. 
 
 - 
 
 • 
 
 - 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/elocutionparkerOOparkrich 
 

PAIiKSB «& WAT©0> T, » S2£:«II^?^. ISO. ©, 
 
 /■^v v«^^-> 
 
 THE 
 
 NATIONAL 
 
 FIFTH KEADEE: 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 A CO! _^TE AND PRACTICAL TREATISE ON ELOCUTION; 
 
 SELECT AND CLASSIFIED EXERCISES IN READING AND 
 
 declamation; WITH BIOGRAPHICAL sketches, 
 
 AND COPIO JS NOTES : ADAPTED TO THE USE 
 
 OF STUDENTS IN LITERATURE. 
 
 By KICHAKD GKEENE PAEKEE 
 
 AXD 
 
 J. MADISON WATSON. 
 
 A. S. BARNES & COMPANY, 
 NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 
 
 1872, 
 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 UNJVERSlTY OF 
 CAllfOtNIA 
 
 ^HJE jMyVTIONyVI, J3ef;IE£ Of ^Ey\DE^g. 
 
 COMPLETE IN TWO INDEPENDENT PARTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE NATIONAL READERS. 
 
 By PARKER & WATSON. 
 
 No. 1. — National Primer, 66pp>, ft mo. 
 
 No. 2. — National First Reader, . . ?28pp., ttmo. 
 
 No. 3. — National Second Reader, . 221pp., femo. 
 
 No. 4. — National Third Reader, . . 2ss pp., f2mo. 
 
 No. S. — National Fourth Reader, . 1.32 pp., i2mo. 
 
 No. 6. — National Fifth Reader, . . goo pp., /2mo. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE INDEPENDENT READERS. 
 
 By J. MADISON WATSON. 
 
 The Independent First Reader, . . so pp., ?6mo. 
 The Independent Second Reader,, too pp., femo. 
 The Independent Third Reader, . 210 pjj., ?o>no. 
 The Independent Fourth Reader, . 201 pp., 72»w. 
 The Independent Fifth Reader, . . ss6 pp., /2mo. 
 The National Fifth Reader, .... ceo pp., r&mo, 
 
 III. 
 
 NATIONAL SPELLING BOOKS. 
 
 By J. MADISON WATSON. 
 
 National Klementary Speller, . . . foopp., ?o»>o. 
 National Pronouncing Speller, . . /sspp., /2mo. 
 
 *** The Readers constitute two complete and entirely dis- 
 tinct series, either of which are adequate to every want of 
 the best schools. The Spellers may accompany either Series. 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S66, by 
 
 A . S . KARNES & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
 
 of New York. 
 N. 5th. 0JUQ 
 
 PSYC 
 ■ LI' 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IN the preparation of this volume, we have a!«.ned to make it a com« 
 plete and sufficient work for advanced classes in Reading, Elocution, 
 and English and American Literature ; to furnish, in an available form, 
 such an amount of biographical, historical, classical, orthoepical, and 
 
 miscellaneous matter, as to render it highly valuable as a book of ref- 
 erence ; and to present a collection of pieces so rich, varied, perspicuous, 
 and attractive, as to suit all classes of minds, all times, and all occasions. 
 
 Part First, in two chapters, embraces a simple, complete, and emi- 
 nently practical Treatise on Elocution. The principles and rules are 
 stated in a succinct and lucid manner, and followed by examples and 
 exercises of sufficient number and extent to enable the student thor- 
 oughly to master each point as presented, as well as to acquire a dis- 
 tinct comprehension of the parts as a ichqle. 
 
 In Part Second, the Selections for Reading and Declamation contain 
 what arc regarded as the choicest gems of English literature. The 
 works of many authors, ancient and modem, have been consulted, and 
 more than a hundred standard writers, of the English language, on both 
 sides of the Atlantic, have been laid under contribution to enable the 
 authors to present a collection, rich in all that can inform the understand- 
 ing, improve the taste, and cultivate the heart, and which, at the same 
 time, shall furnish every variety of style and subject to exemplify the 
 principles of Rhetorical delivery, and form a finished reader and elocu- 
 tionist. These selections have been arranged in a regularly graded 
 course, and strictly classified with regard to the nature of the subjects. 
 Although we have not been studious of novelty, presenting only what 
 we regarded as suitable, intrinsically excellent, and most truly indica- 
 ting the mode and range of thought of the writer, it will be seen that 
 a large proportion of this collection is composed of pieces to be found 
 in no siniilar work. 
 
 Much care and labor have been devoted to the orthoepical department. 
 The pronunciation of all words liable to be mispronounced is indicated 
 once in each paragraph, or at the bottom of the page where they occur. 
 With respect to the words about the pronunciation of which orthoe- 
 pists differ, we have adopted the most recent and r. lial le authority. 
 
 Classical and historical allusions, so common among the best writers, 
 have in all cases been explained ; and, if the authors have not been de- 
 
 907 
 
jy P It E F A C E . 
 
 ceived, every aid has been given in the notes, that the reader may readily 
 comprehend the meaning of the writer. This has been done in a manner 
 more full and satisfactory than they have seen in any other collection, 
 and in every instance at the bottom of the page where the difficulty 
 occurs, so that the reader may not be subjected to the trouble of con- 
 sulting a dictionary, or other books of reference, — a work which, in 
 general, if done at all, is done with extreme reluctance, even by ad- 
 vanced pupils. 
 
 In order that the student may still more thoroughly understand what 
 he reads, and for the convenience of that large class of readers who 
 have not leisure to peruse voluminous memoirs of distinguished men, 
 and yet would be unwilling to forego all knowledge of them, we have 
 introduced concise Biographical Sketches of authors from whose works 
 extracts have been selected, and of jDersons whose names occur in the 
 Reading Exercises. These sketches, j>resenting a clear and distinct 
 outline of the life, and producing a clear and distinct impression of 
 the character, furnish an amount of useful and available information 
 rarely surpassed by memoirs of greater extent and pretension. Lists 
 of the names of authors, both alphabetical and chronological, have 
 also been introduced, thus rendering this a convenient text book for 
 students in English and Ameacan Literature. 
 
 The improvements made in the revision of this work are numerous 
 and important. The Treatise on Elocution has been carefully elabora- 
 ted, involving the introduction of phonetic exercises, a more critical 
 orthoepical notation, and many most apt and interesting examples for 
 illustration. Several of these examples under each section are left un- 
 marked, thus affording students opportunities to exercise their judg- 
 ment, taste, and discrimination. 
 
 The collection of Reading Lessons has been greatly improved by 
 judicious omissions, and the substitution of new dialogues, ballads, 
 dramatic lyrics, and other rhetorical pieces that are more varied and 
 inspiriting, and better adapted to elocutionary readings, both public 
 and private. The classification of these lessons is more systematic and 
 thorough than that ever before attempted in any corresponding work. 
 They are divided into formal sections, in each of which only one lead- 
 ing subject is treated, or one important element of Elocution rendered 
 prominent. All practical aids are furnished by more copious notes, 
 new indexes, etc. 
 
 New Yobk, June, 1S66. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. ELOCUTION. 
 
 I. ORTHOEPY. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Articulation 20 
 
 Definitions 20 
 
 Oral Elements 22 
 
 Cognates 24 
 
 Alphabetic Equivalents 24 
 
 Oral Elements Combined 26 
 
 Errors in Articulation 28 
 
 Words 29 
 
 Analysis of Words 29 
 
 Rules in Articulation 32 
 
 Exercises in Articulation 32 
 
 Phonetic Laughter , , . 35 
 
 SYLL A3IC ATION 3G 
 
 Definitions 36 
 
 Formation of Syllables 36 
 
 Rules in Syllabication 37 
 
 Exercises in Syllabication 38 
 
 Accent 40 
 
 Definitions 40 
 
 Exercises in Accent 40 
 
 Words Distinguished by Accent 41 
 
 Accent Changed by Contrast 42 
 
 II EXPRESSION. 
 
 Emphasis 43 
 
 Definitions 43 
 
 Rules in Emphasis 44 
 
 Exercises in Emphasis 44 
 
 Slur 47 
 
 Exercises in Slur 47 
 
 Inflections , 50 
 
 Definitions « 53 
 
 Rules in Inflections. , 54 
 
 Exercises in Inflections 5(j 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Modulation. .■>. 58 
 
 Pitch 53 
 
 Forco CO 
 
 Quality C2 
 
 Rate C5 
 
 Monotone 67 
 
 Exercises in Monotone 68 
 
 Personation , 09 
 
 Exercise in Personation TO 
 
 Pauses , . TO 
 
 Definitions TO 
 
 Rules for Pauses Tl 
 
 Suspensive Quantity 72 
 
 Exercises in Pauses T3 
 
 II. READINGS. 
 
 I, PIECES IN PROSE. 
 
 Section 1 77 
 
 1. The Months Henry Ward Beecher. 77 
 
 Section II 85 
 
 3. Never Despair . . . 85 
 
 5. A Golden Coppersmith , 89 
 
 0. Noble Revenge Thomas tie Quincey. 92 
 
 7. Beauty Ralph Waldo Emerson. 94 
 
 Section III 97 
 
 9. Maternal Affection 100 
 
 10. The Good Wife Donald G. Mitchell. 101 
 
 11. Influence of Home Richard Henry Dana. 103 
 
 13. The Widow and her Son— Part First Washington Irving. 106 
 
 14. The Widow and her Son — Part Second 110 
 
 Section IV 113 
 
 15. Biography of Jacob Hays William Cox. 113 
 
 16. Peter Pounce and Parson Adams . .Henry Fielding. 117 
 
 19. A Curtain Lecture of Mrs. Caudle Douglas Jerrold. 126 
 
 Section V 129 
 
 22. Broken Hearts — Part First Washington Irving. 134 
 
 23. Broken Hearts— Part Second. 186 
 
 27. Selected Extracts Henry Ward Beecher. 144 
 
 Section VI 147 
 
 29. The Barbarities of War Thomas Chalmers. 148 
 
 3)5. The Siege of Leyden John Lathrop Motley. 157 
 
 Section VII 164 
 
 37. Christopher Columbus Washington Irving. 165 
 
 38. Return of Columbus William 11. Preseott. 166 
 
 39. The Revolutionary Alarm George Bancroft. 170 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 Page 
 
 Section VIII 180 
 
 44. Wants — Part First James Kirke Paulding. 180 
 
 45. Wants— Part Second 183 
 
 46. Wants— Part Third 184 
 
 Section IX 198 
 
 51 Work Thomas Carlyle. 199 
 
 53. Study Oreille Dewey. 204 
 
 Section X 207 
 
 . 54. Letters D. G. Mitchell. 207 
 
 55. Select Passages in Prose 210 
 
 I. Good use of Memory. II. Injudicious Haste in Study — 
 Locke. III. Studies — Bacon. IV. Books— Channi/ig. 
 V. The Bible— Hall. 
 
 56. Buying Books Henry Ward Becchcr 214 
 
 57. Selected Extracts Thomas de Quincey. 217 
 
 Section XI 221 
 
 59. The Poet and his Critics Washington Allston. 224 
 
 Section XII 230 
 
 61. Ancient and Modern Writers Charles Sumner 280 
 
 63. Sound and Sense Robert Chambers. 234 
 
 64. The Power of Words E.P. Whipple. 2:7 
 
 66. Parallel between Pope and Dryden Dr Samuel Johnson. 243 
 
 Section XIII , 247 
 
 67. Charge against Lord Byron Francis Jeffrey. 247 
 
 70. View of the Coliseum Ortille Dewey. 255 
 
 Section XIV 257 
 
 72. Scene with a Panther Charles Brockden Broicn. 257 
 
 73. Count Fathom's Adventure— Part First T G. Smollett. 261 
 
 74. Count Fathom's Adventure— Part Second 263 
 
 76. The Rattlesnake William Gilmore Simms. 270 
 
 Section XV 275 
 
 77. Irving and Macaulay — Part First Wm. M. Thackeray. 275 
 
 78. Irving and Macaulay — Part Second 277 
 
 79. The Puritans Thomas B. Macaulay 280 
 
 82. Advantages of Adversity Edward Everett. 284 
 
 85. Liberty Oreille Deicey. 291 
 
 Section XVI 293 
 
 87. The Death of Hamilton Eiiphalct Kott. 294 
 
 90. Glory Dr. Francis Wayland. 299 
 
 Section XVII , . 304 
 
 92. The Stolen Rifle. Washington Irving. 304 
 
 93. The Tomahawk submissive to Eloquence John Neat 305 
 
 96. Marios in Prison Thomas de Quincey. 311 
 
 Section XIX ... 338 
 
 107. Daniel Webster— Part First Edward Boerett. 331) 
 
 108. Daniel Webster— Part Second 341 
 
 109. From a Historical Address Daniel Webster 313 
 
viii CONTENT! 
 
 PAGB 
 
 110. Public Virtue Henry Clay. 843 
 
 111. Washington's Sword and Franklin's Staff J. Q. Adams. 343 
 
 Section XX 350 
 
 113. Paul Flemming Resolves Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 353 
 
 115. Life Horace Binney Wallace. 857 
 
 Section XXI 359- 
 
 116. Blennerhassett's Temptation William Wirt. 359 
 
 Section XXII 370 
 
 119. Character of Scott William H. Prescott. 370 
 
 120. Scene from Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott. 373 
 
 121. Shakspeare Dr. Johnson. 378 
 
 Section XXIV 400 
 
 130. Our Honored Dead Henry Ward Beecher. 403 
 
 132. Death of the Old Trapper— Part First. ... . .James F. Cooper. 406 
 
 133. Death of the Old Trapper— Part Second 410 
 
 Section XXVI 436 
 
 140. Scenes from Pickwick — The Dilemma Charles Dickens. 436 
 
 111. Scenes from Pickwick — Speech of Sergeant Buzfuz 440 
 
 142. Scenes from Pickwick — Sam Weller as Witness 443 
 
 143. My Oratorical Experience Nathaniel Hawthorne. 447 
 
 Section XXVII 450 
 
 145. Forest Trees Washington Irving. 452 
 
 147. Landscape Beauty Francis Jeffrey. 453 
 
 149. Elements of the Swiss Landscape George B. Cheevcr. 4C3 
 
 Section XXX 485 
 
 157. Character of Hamlet William Hazlitt. 485 
 
 Section XXXI 505 
 
 1G2. Society the Great Educator Orville Dewey. 505 
 
 163. The Schoolmaster and the Conqueror Henry Brougham. 507 
 
 164. Intellectual Power James H. Hammond. 509 
 
 105. Moral Progress of the American People Wm. H Seward. 511 
 
 Section XXXII 515 
 
 163. Hymns Henry Ward Beecher. 521 
 
 Section XXXIII 532 
 
 173. Select Passages in Prose 535 
 
 I. Evidence of a Creator — Tillotson. II. Nature Pro- 
 claims a Deity — Chateaubriand. III. The Unbeliever — 
 Chalmers. IV. Blessings of Religious Faith — Davy. 
 
 Section XXXIV 543 
 
 175. The Poet H B. Wallace. 543 
 
 177. The Influence of Poetry William E. Channing. 547 
 
 Section XXXVII 575 
 
 183. Milton — Part First T/iomas Babbington Macaulay. 575 
 
 187. Milton— Part Second 577 
 
 Section XXXVIII 583 
 
 191. The Knocking at the Gate, in Macbeth. . Thomas de Quincey. 587 
 
 Section XXXIX 500 
 
 103. Omnipresence nnd Omniscience of God Addimn. 593 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 IL PIECES IN VERSE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Section 1 77 
 
 2. Hymn to the Seasons James Thomson. 81 
 
 Section II So 
 
 4. Now Charles Mackay. 87 
 
 Section III 97 
 
 8. Sabbath Morning James Grahame. 97 
 
 12. An Old Haunt 105 
 
 Section V 129 
 
 20. Thanatopsis William Cullen Bryant. 129 
 
 21. Euthanasia Willis Oaylord Clark. 132 
 
 24. Lines Relating to Curran's Daughter Thomas Moore 139 
 
 25. The Bridge of Sighs Thomas Hood. 140 
 
 2G. Select Passages in Verse 142 
 
 I. Succession of Human Beings. II. Death of the Young 
 and. Fair. III. A Lady Drowned — Pioctor. IV. Life of 
 Man — Beaumont. V. Coronach — Scott. VI. Immortal- 
 ity— R. II Dana. 
 
 Section VI . g 147 
 
 28. Fuller's Bird'. Bryan Walter Proctor. 147 
 
 30. Bingcn on the Rhine Mrs. Caroline Norton. 150 
 
 32. Battle of Waisaw Thomas Campbell. 155 
 
 34. The Happy Warrior William Wordsworth. 1G0 
 
 35. The Conqueror's Grave William Cullen Bryant. 102 
 
 Section VII 1G4 
 
 36. Destiny of America George Berkeley. 164 
 
 40. The Revolutionary Rising Thomas Buchanan Read. 172 
 
 41. The Settler Albert B. Street. 174 
 
 42. The Star-Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key. 177 
 
 *3. The American Flag Joseph Rodman Drake. 178 
 
 (Section VIII 180 
 
 47. The Deserted Village— Part First Oliver Goldsmith. 185 
 
 48. The Deserted Village— Part Second 189 
 
 49. The Deserted Village— Part Third 192 
 
 Section IX 198 
 
 50. The Power of Art Charles Sprague. 198 
 
 52. Address to the Indolent James Thompson. 202 
 
 Section XII 2:J0 
 
 62. Language Oliver Wendell Holmes. 232 
 
 65. From the Essay on Criticism Alexander Pope. 240 
 
 Section XIII 247 
 
 68. Lord Byron Robert Pollok. 249 
 
 69. Midnight— The Coliseum Lord Byron. 358 
 
 71. The Dying Gladiator Lord Byron. 256 
 
 Section XIV . .* 257 
 
 75. Darkness Lord Byron. 2<.r 
 
 r 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Section XV 275 
 
 80. The Pilgrim's Vision Oliver Wendell Holmes. 282 
 
 81. The Roclv of the Pilgrims George P. Morris. 283 
 
 83. The Graves of the Patriots James Gates Percival. 287 
 
 84. Antiquity of Freedom William Cullen Bryant. 289 
 
 Section XVI 293 
 
 86. The Inquiry Charles Mackay. 293 
 
 88. Pass On, Relentless World George Lunt. 295 
 
 89. The World for Sale = Rev. Ralph Hoyt. 297 
 
 91. Passing Away Rev. John Pierpont. £01 
 
 Section XVII £04 
 
 94. The Baron's Last Banquet Albert G. Greene. 307 
 
 95. Bernardo del Carpio Mrs. Felicia Hemans. £09 
 
 Section XVIII 313 
 
 97. The Annoyer Nathaniel Parker Willis. 313 
 
 98. The Palm and the Pine Bayard Taylor. £15 
 
 99. Fair Ines ". Thomas Hood. 317 
 
 100. Love Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 318 
 
 101. Lady Clare Alfred Ten nyson. 321 
 
 103. Maud Mailer John Greenleaf Whiltier. 324 
 
 103. The Dream— Part First Lord Byron. 327 
 
 104. The Dream— Part Second SCO 
 
 Section XIX 338 
 
 106. A Great Man Departed 308 
 
 Section XX 350 
 
 112. Procrastination Edward Young. 350 
 
 114. Ode to Adversity , . Thomas Gray. 355 
 
 Section XXI 359 
 
 118. Parrhasius and the Captive Nathaniel I arkcr Willis. 365 
 
 Section XXIII 390 
 
 125. Select Passages in Verse 890 
 
 I. Patriotism — Scott. II. Ambition- -Byroi. III. Indepen- 
 dence — Thomson. IV. The Captive's Dream — Mrs. F. 
 Hemans. V. William Tell— Bryant. VI. Tell of Swit- 
 zerland — Knowles. VII. How Sleep the Brave — Collins. 
 VIII. The Greeks at Thermopylae — Byron, 
 
 126. Greece Lord Byron. 394 
 
 127. Song of the Greeks, 1822 Thomas Campbell. 396 
 
 128. Marco Bozzaris Fitz-Greene Halleck. 398 
 
 Section XXIV 400 
 
 129. The Closing Year George D. Prentice. 400 
 
 131. The Holy Dead Mrs. L. H Sigourney. 405 
 
 134. Elegy in a Country Church-Yard Thomas Gray. 414 
 
 Section XXV 417 
 
 135. The Phantom Ship 417 
 
 136. The Drowned Mariner Elisabeth Oakes Smith. 419 
 
 137. The Direr SchiUer. 42>2 
 
CONTENTS. X i 
 
 PAOH 
 
 138. Morte d Arthur Alfred Tennyson. 426 
 
 13!). The Skeleton in Armor II. W. Longfellow. 434 
 
 Section XXVII 450 
 
 144. A Forest Nook Albert B. Street. 430 
 
 14G. God's First Temples William Cullen Bryant. 455 
 
 148. Morning Hymn to Mount Blanc .Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 4C1 
 
 150. Alpine Scenery Lord Byron. 4GG 
 
 Section XXVIII 4G9 
 
 151. Select Passages in Verse 4G9 
 
 I. Early Da.\vnShelley. II. Daybreak— Longfellow. III. 
 Daybreak— Shelley. IV. Sunrise in South America — 
 Bowles. V. Dawn— Willis. VI. Morning— Milton. VII. 
 Morning on the Rhine— Bowles. VIII. Morning Sounds 
 — Seattle. IX. Early Rising— Hurdis. 
 
 152. Select Passages in Verse 473 
 
 I. Invocation to Night— J". F. HoUingt, II. A Twilight 
 Picture— Whiiticr. III. Evening — Croly. IV. Night — 
 Coleridge. V. Night at Corinth — Byron. VI. A Sum- 
 mer's Night — Bailey. VII. Night and Death — White. 
 VIII. Night— Shelley. IX. The Moon— Charlotte Smith. 
 X. The Stars — Darwin. 
 Section XXIX : 470 
 
 153. Lochinvar's Ride Sir Walter Scott. 4 "19 
 
 154. The Kinir of Denmark's Ride Mrs. Caroline Nort m. 
 
 155. Sheridan's Ride Thomas Buchanan Bead. 
 
 156. The Ride from Ghent to Aix Robert Browning. 4S3 
 
 Section XXXII 515 
 
 1GG. To a Skylark Percy B. Shelley. 515 
 
 1G7. Select Passages in Verse 518 
 
 I. Voice of the Wind — Henry Taylor. II. Ministrations of 
 
 Nature — Coleridge. III. Moonlight — Shakspcare. IV. 
 
 The Bells of Ostend — Bowles. V. Music — Shakspcare. 
 
 VI. Music — Shelley. VII. Pastoral Music — Byron. 
 1GD. The Passions William Collins. 504 
 
 170. Alexander's Feast John Drydcn. 527 
 
 Section XXXIII 503 
 
 171. Hamlet's Soliloquy William Shakspcare. 532 
 
 172. Cato's Soliloquy Joseph Addison. 533 
 
 174. Intimations of Immortality William Wordsworth. 537 
 
 Section XXXIV 543 
 
 176. To the Spirit of Poetry Francis S. Osgood. 514 
 
 178. To the Poet William Cullen Bryant. 549 
 
 Section XXXV 551 
 
 179. The Bells Edgar A. Poe. 551 
 
 ISO. The Cry of the Human Elizabeth B. Browning. 555 
 
 181. The Raven Edgar A. Poe. 558. 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 PA<=1? 
 
 Section XXXVII 575 
 
 188. Satan's Encounter with Death John Milton. 580 
 
 189. The Dying Christian to his Soul ...Alexander Pope. 5S3 
 
 Section XXXIX 590 
 
 192. Messiah Alexander Pope. 590 
 
 194. God JR. Derzhavin 590 
 
 III. DIALOGUES. 
 
 Section 17 .113 
 
 17. Conversations after Marriage— Part First. . . .R. B. Sheridan. 120 
 
 18. Conversations after Marriage — Part Second 123 
 
 Section VI 147 
 
 81. Lochiel's Warning Thomas Campbell. 153 
 
 Section XI 221 
 
 58. Gil Bias and the Old Archbishop Alain Le Sage. 221 
 
 60. The Sensitive Author R. B. Sheridan. 227 
 
 'Section XVIII 313 
 
 105. Scene from the Lady of Lyons. .Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. 333 
 
 Section XXI 359 
 
 117. Roger Ascham and Lady Jane Grey W. S. Landor. 302 
 
 Section XXII 370 
 
 122. Scene from King Richard III William Shakspeare. 381 
 
 123. Norval John Home. 884 
 
 124. Scene from Catiline George Croly. 387 
 
 Section XXX 4S5 
 
 158. Scenes from Hamlet — Part First William Shakspeare. 487 
 
 159. Scenes from Hamlet — Part Second 493 
 
 1G0. Scenes from Hamlet— Part Third 498 
 
 . 161. Scenes from Hamlet — Part Fourth 501 
 
 Section XXXVI 562 
 
 182. The Saracen Brothers— Part First 502 
 
 183. The Saracen Brothers — Part Second 565 
 
 184. Brutus and Titus Nathaniel Lee. 563 
 
 85. The Phrensy of Orra Joanna Baillie. 571 
 
 Section XXXVIII 583 
 
 190. Murder of King Duncan WiUiam Shakspeare. 583 
 
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF AUTHORS.' 
 
 Adams, John Q., 348. 
 Addison, Joseph, 533, 593. 
 Allston, Washington, 224. 
 Bacon, Francis, 211. 
 Bailey, P. J., 476, 
 Baillte, Joanna, 571. 
 Bancroft, George, 170. 
 Beattie, James, 472. 
 Beaumont, Francis, 142. 
 Beeciier, H. W., 77, 144, 214, 403, 
 
 521. 
 Berkeley, George, 164. 
 Bowles, W. L., 470, 472, 519. 
 Brougham, Henry, 507. 
 Brown, C. B. 257. 
 Browning, Robert, 483. 
 Browning, Elizabeth B., 555. 
 Byrant, W. C, 129, 162, 289, 392, 
 
 455, 549. 
 Byron, G. G., 253, 256, 267, 327, 391, 
 
 394, 466, 475, 520. 
 Campbell, Thomas, 153, 155, 396.^ 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 199. 
 Chalmers, Thomas, 148, 536. 
 Chambers, Robert, 234. 
 Channing, W. E., 212, 547. 
 Chateaubriand, F. A., 536. 
 Cheever, G. B., 463. 
 Clark, Willis G., 132. 
 Clay, Henry, 346. 
 Coleridge, Hartley, 475. 
 Coleridge, S. T., 318, 461, 518. 
 Collins, William, 393, 524. 
 Cooper, J. Fenimore, 406. 
 Cox, William, 113. 
 
 Croly, George, 387, 474. 
 
 Dana, R. H., 103, 143. 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus, 478. 
 
 Davy, Humphrey, 537. 
 
 De Quincey, T., 92, 217, 311, 587. 
 
 Derziiayin, G. R., 596. 
 
 Dewey, Orville, 204, 255, 291, 505. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 436. 
 
 Drake, J. R., 178. 
 
 Dryden, John, 527. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 94. 
 
 Everett, Edward, 284, 339. 
 
 Fielding, Henry, 117. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, 95. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 185. 
 
 Graiiame, James, 97. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, 355, 414. 
 
 Greene, Albert G., 307. 
 
 Hall, Robert, 213. 
 
 Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 398. 
 
 Hammond, James II., 509. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 447, 
 
 Hazlitt, William, 485. 
 
 Hemans, Mrs. F., 309, 392. 
 
 Rollings, J. F., 473. 
 
 Holmes, O. W., 232, 282. 
 
 Home, John, 384. 
 
 Hood, Thomas, 140, 317. 
 
 Hoyt, Ralph, 297. 
 
 Hume, David, 237. 
 
 Hurdis, James, 473. 
 
 Irving, W., 106, 134, 165, 304, 452. 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis, 247, 458. 
 
 Jerrold, Douglas, 126. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 243, 378. 
 
 1 The numbers here given refer to Selections. For Biographical Sketches, 
 
 see Chronological List ot Authors. 
 
XIV 
 
 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF AUTHORS. 
 
 Key, Francis Scott, 177. 
 
 Knowles, J. S., 392. 
 
 Landor, W. S., 362. 
 
 Lee, Nathaniel, 568. 
 
 Le Sage, Alain, 221. 
 
 Locke, John, 210. 
 
 Longfellow, H. W., 352, 434, 469. 
 
 Lunt, George, 295. 
 
 Lytton, E. Bulwer, 333. 
 
 Macaulay, T. B., 280, 575. 
 
 Mackay, Charles, 87, 293. 
 
 Milton, John, 471, 580. 
 
 Mitchell, D. G., 101, 207. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 139. 
 
 Morris, George P., 283. 
 
 Motley, John L., 157. 
 
 Neal, John, 305. 
 
 Norton, Caroline E., 150, 480. 
 
 Nott, Eliphalet, 294. 
 
 Osgood, Francis S., 544. 
 
 Paulding, J. K., 180. 
 
 Percival, J. G., 287. 
 
 Pierpont, John, 301. 
 
 Poe, Edgar A., 551, 558. 
 
 Pollock, Robert, 249. 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 240, 583, 590. 
 
 Prentice, George D„, 400. 
 
 Prescott. W. II., 166, 370. 
 
 Proctor, B. W., 142, 147. 
 
 Read, T. Buchanan, 172, 482. 
 
 Schiller, J. C. F. von, 422. 
 
 Scott, Walter, 143, 373, 390, 479. 
 Seward, William H., 511. 
 Shakspeare, We, 381, 487, 518, 
 
 519, 532, 583. 
 Shelley, P. B., 469, 470, 477, 515, 
 
 520. 
 Sheridan, R. B. 120. 
 Sigourney, Mrs., 405. 
 Simms, W. G. 270. 
 Smith, Charlotte, 478. 
 Smith, Elizabeth Oakes, 419. 
 Smollett, T. G., 261. 
 Sprague, Charles, 198. 
 Street, A. B., 174, 450. 
 Sumner, Charles, 230. 
 Taylor, Bayard, 315. 
 Taylor, Henry, 518. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, 321, 426. 
 Thackeray, William M., 275. 
 Thomson, James, 81, 202, 391. 
 Tillotson, JonN, 535. 
 Wallace, H. B ., 357, 543. 
 Wayland, Francis, 299. 
 Webster, Daniel, 343. 
 Whipple, E. P., 237. 
 White, J. Blanco, 477. 
 Whittier, John G., 324, 474. 
 Willis, N. P., 313, 365, 471. 
 Wirt, William, 359. 
 Wordsworth, William, 160, 537, 
 Young, Edward, 350. 
 
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AUTHORS.' 
 
