child's mouth ; but in vain ! 
 
 The boy expired : the father held the clay, 
 And looked upon it long ; and when at last 
 
 Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay 
 Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, 
 
 He watched it wistfully until away 
 
 'T was borne by the rude wave wherein 't was cast ; 
 
 Then he himself sunk down, all dumb and shivering, 
 
 And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering. 
 
 'T was twilight, for the sunless day went down 
 
 Over the waste of waters ; like a veil 
 Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown 
 
 Of one whose hate is masked but to assail. 
 Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown. 
 
 And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale, 
 And the dim, desolate deep ; twelve days had Fear 
 Been their familiar, and now Death was here. 
 
 Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell, — 
 
 Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave, — 
 
 Then some leaped overljoard with dreadful yell, 
 As eager to anticipate their grave; 
 
 And the sea yawned around her, like a hell. 
 
 And down she sucked with her the whirling wave. 
 
 Like one who grapples with his enemy. 
 
 And strives to stransrle him l)efore he die. 
 
 103 
 
104 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 And first one universal shriek there rushed. 
 Louder than the loud ocean, — like a crash 
 
 Of echoing: thunder; and then all was hushed, 
 Save the wdd wind and the remorseless dash 
 
 Of billows ; but at intervals there gushed, 
 Accompanied by a convulsive splash, 
 
 A solitary- shriek, the bubbling cry 
 
 Of some strong swininur in his agony. 
 
 MODEBN GREECE. 
 
 Clime of the unforgotten brave ! 
 Whose land from plain to mountain cave 
 Was freedom's home or glory's grave ! 
 Shrine of the mighty ! can it be, 
 That this is all remains of thee ? 
 Approach, thou craven croucliing slave : 
 
 Say, is not this Thermopylae ?   
 These waters blue that round you lave, 
 
 O servile offspring of the free, — 
 
 Pronounce what sea, w hat shore is this ? 
 
 The gidf, the rock of Salamis ! f 
 
 These scenes, their story not unknown. 
 
 Arise and make again your own ; 
 
 Snatch from the ashes of your sires 
 
 The embers of their former fires ; 
 
 And he who in the strife expires 
 
 Will add to theirs a name of fear, 
 
 Tliat tyranny shall quake to hear. 
 
 And leave his sons a hope, a fame, 
 
 They too will rather die than shame ; 
 
 For freedom's battle once l)egun. 
 
 Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son. 
 
 Though baffled oft, is ever won. 
 
 * Thermoptl*. a mountain defile in Greece where Leonidas (480 b. c), at the head of three 
 hundred Spartans withstood the whole force of the Persian army for three days. More than 
 twenty thousand Persians perished in the memorable battle, and only one Greek survived. This 
 battle is supposed to have commemorated the finest instance of heroic bravery on record. 
 
 + Salamis. Refers to a celebrated naval battle between the Greeks and the Persians, where 
 the latter were disastrously defeated. 
 
BYRON. 105 
 
 Bear witness, Greece, thy living page, 
 Attest it many a deathless age ! 
 While kings, in dusty darkness hid. 
 Have left a nameless pyramid ; 
 Thy heroes, though the general doom 
 Hath swept the column from their tomb, 
 A mightier monument command, — 
 The mountains of their native land ! 
 There points thy muse to stranger's eye 
 The graves of those that cannot die. 
 'T were long to tell, and sad to trace, 
 Each step from splendor to disgrace ; 
 Enough, — no foreign foe could quell 
 Thy soul, tdl from itself it fell ; 
 Yes ! self-al)asement paved the way 
 To villain-bonds and despot sway. 
 
 BOME. 
 
 Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
 Tlie orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
 Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 
 In their shut breasts their petty misery. 
 What are our woes and sufferance ? Come and se< 
 Tlie cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
 O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye 1 
 Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
 A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 
 
 The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 
 Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe ; 
 An empty urn within her withered hands, 
 Whose holy dust was scattered long ago ; 
 The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now ; 
 The very sepulchers lie tenantless 
 Of their heroic dwellers ; dost thou flow. 
 Old Tiber ! through a marble wilderness ? 
 Jlise, with thy yeUow waves, and mantle her distress. 
 6* 
 
Utj » A 1 in Al; 1 - 1.1 1 l.i; Ml'i Kl.ADI.K. 
 
 The Goth, the ( hri-tiaii. ■riiiic War. T'lood, anil Fire, 
 Have (leal 1 u]>()ii ilif sfvcii-liilli-cl ciix "s pride; 
 She saw her ulono ^lar hy star cxjjin'. 
 And up tho sleep barbarian ni()iiar(li> ride, 
 Wlicr.' the car cliiidH'*! the ('aj)ii()l : tar and wide 
 'l'ciiij)lf ami tuucr wmi dowii. imi- Id't a site ; 
 ('haos of rniiis I who shall trace the void. 
 O'er tlu- dim iVanfincnts ra>t a lunar li'j;ht. 
 And say, " here wa- i i- wh. n all i> doubly night? 
 
 The double uiirlit of aire-, and of lier, 
 NiLrlils dauLrlitcr. lunioranee. hath wrapt and wrap 
 All roinid n> ; we l»nt le.l our way to err: 
 The ocean hath it- chart, the .-tars their map, 
 And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap ; 
 But Rome is as the desert, where we steer 
 Stund)linLr o'er recolleetioiis ; now we clap 
 Our haiuU. and ei-y ' Kureka ! " it is clear, — 
 ^Vhen but soiue taUe miraire of ruin rises near. 
 
 Alas! the lofty eiiy ! and ala<i ! 
 The trebly huiulred Iriuniphs I and the day 
 "When Brutus made the dagger's edire surpass 
 The comjueror's sword in bearintr l^mie away ! 
 Alas, for TuUy's voice, and \ ir^ 1 - 1 1\. 
 And T.ivy's ])ietur('d page! — but these shall be 
 Her resurreetion ; all beside, — decay. 
 Alas for Earth, for never shall we see 
 That brightness in her eye she bore when Ex)me was fi-ee! 
 
 THE OCEAN. 
 
 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, — roll ! 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
 Man marks the earth with niin, — his control 
 Stops with the shore ; — upon the watery plain 
 The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
 A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
 When, for a moment, like a drop of min. 
 
BYRON. 107 
 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
 Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 
 
 His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 
 Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 
 And shake him from tliee ; the vile strength he wields 
 For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
 Spuming him from thy bosom to the skies, 
 And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
 And howling, to his gods, where haply lies 
 His petty hope in some near port or bay, 
 And dashest him again to earth : — there let him lay. 
 
 The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 
 Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake. 
 And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
 The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 
 Their clay creator the vain title take 
 Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; 
 These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake 
 They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 
 Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.* 
 
 Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee, — 
 Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 
 Thy waters washed them power while they were free. 
 And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
 The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 
 Has dried up realms to deserts ; — not so thou ; — 
 Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, — 
 Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow, — 
 Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. 
 
 Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
 
 Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
 
 Calm or conviUsed, — in breeze, or gale, or storm. 
 
 Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
 
 Dark-heaving ; — boundless, endless, and sublime, — 
 
 Thia line re£en to two hUtorirtl ural batUn io wliieh tbe Enslith were rirtorious. 
 6» 
 
lU5 
 
 CATllCART S LITEIIARY JiEADER. 
 
 The ima^e of Eternity — the throne 
 Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
 The monsters of the deep are made : each zone 
 Obeys thee : thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 
 
 And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 
 Of youthful sports was on thy breast to l)e 
 Borne, like thy bubbles, oiiwaixl : from a boy 
 I wantoned with thy breakers, — they to me 
 Were a delight ; and if the fresheniu*^ sea 
 Made them a terror, — 't was a pleasing fear. 
 For I was as it were a child of thee. 
 And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
 And laid my hand upon thy mane, — as I do here. 
 
 I SAW THEE WEEP. 
 
 I SAW thee weep, — the big bright tear 
 
 Came o'er that eye of blue ; 
 And then methouglit it did appear 
 
 A violet dropping dew ; 
 I saw thee smile, — the sapphire's blaze 
 
 Beside thee ceased to shine ; 
 It could not match the living rays 
 
 That filled that glance of thine. 
 
 As clouds from yonder sun receive 
 
 A deep and mellow dye. 
 Which scarce the shade of coming eve 
 
 Can banish from the sky. 
 Those smiles unto the moodiest mind 
 
 Their own pure joy impart ; 
 Their sunshine leaves a glow behind 
 
 That lio^htens o'er the heart. 
 
COOPEE. 109 
 
 COOPER. 
 1789- 1851. 
 
 Jam M Fe!«iifOKB Coopcm, vho may be called the first, and perhaps the most popular, of 
 American novcluts, was bom in New Jersey in I7b9 and died at Coopcrstown, New York, in 18&1. 
 1 III- t>e*t of Ills works arc Tlte Spy, Tlu Prairie, The Pilot, and The Last of the Mohieatu. Ilia 
 I'niiu- ii owing mainly to the excellence of his delineation of Indian life and of maritime adven- 
 tiirt-. In these respecta no writer has yet excelled him. His style is peculiarly interesting, 
 bring highly dramatic, and pure and scholarly in construction. No American writer has re- 
 ceived more cordial treatment at the hands of foreign critics; Victor Hugo went so £ar as to 
 P ' ' 'lian Scott; the London Athenteum called hiui " the most origi- 
 
 • luci'd " ; and tin- Revue de Paris said : " Who is there writing 
 ! ; , >, if not of him, of whom it can be said that he has a genius of 
 
 the hr»t order r " These panegyrics will hardly be accepted at their full value by literary authori- 
 ty of the present day, when American literature is far stronger and richer tlian at their date. 
 Hut Mr Co ip.r's title to a high, if not tht* first, place among our writers, is too strong to l>e 
 u:i;i'i.n .1 Iti ih assignment of liis rank he should have the bent-fuof the consderatwn tltat he 
 w as a pioii-cr in .1 specialty of authorship, before his time hardly appn>achcd by American writers, 
 and which for many years he occupied and honored without a rival.. He was intensely patri- 
 ntir, nnd resented with spirited indignation the aasaults of British writers upon American char- 
 nd customs. Somewhat reserved and formal in manner, he made few warm personal 
 but his probity nnd high moral excellence commanded universal respect. Our first ex- 
 .....; .^ from The Prairie, a story of Indian life ; the second is from The Pilot, the best of Mr. 
 Cooper's sea novels. 
 
 THE INDIAN ADOPTION. 
 
 A LOW, feeble, and hollow voice wtis heard rising on the ear, as if 
 it rolled from the inmost cavities of the human chest, and gathered 
 strength and ienergy as it issued into the air. A solemn stillness 
 followed the sounds, and then the lips of the agetl man were first 
 seen to move. 
 
 "The day of Le Balafre is near its end," were the firet words that 
 were distinctly audible. " He is like a buffalo on whom the hair will 
 grow no longer. He will soon be ready to leive his lodge to go in 
 search of another that is far from the villages of the Sionxes ; there- 
 fore what he has to say concerns not him, but those he leaves behind 
 him. His words are like the fruit on the tree, ripe and fit to be given 
 to chiefs. 
 
 • Many snows have fallen since Le Balafrd has been found on the 
 war-path. His blood has In'en very hot, but it has had time to cool. 
 The Wahcoiulah gives him dnuims of war no longer; he sees that it 
 is better to live in peace. 
 
 '* My brothers, one foot is turned to the happy hunting-grounds, 
 the other will soon follow, and then an old chief will be seen lookiijg 
 
1 1 CATUCART's LITEIIAKY EEADEK. 
 
 for the prints of his father's moccasins, that be may make no mistakt 
 but be sure to come before the Master of Life by the same path th 
 so many good Indians have already traveled. But who will follow 
 Le Balafre has no son. His oldest h:;s ridden too many Pawiin 
 horses ; the bones of the youngest have been gnawed by Konza dogs. 
 Le Balafre has come to look for a young arm on which he may lean, 
 and to find a son, that when he is gone liis lodge may not be empt\ 
 Tdchechana, the skipping fawn of the Tetons, is too weak to prop :. 
 warrior who is old. She looks before her and not backwards. Hci 
 mind is in the lodge of her husl)and." 
 
 The enunciation of the veteran warrior had been calm, but distinct 
 and decided. His declaration was received in silence ; and thouirh 
 several of the chiefs who were in the counsels of Mahtoree turned 
 their eyes on their leader, none presumed to oppose so aged and ven- 
 erated a brave in a resolution that was strictly in conformity to the 
 usages of the nation. The Teton himself was content to await the 
 result with seeming composure, though the gleams of ferocity that 
 played about his eye occasionally betr.iyed the nature of those feelings 
 with which he witnessed a procedurv; that was likely to rob him of 
 that one of all his intended victims whom he most hated. 
 
 In the mean time Le Balafre movetl with a slow and painful step 
 towanls the captives. He stoppcnl before the person of Hard-Heart, 
 whose faultless fonn, unchanged eye, and lofty mien he contemplated 
 with high satisfaction. Then making a gesture of authority, he waited 
 until his order had been obeyed, and the youth was released from the 
 post and his bonds by the same blow of the knife. When the young 
 warrior was led nearer to his dimmed and failing sight the examina- 
 tion was renewed with strictness of scnitiny. 
 
 " It is good,*' the wary veteran murmured, when he found that all 
 his skill in the requisites of a brave coidd detect no blemish; "this is 
 a leaping panther. "Does my son speak with the tongue of a Teton?" 
 
 The intelligence which lighted the eyes of the captive betrayed how 
 well he understood the question, but still he was far too haughty 
 to comminiicate his ideas through the medium of a language that 
 belonged to a hostile people. Some of the surrounding warriors 
 explained to the old chief that the captive was a Pawnee-Loup. 
 
 " My son opened his eyes on the ' waters of the wolves,' " said Le 
 Balafre, in the language of that nation, " but he will shut them in the 
 bend of the * river with a troubled stream.' He was born a Pawnee, 
 
COOPER. Ill 
 
 but he will die a Dahcotah. Look at me. 1 am a sycamore that 
 oace covered many with my shadow. The leaves are fallen and the 
 bnmchcs begin to drop. But a single sucker is springing from my 
 foots ; it is a little vine, and it winds itself about a tree that is green. 
 I have long looked for one fit to grow by my side. Now have E 
 found him. Le Balufre is no longer without a son ; his name will 
 not be forgotten when he is gone. Men of the Tetons I I take this 
 youth into my lodge." 
 
 No one was bold enough to dispute a right that had so often beeu 
 exercised by warriors far inferior to the present speaker, and the 
 adoption was listened to in grave and respectful silence. Le Balafre 
 took his intended son by the arm, and leading him into the very 
 centre of the circle, he stt;pped aside with an air of triumph in onlcr 
 that the spectators might approve of his choice. Mahtoree betrayed 
 no evidence of his intentions, but rather seemed to await a moment 
 better suited to the cnifty policy of his character. The more experi- 
 enced and sjigacious chiefs distinctly foresaw the utter impossibility 
 of two partisans so renowned, so hostile, and who had so long been 
 rivals in fame, as their prisoner and their native leader, existing 
 amicably in the same tribe. Still the character of Le Balafre was so 
 imposing, and the custom to which he had resorted so sacred, that 
 none dared to lift a voice in opposition to the measure. They 
 watched the result with increijsiiig interest, but with a cohlness of 
 lemeanor that concealed the nature of their inquietude. From this 
 >tate of eml)arrdssment the tribe was relieved by the decision of the 
 one most interested in the success of the aged chief's designs. 
 
 During the whole of the foregoing scene, it would have l)een diffi- 
 cult to have tracetl a single distinct emotion in the lineaments of the 
 captive. He had heanl his release proclaimed, with the same indif- 
 ference as the order to bind him to the stake. But now that the 
 moment had arrived when it Wcame necessary to make his election, 
 he spoke in a way to prove that the fortitude which had brought him 
 sfi distinguished a name had in no de^ee deserted him. 
 
 My father is very old, but he has not yet looked upon every- 
 tmiig." said Hnrd-Heart, in a voice so clear as to be heanl by all 
 presrnt. " He has never seen a buffalo change to a bat ; he will 
 nevrr see a Pawnee bt»come a Sioux ! " 
 
 There w«« a suddenness and yet a calmness in the manner of deliv- 
 ering this decision which assured most of the auditors tliaf it \\ ^ 
 
1 I .: CATIICAKT S LITERARY READER. 
 
 unalterable. The heart of Le Balafre, however, was yearning towards 
 the youth, and the fondness of age was not so readily repulsed. Ilc- 
 proring the burst of admiration and triumph to which the boldness of 
 the declaration and the freshened hopes of revenge had given rise, by 
 turning his glenming eye around the band, the veteran again addressed 
 his adopted child as if his purpose was not to be denied. 
 
 "It is well," he said; "such are the words a brave should us( , 
 that the warriors may see his heart. The day has been when tlh 
 voice of Le Balafr^ was loudest among the lodges of the Konzas. 
 But the root of a white hair is wisdom. My child will show the 
 Teton s that he is brave, by striking their enemies. Men of tin 
 Dahcotahs, this is my son I " 
 
 The Pawnee hesitated a moment, and then stepping in front of the 
 chief, he took his hard and wrinkled hand and laid it with reverence 
 on his head, as if to acknowledge the extent of his obligation. Then 
 recoiling a step, he raised -^lis person to its greatest elevation, and 
 looked upon the hostile band by whom he was environed with an air 
 of loftiness and disdain, as he spoke aloud in the language of the 
 Siouxes, — 
 
 " Hani-Heart has looked at himself within and without. He ha> 
 thought of all he has done in the hunts and in the wars. Everywhere 
 he is the same. There is no change ; he is in all things a Pawnee. 
 He has stnick so many Tetons that he could never eat in their lodges. 
 His arrows would fly backwards; the point of his lance woidd be on 
 the wrong end ; their friends would weep at every whoop he gave ; 
 their enemies would laugh. Do the Tetons know a Loup? Let 
 them look at him again. His head is painted, his arm is flesh, his 
 heart is rock. When the Tetons see the sun come from the Rocky 
 Mountains and move toward the land of the Pale-faces, the mind of 
 Hard-Heart will soften and his spirit will become Sioux. Until that 
 day he will live and die a Pawnee." 
 
 A yell of delight, in which admiration and ferocity were strangely 
 mingled, interrupted the speaker, and but too clearly announced the 
 character of his fate. The captive waited a moment for the commo- 
 tion to subside, and then turning again to Le Balafre, he continued 
 in tones conciliating and kind, as if he felt the propriety of softening 
 his refusal in a manner not to wound the pride of one willing to be 
 his benefactor. 
 
 "Let my father lean heavier on the fawn of the Dahcotahs," he 
 
f 
 
 COOPEE. 113 
 
 s;uii . weak now, but as her lodge fills with young she will 
 
 be stronger. See ! " he added, directing the eyes of the other to the 
 earnest countenance of the attentive trapper ; " Hard-Heart is not 
 without a gray-beard to show him the path to the blessed prairies. If 
 he ever has another father it shall be that just warrior." 
 
 Le Balafr^ turned away in disappointment from the youth, and 
 approached the stranger who had thus anticipated his design. 
 
 DEATH OF LONG TOM COFFIN. 
 
 Lifting his broad hands high into the air, his voice was heard in 
 the tempest. " God's will be done with me," he cried ; " 1 saw the 
 first timber of the Jriel laid, and shall live just long enough to see it 
 turn out of her bottom ; after which I wish to live no longer." But 
 his shipmates were far beyond the sounds of his voice before these 
 were half uttered. All command of the boat was rendered impossi- 
 ble, by the numbers it contained, as well as the raging of the surf; 
 ind as it rose on the white crest of a wave, Tom saw his beloved little 
 craft for the last time. It fell into a trough of the sea, and in a 
 ffw moments more its fragments were ground into splinters on the 
 uljoining rocks. The coxswain (Tom) still remained where he had 
 (•;ist off the rope, and beheld the numerous heads and arms that ap- 
 peared rising, at short intervals, on the waves, some making powerful 
 and well-directed efforts to gain the sands, that were l)ecoming visible 
 ;is the tide fell, and others wildly tossed in the frantic movements of 
 helpless despair. The honest old seaman gave a cry of joy as he saw 
 Barnstable (the commander whom Tom had forced into the boat) issue 
 from the surf, where one by one several seamen appeared also, drip- 
 ping and exhausted. Many others of the crew were carried in a 
 similar manner to places of safety ; though, as Tom returned to his 
 -eat on the lx)W8prit, he could not conceal from his relnctant eyes 
 the lifeless forms that were, in other spots, driven against the rocks 
 with a fury that soon left them but few of the outward vestiges of 
 humanity. 
 
 Dillon and the coxswain were now the sole occupants of their 
 dreadful station. The former stood, in a kind of stupid despair, a 
 witness of the scene ; but as his cunlled blood l)egan again to flow 
 more warmly to his heart, he crept close to the side of Tom, with that 
 
 u 
 
lit cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 sort of selfish feeling that makes even hopeless misery more tolerable, 
 when endured in participation with another. 
 
 " When the tide falls," he said in a voice that betrayed the agony 
 of fear, though his words expressed the renewal of hope, " we shall be 
 able to walk to land." 
 
 *' There was One and only One to whose feet the waters were the 
 same as a diy- deck," returned the coxswain ; " and none but such as 
 have His power will ever be able to walk from these rocks to the 
 sands." The old seaman paused, and turning his eyes, which ex- 
 hibited a mingled expression of disgust and compassion, on his com- 
 panion, he added, with reverence : " Had you thought more of Him in 
 fair weather, your case would be less to be pitied in this tempest." 
 
 *' Do you still think there is much danger? " asked Dillon. 
 
 " To them that have reason to fear death. Listen ! Do you hear 
 that hollow noise beneath ye ? " . 
 
 " 'T is the wind driving by the vessel ! " 
 
 " 'Tis the poor thing herself," said the affected coxswain, "giving 
 her last groans. The water is breaking upon her decks, and in a few 
 minutes more the handsomest model that ever cut a wave will be like 
 the chips that fell from her in framing ! " 
 
 " Why, thei\, did you remain here ? " cried Dillon, wildly. 
 
 " To die in my coffin, if it should be the will of God," returned 
 Tom. " These waves are to me what the land is to you ; I was born 
 on them, and I have always meant that they shall be my grave." 
 
 " But— I — I," shrieked Dillon, /' I am not ready to die ! — I 
 cannot die ! — I will not die ! " 
 
 *' Poor wretch ! " muttered his companion, " you must go like the 
 rest of us ; when the death-watch is called, none can skulk from the 
 muster." 
 
 " I can swim," Dillon continued, rushing with frantic eagerness to 
 the side of the wreck. " Is there no billet of wood, no rope, that I 
 can take with me ? " 
 
 " None ; everything has been cut away, or carried off by the sea. 
 If you are about to strive for your life, take with you a stout heart 
 and a clean conscience, and trust the rest to God." 
 
 " God ! " echoed Dillon, in the madness of his frenzy. " I know 
 no God ; there is no God that knows me ! " 
 
 " Peace ! " said the deep tones of the coxswain, in a voice that 
 seemed to speak in the elements ; " blasphemer, peace ! " 
 
COOPER. 1 1 5 
 
 The luyivy pToaninj!^, produced by the water in the timl)ers of the 
 Jrifl, at that moment added its impulse to the ra«i^iiig feelings of 
 Dillon, and he cast himself headlong into the sea. The water, thrown 
 by the rolling of the surf on the beach, was necessarily returned to 
 the ocean in eddies, in ditferetit places favorable to such an action of 
 the element. Into the edge of one of these counter-currents, that was 
 produced by the very rocks on which the schooner lay, and which the 
 watermen call the " under-tow," Dillon had unknowingly thrown his 
 person ; and when the waves had driven him a short distance from 
 the wreck he was met by a stream that his most desperate efforts 
 could not overcome. He was a light and powerful swimmer, and the 
 struggle was hard and protracted. With the shore immediately before 
 his eyes, and at no great distance, he was led, as by a false phantom, 
 to continue his efforts, although they did not advance him a foot. 
 The old seaman, who at first had watched his motions with careless 
 indifference, understood the danger of his situation at a glance, and, 
 forgetful of his own fate, he shouted aloud, in a voice that was driven 
 over the struggling victim to the ears of his shipmatt^s on the sands: — 
 
 " Sheer to port, and clear the under-tow ! Sheer to the south- 
 ward ! " 
 
 Dillon heard the sounds, but his faculties were too much obscured 
 by terror to distinguish their object ; he, however, blindly yielded to 
 the call, and gradually changed his direction until his face was once 
 more turned towards the vessel. Tom looked around him for a rope, 
 but all had gone over with the spars, or been swept away by the waves. 
 At this moment of disappointment his eyes met those of the desperate 
 Dillon. Calm and inured to horrors as was the veteran seaman, he 
 involuntarily passed his hand before his brow to exclude the look of 
 despair he encountered ; and when, a moment afterwards, he removed 
 the rigid member, he l)eheld the sinking form of the victim as it 
 gradually settled in the ocean, still struggling with regular but impo- 
 tent strokes of the arms and feet to gain the wreck, and to preserve 
 an existence that had been so much abused in its hour of allotted 
 probation. " He will soon meet his God, and learn that his Grod 
 knows him ! " murmured the coxswain to himself. As he yet spoke, 
 the wreck of the /iriel yielded to an overwhelming sea, and after a 
 universal shudder, her timlK*rs and planks gave way, and were swept 
 towards the cliffs, bearing the body of the simple-hearted coxswain 
 amonjT the ruins. 
 
ll(i (athcaiit'.s literary reader. 
 
 BRYANT. 
 
 1794- 
 
 WiLLiAM CuLLEN Bktaitt, who may be said to share with Longfellow the first place in the list 
 of American poets, was bom in Cummin^ton, Massachusetts, in 1794. His precocity was remark- 
 able. At the age of ten he made translations from the Latin poets, which were published, and 
 three years later, wrote T%e Bimhargo, a satirical poem of great merit. He studied law, and 
 practiced that profession for some time in Great Harrington, Massachusetts. His early produc- 
 tions were regarded as the work of a precocious genius which would surely spend itself in these 
 premature efforts; but the appearance of Tkanatoptit, which was written in his nineteenth year, 
 and was published in the North Auurican Review, proved conclusively that he was not a men- 
 youthful prodigy. In 1825 he removed to New York, and, with a partner, established the Afi 
 I'ork Menew and Atkenmum Magazine, to which he contributed some of his best poems. The 
 next year he became editor of the Erenimg Foat, and still holds that pUce. While he is best 
 known by hit poems, Mr. Bryant is considered by the best authorities one of the finest prose 
 writer* in the country. In England his poetry is held in high esteem ; Thanatoptis, To a Hater 
 Foicl, Green Riter, etc., have received earnest praise from the leading English critics. Mr. 
 Bryant is distinctively a student and interpreter of Nature ; all her aspects and voices are famil- 
 iar to him, and are reproduced in his poetry with a solemn and ennobling beauty which has 
 never been attained by any other American poet In many respects his verse resembles Words- 
 worth's-, but its spirit is less introspective, and appeals more directly to the common under- 
 standing. Another striking characteristic of Mr. Bryant's poetry is its lofty moral tone, which ia 
 the eloquence of a great intellect warmed and controlled by high and pure impulses. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE FLOWEBS. 
 
 The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, 
 
 Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. 
 
 Heaped in the hollows of the grove the withered leaves lie dead ; 
 
 They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread. 
 
 The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay. 
 
 And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. 
 
 Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and 
 
 stood 
 In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood ? 
 Alas ! they all are in their graves ; the gentle race of flowers 
 Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. 
 The rain is falling where they lie ; but the cold November rain 
 Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. 
 
 The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, 
 
 And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer's glow ; 
 
 But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, 
 
BRYANT. 117 
 
 Ami the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, 
 
 rill fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on 
 
 men, 
 And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and 
 
 glen. 
 
 And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will 
 
 come, 
 Fo call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home ; 
 When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are 
 
 still, 
 And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, 
 Tlie south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore. 
 And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. 
 
 And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, 
 
 riie fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. 
 
 in the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf, 
 
 And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; 
 
 Yet not unmeet it was that one, like that young friend of ours, 
 
 ^o gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers. 
 
 THANATOPSIS. 
 
 To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language ; for his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 
 Into his darker musings with a mild 
 And gentle sympathy that steals away 
 Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts 
 Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
 Over thy spirit, and sad images 
 Of the stem agony, and shroud, and pall, 
 And breathless darkness, and the narrow house. 
 Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart. 
 Go forth unto the open sky, and list 
 To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
 
118 cathcart's ltteraky reader. 
 
 Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 
 
 Comes a still voice : Yet a few days, and thee 
 
 The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
 
 In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
 
 Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 
 
 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
 
 Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
 
 Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 
 
 And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
 
 Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
 
 To mix forever with the elements ; 
 
 To l)e a brother to the insensible rock, 
 
 And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain 
 
 Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak 
 
 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 
 
 Yet not to thy eternal resting-place 
 Shalt thou retire alone, — nor couldst thou wish 
 Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
 With patriarchs of the infant world, — with kings, 
 The powerfid of the earth, — the wise, the good, 
 Fair forms and hoary seers of ages past. 
 All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills. 
 Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales, 
 Stn*tching in pensive quietness between ; 
 The venerable woods ; rivers that move 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks, 
 That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all. 
 Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 
 Are but the solemn decorations all 
 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
 The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
 Are shining on the sad abodes'of death 
 Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
 The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
 That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
 Of morning, traverse Barca's desert sands. 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no soiuid 
 Save his own dashin^s, — vet the dead are there. 
 
BRYANT. 119 
 
 And millions in those solitudes, since first 
 I'he flight of years began, have laid them down 
 In their last sleep ; — the dead reign there alone. 
 So shalt thou rest ; and what if thou withdraw 
 In silence from the living, and no friend 
 Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
 Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase 
 His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
 Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
 And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
 Of ages glide away, the sons of men — 
 The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 
 In the full strength of years, matron and maid. 
 The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles 
 And beauty of its innocent age cut off — 
 Shall one by one be gathered to thy side 
 By those who in their turn shall follow them. 
 
 So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan that moves 
 To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death. 
 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night. 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
 
 TO A WATERFOWL. 
 
 Whitheb, midst falling dew, 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 
 Thy solitary way ? 
 
 Vainly the fowler's eye 
 Might mark thy distant flight to do tliee wrong. 
 As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, 
 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
120 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 Seek'st \h>>n t!ir j)l;i>li_v l)rink 
 Of weedy lake, or marge ot river wide, 
 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
 
 On the chafed ocean side ? 
 
 Tliere is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
 The desert and illimitable air. — 
 
 Lone wanderiiii:, hui not lost. 
 
 All day thy wings liave fanned, 
 At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere ; 
 Yet stoop not, wear}', to the wrlcome land. 
 
 Though the dark m-ht i> m ar. 
 
 And soon that toil sIkiH cikI ; 
 Soon shalt thou (iml a Miiiini.r Ikmiic. and rot. 
 And -cnaiii among thy fellows; reeds shall bend 
 o'er thy sheltered nest. 
 
 OOOII 
 
 Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
 Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet on my heart 
 Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. 
 
 And shall not soon depart : 
 
 He who, from zone to zone. 
 Guides throuirh the boundless sky thy certain flight. 
 In the loiiir way that I must tread alone, 
 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
 Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, — 
 The eternal years of God are hers ; 
 
 But Error, wounded, writhes in pairif 
 And dies among his worshipers. 
 
CA&LYLE. 121 
 
 CARLYLE. 
 
 1795- 
 
 Tboxas Carltlb was born in Scotland in 1793- He is the ion of a Dnmfriesahire furmer. 
 lie Rtudied at Edinburgh University, and is said to liave intended to cuter the ministry, but 
 alfniuloned the purpose. His first essay in literature was in contributing to a Cyclopndia, and 
 to •kcvrral magazine*. Next he translated Goethe's Wilkelm Meuter, and in his labors acquired 
 a wnnii and lasting love for German literature. Sartor Retartiu, in wliich he laid the first 
 siil)Htaiittal Toundation of his fame, was published in book-form in 1834. It is one of his most 
 rharacteristic compositions, exhibiting the originality, depth, and brilliancy of his thought, and 
 the nungled awkwardness and force of his style, in full relief. Three years later appeared hi* 
 Histcny of Ike French Jtetolution, a work which has never been surpassed in point of careful 
 ' 'r, and graphic power of narrative. Of his later books we can mention only the 
 
 x;«, Hero-H'orikip, Pott and Present, Critical and Mitcellantotu Essays, CromweU't 
 - r-rh'-s, Lires of Schiller and Sterling, The Life of Frederick the Great, etc. Mr. 
 ( ;u IN   aggressive, and perhaps we may say the most audacious, writer of his age ; 
 
 111- a:: iis, without fear or favor. His chief bugl>ear is "shams"; whatever is 
 
 i -r or pretentious invites his relentless denunciation. He has virtually set him- 
 
 censor and reformer of the world, and has succeeded in his assumed r6le as well 
 ., ) nl could. His intuitions are wonderfully keen, his judgment quick and generally 
 
 sound, and his love of right and luktred of wrong are so fervent as to animate all his writings 
 with marvelous potency. He has exercised, perhaps, a mightier influence on the thought of 
 the nineteenth century than any other living man. Our first and third extracts are from his 
 History of the French Revolution ; the second, from Sartor Resartus. 
 
 EXECUTION OF MAEIE-ANTOINETTE.* 
 
 On Monday, the 14th of October, 1793, a Cause is pending in the 
 Palais de Justice, in the new Kevolutionary Court, such as these old 
 stone walls never witnessed, — the Trial of Marie- Antoinette. The 
 once brightest of Queens, now tarnished, defaced, forsaken, stands here 
 at Fouquier-Tinville's Judgment-bar, answering for her life. The 
 Indictment was delivered her last night. To such changes of human 
 fortune what wonls are adequate ? Silence alone is adequate 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, in this her abandonment and hour of extreme 
 need, is not wanting to herself, the imperial woman. Her look, they 
 say, as that hideous indictment was reading, continued calm ; " she was 
 sometimes observed moving her fingers, as when one plays on the 
 piano." You discern not without interest, across that dim Revolution- 
 ary Bulletin itself, how she l)ears herself queen-like. Her answers are 
 prompt, clear, oflen of Laconic brevity ; resolution, which has grown 
 
 'oinette, Archduchnis of Austria and Queen of France, was condemned by the 
 
 Tritninal of the tVcnch lUpnblinins, and was executed on the l«th ()ctol»cr, 17W. 
 
 page 89. Her haabuid. Louis XVI.. hud been ffvOlodiMd on tJie Slat of 
 
 k 
 
122 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 contemptuous without ceasing to be dignified, veils itself in calm 
 words. ** You persist then in denial ? " — " My plan is not denial ; 
 it is the truth I have said, and 1 persist in that." 
 
 At four o'clock on Wednesday morning, after two days and two 
 nights of interrogating, jury-charging, and other darkening of coun- 
 sel, the result comes out, — sentence of Death ! " Have you anythiiijr 
 to say ? " The Accused shook her head, without speech. Night's 
 candles are burning out ; and with her, too. Time is finishing, and it 
 will be Eternity and Day. This Hall of Tinville's is dark, ill-lighted 
 except where she stands. Silently she withdraws from it, to die. 
 
 Two Processions, or Royal Progresses, three-and-twenty years apart, 
 have often struck us with a strange feeling of contrast. The first is ot 
 a beautiful Archduchess and Dauphiness, quitting her mother's citv, at 
 the age of fifteen, towards hopes such as no other Daughter of Eve 
 then had. "On the morrow," says Weber, an eye-witness, "the 
 Dauphiness left Vienna. The whole city crowded out ; at first with a 
 sorrow which was silent. She appeared ; you saw her sunk back into 
 her caiTiage, her face bathed in tears ; hiding her eyes now with her 
 handkerchief, now with her hands; several times putting out her 
 head to see yet again this Palace of her Fathers, whither she was to 
 return no more. She motioned her regret, her gratitude, to the good 
 Nation, which was crowding here to bid her farewell. Then arose not 
 only tears, but piercing cries, on all sides. Men and women alike 
 abandoned themselves to such expression of their sorrow. It was an 
 audible sound of wail, in the streets and avenues of Vienna. The last 
 Courier that followed her disappeared, and the crowd melted away." 
 
 The young imperial Maiden of Fifteen has now become a worn, dis- 
 crowned Widow of Thirty-eight, gray before her time. This is the 
 last Procession : " Few minutes after the Trial ended, the drums were 
 beating to arms in all Sections ; at sunrise the armed force was on 
 foot, cannons getting placed at the extremities of the Bridges, in the 
 Squares, Crossways, all aloTig from the Palais de Justice to the Place 
 de la Revolution. By ten o'clock, numerous patrols were circulating 
 in the Streets ; thirty thousand foot and horse drawn up under arras. 
 At eleven, Marie-Antoinette was brought out. She had on an undress 
 of pique blanc (white pique) ; she was led to the place of execution in 
 the same manner as an ordinary criminal : bound on a Cart, accom- 
 panied by a Constitutional Priest in Lay dress, escorted by numerous 
 detachments of infantiy and cavalry. These, and the double row of 
 
CARLYLE. 123 
 
 troops all along her road, she appeared to reganl with indifiference. 
 Oil her countenance there was visible neither abashment nor pride. 
 To the cries of five la R^publique (Live the Eepublic !) and Down 
 with Tyranny, which attended her all the way, she seemed to pay no 
 heed. She spoke little to her Confessor. The tricolor Streamers on 
 the house-tops occupied her attention, in the Streets du Roule and 
 Saint-Honore ; she also noticed the Inscriptions on the house-fronts. 
 On reaching the Place de la Revolution her looks turned towards 
 the Jardin National, whilom Tuileries ; her face at that moment gave 
 signs of lively emotion. She mounted the Scaffold with courage 
 enough ; at a quarter past Twelve, her head fell ; the Executioner 
 showed it to the people, amid universal long-continued cries of Vive 
 la Republique.** 
 
 NIOHT VIEW OF A CITT. 
 
 I LOOK down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive, and witness their 
 wax-laying and honey-making, and poison-brewing, and choking by sul- 
 phur. From the Palace esplanade, where music plays while His Serene 
 Highness is pleased to eat his victuals, down the low lane, where in 
 her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, sits to 
 feel the afternoon sun, I see it all. Couriers arrive bestrapped and 
 bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged-up in pouches of leather ; 
 there, top-liulen, and with four swift horses, rolls in the country 
 Baron and his household ; here, on timber-leg, the lamed Soldier hops 
 painfully along, beting alms : a thousand carriages, and wains, and 
 cars, come tumbling-in with Food, with young Rusticity, and other 
 Raw Produce, inanimate or animate, and go tumbling out again with 
 Produce manufactured. That living flood, pouring through these 
 streets, of all qualities and ages, knowcst thou whence it is coming, 
 whither it is going ? From Eternity onwards to Eternity ! These 
 ere apparitions : what else? Are they not souls renden*d visible : in 
 Bodies, that took shape and will lose it, melting into air ? Their 
 solid Pavement is a Picture of the Sense ; they walk on the bosom of 
 Nothing, blank Time is behind them and before them. Or fanciest 
 thou, the red and yellow Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs on its 
 heels and feather in its crown, is but of To-day, without a Yesterday 
 or a To-morrow ; and had not rather its Ancestor alive when Hengst 
 and Horsa overran thy Island ? Friend, thou st-est here a living link 
 
124 CATHCART*S LITERAEY READER. 
 
 in that Tissue of History, which inweaves all Being : watch well, or it 
 will be past thee, and seen no more. These fringes of lamplight, 
 struggling up through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation, souk 
 fathoms into the ancient region of Night, what thinks Bootes of them, 
 as he leads his Hunting-dogs over the Zenith in their leash of side- 
 real fire ? That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain down 
 to rest ; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there 
 through distant streets, are bearing her to Halls roofed-in, and lighted 
 to the due pitch for her ; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to 
 moan like night-birds, are abroad : that hum, I say, like the sterto- 
 rous, unquiet 8luml)er of sick Life, is heard in Heaven ! O ! under 
 that hideous coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions, and unimaginable 
 gases, what a Fermentiiig-vat lies simmering and hid ! The joyful 
 and the sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men are bcinir 
 born ; men are praying, — on the other side of a brick partition, men 
 are cursing ; and around them all is the vast, void Night. The proud 
 Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within dam- 
 ask curtains ; Wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hun- 
 ger-stricken into its lair of straw; in obscure cellars, Rouge-et-Noir* 
 languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry villains ; while 
 Councilors of State sit plotting, and playing their high chess-game, 
 whereof tlie pawns are Men. The Lover whispers his mistress that 
 the coach is ready ; and she, full of hope and feiir, glides down, to fly 
 with him over the borders : the Thief, still more silently, sets-to his 
 pick-locks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen first snore 
 in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, 
 are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts ; but, in the con- 
 demned cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint, and blood- 
 shot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around and within, 
 for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on 
 the morrow ; their gallows must even now be o' building. Upwards 
 of five-hundred-thonsand two-legged animals without feathers lie 
 round us, in horizontal position ; their heads all in nightcaps, and full 
 of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and stagijers and swaggers 
 in his rank dens of shame ; and the Mother, with streaming hair, 
 kneels over her pallid, dying infant, whose cracked lips only her tears 
 now moisten. — All these heaped and huddled together, with nothing 
 but a little carpentry and masonry between them : — crammed-in, like 
 
 * A gambler's game. 
 
CABLTLB. 125 
 
 s:iJted fish, in their barrel; — or weltering, shall 'I say, like an Egyp- 
 tian pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggling to get its head above the 
 1 (thers : »uch work goes on under that smoke-counterpane ! — But I sit 
 ;il)ove it all ; I am alone with the Stars ! 
 
 THE BEI6N OF TEBBOB. 
 
 We are now, therefore, got to that black precipitous abyss, whither 
 .11 things have long been tending ; where, having now arrived on the 
 giddy verge, they hurl down, in confused ruin ; headlong, pellmell, 
 down, down ; — till Sansculottism have consummated itself; and in 
 ibis wondrous French Revolution, as in a Doomsday, a World have 
 been rapidly, if not bom again, yet destroyed and engulfed. Terror has 
 long iH'cn terrible ; — but to the actors themselves it has now become 
 manifest that their appointed course is one of Terror ; and they say, 
 *• Be it so." So many centuries had been adding together, century 
 transmitting it with increase to century, the sum of Wickedness, of 
 Palsehootl, Oppression of man by man. Kings were sinners, and 
 Priests were, and People. Open-Scoundrels rode triumphant, be- 
 diademed, In'-coronetted, be-mitered; or the still fataller species of 
 Secret-Scoundrels, in their fair-somiding formulas, speciosities, re- 
 spectabilities, hollow within : the race of quacks was grown many 
 88 the sands of the sea. Till at length such a sum of quackery had 
 accumidatcd itself as, in brief, the Earth and the Heavens were weary 
 of. Slow seemed the Pay of Settlement ; coming on, all impercepti- 
 ble, across the bluster and fanfaronade of Court icrisms, Conquering- 
 Heroisms, Most Christian Grand Monarqueisnis, Well-l)eloved Pom- 
 psdourisms : yet, b<^hold, it was alwrys coming : behold, it has come, 
 suddenly, unlooked for by any man ! The harvest of long centuries 
 W88 ripening and whitening so rapidly of late ; and now it is grown 
 white, and is reaped rapidly, as it were, in one day — reaped in this 
 Reign of Terror ; and earried home to Hades and the Pit ! Unhappy 
 Sons of Adam ! it is ever so ; and never do they know it, nor will 
 they know it. With cheerfully-smoothed countenances, day after day, 
 and generation after generation, they, calling cheerfully to one another 
 ** Well-speed-ye," are at work mwittff the wind. And yet, as God 
 lives, they shall reap the whirltcind ; no other thing, we say, is possi- 
 l>le, — since God k a Truth and His World is a Truth. 
 
 k 
 
126 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 PRESCOTT. 
 1796- 1859. 
 
 William Hicklino P»Escorr, gnndson of Colonel William Presoott, commander of the 
 patriot troops at the battle of Bunker Hill, was bom at Salem, Mass., in 17%, and died in 1859. 
 He graduated at Harvard iu IbU, having won distinction by liis attainments ia classical learn- 
 ing. An accident during his college course occasioned an injury to his eye, Mhicli resulted 
 iinaUy in almost total blindncM. He spent two years iu Europe, and returned with the purpose 
 of devoting himself to historical labors. His lirst work, T%e IlUtory of Ferdinaud and IsabeUn, 
 was published in IH37, and was almost immediately reprinted in France, Germany, and Spain. 
 The author was overwhelmed with complimenU, one of the most notable of which was his 
 election to membership of the Spauish Royal Academy of Histor}*. In l&W he gave to the 
 world his Hittory of Ike Conquest of Meriio, and in l»t7 the History of the Conquest of Pern. 
 In I860 Mr. Prescutt visited Europe, traveling in Great Britain and on the Continent. Five 
 years later tlic first two volumes, and in IbiH the third, of the History of Ike Reign of Philip the 
 Second of Spain were issued ; but he did not live to complete the work. In addition to the 
 histories named above, Mr. PrascoU contribated to our literature a volume of Biographical and 
 Critical Miscellanies, which includes a very valuable essay on Spanish Literature. His style is 
 admirably suited to historical composition, presenting a happy compound of the majesty, bril- 
 liancy, and elegance which singly characterize those whom the world esteems its greatest his- 
 torians. His unfinished work, 7%« History of Philip the Second, is generally accounted his best. 
 He was a man of kindly nature, and his generous encouragement of younger writers, con- 
 spicuous among whom was John Lothrop Motley, was eonrincing proof of bis tme nobility. 
 
 THE VALLEY AKD CITY OF MEXICO. 
 
 The troops, refreshed by a night's rest, succeeded, early on the 
 following day, in gaining the crest of the sierra of Ahualco, which 
 stretches like a curtain between the two great mountains on the 
 north and soutli. Their progress was 'now comparatively easy, and 
 they marched forward with a buoyant step as they felt they were 
 treading the soil of Montezuma.* 
 
 They had not advanced far, when, turning an angle of the sierni, 
 they suddenly came on a view which more than compensated tht; 
 toils of the preceding day. It was that of the Valley of Mexico, or 
 Tenochtitlan, as more commonly called by the natives ; which, with 
 its picturesque assemblage of water, woodland, and cultivated plains, 
 its shining cities, and shadowy hills, was spread out like some gay and 
 gorgeous panorama before them. In the highly rarefied atmosphere 
 of these upper regions, even remote objects have a brilliancy of 
 
   MoNTEZUM.i. The Monteznnias were the Aztec, or native. Emperors of Mexico (1437- 
 1519), and extended the boundaries of their domains by the conquest of several adjacent nations. 
 They built fine cities and temples, and were able and powerful monarchs. In 1519 Cortes with 
 nn army of Spanianls invaded the country and conquered it. The extract is from Mr. Prescott's 
 charming work. The Conquest of Mexico. 
 
PRESCOTT. 127 
 
 coloring and a distinctness of outline which seem to annihilate dis- 
 tance. Stretching far away at their feet were seen noble forests of 
 oak, sycamore, and cedar, and beyond, yellow fields of maize and the 
 towering maguey, intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens ; 
 for flowi-rs, in such demand for their religious festivals, were even 
 more abundant in this populous valley than in other parts of Anahuac. 
 In the center of the great basin were l)eheld the lakes, occupying then 
 a much lanrer portion of its surface than at present ; their borders 
 thickly studded with towns and hamlets, and, in the midst, like some 
 Indian empress with her coronal of pearls, — the fair city of Mexico, 
 with her white towers and pyramidal temples, reposing, as it were, 
 n\\ the bosom of the waters, — the far-famed " Venice of the Aztecs." 
 High over all rose the royal hill of Chapultepec, the residence of the 
 Mexican monarchs, crowned with the same grove of gigantic cypresses 
 which at this day fling their broad shadows over the land. In the 
 distance beyond the blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened by 
 intervening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the rival capital of 
 Tezcuco, and still farther on, the dark belt of porphyry, girdling the 
 valley around, like a rich setting which Nature had devised for the 
 fairest of her jewels. 
 
 Such was the beautiful vision which broke on the eyes of the Con- 
 (juerors. And even now, when so sad a change has come over the 
 scene ; when the stately forests have been laid low, and the soil, un- 
 slieltered from the fierce radiance of a tropical s\m, is in many places 
 .ilwindoned to sterility ; when the waters have retired, leaving a broad 
 and ghastly margin white with the incrustation of salts, while the 
 rities and handets on their borders have moldered into ruins ; even 
 MOW that desolation broods over the landscape, so indestructible are 
 the lines of beauty which Nature has traced on its features, that no 
 traveler, however cold, can gaze on them with any other emotions 
 than those of astonishment and rapture. 
 
 What, then, must have been the emotions of the Spanianls, when, 
 after working their toilsome way into the upper air, the cloudy tal)er- 
 nade parted lu'fore their eyes, and they In-held these fair scenes in all 
 their pristine magnificence and l)eauty ? It was like the spectacle 
 which greeted the eyes of Moses from the summit of Pisgah, and, in 
 ! l»e warm glow of their feelings, they cried out, " It is the promised 
 land ! •• 
 
 But these feelings of admiration were soon followed by others of a 
 
1^8 CATHCAttT^S LITEEAKY i:i \l)li;. 
 
 very (lillrrciit coin})! tiic\ >;iu in all tlii> iIk- f\i(l.nct*s of a 
 
 civilization and power lur bupenor to auytliiug they hud yet encoun- 
 tered. The more timid, disheartened by the prospect, shrunk from a 
 contest so HI ic()ua!. , ndtd, a> nic\ li.d, -nin Ioihk r 
 
 occasions, to U- led ouin .-..m to \ t im ( ni/.. >m i: \>,.- ikjL tlie dfeet 
 produced on the sanj^iiiu spirit ol tin- «:i lu lal. \[i> avarice was 
 sharpened l)_v the disph.y of the dazzling spod ai his feet; and. if In 
 felt a natural anxitiv at thf roniiida])!*' <)(hl>. hi- coiirKh-nee was re- 
 newed, as he ga/(tl on the lines of hi> N.icr.ii-. uii<)>r \\.-,.i hcr-beaten 
 visaf^^s and battered armor told of battles won and diliieulties sur- 
 niountwl, while liis bold barbarians, with appetites whetted by th( 
 view ol' tin-ir ennnit >" eonntr} . m <nicd like eagles on the iiiountai! 
 ready to pounce upon their prey. By argument, enti*eaty, and mena( t , 
 he endeavored to restore the faltering courage of the soldiers, urgiiiL: 
 tlitin not to think of r. ire.. t. now th;,t lluy had reaeln d the Lioal ; 
 whieh tilt V had pautt-d. and the goldiii uati s were opeiud tu ri-cei\. 
 them. In these etfoii> he was well seeondtd hv the brave cavalier >. 
 who held honor as (har to them as fortune; untU the dullest spirit- 
 canirht soine\\h;.t of the enthusiasm of their leadjTs, and the i>ener<d 
 iiad the sat i-fait ion to x e lii> hc-ilat iiil:' eolninii-. with tluii' n-ual 
 buoyant step, once more on iluir in; itIi dcjwn the slopes of the 
 sierra. 
 
 THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA. 
 
 It is not easy at thi< time to comprehend tiie impidse given to 
 
 Europe by the di-eovtrv of Anuriea. It was not the ^-iMdiial ae(jnisi- 
 tion of some lx)rder territory, a ])rovinee or a kiiiL^doni, that had been 
 gained, but a new world that was now thrown o])en to tlie European. 
 The races of animals, the minend trea-^nn s. tlie veLictahle forms, and 
 the varied aspeets of nature, man in the diir> r.tit pliascs of civiliza- 
 tion, tilled the mind with entirely lew <ci< of idea-. th;:t chanii-ed the 
 habitual current of thought, and stimtdated it to indetiuite conjecture. 
 The easrerness to explore the wonderful secret- of tln^ new hemispheri' 
 beeanic so active, that the principal cities of Spain were, in a manner. 
 depopulated, as einiirrants thronired one after another to take their 
 chance upon the dcr]). It was a world of romance that was thrown 
 open : for, whatever iniuht be the luck of the adventurer, his reports 
 on his return were tin<red with a eolorinsr of romance that .stimulated 
 still hi":her the sensitive fineie- of hi- eoiiutrvmeii, and nourished the 
 
PRESCOTT. 1 29 
 
 iiiiiuTical sentiments of an age of chivalry. They listened with 
 
 ittentive ears to tales of Amazons, which seemed to realize the 
 
 ( I i--ii' legends of antiquity; to stories of Patagonian giants; to 
 
 tliiiiiMu^ pictures of an EL Dorado (Golden Land), where the sands 
 
 . il with gems, and golden pebbles as large as birds' ^gs were 
 
 _^ ,< d in nets out of the rivers. 
 
 Yet that the adventurers were no impostors, but dupes, too easy 
 dupes, of their own credulous fancies, is shown by the extravagant 
 cluiracter of the ir enterprises ; by expeditions in search of the magical 
 I'ountain of Health, of tlie golden Temple of Dolwyba, of the golden 
 Sepulchres of Yenu, — for gold was ever floating before their distem- 
 ured vision, and the name of Costilla del Oro (Golden Castle), the 
 most unhealthy and unprotitiible region of the Isthmus, held out a 
 bright promise to the unfortunate settler, who too frequently instead 
 of gold found there only his gnive. , 
 
 In this realm of enchantment all the accessories served to maintain 
 lie illusion. The simple natives, with their defenseless bodies and 
 rude weapons, were no match for the European warrior, armed to the 
 teeth in mail. The odds were as great as those found in any legend 
 nf chivalrj', where the lance of the good knight overturned hundreds at 
 a touch. The perils that lay in the discoverer's path, and the suffer- 
 ings he had to sustain, were scarcely inferior to those that beset the 
 knight-errant. Hunger and thirst and fatigue, the deadly effluvia of 
 the morass, with its swarms of venomous insects, the cold of moun- 
 tain snows, and the scorching sun of the tropics, — these were the 
 lot of every cavalier who came to seek his fortunes in the New 
 World. It was the reality of romance. The life of the Spanish ad- 
 venturer was one chapter more, and not the least remarkable, in the 
 chronicles of knight-errantr\'. 
 
 The character of the warrior took somewhat of the exaggerated 
 coloring shed over his exploits. Proud and vainglorious, swelled 
 With lofty anticipations of his destiny, and an invincible confidence in 
 his own resources, no danger could appall and no toil could tire him. 
 The greater tlu; danger, indeed, the higher the charm ; for his soul 
 r.'veled in excitement, and the enterprise without peril wanted that 
 -pur of romance which was necessary to rouse his energies into 
 ution. Yet in the motives of action meaner influences were strangely 
 mingled with the loftier, the temporal with the spiritual. Gold was 
 the incentive and the recompense, and in the pursuit of it his inflexible 
 6« I 
 
1'30 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 nature rarely hesitated as to the means. His courage was sullied 
 with cruelty, the cruelty that flowed equally, strange as it may seem, 
 from his avarice and his rclitfion ; religion as it was understood in 
 that age, — the religion of the Crusader. It was the convenient cloak 
 for a multitude of sins, which covered them even from himself. The 
 Castilian, too proud for hypocrisy, committed more cruelties in the 
 name of religion than were ever practised by the pagan idolater or the 
 fanatical Moslem. The burning of the inlideJ was a sacrifice accept- 
 able to Heaven, and the conversion of those who survived amply 
 atoned for the foulest offences. It is a melancholy and mortifying 
 consideration that the most uncompromising spirit of intolerance — 
 the spirit of the Inquisitor at home, and of the Crusader abroad — 
 should have emanated from a religion which preached " peace upon 
 earth and good-will towards man " ! 
 
 Wiiat a contrast did these children of Southern Europe present to 
 the Anglo-Saxon races, who scattered themselves along the great 
 northern division of the Western Hemisphere ! For the principle of 
 action with these latter was not avarice, nor the more specious pretext 
 of proselytism ; but independence, — independence religious and politi- 
 cal. To secure this, they were content to eani a bare subsistence by 
 a life of frugality and toil. They asked nothing from the soil but 
 the reasonable returns of their own labor. No golden visions threw a 
 deceitfid halo around their path, and beckoned them onwards through 
 seas of blood to the subversion of an unoffending dynasty. They 
 were content with the slow but steady progress of their social polity. 
 They patiently endured the privations of the wilderness, watering the 
 tree of liberty with their tears and with the sweat of their brow, till 
 it took deep root in the land and sent up its branches high towards 
 the heavens, while the communities of the neighboring continent, 
 shooting up into the sudden splendors of a tropical vegetation, exhib- 
 ited, even in their prime, the sure symptoms of decay. 
 
 It would seem to have been especially ordered by Providence, that 
 the discovery of the two great divisions of the American Hemisphere 
 should fall to the two races best fitted to conquer and colonize them. 
 Thus the northern section was consigned to the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 whose orderly, industrious habits found an ample field for develop- 
 ment muler its colder skies and on its more rugged soil ; while the 
 southern portion, with its rich tropical products and treasures of min- 
 eral wealth, held out the most attractive bait to invite the entei-prise of 
 
I 
 
 PRESCOTT. 131 
 
 the Spaiiianl. How different might have been the result, if the bark 
 tf Columbus hatl taken a more northerly direction, as he at one time 
 meditated, and landed its band of adventurers on the shores of what 
 is now Free America. 
 
 8T0RMIK6 THE TEMPLE OF KEXICO. 
 
 TuE parties closed with the desperate fiiry of men who had no hope 
 but in victory. Quarter was neither asked nor given ; and to fly was 
 impossible. The edge of the area was unprotected by parapet or 
 biittlement. The least slip would be fatal ; and the combatants, as 
 they struggled in mortal agony, were sometimes seen to roll over the 
 sheer sides of the precipice together. The battle lasted with uninter- 
 mittiug fury for three hours. The number of the enemy was double 
 that of the Christians ; and it seemed as if it were a contest which 
 iimst be determined by numbers and brute force, rather than by 
 Miperior science. But it was not so. The invulnerable armor of the 
 Spiuiiard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in the use of 
 it gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of physical 
 strength and numbers. After doing all that the courage of despair 
 could enable men to do, resistance grew fainter and fainter on the side 
 of the Aztecs. One after another they had fallen. Two or three 
 priests only survived to be led away in triumph by the victors. Every 
 other combatant was stretched a corpse on the bloody arena, or had 
 b?en hurled from the giddy heights. The loss of the Spaniards 
 iniounted to forty-five of their best men ; and nearly all the re- 
 mainder were more or less injured in the desperate conflict. The 
 victorious cavaliers now nished towards the sanctuaries. Penetrating 
 into their recesses, they had the mortification to find the image of the 
 Vii^in and C'ross removed. But in the other edifice they still beheld 
 the grim figure of the Mexican Idol, with his censer of smoking hearts, 
 and the walls of his oratory reeking with gore, — not improbably of 
 their own countrymen. With shouts of triumph the Christians tore 
 the uncouth monster from his niche, and tumbled him, in the presence 
 of the horror-stnick Aztecs, down the steps of the teocalli. They tlien 
 M't fire to the accursed building. The flame speedily ran up the slen- 
 der towers, sending forth an ominous light over city, lake, and valley, 
 to the remotest hut among the mountains. It was the funeral pyre of 
 paganism, and procbimed the fall of that sanguinary religion which 
 had so long hung like a dark riourl over tlio fair regions of Anahuac 
 
l'i;i CATUCAKTS LITKKAKY KEADtK. 
 
 LYELL. 
 
 1797- 1875. 
 
 SiE Chakles Ltell, an eminent English geolof^ist, was horn in 1797, and lived in the en- 
 joyment of full intellectual vigor until the early part of It^a, when he died. He ranks among 
 the foremost of acientific discoverer* and writers of the present century. His best-knoMn works, 
 n* PriudpUt tf Otology, Tkt Oeologieml Etideueet of the Antiquity of Man, Trarelt in North 
 dwttrieu, and its aeqad. J Steomd Visit to the VniUi SUta, have been widely read in this coun- 
 try, and valued for their candid views of American institutions, and for the vast fund of geological 
 information which they contain. His style is well suited to scientific composition, and invests 
 kis books with a charm which is rarely found in works of such solid character. 
 
 THE DISMAL SWAMP. 
 
 Thbrb are many sWamps or morasses in this low, flat region, and 
 one of the lai^cst of these occurs between the towns of Norfolk and 
 Weldon. We traversed several miles of its northern extremity on the 
 railway, which is supported on piles. It bears the cppropriate and 
 very expressive name of the " Great Dismal,'* and is no less than 
 forty miles in length from north to south, and twenty-five miles in its 
 greatest width from east to west, the northern half being situated in 
 Virginia, the southern in North Carolina. I observed that the water 
 was obviously in motion in several places, and the morass had some- 
 what the appearance of a broad inundated river-plain, covered with all 
 kinds of aquatic trees and shrubs, the soil being as black as in a peat- 
 bog. The accumulation of vegetable matter going on here in a hot 
 climate, over so vast an area, is a subject of such high geological in- 
 terest, that I shall relate what I learnt of this singular morass. It is 
 one enormous quagmire, soft and muddy, except where the surface is 
 rendered partially firm by a covering of vegetables and their matted 
 roots ; yet, strange to say, instead of being lower than the level of the 
 surrounding country, it is actually higher than nearly all the firm and 
 dry land which encompasses it, and, to make the anomaly complete, 
 in spite of its semi-fluid character, it is higher in the interior than 
 towards its margin. 
 
 The only exception to both these statements is found on the west- 
 em side, where, for the distance of about twelve or fifteen miles, the 
 streams flow from slightly elevated but higher land, and supply all its 
 abundant and overfloi^ang water. Towards the north, the east, and 
 the south the waters flow from the SAvamp to different rivers, which 
 
LYELL. 133 
 
 «rive abundant tvidrncc, hy the i*ate of tlu'ir descent, that the Great 
 Dismal is hio:her than the surrounding firm ground. This fact is also 
 'lined hy the uiensurtMnents made in leveling for the milway from 
 I -mouth to Sutfolk, and for two canals cut through different parts 
 of the morass, for the sake of obt:iining timber. The railway itself, 
 when traversing the Great Dismal, is literally higher than when on the 
 land some miles distant on either side, and is six to seven feet higher 
 tlian where it passes over dry ground near to Suffolk and Portsmouth. 
 I'pon the whole, the center of the morass seems to lie more than 
 twrlve feet al)ove the flat cou!itry round it. If the stnyiins whicli now 
 How in from the west had for ages been bringing down black fluid 
 mire instead of water, over the firm subsoil, we might suppose the 
 (rround so inundated as to have acquired its present configuration. 
 Some small ridges, however, of land must have existed in the original 
 plain or basin, for these now rise like low islands in various places 
 above the general surface. But the streams to the westward do not 
 ))ring down liquid mire, and are not charged with any sediment. 
 The soil of the swamp is formed of vegetable matter, usually without 
 any admixture of earthy particles. We have here, in fact, a deposit 
 of peat from ten to fifteen feet in thickness, in a latitude where, owing 
 to the heat of the sua and l6ngth of the summer, no peat-mosses like 
 those of Europe would be looked for under ordinary circumstances. 
 
 In countries like Scotland and Ireland, where the climate is damp, 
 and the summer short and cool, the natund vegetation of one year 
 docs not rot away during the next in moist situations. If water 
 flows into such land it is absorbed, and promotes the vigorous growth 
 of mosses and other aquatic plants, and when they die the same 
 water arrests their putrefaction. But, as a general nile, no such 
 accumulation of peat can tiike place in a country like that of Virginia, 
 where the summer's he^it causes annually as lirge a quantity of dead 
 plants to decay as is equal in amount to the vcirctablc matter jiroduced 
 in one year 
 
 There arc many trees and slirubs in the region of the I'inc liarrms 
 (and the same may Im* said of the United States geju'rally) which, like 
 our willows, flourish luxuriantly in water. The juniper trees, or 
 white cerlar, stand firndy in the softest part of the quagmire, supported 
 by their long tap-roots, and afford, with many other evergreens, a 
 d irk shade, under which a multitude of ferns, reeds, a!ul shrubs, from 
 nine to eighteen feet high, and a thick carpet of mosses, four or five 
 
l')l cx'rnc Mri's T.rni:AiiY reader. 
 
 iiichc-^ liiLrli. spriiiL: up. and arc prDtictcd iVoin the r;iys of the sun. 
 When these are most power! ul, tlie large cedar and many other decid- 
 uous trees are in full leaf. The black soil formed beneath this shade, 
 to winch tlic IIIO--1 > and ihc Icavi - make aiinual addition^, docs not 
 perfectly rescud)!c the j.cal ot' luii-<»p.-, iiio-t ()[' th«' plam> l)ciu;< SO 
 decayed as to leave little uiui-c than M't't Mack mud, without any traces 
 of orj^ranizatiou. This loose Mtil i- calli'il spon-v hy the laborers ; 
 and it has ])cen ascerUiined tliai when . \po-cd to the >un and thrown 
 out on the bank of a canal ulc -- ha\c been made, it rots en- 
 
 tirely away. 1 lenee it is evident tn it it owes its preservation in the 
 swamp to moisture and the shade of the dense foliai::e. The evapo- 
 Tiition continuali\ L:i'inu- on in the u.: iininer 
 
 cools the air and generates u tempenitnic i -niii);,!,- iaai oi a more 
 northern climate, or a region more ilc\aiiii above the level of the 
 sea. 
 
 Numerous trunks of large and tall tree? lie buried in the black mire 
 of the morass. In so loose a soil they are t i-ily ovti throw n by winds, 
 and nearly as many have been found lying beneath tin >urfaee of the 
 peaty soil as standinij erect upon it. Wlien thrown down, they are 
 soon covered by \\,;ti r. and kccpinu" wet, they never decompose, except 
 the sap-wood, which is less than an inch thick. Much of the timber 
 is obtained by soundinp: a foot or two below the surface, and it is 
 sawn into planks while half und( r w.iicr. 
 
 The Great Dismnl has been d( -cribed n? lioinir hio^hcst towarcjs its 
 center. Here, however, tin i-c is an (Xtensive lake of an oval form, 
 seven miles lonir and more than five widi', tiie depth, where greatest, 
 fifteen feet; and its bottom consisting of mud like the swamp, but 
 sometimes with a pure white sand, a foot deep, covering the mud. 
 The water is traii<]iarent, though tinged of a pale bro^vn color, like 
 that of ourpeat-nio>s( s. and contains abundance offish. This sheet 
 of water is usually even with its banks, on which a tidck and tall 
 forest grows. There is no beach, for the bank sinks perpendicularly, 
 so that if the waters are lowered several feet, it makes no alteration 
 in the ])readtli of tlic lake. 
 
 Much timber has been cut down and carried out from the swamp by 
 means of eaiials. which ;:rc perfectly straiudit for long distances, with 
 the trees on each side arcldnii- over, antl almost joining their branches 
 across, so that they throw a dark sliade on the water, which of itself 
 looks black, beins: colored as before mentioned. When the boats 
 
LYELL. 135 
 
 merge from the gloom of these avenues into the lake, the scene is 
 said to be "as beautiful as fairy-land." 
 
 The bears inhabiting the swamp climb trees in search of acorns and 
 ^um-berries, breaking off large boughs of the oaks in order to draw 
 I lie acorns near to them. These same bears are said to kill hogs, and 
 even cows. There are also wild-cats, and occasionally a solitary wolf, 
 in the morass. 
 
 That the ancient seams of coal were produced for the most part by 
 terrestrial plants of all sizes, not drifted but growing on the spot, is a 
 tlieory more and more generally adopted in modern times; and the 
 -rowth of what is called sponge in such a swamp, and in such a 
 climate as the Great Dismal, already covering so many square miles 
 of a low level region, bordering the sea, and capable of spreading 
 itself indefinitely over the adjacent country, helps us greatly to con- 
 ceive the manner in which the coal of the ancient carboniferous rocks 
 may have been formed. The heat, perhaps, may not have been ex- 
 cessive when the coal-measures originated, but the entire absence of 
 frost, with a warm and damp atmosphere, may have enabled tropical 
 forms to flourish in latitudes far distant from the line. Huge swamps 
 in a rainy climate, standing above the level of the surrounding firm 
 land, and supporting a dense forest, may have spread far and wide, 
 invading the plains, like some European peat-mosses when they burst; 
 tiid the frequent submergence of these masses of vegetable matter 
 beneath seas or estuaries, as often as the land sank down during 
 subterranean movements, may have given rise to the deposition of 
 -trata of mud, sand, or limestone immediately upon the vegetable 
 matter. The conversion of successive surfiices into dry land where 
 ntht r swamps supporting trees may have formed, might give origin to 
 I continued series of coal-measures of great thickness. In some kinds 
 •f coal the vegetable texture is apparent throughout under the micro- 
 -ropp ; in others, it has only partially disappeared ; but even in this 
 loal, the flattened trunks of trees, converted into pure coal, are occa- 
 sionally met with, and erect fossil trees are observed in the overlying 
 -trata, terminating downwards in seams of coal. 
 
130 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 MACAULAY. 
 
 1800- 1859. 
 
 Thomas Babikctott Macavlay, who may fairly be dMcribed as the most accomplished liter- 
 ary man of his time, was born in Leiceatershire, England, in IMX), and died in IbuU. ills lathe., 
 Zachary Macaolay, was an eminent philautbrupist. The subject of this notice entered Trim! 
 College, Cambridge, graduating B. A. in 182:2, with a reputation for varied and readily availab. 
 learning such as few collegians have ever won. In lti26 he was called to the liar, and in IbM 
 was elected to represent the borough of Calne in Parliament. In that body he was au active 
 supporter of the Reform Measures. In 18S4 he was sent to India as a member of the Supreme 
 Council of Calcutta; in 1839 he was made Secretary of War; in 1841 he went out of otUce, un 
 the accession of Sir Robert Peel ; in 18t6, the Whigs returning to power, he was appointed Pa.\ - 
 master-General of the Forces, and bad a seat in the Cabinet. In 1»47 he was defeated in the Pa 
 liamentary elections, his Edinburgh constituents disapproving his course on the MaynuotliGm. 
 question. Five years later, however, these sana- « 'lim as their reprcbcutative lu 
 
 Parlianitnt, where he served them till 1856, wh. 1. ^ from jwlitical life. Mean- 
 
 time, in 18i9,hewaselectedLordRectorof the Lu. ...... „. u... ^ w.and dclivc-red an inaugural 
 
 address of great brilliancy. In 1837 his genius and services in literature and politics received 
 merited recognition in his elevation to the peerage, with the title of Banm or Lord Macnulay. 
 
 Macaulay's first essays in literature were in the department of poetr> ; during his university 
 career he won two high prizes for poetical cowpositton, and he was a frequent contributor of verse 
 to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Among! wn youthful productions were 7%« ^tf///« 
 
 q^/rry and T%e Sptmitk ArwuuU^ poeais wl. .wed the niaturer excellence of his Layt 
 
 iff Jneient Rome, which were first |>nbli»L m-. In the periodical above mentioned Ma- 
 
 caulay made his dibut as an essayist ; but his first great triumph in this character is cuunccud 
 with the pages of the Edinburgh Review, in which, in 1826, appeared his masterly essay on 
 Milton, which instantly gave him acknowledged rank among the ablest English critics. This 
 essay was followed by many others, which are familiar to all readers of English, and which as a 
 collection are unsurpassed, perliaps unequaled, in the literature of any nation. The essay on 
 Bacon, though less pc^uhur than some of its associates, illustrates with admirable effect the 
 original intellectual power and vast acquired resources of the author. As an essayist Macaulny 
 very closely approaches perfection. His poetry lacks the sensuous element which the publ 
 aeens to demand in that form of composition, and, vigorous and dramatic though it is in nu 
 almost unequaled degree, it has never become popular with the mass of readers. His history 
 has been assailed for its manifestations of partisanship and its occasional inaccuracies. But in 
 the presence of his essays unfriendly criticism has stayed its hand ; and even the eye of envy 
 and personal animosity has failed to find any serious blemishes in their beautiful and symmetri- 
 cal fabric. There is little risk in pronouncing them the most perfect literary products of the 
 nineteenth century. The first and second volumes of Macaulay's History ofEnffhnd " from the time 
 of James II. down to a time which is within the memory of men still living," appeared in 1849, 
 and won immediate success. The work did not, however, escape censure ; John Wilson Crokcr 
 attacked it violently, though his judgment was said to be biased by personal feeling, and Sir 
 Archibald Alison deplored its general lack of candor. But these few protesting voices were drowned 
 in the chorus of applause with which the literary leaders of England and America welcomed 
 the history. All things considered, the writings of Macaulay offer a more remunerative field to 
 the student than do those of any other English writer, except of course Shakespeare. In point 
 01 style, construction, and effective utilization of knowledge, they may safely be used as models. 
 
 THE PTTEITAHS. 
 
 We would speak of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of 
 men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odious 
 and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the surface. He that 
 
MACAU LAY. 137 
 
 runs may read them ; nor have there been wanting attentive and 
 lalioious obstTvurs to point them out. For many years aftt'r the 
 I asjtorution, they were the theme of unmeasured inveetive and deri- 
 lon. Th(7 were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press 
 lid of the stage, at the time when the press and the stage were most 
 rcntious. Tliey were not men of letters; they were, as a body, un- 
 popular : they could not defend themselves; and the publie would 
 not take them under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, 
 u ithout reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. 
 The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal 
 I \van«(, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the 
 - riptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their con- 
 iiipt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were 
 indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers 
 Jone that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he who 
 pproaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence 
 I that potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent 
 .\ riters. 
 
 Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their 
 measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed, out of 
 the most unpromising materials the finest army tliat Europe had ever 
 (Ml, who trampled down King, Church, and Aristocracy, who, in the 
 hort intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of 
 Ingland terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, were no 
 vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external batlges, 
 like the signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friars. We rq^t that 
 these badges were not more attractive. We regret that a body to 
 whose courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations 
 had not the lofty elegnnre which distinguished some of the adherents 
 r Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the Court 
 <\ Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our 
 < hoice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious 
 ' askets which contain only the Death's head and the Fool's head, and 
 \ on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. 
 The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar char- 
 ter from the daily cont<implntion of superior beings and eternal 
 iten^sts. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an 
 verruling Providence, they habitually ascriljed every event to the will 
 if the Great Being for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose 
 
!'>''> CATii(Ai:r> i,m.i;\Kv i:i;Ai)i,i;. 
 
 inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to 
 enjoy him was with theni tlie irrcat end of existence. Thcv rejected 
 with (•(.iitciiipt the V, n-iii..iii(,u-; l,.,ma«4c which other .sects substituted 
 for the pure worship of the »oul. Instead of eatehing occasional 
 glimpses of the Deity throuijfh an obseurinjr veil, they aspired to jraze 
 full on his intohrahK- hn-hlncss, and to comimnic with h;iii lace to 
 face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. 
 The difference l)etween the greatest and the meanest of mankind 
 seemed to vauisli, wlu n compared with the boundless interval whidi 
 separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were con- 
 stantly fixed. They reco-nizcd no title to superiority but his favor; 
 and, confident of that tavor, tlu v (K spised aH the accomplishments 
 and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with 
 the works of philosophers and poets, tiny w( n (Ik ply read in the 
 oracles of Grod. If their names were not found in the registers of 
 heralds, they were reconlcd in the Book of Life. If their steps were 
 not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of minister- 
 ing anj^cls had charge of them. 
 
 Their ])alaces were houses not matle with hands; their diadems 
 crowns of glorj' which should never fade away. On the rich and the 
 eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt : 
 for they estrenu'd theniselv( s rich in a more pn cious treasure, and 
 clo({ii(Mit in a more sublime language, nobles by the right -of an ear- 
 lier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The 
 very iiu aaest of tlieni was a being to whose fate a mysterious and ter- 
 ril)le importance belonpred, on whose slightest action the spirits of light 
 and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, 
 before heaven and earth wen- created, to enjoy a felicity which should 
 continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events 
 which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been 
 onlained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flour- 
 ished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his 
 will l)y the pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet. He 
 liul been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no com- 
 mon foe. He had been ransomed by the s.veat of no vulgar agony, by 
 the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had 
 been darkened, that the rocks had l)een rent, that the dead had risen, 
 that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God. 
 
 Thus the Puritan was made np of two different men, — the one all 
 
MACAULAY. 139 
 
 self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, cjalm, 
 vl)le, saji^acious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his 
 r ; but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional 
 vtireraent he prayed with convulsions and groans and tears. He 
 was half-maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the 
 lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a 
 srieam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of ever- 
 lasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself entrusted with the scepter 
 of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of 
 his soul that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his 
 seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous 
 Workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. 
 People who saw notliiiig of the godly but their uncouth visages, and 
 heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, 
 might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who en- 
 countered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. 
 
 These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of 
 judgment and an immutability of purpose which some ^vriters have 
 thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact 
 the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one sub- 
 ject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment 
 had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death 
 had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles 
 and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things 
 of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their 
 minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above 
 the influence of dangler and of comiption. It sometimes might lead 
 them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. 
 They went through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with 
 hU flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with 
 human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, 
 insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by 
 any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. 
 
 TEE PSOORESS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The liisiory of England is emphatically the history of progress. 
 It is the history of a constant movement in the public mind, of a con- 
 tant change in the institutions of a great society. We see that 
 
140 ( \[ ll( \ in '< I If ) I. \ ;: > I' I ■- :.ri,' 
 
 society, lit the beginiiiiig oi uir iweiltli cciitur}, in a state more 
 iiiisemble than the stati; in which the most dej^raded nations of the 
 East now are. We see it subjected to the tyranny of a handful of 
 armed foreigners. We see a strong distinction of caste sepuratino- 
 the victorious Norman from the vanquished Saxon. We see tlie greiit 
 body of the population in a state of personal shivery. We see the 
 most debasing and cruel superstition exercising boundless dominion 
 over the most elevated and benevolent minds. We see the multitude 
 sunk in brutal ignorance, and the studious few engaged in acquiriiii: 
 what did not deserve the name of knowledge. 
 
 In the course of seven centuries the wretched and degraded rac 
 have become the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever 
 the world saw, — have spread their dominion over every quarter of the 
 globe, — have scattered the seeds of mighty empires and republic 
 over vast continents of which no dim intimation had ever reached 
 Ptolemy   or Strabo, f — have eri*ated a maritime power which would 
 annihihite in a quarter of an hour the navies of Tyre, Athens, Carthage, 
 Venice, and Genoa together, — have carried the science of healino'. 
 the means of locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical an 
 every manufacture, everytliing that promotes the convenience of life, 
 to a perfection which our ancestors would have thought magical, — 
 have produced a literature which may boast of works not inferior to 
 the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, — have discovered 
 the laws which rt^gulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, — have 
 speculated with exquisite subtilty on the operations of the human 
 mind, — have been the acknowledged leaders of the human race in 
 the career of political improvement. 
 
 The history of Engbnd is the histoiy of this great change in the 
 moral, intellectual, and physical state of the inhabitants of our own 
 island. There is much amusing and instructive episodical matter, but 
 this is the main action. To us, we will own, nothing is so interesting 
 and delightful as to contemplate the steps by which the England of the 
 Domesday Book, the England of the Curfew and the Forest Laws, the 
 England of crusaders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers, serfs, dutlaws, be- 
 came the England which we know and love, the classic ground of lib- 
 erty and philosophy, the school of all knowledge, the mart of all trade. 
 
 * Ptolemy. The founder of the Greek dynasty of kings of Egypt. He was a friend of Alex- 
 ander the Great, and like him was a great warrior ; he was noted also for political wisdom. 
 Died 385 b. c. 
 
 + Steabo. An eminent Greek geographer, born about 60 b. c. 
 
MACAULAY. HI 
 
 BUHYAH'S PUGRIX'S PB0OBE88. 
 
 The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Progress is, that it is 
 tlie ouly work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. 
 Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The aUcgory of Bunyan has 
 been read by many thousands with tears. There are some good alle- 
 gories in Johnson's works, and some of still higher merit by Addison. 
 In these performances there is, perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity 
 us in the Pilgrim's Progress. But the pleasure which is produced by 
 the Vision of Mirza, the Vision of Theodore, the Genealogy of Wit, 
 or the Contest between Rest and Labor, is exactly similar to the pleas- 
 ure which we derive from one of Cowley's odes or from a canto of 
 Hndibms. It is a plejisure which belongs wholly to the understand- 
 ing, and in which the feelings have no part wliatever. 
 
 It is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. That wonderful book, 
 while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved 
 by those who are too simple to admire it. Doctor Johnson, all whose 
 studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books 
 through, made an exception in favor of the Pilgrim's Progress. That 
 work, he said, was one of the two or three works which he wished 
 longer. In the wildest parts of Scotland the Pilgrim's Progress is 
 the delight of the peasantry. In everj' nursery the Pilgrim's Progress 
 is a ffreater favorite than Jack the Giant-Killer. Everv reader knows 
 the strait and narrow path as well as he knows a road in which he 
 has gone backward and fonvard a hundred times. This is the high- 
 est miracle of genius, — that things which are not should be as though 
 they were ; that the imaginations of one mind should become the 
 personal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker * has 
 wrought. 
 
 Tlierc is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turnstile, 
 with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicket-gate, and 
 the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction ; 
 the long line of road, as straight as a rule can make it ; the Interpre- 
 ter's hon.se and all its fair shows ; all the stages of the journey, all the 
 fonns which cross or overtake the pilgrims, giants and hobgoblins, ill- 
 fa%'ored ones and shining ones ; the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bub- 
 ble, with her great j)nrse by her side, and her fingers playing with the 
 money ; the black man in the bright vesture ; Mr. Worldly Wiseman 
 
 * Bonyui wm a tinker. 
 
142 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 and my Lord Hategood, Mr. Talkative and Mrs. Timorous ; — all ai< 
 actually existing beings to us. We follow the travelers through then 
 allegorical progress with interest not inferior to that with whicli m\ 
 follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edin- 
 burgh to London. 
 
 Bunyan is almost the only writer that ever gave to the abstract the 
 interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors 
 men are mere personifications. We have not an Othello, but jeal- 
 ousy ; not an lago, but perfidy ; not a Brutus, but patriotism. The 
 mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imaginative that 'personifi- 
 cations, when he dealt with them, became men. A dialogue between 
 two qualities, in his dream, has more dramatic effect than a dialogue 
 between two human beings in most plays. 
 
 The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as 
 a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over 
 the English language. The vocabiUary is the vocabulary of the com- 
 mon people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical 
 terms of theology, which would puzzle the nidest peasant. We have 
 observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more 
 than two syllables. Yet no writer has siid more exactly what he 
 meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhorta- 
 tion, for subtile disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, 
 and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain workingmen. 
 was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which 
 we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English 
 language ; no book which shows so well how rich that language is, 
 in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all 
 that it has borrowed. 
 
 Cowper said, fifty or sixty years ago, that he dared not name John 
 Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. We live in better 
 times ; and we are not afraid to s:»y, that though there were many 
 clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, there were only two great creative minds. One of these pro- 
 duced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
BANCEOFT. l48 
 
 BANCROFT. 
 
 1800- 
 
 Geoige Bajicrokt was born in Worcester, MusarhuBetts. in 1800. He recently returned from 
 Berlin, where for teverml years he discharjced, with honor to himself and his country, the duties 
 of United States Minister. In 1817 he graduated at Harvard, bearing off, despite his tender age, 
 the second honors of his class. The next year he went to Germany, where he studied under the 
 direction of Heeren and Schlosser, and other eminent scholars. He prepared himself for a cleri- 
 cal lilc i but his love of literature was stronger than hLt " drawing " to the pulpit, and he soon 
 abaiuluucd the idea of adopting the sacred prule^tsiuu. In 18;!3 he made his lirst public literary 
 (-KMV m a volume of poems, and, in the next Ibllowing year, put forth a trauslationof Heeren's 
 Hfjieilmitt vH Uu tolitxct oj Ancient Greece. About this time he associated himself with the late 
 Dr. Joseph G. Cogswell in the cstablisLiiicut of the Hound Hill School at JSorthamptou. The 
 duties 01' a pedagogue, however, proved uncongenial to him, and, although the school enjoyed a 
 fair degree oi prosperity, he found its management irksome, and turned his attention to politics, 
 in \iiS6 he was appointed Collector of the Port of Boston ; was an unsuccessful candidate for 
 Governor of Massachusetts in If^H, and in 1846 was made Secretary of the Navy. This oOice 
 be held about one year, displaying marked ability in the discharge of its duties, and effecting 
 maiiv important reforms in the department. In 1846 he was appointed Minister to England, 
 r...,! >. inained abroad till 18^19. From that time till the date of his appointment as Minister to 
 iiv President Grant, he devoted himself assiduously to the writing of his History of th« 
 ' . . I StatM, which is now completed. The first volume of this work was published in 18S1, 
 and ihc succeeding volumes, down to the tenth, which is just ready, lyive followed at long inter- 
 vals. It is safe to say that Mr. Bancroft's History is unrivaled as a record of the origin and 
 growth of the United States. In its preparation, or at least in that of those volumes which 
 treat of the years immediately preceding the Revolution, he had the use of a vast number of 
 manuscripts to which no earlier historian had access. His natural qualifications, reinforced by 
 reading, for the historian's work are exceptionally great. It lias been charged by some 
 h critics that his democratic prejudices are too manifest in his History; but this allega- 
 tion h!i3 had little weight with those who arc most competent to form a judgment in the case, — 
 his own ronntnrmen ; and his judicial candor is gmerally reckoned among the most admirable 
 romponcnts of his intellectual equipment. His style has received warm and universal praise ; it 
 IS niiinently scholarly, yet not pedantic, brilliant, yet not flashy, in narrative animated and 
 picdircsqae, and in philosophical passages masslTc and migestic. This history is one of the 
 proudeat monuments of American scholarship. 
 
 INDIAN MASSACRES OF THE EABLY SETTLEKS. 
 
 Between the Indians and the English there had been quarrels, 
 l)iit no wars. From the first landinp: of colonists in Virginia, the 
 power of the natives was despised : their strongest weapons were such 
 arrows as they could shape without the use of iron, such hatchets as 
 could be made from stone ; and an English mastiff seemed to them a 
 terrible adversary. Nor were their nunil)ers considerable. Within 
 sixty miles of Jamestown, • it is computed, there were no more than 
 five thousand souls, or about fifteen hundre<l warriors. The whole 
 
 * JwRSTOwx. A town in Virginia, on the James Biver, now in ruina. The first EngUili 
 sculemcnt in the United State* was nuide here in 1406. 
 
1 i 1 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 territory of the clans which listened to Powhatan   as their leader or 
 their conqueror comprehended about eight thousand square miles, 
 thirty tribes, and twenty-four hundred warriors ; so that the Indian 
 population amounted to about one inhabitant to a sqimre mile. The 
 natives, naked and feeble compared with the Europeans, were nowhere 
 concentrated in CQUsiderable villages ; but dwelt dispersed in hamlet.-, 
 with from forty to sixty in each company. Few places had more than 
 two hundred, and many had less. It was also unusual for any hr^e 
 portion of these tril^es to be assembled together. An idle tale of an 
 ambuscade of three or four thousand is perhaps an error for three or 
 four hundred ; otherwise it is an extravagant fiction, wholly unworthy 
 of belief. Smith once met a party, that seemed to amount to seven 
 hundred ; and so complete was the superiority conferred by the use 
 of fire-arms, that with fifteen men he was able to withstand them all. 
 
 The savages were therefore regarded with contempt or compassion. 
 No uniform care had been taken to conciliate their good-will, although 
 their condition had been improved by some of the arts of civilized 111' 
 The degree of their advancement may be judged by the intelligent 
 of their chieftain. A house having been built for Opechancanougli 
 after the English fashion, he took such delight in the lock and key, 
 that he would lock and unlock the door a hundred times a day, and 
 thought the device incomparable. When Wyatt arrived, the natives 
 expressed a fear lest his intentions should be hostile ; he assured 
 them of his wish to preserve inviolable peace, and the emigrants hatl 
 no use for fire-arms except against a deer or a fowl. Confidence so 
 far increased that the old law which made death the penalty for 
 teaching the Indians to use the musket was forgotten ; and they were 
 now employed as fowlers and huntsmen. The plantations of the 
 English were widely extended, in unsuspecting confidence, along the 
 James River and towards the Potomac, wherever rich grounds invited 
 to the culture of tobacco ; nor were solitary places, remote from neigh- 
 bors, avoided; since there would there be less competition for the 
 ownership of the soil. 
 
 Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas, remained, after the marriage of 
 his daughter, the firm friend of the English. He died in 1618 ; and 
 his younger brother was now the heir to his influence. Should the 
 
 • PowH.vTAN. An Indian chief, father of Pocahontas. The familiar story of the heroism of 
 Pocalmntas in saving the life of Captain John Smith is now generally considered a myth. She 
 married John Rolfe, an Englishman, and died in 1617 
 
BANCROFT. 146 
 
 native occupants of the soil consent to be driven from their ancient 
 piitriniony ? Should tlieir feebleness submit patiently to contempt, 
 iiyury, and the loss of their lands ? The desire of self-preservation, 
 the necessity of self-defense, seemed to demand an active resistance ; 
 to preserve their dwellin«(-places, the English must be exterminatt^d ; 
 in open battle the Indians would be pjwerless ; conscious of thiir 
 weakness, they couUl not hope to accomplish their end except by a 
 preconcirted surprise. Tiie crime was one of savage ferocity ; but it 
 was su^ested by their situation. They were timorous and quick of 
 apprehension, and consequently treacherous ; for treachery and false- 
 hood are the vices of cowardice. The attack was prepared with im- 
 penetrable secrecy. To the very last hour the Indians preserved the 
 language of friendship ; they borrowed the boats of the English to 
 attend their own assemblies ; on the very morning of the massacre 
 they were in the houses and at the tables of those whose death they 
 were plotting. " Sooner," said tliey, " shall the sky fall, than peace 
 be viohited on our part." At length, on the 22d of March (1622), 
 at midday, at one and the same instant of time, the Indians fell 
 upon an unsuspecting population, which was scattered through dis- 
 tant villages, extending one hundred and forty miles on both sides 
 of the river. The onset was so sudden that the blow was not dis- 
 cerned till it fell. None were spared ; children and women, as well 
 as men ; the missionary, who had cherished the natives with untiring 
 gentleness ; the liberal benefactors, from whom they had received daily 
 benefits, — all were munlered with indiscriminate barbarity, and every 
 aggravation of cruelty. The savages fell upon the de^d i)odies, as if 
 it had been possible to commit ou them a fresh murder. 
 
 In one hour three hundred and forty-seven persons were cut off. 
 Yet the carnage was not universal ; and Virginia was saved from so 
 disastrous a grave. The night before the execution of the conspiracy 
 it was revealed by a converted . Indian to an Englishman, whom he 
 wislu'd to rescue; Jamestown and the nearest settlements were well 
 prt'iKired against an attack ; and the savages, as timid as they were 
 ferocious, fled with precipitation from the appearance of wakeful re- 
 sistance. Thus the larger part of the colony was saved. 
 
146 " cathcart's liteeaey reader. 
 
 the discovery of the mississippi river. 
 
 All the disasters which had been encountered, far from diminish- 
 ing the boldness of De Soto,* served only to confirm his obstinacy 
 by wounding his pride. Should he, who had promised greater booty 
 than Mexico or Peru had yielded, now return as a defeated fugitive, 
 so naked that his troops were clad only in skins and mats of ivy ? 
 The search for some wealthy region was renewed ; the caravan 
 marched still farther to the west. 
 
 For seven days it struggled through a wilderness of forests ami 
 marshes, and at length came to Indian settlements in the vicinity of 
 the Mississippi. The lapse of nearly three centuries has not clianged 
 the character of the stream. It was then described as more than a 
 mile broa<l, flowing with a strong curr^mt, and, by the weight of its 
 waters, forcing a channel of great depth. The water was always 
 muddy ; trees and timber were continually floating down the stream. 
 
 The Spaniards were guided to the Mississippi by the natives ; and 
 were directed to one of the usual crossing-places, probably at the 
 lowest Chickasa Bluff, not far from the thirty-fifth parallel of lati- 
 tude. The arrival of the strangers awakened curiosity and fear. A 
 multitude of people from the western banks of the river, painted 
 and gayly decorated %vith great plumes of white feathers, the warriors 
 standing in rows with bow and arrows in their hands, the chieftains 
 sitting under awnings as magnificent as the artless manufactures of 
 the natives could weave, came rowing down the stream in a fleet of 
 two hundred canoes, seeming to the admiring Spaniards " like a fair 
 army of galleys." 
 
 They brought gifts of fish and loaves made of the fruit of the 
 persimmon. At first they showed some desire to offer resistance ; 
 but, soon becoming conscious of their relative weakness, they ceased 
 to defy an enemy who could not be overcome, and suffered injury 
 without attempting open retaliation. The boats of the natives were 
 too weak to transport horses ; almost a month expired before barges 
 large enough to hold three horsemen each were constructed for cross- 
 ing the river. At length the Spaniards embarked upon the Missis- 
 sippi, and were borne to its western bank. 
 
   Heknando de Soto. A Spanish explorer, bom atout 1500, discovered the Mississippi 
 River in 1541, and died in Louisiana in 1542. He was one of the boldest and bravest of the many 
 brave leaders who figured in the discoveries, and distinguished themselves in the wild warfare 
 of the Western World. 
 
BANCBOFT. 147 
 
 The Dacotah tribes, doubtless, then occupied the country south- 
 west of the Missouri. De Soto had heard its praises ; he believed in 
 its vicinity to mineral wealth, and he dett-nnined to visit its towns. 
 In ascending the Mississippi the pjirty was often obliged to wade 
 tliKuii^h morasses; at length they came, as it would seem, upon the 
 (list net of Little Prairie, and the dry and elevated lands which extend 
 towards New Madrid. 
 
 Here the religions of the invaders and the natives came in contrast, 
 rbe Spaniards were adored as children of the sun, and the blind were 
 l)rought into their presence, to be healed by the sons of light. " Pray 
 only to God, who is in heaven, for whatsoever ye need," said De Soto 
 in reply ; and the sublime doctrine which, thousands of years before, 
 had been proclaimed in the deserts of Arabia, now first found its 
 way into the prairies of the Far West. 
 
 The wild fruits of that region were abundant ; the pecan-nut, the 
 mulberry, and the two kinds of wild plums, furnished the natives with 
 ii-ticles of food. At Pacaha, the northernmost point which De Soto 
 ri'ached near the Mississippi, he remained forty days. Tlie spot 
 cannot be identified ; but the accounts of the amusements of the 
 Spaniards confirm the truth of the narrative of their ramblings. 
 Fish were taken, such as are now found in the fresh waters of that 
 region ; one of them, the spade fish, — the strangest and most whira- 
 ical production of the muddy streams of the west, so rare that, even 
 (>w, it is hardly to l)e found in any museum, — is accurately de- 
 bribed by the l)est historian of the expedition. 
 
 .\n exploring party, which was sent to examine the regions to the 
 north, reported that they were almost a desert. Tlie country still 
 nearer the Missouri was said by the Indians to be thinly inhabited ; 
 the bison abounded there so much that no maize could be cultivated, 
 ind the few inhabitants were hunters. De Soto turned, therefore, to 
 I lie west and northwest, and plunged still more deeply into the inte- 
 rior of the continent. The highlands of White River, more than 
 two hundnnl miles from the Mississippi, were probably the limit of his 
 ramble in this direction. • 
 
 The mountains offere<l neither gems nor gold ; and the disappointed 
 
 adventurers marchwl to the south. They passed through a succession 
 
 of towns, of which the position cannot be fixed, till at length we find 
 
 them among the Tunicas, near the hot springs and sjdine tributaries 
 
 >f the Washita. It was at Autiamque, a town on the same river. 
 
148 CATHCART's literary K1M)1 i:. 
 
 iliat tlicv passed the wiiit.r; tlicy liad arrived at llic settlement 
 llirouj^li the cDiiiitiv of iIm^ Kappasv.-.. 
 
 The iiaiiv< trilx -. cvny where on the route, were found in a state of 
 eivilization beyond lliat of nouiadic hordes. They were an agricul- 
 tural people, will 1 fi\«'<l ])la('rs of abode, and subsish'd upon ihc. pro. 
 (luce of the field- iiini-c iliaii ii{»uii ihc cliax-. I-iioraiil of lli. ;.r 
 of life, they <()idd oiler no resistance to their unwelcome visitors; the 
 bow and arrow uc r. the most effective weapons with which they were 
 ac(iiiaiiiicd. Tiny scfiii not to have bem turbulmt or (juarrelsome ; 
 but as the population was moderate, and the earth I'ruiLt'ul, the tribes 
 wt li not accustomed to contend with each other for the possession of 
 territories. 
 
 Their dress was. in pirt, mats wroiiLrlil of ivy and bulrushes, or of 
 the bark and lint of ti-cc-: in t-old wcatlnr tli.'_\ wore mantlrs woven 
 of feathers. The settlements were by tribes, — each tribe occupied 
 what the Spaniards called a province ; their villaires were generally 
 near to-jft tin r. but were composed of few habitations The Spaniards 
 treated them with no other forbearance than their own seltishness de- 
 manded, and enshived such as offend td, employing them as porters 
 and guides. 
 
 On a slight suspicion, they would cut off the hands of numbers of 
 tilt iiiiiMs, for punishment or intimidation; while the young cava- 
 lit rs. from desire of seeming valiant, ceased to be mercifid, and ex- 
 ulted in ( ruelties and carnage. The guide who was unsuccessful, or 
 who purpov.ly led them away from the settlements of his tribe, would 
 be seized and tlirown to the hounds. Sometimes a native was con- 
 demned to the flames. Any trifling consideration of safety would 
 induie the governor to set fire to a handet. He did not delight in 
 cruelly : but the happiness, the life, and the rights of the Indians 
 were held of no account. The approach of the Spaniards was heard 
 with dismay : and their departure hastened by the suggestion of 
 wealthier lands at a distance. 
 