 Bacon, Francis 
 
 Siiakspeare, William 
 
 Beaumont, Francis 
 
 Milton, John 
 
 Tillotson, John 
 
 Dryden, John 
 
 Locke, John 
 
 Lee, Nathaniel 
 
 Le Sage, Alain 
 
 Addison, JosEPn 
 
 Young, Edward 
 
 Berkeley, George 
 
 Pope, Alexander — 
 
 Thomson, James 
 
 Fielding, Henry 
 
 Johnson, Samuel 
 
 Hume, David 
 
 Gray, Thomas .' 
 
 Collins, William 
 
 Smollett, T. G 
 
 Home, John 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver 
 
 Darwin, Erasmus 
 
 Beattie, James 
 
 Gibbon, Edward 
 
 Derzhavin, G. R 
 
 Smith, Charlotte 
 
 Sheridan, R. B 
 
 Schiller, J. C. F. von.. ..".. 
 
 Bowles, W. L 
 
 Baillie, Joanna 
 
 Hurdis, James 
 
 Hall, Robert. . 
 
 Grahame, James 
 
 PAGE 
 
 211 
 
 383 
 142 
 582 
 5;',.-) 
 531 
 210 
 571 
 
 5;J4 
 
 . 351 
 165 
 243 
 85 
 120 
 246 
 237 
 35G 
 526 
 267 
 387 
 196 
 478 
 472 
 95 
 
 . 598 
 
 . 478 
 126 
 
 . 426 
 470 
 574 
 473 
 
 , 213 
 99 
 
 Adams, John Q 
 
 Chateaubriand, F. A.... 
 Wordsworth, William., 
 
 Scott, Walter 
 
 Brown, C. B 
 
 Coleridge, S. T 
 
 Wirt, William 
 
 Jeffrey, Francis 
 
 Nott, Ellphalet 
 
 Landor, W. S 
 
 Campbell, Thomas 
 
 Clay, Henry 
 
 Hazlitt, William 
 
 Davy, Humphrey 
 
 Paulding, J. K.. 
 
 Allston, Washington... 
 
 Key, Francis Scott 
 
 Brougham, Henry 
 
 Chalmers, Thomas 
 
 Ciiannino, W. E 
 
 Moore, TnoMAS 
 
 White, J. Blanco 
 
 Webster, Daniel 
 
 Irving, Washington.. . . 
 
 Pierpont, John 
 
 De Quincey, Thomas 
 
 Dana, R. H 
 
 Byron, George G 
 
 Cooper, J. Fenimore 
 
 Sigourney, Mrs. L. H... . 
 
 Sprague, Charles 
 
 Shelley, P. B 
 
 Hemans, Mrs. F 
 
 Bryant, William C 
 
 PAGR 
 
 349 
 536 
 
 102 
 377 
 
 260 
 
 362 
 
 . 249 
 295 
 365 
 155 
 347 
 487 
 537 
 185 
 227 
 178 
 508 
 150 
 549 
 139 
 
 . 477 
 345 
 113- 
 
 . 303 
 
 94 
 
 105 
 
 . 254 
 413 
 
 . 405 
 199 
 517 
 311 
 132 
 
 1 The numbers here given refer to Biographical Sketches. For Selections, 
 see Alphabetical List of Authors. 
 
SV1 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF AUTHORS. 
 
 pact: 
 
 Dewey, Orytlle 206 
 
 Everett, Edward 287 
 
 Neal, John 806 
 
 Percival, J. G 288 
 
 Proctor, B. W 148 
 
 Halleck, Fitz-Greene 400 
 
 Drake, J. R 180 
 
 Croly, George 300 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas 202 
 
 Coleridge, Hartley 475 
 
 Knowles, J. S 392 
 
 Prescott. William H 169 
 
 Wayland, Francis 301 
 
 Hood, Thomas 141 
 
 Pollok, Robert 252 
 
 Taylor, Henry 518 
 
 Bancroft, George 171 
 
 Chambers, Robert 236 
 
 Morris, George P 284 
 
 Macaulay, T. B 281 
 
 Seward, William H 514 
 
 Cox, William 116 
 
 Greene, Albert G 309 
 
 Prentice, George D 403 
 
 Emerson, R. W 96 
 
 Jerrold, Douglas 129 
 
 Smith, Elizabeth Oakes 421 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 450 
 
 Lunt, George 296 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Bailey, P. J 476 
 
 Lytton, E. Bulwer 337 
 
 Simms, W. G 274 
 
 Willis, N. P 314 
 
 Cheever, George B 405 
 
 Longfellow, H. W 354 
 
 Norton, Caroline E 152 
 
 Hammond, James II 51"* 
 
 Whittier, John G 327 
 
 Holmes, 0. W 233 
 
 Browning, Elizabeth B 558 
 
 Clark, Willis G 133 
 
 Tennyson, Alfred 824 
 
 Poe, Edgar A 553 
 
 Sumner, Charles 232 
 
 Thackeray, William M 280 
 
 Street, A. B 177 
 
 Dickens, Charles 446 
 
 Hoyt, Ralph 299 
 
 Browning, Robert 4S5 
 
 Mackay, Charles 89 
 
 Osgood, Francis S. 546 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward 81 
 
 Motley, John L 159 
 
 Wallace, H. B 358 
 
 Whipple, E. P 239 
 
 Mitchell, D. G 102 
 
 Read, T. Buchanan 174 
 
 Taylor, Bayard 310 
 
PART I. 
 ELOCUTION. 
 
 |j^ LOCUTION is the mode of utterance or delivery of 
 -L-^ any thing spoken. It may be good or bad. 
 
 2. Good Elocution, in reading or speaking, is uttering 
 ideas understandinglv, correctly, and effectively. It cm- 
 braces the two general divisions, Orthoepy and Expression. 
 
 Readers may be divided into three classes, — the mechanical, 
 or those who merely pronounce words, with but slight reference 
 to their connections and signification ; the intelligent, or those 
 who understand the meaning of the separate words, their rela- 
 tive importance in sentences, and historical and other refer- 
 ences ; and the effective, or those who bring out clearly the 
 emotional part, as well as the exact and full meaning of the 
 author. 
 
 To secure effective reading — the only reading that can satisfy 
 a laudable ambition — it will be necessary for the student, first, 
 to acquire such a practical knowledge of the oral elements 
 of the language as shall insure the precise pronunciation of 
 the separate words, with as little apparent effort of the mind 
 as is ordinarily employed in the act of walking ; secondly, to 
 learn the definitions of unusual or peculiarly significant words 
 in the lesson — the explanations of classical, historical, and 
 other allusions — and the analysis of all sentences that embrace 
 parenthetical or other incidental matter; and thirdly, to ac- 
 quire such a command of the perceptive faculties, of the emo- 
 tional nature, and of the elements of expression, as shall 
 enable him to see clearly whatever is represented or described, 
 to enter fully into the feelings of the writer, and to cause the 
 hearers to see, feel, and understand. 
 
20 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ORTHOEPY. 
 
 OETHOEPY is the art of correct pronunciation. It 
 embraces Articulation, Syllabication, and Accent. 
 
 Orthoepy has to do with separate words, — the production of 
 their oral elements, the division of these elements into sylla- 
 bles, and the accentuation of the right syllables. 
 
 I. ARTICULATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 AETICULATION is the distinct utterance of the oral 
 elements in syllables and words. 
 
 2. Okal Elements are the sounds that, uttered sepa- 
 rately or in combination, form syllables and words. 
 
 3. Oral Elements are produced by different positions 
 of the organs of speech, in connection with the voice and 
 the breath. 
 
 4 The principal Organs of Speech are the lips, the 
 teeth, the tongue, and the palate. 
 
 5. Yoice is produced by the action of the breath upon 
 the larynx. 1 
 
 6. Oral Elements are divided into three classes : 
 eighteen tonics, fifteen subtonics, and ten atonics. 
 
 7. Tonics are pure tones produced by the voice, with but 
 slight use of the organs of speech. 
 
 8. Subtonics are tones produced by the voice, modified 
 by the organs of speech. 
 
 9. Atonics are mere breathings, modified by the organs 
 of speech. 
 
 10. Letters are characters that are used to represent 
 or modify the oral elements. 
 
 11. The Alphabet is divided into vowels and consonants. 
 
 • Larynx. — The larynx is the up- consisting of five gristly pieces 
 t>er part of the trachea or windpipe, which form the organ of voice. 
 
ARTICULATION. 21 
 
 12. Vowels are the letters that usually represent the 
 tonic elements. They are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y} 
 
 13. A Diphthong is the union of two vowels in one syl- 
 lable ; as, oa in out. 
 
 14. A Digraph, or Improper Diphthong, is the union of 
 two vowels in a syllable, one of whict r s silent ; as oa in 
 loaf, on in coza't. 
 
 15. A Triphthong is the union of three vowels in one 
 syllable ; as eau in beau, ieu in adi'ew. 
 
 16. Consonants 2 are the letters that usually represent 
 either subtonic or atonic elements. They are of two kinds, 
 single letters and combined, including all the letters of the 
 alphabet, except the vowels, and the combinations ch, sh, 
 wh, ng ; th subtonic, and th atonic. 
 
 17. Labials are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 
 formed by the lips. They are b, p, w s and wh. M may be 
 regarded as a nasal labial, as its sound is affected by the 
 nose. F and v are labia-dentals. 
 
 18. Dentals are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 
 formed by the teeth. They are j, s, z, ch, and sh. 
 
 19. Linguals are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 
 formed by the tongue. They are d, I, r, and t. j\ r is a 
 nasal-lingual ; ?/, a lingua-palatal, and th, a lingua-dental. 
 
 20. Palatals are letters whose oral elements are chiefly 
 formed by the palate. They are g and h. KG is a nasal- 
 palatal. 
 
 21. Cognates are letters whose oral elements are pro- 
 duced by the same organs, in a similar manner ; thus, / is 
 a cognate of v ; k of g, &c. 
 
 22. Alphabetic Equivalents are letters, or combinations 
 of letters, that represent the same elements, or sounds: 
 thus, i is an equivalent of e, in purue. 
 
 1 W not a Vowel. — As «\ stand- combinations because they are rarely 
 
 ing alone, does not represent a pure used in words without having a vow- 
 
 or unmodified tone in the English el connected with them in the same 
 
 language, it is not here classified syllable, although their oral elements 
 
 with the vowels. may be uttered separately, and with- 
 
 8 Consonant. — The term conto- out the aid of a vowel. Indeed, they 
 
 nant, literally meaning, sounding frequently form syllables by them. 
 
 vritfi, is applied to these letters and selves, as in fechh (bl), taken (In). 
 
22 
 
 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 II. 
 OKAL .ELEMENTS. 
 
 IN sounding the tonics, the organs should be fully 
 opened, and the stream of sound from the throat should 
 be thrown, as much as possible, directly upward against the 
 roof of the mouth. These elements should open with an 
 abrupt and explosive force, and then diminish gradually and 
 equably to the end. 
 
 In producing the subtonic and atonic elements, it is im- 
 portant to press the organs upon each other with great 
 firmness and tension ; to throw the breath upon them with 
 force ; and to prolong the sound sufficiently to give it a full 
 impression on the ear. 
 
 The instructor will first require the students to pronounce 
 a catch-word once, and then produce the oral element rep- 
 resented by the figured vowel, or Italic consonant, four 
 times — thus ; age, — a, a, a, a ; ate, — a, a, a, a': at, — a, a, a, 
 a ; ash, — a, a, a, a, (fee. He will exercise the class until 
 each student can utter consecutively all the elementary 
 sounds as arranged in the following 
 
 TABLE OF ORAL ELEMENTS. 
 
 
 
 
 I. 
 
 TONICS. 
 
 
 
 
 a or a, 1 
 
 as in 
 
 age, 
 
 ate. 
 
 
 e or e, 
 
 as in 
 
 he, 
 
 these. 
 
 a or a, 
 
 a 
 
 at, 
 
 ash. 
 
 
 e or e, 
 
 a 
 
 elk, 
 
 end. 
 
 8 
 
 a, 
 
 a 
 
 art, 
 
 arm. 
 
 
 s 4 
 
 e, 4 
 
 a 
 
 her, 
 
 verse. 
 
 4 
 
 a 
 
 Ml, 
 
 ball. 
 
 
 1 or T, 
 
 it 
 
 ice, 
 
 child. 
 
 a, 
 
 a 
 
 bare, 
 
 care. 
 
 
 ! or I, 
 
 a 
 
 ink, 
 
 inch. 
 
 a, 3 
 
 u 
 
 ask, 
 
 glass. 
 
 
 6 or 6, 
 
 a 
 
 old, 
 
 home. 
 
 1 Long and Short Vowels. — The 
 attention of the class should be called 
 to the fact that the first element, or 
 sound, represented by ich of the 
 vowels, is usually indicated by a hori- 
 zontal line placed over the letter, and 
 the second sound by a carved line. 
 
 2 A Fifth.— The 'fifth element, or 
 sound, represented by a, is its first 
 or Alphabetic sound, modified or 
 softened by r. In its production, 
 
 the lips, placed nearly together, are 
 held immovable while the student 
 tries to say, a. 
 
 3 A Sixth. — The sixth element rep 
 resented by a, is a sound interme- 
 diate between a, as heard in at, ash, 
 and a, as in arm, art. It is produced by 
 prolonging and slightly softening &. 
 
 * E Third. — The third element rep- 
 resented by e, is eas heard in end, pro- 
 longed, and modified or softened by r. 
 
TABLE OF ORAL ELEMENTS. 
 
 23 
 
 o or o, 1 
 u or Q, 2 
 
 as in on, 
 
 a 
 a 
 
 do, 
 cube, 
 
 frost, 
 prove. 
 
 cure. 
 
 u or u, as in bud, 
 full, 
 our. 
 
 a 
 
 on. 
 
 ii 
 a 
 
 b, as in lube, 
 did, 
 
 join, 
 /ake, 
 ?>/ild, 
 ?» ame, 
 
 d, 
 
 a 
 
 ff, 
 
 a 
 
 • 
 
 a 
 
 *, 
 
 a 
 
 m, 
 
 a 
 
 n, 
 
 a 
 
 *9, 
 
 a 
 
 n. 
 
 orZ». 
 dim. 
 
 gig- 
 
 ^'oint. 
 
 /ane. 
 
 ?y/ind. 
 
 ?iine. 
 
 sung. 
 
 SUBTOXICS. 
 
 r, 3 as in mke, 
 
 y, 
 
 2. 
 
 ii 
 
 ii 
 ii 
 ii 
 a 
 a 
 
 this, 
 vine, 
 wake, 
 yard, 
 
 2-est, 
 azure. 
 
 hush, 
 push. 
 house. 
 
 bar. 
 with. 
 
 rice, 
 wise. 
 yes. 
 gaze. 
 
 glazier. 
 
 III. ATOXICS. 
 
 /, 
 
 as in 
 
 ykme, 
 
 /i/e- 
 
 £, as in 
 
 far/, 
 
 toast. 
 
 />, 
 
 a 
 
 //ark, 
 
 //arm. 
 
 th, " 
 
 ^//ank, 
 
 youth. 
 
 *, 
 
 a 
 
 Zind, 
 
 Z'iss. 
 
 cA, " 
 
 c//ase, 
 
 marcA. 
 
 1>> 
 
 a 
 
 py;e, 
 
 _£>um/>. 
 
 */>, " 
 
 s/ade, 
 
 6-// ake. 
 
 *i 
 
 a 
 
 *ame, 
 
 sense. 
 
 w//, 4 " 
 
 w//ale, 
 
 W/ite. 
 
 1 O modified. — The modified oral 
 element of 0, in this work, is repre- 
 sented by (6 or 6) the same marks as 
 its regular second power. This mod- 
 ified or medium element may be pro- 
 duced by uttering the sound of o in 
 not, slightly softened, with twice its 
 usual volume, or prolongation. It is 
 usually given when short o is imme- 
 diately followed by ff,ft, ss, ft, or th, 
 as in off, soft, cross, cost, broth ; also 
 in a number of words where short o 
 is directly followed by n, or final 
 riff, as in go/?e, begone ; \ong, along, 
 yrong, song, strong, thong, throng, 
 wrong. Smart says, To give the 
 extreme short sound of o to such 
 words is affectation ; to give them 
 the full sound of broad a (a in all), 
 is vulgar. 
 
 3 U initial — preceded by R. — JJ, 
 at the beginning of words, when 
 
 long, has the sound of yu, as in 
 ■use. When u long, or its alphabetic 
 equivalent ew, is preceded by r, or 
 the sound of sh, in the same sylla- 
 ble, it has always the sound of o in 
 do; as, rude, sure, brew. 
 
 3 R trilled.— Iu trilling r, the tip 
 of the tongue is made to vibrate 
 against the roof of the mouth. U 
 may be trilled when immediately fol- 
 lowed by a vowel in the same syl- 
 lable. "When thus situated in em- 
 phatic words, it should always be 
 trilled. Frequently require the stu- 
 dent, after a full inhalation, to trill r 
 continuously, as long as possible. 
 
 4 Wh. — To produce the oral ele- 
 ment of irh, the student will blow 
 from the center of the mouth — first 
 compressing the lips, and then sud- 
 denly relaxing them while the air Ls 
 escaping. 
 
24 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 m. 
 
 COGNATES. 
 
 FIRST require the student to pronounce distinctly the 
 word containing the atonic element, then the subtonic 
 cognate, uttering the element after each word — thus : lip, jp/ 
 orb, b, &c. The attention of the pupil should be called to 
 the fact that cognates are produced by the same organs, in 
 a similar manner, and only differ in one being an undertone, 
 and the other a whisper. 
 
 ATONICS. SUBTONICS. 
 
 lip, p oro, b. 
 
 fife, f vase, v. 
 
 tvJate, wh wise, w. 
 
 save, s zeal, z, 
 
 shade, sh azure, z. 
 
 c/mrm, ch i i n > /• 
 
 tart, t did, d. 
 
 thing, th. . . this, fh. 
 
 JcmJc, h gig, g. 
 
 IV. 
 ALPHABETIC EQUIVALENTS. 
 
 THE instructor will require the students to read or 
 recite the table of Alphabetic Equivalents, using the 
 following formula : The Alphabetic Equivalents of A first 
 'power are ai, an, ay, e, ea, ee, ei, ey ; as in the words, ga/71, 
 gawge, stray, melee', great, vem, the?/. 
 
 I. TONIC ELEMENTS. 
 
 For a, ai, an, ay, e, ea, ee, ei, ey ; as in gam, ga?/ge, stray, 
 melee', great, \ein, they. 
 
 For a, ai, ua ; as in pla/d, gaaranty. 
 
 For a, an, e, ea, ua / as in haunt, sergeant, heart, guard. 
 
 For a, au, aw, ea, o, oa, ou; as in fault, haa:k, Gearge, 
 eork, braad, bought. 
 
SUBTONIC AND ATONIC ELEMENTS. 25 
 
 For a, ai, e, ea, ei/ as in chair, th^re, swear, heir. 
 
 For e, ea, ee, ei, eo, ey, i, ie j as in read, deep, ceil, p^ple, 
 kry, valise, field. 
 
 For e, a, ai, ay, ea, ei, eo, ie, u, ice / as in any, said, says, 
 head, heifer, leopard, fWcnd, bury, guess. 
 
 For e, ea, i, o, ou, u, ice, y ; as in earth, girl, word, scoz^rge, 
 hum, guerdon, myrrh. 
 
 For i, ai, ei, eye, ie, oi, id, uy, y, ye; as in aisle, sWght, 
 eye, die, choir, guide, buy, my, rye. 
 
 For i, ai, e, ee, ie, o, oi, u, id, y ; as in captrmi, pretty, 
 been, sieve, women, tortoise, busj, bidld, hymn. 
 
 For 6, au, eau, eo, ew, oa, oe, oo, ou, ow / as in hautboy, 
 beau, yeoman, sew, coal, foe, door, sou], blow. 
 
 For 6, a, ou, ow / as in what, ho^gh, knowledge. 
 
 For 6, ew, oe, oo, ou, it, ui ; as in grew, shoe, spoon, soun, 
 rude, fruit. 
 
 For u, eau, eu, ew, ieu, tew, ue, id; as in beauty, feud, 
 new, adieu, view, hue, juice. 
 
 For u, o, oe, oo, ouf as in love, does, bloo<:7, young. 
 
 For u, o, oo, ou j wolf, book, could. 
 
 For ou, ow j as in now. 
 
 For oi (ai), oy/ as in b^>y. 
 
 n. SUBTONIC AND ATONIC ELEMENTS. 
 
 For f, (jh, ph / as in cony//, nymph. 
 For j, ^ / as in yem, yin. 
 
 For k, c, eh, gh, q ; as in cole, conch, lowgh, etiquette. 
 For s, c / as in cell. 
 
 For t, cl, th, phth / as in danced, Thames, phthisic. 
 For v,f,ph; as in of, Stephen. 
 For y, i ; as in pimon. 
 For z, c, s, x ; as in suffice, rose, ^ebec. 
 For z, g, s / as in rouye, osier. 
 For ng, n * as in a;iger, ba»k. 
 For ch, t ; as in fustian. 
 
 For sh, c, ch, s, ss, t ; as in ocean, chaise, sure, assure, 
 martial, 
 
26 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 V. 
 ORAL ELEMENTS COMBINED. 
 
 AFTEE the instructor has given a class thorough drill 
 on the preceding tables as arranged, the following 
 exercises will be found of great value, to improve the or- 
 gans of speech and the voice, as well as to familiarize 
 the student with different combinations of sounds. Stu- 
 dents will not pass from these exercises until they can utter 
 the elements represented by the figured vowels in whatever 
 order the instructor may require. 
 
 As the fifth element represented by a, and the third ele- 
 ment of e, are always immediately followed by the oral 
 element of r in words, the r is introduced in like manner 
 in these exercises. Since the sixth sound of a, when not 
 a syllable by itself, is always immediately followed by the 
 oral element of /, n, or s, in words, these letters are here 
 employed in the same manner. 
 
 I. TONICS AND SUBTONICS. 
 
 1. ba, 
 
 ba, 
 
 b^ 
 
 ba, 
 
 bar, 
 
 baf ; 
 
 M, 
 
 be, 
 
 b£r; 
 
 h, 
 
 W; 
 
 bo, 
 
 bo, 
 
 bo ; 
 
 bu, 
 
 bu, 
 
 bii; 
 
 bou. 
 
 ab, 
 
 ab, 
 
 ab, 
 
 ab, 
 
 arb, 
 
 if; 
 
 eb, 
 
 eb, 
 
 erb; 
 
 ib, 
 
 lb; 
 
 6b, 
 
 6b, 
 
 6b ; 
 
 lib. 
 
 ub, 
 
 ub; 
 
 oub. 
 
 da, 
 
 da, 
 
 da, 
 
 da, 
 
 dar, 
 
 das ; 
 
 de, 
 
 de, 
 
 der ; 
 
 ai, 
 
 cli ; 
 
 do, 
 
 do, 
 
 do; 
 
 du, 
 
 du, 
 
 du; 
 
 dou. 
 
 ad, 
 
 ad, 
 
 ad, 
 
 ad, 
 
 ard, 
 
 if; 
 
 ed, 
 
 ed, 
 
 erd; 
 
 id, 
 
 Id; 
 
 6d, 
 
 6d, 
 
 6d ; 
 
 iid, 
 
 ud, 
 
 ud; 
 
 oud. 
 
 ga, 
 
 ag> 
 *g> 
 
 ga, 
 
 g'; 
 
 ag, 
 
 3 
 
 ga, 
 g°, 
 
 3 
 Il g> 
 
 "Si 
 
 ga, 
 
 g ( % 
 ag, 
 &g, 
 
 gar, 
 
 gu; 
 
 arg, 
 
 5g ; 
 
 gan ; 
 
 gu, 
 
 af; 
 
 u g, 
 
 ge, 
 
 s 
 
 g ll > 
 
 eg, 
 
 fig, 
 
 g3, 
 
 3 
 
 g u ; 
 
 ger; 
 gou. 
 erg; 
 crag. 
 
 2. j as, 
 
 ft 
 
 las, 
 
 jar, 
 
 J 1 ! 
 
 lar, 
 
 lb, 
 
 • 3 
 
 la, 
 
 • 3 
 
 J a, 
 
 la, 
 
 • 9 
 
 • 1 
 
 la, 
 
 • 3 
 
 la ; 
 
 • 3 
 
 jer, 
 
 • 9 
 
 ler, 
 
 • » 
 
 j u ; 
 is, 
 
 J e ; 
 
 jou. 
 le; 
 
 15, 
 
 i}; 
 
 i/>, 
 
 15, 
 
 16; 
 
 ia, 
 
 1 3 
 hi, 
 
 16; 
 
 lou. 
 
 u, 
 
 arl, 
 
 al, 
 
 al, 
 
 B, 
 
 al ; 
 
 erJ, 
 
 a, 
 
 61; 
 
 11, 
 
 11 5 
 
 61, 
 
 61, 
 
 61; 
 
 a, 
 
 ul, 
 
 61; 
 
 oui. 
 
TONIO AND ATOXIC COMBINATIONS 
 
 27 
 
 mas, 
 
 mar, 
 
 md, 
 
 ma. 
 
 ma, 
 
 ma; 
 
 mer, 
 
 me, 
 
 me ; 
 
 ml. 
 
 mi ; 
 
 mo, 
 
 m6, 
 
 mo ; 
 
 mil, 
 
 mu, 
 
 mu; 
 
 mou 
 
 ai;' 
 
 arm, 
 
 am, 
 
 am. 
 
 am, 
 
 am ; 
 
 LTlll, 
 
 om, 
 
 em ; 
 
 Im, 
 
 im ; 
 
 5m, 
 
 om, 
 
 om ; 
 
 um, 
 
 um, 
 
 inn ; 
 
 oum. 
 
 3. na, 
 
 na, 
 
 na, 
 
 nar, 
 
 naf, 
 
 na ; 
 
 ne, 
 
 ner, 
 
 nfi ; 
 
 ni, 
 
 9 
 
 in; 
 
 no, 
 
 no, 
 
 no ; 
 
 nu, 
 
 nil, 
 
 nu; 
 
 nou. 
 
 ang, 
 
 arng, 
 
 ang, 
 
 if, 
 
 ang, 
 
 ang ; 
 
 £ng, 
 
 erng, 
 
 OTXcr ' 
 
 *ng, 
 
 m g; 
 
 on g, 
 
 6ng, 
 
 6ng; 
 
 u ng, 
 
 nng, 
 
 nng ; 
 
 oung 
 
 ra, 
 
 ra, 
 
 rar, 
 
 ra, 
 
 4 
 
 ra, 
 
 raf ; 
 
 re, 
 
 rer, 
 
 re ; 
 
 ri, 
 
 ri; 
 
 ri, 
 
 ro, 
 
 ro ; 
 
 ru, 
 
 ■ 
 
 ru, 
 
 ru; 
 
 rou. 
 
 4. £ha, 
 
 fii a, 
 
 fiiar, 
 
 fliaf, 
 
 fhd, 
 
 fha ; 
 
 fhor, 
 
 ■flic, 
 
 the , 
 
 flii, 
 
 fill; 
 
 fho, 
 
 Hio, 
 
 fho; 
 
 fhii, 
 
 fllll, 
 
 fliu; 
 
 fhou. 
 
 •ith, 
 
 Afli, 
 
 af, 
 
 afh, 
 
 arCh, 
 
 afh; 
 
 o£h, 
 
 orlh, 
 
 efh ; 
 
 Ifli, 
 
 Ifli; 
 
 ofh, 
 
 6fh, 
 
 ofli ; 
 
 u£h, 
 
 urh, 
 
 ufii ; 
 
 oivfti. 
 
 va, 
 
 ■ 
 va, 
 
 var, 
 
 ■ 
 va, 
 
 A' at, 
 
 4 
 
 va ; 
 
 VLT, 
 
 vo, 
 
 yS; 
 
 *i, 
 
 vi ; 
 
 vo, 
 
 yo, 
 
 vo ; 
 
 yu, 
 
 
 vu ; 
 
 vou. 
 
 aV, 
 
 at, 
 
 av, 
 
 av, 
 
 av, 
 
 arv ; 
 
 erv. 
 
 Ov, 
 
 ev; 
 
 iv ? 
 
 s 
 
 iv ; 
 
 ov. 
 
 ov, 
 
 6v; 
 
 uv, 
 
 uv, 
 
 uv; 
 
 ouv. 
 
 wa, 
 
 w&, 
 
 war, 
 
 wa, 
 
 wd, 
 
 waf ; 
 
 wer, 
 
 2 
 
 we, 
 
 we; 
 
 wl, 
 
 wi; 
 
 wo, 
 
 wo, 
 
 wo ; 
 
 wu, 
 
 wu, 
 
 wu ; 
 
 wou. 
 
 5. ya, 
 
 ya, 
 
 ya, 
 
 va, 
 
 yar, 
 
 van ; 
 
 y e ? 
 
 y«, 
 
 ver : 
 
 fh 
 
 s 
 
 y&> 
 
 9 
 
 yo, 
 
 B 
 
 yo; 
 
 y*« 
 
 9 
 
 yn, 
 
 yfl ; 
 
 vou. 
 
 •> 
 
 zou ; 
 
 ZU, 
 
 zu, 
 
 zu; 
 
 zo, 
 
 zo, 
 
 zo ; 
 
 a 
 Zl, 
 
 zl; 
 
 ze*r, 
 
 ze, 
 
 ze ; 
 
 zaf, 
 
 zar, 
 
 za, 
 
 za, 
 
 9 
 
 za, 
 
 za. 
 
 onz; 
 
 11Z, 
 
 UZ, 
 
 uz ; 
 
 3 
 
 oz, 
 
 9 
 
 OZ, 
 
 oz ; 
 
 iz, 
 
 iz; 
 
 §rz, 
 
 6z, 
 
 ez ; 
 
 if, 
 
 arz, 
 
 az. 
 
 az, 
 
 az, 
 
 az. 
 
 II. TONIC AND ATONIC COMBINATIONS. 
 
 1. fa, 
 
 ft. 
 
 fa, fa. 
 
 fi 
 
 ak, ak, 
 
 Ik, Ik ; 
 
 pa, pa, 
 
 vh v' 1 ; 
 
 ft. 
 
 liar, han, ha, 
 hi. hi : 
 
 no, 
 ak, 
 ok, 
 pa, 
 po, 
 
 fa, 
 
 far, 
 
 las ; 
 
 &, 
 
 fo, 
 
 fi; 
 
 fu, 
 
 fu, 
 
 ha, 
 
 ha, 
 
 ha ; 
 
 ho, 
 
 ho, 
 
 ho ; 
 
 hu, 
 
 hii. 
 
 ak, 
 
 ark, 
 
 fif; 
 
 ek, 
 
 ok, 
 
 ok ; 
 
 uk, 
 
 uk, 
 
 pa, 
 
 par, 
 
 paf; 
 
 pe, 
 
 po, 
 
 po; 
 
 pu. 
 
 pn, 
 
 fe, 
 fu; 
 
 ho, 
 hu 
 
 i' 
 
 tik; 
 
 pe, 
 
 pn; 
 
 for ; 
 fou. 
 her ; 
 hou. 
 erk ; 
 ouk. 
 
 pei*; 
 
 pou. 
 
28 
 
 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. af, 
 
 ars, 
 
 as, 
 
 as, 
 
 as, 
 
 as ; 
 
 ers, 
 
 es, 
 
 es; 
 
 is, 
 
 is; 
 
 
 OS, 
 
 6s; 
 
 us, 
 
 us, 
 
 us ; 
 
 ous. 
 
 tas, 
 
 A. " 
 
 tar, 
 
 til, 
 
 ta, 
 
 ta, 
 
 ta; 
 
 ter, 
 
 to, 
 
 te; 
 
 ti, 
 
 tl \ 
 
 to, 
 
 tS, 
 
 to; 
 
 til, 
 
 tu, 
 
 tu; 
 
 tou. 
 
 thaf, 
 
 thar, 
 
 tha, 
 
 tha, 
 
 tha, 
 
 tha ; 
 
 ther, 
 
 the, 
 
 the; 
 
 ith, 
 
 ith ; 
 
 6th, 
 
 6 th, 
 
 6th; 
 
 uth, 
 
 uth, 
 
 uth; 
 
 outh. 
 
 ouch : 
 
 uch, 
 
 iich, 
 
 iich; 
 
 och, 
 
 och, 
 
 och ; 
 
 icb, 
 
 Ich ; 
 
 erch, 
 
 och, 
 
 ech; 
 
 af, 
 
 ach, 
 
 ach, 
 
 arch, 
 
 * i 
 
 ach. 
 
 3. chou : 
 
 cha, 
 
 chu, 
 
 chii; 
 
 ch6, 
 
 cho, 
 
 ch6; 
 
 dd, 
 
 chi; 
 
 cher, 
 
 che, 
 
 che ; 
 
 cha, 
 
 cha, 
 
 cha, 
 
 cha, 
 
 char, 
 
 chan. 
 
 oush ; 
 
 ush, 
 
 ush, 
 
 ush; 
 
 osh, 
 
 osh, 
 
 osh ; 
 
 ish, 
 
 ish ; 
 
 teh, 
 
 esh, 
 
 esii ; 
 
 ash, 
 
 af, 
 
 ash, 
 
 ash, 
 
 ash, 
 
 arsh. 
 
 shou ; 
 
 shu, 
 
 shu, 
 
 shu ; 
 
 sho, 
 
 sho, 
 
 sho; 
 
 sin, 
 
 sin ; 
 
 sh&r, 
 
 she, 
 
 she; 
 
 shan, 
 
 shar, 
 
 sha, 
 
 sha, 
 
 sha, 
 
 sha. 
 
 whou;whu, 
 
 whu, 
 
 whu ; 
 
 who, 
 
 who, 
 
 who ; 
 
 win, 
 
 win ; 
 
 wher, 
 
 wlie, 
 
 whe ; 
 
 whas, 
 
 whar 
 
 , wha, 
 
 wha, 
 
 wha, 
 
 wha. 
 
 VI. 
 ERRORS IN ARTICULATION. 
 
 ERRORS in Articulation arise chiefly, first, from the 
 omission of one or more elements in a word ; as, 
 
 an' 
 
 for 
 
 and. 
 
 sta'm 
 
 for 
 
 stoT-m. 
 
 frien's 
 
 a 
 
 friends. 
 
 wa'm 
 
 a 
 
 wann. 
 
 blln'ness " 
 
 hlin^ ness. 
 
 boist'rous " 
 
 bois ter ous. 
 
 fac's 
 
 a 
 
 facte. 
 
 chick'n 
 
 u 
 
 chick en. 
 
 sof ly 
 
 a 
 
 soft ly. 
 
 his t'ry 
 
 a 
 
 his to ry. 
 
 fiel's 
 
 u 
 
 fields. 
 
 nov'l 
 
 a 
 
 nov el. 
 
 wil's 
 
 a 
 
 wikfe. 
 
 trav'l 
 
 a 
 
 trav el. 
 
 Secondly, from uttering one or more elements that should 
 not be sounded ; as, 
 
 ev en 
 
 for 
 
 ev'n. 
 
 rav el 
 
 for 
 
 rav'l. 
 
 heav en 
 
 a 
 
 heav'n. 
 
 sev en 
 
 U 
 
 sev'n. 
 
 tak en 
 
 u 
 
 tak'n. 
 
 sof ten 
 
 a 
 
 sof'n. 
 
 sick en 
 
 a 
 
 sick'n. 
 
 shak en 
 
 a 
 
 shak'n. 
 
 driv el 
 
 a 
 
 driv'l. 
 
 shov el 
 
 a 
 
 shov'l. 
 
 grov el 
 
 u 
 
 <>tov'1. 
 
 shriv el 
 
 u 
 
 shriv'l. 
 
WORDS. 
 
 29 
 
 Tliirdly, from substituting one element for another ; as, 
 
 c6urse. 
 
 set 
 
 sSncc 
 
 shet 
 
 for g!t 
 
 care 
 
 dance 
 
 past 
 
 ask 
 
 grass 
 
 mil 
 
 urirl 
 
 a iran 
 
 aganst 
 
 berth 
 
 for sit. 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 it 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 since. 
 
 shut. 
 
 for get. 
 
 ciire. 
 
 dance. 
 
 past. 
 
 ask. 
 
 grass. 
 
 s/triW. 
 
 whirl. 
 
 again (a gen). 
 
 against (a genst). 
 
 hearth (harth). 
 
 for 
 u 
 
 it 
 
 a 
 a 
 
 carse 
 re part 
 tr5f fv 
 pa rent 
 bun net 
 chil drun " 
 sul lcr " 
 mcl hr 
 pil L r 
 mo m?/nt 
 harm 1/ss " 
 kind mss ' 
 
 u 
 a 
 ti 
 
 tvis per 
 sing bi 
 
 u 
 a 
 
 re port, 
 tro phy. 
 par ent. 
 hon net. 
 chil dren. 
 eel lar. 
 mel \vw. 
 pil Ibw. 
 mo ment. 
 harm less, 
 kind ik'SS. 
 whis per. 
 sing ing. 
 
 vn. 
 
 WOKDS. 
 
 A WORD is one or more Oral elements, or letters used 
 to represent an idea. 
 
 2. Words are divided into primitive, derivative, simple, 
 and compound. 
 
 3. A iTJMiTrvE word istnot derived, hut constitutes a 
 root from which other words are formed ; as faith, ease. 
 
 4. A derivative wopd is formed of a primitive and an 
 affix or prefix ; as faitli/W, disease. 
 
 5. A simple word is one that can not be divided without 
 destroying the sense ; as an, the, book. 
 
 6. A compound word is formed by two or more words ; as 
 inkstand, book-binder, laughing-stock. 
 
 vm. 
 
 ANALYSIS OF WORDS. 
 
 IN order to secure a practical knowledge of the preced- 
 ing definitions and tables, to leam to spell spoken words 
 by their oral elements, and to understand the uses of let- 
 
30 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ters in written words, the instructor will require the student 
 to master the following exhaustive, though simple analysis. 
 
 Analysis. — 1st. The word salve, in pronunciation, is 
 formed by the union of three oral elements ; s a v — salve. 
 [Here let the student utter the three oral elements separa- 
 tely, and then pronounce the word.] The first is a modified 
 breathing ; hence, it is an atonic. 1 The second is a pure 
 tone ; hence, it is a tonic. The third is a modified tone ; 
 hence, it is a subtonic. 
 
 2d. The word salve, in writing, is represented by five 
 letters ; s a 1 v e — salve. S represents an atonic ; hence, it 
 is a consonant. Its oral element is chiefly formed by the 
 teeth ; hence, it is a dental. Its oral element is produced 
 by the same organs and in a similar manner as the first 
 oral element of z ; hence, it is a cognate of z. A represents 
 a tonic ; hence, it is a vowel. L is silent. V represents a 
 subtonic ; hence, it is a consonant. Its oral element is 
 chiefly formed by the lower lip and the upper teeth ; hence, 
 it is a labia-dental. Its oral element is formed by the same 
 organs and in a similar manner as that of/; hence, it is a 
 cognate of /. E is silent. 
 
 Analysis. — 1st. The word shoe, in 'pronunciation, is formed 
 by the union of two oral elements ; sh 6 — shoe. The first 
 is a modified breathing ; hence, it is an atonic. The second 
 is a pure tone ; hence, it is a tonic. 
 
 2d. The word shoe, in writing, is represented by four 
 letters ; s h o e — shoe. The combination sh represents an 
 atonic ; hence, it is a consonant. Its oral element is chiefly 
 formed by the teeth ; hence, it is a dental. Its oral ele- 
 ment is produced by the same organs and in a similar 
 manner as the second oral element represented by z ; 
 hence, it is a cognate of z. The combination oe is formed 
 by the union of two vowels, one of which is silent ; hence, 
 
 J The analysis logical. — It will stated, is as follows : — All modified 
 be seen that this analysis is strictly breathings are Atonies ; 
 logical ; and that each conclusion is The oral element of * is a modi- 
 deduced from two premises, one of fied breathing ; 
 which (the major proposition) is sup- Hence, the oral element of s is an 
 pressed. The first syllogism, fully Atonic 
 
ANALYSIS OF WORDS. 31 
 
 it is an improper diphthong. It represents the oral ele- 
 ment usually represented by o ; hence, it is an alphabetic 
 equivalent of 6. 
 
 Analysis — 1st. The compound word fbutt'-bud is a dis- 
 syllable, accented on the penult. In pronunciation, it is 
 formed by the union of seven oral elements ; f r 6t'-b iid — 
 fruit'-bud. The first is a modified breathing ; hence, it is 
 an atonic. The second is a modified tone ; hence, it is a 
 subtonic. The third is a pure tone ; hence, it is a tonic. 
 The fourth is a modified breathing ; hence, it is an atonic. 
 The fifth is a modified tone ; hence, it is a subtonic. The 
 sixth is a pure tone ; hence, it is a tonic. The seventh is a 
 modified tone ; hence, it is a subtonic. 
 
 2d. The word fruit-bud, in writing, is represented by 
 eight letters ; fruit-bud. F represents an atonic ; hence, 
 it is a consonant. Its oral element is chiefly formed by the 
 lower lip and the upper teeth ; hence, it is a labia-dental. 
 Its oral element is produced by the same organs and in a 
 similar manner as that of v ; hence, it is a cognate of v. 
 II represents a subtonic ; hence, it is a consonant. Its oral 
 element is chiefly formed by the tongue ; hence, it is a lin- 
 gual. The combination ui is formed by the union of two 
 vowels ; hence, it is a diphthong. It represents the oral 
 element usually represented by 6 ; hence, it is an alpha- 
 betic equivalent of 6. T represents an atonic ; hence, it is 
 a consonant. Its oral element is chiefly formed by the 
 tongue ; hence, it is a lingual. Its oral element is produced 
 by the same organ and in a similar manner as that of d ; 
 hence, it is a cognate of d. B represents a subtonic ; hence, 
 it is a consonant. Its oral clement is chief! v formed by the 
 lips ; hence, it is a labial. Its oral element is produced by 
 the same organs and in a similar manner as that of p ; 
 hence, it is a cognate of p. U represents a tonic ; hence, 
 it is a vowel. D represents a subtonic ; hence, it is a con- 
 sonant. Its oral element is chiefly formed by the tongue ; 
 hence, it is a lingual. Its oral element is produced by the 
 same organ and in a similar manner as that of t ; hence, it 
 is a cognate of t. 
 
32 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 IX. 
 
 RULES IN ARTICULATION. 
 
 A AS the name of a letter, or when used as an emphatic 
 word, should always be pronounced a (a in age) ; as, 
 
 She did not say that the three boys knew the letter a, but 
 that a boy knew it. 
 
 2. The word A, when not emphatic, is marked short (a), 1 
 though in quality it should be pronounced nearly like a as 
 heard in ask, grass ; as, 
 
 Give a baby sister a smile, a kind word, and a kiss. 
 
 3. The, when not emphatic nor immediately followed by 
 a word that commences with a vowel sound, should be pro- 
 nounced thu ; as, 
 
 The (fliu) peach, the (mu) plum, the apple, and the (thu) 
 cherry are yours. Did he ask for a pen, or for the pen ? 
 
 4. U preceded BY R. — When u long (u in tube), or its 
 alphabetic equivalent eiv, is preceded by r, or the sound of 
 sh, in the same syllable, it has always the sound of o in 
 do; as, 
 
 Are you sure that shrewd youth was rude ? 
 
 5. R may BE trilled when immediately followed by a 
 vowel sound in the same syllable. When thus situated in 
 emphatic words, it should always be trilled ; as, 
 
 He is both brave and true. She said scratching, not scrawling, 
 
 X. 
 
 EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. 
 
 SILENT letters are here omitted, in most of the exam- 
 ples, and the words are spelled as they should be pro- 
 nounced. Students will read the sentences several times, 
 both separately and in concert, uttering all the oral ele- 
 ments with force and distinctness. They will also analyze 
 
 1 A initial. — A in many words, or volume of sound being less than 
 as an initial unaccented syllable, is that of a sixth power (a), as in alas, 
 also marked short (a), its quantity aniass, abaft. 
 
EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION. 33 
 
 the words, both as spoken and written, and name the rules 
 in articulation that are illustrated by the exercises. 
 
 Sentences that are printed in the usual style are in- 
 tended for dictation exercises, in which silent letters will be 
 omitted and the words so written as to represent their cor- 
 rect and exact pronunciation. 
 
 1. Thou ladst down and sleptst. 
 
 2. Thu hold, bad baiz brok bolts and barz. 
 
 3. Hi on a hil II u herd harsez harni hofs. 
 
 4. Sliur al her pafhz ar pafhz 6v pes. 
 
 5. Ba ! that'z not sties dollarz, but a dollar. 
 
 6. Charj the old man to ch6z a chats chGz. 
 
 7. Lit eeking lit, hath lit uv lit begild. 
 
 8. Thu hosts stud stll, In silent wimder fikst. 
 
 9. A thouzand shreks far hoples inert! kal. 
 
 10. Thu follslmes 6-v folz iz lolli. 
 
 11. Both'z yoths with troths yiiz 6fhz. 
 
 12. Arm it with ragz, a pigmi stra wil pers it 4 
 
 13. Kou set fhu teth and strech thu nostril wid. 
 14:. He wocht and wept, he felt and prad far al. 
 15. II Iz iz, amidst fhu mists, mezerd an azer ski. 
 1G. Thu febl, fritnd frernan febl! fat far fredum. 
 
 17. Whispers of revenge passed silently around among 
 the troops. 
 
 18. ~N6 shet nar shroud enshrind flioz shrunsrkn shredz 6v 
 shrivld kla. 
 
 19. lie has prints of an ice-house, an ocean, and wasts 
 and deserts. 
 
 20. Thu whiilz wheld and wherld, and bard fhar brad, 
 broun baks. 
 
 21. Jllz and Jasn Jdnz kan nut sa, — Arora, alas, amas, 
 manna, villa, nar Luna. 
 
 22. It will pain nobody, if the sad dangler regain neither 
 rope. 
 
 23. The ragged madman, in his ramble, did madly ran- 
 sack every pantry in the parish. 
 
 24. What fhou wudst hill that fliou wudst holilf. 
 
34: NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 25. He aksepts fhe 6fF!s, ekspekts to lern fhu fakts, and 
 attemts bl hiz akts to konsel hiz falts. 
 
 2G. Prithee, blithe youth, do not mouth your words "when 
 you wreathe your face with smiles. 
 
 27. That fellow shot a sparrow on a willow, in the nar- 
 row meadow, near the yellow house. 
 
 28. Thu strif seseth, pes approcheth,' and fhu gud man 
 rejaiseth. 
 
 29. Thu shrod shroz bad him sa that fhu vil viksnz yuzd 
 shrugz, and sharp shril shreks. 
 
 30. Shorli, fho wended, fhu prudent rekrot wud not et 
 that krod frot. 
 
 31 . Stern, rugged ners ! fhl rljfd 16r wifh pashens men! a 
 yer she b6r. 
 
 32. At that time, the lame man, who began nobly, having 
 made a bad point, wept bitterly. 
 
 33. When loud surges lash the sounding shore, the hoarse, 
 rough verse should like the torrent roar. 
 
 34. "What whim led White Whitney to whittle, whistle, 
 whisper, and whimper near the wharf, where a floundering 
 whale might wheel and whirl ? 
 
 35. Amidst fhu mists and koldest frosts, wrfti barest rfsts 
 and stoutest bests, he thrusts hiz fists agenst fhu posts, and 
 stil insists he sez fhu gosts. 
 
 36. Thangks to Thaddeiis Thikthong, fliu. thatles thissl- 
 sifter, h6 thiis thrust thro thouzand thisslz thro fhu tlnk 6v 
 hiz thum. 
 
 37. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in 
 vain ; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who taketh 
 his name in vain. 
 
 38. Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may 
 be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. 
 
 39. A starm arizeth on fliu se. A model vessel !z strug- 
 gling amidst thu war 6v elements, kwivering and shivering, 
 shringking and battling lik a thfngkhig being. Thu m&rsi- 
 les, raking wherhvindz, lik fritful fendz, houl and m6n, and 
 send sharp, shril shreks thro fliu kreking kardaj, snapping 
 
PHONETIC LAUGHTER. 35 
 
 fhu shets and masts. Tim sterdi salarz stand to fhar tasks, 
 and wefher fhu severest starm 6v fhu sezn. 
 
 40. Chast-id, cherisht dies ! Thu charmz 6v fhi chekerd 
 chambe'rz chan me chanjlesli. Chamberllnz, ehaplinz, and 
 chansellarz hav chanted fhi cherobik chiusnes. Cheftinz 
 hav chanjd fhu chariot and fhu chas far fhu ches-bord and 
 fhu charming charj 6v fhu ches-nits. K6 chiling cherl, no 
 dieting chatterer, no chattering chanjling kan be fhi che-zn 
 champion. Thou art fhu chassner ov fhu cherlish, fhu chider 
 6v fhu ehanjabl, fhu cherisher 6v fhu cherful and fhu char- 
 itabl. Far fhe ar fhu chaplets 6v chanles chant 1 and fliu 
 chalis 6v ehildlik cherfiilnes. Chanj kan not chanj fhe : 
 from childhud to fliu charnel-hous, from our ferst childish 
 cherpingz tu thu ehilz 6v fhu cherch-yard, fhou art our cheri, 
 chanj 16s cheftfnes. 
 
 XI. 
 
 PHONETIC LAUGHTER. 
 
 LAUGHTER, by the aid of Phonetics, is easily taught, 
 as an art. It is one of the most interesting and 
 healthy of all class exercises. It may be either vocal or 
 respiratory. 
 
 2. There are thirty-two well-defined varieties of laughter 
 in the English language, eighteen of which are produced 
 in connection with the tonics ; nine, with the subtonics of 7, 
 m, n, ng, r, th, v, and z ; and five, with the atonies of/, h, s, 
 tli, and sh. 
 
 3. Commencing with vocal laughter, the instructor will 
 first utter a tonic, and then, prefixing the oral element of I, 
 and accompanied by the class, he will produce the syllable 
 continuously, subject only to the interruptions that are inci- 
 dental to inhalations and bursts of laughter ; as, a, ha, ha, 
 ha, ha, ha, &c, — a, ha, ha, ha, ha, &c. 
 
 4. The attention of the students will be called to the 
 most agreeable kinds of laughter, and they will be taught 
 to pass naturally and easily from one variety to another. 
 
36 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 II. SYLLABICATION*. 
 
 I. 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 A SYLLABLE is a word, or part of a word, uttered by 
 a single impulse of the voice. 
 
 2. A Monosyllable is a word of one syllable ; as, Jiome. 
 
 3. A Dissyllable is a word of two syllables ; as, liome-less. 
 
 4. A Trisyllable is a word of three syllables ; as, con- 
 fine-ment. 
 
 5. A Polysyllable is a word of four or more syllables ; 
 as, in-no-cen-cy, un-in-tel-li-gi-bil-i-ly. 
 
 6. The Ultimate is the last syllable of a word ; as fid, 
 in peace^?. 
 
 7. The Penult, or penultimate, is the last syllable but 
 one of a word ; as mdJc, in peace-wafc-er. 
 
 8. The Antepenult, or antepenultimate, is the last syl- 
 lable but two of a word ; as ta, in spon-fa-ne-ous. 
 
 9. The Preantepenult, or preantepenultimate, is the 
 last syllable but three of a word ; as cab, in vo-ca£-u-la-ry. 
 
 n. 
 
 FOKMATION of syllables. 
 
 A SINGLE impulse of the voice can produce but one 
 radical or opening and vanishing or gradually dimin- 
 ishing movement. Since a syllable is produced by a single 
 impulse of the voice, it follows that only such an oral ele- 
 ment, or order of oral elements, as gives but one radical 
 and vanish movement, can enter into its formation. As the 
 tonics can not be uttered separately without producing this 
 movement, but one of them can enter into a single syllable ; 
 and, as this movement is all that is essential, each of the 
 tonics may, by itself, form a syllable. Consistently with 
 this, we find, whenever two tonics adjoin, they always be- 
 long to separate syllables in pronunciation, as in a-e-ri-al, 
 I'-o-ta, o-a-sis. 
 
RULES IN SYLLABICATION. 37 
 
 2. Though oral elements can not be combined with a view 
 to lengthen a syllable, by the addition of one tonic to another, 
 as this would produce a new and separate impulse, yet a 
 syllable may be lengthened by prefixing and affixing any 
 number of tonics and atonies to a tome, that do not des- 
 troy its singleness of impulse ; as, a, an, and, land, gland, 
 glands. 
 
 3. A tonic is usually regarded as indispensable in the 
 formation of a syllable. A few syllables, however, are 
 formed exclusively by subtonics. In the words biddc-?i 
 rive-n, rhyth-??*, schis-m, fic-7:c 7 e, i-dlc, lit-tle, and words of 
 like construction, the last syllable is either pure subtonic, 
 or a combination of subtonic and atonic. These final svl- 
 lables go through the radical and vanish movement, though 
 they are far inferior in quality, euphony, and force, to the 
 full display of these properties on the tonics. 
 
 m. 
 
 EULES IN SYLLABICATION. 
 
 TNITIAL CONSONANTS.— The elements of consonants 
 -B- that commence words should be uttered distinctly, but 
 should not be much prolonged. 1 
 
 2. Final Consonants. — Elements that are represented 
 by final consonants should be dwelt upon, and uttered with 
 great distinctness ; as, 
 
 He accep/s the office, ancZ attempts by his nets to conceal his 
 faul/s. 
 
 3. When one word or a sentence ends and the next 
 begins with the same consonant, or another that is hard to 
 produce after it, a difficulty in utterance arises that should 
 be obviated by dwelling on the final consonant, and then 
 taking up the one at the beginning of the next word, in a 
 
 1 Initial Elements Prolonged. — the following lines : 
 
 On this point Dr. Rusn mentions the " Canst thou not w-inistei to a 
 
 error of a distinguished actor, who, m4nd diseased, 
 
 in order to give great force and dis- P£-uck from the w-emory a r-oot 
 
 tmctness to his articulation, dwelt ed sorrow ?" 
 
 on the initial letters, as marked in Such mouthing defeats its object 
 
38 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 second impulse of the voice, without pausing between 
 them ; as, 
 
 It will pai?i nobody, if the sao* dangle?' regain neither rope. 
 
 4. Final Cognates. — In uttering the elements of the 
 final cognates, b, p, d, t, g, and 1c, the organs of speech 
 should not remain closed at the several pauses of discourse, 
 but should be smartly separated by a kind of echo ; as, 
 
 I took down ray hat-t, and put it upon my head-a 7 . 
 
 5. Unaccented Syllables should be pronounced as dis- 
 tinctly as those which are accented : they should merely 
 have less force of voice and less prolongation ; as, 
 
 The thoughtless, helpfess, homeless girl did not resent his 
 rudeness and harshness. 
 
 Yery many of the prevailing faults of articulation result 
 from a neglect of these rules, especially the second, the 
 third, and the last. He who gives a full and definite sound 
 to final consonants and to unaccented vowels, if he does it 
 without stiffness or formality, can hardly fail to articulate 
 well. 
 
 EXERCISE IN SYLLABICATION. 1 
 
 1. Thirty years ago, Marseilles 2 lay burning in the sun, one 
 day. A blazing sun, upon a fierce August day, was no greater 
 rarity in Southern France then, than at any other time, before 
 or since. Every thing in Marseilles, and abou£ Marseilles, had 
 stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a 
 staring habi£ had become universal there. 
 
 2. Grangers were stared out of countenance by staring white 
 houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts 
 of aria 7 road, staring hills from whic/i verdure was burnt away. 
 The only things to be seen not firedly staring and glaring were 
 the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occa- 
 sionally winfc a little, as the hot air moved their faint leaves. 
 
 3. There was no wind to make a ?'ipple on the foul water 
 
 i Direction.— Students will give formation of syllables each letter 
 
 the number and names of the syl- that appears in Italics, in this exer- 
 
 lables, in words of more than one cise, is designed to illustrate, 
 
 syllable, and tell what rule for the 2 Marseilles, (mar salzO- 
 
EXERCISE IN SYLLABICATION. 39 
 
 within the harbor, or on the beautiful sea without The line of 
 demarkation between the two colors, blacfc and blue, showed 
 the point which the pure sea would not pass ; but it lay as 
 quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never mixed. Boate 
 without awni?i<7.5- were too hot to touch ; ships blistered at their 
 mooring ; the stones of the quays had not cooled for months. 
 
 4. The universal s'arc made the eyes ache. Toward the dis- 
 tant line of Italian (ltal'yan) coast, indeed, it was a little re* 
 lieved by light clouds of mist, slowly risi??£7 from the evaporation 
 of the sea ; but it softened nowhere else. Far away the stari??<7 
 roads, dee}) in dust, stared from the hillside, stared from the 
 hollow, stared from the interminable plain. 
 
 5. Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, 
 and the monotonous wayside avenues of parched frees without 
 shade, drooped beneath the stare of earth and sky. So did the 
 horses with drowsy bells, in long files of carts, creepi??^ slowly 
 toward the interior ; so did their recumbent drivers, when they 
 were ttwa&e, which rarely happened; so did the exhausted 
 laborers in the fields. 
 
 G. Every thing that fived or <7?*ew was oppressed by the glare; 
 except the lizard, passing swiftly over rough stone walls, and 
 the cicada, chirping his dry hot chirp, like a ratde. The very 
 dust w T as scorched ftrown, and somethi??^ quivered in the atmos- 
 phere as if the air itself were -panting. Blinds, shutters, cur- 
 tains, awnings, were all closed to keep out the stare. Grant it 
 but a chin/.: or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow. 
 
 7. The churches were freest from it. To come out of the 
 twilight of pillars and arches — dreamily dotted with winking! 
 lamps, dream?ly peopled with ugly old shadows piously dozing, 
 spitting, and begging — was to plunge into a fiery river, and 
 swim for life to the nearest strip of shade. So, with people 
 lounging and lying wherever shade was, with but little hum of 
 tongues or barki?2# of dogs, with occasional jangli??^ of discor- 
 dant church bells, and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a iact 
 Jo be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day. 
 
 3. Shall I be left, forgotten in the dust, 
 
 When Fata, relenting, lets the flowe?* revii-e? 
 Shall Nature's voice, to Man alone tinjusf, 
 
 Bid him, though doomed to peris/i, hope to hue ? 
 
40 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 III. ACCENT. 
 I. 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 ACCENT is the peculiar force given to one or more 
 syllables of a word. 
 
 2. In many trisyllables and polysyllables, of two sylla- 
 bles accented, one is uttered with greater force than the 
 other. The more forcible accent is called primary, and the 
 less forcible, secondary ; as, hab-i-TA-tioii. 
 
 3. The mark of acute accent [ ' ] is employed, first, to in- 
 dicate primary accent ; secondly, the rising inflection (p. 53) ; 
 as, 
 
 Reading, or read'ing. If thine enemy hunger, give him 
 bread. 
 
 4. The mark of grave accent [ * ] is employed, first , to in- 
 dicate secondary accent ; secondly, that the vowel over 
 which it is placed, with its attendant consonant, forms a 
 separate syllable ; thirdly, that the vowel in the unaccented 
 syllable is not an alphabetic equivalent, but represents one 
 of its usual oral elements ; and fourthly, the falling inflec- 
 tion (p. 53) ; as, 
 
 Magnificent, or magnificent. A learned man caught that 
 winged thing. Her goodness moved the roughest. Away, 
 thou coward ! 
 
 The student will be required to give the office of each 
 mark in the following 
 
 EXERCISES IN ACCENT. 
 
 1. The lone'ly hunt'er calls his bound'ing dogs, and seeks 
 the high'way. 
 
 2. Hark ! the whirl'wind is in the forest : aged trees are 
 oVerturncd'. 
 
 3. Veracity first of all, and forever. 
 
 4. The finest wits have their sediment. 
 
 5. Hunting men, not beasts, shall be his game. 
 
WORDS CHANGED BY ACCENT. 41 
 
 6. A foci with judges ; among fools, a judge. 
 
 7. "Will the heedlessness of honest students offend' their 
 truest friends ? 
 
 8. Honest students learn the greatness of humility. 
 
 9. That blessed and beloved child loves every winged thing. 
 
 10. The agree'ablo ar'tisan* made an ad'niirable par'asoP for 
 that beau'tiful Russian (rush'an) la'dy. 
 
 11. No'tice the mark 3 of ac'cent, and al'ways accent' correct 'ly 
 words that should have but one ac'cent, as in scn'sible, vaga'ry, 
 cir'cumslances, difficulty, interesting, &c. 
 
 12. Costume, manners, riches, civilization, have no permanent 
 interest for him. — His heedlessness offends his truest friends. 
 
 13. In a crowded life, on a stage of nations, or in the ob- 
 scurest hamlet, the same blessed elements offer the same rich 
 choices to each new comer. 
 
 n. 
 
 WORDS DISTINGUISHED BY ACCENT. 
 
 MANY words, or parts of speech, having the same 
 form, are distinguished by accent alone. Nouns and 
 adjectives are often thus distinguished from verbs, and, in 
 a few dissyllables, from each other. 
 
 EXAMPLES. 
 