 In the spring of the following year De Soto determined to descend 
 the Washita to its junction, aiyl to get tidings of the sea. As he 
 advanced he was soon lost amidst the bayous and marshes which are 
 found along- the Red lliver and its tributaries. Near the Missis- 
 sip])i he came upon the country of Nilco, which was well peopled. 
 Till' river was there larger than the Guadalquiver at Seville. At 
 last he arriveil at the province where the Washita, already united 
 
BANciioirr. 149 
 
 with tlw Red River, enters the Mississippi. The province was 
 calUtl Guachoya. 
 
 l)e Soto anxiously inquired the distance to the sea ; the chieftain 
 of Guaclioya could not teU. Were there settlements extending along 
 the river to its mouth ? It was answered that its lower banks were 
 an uninhabited waste. Unwilling to believe so disheartening a tale, 
 De Soto sent one of his men with eight horsemen to descend the 
 banks of the Mississippi, and explore the country. Tliey traveled 
 eight days, and were able to advance not much more than thirty Eiiles, 
 they were so delayed by the frequent bayous, the impassable cane- 
 brakes, and the dense woods. 
 
 The governor received the intelligence with concern ; he suffered 
 from anxiety and gloom. His horses and men were dying around 
 him, 80 that the natives were becoming dangerous enemies. He at- 
 tempted to overawe a tribe of Indians near Natchez by claiming a 
 sup«'riiatural birth, and demanding obedience and tribute. " You say 
 you are the child of the sun," replied the undaunted chief; " dry up 
 the river, and I will believe you. Do you desire to see me? Visit 
 tlie town where I dwell. If you come in peace, I will receive you 
 with special good-will ; if in war, I will not shrink one foot back.'* 
 
 But De Soto was no longer able to abate the confidenc<f or punish 
 the temerity of the natives. His stubborn pride was changed by long 
 disappointments into a w^asting melancholy ; and his health sunk 
 rapidly and entirely under a conflict of emotions. A malignant fever 
 ensued, during which he had little comfort, and was neither visited 
 nor attended as the last hours of life demand. Believing his death 
 near at hand, he held the last solemn intei-view with his faithful 
 followers ; and, yielding to the wishes of his companions, who obeyed 
 him to the end, he named a successor. On the next day he died. 
 
 k 
 
150 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 1803- 
 
 Ealph Waldo Emeuoh wu born in Boston in 1803. He gndoatcd at Harrard Colle^ ir^ 
 192\, and, a/l«r pursuing a course of theological study, was ordained pastor of the Second 1 11 
 tarian Chnrch of Boston. His ministry was brief, bowerer : a difference of opinion as to points 
 of doctrine arose between himself and his i>eople, and he resigned his charge. Retiring to tlu- 
 town of Concord, he gave himself up to the study of mental and moral philosophy. His tirst 
 published writings — Man TkitUcinff, Literary Etkict, and Mature, an Buay — instantly attracted 
 the attention of thoughtful readers, and he at once took the position of a leader of philosophical 
 opinbn, not only in this country but in England. In 1847 he published liis tirst volume ot 
 poems. He is best known by his Essays and his Representative Men. His impress on the thought 
 of his time has been deep and lasting ; he has founded a school of philosophy and a literary 
 style which arc called Emersonian; and though he has failed to win a numerous following, he 
 hat doM much towards molding the ethical opinions of New England, and, iu a less degree, 
 of the whole country. II ts influence has not been limited to his own country. His books hare 
 been widely read in England and Germany, and during his several visits to Europe he has been 
 received by the foremost representatives of modem culture with the honors due to one of the 
 master-minds of the age. His style can hardly be recommended as a model, though it possesses 
 many striking beauties. In order thoroughly to appreciate it, one mnst be in such full sympathy 
 with the writer's spirit as it is the privilege of few to attain. 
 
 HAPOLEON BONAPABTE. 
 
 Napoleon understood his business. Here was a man who in each 
 moment and emergency knew what to do next. It is an immense 
 comfort and refreshment to the spirits, not only of kings, but of 
 citizens. Few men have any next; they live from hand to mouth, 
 without plan, and are ever at the end of their line, and, after each 
 action, wait for an impulse from abroad. Napoleon had been the 
 first man of the world, if his ends had been purely public. As he is, 
 he inspires copfidence and vigor by the extraordinary unity 0^ his 
 action. 
 
 He is firm, sure, self-denying, self-postponing, sacrificing every- 
 thing to his aim, — money, troops, generals, and his own safety also ; 
 not misle<l, like common adventurers, by the splendor of his own 
 means. " Incidents ought not to govern policy," he said, " but pol- 
 icy incidents." "To be hurried away by every event, is to have no 
 political system at all." His victories were only so many doors, and 
 he never for a moment lost sight of his way onward in the dazzle and 
 nproar of the present circumstance. He knew what to do, and he 
 flew to his mark. 
 
 He would shorten a straight line to come at his object. Horriblt- 
 
EMERSON. 
 
 151 
 
 amalou 5 m.iv, no doubt, be collected from his history, of the price 
 at which he bought his successes ; but he must not, therefore, be set 
 down as cruel, but only as one who knew no impediment to his will : 
 not bloodthirsty, not cruel ; but woe to what thin": or person stood in 
 his way ! " Sire, General Clarke caimot combine with General Junot 
 for the dreatlful fire of the Austrian battery." " Let him carry the 
 battery." "Sire, every regiment that approaches the heavy artillery 
 is sacrificed. Sire, what orders ? " " Forward ! forward ! " 
 
 In the plenitude of his resources every obstacle seemed to vanish. 
 There shall be no Alps," he said ; and he built his perfect roads, 
 I limbing by graded galleries their steepest precipices, until Italy was 
 as open to Paris as any town in France. Having decided what was 
 () be done, he did that with might and main. He put out all his 
 ~trenj::th. He risked everything, and spared nothing, — neither am- 
 munition, nor money, nor troops, nor generals, nor himself. If fight- 
 ing be the best mode of adjusting national difl'erences (as large ma- 
 jorities of men seem to agree), certainly Bonaparte was right in making 
 It thorough. 
 
 •* The grand principle of war," he said, " was, that an army ought 
 ihvays to Ik* ready, by day and by night, and at all hours, to make 
 ill the resistance it is cjipable of making." He never economized his 
 ammunition, but on a hostile position rained a torrent of iron, — 
 hells, balls, grape-shot, — to annihilate all defense. He went to the 
 (Ige of his possibility, so heartily was he bent on his object. It is 
 plain that in Italy he did what he could, and all that he could ; he 
 eame several times within an inch of ruin, and his own person was all 
 but lost. He was flung into the marsh at Areola.* The Austrians 
 were between him and his troops in the confusion of the struggle, and 
 he was brought off with desperate eff'orts. At Lonato,t and at other 
 places, he was on the point of being taken prisoner. 
 
 He fought sixty battles. He had never enough. Each victory 
 w.:8 a new weapon. '* My power would fall, were I not to support it 
 by new achievements. Conquest has made me what I am, and con- 
 quest must maintain me." He felt, with every wise man, that as 
 umch life is needed for conservation as for creation. We are always 
 in peril, always in a bod plight, just on the edge of destruction, and 
 only to b.' saved by invention and courage. This vigor was guardetl 
 
 k 
 
 * AicoLA. A rillajre of NorUiPra Italy. 
 
 \ LoKATa A •mall town near Lake Garda in Lai v. 
 
152 CATHCART^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 and tempered by the coldest prudence and punctuality. A thundi 
 bolt in the attiick, he was found invulnerable in his intrenclinients. 
 His very attack was never the inspiration of courage, but the result of 
 calculation. His idea of the best defense consisted in being always 
 the attacking party. "My ambition," he says, "was great, but \\ 
 of a cold nature." 
 
 Everything depended on the nicety of his combinations : the stjirs 
 were not more punctual than his arithmetic. His personal attention 
 descended to the smallest particulars. ** At Montebello I ordered 
 Kellcrmann to attack with eight hundred horse ; and with these he 
 separated the six thousand Hungarian grenadiers before the very eyes 
 of the Austrian cavalry. This cavalry was half a league off, and re- 
 quired a quarter of an hour to arrive on the field of actioii ; and 1 
 have observed it is always these quarters of an hour that decide the 
 fate of a battle." 
 
 Before he fought a battle Bonaparte thought little about what he 
 should do in case of success, but a great deal about what he should 
 do in case of a reverse of fortune. The same prudence and good 
 sense mcrked all his behavior. His instructions to his secretary at 
 the palace are worth remembering: "During the night, enter my 
 chamber as seldom as possible. Do not awake me when you have 
 any good news to communicate ; with that there is no hurry : but 
 when you bring bad news, rouse me instantly, for then there is not 
 a moment to l)e lost." His achievement of business was immense, 
 and enlarges the known powers of man. There have been many 
 working kings, from Ulysses to William of Orange, but none who 
 accomplished a tithe of this man's performance. 
 
 To these gifts of nature Napoleon added the advantage of having 
 been born to a private and humble fortune. In his later days he had 
 the weakness of wishing to add to his crowns and Imdges the pre- 
 scription of aristocracy ; but he knew his debt to his austere edu- 
 cation, and made no secret of his contempt for the born kings, and 
 for " the hereditary donkeys," as he coarsely styled the Bourbons. 
 He said that, in their exile, " they had learned nothing, and forgot 
 nothing." Bonaparte had passed through all the degrees of military 
 service ; but, also, was citizen l^fore he was emperor, and so had the 
 key to citizenship. His remarks and estimates discovered the infor- 
 mation and justness of measurement of the middle class. 
 
 Those who had to deal with him found that he was not to be im- 
 
EMERSON. 153 
 
 l>(>st?d upon, but could cipher ns well as anotlicr man. When the 
 
 xpenses of the empress, of his household, of his palaces, had accurau- 
 
 iied jp-eat debts, Napoleon examined the bills of the creditors him- 
 
 If, detected overcharges and errors, and reduced the claims by con- 
 
 ilerable sums. His j^rand weapon, namely, the millions whom he 
 
 lirected, he owed to the representative character which clothed him. 
 
 He interests us as he stands for France and for Europe ; and he exists 
 
 > captain and king only as far as the Revolution or the interests of 
 
 lie industrious masses found an organ and a leader in him. 
 
 In the social interests he knew the meaning and value of labor, and 
 threw himself naturally on that side. The principal works that have 
 survived him are his magnificent roads. He filled his troops with his 
 spirit, and a sort of firecdom and companionship grew up between 
 him and them, which the forms of his court never permitted between 
 the officers and himself. They performed under his eye that which 
 no others could do. The best document of his relation to his troops 
 is the order of the day on the morning of the battle of Austerlitz, in 
 which Napoleon promises the troops that he will keep his person out 
 of reach of fire. Tliis declaration, which is the reverse of that ordi- 
 narily made by generals and sovereigns on the eve of a battle, suffi- 
 ciently explains the devotion of the army to their leader. 
 
 GOOD BT, PaOUD WOELD ! 
 
 Good by, proud world ! I 'm going home ; 
 
 Thou art not my friend ; 1 am not thine : 
 Too long through weary crowds I roam, — 
 
 A river ark on the ocean brine. 
 Too long I am tossed like the driven foam ; 
 But now, proud world, I 'm going home. 
 
 Grood by to Flattery's fawning face ; 
 To Grandeur with his wise grimace : 
 To upstart Wealth's averted eye ; 
 To supple Office, low and high ; 
 To crowded halls, to court and street, 
 To frozen hearts, and hasting feet. 
 To those who go, and those who come, 
 Good by, proud world, I *n) going home. 
 7* 
 
lOi cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 I go to seek my own hearth-stone, 
 Bosomed in yon green hills alone ; 
 A secret lodge in a plciisant land, 
 Whose groves the frolic fairies planned, 
 Where arches green, the livelong day. 
 Echo the blackbird's roundelay, 
 And evil men have never ti-od 
 A spot that is sacred to thought and God. 
 
 O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
 I mock at the pride of Greece and Rome ; 
 And when I am stretched beneath the pines. 
 Where the evening star so holy shines, 
 I laugh at the lore and the pride of man. 
 At the sophist schools, and the learnetl clan ; 
 For what are they all in their high conceit, 
 When man in the bush with God may meet ? 
 
 THE SEA. 
 
 Behold the Sea, 
 Tlie opaline, the plentiful and strong, 
 Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, 
 Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July : 
 Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, 
 Purger of earth, and medicine of men ; 
 Creating a sweet climate by my breath. 
 Washing out harms and griefs from memoiy. 
 And, in my mathematic ebb and flow. 
 Giving a hint of that which changes not. 
 Rich are the sea-gods : — who gives gifts but they ? 
 They gi-ope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls : 
 They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise. 
 For every wave is weiilth to Daedalus, 
 Wealth to the cunning artist who can work 
 This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves ! 
 A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift ? 
 
HAWTHORNE. 165 
 
 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 1804- 1864. 
 
 NATOAifiKL H\frrHORi«R, the most hrilluint and original writer of romance that America has 
 jti producnl. was born in Salem in WH and died in 1861. He graduated at Bowdoin College 
 hlttS. being a cUusniate of Henry Wadaworth Longfellow. He began to write at an early 
 i|l{ tat hui trat eSbrta received little encouragement Modest, retiring, and singularly srnsi- 
 INb. ke wu oawilling to tbnut himself forward, but patiently awaited the recognition of hia 
 d^ms to literary honors, and the rewards which accrue to the successful author. During the 
 mAj years of his manhood he filled offteea in the Custom Houses of Boston and Salem ; but while 
 diidurging his dntiea with tidflity, he gave his tliought and heart to literar>- labor. His first 
 hook, TVrur* TM Tales, found few readers ; and it may be said that ten years after its publira- 
 tioa his name would hardly have found a place in a catalogue of American writers. In The 
 SearUt Letter, howerer, he vindicated bis right to the title of author, and from the publication 
 of that book his reputation steadily and rapidly increased in brilliancy. In 185'i he was ap- 
 IMMBted Consul to Liverpool by his friend and classmate, President Pierce, and held tlmt office 
 WTcral years, receiving flattering attentions in the most cultivated circles of England. During 
 his residence in that country he gathered material for Our Old Home, one of the most deliglitful 
 leeords of travel and observation ever written. At the expiration of his term of office he pn>- 
 CMded to Italy, where he lived for some time, and, as the fruit of this sojourn, gave to tlie world 
 fl« MmrkU Faun. During the last years of his life the condition of his health obliged him to 
 •bstktn, measurably, from literary work ; but he left behind him several chapters of The Dollhcr 
 Mtmame* which warrant the opinion that the completed work would have been his masterpiece. 
 Sereral years after his death there was discovered among his papers the manuscript o( S-pthnius 
 Ftitom, a weird and repulsive, but strikingly characteristic, story. Mr. Hawthorne died at Ply- 
 ■oath. New Hampshire, while on a journey with Ex-President Pierce. 
 
 On the whole, Hawthorne must be esteemed the foremost writer of prose among Americans ; 
 Ud it would not be easy to select a name from the crowded annals of English literature that is 
 More ckMclyaad honorably associated with the marriage of fine tlionghts to tine language, 
 vhich eonstitates the charm of prose. As a romanrist, he stands alone and unapproachrd. His 
 psychological insight was simply marvelous, and gave a distinguishing and inimitable character 
 Id all his writings. The dark side of thinfN especially attracted him ; he dwelt broodin^ly and 
 with the devotion of an enthusiast upon abnormal manifcjitations of human nature, and delighted 
 ia delineating the intricacies of human passion. Yet to those who knew him intimately he was 
 MUBently tovable ; and in his writings one can catch glimpses of moods of genuine sunny 
 haaor. His style is remarkable for iU purity and gracefulness. Tk€ Scarlet Letter and Tie 
 Hmut <^ Tke Severn GahUa are generally esteemed his best works. The extracts are from Our Old 
 Bmt and Moue$fnm mm OU Manse. 
 
 erne BANQUETS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 It has often perplexed me to imagine how an Englishman will be 
 able to reconcile himself to any fntiire state of existence from which 
 the earthly institution of dinner shall Ix^ excluded. Even if he fail to 
 take hi? appetite along with him (which it seems to me hanlly possi- 
 ble to believe, since this endowment is so essential to his composition), 
 •'le immortal day must still admit an interim of two or three hours 
 iiiring which he will l)e conscious of a slight distaste, at all events, 
 not an absolute repugnance, to merely spiritual nutriment. The 
 
166 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 idea of dinner has 80 ini1)edded itself among his highest and deep- 
 est characteristics, so illuminated itself with intellect and softened 
 itself with the kindest emotions of his heiirt, so linked itself with 
 C'hurch and State, and grown so majestic with long hereditary cus- 
 toms and ceremonies, that by taking it utterly away, Death, instead 
 of putting the final touch to his perfection, would leave him infinitely 
 less complete than we have already known him. In this connection 
 I should be glad to invite the n^der to the official dinner-table of 
 his Worship the Mayor, at a krge English seaport where I speut 
 several years. 
 
 The Mayor's dinner-parties occur as of^en as once a fortnight, and, 
 inviting his guests by fifty or sixty at a time, his Worship probably 
 assembles at his board most of the eminent citizens and distiiignished 
 personages of the town and neighborhood more than once during his 
 year's incumbency, and very much, no doubt, to the promotion of 
 gocnl feeling among individuals of opposite parties aiul diverse pur- 
 suits in life. A miscellaneous party of Englishmen can always find 
 more comfortable ground to meet upon than as many Americans, 
 their differences of opinion being incomparably less radical than ours, 
 and it being the sincerest wish of all their hearts, whether they call 
 themselves Liberals or what not, that nothing in this world shall ever 
 be greatly altered from what it has been and is. Thus there is 
 seldom such a vindence of political hostility that it may not be dis- 
 solved in a glass or two of wine, without making the good liquor 
 any more dry or bitter than accords with English taste. 
 
 The first dinnei of this kind at which I had the honor to be present 
 took place during assize-time, and included among the guests the 
 judges and the prominent members of the bar. Reaching the Town 
 Hall at seven o'clock, I communicated my name to one of several 
 splendidly dres.sed footmen, and he repeated it to another on the first 
 stairc^ise, by Avnom it was passed to a third, and thence to a fourth at' 
 the door of tl-e reception-room, losing all resemblance to the original 
 sound in the course of these transmissions ; so that I had the advan- 
 tage of making my entrance in the character of a stranger, not only 
 to the whole company, but to myself as well. His Worship, however, 
 kindly recognized me, and put me on speaking terms with two or 
 three gentlemen, whom I found very affable, and all the more hospi- 
 tably attentive on the score of my nationality. It is verj' singular 
 how kind an Englishman will almost invariably be to an individual 
 
HAWTHORNE. 157 
 
 .\uu J a .lij. »i II iHHii I > I 
 
 i.,iim^ a |..L of his prejudice against the 
 American character in the lump. My new acquaintances took evident 
 piiiiis to put me at my ease ; and, in requital of their good-nature, I 
 soon l)egan to look round at the general company in a critical spirit, 
 making my crude o])scrvations apart, and dnnving silent inferences, 
 of the correctness of which I should not have been half so well satis- 
 fied a year afterwards as at that moment. 
 
 There were two judges present, a good many lawyers, and a few 
 officers of the army in uniform. The other guests seemed to be 
 principally of the mercantile class, and among them was a ship-owner 
 from Nova Scotia, with whom I coalesced a little, inasmuch as we were 
 liorn with the same sky over our heads, and an unbroken continuity 
 of soil between his abode and mine. There was one old gentleman, 
 whose char.icter I never made out, with powdered hair, clad in black 
 breeclies and silk stockings, and wearing a rapier at his side ; other- 
 wise, with the exception of the military uniforms, there was little or 
 no pretence of official costume. It being the first considerable assem- 
 blage of Englishmen that I luul seen, my honest impression al)out 
 them was, that they were a heavy and homely set of people, with a 
 riMnarkal)le roughness of aspect and behavior, not repulsive, but 
 beneath which it required more familiarity with the national cliaracter 
 th:m I then possessed always to detect the good breeding of a gentle- 
 man. Being generally middle-aged, or still farther advanced, they 
 were by no means graceful in figure ; for the comeliness of the youth- 
 ful Englisliman rapidly diminishes with years, his body appearing to 
 grow longer, his legs to abbreviate themselves, and his stomach to 
 assume the dignified prominence which justly belongs to that metrop- 
 olis of his system. His face (what with the acridity of the atmos- 
 phere, ale at lunch, wine at dinner, ancY a well-digested abundance of 
 succiUent food) gets red and mottled, and develops at least one addi- 
 tional chin, with a promise of more ; so that, finally, a stranger recog- 
 nizes Ris animal part at the most superficial glance, but must take 
 time and a little piins to discover the intellectual. Comparing him 
 with an American, I really thought that our national paleness and 
 lean habit of flesh gave us greatly the advantage in an jrsthetic point 
 of view. It seemed to me, moreover, that the English tailor had not 
 clone 80 ranch as he might and ought for these heavy figures, but had 
 gone on wilfully exaggerating their unconthness by the roominess 
 of their gar«»ents ; he had evidently no idea of accuracy of fit, and 
 
158 CATIK aim'- literary Kl.MU.K. 
 
 smartness was eiitin-lv out nt' hi- line. But, to be quite op. ii wiih 
 the reader, T afterwards leiiriicd to think that thi- aforesaid tailor has 
 a deeper art than liis brethren amonir ourselvt-. ktiouiiiir how to dress 
 ln> cu-tiiiiKi-- with >ueh individual propruiN that they look as if tlie\ 
 were born in their clothes, the tit beinir to tiie eliaraeter rather than 
 the form. If you make an Hn«j:lishnia!i -ni :rt unh >- he be a very 
 exceptional one, of whom ! hav.' -(cn ; i make him a mon- 
 
 ster: his ]>est aspect is that of i)on(lerou- i. -)-> , u.l)iliiy. 
 
 in due time we were summoned to the tahh-. and went thither in 
 no solemn procession, but with a good deal ot' io>tiinir, thrusting 
 held nd, and serand^lini: for places when \\( r rli,,l <uir destination. 
 The IcLTal L:"entlemen. 1 su-])eei. wnc r ;;i(ii<oi-ous 
 
 zeal, whieii 1 never atnrward- remarked m a smular party. The 
 diniug-hall wa> of noble Mze, and. like the other rooms of the suite, 
 was gorgeously painted and gilded and brilliantly illuminated. There 
 was a splendid table-service, and a noble array of footmen, some of 
 them in plain clothes, and other* wearinp: the town-livery, richly deco- 
 rated with irold lace, and them- IK nt specimens of the bloom- 
 ing youiiLT manhood of Britain. V. .., n \\e were fairly seated, it was 
 certainly an a*rreeable spectacle to look up and down the Ion-- vista 
 of v:iv'   i] behold t!i( ni -o resolute, so conscious that 
 there w ^ . nt business in hand, and so determined to l)e 
 equal to the occasion. 
 
 T)urim: the dinner T had a irood deal ^ ' i:t conversation with 
 the p-ntlenum on either side of me. iiem, a lawyer, ex- 
 
 patiated with irreat unction on the >oei;ii >tandinLr of the judges. 
 R(>})resentinLr the diirnity and authority of the Crown, tluy take pre- 
 cedence, durini: :i>>ize-tim(\ of the hiirhest nnlitiiry men in the king- 
 dom, of the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, of the Archbishops, of the 
 royal Pukes, niul <>ven of tlie Prince of AVales. For the nonce, they 
 are the Li-r.;,u -i men in llmrland. With a irlow of professional (om- 
 placency that amounted to enthusiasm, iny friend assured me, that, in 
 case of a royal dinner, a judjre, if actually holdimr an assize, would be 
 expected to offer 1:> arm and take the Qu.'cu Inr-.lf to t1ie tal)le. 
 HappeniuiT to ]>e in company with some of the<e elevated personages, 
 on subsequciit occasions, it appeared to me that the judges are fully 
 conscious of their paramount claims to respect, and take rather more 
 pains to impress them on their ceremonial inferiors tlian men of hiofh 
 hereditaiy rank are apt to do. Bishops, if it be not irr.verent to say 
 
HAWTHORNE. 159 
 
 80, are sometimes marked by a similar characteristic. Dignified posi- 
 tion is so sweet to an Englishman thi.t he needs to be born in it, and 
 to feel it thorougldy incorporated with his nature from its original 
 germ, in order to keep him from flaunting it obtrusively in the faces 
 of iimocent bystanders. 
 
 After an hour or two of valiant achievement with knife and fork 
 came the dessert ; and at the point of the festiv^il where finger-glasses 
 are usually introduced, a large silver basin was earned round to the 
 guests, containing rose-water, into which we dipped the ends of our 
 napkins and were conscious of a delightful fnigrance, instead of that 
 heavy and weary odor, the hatefid ghost of a defunct dinner. 
 
 When the cloth was removed, a goodly group of decanters were set 
 before the Mayor, who sent them forth on their outward voyage, full 
 freighted with Port, Sherry, Madeira, and Claret, of which excellent 
 liquors, methought, the latter found least acceptance among the guests. 
 When every man had filled his glass, his Worship stood up and pro- 
 posed a toast. It was, of course, " Our gi-acious Sovereign," or 
 words to that effect ; and immediately a band of musicians, whose 
 preliminary tootings and thnimmings I had already heard behind me, 
 struck up " God save the Queen," and the whole company rose with 
 one impulse to assist in singing that famous national anthem. 
 
 MOSSES FEOM AN OLD MANSE. 
 
 We stand now on the river's brink. It may well be called the 
 Conconl, — the river of peace and quietness, — for it is certainly the 
 most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered impercepti- 
 bly towards its eternity, the sea. Positively, I had lived three weeks 
 beside it, l)efore it grew quite clear to my perception which way the 
 current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a north- 
 western breeze is vexing its surface, on a sunshiny dny. 
 
 From the incurable indolence of its nature, the stream is happily 
 incapable of becoming the slave of human ingenuity, as is the fate 
 of so many a wild, free, mountain torrent. While all things else are 
 cniiipcllod to subserve some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life 
 auiy in lazy lilK*rty, without turning a solitary spindle, or affording 
 even water-power enough to grind the com that grows upon its 
 banks. 
 
 The torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly 
 
 k 
 
lOU CATIICAIIT S LITERARY READER. 
 
 shore, nor so much as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part 
 of its course. It slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the loin 
 raeadow-grass, and bathes the overhanging boughs of elder-busli( 
 and w illows, or the roots of elm and ash trees, and clumps of maph >. 
 Fhigs and rushes grow along its plashy shore ; the yellow water-lily 
 spreads its broad, flat leaves on the margin ; and the fragrant white 
 pond-lily abounds, generaUy selecting a position just so far from tin 
 river's Ixink that it cannot Ije grasped, save at the hazard of plun- 
 ging in. 
 
 It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and 
 perfume, springing, as it does, from the black mud over which tlu 
 river sleeps, and where lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the 
 mud-turtle, whom continiuil washing cannot cleanse. It is the same 
 blac-k mud out of which the yellow lily sucks its rank life and noi- 
 some odor. Thus we see, too, in the world, that some persons a- 
 similate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstanci- 
 which supply good and beautiful results — the fragrance of celestial 
 flowers — to the daily life of others. 
 
 The Old Manse! — we had almost forgotten it, l)uL will return 
 thither through the orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, 
 in the decline of his life, when the neighbors laughed at the hoary- 
 headinl man for planting trees from which he could have no prospect 
 of gathering fruit. Even had that been the case, there was only so 
 much the better motive for planting them, in the pure and unselfish 
 hope of benefiting his successors, — an end so. seldom achieved by 
 more ambitious efforts. But the old minister, l)efore reaching his 
 patriarchal age of ninety, ate the apples from this orchard during 
 many years, and added silver and gold to his annual stipend by dis- 
 posing of the superfluity. 
 
 It is pleasant to think of liim, walking among the trees in the quiet 
 afternoons of early autumn, and picking up here and there a wind- 
 fall ; while he observes how heavily the branches are weighed down, 
 and computes the numl)er of empty flour-ban-els that will be filled by 
 their burden. He loved each tree, doubtless, as if it had been his 
 own child. An orchard has a relation to mankind, and readily con- 
 nects itself with matters of the heart. The trees possess a domestic 
 character ; they have lost the wild nature of their forest kindred, and 
 have grown humanized by receiving the care of man, as well as by 
 contributing to his wants. 
 
HAWTHOENB. 161 
 
 I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world, 
 
 > that of findinp^ myself, with only the two or three mouths which it 
 
 u;is my privilege to feed, the sole inheritor of the old clergyman's 
 
 wealth of fruits. Throughout the summtr, there were cherries and 
 
 ( urraiits ; and then came Autumn, with his immense burden of apples, 
 
 (In)pping them continually from his overladen shoulders as he trudged 
 
 along. In the stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great 
 
 apple was audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere 
 
 necessity of perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, 
 
 iiat flung down bushels upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach- 
 
 ves, which, in a good year, tormented me with peaches, neither to be 
 
 .ten nor kept, nor, without labor and pei-plexity, to be given away. 
 
 The idea of an infinite generosity and inexhaustible bounty, on the 
 
 p;irt of our mother Nature, was well worth obtaining through such 
 
 ires as these. That feeling can be enjoyed in perfection not otdy 
 
 y the natives of summer islands, where the bread-fruit, the cocoa, the 
 
 p:iim, and the orange grow spontaneously, and hold forth the ever- 
 
 r.ady meal ; but, likewise, almost as well, by a man long habituated 
 
 t(i city life, who plunges into such a solitude as that of the Old Manse, 
 
 where he plucks the fruit of trees that he did not plant ; and which, 
 
 tlierefore, to my heterodox taste, bear the closer resemblance to those 
 
 fliat grew in Eden. 
 
 Not that it ca!i be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate 
 
 moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as 
 
 i> never found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they 
 
 would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed, 
 
 be it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower, or 
 
 w orthless weed, — should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it 
 
 trom infancy to maturity, altogether by their own care. If there Ihj 
 
 )t too many of them, each individual plant becomes an object of 
 
 parate interest. 
 
 My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely 
 
 I lie rl-riit patent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it 
 
 Knt I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, a!id 
 
 tiKi 111 (ieep contemplation over my vegetable progeny, with a love 
 
 Mat nobody could share or conceive of, who had never taken part in 
 
 he process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in 
 
 i>e world to observe a hill of lieans thrusting aside the soil, or a row 
 
 r early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate 
 
 leen. 
 
 K 
 
16:i cathcart's lite&a&y readee. 
 
 LYTTON. 
 
 1805 -1873. 
 
 Sm Edwakd Bclwe* (raised to the peerage with the title of I>ord Lytton) was born in Eng- 
 land in 1805 and died in 187:^. lie fraduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 182G. In 18S2 
 he entered ParUamcDt, continaing a member till 1841 ; in 18u2 be was re-ciected to a scat in that 
 body, where be serred until his elevation to the peerage. In 1858 he was chosen Lord Rrctor of 
 Um Univeraity of Glasgow. At a rery tender age be began to write rerses, and long before 
 he reached his m^rity. had pabliahed a volume. His first book, Itauul, an OnenUil Tale, 
 bears the date of 1820. It was followed by several volumes of verse, and bis first novel, Falkland, 
 appeared in \«n, the year of hb marriage. The next year he gave to the world his famons 
 novel, Ptikmm, which established his reputation on a firm basis. It was surpassed in merit, 
 bowerer. by some of his subsequent works, especially by Bienti. Lord Lyttun distin^ished 
 himself in almost erery departmeot of literature, — as poet, easayist, novelist, and dramatist. 
 Sereral of his plays. The Lmdf efLgomt and Rickelini, rank among the most popular plays on the 
 modem stage. He was a most prolific writer ; even a catalogue of his productions would be 
 too long for a place here. During the ten years preceding his dtath Lord Lytton published 
 ■taBoat aothing, bvt fcmid time, amid his political duties, to do a good deal of literary work. 
 Saee hia death two of hie Mnrels have been given to the world, Ketulm Ckillingly and The 
 Ftmnmu. The former is tuperior to any of his earlier books, representing the high culture of 
 the author in its fullest derelopment Judged by Us first compositions, he won the reputation 
 of a literary fop, to whose ultra-fastidiona taste finish was the chief merit in composition. He 
 aeened to hold himself aloof from the world, as from possible contamination. In his later novels 
 thia teodency waa less marked : and in Kaulm Ckillimfflf it disappears wholly, being replaced 
 by a catholic, warm-hearted philosophy that bespeaks a healthy and genial nature. For the 
 work of the novelist he was most happily equipped. Tlie art of delineating the passion of Ioa e 
 was his in full measure, and he was a master of graphic and dramatic narrative. In his earlier 
 books, FklkUmd and Paul Clifford, he exhibits the license and le^ ity of youth ; but these vices 
 were corrected m later life, and morally, his last novels are nnexcf ptionablc. Regarded as a 
 whole. Lord Lytton's literary career waa conspicuously successful, and he left behind him not 
 only an honored name, but many enduring fmita of his genius and industry. The firat extract is 
 ttwa Mf Nowtl, the second is from Letlm, or tkt ^ege of Granada ; the poetry from Tke Lady of 
 
 OH KEVOLTTTION. 
 
 " My dear boy," cried Riccabocca kindly, " the only thing sure and 
 tangible to which these writers would lead you lies at the first step, 
 and that is what is commonly called a Revolution. Now, I know 
 what that is. 1 have gone, not indeed through a revolution, but an 
 attempt at one." 
 
 Leonard raised his eyes towards his master with a look of profound 
 respect and great curiosity. 
 
 "Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the boy gazed 
 exchanged its usual grotesque and sardonic expression for one ani- 
 mated, noble, and heroic. " Yes, not a revolution for chimeras, but 
 for that cause which the coldest allow to be good, and which, when 
 successful, all time approves as di\ane, — the redemption of our native 
 
LTTTON. 1 63 
 
 soil from the rule of the foreigner ! I have shared in such an attempt. 
 And," continued the Italian, mournfully, " recalling now all the evil 
 p;issions it arouses, all the ties it dissolves, all the blood that it com- 
 mands to flow, all the healthful industry it arrests, all the madmen 
 that it arms, all the victims that it dupes, I question whether one man 
 rt-ally honest, pure, and humane, who has once gone through such an 
 ordeal, would ever hazard it aginn, unless he was assured that the 
 victory was certain, — ay, and the object for which he fights not to be 
 wrested from his hands amidst the uproar of the elements that the 
 battle has released." 
 
 The Italian paused, shaded his brow with his hand, and remained 
 long silent. Then, gradually resuming his ordinary tone, he con- 
 tinued : — 
 
 " Revolutions that have no definite objects made clear by the posi- 
 tive experience of history, — revolutions, in a word, that aim less at 
 substitutinj^ one law or one dynasty for another, than at changing the 
 whole scheme of society, have been little attempted by real statesmen. 
 l>en Lycurgus • is proved to be a myth who never existed. Such 
 organic changes are but in the day-dreams of philosophers who lived 
 apart from the actual world, and whose opinions (though generally 
 tiiey were very benevolent, good sort of men, and wrote in an el^ant 
 poetical style) one would no more take on a plain matter of life than 
 one would look upon Virgil's Eclogues as a faithful picture of the 
 ordinary pains and pleasures of the peasants who tend our sheep, 
 llcid them as you would read poets, and they are delightful. But at- 
 tempt to shape the world according to the poetr}% and fit yourself for 
 I madhouse. The farther off the age is from the realization of such 
 projects, the more these poor philosophers have indulged them. Thus, 
 it was amidst the saddest corruption of court manners that it became 
 the fashion in Paris to sit for one's picture, with a crook in one's 
 hand, as Alexia or Daphne. Just as liberty was fast dying out of 
 Greece, and the successors of Alexander were founding their mon- 
 archies, and Rome was growing up to crush in its iron grasp all states 
 sive its own, Plato withdraws his eyes from the world, to open them 
 ill his dreamy Atlantis. f Just in the grimmest period of English 
 history, with the ax hanging over his head, Sir Thomas More gives 
 
 * I.x I Ri.i s A raouMU SptrUn lawgiver, supposed to hare lived aboat 860 B.C. See 
 I'lmtarek't Uttt. 
 f PUto't idea of a perfect tUte it unfolded in the U»$ and the SfpublU. 
 
JOl CATHCJUirS LITERARY READER. 
 
 you his Utopia.* Just when the world is to be the theater of a new 
 Sesostris, the sages of France tell you that the ao^e is too enlightened 
 for war, that man is henceforth to be governed by pure reason and 
 live in a paradise. Very pretty reading all this to a man like me, 
 Lenny, who can admire and smile at it. But to you, to the man who 
 has to work for bis living, to the man who thinks it would be so 
 much more pleasant to live at his ease in a phaknstery f than to work 
 eight or ten hours a day ; to the man of talent and action and indus- 
 try, whose future is invested in that tranquillity and onler of a statr 
 in which Udent and action and industry are a certain capital; why. 
 the great bankers had better encourage a theory to upset the system 
 of banking ! Whatever disturbs society, yea, even by a causeless 
 panic, much more by an actual stniggle, falls first upon the market of 
 labor, and thence affects prejudicially every department of intelligence. 
 In such tfmes the arts are arrested, literature is neglected, people arc 
 too busy to read anything save appeals to their passions. And capi- 
 tal, shaken in its sense of security, uo longer ventures boldly through 
 the land, calling forth all the energies of toil and enterprise, and ex- 
 tending to every workman his reward. Now, Lenny, take this piece 
 of advice. You are young, clever, and aspiring : men rarely succeed 
 in changing the world ; but a man seldom fails of success if he lets 
 the world alone, and resolves to make the Ix^st of it. You are in the 
 midst of the great crisis of your life ; it is the stniggle between the 
 new desires knowledge excites, and that sense of poverty, which those 
 desires convert either into hope and emulation or into envy and 
 despair. I grant that it is an up-hill work that lies Wfore you ; but 
 don't you think it is always easier to climb a mountain than it is to level 
 it ? These books call on you to level the mountain ; and that raoun- 
 
 • Utopia. (See note, page 317. ) This work, named from a king Utopus, written in Latin, was 
 published at Loavain in 1516. The first English edition, translated by Robynson, was published 
 in London in 1551. Btsliop Burnet's translation appeared in 1684. Hallam^ys: "The Republic 
 of Plato no doubt furnished More with the genu of his perfect society: but it would be unreasona- 
 ble to deny him the merit of having struck out the fiction of its real existence from his own fertile 
 imagination -, and it is manifest that some of his moet distingnished successors in the same walk 
 of romance, especially Swift, were largely indebted to his reasoning as well as inventive talents. 
 Tl»ose wIk) read the I'topia in Burnet's translation may believe that theyareinBrobdinguag; so 
 similar is the vein of satirical humor and easy language. If false and impracticable theories are 
 found in the rtop'tu Cand, perhaps, he knew them to be 8urb\ this is in a much greater degree 
 true of the Platonic republic." In a note to a later edition of his Literanj History, Hallam qualifies 
 the assertion that More Iwrrowed the germ of his Utopia from Plato, and says, " Neither the JU- 
 public nor the Latcs of Plato bear any resemblance to the I'topia." Lord Bacon's treatise on the 
 same subject. The Nev> Atlantis, a Fragment, was published in 1635, and Swift's Gulliver's 
 Trarrls in 1726 - 27- 
 
 t PuALANSTEBT. An Organized community of-socialists. 
 
LYTTON. 165 
 
 tain is the property of other people, subdivided amongst a great many 
 proprietors and protected by law. At the first stroke of the pickax 
 it is ten to one but what you are taken up fur a trespass. But the 
 patli up the mountain is a right of way uncontested. You may be 
 sifc at tlu^ summit before (even if the owners are fools enough to let 
 you) you could have leveled a yard. It is more than two thousand 
 years ago," quoth the doctor, " since poor Plato began to level it, and 
 the mountain is as high as ever ! " 
 
 Thus saying, Riccabocca came to the end of his pipe, and stalking 
 tiiouLrhtfuUy away, left Leonard Fairfield trying to extract light from 
 tlu- ^uioke. 
 
 SUREENDEE OF GEENADA. 
 
 Pay dawned upon Grenada, and the beams of the winter sun, 
 smiling away the clouds of the past night, played cheerily upon the 
 murmuring waves of the Xenil and the Darro. Alone, upon a bal- 
 cony commanding a view of the bciiutiful landscape, stood Boabdil,* 
 the last of the Moorish kings. He had sought to bring to his aid all 
 the lessons of the philosophy he had so ardently cultivated. 
 
 " What ai-c we," said the musing prince, *' that we should fill the 
 earth with ourselves, — we kings ! Earth resounds with the crash of 
 my falling throne ; on the ear of races unborn the echo will live pro- 
 longed. But what have I lost ? Nothing that was necessary to my 
 happiness, my repose ; nothing save the source of all my wretched- 
 ness, the Marah of my life ! Shall I less enjoy heaven and earth, or 
 thought and action, or man's more material luxuries of food and sleep, 
 — the common and cheap desires of all? At the worst, I sink but to 
 a level with chiefs and princes ; I am but leveled with those whom 
 
 the multitude admire and envy But it is time to depart." So 
 
 saying, he descended to the court, flung himself on his barb, and, 
 with a small and saddened train passed through the gate which we 
 yet survey, by a blackened and crumbling tower, overgrown with 
 vines and ivy ; thence, amid gnnlens, now appertaining to the con- 
 vent of the victor faith, he took his mournful and unnoticed way. 
 
 When he came to the middle of the hill that rises above those gnr- 
 
 • BoABDTL. The Uat Moorish king of Granada. Ferdinand of Are(:on dethroned him, 1491. 
 led to Africa, and died aliont 1BS6. For nearly eipht centuries the Moors had 
 lield poMettion of OniUMla, it lieing the last province of the Peninsula recovered by the Chris* 
 tMBS. Tbe reader will find • delifhtfal history of this ranuntic country and ito perpetual war* 
 fa Irring'a Cbm^imt tf Grmmada. 
 
 BiMbdtt 
 held pc 
 
 ^ tiaas. 
 
 ^L falrrii 
 
iG6 catucart's literary reader. 
 
 dens, the steel of the Spanish armor gleamed upon him, as the detach- 
 ment sent to occupy the palace marched over the summit in steady 
 order and profound silence. At the head of the vanguard rode, upon 
 a snow-white palfrey, the Bishop of Avila, followed by a long train of 
 barefooted monks. Tliey halted as Boabdil approached, and the grave 
 bishop saluted him with the air of one who addresses an infidel and 
 an inferior. With the quick sense of dignity common to the great, 
 and yet more to the fallen, Boabdil felt, but resented not the pride 
 of the ecclesiastic. ** Gro, Christian," said he, mildly ; " the gates ot 
 the Alhambra are open, and Allah has bestowed the palace and the 
 city upon your king. May his virtues atone the faults of Boabdil ! " 
 So saying, and waiting no answer, he rode on, without looking to tl 
 right or the left. The Spaniards also pursued their way. 
 
 The sun had fairly risen above the mountains, when Boabdil and 
 his tniin beheld, from the eminence on which they were, the whole 
 armament of Spain ; and at the same moment, louder than the tramp 
 of horse or the clash of arms, was heard distinctly the solemn chant ot 
 Te Beum, which preceded the blaze of the unfurled and lofty standards. 
 Boalxlil, himself still silent, heard the groans and acclamations of his 
 train : he turned to cheer or chide them, and then saw, from his own 
 watch-tower, with the sun shining full upon its pure and dazzling 
 surface, the silver cross of Spain. His Alhambra was already in the 
 hands of the foe ; while beside that badge of the holy war waved the 
 gay and flaunting flag of St. Jago, the canonized Mars of the chivalry 
 of Spain. At that sight the king's voice died within him ; he gave the 
 rein to his barb, impatient to close the fatal ceremonial, and slackened 
 not his speed till almost within bow-shot of the first rank of the army. 
 
 Never had Christian war assumed a more splendid and imposing 
 aspect. Far as the eye could reach extended the glittering and gor- 
 geous lines of that goodly power, bristling with sun-lighted spears 
 and blazoned banners ; while beside murmured and glowed and 
 danced the silver and laughing Xenil, careless what lord should 
 possess, for his little day, the banks that bloomed by its everlasting 
 course. By a small mosque halted the flower of the army. Sur- 
 rounded by the arch-priests of that mighty hierarchy, the peers and 
 princes of a court that rivaled the Roland of Charlemagne, was seen 
 the kingly form of Ferdinand himself, with Isabel at his right hand, 
 and the high-born dames of Spain, relieving, with their gay colors 
 and sparkling gems, the sterner splendor of the crested helmet and 
 
LYTTON. 167 
 
 polished mail. Within sight of the royal group, Boabdil halted, 
 composed his aspect so as best to conceal his soul, and a little in 
 advance of his scanty train, but never in mien and majesty more a 
 king, the son of Abdallah met his haughty conqueror. 
 
 At the sight of his princely countenance and golden hair, his comely 
 and commanding beauty, made more touching by youth, a thrill of 
 compassionate admiration ran through that assembly of the brave 
 and fair. Ferdinand and Isaliel slowly advanced to meet their late 
 rival, — their new subject; and as Boabdil would have dismounted, 
 the Spanish king placed his hand upon his shoulder. " Brother and 
 prince," said he, " forget thy sorrows ; and may our friendship here- 
 after console thee for reverses against which thou hast contended as a 
 hero and a king ; resisting ma^j, but resigned at length to God." 
 
 Boabdil did not aftect to return this bitter but \uiintentional 
 mockery of compliment. He bowed his head, and remained a moment 
 silent ; then motioning to his train, four of his officers approached, 
 and, kneeling beside Ferdinand, proffered to him, upon a silver 
 Inickler, the keys of the city. "O king!" then said Boabdil, "ac- 
 cept the keys of the last hold which has resisted the arms of Spain. 
 The empire of the Moslem is no more. Thine are the city and the 
 poo])le of Grenada ; yielding to thy prowess, they yet confide in thy 
 nil !( V. ' " They do well," said the king ; " our promises shall not be 
 l)roken. But since we know the gallantry of Moorish cavaliers, not to 
 us, but to gentler hands, shall the keys of Grenada be surrendered." 
 
 Thus saWng, Fenlinand gave the keys to Isabel, who would have 
 addressed some soothing flatteries to Boabdil, but the emotion and 
 excitement were too much for her compassionate heart, heroine and 
 queen though she was ; and when she lifted her eyes upon the calm 
 and pale features of the fallen monarch, the tears gushed from them 
 irresistibly, and her voice died in murmurs. A faint flush overspread 
 the features of Boabdil, and there was a momentary pause of embar- 
 r:is<inent, which the Moor was the first to break. 
 
 "Fair queen," said he, with mournful and pathetic dignity, "thou 
 canst read the heart that thy generous sympathy touches and subdues: 
 this is my last, but not least glorious conquest. But I detain ye; 
 let not my aspect cloud your triumph. Suffer me to say farewell." 
 "Farewell, my brother," replied Fenlinand, "and may fair fortune 
 <xn with you ! Forget the past ! " Boabdil smiled bitterly, saluted 
 the royal pair with profound respect and silent reverence, and rode 
 
1G8 cathcart's literaey reader. 
 
 slowly on, leaving the army below, as he ascended the path that hd 
 to his new principality beyond the Alpuxarras. As the trees snatched 
 the Moorish cavalcade from the view of the king, Ferdinand ordered 
 the army to recommence its march ; and trumpet and cymbal present) \ 
 sent their music to the ear of the Moslem. 
 
 Boalxlil spurred on at full speed, till his panting charger halted ; 
 the little village where his mother, his slaves, and his faithful wilV 
 Armine (sent on before), awaited him. Joining these, he proceeds I 
 without delay upon his mehmcholy path. They ascended that emi- 
 nence which is the pass into the Alpuxarras. From its height, the 
 vale, the rivers, the spires, and the towers of Grenada broke gloriously 
 upon the view of the little band. They halted mechanically and ab- 
 ruptly ; every eye was turned to the belovwl scene. The proud shame 
 of baffled warriors, the t<;nder memories of home, of childhood, of 
 fatherland, swelled every heart, and gushed from every eye. 
 
 Suddeidy the distant Iwom of artillery broke from the citadel, and 
 rolled along the sun-lighted valley and crystal river. A univers.il 
 wail burst from the exiles ; it smote, it overpowered the heart of the 
 ill-starred king, in vain seeking to wrap himself in Eastern pride or 
 stoical philosophy. Tlie tears gushed from his eyes, and he covered 
 his face with his hands. The band wound slowly on through the 
 solitiiry defiles ; and that place, where the king wept at the last view 
 of his lost empire, is still called The Last Sigh of the Mooe. 
 
 CLAUDE MELNOTTE'S APOLOGY AND DEFENSE.* 
 
 Pauline, by pride 
 Angels have fallen ere thy time ; by pride, — 
 Tliat sole alloy of thy most lovely mould, — 
 The evil spirit of a bitter love 
 And a revengeful heart, had power upon thee. 
 From my first years my soul was filled with thee ; 
 I saw thee midst the flowers the lowly boy 
 Tended, unmarked by thee, — a spirit of bloom. 
 And joy and freshness, as spring itself 
 "Were made a living thing, and wore thy shape ! 
 I saw thee, and the passionate heart of man 
 Entered the breast of the wild-dreaming boy ; 
 
 » The extract is from the play, The Lady ef Lyotu. 
 
LYTTON. 169 
 
 And from that hour I grew — what to the last 
 
 1 shall be — thine adorer ! Well, this love, 
 
 Vain, frantic, — guilty, if thou wilt, — became 
 
 A fountain of ambition and bright hope ; 
 
 I thought of tales tliat by the winter hearth 
 
 Old gossips tell, — how maidens sprung from kings 
 
 Have stoopL'd from their high sphere ; how Love, like Death, 
 
 Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook 
 
 Beside the scepter. Thus I made my home 
 
 In the soft palace of a fairy Future ! 
 
 My father died ; and I, the peasant-born, 
 
 Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise 
 
 Out of the prison of my mean estate ; 
 
 And, with such jewels as the exploring mind 
 
 Brings from the caves of Knowledge, buy my ransom 
 
 From those twin jailers of the during he; rt, — 
 
 Low birth and iron fortune. Thy bright image, 
 
 Glassed in my soul, took all the hues of glory. 
 
 And lured me on to those inspiring toils 
 
 By which man masters men ! For thee, I grew 
 
 A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages ! 
 
 For thee, I sought to borrow from each Grace 
 
 And every Muse such attributes as lend 
 
 Ideal charms to Love. I thought of thee, 
 
 Aiul passion taught me poesy, — of thee. 
 
 And on the painter's canvas grew the life 
 
 Of beauty ! — Art became the shadow 
 
 Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes ! 
 
 Men called me vain, — - some, mad, — I heeded not ; 
 
 But still toiled on, hoped on, — for it was sweet, 
 
 If not to win, to feel more worthy, thee ! 
 
 At last, in one mad hour, I dared to pour 
 The thoughts that burst their channels into song. 
 And sent them to thee, — such a tribute, lady, 
 As beauty rarely scorns, even from the meanest. 
 The name — appended by the burning heart 
 That longed to show its idol what bright things 
 It had created — yea, the enthusiast's name, 
 
170 CATHCARl's LITERARY READER. 
 
 That sliould liavf I). I'll tliy triuiii])li. was iliy scorn! 
 
 That verv lioiir - uluu ])assion, tunicd to wratli, 
 
 Resembltil hatred inos.t ; when thy disdain 
 
 Made my whole soul a chaos — in that hour 
 
 The tempters found me a revengeful tool 
 
 For tlieir reven<re ! Thou hadst trampled on the worm,- 
 
 It turntil, and stung thee! 
 
 A LOVEE'S DBEAM OF HOME. 
 
 Nay, dearest, nay. if thou wouldst have me paint 
 
 The home to uliicli. coidd love fidtil it> ])i-ay( r, 
 
 This hand would lead thee, listen : a deep vale, 
 
 Shut f)ut In Alpine hills from the rnde world, 
 
 Near a drar lake,"*' of irold 
 
 And ulii-])criiiir niuu. - . li.--.m_ -..;i.'-t >kies 
 
 As cloiidhs-^, 'iavc w ith w.vr ; iid ro-calc shadows, 
 
 As I would have thy fate ! 
 
 A palace lifting to eternal sunnncr 
 
 Its marble walls, from out a \\er 
 
 Of coolest foliage musical witli birds, 
 
 Whose songs should syllable thy name ! At noon 
 
 We 'd sit beneath the arehinir vines, and wonder 
 
 Why Earth eouhl be unhapj)y, while the Heaven 
 
 Still left us yoiitli and love ; we 'd have no friends 
 
 That were not lovers ; no ambition, save 
 
 To excel them all in love ; we 'd read no books 
 
 That \vt ic not tales of love, — that we might smile 
 
 To think how poorly eloquence of words 
 
 Translates the poetry of hearts like ours ! 
 
 And when iiiirht came. aniid>t tlic Lrcathless heavens 
 
 We 'd triuss wliat star should be our home when love 
 
 Becomes immortal : wliile the perfumed light 
 
 Stole thronpfh the mists of alabaster lamps. 
 
 And every air was heavy witli the sighs 
 
 Of onum-c irrovfs and music from sweet lutes. 
 
 And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth 
 
 r the midst of roses ! Dost thou like the picture? 
 
 • Lnkc Conio. 
 
DISRAELI. 171 
 
 DISRAELI. 
 
 1805- 
 
 BenjAXi:* Piskaeli, eminent in liternture and politics, was born in London in 1805. He is 
 th-j son of Isaac Disraeli, author of several anique and valuable books, The Curiotities of L'xtera- 
 turt. The CmUmitiet of Autkort, etc Beiganiin produced his first book, Vitiun Grey, a novel of 
 extraordinary merit, in his twenty-first year. After several defeats be was elected to Parliament 
 for tke Borough of Maidstone, in 1837, and since that time, when nut in hi^h ofHce, has been an 
 actire member of the House of Commons. He has three times been ChanceUor of the Exchequer, 
 was Prime Minister in 1M8, and in February, l874> > n the dissolutiou ot Gladstone's Ministry, 
 was called by the Qoern to form a new Cabinet. His literary efforts have been mainly in the 
 Imc of •ctkn, antf sereral of his novels rank among the best of the century. Of these may be 
 111. t.tioned Tke I'omHg Duke, C'tHtariMt Flaiung, Coningshy, Tke UvHiirous Tale of Alrof, and his 
 \nu■^\ production. T^hair, which profoundly stirred the literary and political circles of British 
 t*ji-H ty. Although Disraeli will be remembered as a statesman rather than as an author, he has 
 shown that he possesses abilities which entitle him to a high place in English literature. In 
 dr5rri[itivc power, he b hardly surpassed by any living writer, and in the exposition of politics, 
 sDTial tlirorir5, and the illustration of real public life by means of fictitious personages and inci- 
 drnt*. li.- i?t without a rival. He is of Jewish descent. Our first extract, taken from Comnfftby, 
 i< onr of the finest tributes ever paid to the Hebrew character, and has special weight and sig- 
 niticauce as coming from his hand. 
 
 THE EEBBEW RACE. 
 
 You never ohserve a great intellectual movement in Europe in 
 which the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits were 
 Jews ; that mysterious Russian tliplomacy which so alanns Western 
 ICurope is organized and principally cjirried on by Jews ; that mighty 
 revolution which is at this moment pn'paring in Germany, and which 
 will }k'., in fact, a second and greater Reformation, and of which so 
 little is as yet known in England, is entirely developing under the 
 auspices of Jews, who almost monopolize the professorial chairs of 
 (icnnany. Neander, the founder of spiritual Christianity, and who 
 is Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Berlin, is a 
 Jew. Benary, equally famous and in the same University, is a Jew. 
 Wehl, the Arabic professor of Heidelberg, is a Jew. Years ago, 
 when I was in Palestine, I met a German student who was accumu- 
 lating materials for the history of Christianity, and studying the genius 
 of the place ; a modest and learned man. It was Wehl ; then un- 
 known, since become the first Arabic scholar of the day, and the 
 B author of the life of Mohammed. But for the German professors of 
 K this race, their name is Legion. I think there are more than ten at 
 ^L Berlin alone. 
 
 i 
 
1/:: CATllCART S LITERAEY READER. 
 
 I told you just now that I was going up to town to-morrow, be- 
 cause I always made it a rule to interpose when affairs of state were 
 on the carpet. Otherwise, I never interfere. 1 liear of peace and 
 war in newspapers, hut 1 am never alarmed, except when I am 
 informed tliat the sovereigns want treasure; then 1 know that 
 monarchs are serious. A few years back we were applied to by 
 Russia. Now, there has been no friendship 'between the court of St. 
 Petersburg and my family. It has Dutch connectioas which have 
 generally supplied it, and our representations in favor of the Polish 
 Hebrews — a numerous race, but the most suffering and degarded of all 
 the triljes — have not been very agreeable to the czar. However, cir- 
 cumstances drew to an approximation between the Romanoffs and tlu; 
 Sidonias. I resolved to go myself to St. Petersburg. I had on my 
 arrival an interview with the Russian Minister of Finance, Count Can- 
 crin ; I beheld the son of a Lithuanian Jew. The loan was connected 
 with the affairs of Spain ; I resolved on repairing to Spain from 
 Russia. I traveled without intermission. I had an audience imme- 
 diately on my arrival with the Spanish minister, Sefior Mendizabel ; 
 1 iK'held one like myself, a Jew of Aragon. 
 
 In. consequence of what transpired at Madrid, I went straight to 
 Paris, to consult the President of the French Council ; I b^jheld the 
 son of a French Jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly 
 so, for who should be military heroes if not those who worship the 
 Lord of Hosts? "And is Soult a Hebrew?" "Yes, and several 
 of the French marshals, and the most famous ; Massena, for exam- 
 ple, — his real name was Manasseh." But to my anecdote. The 
 consequence of our consultations was, that some Northern power 
 should be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. We fixed 
 on Pnissia, and the President of the Council made an application to 
 the Prussian Minister, who attended a few days after our conference. 
 Count Arnim entered the cabinet, and I beheld a Prussian Jew. So 
 you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very 
 different personages to what is imagined by those who are not behind 
 the scenes. Favored by nature and by nature's God, we produced 
 the lyre of David ; we gave you Isaiah and Ezekiel ; they are our 
 Olynthiacs, our Philippics. Favored by nature we still remain ; but 
 in exact proportion as we hare been favored by nature we have been 
 persecuted by man. After a thousand struggles, — after acts of heroic 
 courtige that Rome has never equaled, — deeds of divine patriotism 
 
DISRAELI. 173 
 
 liat Athens and Sparta and Cartilage have never excelled, — we have 
 iidured fifteen hundred years of supernatural slavery ; during which 
 t very dtrvice tliat can degrade or destroy man has been the destiny 
 that we luive sustained and l)altted. 
 
 The Hebrew child has entered adolescence only to leani that he 
 wiis the Pariah of that ungrateful Europe that owes to him the best 
 part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, all its religion. Great 
 j)oets require a public; we have been content with the immortid 
 melodies that we sung more than two thousand years ago by the 
 waters of Babylon and wept. They record our triumphs ; they solace 
 our affliction. Great orators are the creatures of popular assemblies ; 
 we were permitted only by stealth to meet even in our temples. And 
 as for great writers, the catalogue is not blank. What are all the 
 -rhoolmen, Aquinas himself, to Maimonides? * and as for modern 
 j)hilosophy, all springs from Spinoza! f But the passionate and 
 creative genius that is the nearest link to divinity, and which no 
 human tyranny can destroy, though it can divert it; that should have 
 -tirred the hearts of nations by its inspired sympathy, or governed 
 M'liatcs by its burning eloquence, has found a medium for its expres- 
 sion, to which, ill spite of your prejudices and your evil passions, 
 Nou have been obliged to bow. 
 
 The ear, the voice, the fancy teeming with combinations, — the im- 
 iijination fervent with picture and emotion, that came from Caucasus, 
 uid wiiich we have preserved unpolluted, — have endowed us with 
 linost the exclusive privilege of music; that science of harmonious 
 -ounds which the ancients recognized as most divine, and deified in 
 the person of their most beautiful creation. I speak not of the past ; 
 though were I to enter into the history of the lords of melody, you 
 would find it the annals of Hebrew genius. But at this moment, 
 ' ven, musical Europe is ours. There is not a company of singers, not 
 iM orchestra in a single capital, that are not crowded with our chil- 
 li ren, under the feigned names which they adopt to conciliate the dark 
 avi-rsion which your posterity will some day disclaim with shame and 
 
 * Maimoxidiui. a Jewish Rahhi and pliilotopher of fcrrat celebrity, born in Spain aboat 
 11.18, He arquirrd n great reputation for sagacity and learning. 
 
   SpiNor.A A rrl.-hrated pantheistical philosopher liom of Jewish parents in Holland, in 16.12. 
 Vt an early ngr he annowued opiaioBS which were considered heretical and fur whtcU he was 
 • xeommuniratrtl i>y the Jeva. He yaeeed his life as a aoUtarjr radaae, his character being, ac- 
 eotdfaig to Ml entinent writer, "one of Um aMat devout on record, for his life was, in a manner, 
 OM «BbrokMi bynm." See Pnmde'i A»r< a«du» < 
 
174 cathcart's literary readkr. 
 
 (lis^st. Almost every great composer, skilled musician, almost evpn 
 voice that ravishes you with its transportinjo; strains, spring from our 
 tribes. The catalogue is too vast to enumerate ; too illustrious to 
 dwell for a moment on secondary names, however eminent. Enough 
 for us that the three great creative minds to whose exquisite inventions 
 all nations at this moment yield — Rossini, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, 
 — are of Hebrew race ; and little do your men of fashion, your '* Mus- 
 cadins" of Paris and your dandies of London, as they thrill into rap- 
 tures at the notes of a Pasta or a Grisi, — little do they suspect that 
 they are offering homage to the sweet singers of Israel. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.* 
 
 The House of Commons is called upon to-night to fulfil a sor- 
 rowful, but a noble, duty. It has to recognize, in the face of the 
 country, and of the civilized world, the loss of the most illustrious of 
 our citizens, and to offer to the ashes of the great departed the solemn 
 anguish of a bereaved nation. The princely personage who has left 
 us was bom in an age more fertile of great events than any period of 
 recorded time. Of those vast incidents the most conspicuous were 
 his own deeds, and these were performed with the smallest means, 
 and in defiance of the greatest obstacles. He was, therefore, not only 
 a great man, but the greatest man of a great age. Amid the chaos 
 and conflagration which attended the end of the last century there rose 
 one of those beings who seem boni to master mankind. It is not 
 too much to say that Napoleon combined the imperial ardor of Alex- 
 ander with the strategy of Hannibal. The kings of the earth fell 
 before his fiery and subtile genius, and at the head of all the powers of 
 Europe he denounced destruction to the only land which dared to be 
 free. The Providential superintendence of this world seems seldom 
 more manifest than in the dispensation which ordained that the French 
 Emperor and Wellesley should be lx)rn in the same year ; that in the 
 same year they should have embraced the same profession ; and that, 
 natives of distant islands, they should both have sought their military 
 education in that illustrious land which each in his turn was destined 
 
 • The extract is from a speech on the death of the Duke of Wellington delivered by Mr. Dis- 
 raeli in the House of Commons while Chancellor of the Exchequer. Wellington was the greatest 
 general England ever produced. His most famous \-ictory was gained over Napoleon at the 
 historic battle of Waterloo. He was bom in Ireland in 1/69 and died in 1852. 
 
DISEAEM. 175 
 
 *o subjugate. During the long struggle for our freedom, our glory, I 
 
 ay say our existence, Wellesley fought and won fifteen pitched 
 
 l)attifs, all of the highest class, — concluding with one of those crown- 
 
 uxir victories which give a color and aspect to history. During this 
 
 pt riotl that can l)e s<iid of him which can l)e said of no other captain, 
 
 — that he captured three thousand ciinnon from the enemy, and uever 
 
 lost a single gun. The greatness of his exploits was only equaled by 
 
 the difficulties he overcame. He had to encounter at the same time a 
 
 tVeble government, a factious opposition, and a distrustful people, 
 
 andalous allies, and the most powerful enemy in the world. He 
 
 lined victories with starving troops, and carried on sieges without 
 
 )ols ; and, as if to complete the fatality which in this sense always 
 
 waited him, when he had succeeded in creating an army worthy of 
 
 iloman legions, and of himself, this invincible host was broken up on 
 
 the eve of the greatest conjuncture of his life, and he entered the field 
 
 of Waterloo with raw levies, and discomfited allies. 
 
 But the star of Wellesley never paled. He has been called for- 
 . for fortune is a divinity that ever favors those who are alike 
 •us and intrepid, inventive and patient. It was his character 
 it 1 ivat. (1 his career. This alike achieved his exploits and guarded 
 ;,iHi troni vicissitudes. It was his sublime self-control that regulated 
 his lofty fate. It has been the fashion of late years to disparage the 
 tnilitary character. Forty years of peace have hardly qualified us to 
 hv aware how considerable and how complex are the qualities which 
 re necessary for the formation of a great general. It is not enough 
 I say that he must be an engineer, a geographer, learned in human 
 i.iture, adroit in managing mankind ; that he must be able to per- 
 tbrra the highest duties of a minister of state, and sink to the hum- 
 l)lest offices of a commissary and a clerk ; but he has to disphiy all this 
 knowledge, and he must do all these things at the same time, and 
 under extraordinary circumstances. At the same moment he must 
 think of the eve and the morjrow, — of his flanks and of his reserves ; 
 1h* must carry with him ammunition, provisions, hospitals ; he must 
 ilculate at the same time the state of the weather and the moral 
 (jualities of man; and all these elements, which are perp<*tually chang- 
 ing, he must combine amid overwhelming cold or overpowering heat ; 
 kiimietimes amid famine, often amid the thunder of artillery. Behind 
 |D this, too, is the ever-present image of his countrv, and the dread- 
 
I7() ( ATIK \i;i"-> i,iri.i;\i;Y i;i. vdi.k. 
 
 or launl. \\\i\ ;;ll tlif-^c conjlictini: idci^ iiui>t lie driven j'roiii the 
 luiiitl of the military leader, for he must think — ami mH only 
 think he must tiiink with the rapidity of lisrhtninir. for on a momect, 
 'i:"i'- "I" 1'--. ill j),ii>U ihr fair (.f tin- tiiK-t coiiiliiii.-Mioii. and on a 
 ini.m.iii. ni<Mv (.r l.>-. drpciids jrjory or shame. Doubtless, all this 
 nia\ he done in an ordinary manner, by an ordinary man; as we see 
 ( v( IV day of onr liv. s ordinary men making successful ministers of 
 >t;;i. . MHCib.>ful speakers, sueeessful ::utliors. Hut to do all this with 
 -viim- is sublime. Doubtlt-v, i,, il,ii,k drcpls aiul eleurly in the 
 recess of a aibinet is a Hue intellectual demonstration, but to think 
 with equal depth and ecjual elcjinu'ss amid bullets is the most eom- 
 ])li'tc e\t i-ei-e ot" the iininan lacidtit-. Allliou'jli tin- niil:tar\ (■;ircfr 
 of the Duke of Wellington tills so large a space in history, it was 
 only a comparatively small section of his prolonged and illustrious 
 life. Only eiulu \rai-- eli].-,.! I'imim \ imi.-ra I,, W'ai, rloo, and from 
 the date of lii- tir-t ennimi-vinn lu tlic la-i cannou-sliot on the field 
 of battle scant 1\ twenty \eir^ e.n he eonnled. A t'ter all his triumphs 
 lie was d( viined tor another e ;. .r. and if not in the prime, certainly 
 in tin- jxTl'eetion of manhf>nd. ln' eonunene-d a civil Cftreer srnreely 
 le<> eminent llian tlio-e niilil.n aeliie\ eni.iil- wliieli will live torcNer 
 in history. Thrice was he the amlmssador of his sovereign to those 
 great historic congresses that settled the affairs of Europe ; twice 
 was he Secretary of State ; twice was he Coinniander-in-Cliief ; and 
 once he was Prime Minister of England. His lal)ors lor liis country 
 lasted to the end ; and he died the active chicrtain of that famous army 
 to whiidi he ]vA< left tlie tradliinii of his glory. 
 
 The Onke of Wellinuion h ft to Ids countrymen a great legacy, — 
 urcatrr even than ins u-h)ry. lie h-ft them the contemplation of his 
 character. 1 will not say his conduct revived the sense of duty in 
 Endand. I would not say that of our country. But that his con- 
 dnet in>])ire(l public life with a ])nrer and more masculine tone I 
 cannot (h)id)t. ITis career rebukes restless vanity, and reprimands 
 the irrcLiuhir ebnllitions of a morbid egotism. I doubt not that, 
 amonu- all orders of IjiuHslimen, from those with the liiu-lic-t res])on- 
 sibilities of onr >oeit ty to those who perform the humb]e>t duties, I 
 dare s:!\- tliere is not a man who in hi> toil and his perph-xiry lias not 
 sometimes thoiiu'ht of the dnke and found in his example support and 
 solace. 
 
 Thouo:h he lived so niueli in the hearts and minds of his country- 
 
DISRAELI. 1 / / 
 
 men, — though he occupied such eminent posts anil fulfilled such 
 aup^ust duties, — it was not till he died that we felt what a space he 
 filled in the feelings and thoughts of the people of England. Never 
 was the inlluence of real greatness more completely asserted than on 
 his decease. In an age whose boast of intellectual equality flatters all 
 our self-complacencies, the world suddenly acknowledged that it had 
 lost the greatest of men ; in an age of utility the most industrious 
 and common-sense people in the world could find no vent for their 
 woe and no representative for their sorrow but the solemnity of 
 a pageant ; and we — we who have met here for such different pur- 
 poses — to investigate the sources of the wealth of nations, to enter 
 into statistical research, and to encounter each other in fiscal contro- 
 versy — we present to the world the most sublime and touching spec- 
 tacle that human circumstances can well produce, — the spectacle of a 
 Senate mourning a Hero ! 
 
 There have been some, and those, too, among the wisest and the 
 wittiest of the northern and western races, who, touched by a pre- 
 sumptuous jealousy of the long predominance of that Oriental intellect 
 to which they owed their civilization, would have persuaded them- 
 selves and the world that the traditions of Sinai and Calvary were 
 fables. Half a century ago Europe made a violent and apparently 
 successfid effort to disembarrass itself of its Asian faith. The most 
 powerful and the most civilized of its kingdoms,* about to conquer 
 the rest, shut up its churches, desecrated its altars, massacred and 
 persecuted their sacred servants, and announced that the Hebrew 
 creeds which Simon Peter brought from Palestine, and which his 
 successors revealed to Clovis, were a mockery and a fiction. "What 
 has l)een the result ? In every city, town, village, and hamlet of that 
 great kingdom, the divine image of the most illustrious of Hebrews 
 has Ik^n again raised amid the homage of kneeling millions ; while, in 
 the heart of its bright and witty capital, the nation has erected the 
 most gorgeous of modern temples, f and consecrated its marble and 
 gohlen walls to the name, and memory, and celestial efficacy of a 
 Hebrew woman, 
 
 • FtASCE. Whrn the crlchrmcil Kniicli UrM)liition wai nt iU hpjjfht, the nilors nnd their 
 M\owen, for the time heinjr. n-putlinted the Christian religion, and tet up Papani^nt in its stead, 
 llie Caniniuniits, while they held ixjucssiun of Paris, during the recent Frauco-Gcnuan War, 
 did much the same t\im)t. but it was shorter lived. 
 
 t The Church of the Madeleine in Paris. 
 
 8* 
 
178 
 
 MAURY. 
 
 1806-1873. 
 
 MATTtiiw FonTAiTfE Maubt, an rreincnt astronomer and hydroprapher, was bom in Spott- 
 •yivania County, Virginia, in 1806, and entered the United States Navy in 1825. He devoted 
 himself assiduously to the duties of his profession, and m 1835 pulilislicd a Treatise on Natigation, 
 which was adopted as a tcxt'lxmk in the Navy. An accident having rendered him incapable of 
 performing sea-service, he devoted himself to seientific and literary work, writing extensively on 
 such subjects as the Gulf Stream, National Drfensrs, OeerlanJ Communication with the Pacific, 
 etc. To his foresight and influence are due the expeditions for exploring the Amazon and tlie 
 Rio dc hi PUta. Under his direction the National Observatory speedily assumed an equal rank 
 witli the best similar institutions in the world. Lieutenant Maura's lalmrs in the department 
 of Hydrography give him a title to lasting and honorable fame. His wind and current charts 
 and the accompanying Ixwk of Sailintf Direetions must be regarded as the most important work 
 of the century in its bearing on navigation. In 1854 Mr. Maury visited Europe and excited 
 attention by his inquiry mto the ocean current, local winds, etc. In illustration of these subjects 
 he published his celebrated Physical Geography of the Sea, with charts and diagrams, which has 
 been translated into several language*. Both of our extract* are from this work. 
 
 THE OULF 8TBEAX. 
 
 There is a river in the ocean. In the severest drouorhts it never 
 fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and 
 its bottom arc of cold water, while its cuiTent is of warm. The GiUf 
 of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is 
 the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow 
 of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the 
 Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater. 
 
 The currents of the ocean are among the most important of its 
 movements. They carry on a constant interchange between the 
 waters of the poles and those of the equator, and thus diminish the 
 extremes of heat and cold in every zone. 
 
 The sea has its climates as well as the land. They both change 
 with the latitude ; but one varies with the elevation above, the other 
 with the depression below, the sea level. The climates in each are 
 regulated by circulation : but the regulators are, on the one hand, 
 wdnds ; on the other, currents. 
 
 The inhabitants of the ocean are as much the creatures of climate 
 as are those of the diy land; for the same Almighty hand which 
 decked the lily and cares for the spaiTOW fashioned also the pearl and 
 feeds the great whale, and adapted each to the physical conditions by 
 which his providence has surrounded it. Whether of the land or the 
 
MAURY. 179 
 
 sea, the inhabitants are all his creatures, subjects of his laws, and 
 agents in his economy. The sea, therefore, we may safely infer, has 
 its offices and duties to perform ; so, may we infer, have its currents ; 
 and so, too, its inhabitants : consequently, he who undertakes to 
 study its plienomena must cease to regard it as a waste of waters. 
 He must look upon it as a part of that exquisite machinei-y by which 
 the harmonies of nature are preserved, and then he will begin to 
 perceive the developments of order and the evidences of design. 
 
 From the Arctic Seas a cold current flows along the coasts of 
 America, to replace the warm water sent through the Gulf Stream to 
 moderate the cold of Western and Northern Europe. Perhaps the 
 best indication as to these cold currents may be derived from the fishes 
 of the sea. The whales first pointed out the existence of the Gulf 
 Stream by avoiding its warm waters. Along the coasts of the United 
 States all those delicate animals and marine productions which delight 
 in warmer waters are wanting ; thus indicating, by their absence, the 
 cold current from the north now known to exist there. In the genial 
 warmth of the sea about the Bermudas on one hand, and Africa on 
 the other, we find in great abundance those delicate shell-fish and 
 coral formations which are altogether wanting in the same latitudes 
 along the shores of South Carolina. 
 
 No part of the world affords a more difficult or dangerous naviga- 
 tion than the approaches of the northern coasts of the United States 
 in winter. Before the warmth of the Gulf Stream was known, a voy- 
 age at this season from Europe to New Englatid, New York, and even 
 to the capes of the Delaware or Chesapeake, was many times more try- 
 ing, difficult, and dangerous than it now is. In making this part of the 
 coast vessels are frequently met by snow-storms and gales which mock 
 the seaman's strength and set at naught his skill. In a little while his 
 l)ark becomes a mass of ice ; with her crew frosted and helpless, she 
 remains oliedient oidy to her helm, and is kept away for the Gulf 
 Stream. After a few hours' run she reaches its edge, and almost at 
 the next l)ound passes from the midst of winter into a sea at summer 
 heat. Now the ice disappears from her apparel, and the sailor bathes 
 his stiffened limbs in tepid waters. Feeling himself invigomted and 
 refreshe<l with the genial warmth al)out him, he realizes out there at 
 sea the fable of Antaeus and his mother Earth. He rises up and at- 
 tempts to make his port again, and is again, perhaps, as rudely met 
 and beat back from tl»e northwest ; but each time that he is driven oflf 
 
180 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 from the contest, he comes forth from this stream, like the ancient 
 son of Neptune, stronger and stronger, until, after many days, his 
 freshened strength prevails, and he at last triumphs and enters his 
 haven in safety, though in this contest he sometimes falls to rise no 
 more. 
 
 The ocean currents are partly the result of the immense evaporation 
 which takes place in the tropical regions, where the sea greatly exceeds 
 the land in extent. The enormous quantity of water there carried off 
 by evaporation disturbs the equilibrium of the seas; but this is 
 restored by a perpetual flow of water from the poles. When these 
 streams of cold water leave the poles they flow directly toward the 
 equator ; but, before proceeding far, their motion is deflected by the 
 diurnal motion of the earth. At the poles they liave no rotary mo- 
 tion, and although they gain it more and more in their progress to 
 the equator, which revolves at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, 
 they arrive at the tropics before they have gained the same velocity of 
 rotation with the intertropical ocean. On that account they are left 
 behind, and, consequently, flow in a direction contrar}' to the diurnal 
 rotation of the earth. Hence the whole surface of the ocean for thirty 
 degrees on each side of the equator flows in a stream or current three 
 thousand miles broad from east to west. The trade winds, which 
 constantly blow in one direction, combine to give this great Equato- 
 rial Current a mean velocity of ten or eleven miles in twenty-four 
 hours. 
 
 Were it not for the land, such would be the uniform and constant 
 flow of the waters of the ocean. The presence of the land interrupts 
 the regularity of this great western movement of the waters, sending 
 them to the north or south, according to its conformation. 
 
 The principal branch of the Equatorial Current of the Atlantic takes 
 a northwesterly direction from off" Cape St. Roque, in South America. 
 It rushes along the coast of Brazil, and, after passing through the 
 Caribbean Sea, and sweeping round the Gulf of Mexico, it flows 
 between Florida and Cuba, and enters the North Atlantic under the 
 name of the Gulf Stream, the most beautiful of all the oceanic cur- 
 rents. 
 
 In the Strait of Florida the Gulf Stream is thirty-two miles wide, 
 two thousand two hundred feet deep, and flows at the rate of four 
 miles an hour. Its waters are of the purest ultramarine blue as far 
 as the coasts of Carolina ; and so completely are they separated from 
 
MAUEY. 181 
 
 the sea through which they flow, that a ship may be seen at times 
 half in the one and half in the other. 
 
 As a rule, the hottest water of tiie Gulf Stream is at or near the 
 surface ; and as the deep-sea thermometer is sent down, it shows that 
 these waters, though still much warmer than the water on either side 
 at corresponding depths, gradually become less and less warm until 
 the bottom of the current is reached. There is reason to believe that 
 the warm waters of the Gulf Stream arc nowhere permitted, in the 
 oceanic economy, to touch the bottom of the sea. There is everywhere 
 a cushion of cool water between them and the solid parts of the 
 earth's crust. This arrangement is suggestive, and strikingly beiiuti- 
 ful. One of the benign offices of the Gulf Stream is to convey heat 
 from the Gulf of Mexico, — where otherwise it would become exces- 
 sive, — and to dispense it in regions beyond the Atlantic, for the 
 amelioration of the climates of the British Islands and of all Western 
 Europe. Now, cold water is one of the best non-conductors of heat, 
 but if the warm water of the Gulf Stream were sent across the Atkn- 
 tic in contact with the solid crust of the earth, comparatively a good 
 conductor of heat, instead of being sent across, as it is, in contact 
 with a non-conducting cushion of cool water to fend it from the 
 bottom, all its heat would be lost in the first part of the way, and the 
 soft climates of both France and England would be as that of Labra- 
 dor, severe in the extreme, and ice-bound. 
 
 It has been estimated that the quantity of heat discharged over 
 the Atlantic from the waters of the Gulf Stream, in a winter's day, 
 would be sufficient to raise the whole column of atmosphere that 
 rests upon France and the British Islands from the freezing point to 
 summer heat. 
 
 Every west wind that blows crosses the stream on its way to Europe, 
 and carries with it a portion of this heat to temper there the northern 
 winds of winter. It is the influence of this stream that makes Erin 
 the " Emerald Isle of the Sea," and that clothes the shores of Albion 
 in evergreen rol)es ; while, in the same latitude, the coasts of Labrador 
 are fast bound in fetters of ice. 
 
 As the Gulf Sti*eam proceeds on its course, it gnulually increases 
 in width. It flows along the coast of North America to Newfound- 
 land, where it turns to the east, one branch setting towanls the Brit- 
 ish Islands, and away to the coasts of Norway and the Arctic Ocean. 
 Another branch reaches the Azores, from which it bends round to the 
 
i^- CATliCART.S LITKRAIIY READER. 
 
 south, and, after running along the African coast, it n^joins the great 
 equatorial flow, leaving a vast space of nearly motionless water be- 
 tween the Azores, the Canaries, and Cape de Verd Islands. Tliis 
 g^reat area is the Grassy or Sargasso Sea, covering a space many 
 times larger than the British Islands. It is so thickly matted over 
 with gulf weeds that the speed of vessels passing through it is often 
 much retarded. When the companions of Columbus saw it, they 
 thought it marked the limits of navigation, and became alarmed. To 
 the eye, at a little distance, it seems substantial enough to walk upon. 
 Patches of the weed are alwiiys to be seen floating along the outer 
 edge of the Gulf Stream. Now, if bits of cork or chaff, or any float- 
 ing substance, be put into a Ixisin, and a circular motion be given to 
 the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together 
 near the centre of the pool where there is the least motion. Just 
 such a basin is the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream ; and the Sar- 
 gasso Sea is the center of the whirl. Columbus first found this 
 weedy sea, in his voyage of discovery ; there it has remained to this 
 day, moving up and down, and changing its position like the calms 
 of Cancer, according to the seasons, the storms, and the winds. 
 Exact observations as to its limits and their ran^e, extending back for 
 fifty years, assure us that its mean position has not been altered since 
 that time. 
 
 THE AIS AKD SEA. 
 
 We have already said that the atmosphere forms a spherical shell, 
 surrounding the earth to a depth which is unknown to us, by reason 
 of its growing tenuity, as it is released from the pressure of its own 
 superincumbent mass. Its upper surface cannot be nearer to us than 
 fifty, and can scarcely be more remote than five hundred miles. It 
 surrounds us on all sides, yet we see it not ; it presses on us with a 
 load of fifteen pounds on every square inch of surface of our bodies, 
 or from seventy to one hundred tons on us in all, yet we do not so 
 much as feel its weight. Softer than the finest down, more impalpa- 
 ble than the finest gossamer, it leaves the cobweb undisturbed, and 
 scarcely stirs the lightest flower that feeds on the dew it supplies ; yet it 
 bears the fleets of nations on its wings around the world, and crushes 
 the most refractory substances with its weight. When in motion, 
 its fofce is sufficient to level with the earth the most stately forests 
 and stable buildings, to raise the waters of the ocean into ridges like 
 
MAUEY. 1^'i 
 
 mountains, and dash the stronj^cst ships to pieces like toys. It warms 
 and cools by turns the earth and the living creatures that inhabit it. 
 It draws up vapors from the sex and land, retains them dissolved in 
 itself or suspended in cisterns of clouds, and throws them down again 
 as rain or dew, when they are required. It bends the rays of the sun 
 from their path to give us the aurora of the morning and twilight 
 of evening ; it disperses and refracts their various tints to bciiutify the 
 approiich and the retreat of the orb of day. But for the atmosphere, 
 sunshine would burst on us in a moment and fail us in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, removing us in an instant from midnight darkness 
 to the blaze of noon. We should have no twilight to soften and 
 beautify the landscape, no clouds to shade us from the scorching 
 heat ; but the bald earth, as it revolved on its axis, would turn its 
 tanned and weakened front to the full unmitigated rays of the lord of 
 day. 
 
 The atmosphere affords the gas which vivifies and warms our frames ; 
 it receives into itself that which has been polluted by use, and is 
 thrown off as noxious. It feeds the flame of life exactly as it does 
 that of the fire. It is in both cases consumed, in both cases it affords 
 the food of consumption, and in both cases it becomes combined with 
 charcoal, which requires it for combustion, and which removes it when 
 combustion is over. It is the girdling, encircling air that makes the 
 whole world kin. The carbonic acid with which body our breathing 
 fills the air, to-morrow seeks its way round the world. The date- 
 trees that grow round the falls of the Nile will drink it in by their 
 leaves ; the cedars of Lebanon will take of it to add to their stature ; 
 the cocoa-nuts of Tahiti will grow rapidly upon it ; and the palms 
 and bananas of Japan will change it into flowers. The oxygen we 
 are breathing was distilled for us some short time ago by the magno- 
 lias of the Susquehanna, and the great trees that skirt the Orinoco and 
 the Amazon ; the giant rhododendrons of the Himalayas contributed 
 to it, and the roses and myrtles of Cashmere, the cinnamon-tree of 
 Ceylon, and the forest, older than the flood, that lies buried deep in 
 the heart of Africa, far l)ehind the Mountains of the Moon, gave it out. 
 The rain we see descending was thawed for us out of the icebergs 
 which have watched the Polar Star for ages, or it came from snows 
 that rested on the summits of the Alps, but which the lotus lilies have 
 soaked up from the Nile, aud exhaled as vapor again into the ever- 
 present air. 
 
184 c \i lie Ai; 1 '> i,rn.i;Ai;v i;i;ader. 
 
 There are processes no less iiiU n stin^: iioiiiL: on in otlur parts of 
 this magnificent fu Id of n^canli. Water is Nature's carrier: with 
 its currents it coiiV(\ s lu,,i awav from the torrid zone and ici* from 
 the frigid ; or. liotllmi^r the caloric away in tlic vc;<icl(s of ii^ vapor, 
 it first makes it inipiiipabh'. and tlien convevs it, 1)^ unlcnown paths, 
 to tlic nio.st distant parts of tlic larth. The materials of which the 
 coral builds the island and the sea-conch its shell an' •i:atliri>(i hv 
 this restless leveler from mouiit«iin?, rocks, and valleys in all latitudes. 
 Some it washes down from the Mountains of the Moon, or out of the 
 gold-fields of Australia, or from tlic niin(s of Potosi, others from 
 the battle-fields of Europe, or from tlu; marble-qmirries of ancient 
 Greece and Rome. These mUd lals, thus collected and carried over 
 falls or down rapids, are transported from river to sea, and deliv- 
 ered by the obedient waters to each insect and to every plant in the 
 ocean at the right time and temperature, in proper form and in due 
 quantity. 
 
 Treating the roclcs less gently, it grinds them into dust, or pounds 
 them into sand, or rolls and nibs them until they are fashioned into 
 pibbles, rubble, or bowlders ; the sand and shingle on the sea-shore 
 are monuments of the abradin*;, triturating power of water. By 
 water the soil has been brought down from the hills, and spread 
 out into valleys, plains, and fields for man's use. Saving the rocks on 
 which the everlasting hills are established, every thing on the surface 
 of our planet seems to have been removed from its ori<rinal founda- 
 tion and lodged in its present place by water. Protean in shape, be- 
 nignant in oflSce, water, whether fresh or salt, solid, fluid, or gaseous, 
 is marvelous in its powers. 
 
 It is one of the chief agents in the manifold workshops in which 
 and by which the earth has been made a habitation fit for man. 
 
WILLIS. 185 
 
 WILLIS. 
 
 1806- 1867. 
 
 NATBAimn. Pamch Willis vm born in Portland, Maine, in January, 1808. He wu the ion 
 of Nathaniel Willis, and the brother of Sarah Payson Willis (Fanny Fern). Graduating at Yale 
 CoUrge in 1927, he at once entered upon a literary life. In \H-29 he established the American 
 Monthly Magazine, which, three years later, was merged in the New York Mirror, of which Mr. 
 Willis became editor, in association with George P. Morris. He made several voyages to Europe, 
 and was admitted to the best literary society of England. He died at Idlewild, his beautiful 
 borne on the Hudson River. January 20, 1867 His first volume of verse, called Sketches, waa 
 published in 1827. His first pro*c book, PeHciUings by the Way (1836), attracted a good deal of 
 notice in Englan-l, and a review of it, written by Captain Marryat, led to a duel between himself 
 and Mr. Willis. Among the most notable of the twenty-seven volumes of prose and verse which 
 bear his name, are Letters from under a Bridge, Loiterings by the H'ay, People I Have Met, and 
 Dashe-i at Life teith a Free Pmcil. One of his latest works was Paul Fane, a novel, which did 
 not enhance his reputation. Mr. Willis is best known in literature as a writer of sketches of 
 society. He was at once a " society man " and a litlerutrur, and rejoiced in such opportunities 
 of appearing in his twofold character a» were afforded in such sketches, in the writing of which 
 he displayed peculiar grace, case, and admirable audacity. Wliile the hulk of his writings is 
 of a somewhat ephemeral character, he was sometimes moved by a loAier ambition, and pro- 
 duced matter of more substantial value. Specimens of this may be found in some of his notes 
 of travel. — A Health Trip to the Tropics, and A Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean, and in sev- 
 eral religious poems of marked dignity and beauty. These poems must be regarded as his best 
 productions; and, indeed, few poets have equaled him in this poetical specialty. In Tht Death 
 of Absalom, the dramatic harmony, the sober beauty of the descriptive passages, and the noble 
 grief of David, combine with singuUtr felicity to produce a powerful and enduring effect on the 
 reader's mind. Mr. Willis's versatility was remarkable ; but it is to be regnretted that he lav- 
 ished so much of his talent upon such frivolous subjects. 
 
 THE DEATH OF ABSALOM. 
 
 The waters slept. Night's silver}' veil hung low 
 
 On Jordan's bosom, and the eddies curled 
 
 Their glassy rings beneath it, like the still, 
 
 Unbroken beating of the sleeper's pulse. 
 
 The reeds bent down the stream ; the willow leases, 
 
 With a soft cheek upon the lulling tide. 
 
 Forgot the lifting winds ; and the long stems, 
 
 Whose flowers the water, like a gentle nurse, 
 
 Bears on its bosom, quietly gave way. 
 
 And leaned, in gracefid attitudes, to rest. 
 
 How strikingly the course of nature tells. 
 
 By its light heed of human suflfering. 
 
 That it was fashioned for a happier world I 
 
186 CATHc art's literaey reader. 
 
 King David's limbs were weary. He had fled 
 From far Jerusalem ; and now he stood, 
 With his faint people, for a little rest 
 Upon the shores of Jordan. The li«j:ht wind 
 Of morn was stirring, and he bared his brow 
 To its refreshing breath ; for he had worn 
 The mourner's covering, and he had not felt 
 That he could see his people until now. 
 They gathered round him on the fresh green bank, 
 And spoke their kindly words ; and, as the sun 
 Rose up in heaven, he knelt among them there, 
 And bowed his head upon his hands to pray. 
 Oh ! when the heart is full, — when bitter thoughts 
 Come crowding thickly up for utterance. 
 And the poor common words of courtesy 
 Are such an empty mockery, — how much 
 The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer ! 
 He prayed for Israel, — and his voice went up 
 Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those 
 Whose love had been his shield, — and his deep tones 
 Grew tremulous. But, oh ! for Absalom, — 
 For his estrangwl, misguided Absalom, — 
 The proud, bright being, who had burst away 
 In all his princely beauty, to defy 
 The heart that cherished him, — for him he poured, 
 In agony that would not be controlled, 
 Strong supplication, and forgave him there. 
 Before his God, for his deep sinfulness. 
 
 The pall was settled. He who slept beneath 
 Was straightened for the grave ; and, as the folds 
 Sank to the still proportions, they betrayed 
 The matchless symmetry of Absalom. 
 His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls 
 Were floating round the tassels as they swayed 
 To the admitted air, as glossy now 
 As when, in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing 
 The snowy fingers of Judaea's daughters. 
 His helm was at his feet ; his banner, soiled 
 
WILLIS. 187 
 
 With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid, 
 
 Reversed, beside him ; and the jeweled hilt, 
 
 Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade, 
 
 Rested, like mockery, on his covered brow. 
 
 The soldiers of the king trod to and fro. 
 
 Clad in the garb of battle ; and their chief. 
 
 The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier. 
 
 And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly. 
 
 As if he feared the slumberer might stir. 
 
 A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade 
 
 As if a trumpet rang ; but the bent form 
 
 Of David entered, and he gave command. 
 
 In a low tone, to his few followers. 
 
 And left him with his dead. The king stood still 
 
 Till the last echo died ; then, throwing off 
 
 The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back 
 
 The pall from the still features of his child, 
 
 He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth 
 
 In the resistless eloquence of woe : — 
 
 *• Alas ! my noble boy ! that thou shouldst die ! 
 
 Thou, who wert made so beautifully fair ! 
 That death should settle in thy glorious eye, 
 
 And leave his stillness in this clustering hair ! 
 How could he mark thee for the silent tomb ! 
 My proud boy, Absalom ! 
 
 ** Cold is thy brow, my son ! and I am chill, 
 As to my bosom I have tried to press thee ! 
 
 How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill. 
 
 Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, 
 
 And hear thy sweet * My father ! ' from these dumb 
 And cold lips, Absalom ! 
 
 " But death is on thee. I shall hear the gush 
 
 Of music, and the voices of the young ; 
 And life will pass me in the mantling blush, 
 
 And the dark tresses to the soft winds fliuig ; 
 But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come 
 To meet me. Absalom ! 
 
188 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 " And oh ! when I am stricken, and my heart, 
 Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, 
 • How will its love for thee, as I depart. 
 
 Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token I 
 It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom. 
 To see thee, Absalom ! 
 
 ** And now, farewell ! 'T is hard to give thee up, 
 With death so like a gentle slumber on thee ; — 
 
 And thy dark sin ! — Oh ! I could drink the cup. 
 If from this woe its bitterness had won thee. 
 
 May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home, 
 My lost boy, Absalom ! " 
 
 He covered up his face, and bowed himself 
 A moment on his child : then, giving him 
 A look of melting tenderness, he clasped 
 His hands convulsively, as if in prayer ; 
 And, as if strength were given him of God, 
 He rose up calmly, and composed the pall 
 Firmly and decently — and left him there ^ 
 As if his rest had been a breathing sleep. 
 
 THE BELFRY PIGEON. 
 
 On the cross-beam under the Old South bell 
 
 The nest of a pigeon is builded well. 
 
 In summer and >vinter that bird is there, 
 
 Out and in with the morning air ; 
 
 I love to see him track the street. 
 
 With his wary eye and active feet ; 
 
 And I often watch him as he springs, 
 
 Circling the steeple with easy wings. 
 
 Till across the dial his shade has passed. 
 
 And the belfry edge is gained at last ; 
 
 'T is a bird I love, with its brooding note. 
 
 And the trembling tlirob in its mottled throat ; 
 
 There 's a human look in its swelling breast, 
 
 And the gentle curve of its lowly crest ; 
 
WILLIS. 189 
 
 And I often stop with the fear I feel, — 
 He runs so close to the rapid wheel. 
 
 Whatever is ning on that noisy bell, — 
 Chime of the hour, or funeral knell, — 
 The dove in the belfry must hear it well. 
 When the tongue swings out to the midnight moon, 
 When the sexton cheerly rings for noon, 
 When the clock strikes clear at morning light, 
 When the child is waked with " nine at night," 
 When the chimes play soft in the Sabbath air, 
 Filling the spirit with tones of prayer, — 
 Whatever tale in the bell is heard. 
 He broods on his folded feet unstirred, 
 Or, rising half in his rounded nest. 
 He takes the time to smooth his breast. 
 Then drops again, with filmed eyes. 
 And sleeps as the last vibration dies. 
 
 Sweet bird ! I woidd that I could be 
 A hermit in the crowd like thee ! 
 With wings to fly to wood and glen, 
 Thy lot, like mine, is cast with men ; 
 And daily, with unwilling feet, 
 I tread, like thee, the crowded street ; 
 But, unlike me, when day is o'er, 
 Thou canst dismiss the world and soar ; 
 Or, at a half-felt wish for rest. 
 Canst smooth the feathers on thy breast, 
 And drop, forgetful, to thy nest. 
 
 I would that in such wings of gold 
 I could my weary heart upfold ; 
 I would I could look down unmoved 
 (Unloving as I am unloved), 
 And while the world throngs on beneath. 
 Smooth down my cares and calmly breathe ; 
 And never sad with others' sadness. 
 And never glad with others' gladness, 
 Listen, unstirred, to knell or chime, 
 And, lapped in quiet, bide my time. 
 
190 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 SIMMS. 
 1806- 1870. 
 
 William Gilmou Smus was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1906, and died in 1870. 
 He adopted the profession of the law, but, like Ir%ing and many other litterateurs, abandoned it 
 for the more cougenial pursuits of literature. He published his first volume, Lyrical and other 
 I'oems, in 1»27, and during the next twenty-seven years produced no less than thirteen addi- 
 tional volumes of verse. He labored in almost every department of literature, writing plays, 
 histories, biographies, criticisms, and novels of various kinds. It is as a novelist that he is 
 best known, and as such he will be regarded in the future. His best work in this specialty 
 may be found in some of his historical romances, such as ne I'emauee, The Partisan, and Eutaw. 
 What Cooper did for the pioneer life of the Middle States was done by Simnis for that of the 
 South, the characteristic features of whose colonial and revolutionary history he has preserved 
 in a series of spirited and faithfully colored narratives. He is a picturesque and vigorous writer, 
 evidently inspired by his subject (L e. in his historical romances), cherishing a generous pride 
 in the annals of his native section and the chivalrous character of her people. Although 
 his books have, to a great extent, been superseded, as have Cooper's, by novels which deal 
 with later times, they are still widely read and admired. Taking into account the variety and 
 amount of Mr. Simms's literary work, its distinctively American character, and the positive 
 merit poasessed by mnch of it, hb name deserve* to be cherished among those of the most hon- 
 ored repreaentatives of our literatore. 
 
 THE CHAKM OF THE RATTLESNAKE. 
 
 How lieautiful was the grrcen and g:arniture of that little copse of 
 wood ! The leaves were thick, and the grass around lay folded over 
 and over in bunches, with here and there a wild-flower gleaming from 
 its green, and making of it a beautiful carpet of the richest and most 
 beautiful texture. A small tree arose from the center of a clump 
 around which a wild grape gadded luxuriantly ; and with an inco- 
 herent sense of what she saw, the maiden lingered before the little 
 cluster, seeming to survey that which, though it fixed her eye, failed 
 to fill her thought. Her mind wandered, her soul was far away ; and 
 the objects in her vision were far other than those which occupied her 
 imagination. Things grew indistinct beneath her eye. The eye 
 rather slept than saw. The musing spirit had given holiday to the 
 ordinary senses, and took no heed of the forms that rose, and floated 
 or glided away before them. 
 
 In this way the leaf detached made no impression upon the sight 
 that was yet bent upon it ; she saw not the bird, though it whirled, 
 untroubled by a fear, in wanton circles around her head ; and the 
 black snake, with the rapidity of the arrow, darted over her path with- 
 out arousing a single terror in the form that otherwise would have 
 
SIMMS. 191 
 
 shivered at its mere appearance. And yet, though thus indistinct 
 were all things around her to the musing eye of the maiden, her eye 
 was singularly fixed, — fastened, as it were, to a single spot, — gath- 
 ered anil controlled by a single object, and glazed apparently beneath 
 a curious fascination. 
 
 Before the maiden rose a little clump of bushes, bright tangled 
 leaves flaunting i^ndely in glossiest green, with vines trailing over 
 them, thickly decked with blue and crimson flowers. Her eye com- 
 muned vacantly with these ; fastened by a starlike shining glance, — a 
 subtile ray that shot out from the circle of green leaves, — seeming to 
 be their very eye, and sending out a lurid luster that seemed to 
 stream across the space between, and find its way into her own eyes. 
 Very piercing and beautiful was that subtile brightness, of the sweet- 
 est, strangest power. 
 
 And now the leaves quivered and seemed to float away, only to 
 return, and the vines wavered and swung around in fantastic mazes, 
 unfolding ever-changing varieties of form and color to her gaze ; but 
 the starlike eye was ever steadfast, bright, and gorgeous, gleaming in 
 their midst, and still fastened in strange fondness upon her own. 
 How beautiful, with wondrous intensity, did it gleam and dilate, 
 growing larger and more lustrous with every ray which it sent forth. 
 And her own glanc€ became intense, fixed also ; but with a dream- 
 ing sense, that conjured up the wildest fancies, terribly beautiful, 
 that took her soul away from her, and wrapt it about as with a 
 spell. 
 
 She would have fled ; but she had not power to move. The will 
 was wanting to her flight. She felt that she could have bent forward 
 to pluck the gemlike thing from the bosom of the leaf in which it 
 seemed to grow, and which it irituliated with its bright gleam ; but 
 even as she aimed to stretch forth her hand, and bend forward, she 
 heard a rush of wings and a shrill scream from the tree above her, — 
 such a scream as the mocking-bird makes, when angrily it raises 
 its dusky crest, and flaps its wings furiously against its slender 
 sides. Such a scream seemed like a warning, and, though yet un- 
 awakened to full consciousness, it startled her and forba<le her efl!"ort. 
 
 More than once in her survey of this strange object had she heard 
 that shrill note, and still had it carried to her ear the same note of 
 warning, and to her mind the same vague consciousness of an evil 
 presence. But the starlike eye was yet upon her own, — a small. 
 
19£ cathcaet's lttbeaey eeadee. 
 
 bright eye, quick like that of a bird, now steady in its place, and ob- 
 servant seemingly only of hers, now darting forward with all the clus- 
 tering leaves about it, and shooting up toward her as if wooing her 
 to seize. At another moment, riveted to the vine which lay around 
 it, it would whirl round and round, dazzlingly bright and beautiful, 
 even as a torch, waving hurriedly by night in the hands of some play- 
 ful boy : but in all this time the glance was never taken from her 
 own ; there it grew fixed, — a very principle of light ; and such a 
 light ! a subtile, burning, piercing, fascinating gleam, such as gathers 
 in vapor above the old grave, and binds us as we look ; shooting, 
 darting directly into her eye, dazzling her gaze, defeating its sense of 
 discrimination, and confusing strangely that of perception. 
 
 She felt dizzy ; for, as she looked, a cloud of colors, bright, gay, 
 various colors, floated and hung like so much drapery around the sin- 
 gle object that had so secured her attention and spellbound her feet. 
 Her limbs felt momently more and more insecure, her blood grew 
 cold, and she seemed to feel the gradual freeze of vein by vein 
 throughout her person. At that moment a nistliug was heard in the 
 branches of the tree beside her, and the bird which had repeatedly ut- 
 tered a single cry above her, as it were of warning, flew away from 
 his station with a scream more piercing than ever. 
 
 This movement had the effect, for which it really seemed intended, 
 of bringing back to her a portion of the consciousness she seemed to 
 have been so totally deprived of before. She strove to move from be- 
 fore the beautiful yet terrible presence, but for a while strove in vain. 
 The rich starlike glance still riveted her own, and the subtile fascina- 
 tion kept her bound. 
 
 The mental energies, however, with the moment of their greatest 
 trial, now gathered suddenly to her aid ; and with a desperate effort, 
 but with a feeling still of most annoying uncertainty and dread, 
 she succeeded partially in the attempt, and threw her arms backward, 
 her hands grasping the neighboring tree, feeble, tottering, and de- 
 pending upon it for that support which her own limbs almost entirely 
 denied her. With her movement, however, came the full develop- 
 ment of the powerful spell and dreadful mystery before her. As her 
 feet receded, though but a single pace, to the tree against which she 
 now rested, the audibly articulate ring, like that of a watch when 
 wound up with the verge broken, announced the nature of that splen- 
 did yet dangerous presence, in the form of the monstrous rattlesnake, 
 
SIMMS. 193 
 
 now but a few feet before her, lying coiled at the bottom of a beautiful 
 shrub, with which, to her dreaming eye, many of its own glorious 
 hues had become associated. 
 
 THE SHADED WATEB. 
 
 When that my mood is sad, and in the noise 
 And bustle of the crowd I feel rebuke, 
 
 I turn my footsteps from its hollow joys 
 And sit me down beside this little brook ; 
 
 The waters have a music to mine ear 
 
 It glads me much to hear. 
 
 It is a quiet glen, as you may see, 
 
 Shut in from all intnision by the trees. 
 
 That spread their giant branches, broad and free. 
 The silent growth of many centuries ; 
 
 And make a hallowed time for hapless moods, 
 
 A Sabbath of the woods. 
 
 Few know its quiet shelter, — none, like me, 
 Do seek it out with such a fond desire, 
 
 Poring in idlesse mood on flower and tree, 
 
 And listening as the voiceless leaves respire, — 
 
 When the far-traveling breeze, done wandering. 
 
 Bests here his weary wing. 
 
 And all the day, with fancies ever new. 
 
 And sweet companions from their boundless store, 
 Of merry elves bespangled all with dew, 
 
 Fantastic creatures of the old-time lore. 
 Watching their wild but unobtrusive play, 
 I fling the hours away. 
 
 A gracious couch — the root of an old oak 
 Whose branches yield it moss and canopy — 
 
 Is mine, and, so it be from woodman's stroke 
 Secure, shall never be resigned by me ; 
 
 It hangs above the stream that idly flies. 
 
 Heedless of any eyes. 
 
 * M 
 
194 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent. 
 Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour, 
 
 While every sense on earnest mission sent, 
 
 Returns, thought-laden, back with bloom and flower ; 
 
 Pursuing, though rebuked by those who moil, 
 
 A profitable toil. 
 
 And still the waters trickling at my feet 
 Wind on their way with gentlest melody, 
 
 Yielding sweet music, which the leaves repeat. 
 Above them, to the gay breeze gliding by, — 
 
 Yet not so rudely as to send one sound 
 
 Through the thick copse around. 
 
 Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest 
 
 Hangs o'er the archway opening through the trees. 
 
 Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, pressed 
 On my worn spirit its sweet luxuries, — 
 
 And, with awakened vision upward bent, 
 
 I watch the firmament. 
 
 How like — its sure and undisturbed retreat. 
 Life's sanctuary at last, secure from storm — 
 
 To the pure waters trickling at my feet. 
 
 The bending trees that overshade my form ! 
 
 So far as sweetest things of earth may seem 
 
 Like those of which we dream. 
 
 Such, to my mind, is the philosophy 
 
 The young bird teaches, who, with sudden flight. 
 
 Sails far into the blue that spreads on high, 
 Until I lose him from my straining sight, — 
 
 With a most lofty discontent to fly. 
 
 Upward, from earth to sky. 
 
MRS. BROWNING. 195 
 
 MRS. BROWNING. 
 
 1807-1861. 
 
 ELiZABrrn BAEmnr wm born in HertfonlBhire, England, in 1807, and died at Florence in 
 I'^l. Her marked precocity was encouraged by her admiring relatives, who greeted her 
 juvenile feats in literature with unbounded commendation, and lavished upon her every educa- 
 tional advantage thait wealth could procure. At the age of ten years she began to compose, and 
 •even years later put forth her first volume, Jn Essay oh Mind, with other Poems. Although 
 poMcasmg unquestionable merit, these juvenile productions did not warrant the expectation of 
 •och liteivy triumphs as she afterwards achieved. But they must be regarded as preliminary 
 exerdaes, perhaps essential to the great and enduring work in whicli she was about to engage. 
 This work is represented to the public by several volumes of poems, issued between 1838 and the 
 year of her death. The Seraphim, The RomauHt of the ?age. The Drama of Exile, etc. In 1816 
 Miss Barrett became the wife of Robert Browning, their marriage marking one of the most 
 rrmarkable and felicitous unions on record. Although distinctively a poet, Mrs. Browning was 
 not merely a poet. Her scholarship was extensive and accurate, and some of her critical papers 
 on abstruse subjects entitle her to high rank as a writer of prose. For several years the poetical 
 pair had their home in luly, and Mrs. Browning, sympathizing ardently with the Italian heart 
 in ita struggles toward political independence, wrote many of her finest poenu on Italian themes 
 and inspired by Italian enthusiasm. Her Ust work of magnitude was Anrora Leigh, a long poem, 
 m which she gave vehement, though somewhat mystical and obscure, expression to her very posi- 
 tive opinions as to the nature and mission of woman. Her literary faults are many and grave, 
 the chief of them being intentional obscurity, affectation in style, and carelessness in details ; 
 but with the basic qualities of the poet she was grandly endowed, and her place in the front 
 ranks of English singers is not likely to be qnesUoned. 
 
 A DEAD BOSE. 
 
 Rose ! who dares to name thee ? 
 No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet ; 
 But barren, and hard, and dry as stubble-wheat. 
 
 Kept seven years in a drawer, — thy titles shame thee. 
 
 The breeze that used to blow thee 
 Between the hedge-row thorns, and take away 
 An odor up the lane, to last all day, — 
 
 If breathing now, — unsweetened would forego thee. 
 
 «• 
 
 The sun that used to smite thee, 
 And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn, 
 Till beam appeared to bloom and flower to bum, — 
 
 If shining now, — with not a hue would light thee. 
 
 The dew that used to wet thee. 
 And, white first, grew incarnadined, because 
 
196 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 It lay upon thee where the crimson was, — 
 
 If dropping now, — would darken where it met thee. 
 
 The fly that lit upon thee, 
 To stretch the tendrils of its tiny feet 
 Along the leaf's pure edges after heat, — 
 
 If lighting now, — would coldly overrun thee. 
 
 The bee that once did suck thee, 
 And build thy perfumed ambers up his hive, 
 And swoon in thee for joy, till scarce alive, — 
 
 If passing now, — would blindly overlook thee. 
 
 The heart doth recognize thee. 
 Alone, alone ! The heart doth smell thee sweet, 
 Doth view thee fair, doth judge thee most complete, — 
 
 Though seeing now those changes that disguise thee. 
 
 Yes, and the heart doth owe thee 
 More love, dead rose ! than to such roses bold 
 As Julia wears at dances, smiling cold ! — 
 
 Lie still upon this heart, which breaks below thee ! 
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 Of all the thoughts of God that are 
 Borne inward unto souls afar. 
 Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
 Now tell me if that any is 
 For gift or grace surpassing this, — 
 " He giveth his beloved sleep " ? 
 
 What would we give to our beloved ? 
 The hero's heart, to be unmoved, — 
 The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep, — 
 The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse, — 
 The monarch's crown, to light the brows ? 
 " He giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
MRS. BEOWNINO. 197 
 
 What do we give to our beloved ? 
 A little faith, all undisproved, — 
 A little dust to overweep, — 
 And bitter memories, to make 
 Tlie whole earth blasted for our sake j 
 " He giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 ** Sleep soft, beloved ! " we sometimes say, 
 
 But have no tune to charm away 
 
 Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep ; 
 
 But never doleful dream again 
 
 Shall break the happy slumber when 
 
 " He giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
 O delved gold the wailers heap ! 
 O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 And " giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 His dews drop mutely on the hill, 
 His cloud above it saileth still. 
 Though on its slope men sow and reap ; 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 
 " He giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 For me, my heart, that erst did go 
 Most like a tired child at a show. 
 That sees through tears the jugglers leap. 
 Would now its wearied vision close. 
 Would childlike on His love repose 
 Who " giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 LOVE: A SONNET. 
 
 I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sung 
 
 Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years. 
 
 Who each one, iu a gracious hand, appears 
 
198 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 To bear a gift for mortals, old and young ; 
 
 And as I mused it in his antique tongue, 
 
 I saw a gradual vision through my tears. 
 
 The sweet sad years, the melancholy years. 
 
 Those of my own life, who by turns liad flung 
 
 A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 
 
 So weeping, how a mystic shape did move 
 
 Behind me, and drew me backwards by the hair. 
 
 And a voice said in mastery, while 1 strove, 
 
 "Guess now who holds thee?" "Death," I said; but there 
 
 The silver answer rang, — " Not Death, but Love." 
 
 THE CBY OF THE CHILDREN.* 
 
 Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers. 
 
 Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
 They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, — 
 
 And that cannot stop their tears. 
 The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, 
 
 The young birds are chirping in the nest, 
 The young fawns are playing with the shadows. 
 
 The young flowers are blowing towanls the west ; 
 But the young, young children, O my brothers. 
 
 They are weeping bitterly ! — 
 They are weeping in the playtime of the others. 
 
 In the country of the free. 
 
 And well may the children weep before you ! 
 
 They are weary ere they run ; 
 They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory 
 
 Which is brighter than the sun : 
 They know the grief of man, without his wisdom ; 
 
 They sink in man's despair, without his calm, — 
 Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, — 
 
 Are martjTS, by the pang without the palm, — 
 Are worn, as. if with age, yet unretrievingly 
 
 The blessings of its memory cannot keep, — 
 Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly : 
 
 Let them weep ! let them weep ! 
 
 * This extract is from a ven- pathetic poem on the factory children of England. 
 
AQASSIZ. 199 
 
 AGASSIZ. 
 
 1807- 1873. 
 
 Locis Jkait Rodolphe Agassis, in whose death the nation has lost one of her most honored 
 dtizrns. and Science one of her ablest representatives, was born in the canton of Vaiul, 
 Switxerland, in 1807- While still very young he became a zealons student of scientific subjects, 
 Mid early gave promise of the eminence which he afterwards attained in tliat department of 
 intellectual effort For several years he occupied the chair of Natural History at Neufch&tel, 
 and in the discharge of his duties and the prosecution of independent investigations commended 
 himself to the attention and respect of leading scientisU in all parts of Europe. He was the 
 intimate and triuted friend of Cuvier, the great naturalist. He was urgently invited by sc\ eral 
 universities of the highest grade ; but he felt a powerful attraction towards the vigorous young 
 Republic of the West, and when in 1»47 there came a call to him from Harvard University, he 
 instantly accepted it The histoi7 of his work in the twenty-five years of Ids life in this country 
 is too familiar to require a detailed statement ; it is sufficient to say that for many years he was 
 esteemed by universal consent the foremost savant in the United Sutes and the peer of the 
 greatest of the brotherhood in Europe. It should be added that the recent rapid growth of 
 popolar interest in science and the establishment and gratifying progress of many scientific 
 iastitations in this country are fairly attributable to his example and influence. Long before his 
 emigration to America Agassis had become a famous author, and had won an enviable fame in con- 
 nection with the Glacial Theory, which he promulgated in 1837- During his residence here he 
 was a frequent contributor to scientific periodicals, and produced several works of marked origi- 
 nality and permanent value. Conspicuous among these are Methods 0/ Study in Natural History 
 and Geological Sketches. In 1965 Professor Agassii made a voyage to Brazil in the interests of 
 ■cienee. The labors resulting from this enterprise, and his arduous efforts in behalf of the 
 Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, proved too severe for his physical strength, and 
 within the year just preceding his death it was evident to Ids friends that he was failing. Their 
 finebodings were too soon realized, and near the close of his sixty-sixth year the great naturalist 
 passed away. It is simple justice to his memory to add that he was no less conspicuous and 
 admirable for the qualities of his heart than for the powers and stores of his mind. The first ex- 
 tract is ftrom A Jonmey in Brazil, the joint work of Professor and Mrs. Agassiz ; the second is 
 from Geological Sketches. 
 
 A COFFEE PLANTATION IN BEAZIL. 
 
 The Fazenda da Fortaleza de Santa Anna lies at the foot of the 
 Serra da Babylonia. The house itself forms a part of a succession of 
 low white buildings, enclosing an oblong square divided into neat lots 
 for the drying of coffee. This drying of the coffee in the immediate 
 vicinity of the house, though a very general custom, must be an uncom- 
 fortable one ; for the drying-lots are laid in a dazzling white cement, 
 from the glare of which, in this hot climate, the eye turns wearily away. 
 
 Just l)ehind the house, on the slope of the hill, is the orangery. I 
 om never tired of these golden orchards, and this was one of espe- 
 cial beauty. The small, deep-colored tangerines, sometimes twenty 
 or thirty in one cluster, the large, choice orange, " Laranja selecta," 
 as it is called, often ten or twelve together in a single bunch, and 
 
200 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 bearing the branches to the ground with their weight, the paler 
 " Liraao doce," or sweet lemon, rather insipid, but greatly esteemed 
 here for its cool, refreshing properties, — all these, with many others, 
 make a mass of color in which gold, deep orange, and pale yellow 
 blend wonderfully with the background of green. Beyond the house 
 enclosure, on the opposite side of the road, are the gardens, with aviary 
 and fish-ponds in the center. With these exceptions, all the prop- 
 erty not forest is devoted to coffee, covering the hillsides for miles 
 around. The seed is planted in nurseries especially prepared, where 
 it undergoes its first year's growth. It is then transplanted to its 
 permanent home, and begins to bear in about three years, the first 
 crop being of course a very light one. From that time forward, un- 
 der good care and with favorable soil, it will continue to bear, and 
 even to yield two crops or more annually for thirty years in succession. 
 At that time the shrubs and the soU are alike exhausted, and, accord- 
 ing to the custom of the country, the fazendeiro cuts down the forest 
 for a new plantation, completely abandoning his old one, without a 
 thought of redeeming or fertilizing the exhausted land. 
 
 One of the long-sighted reforms undertaken by Mr. Lage is the 
 manuring of all the old, deserted plantations on his estate ; he has 
 already a number of vigorous young plantations, which promise to be 
 as good as if a virgin forest had been sacrificed to produce them. 
 He wishes not only to preserve the wood on his own estate, and to 
 show that agriculture need not be promoted at the expense of taste 
 and beauty, but to remind his country people also, that, extensive as 
 are the forests, they will not last forever, and that it will be necessary 
 to emigrate before long to find new coffee-grounds, if the old ones are 
 treated as worthless. Another of his reforms is that of the roads. 
 The ordinary roads in the coffee plantations, like the mule-tracks all 
 over the country, go straight up the sides of the hills between the lines 
 of shrubs, and besides being gullied by every rain, they form so steep 
 an ascent that even with eight or ten oxen it is often impossible to 
 drive the clumsy, old-fashioned carts up the slope, and the negroes 
 are obliged to bring a great part of the harvest down on their heads. 
 On Senhor Lage's estate all these old roads are abandoned, except 
 where they are planted here and there with alleys of orange-trees for 
 the use of the negroes ; and he has substituted for them winding roads 
 in the side of the hill with a very gradual ascent, so that light carts 
 drawn by a single mide can transport all the harvest from the sum- 
 mit of the plantation to the drying-ground. 
 
AQASSIZ. 201 
 
 It was the harvesting season, and the spectacle was a pretty one. 
 The negroes, men and women, were scattered about the plantations 
 with broad, shallow trays, made of plaited grass or bamboo, strapped 
 over their shoulders and supported at their waists ; into these they 
 were gathering the coflFee ; some of the berries being brilliantly red, 
 some already beginning to dry and turn brown, while here and there 
 was a green one not yet quite ripe, but soon to ripen in the scorching 
 sun. Little black children were sitting on the ground and gathering 
 what fell under the bushes, singing at their work a monotonous but 
 rather pretty snatch of song, in which some took the first and others 
 the second, making a not inharmonious music. As their baskets were 
 filled they came to the Administrador to receive a little metal ticket on 
 which the amount of their work was marked. 
 
 A task is allotted to each one, -r- so much to a full-grown man, so 
 much to a woman with young children, so much to a child, — and each 
 one is paid for whatever he may do over and above it. The requisi- 
 tion is a very moderate one, so that the industrious have an opportu- 
 nity of earning a little money independently. At night they all pre- 
 sent their tickets and are paid on the spot, for any extra work. From 
 the harvesting-ground we followed the carts down to the place where 
 their burden is deposited. On their return from the plantation the 
 negroes divide the day's harvest, and dispose it in little mounds on 
 the drying-ground. When pretty equally dried, the coffee is spread 
 out in thin even layers over the whole enclosure, where it is baked for 
 the last time. It is then hulled by a very simple machine in use on 
 almost all the fazendas, and the process is complete. 
 
 Yestenlay we succeeded in obtaining living specimens of the in- 
 sect so injurious to the coffee-tree, the larva of a little moth akin to 
 those which destroy the vineyards in Europe, and among them was 
 one just spinning his cocoon on the leaf. We watched him for a long 
 time with the lens as he wove his filmy tent. He had arehed the 
 threads upwards in the center, so as to leave a little hollow space 
 into whieh he could withdraw ; this tiny vault seemed to be com- 
 pleted ot the moment we saw him, and he was drawing threads for- 
 ward and fastening them at a short distance beyond, thus lashing his 
 house to the leaf, as it were. The exquisite accuracy of the work was 
 amazing. He was spinning the thread with his mouth, and with every 
 new stitch he turned his body backward, attached his thread to the same 
 spot, then drew it forward and fastened it exactly on a line with the 
 last, with a pre^^ision and rapidity that machinery could hardly imitate. 
 
202 CATHCARTS LITERARY READER. 
 
 It is a curious question how far this perfection of workmanship in 
 many of the lower animals is simply identical with their organization, 
 and therefore to be considered a function, as inevitable in its action 
 as digestion or respiration, rather than an instinct. In this case the 
 body of the little animal was his measure : it was amazing to see him 
 lay down his threads with such accuracy, till one remembered that he 
 could not make them longer or shorter ; for, starting from the center 
 of his house, and stretching his body its full length, they must always 
 reach the same point. The same is true of the so-called mathematics 
 of the bee. The bees stand as close as they can together in their hive 
 for economy of space, and each one deposits his wax around him, 
 his own form and size being the mould for the cells, the regularity of 
 which when completed excites so much wonder and admiration. The 
 mathematical secret of the bee is to be found in his structure, not in 
 his instinct. But in the industrial work of some of the lower ani- 
 mals, the ant for instance, there is a power of adaptation which is not 
 susceptible of the same expkination. Their social organization, too 
 intelligent, it seems, to be the work of any reasoning powers of their 
 own, yet does not appear to be directly connected with their struc- 
 ture. While we were watching our little insect, a breath stirred the 
 leaf and he instantly contracted himself and drew back under his 
 roof, but presently came out again and returned to his work. 
 
 AMERICA THE OLD WOBLD. 
 
 PiRST-BOBN among the Continents, though so much later in cul- 
 ture and civilization than some of more recent birth, America, so far 
 as her physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the 
 JV«r JForld. Hers was the first dry land lifted out of the waters, 
 hers the first shore washed by the ocean that enveloped all the earth 
 beside ; and while Europe was represented only by islands rising 
 here and there al)0ve the sea, America already stretched an unbroken 
 line of land from Nova Scotia to the Far West.* 
 
 In the present state of our knowledge, our conclusions respecting 
 the beginning of the earth's historj*, the way in which it took form 
 and shape as a distinct, separate planet, must, of course, be very 
 
 * " It would be inexpedient to encumber this essay," Mr. Agassii remarks, " with references 
 to all the authorities on which such geological results rest. They are drawn from the various 
 State Surrrys, including that of the mineral lands of Lake Superior, in which the early rise of the 
 American Continent is for the first time affirmed, and other more general works on American 
 geology." 
 
AGASSIZ. 203 
 
 vague and hypothetical. Yet the progress of science is so rapidly 
 reconstructing the past that we may hope to solve even this problem ; 
 and to one who looks upon man's appearance upon the earth as the 
 crowning work in a succession of creative acts, all of which have had 
 rebtion to his coming in the end, it will not seem strange that he 
 should at last be allowed to understand a history which was but the 
 introduction to his own existence. It is my belief that not only the 
 future, but the past also, is the inheritance of man, and that we shall 
 yet conquer our lost birthright. 
 
 Even now our knowledge carries us far enough to warrant the 
 assertion that there was a time when our earth was in a state of 
 igneous fusion, when no ocean bathed it and no atmosphere surrounded 
 it, when no wind blew over it, and no rain fell upon it, but an intense 
 heat held all its materials in solution. In those days the rocks which 
 are now the very bones and sinews of our mother Earth — her 
 granites, her porphyries, her basalts, her sienitcs — were melted into 
 a liquid mass. As I am writing for the unscientific reader, who may 
 not be familiar with the facts through which these inferences have 
 been reached, I will answer here a question which, were we talking 
 together, he might naturally ask in a somewhat skeptical tone. How 
 do you know that this state of things ever existed, and, supposing 
 that the solid materials of which our earth consists were ever in a 
 liquid condition, what right have you to infer that this condition was 
 caused by the action of heat upon them ? I answer. Because it is 
 acting upon them still ; because the earth we tread is but a thin cnist 
 floating on a liquid sea of molten materials ; because the agencies 
 that were at work then are at work now, and the present is the logical 
 sequence of the past. From Artesian wells, from mines, from geysers, 
 from hot springs, a mass of facts has been collected, proving incon- 
 testably the heated condition of all substances at a certain depth 
 below the earth's surface ; and if we need more positive evidence, we 
 have it in the fiery eruptions that even now liear fearful testimony to 
 the molten ocean seething within the globe and forcing its way out 
 from time to time. The modern progress of Geology has led us by 
 successive and perfectly connected steps l)ack to a time when what is 
 now only an occasional and rare phenomenon was the normal condi- 
 tion of our earth ; when those internal fires were inclosed in an 
 envelop so thin that it opposed but little resistance to their frequent 
 outbreak, and they constantly forced themselves through this crust, 
 
E04 CATH cart's literary reader. 
 
 pouring out uulted materials that subsequently cooled and consoli- 
 dated on its surface. So constant were these eruptions, and so slight 
 was the resistance they encouutered, that some portions of the earlier 
 rock-deposits are perforated with numerous chimneys, narrow tunnels 
 as it were, bored by the liquid masses that poured out through them 
 and greatly modified their first condition. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no part of the world, certainly none familiar to 
 science, where the early geological periods can be studied with so 
 much ease and precision as in the United States. Along their north- 
 em borders, between Canada and the United States, there runs the 
 low line of hills known as the Laurentian Hills. Insignificant in 
 height, nowhere rising more than fifteen hundred or two thousand 
 feet above the level of the sea, these are nevertheless the first moun- 
 tains that broke the uniform level of the earth's surface, and lifted 
 themselves above the waters. Their low stature, as compared with 
 that of other more lofty mountain-ranges, is in accordance with an 
 invariable rule, by which the relative age of mountains may be esti- 
 mated. The oldest mountains are the lowest, while the younger and 
 more recent ones tower &\xnr iluii riders, and are usiudly more torn 
 and dislocated also. This is easily understood when we remember 
 that all mountains and mountain-chains arc the result of upheavals, 
 and that the violence of the outbreak must have been in proportion to 
 the strength of the resistance. When the crust of the earth was so 
 thin that the heated masses within easily broke through it, they were 
 not thrown to so great a height, and formed comparatively low eleva- 
 tions, such as the Canadian hills or the mountains of Bretagne and 
 Wales. But in later times, when young, vigorous giants, such as the 
 Alps, the Himalayas, or, later still, the Kocky Mountains, forced their 
 way out from their fiery prison-house, the crust of the earth was 
 much thicker, and fearful indeed must have been the convulsions 
 which attended their exit. 
 
 The Laurentian Hills form, then, a granite range, stretching from 
 Eastern Canada to the Upper Mississippi, and immediately along its 
 base are gathered the Azoic deposits, the first stratified beds, in which 
 the absence of life need not surprise us, since they were formed be- 
 neath a heated ocean. As well might w^e expect to find the remains 
 of fish or shells or crabs at the bottom of geysers or of boiling springs, 
 as on those early shores bathed by an ocean of which the heat must 
 have been so intense. Although from the condition in which we find 
 
AGASSIZ. 205 
 
 it, this first granite range has evidently never been disturbed by any 
 violent convulsion since its first upheaval, yet there has been a gradual 
 rising of that part of the continent, for the Azoic beds do not lie 
 horizontally along the base of the Laureutian Hills in the position in 
 which they must originally have been deposited, but are lifted and 
 rest against their slopes. They have been more or less dislocated in 
 this process, and are greatly metamorphosed by the intense heat to 
 which they must have been exposed. Indeed, all the oldest stratified 
 rocks have been baked by the prolonged action of heat. 
 
 It may be asked how the materials for those first stratified deposits 
 were provided. In later times, when an abundant and various soil 
 covered the earth, when every river brought down to the ocean, not 
 only its yearly tribute of mud or clay or lime, but the debria of ani- 
 mals and pknts that lived and died in its waters or along its banks, 
 when every lake and pond deposited at its bottom in successive layera 
 the lighter or heavier materials floating in its waters and settling grad- 
 ually beneath them, the process by which stratified materials are col- 
 lected and gradually harden into rock is more easily understood. But 
 when the solid surface of the earth was oiUy just beginning to form, it 
 would seem that the floating matter in the sea can hardly have been 
 in sufficient quantity to form any extensive deposits. No doubt 
 there was some abrasion even of that first crust ; but the more abun- 
 dant source of the earliest stratification is to be found in the submarine 
 volcanoes that poured their liquid streams into the first ocean. At 
 what rate these materials would be distributed and precipitated in 
 regular strata it is impossible to determine ; but that volcanic mate- 
 rials were so deposited in layers is evident from the relative position 
 of the earliest rocks. I have already spoken of the innumerable chim- 
 neys perforating the Azoic Vds, narrow outlets of Plutonic rock, pro- 
 truding through the earliest strata. Not only are such funnels filled 
 with the crystalline mass of granite that flowed through them in a 
 liquid state, but it has often poured over their sides, mingling with 
 the stratified beds around. In the present state of our knowledge, we 
 can explain snoh appearances only by supposing that the heated mate- 
 rials within the earth's crust poun*d o\it fnquently, meeting little 
 resistance, — that tliey then scattered and were precipitated in the 
 ocean around, settling in successive strata at its bottom, — that 
 through such strata the heated masses within continued to pour agjiin 
 and again, forming for themselves the chimney-like outlets above 
 mentioned. 
 
206 CATHCART^S LITERAEY READER. 
 
 Such, then, was the earliest American land, — a long, narrow island, 
 almost continental in its proportions, since it stretched from the 
 eastern borders of Canada nearly to the point where now the base of 
 the Eocky Mountains meets the phiin of the Mississippi Valley. We 
 may still walk along its ridge and know that we tread upon the 
 ancient granite that first divided the waters into a northorn and south- 
 ern ocean ; and if our imaginations will airrj' us so far, we may look 
 down toward its base and fancy how the sea washed against this 
 earliest shore of a lifeless world. This is no romance, but the bald, 
 simple truth; for the fact that this granite band was lifted out of 
 the waters so early in the history of the world, and has not since been 
 submerged, has, of course, prevented any subsequent deposits from 
 forming above it. And this is true of all the northern part of the 
 United States. It lias been lifted gradually, the beds deposited in 
 one pttriod being subsequently raised, and forming a shore along 
 which those of the succeeding one collected, so that we have their 
 whole sequence before us. In regions where all the geological de- 
 posits, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, etc., are 
 piled one upon another, and we can get a glimpse of their internal 
 relations only where some rent has laid them open, or where their 
 ragged edges, worn away by the abrading action of external influences, 
 expose to view their successive layers, it must, of course, be more 
 difficult to follow their connection. For this reason the American 
 continent offers facilities to the geologist denied to him in the so-called 
 Old World, where the earlier deposits are comparatively hidden, and 
 tlie broken character of the land, intersected by mountains in every di- 
 rection, renders his investigation still more difficult. Of course, when 
 I speak of the geological deposits as so completely unveiled to us 
 here, I do not forget the sheet of drift which covers the continent from 
 north to south ; but the drift is only a superficial and recent addition 
 to the soil, resting loosely above the other geological deposits, and 
 arising from very different causes. 
 
 In this article I have intended to limit myself to a general sketch 
 of the formation of the Laurentian Hills with the Azoic stratified beds 
 resting against them. In the Silurian epoch following the Azoic we 
 have the first beach on which any life stirred ; it extended along the 
 base of the Azoic beds, widening by its extensive deposits the narrow 
 strip of land already upheaved. 
 
LONCKKI.LOW. 207 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 1807- 
 
 IlKintT Wadswoxth Lo!ianLLOW, the most distinguished of American poets, was born in 
 Portland. Maine, in 18(»7. He graduated at Bowdoin Ck>llege in the class of 1825, of which Na- 
 thaniel Hawthorne an J President Pierce were mciiihers. The next year he was appointed Professor 
 of Modem Languages in this institution, and in 18.55 was elected to the chair of Belles-Lettres 
 in Harrard University, which position he held for many years, finally resigning it in order that he 
 might give his attention wholly to literary labor. Between th«se two dates he spent much time 
 in Europe, assiduously studying modem languages and literature. Mr. Longfellow's poetry is 
 distinguished for rctinemcnt and grace rather than for vigor of thought or expression. His sym- 
 pathies are quick and strong, and this fact, together with the directness and simplicity of his verse, 
 accounts mainly for the extraordinary popularity of his writings, not only in this country, but in 
 England, where they are almost universally read and admired. Perhaps his best — as it is his 
 most famous — poem is EraH^feliHe, which contains some of the most perfect idyllic passages in the 
 language, and is eloquent with a sweet pathos that touches every heart. He is an accomplished 
 student of foreign literature, and has translated many poems from the Spanish, German, and 
 Scandinatian langtiages into his own graceful measures. He may fairly be regarded as one of 
 the most influential founders of American literature, as he is one of its brightest ornaments. Aa 
 • TcpreaeDtatiTe of our national culture in European eyes, he is undoubtedly the most oonspicu- 
 ow of American poeta. 
 
 THE WBECK OF THE HESPERUS. 
 
 It was the schooner Hesperus 
 
 Th:it sailed the wintry sea ; 
 And the skipper had taken his little daughter, 
 
 To bear him company. 
 
 Blue were her eyes as the fairy -flax, 
 
 Her cheeks like the dawn of day, 
 And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds 
 
 That ope in the month of May. 
 
 The skipper he stood beside the helm, 
 
 His pipe was in his mouth, 
 And he watched how the veering flaw did blow 
 
 The smoke now west, now south. 
 
 Then up and spake an old sailor, 
 
 Had sailed the Spanish Main, 
 " I pray thee put into yonder port, 
 
 For I fear a hurricane. 
 
208 cathcart's literaey reader. 
 
 " Last night the moon had a golden ring, 
 And to-night no moon we see ! " 
 
 The skipper, he blew a whifF from his pipe, 
 And a scornful laugh laughed he. 
 
 Colder and louder blew the wind, 
 
 A gale from the northeast ; 
 The snow fell hissing in the brine, 
 
 And the billows frothed like yeast. 
 
 Down came the storm, and smote amain 
 
 The vessel in its strength ; 
 She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed. 
 
 Then leiiped her cable's length. 
 
 " Come liitlier ! come hither ! my little daughter. 
 
 And do not tremble so ; 
 For I can weather the roughest gale 
 
 That ever wind did blow." 
 
 He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat 
 
 Against the stinging blast ; 
 He cut a rope from a broken spar. 
 
 And bound her to the mast. 
 
 ** O father ! I hear the church-bells ring, 
 
 O say what may it be ? " 
 " 'T is a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast ! " 
 
 And he steered for the open sea. 
 
 " O father ! I hear the ^ound of guns, 
 
 O say what may it be ? " 
 *' Some ship in distress, that cannot live 
 
 In such an angry sea ! " 
 
 " O father ! I see a gleaming light, 
 
 O say what may it be ? " 
 But the father answered never a word, — 
 
 A frozen corpse was he. 
 
LONGFELLOW. 209 
 
 Lashed to the helm, all stiflF and stark. 
 
 With his face turned to the skies. 
 The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow 
 
 On his fixed and glassy eyes. 
 
 Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed 
 
 That savdd she might be ; 
 And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave 
 
 On the Lake of Galilee. 
 
 And fast through the midnight dark and drear. 
 
 Through the whistling sleet and snow. 
 Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept 
 
 Towards the reef of Norman's Woe. 
 
 And ever the fitful gusts between 
 
 A sound came from the land ; 
 It was the sound of the trampling surf. 
 
 On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. 
 
 The breakers were right beneath her bows, 
 
 She drifted a dreary wreck, 
 And a whooping billow swept the crew 
 
 Like icicles from her deck. 
 
 She struck where the white and fleecy waves 
 
 Looked soft as carded wool. 
 But the cruel rocks, they gored her side 
 
 Like the horns of an angry bull. 
 
 Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice. 
 
 With the masts went by the board ; 
 Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, 
 
 Ho ! ho ! the breakers roared ! 
 
 At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, 
 
 A fisherman stood aghast. 
 To see the form of a maiden fair 
 
 La«hed close to a drifting mast. 
 
210 catiicart's literary readee. 
 
 The salt sea was frozen on her breast. 
 
 The salt tears in her eyes ; 
 And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weecl. 
 
 On tlic l)ill()\vs fall and rise. 
 
 Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, 
 
 In tho inidniirht and the snow ! 
 Christ s;ivi' us all IVoMi a dcatli like this. 
 On the reef of Norman's Woe ! 
 
 THE SHIP OF STATE. 
 
 Thou too sail on, O Ship of State ! 
 Sail on, O Union, stronor and great I . 
 Humanity, with all its fears. 
 With all tiif !ioj)c>i of future years. 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate f 
 We know what Master laid thy keel, 
 * What Workmen wrou jilt t liy ribs of steel, 
 
 W ho made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 
 In what a forge and what a heat 
 W(TO shapes! tlie anchors of thy hope ! 
 l'\ar not each suddtu sound and shock, 
 T is of the wave and not the rock ; 
 *T is but the flapping of the sail. 
 And not a rent made by the gale ! 
 In spite of rock and tempest's roar. 
 In spite of false lights on the shore. 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
 Our hearts, onr hopes, are all with thee ; 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, onr tears, 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! 
 
 A PSALM OF LIFE. 
 
 Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 
 " Life is but an empty dream ! " 
 
 For the soul is dead that slumbers. 
 And things are not what' they seem. 
 
LONGFELLOW. 211 
 
 Life is real ! life is earnest ! 
 
 And the j^ve is not its goal ; 
 " Dust thou art, to dust returnest," 
 
 Was not spoken of the soul. 
 
 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
 
 Is our destined end or way ; 
 But to act, that each to-morrow 
 
 Find us farther than to-day. 
 
 Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 
 
 And our hearts, though stout and brave. 
 
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave. 
 
 In the world's broad field of battle, 
 
 In the bivouac of Life, 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! 
 
 Be a hero in the strife ! 
 
 Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant ! 
 
 Let the dead Past bury its dead ! 
 Act, — act in the living Present ! 
 
 Heart within, and God o'erhead ! 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives suljime. 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time ; 
 
 Footprints, that perhaps another. 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 
 Seeing, shall take heart again. 
 
 Let us, then, be up and doing, 
 
 With a heart for any fate ; 
 Still achieving, still pursuing, 
 
 Le&m to labor and to wait. 
 
212 cathcart's liteeart. reader. 
 
 THE LAUHCHING OF THE SHIP. 
 
 All is finished ! and at length 
 
 Has come the bridal day 
 
 Of beauty and of strength. 
 
 To-day the vessel shall be launched ! 
 
 With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched, 
 
 And o'er the bay, 
 
 Slowly, in all his splendors dight, 
 
 The great Sun rises to behold the sight. 
 
 The Ocean old, 
 
 Centuries old, 
 
 Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, 
 
 Paces restless to and fro, 
 
 Up and down the sands of gold. 
 
 His beating heart is not at rest ; 
 
 And far and wide. 
 
 With ceaseless flow, 
 
 His beard of snow 
 
 Heaves with the heaving of his breast. 
 
 He waits impatient for his bride. 
 
 There she stands. 
 
 With her foot upon the sands. 
 
 Decked with flags and streamers gay, 
 
 In honor of her marriage day, 
 
 Her snow-white signals, fluttering, blending, 
 
 Round her like a veil descending. 
 
 Ready to be 
 
 The bride of the gray old Sea. 
 
 Then the master, 
 
 With a gesture of command. 
 
 Waved his hand ; 
 
 And at the word, 
 
 Loud and sudden there was heeird, 
 
 All around them and below. 
 
LONGFELLOW. 213 
 
 The sound of hammers, blow on blow. 
 
 Knocking away the shores and spurs. 
 
 A.nd see ! she stirs ! 
 
 She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel 
 
 The thrill of life along her keel, 
 
 And, spurning with her foot the ground. 
 
 With one exulting, joyous bound, 
 
 She leaps into the Ocean's arms ! 
 
 DISASTER. 
 
 Nevee stoops the soaring vulture 
 On his quarry in the desert, 
 On the sick or wounded bison, 
 But another vulture, watching 
 From his high aerial lookout, 
 Sees the downward plunge, and follows ; 
 And a third pursues the second, 
 Coming from the invisible ether, 
 First a speck, and then a vulture. 
 Till the air is dark with pinions. 
 So disasters come not singly ; 
 But as if they watched and waited, 
 Scanning one another's motions, 
 When the first descends, the others 
 Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise 
 Round their victim, sick and wounded, 
 First a shadow, then a sorrow. 
 Till the air is dark with anguish. 
 
 Though the mills of God grind slowly, 
 Yet they grind exceeding small ; 
 
 Though with patience he stands waiting, 
 With exactness grinds he all. 
 
iil4 CATHCiLRT^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 1808- 
 
 JoHN GuccxLEAF WnriTRB, the Quaker poet, was born in Haverhill. Massachiuetts, in 
 1808. His youth was spent on the paternal farm, and his educational opportunities were not 
 first-rate. He poMesaed a keen appetite for knowledge, however, and at the age of twenty-one 
 had so enriched and disciplined his mind that he was thought competent to till the editorial 
 chair of a Boston piqwr. One year later he went to Hartford, where he edited the New England 
 Weekly. In 1B31 he returned to Haverhill, where he remained five years, engaged in agriculture, 
 and serving the State as Representative in the LfCgislature through two terms. From boyhood 
 he luui been deeply interested in the subject of slavery, and his convictions of the sinfulness of 
 that institution were strengthened with his growth. He was one of the original members of the 
 American Antislavery Society, and having been appointed one of its secretaries, he took up his 
 residence at Philadelphia in \v^i6, and for four years wrote coiutantly for antislavery periodicals. 
 In 1840 he established himself at Amesbury, Massachusetts, which has ever since been his home. 
 His first volume, Legend* of New Englmmd in Pro$e mnd Veru, was published in 1831. This has 
 been followed at frequent intervals by nearly thirty volumes, mostly of verse. During the late 
 war he poured forth a multitude of strong and stirring lyrics which helped not a little to sustain 
 and energize public sentiment ; and the literature of the antislavery struggle, from its beginning 
 to its end, had in him an active and cffieieat c<Mitributor. Mr. Whittier's earlier poems deal 
 largely with the colonial annals of New England, and some of the most interesting traditions of 
 that region have been preserved for remote posterity in his graphic and rigorous lines. Two of 
 Mr. Whittier's poems have enjoyed an exceptional popularity, Mmud MtdUr and Snow-Bound ; the 
 first, telling the story of a universal experience, appeals to every heart, while the second affords 
 the most faithful and finished pictures of winter life in rural New England that have ever 
 been drawn by a poet No American poet, it may be said, is so free as Mr. Whittier from obli- 
 gations to English writers ; his poems show no evidence of appropriation, or even of a study of 
 masterpieces so assiduous and appreciative as almost ine%itably to entail a general resemblance. 
 He is eminently original, and eminently American. One principal charm of his poetry consists 
 in its catholicity ; he sings not of himself, but for humanity, and his voice is heeded as if it bore 
 a special call to all who heard it The moral tone of his writings is uncompromisingly high ; 
 his highest inspiration is found in the thought of elevating or helping his fellow-man, or widen- 
 ing the bounds of his freedom. The sentiment of Mr. Whittier's verse is generally elevated, and 
 is expressed with mingled tenderness and dignity. His style lacks el^ance, and is sometimes 
 marred by positive faults ; but these are more than balanced by the vigor of his lyrics and the 
 intensity of his didactic passages. 
 
 KATTD XIILLEB. 
 
 Maud Muller, on a summer's day, 
 Baked the meadow sweet A^-ith hay. 
 
 Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
 Of simple beauty and nistic health. 
 
 Singing, she wrought, and her raeiry glee 
 The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 
 
 But, when she glanced to the far-off town, 
 Wliite from its hill-slope looking down, 
 
WHITTIER. 215 
 
 The sweet song (lied, and a vague unrest 
 And a nameless longing filled her breast, — 
 
 A wish, that she hardly dared to own, 
 For something better than she had known. 
 
 The Judge rode slowly down the lane. 
 Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 
 
 He drew his bridle in the shade 
 
 Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid. 
 
 And ask a draupjht from the spring that flowed 
 Through the meadows across the road. 
 
 She stooped where the cool stream bubbled up, 
 And filled for him her small tin cup. 
 
 And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
 On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown. 
 
 " Thanks ! " said the Judge, " a sweeter draught 
 From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 
 
 He spoke of the grass, and flowers, and trees. 
 Of the singing birds and the humming bees ; 
 
 Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether 
 The cloud in the west would bring foul weather. 
 
 And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown. 
 And her gracefid ankles bare and brown ; 
 
 And listened, while a pleased surprise 
 Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 
 
 At last, like one who for delay 
 Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 
 
 Maud Mullcr looked and sighed : " Ah, me ! 
 That I the Judge's bride might be ! 
 
 " He woidd dress me up in silks so fine, 
 And praise and toast me at his wine. 
 
216 
 
 " My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; 
 My brother should sail a painted boat. 
 
 " I *d dress my mother so grand and gay, 
 And the baby should have a new toy each day. 
 
 " And I *d feed the hungry and clothe the poor. 
 And all should bless me who left our door." 
 
 The Judge looked back as he climlK'd the hill. 
 And saw Maud Muller standing still. 
 
 " A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
 Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 
 
 •* And her modest answer and graceful air. 
 Show her wise and good as she is fair. 
 
 " Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
 Like her, a harvester of hay : 
 
 " No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, 
 Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 
 
 " But low of cattle and song of birds, 
 And health and quiet and loving words." 
 
 But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold. 
 And his mother, vain of her rank and gold. 
 
 So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
 And Maud was left in the field alone. 
 
 But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
 Wlien he hummed in court an old love-tune ; 
 
 And the young girl mused beside the well. 
 Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 
 
 He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
 Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 
 
 Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow. 
 He watched a picture come and go : 
 
WHITTIER. 217 
 
 And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
 Looked out in their innocent surprise. 
 
 Oft when the wine in his glass was red 
 He longed for the wayside well instead ; 
 
 And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms. 
 To dream of meadows and clover blooms. 
 
 And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, 
 " Ah, that I were free again ! 
 
 ** Free as when I rode that day, 
 
 "Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 
 
 She wedded a man unlearned and poor, 
 And many children played round her door. 
 
 But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain. 
 Left their traces on heart and brain. 
 
 And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
 On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot. 
 
 And she heard the little spring brook fall 
 Over the roadside, through the wall. 
 
 In the shade of the apple-tree again 
 She saw a rider draw his rein : 
 
 And, gazing down with timid grace, 
 She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 
 
 Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
 Stretched away into stately halls ; 
 
 The weary wheel to a spinnet turned. 
 The tallow candle an astral burned, 
 
 And for him who sat by the chimney lug. 
 Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug, 
 
 A manly form at her side she saw, 
 And joy was duty, and love was law. 
 10 
 
218 CATHCAKT^S LTTERAEY READEE. 
 
 Then she took up her burden of life again. 
 Saying only, " It might have been ! " 
 
 Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 
 
 For rich repiner and household drudge ! 
 
 God pity them both ! and pity us all, 
 Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 
 
 For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 
 The saddest are these : " It might have been ! " 
 
 Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies, 
 Deeply buried from human eyes ; 
 
 And, in the hereafter, angels may 
 Boll the stone from its grave away ! 
 
 THE BABEFOOT BOT. 
 
 Blessings on thee, little man. 
 Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 
 With thy tumed-up pantaloons. 
 And thy merry whistled tunes; 
 With thy red lip, redder still 
 Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
 With the sunshine on thy face. 
 Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; 
 From my heart I give thee joy, — 
 I was once a barefoot boy ! 
 Prince thou art, — the grown-up man 
 Only is republican. 
 Let the million-doUared ride ! 
 Barefoot, trudging at his side, 
 Thou hast more than he can buy 
 In the reach of ear and eye, — 
 Outward sunshine, inward joy ; 
 Blessings on thee, barefoot boy ! 
 
 O for boyhood's painless play. 
 Sleep that wakes in laughing day. 
 
WHITTlEll. 219 
 
 Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
 Knowledge never learned of schools, 
 Of the wild bee's inoriiiiig chase, 
 Of the wild-flower's time and place. 
 Flight of fowl and habitude 
 Of the tenants of the wood ; 
 How the tortoise l>ears his shell. 
 How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
 And the ground-mole sinks his well ; 
 How the robin feeds her young, 
 How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
 Where the whitest lilies blow, 
 Where the freshest berries grow, 
 Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 
 Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 
 Of the black wasp's cunning way. 
 Mason of his walls of clay. 
 And the architectural plans 
 Of gray hornet artisans ! — 
 For, eschewing books and tasks. 
 Nature answers all he asks ; 
 Hand in hand with her he walks. 
 Face to face with her he talks. 
 Part and parcel of her joy, — 
 Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 
 
 O for boyhood's time of Jime, 
 Crowding years in one brief moon. 
 When all things I heard or saw, 
 Me, their master, waited for. 
 I was rich in flowers and trees, 
 Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 
 For my sport the squirrel played. 
 Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 
 For my taste the blackberrj* cone 
 Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
 Laughed the brook for my delight 
 Through the day and through the tiiirht, 
 Whispering at the garden wall, 
 
£20 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 Talked with me from fall to fall ; 
 Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 
 Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 
 Mine, on bending orchard trees. 
 Apples of Hesperides ! 
 Still as my horizon grew. 
 Larger grew my riches too ; 
 All the world I saw or knew 
 Seemed a complex Chinese toy. 
 Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! 
 
 O for festal dainties spread. 
 Like my bowl of milk and bread, — 
 Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, 
 On the door-stone, gray and rude ! 
 O'er me, like a regal tent, 
 Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent. 
 Purple-curtained, fringed with gold. 
 Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; 
 While for music came the play 
 Of the pied frogs* orchestra ; 
 And, to light the noisy choir. 
 Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
 I was monarch : pomp and joy 
 Waited on the barefoot boy ! 
 
 Cheerily, then, my little man, 
 Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
 Though the flinty slopes be hard, 
 Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
 Every morn shall lead thee through 
 Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
 Every evening from thy feet 
 Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : 
 All too soon these feet must hide 
 In the prison cells of pride, 
 Lose the freedom of the sod, 
 Like a colt's for work be shod, 
 Made to tread the mills of toil, 
 
WHITTIER. 221 
 
 Up and down in ceaseless moil : 
 Happy if their track be found 
 Never on forbidden ground ; 
 Happy if they sink not in 
 Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
 Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy, 
 Ere it passes, barefoot boy ! 
 
 WIHTEB. 
 
 Shut in from all the world without, 
 We sat the clean-winged hearth about. 
 Content to let the north-wind roar 
 In baffled rage at pane and door, 
 While the red logs before us beat 
 The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
 And ever, when a louder blast 
 Shook beam and rafter as it passed. 
 The merrier up its roaring draught 
 The great throat of the chimney laughed. 
 The house-dog on his paws outspread. 
 Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
 The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
 A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
 And, for the winter fireside meet, 
 Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
 The mug of cider simmered slow, 
 The apples sputtered in a row, 
 And, close at hand, the basket stood 
 With nuts from brown October's wood. 
 
222 cathcaet's literaby readee. 
 
 MERIVALE. 
 
 1808- 1875. 
 
 Kit. CnA«US Muutale, Dean of Ely, and a distingaished historian, was bom in England 
 in 1806, Mid died in 187S. His History of Rome under the Emperors is a srholarly, calm, and 
 unprejadiccd representation of the period of Roman history which lies between the establish- 
 ment of the first Triumvirate and the last of the Caesars. This work is written with great care, 
 and exhibits marked opulence of scholarship and thorough ct)n)prehension of the subject The 
 •nthor was a profound rather than brilliant historian, and is especially to be praised for his 
 accuracy and faUncss. The extracts are fnun hia History above named. 
 
 AXrOlTSTUS CJESAB.* 
 
 In stature Auj^stus hardly exceeded the middle heiprht, but his 
 person was lightly and delicately formed, and its proportions were 
 such as to convey a favorable and even a striking impression. His 
 countenance was pale, and testified to the weakness of his health, and 
 almost constant bodily suffering ; but the hardships of military service 
 had imparted a swarthy tinge to a complexion naturally fair, .i!i<l his 
 eyebrows meeting over a sharp and aquiline nose gave a serious and 
 stern expression to his countenance. His hair was light, and his eyes 
 blue and piercing ; he was well plejised if any one on approaching 
 him looked on the ground and affected to be unable to meet their 
 dazzling brightness. It was said that his dress concealed many im- 
 perfections and blemishes on his person ; but he could not disguise 
 all the infirmities under which he labored ; the weakness of the fore- 
 finger of his right hand and a lameness in the left hip were the results 
 of wounds he incurred in a battle ^vith the lapydae in early life ; he 
 suffered repeated attacks of fever of t^e most serious kind, especially 
 in the course of the campaign of Philippi and that against the Canta- 
 brians, and again two years afterward at Rome, when his recovery 
 was despaired of. From that time, although constantly liable to be 
 affected by cold and heat, and obliged to nurse himself throughout with 
 the care of a valetudinarian, he does not appear to have had any return 
 of illness so serious as the preceding ; and dying at the age of seventy- 
 
 * Augustus C jisar, one of the Emperors of Rome and the heir of Julius Csesar, the greatest 
 of warriors and rulers, was bom 63 b. c. He was a liberal patron of literature and art, and his 
 reign was so illustrious that it is called the Augustan Age. He was the friend of Virgil and 
 Horace, the most eminent of the Roman poets, and so increased the architectural splendor of 
 Rome as to be able to boast that he had transformed it from a city of brick to a city of marble. 
 iSce FlularcVs Ufe of Marcus AtUotiius.) 
 
MERIVALE. 228 
 
 four, the rumor obtained popular currency that he was prematurely cut 
 off by poison administered by the empress. As the natural consequence 
 of this bodily weakness and sickly constitution, Augustus did not at- 
 tempt to distinguish himself by active exertions or feats of personal 
 prowess. 
 
 The splendid examples of his uncle the dictator, and of Antonius 
 his rival, might have early discouraged him from attempting to sliine 
 as a warrior and hero : he had not the vivacity and animal spirits 
 necessary to carry him through such exploits as theirs ; and, although 
 he did not shrink from exposing himself to personal danger, he 
 prudently declined to allow a comparison to be instituted between 
 himself and rivals whom he could not hope to equal. Thus neces- 
 sarily thrown back upon other resources, he trusted to caution and cir- 
 cumspection, first to preserve his own life, and afterwards to obtain 
 the splendid prizes which had hitherto been carried off by daring ad- 
 venture, and the good fortune which is so often its attendant. From 
 his youth upwards accustomed to overreach, not the bold and reckless 
 only, but the most considerate and wily of his contemporaries, he suc- 
 ceeded in the end in deluding the senate and people of Rome in the 
 establishment of his tyranny ; and finally deceived the expectations of 
 the world, and falsified the lessons of the Republican history, reigning 
 himself forty years in disguise, and leaving a throne to be claimed 
 without a challenge by his successors for fourteen centuries. 
 
 But although emperor in name, and in fact absolute master of his 
 people, the manners of the Caesar, both in public and private life, 
 were still those of a simple citizen. Oa the most solemn occasions 
 he was distinguished by no other dress than the robes and insignia of 
 the offices which he exercised ; he was attended by no other guards 
 than those which his consular dignity rendered customary and decent. 
 In his court there was none of the etiquette of modern monarchies to 
 be recognized, and it was only by slow and gradual encroachment 
 that it came to prevail in that of his successors. Many anecdotes are 
 recorde<l of the moderation with which the emperor received the oppo- 
 sition, and often the rebukes, of individuals in public as well as in 
 private. Tliese stories are not without their importance as showing 
 how little formality there was in the tone of addressing the master of 
 the Roman world, and how ejitirely different the ideas of the nation 
 were, with regard to the position occupied by the Caesar and his 
 family, from those with which modem associations have imbued us. 
 
2:J4 cathcart's mtkimhy hkvder. 
 
 We have already noticed the rude freedom ^vitli ^vllil h ribi liu- was 
 attacked, Jiltliough step-son of the oinpcror. and purlicipalinii in tlu- 
 fniint-iit fnnctions of the tribiinitian jxtucr. by a declaimcr in tin- 
 schools at Rhodes; but Aujxn-tu> hini-^clt" xiins to have suffered al- 
 most as mueh a:3 any private titi/.m tiom the {ijenerdl coarseness of 
 behavior which cliaracterizt i! tlu Itonians in their public assemblies, 
 and the rchnkes to wliieh he patiently submitted were frequently such 
 as wtndd lay the courtier ol" a constitutional sovereign in modern 
 Europe under perpetual di-urm'. 
 
 On one occasion, for in-tancc, in the public discharge of his func- 
 tions as coiTcctor of mannn >, he had brought a specific charge ngainst 
 a certain knight for havini,^ Mjuandered his patrimony. The aet-nscd 
 proved that he had, on the contniry. anir!n<'nt((l it. '" Well,"' an- 
 swered the einpi ror, somewh;;t aniuAeil hy his < ri-<ir, " hut ynu are at 
 all events living in celibacy contrarx to recent I'uactments." The 
 other was able to n ply that he was married, and was the father of 
 three leiritimatc children; and w lien the emjx ror si^'nitied that he had 
 no lurtlu-r charge to bring, added aloud. • Another time, Ca'sar, \\hcu 
 you uivc ear to informations against honot nn n. take care that your 
 informants arc honest themselves." Aufru-tus h It the justice of the 
 rebuke thus publicly administered, and subniittcil to it in silence. 
 
 THE BURNING OF ROME.* 
 
 Providence was preparing an awful chastisement ; and was about 
 
 to overwhtlm Konie. like the Cities of the Plain, in a sheet of retribu- 
 tive fire. Crowded. ;is the ma.ss of the citizens were, in their close 
 wooden dwelling-chanib. r<. aei idenis were constantly occurring which 
 involved whole streets and qu rier- of the city in wide-sprcadin": con-, 
 flarrrations. and the efforts of tin- ni-ht-watch to stem these outbursts 
 of fire, with few of the appliances, and little, perhaps, even of the disci- 
 pline of onr modern police. w(Tc but imperfectly effectual. lUit the 
 greatest of all the fires which desolated Eonie was that which broke 
 out on the 19th of July, in the year 817, the tenth of Nero, A\hich 
 began at the eastern end of the Circus, abutting on tlu- vp.llcy l)(tween 
 
   In V n >n U'.uu' was nea.lv dcst.uv.d by a tire whicli the Einp. . - lamself ac- 
 
 cused of iustigaling. In order to remove this suspiciou he charged the ciuuc- upon the Chris- 
 tians, many of whom were in consequence subjected to the most cruel tortures. But for this 
 fire we should have, perhaps, stillleft many of the beautiful structures for which ancient Rome 
 was 80 famous, only the ruins of which now remain. 
 
MEKIVALE. 2itb 
 
 the Palatine and the Caelian hills. Against the outer walls of this 
 edifice leaned a mass of wooden booths and stores filled chiefly with 
 combustible articles. The wind from the cast drove the flames to- 
 wanls the corner of the Palatine, wlience they forked in two directions, 
 following the draught of the valleys. At neither point were they 
 encountered by the massive masonry of halls or temples, till they had 
 gained such head that the mere intensity of the heat crumbled brick 
 and stone like paper. The Circus itself was filled from eud to end 
 with wooden galleries, along which the fire coursed with a speed 
 which defied all check and pursuit. 
 
 The flames shot up to the heights adjacent, and swept the base- 
 ments of many noble structures on the Palatine and Aventine. Again 
 they plunged into the lowest levels of the city, the dense habitations 
 and narrow winding streets of the Vclabrum and Forum Boarium, till 
 stopped by the river and the walls. At the same time another tor- 
 rent rushed towards the Velia and the Esquiline, and sucked up all the 
 dwellings within its reach ; till it was finally arrested by the clifi's 
 beneath the gardens of Maecenas. 
 
 Amidst the horror and confusion of the scene, the smoke, the blaze, 
 the din, and the scorching heat, with half the population, bond and 
 free, cast loose and houseless into the streets, ruffians were seen to 
 thrust blazing brands into the buildings, who affirmed, when seized by 
 the indignant suff'erers, that they were acting with orders ; and the 
 crime, which was probably the desperate resource of slaves and robbers, 
 was imputed by fierce suspicions to the government itself. 
 
 At such a moment of sorrow and consternation every trifle is seized 
 to confirm the suspicion of foul play. The flames, it seems, had sub- 
 sided after raging for six days, and the wretched outcasts were begin- 
 ning to take breath and visit the ruins of their habitations, when a 
 second conflagration burst out in a diff'erent quarter. This fire com- 
 mence at the point where the iEmilian gardens of Tigellinus abutted 
 on the outskirts of the city beneath the Pincian hill ; and it was on 
 Tigellinus liimself, the object already of popular scorn if not of anger, 
 that the suspicion now fell. The wind, it seems, had now changed, 
 for the fire spread from the northwest towards the Quirinal and the 
 Viminal, destroying the buildings, more sparsely planted, of the quar- 
 ter denominated the Via Lata. Three days exhausted the fury of this 
 second visitation, in which the loss of life and property was less, but 
 the edifices it overthrew were generally of greater interest, shrines and 
 10» o ' 
 
226 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 temples of the gods, and halls and porticos devoted to the amusement 
 or convenience of the people. Altog^ether, the disaster, whether it 
 spran*^ from accident or design, involved nearly the whole of Rome. 
 
 Of the fourteen regions of the city, three we are assured were en- 
 tirely destroyed, while seven others were injured more or less severe- 
 ly ; four only of the whole number escaped unhurt. The fire made a 
 complete clearance of the central quarters, leaving perhaps but few 
 public buildings erect, even on the Palatine and Aventine ; but it 
 was, for the most part, hemmed in by the crests of the surrounding 
 eminences, and confined to the seething crater which had been the 
 cradle of the Roman people. The day of its outburst, it was remarked, 
 was that of the first burning of Rome by the Gauls, and some curious 
 calculators computed that the addition of an equal number of years, 
 months, and days together would give the complete period which had 
 elapsed in the long interval of her greatness. Of the number of 
 houses and insula; destroyed Tacitus does not venture to hazard a 
 statement ; he only tantalizes us by his slender notice of the famous 
 fanes and monuments which sank in the common ruin. Among them 
 were the temple of Diana, which Servius Tullius had erected; the 
 shrine and altar of Hercules, consecrated by Evander, as affirmed in 
 the tradition impressed upon us by Virgil ; the Romulean temple of 
 Jupiter Stator, the remembrance of which thrilled the soul of the 
 banished Ovid ; the little Regia of Numa, which armed so many a 
 sarcasm against the pride of consuls and imperators ; the sanctuary of 
 Vesta herself, with the Palladium, the Penates, and the ever-glo\i4ng 
 hearth of the Roman people. 
 
 But the loss of these decayed though venerable objects was not the 
 worst disaster. Many an unblemished masterpiece of the Grecian 
 pencil or chisel or graver — the prize of victory — was devoured 
 by the flames ; and amidst all the splendor with which Rome rose 
 afterwards from her ashes, old men could lament to the historian the 
 irreparable sacrifice of these ancient glories. Writings and documents 
 of no common interest may have perished at the same time irrecov- 
 erably ; and with them, trophies, images, and family devices. At a 
 moment when the heads of patrician bouses were falling rapidly by 
 the sword, the loss of such memorials was the more deplorable. 
 
HOLMES. 227 
 
 HOLMES. 
 
 1809- 
 
 OnvER Wf.ndf.ll IIolxks, one of the wittiest and wisest of American writers, was bom in 
 Cambrid^. Massachusetts, in 1809, and graduated at Harvard University in 1829. He began 
 the study of law, but feeling a stronger bent toward the profession of medicine, applied himself 
 teaJously to preparation for its practice. In laiG, having spent several years in study abroad, 
 he received his medical degree at Cambridge , two years later was appointed to a professorship 
 in the Dartuiouth Medical School, and in 18+7 succeeded Dr. Warren as Professor of Anatomy 
 in Harvard University. Hii first considerable literary effort was a poem delivered before the Phi 
 BeU Kappa Society of Harvard in 1836. It received warm prai»c from competent critics, and 
 it* racccss undoubtedly confirmed his not yet openly confessed penchant for literar)' labors. The 
 first edition of his collected poems was pul)lished in 18:^6, and at least a dozen editions have 
 followed it in this country and England. His range in poetry is limited, though perhaps not 
 necessarily i he confined his efforts in fonncr years almost exclusively to long poems, like 
 Urania and Aitrita, metrical essays, melodious, polished, and glittering with wit, and in later 
 days he has been content to throw off short lyrics and "occasional pieces," which are so ex- 
 quisite that the public reasonably asks for more. The most conspicuous cluiracteristic of Dr. 
 Holmes's verse is humor, of indescribable and rarely equaled delicacy and brilliancy. Several 
 of his homomus poems, like the One-Host Shay, have by common consent been elevated to the 
 rank of clfissies in our literature. Not less felicitous has he been in a few pieces in which a fine 
 pathos relieves the glow of his wit. But admirable as are his poems, his greater triumphs have 
 been won in prose. He was one of the founders of the AtUintic Monthly, and in its first years 
 was a regular and favorite contributor to its pages. For it he wrote Tkt Autocrat of the Break- 
 fiut-TabU, and later. The Professor and The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, a scries of papers which 
 are unique in our literature, coniliining in a marvelous degree the rarest qualities of the light 
 essay, — freshness of thought, deftness of touch, keen, bat good-humored satire, and a pervading 
 atmosphere of wit that keeps the reader in a state of continual exhilaration. As a novelist, Dr. 
 Holmes has succeeded in spite of, rather than in accordance with, the rules which govern the 
 composition of fiction ; the altounding riches of his fancy and the play of his unfailing wit over- 
 leap the ordinar}- bounds prescribed to the novelist, to the delight of his readers, if not to the 
 honor of literary canons. In no writer of the present day, in Europe or .America, is there found 
 •o potent a combination of those intellectual qualities which mainly contribute to a writer's 
 power, as is seen in Dr. Holmes. While he is surpassed by some of his contemporaries in 
 single gifts, — thou? h by none in wit and grace of style, — of the harmonious and fruitful union 
 of them all he seems to stand out the superior representative. His success in prose and poetry 
 may be mainly attributed to liis dexterous avoidance of the didactic ; he is never tedious, and 
 always presenta even his driest matter in a guise that commends it to readers of all tastes. 
 
 ON AMATEUR WRITEES. 
 
 If I were a literary Pope sending out an Encyclical, I would tell 
 inexperienced persons that nothing is so frequent as to mistake an 
 ordinary human gift for a special and extraordinary endowment. 
 The mechanism of breathing and that of swallowing are very wonder- 
 ful, and if one had seen and studied them in his own person only, he 
 might well think himself a protligy. Everv'body knows these and 
 other bodily faculties are common gifts ; but nobody except editors and 
 tchocl-teachers and here and there a literarv man knows how common 
 
2£8 CATHCAET^S LITEEARY READER. 
 
 is the capacity of rhyming and prattling in readable prose, especially 
 among young women of a certain degree of education. In my char- 
 acter of Pontiif, I should tell these young persons that most of them 
 labored under a delusion. It is very hard to believe it ; one feels so 
 full of intelligence and so decidedly superior to one's dull relations 
 and schoolmates ; one writes so easily and the lines sound so prettily 
 to one's self; there are such felicities of expression, just like those we 
 hear quoted from the great poets ; and besides one has been told by 
 80 many friends that all one had to do was to print and be famous ! 
 Delusion, my poor dej^, delusion at least nineteen times out of twenty, 
 yes, ninety-nine times in a hundred. 
 
 But as private father confessor, I always allow as much as I can for 
 the one chance in the hundred. I try not to take away all hope, un- 
 less the case is clearly desperate, and then to direct the activities into 
 some other channel. 
 
 Using kind language, I can talk pretty freely. I have counselled 
 more than one aspirant after literary fame to go back to his tailor's 
 board or his lapstone. I have advised the dilettanti, whose foolish 
 friends praised their verses or their stories, to give up all their decep- 
 tire dreams of making a name by their genius, and go to Work in the 
 study of a profession which asked only for the diligent use of average, 
 ordinary talents. It is a very grave responsibility which these un- 
 known correspondents tlirow upon their chosen counselors. One whom 
 you have never seen, who lives in a community of which you know 
 nothing, sends you specimens more or less painfully voluminous of 
 his writings, which he asks you to reatl over, think over, and pray 
 over, and send back an answer informing him whether fame and for- 
 tune are awaiting him as the possessor of the wonderful gifts his 
 writings manifest, and whether you advise him to leave all, — the 
 shop he sweeps out every morning, the ledger he posts, the mortar in 
 which he pounds, the bench at which he urges the reluctant plane, — 
 and follow his genius whithersoever it may lead hira. The next cor- 
 respondent wants you to mark out a whole course of life for him, and 
 the means of judgment he gives you are about as adequate as the 
 brick which the simpleton of old carried round as an advertisement of 
 the house he had to sell. My advice to all young men that write to 
 me depends somewhat on the liand\vriting and spelling. If these are 
 of a certain character, and they have reached a mature age, I rec- 
 ommend some honest manual calling, such as they have very probably 
 
HOLMES. 229 
 
 been bred to, and which will, at least, give them a chance of becoming 
 President of the United States by and by, if that is any object to 
 them. What would you have done with the youn<^ person who called 
 on me a good many years ago, — so many that he has prolxibly for- 
 gotten liis literary effort, — and read as specimens of his literary 
 workmanship lines like those which I will favor you with presently? 
 He was an able-bodied, grown-up young person, whose ingenuousness 
 interested me ; and I am sure if 1 thought he would ever be pained to 
 see his maiden effort in print, I would deny myself the pleasure of 
 submitting it to the reader. The following is an exact transcript of 
 the lines he showed me, and which I took down on the spot : — 
 
 " Are you in the Tein for cider? 
 Are you in the tunc for pork? 
 Hist! for Betty '■ cleared the larder 
 And turned the pork to soap." 
 
 Do not judge too hastily this sincere effort of a maiden muse. Here 
 was a sense of rhythm, and an effort in the direction of rhyme ; here 
 was an honest transcript of an occurrence of daily life, told with a 
 certain idealizing expression, recognizing the existence of impulses, 
 mysterious instincts, impelling us even in the selection of our bodily 
 sustenance, l^ut I had to tell him that it wanted dignity of incident 
 and grace of narrative, that there was no atmosphere to it, nothing of 
 the light that never was and so forth. I did not say this in these 
 very words, but I gave him to understiind, without being too hard 
 upon him, that he had better not desert his honest toil in pursuit of 
 the poet's bays. This, it must be confessed, was a rather discourag- 
 ing case. A young person like this may pierce, as the Frenchmen 
 say, by and by, but the chances are all the other way. 
 
 I advise aimless young men to choose some profession without 
 needless delay, and so get into a good strong current of human affairs, 
 and find themselves bound up in interests with a compact body of 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 I advise young women who write to me for counsel, — perhaps I 
 do not advise them at all, only sympathize a little with them, and 
 listen to what they have to say (eight closely written pages on the 
 average, which I always read from beginning to end, thinking of the 
 widow's cruse and myself in the character of Klijah) and — and — 
 come now, I don't Inlievt? Methuselah would tell you what he said 
 in his letters to young ladies, written when he was in his nine hun- 
 dred and sixty-ninth year. 
 
230 cathcart's uterary reader. 
 
 But, dear me I how much work all this private criticism involves ! 
 An editor has only to say " respectfully d(;clined," and there is the 
 end of it. But the coniidentiul advistT is expected to give the reasons 
 of his likes and dislikes in detail, and sometimes to enter into an ar- 
 gument for their support. That is more than any martyr can stand, 
 but what trials he must go through, as it is ! Great bundles of manu- 
 scripts, verse or prose, which the recipient is expected to read, per- 
 haps to recommend to a publisher, at any rate to express a well- 
 digested and agreeably flavored opinion about ; which opinion, nine 
 times out of ten, disguise it as we may, has to be a bitter draught ; 
 every form of egotism, conceit, false sentiment, hunger for notoriety, 
 and eagerness for display of anserine plumage before the admiring 
 public ; — all these come in by mail or express, covered with postage- 
 stamps of so much more cost than the value of the waste words they 
 overlie, that one comes at last to groan and change color at the very 
 sight of a package, and to dnmd the postman's knock as if it were 
 that of the other visitor whose naked knuckles rap at every door. 
 
 Still there are experiences which go far towards repaying all these 
 inflictions. My last young man's case looked desperate enough ; 
 some of his sails had blown from the rigging, some were backing in 
 the wind, and some were flapping and shivering, but I told him which 
 way to head, and to my surprise he promised to do just as I directed, 
 and I do not doubt is under full sail at this moment. 
 
 What if I should tell my last, my very recent experience with the 
 other sex ? I received a paper containing the inner history of a young 
 woman's life, the evolution of her consciousness from its earliest 
 record of itself, written so thoughtfully, so sincerely, with so much 
 firmness and yet so much delicacy, with such truth of detail and such 
 grace in the manner of telling, that I finished the long manuscript al- 
 most at a sitting, with a pleasure rarely, almost never experienced in 
 voluminous commimications which one has to spell out of handwrit- 
 ing. This was from a correspondent who made my acquaintance by 
 letter when she was little more than a child, some years ago. How 
 easy at that early period to have silenced her by indifiference, to have 
 womided her by a careless epithet, perhaps even to have crushed her 
 as one puts his heel on a weed ! A very little encouragement kept 
 hejT from despondency, and brought back one of those overflows of 
 gratitude which make one more ashamed of himself for being so over- 
 paid, than he woidd be for having committed any of the lesser sins. 
 
HOLMES. 
 
 231 
 
 But what pleased me most in the paper lately received was to see how 
 far the writer had out«p*own the need of any encouragement of mine ; 
 that she had strenn^hened out of her tremulous questionings into a self- 
 reliance and self-poise which I had hardly dared to anticipate for her. 
 Some of my readers who are also writers have very probably had 
 more numerous experiences of this kind than I can lay claim to ; 
 self-revelations from unknown and sometimes nameless friends, who 
 write from strange corners where the winds have wafted some stray 
 words of theirs which have lighted in the minds and reached the 
 hearts of those to whom they were as the angel that stirred the pool 
 of Bethesda. Perhaps this is the best reward authorship brings ; it 
 may not imply much talent or literary excellence, but it means that 
 your way of thinking and feeling is just what some one of your fellow- 
 creatures needed. 
 
 I KNOW nothing in the world tenderer than the pity that a kind- 
 hearted young girl has for a young man who feels lonely. It is true 
 that these dear creatures are all compassion for every form of human 
 woe, and anxious to alleviate all human misfortunes. They will go 
 to Sunday schools through storms their brothers are afraid of, to 
 teach the most unpleasant and intractiible classes of little children the 
 age of Methuselah and the dimensions of Og the King of Bashan's 
 bedstead. They will stand behind a table at a fair all day until they 
 are ready to drop, dressed in their prettiest clothes and their sweetest 
 smiles, and lay hands upon you, — to make you buy what you do not 
 want, at prices which you cannot afford ; all this as cheerfully as if it 
 were not martyrdom to them as well as to you. Such is their love 
 for all good objects, such their eagerness to sympathize with all their 
 suffering fellow-creatures ! But there is nothing they pity as they 
 pity a lonely young man. — From " The Poet at the Breakfast-Table'* 
 
 WiiE.v we are as yet small children there comes up to us a youthful 
 angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in his left spheres 
 like marbles. The cubes are of st^iinless ivory, and on each is written 
 in letters of gold, — Truth. The spheres are veined and streaked 
 and spotted beneath, with a dark crimson flush above, where the light 
 
2:52 ( AiiK Ain's litkraey reader. 
 
 falls on them, and in a certain aspect you can m.iki out u|)oii ( v( rv 
 one of them the three letters T., I, Iv Tlic child to whom they are 
 otrcred very prolKd)ly clntehes .it lidiji. Tlic jsphert's arc the most 
 (•()ii\(iiic;it tliiii-j's ill tlic world : tii«_\ rdl with the least ])os<il)li' im- 
 pulse jtl^^t wlicnr i\n'. child wuulil li;i\c tliciii. The cuIk'S will not roll 
 at all ; they have a jireat talent lor standinjj still, and always keep 
 riirlit s:(l( uj). But very soon tin- \oiinu^ jihilosopher finds tliat thinj^s 
 which roll so (rasily arc very apt to roll into the wrons: corner, and to 
 gfet out of his way nsIkii lie most want> lliciii. while lie always knows 
 where to find the others, which stay where they are left. Thus he 
 huirns — thus we learn — to drop the streaked and speckled ji^lobes 
 of falsehood and to hold I'a^t the while anmilar hloeks of truth. I'lit 
 then comes Timidity, and atn r lu r (Jood-uature, and last of all Polite- 
 l>eha\ ior, all insistinp^ that truth uui-t /o//, or nobody can do any- 
 tliinu^ with it; and so the lirsi with her coarse rasp, and the second 
 with her hrojul file, and the third with her silken ^^Iccvc, do so round 
 off and smooth and poli>h the snow-white cuius of truth, that, when 
 they have j^ot a little dinijy hv ii-i . it Ik comes hard to tell them from 
 the rollinij: spheres of falsehood. 
 
 riie sihooliii; tii -s was polite enough to say that she was pleased 
 with this, and that she would read it to her little flock the next day. 
 l^ut she should tell the children, she said, that there were better rea- 
 sons for truth than could be tonnd in mere experience of its conven- 
 ience and the inconvenience of lying. — From '* The Autocrat at the 
 BreakfMt-Tabler 
 
 miDEB THE VIOLETS. 
 
 Her hands are cold ; her face is white ; 
 No more her pulses come and go ; 
 
 Her eyes are shut to life and light ; — 
 Fold the white vesture, snoAv on snow, 
 And lay her where the violt ts blow . 
 
 But not beneath a srraven stone. 
 To plead for tears with alien eyes; 
 
 A slender cross of wood alone 
 Shall say, that here a maiden lies 
 In peace beneath the peaceful skies. 
 
HOLMES. 233 
 
 And gray old trees of hugest limb 
 
 Shall wheel their circling shadows round, 
 
 To make the scorching sunlight dim 
 
 That drinks the greenness from the ground. 
 And drop their dead leaves on her mound. 
 
 When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, 
 And through their leaves the robins call. 
 
 And, ripening in the autumn sun, 
 The acorn? and the chestnuts fall. 
 Doubt not that she will heed them all. 
 
 For her the morning choir shall sing 
 
 Its matins from the branches high, 
 And every minstrel-voice of spring. 
 
 That trills beneath the April sky, 
 
 Shall greet her with its earliest cry. 
 
 When, turning round their dial-track, 
 
 Eastwunl the lengthening shadows pass, 
 Her little mourners, clad in black. 
 
 The crickets, sliding through the grass. 
 
 Shall pip<^ for her an evening mass. 
 
 At last the rootlets of the trees 
 
 Shall find the prison where she lies. 
 And bear the buried dust they seize 
 
 In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 
 
 So may the soul that warmed it rise ! 
 
 If any, bom of kindlier blood, 
 
 Should ask. What maiden lies below ? 
 Say only this : A tender bud, 
 
 Tliat trie<l to blossom in the snow. 
 
 Lies withered where the violets blow. 
 
234 
 
 READER. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 1810- 
 
 Alfbkd TEXjrrsos, nnqnestionably the first of living poets, was born in Lincolnshire, Eng- 
 land, in 1810. He is the youngest of three brothers, all of whom were educated at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, and gave promise of marked intellectual greatness. Indeed. Wordsworth, 
 estimating a volume of poems, published in 1829, and the joint work of Charles and Alfred Ten- 
 nyson, found the contributions of Charles to be entitled to the highest praise. Alfred Tennyson's 
 first volume, Pofwu, ckirfly Lyrical, was publiaheii in 1830, and had a favorable reception, though 
 its merits hardly warranted the expectation of his later mast^ieres. Two editiunsof his Poeau 
 followed, in 18:32 and 1842, the latter showing a marked increase of strength in the poet. The 
 PrtHceis, appearing in 1817. elicited various comment, though there was but one opinion among 
 critics as to the delicacy and grace of its execution. In 1850 Tennyson gave to the world a poem 
 which instantly quieted all doubts as to his title to the highest rank among contemporary poets, 
 and which was universally received as an ample warrant for liis appointment to the post of Poet 
 Laureate, which was made in the same year. This was /m Mrmoriam, a lament for the poet's 
 friend, Arthur Ilallam. In it noble thoughts are conveyed in a guise of ideal beauty, — a com- 
 bination which has hardly, if ever, been sarpaased in oor literature. Maud, published in 1853, 
 added nothing to the poet's fame ; and the same may be said of the many short poems from his 
 pen which preceded the publication of The Idyls of the King, in 1859. Tliese poems must be re- 
 garded as his masterpieces, and can fairly be compared with no compositions less lofty than Mil- 
 ton's. It should be remarked, however, that they arc unequal in merit, the earlier Idyls being 
 superior to their successors. Yet to the mass of readers the I.Aureate is best known by his 
 shorter pieces, some of which are familiar as bousebold words. Among them are The Queen of 
 the May, Locktley Hall, Lady Clara Fere de Fere, and the exquisite songs which are scattered 
 through The Princett, and some of the longer poems. Tlie charm of Tennyson's poetry lies main- 
 ly in his nnequaled felicity of diction : his choice and arrangement of words and adjustment of 
 epithets almost seem to be the result of inspiration, so happy are they. The most striking char- 
 acteristic of his verse is refinement, — a delicacy of sentiment and expression tliat has rarely, if 
 ever, been attained by any poet. His influence upon the poetical spirit of his age has been very 
 potent, and to the purity of his muse is due, in a great degree, the comparative health of onr 
 poetical literature. 
 
 CHABOE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.* 
 
 Half a league, half a league, 
 Half a league onward, 
 All in the valley of death 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 " Forward the Light Brigade ! 
 Charge for the guns," he said ; 
 Into the valley of death 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 * The poem refers to a celebrated cavalry charge of the British at the battle of Balacla^-a, 25th 
 October, 1854, in the war in the Crimea betMeen Russia on the one side and England and 
 France on the other. 
 
TENNYSON. 235 
 
 " Forward the U^hi Brigade ! " 
 Was there a man dismayed ? 
 Not thouj^h the soldier knew 
 Some one had blundered : 
 Theirs not to makir reply, 
 Theirs not to reason why, 
 Theirs but to do and die ; 
 Into the valley of death 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them. 
 Volleyed and thundcnid ; 
 Stonned at with shot a!id shell. 
 Boldly they rode and well, 
 Into the jaws of de^ith, 
 Into the mouth of hell 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 Flashed all their sabers bare. 
 Flashed as they turned in air, 
 Sabring the gunners there. 
 Charging an army, while 
 All the world wondered : 
 Plunged in the battery smoke, 
 Right through the line they broke ; 
 Cossack and Russian 
 Reeled from the saber stroke 
 Shattered and siuidered : 
 Then they rode back, but not — 
 Not the six hundred. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon ])ehind them. 
 Volleyed and thundered ; 
 Stormed at with shot and shell, 
 While horse and hero fell, 
 They that had fought so well 
 
236 cathcaet's literaey eeadee. 
 
 Came through the jaws of death 
 Back from the mouth of hell, 
 All that was left of them. 
 Left of six hundred. 
 
 When can their glory fade ? 
 
 Oh ! the wild charge they made 1 
 
 All the world woiidered. 
 
 Honor the charge they made ; 
 
 Honor the Light Brigade, 
 
 Noble Six Hundred ! 
 
 LADY CLARA VERB DE VEEE. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 Of me you shall not win renown : 
 You thought to break a country heart 
 
 For pastime, ere you went to town. 
 At me you smiled, but unbeguiled 
 
 I saw the snare, and I retired : 
 The daughter of a hundred earls, 
 
 You are not one to be desired. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 I know you proud to bear your name, 
 Your pride is yet no mate for mine. 
 
 Too proud to care from whence I came. 
 • Nor would I break for your sweet sake 
 
 A heart that doats on truer charms. 
 A simple maiden in her flower 
 
 Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 Some meeker pupil you must find, 
 For were you queen of all that is, 
 
 I could not stoop to such a mind. 
 You sought to prove how I could loTe, 
 
 And my disdain is my reply. 
 The lion on your old stone gates 
 
 Is not more cold to you than I. 
 
TENNYSON. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 You put stranjfc luemories in my head. 
 Not thrice your branchiii'j: limes have blown 
 
 Since I beheld young Laurence dead. 
 Oh ! your sweet eyes, your low replies ; 
 
 A great enchantress you may be ; 
 But there was that across his throat 
 
 Which you had hardly cared to see. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 When thus he met his mother's view. 
 She had the passions of her kind, 
 
 She spake some certain truths of you. 
 Indeed, I heard one bitter word 
 
 That scarce is fit for you to hear ; 
 Her manners had not that repose 
 
 Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 
 
 Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 There stands a specter in your hall : 
 The guilt of blood is at your door : 
 
 You changed a wholesome heart to gall. 
 You held your course without remorse. 
 
 To make him trust his modest worth, 
 And, last, you fixed a vacant stare, 
 
 And slew him with your noble birth. 
 
 Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 From yon blue heavens above us bent 
 The grand old ganlener and his wife 
 
 Smile at the claims of long descent. 
 Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 
 
 *T is only noble to l)e good. 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets, 
 
 And simple faith than Norman blood. 
 
 I know you, Clara Vere de Vere : 
 
 You pine among your halls and towers: 
 
 The languid light of your proud eyes 
 Is wejiritrd of the rolling hours. 
 
 lu glowing hciilth, with boundless wealth, 
 But sickening of a vague disease, . 
 
 237 
 
23S CATHC art's literary reader. 
 
 You know 80 ill to deal with time, 
 
 You needs must play such pranks as these. 
 
 Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, 
 
 If time be heavy on your hands, 
 Are there no beggars at your gate, 
 
 Nor any poor about your lands ? 
 Oh ! teach the orphan-boy to read, 
 
 Or teach the orphan girl to sew, 
 Pray Heaven for a human heart, 
 
 And let the foolish yeoman go. 
 
 TEE BBOOK. 
 
 I SLIP, I slide, I gloom, I glance, 
 Among my skimming swallows ; 
 
 I make the netted sunbeam dance 
 Against my sandy sliallows. 
 
 I murnuir under moon and stars 
 In brambly wildernesses ; 
 
 I linger by my shingly bars ; 
 I loiter round my cresses ; 
 
 And out again I curve and flow 
 To join the brimming river, 
 
 For men may come, and men may go, 
 But I go on forever. 
 
 ENOCH ARDEN shipwrecked. 
 
 The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
 
 And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, 
 
 The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes. 
 
 The lightning flash of insect and of bird. 
 
 The luster of the long convolvuluses 
 
 That coiled around the stately stems, and ran 
 
 Even to the limit of the land, the glows 
 
 And glories of the braad belt of the world, 
 
 All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen 
 
 He could not see, the kindly human face. 
 
 Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 
 
TENNYSON. 239 
 
 The myriad shriek of wheelin<? orcan-fowl, 
 
 The league-lonj? roller thundering on the reef, 
 
 The moving whisper of huge trees that branched 
 
 And blossomed in the zenith, or the sweep 
 
 Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 
 
 As down the shore he ranged, or all day long 
 
 Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, 
 
 A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail ; 
 
 No sail from day to day, but every day 
 
 The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 
 
 Among the palms and ferns and precipices ; 
 
 The blaze upon the waters to the east ; 
 
 The blaze upon his island overhead ; 
 
 The blaze upon the waters to the west ; 
 
 Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, 
 
 The hoUower-bellowing ocean, and again 
 
 The scarlet shafts of sunrise, — but no sail. 
 
 THE BUGLE BONO. 
 
 The splendor falls on castle walls 
 
 And snowy summits, old in story ; 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear. 
 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
 Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
 
 They faint on hill or field or river : 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
 And grow forever and forever. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 
 
24^0 catucaet's literacy readee. 
 
 GEAY. 
 
 1810- 
 
 PROncssoK Asa Gray, the eminent botanist, was bom in Paris, Oneida County, New York, 
 November 18, 1810. He studied medicine, but his entliusiastic love of botanical investigation 
 withheld him from the practice of his profession. In I8:it he received the appointment of 
 Botanist to tlic United Sutes Exploring ExpediUon, but, impatient of the delays wliich hindered 
 that enterprise, he resigned his office in 18;J7- About that time he was chosen Professor of 
 Botany in the University of Michigan ; before that institution was opened he accepted the Fisher 
 Professorship of Natural History in Harvard University, and lias ever since filled it with honor 
 U) himself and great advantage to science. His tirst contribution to the literature of botany 
 was Nitrlh American Gramine* and Cyperacea, of which two volumes were pulilished in 1834-35. 
 This brought him prominently before the scientific world. His botanical career, however, may 
 be said to date from his reading in December, 1834, before the New York Lyceum of Natural 
 History, of A Notice of tome New, Rare, or otherwise Interesting Plants from the Northern and 
 Western Portions of the State of New York. In 1838, in conjunction with John Torrey, M. D., he 
 prepared the first part of The Flora <^ North Amrriea. This work has never been completed; 
 lint in its fragmentary state it is esteemed one of the most valual)le rontributions ever made 
 in America to the science of Botany. The collections nuwle by the Exploring Expedition of 
 Commodore Wilkes, during the years 1838-42, except those obtained from the Pacific Coast, 
 »-/ere placed in the hands of Professor Gray for elaboration, and the fruits of his labors are pre- 
 served in two volumes on the Botany of the United States Exploring Expedition. His numerous 
 papers in the memoirs of the learned societies, although not of a popular character, comprise a 
 large part of his most important contributions to science. The most generally interesting one is 
 his Memoir on the Botany of Japan in its BeUUons to that of the United States, which subject 
 was followed up in his Address as President of the American Association for the Advancement 
 of Science, delivei-ed at Dubuque, August, 1873. But while, by the works above-mentioned and 
 many others unnamed. Professor Gray has won fame at home and abroad, he has established a 
 still stronger claim upon the grateful respect of humanity by his untiring and successful efforts 
 to popularise the study of BoUny by means of elementary books. His Structural Botany has 
 gone through a multitude of editions, and is universally acceptetl as one of the best expositions 
 of vegetable physiology and morphology ever written, while his Manual of Botany has long 
 been known as a standard work. Within a few years he has produced several books of an ele- 
 mentary character, whirh combine literary grace and substantial instructun in singularly happy 
 union. Among these are How Plants Grow, How Plants Behave, Lessons in Botany, The School 
 and Field Book of Botany, etc. Professor Gray possesses remarkable qualifications for this work, 
 his expositions being singularly clear, and his style in all respects attractive. As a represent- 
 ative of science in America, he enjoys an enviable reputation abroad, and his works are quoted 
 with admiring respect by the most distinguished European savans. 
 
 HOW CERTAIN PLANTS CAPTTJEE INSECTS. 
 
 This is not a common habit of plants. Insects are fed and allowed 
 to depart unharmed. When captures are made they must sometimes 
 be purely accidental and meaningless ; as in those species of Silene 
 called Catch-fly, because small flies and other weak insects, sticking 
 fast to a clammy exudation of the calyxes in some species, of a part of 
 the stem in others, are unable to extricate themselves and so perish. 
 But in certain cases insects are cau2:ht in wavs so remarkable that w^e 
 cannot avoid regarding them as contrivances, as gtnwxne Jly-trapa. 
 
GSAT. 
 
 241 
 
 I 
 
 Flower fly-traps are certainly to be found in some plants of the 
 Orchis family. One instance is that of Cypripedium or Lady's- 
 Slipper, which is a contrivance for cross-fertilization. Here the 
 insect is entrapped for the purpose of securing its services ; and the 
 detention is only temporary. If it did not escape from one flower to 
 enter into another, the whole purpose of the contrivance would be 
 defeated. Not so, however, in le^f fly-traps. These all take the 
 insect's life, — whether with intent or not it may be difficult to make 
 out. The commonest and the most ambiguous leaf fly-traps are such 
 as Pitchers, of which those of our Sarracenia or Sidesaddle-flower are 
 most familiar. A common yellow-flowered species of the Southern 
 States has them so very long and narrow, that they are popularly 
 named Trumpets. In these pitchers or tubes water is generally found, 
 sometimes caught from rain, but in other cases evidently furnished by 
 the plant, the pitcher being so constructed that water cannot rain in : 
 this water abounds with drowi)etl insects, commonly in all stages of 
 decay. One would suppose that insects which have crawled into the 
 pitcher might as readily crawl out ; but they do not, and closer exam- 
 ination shows that escaping is not as easy as entering. In most 
 pitchers of this sort there are sharp and stiff hairs within, all pointing 
 downward, which off"cr considerable obstruction to returning, but 
 none to entering. 
 
 Why plants which are rooted in wet bogs or in moist ground need 
 to catch water in pitchers, or to secrete it there, is a mystery, unless it 
 is wanted to drown flies in. And what they gjiin from a solution of 
 dead flics is eqiwlly haril to guess, unless this acts as a liquid manure. 
 
 Into such pitchers as those of the common species rain may fall ; 
 but not readily into others, not at all into those of the Parrot-headed 
 species of the Southern States, for the inflated lid or cover arches 
 over the month of the pitcher completely. This is even more strik- 
 ingly so in Darlingtoftia, the curious Califomian Pitcher-plant lately 
 made known and cultivate<l : in this the contracted entrance to the 
 pitcher is concealed under the hood and looks downward'instead of 
 upwanl ; and even the small chance of any rain entering by aid of 
 ti»e wind is, as it were, guarded against by a curious appendage, n;- 
 sembling the forked tail of some fish, which hangs over the front. Any 
 water found in this pitcher must come from the plant itself. So it 
 also must in the combined Pitcher and Tendril of Nepenthes. These 
 Pitcher-pknts are woody climbers, natives of the Indian Archipelago, 
 11 p 
 
242 CATHCART^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 and not rarely cultivated in hothouses, as a curiosity. Some of their 
 leaves lengthen the tip into the tendril only ; some of the lower bear 
 a pitcher only ; but the best developed leaves have both, — the tendril 
 for climbing, the pitcher one can hardly say for what purpose. The 
 pitcher is tightly closed by a neatly fitting lid when young ; and in 
 strong and healthy plants there is commonly a little water in it, which 
 could not possibly have been introduced from without. After they 
 are fully grown the lid opens by a hinge ; then a little water might be 
 supposed to rain in. In the humid, sultry climates they inhabit it 
 probably does so freely ; and the leaves are found partly filled with 
 dead flies, as in our wild Pitcher-plants. 
 
 The drowning of insects in plant-pitchers is of course an accidental 
 occurrence, and any supposed advantage of this to the plant may be 
 altogether fanciful. But we cannot deny that the supply of liquid 
 manure may be useful. Before concluding that they are of no ac- 
 count, it may be well to contemplate other sorts of leaf fly-traps. 
 