 1. Why does your ab'scnt friend absent' himself. ? 
 
 2. Did he abstract' an ab'slract of your speech from the desk? 
 
 3. Note the mark of ac'cent, and accent' the right syllable. 
 
 4. Buy some cem'ent and cement' the glass. 
 
 5. Desert' us not in the clcs'ert. 
 
 6. If that proj'ect fail, he will project' another. 
 
 7. My in' crease is taken to increase' your wealth. 
 
 8. Perfume' the room with rich per'fume. 
 
 9. If they reprimand' that officer, he will not regard their 
 rep'rimand. 
 
 10. If they rebel', and overthrow' the government, even the 
 reb'eh can not justify the o'verthrow. 
 
 11. In Au'gust, the august' writer entered into a ccm'paet to 
 prepare a compact' discourse. 
 
42 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 12. In'stinct, not reason, rendered the herd instinct' with spirit. 
 
 13. Within a min'ute from this time, I will find a minute' 
 piece of gold. 
 
 14. Earnest prayer is an in' cense that can never incense' Deity. 
 
 15. While you con verse' with each other, I hold con' verse with 
 nature. 
 
 16. If they continue to progress' in learning, he will com- 
 mend them for their jirog'ress. 
 
 17. If Congress interdict' intercourse with foreign nations, 
 will the in'terdicO be just? 
 
 18. Unless the con' vert be zealous, he will never convict' the 
 con'vict of his errors, and convert' him. 
 
 19. If the pro'test of the minority be not respected, they will 
 protest' against your votes. 
 
 20. If the farmer produce' prod'uee enough for his family, he 
 will not transfer' his title to that estate, though the trans'fer is 
 legal. 
 
 ILL 
 ACCENT CHANGED BY CONTRAST. 
 
 THE ordinary accent of words is sometimes changed 
 by a contrast in sense, or to express opposition of 
 thought. 
 
 EXAMPLES. 
 
 1. He must tVcrease, but I must tfe'erease. 
 
 2. He did not say a new addition, but a new e'dition. 
 
 3. Consider well what you have done, and what you have left 
 im'done. 
 
 4. I said that she will sws'pect the truth of the story, not that 
 she will expect it. 
 
 5. He that descended is also the same that fls'ccnded. 
 
 G. This corruptible must put on i?i'eorruption ; and this mor- 
 tal must put on zm'mortality. 
 
 7- There are also ce'lestial bodies, and bodies fcr'restrial ; 
 but the glory of the ce'lestial is one, and the glory of the 
 ter'restrial is another. 
 
EXPRESSION. 43 
 
 EXPRESSION. 
 
 EXPRESSION of Speech is the utterance of thought, 
 feeling, or passion, with clue significance or force. 
 Its general divisions are Emphasis, Slur, Inflection, Mod- 
 ulation, Monotone, Personation, and Pauses. 
 
 Orthoepy is the mechanical part of elocution, consisting in 
 the discipline and use of the organs of speech and the voice 
 for the production of the alphabetic elements and their combi- 
 nation into separate words. It is the basis — the subsoil, which, 
 by the mere force of will and patient practice, may be broken 
 and turned up to the sun, and from which spring the flowers 
 of expression. 
 
 Expression is the soul of elocution. By its ever-varying and 
 delicate combinations, and its magic and irresistible power, it 
 wills — and the listless ear stoops with expectation ; the vacant 
 eye burns with unwonted fire ; the dormant passions are 
 aroused, and all the tender and powerful sympathies of the 
 soul arc called into vigorous exercise. 
 
 I. EMPHASIS. 
 I. 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 EMPHASIS is the peculiar force given to one or more 
 words of a sentence. 
 
 2. To give a word emphasis, means to pronounce it in a 
 loud ' or forcible manner. No uncommon tone, however, is 
 necessary, as words may be made emphatic by prolonging 
 the vowel sounds, by a pause, or even by a wlris2 :)er - 
 
 3. Emphatic words are often printed in Holies ; those 
 more emphatic, in small capitals ; and those that receive 
 the greatest force, in large CAPITALS. 
 
 1 Loudness.— The instructor will ence to high pitch, but to volume of 
 explain to the class the fact, that voice, vscd on the same hey or pitch, 
 loudness has not, of necessity, refer- when reading or epeaking. 
 
44 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 4. By the proper use of emphasis, we are enabled to im- 
 part animation and interest to conversation and reading. 
 Its importance can not be over-estimated, as the meaning 
 of a sentence often depends upon the proper placing of the 
 emphasis. If readers have a desire to produce an impres- 
 sion on hearers, and read what they understand and feel, 
 they will generally place emphasis on the right words. 
 Students, however, should be required to observe carefully 
 the following rules. 
 
 n. 
 
 EULES IN EMPHASIS. 
 
 "TTTORDS AND PHRASES PECULIARLY SIGNIFICANT, or im- 
 
 V V portant in meaning, are emphatic ; as, 
 Whence and ickat art thou, execrable shape ? 
 
 2. Words and phrases that contrast, or point out a 
 difference, are emphatic ; as, 
 
 I did not say a better soldier, but an elder. 
 
 3. The repetition of an emphatic word or phrase usually 
 requires an increased force of utterance ; as, 
 
 You injured my child — you, sir! 
 
 4. A succession of important words or phrases usually 
 requires a gradual increase of emphatic force, though em- 
 phasis sometimes falls on the last word of a series only ; as, 
 
 His disappointment, his anguish, his DEATH, were caused by 
 your carelessness. 
 
 These misfortunes are the same to the poor, the ignorant, 
 and the weak, as to the rich, the wise, and the jJOicaful. 
 
 The students will tell which of the preceding rules are 
 illustrated by the following exercises — both those that are 
 marked and those that are unmarked. 
 
 EXERCISES IN EMPHASIS. 
 
 1. Boisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold. * 
 
 2. Speak little and well, if you wish to be considered as pos- 
 sessing merit. 
 
 3. He buys, he sells, — he steals, he KILLS for gold. 
 
EXERCISES IN EMPHASIS. 45 
 
 4. But here I stand for right, for Roman right. 
 
 5. I shall know but one country. I was born an American ; I 
 live an American ; I shall die an American. 
 
 6. I shall sing the praises of October, as the loveliest of months. 
 
 7. A good man loves himself too well to lose an estate by 
 gaming, and his neighbor too well to win one. 
 
 8. The good man is honored, but the evil man is despised. 
 
 9. The young are slaves to novelty : the old, to custom : the 
 middle-aged, to both : the dead, to neither. 
 
 10. The wicked flee when no man pursueth ; but the righteous 
 are bold as a lion. 
 
 11. Tlieycome! to arms ! to arms! TO ARMS! 
 
 12. None but the brave, none but the brave, none but the 
 BRAVE deserve the fair. 
 
 13. A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty, is worth a whole 
 ETERNITY in bondage. 
 
 14. It is my living sentiment, and, by the blessing of God, it 
 shall be my dying sentiment — independence now, and independ- 
 ence forever. 
 
 15. The thunders of heaven are sometimes heard to roll in the 
 voice of a united people. 
 
 16. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a 
 foreign troop remained in my country, I never would lay down 
 my arms — never, never, NEVER, 1 
 
 17. Let us fight for our country, our whole country, and 
 NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. 
 
 18. He that trusts you, where he should find you lions finds 
 you hares ; where foxes, geese. 
 
 19. What should I say to you ? Should I not say, 
 Hath & dog money ? is it possible, 
 A cur can lend three thousand duc'atsf 
 
 20. In the prosecution of a virtuous enterprise, a brave man 
 despises danger and difficulty. 
 
 21. Was that country a desert? No : it was cultivated and 
 fertile ; rich and populous ! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, 
 and generosity ! Its daughters were lovely, suseejytible, and 
 (haste! Friendshij) was its inhabitant ! Love was its inhabit- 
 
 1 In order to make the last never depression of the voice, — almost to a 
 more forcible, the emphasis is pro- deep aspirated whisper, drawn up 
 duced bv the falling slide, and a dce"> from the verv bottom of the chest 
 
46 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ant! Domestic affection was its inhabitant! Liberty was its 
 inhabitant ! 
 
 22. Son of night, retire ; call thy winds and fly. Why dost 
 thou come to my presence with thy shadowy arms ? Do I fear 
 thy gloomy form, dismal spirit of Loda ? Weak is thy shield 
 of clouds ; feeble is that meteor, thy sword. 
 
 23. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted! 
 THRICE is he armed that hath his quarrel jest ; and he but 
 naked, though locked up in STEEL, whose conscience with 
 injustice is corrupted. 
 
 24. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounce it to you : 
 trippingly on the tongue ; but if you moitfh it, as many of our 
 players do, I had as lief the town-crier spake my lines. Nor do 
 not saw the air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently ; 
 for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind 
 of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that 
 will give it smoothness. 
 
 25. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all 
 do know this mantle : I remember the first time ever Csesar put 
 it on : ('twas on a summer's evening in his tent : that day he 
 overcame the Nervii :) — LOOK ! In this place ran Cassius' dag- 
 ger through : see what a rent the envious Casca made. Through 
 this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed ; and, as he plucked his 
 cursed steel away, mark how the blood of Caesar followed it! 
 This was the most unkindest cut of all ! for, when the noble 
 Caesar saw HIM stab, INGRATITUDE, more strong than 
 traitors' arms, quite vanquished him ! Then burst his mighty 
 heart ; and, in his mantle muffling up his face, even at the base 
 of Pompey's statue, which all the while ran blood, great C/ESar 
 fell. O what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, 
 and you, and all of us, fell down ; whilst bloody TREASON 
 flourished over us. 
 
 26. Oh, now you weep ; and I perceive you feel the dint of 
 pity : these are gracious drops. Kind soids ! What, weep you 
 when you but behold our Caesar's vesture wounded ? Look ye 
 here ! Here is himSELF, marred, as you see, by traitors. 
 
 27. As Caesar loved me, I weep for him : as he was fortunate, 
 I rejoice at it : as he was valiant, I honor him : but as he was 
 ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love, joy for his 
 fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition. 
 
SLUR. 47 
 
 II. SLUR. 
 
 SLUR is that smooth, gliding, subdued movement of 
 the voice, by which those parts of a sentence of less 
 comparative importance are rendered less impressive to the 
 ear, and emphatic words and phrases set in stronger relief. 
 
 2. Emphatic words, or the words that express the lead- 
 ing thoughts, are usually pronounced with a louder and 
 more forcible effort of the voice, and are often prolonged, 
 But words that are slurred must generally be read in a 
 lower and less forcible tone of voice, more rapidly, and all 
 pronounced nearly alike. 
 
 3. In order to communicate clearly and forcibly the 
 whole signification of a passage, it must be subjected to a 
 rigid analysis. It will then be found, that one paramount 
 ide'a always pervades the sentence, although it may be as- 
 sociated with incidental statements, and qualified in every 
 possible manner. Hence, on the proper management of 
 slur, much of the beauty and propriety of enunciation de- 
 pends, as thus the reader is enabled to bring forward the 
 primary idea, or more important parts, into a strong light, 
 and throw other portions into shade ; thereby entirely 
 changing the character of the sentence, and making it 
 appear lucid, strong, and expressive. 
 
 4. Slur must be employed in cases of parenthesis, contrast, 
 repetition, or explanation, where the phrase or sentence is of 
 small comparative importance ; and often when qualification 
 of time, place, or manner is made. 
 
 5. The parts which are to be slurred in a portion of the 
 exercises are printed in Italic letters. Students will first read 
 the parts of the sentence that appear in Roman, and then 
 the whole sentence, passing lightly and quickly over what 
 was first omitted. The} will also read the examples that 
 are unmarked in like manner. 
 
 EXERCISES IN SLUR. 
 
 1. The rich, softened by prosperUy t pitied the poor ; the poor, 
 disciplined into order, respected the rich. 
 
48 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. The general, with his head drooping, and his hands lean- 
 ing on his horse's neck, moved feebly out of the battle. 
 
 3. The rivulet sends forth glad sounds, and, tripping o'er its 
 bed of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, seems with contin- 
 uous laughter to rejoice in its own being. 
 
 4. We wish that this column, rising toward heaven among 
 the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may 
 contribute also to produce, in all minds, a pious feeling of de- 
 pendence and gratitude. 
 
 5. I had always thought that I could meet death without a 
 murmur ; but I did not know r , she said, with a faint voice, her 
 lips quivering, I did not know 7 , till now, how hard a thing it 
 would be to leave my child. 
 
 6. The calm shade shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet 
 breeze, that makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm to 
 thy sick heart. 
 
 7. The stomach (cramm'd from every dish, a tomb of boiled 
 and roast, and flesh and fish, where bile, and w r ind, and phlegm, 
 and acid jar, and all the man is one intestine war) remembers 
 oft the school-boy's simple fare, the temperate sleeps, and spirits 
 light as air. 
 
 8. Ingen'ious boys, icho are idle, think, with the hare in the 
 fable, that, running icith SNAILS (so they count the rest of their 
 school-fellows), they shall come soon enough to the post ; 
 though sleeping a good ivhile before their starting. 
 
 9. I heard a man who had failed in business, and whose 
 furniture was sold at auction, say that, when the cradle, and the 
 crib, and the piano went, tears would come, and he had to 
 leave the house to be a man. 
 
 10. The soul of eloquence is the center of the human soul 
 itself, which, enlightened by the rays of an idea, or warmed and 
 stirred by an impression, flashes or bursts forth to manifest, by 
 some sign or other, w r hat it feels or sees. 
 
 11. Can he, who, not satisfied with the wide range of ani- 
 mated existence, calls for the sympathy of the inanimate crea- 
 tion, refuse to worship with his fellow T -men ? 
 
 12. Why does the very murderer, his victim sleeping before him, 
 and his glaring eye taking the measure of the blow, strike wide 
 of the mortal part ? Because — of conscience ! 
 
 13. The massy rocks themselves, the old and ponderous 
 
EXERCISES IN SLUR. 4'J 
 
 trunks of prostrate trees, that lead from knoll to knoll, a cause- 
 way rude, or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots 
 with all their earth upon thcin, twisting high, breathe fixed 
 tranquillity. 
 
 14. "But now," whispered the clear girl, "it is evening; the 
 sun, that rejoices, has finished his daily toil ; man, that labors, 
 has finished his ; I, that suffer, have finished mine." Just 
 then, her dull ear caught a sound. It was the sound, though 
 muffled and deadened, like the ear thai heard it, of horsemen 
 advancing. 
 
 15. Here we have butter pure as virgin gold ; 
 And milk from cows that can a tail unfold 
 
 With bovine pride ; and new-laid eggs, whose praise 
 Is sung by pullets with their morning lays ; 
 Trout from the brook ; good water from the well ; 
 And other blessings more than I can tell ! 
 
 1G. I love Music, when she appeal's m her virgin purity, almost 
 to adoration. But vocal music — the dearest, sweetest thing on 
 earth — unaccompanied icith good elocution, is like butter without 
 salt ; a garlic-eater with a perfumed handkerchief ; or, rather, 
 like a bankrupt beau — his soft hands incased in delicate kids — 
 with soiled linen, and patches upon his knees. 
 
 17. A Frenchman once — so runs a certain ditty — 
 Had crossed the Straits to famous London city, 
 To get a living by the arts of France, 
 
 And teach his neighbor, rough John Bull, to dance. 
 
 But lacking pupils, vain was all his skill ; 
 
 His fortunes sank from low to lower still, 
 
 Until at last, pathetic to relate, 
 
 Poor Monsieur landed at starvation's gate. 
 
 18. No ! dear as freedom is, and in my heart's just estimation 
 prized above all price, I would much rather be myself the slave, 
 and wear the bonds, than fasten them on niM. 
 
 19. There is an ugly kind of forgiveness in this world— a 
 kind of hedge-hog forgiveness, shot out like quills. Men take 
 one who has offended, and set him down before the blow-pipe 
 of their indignation, and scorch him, and burn his faults into 
 him ; and, when they have kneaded him sufficiently with their 
 fiery fists, then— they forgive him, 
 
50 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 20. Ye glittering towns, with xceallh and splendor crowned ; 
 Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round ; 
 
 Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale ; 
 Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale ; 
 For me your tributary stores combine : 
 Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine ! 
 
 21. If there's a Power above us — and that there is, all Nature 
 cries aloud through all her works — He must delight in -virtue ; 
 and that which He delights in must be happy. 
 
 22. "Who had not heard 
 
 Of Rose, the gardener's daughter ? "Where was he, 
 So blunt in memory, so old at heart, 
 At such a distance from his youth in grief, 
 That, having seen, forgot ? The common mouth, 
 So gross to express delight, in praise of her 
 • Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, 
 And Beauty such a mistress of the w T orld. 
 
 23. The devout heart, penetrated with large and affecting views 
 of the immensity of the twrks of God, the harmony of his laivs, 
 and the extent of his beneficence, bursts into loud and vocal ex- 
 pressions of praise and adoration ; and, from a full and over- 
 flowing sensibility, seeks to expand itself to the utmost limits of 
 creation. 
 
 24. I said, " Though I should die, I know 
 That all about the thorn will blow 
 
 In tufts of rosy-tinted snow ; 
 And men, through novel spheres of thought 
 Still moving after truth long sought, 
 "Will learn new things when I am not." 
 
 25. O "WINTER! ruler of the inverted year.' thy scat- 
 tered hair with sleet-like ashes filled, thy breath congealed upon thy 
 lips, thy cheeks fringed with a beard made white with other snows 
 than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds, a leafless branch 
 thy scepter, and thy throne a sliding car, indebted to no wheels, but 
 urged by storms along its slippery way, I LOVE THEE, all 
 unlovely as thou scem'st, and dreaded as thou art. 
 
 26. They shall hear my vengeance, that would scorn to listen 
 to the story of my wrongs. The miserable Highland drover, 
 bankrupt, barefooted, stripped of all, dishonored, and hunted down, 
 
EXERCISES IN SLUR. 51 
 
 because the avarice of others grasped at more than that poor all 
 could pay, shall burst on them in an awful change. 
 
 27. Think 
 Of the bright lands within the western maw, 
 Where we will build our home, ichat time the seas 
 Weary thy gaze ; — there the broad palm-tree shades 
 The soft and delicate light of skies as fair 
 
 As those that slept on Eden ; — Nature, there, 
 Like a gay spendthrift in his flush of youth, 
 Flings her whole treasure in the lap of Time. — 
 On turfs, by fairies trod, the Eternal Flora 
 Spreads all her blooms ; and from a lake-lite sea 
 Wooes to her odorous haunts the western wind ! 
 While, circling round and upward from the boughs y 
 Golden with fruits that lure the joyous birds, 
 Melody, like a happy soul released, 
 Hangs in the air, and from invisible plumes 
 Shakes sweetness down ! 
 
 28. Lo! the unlettered hind, who never knew to raise his 
 mind excursive to the heights of abstract contemplation, as he 
 sits on the green hillock by the hedge-row side, what time the 
 insect swarms are murmuring, and marks, in silent thought, 
 the broken clouds, that fringe with loveliest hues the evening 
 sky, feels in his soul the hand of nature rouse the thrill of grat- 
 itude to Him who formed the goodly prospect ; he beholds the 
 god throned in the west ; and his reposing ear hears sounds 
 angelic in the fitful breeze, that floats through neighboring 
 copse or fairy brake, or lingers, playful, on the haunted stream. 
 
 29. Beauty — a living presence of the earth, 
 Surpassing the most fair ideal forms 
 Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed 
 From earth's materials — waits upon my steps ; 
 Pitches her tents before me as I move, 
 An hourly neighbor. Paradise, and groves 
 Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old 
 Sought in the Atlantic main — why should they be 
 A history only of departed things, 
 Or a mere fiction of what never was ? 
 For the discerning intellect of man, 
 
52 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 When wedded to this goodly universe 
 
 In love and holy passion, should find these 
 
 A simple produce of the common day. 
 
 30. Dear Brothers, who sit at this bountiful board, 
 With excellent viands so lavishly stored, 
 That, in newspaper phrase, 't would undoubtedly groan, 
 If groaning were but a convivial tone, 
 Which it isn't — and therefore, by sympathy led, 
 The table, no doubt, is rejoicing instead ; 
 Dear Brothers, I rise, — and it won't be surprising 
 If you find me, like bread, all the better for rising, — 
 I rise to express my exceeding delight 
 In our cordial reunion this glorious night ! 
 
 III. INFLECTIONS. 
 
 I 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 INFLECTIONS are the bends or slides of the voice, 
 used in reading and speaking. 
 
 Inflection, or the slide, is one of the most important divisions 
 of elocution, because all speech is made up of slides, and be- 
 cause the right or wrong formation of these gives a pervading 
 character to the whole delivery. It is to the graceful forma- 
 tion of the slides that we are chiefly indebted for that easy and 
 refined utterance which prevails in polished society ; while the 
 coarse and rustic tones of the vulgar are commonly owing to 
 some early and erroneous habit in this respect. Most of the 
 schoolboy faults in delivery, such as drawling, whining, and a 
 monotonous singing sound, result from a wrong formation of 
 the slide, and may be corrected by a proper course of practice 
 on this element of speech. 
 
 A slide consists of two parts, viz. : the radical, or opening 
 sound, and the vanish, or gradual diminution of force, until the 
 sound is lost in silence. Three things are necessary to the per- 
 fect formation of a slide. 
 
 1st. The opening sound must be struck with a full and lively 
 impulse of voice. 
 
INFLECTIONS. 53 
 
 2d. The diminution of force must be regular and equable — 
 not more rapid in one part than another, but naturally and 
 gracefully declining to the last. 
 
 3d. The hnal vanish must be delicately formed, without being 
 abrupt on the one hand, or too much prolonged on the other. 
 
 This, a full opening, a gradual decrease, and a delicate termi- 
 nation, are requisite to the perfect formation of a slide. 
 
 2. There are three inflections or slides of the voice : the 
 Rising Inflection, the Falling Inflection, and the Cir- 
 cumflex. 
 
 3. The Rising Inflection is the upward bend cr slide 
 of the voice ; as, 
 
 Do you love your \^ oX ^ 
 
 4. The Falling Inflection is the downward bend or 
 slide of the voice ; as, 
 
 When are you going °^e ? 
 
 The rising inflection carries the voice upward from the gen- 
 eral pitch, and suspends it on the highest tone required ; while 
 the falling inflection commences above the general pilch, and 
 falls down to it, as indicated in the last two examples. 
 
 5. The Circumflex is the union of the inflections on the 
 same syllable or word, either commencing with the rising 
 and ending with the falling, or commencing with the falling 
 and ending with the rising, thus producing a slight wave 
 of the voice. 
 
 6. The acuto accent [ ' ] is often used to mark the rising 
 inflection; the grave accent [ v ] the falling inflection; as, 
 
 Will you read or spell ? 
 
 Let the students pronounce the following words wifli 
 contrasted inflections, using great pains to form the slides 
 in accordance with the joreceding directions : 
 
 1. Call, call ; far, far ; fame, fame ; shame, shame ; air, air ; 
 scene, scene ; mile, mile ; pile, pile. 
 
 2. Roam, roam ; tool, tool ; school, school ; pure, piire ; 
 mule, mule ; join, join ; our, our. 
 
 7. When the circumflex commences with a rising and ends 
 with a falling slide of the voice, it is marked thus ' s ; but 
 
54 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 when it commences with a falling and ends with a rising 
 slide, it is marked thus w , which the pupil will see is the 
 same mark inverted ; as, 
 
 You must take me for a fool, to think I could do that. 
 
 8. The inflections or slides should be used on the ac- 
 cented syllables of important or emphatic words ; as, 
 I will never stay. I said goodly not homely, 
 
 n. 
 
 RULES IN INFLECTIONS. 
 
 DIRECT QUESTIONS, or those that can be answered 
 by yes or no, usually require the rising inflection ; but 
 their answers, the falling ; as, 
 
 Has any one sailed around the earth ? Yes, Captain Cook. 
 
 Exceptions. — The falling inflection is required when the 
 direct question becomes an earnest appeal, and the answer 
 is anticipated ; and when a direct question, not at first un- 
 derstood, is repeated with marked emphasis ; as, 
 
 Will her love survive your neglect ? and may not you expect 
 the sneers, both of your wife, and of her parents ? 
 
 Do you reside in the city ? What did you say, sir ? Do you 
 reside in the city ? 
 
 2. Indirect questions, or those that can not be answered 
 by yes or no, usually require the falling inflection, and their 
 answers the same ; as, 
 
 Who said, " A wise man is never less alone than when he is 
 alone ?" Swift. 
 
 Exceptions. — The rising inflection is required when an 
 indirect question is used to ask a repetition of what was 
 not at first understood ; and when the ansivers to questions, 
 whether direct or indirect, are given in an indifferent or 
 careless manner ; as, 
 
 Where did you say ? Shall I tell your enemy ? As you please ! 
 
 3. Questions, words, and clauses, connected by the 
 disjunctive OR, usually require the rising inflection before, 
 and the falling after it; though, when or is used con- 
 
RULES IN INFLECTIONS. 55 
 
 junctivehj, it takes the rising inflection after, as well as 
 before it ; as, 
 
 Does lie deservo praise, or blame ? Can youth, or health, or 
 strength, or honor, or pleasure, satisfy the soul ? 
 
 4 When words or clauses are contrasted or com- 
 pared, the first part usually has the rising, and the last the 
 falling inflection ; though, when one side of the contrast is 
 affirmed, and the other denied, generally the latter has the 
 rising inflection, in whatever order they occur ; as, 
 
 I have seen the effects of love and hatred, joy and grief, hope 
 and despair. This book is not mine, but fours. I come to bury 
 Caesar, not to praise him. 
 
 5. Familiar address, and the pause of suspension, denot- 
 ing condition, supposition, or incompleteness, usually re- 
 quire the rising inflection ; as, 
 
 Friends, I come not here to talk. If thine enemy hunger, 
 give him bread to eat. 
 
 6. The language of concession, politeness, admiration, 
 entreaty, and tender emotions, usually requires the rising 
 inflection ; as, 
 
 Your remark ifc true : the manners of this country have not 
 all the desirable ease and freedom. 
 
 I pray thee remember, I have done thee worthy service ; told 
 thee no lies, made no mistakes ; served without grudge or 
 grumbling. 
 
 7. The end of a sentence that expresses completeness, 
 conclusion, or result, usually requires the falling slide of 
 termination, which commences on the general pitch, and 
 falls below it ; as, 
 
 The rose is beauti/^; 
 
 8. At each complete termination of thought, before 
 the close of a sentence, the falling inflection is usually re- 
 quired ; though, when several pauses occur, the last but 
 one generally has the rising inflection ; as, 
 
 Every human being has the idea of duty ; and to unfold this 
 idea is the end for which life was given him. 
 
 The rock crumbles ; the trees fall ; the leaves fade, and the 
 grass withers. 
 
56 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 9. The language of command, rebuke, contempt, excla- 
 mation, and terror, usually requires the falling inflection ; as, 
 
 Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward ! Away from my sight ! 
 
 10. The last member of a commencing series, and the 
 last but one of a concluding series, usually require the rising 
 inflection ; and all others the falling ; as, 
 
 A good disposition, virtuous principles, a liberal education, 
 and industrious habit*, are passports to happiness and honor. 
 
 These reward a good disposition, virtuous principles, a liberal 
 education, and industrious habits. 
 
 11. The Circumflex is used when the thoughts employed 
 are not sincere or earnest, but are used in jest, irony, or 
 double-meaning, — in ridicule, sarcasm, or mockery. The 
 circumflex which ends with the rising slide should be given 
 to the negative ideas, and that which ends with the falling 
 slide to positive ideas ; as, 
 
 This is } T our plain man, if not your gracious one. 
 
 Students will be careful to employ the right slides in sen- 
 tences that are unmarked, and tell what rule or rules are 
 illustrated by each of the following 
 
 EXERCISES IN INFLECTIONS. 
 
 1. Do you see that beautiful star ? Yes : it is splendid ! 
 
 2. "Will you forsake us ? and will you favor us no more ? 
 
 3. I said an elder soldier, not a better. Did I say better ? 
 
 4. Are you, my dear sir, willing to forgive ? 
 
 5. "Why is the hall crowded ? "What means this stir in town ? 
 
 6. Does that beautiful lady deserve praise, or blame ? 
 
 7. Will you ride in the carriage, or on horseback ? Neither. 
 
 8. Hunting men, not bea,<ts, shall be his game. 
 
 9. I said good, not bad : happy, not miserable. 
 
 10. O Rome ! O my country ! how art thou fallen ! 
 
 11. Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles ? 
 
 12. Is a candle to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? 
 
 13. Can storied urn, or animated bust, 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
 Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 
 Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? 
 
EXERCISES IN INFLECTIONS. 57 
 
 14. Fire and water, oil and vinegar, heat and cold, light and 
 darkness, are not more opposed to each other, than is honesty 
 to fraud, or vice to virtue. 
 
 15. Is this a time to be gloomy and sad 
 
 "When our mother Nature laughs around ; 
 "When even the deep blue heavens look glad, 
 
 And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground ? 
 
 16. Can the great statesman, skilled in deep design, 
 
 Protract but for a day precarious breath ? — 
 Can the tuned follower of the sacred Nine 
 Soothe, with his melody, insatiate Death ? 
 
 17. Hath a dog money? Is it possible a cur can lend three 
 thousand ducats? 
 
 18. All the circumstances and ages of men, poverty, riches, 
 youth, old age — all the dispositions and passions, melancholy, 
 love, grief, contentment — are capable of being personified in 
 poetry with great propriety. 
 
 19. If thou dost slander her, and torture me — never pbay 
 
 MORE. 
 
 20. But, whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured 
 that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it 
 may cost blood ; but it will stand, and it will richly compensate 
 for both. 
 
 21. The war must go on. "We must fight it through. And 
 if the war must go on, why put off longer the declaration of 
 independence ? That measure will strengthen us. It will give 
 us character abroad. 
 
 22. They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge 
 our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error ! Yes, they 
 will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves 
 the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride ! They offer us pro- 
 tection ! yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs — cover- 
 ing and devouring them ! Tell your invaders we seek no change 
 
 — and least of all such change as they would bring us ! 
 
 23. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and 
 reconciliation ? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be 
 reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love? 
 
58 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 . $1 And this man 
 
 Is now become a god ; and Cassins is 
 A wretched creature, and must bend his body, 
 If Coesar carelessly but nod on him. 
 lie had a fever when he was in Spain, 
 And, when the fit was on him, I did mark 
 How he did shake : 't is true, this god did shake : 
 His coward lips did from their color fly ; 
 And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world, 
 Pid lose its lustre. 
 
 IY. MODULATION. 
 
 M{ )DULATION is the act of varying the voice in read* 
 jng and speaking. Its general divisions are Pitch, 
 Force, Quality, and Kate. 
 
 The four general divisions, or modes of vocal sound, pre- 
 sented in this section, are properly the elements of expression ; 
 as, by the combination of the different forms and varieties of 
 these modes, emphasis, slur, monotone, and other divisions of 
 expression are produced. 
 