 All species of Sundew (Drosera) have their leaves, and some their 
 stalks also, beset with bristles tipped with a gland from which oozes 
 a drop of clear but very glutinous liquid, making the plant appear as 
 if studded with dew-drops. These remain, glistening in the sun, long 
 after dew-drops would have been dissipated. Small flies, gnats, and 
 such-like insects, seemingly enticed by the glittering drops, stick fast 
 upon them, and perish by starvation, one would suppose without any 
 benefit whatever to the plant. But in the broad-leaved wild species 
 of our bogs, such as the common Round-leaved Sundew, the upper 
 face and edges of the blade of the leaf bear stronger bristles, tipped 
 with a lai-ger glutinous drop, and the whole forms what we must 
 allow to be a veritable fly-trap. 
 
 For, when a small fly alights on the upper face, and is held by some 
 of the glutinous drops long enough for the leaf to act, the surround- 
 ing bristles slowly bend inwards so as to bring their glutinous tips 
 also against the body of the insect, adding, one by one, to the bonds, 
 and rendering captivity and death cei-tain. This movement of the 
 bristles must be of the same nature as that by which tendrils and some 
 leafstalks bend or coil. It is much too slow to be visible except in 
 the result, which takes a few hours or even a day or two to be com- 
 pleted. Here, then, is a contrivance for catching flies, a most elabo- 
 rate one, in action slow but sure. And the different species of Sun- 
 dew ofi'er all gradations between those with merely scattered and 
 
GRAY. 243 
 
 motionless dewy-tipped bristles, to which flies may chance to stick, 
 and this more complex arrangement, which we cannot avoid rej^rding 
 as intended for fly -catching. Moreover, in both of our commoner 
 species, the blade of the leaf itself incurves, so as to fold round its 
 victim ! 
 
 And a most practiced observer, whose observations are not yet pub- 
 lished, declares that the leaves of the common Round-leaved Sundew 
 act differently when different objects are placed upon them. For in- 
 stance, if a particle of raw meat be substituted for the living fly, the 
 bristles will close upon it in the same manner ; but to a particle of 
 chalk or wood they remain nearly indifferent. If any doubt should 
 still remain whether the fly-catching in Sundews is accidental or in- 
 tentional, — in otiier words, whether the leaf is so constructed and 
 arranged in order that it may capture flies, — the doubt may perhaps 
 disappear upon the contemplation of another and even more extraor- 
 dinary plant of the same family of the Sundew, namely, Venus's Fly- 
 trip, or Dion/ea muscipula. This plant abounds in the low savannas 
 around Wilmington, North Carolina, and is native nowhere else. It 
 is not very difficult to cultivate, at least for a time, and it is kept in 
 many choice conservatories as a vegetable wonder. 
 
 The trap is the end of the leaf. It is somewhat like the leaf of 
 Sundew, oidy larger, about an inch in diameter, vnth bristles still 
 stouter, but only round the margin, like a fringe, ijind no clammy 
 liquid or gland at their tips. The leaf folds on itself as if hinged at 
 the midrib. Three more delicate bristles are seen on the face upon 
 close inspection. When these are touched by the finger or the point 
 of a pencil, the open trap shuts with a quick motion, and after a con- 
 siderable interval it reopens. When a fly or other insect alights on the 
 surface and brushes against these sensitive bristles, the trap closes 
 promptly, generally imprisoning the intruder. It closes at first with 
 the sides convex and the bristles crossing each other like the fingers 
 of interlocked hands or the teeth of a steel trap. But soon the sides 
 of the trap flatten down and press firmly upon the victim ; and it now 
 requires a very considerable force to open the trap. If nothing is 
 caught, the trap presently reopens of itself and is reatly for another 
 attempt. When a fly or any similar insect is capturexl it is retained 
 until it perishes, — is killed, indeed, and consumed ; after which it 
 opens for another capture. But after the first or second it acts slug- 
 gishly and feebly, it ages and hardens, at length loses its sensibility, 
 and slowly decays. 
 
244 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 It cannot be supposed that plants, like boys, catch flies for pas- 
 time or in objectless wantonness. Living beings though they are, yet 
 they are not of a sufficiently high order for that. It is equally in- 
 credible that such an exquisite apparatus as this should be purpose- 
 less. And in the present case the evidence of the purpose and of the 
 meaning of the strange action is wellnigh complete. The face of this 
 living trap is thickly sprinkled with glands immersed in its texture, 
 of elaborate structure under the microscope, but large enough to Ije 
 clearly discerned with a hand-lens ; these glands, soon after an insect 
 is closed upon, give out a saliva-like liquid, which moistens the insect, 
 and in a short time (within a week) dissolves all its soft parts, — di- 
 gests them, we must believe ; and the liquid, with the animal matter 
 it has dissolvetl, is re-absorbed into the leaf! We are forced to con- 
 clude that, in addition to the ordinary faculties and function of a 
 vegetable, this plant is really carnivorous. 
 
 That, while all plants are food for animals, some few should, in 
 turn and to some extent, feed upon them, will appear more credible 
 when it is considered that whole trilics of plants of the lowest grade 
 (Mould-Fungi and the like) habitually feed upon living plants and 
 living animals, or upon their juices when dead. An account of them 
 would make a volume of itself, and an interesting one. But all goes 
 to show that the instances of extraordinary behavior which have been 
 recounted in these chapters * are not mere prodigies, wholly out of 
 the general order of Nature, but belong to the order of Nature, and in- 
 deed are hardly diiferent in kind from, or really more wonderful than, 
 the doings of many of the commonest plants, which, until our special 
 attention is called to them, ordinarily pass unregarded. 
 
 • How Plants Behave : How they move, climb, employ insects to work for them, etc. A charm- 
 ing elementary work, from which this extract is taken. 
 
POB. 245 
 
 POE. 
 1811-1849. 
 
 EooAR Allah ton, perhaps the iiio«t brilliant, and ■nrely the most rnifbrtoiiate, of jomg 
 American poets, was bom in Baltimore, Maryland, in ISII, and died in 1»19. Left a penniless 
 orpiian on the death of bis parenU, who were members of the theatrical profession, he was 
 adopted by a nch mercliant of Baltimore, and sent to school. In 1822 be entered the Univer- 
 sity ol Virginia, but his habits soon became so dissolute as to compel his expulsion. His bene- 
 factor refusing young Foe's demands for money to l»e squandered at the gaming-table, the latter 
 resolved to go, like Byron, to the aid of the struggling Greeks. He went to Europe, but never 
 reached the theater of war, and in about a year was sent home by the United States Consul 
 at St. Petersburg. His long-suffering benefactor next procured him an appointment to West 
 Point ; but the high-spirited youth c»)uld not endure the strict discipline of eadet-life, and in 
 IcH than a year he was again expelled. Again he was received at the house of his benefactor, 
 but his stay, this time, was short ; for some offense whose nature has never been clearly ex- 
 plained, be was shut out forever from the house that had been his only home. He at once entered 
 npon that career of literary Bohemianism which was to end only with his life. In 1829 a small 
 coUcctiuD of his poems was published in Baltimore, and was received with encouraging favor ; 
 but his literary work done prior to his twenty-fourth year had little permanent value. While 
 editing the Southern Literary Messenger, at Riclimond, Virginia, 18:J5-37, he married his 
 cutuin, Virginia Clemm. In IXtg he went to New York, where he wrote for newspapers and 
 magazines, and in IHWJ to Philadelphia, where he edited Graham's Magazine. Returning to the 
 first-named city, he engaged in miscellaneous literary labor, contributing his most famous poem, 
 TU Rmwen, to Colton's Whig Review, in February, 1845. His life, during the next four years, 
 was a sad one; porerty continually oppressed him ; his loving and suffering wife was taken from 
 him : and. at last, having become almost a vagalrand, he was carried to the Baltimore Hospital, 
 where he died. October 7. 1»W, aged thirty-eight years. Although Pbe is best known as a poet, 
 many of the ablest critics agree that he was even greater as a writer of talcs. In this depart- 
 ment of literature he occupied a niche in which he has had no saccesaor. His imagination was 
 exceptionally powerful, his love of the weird and marvelous very strong, and his skill in produ- 
 eiag aomber and uncanny effects was extraordinary. Though he wrote a good deal of verse, but 
 a small proportion of it is worthy of his genius. As a critic he was remarkable mainly for his vio- 
 lent abasireaeas, and his lAterati of Nrw York Cilif, tliough spicy reading, gives no evidence of 
 yg)i critical power. Two or three of his poems. J%f Raten, The BrlU, Annahrl Ue, and perhaps 
 some others, will always be read and admired. The story of his short life conveys a solemn 
 warning, and soggests the thought that the most brilliant intellectual gifts are a curse rather 
 than a blessing, if nnaccompanied by a vigorous directing and controlling moral sense. It con- 
 firms, too. the notion that marked precocity is unfavorable to. if not absolutely incompatible 
 with, healthy and fruitful intellectual development. In the most prosperous natures, the moral 
 growth precedes the mental, — is iU guide and support Yet Poe is to be pitied rather than con- 
 i wrrf : kis bolts grew oat of his 
 
 ANNABEL LEE. 
 
 It was many and many a year ago, 
 
 In a Icinj^dom hy tlie sea, 
 That a maiden lived, whom you may know 
 
 By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
 And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
 
 Than to love, and be loved bv me. 
 
246 cathcart's literary reader, 
 
 I was a child and she was a child. 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea ; 
 But we loved with a love that was more than love, 
 
 I and my Annabel Lee, — 
 With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 
 
 Coveted her and me. 
 
 And this was the reason that long ago, 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea, 
 A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 
 
 My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
 So that her high-bom kinsmen came. 
 
 And bore her away from me. 
 To shut her up in a sepulcher. 
 
 In this lungdom by the sea. 
 
 The angels, not so happy in heaven. 
 
 Went envying her and me. 
 Yes ! that was the reason (as all men know) 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea. 
 That the wind came out of the cloud by night. 
 
 Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 
 
 But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
 
 Of those who were older than we. 
 
 Of many far wiser than we ; 
 And neither the angels in heaven above. 
 
 Nor the demons down under the sea. 
 Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 
 
 For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee, 
 And the stars never rise hut I feel the bright eyes 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 
 And so, all the night-tide I lie down by the side 
 Of my darling, my darlins:, my life, and my bride, 
 
 In her sepulcher there by the sea. 
 
 In her tomb by the sounding sea. 
 
POE. U7 
 
 FBOX THE BAVEN. 
 
 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, wealc and weary, 
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, — 
 AVhile I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
 " 'T is some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber door ; 
 Only this, and nothing more.** 
 
 Open then I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter. 
 
 In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. 
 
 Not the least obeisance made he ; not an instant stopped or stayed 
 
 he ; 
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door, — 
 Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door, — 
 Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 
 
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling. 
 
 By the grave and stem decorum of the countenance it wore, 
 
 " Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, " art sure no 
 
 craven ; 
 Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore. 
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore ? " 
 Quoth the raven, " Nevermore ! " 
 
 THE BELLS. 
 I. 
 Hear the sledges with the bells, — 
 Silver bells, — 
 What a world of merriment their melody foretells ! 
 How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, 
 
 In the icy air of night ! 
 While the stars that oversprinkle 
 All the heavens seem to twinkle 
 With a crystalline delight, — 
 Keeping time, time, time. 
 In a sort of Runic rh>'mc. 
 
248 CATHCAKT^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells 
 From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 Bells, bells, bells, — 
 From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 
 
 Hear the mellow wedding bells, — 
 Gohlen bells ! 
 What a worhl of happiness their harmony foretells I 
 Through the balmy air of night 
 How they ring out their delight 1 
 From the molten-golden notes, 
 And all in tune, 
 • What a liquid ditty floats 
 
 To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats 
 On the moon ! 
 0, from out the sounding cells. 
 What a gush of euphony voluminously wells ! 
 How it swells ! 
 How it dwells 
 On the Future ! how it tells 
 Of the rapture that impels 
 To the swinging and the ringing 
 
 Of the bells, bells, bells. 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells. 
 Bells, bells, bells, — 
 To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells. 
 
 III. 
 Hear the loud alarum bells, — 
 Brazen bells ! 
 What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells ! 
 In the startled ear of night 
 How they scream out their affright ! 
 Too much horrified to speak. 
 They can only shriek, shriek, 
 Out of tune. 
 In the clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 
 In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire 
 
POK. 249 
 
 Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
 AVith a dtsjKTate desire, 
 And a resolute endeavor, 
 Now — now to ait or never. 
 By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
 O the Ih'Us, bells, Ijells, 
 What a tale their terror tells 
 Of despair ! 
 How they clang and clash and roar 1 
 What a horror they outpour 
 On tlie bosom of the palpitating air! 
 Yet the ear it fully knows, 
 By the twanging, 
 And the clanging. 
 How the danger ebbs and flows ; 
 Yet the ear distinctly tells. 
 In the jangling, 
 And the wrangling, 
 How the danger sinks and swells. 
 By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, — 
 Of the bells, — 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 BeUs, beUs, beUs,— 
 In the clamor and the clangor of the bells 1 
 
 Hear the tolling of the bells, — 
 Iron bells ! 
 What a world of solemn thought their monody compels 
 In the silence of the night. 
 How we shiver with affright 
 At the melancholy menace of their tone ; 
 For every sound that floats 
 From the rust within their throats 
 Is a groan. 
 And the people, — ah, the people, 
 
 They that dwell up in the steeple. 
 
 All alone, 
 And who tolling, tolling, tolling. 
 
."lO 
 
 In that muffled monotone, 
 Feel a glorv in so rolling 
 
 On the limuan heart a stone, — 
 They are neither man nor woman, — 
 They are neither brute nor human, — 
 
 They are ghouls : 
 And their king it is who tolls ; 
 And he rolls, rolls, rolls, 
 Eolls, 
 
 A paean from the bells ! 
 And his merry bosom swells 
 
 With the paean of the bells I 
 And he dances and he yells ; 
 Keeping time, time, time, 
 In a sort of Runic rhyme. 
 
 To the paean of the bells, — 
 Of the bells ; 
 Keeping time, time, time, 
 In a sort of Runic rhyme. 
 
 To the throbbing of the bells, — 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, — 
 
 To the sobbing of the bells ; 
 Keeping time, time, time. 
 
 As he knells, knells, knells. 
 In a happy Runic rhyme. 
 
 To the rolling of the bells, — 
 Of the beUs, bells, bells, — 
 
 To the tolling of the bells. 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, beUs, — 
 Bells, bells, bells, — 
 To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 
 
GttEELEY, 2,bi 
 
 GEEELEY. 
 1811-1873. 
 
 HotACR Gbkklit, the greatest of American joumalUU, and eminent as a writer of pore and 
 Tigorou* Engliali, wa« bom in AmherBt, New Hampshire, in IHII and died iu 1B72. He waa the 
 ton of a poor farmer, and was in every sense " a self-made man." Pure in mind, honest and 
 upright to such an extent that he was called by many an eccentric man, he made his way, by his 
 own unaided efforts, from porerty to well-deserved fame as a writer and philosopher. His style 
 14 better in certain respects than that of any of his contemporary writers. It is terse and 
 masculine, so evenly balanced and nicely constructed, so simple and yet so graceful that it is 
 equally admirrd by the uneducated farmer and the fastidious literary critic. Mr. Greeley will 
 always be best known as the founder and first editor of the New York Tributu. but his collected 
 writings will hold a place in sUndard American literature. The best known of these are: Rec- 
 MeetioHt of « Bu$y life, Wkmt I hum of Farwdmg, and The Auericam Comfiict, a history of the 
 late eivil war. 
 
 THE EDITOB. 
 
 It only remains to me to speak more especially of my own voca- 
 tion, — the Editor's, — which bears much the same relation to the 
 Author's that the Bellows-blower's bears to the Organist's, the Player's 
 to the Dramatist's. The Editor, from the absolute necessity of the 
 case, cannot speak deliberately ; he must write to-day of to-day's 
 incidents and aspects, though these may be completely overlaid and 
 transformed by the incidents and aspects of to-morrow. He must 
 write and strive in the full consciousness that whatever honor or dis- 
 tinction he may acquire must perish with the generation that bestowed 
 them. No other public teacher lives so wholly in the present as the 
 Editor ; and the noblest affirmations of luipopular truth — the most 
 self-sacrificing defiance of a base and selfish Public Sentiment that 
 r^ards oidy the most sonlid ends, and values every utterance solely 
 as it tends to preserve quiet and contentment, while the dollars fall 
 jingling into the merchant's drawer, the land-jobber's vault, and the 
 miser's bag — can but be noted in their day, and with their day for- 
 gotten. It is his cue to utter silken and smooth sayings, — to con- 
 demn Vice 80 as not to interfere with the plAsures or alarm tlie 
 consciences of the vicious, — to commend and glorify Lal)or without 
 attempting to expose or repress any of the gainful contrivances by 
 which Labor is plundered and degrwle*!. Thus sidling dexterously 
 between somewhere and nowhere, the Able E<litor of the Ninett«nth 
 Century may glide through life respectable and in good case, and lie 
 down to his long rest with the non-achievements of his life embkr 
 
ZoZ CATIICAItr's LITLUARV KEADER. 
 
 zoned on the very whitest marble, surmounting and glorifying his 
 dust. 
 
 There is a different and sterner path, — I know not whether there 
 be any now qualified to tread it, — I am not sure that even one has 
 ever followed it implicitly, in view of the ctrtain meagerness of its 
 teniponil rewards and the haste wherewith any fame acquired in a 
 sphere so thoroughly ephemeral as the Editor's must be shrouded by 
 the dark waters of oblivion. This path demands an ear ever open to 
 the plaints of the wronged and the suffering, though they can never 
 repay advoaicy, and those who mainly support newspajxrs will be 
 annoyed and often exposed by it ; a heart as sensitive to oppression 
 and degradation in the next street as if they were practiced in Brazil 
 or Japan ; a pen as reatly to expose and reprove the crimes whereby 
 wealth is amassed and luxury enjoyed in our own countr}' at this hour, 
 as if they had only been committed by Turks or Pagans in Asia some 
 centuries ago. Such an Editor, could one be found or traiued, need 
 not expect to leatl an easy, indolent, or wholly joyous life, — to l)e 
 blessed by Archbishops or followed by the approving shouts of as- 
 cendant majorities : but he might find some recompense for their loss 
 in the calm verdict of an approving conscience ; and the tears of the 
 despised and the friendless, preserved from utter despair by his efforts 
 and remonstrances, might freshen for a season the daisies that bloomed 
 above his grave. 
 
 THE SEFOSHEB. 
 
 And, indeed, though the life of the Reformer may seem rugged and 
 arduous, it were hard to say considerately that any other were worth 
 living at all. Wlio can thoughtfully affirm that the career of the con- 
 quering, desolating, subjugating warrior, — of the devotee of Gold, or 
 Pomp, or Sensual Joys ; the monarch in his purple, the Miser by his 
 chest, the wassailer over his bowl, — is not a libel on Humanity and 
 an offense against God ? But the earnest, unselfish Reformer, — 
 — bom into a stafe of darkness, evil, and suffering, and honestly 
 striving to replace these by light and purity and happiness, — he 
 may fall and die, as so many have done before him, but he cannot fail. 
 His vindication shall gleam from the walls of his hovel, his dungeon, 
 his tomb ; it shall shine in the radiant eyes of uncomipted Child- 
 hood, and fall in blessings from the Mps of high-hearted, generous 
 Yojiith. 
 
GREELEY. 253 
 
 As the untimely death of the good is our strongest moral assurance 
 of the Resurrection, so the life wearily worn out in doubtful and per- 
 ilous conflict with Wrong and Woe is our most conclusive evidence 
 that Wrong and Woe shall yet vanish forever. Luther, dying amid 
 the agonizing tears and wild consternation of all Protestant Germany, 
 — Cohunbus, borne in rcgiU pomp to his grave by the satellites of the 
 royal miscreant whose ingratitude and pei-fidy had broken his mighty 
 heart,* — these teach us, at least, that all true greatness is ripened 
 and tempered and provexl in life-long stniggle against vicious beliefs, 
 traditions, practices, institutions ; and that not to have been a Re- 
 former is not to have truly livwl. 
 
 Life is a bubble which any breath may dissolve ; Wealth or Power 
 a snow-flake, melting momently into the treacherous deep across whose 
 waves we are floated on to our unseen destiny : but to have lived so 
 that one less orphan is called to choose Ijetween starvation and infamy, 
 to have lived so that some eyes of those whom Fame shall never know 
 are brightcne<l and others suffused at the name of the beloved one, — 
 so that the few who knew him tnily shall recognize him as a bright, 
 warm, cheering presence, which was here for a season and left the world 
 no worse for his stay in it, — this surely is to have really livedo — and 
 not wholly in vain. 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Is agriculture a repulsive pursuit? That what has been called 
 farming has repelled many of the youth of our day, I perceive ; and I 
 glory in the fact. An American boy, who has received a fair com- 
 mon-school education and has an active, inquiring mind, docs not 
 willingly consent merely to drive oxen and hold the plow forever. He 
 will do these with alacrity, if they come in his way ; he will not 
 accept them as the be-all and the end-all of his career. He will not 
 sit down in a rude, slovenly, naked home, devoid of flowers, and trees, 
 and lx)ok8, and periodicals, and intelligent, inspiring, refining con- 
 versation, and tht-re plod through a life of dnidgery as hopeless and 
 cheerless as any mule's. He has needs, and hopes, and aspirations, 
 which this life does not and ought not to satisfy. This might have 
 senwl his progenitor in the ninth centur}' ; but this is the nineteenth, 
 and the young American knows it. 
 
 He needs to feel the intiUectual life of the period flowing freely 
 
 * See note, page 98. 
 
254 CATHCARTS LlTERAilY READER. 
 
 into and throuj^h him, — needs to feel that, thouj^^h the city and the 
 railroad are out of sight, the latter is daily bringing within his reach 
 all that is noblest and best in the achievements and attractions of the 
 former. He may not listen to our ablest orators in the senate or in 
 the pulpit; but the press multiplies their best thoughts and most 
 forcible expressions at the rate of ten to twenty thousand copies per 
 hour ; and its issues are within the reach of every industrious family. 
 
 To aiTtist the rush of our youth to the cities, we have only to diffuse 
 what is best of the cities through the country ; and this the latest 
 triumphs of civilization enable us easily to do. A home iri-adiated by 
 the best thoughts of the sages and heroes of all time, even though 
 these be compressed within a few rusty volumes, cheered by the fre- 
 quent arrival of two or three choice periodicals, and surrounded by 
 such floral evidences of taste and refinement as are within the reach of 
 the poorest owner of the soil he tills, will not be spurned as a prison 
 by any youth not thoroughly corrupted and depraved. 
 
 Any American farmer, who has two hands and knows how to use 
 them, may, at fifty years of age, have a better library than King Solo- 
 mon ever dreamed of, though he declared that " of making of many 
 books there is no end " ; any intelligent farmer's son may have a better 
 knowledge of Nature and her laAvs when twenty years old than Aris- 
 totle or Pliny ever attained. The steam-engine, the electric telegraph, 
 and the power-press have brought knowledge nearer to the humblest 
 cabin than it was, ten centuries since, to the stateliest mansion ; let 
 the cabin be careful not to disparage or repel it. 
 
 But thousands of farmers are more intent on leaving money and 
 lands to their children than on informing and enriching their minds. 
 They starve their souls in order to pamper their bodies. They grudge 
 their sons that which would make them truly wise, in order to provide 
 them with what can at best but make them rich in corn and cattle, 
 while poor in manly purpose and generous ideas. 
 
 Modern agriculture is an art — or rather a circle of arts — based 
 upon natural science, which is a methodical exposition of divine law. 
 The savage is Nature's thrall, whom she scorches, freezes, starves, 
 drowns, as her caprice m.iy dictate. He lives in constant dread of 
 her frosts, her tornadoes, her lightnings. Science teaches his civilized 
 successor to turn her wildest eccentricities to his own use and profit. 
 Her floods and gales saw his timber and grind his grain ; in time, 
 they will chop bis trees, speed his plow, and till his crops as well. 
 
GREELEY. 255 
 
 Science transforms and exalts him from the slave into the master 
 of the elements. If he does not yet liariiess the electric fluid to his 
 plow, his Iwat, his wagon, and make the most docile and useful of his 
 servants, it is because he is still but little advanced from barbjirism. 
 Essentially, the lightning garnered in a sunnner cloud should be as 
 much at his command, and as subservient to his needs, as the water 
 that refreshes his thirsty fields and starts his hitherto lifeless wheels. 
 
 Only good farming pays. He who sows or plants without i*eason- 
 able assurance of good crops annually, might better earn wages of 
 some capable neighbor than work for so poor a paymaster as he is 
 certain to prove himself. The good farmer is proved such by the I 
 steiidy appreciation of his crops. Any one may reap an ample harvest 
 from a fertile, virgin soil ; the good farmer alone grows good crops at 
 first, and better and better ever afterward. 
 
 It is far easier to maintain the productive capacity of a farm than to 
 restore it. To exhaust its fecundity, and then attempt its restoration 
 by buying costly commercial fertilizers, is wasteful and irrational. 
 The gfKxl farmer sells mainly such products as are least exhaustive. 
 Necessity may constrain him, for the fii-st year or two, to sell grain, or 
 even hay ; but he will soon send oft' his surplus mainly in the form of 
 cotton, or wool, or meat, or butter and cheese, or something else that 
 returns to the soil nearly all that is taken from it. A bank account 
 daily dniwn upon, while nothing is deposited to its credit, must soon 
 respond, " No funds " : so with a faim similarly treated. 
 
 Wisdom is never dear, provided the article be genuine. I have 
 known farmers who toiled constantly from daybreak to dark, yet died 
 poor, Ijecause, through ignorance, they wrought to disadvantage. If 
 every farmer would devote two hours of each day to reading and 
 reflection, there wouhl be fewer failures v.\ farming than there are. 
 The best investment a farmer can make for his children is that which 
 surrounds their youth with the rational delights of a beauteous, at- 
 tractive home. The dwelling may be small and rude, yet a few flow- 
 ers will embellish, as choice fniit-trees will enrich and gladden it; 
 while grass and shade are within the rt^ch of the humblest. Hardly 
 any lalwr done on a farm is so profitable as that which makes the 
 wife and children fond and proud of their home. 
 
 A good, practical education, including a good trade, is a better 
 outfit for a youth than a grand estate with the drawliack of an empty 
 niii.d. Many parents have slaved and pinched to leave their children 
 
256 CATHCAET^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 rich, when half the sum thus layished would have profited them far 
 more had it been devoted to the cultivation of their minds, the en- 
 larj^ement of their capacity to think, observe, and work. The one 
 structure that no neighborhood can afford to do without is the 
 school-house. 
 
 A small library of wcU-sclectctl books in his home has saved many 
 a youth from wandering into the baleful ways of the prodigal sou. 
 Where paternal strictness and severity would have bred nothing but 
 dislike and a fixed resolve to abscond at the first opportunity, good 
 books and pleasant surroundings have weaned many a youth from his 
 first wild impulse to go to sea or cross the continent, and made him 
 a docile, contented, obedient, happy lingerer by the parental fireside. 
 In a family, however rich or poor, no other good is so cheap or so 
 precious as thoughtful, watchful love. 
 
 Most men are born poor, but no man, who has average capacities 
 and tolemble luck, need remain so. And the farmer's cidling, thougli 
 proffering no sudden leaps, no ready short-cuts to opulence, is the 
 surest of all ways from poverty and want to comfort and independence. 
 Other men must climb; the temperate, frugal, diligent, provident 
 farmer may grow into competence and every external accessory to 
 happiness. Each year of his devotion to his homestead may find it 
 more valuable, more attractive than the last, and leave it better still. 
 
 There are discoveries in natural science and improvements in me- 
 chanics which conduce to the efficiency of agriculture ; but the prin- 
 ciples which underlie this first of arts are old as agriculture itst.*lf. 
 Greek and Roman sages made observations so acute and practical 
 that the farmers of to-day may ponder them with profit, while modern 
 literature is padded with essays on farming not worth the paper they 
 have spoiled. And yet the generation whereof I am part lias wit- 
 nessed great strides in your vocation, while the generation preparing 
 to take our places will doubtless witness still greater. I bid you hold 
 fast to the good, with minds receptive of and eager for the better, and 
 rejoice in your knowledge that there is no nobler pursuit and no 
 more inviting soil than those which you proudly call your own. 
 
THACKERAY. 267 
 
 THACKERAY. 
 
 1811-1863. 
 
 William Makkpeacb Tiiackehay, one of the great writer* of fiction of the nineteenth 
 century, was bum in Calcutta in 1811, but waa sent to England while a child, and educated lu 
 the CharterbuuM School, which he has inuaurtalizcd in The Nru-comft, and at Cambridge Uni> 
 vrrvitv. On the death of his parenta he found himself in possessiun of a handsome fortune ; 
 but it aoon vanished, and he was compelled to vaxn a subsistence. He dallied with Law, 
 courted Art with gn-ater earnestness, and finally — a resolution for which th.; lovers of high 
 fiction will never cease to be grateful —.resolved to devote himself to Literature. His first essay 
 in letter* was in the department of journalism ; he wrote for the Times, The New Moathly 
 MagMinc, anil Punch, to which latter pt-riodical be contribut«;d the inimitable Snob Papers, 
 Jeamej's Diary, etc. His first volume. The Paris Sketch-Book, was published in 1840, and was 
 followed daring the next seven years by several collections of essays, sketches, etc. In l&W ap- 
 peared his tirst novel. Vanity Fair, a work timt deserves rank among the masterpieci's of English 
 fictioa. Two years later The History of Pett lenHts was given to the world, which, if it did not 
 ealiuiee Uu author's reputation, continued his title to a high place among English novelists. 
 The History of Henry EsmonJ, The Virginians, The Netoeomus, appeared at short intervals, the 
 latter, which was issued in 1855, being pronounced by high literary authority his masterpiece. 
 Lomet the WiJowtr (18C1) and The AJtentnres of Philip (1862) mark the decay of the author's 
 po\«crs. At his death in 1863 he left unfinished a novel called Denis Dutal. The Four 
 (,''■., njrs, lectures tirsidelix-crcd in the principal American cities, were pulilisth.-d in Iwok form in 
 lHf,(i. It is a remarkable fact that while Thackcmy's writings were comparatively neglected in 
 England, they enjoyed an extensive popularity in the United States, where they arc still read 
 with eagerness and delight by all who look beneath the surface of novels into the soul that 
 animates tliem. It is impossible to do justice to the characteristics of Thackeray as a writer in 
 the limits uf thu notice ; but two or three of them may be briefly mentioned. He was a cynic, 
 tliuu-^h a kiudly one: he was a keen student of human nature, quick to recognize and to de- 
 nouiK-t; its weaknesses ; yet he apparently found his deepest pleasure in depicting its iovelj 
 features and recording its noblest manifestations. The character of Colonel Newcomc4s, we 
 tbinlv, unsurpassed, if equaled, as a type of true manhood ; its pathos is indescribable, and the 
 miniDry of il liiv^i-rs in the reader's mind, softening and refining. Thackeray's humor waa 
 nimblf rather tlian rich; but it is not, though commonly held to be, a very important component 
 of his intellectual strength. He was a reformer, who exposctl and denounced social wrongs, not 
 with rude force, but with polisiied satire. His mastery of English was wonderful ; in the purity 
 and vigor of his language he waa unequaled by any writer of his time. The first extnct is firom 
 Tkt Fiaur George* ; the others arc from Pendennis. 
 
 GEOBOE THE THFRD.* 
 
 We have to glance over sixty years in as many minutes. To read 
 the mere catalogue of characters who figured during that long period, 
 would occupy our allotted time, and we should have all text and no 
 sLTinon. England has to undergo the revolt of the American colo- 
 niis , to submit to defciit and separation ; to shake under the volcano 
 
 • Gcr.r,re the Third waa king of England during our Revolutionary War. He waa bom in 
 ITW, a»<-inded (he throne in 1701), and reigned for sixty years. He becMne iasane in 1810. and 
 
 dull in 1H.»(). His weaknesses are most mercilessly criticised by Thackeray in h'- ' -• -n 
 
 the Four Ceorges, as will be seen from the extract 
 
258 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 of the French Revolution ; to grapple and fight for the life with her 
 gigantic enemy Napoleon ; to gasp and rally after that tremendous 
 struggle. The old society, with its courtly splendors, has to pass 
 away ; generations of statesmen to rise and disappear ; Pitt to follow 
 Chatham to the tomb ; the memory of Roiiney anil Wolfe to be super- 
 seded by Nelson's and Wellington's glory ; the old poets who unite 
 us to Queen Anne's time to sink into their graves ; Johnson to die, 
 and Seott and Byron to arise, Garrick to delight the world with his 
 dazzling dramatic genius, and Kean to leap on the stage and take 
 possession of the astonished theater. Steam has to be invented ; 
 kings to be beheaded, banished, deposed, restored ; Napoleon to be 
 but an episode, and Greorge III. is to be alive through all these varied 
 changes, to accompany his people through all these revolutions of 
 thought, government, society, — to survive out of the old world into 
 ours. 
 
 His mother's bigotry and hatred George inherited with the cour- 
 ageous obstinacy of his own race ; but he was a firm believer where 
 his fathers had been free-thinkers, and a true and fond supporter of 
 the Church, of which he was the titular defender. Like other dull 
 men, the king was all his life suspicious of superior people. He 
 did not like Fox ; he did not like Reynolds ; he did not like Nelson, 
 Chatham, Burke: he was testy at the idea of all innovations, and 
 suspicious of all innovators. He loved mediocrities ; Benjamin West 
 was his favorite painter ; Beattie was his poet. The king lamented, 
 not without pathos, in his after life, that his education had been ne«r- 
 lected. He was a dull lad, brought up by narrow-minded peoph . 
 The cleverest tutors in the world could have done little probably 
 to expand that small intellect, though they might have improved his 
 tastes and taught his perceptions some generosity. 
 
 Greorge married the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz, and 
 for years they led the happiest, simplest lives, sure, ever led by mar- 
 ried couple. It is said the king winced when he first saw his 
 homely little bride ; but, however that may be, he was a true and 
 faithful husband to her, as she was a faithful and loving wife. Tliey 
 had the simplest pleasures, — the very mildest and simplest, — little 
 country dances, to which a dozen couple were invited, and where the 
 honest king would stand up and dance for three hours at a time to one 
 tune ; after which delicious excitement they would go to bed without 
 any supper (the Court people grumbling sadly at that absence of 
 
THACKERAY. 259 
 
 supper), and get up quite early the next morning, and perhaps the 
 next night have another dance; or the queen wouUl play on the 
 spinnet, — she played pretty well, Haydn said ; or the king would 
 read to her a paper out of the S^jectator, or perhaps one of Ogden's 
 sermons. O Arcadia ! what a life it must have been ! 
 
 The theater was always his delight. His bishops and clergy used 
 to attend it, thinking it no shame to appear where that good man was 
 seen. He is said not to have cared for Shakespeare or tragedy much; 
 farces and pantomimes were his joy ; and especially when clown swal- 
 lowed a carrot or a string of sausages, he would laugh so outrageously 
 that the lovely princess by his side would have to say, " My gracious 
 monarch, do compose yourself." But he coutinued to laugh, and at 
 the very smallest farces, as long as his poor wits were left him. 
 
 " George, be a king ! " were the words which his mother was for- 
 evir croaking in the ears of her son ; and a king the simple, stubborn, 
 affectionate, bigoted man tried to be. 
 
 He did his Wst, — he worked according to'his lights : what virtue 
 he knew, he tried to practice ; what knowledge he could master, he 
 strove to acquire. But, as one thinks of an office almost divine, 
 performed by any mortal man, — of atiy single being pretending to 
 control the thoughts, to direct the faith, to order implicit obedience 
 of brother millions ; to compel them into war at his offense or quar- 
 rel ; to command, " In this way you shall trade, in this way you shall 
 think; these neighbors shall l)c your allies, wiiom you shall help, — 
 these others your enemies, whom you shall slay at my orders ; in 
 this way you shall worship God " ; — who can wonder that, when 
 such a man as George took such an office on himself, punishment and 
 humiliation should fall upon people and chief? 
 
 Yet there is something grand about his courage. The battle of the 
 king with his aristocracy remains yet to be told by the historian who 
 shall view the reign of G<*orge more justly than the tninipeiy pane- 
 gyrists who wrote immediately after his decease. It was he, with the 
 people to back him, that made the war with America ; it was he and 
 the people who refused justice to the Roman Catholics ; and on both 
 questions he beat the patricians. He bribed, he bullied, he darkly 
 dissembled on occasion ; he exercised a slipperj- perseverance, and a 
 vindictive resolution, which one almost admires as one thinks his 
 character over. His courage was never to be beat. It trampled North 
 underfoot ; it bent the stiff neck of the younger Pitt ; even his illness 
 
260 
 
 never conquered that indomitable spirit. As soon as his brain was 
 clear, it resumed the scheme, only laid aside when his reason left him : 
 as soon as his hands were out of the strait-waistcoat, they took up the 
 pen and the plan which had ewy^a'fed him up to the moment of his 
 malady. I believe, it is by persons belieyinj? themselves in the right, 
 that nine tenths of the tyranny of this world has been perpetrated. 
 Arguing on that convenient premise, the Bey of Algiers would cut oflF 
 twenty heads of a morning ; Father Dominic would burn a score of 
 Jews in the presence of the Most Catholic King, and the Archbishops 
 of Toledo and Salanmnca sing Amen. Protestants were roasted, 
 Jesuits hung and quartered at Smithfield, and witches bunied at 
 Salem ; and all by worthy p<^ople, who believed they had the best 
 authority for their actions. And so with respect to old Greorge, even 
 Americans, whom he hated and who conquered him, may give him 
 cH'dit for having quite honest reasons for oppressing them. 
 
 Of little comfort were the king's sons to the king. But the pretty 
 Amelia was his darling'; and the little maiden, prattling and smiling 
 in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to look on. 
 
 From November, 1810, George III. ceased to reign. All the world 
 knows the story of his malady ; all history presents no sadder figure 
 than that of the old man, blind and deprived of reason, wandering 
 through the rooms of his palace, addressing imaginary parliaments, 
 reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly courts. I have seen his 
 picture as it was taken at this time, hajiging in the apartment of his 
 daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse Homburg, — amidst books and 
 Windsor furniture, ami a hundred fond reminiscences of her English 
 home. The poor old father is represented in a purple gown, his 
 snowy l)eard falling over his breast, — the star of his famous Order 
 still idly shining on it. He was not only sightless, — he became 
 utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the 
 pleasures of this world of God, were t<iken from him. Some slight 
 lucid moments he had ; in one of which, the queen, desiring to see 
 him, entered the room, and found him singing a hymn, and accom- 
 panying himself at the harpsichord. When he had finished, he knelt 
 down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for 
 the nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please 
 God to avert his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him res- 
 ignation to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again 
 fle/1. 
 
THACKERAY. 261 
 
 What preacher need moralize on this story ; what words save the 
 simplest are requisite to tell it ? It is too terrible for tears. The 
 thought of sucli a misery smites me down in submission before the 
 Ruler of kiuji^s and men, the Monarch Supreme over empires and 
 republics, the inscrutable Dispenser of life, death, liappiness, victory. 
 " O brothers," I said to those who heard me first in America, — " O 
 brothers ! speaking the same dear mother tongue, — O conu'ades ! 
 enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together as we stand by 
 this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle ! Low he lies to whom 
 the proudest used to kneel once;, and who was cast lower than the 
 poorest ; dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his 
 throne ; buffeted by rude hands ; with his children in revolt ; the 
 darling of his old age killed before him untimely ; our Lear hangs 
 over her breatldess lips and cries, * Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little ! * 
 
 • Vex not hi« ghost — oh ! let him pass — he hates him 
 That would upon the rack of this tough world 
 Stretch him out longer 1 ' 
 
 Hush ! Strife and Quarrel, over the solemn grave ! Sound, Trum- 
 pets, a mournful march. Fall, Dark Curtain, upon his pageant, his 
 pride, his grief, his awful tragedy ! " 
 
 THE MAJOR'S ADVICfE TO HIS NEPHEW. 
 
 Like a wary and patient man of the world. Major Pendennis did 
 not press poor Pen any farther for the moment, but hoped the best 
 from time, and that the young fellow's eyes would be opened before 
 long to see the absurdity of which he was guilty. And having found 
 out how keen the boy's point of honor was, he worked kindly upon 
 that kindly feeling with great skill, discoursing him over their wine 
 after dinner, and pointing out to Pen the necessity of a perfect up- 
 rightness and openness in all his dealings, and entreating that his 
 communications with his interesting young friend (as the Major 
 politely called Miss Fotheringay) should be carried on with the 
 knowletlge, if not approlmtion, of Mrs. Pendennis. " After all, Pen," 
 the Major said, with a convenient frankness that did not displease 
 the boy, whilst it advanced the interests of the negotiator, "you 
 must bear in mind that you are throwing yourself away. Your 
 mother may submit to your marriage as she would to anything else 
 you desired, if you did but cry long enough for it : but be sure of 
 
262 
 
 this, that it can never please her. You take a yoiint( woman off the 
 boards of a countrv thciitcr and prefer her, for siieh is the case, to one 
 of the liiic-t ladle- in |jiud:i'.d. And your nioiln r wid suhinit to 
 your choice, but you can't suppose tliat she will be happy under it. 
 
 " I have often fancies that my sister had it in her eye to make a mar- 
 riage between you and that little w.;rd of Iim- V\ni\i, Laura, — 
 what's her name? And 1 always determined n* do ni\ small en- 
 deavor to jinvcnt any such match. The child has hut two thou- 
 sand pounds, I am iriven to understand. It is only with the utmost 
 economy and care ihat my sister can provide for the decent main- 
 tenance of her h()n>e, and for your appearance and tduiMiion as a 
 gentleman : and 1 don't care to own to you that 1 had otiur and 
 much liiiriier views for you. Witli your name and birth, sir, 
 — with your talents, uhich I suppose are respectable, with the 
 friends whom I have the honor to possess, I could have placed 
 you in an (vicllent position, — a remarkable position for a young 
 man of sm li t xiceding small means, and had hoped to see you, at 
 least, try to restore the honors of our name. Your mother's softness 
 stopped one prospect, or you mi-ht have l)een a general like our gal- 
 lant ancestor who fouudit at K amillies and Malplaquet. 1 had another 
 plan in view : my excellent and kind friend. Lord Bagwig, who is 
 very well disposed towards me, would, 1 have little doubt, have attached 
 you to his mission at Pumpernickel, and you might have advanced in 
 the diplomatic service. But, pardon me for recurring to the subject ; 
 how is a man to serve a young gentleman of eighteen, who proposes 
 to marry a lady of tliirty. whom he has selected from a booth in a 
 fair? — wrll. not a tair, — barn. Tluit jirot'c-^ioii at once is closed 
 to you. The public service is closed to you. Society is closed to 
 you. You see, my good friend, to what you briuGr yourself. You 
 may get on at the bar, to be sure, when^ I am Lnv( n to understand 
 that gentlemen of merit occasionally marry out of their kitchens ; but 
 in no other profession. Or you may come and live down here — 
 down here, dear Pen, forever I "' (said the ^lajor, with a dreary sliruLT, 
 as he thouu-ht with inexpres-;l)!e loudness of Pall M.dl) '• where your 
 mother wid receive the ^Irs. Arthur that is to be, with perfect kind- 
 ness; where the o:ood people of the county won't visit you; and 
 where, my dear sir, I shall be shy of visiting you myself, for I 'm a 
 plain-spoken man, and 1 own to you that I like to live with gentlemen 
 for my companions ; where you will have to live, with nim-and-water 
 
THACKERAY. 263 
 
 drinking gentlemen -farmers, and drag through your life the young 
 hu.sl)and of an old woman, who, if she does n't quarrel with your 
 mother, will at least cost that lady her position in society, and drag 
 her down into that dubious caste into which you must inevitably fall. 
 It is no affair of mine, my good sir. I am not angry. Your down- 
 fdl will not hurt me farther than that it will extinguish the hopes I 
 ha<l of seeing my family once more taking its place in the world. It 
 is only your mother and yourself that will he ruined. And I pity 
 you both from my soul. Pass the claret : it is some I sent to your 
 poor father ; I remember I bouj^ht it at poor Lord Levant's sale. 
 But of course," added the Major, smacking the wine, " having en- 
 gaged yourself, you will do what becomes you as a man of honor, 
 however fatal your promise may be. However, promise us on our 
 side, my boy, what I set out by entreating you to grant, — that there 
 shall be nothing clandestine, that you will pursue your studies, that 
 you will only visit your interesting friend at proper intervals. Do 
 you write to her much ? " 
 
 Pen blushed and said, " Why, yes, he had written." 
 
 " I suppose verses, eh ! as well as prose ? I was a dab at verses 
 myself. I recollect when I first joined, I used to write verses for 
 the fellows in the regiment ; and did some pretty things in that way. 
 I was talking to my old friend General Hobbler about some lines I 
 dashed off for him in the year 1806, when we were at the Cape, and. 
 Gad, he remembered every line of them still ; for he 'd used 'em so 
 often, the old rogue, and had actually tried 'em on Mrs. Hobbler, sir, 
 who brought him sixty thousand pounds. I suppose you 've tried 
 verses, eh, Pen ? " 
 
 Pen blushed again, and said, " Wliy, yes, he had ^^Titten verses." 
 
 " And does the fair one respond in poetry or prose?" asked the 
 Major, eying his nephew with the queerest expression, as much as to 
 say, " O Moses and Green Spectacles ! what a fool the boy is." 
 
 Pen blushed again. She had written, but not in verse, the young 
 lover owned, and he gave his breast-pocket the benefit of a squeeze 
 with his left arm, which the Major remarked, according to his wont. 
 
 " You have got the letters there, I see," said the old campaigner, 
 nodding at Pen, and pointing to his own chest (which was manfully 
 wadcU-d with cotton by Mr. Stultz). " You know you have. I would 
 uivr twopence to see 'em." 
 
 • Why," said Pen, twiddling the stAlks of the strawberries, " I — 
 
£64 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 I," but this sentence never finished ; for Pen's face was so comical 
 and embarraased, as the Major watched it, that the elder could con- 
 tain his jj^avity no longer, and burst into a fit of laughter, in whirli 
 chorus Pen himself was obliged to join after a minute : when he 
 broke out fairly into a guftaw. 
 
 It sent them with great good-humor into Mrs. Pendennis*8 draw- 
 ing-room. She was pleased to hear them laughing in the hall as they 
 crossed it. 
 
 " You sly rascal ! '* said the Major, putting his arm gayly on Pen's 
 shoulder, and giving a playful push at the boy's bi*east-pocket. He 
 felt the papers crackling there sure enough. The young fellow was 
 delighted — conceited — triumphant — and in one word, a spooney. 
 
 The pair came to the tea-table in the highest spirits. The Major's 
 politeness was beyond expression. He had never tasted such good tea, 
 and such bread was oidy to l)e had in the country. He asked Mrs. Pen- 
 dennis for one of her charming songs. He then made Pen sing, and 
 was delighted and astonished at the beauty of the boy's voice ; he made 
 his nephew fetch his maps and drawings, and praised them as really re- 
 markable works of talent in a yoiuig fellow : he complimented him on 
 his French pronunciation : he flattered the simple boy as adroitly as 
 ever lover flattered a mistress : and when bedtime came, mother and 
 son went to their several rooms perfectly enchanted with the kind Major. 
 
 When they had reached those apartments, I suppose Helen took to 
 her knees as usual ; and Pen read over his letters before going to bed : 
 just as if he did n't know every word of them by heart already. In 
 truth there were but three of those documents ; and to learn their 
 contents required no great eftbrt of memory. 
 
 In No. 1 Miss Fotheringay presents grateful compliments to ^Ir. 
 Pendennis, and in her papa's name and her own begs to thank him 
 for his most beautiful presents. They will always be kept carefully ; 
 and Miss F. and Captain C. will never forget the delightful evening 
 which they passed on Tuesday last. 
 
 No. 2 said — Dear Sir, we shall have a small quiet party of social 
 friends at our humble board, next Tuesday evening, at an early tea, 
 when I shall we:\r the beautiful scarf which, with its accompamjiug de- 
 lightful verses, I shall ever, ever cherish : and papa bids me say how 
 happy he will be if you will join " the feast of reason and the flow 
 of soul " in our festice little party, as I am sure will be your truly 
 
 grateful 
 
 Emily Fotheringay. 
 
THACKEEAY. 265 
 
 No. 3 was somewhat more confidential, and showed that matters 
 had proceeded rather fur. You were odious yesterday night, the letter 
 said. Why did you not come to the stage-door? Papa could not 
 escort me on account of his eye ; he had an accident, and fell down 
 over a loose carpet on the stair on Sunday night. I saw you looking 
 at Miss Diggle all night; and you were so enchanted vi'\i\\ Lydia Lan- 
 guish you scarcely once looked at Julia. I could have crushed Bing- 
 ley, I was so angry. 1 play Ella Rosenberg on Friday : will you come 
 
 then ? Miss Biggie performs — ever your 
 
 E. F. 
 
 These three letters Mr. Pen used to read at intervals, during the 
 day and night, and embrace with that delight and fervor which such 
 beautiful compositions surely warranted. A thousand times at least 
 he had kissed fondly the musky satin paper, made sacred to him by 
 the hand of Emily Fotheringay. This was all he had in return for 
 his passion an<l flames, his vows and protests, his rhymes and similes, 
 his wakeful nights and endless thoughts, his fondness, fears, and folly. 
 The young wiseacre had pledged away his all for this : signed his 
 name to endless promissory-notes, conferring his heart upon the 
 bearer : bound himself for life, and got Imck twopence as an equiva- 
 lent. For Miss ('ostigan was a young lady of such perfect good eon- 
 duct and self-command, that she never would have thought of giving 
 more, and reserved the treasures of her affection until she could trans- 
 fer them lawfully at church. 
 
 Howbeit, Mr. Pen was content with what tokens of regard he had 
 got, and mumbled over his three letters in a rapture of high spirits, 
 and went to sleep delighted with his kind old imcle from London, 
 who must evidently yield to his wishes in time ; and, in a word, a 
 preposterous state of contentment with himself and all the world.* 
 
 * It may be remarked that Mr. Pen did not marry If iw Fotheringay, and that Captain Cos- 
 
 tigau, her father, and Majn- !' ' — ■; rame near having u duel on the sulijret. For a full and 
 
 interesting account of TO' I! s triali and trilmlations in this matter, and his happy 
 
 iaana tlierefrom, together ^t rmiag^y dcacribed record of hia life after this episode, vuu 
 
 must read Femdauu*^ one of the heat uf Mr. Thackeray's stories. 
 
 12 
 
 \ 
 
266 CATHCAET^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 SUMNER. 
 I8II-1874. 
 
 Chaslcs SfiCTER, one of the most prominent actors in the public affairs of the United States 
 for a quarter of a century, was bom in Boston, Massachusetts, in January, 1811. Graduating at 
 Harvard College in ItiH), he studied law under the direction of Judge Story, and began practice 
 in 1834. In 1^37 he went abroad and mingled in the most cultivated society in England and on 
 tlie Continent Returning to Boston, after an absence of three years, he resumed his profession 
 and his studies. In l8to, being invited by the city government to deliver a Fourth of July Ora- 
 tion, he spoke on The True Grandeur of Aationt with such eloquence and force as at once 
 gave him high rank as an orator. Made conspicuous by this success, he naturally entered into 
 political associations, and became an active member of the Free Soil party. By its aid, five years 
 later, in 1850, he was elected to the seat in the United States Senate made vacant by Mr. 
 Webstar's appointment to be Secretary of Sute. On his entrance into that body Mr. Sumner 
 declared himself the uncompromising enemy of slavery, and never ceased his assaults upon that 
 institution until it ceased to exist He was repeatedly re-elected to the Senate, and had completed 
 his twenty-third year of honorable service, when he was suddenly stricken by aHyina pecloru, and 
 died March 11, 1874. Mr. Sumner's efforts in literature were almost cxclukively in the depart- 
 nunt of oratory, and the many volumes of his published works arc mainly filled with speeches. 
 Many of these have a place among the masterpieces of American eloquence. Unlike most 
 American public men, he was not a politician; he held himself aloof from the petty obli- 
 gations nnd entanglements of party, and maintained a lofty and unswerving independence. 
 His integrity and purity of purpose were never questioned even by tliosc to wliom his politi- 
 cal doctrines were most abhorrent By his profound intellectual ability, his thorough and 
 elegant scholarslup, and above all by his high-mindedness and ununpearlmblc probity, he com- 
 manded the respect of the whole country. His speeches were rather scholarly than statesman- 
 like. Though his mastery of whatever subjects he grappled with was thorough, and his pre- 
 sentation of them vigorous and effective, there is an excess of elaboration, an ultra-classicism in 
 all his writings that never, or very rarely, accompanies the highest spontaneous oratory. As 
 specimens of careful, finished composition, his speeches are hardly surpassed in the annals of 
 American eloquence. 
 • 
 
 THE LAW OF HITMAN PROGBESS. 
 
 The way is now prepared to consider the character, conditions, and 
 limitations of this law, the duties it enjoins, and the encouragements 
 it affords. 
 
 Let me state the law as I understand it. Man as an individual is 
 c.ipable of indefinite improvement. Societies and nations, which are 
 but aggregations of men, and, finally, the Human Family, or collec- 
 tively Humanity, are capable of indefinite improvement. And this is 
 the destiny of man, of societies, of nations, and of the Human Family. 
 
 Restricting the proposition to the capacity for indefinite improve- 
 ment, I believe I commend it to the candor and intelligence of all 
 who have meditated upon this subject. And this brings me to the 
 remarkable words of Leibnitz. He boldly says, as we have already 
 seen, that man seems able to arrive at perfection. Turgot and Con- 
 
8UMNEB. 267 
 
 (lorcet also speak of his " perfectibility," — a term adopted by recent 
 French writers. If by this is incjint simply that man is capable of 
 indefinite improvement, then it will not be qnestioncd. But what- 
 ever the heights of virtue and intelligence to which he may attain in 
 future ages, who can doubt that to his grander vision new summits 
 will ever present themselves, provoking him to still grander aspira- 
 tions ? God only is perfect. Knowledge and goodness, his attri- 
 butes, are infinite ; nor can man hope, in any lapse of time, to com- 
 prehend this immensity. In the intinitude of the universe, he will 
 seem, like Newton, with all his acquisitions, oidy to have gathered a 
 few pebbles by the seaside. In a similar strain Leibnitz elsewhere 
 says that the place which God assigns to man in space and time 
 necessarily limits the perfections he is able to acquire. As in Ge- 
 ometry the asymptote constantly approaches its curve, so that the 
 distance between them is constantly diminishing, and yet, though 
 prolongi'd indefinitely, they never meet, so, according to him, arc 
 infinite souls the asymptotes of God. 
 
 There arc revolutions in history seeming on a superficial view 
 inconsistent with this law. From early childhood attention is di- 
 rected to Greece and Rome ; and we are sometimes taught that these 
 two powers reached heights which subsequent nations cannot hope to 
 equal, much less to surpass. I would not disparage the triumphs of 
 the ancient mind. The eloquence, the poetry, the art of Athens still 
 survive, and bear no mean sway upon earth. Bome, too, yet lives 
 in her jurisprudence, which, next after Christianity, has exerted a para- 
 mount influence over the laws of modern communities. 
 
 But exalte<l as these productions may l)e, it is impossible not to 
 perceive that something of their present importance is derived from 
 the early period when they appeared, something from the unquestion- 
 ing and high-flown admiration of them transmitted through successive 
 generations until it became a habit, and something also from the dis- 
 position, still prevalent, to elevate Antiquity at the expense of subse- 
 quent ages. Without undertaking to decide if the genius of Antiquity, 
 as displayed by individuals, can justly claim supremacy, it would be 
 easy to show that the ancient plane of civilization never reached onr 
 common level. The people were ignorant, vicious, and poor, or de- 
 graded to abject slavery, — itself the sum of all injustic<^ and all vice. 
 Kven the most illustrious characters, whose names still shine from 
 thai distant night, were little more than splendid barbarians. Arcbi- 
 
iJ68 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 lecture, sculpture, paintiiij^, and vases of exquisite perfection attest 
 an appreciation of beauty in form ; but our masters in these things 
 were strangers to the useful arts, as to the comforts and virtues of 
 home. Abounding in what to us are luxuries, they had not what to 
 us are necessaries. 
 
 Without knowledge there can be no sure Progress. Vice and bar- 
 barism are the inseparable companions of ignorance. Nor is it too 
 much to say, that, except in rare instances, the highest virtue is at- 
 tained only through intelligence. This is natural ; for to do right we 
 must first understand wliat is right. But the people of Greece and 
 Rome, even in the brilliant days of Pericles and Augustus, could not 
 arrive at this knowledge. The sublime teachings of Plato and Socrates 
 — calculated in many respects to promote the best interests of the race 
 — were limited in influence to a small company of listeners, or to the 
 few who could obtain a copy of the costly manuscripts in which they 
 were preserved. Thus the knowledge and virtue acquired by indi- 
 viduals were not diffused in their own age or secured to posterity. 
 
 Now, at last, through an agency all unknown to Antiquity, knowl- 
 edge of every kind has become genend and permanent. It can no 
 longer be confined to a select circle. It cannot be crushed by tyranny, 
 or lost by neglect. It is immortal as the soul from which it proceeds. 
 This alone renders all relapse into barbarism impossible, while it 
 affords an unquestionable distinction between ancient and modern 
 times. The Press, watchful with more than the hundred eyes of 
 Argus, strong with more than the hundred arms of Briareus, not only 
 guards all the conquests of civilization, but leads the way to future 
 triumphs. Through its untiring energies, the meditation of the 
 closet, or the utterance of the human voice, which else would die away 
 within the precincts of a narrow room, is prolonged to the most dis- 
 tant nations and times, with winged words circling the globe. We 
 admire the genius of Demosthenes, Sophocles, Plato, and Phidias ; 
 but the printing-press is a higher gift to man than the eloquence, the 
 drama, the philosophy, and the art of Greece. 
 
 THE LOVE OF GLORY. 
 
 The Love of Glory is a motive of human conduct. But the same 
 Heavenly Father who endowed us with the love of approbation has 
 placed in us other sentiments of a higher order, more kindred to his 
 
SUMNER. 269 
 
 own divine nature. These are Justice and Benevolence, botli of 
 whiclj, however imperfectly developed or ill-directed, are elements of 
 every human soul. The desire of Justice, filling us with the love 
 of Duty, is the sentiment which fits us to receive and comprehend the 
 sublime injunction of doing unto others as we would have them do to 
 us. ill the prtdomi nance of this sentiment, enlightened by intelligence, 
 injustice becomes impossible. The desire of Benevolence goes farther. 
 It leads all who are under its influence to those acts of kindness, dis- 
 interestedness, humanity, love to neighbor, which constitute the crown 
 of Christian character. Such sentiments are celestial, godlike in their 
 office. 
 
 In determining proper motives of conduct, it is easy to perceive 
 that the higher are more commendable than the lower, and that even 
 an act of Justice and Benevolence loses something of its charm when 
 known to be inspired by the selfish desire of human applause. It 
 was the gay poet of antiquity who said that concealed virtue differed 
 little from sepulchered sluggishness : — 
 
 " Paulum sepnitse distat incrtiic 
 Celata virtus." 
 
 But this is a heathen sentiment, alien to reason and to truth. 
 
 It is hoped that men will be honest, but from a higher motive than 
 because honesty is the best policy. It is hoped that they will be hu- 
 mane, but for a nobler cause than the fame of humanity. 
 
 The love of approbation may properly animate the young, whose 
 minds have not yet ascended to the appnieiation of that virtue which 
 is its own exceeding great reward. It may justly strengtiien those of 
 maturer age who are not moved by the simple appeals of duty, unless 
 the smiles of mankind attend them. It were churlish not to offer 
 homage to those acts by which happiness is promoted, even though 
 inspired by a sentiment of personal ambition, or by considerations of 
 policy. But such motives must always detract from the perfect 
 beauty even of good works. The Man of Ross, who was said to 
 
 " Do Kood by aUmlth, and blush to And it Famr," 
 
 was a character of real life, and the example of his virtue may still be 
 prizwl, like the diamond, for its surpassing rarity. It cannot 1x3 dis- 
 guised, however, that much is gaine<l where the desire of praise acts 
 in conjunction with the higher sentiments. If ambition l)e our lure, 
 it will be well for mankind if it unite with Justice and Benevolence. 
 
270 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 It may be dcinanded if we should l)e indifferent to the approbation 
 of men. Certainly not. It is a proper source of gratitieatiou, and is 
 one of the just rewards on earth. It may be enjoyed when virtuously 
 won, thou«?h it were better if not proposed as the object of desire. 
 The great Knglish magistrate, Lord Mansfield, while confessing a wish 
 for popularity, added, in words which cannot be too often quoted, " But 
 it is that popularity which follows, not that which is run afler ; it is 
 that popularity which, sooner or later, never fails to do justice to the 
 pursuit of noble ends by noble rae^ins." And the historian of the 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, who was no stranger to 
 the Love of Glory, has given expression to the satisfaction which he 
 derived from the approbation of those whose opinions were valuable. 
 *• If I listened to the music of praise," says Gibbon in his Autobiog- 
 raphy, ** I was more seriously satisfied with the approbation of my 
 judges. The candor of Dr. Robertson embraced his disciple. A 
 letter from Mr. Hume overpaid the lalK)r of ten years." It would be 
 difficult to declare the self-gratulation of the successful author in lan- 
 guage more sententious or expressive. 
 
 While recognizing praise as an incidental reward, though not a 
 commendable motive, we cannot disregard the evil which ensues 
 when the desire for it predominates over the character, and fills the 
 soul, as is too often the case, with a blind emulation chiefly solicitous 
 for personal success. Tlu' world, which should be a happy scene of 
 constant exertion and harmonious co-operation, becomes a field of 
 rivalry, competition, and hostile struggle. It is true that God has not 
 given to all the same excellences of mind and heart ; but he naturally 
 requires more of the strong than of the many less blessed. The little 
 we can do will not be cast vainly into his treasury ; nor need the 
 weak and humble be filled with any idle emulation of others. Let 
 each act earnestly, according to the measure of his powers, — re- 
 joicing always in the prosperity of his neighbor ; and though we may 
 seem to accomplish little, yet we shall do much, if we be true to the 
 convictions of the soul, and give the example of unselfish devotion to 
 duty. This of itself is success : and this is within the ambition of 
 all. Life is no L^yssean bow, to be bent only by a single strong 
 arm. There is none so we^ik as not to use it. 
 
 In the growth of the individual the intellect advances before the 
 moral powers ; for it is necessary to know what is right before we 
 can practice it ; and this same order of progress is observed in the 
 
SUMNER. 271 
 
 Human Family. Moral excellence is the bright, consummate flower 
 of all progress. It is often the peculiar product of age. And it is 
 then, among other triumphs of virtue, that Duty assumes her com- 
 manding phice, while personal ambition is abased. Burke, in that 
 marvelous passiige of eU'giac beauty where he mourns his only son, 
 says, " Indeed, my Lord, 1 greatly deceive myself, if, in this hard 
 season, I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called 
 Fame and Honor in the world." And Channing, with a sentiment 
 most unlike the ancient Roman orator, declares that he sees " nothing 
 worth living for but the divine virtue which endures and surrenders 
 all things for truth, duty, and mankind." Such an insensibility to 
 worldly objects, and such an elevation of spirit, may not l)e expected 
 at once from all men, — certainly not without something of the trials 
 of Burke or the soul of Channing. But it is within the power of all 
 to strive after that virtue which it may be difficult to reach ; and just 
 in proportion as duty becomes the guide and the aim of life shall we 
 learn to close the soul against the allurements of pmise and the as- 
 perities of censure, while we find satisfactions and compensations 
 such as man cannot give or take away. The world, with ignorant or 
 intolerant judgment, may condemn ; the countenance of companion 
 may be averted ; the heart of friend may grow cold ; but the con- 
 sciousness of duty done will be sweeter than the applause of the world, 
 than the countenance of companion, or the heart of friend. 
 
 i 
 
 The age of chivalry has gone. An age of humanity has come. 
 The horse, whose importatice, more than human, gave the name to 
 that early period of gallantry anil war, now yields his foremost place 
 to man. In serving him, in promoting his elevation, in contributing 
 to his welfare, in doing him good, there are fields of bloodless tri- 
 umph, nobler far than any in which the bravest knights ever con- 
 quered. Here art^ spaces of labor wide as the world, lofty as heaven. 
 
 Let me &iy, then, in the language once iK-stowed upon the youthful 
 knights, scholars, jurists, artists, philanthropists, heroes of a Chri.stian 
 age, companions of a celestial knighthood, " Go forth. Be brave, loyal, 
 and successfid ! " And may it he our office to light a fresh beacon- 
 fire sacred to truth ! Let the flame spread from hill to hill, from isl- 
 and to island, from continent to continent, till the long lineage of fires 
 shall illumine all the nations of the earth, animating them to the holy 
 conti'sts of knowledge, instice. benutv. love. 
 
CATIICART^- 
 
 .1 ir.UAin KhADhu. 
 
 DICKENS. 
 1812-1870. 
 
 CnAiiiT.s DicKF.xs, the most popular novelist of his time, was horn at Portsmonth, Enj^land, 
 in 1812, and died June 0, 1870. iiis childhood was spent in poverty and menial toil, and how, 
 onud such unfavorable surroundings, he acquired an education sufficient for his work in life will 
 always remain a subject of wonder. Ilis father was at one time a reporter of Parliamentary 
 delMtea. and Charles adopted the same calling. He became attached to the Morning Chronicle, 
 and in its columns first appeared Sketches by Doz, afterwards published in book form, 1836-37. 
 Tliese Skrlch'S had a very cordial reception, and their success induced a pul)lishcr to engage 
 Dickens and Seymour the artist to prepare an illustrated uanrative of the adventures of a party 
 of Cockney sportsmen. The result of this contract was The Pickwick Papers, which at once be- 
 came the most popular book of the day, and still ranks among the first favorites of all classes of 
 readers. It was followed at short intervals by Nickoiat Nieklehy, Otirer Twist, The Old Curiosifi/ 
 Shop, and Bamnhy RuJge. In 1H42 Uickcns visited America, where he had a very cordial recep- 
 tion. With ingratitude for which he has never been fully forgiven, he re|mid the sincere kind- 
 ness ot his .\merican entertainers hy writing a record of his tour, called ^m^rirau Notes, in which 
 he ridiculed the people and institutions of the United States with unsparing hand. In i/artin 
 Chuzzlrtcit, published in 181-*, he returned to the attack with great keenness and vigor of satire. 
 In 1845 he estahlisheii the Daily News in I/)ndon, but rondncted it only for a short time, return- 
 ing to the more congenial work of novel- writing. In 1853 he began to give public readings from 
 his own books, and was no less successful as a reader than he had been as a writer. In 1868 he 
 visited America for the second time, and gave readings in the principal cities to immense and 
 delighted audiences. The profiU of his tour are said to have been over 5SJ00,()(X). During the 
 last year of his life he was engaged on a novel. The Mystery of Edtrin Drood, which he left unfin- 
 ished. His death was very sudden, and the announcement of it caused universal grief throughout 
 the English-sp<>aking world. His iMoks arc too familiar to the reading pul>lic to demand enumer- 
 ation here. Of thent all, The Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, and David Copperfield are gen- 
 erally esteemed the best ; the latter is specially interesting as being largely autobiographical. His 
 later novels. Great Exptctatioiu and Our Mutwtl Friend, were less popular than their predecessors. 
 Among English novelists Dickens stands alone ; he occupies a field that none other has cultivated, 
 and may justly be esteemed the creator of a new school of fiction. He was a man of strong sym- 
 patliies, quick to feel and plead for the poor and oppressetl, and in his l)ooks lie ha^ done yeoman 
 service in the work of social and legal reform. His most conspicuous characteristic is humor, 
 natural, rich, and seemingly inexhaustible, and in this quality lies the chief charm of his writ- 
 ings. Yet many pages in Dombey and Sum exhibit a not less thorough mastery of pathos. The 
 secret of his success seems to have consisted in his intuitive apprehension of the popular nee<l3 
 and tastes ; no other novelist has ever live<l who was so thoroughly e* rapport with the heart 
 of the people : he wrote for them and to them, and they acknowledged his efforts with un- 
 bounded good-will and admiration. Brilliant, genial, and uniformly entertaining tliou'.'h they 
 are, Dickens's liooks have little moral depth or weight : they please, warm, soften, but they are, 
 in effect, material. The extracts, each of which represents fairly his humor, pathos, and descrip- 
 ti\e power, are from The Pickwick Papers, Dombey and San, and American Notes. 
 
 MR. PICKWICK'S EXTRAORDINARY DILEMMA. 
 
 Mr. Pickwick's apai-tments in Goswell Street, althon2:H on a 
 limited scale, were not only of a verv^ neat and comfortable descrip- 
 tion, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of a man of his genius 
 and observation. 
 
DICKENS. 273 
 
 His landlady, Mrs. Bardell — the relict and sole executrix of a 
 deceased custom-house officer — was a comely woman of bustling 
 manners and agreeable appearance, with a natural genius for cooking, 
 improved by study and long practice into an exquisite talent. There 
 were no children, no servants, no fowls. The only other inmates of 
 the house were a large man and a small boy ; the first a lodger, the 
 second a production of Mrs. Bartlell's. The large man was always 
 home precisely at ten o'clock at night, at which hour he regularly 
 condensed himself into the limits of a dwarfish French bedstead in the 
 back parlor ; and the infantine sports and gymnastic exercises of Mas- 
 ter Bardell were exclusively confined to the neighboring pavements 
 and gutters. Cleanliness and quiet reigned throughout the house; 
 and in it Mr. Pickwick's will was law. 
 
 To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic economy 
 of the establishment, and conversant with the admirable regulation of 
 Mr. Pickwick's mind, his appearance and behavior, on the morning 
 previous to that which had been fixed upon for the journey to Eatans- 
 will, would have Ix^en most mysterious and unaccountable. He paced 
 the room to and fro with hurried steps, popped his head out of the 
 window at intervals of about three minutes each, const^intly referred 
 to his watch, and exhibited many other manifestations of impatience, 
 very unusual with him. It was evident that something of great im- 
 portance was in contemplation; but what that something was, not 
 even Mrs. Bardell herself had been enabled to discover. 
 
 " Mrs. Banlell," said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable female 
 approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 " Sir," said Mrs. Banlell. 
 
 " Your little boy is a very long time gone." 
 
 " Why, it 's a good long way to the Borough, sir," remonstrated 
 Mrs. Bardell. 
 
 " Ah," said Mr. Pickwick, " very tnie ; so it is." 
 
 Mr. Pickwick relapsed into sih'iire. and Mrs. Bardell res\inied her 
 dusting. 
 
 "Mrs. Banldl." <,ii(l Mr. Pickwick, at the expimtion of a lew 
 minutes. 
 
 "Sir," said Mrs. Bardell again. 
 
 " Do you think it 's a much greater expense to keep two people 
 than to keep one ? " 
 
 12« R 
 
2/4 (.A I IK \i:i'^ i.ukkakv kkadki:. 
 
 " La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardcll, coloring up to the very 
 border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species of matrimo- 
 nial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger, — *'la, Mr. Pickwick, what a 
 question ! " 
 
 " Well, but do you ? " inquired Mr. Pickwick. 
 
 " That depends," said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the duster very 
 near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the table, — 
 " that depends a good deal upon the person, you know, Mr. Pick- 
 wick ; and whether it 's a saving and careful person, sir." 
 
 " That 's very true," said Mr. Pickwick ; " but the person I have 
 in my eye " (here he looked very hard at Mrs. Bardell) " I think pos- 
 sesses these qualities ; and has, moreover, a considemblc knowledge 
 of the world, and a great deal of sharpness, Mrs. IkrdcU ; w hich may 
 be of material use to me." 
 
 " La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell ; the crimson rising to her 
 cap-border again. 
 
 " I do," said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in 
 speaking of a subject which interested him, — "I do, indeed ; and, 
 to tell you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind." 
 
 ** Dear me, sir," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell. 
 
 ** You '11 think it not very strange now," said the amiable Mr. 
 Pickwick, with a good-humored glance at his companion, " that I 
 never consulted you about this matter, and never mentioned it, till 
 I sent your little boy out this morning, — eh ? " 
 
 Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long worshiped 
 Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she w^as, all at once, raised to a 
 pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes had never 
 dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose, — a deliberate 
 plan, too, — sent her little boy to the Borough to get him out of the 
 way, — how thoughtful, — how considerate ! 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Pickwick, " what do you think ? " 
 
 " O Mr. Pickwick ! " said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agitation, 
 " you 're very kind, sir." 
 
 " It will save you a great deal of trouble, won't it? " said Mr. 
 Pickwick. 
 
 " O, I never thought anything of the trouble, sir," replied Mrs. 
 Bardell ; " and of course, I should take more trouble to please you 
 then than ever ; but it is so kind of you, Mr. Pickwick, to have so 
 much consideration for my loneliness." 
 
DICKENS. 
 
 Ji7. 
 
 " Ah, to be sure," said Mr. Pickwick ; " I never thought of that. 
 When 1 am in town, you '11 always have somebody to sit with you. 
 To be sure, so you will." 
 
 " I 'ni sure I ought to be a very happy woman," said Mrs. Bar- 
 dcU. 
 
 " And your little boy — " said Mr. Pickwick. 
 
 " Bless his heart," interposed Mrs. Bardell, with a maternal sob. 
 
 "He, too, will have a companion," resumed Mr. Pickwick, — "a 
 lively one, who'll teach him, I'll be bound, more tricks in a week 
 than he would ever learn in a year." And Mr. Pickwick smded 
 placidly. 
 
 " O you dear — " said Mrs. Bardell. 
 
 Mr. Pickwick started. 
 
 " O you kind, good, playful dear," said Mrs. Bardell ; and without 
 more ado she rose from her chair, and flung her arms round Mr. 
 Pickwick's neck, with a cataract of tears, and a chorus of sobs. 
 
 " Bless my soul ! " cried the astonished Mr. Pickwick ; — " Mrs. 
 Bardell, my good woman, — dear me, what a situation, — pray con- 
 sider. Mrs. Bardell, don't, — if anylxxly should come — " 
 
 " O, let them come," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, frantically. " I '11 
 never leave you, — dear, kind, good soul " ; and, with these words, 
 Mrs. Bardell clung the tighter. 
 
 " Mercy upon me," said Mr. Pickwick, struggling violently. ** I 
 hear somebody coming up the stairs. Don't, don't, there 's a good 
 creature, don't." But entreaty and remonstrance were alike unavail- 
 ing, for Mrs. Bardell had fainted in Mr. Pickwick's arms ; and before 
 he could gain time to deposit her on a chair. Master Bardell entered 
 the room, ushering in Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snod- 
 grass. 
 
 Mr. Pickwick was struck motioidess and speechless. He sto'jd 
 with his lovely burden in his arras, gazing vacantly on the counte- 
 nances of his friends, without the slightest attempt at recognition or 
 explanation. They, in their turn, sUired at him ; and Master Bardell, 
 in his turn, stared at everybody. 
 
 The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so absorbing, and the 
 perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they might have re- 
 mained in exactly the same relative sitiuitions until the suspended 
 animation of the latly was restored, had it not been for a most Ixijiutifid 
 and touching expression of filial affection on the part of her youthful 
 
276 cathcart's liteeaey reader. 
 
 son. Chid in a tight suit of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a 
 very considerable size, he at first stood at tlie door astounded and un- 
 certain ; but by degn^es, the impression that his mother must have 
 suffered some personal damage pervaded his partially developed 
 mind, and, considering Mr. Pickwick the aggressor, he set up an ap- 
 palling and semi-earthly kind of howling, and, butting forward witli 
 his head, commenced assailing that immortal gentleman about the 
 back and le^s with such blows and pinches as the strength of his arm 
 and the violence of his excitement allowed. 
 
 " Take this little villain away," said the agonized Mr. Pickwick, 
 "be 's mad." 
 
 ** What is the matter ? " said the three tongue-tied Pickwickians. 
 
 " I don't know," replied Mr. Pickwick, pettishly. " Take away 
 the boy " (here Mr. Winkle carried the interesting boy, screaming and 
 stniggling, to the farther end of the apartment). " Now help me to 
 lead this woman down stairs." 
 
 ** O, I 'm better now," said Mrs. Bardell, faintly. 
 
 " Let me lead you down stairs," said the ever-gallant Mr. Tup- 
 man. 
 
 "Thank you, sir, — thank you," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, hysteri- 
 cally. And down stairs she was led accordingly, accompanied by her 
 affectionate son. 
 
 " I cannot conceive," said Mr. Pickwick, when his friend returned, 
 — "I cannot conceive what has been the matter with that woman. I 
 had merely announced to her my intention of keeping a man-servant, 
 when she fell into the extraordinary paroxysm in which you found 
 her. Very extraordinary thing ! " 
 
 " Very," said his three friends. 
 
 " Placed me in such an extremely awkward situation," continued Mr. 
 Pickwick. 
 
 " Very," was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, 
 and looked dubiously at each other. 
 
 This behavior was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He remarked 
 their incredulity. They evidently suspected him. 
 
 " There is a man in the passage now," said Mr. Tupman. 
 
 ** It 's the man that I spoke to you about," said Mr. Pick\vick. 
 " I sent for him to the Borough this morning. Have the goodness 
 to call him up, Snodgrass." 
 
DICKENS. 277 
 
 THE LAST H0UB8 OF LITTLE PAUL DOMBET. 
 
 Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening 
 to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly ; not caring much how the 
 time went, but watching everything about him with observing eyes. 
 
 When the sunlK'ams struck into his room through the nistling 
 blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew 
 that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. 
 As the reflection died away, and the gloom went creeping up the wall, 
 he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen into night. Then he thought 
 how the long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peacei'ul 
 stars were shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to 
 wander to the river, which he knew was flowing through the great 
 city ; and now he thought how bkck it was, and how deep it would 
 look, reflecting the hosts of stars, and more than all, how ste^idily it 
 rolled away to meet the sea. 
 
 As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street l)ecame so 
 rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they passed, and 
 lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the many- 
 colored ring about the candle, and wait patiently for day. His only 
 trouble was, the swift and rapid river. He felt forced, sometimes, to 
 trj' to stop it, — to stem it with his childish hands, or choke its 
 way with sand, — and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried 
 out I But a word from Florence, who was always at his side, restored 
 him to himself; and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he told 
 Floy of his dream, and smiled. 
 
 When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun ; and when 
 its cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself — 
 pictured ! he saw — the high church-towers rising up into the morn- 
 ing sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more, the 
 river glistening as it rolle<l (but rolling fast as ever), and the country 
 bright' with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees into 
 the street lielow ; the servants in the house were roused aiul busy ; 
 faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly 
 how he was. Paul always answered for him.self, " I am better. I am 
 a great deal better, thank you ! Tell papa so ! " 
 
 By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of 
 carriages and carts, people passing and repassing ; and would fall 
 asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense again — the 
 
'^ i 5 ( " AT 11 C A UT S I . IT t K A U Y K K A D K 11 . 
 
 child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his walcing 
 moments — of that rushing river. *• Why, will it never stop, Floy? " 
 he would sometimes ask her. '* It is bearing me away, I think ! " 
 
 But Floy could always soothe and reassure him ; and it was his 
 daily delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and t«ike 
 some rest. 
 
 " You are always watching me, Floy. Let me watch you, now ! " 
 They would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and 
 there he would recline the while she lay beside him ; bending forward 
 oftentimes to kiss her, and whispering to those who were near that she 
 was tired, and how she had sat up so many nights beside him. 
 
 Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually 
 decline ; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall. 
 
 He was visited by as many as three grave doctors, — they used to 
 assemble down stairs, and come up together, — and the room was so 
 quiet, aiul Paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of 
 anybody what they said), that he even knew the difference in the sound 
 of their watches. But his interest centered in Sir Parker Peps, who 
 always took his seat on the side of the bed. For Paul had heard 
 them say long ago, that that gentleman had been with his nianiina 
 when she clasped Florence in her arms and died. And he could not 
 forget it now. He liked him for it. He was not afraid 
 
 Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. Wlien he 
 awoke, the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and warm. 
 He lay a little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the 
 curtains rustling in the air, and waving to and fro : then he said, 
 " Floy, is it to-moiTow ? Is she come ? " 
 
 Some one seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. 
 Paul thought he heard her telling him, when he had closed his eyes 
 again, that she would soon be back ; but he did not open them to see. 
 She kept her word — perhaps she had never been away — but the 
 next thing that happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and 
 then Paul woke — woke mind and body — and sat upright in his bed. 
 He saw them now about him. There was no gray mist before them, 
 as there had been sometimes in the night. He knew them every one, 
 and called them by their names. 
 
 " And who is this ? Is this my old nurse ? " said the child, re- 
 garding, with a radiant smile, a figure coming in. 
 
 Yes, ves. No other stranger would have shed those tears at the 
 
DICKENS. 279 
 
 fei>ht of him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own 
 poor bli«fhlt'd child. No other woman would have stoopt'd down by 
 his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and 
 breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No other woman 
 would have so forgotttMi everybody there but him and Floy, and been 
 so full of tenderness and pity. 
 
 *• Floy ! this is a kind good face ! " said Paul. " I am glad to see 
 it again. Don't go away, old nurse ! Stay here ! " 
 
 His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew. 
 
 •• Who was that ? who said Walter ? " he asked, looking round, 
 " Some one said Walter. Is he here ? I should like to see him very 
 much." 
 
 Nobody replied directly, but his father soon said to Susan, " Call 
 him back, then : let him come up ! " After a short pause of expecta- 
 tion, during which he looked with smiling interest and wonder on his 
 nurse, and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought 
 into the room. His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, 
 had always made him a favorite with Paul ; and when Paul saw him, 
 he stretched out his hand, and said, " Grood by ! " 
 
 " Good by, my child ! " cried Mrs. Pipchiu, hurrying to his bed's 
 head. " Not good by ? " 
 
 For an instant, Paul looked at her \ni\i the wistful face with which 
 he had so often gazed upon her in his comer by the fire. " Ah, yes," 
 he said, placidly, "good by ! Walter dear, good by ! " turning his head 
 to where he stood, and putting out his hand jujain. " Where is papa ? " 
 
 He frit his father's breath upon his cheek, before the words had 
 partetl from his lips. 
 
 " Rememl)er Walter, dear papa," he whispered, looking in his face, 
 — " remember Walter. I was fond of Walter ! " The feeble hand 
 waved in the air, as if it cried " good by ! " to Walter once again. 
 
 *• Now lay me down again," he said ; " and, Floy, come close to 
 me, and let me see you ! " 
 
 Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the 
 golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together. 
 
 " How fast the river runs between its green banks and the rushes, 
 Floy ! But it 's very near the sea. I hear the waves. They always 
 sai<l so ! " 
 
 Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream 
 was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright 
 
2 so CATHC art's literary reader. 
 
 the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes ! Now the 
 boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now tlicre was a 
 shore before him. Who stood on the bank ! 
 
 He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. 
 He did not remove his arms to do it, but they saw him fold them so 
 behind her neck. 
 
 "Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell 
 them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. 
 The light about the head is shining on me as I go ! " 
 
 The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else 
 stirred in the room. The old, old fashion ! The fashion that came 
 in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has 
 run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The 
 old, old fashion — Death ! 
 
 O, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of immor- 
 tality ! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards 
 not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean ! 
 
 A HEADWIND IN THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 It is the third morning. I am awakened out of my sleep by a 
 dismal shriek from my wife, who demands to know whether there 's 
 any danger. I rouse myself and look out of bed. The water-jug is 
 plunging and leaping like a lively dolphin ; all the smaller articles 
 are afloat, except my shoes, which are stranded on a carpet-bag, high 
 and dr\', like a couple of coal-l)arges. Suddenly I see them spring into 
 the air, and behold the looking-glass, which is nailed to the wall, 
 sticking fast upon the ceiling. At the same time the door entirely 
 disappears, and a new one is opened in the floor. Then I begin to 
 comprehend that the state-room is standing on its head. 
 
 Before it is possible to make any arrangement at all compatible 
 with this novel state of things, the ship rights. Before one can say, 
 " Thank Heaven ! " she wrongs again. Before one can cry she is 
 wrong, she seems to have started forward, and to be a creature active- 
 ly running of its own accord, with broken knees and failing legs, 
 through every variety of hole and pitfall, and stumbling constantly. 
 Before one can so much as wonder, she takes a high leap into the air. 
 Before she has well done that, she takes a deep dive into the water. 
 
DICKENS. 281 
 
 Before she has gained the surface, she throws a somerset. The in- 
 stant she is on her h*gs, she rushes backward. And so she goes on 
 stai^jrcring, heaving, wrestling, leaping, diving, jumping, pitching, 
 tlirobbing, rolling, and rocking ; and going through all these move- 
 ments, sometimes by turns, and sometimes all together; until one 
 feels disposed to roar for mercy. 
 
 A steward passes. " Steward ! " ** Sir ? " " What is the matter ? 
 what do you call this ? '* " Bather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head- 
 wind." 
 
 A head-wind ! Imagine a human face upon the vessel's prow, with 
 fifteen thous ind Samsons in one, bent upon driving her back, and 
 hitting her exactly between the eyes whenever she attempts to advance 
 an inch. Imagine the ship herself, with every pulse and artery of her 
 huge body swollen and bursting under this maltreatment, sworn to go 
 on or die. Imagine the wind howling, the sea roaring, the rain beat- 
 ing ; all in furious array against her. Picture the sky both dark and 
 wild, and the clouds, in fearful sympathy with the waves, making an- 
 other ocean in the air. Add to all this, the clattering on deck and down 
 below ; the tread of hurried feet ; the loud hoarse shouts of seamen ; 
 the gurgling in and out of water through the scuppers ; with, every 
 now and then, the striking of a heavy sea upon the planks above, 
 with the deep, dead, heavy sound of thunder heard within a vault; — 
 and there is the head-wind of that January morning. 
 
 1 say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the 
 ship : such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling down 
 of stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant dozens 
 of lM)ttle<l porter, and the very remarkable and far from exhilarating 
 sounds raised in their various state-rooms by the seventy passengers 
 who were too ill to get up to breakfast. I say nothing of them ; for, 
 although I lay listening to this concert for three or four days, I don*t 
 think I heard it for more than a quarter of a minuU;, at the expiration 
 of wiiich term I lay down again, excessively sea-sick. 
 
 The Liboring of the ship in the troubled sea on this night I shall 
 never forget. " Will it ever be worse than this ? '* was a question I 
 had often heanl asked, when everythitig was sliding and bumping 
 abont, and when it certaiidy did seem diffieult to compreliend the pos- 
 sibility of anything afloat l)eing more disturlxnl, witiiout toppling over 
 and going down. But what the agitation of a steam-vessel is, on a 
 b.-ul winter's night in the wild Atlantic, it is impossible for the most 
 
2,>)'Z CATHCAIM.S LITEKAKY RhADER. 
 
 vivid imagination to conceive. To say that she is flung down on her 
 side in the waves, with her masts dipping into tliem, and that, spring- 
 ing up again, she rolls over on the other side, until a heavy sea strikes 
 her with the noise of a hundred great guns, and hurls her back, — 
 that she stops, and staggers, and shivei*s, as though stunned, and then, 
 with a violent throbbing at her heart, darts onward like a monster 
 goaded into madness, to be beaten down, and battered, and crushed, 
 and Ic^ipeil on by the angry sea, — that thunder, lightning, hail, and 
 rain, and wind are all in fierce contention for the mastery, — that 
 every plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, and every drop of 
 water in the great ocean its howling voice, — is nothing. To say that 
 all is grand, and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, is noth- 
 ing. Wonls cannot express it. Thoughts cannot convey it. Only a 
 dream can call it up again, in all its fury, rage, and passion. 
 
 And yet, in the very midst of these terrors, I was placed in a situa- 
 tion so exquisitely ridiculous that even then I had aa strong a sense of 
 its absurdity as I have now : and could no more help laughing than I 
 can at any other comical incident, happening under circumstances the 
 most favorable to its enjoyment. Al)out midnight we shipped a sea, 
 which forced its way through the skylights, burst open the doors 
 al)Ove, and came raging and roaring down into the ]adi(^s' cabin, to the 
 unspeakable consternation of my wife and a little Scotch lady, — who, 
 by the way, had previously sent a message to the captain by the stew- 
 anless, requesting him, with her compliments, to have a steel conduc- 
 tor immediately attached to the top of every mast, and to the chimney, 
 in order that the ship might not be struck by lightning. They, and the 
 handmaid More mentioned, l)eing in such ecstasies of fear that I scarce- 
 ly knew what to do with them, I naturally Ixjthought myself of some 
 restorative or comforting cordial ; and nothing lx?tter occurring to 
 me, at the moment, than hot brandy and water, I procured a tumbler- 
 ful without delay. It being impossible to sit or stand without hold- 
 ing on, they were all heaped together in one comer of a long sofa, — a 
 fixture extending entirely across the cabin, — where they clung to each 
 other in momentary expectation of being drowned. When I ap- 
 proached this place with my specific, and was about to administer it, 
 with many consolatory expressions, to the nearest sufferer, what was 
 my dismay to see them all roll slowly down to the other end ! And 
 when I staggered to that end, and held out the glass once more, how 
 immensely baffled were my good intentions by the ship giving another 
 
DICKENS. 283 
 
 lurch, and their all rolling back again ! I suppose I dodged them up 
 and down this sofa for at least a quarter of an hour, without reaching 
 them once ; and hy the time I did catch them, the brandy and water 
 was diminished, by constant spilling, to a teaspoonful. To complete 
 the group, it is necessary to recognize, in this disconcerted dodger, an 
 individual very pale from sea-sickness ; who had shaved his beard and 
 brushed his hair last at Liverpool ; and whose only articles of dress 
 (linen not included) were a pair of dreadnought trousers, a blue jacket, 
 fonnerly admired upon the Thames at Richmond, no stockings, and 
 one slipper. 
 
 THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 
 
 To come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least 
 belief in the Noble Savage. I consider him a prodigious nuisance, 
 and an enormous superstition. His calling rum fire-water, and me 
 a pale-face, wholly fail to reconcile me to him. I don't care what he 
 calls me. I call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly 
 desirjible to be civilized off the face of the earth. I think a mere gent 
 (which I take to be the lowest form of civilization) better than a howl- 
 ing, whistling, clucking, stamping, jumping, tearing savage. It is 
 all onQ to me whether he sticks a fish-bone through his visage, or bits 
 of trees through the lobes of his ears, or birds' feathers in his head ; 
 whether he flattens his hair between two boards, or spreads his nose 
 over the breadth of his face, or drags his lower lip down by great 
 weights, or blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one 
 cheek red and the other blue, or tattooes himself, or oils himself, or 
 rubs his body with fat, or crimps it with knives. Yielding to which- 
 soever of these agreeable eccentricities, he is a savage, — cruel, false, 
 thievish, murderous ; addicted more or less to grease, entrails, and 
 beastly customs ; a wild animal with the questionable gift of boast- 
 ing; a conceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty, monotonous humbug. 
 
 Yet it is extraordinary to obser\'e how some people will talk about 
 him, as they talk about the good old times ; how they will regret his 
 disappearance, in the course of this world's development, from such 
 and such lands, — when^ his absence is a blessed relief and an indis- 
 pensable preparation for the sowing of the verj* first seeds of an influ- 
 ence that can exalt humanity, — how, even with the evidence of him- 
 self before them, they will either l)e determined to believe, or will 
 suffer themselves to \wi persuaded into believing, that he is something 
 which their five senses tell them he is not. 
 
'Zbis cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 MRS. STOWE. 
 
 1812- 
 
 n ASRIET Bkecheb Stowk, boni ill Litchfield, Conncctirut, June It, 1812, has a world-wide 
 fame ns the author of Uncle TawCi CaHn. She is the daughter of Rev. Dr. Lyman Bcecher, 
 an eminent clergyoun, and the sister of Rev. Henry Ward Beechcr. In iKCi-'i she bc-cajue the 
 wife of Professor Calvin £. Stowe, a distinguished Hebrew scholar and theologian. Her first 
 hook, Mayflower ; or, Sletckes of the DetcrMJamts of the Pilgrims, was published in 1&49, and was 
 favorably noticed at home and abroad. Three years later she gave to the world what must be 
 regarded as the most remarkable book of the century, its subject and its popularity being 
 considered, — CmcU Tom't CuHm. This story was first published as a serial in the National 
 Era, in ISol - S2, and appeared in book form in 183^ Its sales must be reckoned by uiilliuns, aud 
 through translations and dramatizations it lias reached every civilized nation under the sun. 
 This extraordinary popularity was due not so much to the author's genius as to the novelty and 
 intrinsic interest of her subject and the excited state of public sentiment with reference to it. 
 Read to^ay, removed from the heat of a great conflict of opinions, the book dischwes many and 
 grave faults, errors of finit and literary infelicities. It is a significant and gratifying fact that 
 the author is now a resident of the South, whose enemy she has been accuunted ; and in her 
 recent book, PulmrUo Lmtrt, she exhibits a more accurate knowledge of that section, and a 
 •incere interest in its welfare. Mrs. Stowe has written many other books ; l>ut none ot them 
 have added to the fame which she derived from Vnele TonCt Cahi%. Perhaps OUIokh Folkt 
 may be ranked next to this in real ability. The Tmr Story of Udy Byron's Life, in which Mrs. 
 Stowe defamed tlie memory of Lord Byron, drew upon her a torrent of indignation such as few 
 authors have ever endured. Her recent novels, Pink and White Tyranny and My Wife and I, 
 deal with social subjects in vigorous style ; but, like all her compositions, they are disfigured 
 by many literary blemishes. She is a very industrious writer, contributing to the periodical 
 press papers on religious and social topics, and manifests a hearty interest in the improvement 
 of society through its moral elevation. The extract is from OUtown Folks. 
 
 TYRANNY OF MISS ASPHYXIA. 
 
 Matters between Miss Asphyxia and her little subject began 
 to show evident signs of approaching some crisis, for which that 
 valiant virgin was preparing herself with mind resolved. It was one 
 of her educational tactics that children, at greater or less intervals, 
 would require what she was wont to speak of as t/ood whippings, as a 
 sort of constitutional stimulus to start them in the ways of well-doing. 
 As a school-teacher, she was often fond of rehearsing her experiences, 
 — how she had her eye on Jim or Bob through weeks of growing 
 carelessness or obstinacy or rebellion, suffering the measure of in- 
 iquity gradually to become full, until, in an awful hour, she pounced 
 down on the culprit in the very blossom of his sin, and gave him 
 such a lesson as he would remember, as she would assure him, the 
 longest day he had to live. 
 
 Tlie burning of rebellious thoughts in the little breast, of internal 
 hatred and opposition, could not long go on without slight whiffs of 
 
MRS. STOWE. 285 
 
 extrmnl smoke, such ns mark the course of subterranean fire. As the 
 chihl grew more accustomed to Miss Asphyxia, while her hatred of 
 her increase<l, somewhat of that native hardihood which had charac- 
 terized her happier days returnrd ; and she bep:an to use all the 
 subtlety and secretiveness whicii belonp^cd to her feminine nature in 
 contrivino^ how not to do the will of her tyrant, r.nd yet not to seem 
 desiji^nedly to oppose. It really gave the child a new impulse in 
 living to devise little plans for annoying Miss Asphyxia without 
 lx*ing herself detected. In all her daily toils she made nice calcu- 
 lations how slow she could possibly lx^ how blundering and awkward, 
 witiiout really bringing on herself a punishment ; and when an acute 
 and capable child turns all its faculties in such a direction, the 
 results may be very considerable. 
 
 Miss Asphyxia found many things going wrong in her establish- 
 ment in most unaccountable ways. One morning her sensibilities 
 were almost paralyzed, on opening her milk-room door, to tind there, 
 with creamy whiskers, the venerable Tom, her own model cat, — a 
 beast M'ho had grown up in the very sanctities of household decorum, 
 and whom she was sure she had herself shut out of the house, with 
 her usual punctuality, at nine o'clock the evening before. She could 
 not dream that he had been enticed through Tina's window, caressed 
 on her bed, and finally sped stealthily on his mission of revenge, 
 while the child returned to her pillow to gloat over her success. 
 
 Miss Asphyxia also, in more than one instance, in her rapid gyra- 
 tions, knocked down and destroyed a valuable bit of pottery or earth- 
 enware, that somehow had contrived to \ye stationed exactly in the 
 wind of her elbow or her hand. It was the more vexatious because 
 she broke them herself. And the child assumed stupid innocence: 
 " How could she know Miss Sphyxy was coming that way ? " or, 
 " She did n't see her." True, she caught many a hasty cuif and 
 shaq) rebuke ; but, with true Indian spirit, she did not mind singeing 
 her own fingers if she only tortured her enemy. 
 
 It would be an endless task to describe the many vexations that 
 • III bt; made to arise in the course of household experience when there 
 IS a shrewd little elf watching with sharpened facultic's for every 
 opportunity to inflict an annoyance or do a mischief. In childhood 
 the passions move with a simplieity of action unknown to any other 
 period of life, and a child's hatred and a child's revenge have an 
 intensity of bitterness entirely unalloyed by moral considerations; 
 
286 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 and when a child is without an object of affection, and feels itself 
 unloved, its whole vigor of being goes into the channels of hate. 
 
 Religious instruction, as imparted by Miss Asphyxia, had small 
 influence in restraining the immediate force of passion. That " tli 
 law worketh wrath " is a maxim as old as the times of the Apostlt - 
 The image of a dreadful Judge — a great God, with ever-watchful 
 eyes, that Miss Asphyxia told her about — roused that combative 
 element in the child's heart which says in the heart of the fool, 
 •• There is no God." " After all," thought the little skeptic, •* how 
 does she know? She never saw him." Perhaps, after all, then, it 
 might be only a fabrication of her tyrant to frighten her into submis- 
 sion. There was a dear Father that mamma used to tell her about ; 
 and perhaps he was the one, after all. As for the bear story, she had 
 a private conversation with Sol, and was relieved by his confident 
 assurance that there " had n't been no bears seen round in them parts 
 these ten year " ; so that she w^as safe in that reganl, even if she 
 should call Miss Asphyxia a bald-head, which she perfectly longed to 
 do, just to see what would come of it. 
 
 In like manner, tho\igh the story of Ananias and Sapphira, stnick 
 down dead for lying, had been told her in forcible and threatening 
 tones, yet still the little sinner thought within herself that such things 
 must have ceased in our times, as she had told more than one clever 
 lie which neither Miss Asphyxia nor any one else had found out. 
 
 In fact, the chihl considered herself and Miss Asphyxia as in a 
 state of warfare which suspends all moral rules. In the stories of 
 little girls who were taken captives by goblins or giants or witches, 
 she remembered many accounts of sagacious deceptions which they 
 had practised on their captors. Her very blood tingled when she 
 thouoht of the success of some of them, — how Hensel and Qrettel 
 had heated an oven red-hot, and persuaded the old witch to get into 
 it by some cock-and-bull story of what she would find there ; and 
 how, the minute she got in, they shut up the oven door and burnt her 
 all up ! Miss Asphyxia thought the child a vexatious, careless, 
 troublesome little baggage, it is true ; but if she could have looked 
 into her heart and seen her imaginings, she would probably have 
 thought her a little fiend. 
 
 At last, one day, the smothered fire broke out. The child had had 
 a half-hour of holiday, and had made herself happy in it by furbishing 
 up her little bedroom. She had picked a peony, a yellow lily, and 
 
MES. STOWE. £87 
 
 one or two blue irises, from the spot of flowers in the garden, and put 
 them in a tin dipper on the table in her room, and ranged around 
 * them her broken bits of cliina, her red berries and fragments of glass, 
 in various zigzags. The spirit of adornment thus roused within her, 
 she remembered having seen her brother make pretty garlands of oak- 
 leaves ; and, running out to an oak hard by, she stripped oflF an 
 apronful of the leaves, and, sitting down in the kitchen door, began 
 her attempts to plait them into garlands. She grew good-natured and 
 happy as she wrought, and was beginning to find herself in charity 
 even with Miss Asphyxia, when down came that individual, broom in 
 hand, looking vengeful as those old Greek Furies who used to haunt 
 houses, testifying their wrath by violent sweeping. 
 
 " What under the canopy you up to now, making such » litter on 
 my kitchen floor ? " she said. " Can't I leave you a minute 'thout 
 your gettin' into some mischief, I want to know ? Pick 'em up, every 
 leaf of 'em, and carry 'em and throw 'em over the fence ; and don't 
 you never let me find you bringing no such rubbish into my kitchen 
 agin ! " 
 
 In this unlucky moment she turned, and, looking into the little 
 bedroom, whose door stood open, saw the arrangements there. 
 "What!" she snid ; "you been getting down the tin cup to put 
 your messes into ? Take 'em all out ! " she said, seizing the flowers 
 with a grasp that cnimpled them, and throwing them into the child's 
 apron. " Take 'em away, every one of 'em ! You 'd get everything 
 out of place, from one end of the house to the other, if I did n't watch 
 you ! " And forthwith she swept off" the child's treasures into her 
 dust-pan. 
 
 In a moment all the smothered wrath of weeks blazed up in the 
 little soul. She looked as if a fire had been kindled in her which 
 reddened her cheeks and biu^ned in her eyes ; and, nishing blindly 
 at Miss Asphyxia, she cried, " You are a wicked woman, a hateful old 
 witch, and I hate you ! " 
 
 " Hity-tity ! I thought I should have to give you a lesson before 
 long, and so I shall," said Miss Asphyxia, seizing her with stern 
 determination. " You *ve needed a good sound whipping for a long 
 time, miss, and you arc going to get it now. I '11 whip you so that 
 you '11 remenil)er it, I '11 promise you." 
 
 And Miss Asphyxia kept her word, though the child, in the fury 
 of despair, fought her with tooth and nail, and proved herself quite a 
 
288 
 
 dangerous little animal ; but at length strength got the better in the 
 fray, and, sobbing, though unsubdued, the little culprit was put to 
 bed without her supper. 
 
 In those days the literal use of the rod in the education of children 
 was considered as a direct Bible teaching. The wisest, the most 
 loving parent felt bound to it in many cases, even though every stroke 
 cut into his own heart. The laws of New England allowed mast< i^ 
 to correct their apprentices, and teachers their pupils, — and even tin 
 public whipping-post was an institution of New England towns. Jt 
 is not to be supposed, therefore, that Miss Asphyxia regarded herself 
 otherwise than as thoroughly performing a most necessary duty. She 
 was as ignorant of the blind agony of mingled shame, wrath, sense of 
 degradation, and burning for revenge, which had been excited by her 
 measures, as the" icy east-wind of Boston flats is of the stinging and 
 shivering it causes in its course. There is a class of coldly-conscien- 
 tious, severe persons, who still, as a matter of duty and conscience, 
 justify measures like these in education. Such persons are commonly 
 both obtuse in sensibility and unimaginative in temperament ; but if 
 their imaginations couhl once be thoroughly enlightened to see the 
 fiend-like passions, the terrific convulsions, which are roused in a 
 child's soul by the irritation and degradation of such correction, they 
 would shrink back appalled. With sensitive children left in the 
 hands of stolid and unsympathizing force, such convulsions and men- 
 tal agonies often are the beginning of a sort of slow moral insanity 
 which gradually destroys all that is good in the soul. 
 
 As the child lay sobbing in a little convulsed heap in her bed, a 
 hard, horny hand put back the curtain of the window, and the child 
 felt something throwTi on the bed. It was Sol, who, on coming in to 
 his supper, had heard from Miss Asphyxia the whole story, and who, 
 as a matter of course, sympathized entirely with the child. He had 
 contrived to slip a doughnut into his pocket, when his hostess was 
 looking the other way. "When the child rose up in the bed and 
 showed her swelled and tear-stained face, Sol whispered : *' There 's a 
 doughnut I saved for ye. Pon't dare say a word, ye know. She '11 
 hear me." 
 
 The child was comforted, and actually went to sleep hugging the 
 doughnut. She felt as if she loved Sol, and said so to the doughnut 
 many times, — although he had great horny fists, and eyes like oxen. 
 With these he had a heart in his bosom, and the child loved him. 
 
STEPHENS. 289 
 
 STEPHENS. 
 1812- 
 
 Ai.r.XA?rDER ttAXTtTOX Stkpheks, a distinguished statesman and political writer, was 1)ora 
 IB Taliaferro County, Georgia, in Februan', lbl2. Graduating at Franklin Colli-i;e, Georgia, in 
 1812, he studied law, and in 1834 began the practice of his profession at Craw fords v ill e, in the 
 same Stati*. lie soon took an active interest in politics, and served for six successive years in 
 the State L gislature. In 18^3 he was elected to the National House of Representatives, of 
 which Imdy he continued a prominent and respected member till the end of the Thirty-tifth Con- 
 gress, when he declined a re-election. A zealous Whig, so long as that party existed, on its dis- 
 solution he acted with the Democrats, and supported the measures of the Buchanan adminis- 
 tration. At the outbreak of the late civil war he stoutly opposed secession, as a question of 
 cxp'ilicncy, though he defended the right of it. In February, 1861, he was elected Vic^-Presi- 
 (Itnr of the Confederacy, under the Provisional Constitution, and in November of that year wa« 
 cliostn to the same oftlce under the regular Constitution. In 1873 he was elected to Congress 
 as a lU-presentative of Georgia. His writings have l>een almost exclusively on political subjects, 
 and the chief of them are -. A CoHstilMlional Vmr of Ihf War hetKeen the Stairs, and The Rtviewert 
 It'TirtcfJ, a reply to strictures on the first-nanied work. He is also the author of J Compendium 
 of Ihf Uialory of the Vnited States. Mr. Stephens possesses a very acute and vigorous intellect, 
 ailmimbly equipped for analytical service, and for careful ratiocination. He has been an earnest 
 student of the science of govemracnt, and his writings in illustration of it possess great philo- 
 sophical value. His utterances have always commanded the respectful attention of his political 
 antagonists, and his long and brilliant public career has, by universal consent, given him a title 
 to rank among the foremost of American statesmen. 
 
 DECISION AND £N£B6T. 
 
 For success in life, it is essential that there should be a fixedness 
 of purpose as to the object and designs to be attained. There should 
 l)e a clear conception of the outlines of that character which is to be 
 cstiiblishcd. The business of life, in whatever pursuit it may l)e di- 
 rected, is a great work. And in this, as in all other undertjikings, it 
 is important in the outset to have a clear conception of what is to be 
 done. This is the first thing to be settled. What profession, what 
 vocation, is to Ix* followed ? The only nde for determining this is 
 natural ability and natural aptitude, or suitableness for the pirticular 
 business selected. The decision in such case should always l)e gov- 
 crnetl by that ideal of character which a man, with liigh aspirations, 
 should always form for himself. 
 
 The artist who has laid b;'fore him the huge misshapen block of 
 marble, from which the almost living and breathing statue is to spring, 
 under the operation of iiis chisel, first has the ideiil in his mind. The 
 magnificent Temple at Jerusalem, with all its halls and porticos, en- 
 trances, stairways, and arches, was designed by Solomon, in all its 
 13 » 
 
290 cathcart's literaey reader. 
 
 grand proportions and arrangements, before the foundation-stone was 
 laid. The first thing with the sculptor, the architect, or the painter 
 is the grand design. This being fixed, everything afterward is di- 
 rected toward its perfect consummation. So it shouUl be with the 
 great work of life. When the course is determined upon, to secure 
 the object in view it should be steadily pursued. You will pardon 
 an illustration of the importance of this consideration by a reference 
 to an incident in the life of one of the most distinguished men of our 
 own country. I allude to Mr. Webster. 
 
 He, it may be known to you, was the son of a New Hampshire 
 farmer of very limited means. All the hopes of the father were cen- 
 tered in his son. To put him through college was an object of great 
 desire to him. This he succeeded in doing, but not without some 
 pecuniary embarrassment, as may be the case with some of those 
 fathers whom I now address, in their ettbrts to give an education to 
 some of these young gentlemen now about to leave this sciit of learn- 
 ing.* Before young Daniel had left the walls of his Alma Mater 
 he hatl made up his mind to devote himself to the law. For the first 
 year after his graduation he taught school for the stipulated salary of 
 three hundred and fifty dollars. At the expiration of that time, Avith 
 this small capital in hand, he set out for Boston to enter upon the 
 course that he had marked out for himself. He was admitted as a 
 student of law in the office of a distinguished coimselor in that city. 
 Soon after, and while he was still pursuing his studies, the clerkship of 
 the Court of Common Pleas of his native county of Hillsborough, in 
 New Hampshire, became vacant. The emoluments of that office were 
 about fifteen luuidred dollars per annum. Some of his friends, from 
 the best of motives, no doubt, procured the fippointment for young 
 Webster, supposing that it wouhl l)e very acceptable to him. The 
 information was first given to his father, and he was requested to 
 forward it to his son. The father was delighted, and he conveyed the 
 intelligence to the son in language that left no doubt of his earnest 
 desire for its prompt acceptance. Such was his respect for the feel- 
 ings of his father, that Mr. Webster would not send a reply in -vmting, 
 but went immediately, in person, to make known to him that he could 
 not accept the place. This he did by gradually unfolding his views 
 end inclinations on the subject. 
 
 • The extract is from an address delivered by Mr. Stephens before the Literary Societies of 
 Emory College, Oxford, Georgia, July 21, 1852. 
 
STEPHENS. 291 
 
 " What," said the father, after he found from the son's conversa- 
 tion that he was speakinp: against accepting the place, — " what, do you 
 intend to decline this office?" 
 
 •• Most assuredly," replied the son, when the question came direct, 
 " I eannot think of doing othenvise." 
 
 The father at first seeinedjingry ; then assuming the air of one who 
 feels the pangs of disappointment in realizing long-cherished hopes, 
 he said, " Well, my son, your mother always said that you would 
 come to something or nothing ; become a somebody or a nobody." 
 The emphasis showed that he thought his son was about to become 
 a " nolxxly." 
 
 The reply of the son was : " I intend, sir, to use my tongue in 
 court, and not my pen ; to be an actor, and not a register of other 
 men's actions." 
 
 Nobly has that pledge been redeemed. 
 
 The decision with Webster, though young, as to his future course, 
 had been made. The ideal of that character which he desired to 
 establish ha<l l)ecn formed. And to the fixedness of purpose with 
 which he adhered to it on that ti-ying occasion, when the strongest 
 inducements of parental entreaty and pecuniary gain were presented 
 to divert him from it, the world is indebted for that name and fame 
 which are the pride and admiration of his countrymen, and that tow- 
 ering reputation which sends its light and effulgence to the remotest 
 H'gions of civilization. 
 
 Another example of the same principle of fixedness of purpose may 
 be given in the character of Mr. Calhoun, who was so long one of 
 Mr. Webster's most distinguished rivals in the Senate of the United 
 States. Tljcy Iwth enteretl life about the same time, though under 
 very different circumstances. And the lives of Imth affonl striking 
 illustrations of that element of character of which I am now speaking. 
 Mr. Calhoun from his earliest youth fixed his mind upon politics. 
 Not the arts and tricks and chicanery of the mere politician or diplo- 
 matist, but what may be more pr()p<*rly termed the science of govern- 
 ment ; the knowledge and thorough understjinding of those principles 
 and laws of human action which lie at the foundation of all civil 
 society, in whatever form it may l>e found ; and the regulations and 
 modifications of which are necessary for the surest enjoyment of 
 rational constitutional lilvrty. 
 
 In no branch of learning, perhaps, has mankind been slower in 
 
their progress than in understanding the true principles of govern- 
 ment, the origin of its necessity, the sanction of its obligations, to- 
 gether with the correlative powers and duties of those who govern 
 and tliose who are governed. 
 
 To this most abstruse subject, which had engaged so much of tlie 
 time and attention of the profoundest thinkers that the world ever 
 produced, the great Carolinian brought all the energies of his subtile 
 and powerful intellect. It seems to have been the absorbing theme 
 of his life. Nothing diverted him from it. To master it was his 
 object. Nor was he unequal to the work undertaken. All questions 
 of public policy, whether in tlie cabinet or in tlie legislative councils, 
 seem to have been considered, examined, and analyzed by him accord- 
 ing to the strictest principles of abstract philosophy. But his labors 
 were not confined to the consideration and investigation of temporary 
 questions connected with the administration of his own government. 
 His objects were higher. His purposes were more comprehensive. 
 He looked to achievements more permanent, as well as more substan- 
 tial, than the acquisition of those transitory honors which accompany 
 a forensic display or a triumphant reply in debate. To such an end 
 his efforts for years wTre directed. The result was the production of 
 a Treatise, or Disquisition as he calls it, on Government, which has 
 been published since his death, and which, though it has as yet pro- 
 duced but little sensation in the public mind, at no distant day will 
 doubtless be regarded as the crowning glory of his illustrious life. 
 This treatise has no particular reference to the government of the 
 United States ; but it discusses the elements and principles of all 
 forms of government, — reduces them to system and the rules of 
 science. 
 
 I have one other point only to present ; that is, energj' in execution. 
 By this I mean application, attention, activity, perseverance, and 
 untiring industry in that business or pursuit, whatever it may be, that 
 is undertaken. Nothing great or good can ever be accomplished with- 
 out labor and toil. Motion is the law of living nature. Inaction is the 
 symbol of death, if it is not death itself. The hugest engines, with 
 strength and capacity sufficient to drive the mightiest ships "across the 
 stormy deep," are utterly useless without a moving power. Energy 
 is the steam power, the motive principle, of intellectual capacity. It is 
 the propelling force ; and as in physics, momentum is resolvable into 
 quantity of matter and velocity, so in metaphysics, the extent of hu- 
 
STEPHENS. 293 
 
 man accomplishment may be resolvable into the degree of intellectual 
 endowment and the energy with which it is directed. A small l)ody 
 driven by a great force will produce a result equal to, or even greater 
 tiian, tliat of a much larger body moved by a considerably less force. 
 So it is with minds. Hence we often see men of comparatively small 
 capacity, by greater eiiei^y alone, leave, and justly leave, their supe- 
 riors in natural gifts far behind them in the race for honors, distinc- 
 tion, and preferment. 
 
 This is, perhaps, the most striking characteristic of those great 
 minds and intellects which never fail to impress their names, their 
 views, ideas, and opinions, indelibly upon the history of the times in 
 which they live. To this class belong Columbus, Luther, Cromwell, 
 Watt, Fulton, Franklin, and Washington. It was to the same class 
 that General Jackson belonged. He had not only a clear conception 
 of his purpose, but a will and energy to execute it. And it is in the 
 same class, or amongst the tirst order of men, that Henry Clay will be 
 assigned a place ; that great man whose recent loss the nation still 
 mourns. Mr. Chiy's success, and those civic achievements which 
 will render his name as lasting as the history of his country, were the 
 residt of nothing so much as that element of character which I have 
 denominated energy. Thrown upon life at an early age, without any 
 means or resources save his natural powers and abilities, and without 
 the advantages of anything above a common-school education, he had 
 nothing to rely upon but himself, and nothing upon which to place 
 a hope but his own exertions. But, fired with a high and noble am- 
 bition, he resolved, as young as he was, and cheerless as were his 
 prospects, to meet and surmount every emlmn-assment and obstacle 
 by which he was surrounded. His aims and objects were high, and 
 worthy the greatest efforts ; they were not to secure the laurels won 
 tipon the Iwttle-field, but those wTcaths which adorn the brow of the 
 wise, the firm, the sagacious and far-seeing statesman. The honor 
 and glory of his life was, — 
 
 •'Th' applause of lisfning arnates to rommand, 
 The threat* of pain and min to despise. 
 To srattrr plenty o'er a smilinp land. 
 And read his history in a nation's eyes." 
 
 This great end he most successfidly accomplished. In his life 
 and character you have a most striking example of what enei^ and 
 indomitable perseverance can do, even when opposed by the most 
 adverse circumstances. 
 
'Zd-i C ATI! cart's MTERAEY R£A0£E. 
 
 BEECHER. 
 
 1813- 
 
 HnrtT Waed Beechkb, the most distinguished prntrher of his day, not onlr in America, but 
 in the world, was bom at LitchAeld, Connecticut, in 1813. He is the son of Rev. Dr. Lyman 
 Beecher, himself a clergyman of positive character and commanding abilities, and is one 
 of a large family of brothers and sisters, each of Mhom has won distinction in literature or 
 the pulpit Henry Ward graduated at Amherst College in 1834, and in IS*!? was settled as pas- 
 tor of a Presbyterian church at Lawrenceburgh, Indiana. Two years later he removed to Ii 
 dianapoli*, whence the first glimmer of his great genius surprised and fascinated the puM 
 After eight years' service at this post, be accepted a call to the pastorate of Plymouth Chui< : 
 Brooklyn. «hich is still the theater of his labors. His rank as a pulpit orator has already In 
 indicated b the first lines of this paragraph. In that character lie has won his fame, and in 
 be «'ill go down in history with Massillon and Boasuet, and the great preachers of the English 
 Church. His connection with literature is almost exclusively ria the pulpit ; what he speaks to 
 attentive thousands in his church reappears in his many books, lacking, it is true, the magnetic 
 and intensifying cfaanu of his personal presence, yet instinct and eloqnent with the lofty thoughts 
 and the noble catholicity «'hich are fundamental constituents of his nature. The limitations 
 which restrict this notice forbid any adequate analysis of the sources of his power ; but it may 
 be suggested that Mr. Beecher's success as a moral teacher is largely due to the practical and 
 sympathetic qualities of his mind. He knows how to put himself in direct rapport with his 
 hearers or readers, knows their needs, their modes of thinking; puts himself in their place, in 
 fact, and manipulates an audioice of thousands as easily and cfTectively as he would conduct his 
 part of a colloquy. A briefer idlnitkl of his exceptional intellectual equipment would be, — a 
 marvelous knowledge of human nature, touching which he would almost seem to have received a 
 special illumination. In his sermons and addresses every one recognizes a personal application, 
 so many-sided and many-eyed is II r. Beecher's mind ; be speaks not merely to those in his pres- 
 ence, but to all humanity. His first book, Lectmret to YoMmg Men, was published in 1850, and 
 has passed throngh nearly a score of editions. The Star Papers, First and Second Series, two 
 volumes made up of his contributi<ms to a New York weekly pafter, and Life Tkoughtx, a collec- 
 tion of extracts from his extemporaneous sermons, have had gnat popularity. Within a year 
 has been issued his Vale Lectures on Preaching, a series of vigorous and suggestive discourses de- 
 livered before the students of the Yale Divinity School. Mr. Beecher's most ambitious literary 
 work is Tlie Life of Jesus, the Christ, wliich is still unfinished, only one volume having been 
 published. One of the most noteworthy advantages possessed by Mr. Beecher is his power of 
 adapting his style to his subject. Our extracts illustrate this, and an examination of other speci- 
 mens of his composition would disclose a still wider range of his versatility. His homiletic style 
 is simple, yet singularly vigorous, compact in form, yet euphonious and flowing; his rhetoric is 
 marked by frequent illustrations drawn from universal knowledge or experience, and by occa- 
 sional passages of dramatic fervor and picturesque beauty. But in all his writings all con- 
 siderations are held strictly subordinate to strength and substance. 
 
 THE MONTHS. 
 
 1. January! Darkness and light reign alike. Snow is on the 
 ground. Cold is in the air. The winter is blossoming in frost- 
 flowers. Why is the ground hidden ? Why is the earth white ? So 
 hath God wMped out the past, so hath he spread the earth like an un- 
 written page for a new year ! Old sounds are silent in the forest and 
 in the air. Insects are dead, birds are gone, leaves have perished, and 
 
BEECHER. 295 
 
 all the foundations of soil remain. Upon this lies, white and tran- 
 quil, the emblem of newness and purity, the virgin robes of the yet 
 unstained year. 
 
 2. Febru.\ry ! The day gains upon the night. The strife of 
 luiat and cold is scarce begun. The winds that come from the deso- 
 late nortli wander through forests of frost-erackiiig boughs, and shout 
 in the air the weird cries of the northern bergs and ice-resounding 
 oceans. Yet, as the month wears on, the silent work begins, though 
 storms rage. The earth is hidden yet, but not dead. The sun is 
 drawing near. The storms cry out. But the Sun is not heard in all 
 the heavens. Yet he whispers words of deliverance into the ears of 
 every sleeping seed and root that lies Ixjueath the snow. The tlay 
 opens ; but the night shuts the earth with its frost-lock. They strive 
 together; but the darkness ami the cold are giowing weaker. On 
 some nights they forget to work. 
 
 3. March! The conflict is more turbulent; but the victory is 
 irained. The world awakes. There come voices from long-hidden 
 birds. The smell of the soil is in the air. The sullen ice, retreating 
 from open field and all sunny places, has slunk to the north of every 
 fence and rock. The knolls and banks that face the east or south 
 sigh for rcleiisi', and begin to lift up a thousand tiny palms. 
 
 4. April! The singing month. Many voices of many birds call 
 for resurrection over the graves of flowers, and they come forth. Go 
 see what they have lost. What have ice and snow and storm done 
 unto them? How did they fall into the earth stripped and bare? — 
 how do they come forth opening and glorified ? Is it, then, so fearful 
 a thing to lie in the grave ? In its wild career, shaking and scourged 
 of storms through its orbit, the earth has scattered away no treasures. 
 The Hand that governs in April governed in January. You have not 
 lost what God has only hidden. You lose nothing in struggle, in 
 trial, in bitter distress. If called to shed thy joys as trees their leaves, 
 if the affi'ctions be driven Ixaek into the heart as the life of flowers to 
 their roots, yet be pjitient. Thou shalt lift up thy leaf-covered boughs 
 ii^in. Thou shalt shoot forth from thy roots new flowers. Be pa- 
 tient. Wait. When it is February', April is not far off". Secretly 
 the plants love each other. 
 
 5. M,\Y ! O flowtr-month! perfect the harvests of flowers; be 
 not niggardly. Search out the cold and resentful nooks that refused 
 the 8UU, casting back its rays from disdainful ice, and plant flowers 
 
296 CATUCART\s LilhUAUV lihADtK. 
 
 even there. There is goodness in the worst. There is warmth in 
 the coldness. The silent, hopeful, unbreathing sun, that will not 
 fret or despond, but carries a placid brow through the unwrinkled 
 heavens, at length conquers the very rocks ; and lichens grow, and 
 inconspicuously blossom. What shall not Time do that carries in its 
 bosom Love ? 
 
 6. Jlne ! Rest! This is the year's bower. Sit down within it. 
 Wipe from thy brow the toil. The elements are thy servants. The 
 dews bring thee jewels. The winds bring perfume. The Earth 
 shows thee all her treasure. The forests sing to thee. The air is all 
 sweetness, as if all the angels of God had gone through it, bearing 
 spices homeward. The storms are but as flocks of mighty birds that 
 spread their wings, and sing in the high heaven. Speak to God now, 
 and say, " O Father ! where art thou ? " and out of every flower and 
 tree, and silver pool, and twined thicket, a voice will come, ** Gtxl is 
 in me." The earth cries to the heavens, *' God is here ! " and the 
 heavens cry to the earth, " God is here ! " The sea claims him. The 
 knd hath him. His footsteps are upon the deep. He sitteth upon 
 the circle of the earth. O sunny joys of the sunny month, yet soft and 
 temperate, how soon will the eager months that come burning from 
 the equator scorch you ! 
 
 7. July ! Rouse up ! The temperate heats that filled the air are 
 raging forward to glow and overfill the earth with hotness. Must it 
 be thus in everything, that June shall rush toward August ? Or is it 
 not that there are deep and unreached places for whose sake the prob- 
 ing sun pierces down its glowing hands ? There is a deeper work 
 than June can perform. The Earth shall drink of the heat Ijefore she 
 knows her nature or her strength. Then shall she bring forth to the 
 uttermost the treasures of her bosom ; for there are things hidden far 
 down, and the deep things of life are not known till the fire reveals 
 them. 
 
 8. August! Reign, thou fire-month! What canst thou do? 
 Neither shalt thou destroy the earth, whom frosts and ice could not 
 destroy. The vines droop, the trees stagger, the broad-palmed leaves 
 give thee their moisture, and hang down ; but every night the dew 
 pities them. Yet there are flowers that look thee in the eye, fierce 
 Sun, all day long, and wink not. This is the rejoicing month for 
 joyful insects. If our unselfish eye would behold it, it is the most 
 populous and the happiest month. The herds plash in the sedge ; fish 
 
BEECUER. 297 
 
 seek the deeper pools ; forest fowl lead out their young ; the air is 
 resonant of insect orchestras, each one airryinj^ his part in Nature's 
 jjrand luirmony. August, thou art the ripeness of the year ! Thou 
 art the glowing center of the circle ! 
 
 9. September! There are thoughts in thy he;irt of death. Thou 
 art doing a secret work, and heaping up treasures for another year. 
 The unborn infant-buds wliieh thou art tending are more than all the 
 living leaves. Thy robes are luxuriant, but worn with softened pride. 
 More dear, less beautiful, than June, thou art the heart's month. 
 Not till the heats of summer are gone, while all its growths remain, 
 do we know the fullness of life. Thy hands are stretched out, and 
 clasp the glowing palm of August and the fruit-smelling hand of 
 October. Thou dividest them asunder, and art thyself molded of 
 them both. 
 
 10. October! Orchard of the year, bend thy bouglis to the 
 earth, retlolent of glowing fruit I Ripened seeds sliake in their pods. 
 Apples drop in the stillest hours. Leaves begin to let go wlun no 
 wind is out, and swing in long waverings to the earth, which they 
 touch without sound, and lie looking up, till winds rake them, and 
 h(yip them in fence-corners. When the gjdes come through the trees, 
 the yellow leaves trail like sparks at night behind the flying engine. 
 The wootls are thinner, so that we can see the heavens plainer as we 
 lie dreaming on the yet warm moss by the singing spring. The days 
 are calm. The nights are tranquil. The Year's work is done. She 
 walks in gorgeous apparel, looking upon her long labor; and her 
 serene eye saith, "It is good." 
 
 11. November! Patient watcher, thou art asking to lay down 
 thy tasks. Life to thee now is only a task accomplished. In the 
 night-time thou liest down, and the messengers of winter deck 
 thee with hoar-frosts for thy burial. The morning looks upon thy 
 jewels, and they perish while it gazes. Wilt thou not come, O 
 December ? 
 
 12. Decbmbsb ! Silently the month advances. There is nothing 
 to destroy, but much to bury. Bury then, thou snow, that sluraber- 
 ously fallest through the stUl air, the hedge-rows of leaves ! Muffle 
 thy coUl wool al)out the feet of shivering trees ! Bury all that the 
 year hath known ! and let thy brilliant stars, that never shine as they 
 do in thy frostiest nights, behold the work! But know, O month of 
 destruction ! that in thy constellation is set that Star, whose rising is 
 
 18« 
 
;i98 cathcaht's i,iii.i;ai;\ kladlh. 
 
 the sign, forevermore, that there is life iu death. Thou art the 
 month of resurrection. In thee the Christ came. Every star that 
 looks down upon thy labor and toil of burial knows that all thin 
 shall come forth again. Storms shall sob themselves to sleep, fei- 
 lence shall find a voice. Death shall live ; Life shall rejoice ; Winter 
 shall break forth, and blossom into Spring ; Spring shall put on her 
 glorious apparel, and be called Summer. It is life, it is life, throui!:li 
 the whole year ! 
 
 COMING AWD GOING. 
 
 Once came to our fields a pair of birds that had never built a 
 nest nor seen a winter. O, how beautiful was everything! The 
 fields were full of fiowers, and the grass was growing tall, and the 
 bees were humming everywhere. Then one of the birds fell to sing- 
 ing ; and the other bird said, " Who told you to sing ? " And he an- 
 swered, " The flowers told me, and the bees told me, and the winds 
 and leaves told me, and the blue sky told me, and you told me to 
 sing." Then his mate answered, " When did I tell you to sing ? " 
 And he said, "Every time you brought in tender grass for the nest, 
 and every time your soft wings fluttered off again for hair and feath- 
 ers to line the nest." Then his mate said, " What are you singing 
 about ? " And he answered, ** I am singing about everything and 
 nothing. It is because I am so happy that I sing." 
 
 By and by, five little speckled eggs were in the nest; and his 
 mate said, *' Is there anything in all the world as pretty as my eggs ? " 
 Then they both looked down on some people that were passing by, 
 and pitied them because they were not biitls, and had no nests with 
 eggs in them. Then the father-bird sang a melancholy song because 
 he pitied folks that had no nests, but had to live in houses. 
 
 In a week or two, one day, when the father-bird came home, the 
 mother-bird said, '* O, what do you think has happened ? " " What ? " 
 " One of my eggs has been peeping and moving ! " Pretty soon an- 
 other egg moved under her feathers, and then another and another, till 
 five little birds were born. 
 
 Now the father-bird sung louder and louder than ever. The mother- 
 bird, too, wanted to sing ; but she had no time, and so she turned 
 her song into work. So hungry were these little birds, that it kept 
 both parents busy feeding them. Away each one flew. The moment 
 the little birds heard their wings fluttering again among the leaves, 
 
BEECHER. 299 
 
 five yellow mouths flew open so wide that nothing could be seen but 
 fi?e yellow mouths. 
 
 " Can auyboily be happier ? " said the father-bird to the mother- 
 bird. '* We will live in this tree always ; for there is no sorrow here. 
 It is a tree that always bears joy." 
 
 The very next day one of the birds dropped out of the nest, and a 
 cat ate it up in a minute, and only four remained ; and the parent- 
 birds were very sad, and there was no song all that day nor the next. 
 Soon the little birds were big enough to fly ; and great was their 
 jmrents' joy to see them leave the nest, and sit crumpled up upon 
 the branches. There was then a great time. One would liave thought 
 the two old birds were two French dancing-masters, talking and chat- 
 tering, and scolding the little birds to make them go alone. The 
 first bird that tried flew from one branch to another, and the parents 
 praised him ; and the other little birds wondered how he did it. And 
 he was so vain of it that he tried again, and flew and flew, and could 
 n't stop flying, till he fell plump down by the house-door; and then 
 a little boy caught him and carried him into the house, and only three 
 birds were left. Then the old birds thought that the sun was not 
 as bright as it used to be, and they did not sing as often. 
 
 In a little time the other birds had learned to use their wings ; and 
 they flew away and away, and found their own food, and made their 
 own beds ; and their parents never saw them any more. 
 
 Then the old birds sat silent, and looked at each other a long 
 while. 
 
 At last the wife-bird said, — 
 
 " Why don't you sing? " 
 
 And he answered, — 
 
 '* I can't sing : I can only thiiik and think." 
 
 " What are you thinking of? " 
 
 " I am thinking how everything changes. The leaves are falling 
 down from off" this tree, and soon there will \)c no roof over our heads ; 
 the flowers are all gone, or going; last night there was a frost; al- 
 most all the birds are flown away, and I am very uneasy. Something 
 calls me, and I feel restless as if I would fly far away." 
 
 " I^'t us fly away together ! " 
 
 Then tliey rose silently ; and, lifting themselves far up in the air, 
 they looked to the north : far away they saw the snow coming. They 
 looked to the south : there they saw green leaves. All day they flew, 
 
300 cathcart's literaky reader. 
 
 and all night they flew and flew, till they found a land where there 
 was no winter ; where there was summer all the time ; where flowers 
 always blossom, and birds always sing. 
 
 But the birds that staid behind found the days shorter, the nights 
 longer, and the weather colder. Many of them died of cold ; others 
 crept into crevices and holes, and lay torpid. Then it was pkin that 
 it was better to go than to stay. 
 
 PUBITY OF CHAEACTER. 
 
 Oyer the plum and apricot there may be seen a bloom and beauty 
 more exquisite than the fruit itself, — a soft, delicate flush tliat over- 
 spreads its blushing cheek. Now, if you strike your hand over that. 
 and it is once gone, it is gone forever ; for it never grows but one   
 The flower that hangs in the morning, impearled with dew, arrayea 
 with jewels, — once shake it so that the beads roll off", and you may 
 sprinkle water over it as you please, yet it can never be made cgaiii 
 what it was when the dew fell lightly upon it from heaven. 
 
 On a frosty morning you may see the panes of glass covered witli 
 landscapes, mountains, lakes, and trees, blended in a l)eantifnl fantas- 
 tic picture. Now, lay your hand upon the glass, and by tUe scratch 
 of your fingers, or by the warmth of the palm, all the delicate tracery 
 will be immediately obliterated. So in youth there is a purity of 
 character which, when once touched and defiled, can never be restored, 
 — a fringe more delicate than frostwork, and which, when torn and 
 broken, will never be re-embroidered. 
 
 A man who has spotted and soiled his garments in youth, though 
 he may seek to make them white again, can never wholly do it, even 
 were he to wash them with his tears. When a young man leaves his 
 father's house, with the blessing of his mother's tears still wet upon 
 his forehead, if he once loses that early purity of character, it is a loss 
 he can never make whole again. Such is the consequence of crime. 
 Its effects cannot be eradicated, they can only be forgiven. 
 
DANA. 301 
 
 DANA. 
 1813- 
 
 Pkotkssok Jahks Pwioht Dajt a, one of the most eminent of American geologists and natu- 
 ralists, was bom at Utica, New York, in 1813. At the age of twenty he graduated at Yale 
 College, where he was distinguished for his scientific tastes and attainments. Demoting him- 
 •elf ««iiid«onslT to this specialty in knowledge, he soon acquired a reputation which justified 
 ' ! nt to be the geologist and mineralogist of Commodore Wilkes's Exploring Expc- 
 
 11 1 by the United States government in 18:i8. During his four years' absence in 
 
 he gathered materials for some of the most notable contributions that have ever 
 
 turn niadf to the literature of science. Among these are his Report on Zoophytes, Report on 
 the Ce.,l...i>i nf the Paeifie, and Report on Crustacea. Tlie amount of latjor demanded by the 
 prepanitiim of these Reports may be inferred from the fact that they comprised S.IOO pn<res 
 of text, in quarto form, and 178 plates in folio. Prior to his departure with this expedition 
 he published his System of Mineralogy, the fourth edition of which was issuetl in iHiii, and the 
 descriptive part of the fifth, in 18C8. In 1850 he wa-s called to the chair of Natural History and 
 Geology at Yale College, but did not begin its occupancy until five years later. Since 184<> he 
 has been a principal editor of the American Journal of S<-iencc. Professor Dana's Manual of 
 Geoloffy, a new and thoroughly revised edition of which has recently l>ecn issued, is a standard 
 text-)>ook, not only in this country, but in Europe. His latest work is a volume entitled Corals 
 and Coral Islands. Professor Dana has long been recognized in the scientific circles of Europe 
 as one of the foremost living naturalists -, he is a member of many English and Continental 
 scientific societies, and last year received the high compliment of an election to membership in 
 the French Academy. Professor Dana's fame rests upon the sound basis of practical achieve- 
 nirnt llr Im^ Jirrn n linnl student and a close observer of nature, and his special qualifi- 
 cntions trir <ri(iitiiir iiiv ( -ji.'.itmn are liappily supplemented by general intellectual powers of 
 e\rrpti()nal hriailth .tihI strrnpih. which admirably fit him for the office of leader and instructor 
 in his chosen department of science. 
 
 KK0WLED6E OF NATURE. 
 
 When man, at the word of his Maker, stood up to receive his 
 birthrip:ht, God pronounced a bene<liction, and gave him this commis- 
 sion : " Rfplen'uth the earth : subdue it : and have dominion over every 
 living thing" 
 
 " Subdue and have dominion^ These were the first recorded words 
 that fell on the human car ; and Heaven's blessing was in them. 
 
 But what is this subduing of the earth ? How is nature brought 
 under subjection ? Man's highest glory consists in obedience to 
 the Eternal Will ; and in this case, is he actually taking the reins 
 into his own hands ? Far from it. He is but yielding submission. 
 He is learning that will, and phicing himself, as Lord Bacon has said, 
 in direct subserviency to divine laws. When he sets his sails, and 
 drives over the waves before the blast, feeling the pride of power in 
 that thr gale has been broken into a willing steed, he still looks up 
 
802 CATHCAET^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 reverently, and acknowledges that God in nature has been his teacher, 
 and is his strength. When he strikes the rock, and out flows the 
 brilliant metal, he admits that it is in obedience to a higher will tlum 
 his own, and a reward of careful searching for truth, in comph i 
 subjection to tliut will. When he yokes together a plate of coppr 
 and zinc, and urges them to action by a cup of acid, — and then tl 
 spatches burdens of thought on errands of thousands of miles, — man 
 may indeed claim that he has nature at his bid, subdued, a willinL'' 
 messenger ; and yet it is so, because man himself acta in perfect obe- 
 dience to law. He may well feel exaltetl : but his exaltation proceeds 
 from the fact that he has drawn from a higher source of strength than 
 himself; and a mind not morally perverted will give the glory when 
 it is due. 
 
 These are the rewards of an humble and teachable spirit, kneelin:. 
 at the shrine of nature ; and if there is indeed that forgctfulness ol 
 self, and that unalloyed love of truth, which alone can insure the higli- 
 est success in research, this shrine will be viewed as only the portal 
 to a holier temple, where God reigns in his purity and love. 
 
 The command, " sulxlue, and have dominion," is, then, a mark both 
 of man's power, and of God's power. It requires man to study hi 
 Maker's works, that he may adapt himself to his laws, and use them 
 to his advantage ; — to become wise, that he may be strong ; — to 
 elevate and ennoble mind, that matter may take its true place of sub- 
 jection. It involves not merely a study of nature in the ordinary 
 sense of those words, but also a study of man himself, and the utmo-t 
 exaltation of the moral and mental qualities ; for man is a part of 
 nature ; and moreover, to understand the teachings of Infinite Wis- 
 dom, the largest expansion of intellect and loftiest elevation of soul 
 are requisite. 
 
 Solomon says, that, in his day, " there was nothing new under tlu 
 sun." What is, is what has been, and what shall be. The sentiment 
 was not prompted by any modern scientific spirit, — impatience of so 
 little progress ; for it is immediately connected with sighings for the 
 good old times. Much the same spirit is often shown in these days, 
 and elaborate addresses are sometimes written to prove that, after all 
 our boasted progress, Egypt and Greece were the actual sources of 
 existing knowledge. They point to the massy stones of the pyramids ; 
 the sublime temples and palaces of the old empires ; the occasional 
 utensils of half-transparent glass, and implements of bronze or iron, 
 
ivN\ 803 
 
 fouiul among their buried ruins ; the fine fabrics and costly Tyrian 
 (lyes; — they descant upon the woiulerful ptTf'ertion attained in the 
 fine arts, in pottry and rhetoric, and llie profound thouglit of the 
 ancient phiIoso])luTs : and then are almost ready to echo, ** There is 
 nothinjj new undtr the sun." What is, is what has l)een. Thoae 
 good old times ! 
 
 But what liad those old philosophers, or the whole ancient world, 
 done toward brinp:ing nature under subjection, in obedience to the 
 commaTul, " sulxlue it " ? 
 
 Tlu'y iiad, it is tnie, built magnificent temples. But the taste of 
 the architect, or that of the statuary or poet, is simply an emanation 
 from the divine breath within man, and is cultivated by contempla- 
 tion, and only surface contact with nature. 
 
 They piled up ('yclopean rocks into walls and pyramids. But the 
 use of the lever and pulley comes also from the workings of mind, 
 and but shallow views of the world. And adding man to man till 
 thousands have worked together, as in one harness, has been a com- 
 mon feat of despots from the time of the Pharaohs onward. 
 
 They educed profound systems of philosophy, showing a depth of 
 thought since unsurpassed. But these again were the results of 
 cogitating mind, acting in its own might, — glancing, it may be, at 
 the landscape and the stars in admiration, but centering on man and 
 mind ; and often proving to be as erroneous as profound. 
 
 They cultivated the intellect, and made progress in political knowl- 
 edge. But in their attempts to control nature, they brought to bear 
 little beyond mt^e physical force. 
 
 Although ancient wisdom treats of air, earth, fire, and water, not 
 one of these so-called elements was, in any proper sense, brought 
 under subjection. 
 
 The Air : — Was it subdued, wlicu the old Roman still preferred 
 his lianks of oars, and on the land, the wind was trained only to turn 
 a wiiul-mill, carry off chaffs, or work in a bellows ? 
 
 Was the Earth subdued, when, instead of l)eing forced to pour out 
 in streams its wealth of various ores, but half a dozen metals were 
 known ? and, instead of being explored and found to be marshaled, 
 for man's command, under sixty or more elements, each with its laws 
 of combination, and all l)ound to serve the arts, the wisest minds saw 
 only a mass of earth, something to tread upon, and grow grain and 
 grass? 
 
30*i CATHCART^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 Was Fire subiliud, when almost its only uses were to warm, and 
 cook, and to bake clay, and few of its other powers were known, 
 besides those of destruction ? or Li(/hty when not even its component 
 colors were recognized, and it served simply as a means of si*rlit, in 
 which man shared its use with brutes ? 
 
 Was JFater sul)dued, when it was left to run wild alonp^ the water- 
 courses, and its ocean-waves were a terror to all the sailors of tlie ag( : 
 when steam was only the ephemeral vapor of a boiling kettle, yet un- 
 known in its might, and unhaniessed ? when the clouds sent their 
 shafts where they willed ? when the constituents of water — the Xi'ii'- 
 element oj*y/7e« and the inflammable Ay</ro^e« — bad uot yet yielded 
 themselves to man as his vassals ? 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF NATTTBE (con«»iti«rf). 
 
 Hardly the initial step had been taken, through the thousands of 
 years of the earth's existence, to acquire that control of nature which 
 miml should have, and God had orderwl. The sciences of observa- 
 tion and experiment had not emerged from the mists of empiricism 
 and superstition. There were few ascertained principles beyond those 
 that flow from mathematical law, or from cogitations of mind after 
 surface sui-veys of the world. 
 
 No wonder that nature unsubdued should have proved herself a 
 tyrant. She m powerful. Vast might is embodied in her forces, that 
 may well strike terror into the uninstructed : and man has shown his 
 greatness in that he has at last dared to claim obedience. The air, 
 earth, water, fire, had become filled with fancied fiends, which any 
 priest or priestess could evoke ; and even the harmless moon, or two 
 approaching or receding planets, or the accidental flight of a thought- 
 less bird, caused fearful forebodings ; and a long-tailed comet made 
 the whole world to shake with terror. 
 
 Christianity, although radiant with hope, could not wholly break 
 the spell. The Christian's trust, Heaven's best gift to man, makes 
 the soul calm and strong mid dangers, real or unreal ; yet it leaves 
 the sources of terror in nature untouched, to be assailed by that 
 power which comes from knowledge. 
 
 Man thus suffered for his disobedience. He was the slave, — 
 nature, the feared master ; to many, even the evil demon himself. 
 
 Is this now true of nature? We know that, to a large extent. 
 
DANA. 305 
 
 nature is yet unsearched and unsubdued. Still, vast progress has 
 Ixeii made toward fj^ainin*^ control of her ten thousand a<^encies. 
 
 la gathering this knowledge, we have not sought for it among the 
 faded monuments and rolls of the ancients, as we call the inhabitants 
 of the earth's childhood : but have looked to records of viisUtr an- 
 tiquity, — the writings of the iutinite God in creation, which are now 
 as fresh with beiiuty and wisdom as when His finger first mapped out 
 the heavens, or traced the flowers and crystals of the earth. This is 
 the fountain whence we have drawn ; and what is the result? 
 
 How is it with icaler in these last times ? Instead of wasting its 
 powers in gambols down valleys, or in sluggish quiet about " sleepy 
 hollows," it is trained to toil. With as much glee as it ever displayed 
 running and leaping in its free channel, a single stream now turns 
 over a million of spindles in this New £ngland. 
 
 Changed to steam, there is terror in its strength even now. Yet 
 the laws of steam, of its production, condensation, and elasticity, have 
 Ijcen so ciirefully studied, and also the strength and other qualities of 
 the metal used to confine it, as well as the nature and effects of fuel, 
 that if we are careful not to defy established principles, steam is our 
 most willing worker, — turning saw-mills, printing-presses, cotton- 
 gins, — speeding over our roa^ls with indefinite trains of carriages 
 and freight, — bearing away floating mansions, against wind and tide, 
 across the oceans, — cooking, heating, searching out dyes from coarse 
 logwood, and the like, — and applying itself to useful purposes, one 
 way or another, in almost all the arts. Again, if we will it, and 
 follow nature's laws, water gives up its oxygen and hydrogen, and 
 thus the chemist secures the means of burning even the diamond; 
 the aeronaut makes wings for his adventurous flight, and the light- 
 house derives the famous Drummond light for its work of mercy. 
 
 Liffht is no longer a mere colorless medium of sight. We may 
 evoke from it any color wc please, either for use or pleasure. We 
 may also take its chemical rays from the rest, or its light rays, or its 
 heat rays, and employ them separately or together; for we have 
 foiuid out where its strength lies in these particulars, so that at will, 
 light may pass from our manipulations, shorn of its heating power, 
 or of its power of promoting growth, or chemical change. Ay, the 
 subtile agent will now use its pencU in taking sketches from nature, 
 or portraits, if we desire it : and the work is well done. 
 
 The ancient wise men, discoursing on the power which holds matter 
 
30G cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 toj^'thtT, sometimes attributed to the particles convenient hooks for 
 elinj^iug to one another. Little was it dreanuHl that the force of com- 
 bination in matter — now called attraction — included the lightniiii: 
 amon<? its effects, and would be made to run errands and do hard 
 work for man. Electricity, galvanism, magnetism, are modern names 
 for some of the different moods under which this agent apprars ; and 
 none of nature's powers now do better service. It is kept on con- 
 stant run with messages over the continents, scaling mountains or 
 traversing seas with equal facility. It does our gilding and silver- 
 plating. Give it an engraved plate as a copy, and it will make a hun- 
 dred such in a short time. If taken into employ, it will, in case of 
 fire, set all the Mis of a city ringing at once ; or it will strike a com- 
 mon l)eat for all the clocks of a country ; or be the astronomer's best 
 and surest aid in observing phases in the heavens, or measuring lon- 
 gitude on the earth. All this and more it accomplishes for us, or can 
 if we wish, besides opening to our inquiring eyes the profound phi- 
 losophy which God has inscribed in his works. 
 
 Nature is not now full of gloom and terror. Her fancied fiends 
 have turned out friends. Although God still holds supreme control, 
 and often makes man remember whence his strength, yet every agent, 
 however mighty in itself, is becoming a gentle and ready assistant, 
 both in our work and play, — in the material progress of nations, as 
 well as their moral and intellectual advancement. 
 
MOTLEY. 807 
 
 MOTLEY. 
 
 1814- 
 
 Jonif LoTHBop MuTLKT, onc of the most eminent of American historians, iras born in Dor« 
 rhrstrr. Massarhasetts, in lbl4. Graduating at Harvard Ck)Uege at the age of seventeen, he 
 „,.... ... !.-..~,,,e, where he spent several years in preparation for a task to which he had early 
 
 if, — the writing of a History of the Rite of the Dutch Republic. Young as he was, 
 
 h \ prnlured two novels, Morton's Hope, or The Memoirs of a Provincial, and Merry 
 
 . I/, ;/-„,'. ./ y.   r.KH-e of the Massachusetts Colony, which were long ago forgotten. After fifteen 
 
 vc.'irs of .-inlii'i 1^ i:ilM)r he finished his Histunj, and its reception on i>oth sides of the Atlantic 
 
 \\ i> rMtpttoiiniiv (iinlial. Mr. Everett said of it that it was, in his judgment, "a work of the 
 
 li .!i -t merit," ami placed "the name of Motley by the side of those of our great American histor- 
 
 1, al I no, — Bancroft, Irving, and I'rescott." The instantaneous success of this History — tlie work 
 
 i)f a youn-r and unknown writer — is unprecedented in the annals of historical literature. Not 
 
 content with this triumph, which assured him of an immortality of fame, Mr. Motley at once set 
 
 , "^ it{ ye\\\c\\ tiliTff^r in The History uf the t'nited Netherlands, in 
 
 <>n, the story of whose birth had been told in the previous 
 
 , ; It and accuracy. During the current year (1874) Mr. Motley's 
 
 ilunl historical work, Life and Death of John of Bameteld.hwi been published. In common 
 
 with the eminent historians with whom Edward Everett classed him, Mr. Motley possesses in 
 
 rare combination the highest intellectual qualifications for his work. He is especially remark- 
 
 nlile fir a certain breadth of mind which impels him to take comprehensive and exhaustive views 
 
 of his subject. His style is a model of vigor and grace, and in dramatic quahty it is equaled by 
 
 that of no other historian of this century. It would be, perhaps, impossible to indicate any other 
 
 historical works than his, of comparatively modem issue, touching which the judgment of critics 
 
 has been so unanimously favoral)le. Some foreign reviewers, unable to appreciate, or, perhaps, 
 
 en<jl*'T to rebuke, the sturdy Republican spirit that animates this American writer, have charged 
 
 hiiu with excessive severity in his denunciation of Spanish despotism ; but with this exception 
 
 lii* cnndor and conscientious accuracy have never been impugned. Mr. Motley was appointed 
 
 rnifpil States Minister to Austria by President Lincoln, and, after honorable service at Vienna, 
 
 "I to Ensrland, where he represented this government with conspicuous ability. 
 
 - of partisan |x)litics required his removal, and he is now, a private citizen, fully 
 
 ..... (unKcnial literary labors. 
 
 HI8T0EIC PROGRESS. 
 
 We talk of History. No man can more highly appreciate than I 
 «lo the noble labors of your Society,* and of others in this country, 
 for the preser\ation of memorials belonging to our brief but most 
 important past. We ran never collect too much of them, nor ponder 
 tliem t(X) carffully, for they murk the era of a new civilization. Ihit 
 Hiat interesting past presses so closely upon our sight that it seems 
 iill a portion of the present; the glininierinu: dawn preceding the 
 noontide of to-day. 
 
 • Tnic Nkw Yoek Histokicai. Societt. The extract is from an address delivered by Mr. 
 Motley before this society. December 16, 1»68. the subject being Uit'orie Progreu and Amtrieut 
 
 Tiemocrnry 
 
308 CATHCAET^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 I shall not be misunderstood, then, if I say that there is no such 
 thing as human histor}'. Nothing can be more profoundly, sadly 
 true. The annals of mankind have never been written, never can l 
 written ; nor would it be within human capacity to read them if tin \ 
 were written. We have a leaf or two torn from the great book of hu- 
 man fate as it flutters in the storm-winds ever sweeping across the 
 earth. We decipher them as we best can with purblind eyes, and en- 
 deavor to learn their mystery as we float along to the abyss ; but it is 
 all confused babble, hieroglyphics of which the key is lost. Coiisidei- 
 but a moment. The ishind on which this city stands is as perfect a 
 site as man could desire for a great, commercial, imperial city. By- 
 zantium,* which the lords of the ancient world built for the capital 
 of the earth ; which the temperate and vigorous Turk in the days of 
 his stem military discipline plucked from the decrepit hands whicli 
 held the scepter of Caesar and Constantine, and for the succession to 
 which the present lords of Europe are wrangling, — not Byzantium, 
 nor hundred-gated Thebes,t ^^or London nor Liverpool, Paris nor 
 Moscow, can surpass the future certainties of this thirtoon-mile-long 
 Manhattan. 
 
 And yet it was but yesterday — for what arc two ({'nturics and a 
 half in the boundless vista of the past ? — that the Mohawk and the 
 Mohican were tomahawking and scalping each other throughout these 
 regions, and had been doing so for centuries ; while the whole surface 
 of this island, now groaning under millions of wealth which oppress 
 the imagination, hardly furnished a respectible hunting-ground for a 
 single sachem, in his war-paint and moccasins, who imagined himself 
 proprietor of the soil. 
 
 But yestenlay Cimmerian darkness, primeval night. To-day, 
 grandeur, luxury', wealth, power. I come not here to-night to draw 
 pictures or pour forth dith^Tambics that I may gratify your vanity or 
 my own, whether municipal or national. To appreciate the unexam- 
 pled advantages l)estowed by the Omnipotent upon this favored Ee- 
 public, this youngest child of civilization, is rather to oppress the 
 thoughtful mind with an overwhelming sense of responsibility ; to 
 
 * Byzantium. The orifrinal name of Constantinople, the present capital of the Turkish Em- 
 pire. The beauty and convenience of its situation were obsen-ed by Constantine the Great, who 
 made it the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire a. d. 328, and called it Constantinopolis, i. e. 
 the City of Constantine. 
 
 + Thebes. A great city of Esypt which was formerly the capital of that country. It is now 
 in ruins, its remains extending for se^•pn miles alone both banks of the Nile. 
 
MOTLEY. 809 
 
 sadden with quick-coming fears ; to torture with reasonable doubts. 
 The world's grc<it hope is here. The future of humanity — at least 
 for that cycle in which we are now revolving — depends mainly upon 
 the manner in which we deal with our great trust. 
 
 The good old times ! Where and when were those good old 
 times ? 
 
 " All times when old are good/' 
 
 says Byron. 
 
 "And all our yesterdays have lighted foola 
 The way to dusty death," 
 
 says the great master of morals and humanity. 
 
 But neither fools nor sages, neither individuals nor nations, have 
 any other light to guide them along the track which all must tread, 
 save that long glimmering vista of yesterdays which grows so swiftly 
 fainter r.nd fainter as the present fades into the past. 
 
 And I believe it possible to discover a law out of all this appar- 
 ently chaotic whirl and bustle, this tangled skein of human affairs, as 
 it spins itself through the centuries. That law is Progress, — slow, 
 confused, contradictory, but ceaseless development, intellectual and 
 moral, of the human race. 
 
 It is of Human IVogress that I speak to-night. It is of Progress 
 that I find a startling result when I survey the spectacle which the 
 American Present displays. 
 
 This nation stands on the point towards which other people are 
 moving, — the starting-point, not the goal. It has put itself — or 
 rather Destiny has placed it — more immediately than other nations 
 in subordination to the law governing all bodies political as inexora- 
 bly as Kepler's law controls the motions of the planets. 
 
 The law is Progress ; the residt, Democracy. 
 
 Sydney Smith once alluded, if I remember rightly, to a person who 
 allowed himself to speak disrespectfully of the equator. I have a 
 strong objection to l)e suspected of flattering the equator. Yet were 
 it not for that little angle of 23° 27' 26", which it is good enough 
 to make with the plane of the ecliptic, the history of this earth and of 
 " all which it inherit " would have been essentially modified, even if 
 it had not been altogether a blank. 
 
 Out of the obli(juity of tlie equator has come forth our civilization. 
 It was long ago observed by one of the most thoughtful writers that 
 ever dealt with human history, John von Herder, that it was to the 
 
310 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 gradual shading away of zones and alternation of seasons that the 
 vigor and variety of mankind were attributable. 
 
 I have asked where and when were the good old times? This 
 earth of ours has been spinning about in space, great philosopliers 
 tell us, some few hundred millions of years. We are not very famil- 
 iar with our predecessors on this continent. For the present, the 
 oldest inhabitant must be represented here by the man of Natchez, 
 whose bones were unearthed not long ago under the Mississippi blufl's 
 in strata wliich were said to argue him to be at least one hundred 
 thousand years old. Yet he is a mere modern, a parvenu on this 
 planet, if we are to trust illustrious teachers of science, compared witli 
 the men whose Iwnes and whose implements have been found in high 
 mountain-valleys and gravel-pits of Europe ; while these again are 
 thought by the same authorities to be descendants of races which 
 flourished many thousands of years before, and whose relics science is 
 confidently expecting to discover, although the icy sea had once in- 
 gulfwl them and their dwelling-places. 
 
 We of to-day have no filial interest in the man of Natchez. He was 
 no ancestor of ours, nor have he and his descendants left traces alonjr 
 the dreary track of their existence to induce a desire to claim relation- 
 ship with them. 
 
 We are Americans ; but yesterday we were Europeans, — Nether- 
 landers, Saxons, Normans, Swabians, Celts ; and the day before yes- 
 terday, Asiatics, Mongolians, what you will. 
 
 The orbit of civilization, so far as our perishing records enable us 
 to trace it, seems preordained from East to West. China, India, Pal- 
 estine, Egypt, Greece, Rome, are successively lighted up as the majestic 
 orb of day moves over them ; and as he advances still farther through 
 his storied and mysterious zodiac, we behold the shadows of evening 
 as surely falling on th. lands which he leaves behind him. 
 
 Man still reeled on, — falling, rising again, staggering forward 
 with hue and ciy at his heels, — a wounded felon daring to escape 
 from the prison to which the grace of God had inexorably doomed 
 him. And still there was progress. Besides the sword, two other 
 instniments grew every day more potent, — the pen and the purse. 
 
 The power of the pen soon created a stupendous monopoly. Clerks 
 obtained privilege of murder because of their learning; a Norman 
 king gloried in the appellation of " fine clerk," because he could spell ; 
 the sons of serfs and washerwomen became high pontiffs, put their 
 
MOTLEY. 311. 
 
 feet on the necks of emperors, through the might of education, and 
 applied tlie souls of tyrants with their weird anathemas. Naturally, 
 the priests kept the talisman of learning to themselves. How should 
 education help them to power and pelf, if the people could participate 
 in the mystic spell ? The icy Deadhand of the Church, ever extended, 
 was tilled to overflowing by trembling baron and superstitious hind. 
 
 But there was another power steadily augmenting, — the magic 
 purse of Fortunatus with its clink of perennial gold. Commerce 
 changed clusters of hovels, cowering for protection under feudal cas- 
 tles, into powerful cities. Burghers wrested or purchased liberties 
 from their lords and masters. 
 
 And still man struggled on. An experimenting friar, fond of 
 chemistry, in one corner of Europe, put niter, sulphur, and charcoal 
 together;* a sexton or doctor, in another obscure nook, carved 
 letters on blocks of wood ; f and lo ! there were explosions shaking 
 the solid earth, and causing the iron-clad man on horseback to reel in 
 his saddle. 
 
 It was no wonder that Dr. Faustus was supposed to have sold his 
 soul to the fiend. Whence but from devilish alliance could he have 
 derived such power to strike down the grace of God ? 
 
 Speech, the alphabet, Mount Sinai, Egypt, Greece, Borne, Nazareth, 
 the wandering of the nations, the feudal system, Magna Charta, gun- 
 powder, printing, the Reformation, the mariner's compass, America, 
 — here are some of the great landmarks of human motion. 
 
 As we pause for a moment's rest, after our rapid sweep through the 
 eons and the centuries, have we not the right to record proof of man's 
 progress since the days of the rhinoceros-eaters of Bedfordshire, of 
 the man of Natchez? 
 
 • The discorerr of gtrnpowder by Bertholdas, a Genn«n monk, in 1S20. 
 
   GiTr.jtBKRO, bom in Germany alKmt 1400, is genenlly caHed the inventor of printinfr- He 
 wa« the first to print from letters cut on blocks of wood and metal. He was associated with Dr. 
 Fnii^tiM, tiit-nfidnwl hdow. Having printed off numbers of ropirs of the Bible, to imitate tliosc 
 hIikIi «<•!( (niiuiiiiiily sold in manusrript, Hayden says Dr. Faustun undertook the sale of them 
 m Vnn* « lirri- |»niuin(t «aa then unknown. As he sold his copies for sixty crowns, while the 
 »rnlic9 demanded the hundred, he created universal astonishment ; but when he produced copies 
 n* fii«t M they were wanted, and lowered the price to thirty crowns, all Paris was agitated. The 
 
 ' the copies increase*! the wonder: informations were given to the police against 
 
 mn, and hi* l<Mlginz« being searchetl and a great number of copies In-ing found, 
 /<d Tlie red ink with wliirh they were eml>elli8he<I was supposed to \>e bis blood, 
 auil ;i ua« striounly adjudged that he was in league with the IHnil ; and if he had not fled, he 
 Would have shared the fate of those wliom superstitiuus judges coiidrnincd in those tUys for 
 witelicn»n, a. u. llflO. The career of Dr. Faustus has formed the subject of nameroos dramas, 
 mmances, and poems, the moat nouble of which are Goethe's Fautt, and the oelebnUed opera 
 of that name. 
 
312 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 And for details and detached scenes in the j^eneral phantasmao^oria, 
 which has bt*en ever shifting Ix'fore us, we may seek for illustration, 
 instruction, or comfort in any age or land where authentic record can 
 be found. We may take a calm survey of passionate, democratic 
 Greece in her great civil war through the terse, judicial narrative of 
 Thucydides ;   we may learn to loathe despotism in that marvelous 
 portrait-gallery of crime which the somber and terrible Tacitus f has 
 bequeathed ; we may cross the yawning abysses and dreary deserts 
 which lie between two civiliiMitions over that stately viaduct of a thou- 
 sand arches which the great hand of Gibbon has constructed ; we may 
 penetrate to the inmost political and social heart of England, during 
 a period of nine years, by help of the magic wand of Macaulay ; we 
 may linger in the stately portico to the unbuilt dome which the daring 
 genius of Buckle consumed his life in devising ; we may yield to the 
 sweet fascinations which ever dwell in the picturesque pages of Pres- 
 cott ; wc may investigate rules, apply and ponder examples : but the 
 detail of history is essentially a blank, and nothing could be more 
 dismal than its pursuit, unless the mind be filled by a broad view of 
 its general scheme. 
 
 THE BELIEF OF LEYDEN.+ 
 
 The besieged city § was at its last gasp. The burghers had been 
 in a state of uncertainty for many days ; being aware that the fleet 
 had set forth for their relief, but knowing full well the thousand ob- 
 stacles which it had to surmount. They had guessed its progi-ess by 
 the illumination from the blazing villages, they had heard its salvos 
 of artillery on its arrival at North Aa ; but since then all had been 
 dark and mournful again, — hope and fear, in sickening alternation, 
 
 • Thucydides. One of the most illastrious of the Greek historians, born 471 b. c. His 
 celebrity rests npon his unlinished Hutory of the Pelopontutian War. (See Grote's History of 
 Greece.) 
 
 t TAcrrrs. A celebrated Roman historian, born about 65 a. d. His reputation is chiefly 
 founde<l on his AnnaU, in sixteen books, which record the history of the Koman Empire from the 
 death of Augustus a. d. li to the death of Nero a. d. 68. Excepting the seventh, eighth, ninth, 
 and tenth books, the work still exists. 
 
 t The extract is from Mr. Motley's brilliant history. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. 
 
 ^ Lkydf.x, now a flourishing manufacturing town of South Holland. It was besieged by the 
 Spaniards in 1574, when they tried to subdue the Netherlands under their yoke. Tlie siege be- 
 gan on 31st October, 1573, and ended on 3d October, 1574. It was relieved by the dikes being 
 cut, and the sea let in on the Spanish works. Mfteen hundred Spaniards were slain or drowned. 
 The University of Leyden was erected as a memorial of this gallant defense and happy deliver- 
 ance. The reiief of Leyden was a fatal blow to Spanish power in the Netherlands. 
 
MOTLEY. 818 
 
 distracting every breast. They knew that the wind was unfavorable, 
 and at the dawn of each day every eye was turned wistfully to the 
 vanes of the steeples. 80 long as the easterly breeze prevailed, they 
 felt, as they anxiously stood on towers and house-tops, tliat they must 
 look in vain for the welcome ocean. 
 
 Yet, while thus patiently waiting, they were literally starving ; for 
 even the misery endured at Huark'in * had not reached that depth and 
 intensity of agony to which Leyden was now reduced. Bread, mult- 
 cake, horse-flesh, had entirely disappeared ; dogs, cats, rats, and other 
 vermin were esteemed luxuries. A small number of cows, kept as 
 long as possible for their milk, still remained ; but a few were killed 
 from day to day, and distributed in minute portions, hardly sufficient 
 to support life, among the famishing population. Starving wretches 
 swarmed daily around the shambles where these cattle were slaugh- 
 tered, contending for any morsel which might fall, and lapping eager- 
 ly the blood as it ran along the pavement ; while the hides, chopped 
 and boiled, were greedily devonnnl. 
 
 Women and children, all day long, were seen searching gutters and 
 elsewhere for morsels of food, which they disputed fiercely with the 
 famishing dogs. The green leaves were stripped from the trees, 
 every living herb was converted into hu>nan food ; but these expedi- 
 ents could not avert starvation. The daily mortality was frightful. 
 Infants starved to death on tiie maternal breasts wiiich famine had 
 parched and withered ; mothers dropped dead in the streets, with their 
 deatl children in their arms. 
 
 In many a house the watchmen, in their rounds, found a whole 
 family of corpses — father, mother, children — side by side ; for a 
 disorder, called " the Plague," naturally engendered of hardship and 
 famine, now came, as if in kindness, to abridge the agony of the peo- 
 ple. Pestilence stalked at noonday through the city, and the doomed 
 inhabitants fell like grass beneath his scythe. From six to eight 
 thousand human beings sank Wfore this scourge nlone ; yet the 
 people resolutely held out, women and men mutually encouraging 
 each other to resist the entrance of their foreign foe.f — an evil more 
 horrible than pest or famine. 
 
 • Haailek. Prpdfrirk. the ann of Alva, gtanrtl the little grarrisoo of Haarlem (90 mile* 
 north of I/cyden) into a iurrcnder (1673) ; and thrn. enraged at the gallant drfcnse they had 
 tiia.l. , l)iiu lurrtl theni without mercy. When the executionert were worn out with their bloody 
 work. b« iMd the tJurae hoiulnd dltMM Uut muaiaod iMck to back^aad fl«u tliem into tbe 9e^ 
 
 tTteSpuknU. 
 
 13 • 
 
314 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 Leyden was sublime in its despair. A few murmurs were, how- 
 ever, occasionally heard at the steadfastness of the magistrates ; and a 
 dead body was placed at the door of the burgomaster, as a silent wit- 
 ness against his inflexibility. A party of the more faint-hearted even 
 assailed the heroic Adrian Van der Werf   with threats and reproaches 
 as he passed along the streets. A crowd had gathered around him as 
 he reached a triangular pkce in the center of the town, into which 
 many of the principal streets emptied themselves, and upon one si(l< 
 of which stood the Church of St. Pancras. 
 
 There stood the burgomaster, a tall, haggard, imposing figure, with 
 dark visage and a tranquil but commanding eye. He waved his 
 broad-leaved felt hat for silence, and then exclaimed, in language 
 which has been almost lit^Tally preserved, " What would ye, my 
 friends ? Why do ye murmur that we do not break our vows and 
 surrender the city to the Spaniards, — a fate more horrible than the 
 agony which she now endures ? I tell you I have made an oath to 
 hold the city ; and may God give me stjrength to keep my oath ! I 
 can die but once, whether by your hands, the enemy's, or by the 
 hand of God. My own fate is indifferent to me ; not so that of the 
 city intrusted to my care. I know that we shall starve if not soon 
 relieved ; but starvation is preferable to the dishonored death which 
 is the only alternative. Your menaces move me not. My life is at 
 your disposal. Here is my sword ; plunge it into my breast, and 
 divide my flesh among you. Take my body to appease your hunger, 
 but expect no surrender so long as I remain alive." 
 
 On the 28th of September a dove flew into the city, bringing a 
 letter from Admiral Boisot.f In this despatch the position of the 
 fleet at North Aa was descril)ed in encouraging terms, and the inhab- 
 itants were assured that, in a very few days at furthest, the long- 
 expected relief would enter their gates. 
 
 The tempest came to their relief. A violent equinoctial gale, on 
 the night of the 1st and 2d of October, came storming from the 
 northwest, shifting after a few hours fully eight points, and then 
 blowing still more violently from the southwest. The waters of the 
 North Sea were piled in vast masses upon the southern coast of Hol- 
 land, and then dashed furiously landward, the ocean rising over the 
 earth and sweeping with unrestrained power across the mined dikes. 
 
 * Adkiak Van dek Werf, the burgomaster, or chief magistrate of Leyden. 
 f Adxikal Boisot, the commander of the Dutch fleet. 
 
MOTLEY. 316 
 
 In the course of tweiity-four hours the fleet at North Aa, instead of 
 nine inches, had more than two feet of water. 
 
 On it went, swotping over the broad waters. As they approached 
 some shallows which led into the great Mere, the Zeelanders dashed 
 into the sea, and with sht^r strength shouldered every vessel 
 through ! 
 
 It was resolved that a sortie, in conjunction with the operations 
 of Boisot, should be made against Lammen* with the eiirliest dawn. 
 Night descended upon the scene, — a pitch-dark night, full of anxiety 
 to the Spjiniards, to the Armada, to Leyden. Strange sights and 
 sounds occurred at different moments to bewilder the anxious senti- 
 nels. A long procession of lights issuing from the fort was seen to 
 Hit across the black face of the waters, in the dead of night ; and the 
 whole of the city wall between the Cowgate and the town of Burgun- 
 dy fell with a loud crash. The horror-struck citizens thought that 
 the Spcuiiards were upon them at last ; the Spaniards imagined the 
 noise to indicate a desperate sortie of the citizens. Everything was 
 vague and mysterious. 
 
 Day dawned at length after the feverish night, and the admiral 
 pn*pared for the assault. Within the fortress reigned a dejith-like 
 stillness, which inspired a sickening suspicion. Had the city indeed 
 l)een cjirried in the night ? Had the massacre already commenced ? 
 Had all this labor and audacity been expended in vain ? 
 
 Suddenly a man was descried wading breast-high through the water 
 from Lammen towards the fleet, while at the same time, one solitary 
 l)oy was seen to wave his cap from the summit of the fort. After a 
 moment of doubt, the happy mystery wns solved. The Spaniards had 
 fled panic-struck during the darkness. Their position would still have 
 enablctl them, with firmness, to fnistrate the enterprise of the patriots ; 
 but the hand of God, which hml sent the ocean and the tempest to 
 the deliverance of Leyden, had stnick lur enemies with terror like- 
 wise. 
 
 Tin* lights which had been seen moving during the night were the 
 lanterns of the retreating Spaniards ; and the boy who was now waving 
 his triumphant signal from the battlements had alone witnessed the 
 
 * I.AM1IKN,   fort oecapied hy the Spanmrdt, which formrd the sole 
 tween ihr flrrt mad the dty. It nranaed with loldieri «nd hrintlrd with mbbob ; aad m aetU 
 mm M inpedimait did BoiMi eoMlder it, that he wrote that very ni^t is deipaidiag Unms 
 rcftiiiag it to the Prinee of Onagc. 
 
316 CATiirAT^r's literary reader. 
 
 spectacle. So confident was he in the conclusion to which it led him, 
 that he had volunteered at daybreak to go thither alone. 
 
 The magistrates, fearing a trap, hesitated for a moment to belieye 
 the tnitli, which soon, however, became quite evident. Valdez,* flying 
 himself from Leyderdorp, had ordered Colonel Borgia to retire with 
 ail his troops from Lam men. 
 
 Thus the Spaniards hail retreated at the very moment thai ai. < \iiuor- 
 dinary accident had laid bare a whole side of the city for their en- 
 trance ! The noise of the wall as it fell only inspired them with fresh 
 {Uarm ; for they believed that the citizens had sallied forth in the 
 darkness to aid the advancing flood in the work of destruction. 
 
 All obstacles being now removed, the fleet of Boisot swept by 
 Lam men, and entered the city on the morning of the 3d of October. 
 Leyden was relieved ! 
 
 THE HEEO OF THE DUTCH EEPUBLIC. 
 
 No man — not even Washington — has ever been inspired by a 
 purer patriotism than that of William of Orange. Whether original- 
 ly of a timid temperament or not, he was c^'rtainly possessed of perfect 
 courage at last. In siege and battle, in the deadly air of pestilential 
 cities, in the long exhaustion of mind and body which comes from 
 unduly protracted labor and anxiety, amid the countless conspiracies 
 of assassins, he was daily exposed to death in every shape. Within 
 two years five different attempts against his life had been discovered. 
 Rank and fortune were offered to any malefactor who would compass 
 the murder. He had already been shot through the head, and almost 
 mortally wounded. He went through life bearing the load of a peo- 
 ple's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face. Their name was 
 the last word upon his lips, save the simple affirmative with which the 
 soldier who had been battling for the right all his lifetime commended 
 his soul, in dying, " to the great Captain, Christ." The people were 
 jrrateful and affectionate, for thev trusted the character of their " Fa- 
 thcr William," and not all the clouds which calumny could collect 
 ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty mind to which 
 they were accustomed, in their darkest calamities, to look for light. 
 As long as he lived he ^vas the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, 
 and when he died the little children cried in the streets. 
 
 * Vai.dez, the Spanish commander. His head-quarters were at Leyderdorp, a mile and a half 
 to the right of Lammen. 
 
FROUDE. 317 
 
 FEOUDE. 
 1818- 
 
 Jaum Atthomt Faot'DE, the historian, was born in Devonshire, England, in 1818. He 
 graduated at Oxford Uniri-rsity, and became a Fellow of Exeter College. His first book was a 
 novel, Th' Shadows of the Cloudt, which had much merit, but is now forgotten. His second 
 was Tkr S'-inen.i i,f Faith, a theological work which attracted much attention. But his third 
 essay, iu the laid of history, was conspicuously succv^vsful. His History of BnfflanJ embraces 
 tlie period between the Fail of Wolaey and the Death of Elizabeth, and furnishes the completest 
 ^ lew nf that time that has ever been written. In its preparation the author availed himself of a 
 i.iiL'i' collection of manuscripts never before discovered, and which threw a strong liglit upon 
 ti > Milijrct. Mr. Fn)udc is not absolutely impartial as an historian; he often gives way to hi* 
 p; . jiiiiices, and seems to pervert testimony in aid of his own opinions. His treatment of the case 
 of .M:iiy Queen of Scots has been shown to be thoroughly unjost. But he has admirable qualiti- 
 rn'M w for historical writing; his philosophical reflections are judicious, and his siyle is spirited 
 -iblc. Some of his dramatic passages are equal to any in our historical literature. Al> 
 l)est known, in this country, at least, by his Uisiory, Mr. Froude has written many able 
 ' oil moral, social, and educational topics, some of which hav^ been collected in a volume en- 
 
 • i Short SlnJies on Great Subjects, from which the second extract is taken. He is now engaged 
 oil a ixKik entitled The EnglUk in Irrlamti, the first volume of which has been published. In 1872 
 )lr. Froude visited this coontry on a lecturing tour, and was receired with marked cordiality. 
 
 EXECUTION OF SIE THOMAS MOEE • 
 
 At daybreak More was awoke by the entrance of Sir Thomas Pope, 
 wlio had come to confirm his anticipations, and to tell him it was the 
 king's pleasure that he should suffer at nine o'clock that morning. 
 He received the news with utter composure. " I am much boundea 
 to the king," he said, " for the benefits and honors he has bestowed 
 on me ; and, so help me God, most of all I am bounden to him that it 
 pleaseth his Majesty to rid me so shortly out of the miseries of this 
 present world." 
 
 Pope told him the king desired that he would not " use many words 
 on the scaffold." " Mr. Pope," he answered, " you do well to give 
 me warning, for otherwise I had purpostni somewhat to have spoken ; 
 but no matter wherewith his Grace should have cause to be offended. 
 
 • Sir Thomas Mokr, a celebrated English philosopher and statesman, bom in London in 
 1480. He was the author of the famous Utopia, a fanciful production written in I.rfitin, describ- 
 ; an imaginary commonwealth in the imaginary island of Utopia, the citizens of which had 
 tUap in common. He was a strong Roman Catholic, and wrote tracU against Luther. In 
 " sr, 16», he was appointed Lord Chancellor by Henry VIII. in place of the famous Cardi- 
 Wolaey (see extract from Shaketpeare's King Henry the Eighth, page 5V Sir Thomas 
 to sanctbn the divorce of Qneen Catherine and the marriage of King Henry to Aune 
 ftwr which be was beheaded in the Tower on the 6tli <tf July, 1536. (See CtmpMl's Lives 
 lord Cka»eMor$, and Fnmd^s History of Bnftmni.) 
 
318 CATHCAKt's l.ITEKARY READER. 
 
 Howbeit, whatever I intended, I shall obey his Highness's com- 
 mand." 
 
 He afterwards discussed the arrangements for the funeral, at which 
 he begged that his family might be present ; and when all was settled. 
 Pope rose to leave him. He was an old friend. He took More's 
 hand and wrung it, and, quite overcome, burst into tears. 
 
 " Quiet yourself, Mr. Pope," More said, " and be not discomfited, 
 for I trust we shall once see each other full merrily, when we shall 
 live and love together in eternal bliss." 
 
 As soon as he was alone he dressed in his most elaborate costume. 
 It was for the benefit, he said, of the executioner who was to do him 
 so gri»t a service.* Sir William Kingston remonstrated, and with 
 some difficulty induced him to put on a plainer suit ; but that his 
 intended liberality should not fail, he sent the man a gold angel in 
 compensition, " as a token that he maliced him nothing, but ratlin 
 loved him extremely." 
 
 So about nine of the clock he was brought by the Lieutenant out 
 of the Tower ; his beard being long, which fashion he had never be- 
 fore used, his face pale and lean, carrying in his hands a red cross, 
 casting his eyes often towards heaven. He had been unpopular as a 
 judge, and one or two persons in the crowd were insolent to him ; but 
 the distance was short and soon over, as all else was nearly over now. 
 
 The scaffold hatl been awkwardly erected, and shook as he placed 
 his foot upon the ladder. " See me safe up," he said to Kingston. 
 " Por my coming down I can shift for myself." He began to speak 
 to the people, but the sheriff begged him not to proceed, and he con- 
 tented himself with asking for their prayers, and desiring them to 
 bear witness for him that he died in the faith of the holy Catholic 
 Church, and a faithful servant of Grod and the king. He then repeated 
 the Miserere psjilmf on his knees ; and when he had ended and had 
 risen, the executioner, with an emotion which promised ill for the man- 
 ner in which his part in the tragedy would be accomplished, begged 
 his forgiveness. More kissed him. " Thou art to do me the great- 
 est benefit that I can receive," he said. *' Pluck up thy spirit, man, 
 and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short. Take 
 heed, therefore, that thou strike not awry for saving of thine honesty." 
 The executioner offered to tie his eyes. " I will cover them myself," 
 
 * The cjcecutioDcr received the clothes worn by the sufferer. 
 t Psalm IL 
 
FROUDE. 819 
 
 he said ; ftiid binding; them in a cloth which he had brought with 
 him, he knelt, and laid his head upon the block. The fatal stroke 
 was about to fall, when he signed for a moment's delay while he 
 moved aside his beard. " Pity th:it should be cut," he murmured, 
 " tliat has not committed treason." With which strange words, the 
 strangest, perhaps, ever uttered at such a time, the lips most famous 
 through Europe for eloquence and wisdom closed forever. 
 
 " So," concludes his biographer, " witli alacrity and spiritual joy he 
 received tlie fatal ax, which no sooner had severed the head from the 
 body, but his soul was carried by angels into everlasting glory, where 
 a crown of martyrdom was placed upon him which can never fade nor 
 decay ; and then he found those words true which he had often spoken, 
 that a man may lose his head and have no harm." 
 
 This was the execution of Sir Thomas More, an act which sounded 
 out into the far corners of the earth, and was the world's wonder as 
 well for the circmnstances under which it was perpetrated, as for the 
 preternatural composure with which it was borne. Something of his 
 calmness may have been due to his natural temperament, something 
 to an unaffected weariness of a world which in his eyes was plunging 
 into the ruin of the latter days. But those fair hues of sunny cheer- 
 fidncss caught their color from the simplicity of his faith ; and never 
 was there a Christian's victory over death more grandly evidenced than 
 in that last scene lighted with its lambent humor. 
 
 THE BOOK OF JOB. 
 
 With the Book of Job analytical criticism has only served to clear 
 up the uncertainties which have hitherto always hung about it. It is 
 now considered to be beyond all doubt a genuine Hebrew original, 
 completed by its writer almost in the form in which it now remains to 
 us. It is the most diflicult of all the Hebrew compositions, — many 
 words occurring in it, and many thoughts, not to be found elsewhere 
 in the Bible. How difficult our translators found it may be seen by 
 the number of words which they were oblignl to insert in it^dies, and 
 tlir doubtful renderings which they have suggested in the margin. 
 Tiure are many mythical and physical allusions sciittennl over the 
 poem, which, in the sixteenth century, there were positively no means 
 of understanding ; and perhaps, too, there were mental tendencies in 
 the transUitors themselves which prevented them from adequately ap- 
 prehending even the drill and spirit of the composition. 
 
'S'ZO catucakt's literary reader. 
 
 The form of the story was too stringent to allow such tendencies 
 any latitude ; but they appear, from time to time, sufficiently to pro- 
 duce serious confusion. With these recent assistances, therefore, we 
 propose to say something of the nature of this extraordinary book, — 
 a book of which it is to say little to call it unequaled of its kind, and 
 which will one day, perhaps, when it is allowed to stand on its own 
 merits, be seen toweriu": up alone, far away above all the poetry of the 
 world. How it found its way into the canon, smitinj^ as it does 
 throu<j:h and through the most deeply seated Jewish prejudices, is the 
 chief difficulty about it now ; to be explained only by a traditional 
 acceptance among the sacred books, dating back from the old times 
 of the national greatness, when the minds of the people were hewn in 
 a larger type than was to be found among the Pharisees of the great 
 synagogue. But its authorship, its date, and its history are alike a 
 mystery to us ; it existetl at the time when the canon was composed ; 
 and this is all that we know beyond what we can gather out of the 
 language and contents of the poem itself. 
 
 The conjectures which have been formed upon the date of this 
 book are so various that they show of themselves on how slight a 
 foundation the best of them must rest. The language is no guide, for 
 although unquestionably of Hebrew origin, the poem bears no analogy 
 to any of the other books in the Bible ; while of its external history 
 nothing is known at all, except that it was received into the canon at 
 the time of the great synagogue. Ewald decides, with some confi- 
 dence, that it belongs to the great prophetic period, and that the 
 writer was a contemporary of Jeremiah, Ewald is a high authority 
 in these matters, and this opinion is the one which we believe is now 
 commonly received among biblical scholars. In the absence of proof, 
 however (and the reasons which he brings fonvard are really no more 
 than conjectures), these opposite considerations may be of moment. 
 It is only natural that at first thought we should ascribe the grandest 
 poem in a literature to the time at which the poetry of the nation to 
 wliich it belongs was generally at its best ; but, on reflection, the time 
 when the poetiy of prophecy is the richest, is not likely to be favor- 
 able to compositions of another kind. The prophets MTote in an era 
 of decrepitude, dissolution, sin, and shame, when the glory of Israel 
 was falling round them into ruin, and their mission, glowing as they 
 were wifh the ancient spirit, was to rebuke, to warn, to threaten, and 
 to promise. Finding themselves too late to save, and only, like 
 
FKOUDE. 321 
 
 Cassandra, despised and disregarded, their voices rise up singing the 
 swan song of a dying people, now falling away in tlie wild wailing of 
 despondency over the shameful and desperate present, now swelling in 
 triumphant hope that God will not leave them forever, and in his 
 own time will take his chosen to himself again. But such a period 
 is an ill occasion for searching into the broad problems of human 
 destiny ; the present is all-important and all-absorbing ; and such a 
 l)ook as that of Job could have arisen only out of an isolation of mind, 
 anil life, and interest, which we cannot conceive of as possible under 
 such conditions. 
 
 The more it is studied, the more the conclusion forces itself upon 
 us that, let the writer have lived when he would, in his struggle with 
 the central falsehood of his own people's creed, he must have divorced 
 himself from them outwardly as well as inwardly ; that he traveled 
 away into the world, and lived long, perhaps all his matured life, in 
 exUe. Everything about the book speaks of a person who had broken 
 free from the narrow littleness of "the peculiar people." The lan- 
 guage, as we said, is full of strange wonls. The hero of the poem is of 
 a strange land and parentage, — a Grentile certaiidy, not a Jew. The 
 life, the manners, the customs, are of all varieties and places : Egypt, 
 with its river and its pyramids, is there ; the description of mining 
 points to Phoenicia; the settled life in cities, the nomad Arabs, the 
 wandering caravans, the heat of the tropics, and the ice of the north, 
 all are foreign to Canaan, speaking of foreign things and foreign peo- 
 ple. No mention, or hint of mention, is there throughout the poem 
 of Jewish traditions or Jewish certainties. We look to find the three 
 friends vindicate themselves, as they so well might have done, by 
 a])])eal8 to the fertile annals of Israel, to the Flood, to the cities of the 
 ])laiii, to the plagues of Egj'pt, or the thunders of Sinni. But of all 
 this there is not a wonl ; they are passed by as if they had no exist- 
 ence ; and instead of them, when witnesses are required for the power 
 of God, we have strange nn-Hebrew stories of the Eastern astronomic 
 mythology, the old wars of the giants, the imprisoned Orion, the 
 wounded dnigon, " the sweet influences of the seven stars," and the 
 glittering fragments of the s<'a-snake Rnhab* trailing across the 
 northern sky. Again, God is not the God of Israel, but the father 
 of mankind ; we hear nothing of a chosen people, nothing of a special 
 re\'elation, nothing of peculiar privileges ; and in the court of heaven 
 
 • Sfe Evald on Job ix. 13. and xxvl. 14. 
 
322 CATHC art's lttbrary reader. 
 
 there is a Satan, not the prince of this world and the enemy of God, 
 but the angel of judgment, the accusing spirit whose mission was to 
 walk to and fro over the earth, and carry up to hciiven an account of 
 the sins of mankind. We cannot believe that thoughts of this kind 
 arose out of Jerusalem in the days of Josiah. The scenes, the names, 
 and the incidents are all contrived as if to baffle curiosity, — as if, in 
 the very form of the poem, to teach us that it is no story of a single 
 thing which happened once, but that it belongs to humanity itself, and 
 is the drama of the trial of man, with Almighty God and the angels 
 as the spectators of it. 
 
 No reader can have failed to have been struck with the simplicity 
 of the opening. Still, calm, and most majestic, it tells us ever} thing 
 which is necessary to be known in the fewest possible words. The 
 history of Job was probably a tradition in the East ; his name, like 
 that of Priam in Greece, the symbol of fallen greatness, and his mis- 
 fortunes the problem of philosophers. In keeping with the current 
 belief, he is described as a model of excellence, the most perfect and 
 upright man upon the earth, ** and the same was the greatest man in all 
 the east." So fur, greatness and goodness liad gone hand in hand to- 
 gether, as the popular theory required. The details of his character are 
 brought out in the progress of the poem. He was " the father of the 
 oppressed, and of those who had none to help them." When he sat as 
 a judge in the market-places, " righteousness clothed him " there, and 
 " his justice was a robe and a diadem." He " broke the jaws of the 
 wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth " ; and. humble in the 
 midst of his power, he " did not despise the cause of his man-servant, 
 or liis maid-servant, when they contended with him," knowing that 
 "He who had made him had made them," and one *' had fashioned 
 them both in the womb." Above all, he was the friend of the poor; 
 " the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him," and 
 he " made the widow's heart to sing for joy." 
 
 Setting these characteristics of his daily life by the side of his un- 
 affected piety, as it is described in the first chapter, we have a picture 
 of the best man who could then be conceived ; not a hard ascetic, 
 living in haughty or cowardly isolation, but a warm figure of flesh 
 and blood, a man full of all human loveliness, and to whom God him- 
 self bears the emphatic testimony, that " there was none like him upon 
 the earth, a perfect and upright man, who feared God and eschewed 
 evil." 
 
HELPS. 323 
 
 HELPS. 
 
 1818- 1875. 
 
 Sm AnTHU* Hki.ph wm Iwrn in England in 1818, and died in 1878. He has written two 
 clr»niatic poems of more tlrnn average merit, but is best known by his essays, in which depart- 
 nii-nt of htereture he occupies a unique and very bonorable place. His most popular books are 
 /Vi';i Is in Council and CompanioMs of my Soliii<Je. In these volumes are reported the conver- 
 !«-i':.)n<i of a com|uuiy of friends, who discuss questions of various \inds, — ethical, social, aod 
 li.rnry. English literature contains nothing in the shape of colloquial essays that approaches 
 til!'*.- in nuTit. The individuality of the interlocutors it carefully preserved, and the reader 
 n.-i|uir<-4 .1 personal interest in each hardly subordinate to the general effect of the wisdom which 
 tlii-y in'.cnliange. The thcmght of these essays is elfective not only by its intrinsic vigor and its 
 w iti !ifiil nftinity for the mind of average intelligence, but by the inimitable grace and almost 
 jii>. i i.n '^-ntleness of its expression. No writer is more remote from dogmatism than Mr. 
 Ii< 1^ but his opinions bear unmistakable marks of maturity and fixedness. His felicity of 
 r 1- :niian is hardly surpassed, and the tender human sympathy which warms all his writings 
 i ! '. -> him very near to his readers. Mr. Helps was not a powerful original thinker; but he 
 li ! •:.'• art of presenting the best thought in the most impressive and persuasive shape, in an 
 ■a', i: > ' unequaled degree, and of calling out or reanimating ideas which have been latent in the 
 ii;ii(U rtf his readers. There are no essays in the language, save perhaps those of Macaulay, 
 that are at once so delightful and so instructive as Mr. Helps's. The subtile and sweet influ- 
 ence of Mr Helps's writings is cordially acknowledged by Mr. Kuskin, and other authoriutive 
 critici have united in praise of the serene beauty of liia style and the stimulating and suggestive 
 pDtiticv of his philosophy. He was the author of two novels, or rather essays in the form of 
 novels, Ri-almak and Caaimir Maremmm, and luul lately produced an historical novel of Russian 
 life called InoH Je Biron. For many yeara Mr. Helps held an oflicc in the personal service of 
 Queen Victoria, and a short time before his death he received the honor of knighthood. 
 
 DISCOVEBT OF THE PACIFIC OCEAH. 
 
 Vasco NuSez * resolved, therefore, to be the discoverer of that seA 
 and of those rich lands to which Comagre's son had pointed, when, 
 after rebuking the Spaniards for their '* brabblifig " about the division 
 of the gold, he turned his face towards the south. In the peril which 
 so closely impended over Vasco Nunez there was no use in waiting 
 for reinforcements from Spain : when those reinforcements should 
 come, his dismissal M'ould come too. Accordingly, early in Septem- 
 ber, 1513, he set out on his renownetl expedition for finding " the 
 other sea," accompani(>d by a hundnxl and ninety men well armed, 
 
 * Vasco McSTez db Balboa. A rel^bratH Spanish nartgator and discorerer, bora aboat 
 li7S DJ Bs eiu bBS baring arisen 1' partisans of an expedition which had landed on 
 
 tlic IitluMBS of nuiama in 1610, <>' 1 was a nu-inber, he was chosen leader of the 
 
 rxpoditioB, and, having obtained r< . > from Columbus at Hispaniola, he proceeded to 
 
 explore the Isthmus of Darien, and on the itJih of September, ISIS, discovered from the soataiit 
 of a mountain the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Like Colambos he was traduced by Jcaloas 
 nxaU. and wn« finally executed on a charge of traaaonabk deaigns in ISI7. (See Iniag** 
 t\>f)aijts iinJ Ihtcrrrifs of Ike ComjkimioMt <tf Cottimttu.) 
 
324 ^ATIK^\UT^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 and by dogs, which wen; oi more avail than men, and by Indian 
 slaves to carry the burdens. 
 
 Polio wing Poncha's guide, Vasco Nuiiez and his men commenced 
 the ascent of the mountains, until he ent^Tcd the country of un Indian 
 chief called Quarcqim, whom they found fully prepared to resist them. 
 The brave Indian advanced at the head of his troops, intending to 
 make a vigorous att;ick ; but they could not withstand the discharsrc 
 of the fire-arms. Indeed, they believed the Spaniards to have thn 
 der and lightning in their hands, — not an unreasonable fancy, — ana, 
 flying in the utmost terror from the place of battle, a total rout ensued. 
 The rout was a bloody one, and is described by an author, who gained 
 Ills information from those who were present at it, as a scene to 
 remind one of the shambles. The king and his principal men were 
 slain, to the number of six hundred. 
 
 Speaking of these people, Peter Martyr makes mention of the 
 sweetness of their language, saying that all the words in it might be 
 written in Latin letters, as was also to be remarked in that of the 
 inhabitants of Hispaniola. TJiis writer also mentions, and there is 
 reason for thinking that he was correctly informed, that there was a 
 region, not two days* journey from Quarequa's territory, in which 
 Vasco Nunez found a race of black men, who were conjectured to 
 haye come from Africa, and to have been shipwrecked on this coast. 
 Leaving several of his men, who were ill, or over-weary, in Quarequa's 
 chief town, and taking with him guides from this country, the Spanish 
 commander pursued his way up the most lofty sierras there, until, on 
 the 25th of September, 1513, he came near the top of a mountain from 
 whence the South Sea was visible. The distance from Poncha's chief 
 town to this point was forty leagues, reckoned then six days* journey ; 
 but Vasco Nunez and his men took twenty-five days to accomplish it, 
 as they suffered much from the roughness of the ways and from the 
 want of provisions. 
 
 A little before Vasco Nunez reached the height, Quarequa's Indians 
 informed him of his near approach to the sea. It was a sight in 
 beholding which for the first time any man would wish to be alone. 
 Vasco Nunez bade his men sit down while he ascended, and then, 
 in solitude, looked down upon the vast Pacific, — the first man of 
 the Old World, so far as we know, who had done so. Falling on 
 his knees, he gave thanks to God for the favor shown to him, in his 
 being permitted to discover the sea of the South. Then with his 
 
HELPS. 325 
 
 hand he beckoned to liis men to corae up. When they had come, 
 both he and they knelt down, and poured forth their thanks to God. . 
 
 He then addressed them in these words : '* You see here, gentlemen 
 and children mine, how our desires are being accompli shed, and the 
 end of otfr Itilmrs. Of tliat we ought to lie cerUiin ; for, as it has 
 turned out true, what King Comagre's son told of this sea to us, who 
 never thought to see it, so I hold for certain that what he told us of 
 there being incomparable treasures in it will be fulfilled. God and 
 His Blessed Mother, who have assisted us, so that we should arrive 
 here and behold this sea, will favor us, that we may enjoy all tlmt 
 there is in it." Afterward, they all devoutly sang the " Te Deum 
 Laudamus " ; and a list was drawn up, by a notary, of those who 
 were present at thi§ discovery, which was made upon St. Martin's 
 day. 
 
 Every great and original action has a prospective greatness, — not 
 alone from the thought of the man who achieves it, but from the vari- 
 ous aspects and high thoughts which the same action will continue to 
 present and call up in the minds of others to the end, it may be, of 
 all time. And so a remarkable event may go on acquiring more and 
 more significance. In this case, our knowledge that the Pacific, which 
 Vasco Nunez then beheld, occupies more than one half of the earth's 
 surface, is an element of thought which in our minds lightens up and 
 gives an awe to this first gaze of his upon those mighty waters. 
 
 Having thus addressed his men, Vasco Nunez proceeded to take 
 formal possession, on behalf of the kings of Castile, of the sea, and 
 of all that was in it ; and in order to make memorials of the event, 
 he cut down trees, formed crosses, and heaped up stones. He also 
 inscribed the names of the monarchs of Castile upon great trees in 
 the vicinity. 
 