 I. 
 
 PITCH. 
 
 PITCH 1 refers to the key-note of the voice — its general 
 degree of elevation or depression, in reading and 
 speaking. We mark three general distinctions of Pitch : 
 High, Moderate, and Low. 
 2. High Pitch is that which is heard in calling to a per- 
 
 1 Exercise on Pitch. — For a gen- top of the voice shall have heen 
 
 eral exercise on pitch, select a sen- reached, when the exercise may be 
 
 tence, and deliver it on as low a key reversed. So valuable is this cxer- 
 
 as possible ; then repeat it, gradu- rise, that it should be repeated as 
 
 ally elevating the pitch, until the often as possible. 
 
MODULATION. 59 
 
 son at a distance. It is used in expressing elevated and 
 joyous feelings and strong emotion ; as, 
 
 1. Go ring the bells, and fire the guns, 
 And fling the starry banners out ; 
 Shout " Freedom !" till your lisping ones 
 Give back their cradle shout. 
 
 2. Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again ! 
 I hold to you the hands you first beheld, 
 
 To show they still are free. Methinks I hear 
 
 A spirit in your echoes answer me, 
 
 And bid vour tenant welcome to his home 
 
 Again ! O, sacred forms, how proud ye look ! 
 
 How high you lift your heads into the sky ! 
 
 How huge you are ! how mighty and how free ! 
 
 Ye are the things that tower, that shine, whose smile 
 
 Makes glad, whose frown is terrible, whose forms, 
 
 Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear 
 
 Of awe divine. Ye guards of liberty ! 
 
 I'm with you once again ! — I call to you 
 
 With all my voice ! I hold my hands to you 
 
 To show they still are free. I rush to you, 
 
 As though I could embrace you ! 
 
 3. First came renowned Warwick, 
 Who cried aloud, " What scourge for perjury 
 Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?" 
 And so he vanished. Then came wandering by 
 A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
 Dabbled in blood ; and he shrieked out, aloud, — 
 "Claeexce is come— false, fleeting, perjured Clarence ; 
 Seize on him, ye furies, take him to your torments" 
 
 3. Moderate Pitch is that which is heard in common 
 conversation and description, and in moral reflection, or 
 calm reasoning ; as, 
 
 1. The morning itself, few people, inhabitants of cities, know 
 any thing about. Among all our good people, not one in a 
 thousand sees the sun rise once in a year. They know nothing 
 of the morning. Their idea of it is, that it is that part cf the 
 day that comes along after a cup of coffee and a beef-steak, or 
 a piece of toast. 
 
60 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. The mountains look on Marathon, 
 And Marathon looks on the sea ; 
 And musing there an hour alone, 
 
 I thought that Greece might still be free ; 
 For, standing on the Persian's grave, 
 I could not deem myself a slave. 
 
 4. Low Pitch is that which is heard when the voice falls 
 below the common speaking key. It is used in expressing 
 reverence, awe, sublimity, and tender emotions ; as, 
 
 1. 'Tis midnight's holy horn*, and silence now 
 Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 
 The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 
 The bells' deep tones are swelling ; — 'tis the knell 
 Of the departed year. No funeral train 
 Is sweeping past, yet, on the stream and wood, 
 With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest, 
 Like a pale, spotless shroud ; the air is stirred 
 As by a mourner's sigh ; and on yon cloud, 
 That floats so still and placidly through heaven, 
 The spirits of the seasons seem to stand. 
 
 2. Softly woo away her breath, 
 Gentle Death ! 
 Let her leave thee with no strife, 
 Tender, mournful, murmuring Life ! 
 She hath seen her happy day : 
 
 She hath had her bud and blossom ; 
 Now she pales and sinks away, 
 Earth, into thy gentle bosom ! 
 
 H. 
 
 FORCE. 
 
 FORCE l is the volume or loudness of voice, used on the 
 same key or pitch, when reading or speaking. Though 
 the degrees of force are numerous, varying from a soft 
 
 1 Exercise on Force. — For a gen- until the whole power of the voice is 
 
 eral exercise on force, select a sen- brought into play. Reverse the prO- 
 
 tence, and deliver it on a given key, cess, without change of key, ending 
 
 wifh voice just sufficient to be heard ; with a whisper. This exercise can 
 
 then gradually increase the quantity, not be too frequently repeated. 
 
FORCE. £\ 
 
 whisper to a shout, yet they may be considered as three : 
 Loud, Moderate, and Gentle. 
 
 2. Loud Force is used in strong, but suppressed pas- 
 sions, and in emotions of sorrow, grief, respect, veneration, 
 dignity, apathy, and contrition ; as, 
 
 1. How like a fawning publican he looks! 
 I hate him, for that ho is a Christian. 
 If I but ctttch him once upon the hip, 
 I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him. 
 
 2. Virtue takes place of all things. It is the nobility of angels ! 
 It is the majesty of GOD ! 
 
 3. Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean — roll ! 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. 
 
 4. O thou that, with surpassing glory crowned, 
 Look'st from thy solo dominion, like the God 
 Of this new world ; at whose sight all the stars 
 Hide their diminished heads ; to thee I call, 
 But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, 
 
 Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, 
 That bring to my remembrance from what state 
 
 1 fell, how glorious once above thy sphere ; 
 Till pride and worse ambition threw me down, 
 Waning in heaven against heaven's matchless King. 
 
 3. Moderate Force, or a medium degree of loudness, is 
 used in ordinary assertion, narration, and description ; as, 
 
 1. Remember this saying, " The good paymaster is lord of 
 another man's purse." He that is known to pay punctually, 
 and exactly at the time he promises, may, at any time, and on 
 any occasion, raise all the money his friends can spare. 
 
 2. What is the blooming tincture of the skin, 
 To peace of mind and harmony within ? 
 "What the bright sparkling of the finest eye, 
 To the soft soothing of a calm reply ? 
 
 Can comeliness of form, or shape, or air, 
 With comeliness of words or deeds compare ? 
 No ! those at first the unwary heart may gain, 
 But these, these onlv, can the heart retain. 
 
 3. I have seen 
 
 A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract 
 
62 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Of inland ground, applying to his ear 
 The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell : 
 To which, in silence hushed, his very soul 
 Listened intensely ; — and his countenance soon 
 Brightened with joy ; for murmurings from within 
 Were heard, sonorous cadences ! whereby, 
 To his belief, the monitor expressed 
 Mysterious union with its native sea. 
 Even such a shell the universe itself 
 Is to the ear of Faith. 
 
 4. Gentle Force, or a slight degree of loudness, is used 
 to express caution, fear, secrecy, and tender emotions ; as, 
 
 1. Heard ye the whisper of the breeze, 
 
 As softly it murmured by, 
 Amid the shadowy forest trees ? 
 
 It tells, wim meaning sigh, 
 Of the bowers of bliss on that viewless shore. 
 Where the weary spirit shall sin no more. 
 
 2. The}' are sleeping ! Who are sleeping ? 
 
 Pause a moment — softly tread ; 
 Anxious friends are fondly keeping 
 
 Vigils by the sleeper's bed ! 
 Other hopes have all forsaken ; 
 
 One remains — that slumber deep : 
 Speak not, lest the slumberer waken 
 
 From that sweet, that saving sleep. 
 
 m. 
 
 QUALITY. 
 
 QUALITY has reference to the kinds of tone used in 
 reading and speaking. They are the Pure Tone, the 
 Orotund, the Aspirated, the Guttural, and the Trembling. 
 2. The Pure Tone is a clear, smooth, round, flowing 
 sound, accompanied with moderate pitch ; and is used to 
 express peace, cheerfulness, joy, and love ; as, 
 
 1. Methinks I love all common things — 
 The common air, the common flower ; 
 The dear, kind, common thought, that springs 
 
QUALITY. 63 
 
 From hearts that have no other dower, 
 
 No other wealth, no other power, 
 Save love ; and will not that repay 
 For all else fortune tears away ? 
 
 % It is the hour, when from the boughs 
 The nightingale's high note is heard ; 
 
 It is the hour when lovers' vows 
 
 Seem sweet in every whispered word ; 
 
 And gentle winds, and waters near, 
 
 Make music to the lonely ear. 
 
 Each flower the dews have lightly wet, 
 
 And in the sky the stars are met, 
 
 And on the wave is deeper blue, 
 
 And on the leaf a browner hue, 
 
 And in the heaven that clear obscure, 
 
 So softly dark, and darkly pure, 
 
 Which follows the decline of day, 
 
 As twilight melts beneath the moon away. 
 
 3. The Oeotuxd is the pure tone deepened, enlarged, 
 and intensified. It is used in all energetic and vehement 
 forms of expression, and in giving utterance to grand and 
 sublime emotions ; as, 
 
 1. Strike — till the last armed foe expires ; 
 Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 
 STRIKE — for the green graves of your sires ; 
 
 God — and vour native land ! 
 
 2. "Forward, the Light Brigade! 
 Charge for the guns !" he said : — 
 
 Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred. 
 
 3. The sky is changed ! and such a change ! Night, 
 And Storm, and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
 Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
 
 Of a dark evo in woman ! Far along-, 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
 Leaps the live thunder ! — not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue ; 
 And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud I 
 
64 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 4. The Aspirated Tone is an expulsion of the breath 
 more or less strong,— the words, or portions of them, being 
 spoken in a whisper. It is used to express amazement, 
 fear, terror, horror, revenge, and remorse ; as, 
 
 1. How ill this taper burns ! 
 Ha ! who comes here f 
 
 Cold drops of sweat hang on my trembling flesh, 
 My blood grows chilly, and I freeze with horror ! 
 
 2. The ancient Earl, with stately grace, 
 Would Clara on her palfrey place, 
 And whisper, in an under-tone, 
 
 " Let the hawk sloop, his prey is floivn." 
 
 3. While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 
 
 Or whispering with white lips, " TJiefoe ! they come, they come !" 
 
 5. The Guttural is a deep under-tone, used to express 
 hatred, contempt, and loathing. It usually occurs on the 
 emphatic words ; as, 
 
 1. Thou slave, thou icretch, thou coward ! 
 Thou cold-blooded slave ! 
 TJwu wear a lion's hide ? 
 Doff it, for shame, and hang 
 A calfskin on those recreant limbs. 
 
 2. Thou stand'st at length before me undisguised, 
 Of all earth's groveling crew the most accursed I 
 Thou worm ! thou viper ! — to thy native earth 
 Return ! Away ! Thou art too base for man 
 To tread upon. Thou scum ! thou reptile ! 
 
 6. The Tremulous Tone, or tremor, consists of a tremu- 
 lous iteration, or a number of impulses of sound of the 
 least assignable duration. It is used in excessive grief, 
 pity, plaintiveness, and tenderness ; in an intense degree of 
 suppressed excitement, or satisfaction ; and when the voice 
 is enfeebled by age. 
 
 7. The tremulous tone should not be applied through- 
 out the whole of an extended passage, but only on selected 
 emphatic words, as otherwise the effect would be monoto- 
 nous. In the second of the following examples, where the 
 
RATE. 65 
 
 tremor of age is supposed to be joined wifh that of suppli- 
 cating distress, the tremulous tone may be applied to every 
 emphatic syllable capable of prolongation, which is the 
 case with all except those of pity and shortest; but even 
 these may receive it in a limited degree. 
 
 love, remain ! It is not yet near day ! 
 
 It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
 
 That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear ; 
 
 Nightly she sings in yon pomegranate-tree. 
 
 Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. 
 
 Pity the sorrows of a jioor old man, 
 
 Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, 
 Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span : 
 
 give relief, and Ileaven iciU bless your store. 
 
 IV. 
 KATE. 
 
 I) ATE 1 refers to movement in reading and speaking, and 
 Y is Quick, Moderate, or Slow. 
 
 2. Quick Rate is used to express joy, mirth, confusion, 
 violent anger, and sudden fear ; as, 
 
 1. Away ! away ! our fires stream bright 
 
 Along the frozen river, 
 And their arrowy sparkles of brilliant light 
 On the forest branches quiver. 
 
 2. Away ! away to the rocky glen, 
 
 "Where the deer are wildly bounding ! 
 And the hills shall echo in gladness again, 
 To the hunter's bugle sounding. 
 
 3. The lake has burst ! The lake has burst ! 
 
 Down through the chasms the wild waves flee : 
 
 1 Exercise on Rate. — For a gen- ticulation ceases. Having done this, 
 
 oral exercise, select a sentence, and reverse the process, repeating slower 
 
 deliver it as slowly as may be possible and slower. Thus you may acquire 
 
 without drawling. Repeat the sen- the ability to increase and diminish 
 
 tence with a slight increase of rate, rate at pleasure, which is one of the 
 
 until you shall have reached a rapid- most important elements of good 
 
 ity of utterance at which distinct ar- reading and speaking. 
 
66 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 They gallop along, with a roaring song, 
 Away to the eager awaiting sea ! 
 
 4. And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 
 The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 
 Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
 And swiftly forming in the ranks of war. 
 
 3. Moderate Rate is used in ordinary assertion, narra- 
 tion, and description ; in cheerfulness, and the gentler forms 
 of the emotions ; as, 
 
 1. When the sun walks upon the blue sea-waters, 
 Smiling the shadows from yon purple hills, 
 We pace this shore, — I and my brother here, 
 Good Gerald. We arise with the shrill lark, 
 And both unbind our brows from sullen dreams ; 
 And then doth my dear brother, who hath worn 
 His cheek all pallid with perpetual thought, 
 Enrich me with sweet words ; and 6ft a smile 
 Will stray amidst his lessons, as he marks 
 
 New wonder paint my cheek, or fondly reads, 
 Upon the burning page of my black eyes, 
 The truth reflected which he casts on me. 
 
 2. I have sinuous shells of pearly hue 
 Within, and they that luster have imbibed 
 
 In the sun's palace-porch, where, when unyoked, 
 
 His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave : 
 
 Shake one and it awakens, then apply 
 
 Its polished lips to your attentive ear, 
 
 And it remembers its august abodes, 
 
 And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. 
 
 3. Warriors and statesmen have their meed of praise, 
 
 And what they do, or suffer, men record ; 
 But the long sacrifice of woman's days 
 
 Passes without a thought, without a word ; 
 And many a lofty struggle for the sake 
 
 Of duties sternly, faithfully fulfilled — 
 For which the anxious mind must watch and wake, 
 
 And the strong feelings of the heart be stilled — 
 Goes by unheeded as the summer wind, 
 And leaves no memory and no trace behind ! 
 
MONOTONE. 67 
 
 Yet it may be, more lofty courage dwells 
 
 In one meek heart which braves an adverse fate, 
 
 Than his whose ardent soul indignant swells 
 
 Warmed by the fight, or cheer'd through high debate. 
 
 The soldier dies surrounded : could he live, 
 
 Alone to suffer, and alone to strive ? 
 
 4. Slow Rate is used to express grandeur, yastness, 
 pathos, solemnity, adoration, horror, and consternation ; as, 
 
 1. O thou Eternal One ! whose presence bright 
 
 All space doth occupy, all motion guide ; 
 Unchanged through time's all-dev'astating flight ; 
 Thou only God ! There is no God beside ! 
 
 2. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ; 
 
 The lowing herd winds slowly 6'er the lea ; 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
 
 3. Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean — roll ! 
 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain : 
 Man marks the earth with ruin — 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 rain, 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
 Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 
 
 V. MOXOTOXE. 
 
 MONOTONE consists of a degree of sayneness of sound, 
 or tone, in a number of successive words or syllables. 
 
 2. It is very seldom the case that a perfect sameness is to 
 be observed in reading any passage or sentence. But very 
 little variety of tone is to be used in reading either prose 
 or verse which contains elevated descriptions, or emotions 
 of solemnity, sublimity, or reverence. 
 
 3. The monotone usually requires a low tone of the 
 
63 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 voice, loud or prolonged force, and a slow rate of utterance. 
 It is this tone only, that can present the conditions of the 
 supernatural and the ghostly. 
 
 The sign of monotone is a horizontal or even line over the 
 words to be spoken evenly, or without inflection ; as, 
 
 I heard a voice saying, Shall mortal man be more just tnan 
 God ! Shall a man be more pure than his Maker ! 
 
 EXERCISES IN MONOTONE. 
 
 1. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-piace in ail generations. 
 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst 
 
 i fc> j 
 
 formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to ever- 
 lasting, Thou art God. 
 
 2. Tnen the earth shook and trembled ; the foundations, also, 
 of the hills moved, and were shaken, because he was wroth. 
 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and tire out of his 
 mouth devoured. He bowed the heavens, also, and came down, 
 and darkness was under his feet ; and he rode upon a cherub, 
 and did fly' ; yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. 
 
 3. Man clieth, and wasteth away : yea, man giveth up the 
 ghost, and where is he ? As the waters fail from the sea, and 
 the flood decayeth and drieth up, so man lieth down, and 
 riseth nut; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, 
 nor be raised out of their sleep. 
 
 4. High on a throne of rovai state, which far 
 Outshone the wealth of Orrnus or of Ind, 
 Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, 
 Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, 
 Satan exalted sat ! 
 
 5. How reverend is the face of this tall pile, 
 "Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, 
 To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof, 
 By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, 
 Looking tranquillity ! It strikes an awe 
 And terror on my aching sight : the tombs 
 And monumental caves of death look cold, 
 And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart. 
 
PERSONATION. 09 
 
 6 Our revels are now ended : these our actors, 
 As I foretold you, were all spirits, and 
 Are melted into air, into thin air ; 
 And like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
 
 The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself — 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like this unsubstantial pageant, faded — 
 Leave not a rack behind. 
 
 7. I am thy father's spirit ; 
 
 Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, 
 And, for the day confined to fast in fires, 
 
 Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, 
 Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid 
 To tell the secrets of my prison-house, 
 
 I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 
 
 Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young blood ; 
 
 Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ; 
 
 Thy knotted and combined locks to part, 
 
 And each particular liair to staud on end, 
 
 Like quills upon the fretful porcupine : 
 
 But this eternal blazon must not be 
 
 To ears of flesli and blood : — List, — list, — O list ! — 
 
 If thou didst ever thy dear father love, 
 
 Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. 
 
 VI. PEESOXATIOX 
 
 PERSONATION consists of those modulations, or 
 changes of the voice, necessary to represent two or 
 more persons as speaking. 
 
 2. This principle of expression, upon the correct applica- 
 tion of which much of the beauty and efficiency of delivery 
 depends, is employed in reading dialogues and other pieces 
 of a conversational nature. 
 
 3. The student should exercise his discrimination and 
 
70 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ingenuity in studying the character of persons to be rep- 
 resented, — fully informing himself with regard to their tem- 
 perament and peculiarities, as well as their condition and 
 feelings at the time, — and so modulate his voice as best to 
 personate them. 
 
 EXERCISE IN PERSONATION. 
 
 He. Dost thou love wandering ? "Whither wouldst thou go ? 
 Dream'st thou, sweet daughter, of a land more fair ? 
 Dost thou not love these aye-blue streams that flow ? 
 These spicy forests ? and this golden air ? 
 
 She. Oh, yes, I love the woods, and streams, so gay ; 
 
 And more than all, O father, I love thee ; 
 Yet would I fain be wandering — far away, 
 
 Where such things never were, nor e'er shall be. 
 He. Speak, mine own daughter wifh the sun-bright locks ! 
 
 To what pale, banished region wouldst thou roam ? 
 She. O father, let us find our frozen rocks ! 
 
 Let's seek that country of all countries — Home ! 
 
 He. Seest thou these orange flowers ? this palm that rears 
 
 Its head up toward heaven's blue and cloudless dome ? 
 
 She. I dream, I dream ; mine eyes are hid in tears ; 
 
 My heart is wandering round our ancient home. 
 
 He. Why, then, we'll go. Farewell, ye tender skies, 
 
 Who sheltered us, when we were forced to roam ! 
 
 She. On, on ! Let's pass the swallow as he flies ! 
 
 Farewell, kind land ! Now, father, now — for Home ! 
 
 VII. PAUSES. 
 I. 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 PAUSES are suspensions of the voice in reading and 
 speaking, used to mark expectation and uncertainty, 
 and to give effect to expression. 
 
 Pauses are often more eloquent than words. They differ 
 greatly in their frequency and their length. In lively con- 
 
RULES FOR PAUSES. 71 
 
 versation and rapid argument, they are comparatively few 
 and short. In serious, dignified, and pathetic speaking, 
 they are far more numerous, and more prolonged. 
 
 The pause is marked thus ~, in the following illustrations 
 and exercises. 
 
 n. 
 
 EULES FOR PAUSES. 
 
 NOMINATIVES. — A pause is required after a compound 
 nominative, in all cases ; and after a nominative con- 
 sisting of a single word, when it is either emphatic, or is the 
 leading subject of discourse ; as, 
 
 Joy and sorrow *\ move him not. No people ^ can claim him. 
 No country ^ can appropriate him. 
 
 2. Words in Apposition. — A pause is required after words 
 which are in apposition with, or ojjposition to, each other ; as, 
 
 Solomon *i the son of David «*i was king of Israel. False del- 
 icacy is affectation ^not politeness. 
 
 3. A Transition. — A pause is required after but, hence, 
 and other words denoting a marked transition, when they 
 stand at the beginning of a sentence ; as, 
 
 But ~i it was reserved for Arnold m to blend all these bad 
 qualities into one. Hence ^i Solomon calls the fear of the 
 Lord m the bejnnninjx of wisdom. 
 
 © o 
 
 4. Conjunctions and Relatives. — A pause is required 
 before that, when a conjunction or relative, and the rela- 
 tives who, which, what; together with ivhen, ichence, and 
 other adverbs of time and place, which involve the idea of 
 a relative ; as, 
 
 He went to school ^ that he might become wise. This is the 
 man ^ that loves me. We were present **\ when La Fayette 
 embarked at Havre for New York. 
 
 5. The Infinitive. — A pause is required before the infini- 
 ti ve mood, when governed by another verb, or separated by 
 an intervening clause from the word which governs it ; as, 
 
 He has gone **i to convey the news. He smote me wife a 
 rod <*] to please my enemy. 
 
72 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 6. In cases of Ellipsis, a pause is required where one 
 or more words are omitted ; as, 
 
 So goes the world : if ^ wealthy, you may call this ~\ friend, 
 that «| brother. 
 
 7. Qualifying Clauses. — Pauses are used to set off qual- 
 ifying clauses by themselves ; to separate qualifying terms 
 from each other, when a number of them refer to the same 
 word ; and when an adjective follows its noun ; as, 
 
 The rivulet sends forth glad sounds, and <*| tripping o'er its bed 
 of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks *q seems ^with continu- 
 ous laughttr *-\ to rejoice in its own being. He had a mind^i 
 deep «*] active «*i well stored with knowledge. 
 
 These rules, though important, if properly applied, are 
 by no means complete ; nor can any be invented which 
 shall meet all the cases that arise in the complicated rela- 
 tions of thought. 
 
 A good reader or speaker pauses, on an average, at every 
 fifth or sixth word, and in many cases much more frequent- 
 ly. His only guide, in many instances, is a discriminating 
 taste in grouping ideas, and separating by pauses those 
 which are less intimately allied. In doing this, he will 
 often use what may be called suspensive quantity. 
 
 in. 
 
 SUSPENSIVE QUANTITY. 
 
 SUSPENSIVE QUANTITY means prolonging the end 
 of a word, without an actual pause ; and thus suspend- 
 ing, without wholly interrupting, the progress of sound. 
 
 The prolongation on the last syllable of a word, or sus- 
 pensive quantity, is indicated thus , in the following exam- 
 ples. It is used chiefly for three purposes : 
 
 1st. To prevent too frequent a recurrence of pauses ; as, 
 
 Her lover sinks — she sheds no ill-timed tear ; 
 
 Her chief is slain — she fills his fatal post ; 
 Her fellows flee — she checks their base career ; 
 
 The foe~retires — she heads the rallying host. 
 
EXERCISES IN PAUSES. 73 
 
 2d. To produce a slighter disjunction than would be made 
 by a pause ; and thus at once to separate and unite ; as, 
 
 Would you kill your friend and benefactor? Would you 
 practice hypocrisy and smile in his face, while your conspiracy 
 is ripening V 
 
 3d. To break up the current of sound into small portions, 
 which can be easily managed by the speaker, without the 
 abruptness which would result from pausing wherever this 
 relief was needed ; and to give ease in speaking ; as, 
 
 Warms - in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
 Glows - in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent. 
 
 General Rule. — When a preposition is followed by as 
 many as three or four words which depend upon it, the 
 word preceding the preposition will either have suspensive 
 quantity, or else a pause ; as, 
 
 Ho is the in'ide of the whole country. 
 
 Require students to tell which of the preceding rules or 
 principles is illustrated, wherever a mark, representing the 
 pause or suspensive quantity, is introduced in the following 
 
 EXERCISES IN PAUSES. 
 
 1. It matters very little *i what immediate spot*' may have 
 been the birth-place of such a man as Washington. No peo- 
 ple^ can claim *i*i no country** can appropriate him. The 
 boon of Providence to the human race*' his fame*' is eter- 
 nity *i*i and his dwelling-place ~~ creation. 
 
 2. Though it was the defeat m of our arms ** and the dis- 
 grace *i of our policy*-*' I almost bless the convulsion ** in 
 which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered *- and the 
 earth rocked*^*- yet*- when the storm passed *- how pure was 
 the climate *i that it cleared*-*- how bright *- in the brow of the 
 firmament *i was the planet *- which it revealed to us! 
 
 3. In the production of Washington -*• it does really appear*- 
 as if nature *i was endeavoring to improve upon herself *-*»* and 
 that all the virtues - of the ancient world *- were but so many 
 {tfw/j'es*i preparatory - to the patriot of the new. Individual 
 
74 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 instances «< no doubt there were ^ splendid exemplifications h of 
 some single qualification. Coesar *i was merciful *i **i Scipio *< was 
 continent wi^i Hannibal ^ was patient. But^iit was reserved 
 for Washington ^ to blend them all in one **!*»■ and ^ like the 
 lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artiste to exhibits in one 
 glow - of associated beauty ~i the pride of every model ** and the 
 perfection of every master. 
 
 4. As a general <*i*i he marshaled the peasants into a vet- 
 eran <^h and supplied by discipline ^ithe absence of experience. 
 As a statesman h*i he enlarged the poHcy of the cabinet **• into 
 the most comprehensive system of general advantage. And 
 such h was the wisdom of his views ** and the philosophy - of 
 his counsels m *i that to the soldiery and the statesman ^ he 
 almost added *j the character of the sage. 
 
 5. A conqueror **i he was untainted wim the crime of blood ^i wj 
 a revolutionist **j he was free from any stain of treason **i for 
 aggression - commenced the contests and his country - called 
 him to the field. Liberty **i unsheathed his sword ^^neces- 
 sity <*i stained ^i^i victory h returned it. 
 
 6. If he had paused here **i history might have doubted h what 
 station to assign him ^\^\ whether at the head of her citizens**! 
 or her soldiers «*m her heroes <*\ or her patriots. But the last - 
 glorious act ~i crowns his career « and banishes all hesitation. 
 Who >*i like Washington «i after having emancipated a hemis- 
 phere **j resigned its crown ^m and preferred the retirement of 
 domestic life h to the adoration of a land wj he might almost be 
 said to have created ? 
 
 7. How - shall we rank thee **i upon glory's page, 
 Thou mdre~ than soldier ^ and just less than sage ! 
 All thou hasf been ^ reflects less praise <-i on thee, 
 Far~less m than all thou hast forborne to be. 
 
 KEY TO THE USE OF MARKED LETTERS. 
 
 age or age, at or at, art, all, bare, ask ; we or we, £nd or 
 end, her ; ice or Ice, !n or in, fly, hymn ; old or old, on or 
 on, do ; mute or mute, up or tip, full ; fliis ; azure ; real, (not 
 rel) ; oVershoot' ; badness, (not rnss) ; aged, (not djd) ; g as j. 
 
DsDEX TO EDITIONS. 
 
 5^" The figures refer to the pages where the same lessons may be found 
 in the two editions of this work. 
 
 NEW ED. OLD ED. 
 
 77 67 
 
 81 71 
 
 85 77 
 
 87 171 
 
 89 99 
 
 92 95 
 
 94 360 
 
 97 81 
 
 100 84 
 
 101 160 
 
 103 249 
 
 105 251 
 
 106 253 
 
 110 256 
 
 113 138 
 
 117 92 
 
 120 398 
 
 123 401 
 
 126 404 
 
 129 116 
 
 132 119 
 
 134 109 
 
 136 Ill 
 
 139 115 
 
 140 
 
 142 121 
 
 144 123 
 
 147 127 
 
 148 128 
 
 150 130 
 
 153 134 
 
 155 415 
 
 175 
 
 160 
 
 162 
 
 NEW ED. OLD ED. 
 
 164 152 
 
 165 
 
 166 148 
 
 170 
 
 172 
 
 174 200 
 
 177 
 
 178 
 
 180 178 
 
 183 180 
 
 184 181 
 
 185 183 
 
 189 187 
 
 192 191 
 
 198 176 
 
 199 168 
 
 202 538 
 
 204 173 
 
 207 197 
 
 210 300 
 
 214 304 
 
 217 
 
 221 282 
 
 224 375 
 
 227 
 
 230 145 
 
 232 216 
 
 234 218 
 
 237 221 
 
 240 224 
 
 243 228 
 
 247 285 
 
 249 287 
 
 253 291 
 
 255 
 
 NEW KD. OLD ED- 
 
 256 294 
 
 257 163 
 
 261... r 316 
 
 263 318 
 
 267 322 
 
 270 325 
 
 275 
 
 277 
 
 280 231 
 
 282 
 
 283 233 
 
 284 235 
 
 287 236 
 
 289 239 
 
 291 241 
 
 293 296 
 
 294 296 
 
 295 298 
 
 297 264 
 
 299 262 
 
 301 259 
 
 304 498 
 
 305 499 
 
 307 307 
 
 309 384 
 
 311 501 
 
 313 
 
 315 
 
 317 
 
 318 
 
 321 243 
 
 324 
 
 327 
 
 330 
 
 333 436 
 
76 
 
 INDEX TO EDITIONS. 
 
 iEW ED. 
 
 OLD EI). 
 
 NEW ED. 
 
 OLD ED. 
 
 NEW KD. 
 
 OLD ED. 
 
 338 
 
 . ... 272 
 
 419 
 
 
 515... . 
 
 . ... 378 
 
 339 
 
 273 
 . ... 275 
 
 422 
 
 
 518 
 
 521 
 
 . . . . 483 
 
 341 
 
 426 
 
 
 . ... 486 
 
 343 
 
 . ... 277 
 
 434 
 
 
 524 
 
 . ... 489 
 
 346 
 
 . . . . 420 
 
 436 
 
 
 527 
 
 . ... 493 
 
 348 . .- . . . 
 