 BEADING. 
 
 As the world grows older and as civilization advances, there is 
 likely to be more and more time given to reading. In several parts 
 of the earth where mankind are most active, and where the propor- 
 tion of those who need to lalK)r by their hands is less than in other 
 countries, and likely to go on becoming less, the climate is such as to 
 confine, if it does not repress, out-of-door amusements ; and, in all 
 climates, for the lovers of ease, the delicate in health, the reserved, the 
 fastidious, and the musing, books are amongst the chief sources of 
 
^26 CATUCAiiT's LITERARY READER. 
 
 delight, and such as will more probably intrench upon other joys and 
 occupations than give way to them. 
 
 If we consider what are the objects men pursue, when conscious of 
 any object at all, in reading, they are these : amusement, instruction, 
 a wish to appear well in society, and a desire to pass away time. 
 Now even the lowest of these objects is facilitated by reading with 
 method. The keenness of pursuit tlius engendered enriches the most 
 trifling gain, takes away the sense of dullness in details, and gives an 
 interest to what would, otherwise, be most repugnant. No one wlio 
 has never known the eager joy of some intellectual pursuit, can un- 
 derstand the full pleasure of n'ading. In considering the present 
 subject, the advantage to the world in general of many persons being 
 really versed in various subjects cannot be passed by. And were 
 reading wisely undertiiken, much more method and order would be 
 applied to the consideration of the immediate business of the world. 
 
 It must not be supposed tlmt this choice and maintenance of one or 
 more subjects of study must necessarily lead to pc-dantry or narrow- 
 ness of mind. The Arts are sisters ; Languages are close kindred . 
 Sciences are fellow -workmen ; almost every branch of Imman knowl- 
 edge is immediately connected with biography; biography falls into 
 histor}', which, after drawing into itself various minor streams, such as 
 geography, jurisprudence, political and social economy, issues forth 
 upon the still deeper waters of general philosophy. There are very 
 few, if any, vacant spaces between various kinds of knowledge : any 
 track in the forest, steadfastly pursued, leads into one of the great 
 highways ; just as you often tind, in considering the story of any little 
 island, that you are perpetually brought l^ack into the general history 
 of the world, and that this small rocky place has partaken the fate of 
 mighty thrones and distant empires. In short, all things are so con- 
 nected together, that a man who knows one subject well cannot, if he 
 would, fail to have acquired much besides : and that man will not be 
 likely to keep fewer pearls who has a string to put them on, than he 
 who picks them up and throws them together without method. 
 This, however, is a very poor metaphor to represent the matter ; for 
 what I would aim at producing, not merely holds together what is 
 gained, but has vitality in itself, is always growing. And anybody 
 will confirm this who, in his own case, has had any branch of study 
 or human aflairs to work upon ; for he must have observed how all 
 he meets seems to work in with, and assimilate itself to, his own pecu- 
 
HELPS. 827 
 
 liar subject. During his lonely walks, or in society, or in action, it 
 seems as if this one pursuit were something almost indeptMident of 
 himself, always ou tho u.iirli .nul rlainiiug its sii ire in wliatcwr is 
 going on. 
 
 Again, l)y recomnuMuiiug some ciiou'c of subject, and nu-thod in the 
 pursuit of it, I do not wish to be held to a narrow interpretation of 
 that word " subject." For example, I can imagine a man sjiying, I 
 do not care particularly to investigate this or that question in his- 
 tory ; I am not going to pursue any branch of science ; but I have a 
 desire to know what the most renowned men have written : I will 
 see what tiie twenty or thirty great poets have said ; what in various 
 ages has appeareil the best expression of the things nearest to the 
 heart and fancy of man. A person of more adventure and more time 
 might seek to include the greatest writers in morals or history. 
 There are not so many of them. If a man were to read a hundred 
 great authors, he would, I suspect, liave heard what mankind has yet 
 had to say upon most things. I am aware of the culture that would 
 be required for such an enterprise; but I merely give it as an in- 
 stance of what may justly come under the head of the pursuit of one 
 subject, as I mean it, and which certainly would not be called a nar- 
 row purpose. 
 
 There is another view of reading, which, though it is obvious 
 enough, is seldom taken, I imagine, or at least acted upon ; and that 
 is, that, in the course of our reading, we should lay up in our minds 
 a store of goodly thoughts in well-wrought words, which should be 
 a living treasure of knowledge always with us, and from which at 
 various times, and amidst all the shifting of circumstances, we might 
 l)e sure of drawing some comfort, guidance, and sympathy. We see 
 this with regard to the sacred writings. "A word spoken in due 
 season, how good is it ! " But there is a similar comfort on a lower 
 level to be obtained from other sources than sacred ones. In any 
 work that is worth carefully reading there is generally something that 
 IS worth remembering accurately. A man whose mind is enriched 
 with the best sayings of the poets of his own country is a more in- 
 deptMident man, walks the strcn-ts in a town, or the lanes in the coun- 
 try, with far more delight than he otherwise would have ; and is 
 taught, by wise observers of man and natun*, to examine for himself. 
 Suncho Panza with his proverlw is a great deal better than he would 
 have been without them : and I oontend that a man has something in 
 
328 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 himself to meet troubles and difficulties, small or great, who has 
 stored in his mind some of the best thinp^s which have been said about 
 troubles and difficulties. Moreover, the loneliness of sorrow is there- 
 by diminished. 
 
 It need not be feared that a man whose memory is rich in such re- 
 sources will become a quoting pedant. Often, the sayings which are 
 dearest to our hearts are least frequent on our lips ; and those great 
 ideas which cheer men in their direst struggles, are not things which 
 they are likely to inflict by frequent repetition upon those they live 
 with. There is a cerUiin reticmro \\\th ii« n* rcir-n-ds nnytliiiiir wp 
 deeply love. 
 
 I have not hitherto spoken of the indirect advantage of methodical 
 reading in the culture of the mind. One of the dangers supposed to 
 be incident upon a life of study is, that purpose and decisiveness are 
 worn away. Not, as I contend, upon a life of study, such as it 
 ought to be. For, pursued methodically, there must be some, and 
 not a little, of the decision, resistance, and tenacity of pursuit which 
 create, or further, greatness of character in action. Though, as I 
 have said, there are times of keen delight to a man who is engaged in 
 any distinct pursuit, there are also moments of weariness, vexation. 
 and vacillation, which will try the metal in him and see whether li« 
 is worthy to understand and master anything. For this you m; 
 observe that, in all times and all nations, sacrifice is needed. The 
 savage Indian who was to obtain any insight into the future had to 
 starve for it for a certain time. Even the fancy of this power Was not 
 to he gained Avithout paying for it. And was anything real ever 
 gained without sacrifice of some kind ? 
 
 It cannot have escaped the notice of any one who has had much 
 experience, that human life is a system of cunningly devised cliecks 
 and counter-checks. This is easily seen in considering physical 
 things, — such, for instance, as the human body. One of these bodies 
 has a particular disorder. You could cure it by a certain remedy, if 
 that remedy could be continued far enough ; but it cannot, as it 
 would produce another disorder. The same law holds good through- 
 out life ; and sometimes, where there is an appearance of the power 
 of free movement in many directions, there is in reality a check to 
 movement in every one. 
 
RU8KIN. 329 
 
 RUSKIN. 
 1819- 
 
 JoH.'« RcsKiN, who has riaen to be an authority of last resort in all questions pertaining to 
 Art, is a native of London, where he was bom in 1819. He was educated at Uxford, where ho 
 Won the Ncwdigatc Phxe for English Poetry, and has devoted his wliolc life to tlie study and 
 fxjMisition of Art. He has written many books, most of which treat of archit^^cture and jwiuting. 
 His first work was Modem Paimters, whicli at once established his reputation. It elicited pro- 
 fuse criticism, which in effect was fa\-orable ; but high authorities severely censured it as illogi- 
 cal and as extra »-agant in style. Among his best-known works arc The Seven Lamiu of Architec- 
 ture, The StoHct of Feniee, and Lectures on Jrchiteeture and Paint'tHg. Within a few years he 
 has given much attention to questions of Political Economy. On no modern writer liave praise 
 !\nd blame l>ei-n bestowed in so great volumes and in so nearly equal measures. In the early 
 years of his career it is undoubtedly true that the weight of critical authority was against him ; 
 hut to-day his hold ui»n the popular respect seems to be firmer tlum ever. His arrogance and 
 dogmatism have cost him many friends, and the eccentricities of his style — which, liowever, is 
 marvrlously forcible, and vigorous with a certain wild beauty — have repelled many readers from 
 his books. But it is impossible not to admire his earnestness, his unquestionable love of truth, 
 ft ml ills honest detcsUtioo of shams. He has done more than miy other living writer to stimu- 
 late the pulilir interest in Art, and to formulate sound theories atwut it. 
 
 WATEB. 
 
 Of all inorj^anic substances, acting in their own proper nature, 
 and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. 
 If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty 
 whicli we have seen in clouds ; then as the instrument by which the 
 earth we have contemplated was modeled into symmetry, and its crags 
   Ird into grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the moun- 
 - it has made with that transcendent light which we could not 
 have conceived if we had not seen ; then as it exists in the foam of 
 the torrent, — in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which 
 rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging 
 shore, ill the broad lake and glancing river ; finally, in that which is 
 to all human minds the lx»st emblem of unwearied, nnconqut^rable 
 power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea ; what 
 shall we compare to this mighty, this universal element, for glory and 
 for beauty ? or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feel- 
 ing? It is like trying to paint a soul. 
 
 Few people, comparatively, have ever seen the effect on the sea of a 
 powerful gule continued without intermission for three or four days 
 and nighU, and to those who have not I believe it must be unimagin- 
 able, not from the mere force or size of surge, but from the complete 
 
 i 
 
330 cathcart's liteilaky reader. 
 
 annihilation of the limit between sea and air. The water from its 
 prolonged agitation is beaten, not into mere creaming foam, bnt into 
 masses of accumulated yeast, which hang in ropes and wreaths from 
 wave to wave, and where one curls over to break, form a festoon like 
 a drapery, from its edge ; these are taken up by the wind, not in dis- 
 sipating dust, but bodily, in writhing, lianging, coiling masses, which 
 make the air white and thick as with snow, only the flakes are a foot 
 or two long each ; the surges themselves arc full of foam in their very 
 Ixxlics, underneath, making them white all through, as the water is 
 under a great cataract ; and their masses, being thus half water and 
 half air, are torn to pieces by the wind, whenever they rise, and car- 
 ried away in roaring smoke, which chokes and strangles like actual 
 water. Add to this, that when the air has been exhausted of its 
 moisture by long rain, the spniy of the sea is caught by it, and covt 
 its surface not merely with the smoke of finely divided water, but 
 with boiling mist ; imagine also tlic low rain-clouds brought down to 
 the very level of the sea, as I have often seen them, whirling and fly- 
 ing in rags and fragments from wave to wave ; and, finally, conceive the 
 surges themselves in their utmost pitch of power, velocity, vastness, 
 and matlness, lifting themselves in precipict^s and peaks, furrowetl with 
 their whirl of ascent, through all this chaos, and you will understand 
 that there is, indeed, no distinction left between the sea and air ; that 
 no object, nor horizon, nor any hmdmark or natural evidence of posi- 
 tion is left; that the heaven is all spray, and the ocean all cloud, and 
 that you can see no farther in any direction than you could see through 
 a cataract. Few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at 
 such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a mast 
 or a rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning which 
 few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one 
 of the noblest lessons of nature. 
 
 All rivers, small or large, agree in one character ; they like to lean 
 a little on one side ; they cannot bear to have their channels deepest 
 in the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun 
 themselves upon, and another to get cool under ; one shingly shore to 
 play over, where they may be shallow, and foolish, and childlike ; and 
 another steep shore, under which they can pause and purify them- 
 selves, and get their strength of waves fully together for due occasions. 
 Rivers in this way are just like wise men, who keep one side of their 
 life for play and another for work ; and can be brilliant, and chatter- 
 
RUSKIN. 331 
 
 ing, and transparent when they arc at ease, and yet take deep counsel 
 on the other side when they set themselves to the main purpose. And 
 rivers are just in this divided, also, like wicked and good men ; the 
 good rivers have serviceable deep places all along their banks that 
 ships can sail in, but the wicked rivers go scoopingly, irregubirly, 
 under their Ixinks until they get full of strangling edtlies, which no 
 boat can row over without being twisted against the rocks, and pools 
 like wells which no one can get out of but the water-kelpie that lives 
 at the bottom ; but, wicked or good, the rivers all agree in having two 
 sides. 
 
 When water, not in very great body, runs in a rocky bed much in- 
 temipted by hollows, so that it can rest every now and then in a pool 
 as it goes along, it does not acquire a continuous velocity of motion. 
 It pauses after every leap, and curdles about, and rests a little, and 
 then goes on again ; . and if in this comparatively tranquil and rational 
 state of mind it meets with an obstacle, as a rock or stone, it parts on 
 each side of it with a little bubbling foam, and goes round ; if it comes 
 to a step in its bed, it leaps it lightly, and then after a little pUishing 
 at the bottom, stops again to take breath. But if its bed be on a 
 continuous slo|)e, not much interrnpted by hollows, so that it cannot 
 rest, or if its own mass be so increased by flood that its usual resting- 
 places are not sufficient for it, but that it is perpetually pushed out of 
 them by the following cuiTent, l>efore it has had time to tranquilize 
 itself, it of course gains velocity with every yard that it runs ; the 
 impetus got at one leap is carried to the credit of the next, until the 
 whole stream becomes one mass of unchecked, accelerating motion. 
 Now when water in this state comes to an obstacle, it does not p<irt 
 at it, but clears it like a race-horse ; and when it comes to a hollow, 
 it does not fill it up and run out leisurely at the other side, but it 
 rushes down into it and comes up again on the other side, as a ship 
 into the hollow of the sea. Hence the whole appearance of the bed 
 of the stream is changed, and all the lines of the water altered in their 
 nature. 
 
 The quiet stream is a succession of leaps and pools ; the leaps are 
 light and springy, and parabolic, and make a great deal of splashing 
 when they tumble into the pool ; then we have a space of quiet curd- 
 ling water, and another similar leap Ix-low. Bnt the stream when it 
 has gained an imixtns takes the shajM; of its Intl, never stops, is equally 
 deep and equally swifb e^ery whore, goes down into every hollow, not 
 
i5o2 CATHCART^S LITEEARY READER. 
 
 with a leap, but with a swing, not foaming, nor splashing, but in the 
 bending line of a strong sea-wave, and comes up again on the othtr 
 side, ovi^T rock and ridge, with the ease of a bounding leopard ; if it 
 meet a rock three or four feet above the level of its bed, it will neither 
 part nor foam, nor express any conc.TU alwut the matter, but dear it in 
 a smooth dome of water, without apparent exertion, coming down again 
 as smoothly on the other side ; the whole surface of the surge l)eiii_ 
 drawn into parallel lines by its extreme velocity, but foamless, excei-i 
 in places where the form of the bed opposes itself at some direct angl» 
 to such a line of fall, and causes a breaker ; so that the whole rivir 
 has the appearance of a deep and raging sea, with this only difference, 
 that the torrent-waves always break backwards, and sea-waves for- 
 wards. Thus, then, in the water which has gained an impetus, we 
 have the most exquisite arrangements of curved lines, perpetually 
 changing from convex to concave, and vice versa, following every 
 swell and hollow of the bed with their modulating grace, and all in 
 unison of motion, presenting perhaps the most beautiful series of in- 
 organic forms which nature can possibly produce ; for the sea i*uns 
 too much into similar and concave curves with sharp edges, but 
 every motion of the torrent is united, and all its curves are modifica- 
 tions of beautiful lines. 
 
 THE CLOUDS. 
 
 Stand upon the peak of some isolated mountain at daybreak, when 
 the night-mists first rise from oflf the plains, and watch their white 
 and lake-like fields as thev float in level bavs and windinir STulfs 
 about the islanded summits of the lower hills, untouched yet by more 
 than dawn, colder and more quiet than a windless sea under the moon 
 of midnight. Wat^-h when the first sunl)eam is sent upon the silver 
 channels, how the foam of their undulating surface parts and passes 
 away; and down under their depths the glittering city and green pas- 
 ture lie, like Atlantis, between the white paths of winding rivers ; the 
 flakes of light falling every moment faster and broader among the 
 spires, starry as the wreathed surges break and vanish above them, and 
 the confused crests and ridges of the dark hills shorten their gray 
 shadows upon the plain. 
 
 Wait a little longer, and you shall see those scattered mists rallying 
 in the ravines and floating up towards you, along the winding valleys, 
 till they couch in quiet masses, iridescent with the morning light, 
 
RU8K1N. 333 
 
 upon the broad breasts of the hij^er liills, whose leagues of massy 
 uiitlulatiou will melt back and l)ack into that robe of material light, 
 until they fatle away, lost in its luster, to appear again above, in the 
 serene heaven, like a wild, bright, impossible dream, fouudationless 
 and inaercssible, their very bases vanisliing in the unsubstantial and 
 mocking blue of the deep lake below. Wait yet a little longer, 
 and you shall see those mists gather themselves into white towers, 
 and stand like fortresses along the promontories, massy and motion- 
 less, only piling with every instant higher and higher into the sky, 
 and casting longer shadows athwart the rocks ; and out of tlie pale 
 blue of the horizon you will see forming and advancing a troop of 
 narrow, dark, pointed vapors, which will cover the sky, inch by inch, 
 with their gray network, and take the light off the landscape with an 
 eclipse which will stop the singing of the birds and the motion of the 
 leaves togetlier ; and then you will see horizontal bars of black 
 shadow forming under them, and lurid wreaths create themselves, you 
 know not how, along the shoulders of the hills ; you never see them 
 form, but when you look back to a place which was clear an instant 
 ago, there is a cloud on it, hanging by the precipices, as a hawk 
 pauses over his prey. 
 
 And then you will hear the sudden rush of the awakened wind, and 
 you will see those watch-towers of vapor swept away from their foun- 
 dations, and waving curtains of opaque rain let down to the valleys, 
 swinging from the burdened clouds in black, bending fringes, or pacing 
 in pale columns along the lake level, grazing its surface into foam as 
 they go. And then, as the sun sinks, you shall see the storm drift 
 for an instant from off the hills, leaving their broad sides smoking, 
 and loaded yet with snow-white, torn, steam-like rags of capricious 
 vapor, now gone, now gathered . again ; while the smoldering sun, 
 seeming not far away, but burning like a red-hot Iwill beside you, and 
 as if yon could reach it, plunges through the rushing wind and rolling 
 cloud with headlong fall, as if it meant to rise no more, dyeing all the 
 air about it with blood. And then you shall hear the fainting tempest 
 die in the hollow of the night, and yon shall .see a green halo kindling 
 on the summit of the eastern hills, brighter — brighter yet, till the 
 large white circle of the slow moon is lifted up among the barred 
 clouds, step by step, line by line ; star after star she quenches with 
 her kindling light, setting in their stead an army of pale, penetrable, 
 fleecy wreaths in the heaven, to give light upon the earth, which mov:: 
 
O'ii' (JAIJILAKI JS LlTtUAKY KKADKK. 
 
 together hand in liand, company by company, troop by troop, so 
 measured in their unity of motion, tliat the whole heaven seems to 
 roll with them, and the earth to reel uuder them. 
 
 And then wait yet for one hour, until the east again becomes purple, 
 and the heaving mountains, rolling against it in darkness, like waves ot 
 a wild sea, are drowned one by one in the glory of its burning ; watch 
 the whit*i glaciers blaze in their winding paths about the mountains, 
 like mighty serpents with scales of lii*e ; watch the columnar peaks of 
 solitary snow, kindling downwards, chasm by chasm, each in itself a 
 new morning; their long avalanclies cast down in keen streams bright- 
 er than the lightning, sending each his tribute of driven snow, likt 
 altar-smoke, up to the heavtrn ; the rose-light of their silent donu > 
 flushing that heaven alx)ut them and above them, piercing with pun r 
 light through its purple Hues of lifted cloud, casting a new glory on 
 every wreath as it passes by, mitil the whole heaven — one scarh t 
 canopy — is intenvovcn with a roof of waving flame, and tossinj:, 
 vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many companies of 
 angels ; and then, when you can look no more for gladness, and when 
 you arc bowed down with ftsir and love of the Maker and Doer of 
 this, tell me who has best delivered this his message unto men ! 
 
 Nature has a thousand ways and means of rising above herself, 
 but incomparably the noblest manifestations of her aipability of color 
 are in the sunsets among the high clouds. I speak especially of tlir 
 moment before the sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-color, 
 and when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless cloud- 
 forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes of vapor, whicli 
 would in common daylight be pure snow-white, and which give there- 
 fore fair field to the tone of light. There is then no limit to the mul- 
 titude, and no check to the intensity of the hues assumed. The 
 whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes one molten, man- 
 tling sea of color and fire ; every black bar turns into massy gold, 
 every ripple and wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and purple, 
 and scarlet, and colors for which there are no words in language and 
 no ideas in the mind, — things which can only be conceived Avhile 
 they are visible, — the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting 
 through it all, — showing here deep and pure and lightlcss, there 
 modulated by the filmy, formless body of the transparent vapor, till it 
 is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold. 
 
IX)WELL. 336 
 
 LOWELL. 
 
 1819- 
 
 Jamrs Rcmkll Lowkli., poet, critic, and easayist, was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 
 IH10. Having: grailuated at Harvard College, he studied law, but, after a brief experience of the 
 prufcssion, be abandoned the courts for the mo^ congenial walks of literature. His first volume 
 of poetry, A I'ear's Life, was published in \Si\. In 1841 appeared a second collection of his 
 poems, and in ll^i8 a third. Tliis latter year is a memorable one in his literary career, having 
 witiicsst-d till- publication of some of his most famous comiMsitions. Among these are The Vition 
 «/■ Sir I.'ii, >'',il, A Fable for Critica, and The Bifflow Papers, besides a fresh collection of his 
 ~ In 1855 Mr. Lowell succeeded to the cliair of Belles-Lettres in Harvard College, 
 
 : , occupied by Mr. Longfellow. Since his accession to this post he has undertaken 
 
 no inii)<irtni\t literary enterprises. He has, however, contributed to the magazines, and written 
 occasional poems le. g. the Commemoration Ode) which exhibit his powers at their best. The 
 only volumes bearing his name issued within the last ten years are two collections of essays, — 
 My Study Windows and Among my Books. Professor Lowell is, perhaps, the most scholarly of 
 .\nierican writers; yet he is far from sacrificing vigor to finish, and his compositions illustrate 
 tlif liiu'best ,\merican attainment in culture and style. His Fnble for Critics marked a new 
 (liiinrtiirc in .\nieriran letters, and exhibited him as a successful pioneer in a department of 
 |)<><'tiral effort which had been almost untried in this country. Its execution would do credit to 
 tlu' |xH-t in his maturity ; but its spirit smacked of acerbity and arrogance, and strikingly exem- 
 pliiii-d one of his characteristics, — an almost finical fastidiousness, which has always prevented 
 him from becoming a popular w riter. The Bifflow Papers are a unique product of American humor, 
 and, though written with reference to a temporary condition of public sentiment, will always be 
 ailtnin-d for their graphic and faithful representations of Yankee character, and for the mingled 
 wit -iiicl wisdom with which they abound. As an essayist, Mr. Lowell is at his best in dealing 
 with liierary topics: his essays on certain old English writers are hardly surpassed in EngUsh 
 literature. He has been a loving student of nature as well as of books, and his css^ on My 
 Garden Aequaintanee is as admirable as anything he Iws written. In 1872 Mr. Lowell went to 
 Europe, where he remained two years. 
 
 mr OABDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 Dr. W.\tts's statement that " birds in their little nests agree, "- 
 like too many others intended to form the infant mind, is very far 
 from being true. On the contrary', the most peaceful relation of the 
 different species to each other is that of armed neutrality. They are 
 very jealous of neighbors. A few years ago, I was much interested 
 in the housebuilding of a pair of summer yellow-birds. They had 
 chosen a very pretty site near the top of a tall white lilac, within easy 
 eyeshot of a chamber wintlow. A very pleasant thing it was to see 
 their little home growing with mutual help, to watch their industrious 
 skill interrupted only by litth' flirts and snatches of endearment, 
 Irugally cut short by the common-sense of the tiny housewife. They 
 l»ad brought tiu'ir work nearly to an end, and had already l)egun to 
 line it with fern-down, the gathering of which demanded more distant 
 
336 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 journeys and longer absences. But, alas ! the syringa, immemorial 
 
 manor of the catbirds, was not more than twenty feet away, and these 
 
 " gi(hly neighbors" had, as it appeared, been all along jealously wateh- 
 
 ful, though silent, witnesses of what they Aeemed an intrusion of 
 
 squatters. No sooner were the pretty mates fairly gone for a new 
 
 load of lining, than 
 
 " To their aagnarded nest these weasel Soots 
 Came stealing." 
 
 Silently they flew back and forth, each giving a vengeful dab at tin 
 nest in passing. They did not fall-to and deliberately destroy it, for 
 they might have been caught at their mischief. As it was, whenever 
 the yellow-birds came back, their enemies were hidden in their oun 
 sight-proof bush. Several times their unconscious victims repaired 
 damages, but at length, after counsel taken together, they gave it up. 
 Perhaps, like other unlettered folk, they came to the conclusion that 
 the Devil wa<: in it, and yielded to the invisible persecutions of witch- 
 craft. 
 
 The robins, by constant attacks and annoyances, have succeeded in 
 driving off the blue-jays who used to build in our pines, their gay 
 colors and quaint noisy ways making them welcome and amusing 
 neighbors. I once had the chance of doing a kindness to a house- 
 hold of them, which they received with very friendly condescension. 
 I had had my eye for some time upon a nest, and was puzzled by a 
 constant fluttering of what seemed full-grown wings in it whenever 1 
 drew nigh. At last I climbed the tree, in spite of angry protests from 
 the old birds against my intrusion. The mystery had a very simple 
 solution. In building the nest, a long piece of packthread had been 
 somewhat loosely woven in. Three of the young had contrived to 
 entangle themselves in it, and had become full-grown without being 
 able to launch themselves upon the air. One was unharmed ; another 
 had so tightly twisted the cord about its shank that one foot was 
 curled up and seemed paralyzed ; the third, in its stniggles to escape, 
 had sawn through the flesh of the thigh and so much harmed itself 
 that I thought it humane to put an end to its miser\'. When I took 
 out my knife to cut their hempen bonds, the heads of the family 
 seemed to divine my friendly intent. Suddenly ceasing their cries 
 and threats, they perched quietly within reach of my hand, and 
 watched me in my work of manumission. This, owing to the flutter- 
 ing terror of the prisoners, was an aff"air of some delicacy ; but erelong 
 
I 
 
 LOWELL. 887 
 
 I was rewarded by seeing one of them fly away to a neij^hboring tree, 
 while the cripple, making a parachute of his wings, came lightly to 
 the ground, and hopp<?d off as well as he could with one leg, obsequi- 
 ously waited on by his elders. A week later I had the satisfaction 
 of meeting him in the pine-walk, in good spirits, and already so far 
 recovered as to be able to balance himself with the lame foot. I have 
 no doubt that in his old age h^accounted for his lameness by some 
 handsome story of a wound receive<l at the famous Battle of the Pines, 
 when our tribe, overcome by numbers, was driven from its ancient 
 camping-ground. Of late years the jays have visited us only at inter- 
 vals ; and in winter their bright plumage, set ofl:' by the snow, and 
 their cheerful cry, are especially welcome. They would have furnished 
 iEsop with a fable, for the feathered crest in which they seem to take 
 so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare. Country boys make a 
 hole with their finger in the snow-crust just large enough to admit 
 the jay's head, and, hollowing it out somewhat beneath, bait it with a 
 few kernels of com. The crest slips easily into the trap, but refuses 
 to be pulled out again, and he who came to feast remains a prey. 
 
 Twice have the crow-blackbirds attempted a settlement in my pines, 
 and twice have the robins, who claim a right of pre-emption, so suc- 
 cessfully played the part of border-ruffians as to drive them away, — 
 to my great regret, for they are the best substitute we have for rooks. 
 At Shady Hill (now, alas ! empty of its so long loved household) they 
 build by hundreds, and nothing can be more cheery than their creak- 
 ing clatter (like a convention of old-fashioned tavern-signs) as they 
 gather at evening to debate in mass meeting their windy politics, or 
 to gossip at their tent-doors over the events of the day. Their port 
 is grave, and their stalk across the turf as martial as that of a second- 
 rate ghost in Hamlet. They never meddled with my corn, so far as I 
 could discover. 
 
 For a few years I had crows, but their nests are an irresistible bait 
 for boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew so wonted 
 as to throw otf a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate my near 
 npproach. One very hot day I stood for some time within twenty 
 feet of a mother and three childrcji, who sat on an elm bough over my 
 head, gasping in the sultiy air, and holding their wings half spread 
 for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become more or 
 less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the 
 grinding-organ repetition and loudness of their habitual song. The 
 15 V 
 
338 
 
 crow is very comical as a lover, and to hear him trjing to soften his 
 croak to the proper Saint Preux standard has something the effect of 
 a Mississippi boatman quoting Tennyson.* Yet there are few things 
 to my ear more melodious than his caw of a clear winter morning as 
 it drops to you filt<.*red through tive hundred fathoms of crisp blue air. 
 The hostility of all smaller birds makes the moral character of tin 
 crow, for all his deaconlike demeanor and garb, somewhat question- 
 able. He could never sally forth without insult. The golden robins, 
 especially, would chase him as far as I could follow with my ( \ 
 making him duck clumsily to avoid their importunate bills. I do uov 
 believe, however, that he robbed any nests hereabouts, for the refuse 
 of the gas-works, which, in our free-and-easy community, is allowed to 
 poison the river, supplied him with dead alewives in abundance. I 
 used to watch him making his periodical visits to the salt-marshes 
 and coming back with a fish in his beak to his young savages, who, 
 no doubt, like it in that condition which makes it savory to the 
 Kanakas and other corvine races of men. 
 
 YTJS80TTP. 
 
 A STRANGER camc one night to Yussouf*s tent, 
 
 Saying, " Behold one outcast and in dread, 
 
 Against whose life the bow of power is bent. 
 
 Who flies, and hath not where to lay his head ; 
 
 I come to thee for shelter and for food, 
 
 To Yussouf, called through all our tribes 'The Good.' 
 
 " This tent is mine," said Yussouf, " but no more 
 
 Than it is God*s ; come in, and be at peace ; 
 
 Freely shalt thou partake of all my store 
 
 As I of His who buildeth over these 
 
 Our tents his glorious roof of night and day, 
 
 And at whose door none ever yet heard Nay." 
 
 So Yussouf entertained his guest that night, 
 And, waking him ere day, said : " Here is gold, 
 My swiftest horse is saddled for thy flight, 
 Depart before the prying day grow bold." 
 As one lamp lights another, nor gi'ows less. 
 So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. 
 
LOWELL. 330 
 
 That inward light the stranger's face made grand, 
 Which shines from all self-conquest ; kneeling low, 
 He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf's hand. 
 Sobbing : ** O Sheik, 1 cannot leave thee so ; 
 I will repay thee ; all this thou hast done 
 Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son ! " 
 
 "Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, "for with thee 
 
 Into the desert, never to return, 
 
 My one black thought shall ride away from me ; 
 
 First-born, for whom by day and night I yearn, 
 
 Balanced and just are all of God's decrees ; 
 
 Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep in peace ! ** 
 
 THE CHANGELING. 
 
 I HAD a little daughter. 
 
 And she was given to me 
 To lead me gently backward 
 
 To the Heavenly Father's knee. 
 That I, by the force of nature. 
 
 Might in some dim wise divine 
 The depth of his infinite patience 
 
 To this wayward soul of mine. 
 
 I know not how others saw her. 
 
 But to me she was wholly fair, 
 And the light of the heaven she came from 
 
 Still lingered and gleamed in her hair ; 
 For it was as wavy and golden. 
 
 And as many changes took. 
 As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples 
 
 On the yellow bed of a brook. 
 
 To what can I liken her smiling 
 
 Upon me, her kneeling lover. 
 How it leaped from her lips to her eyelid-*. 
 
 And dimpled her wholly over. 
 
lilU CATUCAEt's i.iti;t;\i;y i;i;\i)i:rw. 
 
 Till licr outstretclicd liaiuU smilrd .ilso, 
 And I almost st t med to bee 
 
 The vtrv lieart of her mother 
 
 Sondin*^ sun throuLrh Ikt veins to me ! 
 
 She had been with us scarce a twdveraontli, 
 
 And it hardly seemed a day. 
 When a troop of wanderinj? angels 
 
 Stole my little daughter away ; 
 Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari 
 
 But loosed the hampering strings, 
 And when they had opened her cage-door, 
 
 My little bird used her wings. 
 
 But tin y l-tt ;., Iht stead a changeling, 
 
 A lln hild. 
 
 That seeiub lik. !i< r bud in full blossom. 
 
 And smili s :i> -he never smiled : 
 \\ lien 1 wake in tlic nl(lrllillL^ 1 .s<'<' it 
 
 WJuTc she always usexl to lie. 
 And I f(«l as weak as a violet 
 
 Alone 'ncatli llic aulul -ky ; 
 
 As weak, yet as trn>tt'nl also ; 
 
 For thr wholo year long I see 
 All the wondtis of faithful Nature 
 
 Still worked for the love of me ; 
 Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, 
 
 Eain falls, suns rise and set. 
 Earth whirls, and all but to prosper 
 
 A poor little violet. 
 
 This child is not mine as the first was, 
 
 I cannot sinn- it to rest, 
 I cannot lift it up fatherly 
 
 And bliss it upon my breast ; 
 Yet it lii's ill my little one's cradle 
 
 And sits in my little one's chair, 
 And the lifrlit of the heaven she 's gone to 
 
 Transfigures its golden hair. 
 
ft 
 
 LOWELL. 341 
 
 ON A CEKTAIK CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS. 
 
 Perhaps one reason wliy the uveraj^e Briton spreads himself here 
 with such an e:isy air of superiority may be owing to the fact tliat he 
 meets witli so many bad imitations as to conclude himself the only 
 real thing in a wilderness of shams. He fancies himself moving 
 through an endless Bloom sbury, where his mere apparition confers 
 honor as an avatar of the court-end of the universe. Not a Bull of 
 them all but is persuaded he bears Europa upon his back. This 
 is the sort of fellow whose patronage is so divertingly insuffirable. 
 Thank Heaven he is not the only specimen of cater-cousinship from 
 the dear old Mother Island that is shown to us ! Among genuine 
 things, I know nothing more genuine than the better men whose 
 limbs were made in England. So manly-tender, so brave, so true, so 
 warranted to wear, they make us proud to feel that blood is thicker 
 than water. 
 
 But it is not merely the Englishman ; every European candidly ad- 
 mits in himself some right of primogeniture in respect to us, ^nd pats 
 this shaggy continent on the back with a lively sense of generous 
 unbending. The German who plays the bass-viol has a well-founded 
 contempt, which he is not always nice in concealing, for a country so 
 few of whose children ever take that noble instrument between their 
 knees. 
 
 So long as we continue to be the most common-schooled and the least 
 cidtivated people in the world, I suppose we must consent to endure 
 this condescending manner of foreigners toward us. The more friendly 
 tliey mean to be, the more ludicrously prominent it Ixx-omes. They 
 can never appreciate the immense amount of silent work that has been 
 done here making this continent slowly fit for the abode of man, and 
 which will demonstrate itself, let us hope, in the character of the peo- 
 ple. Outsiders can only l)e expected to judge a nation by the amount 
 it has contributed to the civilization of the world ; the amount, that is, 
 that can be seen and handled. A great place in history can only be 
 achiived by competitive examinations, nay, by a long course of them. 
 How much new thought have we contributed to the common stock? 
 rill that question can be triumphantly answeued, or needs no answer, 
 we nmst continue to 1h? simply interesting as an experiment, to be 
 studied as a problem, and not respected as an attained result or an 
 accomplished solution. Perhaps, as I have hinted, their patronizing 
 
^4f'Z CATHCART's LITEILAEY READER. 
 
 manner toward us is the fair result of their failing to see here any 
 thing more than a poor imitation, a plaster-cast of Europe. And are 
 they not partly right ? If the tone of the uncultivated American has 
 too often the arrogance of the barbarian, is not that of the culti- 
 vated as often vulgarly apologetic ? In the American they meet with 
 is there the simplicity, the manliness, the absence of sliam, the sin- 
 cere human nature, the sensitiveness to duty and implied obligation, 
 that in any way distinguishes us from wliat our orators call " the 
 effete civilization of the Old World " ? Is there a politician among us 
 daring enough to risk his future on the chance of our keeping our word 
 with the exactness of superstitious communities like England? U 
 it certain tliat we shall be ashamed of a bankruptcy of honor, if we 
 can only keep the letter of our bond ? I hope we shall be able to 
 answer all these questions with a frank yes. At any rate, we would 
 advise our visitors that we are not merely curious creatures, but be- 
 long to the family of man, and that, as individiuds, we are not to 
 be always subjected to the competitive examination above mentioned, 
 even if we acknowledged their competence as an examining board. 
 Above all, we beg them to remember that America is not to us, as to 
 them, a mere object of external interest to l)e discussed and analyzed, 
 but in us, part of our very marrow. Let them not suppose that we 
 conceive of ourselves as exiles from the graces and amenities of an 
 older date than we, though very much at home in a state of things 
 not yet all it might be or should be, but which we mean to make so, 
 and which we find both wholesome and pleasant for men to live in. 
 ** The full tide of human existence " may be felt here as keenly as 
 Johnson felt it at Charing Cross, and in a larger sense. I know one 
 person who is singidar enough to think Cambridge the very best spot 
 on the habitable globe.* " Doubtless God could have made a better. 
 but doubtless he never did." 
 
 It will take England a great while to get over her airs of patronage 
 toward us, or even passably to conceal them. She cannot help con- 
 founding the people with the country, and regarding us as lustv 
 juveniles. She has a conviction that whatever good there is in us is 
 wholly English, when the truth is that we are worth nothing except 
 so far as we have disinfected ourselves of Anglicism. She is especially 
 condescending just now, and lavishes sugar-plums on us as if we 
 
 * Mr. Lowell resides at Cambridge. 
 
LOWELL. 343 
 
 lia<l not outgrown them. I am no believer in sudden conversions, 
 especially in sudden conversions to a favorable opinion of people who 
 have just proved you to be mistaken in judj^ment and therefore un- 
 wise in policy. I never blamed her for not wishinp^ well to democ- 
 racy, — how should she ? The only sure way of brinu^injr about a 
 healthy relation between the two countries is for Englishmen to clear 
 their minds of the notion that we are always to be treated as a kind 
 of inferior and deported Englishman whose nature they perfectly un- 
 derstand, and whose back they accordingly stroke the wrong way of 
 the fur with amazing perseverance. Let them learn to treat us natu- 
 rally on our merits as human beings, as they would a German or a 
 Frenchman, and not as if we were a kind of counterfeit Briton whose 
 crime appeared in every shade of difference, and before long there 
 would come that right feeling which we natundly call a good under- 
 standing. Tlie common blood, and still more the common language, 
 are fatal instruments of misapprehension. Let them give up trying 
 to understand us, still more thinking that they do, and acting in vari- 
 ous absunl ways as the necessary consequence ; for they will never 
 arrive at that devoutly -to-be- wished consummation, till they learn to 
 look at us as we are and not as they suppose us to be. Dear old 
 long-estranged mother-in-law, it is a great many years since we 
 parted. Since 1660, when you married again, you have l3een a step- 
 mother to us. Put on your spectacles, dear madam. Yes, we have 
 grown, and changed likewise. You would not let us darken your 
 doors, if you could help it. We know that perfectly well. But pray, 
 when we look to be treated as men, don't shake that rattle in our 
 faces, nor talk baby to tis any longer. 
 
 " Do, child, go to it g:ran(lam, child ; 
 Give ^randam kingdom, and it grandam will 
 Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig." 
 
344 CATHCART^S LITERARY READER. 
 
 MRS. LE VERT. 
 
 1820- 
 
 Mbs. Octatia WALTOif Li Vbkt, a distinguished Southern writer, was bom near Augusta, 
 Georfia. in 1890. Sh« was the daughter of Colonel George Walton. While a mere girl she 
 srlrcted a name for the capital of Fkihda, — of which State her father was at that timegoremor, 
 — Tallahassee, an Indian word meaning "beautiful huid." In 18:^ she became the wife of Dr. 
 Henry S. Le Vert of Mobile. Alabama. She has traveled much, both in America aud Europe. 
 The obserratwns made during two tours in Europe are given in her Sourenin 0/ Travel, a duo- 
 decimo of two Yolumes. published in 1858. She has contributed occasionally to curnnt litera- 
 tare; and since the war has given readings from her writings. Of Mrs. Le Vert's tours in 
 Europe N. P. Willis says : " Tliere probably was never a more signal success in the way of 
 access to foreign society, friendly attentions from the nobility, and notice from royalty, tluin fell 
 to the share of Madame Le Vert." Her style is spontaneous, often conversational, but always 
 graceful, natural, and easy, and never dull. The best portions arc The Eru/jtion </ resuvius. The 
 Cofiteum^ The H'ay orer the SimpUm, Tkt Browuimpt in Florenet, Mwmlight in Ventce, A Visit to 
 the Fope, and Tlu Parrwell to Ilmlf. Id 18C9 a aimilar WOrit, SntMittrt 0/ Jhttingmshed People, 
 by Mra. Le Vert, was announced as in press ; but it has never appeared, owing, the public were 
 advised« to drcomstanees of a personal nature. 
 
 THE STUDY OF LAHOUAOE. 
 
 " Greek 's a harp we lore to hear : 
 Latin is a trumpet clear ; 
 Spanish like an drgan swells ; 
 Italian rings its silver bells ; 
 France, with many a frolic mian. 
 Tunes her sprightly violin ; 
 Ixiud the German rolls his drum 
 When Russia's clashing cymbals come ; 
 But Briton's sons may well rejoice. 
 For English is the human voice." 
 
 There is not a more useful or delightful occupation for the leisure 
 hours of young ladies than the study of foreign languages. It is the 
 bridge spanning the deep waters which divide our own from the rich 
 and varied literature of other lands. When once we have passed over 
 it, a new world of enjoyment is open to us, and we are quickly 
 brought en rapport with the brilliant intellects that have illustrated 
 the grand and glorious in prose and poetry. 
 
 The best translation is but a shadow of the original. We may 
 transplant a tropical flower to our climate, and cherish it with infinite 
 care ; still its blossoms will never possess the beauty and fragrance of 
 its own sunny clime. Thus it is with foreign literature. To enjoy 
 perfectly the noble utterances of great minds, we must read them in 
 the language with which Genius first draped them. The subtile charm 
 
MRS. LE VERT. S45 
 
 of originality, — the delicate shades of thought, radiant and evanes- 
 cent as the hues of the rainbow, — vanish away before the realities of 
 a translution. 
 
 A few hours, or even one hour, each day, snatched from the exi- 
 •roncies of society, and devoted to the study of any one of the lan- 
 jfuaj^es of Europe, would prove a prolitable investment of time, and 
 yield a sure reward. Madame Cumpan did not consider the educa- 
 tion of a young girl completed because she had left school. In one 
 of her admirable letters of advice to a friend, she writes : " Continue 
 still to devote daily some hours to study, that you may speak fluently 
 in German, sing sweetly in Italian, and write charmingly in French." 
 
 Although the fashionable world may be very exacting and absorb 
 much of the attention of our young ladies, still, even in its whirl of 
 gayety there are many weary and listless hours, which might be pleas- 
 antly occupied in learning a foreign language. The Persian poet ex- 
 claims, " Count every hour enjoyed as a treasure gained." May we 
 not paraphrase tliis by saying, " Count ever}' hour well employed as 
 a treasure gained ? " One of those weary hours given each day to 
 Grerman would soon aflford you the satisfaction of rvjading the grandly 
 eloquent works of Goethe, of Schiller, of Jean Paul Richtcr, of 
 Heine, and of other authors, to which no translation can ever render 
 justice. 
 
 Many young ladies study Latin at school ; hence the acquisition of 
 any of the languages of Southern Europe would be vastly facilitated. 
 It is a fascinating occupation to follow all these different streams 
 which flow from the great fountain of the Latin. 
 
 First, the Spanish, — resembling it closely, with many of its noble 
 chariicteristies, while it is enriched with the sonorous grandeur of the 
 Moorish, — vehement, expressive, and forcible, — pecidiarly powerful 
 and majestic in oratory and declamation. 
 
 Next, the Italian, — soft and graceful, the type of its own rose- 
 tinted skit's and delicious clime. Music, which gives laws to har- 
 mony, has chosen that idiom as the most exquisite for the sweet 
 breathings of its melody ; while Poetry, the sister spirit of Music, 
 revels in the full and swelling l)eauty of its tones. 
 
 Then, the French, — bright as the flight of a shining arrow, — em- 
 phatic and concise, — the language of society and of diplomacy. 
 Through all changes of " clime and time," we will trace their alle- 
 giance to the Latin. It lingers around them as the remembrance of 
 a mother's love clincrs to the human heart. 
 
'Ho CATHCAltrs LlTKliAUY EJiADEtt. 
 
 Among the happy visions which float in the mind of nearly every 
 American girl is that of a visit to Europe ; therefore, to her, a knowl- 
 edge of foreign languages would be especially agreeable. Many per- 
 sons travel throuj^h classic lands with no more enjoyment than the 
 deaf and dumb, whose only pleasure is derived from siglit. How 
 charmingly might a young lady utilize her accomplishments as a lin- 
 guist by contributing to the information, the happiness, and the com- 
 fort of those of her family who accompany her, and who, perhaps, 
 have been too much occupied with the hard actualities of life to acquire 
 these languages ! 
 
 It is always a joy to woman's heart to know she increases the hap- 
 piness of the lovetl ones. Thus many amusing incidents and spark- 
 ling conversations are constantly occurring as we travel through " lands 
 beyond the seas,** which might be translated for their enjoyment also. 
 Pl< sure and usefulness are combined in the knowledjre of foreijrn 
 1 milages. It is an admirable training for the memory, and genial 
 exercise for the mind ; and the acquisition of every new language is 
 another delight added to existence. 
 
 THE ESCUBIAL. 
 
 At dawn we left Madrid, passing through the deserted Puerto del 
 Sol, by the great palace of the queen, and on to the avenue called La 
 Florida. The trees are planted near the Manzanares, and their vigor- 
 ous life is in strong contrast with the sterility around them. The 
 plains are parched, and the hills gray, and entirely without verdure. 
 At intervals we saw the peasants working amid the rocks, for there 
 did not seem to be a vestige of soil upon them. The snow-capped 
 peaks of the Guadarama Mountains soon met our eyes, gleaming 
 brightly in the morning sunlight, as we journeyed pleasantly along 
 the cam} no real — the royal road — which leads from the capital to 
 the Escurial, a distance of twenty-five miles. The road is really mag- 
 nificent, with a parapet rising up on each side, and grand bridges 
 spanning deep chasms, where far below trickle slowly on diminutive 
 streamlets dignified with the name of river. 
 
 Many leagues away we caught sight of the Escurial, rising in 
 gloomv yet majestic grandeur near the highest point of the mountain 
 region of the Guadarajna. It is built of granite, and absolutely seems 
 a part and portion of the "everlasting hills." It is a glorious old 
 
I 
 
 MRS. LE VEET. 847 
 
 palace, monastery, and mausoleum, erected in 1563 by Philip the 
 Second, son of the famous Charles the Fifth, in eoniplianee with 
 a vow made to St. Lorenzo — so says tradition — during the battle 
 of St. Quentin. The saint granting the monarch's prayer for vic- 
 tory, this colossal and sacretl edifice was dedicated to his honor, and 
 constructed in the form oi' a parilla^ — gridiron, — as St. Lorenzo 
 suffered niartyrdom by lieing broiled upon one. Hence it presents a 
 most singukr appearance. Four enormous towers indicate the feet 
 of the gridiron, while the interior is divided into cloisters like its 
 iMirs. The handle contains the palace. In the center of the building 
 is the immense dome, and beneath it the church. We drove through 
 a poor little village near tlie palace, and stopping at the posac/a, ob- 
 tained a guide, and went immediately to the Escurial. Its propor- 
 tions are gigantic, and it seems intended for eternity, — with its 
 arched corridors, its spacious porticos and wide courts, its lofty 
 u^alleries and noble saloons. There are eleven thousand windows, in 
 lioly remembrance of the " Virgins of Cologne, slain by the Huns,'* 
 uid fourteen thousand doors. Twenty-two years were occupied in 
 its construction, and it cost six millions of crowns. 
 
 We spent all the day following our guide Comelio through the 
 windings of the building, almost as intricate as those of the Cretan 
 labyrinth. Comelio was entirely blind, and had been so for forty- 
 eight years. Still, in his " mind's eye," he sees all the glories of the 
 I'scurial. It was so strange to hear the sightless old man exckim, 
 ' Now, Senora, remark the effect of the sunlight upon that picture I '* 
 And then he would stop as though looking upon it, and point out all 
 its beauty. " See the deep shadows cast by those columns ; they 
 have the form of frking upon his throne," again would he say, as we 
 passed along with him up the great granite stairways, and through 
 vaulttnl cloisters to the royal apartments, where Isabel the Second 
 -jM-nds her .summers. These are fitted up with luxurious elegance, 
 but not by far so excjuisite as that portion of the palace embellished 
 and adorned by Charles the Thinl. It is quite unique in style. The 
 floors and walls are composed of a mosaic of different colored wood, 
 and the furniture inlaid with ivory and pearl-shell, and glittering with 
 stones and gems. 
 
 The view from the balcony of these rooms is admirably picturesque, 
 looking down upon the lonja — terrace — phinte<i with box, cut into 
 fanciful shapes. Beyond this terrace are the lianging gardens, and 
 
 k 
 
iii-H CATHCART's i.iihUAUY lifcADER. 
 
 the little lakes and fountains ; then gn^t groves of elm and oak trees, 
 all brought from England. Inclosing the lovely picture, as though 
 ill a dark frame, were the gray sumuiits of the Guadarama chain. 
 Gazing over the wide expanse, it appeared to me the realization of the 
 wild dream of an entlmsiast. The creation of such a paradise, be- 
 neath the shadow of the snow-topped mountains, upon whose highest 
 peak is the grand Escurial, is justly styled by the Castilians la octava 
 maracUla del mundo, — the eighth wonder of the world. Philip the 
 Second was a man of most indomitable will and religious zeal. Thus, 
 inspired by a holy purpose, and aided by the gp-eat magician of the 
 earth, mighty gold, he accomplished almost a miracle. Possessing 
 infinite taste in the fine arts, and a love of the beautiful, he adorned 
 the vast halls, galleries, and libraries with the works of distini^uished 
 artists and authors. 
 
 When we came to the door of the great library, blind Comelio 
 gave mc to the cliarge of an agetl monk, who became the cicerone of 
 our wanderings through it. There are thirty-five thousand volumes 
 resting upon the shelves, and multitudes of manuscripts in Arabic ; 
 then noble portraits of Philip the Second, in his early youth and in 
 his manhood. There is a superb picture of Charles the Fifth, taken 
 in the glorious ilays of his life, Avhen he ruled nearly one half of 
 Europe. We also saw the portraits of Herrera, architect of the Escu- 
 rial, and of Montano, the first librarian. The ceiling, which is ex- 
 tremely lofty, was painted by Carducho, and is now as fresh and 
 bright as when painted, some three hundred years ago. 
 
 The old monk was learned, kind, and courteous. He gave us 
 most interesting and valuable information concerning the former oc- 
 cupants of this wonderful pbce. He showed us the small room in 
 which Philip died, in 1598, at the age of seventy-two. His last ill- 
 ness was of frightful duration, and he commanded his people to 
 remove him to a spot whence his eyes could look constantly upon the 
 great altar of the church. We also saw the seat where he was wont 
 to place himself among the monks in the coro, and listen to the music 
 swelling out from the giant oi^an. In his old age he was rigid in 
 the observance of his religious duties, easting aside all the regal 
 splendor of the monarch. Just in the rear of the coro is the statue 
 of Christ upon the cross, carved by Benvenuto Cellini, and given 
 to Philip by the King of Sardinia. It is of exquisite workmanship, 
 but painful to look upon. So precious was it deemed, that it was 
 
MRS. LE VERT. 349 
 
 Drought all the distance from Barcelona on the shoulders of men, for 
 fear the shaking of a airriage might injure it. 
 
 Although many of the paintings have been removed to the Muaeo 
 of Madrid, multitudes still remain, of rare excellence. There are 
 many of llaphad, of Tintoretto, of Murillo, of Titian and Velasquez. 
 The monk often paused before pictures by Navarrette el Miido — Na- 
 vajTctte the Dumb — and commended them to my special attention. 
 They all portray the suiferings of our Saviour, and were indescrib- 
 ably affecting. This Navarrette was a poor deaf-and-dumb boy, who 
 was permitted to wander unheeded through the long cloisters and 
 amid the picture-galleries of the Escurial. At last his genius and his 
 talent found utterance through the pencil and brush. The eloquence 
 of the soul seems infused into them. " The Temptation of Christ 
 upon the Mount '* is a perfect history of the fierce struggle and 
 trial of the passions. " Christ bound to the Column " touched me 
 even to tears. The divine face of our Lord, although bitterness and 
 humiliation are expressed in it, has also a holy calm in the l)eautiful 
 eyes irresistibly impressive. There were other paintings of Navar- 
 rette the Dumb besides tliese, which were remarkable for the coloring 
 and admirable life-like attitudes. From the saints and martyrs his 
 subjects were all taken. 
 
 In the private chapel is the grand painting of Titian, representing 
 San Lorenzo bound to the gridiron, and the fire just kindled beneath 
 it. A most gloomy and sad picture it is, with the stem and fierce 
 faces clustering around to gaze upon the agonies and martyrdom of 
 the saint. 
 
 We passed through a long subterranean passage, under a portion 
 of the edifice, and came out just near our inn. 
 
; 'I CATUCAliT'S LlTElLiRY ll£AU£R. 
 
 TYNDALL. 
 
 1820- 
 
 JoH^ i VNDALL, LL. !»., onc of the most dutin^'uisneu scicniists 01 tnc day, u a native of Ire- 
 IumU where he wm born ebo«t 1890. At an early age ke devoted himaelf to the study ut pli) s- 
 ics,«iid nan •ducvcd a nrpuution which wamuitml hm MminiQUnrnt, at the age of tliiri\ wr. , 
 yean, to the chair of Natural Philusophy in the I nun of Loiidun. Hi- has n^ 
 
 aa a writer and lecturer oa •uhjrcts of natural - u has of all uirn most cxh;i 
 
 diacoMed the important theory of tlic mutual cunvcrubiia> uf ht-al anil niotiou. He is a \ igur*. 
 and fitfctDating writer, and his books may fairly be said to represent the (loetry of science. 11 
 ba8t4aMnni work is a treatise 00 Html, ComsiJered at a Modt of M ' 
 EuretM i» the Mft, FngwunU <if Scnne4 for Vtuciemtific FeopU 
 
 These lectures were driiv.r.-.! i.v »!»•• author, recently, in tlie principn — . 
 
 and were oordially adi r rhetorical beauty and their instructiveness. It u worth 
 
 of note that Profeuor i icave evidence of his great powers of mind in the capacity < 
 
 teacher. His experience lu ihu capacity, at Queenswood College, though brief, seems to ha 
 had an important part in the molding of his intellectual charaeter, and in confirming bis pn<i 
 lection for the special field of labor in which he has toiled with a loceeas ao signal. Thougli 
 beat known as an explorer in experimental physics, he is highly esteemed as a philosophic 
 thinker, and his opinions on tome of the momentous questions in science as oppoaed to theology, 
 that aie mnr dtttwhuil th« thtakiag world, oooimaiid the highflat mpeet. 
 
 AH ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 
 
 The doctrine has been held that the mind of the chihl is like a 
 sheet of white paper, on which by education we can write what char- 
 acters we please. This doctrine assuredly needs qualification and 
 correction. In physics, when an external force is applied to a body 
 with a view of affecting its inner texture, if we wish to predict the 
 result, we must know whether the external force conspires with or 
 opposes the internal forces of the body itself ; and in bringin*? tin 
 influence of education to bear upon the new-born man his inner pow- 
 ers must be also taken into account. He comes to us as a bundle of 
 inherited capacities and tendencies, labeled " from the indefinite past 
 to the indefinite future " ; and he makes his transit from the one to 
 the other through the education of the present time. The object of 
 that education is, or ought to be, to provide wise exercise for his 
 capacities, wise direction for his tendencies, and through this exercise 
 and this direction to furnish his mind with such knowledge as may 
 contribute to the usefulness, the beauty, and the nobleness of his 
 life. 
 
 How is this discipline to be secured, this knowledge imparted? 
 Two rival methods now solicit attention, — the one organized and 
 
TYNDALL. 351 
 
 equipped, the labors of centuries having been expended in bringirtg it 
 to its present stiite of perfection ; the other, more or less chaotic, but 
 becoming daily less so, and giving signs of enormous power, both as 
 a source of knowledge and as a means of discipline. These two 
 methods are tlu; classical and the scientific method. 1 wish they were 
 not rivals ; it is only bigotry and short-sightedness that make tliem so ; 
 for assuredly it is possible to give both of them fair play. Though 
 hanlly authorized to express any opinion whatever upon the subject, 
 I nevertheless hold the opinion that the proper study of a language is 
 an intellectual discipline of the highest kind. If I except discussions 
 on the conjparative merits of Popery and Protestantism, English gram- 
 nuir was the most important discipline of my boyhood. The piercing 
 through the involved and inverted sentences of Paradise Lost; the 
 linking of the verb to its often distant nominative, of the relative to 
 its distant antecedent, of the agent to the object of the transitive verb, 
 of the preposition to the noun or pronoun which it governed ; the 
 study of variations in mood and tense, the transformations often neces- 
 sary- to bring out the true grammatical structure of a senttuice, — all 
 this was to my young mind a discipline of the highest value, and, 
 indeed, a source of unflagging delight. How I rejoiced when I found 
 a great author tripping, and was fairly able to pin him to a corner 
 from which there was no escape ! As I speak, some of the sentences 
 which exercised me when a boy rise to my recollection. " He that 
 hath cars to hear let him hear." That was one of them, where the 
 " He " is left, as it were, floating in mid-air without any verb to sup- 
 |)ort it. I speak thus of English, becjnise it was of real value to me. 
 I do not speak of other languages ; l)ecausc their educational value for 
 me was almost insensible. But, knowing the value of English so 
 well, I should be the last to deny, or even to doubt, the high disci- 
 pline involviMl in the proper study of T^atin and Greek. 
 
 That ."itudy, moreover, has other merits aiul recommendations which 
 havf be«'M nin'july slightly touched upon. It is organized and sys- 
 tematized by long-continued use. It is an instrument wielded by 
 some of the l)est intellects of the country in the education of youth ; 
 an<i it can point to n'snlts in the achievements of our foremost men. 
 What, then, has scienci^ to offer which is in the least degree likely to 
 ^L. compete with such a system? SiM-aking of the world and nil that 
 ^» therein is, of the sky and the stars around it, the ancient writer says, 
 mL ** Amd God saw all that he had made, and behold it was very good.** 
 
 I 
 
35a cathcart's literary rbader. 
 
 It ii the body of things thus described which science offers to the 
 study of man. 
 
 The ultimate problem of physics is to reduce matter by analysis to 
 its lowest condition of divisibility, and force to its simplest manif. 
 tations, and then by synthesis to construct from these elements tl 
 world as it stands. We are still a long way from the final soluti' 
 of this problem ; and when the solution comes, it will be one more 
 of spiritual insight than of actual observation. But though we are 
 still a long way from this complete intellectual mastery of Nature, we 
 have conquered vast regions of it, have leametl their polities and the 
 play of their powers. We live upon a bull of matter eight thou- 
 sand miles in diameter, swathed by an atmosphere of unknown heiirlit . 
 This ball has been molten by heat, chilled to a solid, and sculptured 
 by water ; it is made up of substances possessing distinctive proper- 
 ties and modes of action, properties which have an immediate bear- 
 ing upon the continuance of man in health, and on his recovery from 
 disease, on which moreover depend all the arts of industrial lit 
 These properties and modes of action offer problems to the intellect, 
 some profitable to the child, and others sufficient to tax the highest 
 powers of the philosopher. Our native sphere turns on its axis and 
 revolves in space. It is one of a band which do the same. It is 
 illuminated by a sun which, though nearly a hundred millions of 
 miles distant, can Ix; brought virtually into our closets and there sub- 
 jected to examination. It has its winds and clouds, its rain and 
 frost, its light, heat, sound, electricity, and magnetism. And it has 
 its vast kingdoms of animals and vegetables. To a most amazing 
 extent the human mind has conquered these things, and reveals the 
 logic which runs through them. Were they facts only, without logi- 
 cal relationship, science might, as a means of discipline, suffer in 
 comparison with language. But the whole lx)dy of phenomena is 
 instinct with law ; the facts are hung on principles, and the value of 
 physical science as a means of discipline consists in the motion of 
 the intellect, both inductively and deductively, along the lines of laA\ 
 marked out by phenomena. As regards that discipline to which I 
 have already referred as derivable from the study of languages, — 
 that, and more, are involved in the study of physical science. Indeed, 
 I believe it would be possible so to limit and arrange the study of 
 a portion of physics as to render the mental exercise involved in it 
 almost qualitatively the same as that involved in the unraveling of a 
 language. 
 
TYNDALL. 353 
 
 I haTc thus far limited myself to the purely intellectual side of this 
 question. But man is not all intellect. If he were so, science would, 
 I believe, be his proper nutriment. But he feels as well as thinks ; 
 he is receptive of the sublime and the beautiful as well as of the true. 
 Indeed, I believe that even the intellectual action of a complete man 
 is, consciously or unconsciously, sustained by an undercurrent of the 
 emotions. It is vain, I think, to attempt to separate moral and 
 emotional nature from intellectual nature. Ld. a man but observe 
 himself, and he will, if I mistake not, find that, in nine cases out of 
 ten, moral or immoral considerations, as the case may be, are the 
 motive force which pushes his intellect into action. The reading of 
 the works of two men, neither of them imbued with the spirit of 
 modern science, neither of them, indeed, friendly to that spirit, has 
 placed me here to-day. These men are the English Carlyle and the 
 American Emerson. I never should have gone through Analytical 
 Greometry and the Calculus had it not been for those men. I never 
 should have become a physical investigator, and hence without them 
 I should not have been here to-day. They told me what I ought to 
 do in a way that caused me to do it, and all my consequent intellec- 
 tual action is to be traced to this purely moral source. To Carlyle 
 and Emerson I ought to add Fichte, the greatest representative of 
 pure idealism. These three unscientific men made me a practical 
 scientific worker. They called out, " Act ! " I hearkened to the 
 summons, taking the liberty, however, of determining for myself the 
 direction which effort was to take. 
 
 And I may now cry, " Act ! " but the potency of action must be 
 yours. I may pull the trigger, but if the guji be not charged there is 
 no result. We are creators in the intellectual world as little as in the 
 physical. We may remove obstacles, and render latent capacities 
 active, but we cannot suddenly change the nature of man. The " new 
 birth " itself implies the pre-existence of the new character which 
 recjuircs not to be creat<>d but brought forth. You cannot by any 
 amount of missionary labor smhlcnly tr.insform the savage into the 
 civiliztrd Christian. The improvement of man is secular, — not the 
 work of an hour or of a day. But, though indubitably bound by 
 our organizations, no man knows what the potentialities of any hu- 
 man mind may be, which require oidy release to be brought into 
 aetion. 
 
 The circle of human nature is not complete without the arc of fed- 
 
3'o\- CATHCARt's LITKUARY RKADER. 
 
 ing and emotion. The lilies of the field have a value for us lx?yond 
 their botanical ones, — a certain lightening of the heart acconipcuiics 
 the declaration that " Solomon in all his glory was not amiycd like 
 one of these." The sound of the village bell which comes mellowed 
 from the valley to the traveler upon the hill, has a value beyond its 
 acoustical one. The setting sun when it mantles with the bloom 
 of roses the alpine snows, has a value beyond its optical one. The 
 starry heavens, as yoif know, had for Immanuel Kant a value beyond 
 their astronomical one. Kound about the intellect sweeps the hori- 
 zon of emotions from which all our noblest impulses are derived. I 
 think it very desirable to keep this horizon open ; not to permit 
 cither priest or philosopher to draw down his shutters between yon 
 and it. And here the dead languages, which are sure to be l)eaten by 
 science in the purely intellectual fight, have an irresistible claim. They 
 supplement the work of science by exalting and refining the aesthetic 
 faculty, and must on this account be cherished by all who desire to 
 see human culture complete. There must be a reason for the fasci- 
 nation which these languages have so long exercised upon the most 
 powerful and elevated minds, — a fascination which will probably 
 continue for men of Greek and Roman mold to the end of time. 
 
 Let me utter one practical word in conclusion, — take care of your 
 health. There have been men who by wise attention to this point 
 might have risen to any eminence, — might have made grcjit discov- 
 eries, written great poems, commanded armies, or nded states, but 
 who by unwise neglect of this point have come to nothing. Im- 
 agine Hercides as oarsman in a rotten Iwat ; what can he do there but 
 by the very force of his stroke expedite the ruin of his craft ? Take 
 care, then, of the timbers of your boat, and avoid all practices likely to 
 introduce either wet or dry rot among them. And this is not to be 
 accomplished by desultory or intermittent efforts of the will, but by 
 the formation of hndils. The will, no doubt, has sometimes to put 
 forth its strength in order to strangle or crush the special temptation. 
 But the formation of right habits, is essential to your permanent 
 security. They diminish your chance of falling when assailed, and 
 they augment your chance of recovery when overthrown. 
 
QEOROE 1 l.loi. 335 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 1820- 
 
 GroROt Eliot is the nom Je plume of Mariati C. Evans, who was born in the North of Eng- 
 land about IbiU. Of her origin and early history little is publicly known. During her i^irlkood 
 she went to Loudon, and was fortunate enough to attract the kindly notice of several eminent 
 nirn of letters, who ditccti-d in her the signs of cxtraorUinary intellectnal jwwcr. Under their 
 din t-tiurt ^hc < lUcml ti|)<in a ixurse of study more severe than is usually attempted by members 
 1)1 l,< I M \ ^h .1.1 u t i isii !i lo test her abilities by public apiK-araucc in literature, but, for 
 s< \< nil Mars Into:, till' imMh.itiDii of her first Iwok, pursued her studies assiduously, unkuuwu 
 to the world, yet recognized by the few judicious friends who summnded and counseled her, aa 
 the possessor of exceptional genius. In lljob her first novel, Adam Bedr, appeared, and ita 
 r(ci[i!i,m fully ju-ttifit-d the anticipations of her literary s(X)nsors. A few years later it was 
 follow fd by The MiH on the FIvss, and, at intervals, by Itomola, etc. With each production her 
 tame iuereased*nnd for many years she has held unquestioned rank as lirst among the novel- 
 ists of this century, llrr last novel, J/iJJIemurch, has had a deserved, and an almost unprece- 
 dented, popularity. Two \oiumes of poetry have come from her ]H-n, both full of strength and 
 beauty, but scrvuig to show that prose fiction is her forte. Her intellect is rather masculine 
 thai feminine, and her knowledge of human nature is surprising in one whose sphere of obser- 
 vation must necessarily have been restricted. The careful reader will notice wliat may l»c called 
 a lack of cosino|whtani8Ui in her books ; she dwells on ground that is faiuiliar to her, — the details 
 of country life, with which she made acquaintance in her youth, and the o|>eratious of the human 
 heart ami the delineation of character of which her studies and the associations of her later life 
 have made her an intelligent student. Her novels are distinctively inU-Uectual, lacking spiritu- 
 ality and wannth ; but as literary compositions, combining profound thought and \igorous, if 
 II 1' brilliant, imagination, they arc unsurpassed in English literature. \ few years ago Miss 
 I. .tiis l)ccaiiie the wife of George Ucnry Lewes, the celebrated philosophical writer. The ex- 
 tracts are from JiidJUmarck. 
 
 DE. LYDGATE. 
 
 A GREAT historian,* as he insisted on calling himself, who had the 
 iiappiiiess to be dead a hundred and twenty years aj^o, and so to take 
 his place among the colossi whose huge legs our living pettiness is 
 ob.served to walk under, glories in his copious remarks and digres- 
 sions as tlie least imitable part of his work, and especially in those 
 initial chapters to thfe successive books of his history, where he seems 
 to bring his arm-chair to the proscenium, and chat with us in all the 
 lusty ease of his fine English. But Fielding lived when the days 
 were longer (for time, like money, is measured by our needs), when 
 summer afternoons were spacious, and the clock ticked slowly in the 
 winter evenings. We belated historians must not linger after his 
 cxaniph' ; and if we did so it is prolwible that our chat would he thin 
 and eager, as if delivered from a camp-stool in a parrot-house. I, at 
 lra>t. Iki\( mi much to do in unraveling certain huimiu lots, and seeing 
 
 * UxxftT FiUDWO, u amiBOit author of the eif hteentb century. 
 
35 G cathcaet's liteuaet reader. 
 
 how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can com- 
 mand must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed 
 over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe. 
 
 At present I have to make the new settler Lydgate better known to 
 any one interested in him than he could possibly be even to those who 
 had seen the most of him since his arrival in Middlemarch. For 
 suR'ly all must admit that a man may be puffed and belauded, envied, 
 ridiculed, counted upon as a tool, and fallen in love with, or at least 
 selected as a future husband, and yet remain virtually unknown, — 
 known merely as a cluster of signs for his neighbors' false suppositions. 
 There was a general impression, however, that Lydgate was not alto- 
 gether a common country doctor, and in Middlemarch at that time 
 such an impression was significant of great things being expected 
 from him. For everybody's family doctor was remarkably clever, 
 and was understood to have immeasurable skill in the management 
 and training of the most skittish or vicious diseases. The evidence 
 of his cleverness was of the higher intuitive order, lying in his lady 
 patients* immovable conviction, and was unassailable by any objection 
 except that their intuitions were opposed by others equally strong. 
 Nobody's imagination had gone so far as to conjecture that Mr. Lyd- 
 gate could know as much as Dr. Sprague and Dr. Minchin, the two 
 physicians who alone could offer any hope when danger was extreme, 
 and when the smallest hope was worth a guinea. Still, I repeat, there 
 was a general impression that Lydgate was something rather more im- 
 common than any general practitioner in Middlemarch. And this was 
 true. He was but seven-and-twenty, an age at which many men are not 
 quite common, — at which they are hopeful of achievement, resolute in 
 avoidance, thinking that Mammon shall never put a bit in their mouths 
 and get astride their backs, but rather that Mammon, if they have 
 anything to do with him, shall draw their chariot. 
 
 He had been left an orphan when he was fresh from a public school. 
 His father, a military man, had made but little provision for three 
 children ; and when the boy Tertius asked to have a medical educa- 
 tion, it seemed easier to his guardians to grant his request by ap- 
 prenticing him to a country practitioner than to make any objections 
 on the score of family dignity. He was one of the rarer lads who 
 early get a decided bent, and make up their minds that there is some- 
 thing particular in life which they would like to do for its own sake, 
 and not because their fathers did it. Most of us who turn to any 
 
GEORGE ELIOT. 357 
 
 subject with love remember some morning or evening hour when we 
 got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with 
 parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books begjin 
 to listen to the voices witliin, as tlie first traceable beginning of our 
 love. Something of that sort happened to Lydgate. lie was a quick 
 fellow, and, when hot from play, would toss himself in a corner, and 
 in five minutes be deep in any sort of book that he could lay his 
 hands on : if it were R isseks or Gulliver, so much the better ; but 
 Bailey's Dictionary would do, or the Bible with the Apocrypha in it. 
 Something he must read when he was not riding the pony, or running 
 and hunting, or listening to the talk of men. All this was true of 
 him at ten years of age ; he had then read through Chrysal, or the 
 Adventures of a Guinea, which was neither milk for balK*s nor any 
 chalky mixture meant to pass for milk ; and it had already occurred 
 to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid. His school- 
 studies had not much motlificd that opinion ; for though he " did " 
 his classics and mathematics, he was not pre-eminent in them. 
 
 It was said of him that Lydgate could do anything he liked, but he 
 had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. He was a 
 vigorous animal, with a ready understanding, but no spark had yet 
 kindled in him an intellectual passion ; knowledge seemed to him a 
 very superficial affair, easily mastered. Judging from the conversa- 
 tion of his elders, he had apparently got already more than was neces- 
 sary for mature life. Probably this was not an exceptional result of 
 expensive tcjiching at that period of short-waisted coats, and other 
 fashions which have not yet recurred. But, one vacation, a wet day 
 sent him to the small home librai-y to hunt once more for a book 
 which might have some freshness for him : in vain ! unless, indeed, 
 he took down a dusty row of volumes with gray paper backs and dingy 
 lalK'ls, — the volumes of an old Cyclopedia which he had never dis- 
 turl)ed. It would at least be a novelty to disturb them. They were 
 on the highest shelf, and he stood on a chair to get them down. But 
 he opened the volume he first took from the shelf: somehow, one is 
 apt to read in a make-shifl attitude, just wherti it might seem incon- 
 venient to do so. The page he opened on was under the head of Anat- 
 omy, and the first passjige that drew his eyes was on the valves of the 
 heart. He was not nuich acquainted with valves of any sort, but he 
 knew that vahft were folding-<loors, and through this crevice came a 
 sudden light, startling him with his first vivid notion of finely ad- 
 
358 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 justed mechanism in the human frame. A lil)ei-al education had, 
 of course, It^fl him free to read the indecent passages in the school 
 classics, but, beyond a general sense of secrecy and obscenity in con- 
 nection with his internal structure, had left his imagination quite 
 unbiased, so that for anything he knew his brains lay in small bags 
 at his temples, and he ha<l no more thought of representing to himself 
 how his blood circulated than how paper served instead of gold. 
 ]iut the moment of vocation had come, aiul l)efore he got down 
 from his chair, the world was made new to him by a presentiment of 
 endless processes filling the vast spaces planked out of his sight by 
 that wordy ignorance which he hwl supposed to be knowledge. 
 From that hour Lydgatc felt the growth of an intellectual passion. 
 
 We are not jifr.iid of telling over and over again how a man comes 
 to fall in love with a woman and Ix; wedded to her, or else be fatally 
 parted from her. Is it due to excess of poetry or of stupidity that 
 we are never weary of describing what King James called a woman's 
 " makdom and her fairnesse," never weary of listening to the twang- 
 ing of the old Troubadour strings, and are comparatively uninteresttMl 
 in that other kind of " makdom and fairnesse " which must be wooed 
 with iudustrio\is thought and patient renunciation of small desires ? 
 In the story of this passion, too, the development varies : sometimes 
 it is the glorious marriage, sometimes frustration and final parting. 
 And not seldom the catastrophe is wound up with the other passion, 
 sung by the Troubadours. For in the multitude of middle-aged men 
 who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them 
 much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a 
 good numl)er who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the 
 world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the aver- 
 age, and fit to l)e packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their 
 consciousiu'ss ; for perhaps their ardor for generous, unpaid toil cooled 
 as imperceptibly as the ardor of other youthful loves, till one day their 
 earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new fur- 
 niture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of 
 their gradual change ! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly : 
 you and I may have sent some of our breath toward infecting them, 
 when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions ; 
 or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance. 
 
 Lydgatc did not mean to be one of those failures, and there Avas 
 the better hope of him because his scientific interest soon took the 
 
GEOaOE ELIOT. 359 
 
 form of a professional enthusiasm ; he had a youthful belief in his 
 hrentl-winiiiiig work, not to be stifled by that initiation in make-shift 
 called his 'prentice days ; and he carried to his studies in London, 
 Edinburgh, and Paris the conviction that the medical profession as it 
 nii«;ht Ihj was the finest in the world ; presenting the most perfect 
 iutereiiange between science and art ; offering the most direct alliance 
 l)etween intellectual conquest and the social good. Lydgate's nature 
 demanded this conibination : he was an emotional creature, with a 
 flesh-and-blood sense of fellowship which withstood all the abstrac- 
 tions of special study. He cared not only for " cases," but for John 
 and Elizabeth, especially Elizabeth. 
 
 DR. LYDGATE (cantintted). 
 
 PoES it seem incongruous to you that a Middlemarch surgeon 
 iiould dream of himself as a discoverer ? Most of us, indeed, know 
 ttle of the great originators until they have been lifted up among the 
 ( onstellations, and already nde our fates. But that Ilerschel, for ex- 
 ample, who "broke the barriers of the heavens" — did he not once 
 play a provincial church organ, and give music-lessons to stumbling 
 pianists? Each of those Shining Ones had to walk on the earth 
 inong neighbors who perhaps thought much more of his gait and his 
 garments than of anything which was to give him a title to everlasting 
 ime; each of them had his little local personal historj' sprinkled with 
 mail temptations and sordid cares, which made the retarding friction 
 f his course towanl final companionship with the immortals. Lyd- 
 ite was not blind to the dangers of such friction, but he had plenty 
 t" confidence in his resolution to avoid it as far as possible ; being 
 ven-and-twenty, he felt himself experienced. 
 
 Perhaps that was a more cheerful time for observers and theo- 
 
 i/ers than the present ; we are apt to think it the finest era of the 
 
 orld when America was beginning to be discovered, when a bold 
 
 - lilor, even if he were ^vrecke<l, might alight on a new kingdom ; 
 
 :md al)Out 1829 the dark territories of Pathology were a fine America 
 
 T a spirited young adventurer. Lydgate was ambitious above all 
 
 • contribute toward enlarging the scientific, rational basis of his 
 
 profession. The more he became intereste<l in special questions of 
 
 'l'**«i!<e, such as the nntun* of fever or fevers, the more keeiily he felt 
 
 le need for that fundamental knowledge of structure which just at 
 
360 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 the beginninfif of the century had been illuminated by the brief an ' 
 glorious career of Bichat, who died when he was only one-and-thirty, 
 but, like another Alexander, left a realm large enough for many heirs. 
 That great Frenchman first carried out the conception that living 
 bodies, fundamentally considered, are not associations of organs 
 which can be understood by studying them first apart, and then, as it 
 were, federally ; but must be regarded as consisting of certain primar\ 
 webs or tissues, out of which the various organs — brain, heart, lunii 
 and so on — are compacted, as the various accommodations of a house 
 are built up in various proportions of wood, iron, stone, brick, zinc, 
 and the rest, e^ch material having its peculiar composition and pro- 
 portions. No man, one sees, can understand and estimate the entir 
 structure or its parts, what are iU frailties and what its repair- 
 without knowing the nature of the materials. And the conception 
 wrouj^ht out by Bichat, with his detailed study of the different 
 tissues, acted necessarily on medical questions as the turning of gas- 
 light would act on a dim, oil-lit street, showing new connections and 
 hitherto hidden facts of structure which must be taken into account in 
 considering the symptoms of maladies and the action of medicaments. 
 But results which depend on human conscience and intelligence 
 work slowly, and now most medical practice was still strutting or 
 shambling along the old paths, and there was still scientific work to 
 be done which might have seemed to be a direct sequence of Bichat's. 
 This great seer did not go beyond the consideration of the tissues as 
 idtimate facts in the living organism, marking the limit of anatomical 
 analysis ; but it was open to another mind to say, Have not these 
 structures some common basis from which they have all started, as 
 your sarcenet, gauze, net, satin, and velvet from the raw cocoon ? 
 Here would be another light, as of oxyhydrogen, showing the very 
 grain of things, and revising all former explanations. Of this se- 
 quence to Bichat's work, already vibrating along many currents of 
 the European mind, Lydgate was enamored ; he longed to demon- 
 strate the more intimate relations of living structure, and help to 
 define men's thought more accurately after the true order. The work 
 had not yet been done, but only prepared for those who knew how to 
 use the preparation. What was the primitive tissue ? In that way 
 Lydgiite put the question, — not quite in the way required by the 
 awaiting answer; but such missing of the right word befalls many 
 seekers. And he counted on quiet intervals to be watchfully seized 
 
GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 361 
 
 for taking up the threads of investigation, — on many hints to be won 
 from diligent application, not only of the scalpel, but of the micro- 
 scope, which resciirch had begun to use again with new enthusiasm of 
 reliance. Such was Lydgate's plan of his future : to do good small 
 work for Middlemarch, and great work for the world. 
 
 He was certainly a happy fellow at this time ; to be seven-and- 
 twenty, without any fixed vices, with a generous resolution that his 
 action should be beneficent, and with ideas in his brain that made life 
 interesting, he was at a starting-point which makes many a man's career 
 a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that 
 amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an 
 arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of 
 circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man 
 swims and makes his point, or else is carried headlong. The risk 
 would remain, even with close knowledge of Lydgate's character ; for 
 character, too, is a process and an unfolding. The man was still in 
 the making, as much as the Middlemarch doctor and immortal dis- 
 coverer, and there were both virtues and faults capable of shrinking 
 or expanding. The faults will not, 1 hope, be a reason for the with- 
 drawal of your interest in him. Among our valued friends is there 
 not some one or other who is a little too self-confident and disdainful, 
 whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness, Avho 
 is a little pinehe<l here and protuberant there with native prejudices, 
 or whose better energies are liable to lapse dowu the wrong channel 
 under the influence of transient solicitations? All these things might 
 be alleged against Lydgate, but then they are the periphrases of a 
 polite preacher, who talks of Adam, and would not like to mention 
 anything painful to the pew-renters. The partieidar faults from 
 which these delicsite generalities arc distilled have distinguishable 
 physiognomitrs, diction, accent, and grimaces ; filling up parts in very 
 various^ramas. Our vanities differ as our noses do ; all conceit is not 
 the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutise of 
 metital make in which one of us differs from another. 
 
 Lydgate's conceit was of the arrogant sort, never simpering, never 
 impertinent, but massive in its claims, and benevolently contemptuous. 
 He would do a greiit deid for noodles, being sony for them, and 
 feeling quite sure that they could have no power over him ; he had 
 thought of joining the Saint Simonians when he was in Paris, in 
 order to turn them against some of their own doctrines. All his 
 16 
 
362 cathcart's litebaet reader. 
 
 faults were marked by kindred traits, and were those of a man who 
 had a fine baritone, whose clothes hung avcU upon him, and who even 
 in his ordinary gestures had an air of inbred distinction. Where, 
 then, lay the spots of commonness ? says a young lady, enaniorwl of 
 that careless grace. How could there be any commonness in a man 
 so well bred, so ambitious of social distinction, so generous and 
 unusual in his views of social duty ? As easily as there may be 
 stupidity in a man of genius if you take him unawares on the >\Tong 
 subject, or as many a man who has the best will to advance the social 
 millennium might be ill inspired in imagining its lighter pleasures ; 
 unable to go beyond Offenbach's music, or the brilliant punning in 
 the last burlesque. Lydgate's spots of commonness lay in the com- 
 plexion of his prejudices, which, in spite of noble intention and sympa- 
 thy, were half of them such as are found in ordinary men of tin; 
 worhl : that distinction of mind which belonged to his intellectual 
 ardor did not penetrate his feeling and judgment about furniture, or 
 women, or the desirability of its being known (without his telling) 
 that he was better born than other country surgeons. He did not 
 mean to think of furniture at present; but whenever he did so, it was 
 to be feared that neither biology nor schemes of reform would lift 
 him above the vulgarity of feeling that there would be an incompati- 
 bility in his furniture not being of the best. 
 
 A WORLDLY PICTURE. 
 
 Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit 
 young lives .ifter l)eing long in company with them, and not desire to 
 know what befell them in their after-years ? For the fragment of a life, 
 however typical, is not the sample of an even web; promises may 
 not be kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension ; 
 latent powers may find their long-waited opportunity ; a p^t error 
 may ni*ge a grand retrieval. 
 
 ^larriago, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still 
 a great l^eginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honey- 
 moon in Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and 
 thistles of the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic, 
 — the gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete imion 
 which makes the advancing years a climax, and age the han'est of 
 sweet memories in common. 
 
OEOROB ELIOT. 368 
 
 Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of 
 liope and enthusiasm, and get broken by the way, wanting patience 
 with each other and the world. 
 
 All who have ain*d for Fred Vincy and Mary Grarth will like to 
 know that these two niiule no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual 
 happiness. Fred surjjrised his neigiilwrs in various ways. He l)e- 
 canic rather distinguished in his side of the county as a theoretic and 
 practiad farmer, and produced a work on the Cidtivation of Green 
 Crops and the Economy of Cattle-Feeding which won him high con- 
 gratulations at agricultural mwttings ; but in Middlcmarch admiration 
 Avas more reserved : most persons there were inclined to believe that 
 the merit of Fred's authorship was due to his wife, since they had 
 never expected Fred Yincy to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel. 
 
 But when Mary wrote a little book for her lx)ys, called Stories of 
 Great Men, tjikcn from Plutarch, and had it printed and published by 
 Gripp & Co., Middlcmarch, every one in the town was willing to 
 give the credit of this work to Fred, observing that he had been to the 
 University, "wl:ei*e the ancients were studied," and might have been 
 a clergyman if he had chosen. 
 
 In this way it was made clear that Middlcmarch had never been 
 dcceivetl, and thiit there was no need to praise anybody for writing a 
 book, since it was always done by somebody else. 
 
 Moreover, Fred remained imswervingly steady. Some years after 
 his marriage he told Mary that his happiness was half owing to Fare- 
 brother, who gave him a strong pull-up at the right moment. I 
 cannot say that he was never again misled by his hopefulness : the 
 yield of crops or tlie profits of a cattle side usually fell below his 
 estimate; and he was always prone to l)elieve that he could make 
 money by the purchase of a horse which turned out badly, — though 
 tills, Miiy observetl, was of course the fault of the horse, not of Fred's 
 juiigiiii lit. He kept his love of horsemanship, but he rarely allowed 
 himself a day's hunting ; and when he did so, it M'ns remarkable that 
 he submitted to l)e laughed at for cowardliness at the fences, seeming 
 to see Mary and the l)oys sitting on the five-barred gate, or showing 
 their curly heads l)etween hedge and ditch. 
 
 Hurt! were three boys : Mar\' was not discontented that she brought 
 forth men-children only ; aiul when Fred wished to have a girl like 
 her, she said laughingly, ** That woidd be too great a trial to your 
 mother." Mrs. Vincy in her declining years, and in the diminished 
 
 k 
 
36i cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 luster of her housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception 
 that two at least of Fred's boys were real Vincys, and did not " feature 
 the Garths." But Mary secn'tly rejoiced that the youngest of the tliree 
 was very much what her father must have been when he wore a round 
 jacket, and showed a marvelous nicety of aim in pkying at mar])lc's, 
 or in throwing stones to bring down the mellow pears. 
 
 Ikn and Letty Garth, who were uncle and aunt before they were 
 well in their teens, disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces 
 were more desirable; Bea conteuding that it was dear girls wer* 
 good for less than boys, else they would not be always in petticoats, 
 which showed how little they were meant for ; whereupon Letty, who 
 argued much from books, got angry in replying that God made coats 
 of skins for both Adam and Eve alike, — also it occurred to her that 
 in the East the men too wore petticoats. But this latter argument, 
 obscuring the majesty of the former, was one too many, for Ben 
 answered, contemptuously, " The more spooneys they ! " and immedi- 
 ately appealed to his mother whether boys were not better than girls. 
 Mrs. Garth pronounced that both were alike naughty ; but that boys 
 were undoubtedly stronger, could run faster, and throw with more 
 precision to a greater distance. With this oracular sentence Ben was 
 well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness ; but Letty took it ill, her 
 feeling of superiority being stronger than her muscles. 
 
 Fred never became rich, — his hopefulness had not led him to 
 expect that ; but he gradually saved enough to become owner of the 
 stock and furniture at Stone Court, and the work which Mr. Garth 
 put into his hands carried him in plenty through those " bad times " 
 which are always present with farmers. Mary, in her matronly days, 
 became as solid in figure as her mother ; but, unlike her, gave the 
 boys little formal teaching, so that Mrs. Garth was alarmed lest they 
 should never be well grounded in grammar and geography. Never- 
 theless, they were found quite forward enough when they went to 
 school ; perhaps because they had liked nothing so well as being with 
 their mother. When Fred was riding home on winter evenings, he 
 had a pleasant vision beforehand of the bright hearth in the wainscoted 
 parlor, and was sorry for other men who could not have Mary for 
 their wife ; especially for Mr. Farebrother. " He was ten times 
 worthier of you than I was," Fred could now say to her, magnani- 
 mously. " To be sure he was," Mary answered ; " and for that reason 
 he could do better without me. But you — I shudder to think what 
 
GEORGE ELIOT. 365 
 
 you would have been, — a curate in <l<'l)t for liorso-hiri> and r.imlirin 
 pocket-handkercliicfs ! " 
 
 Lydjftite's liair never became white, lie died wlieii lie was oniy 
 fifty, leaving his wife and children provided for by a heavy insurance 
 on his life. He had jc^ii'ied ^'^ excellent practice, alteniating, accord- 
 ing to the season, between London and a Continental bathing-pkce ; 
 having written a treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of 
 wealth on its side. His skill was relied on by many paying patients, 
 but he always regarded himself as a failure ; he had not done what 
 he once meant to do. His acquaintances thought him enviable to 
 have so charming a wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion. 
 Rosamond never committed a second compromising indiscretion. She 
 simply continued to be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment, 
 disposed to admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by strat- 
 agem. As the years went on, he opposed her less and less, whence 
 Rosamond concluded that he had learned the value of her opinion ; 
 on the other hand, she had a more thorough conviction of his talents 
 now that he gained a good income, and instead of the threatened 
 cage in Bride Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the 
 bird-of-paradise that she resembled. In brief, Lydgate was what is 
 called a successful man. But he died prematurely of diphtheria, and 
 Rosamond afterward married an elderly and wealthy physician, who 
 took kindly to her four children. 
 
 Dorothea never repented that she had given up position and fortune 
 to marry Will Ijadislaw, and he would have held it the greatest shame 
 as well as sorrow to him if she had repented. They were bound to 
 each other by a love stronger than any impulses which could have 
 marred it. No life would have l)een possible to Dorothea which was 
 not filled with emotion, atid she had now a life filled also with a benefi- 
 cent activity which she had not the doubtful pains of discovering and 
 marking out for herself. Will became an ardent public man, working 
 well in those times when reforms were begun with a young hopefulness 
 of immediate good which has been much checked in our days, and 
 getting at last returned to Parliament by a constituency who paid his 
 expenses. Dorothea could have liked nothing l)etter, since wrongs 
 existed, than that her husband should l)e in the thick of a struggle 
 against them, and that she should give him wifely help. Many who 
 knew her thought it a pity that so substantive and nire a creature 
 should have been absorl)ed into the life of another, and be oidy known 
 in a certain circle as a wife and mother. 
 
cathcart's literaey reader. 
 
 Sir James never ceased to regard Dorothea's second marriage as a 
 mistake ; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in 
 Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a 
 fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, 
 and in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to 
 marry his cousin, — young enough to have Ixjen his son, witli no 
 property, and not well-born. Those who had not seen anything of 
 Dorothea usually observed that she could not have been " a nice wo- 
 man/' else she would not have married either the one or the other. 
 
 Certaiidy those determining acts of her life were not ideally beauti- 
 ful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse strug- 
 gling under prosaic conditions. Among the many remarks passed on 
 her mistakes, it was never said in the neighborhood of Middlemarch 
 that such mistakes could not have happened if the society into wliich 
 she was born had not smiled on propositions of marriage from a 
 sickly man to a girl less than half his own age, — on modes of educa- 
 tion which make a woman's knowUnlgc another name for motley ig- 
 norance, — on rules of conduct which are in flat contradiction with \t< 
 own loudly asserted beliefs. While this is the social air in which 
 mortals begin to breathe, there will be collisions such as those in 
 Dorothea's life, where great feelings will take the aspect of error, aiul 
 great faith the asjx'ct of illusion. For there is no creature whosi 
 inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what 
 lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of 
 reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend 
 her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial ; the 
 medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But 
 we insignificant people, with our daily words and acts, are preparing 
 the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder 
 sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know. 
 
 Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were 
 not widely \nsible. Her full nature, like that river of which Alexan- 
 der broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great 
 name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her 
 was incalculably diffusive; for the growing good of the world is 
 partly dependent on unhistoric acts ; and that things are not so ill 
 with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number 
 who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. 
 
PAETON. 367 
 
 PARTON. 
 
 1822- 
 
 James Partow, though a native of England, where he was horn in 1822, has lived in the 
 rniteU Stall's since hi« early childhood. He has lieen an industrious writer, chiefly in the field 
 of t)i()-rra|)hy, in which he has done some admirahle work. His lirst book was The Life of Horace 
 drerlri/, wliich wa-s |)ul)li!>hc«l in Itioo, and it has been followed by biographies of Aurun Burr, 
 Anlrcir JtiriiuH, lienjamtH F. Butler, John Jacob Astor, and Thomas Jrjfcnon. He has labored 
 111 iitlur (lipartmcnts of literature, editing The Humoroiu Poetry of the English iMiujuage, and 
 wntiii<; sevt-mi pamphlets on New York politico, etc. ; but his fame as a writer will rest on his 
 bu.^'rai)hical work. In this specialty he has been signally successful in presenting >ivid and at- 
 iractne portraits of his subjects, supiwrted by dramatic pictures of their times. In reaching 
 tliis result he has been forced to disregnnl in many instances the strict records of history, and 
 his biographies are, therefore, not absolutely unimpeachable^ in point of facts. He displays 
 ercat industry in the collection of material and great skill in its arrangement ; and, by availing 
 r of many personal particulars which most biographers would deem too insignificant for 
 1^ made his iMuks exceptionally readable. His Life of Thomas Jefferson, recently pul>- 
 .^..^.1. lumishcs good specimens of his faults and his merits: it is full of matter, and very 
 fascinating ; but it is marred somewhat by historical inaccuracies. 
 
 PATRICK HENEY'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH ENGLAND. 
 
 P.\TRICK Henry had been coming and going during Jefferson's 
 ^tiidfiit years,* (Iroppiiifj: in when the General Court met in the autumn, 
 and riding homeward, witli a book or two of Jefferson's in his saddle- 
 bags, when the court adjourned over till the spring; then returning 
 with the books unread. The wondrous eloquence which he had dis- 
 ])layed in the Parsons Case in December, 1763, does not seem to have 
 l).<ii .riiicr.illy known in Williamsburg in 1764; for he moved about 
 ih. St nets and pui)lic places unrecognized, though not unmarked. It 
 would not have been extraordinary if our young student had been a 
 little ashamed of his oddity of a guest as they walked together to- 
 wards the Capitol, at the time when the young ladies were abroad, — 
 Siikcy Potter, Betsy Moore, Judy Burwell, and the rest ; for Henry's 
 (ln*ss was coarse, worn, and countrified, and he walketl with such an 
 air of thoughtless unconcern that he was taken by some for an idiot. 
 Hut he had a cause to plead that winter; and when he sat down he 
 had become " Mr. Henry " to all Williamsburg. You will observe in 
 
 • The extract is from Parton's Life of Jefferson. Jefferson at thu time was a law-student 
 and a warm personal friend of Patrick Henry, wlio was lumself a young man and just liecoming 
 kn..»n as a skillful lawyer and popular speaker. The speech referred to was dehvered in the 
 N ir;;iitia House of BurgesMt — a body somewhat resembling the State I/egislature of to-day — 
 III IT';.'), and is generally familiar to Mbool-children, extracU from it being given in nearly aU 
 vm...j1 "Speakers." 
 
368 CATliCAUl'a LilLKAKY UEADLU. 
 
 the memorials of Old Virginia, from 1765 to 1800, that, whoever 
 else may be named without a prefix of honor, this " forest-born De- 
 mosthenes," as Byron styled him, is generally styled Mr. Henrv. 
 To Washington, to Jefferson, to Madison, to all that circle of eminent 
 men, he ever remained " Mr. Henry." On that day iji 1764 he gave 
 such an exhibition of his power, that, during the next session of 
 the House of Burgesses, a vacancy was made for him, and he was 
 elected to a seat. The up-country yeomen, whose idol he had be- 
 come, gladly gave their votes to such a man, when the Stamp Act was 
 expected to be a topic of debate. 
 
 And so, in May, 1765, the new member was in Williamsburg to 
 take his seat, a guest again of his young friend Jefferson. He sut, 
 day after day, waiting for some of the older members to open the sul)- 
 ject. But no one seemed to know just wliat to do. A year befoir 
 the House had gently denied the right of Parliament to tax the colo- 
 nies, and softly remonstrated against the threatened measure ; but as 
 the act had been passed, in spite of their objections, what more could 
 a loyal colony do? No one thought of formal resistance, and remon- 
 strance had failed. What else ? What next ? However frequently 
 the two friends may have conversed upon this perplexity, it was 
 Patrick Henry who, to use his own words, " alone, unadvised, and 
 unassisted," hit upon the proper expedient. 
 
 Only three days of the session remained. On the blank leaf of an 
 old Coke upon Lyttleton * — perhaps Jefferson's own copy — the new 
 member wrote his celebrated five resolutions, of this purport : Wi 
 Englishmen, living in America, have all the rights of Englishmen 
 living in England ; the chief of which is, that we can only l^e taxed 
 by our own representatives ; and any attempt to tax us otherwise 
 menaces British liberty on both continents. In all probability, Jeffer- 
 son knew that something of the kind was intended on that memor- 
 able day, for he was present in the House. There was no gallery 
 then, nor any other provision for spectators ; but there could be no 
 objection to the friend and relative of so many members standing in 
 the doorway between the lobby and the chamber ; and there he took his 
 stiind. He saw his tall, gaunt, coarsely attired guest rise in his awk- 
 ward way, and break with stammering tongue the silence which had 
 brooded over the loudest debates, as week after week of the session 
 had passed. He observed, and felt, too, the thrill which ran through 
 
 • A celebrated law text-book. 
 
PAETON. 
 
 369 
 
 the House at the mere introduction of a subject with which every 
 mind was surcharged, and marked the rising tide of feeling as the 
 reading of the resolutions went on, until the climax of audacity was 
 reached in the last chiuse of the last resolution. How moderate, how 
 tame, the words seem to us ! " Ever)' attempt to invest such power 
 [of taxation] in any person or persons whatever, other than the Gen- 
 eral Assembly aforesaid, has a manifest tendency to destroy British 
 and American freedom." 
 
 When the reading was finished, JeflFerson heard his friend utter the 
 opening sentences of his speech, with faltering tongue as usual, and 
 giving little promise of the strains that were to follow. But it was the 
 nature of this great genius, as of all genius, to rise to the occasion. 
 Soon Jefferson saw him stand erect, and, swinging free of all impedi- 
 ments, launch into the tide of his oration ; every eye captivated by 
 the large and sweeping grace of his gesticulation, every ear charmed 
 with the swelling music of his voice, every mind thrilled or stung by 
 the vivid epigrams into which he condensed his opinions. He never 
 had a listener so formed to be held captive by him as the student at 
 the lobby door, who, as a boy, had found the oratory of the Indian 
 chief so impressive, and could not now resist a slurring translation of 
 Ossian's majestic phrases. After the lapse of fifty-nine years, Jeffer- 
 son still spoke of this great day with enthusiasm, and described anew 
 the closing moment of Henry's speech, when the orator, interrupted 
 by cries of treason, uttered the well-known words of defiance, " U this 
 be treason, make the most of it ! " 
 
 The debate which followed Mr. Henry's opening speech was, as 
 Jefferson has recorded, " most bloody." It is impossible for a reader 
 of this generation to conceive tiie mixture of fondness, pride, and 
 veneration with which these colonists regarded the mother country, its 
 jwrliament and king, its church and its literature, and all tl»e glorious 
 names and events of its history. Whig as Jefferson was by nature and 
 conviction, he could not give up England as long as there was any 
 hope of a just union with her. What, then, must have been the feel- 
 ings of the Tories of the House, — Tories by nature and by party, — 
 upon hearing this yeoman from the West speak of the natural rights 
 of man in the spirit of a Sidney, and use language in reference to the 
 king which sounded to them like the prelude to an assassin's stab ? 
 They had to make a stand, too, for their position as leaders of the 
 House, unquestioned for a century. To the matter of the resolutions 
 16* X 
 
O/O CATHCAKT S LITERARY READER. 
 
 no one objected. All that Wythe, PendU'toii, Bland, and Peyton 
 Kandolph couhl urge against them was, that they were unbecominsr 
 and unnecessary. The House had already remonstrated without effet i 
 and it became a loyal people to submit. '* Torrents of sublime elo- 
 quence " from Patrick Henry, as Jefferson observes, swept away their 
 arguments, and the resolutions were carried ; the last one, however, 
 by only n single vote. 
 
 Doubtless the young gentlemen went home exulting. Patrick 
 Henry, unused to the artifices of legislation, and always impatient ot 
 detail, supposing now that the work for which he had come to Wil- 
 liamsburg was done, mounted that very evening and rode away. 
 Jefferson, perhaps, was not too sure of this ; for the next mornini: 
 some time before the hour of meeting, he was again at the Capitol, 
 and in the Burgesses* Chamber. His uncle. Colonel Peter Randolph, 
 one of the Tory members, came iu, and, sitting down at the clerk's 
 table, began to turn over the journals of the House. He had a dim 
 recollection, he said, of a resolution of the House, many years ago, 
 having been expunged! He was trying to find the record of the 
 transaction. He wanted a pn^ccdent. The student of law looked 
 oyer his shoulder, as he turned the leaves; a group of members 
 standing near, in trepidation at the thought of yesterday's doings. 
 The House-bell rang ; the House convened ; the student resumed his 
 stand in the doorway. A motion was made to expunge the last 
 resolution of yesterday's series ; and, in the absence of the mighty 
 orator whose eloquence had yesterday made the dull intelligent and 
 the timid brave, the motion was carried, and the resolution was ex- 
 punged. 
 
 THE DECLAEATION OF Iin)£F£ND£NC£.* 
 
 It was on the 7th of June, 1776, that Mr. R. H. Lee obeyed the in- 
 structions of the Virginia legislature by moving that Congress should 
 declare independence. Two days' debate revealed that the measure, 
 
 * The Declaration of Independence was signed by the Continental Congress July 4th, 1776. 
 Edward Everett said of this great charter and of Mr. Jefferson, its author : " To liave been the 
 instrument of expressing, in one brief, decisive act, the concentrated will and resolution of a 
 whole family of States ; of unfolding, in one all-importaut manifesto, the causes, the motives, 
 and the justification of this great movement in human affairs -, to have been pennitted to give 
 the impress and peculiarity of his own mind to a charter of public right, destined — or rather, 
 let me say, already elevated — to an importance, in the estimation of men, equal to anything 
 human, ever borne on parchment, or expressed in the visible signs of thought, — this is the glory 
 of Thomas Jefferson." 
 
PAJITON. 371 
 
 thou<^h still a little premature, was destined to pass ; and therefore 
 he further diseussion of the suhjeet was postponed for twenty days, 
 iid a committee of five was appointed to draught a deckration, — 
 1 Komas Jefferson, Dr. Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and 
 R. 11. Livingston. Mr. Jefferson was naturally urged to prepare the 
 draught. He was chairman of the committee, having received the 
 liigliest number of votes ; he was also its youngest member, and 
 therefore bound to do an ample sliare of the work ; he was noted for 
 liis skill with the pen ; he was particukrly conversant with the points 
 of the controversy ; he was a Virginian. The task, indeed, was not 
 very anluous or difficult. Nothing was wanted but a careful and 
 brief recapitulation of wrongs familiar to every patriotic mind, and a 
 dear statement of principles hackneyed from eleven years' iteration, 
 .lefferson made no difficulty about undertaking it, and probably had 
 no anticipation of the vast celebrity that was to follow so slight an 
 exercise of his faculties. 
 
 He was ready with his draught in time. His colleagues upon the 
 ( onunittee suggested a few verbal changes, none of which were ira- 
 ])()rtant ; but during the three days' discussion of it in the House, it 
 was subjected to a review so critical and severe, that the author sat in 
 liis place silently writhing under it, and Dr. Franklin felt called upon 
 to console him with the comic relation of the process by which the 
 sign-board of John Tliompson, luilter, makes and sells hats for ready 
 money ^ was reduced to the name of the hatter and the figure of a hat. 
 Congress made eighteen suppressions, six additions, and ten altera- 
 tions ; and nearly every one of these changes was an improvement. 
 The noblest utterance of the whole composition is the reason given 
 for making the Dechuration, — "a decent eespect foe the opin- 
 ions OF MANKIND." This touches the heart. Among the best emo- 
 tions that human nature knows is the veneration of man for man. 
 This recognition of the public opinion of the world, — the sum of 
 human sense, — as the final arbiter in all such controversies, is the 
 single phrase of the document which Jefferson alone, perhaps, of all 
 the Congn^ss, would have originated ; and, in point of merit, it was 
 worth all the rest. 
 
 During the 2d, 3d, and 4th of July Congress were engaged in 
 reviewing the Dechiration. Thursday, the fourth, was a hot day ; 
 the session lasted many hours ; members were tired and impatient. 
 Every one who has watched the sessions of a deliberative body knows 
 
372 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 how the mo8t important measures are retarded, accelerated, even 
 defeated, by physical causes of the most trifling nature. Mr. King- 
 lake intimates that Lord Ragkn's invasion of the Crimea was due 
 rather to the after-dinner slumbers of the British Cabinet, than to 
 any well-considered purpose. Mr. Jefl^erson used to rekte, with much 
 merriment, tliat the finid signing of the Declaration of Independence 
 was hastened by an absurdly trivial cause. Ne^ir the hall in which 
 the debites were then held was a livery -stable, from wliich swarms of 
 flies came into the open windows, and assailed the silk-stockinged 
 legs of honorable members. Handkerchief in hand, they lashed the 
 flies with such vigor as they could command on a July afternoon ; 
 but the annoyance became at length so extreme as to render them 
 impatient of delay, and they made haste to bring the momentous 
 business to a conclusion. 
 
 After such a long and severe strain upon their minds, members 
 seem to have indulged in many a jocular observation as they stood 
 around the table. Tradition has it, that when John Hancock had 
 affixed his magnificent signature to the paper, he said, " There, John 
 Bull may read my name without spectacles ! " 
 
 No composition of man was ever received with more rapture than 
 this. It came at a happy time. Boston was delivered, and New 
 York, as yet, but menaced ; and in all New England there was not a 
 British soldier who was not a prisoner, nor a king's ship that was 
 not a prize. Between the expulsion of the British troops from Bos- 
 ton, and their capture of New York, was the period of the Revolu- 
 tionary War when the people were most confident and most united. 
 From the newspapers and letters of the times, we should infer that the 
 contest was ending rather than beginning, so exultant is their tone ; 
 and the Declaration of Independence, therefore, was received more 
 like a song of triumph than a call to battle. 
 
 The paper was signed late on Thursday afternoon, July 4. On 
 the Monday following, at noon, it was publicly read for the first time, 
 in Independence Square, from a platform erected by Rittenhouse for 
 the purpose of observing the transit of Venus. Captain John Hop- 
 kins, a young man commanding an armed brig of the navy of the 
 new nation, was the reader ; and it required his stentorian voice to 
 carry the words to the distant verge of tlie multitude who had come 
 to hear it. In the evening, as a journal of the day has it, " our late 
 king's coat-of-arms were brought from the hall of the State House, 
 
PAKTON. 873 
 
 where the said king's courts were formerly held, and burned amid 
 the acclamations of a crowd of spectators." Similar scenes transpired 
 in every center of population, and at every camp and post. Usually 
 the militia compjinies, the committee of safety, and other revolutionary 
 Ixxlies, marched in procession to some public place, where they lis- 
 tened decorously to the read in j^ of the Declaration, at the conclusion 
 of which cheers were given and salutes fired; and, in the evening, 
 there were illuminations and bonfires. In New York, after the 
 reading, the leatlen statue of the late king in Bowling Green was 
 " laid prostrate in the dirt," and ordered to l)e run into bullets. The 
 debtors in prison were also set at liberty. Virginia, before the news 
 of the Declaration had reached her (July 5, 1776), had stricken the 
 king's name out of the prayer-book ; and now (July 30), Rhode 
 Island made it a misdemeanor to pray for tlie king as king, under 
 penalty of a fine of one hundred thousand pounds ! 
 
 The news of the Declaration was received with sorrow by all that 
 was best in England. Samuel Rogers used to give American guests 
 at his breakfasts an interesting reminiscence of this period. On the 
 morning after the intelligence reached London, his father, at family 
 prayers, addiKl a prayer for the success of the colonies, which he 
 repeated every day until the peace. 
 
 The deed was done. A people not formed for empire ceased to 
 be imperial ; and a people destined to empire began the political edu- 
 cation that will one day give them far more and better than imperial 
 sway. 
 
iil4t CATilCAKTS LlTJ::iiARY KEADEK. 
 
 JEAN INGELOW. 
 
 1825- 
 
 Jbav IlfOELOW was bora in England about 1825. Little is known of her prirate life, which 
 has beai very retired; but her name has become familiar and beloved throughout the English- 
 ■peaking world. Her first important hterary essay was a volume of poems published in £ug- 
 land in 18<13, and immediately reprinted in this country, where it was reeeired with such favor 
 as is rarely accorded to a book of Terse. It has been followed by two or three volumes of poems, 
 which have been less popular than the author's first venture, for the reason, perhaps, that they 
 have dealt with more ambitious themes. In prose, Miss Ingclow has written little, but very 
 welL Her Stud'utfor Stories is one vS the best collections of stories for children in print, and 
 foor MtU if a tale of singular beauty, though, perhaps, too sad. In 1872 she produced her 
 lint Bord, Of tlU SkelUgt, which, however fculty in artistic respects, in purity of sentiment, 
 •ad flwtahTas and wbolesomeness of atmosphere, has hardly been sorpaaaed in modera literature. 
 Bat poetry is evidently this author's forU .- there is a simple sweetness, an earaest goodness, in 
 her verse which is irresistibly winning, and which appeals powerfully to the hearts of the people. 
 While her general mood is calmly contemplative, Tkt High TUt and a few other poems prove 
 of a high degree of dnunatic vigor. 
 
 SEVEN TIMES ONE. 
 
 There *s no dew left on the daisies and clover, 
 
 There *s no rain left in heaven. 
 I *ve said my " seven times " over and over, — 
 
 Seven times one are seven. 
 
 I am old, — so old I can write a letter ; 
 
 My birthday lessons are done. 
 The lambs play always, — they know no better ; 
 
 They are only one times one. 
 
 Moon ! in the night I have seen you sailing 
 And shining so round and low. 
 
 You were bright — ah, bright — but your light is failing 
 You are nothing now but a bow. 
 
 You Moon ! have you done something Avrong in heaven, 
 That God has hidden your face ? 
 
 1 hope, if you have, you will soon be forgiven. 
 
 And shine again in your place. 
 
 O velvet Bee ! you 're a dusty fellow, — 
 
 You Ve powdered your legs with gold. 
 O brave marsh Mary -buds, rich and yellow. 
 
 Give me vour monev to hold ! 
 
JEAN INGE LOW. 376 
 
 O Columbine ! open your folded wrapper, 
 Where two twin turtle-doves dwell ! 
 
 Cuckoo-pint ! toll me the purple clapper 
 That hangs in your clear green bell ! 
 
 And show me your nest, with the young ones in it, — 
 I will not steal them away : 
 
 1 am old ! you may trust me, linnet, linnet ! 
 
 I am seven times one to-day. 
 
 A MAIDEN WITH A MILKINO-FAIL. 
 
 What change has made the pastures sweet. 
 And reached the daisies at my feet, 
 
 And cloud that wears a golden hem ? 
 This lovely world, the hills, the sward, — 
 Tlicy all look fresh, as if our Lord 
 
 But yesterday had finished them. 
 
 And here 's the field with light aglow : 
 How fresh its boundary lime-trees show ! 
 
 And how its wet leaves trembling shine ! 
 Between their trunks come through to me 
 The moniing sparkles of the sea. 
 
 Below the level browsing line. 
 
 I see the pool, more dear by half 
 Than pools where other waters laugh 
 
 Up at the breasts of coot and rail. 
 There, as she passed it on her way, 
 I saw reflected yestenlay 
 
 A maiden with a milking-pail. 
 
 There, neither slowly nor in haste, — 
 One hand upon her slender waist, 
 
 The other lifted to her pail, — 
 She, rosy in the morning light, 
 Among the water-daisies white. 
 
 Like some fair sloop appejired to sail. 
 
376 CATHC art's literary reader. 
 
 Against her ankles as she trod 
 The lucky buttercups did nod : 
 
 I leaned upon the ^ate to see. 
 The sweet thing looked, but did not speak ; 
 A dimple came in either cheek, 
 
 And all my heart was gone from me. 
 
 Then, as I lingered on the gate, 
 And she came up like coming fate, 
 
 I saw my picture in her eyes, — 
 Clear dancing eyes, more black than sloes ! 
 Cheeks like the mountain pink, that grows 
 
 Among white-headed majesties ! 
 
 I said, " A tale was made of old 
 That 1 would fain to thee unfold. 
 
 Ah ! let me, — let me tell the tale." 
 But high she held her comely head : 
 " I cannot heed it now," she said, 
 
 " For carrying of the milking-pail." 
 
 She laughed. What good to make ado ? 
 I held the gate, and she came through, 
 
 And took her homeward path anon. 
 From the clear pool her face had fled ; 
 It rested on my heart instead, 
 
 Reflected when the maid was gone. 
 
 With happy youth, and work content, 
 So sweet and stately, on she went. 
 
 Right careless of the untold tale. 
 Each step she took I loved her more, 
 And followed to her dair\' door 
 
 The maiden with the milking-pail. 
 
 II. 
 
 For hearts where wakened love doth lurk, 
 How fine, how blest a thing is work ! 
 For work does good when reasons fail, — 
 
JEAN INGBLOW. 377 
 
 Good ; yet the ax at every stroke 
 Tlie echo of a name awoke, — 
 Her iiame is Mary Martiiidale. 
 
 I *m glad that echo was not heard 
 Aright by other men. A bird 
 
 Knows doubtless wliat liis own notes tell ; 
 And I know not, — but 1 can say 
 I felt as shamefaa;d all that day 
 
 As if folks heard her name right well. 
 
 And when the west began to glow 
 
 I went — I could not choose but go — 
 
 To that same dairy on the hill ; 
 And while sweet Mai-y moved about 
 Within, I came to her without, 
 
 Aud leaned upon the window-sill. 
 
 The garden border where 1 stood 
 
 Was sweet with pinks aud southernwood. 
 
 I spoke, — her answer seemed to fail. 
 I smelt the pinks, — I could not see. 
 The dusk came down and sheltered me. 
 
 And in the dusk she heard my tale. 
 
 And what is left that I should tell ? 
 I begged a kiss, — I pleadwl well : 
 
 The rosebud lips did long decline ; 
 But yet, I think — I think *t is true — 
 Tliat, leaned at last into the <Iew, 
 
 One little instant they were mine ! 
 
 O life ! how dear thou hast IxH^ome ! 
 She laughed at dawn, and I was dumb ! 
 
 But evening counsels best prevail. 
 Fair shine the blue that o'er her spreads, 
 Gn*en be the pastures wlicn; she treads. 
 
 The maiden with tlie milking-pail 1 
 
378 cathcaet's litbkakt header. 
 
 BAYAED TAYLOE. 
 
 1825- 
 
 Batako Tatlob, fiuBooB M A tiBTckr, WM ton u KeuKti SipHr^ CTwrtw Coonty. PMib- 
 •jrlvania. in January, 19SL At Um afs of •eTntoai ha keeaaB m afpmtke ia a priatii^- 
 oOoe } but Mxia gioaiag weary of tike dradgery of his calliag, he act oat oa a tour of Europe, 
 when he trardcd two year* at a coat of only Art himdred doUan. The story of this journey, 
 pnUiahed ia a Tofauae entitled Fmn AfoUy at onee fare the aathor an enviable place in litera- 
 tnrc After a brief reaideace ia ^aiasylvaaia and New York, where he was engaged in jour- 
 nalism. Mr. Taylor irsaaiTit hi* wanderings, and traveled extensively in California, Mexico, 
 Earope, Aaia. and Africa. Ia IMS he was appointed Secretary of the Uaited SUtcs Lcgatioa at 
 8t Peienbatf. The liat of thia author's booka ia too long to be printed eatire; it iadndes 
 icoMda of traTd, poena, Bords, etc. Of thektter, n« Storjr ^reiiarff, a pictoreof lifeia hia 
 native region, is perhaps the best. His latest work is a traaalatioa of Goethe's Am/ eom- 
 plete. Mr. Taylor married, in 18M, Marie, daa^ter of Profesamr Hansen, the distinguished 
 GcranB aatronoaser recently d c ccaaed , and nice that data has lived mataly abroad. His hight « 
 I aothorah^ has been in hooka of tntd ; his qnaliflcations for the work which tli< 
 are exe^tionaUy good ; ha haa a opMled and fomiaf style, and a han>y ^oity ot 
 itiactloa. The cxtiaela are fkoai fifmr 4^iio<. 
 
 A DAT IN LOKDOH. 
 
 After breakfast, on the first day, we set out for a walk through 
 London. Entering the main artery of tliis mighty city, we passwl 
 on, through AUlgatc and Comhill, to St. Paul's, with still increasing 
 wonder. Farther on, through Fleet Street and the Strand, — what a 
 worltl ! litre come the ever-thronging, ever-rolling waves of life, press- 
 ing and whirling on in their tumultuous career. Here, day and night, 
 pours the stream of human beings, seeming, amid the roar and din 
 and clatter of the passing vehicles, like the tide of some great comlwt. 
 How lonely it makes one to stand still and feel that of all the miglity 
 throng which divides itself around him, not a being knows or cares 
 for him ! What knows, he too, of the thousands who pass him by ! 
 How many who l)ear the impress of godlike virtue, or hide beneath 
 a goodly countenance a heart black with crime! How many fiery 
 spirits, all glowing with hope for the yet unclouded future, or brood- 
 ing over a darkened and desolate past in the agony of despair ! 
 There is a sublimity in this human Niagara that makes one look on 
 his own race with something of awe. 
 
 St. Paul's is on a scale of grandeur excelling everything I have yet 
 seen. The dome seems to stand in the sky, as you look up to it ; 
 the distance from which you view it, combined with the atmosphere 
 of London, gives it a dim, shadowy appearance, that startles one with 
 
BAYARD TAYLOE. 379 
 
 its immensity. Tlie roof from which the dome springs is itself as 
 high as the spires of most. other churches; blackenetl for two hun- 
 (In'd years with the roal-smoke of London, it stands like a relic of the 
 giant architecture of the early world. The interior is what one would 
 expect to l)ehohl, after viewing the outside. A niuze of grand arches 
 on every side encompasses the dome, at which you gaze up as at the 
 sky ; and from every pillar and wall look down the marble forms of 
 the dead. There is scarcely a vacant niche left in all this mighty 
 hall, so many are the statues that meet one on every side. With the 
 exception of John Howard, Sir Astley Cooper, and Wren, whose 
 monument is the church itself, they are all to military men. I 
 thought if they had all been removed except Howard's, it would 
 better have suited such a temple, and the great soul it commemo- 
 rated. 
 
 I never was more impressed with the grandeur of human invention, 
 than when ascending the dome. I could with difficulty conceive the 
 means by which such a mighty edifice had been lifted into the air. 
 The small frame of Sir Christopher Wren must have contained a mind 
 capable of vast conceptions. The dome is like the summit of a 
 mountani ; so M-ide is the prospect, and so great the pile upon which 
 you stanil, London lay beneath us, like an ant-hill, with the black 
 insects swarming to and fro in their long avenues, the sound of their 
 employments coming up like the roar of the sea. A cloud of coal- 
 smoke hung over it, through which many a pointed spire was thrust 
 up ; sometimes the wind would blow it aside for a moment, and the 
 thousands of red roofs would shine out clearer. The bridged Thames, 
 covered with craft of all sizes, wound beneath us like a ringed and 
 spotted serpent. 
 
 It was a relief to get into St. James's Park, among the trees and 
 flowers again. Here l)eautiful winding walks led around little lakes, 
 in which were hiuidreds of waterfowl, swimming. Groups of merry 
 children were sporting on the green lawn, enjoying their privilege of 
 roaming ever\- where at will, while the older bipeds were confined to 
 the regular walks. At the western end stood Buckingham Palace, 
 looking over the trees towards St. Paul's ; and through the grove, 
 on the eminence alx)ve. the towers of St. James's could be seen. But 
 there was a dim building with two lofty square towers, deeorate<l 
 with a profusion of point«'d Gothic pinnacles, that I looked at with 
 more interest than these appendages of royalty. I couhl not linger 
 
S80 CATHCABT^S LITEEARY READER. 
 
 long in its vicinity, but, going back again by the Horse Guards, took 
 the road to fTestnuM^ter Abbejf. 
 
 Wc approached by the general entrance, Poet's Conu r. 1 liardly 
 stopped to look at the elaborate exterior of Henry the Seventh's 
 Cliaptl, but passed on to the door. On entering, the tirst thing that 
 met ray eyes were the words '' Ou rab£ Ben JoNbON," under his 
 bust. Near by stood the monuments of Spenser and Gray, and a few 
 paces farther looked down the sublime countenance of Milton. Never 
 was a spot so full of intense interest. The light was just dim enough 
 to give it a solemn, religious air, making the marble forms of poets and 
 philosophers so shadowy and impressive that 1 felt as if standing in 
 their living presence. Every step called up some mind linked with 
 the associations of my childhood. There was the gentle feminine 
 countenance of Thomson, and the majestic head of Dr)'den ; Addison 
 with his classic features, and Gr»:y, full of the fire of lofty thouglit. 
 In another chamber, I paused long before the tablet to Shakespeare ; 
 and while looking at the monument of Garrick, started to find thit I 
 stood upon his grave. What a glorious galaxy of genius is here col- 
 lected, — what a constellation of stcrs whose light is immortal ! The 
 mind is fettered by their spirit, everything is forgotten but the mighty 
 dead, who still *' rule us from their urns." 
 
 The side-chapels are filled with tombs of knightly families, the 
 husband and wife lying on their backs on the tombs, with their hands 
 clas})ed, while their children, about the size of dolls, are kneeling 
 around. Numberless are the Barons and Earls and Dukes, whose 
 grim effigies stare from their tombs. In opposite chapels are the 
 tombs of Mary and Elizabeth, and near the former that of Daniley. 
 After having visited many of the scenes of her life, it was with no 
 ordinary emotion that I stood by the sepnlcher of Mar}'. How dif- 
 ferently one looks upon it and upon that of the proud Elizabeth ! 
 
 We descended to the Chapel of Edwanl the Confessor, within the 
 splendid shrine of which his ashes repose. Here the chair on which 
 the English monarchs have l)een crowned for several hundred years was 
 exhibited. lender the seat is the stone, brought from the Abbey of 
 Scone, whereon tlie Kings of Scotland were crowned. The chair is 
 of oak, carved and hacked over with names, and on the bottom some 
 one has recorded his name with the fact that he once slept in it. We 
 sat down and rested in it without ceremony. Near this is the hall 
 where the Knisrhts of the Order of the Bath met. Over each seat 
 
BAYARD TAYLOE. 381 
 
 their dusty banners are still hanging, each with its crest, and their 
 amior is rusting upon the wall. It resembled a banquetiug-hall of the 
 olden time, where the knights had left their seats for a moment 
 vacant. Entering the nave, we were lost in the wilderness of sculp- 
 ture. Here stood the forms of Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, and Watts, 
 from the chisels of (Jliantrey, Bacon, and Westmacott. Farther down 
 were Sir Isaac Newton, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, — opposite Andre, 
 and Paoli, the Italian, who died here in exile. How can I convey an 
 idea of the scene ! Notwithstanding all the descriptions I had read, 
 I was totally unprepared for the reality, nor could I have antieipattd 
 the hushed and breathless interest with which I paced the dim aisles, 
 gazing, at every step, on the last resting-place of some great and fa- 
 miliar numc. A place so sacred to all who inherit the English tongue 
 is worthy of a special pilgrimage across the deep. To those who are 
 unable to visit it a description may be interesting ; but so far does it 
 fall short of the scene itself, that if I thought it would induce a few 
 of our wealthy idlers, or even those who, like myself, must travel 
 with toil and privation, to come hither, I would write till the pni 
 dropped from my hand. 
 
 We walked down the Thames through the nan*ow streets of Wap- 
 ping. Over the mouth of the Tunnel is a large circular building, 
 with a dome to light the entrance below. Paying a fee of a penny, 
 we descended by a winding staircase to the bottom, which is seventy- 
 three feet below the surface. The carriage-way, still unfinished, will 
 extend farther into the city. From the bottom the view of thtrtwo 
 arches of the Tunnel, brilliantly lighted with gas, is very fine ; it has 
 a much less heavy and gloomy appeanince than I expected. As we 
 walked along under the bed of the river, two or three girls at one 
 end began playing on the French horn and bugle, and the echoes, 
 when not sufficient to confuse the melcMly, were remarkably beautiful. 
 iJetwetm the arches of the division separating the two passages are 
 siiops, occupied by venders of fancy articles, views of the Tunnel, en- 
 gravings, etc. In the middle is a small printing-press, where a sheet 
 containing a description of the whole work is printe<l for those who 
 desire it. As I was no stranger to this art, I requested the boy to 
 let me print one myself, Imt he hatl such a bad roller I did not 
 sueeeed in getting a good impression. The air within is somewhat 
 (lamp, but fn'sh and agreeably cool, and one can scarcely realize, in 
 walking along the light passage;, that a river is rolling above his head. 
 
88E cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 The immense solidity and compactness of the structure precludes 
 the danj^er of accident, each of the sides beiiij^ arched outwards, so 
 that the heaviest pressure only strengthens the work. It will long 
 remain a noble monument of human daring and ingenuity. 
 
 IBiOKE AKB ST. FETEE S. 
 
 One day's walk through Rome, — how shall I describe it ? The 
 Capitol, the Forum, St. Peter's, the Coliseum, — what few hours' 
 ramble ever took in places so hallowed by poetry, history, and art ? 
 It was a goUlen leaf in my calendar of life. In thinking over it now, 
 and drawing out the threads of recollection from the varied web of 
 thought I have woven to-day, I almost wonder how I dared so much 
 at once; but within reach of them all, how was it possible to wait? 
 Let me give a sketch of our day's ramble. 
 
 Hearing that it was better to visit the ruins by evening or moon- 
 light (alas ! there is no moon now), we set out to hunt St. Peter's. 
 Going in the direction of the Corso, we passed the ruined front of the 
 magnificent Temple of Antoninus, now used as the Papd Custom 
 House. We tunied to the right on entering the Corso, expecting to 
 have a view of the city from the hill at its southern end. It is a mag* 
 nificent street, lined with palaces and splendid edifices of every kind, 
 and always filled with crowds of carriages and people. On leaving it, 
 however, we became bewildered among the narrow streets, — passed 
 through a market of vegetables, crowded with beggars and contadiniy 
 — threaded many by-ways between dark old buildings, — saw one or 
 two antique fountains and many modern churches, and finally arrived 
 at a hill. 
 
 We ascended many steps, and then, descending a little towards the 
 other side, saw suddenly below us the Roman Forum ! I knew it at 
 once, — and those three Corinthian columns that stood near us, — 
 what could they be but the remains of the temple of Jupiter Stator ? 
 We stood on the Capitoline Hill ; at the foot was the Arch of Sep- 
 timius Severus, brown with age and shattered ; near it stood the 
 majestic front of the Temple of Fortune, its pillars of polished granite 
 glistening in the sun, as if they had been erected yesterday, while on 
 the left the rank grass was waving from the arches and mighty walls 
 of the Palace of the Caesars ! In front ruin upon ruin lined the way 
 for half a mile, where the Coliseum towered grandly through the blue 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR. 383 
 
 morning mist, at the base of the Esquiline Hill! Good heavens, 
 what a scene ! Grandeur, such as the world has never since beheld, 
 once rose through that blue atmosphere ; splendor inconceivable, the 
 spoils of a world, the triumphs of a thousand armies, had passed over 
 that earth; minds which for ages moved the ancient world liad 
 thought there ; and words of power and glory from the lips of im- 
 mortal men had been syllabled on that hallowed air. To call back 
 all this on the very spot, while the wreck of what once was rose 
 inoldering and desolate around, kindled a glow of thought and feel- 
 ing too j)owerful for words. 
 
 Il«'turning at hazard through the streets, we came suddenly upon 
 the column of Trajan, standing in an excavated square below the level 
 of the city, amid a number of broken granite columns, which formed 
 part of the Forum dedicated to him by Rome, after the conquest of 
 Dacia. The column is one hundred and thirty-two feet high, and 
 entirely covered with bas-reliefs representing his victories, winding 
 alK)ut it in a spiral line to the top. The number of figures is com- 
 puted at two thousand five hundred, and they were of such excellence 
 that Kiiphael used many of them for his models. They are now much 
 defaced, and the column is surmounted by a statue of some saint. 
 The inscription on the pedestiil has been erased, and the name of 
 Sixtus V. substituted. Nothing can exceed the ridiculous vanity of 
 the old popes in thus mutilating the finest monuments of ancient art. 
 You cannot look upon any relic of antiquity in Rome, but your eyes 
 are assailed by the words " Poxtifex Maximus," in staring modem 
 letters. Even the magnificent bronzes of the Pantheon were stripped 
 to make the Iwldachin under the dome of St. Peter's. 
 
 Finding our way back again, we took a fresh start, happily in the 
 right direction, and after walking some time came out on the Tiber, 
 at the Bridge of St. Angclo. Tlie river rolled lielow in his muddy 
 •rlory, and in front, on the opposite l)ank, stood " the pile which 
 Hadrian reared on high," — notOy the Castle of St. Angelo. Know- 
 ing tliat St. Peter's was to be seen from this bridge, I looked about 
 in search of it. There was only one dome in sight, large and of ]x»u- 
 tiful proportions. I said at once, "Surely that cannot be St. Peter's ! " 
 On looking again, however. T saw the top of a massive range of build- 
 ing near it, which corn*sponded so nearly with the piclnn's of the 
 Vatican that I was unwillingly forced to Mieve the mighty dome 
 was really before me. I recognized it as one of those we had seen 
 
384 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 from the Capitol, but it appeared so much smaller when viewed from 
 a greater distauce tliat 1 was quite deceived. Ou considering ^^ 
 were still three fourths of a mile from it, and that we could see i 
 minutest parts distinctly, the illusion was explained. 
 
 Goiug directly down the Borgo Vecchio, it seemed a long time 
 before we arrived at the square of St. Peter's ; and when at Itngth 
 we stood in front, with the majestic colonnade sweeping around, the 
 fountains on each side sending up their showers of silvery spray, 
 the mighty obelisk of Egyptian granite piercing the sky, and beyond, 
 the grciit facade and dome of the Cathedral, I confessed my un- 
 mingled admiration. It readied to my mind the grandeur ol 
 ancient Rome, and mighty as her edifices must have been, I doubt 
 if she could boast many views more overpowering tluin this. The 
 facade of St. Peter's seemed close to us, but it was a third of a nn 
 disUint, and the people ascending the steps dwindled to pygmies. 
 
 I passed the obelisk, went up the long ascent, crossed the portii 
 pushed aside the heavy leatheni curtain at the entrance, and stood in 
 the great nave. I need not describe my feelings at the sight, but I 
 will give the dimensions, and the reader may then fancy what tli(\ 
 were. Before me was a marble plain six hundred feet long, and 
 under the cross four hundred and st?ventecn feet wide ! One hundred 
 and fifty feet above sprang a glorious arch, dazzling with iidaid gold. 
 and in the center of the cross there were four hundred feet of air 
 between me and the top of the dome ! The sunbeam, stealing through 
 the lofty window at one end of the transept, made a bar of light on thr 
 blue air, hazy with incense, one tenth of a mile long, before it fell on 
 the mosaics and gilded shrines of the other extremity. The grand 
 cupola alone, including lantern and cross, is two hundred and eighty- 
 five feet high, or sixty feet higher than the Bunker Hill Monument, and 
 the four immense pillars ou which it rests are each one hundred and 
 thirty-seven feet in circumference ! It seems as if human art had out- 
 done itself in producing this temple, — the grandest which the world 
 ever erected for the worship of the Living Grod ! The awe I felt in 
 looking up at the colossal arch of marble and gold did not humble me ; 
 ou the contrary, I felt exalted, ennobled ; beings in the form I wore 
 planned the glorious edifice, and it seemed that, in godlike power and 
 perseverance, they were indeed but a little lower than the angels. I 
 felt that, if fallen, my race was still mighty and immortal. 
 
 The Vatican is only open twice a week, on days which are not 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR. 885 
 
 feitdJi ; inosl fortunately, to-day happened to be one of these, and we 
 took a run tlirou«,'li its endless halls. The extent and magnificence 
 of the ^'alliry of sculpture is amazing. The halls, which are filled to 
 ovi'rtlowing with the finest works of ancient art, would, if placed side 
 by side, make a row more than two miles in length ! You enter at 
 once into a hall of marble, with a magnificent arched ceiling, a third 
 of a mile long ; the sides are covered for a great distance with Roman 
 inscriptiojis of every kind, divided into compartments according to 
 the era of the empire to which they refer. One which I examined 
 appeared to be a kind of index of the roads in Italy, with the towns 
 on them; and we could decipher, on tliat time-w'-orn block, the V(;ry 
 route we had followed from Florence hither. 
 
 Then came the statues, and here I am bewildered how to (lescribe 
 them. Hundreds upon hundreds of figures, — sUitues of citizens, gen- 
 erals, emperors, and gods, — fauns, satyrs, and nymphs, — children, 
 Cupids, and Tritons ; in fact, they seemed inexhaustible. Many of 
 them, too, were forms of matchless beauty ; there were Venuses and 
 nymphs, born of the loftiest dreams of grace ; fuuns on whose faces 
 shone the very soul of humor, and heroes and divinities Avith an air of 
 majesty worthy the " land of lost gods and godlike men" ! 
 
 I am lost in astonishment at the perfection of art attained by the 
 Greeks and Romans. There is scarcely a form of beauty, that has 
 ever met my eye, which is not to be found in this gdlery. I should 
 almost despair of such another bhize of glory on the world, were it 
 not my devout belief that what has Ikxmi done may be done again, and 
 had I not faith that the dawn in which we live will bring on another 
 day equidly glorious. And why should not America, with the experi- 
 enct; and added wisdom which three thousand years have slowly 
 yielded to the old world, joined to the giant energy of her youth and 
 freedom, re-bestow on the world the divine creations of Art ? 
 
 But let us step on to the hemieycle of the Belvedere, aud view some 
 works greater than any we have yet seen, or even imagined. The 
 adjoining gallcrj' is filled with masterpieces of sculpture, but we will 
 keep our eyes unwearied and merely glance along the rows. At 
 lengtli we reach a circular court with a fountain flinging up its waters 
 in the center. Before us is an ojk'U cabinet ; there is a beautiful, 
 manly form within, but you would not for an instant take it for the 
 Apollo. By the Gorgon head it holds alof^, we recognize Canova's 
 Perseus, — he has copied the form and attitude of the Apollo, but he 
 17 Y 
 
386 cathcaet's lttebaey reader. 
 
 could not breathe into it the same warming fire. It seemed to me 
 particularly lifeless, and I greatly preferred his Boxers, who stand on 
 either side of it. 
 
 Now we look on a scene of the deepest physical agony. Mark how 
 every muscle of old Laocoon's body is distended to the utmost iu the 
 mighty struggle ! What intensity of pain in the quivering, distorted 
 features ! Every nerve which despair can call into action is excited 
 in one giant effort, and a scream of anguish seems just to have 
 quivered on those nuirble lips. The serpents have rolled their stran- 
 gling coils around father and sons, but terror has taken away the 
 strength of the latter, and they make but feeble resistance. After 
 looking with indifference on the many casts of this group, I was 
 the more moved by the magnificent original. It deserves all the 
 admiration that luis been heaped upon it. 
 
 I absolutely trembled on approaching the cabinet of the Apollo. I 
 had built up in fancy a glorious ideal, drawn from all that bards have 
 sung or artists have rhapsodized about its divine beauty. I feared 
 disappointment, — I dreaded to have my ideal displaced and my faith 
 in the power of human genius overthrown by a form less than perfect. 
 However, with a feeling of desperate excitement, I entered and looked 
 upon it. Now what shall I say of it? How descril^e it3 immort^il 
 beauty ? To Avhat shall I liken its glorious perfection of form, or the 
 fire that imbues the cold marble with the soul of a god ? Not with 
 sculpture, for it stands alone and al)ove all other works of art, nor 
 with men, for it has a majesty more than human. I gazed on it, lost 
 in wonder and joy, — joy that I could at last take into my mind a 
 faultless ideal of godlike, exalted manhood. The fi<nire seems actually 
 to possess a soul, and I looked on it, not as on a piece of marble, but 
 as on a being of loftier mold, and waited to see him step forward 
 when the arrow had reached its mark. I would give worlds to feel 
 one moment the sculptor's triumph when his work was completed ; 
 that one exulting thrill must have repaid him for every ill he might 
 have suffered on earth. 
 
HUXLEY. 887 
 
 HUXLEY. 
 
 1825- 
 
 TiioMAR He.ikt nrxLET, ooe of tlie most distinpnisbed of living physiologists and natar&l- 
 isto, WM bom in Middlesex, England, in 1826. At an early age he entered tbe royal navy in 
 the capacity of sorgeon. In 1W8 be produced his hrst book, 0» the AtMlomy and Affinities of 
 the Family of the Medusm. In 1854 he became Professor of Paleontology in the School of Mines, 
 and a few years later was appointed Professor of Physiology in tbe Royal Institution. To the 
 n cent controversy as to tbe oriicin of man Professor Iluxky has been an iiniwrtaut contributor. 
 Mis Man's PUtce in Natnre was largely instrumental in direcliiig public attention to this subject, 
 nnd the ability of the book made a profound impression on thoughtful minds. His later work. 
 Protoplasm, or The Physical Basis of Life, was not less stimulating and impressive. Professor 
 Huxley IS one of the ablest supporters of the Darwinian theory. From the lecture platform 
 he has »on the admiring attention of the best minds of Englaml, and through his published 
 words has gained the car of the whole scientific world. To no man now li\ ing docs science owe 
 a Urgcr debt, whether as an investigator or as an expounder. His style is peculiarly attractive, 
 and in his hands tbe driest themes of science Uke on a chann which compels attention and 
 quickens interest. 
 
 OH SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION. 
 
 I HOPE you will consider that the arg^ment.s I have now stated, 
 even if there were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apoloj^ for 
 urs^inp^ the introduction of science into schools. The next question 
 to which I hjive to address myself is, What sciences ought to be thus 
 tauj^ht ? And this is one of the most important of questions. There 
 are. other forms of culture beside physical science ; and I should be 
 profouiully sorry to see the fact for<;otten, or even to observe a ten- 
 dency to stiirve or cripple literary or {esthetic cidture for the sake of 
 science. Such a narrow view of the nature of education has nothing 
 to do with my firm conviction that a complete and thorough scientific 
 culture ought to be intro<lueed into all schools. By this, however, I 
 do not me^in that every school-boy sliould be taught everything in 
 science. That would be a very absunl thing to conceive, and a very 
 mischievous thing to attempt. What I mean is, that no lx)y or girl 
 should leave school without possessing a grasp of the general char- 
 acter of science, and without having been disciplined, more or less, 
 in the nicthocls of all sciences ; so that, when turned into the world 
 to make their own way, they shall be pn^pared to face scientific prob- 
 lems, not by knowing at once the conditions of every problem, or by 
 being able at once to solve it, but by l)eing familiar with the general 
 current of scientific thought, and by l)eing able to apply the methods 
 of science in the proper way, when they have acquainted themselves 
 with the conditions of the special problem. 
 
388 cathcabt's literary reader. 
 
 That is what I understand by scientific education. To furnish a 
 boy with such an education, it is by no means necessary that lie 
 should devote his whole school existence to physical science ; in fact, 
 no one would lament so one-sided a proceeding more than I. Nay, 
 more, it is not necessar}' for him to give up more than a moderate 
 share of his time to such studies, if they be properly selected and 
 arrungt^I, and if he Ix^ trained in them in a fitting manner. 
 
 I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as follows : To begin 
 with, let every child be instructed in those general views of the phe- 
 nomena of nature for which we have no exact English name. The 
 nearest approximation to a name for what 1 mean, which we possess, 
 is ** physical geography " ; that is to say, a general knowledge of the 
 earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it. If any one who has 
 had experience of the ways of young children will call to mind their 
 questions, he will find that, so far as they can be put into any scien- 
 tific category, they come under this head. The chdd asks," What is 
 the moon, and why does it shine ? " " What is this water, and wherr 
 does it run ? ** " What is the wind ? '* " What makes the waves in 
 the sea ? " ** Where does this animal live, and what is the use of that 
 plant ? " And if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to ask 
 foolish questions, there is no limit to the intelle<iual craving of a 
 young child, nor any bounds to the slow but solid accretion of 
 knowledge and development of the thinking faculty in this way. To 
 all such questions answers which are necessarily incomplete, though 
 true as far as they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas rep- 
 resent real knowledge, and not mere book learning ; and a panorami<' 
 view of nature, accompanied by a strong infusion of the scientific 
 habit of mind, may thus be placed within the reach of every child 
 of nine or ten. 
 
 After this preliminary opening of the eyes to the great spectacle of 
 the daily progress of nature, as the reasoning faculties of the child grow, 
 and he becomes familiar with the use of the tools of knowledge, — 
 reading, writing, and elementary mathematics, — he should pass on 
 to what is, in the more strict sense, physical science. Now, there are 
 two kinds of physical science. The one regards form and the rela- 
 tion of forms to one another ; the other deals with causes and effects. 
 In many of what we term onr sciences, these two kinds are mixed up 
 together ; but systematic lK)tany is a pure example of the former 
 kind, and physics of the latter kind, of science. Every educational 
 
HUXLEY. 889 
 
 advantage which training in physical science can give is obtainable 
 from the proper study of tliese two ; and I should be contented for 
 tlie present if they, added to physical jijeography, furnished the whole 
 of the scientific curriculum of schools. Indeed, I conceive it would 
 Ik* one of the greatest boons which could be; conferred upon England, 
 if henceforward every chiUl in the country were instructed in the 
 general knowledge of the things about it, in the elements of physics 
 and of botany ; but I should be still better pleased if there could be 
 added somewhat of chemistrj', and an elementary acquaintance with 
 human physiolog}'. 
 
 So far as school education is concerned, I want to go no further 
 just now ; and I believe that such instruction would make an excel- 
 lent introduction to that preparatoiy scientific training M'hich, as I 
 have indicated, is so essential for the successful pursuit of our most 
 importiint professions, lint this modicum of instruction must be so 
 given as to insure real knowledge and practical discipline. If scien- 
 tific education is to be dealt with as mere book-work, it will be better 
 not to attempt it, but to stick to the Ljitin Grammar, which makes no 
 pretence to be anything but book-work. 
 
 If the great benefits of scientific training are sought, it is essential 
 tliat such training should be real ; that is to say, that the mind of 
 the scholar should be brought into direct relation with fact, that he 
 should not merely l)e told a thing, but made to see by the use of his 
 own intelhrt and ability that the thing is so and no otherwise. The 
 great pecidiarity of scientific training, that in virtue of which it can- 
 not be replacetl by any other discipline whatsoever, is this bringing 
 of the mind directly into contact with fact, and practicing the intel- 
 lect in the eompletest form of induction ; that is to say, in drawing 
 conclusions from particular facts made known by immediate observa- 
 tion of nature. 
 
 The other studies which enter into ordinary education do not disci- 
 pline the min<l in this way. Mathematical training is almost purely 
 df<luctive. The mathematician starts with a few simple propositions, 
 the proof of which is so obvious that they an- called self-evident, 
 and the rest of his work consists of subtile deductions from them. 
 The teaching of languages, at any rate as ordinarily practiced, is of 
 the same general nature, — authority and trwlition furnish the data, 
 and the mental op<'rations of the scholar an* deductive. 
 
 Again, if history be the subjt^t of study, the facts are still taken 
 
890 cathcart's literary reader. 
 
 upon the evidence of tra<lition and authority. You cannot make a 
 boy see the Battle of Thermopylae for himself, or know, of his own 
 knowledge, that Cromwell once ruled Enghind. There is no getting 
 into direct contact with natural fact by this road ; there is no dis- 
 pensing with authority, but rather a resting upon it. 
 
 In all these respects science differs from other educational disci- 
 pline, and prepares the scholar for common life. What have we to 
 do in every-day life? Most of the business which demands our 
 attention is matter of fact, which needs, in the first place, to be accu- 
 rately observed or apprehended ; in the second, to be interpreted by 
 inductive and deductive reasonings, which are altogether similar in 
 their nature to those employed in science. In the one case, as in the 
 other, whatever is taken for granted is so taken at one's own peril. 
 Fact and reason are the ultimate arbiters, and patience and honesty 
 are the great helpers out of difficulty. 
 
 But if scientific training is to yield its most eminent results, it 
 must, I repeat, be ma<le practical. That is to say, in explaining to 
 a child the general phenomena of nature, you must, as far as possible, 
 give reality to your teaching by object-lessons. In teaching him 
 botany, he must handle the plants and dissect the flowers for himself; 
 in teaching him physics and chemistry, you must not be solicitous to 
 fill him with information, but you must be careful that what he learns 
 he knows of his own knowledge. Don't be satisfied with telling him 
 that a magnet attracts iron. Let him see that it does ; let him feel 
 the pull of the one upon the other for himself. And, especially, tell 
 him that it is his duty to doubt, until he is compelled by the absolute 
 authority of nature to believe, that which is written in books. Pursue 
 this discipline carefully and conscientiously, and you may make sure 
 that, however scanty may be the measure of information which you 
 have poured into the boy's mind, you have created an intellectual 
 habit of priceless value in practical life. 
 
 One is constantly asked, When should this scientific education he 
 commenced ? I should say with the dawn of intelligence. As I 
 have already said, a child seeks for information about matters of 
 physical science as soon as it begins to talk. The first teaching it 
 wants is an object-lesson of one sort or another ; and as soon as it is 
 fit for systematic instruction of any kind, it is fit for a modicum of 
 science. 
 
 People talk of the difficulty of teaching young children such 
 
HUXLEY. 391 
 
 matters, and in the same breath insist upon their learning their Cate- 
 chism, which contains propositions far harder to comprehend than 
 anything in the educational course I have proposed. Again, I am 
 incessantly told that we who advocate the introduction of science 
 into schools make no allowance for the stupidity of the average boy 
 or girl ; but, in my belief, that stupidity, in nine cases out of ten, 
 is unnatural, and is developed by a long process of parental and 
 pedagogic repression of the natural intellectual appetites, accompanied 
 by a persistent attempt to create artificial ones for food which is not 
 only tasteless, but essentially indigestible. 
 
 Those who urge the difficulty of instructing young people in 
 science are apt to forget another very important condition of success ; 
 important in all kinds of teaching, but most essential, I am disposed 
 to think, when the scholars are very young. This condition is, that 
 the teacher should himself really and practically know his subject. 
 If he does, he will be able to speak of it in the easy language, and 
 with the completeness of conviction, with which he talks of any ordi- 
 nary' every-day matter. If he does not, he will be afraid to wander 
 beyond the limits of the technical phraseology which he has got up ; 
 and a dead dogmatism, which oppresses or raises opposition, will take 
 the place of the lively confidence, born of personal conviction, which 
 cheers and encourages the eminently sympathetic mind of childhood. 
 
iidii, CATHCABT'a LiiLKAliY RRADKR. 
 
 TIMROD. 
 1829-1867. 
 
 HsirmT TnnoD wis bom in CluriesUm, Soatb CaroliBA, ott the Stb of Deeasber, 18S9. II .. 
 father, Williaai Henrjr Tinirod, wm alfo » poet. The ton received hii eoUegfai te eincatton at the 
 University of Geon^ia, althuuj^h he left a short time before the fiadaating onnmenefment He 
 taught as private tutor several yean in his native city ; and during the civil war for a year 
 or two was upon the editorial staff of the South Carolinian newspaper in Columbia. In 1800 
 Ticknor and Fields of Boston issued a small volume of Poewu by Timrod ; and since his deatli 
 in 1878 — a conplete edition has appeared, with a sketch of the poet's brief and painful life. ! 
 died on the 7th of October. 1867. 
 
 Mr. Timrod'i best poems are the patriotic and the idyllic ; and his reputation, especially in the 
 South. resU just now mainly upon the former. In this vein his Cmrolinm is his strongest and 
 beat, and is as terse and vehement in movement as a Greek war-cry. A Cry to Armt has also 
 many admirers ; and if we transfer the scene of it to Greece or Germany, substituting Tyrtaioa 
 or Komer for Timrod, its mosteal Tehaacnce would be strikJaf . This stanza especially is nota- 
 ble for ito ttmoM radin : — 
 
 " Gome, with the weapons at your call, — 
 
 With musket, pil^e, or knife ; 
 He wields the deadliest blade of all 
 
 Wbo lightest holds hu life. 
 The arm that drive* its nnbought blows 
 
 With all a patriot's srom. 
 If wht brain a tyrant with a roae 
 
 Ot stab him with a thorn." 
 
 But dearly the poet was more at hoae among the beauties of natnre. to which he was exquis- 
 itely alive. In this vein ImHt is eaa of his happtet effbrta. It is earnest, natural, musical, 
 chaste, and at the same time teawmns, His kMgeat poem is A Fmtm cf Poety, — the stor>- of 
 aspiratkm. struggle, and hearUfiulare, — a foreahadowing of his own brief, eager, and unattaining 
 ■tmggle for succcm. 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air 
 Which dwells with all things fair, — 
 Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain. 
 Is with us once again. 
 
 Out in the lonely woods the jasmine bums 
 Its fragrant lamps, and turns 
 Into a royal court with green festoons 
 The banks of dark lagoons. 
 
 In the deep heart of every forest tree 
 The blood is all aglee, 
 
 And there 's a look about the leafless bowers 
 As if they dreamed of flowers. 
 
TIMROD. 393 
 
 Yet still on every side we trace the hand 
 Of Winter in the land, 
 Save where the maple reddens on the lawn, 
 Flushed by the season's dawn ; 
 
 Or where, like those strange semblances we find 
 That age to childhood bind. 
 The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn. 
 The brown of Autumn corn. 
 
 As yet the turf is dark, although you know 
 That, not a span below, 
 
 A thousand germs are groping through the gloom. 
 And soon will burst their tomb. 
 
 Already, here and there, on frailest stems 
 Appear some azure gems. 
 Small as might deck, upon a gala day, 
 The forehead of a fay. 
 
 In gardens you may note amid the dearth 
 The crocus breaking earth ; 
 And near the snowdrop's tender white and green. 
 The violet in its screen. 
 
 But many gleams and shadows needs must pass 
 Along the budding grass. 
 And weeks go by, before the enamored South 
 Shall kiss the rose's mouth. 
 
 Still there 'a a sense of blossoms yet unborn 
 In the sweet airs of mom ; 
 One almost looks to see the very street 
 Grow purple at his feet. 
 
 At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, 
 And brings, you know not why, 
 A feeling as when eager crowds await. 
 Before a palace gate, 
 17* 
 
394 CATHLAKl 6 LiTKttARY READER. 
 
 Some woDdrous pageant ; aiid you scarce would start. 
 
 If from a beech's heart 
 
 A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say, 
 
 ** Behold me ! I am May ! " 
 
 Ah ! who would couple thoughts of war and crime 
 With such a blessed time ! 
 Who, in tin- \vt st wind's aromatic breath. 
 Could hear the call of Death 1 
 
 Yet not more surely shall the Spring awake 
 The voice of wood and brake. 
 Than she shall rouse, for all her tranquil charms, 
 A million men to arms. 
 
 Tliere shall be deeper hues upon her plains 
 Than all her sunlit rains. 
 And every gladdening influence around. 
 Can suuunon from the ground. 
 
 Oh ! standing on this desecrated mold, 
 Methinks that I behold. 
 Lifting her bloody daisies up to God, 
 Spriiiir, kneeling on the sod. 
 
 And calling, with the voice of all her rills, 
 Upon the ancient hills 
 To fall and (rush tiie tyrants and the slaves 
 Who turn her meads to graves. 
 
 A XOTHES'S WAIL. 
 
 My babe ! my tiny babe ! my only babe ! 
 My single rose-bud in a crown of thorns ! 
 ^ly lamp that in that narrow hut of life, 
 Whence I looked forth upon a iiip:ht of storm. 
 Burned with thr lustiT of the moon and -• i- 
 
 Jkly babe ! my tiny babe ! my only babe ! 
 Behold, the bud is gone ! the thorns remain ! 
 
TIM ROD. 396 
 
 My lamp hath fallen from its niche — ah, me ! 
 Eiarth drinks the frajp-ant flame, and I am left 
 Forever and forever in the dark ! 
 
 My babe ! my babe ! my own and only babe ! 
 "Where art thou now ? If somewhere in the sky 
 An an«^el hold thee in his radiant arms, 
 I challenge him to clasp thy tender form 
 With half the fervor of a mother's love 1 
 
 Forgive me, Lord ! forgive my reckless grief ! 
 Forgive me that this rebel, selfish heart 
 Would almost make me jealous for my child, 
 Though thy own lap enthroned him. Lord, thou hasl 
 So many such ! I liave — ah ! had — but one ! 
 
 O yet once more, my bal)e, to hear thy cry ! 
 O yet once more, my babe, to see thy smile ! 
 
 yet once more to feel against my breast 
 
 Those cool, soft hands, that warm, wet, eager mouth, 
 With the sweet sharpness of its budding pearls I 
 
 But it must never, never more be mine 
 To mark the "rrowing meaning in thine eyes, 
 To watcli thy soul unfolding leaf by leaf. 
 Or catch, with ever fresh surprise and joy, 
 Thy dawning recognitions of the world ! 
 
 Three different shadows of thyself, my babe, 
 Change with each other while I weep. The first, 
 The sweetest, yet the not least fraught with pain, 
 Clings like my living l)oy around my neck. 
 Or purs and murmurs softly at my feet ! 
 
 Another is a little mound of earth ; 
 
 Tliat comes the oftenest, darling ! In my dreams, 
 
 1 see it beaten by the midnight rain. 
 
 Or chilled beneath the moon. Ah ! what a couch 
 For that which I have shielded from a breath 
 That would not stir tlie violets on thy grave ! 
 
S96 CATHCART's LITtKAin 11 \1'I i: 
 
 The third, my precious babe ! the third, O Lord ! 
 Is a fair cherub face beyond the stars. 
 Wearing the roses of a mystic bliss, 
 Yet sometimes not uusaddeued by a ghince 
 Turned earthward on a mother in her woe ! 
 
 This is the vision, Lord, that 1 wumti kctp 
 Before me always. But, alas ! as yet. 
 It is the dimmest and the rarest too ! 
 O touch my sight, or break the cloudy burs 
 That hide it, lest I madden where I kneel ! 
 
 A COmiOH THOUGHT .• 
 
 Somewhere on this earthly planet 
 
 In the dust of flowers to be, 
 In the dew-<lrop in the sunshine. 
 
 Sleeps a solemn day for me. 
 
 At this wakeful hour of midnight 
 
 I behold it dawn in mist. 
 And I hear a sound of sobbing 
 
 Through the darkness, — hist ! O, hist ! 
 
 In a dim and musky chamber, 
 
 I am breathing life away ; 
 Some one draws a curtain softly 
 
 And I watch the broadening day. 
 
 As it purples in the zenith, 
 
 As it brightens on the lawn, 
 There 's a hush of death about me. 
 
 And a whisper, " He is gone ! " 
 
 • This little poem, written seTeral years before the poet's death, was prophetic. He died at 
 the ven- hour here predicted. The wliisper, " He is gone," went forth as the day was paipling 
 in the zenith, on that October morning of 1867- 
 
BRET HAUTE. 397 
 
 BRET IIAETE. 
 
 1838- 
 
 Fra!«ci9 Bret IlArri! maa bom in the State of New York in 1838. When quite young he 
 went to California, where he remained until within a few years. His early occupations were 
 various, including teaching and journalism. His success in the latter field of effort led him 
 suddenly into hterature and fame. His earUcst essays in prose and verse were contributed to 
 California peritMlirals, but speedily found their way to the AtUntic coast and even to Europe, 
 being admired fur their positive originality and as representative of a new phase of social life. 
 In lads the O.erlaiid Monthly was started in San Fnineisco, and Mr. Ilarte was called to 
 the editorial chair, which he tilled very creditably for a year or two. But he liad outgrown the 
 •phere of a Pacilic coast constituency, and there was a general demand for his removal to the 
 larger field of the East, He yielded to this, and during the last few years has been a resident 
 of New York. Mr. Hartc is, perhaps, equally distinguish:>d as a writer of prose and poetry: 
 Tkf Luck of Roaring Camp and The Ueatken Chinee, representing these two forms of composi- 
 on, are unique in literature, and their merit has never been approximated by the author's many 
 autors. Their marvelous popularity is due, primarily, to the strangeness of the life whose 
 iKlucts they are, — the wild society of newly-settled regions, in which violence is the ruling, 
 ul humanity the exceptional, social force ; and, secondarily, to a peculiar quality of the author's 
 ,{. nius, exclusively peculiar to him, it may be said, by which he is enabled to besiege the reader's 
 mind with almost simultaneoaa humor and pathos. The power of employing these two agencies 
 in apparently antagonistic, yet practically harmonious combination, is, perhaps, the secret of Mr. 
 Harte's literary success. Surely it is possessed in equal development by no other living writer. 
 Mis range in composition seems to be limited, and he seems to draw inspiration only from the 
 scenes which first engaged his pen ; when he ventures across the Rocky Mountains into regions 
 of conventional life, his wings fail him and he falls to the level of commonplace. In proof of 
 this it is only necessary to cite the fact that since his removal to the Atlantic coast he has 
 written but little, and that little far inferior in quality to his Pacific productions. The volume 
 entitled The Luck of Roaring Camp contains his best work in prose ; his verses have been 
 published in a volume called Poems. 
 
 JOHN CHINAMAH. 
 
 The expression of the Chinese face in the ap:gregate is neither 
 cheerful nor happy. In an acquaintance of half a dozen years, I can 
 only recall one or two exceptions to this rule. There is an abiilin^ 
 consciousness of dep^nulation, — a secret pain or self-hunuliation 
 visible in the lines of the mouth and eye. Whether it is only a 
 modification of Turkish gravity, or whether it is the dread Valley of 
 the Shadow of the Drug through which they are continually straying, 
 I cannot say. They seldom smile, and their laughter is of such an 
 « xtmordinary and sardonic nature — so purely a mechanical spasm, 
 (|uitc independent of any mirthfid attribute — that to this day I am 
 (loubtfid whether I ever saw a Chinaman laugh. 
 
 1 have oflen been struck with the delicate pliability of llic Chinese 
 xprcssion and taste, that might suggest a broader and deeper criti- 
 
898 cathcart's lite&aby reader. 
 
 cism than is becoming these pages. A Chinaman will adopt the 
 American costume, and wear it with a taste of color and detail tlint 
 will surpass those " native, and to the manner bom." To look u\ :i 
 Chinese slipper, one might imagine it impossible to shape the original 
 foot to anything less cumbrous and roomy, yet a neater-fitting boot 
 than that belonging to the Americanized Chinaman is rarely seen on tliis 
 side of the Continent. When the loose sack or paletot takes the place 
 of his brocade blouse, it is worn with a refinement and grace that 
 might bring a jealous pang to the exquisite of our more refined cirili- 
 zation. Pantaloons fall easily and naturally over legs that have known 
 unlimited freedom and bagginess, and even garrote collars meet cor- 
 rectly around sun-tanned throats. The new expression seldom over- 
 flows in gaudy cravats. 1 will back my Americanized Chinaninn 
 against any neophyte of European birth in the choice of that arti> 
 While in our own State, the Greaser resists one by one the garments 
 of the Northeni invader, and even wears the livery of his conqueror 
 with a wild and buttonless freedom, the Chinaman, abused and de- 
 graded as he is, changes by correctly graded transition to the gar- 
 ments of Christian civilization. There is but one article of European 
 wear that he avoids. These Bohemian eyes have never yet been 
 pained by the spectacle of a tall hat on the head of an intelligent 
 Chinaman. 
 
 My acquaintance with John has l>een made up of weekly inter- 
 views, involving the adjustment of the washing accounts, so that I 
 have not been able to study his character from a social view-point or 
 observe him in the privacy of the domestic circle. I have gatlicred 
 enough to justify me in believing him to be generally honest, faithful, 
 simple, and painstaking. Of his simplicity let me record an instance 
 where a sad and civil young Chinaman brought me certain shirts with 
 most of the buttons missing and others hanging on delusively by a 
 single thread. In a moment of unguarded irony I informed him that 
 unity would at least have been preserved if the buttons were removed 
 altogether. He smiled sadly and went away. I thought I had hurt 
 his feelings, until the next week when he brought me my shirts with 
 a look of intelligence, and the buttons carefully and totally erased. 
 At another time, to guard against his general disposition to carry oflf 
 anything as soiled clothes that he thought could hold water, I re- 
 quested him to always wait until he saw me. Coming home late one 
 evening, I found the household in great consternation, over an im- 
 
BEBT HARTE. .399 
 
 movable Celestial who had remained seated on the front door-step 
 (liirini? the day, sad and submissive, firm but also patient, and only 
 ' 11 traying any animation or token of his mission when he saw me 
 • minpf. This same Chinaman evinced some evidences of regard for 
 a little girl in the family, who in her turn reposed such faith in his 
 intellectual qualities as to present him with a pretematurally unin- 
 resting Sunday-school book, her own property. This book John 
 iiiiide a point of carrying ostentatiously with him in his weekly visits. 
 It appeared usually on the top of the clean clothes, and was sometimes 
 painfully clasped outside of the big bundle of soiled linen. Whether 
 John l)elievcd he unconsciously imbibed some spiritual life through 
 its pastel)oard cover, as the l*rince in the Arabian Nights imbibed the 
 medicine through the handle of the mallet, or whether he wished to 
 ( xhibit a due sense of gratitude, or whether he had n't any pockets, I 
 have never been able to ascertain. In his turn he would sometimes cut 
 marvelous imitation roses from carrots for his little friend. I am in- 
 incd to think that the few roses strewn in John's path were such 
 cntless imitations. The thorns only were real. From the persecu- 
 ons of the young and old of a certain class, his life was a torment. 
 I don't know what was the exact philosophy that Confucius taught, 
 l)iit it is to be hoped that poor John in his persecution is still able 
 I detect the conscious hate and fear with which inferiority always 
 .( jrards the possibility of even-handed justice, and which is the key- 
 note to the vulgar clamor about servile and d^raded races. 
 
 BOONDEB. 
 
 I NEVER knew how the subject of this memoir came to attach him- 
 ' If so closely to the affections of my family h He was not a prepos- 
 ssing dog. He was not a dog of even average birth and bn*eding. 
 i I is pedigree was involved in the deep<*st obscurity. He may have 
 liad brothers and sisters, but in the whole range of my canine ac- 
 fiuaintance (a pre.tty extensive one), I never detectetl any of Boonder'a 
 peculiarities in any other of his species. His body was long, and 
 It is fon*legs and hind lep^s were very wide apaii, as though Nature 
 originally intendetl to put an extra pair between them, but had un- 
 wisely allowed herself to l)e persuaded out of it. This peculiarity 
 was annoying on cohl nights, as it always prolonged the interval of 
 keeping the door open for Boonder's ingress long enough to allow 
 
400 CATHCAET's LITEBAKY PF 
 
 two or three dogs of a reasonable length to cuter. Booiulcr's feet 
 were decided; his toes turned out considerably, and in repose his 
 favorite attitude was the first position of dancing. Add to a pair < 
 bright vyvs ears that seemed to belong to some other dog, and a 
 symmetrically pointed nose that fitted all apertures like a pass-kcv. 
 and you have Boonder as we knew him. 
 
 I am inclined to think that his popularity was mainly owing i<> u 
 quiet impudence. His advent in the family was that of an old nieiu 
 ber, who had l)ecn absent for a short time, but had returned to fa- 
 miliar haunts and associations. In a Pytliagorean point of view thi** 
 might have been the case, but 1 cannot recall any deceased member > 
 the family who was in life partial to bone-bur)'ing (though it might 
 be post mortem a consistent amusement), and this was Boonder's great 
 weakness. He was at first discovered coiled up on a rug in an upper 
 chamber, and was the least disconcerted of the entire household. 
 From tliut moment Boonder became one of its recognized members, 
 and privileges, often denied the most intelligent and valuable of Ii 
 species, were quietly taken by him and submitted to by us. Thus, w 
 he were found coiled up in a clothes-basket, or any article of clothini^' 
 assumixl locomotion on its own account, we only said, " O, it *s Boon- 
 der," with a feeling of relief that it was nothing worse. 
 
 I have spoken of his fondness for bone-biuying. It could not 1 ' 
 called an economical faculty, for he invariably forgot the locality of 
 his tnasnrc, and covered the garden with purposeless holes; but 
 although the violets and daisies were not improved by Boonder's 
 gardening, no one ever thought of punishing him. He became a 
 synonym for fate ; a Boonder to be gnimblwl at, to be accepted 
 philosophically, — but never to be averted. But although he was 
 not an intelligent dog, ^ nor an ornamental dog, he possessetl some 
 gentlemanly instincts. Wlien he performed his only feat, — begging 
 upon his hind legs (and looking remarkably like a pMigiiin), — igno- 
 rant strangers would offer him crackers or cake, which he did n*t like. 
 as a reward of merit. Boonder always made a great show of accept- 
 ing the proffered dainties, and even made hj'pocrttical contortions as 
 if swallowing, but always deposited the morsel when he was unob- 
 served in the first convenient receptacle, — usually the visitor's over- 
 shoes. 
 
 In matters that did not involve courtesy, Boonder was sincere in 
 his likes and dislikes. He was instinctively opposed to the railroad. 
 
BRET HA£T£. 401 
 
 When the track was laid through our street, Boonder maintained a 
 defiant attitude toward every rail as it went down, and resisted the 
 cars shortly after to the fullest extent of his lungs. I have a vivid 
 recollection of seeing him, on the day of the trial trip, come down the 
 street in front of the car, Iwirking himself out of all shape, and thrown 
 iKiek several feet by the recoil of each bark. But Boonder was not 
 the oidy one who has resisted innovations, or has lived to see the 
 innovation prosper and even cnish — But I am anticipating. Boon- 
 der had previously resisted the gas, but although he spent one whole 
 day in angry altercation with the workmen, — leaving his bones 
 unburied and bleaching in the sun, — somehow the gas went in. 
 The Spring Valley water was likewise unsuccessfully opposed, and 
 the grading of an adjoining lot was for a long time a personal matter 
 between Boonder and the contractor. 
 
 These peculiarities seemed to evince some decided character and 
 emlxxly some idea. A prolonged debate in the family upon this 
 topic resulted in an addition to his name, — we called him " Boonder 
 the Conservative," with a faint acknowledgment of his fateful power. 
 But, although Boonder had his own way, his path was not entirely of 
 roses. Thorns sometimes pricked his sensibilities. When certain 
 minor chords were struck on the piano, Boonder was always painfully 
 affected and howled a remonstrance. If he were removed for com- 
 pany's sake to the back yard, at the recun-ence of the provocation, he 
 would go his whole length (which was something) to improvise a 
 howl that should reach the performer. But we got accustomed to 
 Boonder, and as we were fond of music the playing went on. 
 
 One morning Boonder left the house in good spirits with his regu- 
 lar bone in his mouth, and apparently the usual intention of burning 
 it. The next day he was picked up lifeless on the track, — run over, 
 apparently, by the first car that went out of the depot. 
 
 THE AGED STRANGER. 
 
 " I w.\s with Grant — " the stranger said ; 
 
 Said the fanner, " Say no more. 
 But rest thee here at my cottage porch. 
 
 For thy feet are weary and sore." 
 
 " I was with Grant — " the stranger said ; 
 Said the fanner, " Nay, no more, — 
 
402 cathcaet's literary reader. 
 
 I prithee sit at my frugal board, 
 And eat of my humble store. 
 
 ** How fares my boy, — my soldier boy, 
 Of the old Ninth Army Corps ? 
 
 I warrant he bore him gallantly 
 
 In the smoke and the battle's roar 1 " 
 
 ** I know him not,'* said the aged man, 
 " And, as I remarked before, 
 
 I was with Grant — *' " Nay, nay, I know, 
 Said the farmer, " say no more ; 
 
 " He fell in battle, — I see, alas ! 
 
 Thou 'dst smooth these tidings o*er, — 
 Nay : speak the truth, whatever it be. 
 
 Though it rend my bosom's core. 
 
 " How fell he, — with his face to the foe. 
 Upholding the flog he bore? 
 
 O, say not that my boy disgraced 
 The uniform that he wore ! ** 
 
 ** I cannot tell,** said the aged man, 
 " And should have remarked, before, 
 
 Tliat I was with Grant, — in Illinois, — 
 Some three years before the war." 
 
 Then the farmer spake him never a word. 
 But beat with his fist full sore 
 
 That aged man, who had worked for Grant 
 Some three years before the war. 
 
VOCABULARY. 
 
 A-boOB' (Seotek), •bore. 
 AbHHrif 'l-BSIs, the first inhabitants of a coun- 
 try, il'sually written ^6cin^iii«.) 
 A-brad'Ing, rubbing or wearing off. 
 A'ca'd-a, a tree growing chiefly in tropical 
 
 countries. 
 Ac>c«ii'so«r7, aiding; additional; an accom- 
 
 imninuMit. 
 A*crld'i«t7f sharpness and bitterness to the 
 
 t.^st«•. 
 Ad-a>nian'tlDe <^-iN), liard like adamant; inca- 
 
 |)al>U- of being broken. 
 Ad>>qnate*lj, in an equal degree; sufficiently. 
 Ad*hrr'ents, followers; partisans. 
 Ad>o-lr»>'renee, the period of growth; youth. 
 A-dop'tlon, receivingasone'sown; acceptance. 
 A'pr>o-naat, a navigator of the air ; a balloonist. 
 .t-s-thet'lc, pertaining to, or cultivating, tin- 
 
 tasif 
 Af 'fa-ble, easy in conversation ; courteous. 
 Ag'>gre*ga'tiOB, a collection into one sum or 
 
 mass. 
 A>gle«' (page 892), aglow ; acUve. 
 Alrta Srotfk), winds. 
 
 A-lac'ri>t7, cheerful readiness; sprightliness. 
 Al-le*gor'l>cal, having the nature of an alle- 
 gory ; h);urative. 
 Al'le^o^ry, a fable or parable ; a description of 
 
 anything under the image of something else 
 
 which r(*si'niblcs it. 
 Arms Ms'ter (Lalim), fostering mother; the 
 
 college or seminary where one is educated. 
 Al>t«r><«'tioa, dispute in words ; angry debate. 
 A.l«ter>Ba'tloBt following one after theother by 
 
 turns. 
 Am-bif '■•oas, baring a doubtful or double 
 
 niennin,r_ 
 ABi*bas-cade', a lying eoocealed in wait to at- 
 tack an cnrniy. 
 A*Bie-li-o*ra'tloa« the act of making better ; 
 
 inipniM-iut-nt 
 A*iiipn'l-ty, |il<-n«ftntness ; civility. 
 Ani>phi>tli«'a*tcr, an oval or circular theater. 
 A-Bath'e>aia, a curse pronounced with solem- 
 nity and authority. 
 
 Aad'l^rOBS, utensils for supporting wood in a 
 
 fireplace. 
 Aa'gli'CisBi, a form of expression peculiar to the 
 
 EujiIIhIi language. 
 Aa'aala, a history of events year by year. 
 A*noin'a-l7f an irregularity ; a deviation from 
 
 law or rule. 
 An'Ker>ine, relating to or resembling a goose. 
 An-taf 'o<nlKtv an opponent ; an adversary. 
 Aa-te«di-la'Tt>an, existing before the flood. 
 An'them, n sacred song. 
 AB-thro*poph'a-gl, canuibals. 
 An'ti-dot«, t lint which counteracts the effects 
 
 of any drug. 
 An'tres */>«/«'«), caves. 
 A>o'ni-aB, relating to Aonia, a country of 
 
 Greece, sacred to the Muses. 
 Ap.pa-ra'tas, instruments or utensils provided 
 
 for the performance of any work. 
 Ap-pa-ri'tioB, a supernatural appearance; a 
 
 ghost. 
 Ap-proX'I-ma'tlOB, near approach. 
 A>qBat'Ic« relating to the water. 
 Aq'ul^IiBe {-liH or -/in), resembling an eagle ; 
 
 like nn eagle's beak. 
 Ar-ca'dl*a« a country in Greece, noted for the 
 
 simple, peaceful life of its inhabitants. 
 ▲r'fBSf a billed being of antiquity, said to hare 
 
 had a hnndred eyes. 
 Ar-lR*toc'ra-€]r, goremment by the nobles ; tlie 
 
 nobility. 
 Ar*te'si*aB, rcUting to Artois, in France; a 
 
 term applied to wells formed by boring into 
 
 the earth. 
 As-rea'dea-cy, controlling influence; power. 
 As«c«>t'Ir, one who too rigorously applies him- 
 self to reli'.'ions practices. 
 Ai-tlBl-l*la'tlOB« the art of bringing to a like- 
 ness. 
 As^Im'* >n inquest ; a measure or adjustment 
 Aa>trol'o-ger, one who professes to foretell fu- 
 
 tun- (Mints liy observing the stars. 
 Ai'yaip-tote, a line which constantly approadies 
 
 a curve, but which can never meet it. 
 At-trib'ate, to assign or impute to. 
 
404 
 
 VOCABULAEY. 
 
 km-T9'T%, the dawn, or » light in the henrent 
 
 mrniblinj; it. 
 An'spl-c*ie« to foreshow. 
 Aa-U-kl-Off'n-^j, an acoonnt of one's own 
 
 life. 
 AVft-Uack«, • mass of snow and ice, sliding 
 
 down a moontnin. 
 iT-a-tar', tlM descent of n Hindoo deity. 
 A-M^k* before tiM existence of animnl life. 
 Bar'/^toae* » deep msle roice, bnt higher then 
 
 I hi' bsM. 
 Ba-salt\ a inreenish-bladc stone. 
 Ilaw re Her,cnnred work in which the igme 
 
 «tanil partly fh>m the sniiiMe. 
 Bnt'tle-nieat, the npper put of tke waU of • 
 
 fortihration. notched or indented. 
 Bny'oM, an inlet of the sea, eowMcUdwitk iir> 
 
 ers or Ukc«. 
 Be-a-tirie, prodacing bliss. 
 BeMlg'er-eai, waging war. 
 Ben-o-dlc'ttoa, act of pronoaaeiag a hlweiag. 
 Be-a«f 'i-eeat, doing food. 
 Bo>alf'al-ty, kindness of diepositioa ; good- 
 
 will 
 Bib'Ii>4«l, reUtiniC to the Bible. 
 Bi*oir'ra-pky, a history of any person's lifie. 
 Bi>oro>!ry« the icirnce of life. 
 Bl'peds, animals liaving two legs. 
 Bir'kie Sfolck\, a rle»rr fellow. 
 BiT'oa>ae (hie'ieat), night rest of soldiers in the 
 
 open air. 
 Booa, anything granted as a benefit or &Tor. 
 Bo-re«a'lls, rrlating to the north ; northern. 
 Bowl'der, a large mass of stone worn smooth 
 
 bv I he action of water. 
 BrnkOf a place overgrown with shmbe; a 
 
 thicket 
 Bri*a're*aa, a fabled giant hanng a hnndred 
 
 hniuiii. 
 Bro^nde't silk stuff, wrought or woTcn with 
 
 orn.-\iiit-uts. 
 Bnrgk'er, one who belongs to a burgh, or cor- 
 
 pnrate town ; a citizen. 
 Bnr'f o-mavteFf a Dutch magistrate. 
 Cara^bash, a \-essel made from a gourd. 
 Cal-cine', to reduce to powder bylieat 
 Cnren*dar, a register of ths year; an almanac- 
 ra«lor'ic, heat 
 Ca'lyx, n flower-cup. 
 
 Cam>palgn'er, a soldier in active service. 
 Can'on>iM, to declare a saint. 
 Can 'on, a law ; catalogue of the saints. 
 Can'o^py, aooreringover the head ; an awning 
 
 or tent. 
 Can 'to, a division of a poem. 
 Can'yon, a gorge ; a ravine ; a gulch. 
 ( a*par'i-80B, trappings for a horse. 
 
 Car-a>Taa', a company of travelers in the East 
 
 Car*bOB>lf' er-OBB, containing carbon, or coal. 
 
 Car'aage, slaughter ; bloodshed. 
 
 Car'ai-Tal, a fesUval celebrated just before 
 Ix-nt 
 
 Car>aiT'o>roas, subsisting on flesh ; flesh-eat- 
 ing 
 
 Caaqae, a helmet. 
 
 Cas^'ra, the plant from which tapioca is ob- 
 tain<-d ; manioc. 
 
 Ca-ta«'tro>pke, the termiaation of an e%ent ; 
 a diMAtrr. 
 
 Cat'e>fO-i7, a class of things. 
 
 Ca>tlie'dral, the principal church in a diocese. 
 
 Ca-leb'ri-ty, fome; distiaetioa. 
 
 Ca-iea'Ual. hearealy. 
 
 Cel'l*W^» unmarried state ; single life. 
 
 Cea'eor« a veeed for burning perfumes. 
 
 Caa'aara, bkune; reproof ; Jadgmeut 
 
 Cha'aa, a confused mass ; distu^r. 
 
 CIWHitMe, in a state of chaos ; disorganixed. 
 
 Cki-ca'aer-y, trickery; deception. 
 
 €hl*mer'l*ral, fanciful ; unreal. 
 
 Ckir'al'roBS, gallant ; valiant ; brave. 
 
 Cklv'al'fT, knighthood ; gallantry. 
 
 CI-ce>ro'ae (eU-cke-rt^ me\ one who shows 
 •trangrrs the curiosities of a plaee. 
 
 ClaHaM'rlHUM very black or dark. 
 
 Clrocaanapae'tkNi, caution ; prudent watch- 
 fulness. 
 
 CIt'Ic civil ; not military ; mnnicipal. 
 
 €laai'or-«a8, noisy. 
 
 Claa-des'tlae <->«•). secret ; underhand. 
 
 Clangor, a loud and shnll sound. 
 
 Cll'max, gradual rise ; highest point. 
 
 Clols'ter, a convent ; a nunnery. 
 
 Ca-a-iesee', to unite ; to blend into one. 
 
 Cack'at, a eustom-koose eertiflcate. 
 
 Ca^'Tal, of the same age. 
 
 Cog'l-tata, to think ; to meditate. 
 
 Call, a series of rings of rope, etc ; noise ; tu- 
 mult. 
 
 CoI-lo'qnI-al, conversational. 
 
 Collo-^ay, a can\ ersation. 
 
 Co-laa'sal, like the CokMsns; gigantic 
 
 Ca-laa'si, plural of Coloisiu ; giants. 
 
 Com-mem-o-ra'floa, keeping in memory by 
 fimiial rcU'liration. 
 
 Com-pat'i-ble, suiuble to; consistent with. 
 
 Con-cen'ter, to concentrate ; to bring into one 
 ]M>ii.t. 
 
 Con'crete. firm ; solid ; not abstract 
 
 Con-ge'nI-al. of the same nature, or disposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Con-jn-ra'tioB, sorcery; incantation. 
 
 Con-san-gnin't-ty, relationship by blood or 
 birth. 
 
VOCABULARY. 
 
 405 
 
 ( on-siTT B>tir«, opposed to change. 
 Con-serr'a-to-rj, a place for preaerring 
 
 tliiiiz-i . !i (;rffnliou»e. 
 Con-Ktit'tt-PBt, composing; component. 
 Con'suni-mate, to complete; to perfect. 
 Con-tern '|>o«ra-rjr, living at the same time, 
 (on-text ure, t.-amework; structure. 
 Con-tl-fa'i-tjt contact; state of being adja- 
 
 ffiU. I 
 
 Con ' t ■•ne-ljr* scornful treatment ; diadai n . 
 Con-Tent'uonl, relating to a convent; monas- 1 
 
 ('on-TorTB*lBa,a vine; bindweed. 
 Coot Scotch), a blockhead; a simpleton. 
 ('or-da«ro7', a thick cotton stuff, having a 
 
 riljl)ctl surface. 
 Cor*rel'n>tlTe, having mutual rebtions; re- 
 
 ciprDPal. 
 Coarh'ant, lying down. 
 Cra'Ten, a coward. 
 Cre-dn'li*t7, readiness to believe without 
 
 IIIDof. 
 
 Cronpe or Cronp, the part of a horse's back 
 li<liiiiti till- »ailiilr. 
 
 Co'li-na-ry, pertaining to cooking. 
 
 Cu'po«la, a dome; an arched roof. 
 
 Cnr-ric tt'laait course of studies. 
 
 Cjr'cle, a circle of time; a round of years; a 
 l,oml 
 
 Cy-€lo«pe'aa, pertaining to the Cyclops, a fa- 
 bled {(lant ; huge. 
 
 G7-clo>f«'di«», a book in which the Tarions 
 sricna's are treated. 
 
 Cym'bnlSf a musical instrument. 
 
 De-brta ydn-hre') rubbish ; remains ; ruins. 
 
 De><-Id'aH>M, Calling off; not evergreen (^ 
 
 Irrrsi 
 
 D(>>ri'phpr, to unravel ; to explain. 
 
 De-co'rum, propriety of behavior ; decency. 
 
 De-rrep it, »«ak from old age. 
 
 I>e-durt'ire«ly, by deduction, or inference. 
 
 I)pf-er>ea'tiai, respectful. 
 
 De-flect'« to turn or bend aside. 
 
 De-fnnet\ dead ; deceased. 
 
 De i-fled. made or declared a god. 
 
 De-more ly, s<)l>erly; modestly. 
 
 Ue-nom'1-nate, to name ; to entitle. 
 
 De« caai, a song ; the variation of an air or 
 tiieludy. 
 
 I>M'e<ret«, to aboae what ia sacred ; to pro- 
 fane. I 
 
 DM'yot, one who ndet with abaolotn power ; j 
 a tyrant. i 
 
 Des'al>to*r7, unconnected; fttfnl; wandering, i 
 
 De-vo'al-an, pertaining to certain geological j 
 «iinta aiMiumling in Devonshire, England. 
 
 Dl'a-d^m. .i cmwu. 
 
 Dl'a>lect, a form of language peculiar to a 
 
 place or district. 
 DIe'tiOB, style of language, or expression. 
 DIght {iiteu dressed ; adorned. 
 DUgres'iiOBf departure from the main subject. 
 Dike, a ditch ; a mound to prevent the over- 
 
 llow of water. 
 Dil-et-tan'tl, lovers of the fine arts. 
 Di-min'n-tlTe, of small size ; little. 
 Di-plo'ma-cy, the art of negotiating treatiea. 
 Dip-lo-mat'ic, pertaining to diplomacy. 
 DiN-com'flt-ed, defeated. 
 DIs-con-ccrt'ed, frustrated ; confused. 
 Dis-en-cnm'ber, to disburden ; to set free. 
 Dis'lo«cate, to displace ; to disjoint. 
 Dis-par'age, to undervalue ; to depreciate. 
 Dls^aI>«l'tioa, a discourse ; a treatise. 
 Dls^seai'ble, to conceal ; to feign. 
 ]>ts-ser>ta'tloB, a discourse ; a treatise. 
 Dis^sCT'er, lu disjoin ; to separate. 
 Dis-HO-lu'tion, decomposition ; death. 
 DU-tend'ed, expanded; enlarged. 
 Dith-y>rani'bicSt |>oems of a wild, enthusiastic 
 
 character ; [.anciently) songs to Bacchus. 
 DIt'ty, a song. 
 
 Doi^'ma-tiam, positiveness of assertion. 
 Du'bi-ous-ly, doubtfully; with uncertainty. 
 Durci-mer, a kind of musical instrument. 
 Dy'nas'ty, a succession of sovereigns of the 
 
 same rare. 
 Ec-c«B-trlc'i-ties, peculiarities ; oddities. 
 Ec'lo^ne, a ])astoral poem, i. e. relating to shep- 
 herds, or the country. 
 E-roB'o-nlst, one who studies or practicea 
 
 cc«)iio.iiy. 
 Ef*flB'Ti-a (plural of efiuvium), noxious or 
 
 noisome exhalations. 
 Ef-fnl'igeBce, splendor; brightness. 
 E'ro-tixn, e«)nceit ; vanity. 
 E-Jac-o-la'tion, exclamation. 
 E-lab'o-rate, to impmvc or perfect by labor. 
 E-le'f i-ae >r EI>«.9l'ae, pertaining to an elegy, 
 
 or t'unere«l song ; plaintive. 
 EItm (plural of W/), fairies. 
 En-a-na'tloat a flowing out ; an efflux. 
 Eni-bla'zoned, decked with slmwy ornaments. 
 E'mir .^rnhic), a governor, prince, or military 
 
 fonimander. 
 E-aioI'B>aieBi, gain ; pecuniary proAt. 
 Eai-pir'i-riKBl, dependence on experiment; 
 
 qu.'irkiTV 
 
 En-aBi'ored. charmed ; inflamed with love. 
 En-eyr'li-ral, rircular. 
 Ea-dow'BieBt, a natural gift. 
 E-aer'Tit-Ml, deprived of strength ; weakened. 
 Ea-rraa'chlacd, set free; admitted aaafrec. 
 
406 
 
 VOCABULARY. 
 
 B.Mr' 
 
 Eb raihport' (Frmek), ia 
 
 K-«a>n«r*a'tUa« bw 
 
 E«aaB.€l>a'ttOB, aUeivasBi 
 
 K'bb« the time a penoa or ihiag exiaU ; a pe> 
 
 nod of time ; aa tfc. 
 E>l»hefli'e-ral, lasting for a day ; of ihort da- 
 
 nitiun. 
 Ep'l<^nMi, • flhort, witty poem. 
 Ep'l.a*d«« a digreaakm. 
 Ep*i-aod'l<«Bl, pertaieing to an eptiode. 
 Ep'l-t het, K iiniiie ; a title , a qnlffytif tem. 
 E^qai-llb'rt'BBi, rvrn balance; eqaaUty of 
 
 wrijrlit. 
 B^^Bl'Bae'tUl, a ftfi circle is the hflBTms in 
 
 thr plane of the eqaator. 
 E^^BlppH't furaiahed ; arrayed. 
 B'rm« a Kxed poiat or period of tiaM ; an epoch. 
 B-ra4'l-c«t«, to root oat; tetetny. 
 E-ni^drttoa, kBovledKoolilaiBed froBi books; 
 
 Iraminf. 
 E»«kew'lBf , avoidiag ; shBaaiaf. 
 Bi'tU>Ba4«, a clear apace oaed fer ittn or 
 
 walks 
 Ka-tnuifad', made aafHaidly ; alia— Hi 
 ■i^taWMT, ariTeroramor tke ieiliwUdi 
 
 tiic ttde riaea. 
 Ea-lo'f i>Ba, IbnBal pvaioa. 
 EB'pko>By, afrreeabla amnid. 
 ■•TaB'lah'laa. fleeting: eraneaceat 
 B-Tap-oofa'tioB, pBaaing away ia yvpn , 
 
 rhnn%\nf, lo xapor. 
 ET.«.lB'tlOB, act of MBlimig. 
 
 Ex'ra>Tate« to hollow oal 
 
 Ex^ckeq'aer. treamiry. 
 
 Ez*ka>la'tloB, efllaTiam ; vapor; aleaflii. 
 
 Ex*kira-rat>iBf( 
 
 Ex'U|reB-cy, di 
 
 Bx*pa'tri-at«, to baaiak ; to expel ftom oae't 
 
 Ex'pe^lta, to 
 
 Ex'pi-ata, to atoae for ; to nmke satisfoctioa. 
 
 Ex'panfe', to blot out 
 
 Ex'taat^ existing. 
 
 Ex'B'ber-aace, great abnndaucff ; OTcrllowing 
 
 plentv. 
 Ex'B^da'tloa, sweating ; oozing oat 
 Fa uSVf)/r*.. tall; lot 
 
 Fa^cll't'tate, to make easy ; to remore difficul- 
 ties. 
 
 Faa-tas'tiCf faaciful; whimsical. 
 
 Far'delf a bundle; a pack or load for the 
 l«rk 
 
 Fas^ci'Ba'tloBi charming ; enchantment 
 
 Fa.s-tid'f-oas, over-nice ; hard to pleaae. 
 
 Fann i/'//A t, a god of fields and shepherda. 
 
 Fe<aB'di*ty, fruitfulucss ; fertility. 
 
 Pta'ial, peitaiBiag to a foai, tkat ia. a riskt to 
 lands OB eoaditioB of aenriee to a aaperior. 
 
 FI1bi'j« composed of a tkia skia or web; lika a 
 roliweb. 
 
 ria't^al, orer-niee ; aibctedly exaeL 
 
 FIWaui-BieBtitbesky; tbecaaopfortbBkeBreaa. 
 
 nB'eai*lyt in a ifowing. easy amaaer. 
 
 Fo^raa'aie, rebitiag ta eoana of Jaotlea, or la- 
 gal proceediaga. 
 
 rta'sll, a sabotaace in% fima tke eartk. 
 
 kT, a bratkar or —aib ef of any reUgloM 
 
 Gal'ax>y, the milky-way. 
 
 Garii-aH, a brisk, gay maa. 
 
 GaFraa-laai, electricity prodaeed by ekoaical 
 artioa. 
 
 Gar'al'tara, ftmUtare ; adonuMat 
 
 fiar»r«to',aaiioaeoUBraaailaaneatioBa: a 
 collar of theaai 
 
 aMi-a.«ro.ty, list of I 
 
 0«a4lc>B>la'tloa, art of makkig gcatarea; ao> 
 tioB aocprnpaaytag apaick. 
 
 fiBf'aaca. kaiHar apriaga fai lealaad. 
 
 Gkaal, aa JaiagiaBiy kafa« sappaaed to pf«y 
 apoe kaaam kodiea. 
 
 GUJa, aa opea apace ia a forest 
 
 eitat'ad, f kneed ; peeped fettk. 
 
 Gla'tl'B«aa,8tkky; 
 
 tt«o'8a>aMr, a ii 
 the air. 
 
 Qawd .S<^/<-A), gold. 
 
 Gra^da'ttoa, regular progress, step by step. 
 
 flrapli'le, vivid ; lirely ; well drawn. 
 
 Grat-a-la'tlaa, cxpreasiag joy at another's 
 happiness or good fortaae. 
 
 Graa (<>*«■ ). good-will ; rank ; to h<iir the fret, 
 to be victor. 
 
 Gra-tca«ae', odd ; IknciM. 
 
 Gald iS<-i,lck\ good. 
 
 GBt'tB<raI, relating to the throat; made by 
 I the throat. 
 
 ' Gyai'Bas'tie, relating to bodily exercise ; ath- 
 I letic 
 
 ! Hack'aeyed, worn out by frequent use. 
 i Ha'lo. n circle of light 
 
 Hame'ly Scotch), homely, 
 i Har'bfB-fer. a forerunner. 
 
 Harp'si-chord, a musical instrument. 
 
 He-red'i>ta'ry, descending by inheritaace. 
 I Her-met'i-cal-ly, perfectly close; 
 I process. 
 
 I Hes-per'Mes i.Vytk\ daughters of Atlas, who 
 I owned the orchards in Africa, in which golden 
 I fruit grew. 
 
 bv chemical 
 
VOCABULARY. 
 
 407 
 
 Het'er-o^ox, mntrnry to an acknowledged 1 
 
 Rtaiidnrd i>t irligious doctrine. 
 HI«e«rAr'rhy, Mcrcd government ; the priest- 
 
 Ii.mmI. 
 
 Hi<«-ro-gljph'les, sacred pictaie-writinff of 
 
 the nm-i. ni Kjfvptiana. 
 Hind, a pt^asAnt ; n servant. 
 Hod'den i.SrofrAi, bumble. 
 Hu'niid, moist; wet. 
 HHN'band'Hr, economy ; farming. 
 Hjr-po«thet'I-caI, based on a supposition, or 
 
 hv[M)tllf»IS. 
 
 rdletwe, idleness ; sloth. 
 
 I*de'al, imaginary ; unreal. 
 
 If 'iie>o«s, pertaining to fire ; fiery. 
 
 IMiin'it*a«ble, unbounded; boundless. 
 
 II-IU'er-«te, unlearned ; uneducated. 
 