 
 440 
 
 . ... 445 
 
 532 
 
 . ... 510 
 
 350 
 
 359 
 856 
 
 443 
 
 
 533 
 535 
 537 
 
 . ... 511 
 
 352. 
 
 447 
 450 
 
 . ... 42; 
 
 505 
 
 355 
 
 ... 334 
 
 
 357 
 
 . ... 595 
 
 452 
 
 427 
 
 543 
 
 . ... 540 
 
 359 
 
 . ... 412 
 
 455 
 
 . ... 430 
 
 544 
 
 . ... 543 
 
 362 
 
 .*. .. 330 
 
 458 
 
 . ... 459 
 
 547 
 
 
 365 
 
 . . . . 336 
 
 461 
 
 . ... 465 
 
 549 
 
 
 370 
 
 
 463 
 
 . ... 468 
 
 551 
 
 .... 549 
 
 373 
 
 
 466 
 
 . ... 470 
 
 555 
 
 
 378 
 
 . ... 344 
 
 469 
 
 .... 449 
 
 558..... 
 
 .... 565 
 
 381 
 
 . ... 502 
 
 473 
 
 .... 454 
 
 562 
 
 .... 569 
 
 884 
 
 381 
 
 479 
 
 
 565 
 
 . ... 572 
 
 387 
 
 . ... 479 
 
 480 
 
 
 568 
 
 . ... 562 
 
 390 
 
 . ... 387 
 
 482 
 
 
 571 
 
 . ... 583 
 
 894 
 
 . . . . 391 
 
 483 
 
 
 575 .... 
 
 . ... 575 
 
 896 
 
 . ... 394 
 
 485 
 
 
 577 
 
 . ... 578 
 
 393 
 
 . . . . 395 
 
 487 
 
 
 580 
 
 . ... 586 
 
 400 
 
 . . . . 363 
 
 493 
 
 
 583 
 
 
 403 
 
 
 498 
 
 
 583 
 
 .... 588 
 
 405 
 
 . ... 874 
 
 501 
 
 . ... 416 
 
 587 
 
 . ... 592 
 
 406 
 
 . ... 365 
 
 505 
 
 
 590 
 
 .... 477 
 
 410 
 
 . ... 369 
 
 507 
 
 . ..528 
 
 593 
 
 
 414. 
 
 597 
 .... 314 
 
 509 
 
 511 
 
 . . 518 
 
 596 
 
 
 417 
 
 
 
PART II. 
 
 "READINGS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 I. 
 
 1. THE MONTHS. 
 
 JANUARY! Darkness and light reign alike. Snow is on 
 the ' ground. Cold is in the 3 air. 3 The winter is blossoming 
 in frost-flowers. Why is the ground hidden ? Why is the earth * 
 white ? So hath God wiped out the past, 5 so hath he spread 
 the earth like an unwritten page, for a 6 new year ! Old sounds 
 are silent in the forest and in the air. Insects are dead, birds 7 
 are gone, 8 leaves have perished, and all the foundations of soil 
 remain. Upon this lies, white and tranquil, the emblem of 
 newness and purity, the virgin* robes of the yet unstained year ! 
 2. February ! The day gains upon the night. The strife of 
 heat and cold is scarce 10 begun. The winds that come from the 
 desolate north wander through forests of frost-cracking boughs, 
 and shout in the air the weird " cries of the northern bergs 13 
 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 13 that lies beneath the snow. The day opens, but the night 
 shuts the earth with its frost-lock. They strive together, but 
 
 1 The, (fhu), see Rule 3, p. 32. * Virgin, (vcr' jin). 
 
 2 The, see Rule 3, p. 32. ,0 Scarce, (skars). 
 
 8 Air, (ar), see Note 2, p. 22. u Weird, like witches ; skilled in 
 
 * Earth, (erth), see Note 4, p. 22. witchcraft ; unearthly ; wild. 
 
 6 Past, (past), see Note 3, p. 22. " Bergs, (borgz), hills ; an iceberg 
 e A, (a), see Rule 2, p. 32. is a hill or mountain of ice, or a vast 
 
 7 Birds, (berdz). body of ice floating on the ccean. 
 
 • Gone, see Note 1, p. 23. "Root, (rot). 
 
78 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 the Darkness and the Cold are growing weaker. On some nights 
 they forget to work. 
 
 3. March! The conflict is more turbulent, 1 but the victory 
 is gained. The world awakes. 3 There 3 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 release, and begin to lift up 
 a thousand tiny palms. 4 
 
 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 glo- 
 rified ? 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 b in struggle, in trial, in 
 bitter distress. If called to shed thy joys as trees their leaves ; 
 if the affections be driven back into the heart, as the life of 
 flowers to their roots, yet be patient. Thou shalt lift up thy 
 leaf-covered boughs again. 6 Thou shalt shoot forth from thy 
 roots new flowers. Be patient. "Wait. When it is February, 
 April is not far off. Secretly the plants love each other. 
 
 5. May ! O Flower-Month, per'fect the harvests of flowers ! 
 Be not niggardly. Search out the cold and resentful nooks T that 
 refused the sun, casting back its rays from disdainful ice, and 
 plant flowers even there. There is goodness in the worst. 
 There is warmth in the coldness. The silent, hopeful, unbreath- 
 ing sun, that will not fret or despond, but carries a placid brow 
 through the unwrinkled heavens, at length conquers the very 
 rocks, and lichens 8 grow and inconspicuously blossom. What 
 shall not Time do, that carries in its bosom * Love ? 
 
 i Turbulent, (t$r' bu lent). 8 Lichen, (11' ken), one of an order 
 a Awakes, (a woks'), Note 1, p. 32. of flowerless plants, without distinc- 
 
 8 There, (thar). tion of leaf and stem, usually of 
 
 4 Palms, (pamz). scaly, expanded, front-like forms, but 
 
 6 Nothing, (nuth' ing). sometimes imitating the forms of 
 • Again, (a gen'). branches of trees. 
 
 7 Nooks, (n6ks). 9 Bosom, (buz/ um). 
 
THE MONTHS. 79 
 
 G. Jttnt: ! Rest ! This is tho year's bower. Sit down within 
 it. Wipe from thy brow the toil. The elements are thy ser- 
 vants. The dews bring thee jewels. The winds bring per'fume. 
 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 tho 
 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, " God 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. Tho land 
 hath Him. His footsteps arc 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 hot- 
 ness. Must it be thus in everything, that June shall rush to- 
 ward August? Or, is it not that there are deep and unreached 
 places for whose sake the probing ' sun pierces down its glowing 
 hands ? There is a deeper work than June can perform. The 
 earth shall drink of the heat before she knows her nature or her 
 strength. Then shall she bring forth to the uttermost the treas- 
 ures of her bosom. For, there are things hidden far down, and 
 the deep things of life arc 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 seek the deeper 
 pools ; forest fowl lead out their young ; the air is resonant 2 of 
 insect orchestras, 3 each one carrying his part in Nature's grand 
 
 1 Prob' ing, scrutinizing ; search- 3 Orchestra, (ar' kes tra), a band 
 ing to the bottom. of musicians ; a place prepared for 
 
 5 Resonant, (rez' o nant). the performers in a concert. 
 
80 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 harmony. August, thou art the ripeness of the year ! Thou art 
 the glowing center of the circle ! 
 
 9. September! There are thoughts in thy heart of death. 
 Thou art doing a secret work, and heaping up treasures for an- 
 other year. The unborn infant-buds which 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 di- 
 videst them asunder, and art thyself molded of them both. 
 
 10. October! Orchard of the year! Bend thy boughs to 
 the earth, redolent ' of glowing fruit ! Ripened seeds shake in 
 their pods. Apples drop in the stillest hours. Leaves begin to 
 let go when 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 heap them in fence corners. When the 
 gales come through the trees, the yellow leaves trail, like sparks 
 at night behind the flying engine. The woods 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 dene. 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. AVilt thou not 
 come, O December? 
 
 12. December! Silently the month advances. There is 
 nothing to destroy, but much to bury. Bury, then, thou snow, 
 that slumberously fallest through the still air, the hedge-rows of 
 leaves ! Muffle thy cold wool about 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 constel- 
 
 1 RSd' o lent, having or diffusing a rich fragrance, odor, or scent. 
 
HYMN TO THE SEASONS. 81 
 
 latioa ' is set that Star, whose rising is the sign, for evermore, 
 
 that there is life in 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 things shall come forth 
 
 again. Storms shall sob themselves to sleep. Silence 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 ! through 
 
 the whole year ! II. W. Beeper. 
 
 Eev. Henry "Ward Beeciier, son of Dr. Lyman Bcecher, was born in Litch- 
 field, Connecticut, June 24th, 1813. He was graduated at Amherst College, in 
 1834. He studied theology at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, which was under the 
 direction of his father; and was first settled as a Presbyterian minister at Law- 
 renccburg, Dearborn County, Indiana, where he remained two years. From 
 thence, he removed to Indianapolis, the capital of the State, where he labored 
 with great acceptation till he accepted the unanimous call of a new Congrega- 
 tional Society, in Brooklyn, New York. He was installed pastor of the church, 
 October, 1847. His eloquent sermons, which arc never commonplace, attract 
 very large and attentive audiences. He is equally favored as a lecturer on topics 
 of the day, usually lecturing about eighty times a year, in various parts of the 
 country. Mr Bcecher generally avoids doctrinal topics. He preaches the truth 
 of to-day applied to the temptations, the errors, and the wants of to-day. His 
 sympathy with nature, acute observation of men and things, remarkable analy- 
 sis of character, apt illustration, mental elasticity, soul-strength, and allluence 
 and power of diction, are equally apparent in bis writings and his extemporane- 
 ous speeches. 
 
 n. 
 
 2. HYMN TO THE SEASONS. 
 
 THESE, as they change, Almighty Father ! these 
 Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
 Is fall of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring 
 Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness, and love. 
 Wide flush the fields ; the softening air is balm ; 
 Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles; 
 And every sense and every heart is joy. 
 
 2. Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months, 
 Wifti liprht and heat refulgent." Then thv sun 
 Shoots full perfection through the swelling year; 
 
 1 C5n N stella'tion,an assemblage, or some other object which it is im- 
 
 cluster, or group of fixed stars, situ- ngined to resemble. 
 
 ated near each other in the heavens, 2 Re ful' gent, casting a bright 
 
 and bearing the name of an animal, light ; brilliant ; splendid. 
 
82 NATIONAL FIFTH READEK. 
 
 And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks, 
 And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, 
 By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. 
 Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, 
 And spreads a common feast for all that live. 
 In Winter awful Thou, with clouds and storms 
 Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled, 
 Majestic darkness ! On the whirlwind's wing, 
 Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore, 
 And humblest Nature with thy northern blast. 
 
 3. MJsterious round ! what skill, what force divine, 
 Deep felt, in these appear ! a simple train, 
 
 Yet so delightful mixed, with such kind art, 
 Such beauty and beneficence J combined ; 
 Shade, unperceived, so softening into shade ; 
 And all so forming a harmonious whole, 
 That, as they still succeed, they ravish 5 still. 
 
 4. But wandering 6ft, with brute 3 unconscious gaze, 
 Man marks not Thee ; marks not the mighty Hand, 
 That, ever busy, wheels the silent sphere ; 
 
 Works in the secret deep ; shoots, steaming, thence 
 The fair profusion that 6'erspreads the Spring ; 
 Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ; 
 Feeds every creature ; hurls the tempest forth ; 
 And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, 
 With transport touches all the springs of life. 
 
 5. Nature, attend! join, every living soul, 
 Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, 
 In adoration * join ; and, ardent, raise 
 
 One general song ! To Him, ye vocal gales, 
 Breathe soft, whose spirit in your freshness breathes : 
 O, talk of Him in solitary glooms ! 
 Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely i waving pine 
 
 * Be neT i cence, the practice of 4 AcT o ra' tion, the act of paying 
 doing good ; active goodness, kind- honors to a divine being ; the wor- 
 ness, or charity. ship paid to God ; marked respect 
 
 * Rav' ish, enrapture ; transport paid to a superior or one in high es« 
 with delight. teem. 
 
 8 Brute, (br5t), see Rule 4, p. 32. ■ Scarcely, (skars' II). 
 
HYMN TO THE SEASONS. g3 
 
 Fills the brown shade with a religious awe. 
 
 And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar, 
 
 Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven 
 
 The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. 
 
 G His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills ; 
 And let me catch it as I muse along. 
 Ye headlong torrents, rapid and profound ; 
 Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze 
 Along the vale ; and thou, majestic main, 
 A secret world of wonders in thyself, 
 Hound His stupendous ' praise, whose greater voice 
 Or bids you 2 roar, or bids your 3 roarings fall. 
 
 7. Soft roll your incense, /icrbs, and fruits, 4 and flowers, 
 In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts, 
 "Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. 
 Ye forests, bend ; ye harvests, wave to Him ; 
 Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, 
 
 As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. 
 
 8. Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep 
 Unconscious lies, effuse 5 your mildest beams ; 
 Ye constellations, while your angels strike, 
 Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. 
 Great source of day ! best image here below 
 Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, 
 
 From world to world, the vital ocean round, 
 On Nature write wirli every beam His praise. 
 
 9. The thunder rolls : be hushed the prostrate world, 
 While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. 
 Bleat out afresh, ye hills ; ye mossy rocks, 
 Betain the sound ; the broad responsive low, 
 
 Ye valleys, raise ; for the Great Shepherd reigns, 
 And His unsuffering kingdom yet will come. 
 Ye woodlands all, awake : a boundless song 
 Burst from the groves ! and when the restless day, 
 
 1 Stu pen" dous, literally, striking 3 You, (yo). 
 
 dumb by its greatness of size or ini- 3 Your, (yor). 
 
 portancc ; hence, astonishing ; wod- 4 Fruits, (frStz), Kulc 4, p. H2. 
 
 derfuJ. * Effuse, (ef fuz'), spill, or pour out, 
 
84 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep, 
 
 Sweetest of birds ! sweet Philomela, 1 charm 
 
 The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. 
 
 10. Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, 
 At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, 
 Crown the great hymn ! in swarming cities vast, 
 Assembled men, to the deep organ join 
 
 The long-resounding voice, 6ft breaking clear, 
 At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass ; 
 And, as each mingling flame increases each, 
 In one united ardor rise to heaven. 
 Or, if you rather choose the rural 2 shade, 
 And find a fane in every sacred grove, 
 There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay, 
 The prompting seraph, 3 and the poet's lyre, 
 Still sing the God of Seasons as they roll. 
 
 11. For me, when I forget the darling theme, 
 Whether the blossom blows, the summer ray 
 Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, 
 Or Winter rises in the blackening east, 
 
 Be m) r tongue mute, my fancy paint no more, 
 And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat! — 
 Should fate command 4 me to the furthest verge 
 Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, 
 Rivers unknown to song, — where first the sun 
 Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam 
 Flames on the Atlantic isles, — 'tis naught to me ; 
 Since God is ever present, ever felt, 
 In the void waste as in the city full ; 
 And where He vital breathes, there must be joy. 
 
 12. When even at last the solemn hour shall come, 
 And wing my mystic & flight to future worlds, 
 
 I cheerful will obey ; there, with new powers, 
 Will rising wonders sing. I can not go 
 
 1 Fhir o me' la, from Philomela, " SSr'aph, (Eng., plural, ser'aphs ; 
 
 daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, Heb., pi., ser'a phlrn), an angel of the 
 
 who was supposed to have been highest order, 
 
 changed into a nightingale ; hence, * Command, (kom mand'). 
 
 the nightingale. 6 MyV tic, obscure ; involving 
 
 3 Rural, (ro' ral). some hidden meaning. 
 
NEVER DESPAIR 85 
 
 Where Universal Love not smiles around, 
 
 Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ; 
 
 Prom seeming evil still educing good, 
 
 And better thence again, and better still, 
 
 In infinite progression. But I lose 
 
 Myself in him, in Light ineffable ! ' 
 
 Come then, expressive Silence, muse His praise. 
 
 James Thomson. 
 
 James Thomson was born at Ednam,ncar Kelso, Roxburgh County, Scotland, 
 September 11th, 1700, and died August 27th, 1T4S. lie was the author of tho 
 "Seasons," a work which alone would have perpetuated his name. Though 
 born a poet, he seems to have advanced but slowly, and by reiterated efforts, to 
 refinement of taste. The first edition of the "Seasons" differs materially fr<>m 
 the second, and the second still more from the third. Every alteration was an 
 improvement in delicacy of thought and language. That the genius of Thorn, 
 eon was purifying and working oil" its alloys up to the termination of his exist- 
 ence, may be seen from the superiority in style and diction of his last poem, the 
 "Castle of Indolence," to which he brought not only the full nature, hut the 
 perfect art of a poet. As a dramatic writer he was unsuccessful. lie was in 
 poverty in early life, but through the inllucnec of Lord Lyttlcton, he obtained a 
 pension of £100 a year, from the Prince of Wales, and an office which brought 
 him £300 per annum. He was now in comparative opulence, and his residence 
 at Kcw-lane, near Richmond, was the scene of social enjoyment and lettered 
 case. He was friendly, shy and indolent. His noted lines in favor of early 
 rising, commencing — 
 
 Falsely luxurious, will not man awake, 
 And springing from the bed of sloth, &c, 
 were written in bed. 
 
 SECTIOX II. 
 I. 
 
 3. NEVER DESPAIR. 
 
 THERE is no trait of human character so potential 3 for weal 
 or woe as firmness. To the business man it is all-imoor- 
 tant. Before its irresistible energy the most formidable obsta- 
 cles become as cobweb barriers in its path. 3 Difficulties, the 
 terror of which causes the pampered* sons of luxury to shrink 
 
 1 In ef fa ble, not capable of being powerful ; mighty ; forcible, 
 
 expressed in words ; untold ; un- ' Path, (pith). 
 
 speakable. 4 Pam' pered, fed or gratified in- 
 
 3 Potential, (p6 ten' ekal), efficient ; ordinately or unduly. 
 
86 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 back with dismay, provoke from the man of lofty determination 
 only a smile. The whole history of our race — all nature, indeed 
 —teems with examples to show what wonders may be accom- 
 plished by resolute perseverance and patient toil. 
 
 2. It is related of Tamerlane, ' the celebrated warrior, the terror 
 of whose arms spread through all the Eastern nations, and whom 
 victory attended at almost every step, that he once learned from 
 an insect a lesson of perseverance, which had a striking effect 
 on his future character and success. 
 
 3. When closely pursued by his enemies — as a contemporary' 
 tells the anecdote — he took refuge in some old ruins, where, left 
 to his solitary musings, he espied an ant tugging and striving to 
 cany a single grain of corn. His unavailing efforts were re- 
 peated sixty-nine times, and at each several time, so soon as he 
 reached a certain point of projection, he fell back wifh his bur- 
 den, unable to surmount it ; but the seventieth time he bore 
 away his spoil in triumph, and left the wondering hero reani- 
 mated and exulting in the hope of future victory. 
 
 5. How pregnant 3 the lesson this incident conveys! How 
 many thousand instances there are in which inglorious defeat 
 ends the career of the timid and desponding, when the same 
 tenacity of purpose would crown it with triumphant success ! 
 Resolution is almost omnipotent. Sheridan 4 was at first timid, 
 and obliged to sit down in the midst of a speech. Convinced 
 of, and mortified at, the cause of his failure, he said one day to 
 a friend, " It is in me, and it shall come out." 
 
 5. From that moment he rose, and shone, and triumphed in 
 a consummate 6 eloquence. Here was true moral courage. And 
 it was well observed by a heathen moralist, that it is not because 
 things are difficult that we dare 6 not undertake them. 
 
 1 Tarn' er lane, called also Timour fever, and died soon after taking the 
 
 the Tartar, was born 1335. He be- field, 18th February, 1405. 
 
 came sovereign of Tartary, and sub- ■ Con tern' po rary, living, acting, 
 
 dued Persia, India and Syria. With, or happening at the same time, 
 
 an army of 200,000 men, in a battle ■ Preg' nant, full of consequences, 
 
 fought at Angora, on the 20th of July, * Richard Brinsley Sheridan, sco 
 
 1402, he defeated the Turkish army, Biographical Sketch, p. 126. 
 
 composed of 300,000 men, and made 6 Con siim' mate, carried to the 
 
 their emperor, Bajazet, prisoner. He utmost extent or degree ; complete; 
 
 was on the point of invading China, perfect, 
 
 when ho was seized with a violent Dare, (dlr), cec Note 2, p. 22. 
 
now. 87 
 
 G. Be, then, bold in spirit. Indulge no doubts — they arc 
 traitors. In the practical pursuit of our high aim, let us never 
 lose sight of it in the slightest instance : for it is more by a dis- 
 regard of small things, than by open and flagrant offenses, that 
 men come short of excellence. There is always a right and a 
 wrong ; and if you ever doubt, be sure you take not the wrong. 
 Observe this rule, and every experience will be to you a mean3 
 of advancement. 
 
 n. 
 
 4. NOW. 
 
 THE venerable Past — is past ; 
 'Tis dark, and shines not in the ray : 
 'Twas good, no doubt — 'tis gone at last — 
 
 There dawns another day. 
 Why should we sit where ivies creep, 
 And shroud ourselves in charnels deep ? 
 Or the world's yesterdays deplore, 
 Mid crumbling ruins mossy hoar? 
 
 2. Why should we see with dead men's eyes, 
 
 Looking at Was from morn to night, 
 When the beauteous Now, the divine To Be, 
 
 Woo with their charms our living sight ? 
 Why should we hear but echoes dull, 
 "When the world of sound, so beautiful, 
 
 Will give us music of our own ? 
 Why in the darkness should we grope, 
 When the sun, in heaven's resplendent cope, 
 
 Shines as bright as e'er it shone ? 
 
 3. Abraham ' saw no brighter stars 
 
 Than those which burn for thee and me. 
 When Homer 3 heard the lark's sweet song 5 
 Or night-bird's lovelier melody, 
 
 1 A' bra ham, the patriarch of the lie is supposed to have been an Asi- 
 Jews, born and died moro than two atic Greek, though his birth-place, 
 thousand years B. C. and the period in which he lived, 
 
 2 H5' mer, the most distinguished are not known. 
 
 of poets, called the " Father of Song." * S5ng, see Note 1, p. 23. 
 
88 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 They were such sounds as Shakspeare 1 heard, 
 Or Chaucer," when he blessed the bird ; 
 Such lovely sounds as we can hear. — 
 
 4. Great Plato 3 saw the vernal year 
 
 Send forth its tender flowers and shoots, 
 And luscious autumn pour its fruits ; 
 And we can see the lilies blow, 
 The corn-fields wave, the rivers flow ; 
 For us all bounties of the earth, 
 For us its wisdom, love, and mirth, 
 If we daily walk in the sight of God, 
 And prize the gifts he has bestowed. 
 
 5. We will not dwell amid the graves, 
 
 Nor in dim twilights sit alone, 
 To gaze at moldered architraves, 4 
 
 Or plinths 5 and columns overthrown ; 
 We will not only see the light 
 
 Through painted windows cobwebbed o'er, 
 Nor know the beauty of the night 
 
 Save by the moonbeam on the floor : 
 But in the presence of the sun, 
 
 Or moon, or stars, our hearts shall glow ; 
 We'll look at nature face to face, 
 
 And we shall love because we know. 
 
 6. The j)i*esent needs us. Every age 
 Bequeams the next for heritage 
 No lazy luxury or delight — 
 
 But strenuous labor for the right ; 
 For Now, the child and sire of Time, 
 
 Demands the deeds of earnest men 
 To make it better than the past, 
 
 And stretch the circle of its ken. 
 
 — — - ■ ■ - ■ -- — .— — .. — ■ — ■ — ■ — — , ■ , . . - 
 
 1 See Biographical Sketch, p. 383. about 430 n. c., and died in his 
 
 3 Geoffrey Chaucer, (cha'ser).call- eightieth year, 
 
 ed the day-star and father of English * Architrave, (ark' i triv), the part 
 
 poetry, born about 1328, and died in of a roof which rests on the top of a 
 
 1400. His great work is " The Can- column, designed to represent the 
 
 terbury Tales." beam which supports the roof. 
 
 8 Pla' to, a very celebrated philos- b Plinth, a flat, round, or square 
 
 opher of ancient Greece, was born baso or foundation for a column. 
 
A GOLDEN COPPERSMITH. 89 
 
 Now is a fact that men deplore, 
 Though it might bless them evermore, 
 Would they but fashion it aright : 
 Tis ever new, 'tis ever bright. 
 
 7. Time, nor Eternity, hath seen 
 A repetition of delight 
 
 In all its phases : ne'er hath been 
 For men or angels that which is ; 
 
 And that which is hath ceased to be 
 Ere we have breathed it, and its place 
 
 Is lost in the Eternity. 
 
 But Now is ever good and fair, 
 
 Of the Infinitude the heir, 
 
 And we of it. So let us live 
 
 That from the Past we mav receive 
 
 Light for the Now — from Now a joy 
 
 That Fate nor Time shall e'er destroy. Mackay. 
 
 Chakles Mackay, L.L.D., a British poet and journalist, was born in Perth, 
 1813. He was editor of the Morning Chronicle for live years, and of the Glasgow 
 Argus for three. He is an author of considerable fame, ranking among the first 
 of the present British poets, and still writes for the Illustrated London News. 
 
 III. 
 5. A GOLDEN COPPERSMITH. 
 
 BASEL GAVRELOFF MARINE, a Russian crown-slave, and 
 by trade a coppersmith, was, at the beginning of March, 
 returning to St. Petersburg from visiting his family at his native 
 village. He arrived at Mos'cow on the night of the eleventh, 
 with ten of his companions ; and as the railway train was al- 
 ready gone, they were obliged to pass the night there, and re- 
 main till three the next afternoon. 
 
 2. "The villagers are curious," Marine himself relates, "and 
 as we had never been at Moscow before, we determined to see 
 all the curiosities of that ancient town. "We entered the Cathe- 
 dral of the Assumption, and kissed all its holy relics. We 
 ascended to the top of the belfry of dTvan-Ycliky, and then pro- 
 ceeded to the Bird-market. Here we heard that a terrible fire was 
 raging — that the Great Theater was burning. As it was only 
 noon, we determined to be spectators, and hastened to the spot." 
 
 3. They arrived just as the fire was at its height ; the theater 
 
90 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 burnt from the interior, and the flames spread rapidly, bursting 
 from the roof and the windows in savage fury. At the time the 
 fire broke out, three workmen were engaged at the top of the 
 building : it gained upon them so fast, they had only time from 
 a window to reach the roof ; when they frantically rushed about 
 without hope of escape, surrounded by the flames, which each 
 moment gained upon them. Two of them in wild despair threw 
 themselves from the roof, and were killed on the pavement below. 
 
 4. The third remained ; and, suffocating with the smoke, 
 screamed for assistance in a manner that struck agony in the 
 hearts of all who heard hini. His death seemed inevitable. 
 There was not a ladder of sufficient length to reach the roof of 
 the building, and the miserable man had the alternative of per- 
 ishing by the flames or leaping down, as his comrades had done. 
 But even in this extremity his confidence did not forsake him, 
 and he sought refuse on that side where the wind blew the 
 flames away from him. Marine and his companions all this 
 time were spectators of the scene. " I held my tongue," said 
 Marine, "but my heart beat painfully, and I asked myself how I 
 could save this poor soul." 
 
 5. " Companions," cried the brave fellow, suddenly, " wait for 
 me here, while I try and save that man." His comrades looked 
 at him with surprise, but without dissuading him from his pur- 
 pose. " God be with you," said they, " for it is a good deed you 
 are about to do." Without losing another moment, Marine ap- 
 proached the authorities present, and solicited permission to try 
 and rescue the man from the frightful death which menaced him. 
 
 G. Permission obtained, he took off his cap and sheepskin coat, 
 and confided them to the care of the police. Accompanied by his 
 brother, and provided with a stout cord, he rushed to a ladder 
 that was placed against the wall, but which was very far from 
 reaching the roof. Marine made the sign of the Cross, and be- 
 gan to ascend. When he reached the summit, he fastened the 
 cord around his waist, and once more devoutly crossing himself, 
 began to climb one of the pipes that led from the roof. 
 
 7. The crowd below, breathless with astonishment and fear, 
 eagerly watched each movement. Around him the flames were 
 playing with intense fury ; and above the terrible noise of the 
 falling timbers were heard the fearful shrieks of the unfortunate 
 man ; who, though he saw assistance coming to him, dreaded it 
 
A GOLDEN COPPERSMITn. 91 
 
 might be too late. Nothing daunted, Marine continued his per- 
 ilous ascent'. "It was cold," said ho, "and there was a terrible 
 wind, but yet I felt it not ; for, from the moment I determined 
 upon trying-to save the follow, my heart was on fire, and I was 
 like a furnace." His burning hands kept continually sticking to 
 the frozen pipes, which somewhat retarded his progress ; but 
 still he courageously continued his way. "The pipe cracked," 
 said he, " it was no longer firm — this dear pipe ; but happily I 
 had arrived at the cornice, where there was foot-room." 
 
 8. His brother, who had remained all this time on the ladder, 
 had made a hook fast to one end of the cord. Marine passed 
 it to the man on the roof, and desired him to fasten it somehow 
 securely ; this he did by fixing it round one of the ornaments of 
 the cornice. Marine doubled it, to make it more secure, and 
 then made him slide down the pipe, holding the cord in his 
 hand, and his knees firmly round the pipe — himself giving the 
 example. At the moment Marine reached the ladder, and tho 
 man ho had so nobly preserved was seen to glide down in safety, 
 a remarkable movement was manifested by the crowd — a move- 
 ment truly Russian — all heads were simulta/neously uncovered, 
 and all hands made the sign of the Cross. 
 
 9. When Marine reached the ground, tho man was already 
 half-way down the ladder, and out of all danger. " I had hardly 
 reached the ground," relates Marine, " when a gentleman, in a 
 cloak and military casque, approached me, and gave me twenty- 
 five silver rubles." ' A great number of others surrounded him, 
 and each gave him according to his means — some ten kopecks 2 
 silver, others a ruble, and some only copper. " Thanks, brave 
 man !" was cried on all sides ; "you are a courageous and good 
 Christian ; and may G6d long grant you health, and bless you!" 
 
 10. " What became of the man I rescued," said Marine, " I do 
 not know ; but that is not my affair. Thanks to God, lie is 
 saved.. A gentleman — an aid-de-camp 3 — came to me, gave me 
 a ticket, and took me in his sledge to the office of the Chan- 
 cellerie, where he wrote down all that had taken place." During 
 this time Marine did not lose his presence of mind ; he was uiily 
 
 'Ruble, (rS'bl), a Russian coin 3 Aid-de-camp, (ad' de king), a 
 
 about the value of seventy-five cents, general's aid ; an officer selected by 
 
 7 Ko' peck, a Russian coin worth a general officer to assist him in his 
 
 about two thirds of a cent. militarv duties. 
 
02 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 anxious about one thing — that the railway should not leave with- 
 out him. At three o'clock he was in the wagon ; and, on Friday, 
 the thirteenth, he arrived at his destination, where he was waited 
 for by his master, Monsieur x Flottoff. 
 
 11. He requested permission for one day's leave to visit his 
 aunt, 3 who kept a small shop in the Vassili Ostroff, which was 
 readily granted ; when, leaving her to return home, he was as- 
 tonished at being called to the house of the Grand Master of the 
 Police, who accompanied him to the palace. The courage of 
 which he had so lately given so strong a proof, had been brought 
 to the knowledge of the Emperor, who desired to see him. 
 Never had he thought, even in his wildest dreams, that such 
 an honor would be accorded to him, a simple man of the people. 
 
 12. The Emperor received Marine in his cabinet, and, with 
 the greatest kindness, said, " Marine, I thank thee for the good 
 and great action thou hast performed ; but I wish to hear from 
 thy own mouth how, with God's assistance, thou didst it." Ma- 
 rine related the adventure to him in his own simple manner, 
 and when he had finished, the Czar, 3 who had listened to him 
 with the greatest attention, embraced him, and said : " My son, 
 may God bless you ! and remember, if you ever stand in need of 
 my assistance, come to me and it shall be accorded you." The 
 Emperor then presented him with a medal and one hundred and 
 fifty silver rubles. Marine left the Emperor's presence a happy 
 man. 
 
 IV. 
 
 6. NOBLE REVENGE. 
 
 A YOUNG officer (in what army no matter) had so far forgot, 
 ten himself, in a moment of irritation, as to strike a private 
 soldier, full of personal dignity (as sometimes happens in all 
 ranks), and distinguished for his courage. The inex'orable 4 
 laws of military discipline forbade to the injured soldier any 
 practical redress — he could look for no retaliation by acts. 
 
 2. "Words only were at his command, and, in a tumult of in- 
 dignation, as he turned away, the soldier said to his officer that 
 
 1 Monsieur, (mo ser'), Sir ; Mr. < In ex' o ra tie, not to be per- 
 
 ' Aunt, (ant), suaded or moved by entreaty or 
 
 • Czar, (zar), emperor. prayer ; unyielding ; unchangeable. 
 
NOBLE REVENUE. <j;j 
 
 he would " make him repent it." This, wearing the shape of a 
 menace, naturally rekindled the officer's anger, and intercepted 
 any disposition which might be rising within him toward a sen- 
 timent of remorse ; and thus the irritation between the two 
 young men grew hotter than before. 
 
 3. Some weeks after this a partial action took place with the 
 enemy. Suppose yourself a spectator, and looking down into a 
 valley occupied by the two armies. They arc facing each other, 
 you see, in martial array. But it is no more than a skirmish 
 which is going on ; in the course of which, however, an occasion 
 suddenly arises for a desperate service. A redoubt, which has 
 fallen into the enemy's hands, must be recaptured at any price, 
 and under circumstances of all but hopeless difficulty. 
 
 4. A strong party has volunteered for the service ; there is a 
 cry for somebody to head them ; you see a soldier step out from 
 the ranks to assume this dangerous leadership ; the party moves 
 rapidly forward ; in a few minutes it is swallowed up from your 
 eyes in clouds of smoke ; for one half l hour, from behind these 
 clouds you receive hieroglyphic 3 reports of bloody strife — fierce 
 repeating signals, flashes from the guns, rolling musketry, and ex- 
 ulting hurrahs 3 advancing or receding, slackening or redoubling. 
 
 5. At length all is over ; the redoubt has been recovered ; 
 that which was lost is found again ; the jewel which had been 
 made captive is ransomed with blood. Crimsoned with glorious 
 gore, the wreck of the conquering party is relieved, and at lib- 
 erty to return. From the river you see it ascending. 
 
 6. The plume-crested officer in command rushes forward, with 
 his left hand raising his hat in homage to the blackened frag- 
 ments of what once was a flag, whilst with his right lurnd he 
 seizes that of the leader, though no more than a private from 
 the ranks. That perplexes you not ; mystery you see none 4 in 
 that. For distinctions of order perish, ranks are confounded ; 
 "high and low" are words without a meaning, and to wreck 
 goes every notion or feeling that divides the noble from the 
 noble, or the brave man from the brave. 
 
 7. But wherefore 1 is it that now, when suddenly they wheel 
 
 1 Half, (haf). 3 Hurrahs, ( h6r raz' ), huzzas ; 
 
 3 Hr e ro glyph' ic, expressive of shouts of joy or exultation. 
 meaning hy characters, pictures, or * None, (nun). 
 figures. 'Wherefore, (wh&r'for). 
 
94 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 into mutual recognition, 1 suddenly they pause? This soldier, 
 
 this officer — who are they ? O reader ! once before they had 
 
 stood face to face — the soldier that was struck, the officer that 
 
 struck him. Once again 2 they are meeting; and the gaze of 
 
 armies is upon them. If for a moment a doubt divides them, 
 
 in a moment the doubt has perished. One glance exchanged 
 
 between them publishes the forgiveness that is sealed forever. 
 
 8. As one who recovers a brother whom he has accounted 
 
 dead, the officer sprang forward, threw his arms around the 
 
 neck of the soldier, and kissed him, as if he were some martyr 
 
 glorified by that shadow of death from which he was returning; 
 
 whilst, on his part, the soldier, stepping back, and carrying his 
 
 open hand through the beautiful motions of the military salute 
 
 to a superior, makes this immortal answer — that answer which 
 
 shut up forever the memory of the indignity offered to him, 
 
 even while for the last time alluding to it : "Sir," he said, "I 
 
 told you before, that I would make you repent it." 
 
 Thomas de Quincey. 
 
 TnoMAS de Quincet was born at Manchester, England, on the 15th of Au- 
 gust, 1785. He passed his childhood in rural retirement. He was matriculated 
 at Oxford, at Christmas, 1803, being then in his nineteenth year, where he re- 
 mained till 1808. He resided for twenty years, between 1S08 and 1829, among 
 the lakes and mountains of Westmoreland, and occupied Wordsworth's cottage 
 seven years of the time. ' De Quinccy's first work, " Confessions of an English 
 Opium-Eater," which appeared in the London Magazine, in 1S21, and was 
 printed in book form in 1822, was immediately and immensely popular. It 
 passed through several editions in Europe and this country, and at once placed 
 its author in the front rank of vivid and powerful writers. After this period, his 
 numerous contributions to the periodical press were paid for at a large price. 
 He has written upon a wider and more diversified range of subjects than any 
 other author of his time. He is noted for his original genius, stores of learn- 
 ing, depth of insight, and subtlety of thought. His matter is always abundant 
 and good. He has acquired a style of the rarest brilliancy and richness, but his 
 force is often diminished by his capricious use of words, and the weary length 
 of his digressions. 
 
 V. 
 
 7. BEAUTY. 
 
 THE high and divine beauty which can be loved without 
 effeminacy, is that which is found in combination with the 
 human will, and never separate. Beauty is the mark God sets 
 
 1 Recognition, (reV og nlsh' un), ed or confessed ; act of knowing again, 
 acknowledgment : knowledge avow- ■ Again, (4 g£n'). 
 
BEAUTY. 9/3 
 
 upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act 
 is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. 
 
 2. Wo are taught by great actions that the universe is the 
 property of every individual in it. Every rational creature has 
 all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He 
 may divest himself of it ; he may creep into a corner, and abdi- 
 cate his kingdom, as must men do ; but he is entitled to the 
 world by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his 
 thought and will, he takes up the world into himself. " All 
 those things for which men plow, build, or sail, obey virtue," 
 said an ancient historian. " The winds and waves," said Gib- 
 bon, 1 "are alway on the side of the ablest navigators." »So arc 
 the sun and moon and all the stars of heaven. 
 
 3. When a noble act is done, — perchance in a scene of great 
 natural beauty ; when Leonidas' and his three hundred martyrs 
 consume one day in dying, and the sun and moon come each 
 and look at them once in the steep defile of Thermopylae ; when 
 Arnold Winkelried, a in the high Alps, under the shadow of the 
 avalanche, 4 gathers in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to 
 break the hue for his comrades ; are not these heroes entitled 
 to add the beauty of the scene to the beauty of the deed ? 
 
 4. AVhcn the bark of Columbus 5 nears the shore of America, 
 — before it, the beach lined with savages, fleeing out of all their 
 huts of cane — the sea behind, and the purple mountains of the 
 
 1 Edward Gibbon, one of the most no other means of breaking the 
 celebrated historians of any age and heavy-armed lines of the Austrian?, 
 country, author of the " Decline and he run with extended arms, and. 
 Fall of the Roman Empire," was gathering as many of their spears as 
 born at Putney, Surrey, England, he could grasp, thus opened a | 
 April 27th, 1737, and died January sage for his countrymen, who, with 
 16th, 1794. hatchets and hammers, slaughter..! 
 
 2 Le 5n'i das, the first of the name, the mailed men-at-arms, and won 
 king of Sparta, immortalized by his the victory. 
 
 glorious defense of the pass of Ther- 4 Avalanche, (&v\u lanshA a mow- 
 
 mopyla? against Xerxes, reigned from slip ; a vast body of ice, snow, or 
 
 491 to 480 B. C. earth, sliding down a mountain. 
 
 3 Arnold Winkelried, (wingk' el- 5 Christopher Colum'bus, the dis- 
 ret), a Switzer of the fourteenth cen- covercr of the New World, was born 
 tury, the glory of whose heroic, vol- in Gen'oii, about the year 1435 or 
 untary death, is not surpassed in the 1436, and died at Seville, Spain, on 
 annals of history. In the battle of the 20th of May, 1506. 
 Sempach, perceiving that there was c Purple, (peV pi). 
 
96 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Indian ' Ar'cMpel'ago around,— can we separate the man from 
 the living picture ? Does not the New World clothe his form 
 with her palm-groves and savannahs as fit drapery ? 
 
 5. Ever does natural beauty steal in like air, and envelop 
 great actions. When Sir Harry Vane 2 was dragged up the 
 Tower-hill, sitting on a sled, to suffer death as the champion of 
 the English laws, one of the multitude cried out to him, "You 
 never sat on so glorious a seat." Charles II., to intimidate the 
 citizens of London, caused the patriot Lord Russell 3 to be drawn 
 in an open coach, through the principal streets of the city, on 
 his way to the scaffold. " But," to use the simple narrative of 
 his biographer, "the multitude imagined they saw liberty and 
 virtue sitting by his side." 
 
 6. In private places, among sordid objects, an act of truth or 
 heroism seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its temple, 
 the sun as its candle. Nature stretcheth out her arms to em- 
 brace man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly 
 does she follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend 
 her lines of grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling 
 child. Only let his thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame 
 will suit the picture. A virtuous man is in unison with her 
 works, and makes the central figure of the visible sphere. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emekson, a son of the Rev. William Emerson, was born in 
 Boston, about the year 1803, took his degree of bachelor of arts at Harvard Col- 
 lege in 1821, studied theology, and, in 1829, was ordained the colleague of the 
 lute Rev. Henry Ware, jr., over the second Unitarian church of his native city; 
 but subsequently, becoming independent of the control of set regulations of re- 
 ligious worship, retired to Concord, where, in 1835, he purchased the house in 
 which he has since resided, except while absent on two excursions in Europe, 
 during the latter of which, in 1847, he delivered a course of lectures in London, 
 and other parts of England. He has been a contributor to " The North American 
 Review " and " The Christian Examiner," and was two years editor of " The Dial," 
 
 1 Indian, (Ind' yan). ment, opposed the king, became one 
 
 2 Sir Henry Vane, a republican of the council of state on the estab- 
 and religionist, was born at Hadlow, lishment of the commonwealth, and, 
 In Kent, England, in 1612. He was after the restoration, was condemned 
 among the earliest of those whom for treason, and beheaded June 
 religious opinion induced to seek a 14, 1GG2. He wrote several works, 
 home in America. He was appointed chiefly religious. 
 
 governor of Massachusetts in 1635, s Lord William Russell, born on 
 
 returned to England the following the 20th of September, 1639, and be- 
 
 year, married there, entered parlia. headed on the 21st of July, 1683. 
 
SABBATH MORNINU. 
 
 97 
 
 established in Boston, by Mr. Ripley, in 1840. lie published several orations and 
 addresses in ISoT-oS-oD-IO, and in 1841 the first series of his " Essays," in 1844 
 the second series of his "Essays," in 1840 a collection of his " Poems," in 1S51 
 "Representative Men," in 1852, in connection with W. II. Channing and Janus 
 Freeman Clarke, "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli," and in 1856 "English 
 Trait?." Mr. Emerson is an able lecturer, a most distinguished essayist, and an 
 eminent poet. He perceives the evils in society, the falsehoods of popular opin- 
 ions, and the unhappy tendencies of common feelings. He is an original and 
 independent thinker, and commands attention both by the novelty of his view9 
 and the graces and peculiarities of his style. 
 
 H 
 
 SECTION III. 
 I. 
 
 8. SABBATH MORNING. 
 
 OVv still the morning of the hallowed day ! 
 Mute is the voice of rural labor, hushed 
 
 The plowboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song. 
 Tho scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath 
 Of tedded ' grass, mingled with fading flowers, 
 That yester-morn bloomed, waving in the breeze. 
 Sounds, the most faint, attract the ear, — the hum 
 Of early bee, the trickling of the dew, 
 The distant bleating, midway up the hill. 
 Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud. 
 
 2. To him who wanders o'er the upland leas, 
 
 The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale ; 
 And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark 
 Warbles with heaven-tuned song ; the lulling brook 
 Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen ; 
 Whilo from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke 
 O'ermounts the mist, is heard, at intervals, 
 The voice of psalms, — the simple song of praise. 
 
 8. With dove-like wings, Peace O'er yon village broods : 
 The dizzying mill-wheel rests ; and the anvil's din 
 Hath ceased ; all, all around is quietness. 
 Less fearful, on this day, the limping hare 
 
 1 TSd' ded, spread out, or turned and scattered for drying. 
 
 5 
 
98 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man, 
 
 Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free, 
 
 Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large ; 
 
 And as his stiff, unwieldy bulk he rolls, 
 
 His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray. 
 
 4. But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys. 
 
 Hail, Sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day. 
 
 On other days, the man of toil is doomed 
 
 To eat his joyless bread lonely, — the ground 
 
 Both seat and board, screened from the winter's cold 
 
 And summer's heat by neighboring hedge or tree ; 
 
 But on this day, embosomed in his home, 
 
 He shares the frugal meal with those he loves ; 
 
 With those he loves, he shares the heart-felt joy 
 
 Of giving thanks to God, — not thanks of form, 
 
 A word and a grimace', but reverently, 
 
 With covered face, and upward, earnest eye. 
 
 5. Hail, Sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day : 
 The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe 
 The morning air, pure from the city's smoke ; 
 WTiile, wandering slowly up the river's side, 
 He meditates on Him, w r hose power he marks 
 
 In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough, 
 As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom 
 Around its roots ; and while he thus surveys, 
 With elevated joy, each rural charm, 
 He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope, — 
 That heaven may be one Sabbath without end. 
 
 6. But now his steps a welcome sound recalls : 
 Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile, 
 Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe : 
 
 Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground ; 
 The aged man, the bowed down, the blind 
 Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes 
 With pain, and eyes the new-made grave, well-pleased ; - 
 These, mingled with the young, the gay, approach 
 The house of God — these, spite of all their ills, 
 A glow of gladness feel : with silent praise 
 They enter in ; a placid stillness reigns, 
 
SABBATH MORNING. [)<j 
 
 Until the man of God, -worthy the name, 
 
 Opens the book, and reverentially 
 
 The stated portion reads. A pause ensues. 
 
 7. The organ breathes its distant thunder notes, 
 Then swells into a diapason ' full : 
 The people rising sing, " with harp, with harp, 
 And voice of psalms ;" harmoniously attuned, 
 The various voices blend ; the long-drawn aisles, 
 At every close, the lingering strain prolong. 
 And now the tubes a softened stop controls : 
 In softer harmony the people join, 
 While liquid whispers from yon orphan band 
 Recall the soul from adoration's trance, 
 And fill the eye with pity's gentle tears. 
 
 8 Again the organ-peal, loud, rolling, meets 
 
 The halleluiahs ' of the choir. Sublime 
 
 A thousand notes symphoniously ascend, 
 
 As if the whole were cne, suspended high 
 
 ■ In air, soaring heavenward : afar they float, 
 
 Wafting glad tidings to the sick man's couch : 
 
 Raised on his arm, he lists the cadence close, 
 
 Yet thinks he hears it still : his heart is cheered ; 
 
 He smiles on death ; but ah ! a wish will rise — 
 
 " Would I were now beneath that echoing roof ! 
 
 No lukewarm accents from my lips should flow ; 
 
 My heart would sing ; and many a sabbath-day 
 
 My steps should thither turn ; or, wandering f:ir 
 
 In solitary paths, where wild flowers blow, 
 
 There would I bless His name who led me forth 
 
 From death's dark vale, to walk amid those swects-i 
 
 Who gives the bloom of health once more to glow 
 
 Upon this cheek, and lights this languid eye." 
 
 James Graiiame. 
 
 "Rev James Graiiame was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 17o7>. He studied 
 law and practiced at the Scottish bar several years, but afterward took orders in 
 the Church of England, and was successively curate of Shipton, in Gloucester- 
 shire, and of Sedgetield, in the county of Durham. Ill health compelled him to 
 
 1 Diapason, (dl v a p&'zon), in music, an octave apart : harmony, 
 the octave or interval which includes 3 Halleluiah, (haP le lu' ya), praise 
 all the tones ; concord, as of notes ye Jehovah ; give praises to God. 
 
100 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 abandon his curacy when his virtues and talents had attracted notice and ren- 
 dered him a popular and useful preacher ; and on revisiting Scotland, he died 
 September 14th, 1811. His works consist of " Mary, Queen of Scotland," a dra- 
 matic poem, published in 1801 ; " The Sabbath," from which the above selection 
 is taken; "Sabbath Walks," "Biblical Pictures," "The Birds of Scotland," and 
 "British Georgics," all in blank verse. "The Sabbath" is the best of his pro- 
 ductions. The poet was modest and devout, though sometimes gloomy in his 
 seriousness. His prevailing tone, however, is that of implicit trust in the good- 
 ness of God, and enjoyment in his creation. 
 
 n. 
 
 9. MATERNAL AFFECTION. 
 
 \ \ 7 OMAN'S * charms are certainly many and powerful. The 
 . V V expanding rose just bursting into beauty lias an irresisti- 
 ble bewitchingness ; the blooming bride led triumphantly to the 
 hy x mene'al altar awakens admiration and interest, and the blush 
 of her cheek fills with delight ; but the charm of maternity i3 
 more sublime than all these. 
 
 2. Heaven has imprinted in the mother's face something be- 
 yond this world, something which claims kindred with the skies, 
 — the angelic smile, the tender look, the waking, watchful eye, 
 which keeps its fond vigil over her slumbering babe. 
 
 3. These are objects which neither the pencil nor the chisel 
 can touch, which poetry fails to exalt, which the most eloquent 
 tongue in vain would eulogize, and on which all description be- 
 comes ineffective. In the heart of man lies this lovely picture ; 
 it lives in his sympathies ; it reigns in his affections ; his eye 
 looks round in vain for such another object on earth. 
 
 4. Maternity, ecstatic 2 sound! so twined round our hearts, 
 that they must cease to throb ere we forget it ! 'tis our first 
 love ; 'tis part of our religion. Nature has set the mother upon 
 such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted 
 to it ; we cling to it in manhood ; we almost worship it in old age. 
 
 5. He who can enter an apartment, and behold the tender 
 babe feeding on its mother's beauty — nourished by the tide of 
 life which flows through her generous veins, without a panting 
 bosom and a grateful eye, is no man, but a monster. Ho who 
 can approach the cradle of sleeping innocence without thinking 
 that " of such is the kingdom of heaven !" or see the fond parent 
 
 1 Woman, (wum' an). side one's self ; delightful beyond 
 
 * Ec stat' ic, rendering one be- measure 
 
THE GOOD WIFE. 10J 
 
 hang over its beauties, and half retain her breath lest she should 
 break its slumbers, without a veneration beyond all common 
 feeling, is to be avoided in every intercourse of life, and is fit 
 only for the shadow of darkness and the solitude of the desert. 
 
 ni. 
 
 10. THE GOOD WIFE. 
 
 THE heart of a man, with whom affection i3 not a name, and 
 love a mere passion of the hour, yearns toward the quiet of 
 a home, as toward the goal of his earthly joy and hope. And 
 as you fasten there your thought, an indulgent, yet dreamy fancy 
 paints the loved image that is to adorn it, and to make it sacred. 
 
 2. She is there to bid you — God speed ! and an adieu, that 
 hangs like music on your car, as j'ou go out to the every-day 
 labor of life. At evening, she is there to greet you, as you come 
 back wearied with a day's toil ; and her look so full of gladness, 
 cheats you of your fatigue ; and she steals her arm around you, 
 with a soul of welcome, that beams like sunshine on her brow 
 and that fills your eye with tears of a twin gratitude — to her, 
 and Heaven. 
 
 3. She is not unmindful of those old-fashioned virtues of clean- 
 liness and of order, which give an air of quiet, and which secure 
 content. Your wants arc all anticipated ; the fire is burning 
 brightly ; the clean hearth flashes under the joyous blaze ; the 
 old elbow-chair is in its place. Your very airworthiness of nil 
 this haunts you like an accusing spirit, and yet penetrates your 
 heart with a new devotion toward the loved one who is thus 
 watchful of your comfort. 
 
 4. She is gentle ; — keeping your love, as she has won it, by a 
 thousand nameless and modest virtues, which radiate from her 
 whole life and action. She steals upon your affections like a 
 summer wind breathing softly over sleeping valleys. She gains 
 a mastery over your sterner nature, by very contrast ; and wins 
 you unwittingly to her lightest wish. And yet her wishes are 
 guided by that delicate tact, which avoids conflict with your 
 manly pride ; she subdues, by seeming to yield. By a singlo 
 soft word of appeal, she robs your vexation of its anger ; and 
 with a slight touch of that fair hand, and one pleading look of 
 that earnest eye, she disarms your sternest pride. 
 
102 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. She is kind ; — shedding her kindness, as Heaven sheds dew. 
 Who indeed could doubt it ? — least of all, you who are living on 
 her kindness, day by day, as flowers live on light? There is 
 none of that officious parade, which blunts the point of benevo- 
 lence ; but it tempers every action with a blessing. 
 
 6. If trouble has come upon you, she knows that her voice, 
 beguiling you into cheerfulness, will lay your fears ; and as she 
 draws her chair beside you, she knows that the tender and con- 
 fiding way with which she takes your hand and looks up into 
 your earnest face, will drive away from your annoyance all its 
 weight. As she lingers, leading off your thought with pleasant 
 words, she knows well that she is redeeming you from care, and 
 soothing you to that sweet calm, which such home and such 
 wife can alone bestow. 
 
 7. And in sickness, — sickness that you almost covet for the 
 sympathy it brings, — that hand of hers resting on your fevered 
 forehead, or those fingers playing with the scattered locks, are 
 more full of kindness than the loudest vaunt of Mends ; and 
 when your failing strength will permit no more, you grasp that 
 cherished hand, with a fullness of joy, of thankfulness, and of 
 love, which your tears only can tell. 
 
 8. She is good ; — her hopes live where the angels live. Her 
 kindness and gentleness are sweetly tempered with that meek- 
 ness and forbearance which are born of Faith. Trust comes into 
 her heart as rivers come to the sea. And in the dark hours of 
 doubt and foreboding, you rest fondly xrpon her buoyant faith, 
 as the treasure of your common life ; and in your holier musings, 
 you look to that frail hand, and that gentle spirit, to lead you 
 away from the vanities of worldly ambition, to the fullness of 
 that joy which the good inherit. D. G. Mitchell. 
 
 Donald G. Mitchell was born in Norwich, Connecticut, April, 1822. His 
 father was the pastor of the Congregational church of that place, and his grand- 
 father a member of the first Congress at Philadelphia, and for many years 
 Chief-justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. Mr. Mitchell graduated in 
 due course, at Yale, in 1841. His health being feeble, he passed the three fol- 
 lowing years in the country, where he became much interested in agriculture, 
 and wrote a number cf letters to the " Cultivator," at Albany. He gained a 
 silver cup from the New York Agricultural Society, as a prize for a plan of farm 
 buildings. He next crossed the ocean, and after remaining about two years in 
 Europe, returned home, and soon after published "fresh Gleanings." In ISoO, 
 after his return from a second visit to Europe, he published " The Battle Sum- 
 mer," containing personal observations in Paris during the year 1848. He has 
 since published the " Reveries of a Bachelor," " Dream Life," " Fudge Doings," 
 
INFLUENCE OF HOME. 103 
 
 " }Iy Farm at Edgcwood," " Seven Stories," " Wet Days at Edgcwood," and 
 "Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects." His works have usually been well received. 
 His style is quiet, pure, and effective. In 1S53, Mr. Mitchell received the ap- 
 pointment of United States consul at Venice. He is at present residing in the 
 Vicinity of New Haven. 
 
 IV. 
 
 11. INFLUENCE OF HOME. 
 
 HOME gives a certain serenity to the mind, so that ever/ 
 thing is well defined, and in a clear atmosphere, and the 
 lesser beauties brought out to rejoice in the pure glow which 
 floats over and beneath them from the earth and sky. In this 
 state of mind afflictions come to us ehas^Ticd ; and if the wrongs 
 of the world cross us in our door-path, we put them aside without 
 anger. Vices are about us, not to lure us away, or make us 
 morose, but to remind us of our frailty and keep down our pride. 
 
 2. We are put into a right relation with the world ; neither 
 holding it in proud scorn, like the solitary man, nor being car- 
 ried along by shifting and hurried feelings, and vague and care- 
 less notions of things, like the world's man. We do not take 
 novelty for improvement, or set up vogue for a rule of conduct ; 
 neither do we despair, as if all great virtues had departed with 
 the years gone by, though we see new vices and frailties taking 
 growth in the very light which is spreading over the earth. 
 
 3. Our safest way of coming into communion with mankind 
 is through our own household. For there our Borrow and regret 
 at the failings of the bad are in proportion to our love, while our 
 familiar intercourse with the good has a secretly assimilating 
 influence upon our characters. The domestic man has an inde- 
 pendence of thought which puts him at ease in society, and a 
 cheerfulness and benevolence of feeling which seem to ray out 
 from him, and to diffuse a pleasurable senso over those near 
 him, like a soft, bright day. 
 
 4. As domestic life strengthens a man's virtue, so docs it help 
 to a sound judgment and a right balancing of things, and gives 
 an integrity and propriety to the whole character. God, in his 
 goodness, has ordained that virtue should make its own enjoy- 
 ment, and that wherever a vice or frailty is rooted out, some- 
 thing should spring up to be a beauty and delight in its stead. 
 But a man of character rightly cast, has pleasures at home, 
 
104 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 which, though fitted to his highest nature, are common to him as 
 his daily food ; and ho moves about his house under a continued 
 sense of them, and is happy almost without heeding it. 
 
 5. "Women have been called angels in love-tales and sonnets, 
 till we have almost learned to think of angels as little better 
 than women. Yet a man who knows a woman thoroughly, and 
 loves her truly, — and there are women who may be so known 
 and loved, — will find, after a few years, that his relish for the 
 grosser pleasures is lessened, and that he has grown into a fond- 
 ness for the intellectual and refined without an effort, and al- 
 most unawares. 
 
 G. Ho has been led on to virtue through his pleasures ; and 
 the delights of the eye, and the gentle play of that passion which 
 is the most inward and romantic in our nature, and which keeps 
 much of its character amidst the concerns of life, have held him 
 in a kind of spiritualized existence : he shares his very being 
 with one who, a creature of this world, and with something of 
 the world's frailties, 
 
 Is yet a spirit still, and bright, 
 With something of an angel light. 
 
 With all the sincerity of a companionship of feeling, cares, sor- 
 rows, and enjoyments, her presence is as the presence of a purer 
 being, and there is that in her nature which seems to bring him 
 nearer to a better world. She is, as it were, linked 'to angels, 
 and in his exalted moments he feels himself held by the same tie. 
 
 7. In the ordinary affairs of life, a woman has a greater influ- 
 ence over those near her than a man. While our feelings are, 
 for the most part, as retired as anchorites, hers are in play be- 
 fore us. We hear them in her varying voice ; we see them in 
 the beautiful and harmonious undulations of her movements — in 
 the quick shifting hues of her face — in her eye, glad and bright, 
 then fond and suffused ; her frame is alive and active with what 
 i3 at her heart, and all the outward form speaks. 
 
 8. She seems of a finer mold than we, and cast in a form of 
 beauty, which, like all beauty, acts with a moral influence upon 
 our hearts ; and as she moves about us, we feel a movement 
 within which rises and spreads gently over us, harmonizing us 
 with her own. And can any man listen to this — can his eye, 
 day after day, rest upon this — and he not be touched by it, and 
 mado better ? 
 
AN OLD HAUNT. 105 
 
 9. The dignity of a woman lias its peculiar character ; it awes 
 mora than that of man. His is more physical, bearing itself up 
 with an energy of courage which we may brave, or a strength 
 which we may struggle against : he is his own avenger, and wo 
 may stand the brunt. A woman's has nothing of this force in 
 it ; it is of a higher quality, and too delicate for mortal touch. 
 
 Dana. 
 Richard Henry Dana was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the loth 
 of November, 1737. He graduated at Harvard in 1807. He opened a law-ofliee 
 in Newport, R. I., in 1811, and became a member of the legislature; but his 
 constitutional sensitiveness and feeble health compelled him to abandon his pro- 
 fession soon after. For two years, from 1818, he aided in editing the N. A. Re- 
 view; and in 1831 began the publication of "The Idle Man," a periodical in 
 which he communicated to the public his Tales and Essays. After the discon- 
 tinuance of that paper, he wrote able articles for several of the best periodicals 
 of the country. The first volume of his poems, containing " The Burancer," was 
 printed i,H 1837. An edition of his writings, in two volumes, was published in 
 New York in 1850. Mr. Dana at present passes his time between his town res- 
 idence at Boston and his country retirement at Cape Ann, where he can indulge 
 in his love of nature. He is regarded always, by as many as have the honor of 
 his acquaintance, with admiration and the most reverent affection. All of his 
 writings belong to the permanent literature of the country, and yearly find more 
 and more readers. They are distinguished for profouud philosophy, simplo sen- 
 timent, and pure and vigorous diction. 
 