 In'age^ry, figures of speech ; figurative Ian- 
 
 puns:. 
 Ini.Bia>ts-biri>ty, nnchangeableneM ; atabil- 
 
 it V 
 In-pal'pa-ble, not perceptible to the toach. 
 Im-pe-ra'tor (Latin'i, commander-in-chief. 
 Im-plie'it. implied ; undoubting ; firm. 
 In-car'na-dine, to dye red, like blood orflesh. 
 In>res'HaBt>ly, unceasingly; without stopping. 
 Iii>coni'pa-ra-ble, matchless ; unequaled. 
 In-roa'gra-oas, inconsistent ; absurd. 
 In-cor'po-rate, to unite into one body; to 
 
 t'orm iiit'> n Inxly politic. 
 lB«€re^a'll«t7, readiness to beliere withont 
 
 sutlii-ieut proof. 
 iBocma-ta'tloB, formation of a crust on the 
 
 surlarr. 
 iB'Oin'bcB'ejr, state of lying or resting on 
 
 Boinrtlmi;: ; the holding of an office. 
 iB'dec'o'.roaSf unbecoming ; indecent. 
 lB'dff'1-Bite, indistinct; vague. 
 iBoderi'bljf 90 as not to be erased; incf- 
 
 lni-al»l\ 
 In-dirt ment. formal charge, or accusation. 
 In-dlN'iio-la*ble, not to be dissolved; endur- 
 
 la;: 
 lB>doBi'It-a>bIe, not to be suMued ; uncon- 
 
 qut-rablr 
 lB>dB'bt>ta-blf, without doubt; unquestion- 
 ably. 
 lB-4Bc'tlre*lf , by inference ; by the inductive 
 
 inc'li )<l of reasoning. 
 iB'Cf'fert'B'al, without producing the proper 
 
 frt..-i ; rnii.K'As. 
 lB*ea'tl«ma>ble, pricrle^t ; invaluable. 
 lB>eT'i*ta-ble. iiria\o:dable. 
 lB*ex'or-a-bly, tirmly ; so as not to b« moved 
 
 li\ cntrraty 
 iB-fl'del'Mjr, unfaithfulaeas ; onbelief; acq^ 
 ttcisni. 
 
 lB>flam'Bia«bIef easily set on fire. 
 iB-gen'n-ona, open ; frank ; canduL 
 Ia«i'ti>ate, t<> introduce; to In-gin. 
 lB-BO<Ta'tioB, change ; introduction of a nov- 
 elty. '^ 
 In-Rlg'ni-a, badges of office ; marks of distinc- 
 tion. 
 iB-slp'id, tasteless. 
 In'sB-lJB (Latin), islands ; separrt« honsea, i.e. 
 
 houses standing ak>ne. 
 iB-teB'tire-Iy (o»*.), ctosely ; attentively. 
 In>ter-mit'tent, ceasing for a time, or at in- 
 tervals. 
 iB-tim'i-date, to make afraid ; to affright. 
 In-tract'a«ble« unmanageable; obstinate. 
 In-trin'sir, internal; real; genuine. 
 In-tn-i'tiOBf immediate perception by the in- 
 tellect ; intuitive knowledge. 
 lB«ta'i-tlTe, perceived witliout reasoning. 
 iB'un-date, to overflow. 
 la-nred', accustomed. 
 iB-vec'tlT©, censure; reproach; abuse. 
 lB-Tet'er-a-C7f state of being old; chronic 
 
 stale. 
 iB-Tal'ner-a-ble, not to be wounded ; secure 
 
 from injury. 
 I'ro*ny, saying one thing and meaning another, 
 
 ill iiuickfry. 
 Ir-ra'dl-ate, to enlighten ; to illume. 
 Ir-re-me'di-a-ble, incurable ; without remedy. 
 Ir-rep'a>ra-blet not to be repaired ; irretriev- 
 
 alii.. 
 Ir-i-dea'rent, having the cotor of the rainbow. 
 I'ris, the niinliow. 
 la-o-Ia'tion, detachment ; separation from all 
 
 others. 
 I-tln'er-aat, wandering; traveling; going from 
 
 place to place. 
 Jai'miae, a climbing plant which bears very 
 
 frngi-ant flowers. 
 Joc'a-Iarf sportive : witty ; facetious. 
 Joc'aad, joyous ; blithesome ; gay. 
 Jn-rtH-pra'deBre, science of law. 
 Ja'riatv ""'" versed in law ; a lawyer 
 Lab'y-riathf an edifice full of winding passa- 
 
 (fcs . a ma/.e. 
 La*con'te« brief; in the manner of the ancient 
 
 .•spartan 8. 
 La>fOoa% a birge shaltow bke, having an 
 
 opininjr into the sea. 
 Laai'beat, pUying on the surflicc; touching 
 
 liv'lMly. 
 Laad'fra-TiBe, the wife of a Landgrave, or 
 
 Gcrm.-in nobleman. 
 La'tratf concealed. 
 Leath, a thong of leather, by which a dog or 
 
 other animal is held. 
 
408 
 
 VOCABULAEY. 
 
 L«g'9u-6M-Tj* fabokMB : wt •aOortie. 
 L««Ti'a-thmB, an imoMBM aateal ; Um whale 
 LUrra'tioM,kioMi distolBto; vuMUaiBed. 
 Llm'pid, dear; truupareBt 
 LiB'e«a-BieaU«ouUine«; fntore*. 
 Lit'er*al-l7, according to the latter. 
 Lord'llag, a petty lord. 
 Lore, lcariiin{;. 
 L«'i|.€TOaa,iai«hahla. 
 Li'rM, ghartly pale ; fkwaiy. 
 Mal-laHi-hO'l<4r, the qaaUty by which a rab. 
 
 etaace may be hammered out 
 M*>Bl|Ka'U'UaB, handiins; working with 
 
 thehaad. 
 MasMtahoaae; apamaage; abim. 
 Maa-a>Mta'alMi, aettiag free, 
 ■ar'l-tlne, pertaiaiag to the tea; aartee. 
 ■ari« a place of sale or traflte; a Buuiket 
 lar'tyr, one wbo, by hia de^ heart witaces 
 
 to tlie truth. 
 ■ar'tyr*4oai, the state or death of a martyr, 
 ■aata, the fruit of a fc re et tr ee; oaU; aoonu- 
 ■••ter'aai, relating to a awtter ; BKNherly. 
 Nann'na Sroteh), matt not 
 ■aB'iwle'aai, a large and qpleadid toaib or 
 
 nKiniiincnt. 
 ■ed'l*ca*Bient, aaything need to heal or cure 
 
 (liavaae. 
 Me-41««e'rl*ty, middle state or degree. 
 Ie'nl*al« a lerrant ; a domestic 
 ■ere, a pocil or lake. 
 ■et^a^Mor'phoae, to transform. 
 ■et'a-phor, a figure of speech by which a 
 
 ihiii!; is said to be vliat it resembles. 
 ■e'ter, rhythmical arrangement ; measure. 
 Mewl'lag, cr>-ing like a young child. 
 MId'rib, tlie middle rib, as of a leaf. 
   U'len'nUal, relating to the millennium, or 
 
 period uf a thousand years mentioned in the 
 
 Scriptures. 
 ■I-Ba'ti*», details ; minute particulars. 
 MI>rage', a deceptive vision seen in the air. 
 ■Is'cre-aat, a vile wretch ; an infidel 
 Mit'l>f ate, to soften. 
 Moe'ra-sia, an Indian's shoe. 
 Mod'i>raai, a small quantity. 
 Mod'a-Iate, to vary ; to change, as the voice, 
 
 from oat? key to another. 
 Moa'as*ter-7, a place of religious retirement ; 
 
 an abJiey or convent. 
 Vo-mea'tum, moving force. 
 Mon'o-dy, i mournful song, sungby onepersnn. 
 Mon-op'o-Ilze, to have the exclusive right of 
 
 ^•ili- ; to take the whole. 
 Mon«op'o-Iy, an exclusive right of sale. 
 Mo<not'o>BOBS, unvarying in sound ; tedious. 
 ■OB'y {Scotci), many. 
 
 ■»«B'le, inlaid work, ftmaed by 
 pieces of differently ook>red stoBes. 
 
 ■mImi iJnMc), MohaaUBedBB; a true be- 
 lievcr. 
 
 ■•aqae, a Turkish or ! 
 
 MBl'tMonB, having 
 
 ■BB'dBBO, worldly; 
 
 ■B-Ble'i>pal, pertaining to a oorpontioBoreitr. 
 
 Ma-ta'tloB, cliange. 
 
 ■a'tMate, to maim -, to dfcprire oT a limb or 
 other material part. 
 
 ■ya'tlc, obscure ; unintelligible. 
 
 mjtk, a fable. 
 
 ■jUt'l-cal, fabulous. 
 
 Mj-tlMl'B-gjr, a history of the asdeBt fhblea 
 
 Rave, the middle or body oTa eharch 
 He'o-pkyto* a bcw eoBverti 
 
 nuxicT. 
 H**pea'tlMB, a drag seed by the ancieBts to 
 
 rrUrve p«in. 
 Ho«BMd'le, wandering ; pastoraL 
 X«-M«a-«te'tara, a list of bbbm* beloDgug to 
 
 a partioUar lentce or art 
 If 9mm, preecBt call or occaaioB. 
 Hyapk, a goddcH al the BMaataiBa, forests, 
 
 Bieadows, or waters. 
 0>MI'8Baee, expresaioB of reject ; a bow ; a 
 
 ctiurtcsy. 
 ObVIbk, a tall and slender stone pyramid. 
 Oh-llq'al'ty, deviation from a right line. 
 Oh'llt'er-ate, to blot out 
 Oh-llr'l>OB, forgetfulaeas. 
 Oh'Io^ay, censure. 
 Ob-ac«B'l-ty» indecency ; impurity. 
 Ob-se'4Bi>OBB-Bea8, rauly obedience; senility. 
 Ob'so-lete, disused ; neglected. 
 Ob-tra'alre^ly, without invitatwn. 
 Of'fl'claaa-Beaa, excessive zeal; undue for- 
 wardness. 
 Obi i*B0BS, threatening eviL 
 Om-nip'o-teBt, all-powerfuL 
 OB'er-OBB, burdensome. 
 Op'a-lcBt, rich ; wealthy. 
 0-rae'a-lar, like an oracle ; positive. 
 Oa>t«B-tB'tlOBSf making a vam display. 
 Ox>y-hy'dro-feB, produced by tlie union of 
 
 oxygen and hydrogen gas. 
 Pa'aa, « song of victory. 
 Pa^'eaat, a pompous show or spectacle. 
 Pal'e-tot ' p*d>e-to), a peasant's frock; a loose 
 
 overcoat. 
 Pal'frey, a saddle-horse. 
 Pal-la'di-luB, a saf^uard. 
 Pal'pi-tate, to l»eat or throb hke the heart. 
 Paii-o*nim'ic, preseuting a complete view ; 
 
 like a panorama. 
 
VOCABULAET. 
 
 409 
 
 PaB>Ui-l00B% a cbancter in a comedy ; a buf- 
 foon 
 
 Par>a*boI'le, expreaaed bj a parable ; figura- 
 tive. 
 
 Par'a^liata (-tkoot), a machine for deacending 
 fioiii a lialioon. 
 
 Par'a^nonnt, superior to all othera. 
 
 Tard, tlie leopard. 
 
 Par'ox>7aBi, fit; sudden and acute attack; 
 ronvulsion. 
 
 Par'Te>Ba, an upstart ; one who has become 
 siiildfnly rich. 
 
 Pas'tor«al, relating to shepherds ; ruial. 
 
 Pa*thol'o-f 7, the science which treats of dis- 
 
 Pa'thoa, fi'cling ; passion ; tender emotion. 
 
 Pa>trl'claB, a person of high birth ; a noble- 
 man. 
 
 Pat'ri>mo-nr, an estate inherited. 
 
 IN'a.s'ant-rjr, farmers; country people. 
 
 P(>-ru'ni>a-rff relating to money. 
 
 Ped'a-fOf ae, a teacher of children. 
 
 Ped'aati one who makes a vain display of his 
 it-aming. 
 
 Ped'aat-ry, a rain display of learning. 
 
 Ped'i'f re«, lineofancestors; dcscentor lineage. 
 
 Pelf, inonev ; riches ; lucre ; gain. 
 
 Pe«Ba't«8 ' LaliH), the household gods of the 
 ancient Romans. 
 
 Per>ad*TeB'tBref perhaps; perchance; possi- 
 bly. 
 
 Per>aBi-bB-la'tloB, walking about or around ; 
 tour 
 
 P«r'ro>Iat«, to ooze ; to pass in drops ; to filter. 
 
 Pet'di'tion, ruin; destruction. 
 
 Per-en'nI-al, tasting ; perpetual. 
 
 Per'fl-dy, iait!i!e«<ini'ss ; treachery. 
 
 PerTo-rate, to pierce ; to bore. 
 
 Pef'Blm'BiOBt a small tree bearing a plum-like 
 fruit. 
 
 Per>aoB«i>fl>«a'tIoa, a figure by which inani- 
 mate ol»jerts are represented as having life 
 and intelligence. 
 
 Per«apie'a*OBa, clear; easily understood. 
 
 Pet'H-fy, 'o plian-fp into stone. 
 
 Phan-ta.H«ma>f o'rUa, optical illusions ; magic 
 
 Inntiiii 
 
 Phr-Bom'e-na plural of /iA<>>Knii«ii«ii), appear- 
 
 nucr* 
 
 Phll>an'thro>pUt, a lorer of mankind. 
 Pliren>oro*g7, ^> ' science of determining char- 
 
 aeter l.y olj-Knatlon of the head or skull. 
 Phya-i^HT 'BO>Biy, diseerament of character by 
 
 till- fare ; the faee. 
 PIfd pH'-t, varictrated. 
 rin'na>rle, the highest point ; the summit 
 Plen'Made, fullness ; abundance. 
 
 FlB'tOB'te, pertaining to Pluto; igneoua. 
 PoMa'tioB, corruption ; defilement. • 
 Pol-y>syl'lB*blet <^ '"ord of four or more aylla* 
 
 hi.-.s. 
 
 Pon'der>oa», heavy ; weighty. 
 
 Pon'tiff, a l^gh priest. 
 
 Por'phy«ry, a kind of rock or stone. 
 
 Port'ance, air ; mien ; demeanor. 
 
 Por'ti-co, a porch ; a covered space at the en* 
 trance of a building. 
 
 Po*8a'da [Spanish], an inn or tavern. 
 
 Po'ten-cy, power ; strength. 
 
 Po-ten-tUal'i-ty, state of having power; pos- 
 sibility not reality. 
 
 Prac-ti'tiOB*«r, one who practices an art or 
 profession. 
 
 Pre>ea'rI*0B8t doubtful ; depending upon an- 
 other's will. 
 
 Prec'e-dent, something used as an authoritative 
 e,vam|(le. 
 
 Pre«con-c«rt', to consider and agree upon be- 
 forehand. 
 
 Pred'e-ceaa'or, one who precedes another in 
 an ortice. 
 
 Pre-doBi'l>Batef to prevail ; to rule. 
 
 Pre^emp'tloB, the right of purchasing before 
 otliers. 
 
 PreJ-n>di'cial, injurious ; detrimental. 
 
 Pre>lini'i>na-ry, introductory. 
 
 Pre'ma-tnre, ripe before the time ; unseason- 
 able. 
 
 Pre*Bion'i>to«ry, warning beforehand ; giving 
 previou.s notice. 
 
 Pre-or-daln', to ordain or decree beforehand. 
 
 Pre-pos'ter-onu, invertetl in order; absurd. 
 
 Pre>8en'tl>ment, a notion of what is about to 
 occur. 
 
 Pre>ter-Bat'n-ral, beyond what is natural ; 
 strange. 
 
 Pr{-Bio«geB'i>tBre, state of being bom firat 
 
 Pris'tlae, original ; primitive. 
 
 Prod'Ngal, wasteful. 
 
 Pro-ren'l-tor, a father ; an ancestor. 
 
 Pro'if e-ny, offspring ; children. 
 
 Pro-Ra'Ic, pertaining to proae; dull; uninter- 
 esting. 
 
 Pro't*>aB, assuming different forma; like PiO' 
 t« u^* 
 
 Pro-tu'her>aBt^ projecting. 
 
 Pra-Bel'la, a woolen stuff used for making 
 
 sho:-*. 
 
 PaaI'Bio>dy, the singing of psalms or hymns. 
 Pay-cho-loffi-eal, relating to psychology, or 
 
 111- Sri .nee of the soul. 
 Par'bllBdt near-sighted ; dim-sighted. 
 Pyir'Bi7« one of a race of dwarfs ; a dwarf. 
 <{amfft to drink in large dranghta. 
 
410 
 
 VOCABULARY. 
 
 Qnaf 'mire, aoft. wet Imnd. 
 ({■••t«r' ■!••■, » Mt of fonr thiagi. 
 <{«l-«'Ui*t rest; death; that whieh lilenee* 
 
 i-lajiii4. 
 Ba'pl'Cr, a lijjht (word. 
 BeK«*ptt-a«U'tioB, a tammary of the chief 
 
 h -Alls of a ditcoune. 
 Re^ip'l>eat, one who reeeire*. 
 Be-f rac'to-i7, obatinate ; diaobedient 
 Be«lt'f r-ate, U) repeat again and afaia. 
 Bel'e*TaB-cj, state of being applicable or per- 
 
 tinrnl. 
 BeM-i«alfl'eeBM« remembrance ; that which 
 
 rcrnlU to the mind. 
 Be^pag'saat, hoatile ; oppoaed. 
 Be qit^til, pajrment ; recompen«e. 
 B««-mr-r«e'ti«B, act of rising from the dead. 
 B«t'l*«eaee, keeping silence ; abstinence from 
 
 sperrh. 
 Be-irlb'n*tO>r7« affording reward ; iMldngre- 
 
 pajment. or a jost return. 
 BeT'e«nne, annual rents ; income. 
 Be-Ter'ber-Ato, to resonnd ; to echo. 
 Rhap's<MllM, to utter wild, rambling thoughts 
 
 t»r si*i)t«-nc«s. 
 Khet'or-lr, thr art of composition, or oratory. 
 Bho-do-den'droB, a shmb bearing showy 
 
 llower*. 
 Bhytlim, measure; harmoaioas low of lan- 
 
 Bo'ae^te* full of rases ; of a rose color. 
 
 Bo't«-ry, turning like a wheel. 
 
 Uonu'de-lay, a kind of song or dance. 
 
 Knb'ble, fragmmts of stone or rock. 
 
 Ba'atCt pertaining to the Rones, or inacriptiotts 
 of the ancient Norsemen. 
 
 BBs>tic'l>ty« state of bang rustic ; eoarseaeas. 
 
 8a-liae', ctHttaining salt 
 
 8a-ll'Ta, spittle. 
 
 Saae'ta<«-ry, a sacred place; a church or al- 
 tar ; a place of reftige. 
 
 Saa'fBlB-a-ry, bloody; blood-thirsty; eager 
 to sited blood. 
 
 Sans Frrnck), witbont. 
 
 Sap'phire, a precious stone of a blue color. 
 
 Sarce'aett a kind of thin silk, used for linings, 
 riUlions, etc. 
 
 Sar-doa'ic^ forced (said of a laugh that is as- 
 sumed to conceal pain). 
 
 Sat/ire, a poem ridicoling rice or folly. 
 
 Sa'tyr* a deity of the woods, represented as half 
 man and half goat. 
 
 Saul Sctrh), souL 
 
 Sa-ran'na, an extensive grassy plain. 
 
 School'mea, men taught in the schools of the 
 middle ages, who disputed on nice points of 
 logic and theology. 
 
 SeyaiVtar or Ctii'e-ter, a Turkish sword of 
 a lient furm. 
 
 8««eret«'t to separate ; to eoaceal. 
 
 8ec'a>lar, worldly ; temporal ; occurring once 
 in an age. 
 
 8e4'l-Bi«Bi, dregs ; grounds ; settlings. 
 
 Se^'iioa, opposttioa to the goverament ; re- 
 bellion. 
 
 Smth'iBf , boilhig. 
 
 Hrn-ten'tious, full of meaning; expreasive. 
 
 8ep'nl>cher, a tomb. 
 
 8erf , a slave attached to the soil ; a bond-serrant 
 
 Ser'Tlle, slavish. 
 
 Shaai'bleat the place where buteher't BMat is 
 
 Miid 
 
 Shelkt an Arabian chief. 
 
 Skla'f la« a coUrcton of stoaea wora mooth by 
 the action of water, as found on coasts. 
 
 8l'ea-lte or 8y'ea*lt«« stone composed of 
 quartz, hornblende, and feldspar. 
 
 Sl'Cr'ra [SpamUk), a saw ; a mountain chain. 
 
 Slyaior (teeu'ymr), a title of respect among the 
 liatiana; Sir; Mr. 
 
 8U'lia«-«tt« {sil'ao^i), the outlines of an ob- 
 ject, filled in with black. 
 
 8i«|«'all or Sn'o^Ef name of a pool or fountain 
 in Jerusalem. 
 
 81«la'rl-aBt reUting to the Silures, a people of 
 Wales ; hence applied to the geological stratum 
 found in that oouatry. 
 
 Siai'UIe, a compariaoa. 
 
 Slai'aier, to boO geaUy. 
 
 Slas'per, to smile in an affected manner. 
 
 SIa'a*otu, bending in and out ; winding. 
 
 So'Joara, stay ; temporary abode. 
 
 8o*liro^ay, a talking to one's self 
 
 SoBi'erHMt^ a leap heels over head. 
 
 8««ao'roaa, loud sounding; giving a clear 
 sound. 
 
 8oph'ls>try, false and deceitful reasoning. 
 
 Sor'tle, a sudden sally of troops from a fortress 
 or entrenchment. 
 
 Spe'cioaa, apparently right ; plausible. 
 
 StJi-tis'tl>eal, exactly suted and dassified. 
 es|>erially in numbers. 
 
 Stat'u-a-ry, a sculptor. 
 
 Sten-to'ri-aa, extremely loud. 
 
 Ste-rll'i-ty, barrenness; unfruitfulness. 
 
 Ster'to-rous, hoarsely breathing ; snorinj. 
 
 Sti'pend, salary ; wages. 
 
 Stlp'U'Iate, to bargain ; to agree. 
 
 Stra'ta plural of stratum), layers. 
 
 Strat'e-gy, science of military command ; gen- 
 eralship. 
 
 Strat'i'fled, laid in strata, or layers. 
 
 Strin'gent, binding; strict; rigorous. 
 
 Sta-pen'dOBS, astonishing ; wonderful. 
 
VOCABULARY. 
 
 411 
 
 8ab-Ja*fra'tloB, ronqnest ; tabjeetion. 
 Sab-mer'Kf>iire, putting under water; inanda- 
 
 ti-.ii 
 8Bb«or*di-Ba'tlon, inferiority of rank or dig> 
 
 nity ; Kubjeetion. 
 8Bb-s«r'Tl>«Btt promoting a particular end; 
 
 ■ylM>n.i:in c 
 8«b«tci>ni'Be*aB, under the surface of tbe 
 
 earth. 
 Sab'tiNtj, tliinness; craA ; artifice. 
 8a*per-flH'l*ty, a greater quantity than is 
 
 uccUcd ; »U[>i-i-al>undaucc. 
 8a*per-lB*€aB'beBt, lying or resting upon 
 
 •oiiiethiug else. 
 8ar-charf e', to overload. 
 8]rrTaB, pertaining to woods or foresU. 
 8yBi'Bie-try, a due proportion of parts; beauty. 
 8yBi'pho-By, haniiony of sounds; a musical 
 
 euiiiiMMitiou fur a full orchestra. 
 8yB'B>f ogBe, a congregation of Jews ; a Jew- 
 
 liih cliurch. 
 8yB'o<ByBi, one of two or more words of a lan- 
 guage- w Inch have the same uieauiug. 
 8yB'the*sis, composition ; putting together. 
 8y«rlB'ga, a genus or faiuily of plants. 
 8y»'teBi>B*tixet to reduce to a system; to 
 
 nu-thixlizi*. 
 Tal'U'BBB, something used or worn to avert 
 
 or repel evil; a charm. 
 Tma'fi'ble, perceptible by the toudi ; substan- 
 
 Mal. 
 TaB'tB'llxe, to tease or torment, by disappoint- 
 
 in-r h<i|>e or expectation. 
 Tap' root, the main root of a plant 
 Tat-too\al>catin<;of the drum, as a military sig- 
 nal : marks made on the flesh by pricking in 
 
 fluids of difl"crent colors. 
 Teck'Bl-fsl, pertaining to a particolar art or 
 
 profession. 
 Te^Bii, the year of obc's age having the tenni- 
 
 naii in tren. 
 Te>Bi*r'l>t]r« rashness ; reckleasneu. 
 TeB'dril, shoot of a creeping pUutt.osed for its 
 
 BUplHirt 
 
 TeH>«eBl'n, name of a Mexican temple; liter- 
 nllif, hou«r nf God. 
 
 Tei>rM'trl*al, pertaining to the earth ; earthly. 
 
 Terse, nmrise ; compact and elegant. 
 
 Thes>ro-fj« true doctrine relating to God: 
 divinity. 
 
 Tke'o-raBi, a truth or propodtion tobe demon- 
 si mtrtl. 
 
 The'o«ry. a dnrtrine or scheme; a speculation 
 
 Ther>moBi'eotar, an instrument for measoring 
 till- icMipimiiire of the air. 
 
 Throt'Ue>Talre, the valve oaed to regalate 
 tbe supply of steam in a tteam-tafine. 
 
 I TiB.tiB-Bab-B.Ia'tlOB, tinkUng. aa of bclla. 
 lia'aae, laoric ; structure; composite substance. 
 Ttt'B-lar, giving a name or title ; relating to a 
 
 ml.-. 
 Tra-dT'tloa, oral report from one generation to 
 
 atU'ther. 
 TranoSMBd'eat, surpassing ; unequaled. 
 Traa'aept, the part of a church that project* 
 
 at right anuli-s from the lx)dy. 
 TranN>i>to'ry, passing; fleeting; short-lived. 
 Tren'B'loQR, trembling; quivering. 
 Trep-i-da'tion, a trtnililing from fear; alarm. 
 Tri'as'Hlc, pertaining to a geological stratum, 
 
 rnllt-d tiie triaa. 
 Trib-n*Bi'cIaB, pertaining to tribunes. 
 Trl'col-or, the French flag of three colors ; 
 
 any three-colored flag. 
 Tri'tOB, a fabled sea deity of tbe ancient my- 
 
 Ihology. 
 Trit'B'ratOf to reduce to powder by grinding 
 
 or rubbing. 
 Tron'baMlOBr, a minstrel of the South of France, 
 
 durinj: the Middle Ages. 
 Typ'l-eal, emblematic ; figurative. 
 Vrtl-nate, last ; final. 
 Ul*tra-ma«rlBe'v blue ; a blue pigment. 
 1J>l78«Be'aB, pertaining to Ulysses, a famous 
 
 Greek hero and king. 
 UB-al-loyed', pure ; genuine ; unmixed. 
 UB-bi'ased, impartial; nut influenced by either 
 
 parly. 
 DBc'tlOB, ointment ; act of anointing ; fervor. 
 U-Biqne' i-nerk), single ; unmatched. 
 CB>mit'l-ga-fed, not softened; unmodified. 
 UB«pre-med'l-tat-ed, unstudied ; ufT-hand ; 
 
 I x(eni)Miranc4)U8. 
 VoteB'silt auytliing used; an implement; a 
 
 Arssel. 
 V'tlMze, to npply to a useful purpose. 
 Tac-Il-la'tiOB, art of wavering. 
 Tal*e*tB*di-na'r{-aB, an invalid; a person 
 
 serkiiti; to retrovcr health. 
 Taa'saU " dependant ; a liondman ; a tenant 
 Tat'NfBB, the palace of the Pope, at Borne. 
 Te'he*BieBt, forcible ; violent. 
 Ter'l-ta-b!«, true ; real ; positive. 
 Tea'l-cle, a small bladder. 
 Teafare, a garment ; clothing. 
 Tl'a>dactv A structure for carrying a railway 
 
 nen»«* a valley or river. 
 Ti'a La'U (LatiH), a broad street 
 Tl'ee Yer'aa (Latim), the terms being ex- 
 
 ehanif-il 
 TI«cls'sl*tBde8, regular changes or alterna- 
 tions. 
 Tlr'B»leaee« activity in doing injury ; extreme 
 
 malignity. 
 
412 
 
 VOCABULARY. 
 
 Tll'ta* • view throQfh an 
 Ti-fa'dMS, lirelv ; tpri%htlj. 
 Tl'Tie'l'tj, liveliDfiM ; aiUaurtioa. 
 ViT'lofjr, to animate; to make alire. 
 lO'CMb'm-lM-rjt a list of words ; a dietwury. 
 
 ▼o-Ib'hiUbOM, of BMBJ TolUMti bvlkj. 
 
 Wa>'iall-«r, a rerdor ; a JthnAet 
 
 Wa'tcr-Kerple, a water-spirit 
 
 WUrd, •upcruatural -, caused by magical inllo- 
 
 Wlvkt, a persoo ; a i 
 ironj or borlesqae. 
 
 toanjoneiB 
 
 WlM^'ero* one who pretends to 
 witling. 
 
 Wbt'fnl, mnsini 
 
 TM'Mna, a farmer ; i 
 
 Tore, long since ; in 
 
 Xe'nlUi, the point directlj orerbani. 
 
 Zln'gft-rli {Itmlimm). gypsies. 
 
 Zo'dl>ae, the space frtmding ei^t degrees on 
 each side of the eeUptie, whieh «wft*afw the 
 orbits of the luge primary planets. 
 
A DICTIONARY 
 
 Oy 80MS OT 
 
 THE MOST FAMILIAR OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN AUTHORS. 
 
 In noting the nationalities in this Dictionary it has been found that some aathon have 
 lived and labored in more countries than one ; that the birthplaces of some have not been the 
 scenes of their literary successes ; and that in a number of cases the places of birth are no- 
 where stated. In like manner, in the matter of dates, in some cases, especially in the earlier 
 periods, uncertainty has been found among the best authorities ; and iu not a few, conflicts of 
 opinion appear. In all such cases — both matters of nationalities and dates — the weight of 
 authority has been carefully weighed and the best attainable results given. 
 
 The fallowing abbreviations have been used, together with a few others apparently too ob- 
 rious to need pointing oat, — the adjectives indicating departments of literary work -. — 
 
 A American. 
 
 Antiq Antiquarian. 
 
 Biog Biof^raphical. 
 
 Crit. Criiical. 
 
 Dip Diplonialic. 
 
 Domes Domestic. 
 
 Dram... Dramatic 
 
 E Eiifrlish. 
 
 Eron Economy. 
 
 Ed Educational. 
 
 Edit Editorial. 
 
 Ess Essay. 
 
 Esth Esthctical. 
 
 Eih Ethical. 
 
 Kc Kclitious. 
 
 /. Irish. 
 
 Lit Literature, Literary. 
 
 Med Medical. 
 
 Mcta. Metaphysical. 
 
 Mis Miscellaneous. 
 
 Philol Philological. 
 
 Philos PhilosophicaL 
 
 Poet Poetical. 
 
 Pol Political. 
 
 Rcl Religious. 
 
 5 Scotch. 
 
 Sat Satirical. 
 
 Sci Scientific. 
 
 ITieol Theological. 
 
 Trav Travels. 
 
 W. Welsh. 
 
 Abbott, Jacob. A 1803- . Rel.andFic. 
 Abbott, Joha 8. C. A. 1805- . Biog.. 
 
 llist., and Kir. 
 Aberrronbie, Joha. S. 1736 1806. Ilorti- 
 
 <ull 
 
 Abercroiable, Joha. S. 1781 - 1844. Med 
 
 and Mcta. 
 Adam, CIum. F. ^. 1807- . Pol. 
 Adans, ilanaah. A. 1755 1833. ReL 
 Adams, John. A. 1735 1826. PoL 
 Adams, John Q. A. 1767 1S48. Pol., Rel , 
 
 ami \'<>t 
 Adams. Ttehfmiah. A. 1806- . Bel. 
 
 Ili.>«^ . .ii»d Kic. 
 ki»m%,y(m.T. (Oliver Oplie). A. 182a- 
 
 Fic. niul Trat. 
 Addlaoa, Joa. E 1672- 1719. Ess., Poet., 
 
 anil Dram. 
 Affaaals, Loala J. B. A. 1807- 1874. Sci. 
 
 and Trav. 
 Agallar, Grae«. E. i8t6 1847 Pic 
 Aiasnortb. Wm. H. B. 1805- . FIc 
 Akennldr. Hark. K. 1731 - 177a Poet 
 Alrott, Ix>alaa M. A. 183a- . Fie 
 Aides, Jos. A 1807- . Eth. 
 
 Aldrlch^Thoii. B. ^.1836- . Poet and 
 
 Fie. 
 Alexander, A. A. 1772-1851. Rel.andHist 
 Alexander, Jos. A. A. 1809-1860. Rel. 
 Alford. lionry. 1810-1871. Thcol. and Poet. 
 Alger, Wm. R. A. 1823- . Theol.and 
 
 Mis. 
 AIlMB.A. S. 1757 -«839- Esth., Rel., and Biog. 
 AUaoB,SlrA. S. 179a- 1867. HUt.Law.and 
 
 Pol. 
 Allibone, 8. A. A. 1816- . Biog. 
 AUatOB, W. A. 1779-1843. Art 
 Alaop, B. A. 1761 - 1815 Poet 
 A«ea, nsher. A. 1758 - 1808. Pol. 
 Aadrews, Prof. E. A. A. 1787-1858. Ed. 
 Aagell, Jofi. K. A. 1794 «857- Law- 
 Aathon. ChaM. A. 1797-1867. Ed. 
 Arbathnot. Joha. E. 1675-1734. Phy*. 
 
 and Sat. 
 Arnold, Matthew. E. 1822— . Poet and 
 
 Ess 
 AraoldfThOO. E. 1795-1842. Hist and ReL 
 Araold, Thoa. K. If. 1800-1853 Ed. 
 Arthar, T. S. A. 1809- Fie 
 
 lAachan, Roger. B. i5iS->Sfi9- *^ 
 
414 
 
 DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Trmr 
 Biug. aDil 
 
 AaUq.ud 
 
 Otst. £u.. 
 
 AaivkM, J«iB J. A. 1783-1851 Sci 
 AMtea, Jaae. E. 1775 - 1817 >ic 
 Ajrtoai, Wa. B. 6*. 1813 1865. Poet, 
 
 Drmtu.. aud Biog. 
 Babbairr. Chan. E. 1790- . Sd. 
 BarliBiaB,JoliB. A. 1790 1874. SeLaadRd. 
 Baroa, Fraacb KVi»c<mmt of St. JlUmt). 
 
 K. 1561 1616. Philoa..8ci.,Law,aBdE». 
 Bacoa, Leaaard. A. 180a- . Tbeol., 
 
 Hut., and Kw. 
 Ball«f, Pklllp J. X. 1816- . Put 
 Batniet JaMiaa. 5. 1764 1851. Dram. 
 Balrd, Bokert. A. 1798 t86> Rel. and Hist 
 Baker, Daaiel. A. 1791 1837- BcL 
 Baker, Kir Saai. W. E. t8at- 
 Bakcr, Wa. I. A. 18J5- 
 
 Rrl. 
 
 BaliwiB, i. B. il. 1810- 
 
 Poet 
 Baacroft, Geo. A. 1800 > 
 
 «nU Poet 
 BftBlai, Joka. / 1S00-184X Fie. and Dram. 
 BarkMld, Aau L. E. 1743 1825 Eaa.. 
 
 Bug , ajtd Poet 
 BarkMi, B.I. B. 1788-1845. Poet 
 Barlow, JoeL A. 1755 i8ix Fact. 
 Baraea, A. A. 1798 - 187a BeL 
 Barraw, laaac. £ 1630 1677. Sd. and Rel. 
 Barrow, Sir Joka. E. 1764-1848. Trar. 
 Baxter, R. E 1615 1691 TbeoL 
 Bayly, Tkoa. H. E 1797 1839. Fie. Ptoet., 
 
 anil Dram. 
 Bayae, Peter. 5. Em. and Bd. 
 Beattle, Jamea. S 1735 - 1803. Poet and 
 
 Beaamont, F. E. 1586-1616 Dram, and 
 
 Poft. 
 
 Beckett, Gilbert A. i. E. 1810 - 1856. Diam 
 
 and Mis 
 Beekford, Wai. E 1760 1844 Rc Biof .. 
 
 and Trav. 
 Beecker, Catkeriae K. A. 1800- . Do- 
 
 nirs. and V.nm. 
 Beecker, Ckas, A. tSio- . Bd. 
 Beecker, Heary W. A. 1813- . Rd, 
 
 Th«»l., nr)d Kir. 
 Beecker. Lyman. A 1775- »863 Rd. 
 Beka, Apkra. E. 1642 1689 Dram., Poet., 
 
 and Fir. 
 BeH. Sir Ckaa. 5 1778-1842. Sci. 
 Bellows. Henry W. A 1814- . Theol. 
 Benjamin. Park. A. 1809 1864 Poet 
 Bennett. J. G. A. 1800-1872 Joomalist. 
 Bentham. Jeremy. B. 1748-1832. Pol 
 
 anil L:nv 
 Beatley, Blckard Ihf British AritUtrckus) 
 
 E 1662- 1742 Crit and Ess. 
 
 Beaton, Tkoa. H. A. 1782-1858. Poland 
 
 Barkelay, Geo.   /?-«A<^ 0/ ch^nr) I. 1684 - 
 
 1753 riiilu* , Tlutd., and I'oct 
 Batkaae, Geo. W. A 1805 - 186« BeL and 
 
 I'mt 
 
 Blckeratetk, E. E. 1786-185^ Bd. 
 Blgalaw, Jaha. A. 1817- . PoL and 
 
 Biufc. 
 BIH, B«bart M. A 1805-1854. Fie. and 
 
 DruM. 
 Blackkara, Wm. H. ^ 1828- . ReL 
 
 and Kir. 
 
 Blackle,Jolui8. 5 1809- . Ew..Crit, 
 
 and Piitrt 
 Blarklock, Tkaa. S. 1721-1791 Poet 
 Blackatoae, Sir Wai. E 1723-1780 Law. 
 Blair, Hagk. S 1718- i8no Throl. and 
 
 Crit 
 Blair, Robert. ."•' 169.^ 
 Biaailaftoa, Caaataaa af. i i7»->-i849. 
 
 Fir.. Trav , and Mia. 
 BiaaainaM, R«bart. E 1766-1823 Pbet 
 Baker, ««•. H. J 18.4- . Dram. and 
 
 Port. 
 Boliaf brake, Heary St. Jaka (FimimO- 
 
 /•; 1678-1751 Put. and Hist 
 Barrow, Geo. E. 1803 - . Fir. and Trar. 
 Boawell, Jaa. S. 1740- t79S- B>°K- 
 Boarler, Joka. A. 1787-1851. Law. 
 Bowdltck, !fatk*l. A. 1773 1838. ScL 
 Bowlea, Wm. L. E. 1762- 1850. Poet.Estk.. 
 
 Rfl , »n t Bio»;. 
 Bawrtaf , Sir laka. E. 1791-1872. Phite!., 
 
 TlicoL. Polit Econ., and Mei. 
 Bayd, Aadraw K. H. S 1825- 
 
 aadMs 
 Bayla, lakart. / 1627-1691 Sri. and ReL 
 Bradstreet, Aaae. A. 1612-1672 Poet 
 Br^klaridge, R. J. A 1800-1871 TheoL 
 
 and Trav. 
 Brewster, Sir DarM. 5 1781 - 1868. ScL 
 
 and Bitxr. 
 Briated, Ckaa. A. A 1820-1874 Ess. and 
 
 Mis 
 BraaU, Ckarlotta. E 1816-1855. Fie. and 
 
 Port. 
 Bracks, Ckas. T. A 1813- Poet and 
 
 I Trans. 
 
 I Brooks. Maria. A. 1795-1845 ^^^ 
 ; Brooks, If . C. A. 1809- Ed. and Hist 
 
 Brooks, C. Skirley. E. 1S15-1874. Dram. 
 
 and Fie. 
 Broafkam, Henry (Lori). S. 1778- 1868. 
 
 Biog., Th«)l . Hist., and Pol. 
 Broagkam, Joka. / 1814- Dram. 
 
 i aud Fie. 
 
DICTIONAEY OF AUTHORS. 
 
 11 
 
 Browa, €Iuu. Brorkdea. A. 1774 -1810. 
 
 Fie. and Pol. 
 Brown, DsTid Paul. A 1795- 1873 Urani 
 
 aiul Mis 
 BrowB, ThoH. S. 1778- itaa MeUu. £llt.. 
 
 ami PiM'l. 
 Browne, Kir Thmk B. 1605-1683. Tbcul. 
 
 and K>.-4 
 Browning, Elixaboth B. E. 1807- 1861 
 
 I'uet. and Km. 
 Browninf, Eobert. E. 1812- . Poet. 
 
 and Drain. 
 BrowDKOn, OrMtM A. A. 1803- . Fie. 
 
 and 1 liiiti. 
 Brnee, Jm. S. 1730-1794. Trav. 
 Bryan, Marj E. A. Poet. 
 Bryant, Wn. C. A. 1794- . Poet-.Trar, 
 
 and lli:ii. 
 Brydget, Sir Sam. E. £. 1763-1837. Fie., 
 
 'Irav., and Poet. 
 Buchanan, Geo. S. 1506-1582. Hist, and 
 
 l'«x;t. 
 Buchanan, Robert. S. 1841 - . Poet . 
 Bnrkingham, Jos. T. A. 1799-1861. Crit. 
 
 nu.l Ml.. 
 Bnckiand, Wm. E. 1784- 1856. Sci. and 
 
 Thwl. 
 Bnckle, Henry T. E. 1822-1862. Philos. 
 
 and Pul. 
 Bnlflnch, 8. 6. A. 1809 -1870. Bel. and 
 
 Poet. 
 Bnnyan, John. E. 1628 - 1688. Rel. Fie. 
 Bnrgess, CiH>. A 1809- 1866 Rel. 
 Burke, Edmund. /■ 1739- 1797. £sth., 
 
 Law, Pol , and Ilistt. 
 Burnet, Gilbert. E. 1643--1715. Theol., 
 
 Hist., and Hio);. 
 Bnrney, Chas. E. 1726- 1814. Miuic. 
 Barney, Frances > J/«^. D'Arblay). B. 1752 - 
 
 1840 Kii- , Dram., and Biog. 
 Barney, James E. E. 1739- 1821. Hist. 
 
 auil Itiu-^. 
 Burns, Bobert. 5. 1759-1796. Poet. 
 Barritt, Ellha {the Leanud Blaekswuth). A. 
 
 1811- . Mia. 
 Burton, J. H. S. 1809- . Hi«t., Biog., 
 
 Pul. K.-un., and Law. 
 Burton, Bobert. L. 1576-1640. PliikM. 
 
 and Cm. 
 Bush, Geo. A 1796- i860 Tbeol. and Biojf . 
 Bushnell, Horace. A. i8oa- . Bel.. 
 
 Tli'i'i , and Ktli. 
 Butler, Jos. E. 1691 - 175a. Thcol. 
 Butler, Kam. F. 161 i- 1680 IVt. 
 Butler, Wm. A. .1 iS.-s- . Pbet. 
 By les, Mather. A. 1706- 178S. Poet 
 Byron, Lord. K. 1788-1824. POet. 
 
 Calhoun, J. €. A. 1782-1850 Pol. 
 Calrert, Geo. H. A. 1803- . Trav., 
 
 Pui-t., and Uiug. 
 Camden, Wm. E. 1551 -1623. £. Antiq. 
 CnmpbeU, Geo. S. 1719 - 1796. Grit, and 
 
 i lieul. 
 
 CampbeH, John L. S. 1779-1861. Biog. 
 
 and Law. 
 CampbeU, Thos. S. 1777 1844. Poet and 
 
 liioj;. 
 
 Canning, Geo. K. 1770-1827. Pol. and 
 
 P(H:t. 
 
 Carew, Thos. E. 15S9-1639. Poet 
 Carey, Henry C. A. 1793- . Pol. Econ. 
 Carey, Matt. A. 1760- 1839. Pol. £oon. 
 Carleton, Wm. /. 1798- . Fie. and Mis. 
 Carlyle, ThON. S. 1795- . Biog., Hist, 
 
 and Ess. 
 Carpenter, Wm. B. 5. 1813- . ScL 
 Cary, AUce. A. 1820- 1871. Poet. 
 Cary, Phoebe. A. 1824-1871. Poet 
 CstUn, Geo. A. 1796- 1872. A.Indiansand 
 
 Trav. 
 Caxton, Wm. E. 1412-1491. HistandTrav. 
 Centlirre, Susannah. E. ibbj - 1722. Dram. 
 Chalment, Havid. 5. 1530- 1592. Hist 
 Chalmers, Geo. S. 1742- 1825. Hist. PoL, 
 
 Biog., and Crit. 
 Chalmers, Thos. S. 1780- 1847. ThcoL, 
 
 Eth., Pol. n.-on , and Sci. 
 Chambers, Ephraim. E. 1740- . Cycla 
 Chambers, Robert. S. 1802-1871. Hist, 
 
 Bioji;., and Mis. 
 Chambers, Wm. 5. 1800- . Hist., Trav., 
 
 and Mi;t. 
 Channing, Wm. E. A. 1780- 1842. TheoL 
 CharleH. Elizabeth. £.1826- Fie. 
 
 Chatterton, ThoH. E. 1752- 1770. Poet 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey. E. 1328- 140a Poet. 
 Cheever, Geo. B. A. 1807- . Bel, Trav.. 
 
 and Mi.. 
 Chesterfield. Lord. E 1694-1773. Letters. 
 Child, L. Maria. A. 1802- . Fie, Oiog.. 
 
 and Mis. 
 Choate, Rufns. A 1799- 1859. Pol. and Ess. 
 Churchill. Chas. E 1731 - 1764 Toet. 
 Clbber, Colley. E 1671 - 1757. Dram, and 
 
 P. Ml 
 
 Claiborne, John F. H. A. Biog. and Hist 
 Clapperton. Hugh. .S. 1788-1827. Trav. 
 Clare. John. H 1793-1864. Poet. 
 Clarendon. Earl of. Sei> Hydr. Edwakd. 
 Clark, L. G. A 1810-1873. Edit and Mis. 
 Clark, W.G. A 1810-1841 Puct audMts. 
 Clarke, Adam. / 1760- 1832. Theol. and 
 
 Biog 
 Clarko, McDonald. A. 1798- 184a. Poet 
 
416 
 
 DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS. 
 
 CUrk«, Marj€tw40a. E. 1809- . Fie. 
 
 aiid Coocord. to Stiake«pe*re. 
 Clftrk*, Smb. E. 1599-1681. Kd-aadBng. 
 Clarke, Smi. E. 16 j6 - 170a TheoL 
 CUrke, 8mh. E. 1675-1719. Theol. 
 C'Uy» Hcary. 1777 - 1851. A. Ptol. 
 CieaieBS, Smb. L. {Mark Twain). A. tfjs- 
 
 . y>c. lod Trav. 
 CobbetttWa. E. 1761-1825. A.PoL.Hiat.. 
 
 •nd £m. 
 ObMcb, Rlehmr4. E. 1804-1863 PoL 
 CvAb, B. B. {Barrf Gntf). A. 1816- 
 
 >*!€. and Mis. 
 ObImm, J«ha W. K. 1814- . UmL 
 UlwM««, iUrttoj. E. 1796-1849^ FM^ 
 
 BiufC-, and £m. 
 C«lerldf •, Smi. T. E. 1771-1834. VmL, 
 
 Dniui., PbikM.. PbL. aad Em. 
 ColUer,J.P. K. 1789- . CritMidHac. 
 CoUiu, WUkl«. E 1814- . Kc 
 Colllai, Wh. E. 1710-1756. Pbet. 
 CoIbsb, 6«*. J7. 1733-1794 Dmm. 
 ColfliAB, U««. E. 1751-1836. Draoi. 
 CMike, Ab4i«w. S 1797-1847 8d. 
 CMBke, ««•. S. 1788-1858. 8d..ReL,aBd 
 
 Uv. 
 €MMt«ek, Jttka L. D. J. 1789-1858. Set. 
 
 and Hist 
 CBMfreTe, Wbi. /. 1670-1719. Draa. 
 Coarad, R. T. J. 1805- 1858. Dram. 
 CMk, EHn. E. 1817- . PMC 
 CMke, J«kB E. ^. 1830- . FSe. and 
 
 Biog. 
 OB«ke,P. P. A. 1816-1850 Tbet 
 Cooper, A. Asklej. E. 1621 - 1683. Pol. 
 Cooper, A. Askley. E 1671 - 1713. Mis. 
 Cooper, Sir Astley P. E. 1768-1841. 8cL 
 Cooper, J. FealBMre. A. 1789-1851. Fie, 
 
 Biog . Hist., and Trav. 
 Cooper, Tboo. A. 1759-1840. Law and PdL 
 Corerdale, Miles. E. 1485-1565. BeL 
 Cowley, Abrmkaa. E 1618-1667. Poet 
 Cowper, Wm. A' 1731 - 1800 Pdet, 
 Cox, S. S. A 1814- . Pol. aadTraT. 
 Coxe, A. C. A. 1818- . Poet and Trav. 
 Coxe, Wm. E. 1747-1828. Hist., Biog., 
 
 Rel., and Trav. 
 Cooeaa, Fred. S. A. 1818-1869. FScaiid 
 
 Mis 
 Cnibbe, Geo. E. 1754-1832. Poet 
 Cranrh. C. P. A 1813- . Poet 
 Cranmer. Thos. E 1489- 1556 Rel. 
 Crashaw, Rirhard. E. Died 1650. Poet 
 Croker, John W. /. 1780-1857. Hist. 
 
 Bio«r., Y\c., and Ess. 
 Croly, Geo. / 1780-1860 Fie, Poet, Hist, 
 
 Biog., Dram., Pol., and BeL 
 
 iCrowo, CatkArlae. K. i8oj- r , 
 
 I Draw., and Mi<. 
 
 CmdeB, Alex. E 1701-1770. Conoordaoce. 
 ICadwortb, Ralpb. E 1617-1688. Meta. 
 CaaiberUad, Ricbard. E. 1731-1811. 
 
 Dra.i. 
 ' CaaMlBff, Joka. 5. 1810- . BH. 
 Caaalagbaai, Allaa. 6*. 1785 - 1841. Biog., 
 
 I'lr , and Putt 
 Cartis,««a. Wai.' A. 1814. . Esa., 
 Tra^..and>V. 
 
 A. 1810- . PbL, Biog.. 
 aadlhooL 
 
 a, Ckas. A. A. 1819- . A. Cyda 
 awl Mis. 
 a, Jaa. D. A. 1813- . Set. 
 
 R. H. A. tj%j- . Fkiet.,aBdne. 
 E, 1561 - 1619. Poet. aBd HisL 
 E. 1809- . SeL 
 Ranrta, Iibibibb B. 1731-1809. Poet 
 
 aadtki 
 Rafaaaat, Wfli. E. 1605-1668. Pbet 
 lafMaaa, Jaaaa Waad. A. 18*9- 
 
 Biog. aad Crit 
 Ravia, A. J. A 1816- . SpiHtbaL 
 Rary, Sir Haaipbry. E 1778-1819. SeL 
 Rawes, Rafaa. A. 1803-1859. Pbet 
 RbRow, iaa. D. R. A. 1810-1867. PoI.Eooa. 
 Reeau, Ckaa. F. A. 1810- . BeL aod 
 
 Puel. 
 ReFoe, Daa. E. 1663-1731. Tie. aad Pbet 
 Rekker •Decker), Tlaa. R. 1638- 
 
 D.nm 
 RealuuB, DIxoa. E. 1786-1828. Trar. 
 Reakaai, Sir Jeka. E. 1615 - 166S. Pbet. 
 Re^aiaeey, Thae. E. 1785 - 1859. Fie and 
 
 Rerby, 60a. H. (Jokm PkonUi). A. 1814- 
 
 1861 Mis. 
 ReTere, H. Scheie. A. 1810- . PhiloL 
 
 and M^s. 
 Dirk, Tkos. S. 1774- >857 Sci. and BeL 
 Diekens, Ckas. E. 1812-1870. Fie. 
 Disraeli, Bea. E. 1805- . Fk., PbU 
 
 Bu)g., and Poet 
 DIaraeH, Isaae. E. 1767-1848. Biog and Fie. 
 Dodd. Wfli. F. 1727- »777 TkeoL 
 Doddridire, PhHlp. E 1702-1751 TheoL 
 Doddridge, PhHlp. A. 1772-1831. PoL 
 
 and L-»w. 
 Donne. John. E. 1573-1631. Poet 
 Dooirlxs. C>awiB. S. 1475-1522. Poet 
 Poet 
 ScL, PoL. 
 
 Drake. Jos. E. A. 1795 -i8x> 
 Draper, John W. A. 1811- 
 
 and Hist. 
 Drayton, HickaeL E. 1563-1631 
 
 Fie., and Hist. 
 
 Poet. 
 
DICTIONARY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 417 
 
 DniHBiOBd, Wn. S 15S5-1649. Poet 
 Orjrden, John. E. 1631 - 1701. Poet and 
 
 lIlHIll 
 
 Daabar, Wm. S. 146s ->S3o- Poet- 
 DaaUm W«. A. 1766-1839. Biog. aiul 
 
 Ili*t Art. 
 Dajrklack, E. A. A. 1816- . Biog. and 
 
 ilist. 
 DayeklBck, G«o. L. A. 1833-1863. Biog 
 Dwlffht, Tin. A. 1753-1817 TbeoL and 
 
 Poft. 
 
 EaxtUke. Chw. L. E. 1793 - 1865. Art 
 Erhard, Lawrence. E. i67i-i73a Hist. 
 Edfeworth, Maris. E. 1767 -1849. Ess. 
 
 and Ki.v 
 Edwards, Jonathaa. E. 1639- 1713. TheoL 
 Edwarda, Joaathaa. A. 1703- 1758. Meta. 
 
 and Thfol 
 EdwardH, Richard. E. 1523-1566 Poet. 
 EfflestOB, Edward. A 1837- . Rel. 
 
 and K..- 
 Eliot, Oporfe. See Licwrs, Makiatt C. 
 Eliot. Jolin. A. 1604-1689. Rrl. 
 Elizabetli. Charlotte. Sec To?»?ca, C. E 
 Elliott, Ebrnezer. E 1781-1849. Poet and 
 
 1788 - 1863. Pol. and Dram 
 A. 1813- Fie. and 
 
 E 1495 
 A. 1803- 
 
 1546. Ess. and 
 . Ess., Biog., 
 Pbet. 
 
 Elliott, Wm. A 
 Ellis, Sarah 8. 
 
 Miv 
 Elyot, Sir Thot. 
 
 Mis 
 Eaiemoa, B. If . 
 
 and I'o.'t. 
 Eaf llsh, Thoa. Daaa. A. 1819- 
 
 and Fir 
 Erakiae, Thoa. E 
 
 and Kir 
 Eap7, Jaa. P. A 1785-1860. Sci. 
 Ereiya, Joha. E. 1630-1706. Sci, Philol., 
 
 ami Mio 
 Erelya, Joha. E. 1654-1698. Pbet and 
 
 Cm 
 Ererett, ilex. H. A. 1793-1847. Po!., 
 
 Hio^ . Ks» . and Poet 
 Ererett, Edward. A. 1794 - 1865. Rel. and 
 
 K».s 
 Faber, Geo. g. E. 1773-1854. Thcol. 
 Fabyan, Robert. B. 1450-1513. Ilist 
 Fairbairn. Pat. S 1805- . Throl. 
 Falroner. Wai. S. 1730- 1769. Poet. 
 Faraday, Michael. E. 1791 - 1867. Sci 
 Farqahar, Geo. / 1678-1707. Drain.,Pbet, 
 
 Fay, Theo. K. .1 1806- . Re. 
 
 Feltoa, ('. C. A 1807-1863. Ed. 
 
 Ferraaoa, Adam. ^ i7i4-i8i& Hiataad 
 Phiiot. 
 
 1750-1833. Law, Pol., 
 
 FenraaOB, Robert. S. 1750-1774. Poet 
 Ferrier, Mary. S. 1783-1855. Fie. 
 Fieldinir. Henry. A". 1707-1754. i'ie. 
 Fields, Jaii. T. A. 1820- . Poet and 
 
 -Mis. 
 Finch, Fraacla H. A. 1837- . Poet 
 Finlay, Geo. S. 1800- . Hist. 
 Fitzhui^h, Geo. A. 1810- . Pol. 
 Flaah, H. L. A. 1837- . Poet 
 Fletcher, Andrew (of SaUoun). S. 1653 - 
 
 1716. Pol. 
 
 Fletcher, Joha. E. 1576- 1635. Dram. 
 Flint, Tim. A. 1780-1840. Biog. and Fie. 
 Foli^er, Peter. A. 1618-1690. Poet 
 Foote, Sam. E. 1731 - 1777. Dram. 
 Foote, Wra. H. A. 1794 -1869. Hist, and 
 
 lUl. 
 Ford, John. E. 1586-1639. Dram. 
 Forney, J. W. A. 1817- . Pol. and Mil. 
 Forater, John. E. 1770-1843. Ess. and 
 
 Rtl. 
 Forater, John. E. 1813- . Biog. 
 Fowler, Wm. C. A. 1793- . Ed, Pol, 
 
 and Hist. 
 Fox, Chas. J. E. 1749-1806. Pol andHiat 
 Fox, Geo. E. 1634-1680. Rel. 
 Fox, John. E. 1517-1587. Biog. 
 Fraacla, Sir PhUlp {Junius). E. 1740- 1818. 
 
 Pol. 
 
 Fraaklla, Bea. A. 1706- 1790. Pol.Eth, 
 
 and Sri 
 Freaeaa, Philip. A. 1753-1833. Poet, and 
 
 Mis. 
 Frost, John. A. 1800- 1859. Hist and 
 
 Biog. 
 Fronde, Jaa. A. E. i8t8- . Hiflt,I^c, 
 
 and Rel. 
 Faller, Marfaret. See Ossoli. 
 Falter, ThoH. E. 1608-1661. Hist and Rel 
 Gallagher, Wm. D. ^.1808- . Poet 
 Oallatla, Albert. A. 1761 - 1847. Pol. Econ. 
 Gait, John. S. 1779-1839. Fie. Biog., and 
 
 Dr 
 
 E. 1716-1779. Dram. 
 
 Garriek, Darld. 
 
 and FiMt 
 Gaakell, Mary E. E. 1833-1866. Fie. and 
 
 Bio? 
 
 Gay, Joha. E. 1688-1733. Poet 
 Gayarre, Chaa. E. A. A. 1805- . HUt 
 
 and Fir 
 
 Gayler, rhaa. A 1830- . Dram. 
 Gibbon. Edward. E. 1737 -«794- Hiat 
 Gifford, Wai. E. 1757-1836 E«« and Poet 
 Gllea, ( haaacy. A. 1819- . Theol. 
 GIIea,Heary. A. 1809- . Ess. Theol, 
 
 and (>it. 
 GUailaa,6oo. 5 1813- • Biog. and Crit 
 
418 
 
 DICTIONAEY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 Gllllet, J«ka. B. t747-iS96. Hkt 
 
 I Hawtlior««, N. A. i8o4>iS64. Fie. 
 Hay, John. A. 18)9- . FMt and lii«. 
 ■ajra«, P. H. A. 1831- . Fbet 
 Haslitt,WM. B. 1778-1890. CntaodFoi 
 HM4,8lrF. B. S. 1793- . Trmr. aad 
 
 Pol. 
 HMitey, J. T. A. 1814- . Biog. and 
 
 Kic 
 ■eker, B«fftMl4. K. 1783-1836. Fbet. 
 Halpa, Mr Arthar. A 1818-1873- £m 
 
 llt>l . and l(u,v; 
 
 Hmmm, FalkU D. K. 1794-1835. Poec 
 ■•ary. Matt. S. 1661- 17 14. Bel. 
 Haats, Garallaa L. A. 1804-1856. Fie. 
 HerWrt, Gae. B. 1593 - 1633. Fbet 
 ■artort, Haary W. (F<«ait F^mUr). A. 
 
 1807- tSsS. Kic and Mia. 
 ■•rrick. Sokert. E. 1591-1674. Ftet 
 ■aiadMl, CaraUaa Im B. 1750-1848. Set. 
 ■aradMl, Sir F. W. B. 1738-18^2. Sci. 
 HaradMl, Sir Jaha. E itqo- . Sri 
 HaradMlt Sir Johu I. >K 17^,2 1871. 
 
 St-i. 
 Herrey, Jaa. B. 1713 1758. Rcl. 
 Hanrey, Thaa. K. B. 1804-1859. Poet 
 Hildretk, Bidkari. A. 1807-1865 Hut 
 milari, fiaa. S. A. 1808- . Uitt. 
 
 Trav., and Crit 
 Hlmt. Henry B. A. 1813- . Poet 
 HItrJinM-k, Edward. A. 1793-1864. Scl 
 
 and Rri. 
 ■akkaa, Tkoa. B. 1588-1679. PoL and 
 
 PbUoa. 
 Haiga, Ckaa. A. 1797- . TheoL 
 HaffMia, Chaa. F. A. 1S06- . Fie. 
 
 and Port. 
 HoffaiaB, Darld. A. 1784- 1854. Law and 
 
 Kic. 
 Hoff , Jaa. S. 1772-1835 Poet 
 HoleoBibe, Wh. H. A. 1825- Sci. 
 
 and Tbrol. 
 Hollaad, J. 6. A. 1819- • Fie, Poet. 
 
 Biog., and Hist 
 Holaiea, Mary i. A. - . Fie 
 
 Holaea, O. W. A. 1809- . Poet and 
 
 GUaua, CaraUaa. A. 1794- . FIcaad 
 
 Pdet. 
 CUtaaaBtSwa. A. 1791-1858. Bet. Poet. 
 
 andMu. 
 GlaMaaa, Wau B. E. 1809- . Pol. 
 
 and Antiq. 
 Glelff, G«a. B. K. 1795- . Fie, BcL. 
 
 Hut . and Biog. 
 GUMaa,G«a.B. A. 1808-1857. fteL 
 Gadwia, Parka. A. 1816- . Hiatand 
 
 Edit 
 Gadwla, Wa. B. 1756-1836. Fie.. Btog.. 
 
 and Pbl. 
 GaldaulU, OUrar. B. 1738-1774- PMt. 
 
 Kir., l>raui , Hiat, and Sci. 
 Gaad. Joka M. B. 1764-18*7- ^tL aad 
 
 Purt 
 
 Gaadrick, Haai. G. A. 1793- 1863. HiaL, 
 
 Trat . F'.c . and Poet 
 Gore, Catkerlaa G. F. & 1799-1861. FSe. 
 Gawar, Joka. E. 1330-1401. Poet 
 Grakaaie, Jaa. S. 1765-1811. Foet 
 Gray, Aaa. A. 1810- . Set. 
 Gray, Tkoa. E. 1716- in>- ^o^ 
 Graalay, Horaea. A. 1811-1873- Edit aad 
 
 Mis. 
 GiaaB,WBi.H. A, 1835- . PkiloL 
 Graaaa, Bakart. B. 1560-1595. Draa-aad 
 
 Kic 
 GrtfflB, Gerald. L 1803-1840. Fie. 
 Grimtikaw, Wm. A. 1783-1853. Hiat 
 GrUwold, B. W. A. 1815 -1857. Biof.aad 
 
 (Tit 
 
 Grote, Geo. E. 1794-1871. HistaadBiof. 
 Hale,SarakJ. il. 1790- . Fk.. Poet, 
 
 and .Mis. 
 HaU, Edward. 5. 178S-1844. Tiar. aad 
 
 Pbeu 
 HallfJoa. E. 1574-1656. Rel.andSat 
 HaU, Bakart. B. 1764-1831. TheoL and 
 
 Pol 
 
 HaH. S. r. F. 1804- . Fie 
 
 Hallam, Heary. E. 1778-1859. Hist, Pol, 
 
 and Crit. 
 Hallack. Fltx<«raaae. A. 1795-1867. Poet. Fir 
 
 HamHton. Alex. A. 1757-1804. Pol. Holt, John S. A. 1836- . Fie 
 
 Hamilton, Sir Wa. E. 17SS-1856. Meta. Home, Henry ^Ior</XaaM»). S. 1696-1783. 
 
 and K<s. L^w and Crit 
 
 HaaBay,Jas. 5. 1827-1873. Fie, Crit, and Home, Joka. S. 1724-1808. Dram, and 
 
 E*S. I lll^t. 
 
 Hart, Joka S. A. 1810- . Biog, Ed. 1 Hood, Thos. E. 1798 -1845 Poet and Mis. 
 
 and Rti. 
 Harta, Fraaris Bret. A. 1838- . Poet 
 
 and Fir. 
 Hawks, Francis L. A. 1798 -1866. Hist. 
 
 and Rei. 
 
 Hook, Theo. E. E. 1788-1841. Fie and 
 
 Mis 
 Hooker. Bickard. E. 1553-1600. Rel. 
 Hope, Thos. E. 1770- 1 831. Trar. and Art. 
 Hopkins, Xark. A. 1S03- . Theol. 
 
DICnONAEY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 419 
 
 HopklnMB, Francis. A 1737-1791- Toct. 
 llopkinHon, Jon. A. 1770-1843. Poet 
 Ilorni', John. E 1732-180S. Dram. 
 Ilornp, K. H. E. 1803- Dnm. and 
 
 Mi> 
 Home. Tho». H. E. A' 17S0-1862. Thcol. 
 
 aiKl II - 
 Honaer. Uin. II. r. ■! 1814- . Poet. 
 Howard, Ifpnrjr ytUtrl of Surrey.) E. 1516- 
 
 IS47 »''-t 
 HowrllM, Wn. D. A. 1837- . Poet., 
 
 Kic , mill Mii 
 Howliion, Bobert B. A. 1S20- . Hist. 
 
 and liit)^. 
 Honltt« Mary. E. 1800- . Fie, Port., 
 
 and Mts. 
 Hewitt, Wn. E. 1792- . Fie, Rel., and 
 
 Mis. 
 
 HudNon, Henry N. A. 1814- . Crit 
 Hughes, ThOH. ' Tuiu BrowH). E. 1823- 
 
 Kic. and Mis. 
 Hane, DaTld. 5. 1711-1776. Hist, and 
 
 i'liiius. 
 
 Hant, J. H. Eelgh. E. 1784- 1859. Poet. 
 
 ami Ksi. 
 Hantlnirton, J. V. A. 1815-1863. Poet 
 Hurlbut, Wm. H. A. 1S27- . Editand 
 
 lr:i\. 
 Huxley, ThoH. II. E 1825 - . Sri. 
 Hjde, Edward KarlofClnrendon). E. 1608- 
 
 if>73 llist.. Hio);., and Pol. 
 Inchbald, Elizabeth. E. 1756- 1821. Dram. 
 
 and Fic. 
 Infelow, Jean. E. 1830- . Poet and 
 
 Fir, 
 Ingersoll, Chan. J. A. 1783- 1863. Hist, 
 
 Vtyl , and Dram. 
 Ingraham, Jos. H. A. 1809-1866. Fir. 
 
 and K I 
 InneH, CoHnio. S. 1663-1744. Hist 
 Irrinv, Edward. S. 1793-1834. Rel. 
 Irvinf, WajthlnirtOB. A. 1783- 1839. Hist, 
 
 Hiiitr , nntl Fie. 
 iTen, Ijerl 8. A. 1797 -1867. Theol. 
 Janes G. P. R. E. 1801 - 1860 Fie . TTist . 
 
 and l'...t 
 Janes, Henry. A i^n - 
 Janeson, Anna. /." 1797-18A0 .\rt and 
 
 M.H 
 Janney, San. M. .( iSoi- Biof., 
 
 I'oci , and llcl. 
 JarTea, Jaa. J. A. iRiS- . Trav. and .\rt. 
 Jarfls. San. P. A. 1787 1851. Theol. 
 Jajr, Joka. A. 1745 - 1839. Pol. 
 Jay. Wn. A. 1789-1858. Biof;. and Pol. 
 Jerrerson, Tkoa. A. 1743-1836. Hist and 
 
 Pol. 
 
 Jeffrey, Prancls. S. 1773- 1850. Crit 
 Jerrold, Dottf las W. S. 1803- 1857. Poet 
 
 and Fic. 
 JewNbary, Maria J. E. 1800- 1833. Poet 
 
 and .MiH. 
 Johnson, Nan. E. 1709 -1784. Philol.Fie, 
 
 Foot., and Uiuff. 
 Johnston, Jas. F. W. S. 1796- 1855. 8cL 
 Jones, Chas. C. A. 1831 - . A. AnUq. 
 Jones, Joel. A. 1795 -i860. Theol. 
 Jones, John B. A. 1810- 1866. Kic. 
 Jones, Sir Wn. E. 1746 -1794. FhUoL, 
 
 Dram , and Law. 
 Jonson, Ben. E. 1573 -1637. Dram. 
 Jndd, S)iT«ster. A. 1813-1853. Fic. and 
 
 U 1. 
 Judson, Enlly (AliMNy Forru/er). A. 1817- 
 
 1S54. Fic. and Poet 
 JanlQK. Se Fr.\ncis, Sib Philip. 
 Kane, E. K. A. 1820 -1857. Trav. 
 Keats, John. E. 1796 - 1821. Poet 
 Keble, John. E. 1792-1866. Rel. and Poet 
 Keith, Alex. 5. 1791- . Tiicol. 
 Kendall, Geo. W. A. 1807- 1867. Trar. 
 
 an*l Hist. 
 Kennedy, John P. A. 1795-1870. Fic. 
 Kent, Jas. A 1763 1847. Uw and Pol. 
 Key, Francis S. A. 1779-1843, Poet 
 KlnbaH, BIchard B. A. t8i6- . Fic. 
 
 and Trav. 
 Klnglake, Alex. W. A 181 1- . Fic. 
 
 nnil llisl. 
 Klngsley, ChaK. E. 1819- . Fic, Rel., 
 
 Tmv , and P.)et. 
 Kinney, E. C. ^. - . Poet and 
 
 Fi.-. 
 Kip, Wn. I. A. 1811- . Rel.andllist 
 K Irk land, Caroline M. A. tSoi - 1864. Mis. 
 Kitto. John. E. 1804-1854. Rd. 
 Kniifht, ('has. E. 1791-1S73. HistandMis. 
 Knowles, Jas. Sheridan. /. 17S4-1862. 
 
 Dram. 
 Knox, John. S. 1505- 1572. Theol. 
 Kranth, Chas. P. A. 1833- . TheoL 
 
 and Hist 
 Kurtz. RenJ. A. 1795-1865. Theol. 
 I^ Borde, Max. A. 1804- 1873. Set. and 
 
 Hist 
 Lainir, Malcoln. S. 1763-1818. Hist 
 Lainff, San. S. 1810- . Trav. and Rel. 
 Lanb, €haa. E. 1775-1834. Ess.. Fic, 
 
 Dram . and Poet 
 Lander, Bichard. E. 1804-1834. Trav. 
 Laador, W. S. E. 1775-1864. Dram.,Pbet.» 
 
 and .Mm 
 LaanaB, Chat. A. 1819- . Tiar. and 
 
 Bioj. 
 
420 
 
 DICTIONARY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 lardnrr. MMiytlM. / >793-t8s9- i*H. 
 I^tkam, R. CI. K. 1812- . Fiiilol. 
 LatiMrr, Havk. K. 1473-1555- ReL 
 Lawrrare, IV m. B. A. 1800- . Law. 
 Layard, A. H. E. 1817- . Antiq. 
 Leeky. W. £. B, £. - . £th.and 
 
 PluU't. 
 Lm, Ella B. A. 1794- . FicaadBtD;. 
 Lm, Haawik V, A. 1780-1865. Vie. aad 
 
 Biog. 
 Lm, Hat. K. 1658 - 1691. Dram. 
 Lc^ri, H. g. A. 1797.1843. Hist aad 
 
 Uw. 
 Lelaad, Ckaa. G. A. 1824- . Tnr.aad 
 
 Lelaad, Joka. IT. 1506 - 155s. Antiq. 
 lA*aioB.Mark. K. 1809- 187a Draai. aad Mia. 
 Leiilir, Kliaa. A. 1787-1857 FicaadMb. 
 Leater, Ckaa. R. A. 1815- . BMf.,i1e.. 
 
 and Pbi 
 Lever, Ckaa. J. T 1806- 187a. FSe. 
 LeVert. OrUtlaW. .4. i8«o- . TiaT. 
 
 Mntl K»M 
 Lewea, Qe». ■• E. 1817- . Biof . and 
 
 nut. 
 
 Lewca, larlaa C (<^0iytf Jr/«W). E. i8jo- 
 
 . Kir 
 Lewla, Geo. C\ g. 1806-1863. PM. and 
 
 lli-t 
 Lewis, Matthew G.(.ir<m^£<vif). R. 1775- 
 
 1818. Kir. and Dnun. 
 Lewis, Tajler. A. 1803- . TkeoL.Rtk., 
 
 Riid Cnt 
 Lejdea, Joka. S. 1775-1811. Hist and 
 
 P.wt. 
 Lleker, Fraacls. A. 1800-1871. FbL and 
 
 PdI Kron 
 LIUo, Geo. F. 1691 - 1737. Draia. 
 Lladsaj, 81r Darld. E. 1490-1568- 
 
 l>rniu. mi'l Fuet. 
 Llmirard, Joka. E. 1771-1851. Hist 
 Lipplarott, Sara J. iOmce Grrmwood). A. 
 
 1S2) - Kir.. Ess , and Mis. 
 
 LlTlnirstone. Darld. S. 1815-1873. Ttst. 
 Lorke. Jokn. E. 1633-1704. Meta.. PoL, 
 
 ninl Kss 
 
 Lockhart, J. G. S. 1794-1854. Rc.Biog.. 
 
 and Crit. 
 Loaffellow, H. W. A. 1807- . Poet. 
 
 and Fir. 
 Loairstreet, A. B. A. 1790-1870. Fie. 
 Loasiaf, B. J. A. 1813- . Hist and 
 
 Bi(i«r. 
 Lorelare. Richard. E. 1618-1658. Poet 
 Lorer, Kan. /. 1797- »868. Fir. 
 Lowell. Jas.R. A. 1819- . Poet, Fie, 
 
 and Crit. 
 
 Ladlow, Fltzknrli. -187a Tlmr. 
 
 an<l Fir. 
 Laat, Geo. 1807- . Poet and Fic. 
 Ljell, Hlr Ckaa. E. 1797 -1875. ^cL and 
 
 Tra.. 
 Ljrljr, Joha. E. 1553- 1600. Dram. 
 Lyach, Wm. F. A. 1805-1865. TrsT. 
 LjrttOB UorJ), Sir R. Balwer. E. 1805- 
 
 1873. Fic, Dram., and Puet. 
 Hc€«be, Jaa. D. -t Biog.. 
 
 Ili«t. and Fir. 
 ■acaalajr, Catkariae. K 1733-1791. Hbt 
 
 and Ktli 
 Haraalay, T. B. K 1800-1859. Hist,E«.. 
 
 and )'.xt 
 RrCosk. Jaa. A 1811- . TheoL 
 ■cCaUoch, J. R. S. 1789-1864. Pol.. 
 
 Ili4t . and Pol. Eron. 
 ■ardoaald. Geo. S. i8j6- 
 RrlntOMh. Maria J. A. i8o{ 
 Harkay, Chaa. S- 1814- . met. and 
 
 Ml). 
 Harkeaale, Heary. S. 1745-1831. FIc. 
 Harfcewie, R. 8. .^ 1809- . Fir., 
 
 Pttrt.. and iihifr 
 ■acklatoah. Sir Jaa. S. 1765-1832. Pol.. 
 
 Ili»t . and VnU 
 ■arpheraoa, Jaa. S 1738-1796. Poet, and 
 
 lli«t 
 Haddea, HIr Fre4. B. 1801- . Antiq 
 Hadlaoa. Jaa. A. 1751-1836. Pol. 
 Haftaa, Wai. /. 1794-1843- Ess. aad Mis 
 Hahaa, Asa. A. 1799- . TlieoL and 
 
 Kth. 
 MahoB. P. H. Lord. E. 1805- . Hist. 
 Mahoay, Fraacis < /'i/A^^r ProMi). /. i8oo- 
 
 iS^j^j K*» and Mis. 
 Malthas, Th. R. E. 1766-1834. PoLEcon. 
 MaadeTiile. B. E. 1670- 1733. Etii. 
 Maaa, Horace. A. 1796-1859- Eth. and 
 
 Maaaiag, Aaae. E. 1813- . Fic 
 Maatell, G. A. E. 1790- 1852. Sei. 
 Marlowe. C. E 1564- 1593. Dram. 
 Marryat. Capt. F. E. 1793- 184S. Fic 
 Marsh, Geo. P. A. 1801- . PhUol.and 
 
 Mis 
 Marshall, Joha. A. 1755- »835- Biog. and 
 
 Martiaeaa, Harriet. £.1802- . Fic, 
 
 Rl . T'-nv . .ind Hist. 
 Manrell, Aadrew. E. 1620-1678. Poet 
 
 and Crit. 
 Massey. Gerald. E. 1828- . Poet 
 Massiairer. Philip. E. 1584-1640. Dram. 
 Maaaoa, Darid. ^. 1823- . Ess, Crit. 
 
 and fiiog. 
 
DICTIONARY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 421 
 
 Mather, Cotton. A 1663-1728 lUl. 
 Matarin, t'has. R. / 178^ - <8'4- !>">■" 
 
 ami Fir 
 ■atarln. Edward. A. - lie 
 
 All I V .1 
 
 Haary, N. F. A 1806-1873. Sci. 
 HaTerIck, Aag. A. - . Biog. and 
 
 Mis 
 Mayer. Brantz. A. 1809- . Hist 
 Mayhcn. II«-nry. E. 1813- . Fie. 
 Majro, Wm. S. A. 1812- . Fie. 
 Mi>ade, Wa. A. 1789-1863. Rel. 
 Mellen, (t. A. 1799-1841. Fie. and Poet. 
 MelTllIe, M. A. 1819- . Fie andTrar 
 Merirale, (haa. *.'. 1808- 1875. Hist. 
 Mlddleton, H. A. 1797- • P'»l 
 Mill, .las. S. 1773-1836. Po'. Ecnn. 
 J Mill, J. S. K. 1806-187J Pol. and Pol 
 
 niller^ C.HJJoaekmMllrr). A. 1841- 
 
 Porl 
 
 MHIer, Huffh. 5. 1803-1856. SdandTrav. 
 Milman, Hennr H. B. 1791 -1868. Poet, 
 
 Urani., and Hist. 
 Hilnca, R. M. E 1809- . Poet, and 
 
 I rav. 
 MHton, John. E. 1608-1674. Poet., Pol., 
 
 nii.l R.I. 
 MInot. (ipo. R. A. 1758-1803. Hiat 
 Mitrhell. I>onald G. A. 1833- . Fie. 
 MitchrU. John R. A. 1798- 1858. Sci. 
 
 nii.l P.). t 
 MitrhHl, Maria. A. 1818- . Sci. 
 MItford, Mary R. E. 1786 -1855. fie., 
 
 Drain., nml Poet. 
 MItford. Wm. E. 1744- 1837. Hist 
 Moir, D. M. S. 1798-1870. Ess., Poet., 
 
 mill Fic. 
 Monboddo, J. Ramet (Lord). S. 1714- 
 
 1799 Pliiios. 
 Montana, Mary W. E. 1690-1763. Mis. 
 Montfonierjr. Jaa. 5. 1771-1834- Poet 
 Moore« C. C. A. 1779-1863. Poet and 
 
 i'h.lol. 
 Moore, Prank. A. t8a8- . Hist OoU. 
 Moore, Thonaa. / 1779- 1853. FOet and 
 
 Fuv 
 More, Hannah. E 1745-1833. Dram, and 
 
 Fuv 
 ' More, 8tr Tkoa. E. 1480-1335 Poland 
 
 Fir. 
 Morfaa, ha4j Sjdnef. B. 1789-1859. 
 
 Fic. anil Trnv. 
 Morrta, Geo. P. A 1803-1864 Port nn.l 
 
 I Irani 
 Xorria, Was. K 1810- . Poet 
 Morton, Smb. G. A. 1799- 1851. 8ei 
 
 MotherweH, Wni. S. 1798-1835- Poet 
 Motley, John L. A. 1814- . Hist 
 MouUrle, Wm. A. 1731-1805. Hist 
 Mudie, Robert. S. 1777-1843. Sci. 
 MilHer, F. Max. E. 1833- . PhiloL 
 
 mid .Mi.s. 
 Mnlock, Dinah M. E 1836- . Fic. 
 MarchiKon, Sir R. E. 1793- . ScL 
 Mnre, Wm. S 1799-1860. Lit Hist 
 Mnrray, Lindley. A. 1745 -1836. PhiioL 
 
 nml R 1. 
 Napier, 8ir Chaa. Jaa. E. 1782- 1853. Law. 
 Ifapier, Sir ('has. John. E. 1786-1860. 
 
 Hist. 
 
 Napier, John. S. 1550-1617. Sci.andRel. 
 Napier, Sir Wm. F. P. E. 1785-1866. 
 
 Hist. 
 Nenl, John. A. 1793- . lie.. Poet, and 
 
 Dram. 
 Nenl, Job. C. A. 1807-1847. Fic.andMis. 
 Newman, John H. E. 1801- . Theol. 
 Newman, Fred. Wm. E. 1805- . Theol. 
 Newton, Sir Iitaac. E. 1643-1737. Sci. and 
 
 Thtol. 
 Newton, John. E 1725-1807. Rcl. 
 Nicoll, Robert. S. 1814-1837. Poet, and 
 
 Itl. 
 Nordhoff, Chaa. A. 1830- . Tnv.. 
 
 Fie., and .VI is. 
 Norton, Mra. C. E. 8. E. i8o8 - . Poet, 
 
 Fie , and Ms. 
 Nott, Josiah C. A. XB04- .ScL 
 OliTer, Peter. A. 1821 - 1855. Hist. 
 Ople, Amelia. E 1769 -1853. Fic. 
 Oagood, Francea 8. A. 1813-1850. Poet. 
 Oagood, Sam. A. 1813- Rel. and 
 
 Trav. 
 
 OaaoH, Margaret Fnller d*. A. 1810-1850. 
 
 Crit. and Mis. 1 
 
 Otia, Jaa. A 1725 -«783 Pol. 
 Otway, Thox. E. 1651-1685 Dram. 
 Owen, Darld D. A. 1807-1860 Sci. 
 Owen, John. /•'. 1616-1683 Theol. 
 Owen, John J. A. 1803-1869. £d. and 
 
 R-l 
 Owen, Rirhard. F 1804- . Sci. 
 Owen, Richard. A 1810- . Sd. 
 Owen, Robert. A 1771-1858. Mia. 
 Owen, Robert D. A. 1801- . Mia. 
 Paine, Thos. A. 1736-1809. PoL and 
 
 Theol. 
 
 Pnley, Wm. F 1743-1805. Tlieol. and Eth. 
 Palfrey. John G. A. 1796- • Hist 
 Palarare. Sir F. E 1788-1861. Hist 
 Pardoe, J alia. E 1808-1863- Fic and 
 
 Trav. 
 Fnrk, Mnnyo. E. 1771 -1805. Trav. j 
 
422 
 
 DICTIONARY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 Parkfr, ThMi«r«. A. i8to-i86ab TlieoL 
 Tarkaiam, Fraada. A. i8jj- . Tnv. 
 
 and Ui«t. 
 Paniell, Tkaa. K. 1679- 1718. Puet. 
 ParaoaM, Theopk. A. 1797- . TbeoL 
 
 ami Ko* 
 Part«a, Jaaiea. A. i8aa- . BioK.aad 
 
 Lm. 
 Partoa, 8arak Pajraaa (Awif Ftrmy A, 
 
 181 1 - tK/a. Fir. tuiU Mu. 
 Pataiare, Coveatry. it. 1823- . Foet 
 Paaldiaf , Ja». K. ^. 1778-1860. I'tc 
 Payae, Joka II. A. 1794-1852. Dntu. 
 Prabod/, A. P. ^ t8ii- . BeL 
 Perk, W«. H. A iSjo- . Fie. 
 P«aa, Hat. A. 1644-171& ThcoL 
 Prpy^t K^M. E 1632-1703. Mis. 
 Perrhal, Jas. CI. A. 1795-1857. Foet 
 Perry, Tbon. A' 1748-1811. iUlipm. 
 Ph«l|M, Alailra L. A. 1793" • SeL. 
 
 t ir . mill Mu. 
 PkilipK, Aaikraaa. E. 1675-1749 Dnua. 
 PhiU|M, Joka. £. 1676-1708. Poet 
 Phllllpih Kdward. E. i6jo-i68» Pbikil. 
 Pkllli|», WeadelL ^1811- . h>L 
 Plerpoai, Joka. A. 1775 - 1866. PteL 
 Plkr, Albert. ^1809- . Poet 
 Piakertoa, Joka. S. 1758-1821. Hist 
 Plaa, Ckas. C. A. 1804-1866. BeL aad 
 
 Poet 
 Plnmrr. Wai. S. A. i9o2- . BeL 
 l'o«, Edgar A. A. t8t(-i849. Pbet,Crit, 
 
 ami Kir. 
 Pollard, E. A. A. 1838-1873. Hist.Biog.. 
 
 and Pol. 
 Pollok, Robert. S. i799-i8a7> ^^et 
 Pope, Alex. h:. 1688-1744. P**^ 
 PofKOB, Kirhard. E. 1759- 1808. Crit 
 Porter, Anna a. E. 1780- 183J. Pic. 
 Porter. Jane. K. 1776-1850. Fie. 
 Potter. AloBzo. A. 1800-1865. PoLEeon. 
 
 ami U >l. 
 Powell, Tkos. A. 1809- . Dram, and 
 
 Rioir 
 Praed, W. M. E 1802-1839. Poet 
 Prescott, Wai. H. A. 1796-1859. Hist 
 
 an«l Ess. 
 Prestoa, Margaret J. ^1. 1838- . Poet 
 Priestley, Jos. E. 1733-1804 Ptu]os.and 
 
 Sri. 
 Prime, Sam. I. A. 1812- . Trav. and 
 
 Rtl. 
 Prior. Matt. F. 1664 1721. Port. 
 Procter, Adelaide A. E. 1825-1864. Poet 
 Procter. Bryan W. iBarry Cormtcall). E. 
 
 1 7go - 1 S6S. Poet and Dram. 
 Pnrckas, Sam. E. 1577-1628. Trav. 
 
 Paaey, Edward B. E 1800- . TheoL 
 ({aarles, Francis. A. 1592-1644 Puet 
 , <JBiarcy, Joiiiak. A. 1744 ->775- PuL 
 I Kadrlirfe, Aaae. S. 1764- 1823. Fie. 
 Kayaet, I'oadjr. A 1784-1842. PuL 
 Balalffk, 8lr W. S. 1552- 1618. Hist and 
 Poet 
 
 Allaa. S. 1685-1758. Fbei. 
 David. A. 1749-1815. Hist and 
 
 , J. O. H. A. 1797- . 11 .<>: 
 Raviliasoa, tiao. E. 1815- . 1 tut and 
 
 R-l. 
 SayaMiad. H. J* /4. 1820-1869. Journalist. 
 Tkoa. B. A. 1812- 187*. Poet 
 Ckas. E. 1814- . Fie. 
 ■••d, Heary. A. 1808-1854^ Crit aad 
 
 llui 
 laad, Wm. B. A 1806- . Biog. and 
 
 Bald, Mayae. / 1818- . Fie. 
 Reid, ThuM. S 1710- 1796. Meta. 
 Raid, H bitelaw. A. 1839- . Hist sad 
 
 Edit 
 Beol«rf A. J. A. 1825- . Pbet 
 Rkario, DaTid. E 1772-1823. PoLEooa. 
 RIekardMa, Ckas. E. 1775 - 1865. Phik>L 
 RIckardsoa, Sam. E. 1689-1767. Kc. 
 RIploy, Gea. A 1802- . Hcl. and Crit 
 RItckle, Aaaa C. Rowatt A. 1820- 187a 
 
 Fic Slid lirant. 
 RlTaa,Wm. C. A. 1793-1868. Biog.. Hist. 
 
 sod Ktli. 
 Rakklaa, EUaa. A. - . Hut and 
 
 Mi>. 
 Rokklaa, Rayal. A. 1787 -1861. Hist 
 Rakertaaa, Frad. W. E. 1816-1853 Ret 
 Rakertaoa, Wa. S. 1721-1793. Histsnd 
 
 Biog. 
 Rokiasoa, Edward. A. 1794-1864. Pliik>L 
 
 and i lifoi. 
 Rocke, Reiriaa M. E. 1765-1845 Re. 
 Rogers, Heary. E. 1814- . TheoL 
 Rogers, Sam. E. 1763-1855 Poet 
 Raaeoe, Wm. E. 1753- 1831. Biog. and 
 
 Mis. 
 RaaMtti, Christiaa G. E. 1830- 
 
 Poet 
 Rowe, Nick. E. 1673-1718. Poet and 
 
 Crit. 
 Rowson, Susanna A. 1761 - 1824. Fic. 
 
 niid Pram 
 Boschenberger, Wm. 8. W. A. 1807- 
 
 Trav. and Sti. 
 RuKb, Benj. A. 1745-1813. ScL.PoL.and 
 
 KS8. 
 
 Raskin, Joka. E. 1819- . Art 
 
DICTIONARY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 423 
 
 •ml I'tNi. 
 Basaell, Wm. H. E. .816- . Trav.and 
 
 Mm 
 Sabine, L. A 1803-   Biog. and Mis. 
 Sackrllle, Thou. /: 1536-1608 Poet. 
 8aU, fieo. \. 1^-7- tic and 
 
 Tr»v. 
 Sanson, «eo. H. A. 1819- . Trav. 
 
 niul H*s. 
 
 Sands, Robert C. ^. 1799-1832. Biog. 
 
 and ¥\c. 
 Sargent, Epes. A. 1812- . Dram, and 
 
 l\K-e. 
 Sarirent, Winthrop. A. 1835-1870. Ilist. 
 S«T»ge. Richard. E. 1698- 1743. Poet. 
 Saxe, John 1>. A. 1816- . Poet. 
 Srhaff, Philip. A. 1819- . Tbcol, 
 
 iiist., mill Kill. 
 Schnncker, Sam. M. A. 1823-1863. Hist., 
 
 !{;<)•_', Tiutil , and Dram. 
 Scknittrker, Sam. 8. A. 1790-1863. TheoL, 
 
 Hio,: , and Trav. 
 Schoolcraft, H. B. A 1793-1864. A.In- 
 dians, llist., and Trav. 
 Scott, Sir Walter. 5. 1771-1832. Fie. 
 
 nnii l*.i-t. 
 Scott, Wm. A. A. 1813- . Rcl. 
 Sedgwick, Caroline M. A. 1789-1867. 
 
 Fir. and Trav. 
 S^lden. John. E. 1584-1654. Pol. and 
 
 I ..1 X* 
 
 Sewell, Thos. A. 1787-1845. Sci. 
 Shakespeare, Wm. E. 1564-1616. Dram. 
 
 and I'iK't 
 Sharpe, Sam. E. - . Antiq. and 
 
 H.St 
 Shaw, Henrj W. (Josk BMimga). A. 1818- 
 
 . \ii«. 
 Shea, John G. A. 1834- . Hist, and 
 
 Rt-l. 
 Shedd, Wm. G. T. A. 1820- . Hist., 
 
 Ks5.. and Rcl. 
 Shril, R. L. /. 1794- 1851. Dram. and Pol. 
 Khelle7, P« B. E. 1792-1822. Poet. 
 Shflton, F. W. A 1S14- . ("ie. and 
 
 I'.Mt. 
 
 Shenntone. Wm. E. 1714- 1763. Poet 
 Sheridan, it. B. E. 1751-1816 Dram. 
 Sherlork, Thrtn. E 1678-1761. Theol. 
 Sherlork, >Vm. E. 1641-1707. Theol. 
 Khtllabpr. I»(>nJ. P. i-Vm. Vurtimgtom). A 
 
 I Si 4 - Ml*, and Pwt. 
 
 Shirley, Jaw. f.. 1596-1666. Dram. 
 Kidaejr, Aiirernon. E. i6ai - 1683. Pol. 
 Sidney. Sir PhUlp. K. 1554-1586. Fie. 
 
 and Poet 
 
 Sigonmejr, Ljrdia H. A. 1791-1865. Poet 
 SlUlman, Ben J. A. 1779-1864. Sci. and 
 
 Trn> . 
 SImms, Wm. G. A. 1806-1870. Fie., Poet, 
 
 Hist., Hii*;.'., and Ess. 
 Skelton, John. E. 1460-1529. Poet 
 Smedley, F. S. E. 1815-1864. Yic, 
 Smiles, Kam. S. 1816- . Biog. and Eat. 
 Smith, Adam. S. 1723-1790. Pol. Econ. 
 Smith. Albert. E. 1816-1860. Fie. 
 Smith, Alex. S. 1830-1867. Poet 
 Smith, Charlotte. E. 1749- 180& lie. and 
 
 I'ott. 
 Smith, Goldwin. E. 1823- . Hist and 
 
 Mis. 
 Smith, Horace. E. 1779-1849. Poet and 
 
 Fic. 
 Smith, Jas. E. 1775-1839. Fie. and Poet 
 Smith, John Pjre. E. 1774-1851. Rcl. 
 
 and Sci. 
 Smith, SelM ^J/(i;or/a<ri-J>(NPMtM^). A. 1792- 
 
 1868. Fie. and Mis. 
 Smith, Sydney. E. 1771-1845. Pol. and 
 
 Ess. 
 Smith, Thoa. B. A. 1810- 1871. Hist and 
 
 Antiq. 
 Smith, ThOR. 8. E. 1788-1861. Sci. and 
 
 Pliiius. 
 Smith, Wm. E. 1814- . Dieliomaries. 
 Smollptt, Tobias G. E. 1721-1771. Fie. 
 
 and lli-t. 
 Smyth. Thos. A. 1808- . Rel.andScL 
 Somerville, Mary. E. 1780- . Sci. 
 Sonth, Robert. E. 1633-1716. Theol. 
 Sonthey, Robert. E. 1774-1843. Poet, 
 
 Mist., and Mis. 
 Sonthwell, Robert. E. 1560- 1595. Poet 
 Sonthworth, Emma D. E. N. A. 1818- 
 
 . lir. 
 Sparks, Jared. A. 1794-1866. Biog. and 
 
 Ess. 
 Spencer, Herliert. E. 1820- . Philos. 
 Spencer, J. A. A. 1816- . Hist and 
 
 Hi 
 Spenser, Edmund. E. 1553-1599. Pbet 
 Spragne, Wm. B. A. 1795- . Rrl.and 
 
 Bk>». 
 Sqnier, E. Geo. A. 1821- . A Antiq. 
 Stanhope, P. H. (Ear(). B. 1805- 
 
 Ili.Hi nnd Ili<>;j 
 Stedman. E. C. A 1S33- . Poet 
 Steele, Richard. E. 1671 - 1739. Eaa. 
 Stephens. Alex. H. A. 1813- . Pol. 
 Sterne, Lawrence. K. 1713-1768. Fie. 
 
 and KrI 
 Stewart, Dvgald. S 1753 -iSaa Mela., 
 
 and Pol. Econ. 
 
424 
 
 DICTIONARY OF AUTHORS. 
 
 ttiniBffMt, Bdward. E. 1633-1699^ 
 
 Thcol. 
 SUrllay, Wa. S. 1818- li:^t and 
 
 8tUll« Wm. a 1689- I7S5- iiot- 
 Stoddard, Rirhard H. A. 1835- 
 
 I'ot't 
 
 Stowe, Harriet B. A. i8ta- . FIc 
 Stntet, A. B. ^ 1811- . Voei. 
 
 Strlcklaad, kgum. i?. 1806- . Bio|r.. 
 
 Fir . nnd Ptirt. 
 
 Sirotber, D. H. < Porte Crmyom). A. t8i6- 
 
 . Trar. and Mis. 
 
 8taart« MotM. A. 1780-1853. Ilicol. and 
 
 riiiioi. 
 
 fiarkllBK, sir JoliB. E. i6o9-i64x Poet. 
 SalllTM, Wa. A 1774-1899. F»!., Hist, 
 
 and liifig. 
 S^Maer, Ckaa. A. 1811 -1874. PoL 
 KwalB, < haa. E. 1803- . Poet. 
 Kwinbarne, A. C. E. 1843- . Pbet. 
 SwintoB, Wn. A. 1834- . Philol. and 
 
 Hut. 
 
 Swift, Joaatkaa. E. 1667-1745. T^> 
 
 Pol., anil P.tct. 
 Talfovrd, Tkoa. If. E. 1795-1854. Dram. 
 
 and Km. 
 Tbppmi, Heary P* A. 1806- . Etk. 
 
 and Thrul. 
 Taatpkcpii (The Bmromsn). E. 
 
 \u-. 
 
 Tajrlor, Heary. E. 1800- . Dram, and 
 
 I'ort. 
 
 Taylor, Isaae To/ ^ar). E. 1759-1839. fie. 
 Taylor. I«ar. E 17S7-1865. ReL 
 Taylor, Bayard. J. 1835- . Trar, JTc, 
 
 and Pott, 
 Taylor, Jereaiy. E. 1613 -1667. ReL 
 Taylor, Tkos. itke PlatonUt). E. 1758- 
 
 i8?5 Tninii. of Plato and Aristotle 
 Taylor, Toai. E. 1817- . Dram, and 
 
 Fie. 
 Teatiple, Sir Wai. E. 1628 - 1699. Pdl. and 
 
 Teaaeat, Jas. E. E. 1804- 1869. Hist and 
 
 Mi« 
 T»'nnjson. A. F i8io- . Poet 
 Terhune, Mary T. ^ - . Fie. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M. E. iSri-1863. Fie 
 
 and Mis 
 Thateker, Benj. B. A. 1809- 184a .-Am. 
 
 Indians. 
 Thirl wall. Con nop. E. 1797- Hist 
 
 Thomas, F. W. A. 1811-1864. Poet and 
 
 Fie. 
 Thorns, Wm. J. E. 1803- Notes end 
 
 (Queries. 
 
 , Jaa. E. 1700-1748. Poet 
 , H. D. A. 1817-1861. TraT. 
 
 Mis. 
 
 Tkorawell, Jaa. H. A. 1811 -i86a TheoL 
 Tk«rp«« T. B. A. 1815- . Fie. aad 
 
 Mis. 
 Tlckell, Tkea. E. 1686-1740. Poet 
 Tlckaer, Om. A. 1791-1871. Hiat and 
 
 Btofc. 
 TIf ke, Xary B. E. 1774- tSia Poet 
 Tlllotaoa, Joka. E. 1630-1694. Rel. 
 TUtoa, Tkeo. A. 1835- . Edit, Fte.. 
 
 and PiM-t. 
 Tlairod, Heary. A. 1839-1867. Pbet 
 Todd, Joka. it. 1800- Rel. aad 
 
 Tra». 
 Ttaaa, Ckarlotto RUaketlu E. 1791- 
 
 1846. Fir. 
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 DICTIONARY OP AUTHORS. 
 
 T«Bf e, Charlotte M 
 
 aiiU ilisi. 
 TMstt, Wm. E. 1777-1847. 
 
 Animals. 
 T«Mif« Mward. if. 1684-1765. Poet. 
 Yoaag, Thoik A. 1773-1819. Aatiq. 
 
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