 V. 
 
 12. AN OLD HAUNT. 
 
 HH HE rippling water, with its drowsy tone ; 
 JL The tall elms, towering in their stately pride ; 
 And — sorrow's type — the willow, sad and lone, 
 Kissing in graceful woe the murmuring tide ; 
 
 2. The gray church-tower ; and dimly seen beyond, 
 
 The faint hills gilded by the parting sun ; 
 All were the same, and seemed with greeting fond 
 To welcome me as they of old had done. 
 
 3. And for a while I stood as in a trance, 
 
 On that loved spot, forgetting toil and pain ; 
 Buoyant my limbs, and keen and bright my glance : 
 For that brief space I was a boy again ! 
 
 4. Again with giddy mates I careless played, 
 
 Or plied the quivering oar, on conquest bent : 
 Again, beneath the tall elms' silent shade, 
 I wooed the fair, and won the sweet consent 
 
J_06 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. But brief, alas! the spell ; for suddenly 
 
 Pealed from the tower the old familiar chimes, 
 And with their clear, heart-thrilling melody, 
 Awaked the spectral forms of darker times. 
 
 6. And I remembered all that years had wrought : 
 
 How bowed my care-worn frame, how dimmed my eye ! 
 How poor the gauds by Youth so keenly sought ! 
 How quenched and dull Youth's aspirations high ! 
 
 7. And in half mournful, half upbraiding host, 
 
 Duties neglected — high resolves unkept — 
 
 And many a heart by death or falsehood lost — 
 
 In lightning current 6'er my bosom swept. 
 
 8. Then bowed the stubborn knees, as backward sped 
 
 The self-accusing thoughts in dread array, 
 And slowly, from their long-congealed bed, 
 Forced the remorseful tears their silent way. 
 
 9. Bitter, yet healing drops ! in mercy sent, 
 
 Like soft dews falling on a thirsty plain, — 
 And ere those chimes their last faint notes had spent, 
 Strengthened and calmed, I stood erect again. 
 
 10. Strengthened, the task allotted to fulfill ; 
 
 Calmed the thick-coming sorrows to endure ; 
 Fearful of naught but of my own frail will. — 
 In His almighty strength and aid secure. 
 
 11. For a sweet voice had whispered hope to me, — 
 
 Had through my darkness shed a kindly ray : 
 It said : " The past is fixed immutably, 
 Yet is there comfort in the coming day !" 
 
 VI. 
 
 13. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 DURING my residence in the country, I used frequently to 
 attend at the old village church. Its shadowy aisles, its 
 moldering monuments, its dark oaken panneling, nil reverend 
 with the gloom of departed years, seemed to tit it for the haunt 
 
THE WIDOW AND HER SOX. 107 
 
 of solemn meditation. A Sunday, too, in the country, is so holy 
 in its repose ; such a pensive quiet reigns over the face of nature, 
 that every restless passion is charmed down, and we feel all the 
 natural religion of the soul gently springing up within us. 
 
 2. I do not pretend to be what i3 called a devout man, but 
 there are feelings that visit me in a country church, amidst tho 
 beautiful serenity of nature, which I experience nowhere else ; 
 and if not a more religious, I think I am a better man on Sun- 
 day than on any other day of the seven. But in this church I 
 felt myself continually thrown back upon the world by the fri- 
 gidity and pomp of the poor worms around me. 
 
 3. The only being that seemed thoroughly to feel the humble 
 and prostrate piety of a true Christian, was a poor decrepit old 
 woman, bending under the weight of years and infirmities. She 
 bore the traces of something better than abject poverty. The 
 lingerings of decent pride were visible in her appearance. Her 
 dress, though humble in the extreme, was scrupulously clean. 
 Some trivial respect, too, had been awarded her, for she did not 
 take her seat among tho village poor, but sat alone on the steps 
 of the altar. 
 
 4. She seemed to have survived all love, all friendshij->, all. 
 society, and to have nothing left her but the hopes of heaven. 
 When I saw her feebly rising and bending her aged form in 
 prayer, — habitually conning her prayer book, which her palsied 
 hand and failing eyes could not permit her to read, but which 
 she evidently knew by heart, — I felt persuaded that the falter- 
 ing voice of that poor woman arose to heaven far before the re- 
 sponses of the clerk, the swell of the organ, or the chanting of 
 the choir. 
 
 5. I am fond of loitering about country churches, and this 
 was so delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It 
 stood on a knoll, round which a small stream made a beautiful 
 bend, and then wound its way through a long reach of soft 
 meadow scenery. The church was surrounded by yew-trees, 
 which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire 
 shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows generally 
 wheeling about it. 
 
 G. I was seated there ono still sunny morning, watching two 
 laborers who were digging a grave. They had chosen one of 
 the most remote and neglected corners of the church-yard, 
 
108 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 where, by the number of nameless graves around, it would ap- 
 pear that the indigent and friendless were hurried into the earth. 
 I was told that the new-made grave was for the only son of a 
 poor widow. While I was meditating on the distinctions of 
 worldly rank, which extend thus down into the very dust, the 
 toll of the bell announced the approach of the funeraL 
 
 7. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had 
 nothing to do. A coffin of the plainest materials, without pall 
 or other covering, was borne by some of the villagers. The 
 sexton walked before, with an air of cold indifference. There 
 were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected woe, but 
 there was one real mourner, who feebly tottered after the corpse. 
 
 8. It was the aged mother of the deceased — the poor old woman 
 whom I had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was 
 supported by a humble friend, who was endeavoring to comfort 
 her. A few of the neighboring poor had joined the train, and 
 some children of the village were running hand in hand, now 
 shouting with unthinking mirth, and sometimes pausing to gazo 
 with childish curiosity on the grief of the mourner. 
 
 9. As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson 
 issued out of the church porch, arrayed in the surplice, with 
 prayer book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, 
 however, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had been 
 destitute, and the survivor was pennyless. It was shuffled 
 through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The 
 well-fed priest, scarcely moved ten steps from the church door; 
 his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I 
 hear the funeral service, that sublime and touching ceremony, 
 turned into such a frigid mummery of words 
 
 10. I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the 
 ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the deceased 
 — " George Somers, aged 26 years." The poor mother had 
 been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her withered 
 hands were clasped as if in prayer ; but I could perceive, by a 
 feeble rocking of the body and a convulsive motion of the lips, 
 that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with tho 
 yearnings of a mother's heart. 
 
 11. Tho service being ended, preparations were made to de- 
 posit the coffin in the earth. There was that bustling stir that 
 breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and affection > dure- 
 
THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 109 
 
 tions given in the cold tones of business ; the striking- cf spades 
 into sand and gravel, which at the grave of those we love i3 of 
 all sounds the most withering. 
 
 12. The bustle around seemed to awaken the mother from a 
 wretched reverie. She raised her glazed eyes, and looked about 
 with a faint wildness. As the men approached with cords to 
 lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her hands and broke 
 into an agony of grief. The poor woman who attended her 
 took her by the arm, endeavored to raise her from the earth, 
 and to whisper something like consolation — "Nay, now — nay, 
 now — don't take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake 
 her head and wring her hands as one not to be comforted. 
 
 13. As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of 
 the cords seemed to agonize her ; but when, on some accidental 
 obstruction, there was a jostling of the coffin, all the tenderness 
 of the mother burst forth ; as if any harm could come to him 
 who was far beyond the reach of worldly suffering. I could see 
 no more — my heart swelled into my throat — my eyes tilled with 
 tears — I felt as if I wcro acting a barbarous part in standing by 
 and gazing idly on this scene of maternal anguish. I wandered 
 to another part of the church-yard, where I remained until the 
 funeral train had dispersed. 
 
 14. When I saw the mother slowly and painfully quitting the 
 grave, leaving behind her the remains of all that was dear to her 
 on earth, and returning to silence and destitution, my heart 
 ached for her. "What, thought I, arc the distresses of the rich ? 
 They have friends to soothe — pleasures to beguile — a world to 
 divert and dissipate their griefs. What are the Borrows of the 
 young ? Their growing minds soon close above the wounds — 
 their elastic spirits soon rise beneath the pressure — their green 
 and ductile affections soon twine around new objects. 
 
 15. But the sorrows of the poor, who have no outward ap- 
 pliances to soothe — the sorrows of the aged, with whom life at 
 best is but a wintry day, and who can look for no after-growth 
 of joy — the sorrows of a widow, aged, solitary, destitute, mourn- 
 ing over an only son, the last solace of her years, — these are the 
 sorrows which make U3 feel the Im'potency of consolation. 
 
110 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 vn. 
 
 14. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. 
 
 PAET SECOND. 
 
 IT was some time before I left the church-yard. On my way 
 homeward, I met with the woman who had acted as com- 
 forter : she was just returning from accompanying the mother 
 to her lonely habitation, and I drew from her some particulars 
 connected with the affecting scene I had witnessed. 
 
 2. The parents of the deceased had resided in the village from 
 childhood. They had inhabited one of the neatest cottages, and 
 by various rural occupations, and the assistance of a small gar- 
 den, had supported themselves creditably and comfortably, and 
 led a happy and a blameless life. They had one son, who had 
 grown up to be the staff and pride of their age. 
 
 3. " O, Sir I" said the good woman, " he was such a likely lad, 
 so sweet-tempered, so kind to every one around him, so dutiful 
 to his parents ! It did one's heart good to see him of a Sunday, 
 dressed out in his best, so tall, so straight, so cheery, supporting 
 his old mother to church, — for she was always fonder of leaning 
 on George's arm than on her good man's ; and, poor soul, she 
 might well be proud of him, for a finer lad there was not in the 
 country round." 
 
 4. Unfortunately, the son was tempted, during a year of 
 scarcity and agricultural hardship, to enter into the service of 
 one of the small craft that plied on a neighboring river. He 
 had not been long in this employ, when he was entrapped by a 
 press-gang, and carried off to sea. His parents received the 
 tidings of his seizure, but beyond that they could learn nothing. 
 It was the loss of their main prop. The father, who was already 
 infirm, grew heartless and melancholy, and sunk into his grave. 
 
 5. The widow, left lonely in her age and feebleness, could no 
 longer support herself, and came upon the parish. Still there 
 was a kind feeling toward her throughout the village, and a cer- 
 tain respect as being one of the oldest inhabitants. As no one 
 applied for the cottage in which she had passed so many happy 
 days, she was permitted to remain in it, where she lived solitary 
 and almost helpless. The few wants of nature were chiefly sup- 
 plied from the scanty productions of her little garden, which the 
 neighbors would now and then cultivate for her. 
 
TIIE WIDOW AND HER SON. 1H 
 
 6. It was but a few days before the time at which these cir- 
 cumstances were told me, that she was gathering some vegeta- 
 bles for her repast, when she heard the cottage-door, that faced 
 the garden, suddenly opened. A stranger came out, and seemed 
 to be looking eagerly and wildly around. Ho was dressed in 
 seaman's clothes, was emaciated and ghastly pale, and bore the 
 air of one broken by sickness and hardships. He saw her, and 
 hastened toward her ; but his steps were faint and faltering: he 
 sank on his knees before her, and sobbed like a child. 
 
 7. The poor woman gazed upon him with a vacant and wan- 
 dering eye — " O my dear, dear mother ! don't you know your 
 son ! your poor boy George !" It was, indeed, the wreck of her 
 once noble lad ; who, shattered by wounds, by sickness, and 
 foreign imprisonment, had, at length, dragged his wasted lirnbs 
 homeward, to repose among the scenes of his childhood. 
 
 8. I will not attempt to detail the particulars ol such a meet- 
 ing, where joy and sorrow were so completely blended ; still he 
 was alive ! — he was come home ! — he might yet live to comfort 
 and cherish her old age ! Nature, however, was exhausted in 
 him ; and if any thing had been wanting to finish the work of 
 fate, the desolation of his native cottage would have been suf- 
 ficient. He stretched himself on the jDallet where his widowed 
 mother had passed many a sleepless night, and he never rose 
 from it again. 
 
 9. The villagers, when they heard that George Somers had 
 returned, crowded to see him, offering every comfort and assist- 
 ance that their humble means afforded. He, however, was too 
 weak to talk — he could only look his thanks. His mother was 
 his constant attendant, and he seemed unwilling to be helped 
 by any other hand. 
 
 10. There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride 
 of manhood ; that softens the heart, and brings it back to the 
 feelings of infancy. Who that has suffered, even in advanced 
 life, in sickness and despondency — who that has pined on a 
 weary bed in the neglect and loneliness of a foreign land — but 
 has thought on the mother " that looked on his childhood," 
 that smoothed his pillow, and administered to his helplessness ! 
 
 11. Oh ! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a 
 mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the 
 heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by 
 
112 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingrati- 
 tude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience ; she 
 will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment ; she will glory 
 in his fame, and exult in his prosperity ; and, if adversity over- 
 take him, he will be tho dearer to her by misfortune ; and, if 
 disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish 
 him ; and, if all the world besides cast him off, she will be all 
 the world to him. 
 
 12. Poor George Somers had known well what it was to be 
 in sickness, and none to soothe — lonely and in prison, and none 
 to visit him. He could not endure his mother from his sight ; 
 if she moved away, his eye would follow her. She would sit for 
 hours by his bed, watching him as he slept. Sometimes he 
 would start from a feverish dream, look anxiously up until he 
 saw her venerable form bending over him, when he would take 
 her hand, lay it on his bosom, and fall asleep with the tranquil- 
 lity of a child. In this way he died. 
 
 13. My first impulse, on hearing this humble tale of affliction, 
 was to visit the cottage of the mourner, and administer pecun- 
 iary assistance, and, if possible, comfort. I found, however, on 
 inqui'ry, that the good feelings of the villagers had prompted 
 them to do every thing that the case admitted ; and as the poor 
 know best how to console each other's sorrows, I did not ven- 
 ture to intrude. 
 
 14. The next Sunday I was at the village church ; when, to 
 my surprise, I saw the poor old woman tottering down the aisle 
 to her accustomed seat on the steps of the altar. She had made 
 an effort to put on something like mourning for her son ; and 
 nothing could be more touching than this struggle between pious 
 affection and utter poverty : a black ribbon or so — a faded black 
 handkerchief — and one or two more such humble attempts to 
 express by outward signs that grief which passes show. 
 
 15. When I looked round upon the storied monuments, the 
 stately hatchments, the cold marble pomp, with which grandeur 
 mourned magnificently over departed pride ; and turned to this 
 poor widow, bowed down by age and sorrow at the altar of her 
 God, and offering up the prayers and praises of a pious, though 
 a broken heart, I felt that this living monument of real grief 
 was worth them all. 
 
 16. I related her story to some of the wealthy members of 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 113 
 
 the congregation, and they were moved at it. They exerted 
 
 themselves to render her situation more comfortable, and to 
 
 lighten her afflictions. It was, however, but smoothing a few 
 
 steps to the grave. In the course of a Sunday or two after, she 
 
 was missed from her usual seat at church, and before I left the 
 
 neighborhood, I heard, with a feeling of satisfaction, that she 
 
 had quietly breathed her last, and gone to rejoin those she loved, 
 
 in that world where sorrow is never known, and friends are 
 
 never parted. Irving. 
 
 Washington Irving, who has delighted the readers of the English language 
 for more than half a century, was born in the city of New York, on the third of 
 April, 1783. His father, a respectable merchant, originally from Scotland, died 
 while he was quite young, and his education was superintended by his elder 
 brothers, some of whom have gained considerable reputation for acquirements 
 and literature. His first essays were a series of letters under the signature of 
 Jonathan Oldstyle, Gent., published in the .Morning Chronicle, of which one of 
 his brothers was editor, in 180:2. In 1800, after his return from a European tour, 
 he joined Mr. Paulding in writing "Salmagundi," a whimsical miscellany, 
 ■which captivated the town and decided the fortunes of its authors. Soon after, 
 he produced "The History of New York, by Diedrick Knickerbocker," the most 
 original and humorous work of the age. After the appearance of this work, he 
 wrote but little for several years, having engaged with his brothers in foreign 
 commerce; but, fortunately for American literature, while in England, in 1815, 
 a reverse of fortune changed the whole tenor of his life, causing him to resort to 
 literature, which had hitherto been his amusement, for solace and support. The 
 first fruit of this change was "The Sketch Book," which was published in New 
 York and London in 1819 and 1S20, and which met a success never before re- 
 ceived by a book of unconnected tales and essays. Mr. Irving subsequently 
 published "Bracebridge Hall," the "History of the Life and Voyages of Colum- 
 bus," "The Alhambra," &C, <fcc. He received one of the gold medals of fifty 
 guineas in value, provided by George the Fourth, for eminence in historical com- 
 position. In 1So2, after an absence of seventeen yean, be returned to the United 
 States. His admirable "Life of Washington" is his last literary production. 
 He died Nov. 28, 1850. His style has the ease and purity, and more than the grace 
 and polish of Franklin. His carefully selected words, his variously constructed 
 periods, his remarkable elegance, sustained sweetness, and distinct and delicate 
 painting, place him in the very front rank of the masters of our language. 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 I. 
 
 15. BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 
 
 "TTTHERE the subject of the present memoir (meniVar) 
 
 VV was born, can be but of little consequence ; who were 
 
 his father and mother, of still less ; and how he was bred and 
 
114 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 educated, of none at all. I shall therefore ' pass over this division 
 of his existence in eloquent silence, and come at once to the period 
 when he attained the ac'me 2 of constabulary 3 power and dignity 
 by being created high constable of this city and its suburbs : 
 and it may be remarked, in passing, that the honorable the cor- 
 poration, during their long and unsatisfactory career, never made 
 an appointment more creditable to themselves, more beneficial 
 to the city, more honorable to the country at large, more impos- 
 ing in the eye of foreign nations, more disagreeable to all rogues, 
 nor more gratifying to honest men, than that of the gentleman 
 whom we are biographizing, to the high office he now holds. 
 
 2. His acuteness and vigilance have become proverbial ; and 
 there is not a misdeed committed by any member of this com- 
 munity, but he is speedily admonished that he will " have old 
 Hays (as he is affectionately and familiarly termed) after him/' 
 Indeed, it is supposed by many that he is gifted with supernatu- 
 ral attributes, and can see things that are hid from mortal ken ; 
 or how, it is contended, is it possible that he should, as he does, 
 " bring forth the secret'st man of blood ?" That he can discover 
 " undivulged crime" — that when a store has been robbed, he, 
 without hesitation, can march directly to the house where the 
 goods are concealed, and say, " These are they" — or, when a gen- 
 tleman's pocket has been picked, that, from a crowd of unsavory 
 miscreants he can, with unerring judgment, lay his hand upon 
 one and exclaim, "You're wanted!" — or, how is it that he is 
 gifted with that strange principle of ubiquity * that makes him 
 "here and there, and everywhere" at the same moment? No 
 matter how, so long as the public reap the benefit ; and well may 
 that public apostrophize him in the words of the poet — 
 
 Long may he live ! our city's pride! 
 
 Where lives the rogue, but flies before him ! 
 With trusty crabstick by his side, 
 
 And staff of office waving O'er him. 
 
 3. But it is principally as a literary man that we would speak 
 of Mr. Hays. True, his poetry is "unwritten," as is also his 
 prose ; and he has invariably expressed a decided contempt for 
 
 1 Therefore, (fh6r'f6r.) a constable, or to o police-officer. 
 
 2 Ac' me, the summit; the top or * Ubiquity, (xv blk' \\i tf). exist- 
 highest point. ence in all places, or every where, at 
 
 * Con stab" u la ry, pertaining to the same time. 
 
BIOGRAPHY OF JACOB HAYS. 115 
 
 philosophy, music, rhetoric, the belles-lettres, 1 the fine arts, and 
 in fact all species of composition excepting bailiffs' warrants and 
 biils of indictment : but what of that ? The constitution of his 
 mind is, even unknown to himself, decidedly poetical. And here 
 I may be allowed to avail myself of another peculiarity of modern 
 biog'raphy, namely, that of describing a man by what he is not. 
 
 4. Mr. Hays has not the graphic 3 power or antiquarian 3 lore 
 of Sir Walter Scott — nor the glittering imagery or voluptuous 
 tenderness of Moore — nor the delicacy and polish of Rogers — 
 nor the spirit of Campbell — nor the scntimcntalism of Miss Lan- 
 don — nor the der)th and purity of thought and intimate acquaint- 
 ance w T ith nature of Bryant — nor the brilliant style and playful 
 humor of Halleck : no, he is more in the petit larceny 4 manner 
 of Crabbe, with a slight touch of Byronic power and gloom. 
 He is familiarly acquainted with all those interesting scenes of 
 vice and poverty so fondly dwelt upon by that reverend chron- 
 icler of little villainy, and if ever he can be prevailed upon to 
 publish, there will doubtless be found a remarkable similarity in 
 their works. 
 
 5. His height is about five feet seven inches, but who makes 
 his clothes we have as yet been unable to ascertain. His coun- 
 tenance is strongly marked, and forcibly brings to mind the lines 
 of Byron when describing his Corsair — 
 
 There was a laughing devil in his sneer 
 That raised emotions both of hate and fear ; 
 And where his glance of " apprehension ,? fell, 
 Hope withering fled, ami mercy sighed, farewell ! 
 
 6. Yet with all his great qualities, it is to be doubted whether 
 he is much to be envied. His situation certainly has its disad- 
 vantages. Pure and blameless as his life is, his society is not 
 courted — no man boasts of his friendship, and few indeed like 
 even to own him for an intimate acquaintance. Wherever ho 
 goes his slightest action is watched and criticised ; and if ho 
 happen carelessly to lay his hand upon a gentleman's shoulder 
 and whisper something in his car, even that man, as if there 
 
 1 Belles-lettres, (bel-lfttf ter), polite « Petit larceny, (pit' it lar' ce nil, 
 
 or elegant literature. small thefts. In England, the steal- 
 
 5 Graph' ic, written ; clearly and ing of any thing of the value of twelve- 
 
 vividly described. pence, or under that amount ; and 
 
 3 An v ti qua' ri an, pertaining to in the State of New York, under 
 
 antiquity, or former ages. twenty-five dollars. 
 
HG NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 were contamination in his touch, is seldom or never seen after- 
 ward in decent society. Such things can not fail to prey upon 
 his feelings. But when did ever greatness exist without some 
 penalty attached to it ? 
 
 7. The first time that ever Hays was pointed out to me, was 
 one summer afternoon, when acting in his official capacity in the 
 City Hall. The room was crowded in every part, and as he en- 
 tered with a luckless wretch in his gripe, a low suppressed mur- 
 mur ran through the hall, as if some superior being had alighted 
 in the midst of them. He placed the prisoner at the bar — a 
 poor coatless individual, with scarcely any edging end no roof 
 to his hat — to stand his trial for bigamy, 1 and then, in a loud, 
 authoritative tone, called out for "silence," and there was silence. 
 Again he spoke — " Hats off there !" and the multitude became 
 uncovered ; after which he took his handkerchief out of his 
 left-hand coat-pocket, wiped his face, put it back again, looked 
 sternly around, and then sat down. 
 
 8. The scene was awful and impressive ; but the odor was 
 disagreeable in consequence of the heat, acting upon a ]arge 
 quantity of animal matter congregated together. My olfactory 2 
 organs were always lam'entably acute : I was obliged to retire, 
 and from that time to this, I have seen nothing, though I have 
 heard much of the subject of this brief and imperfect, but, I trust, 
 honest and impartial memoir. 
 
 9. Health and happiness be wiih thee, thou prince of consta- 
 bles — thou guardian of innocence — thou terror of evil-doers and 
 little boys ! May thy years be many and thy sorrows few — may 
 thy life be like a long and cloudless summer's day, and may thy 
 salary be increased ! And when at last the summons comes 
 from which there is no escaping — when the warrant arrives 
 upon which no bail can be put in — when thou thyself, that hast 
 "wanted" so many, art in turn "wanted, and must go," 
 
 Mayest thou fall 
 Into the grave as softly as the leaves 
 Of the sweet roses on an autumn eve, 
 Beneath 3 the small sighs of the western wind, 
 Drop to the earth ! William Cox. 
 
 William Cox, author of two volumes, entitled "Crayon Sketches," published 
 
 1 Big' a my, the crime of having 2 Ol fuc' to ry, pertaining to 
 two wives or two husbands at the smelling, 
 fame lime. 8 Be nealk'. 
 
PETER POUNCE AND PARSON ADAMS. H7 
 
 at New York, in 1830, an Englishman by birth, came to America at an early n~e 
 to practice his calling of a printer. He was employed on the " Mirror," con- 
 ducted by General M0RBI8, and gained a literary reputation by contributing a 
 series of essays to its columns. These, in a happy vein of humor and critic'. 
 satirizing the literary infirmities of the times, pleased men oftaste and good si 
 The above sketch, " written during an awful prevalence of biographies," gained 
 great celebrity at the time. His " Crayon Sketches " are full of originality, pli 
 antry, and wit, alternately reminding the reader of the poetical eloquence of Haz- 
 htt, and the quaint humor and eccentric tastes of Charles Lamb. After writing a 
 number of years for the Mirror, he returned to England, where he died in 1851. 
 
 n. 
 
 1G. PETER POUNCE AND PARSON ADAMS. 1 
 
 PETER POUNCE, being desirous of having some one to 
 whom he might communicate his grandeur, told the parson 
 he would convey him home in his chariot. This favor was, by 
 Adams, with many bows and acknowledgments, accepted, though 
 he afterward said he ascended the chariot rather that he might 
 not offend, than from any desire of riding in it, for that in his 
 heart he preferred the pedestrian even to the vehicular expedi- 
 tion. The chariot had not proceeded far, before Mr. Adams 
 observed it was a very fine day. " Ay, 2 and a very fine country, 
 too," answered Pounce. 
 
 2. "I should think so more," returned Adams, "if I had not 
 lately traveled over the Downs, which I take to exceed this, and 
 all other prospects in the universe." "A fig for prospects," 
 answered Pounce ; " one acre here is worth ten there : for my 
 part, I have no delight in the prospect of any land but my own." 
 
 3. " Sir," said Adams," " you can indulge yourself in many fino 
 prospects of that kind." ' I thank God I have a little," replied 
 the other, " with which 1 am content, and envy no man. I havo 
 a little, Mr. Adams, with which I do as much good as I can." 
 
 4. Adams answered, "that riches, without charity, were 
 nothing worth ; for that thev wore a blessing onlv to him who 
 made them a blessing to others." " You and I," said Peter, 
 
 1 In the following conversation, virtuous and manly parson, on the 
 
 which is one of the most exquisite in other hand, rising and becoming glo- 
 
 all novel-writing, the reader experi- rious out of the depths of his hum 
 
 ences a delightful triumph in seeing ble honesty. This and the following 
 
 how a vulgar upstart is led to betray two lessons aro admirable exercises 
 
 his baseness while he thinks he is in Personation — see p. G9. 
 
 most exalting himself; the poor, but ■ Ay. (d!\ yea : yes. 
 
118 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 "have different notions of charity. I own, as it is generally 
 used, I do not like the word, nor do I think it becomes one of 
 us gentlemen ; it is a mean, parson-like quality ; though I would 
 not infer that many parsons have it neither." 
 
 5. " Sir," said Adams, "my definition of charity is, a gener- 
 ous disposition to relieve the distressed." " There is something 
 in that definition," answered Peter, "which I like well enough; 
 it is, as you say, a disposition — and does not so much consist in 
 the act as in the disposition to do it : but, alas ! Mr. Adams, 
 who are meant by the distressed ? believe me, the distresses of 
 mankind are mostly imaginary, and it would be rather folly 
 than goodness to relieve them." 
 
 6. "Sure, 1 sir," replied Adams, "hunger and thirst, cold and 
 nakedness, and other distresses which attend the poor, can never 
 be said to be imaginary evils." " How can any man complain 
 of hunger," said Pounce, "in a country where such excellent 
 salads are to be gathered in almost every field ? — or of thirst, 
 where every stream and river produce such delicious potations ? 
 — and as for cold and nakedness, they are evils introduced by 
 luxury and custom. A man naturally wants clothes no more 
 than a horse or any other animal ; and there are whole nations 
 who go without them. But these are things, perhaps, which 
 you, who do not know the world — " 
 
 7. " You will pardon me, sir," returned Adams ; " I have read 
 of the Gymnos'ophists."* "A plague of your Jehosaphats," 
 cried Peter ; " the greatest fault in our constitution is the pro- 
 vision made for the poor, except that perhaps made for some 
 others. Sir, I have not an estate which doth not contribute 
 almost as much again to the poor as to ihc land-tax ; and I do 
 assure you I expect myself to come to the parish in the end." 
 
 8. To which Adams giving a dissenting smile, Peter thus pro- 
 ceeded : — " I fancy, Mr. Adams, you arc one of those who im- 
 agine I am a lump of money ; for there are many who I fancy 
 believe that not only my pockets, but my whole clothes are lined 
 with bank bills ; but, I assure you, you are all mistaken : I am 
 
 1 Sure, (shor), see Rule 4, p. 32. Some of them practiced medicine. 
 
 2 Gym nos' o phists, philosophers They believed in flic transmigration 
 of India, so called because they went of souls, and placed the chief hap] i- 
 with bare feet and little clothing, ncss of man in the contempt of pleas- 
 They never drank wine, nor married, ures of sense and goods of fortune. 
 
PETEll POUNCE AND PARSON ADAMS. H<j 
 
 not the man the world esteems me. If I can hold my Lead 
 above water, it is all I can. I have injured myself by purchas- 
 ing ; I have been too liberal of my money. Indeed I fear my 
 heir will find my affairs in a worse situation than they arc re- 
 puted to be. Ah ! he will have reason to wish I had loved 
 money more and land less. Pray, my good neighbor, where 
 should I have that quantity of money the world is so liberal to 
 bestow on me ? Where could I possibly, without I had stole it, 
 acquire such a treasure ?" 
 
 9. " AVhy truly," said Adams, " I have been always of your 
 opinion ; I have wondered, as well as yourself, with what confi- 
 dence they could report such things of you, which have to me 
 appeared as mere impossibilities ; for you know, sir, and I have 
 often heard you say it, that your wealth is of your own acquisi- 
 tion ; and can it be credible that in your short time you should 
 have amassed such a heap of treasure as these people will have 
 you are worth ? Indeed, had you inherited an estate like Sir 
 Thomas Booby, which had descended in your family through 
 many generations, they might have had a color for their asser- 
 tions." " Why, what do they say I am worth ?" cries Peter, with 
 a malicious sneer. • 
 
 10. " Sir," answered Adams, " I have heard some aver you are 
 not worth less than twenty thousand pounds." At which Peter 
 frowned. " Nay, sir," said Adams, " you ask me only the opin- 
 ion of others ; for my own part, I have always denied it, nor 
 did I ever believe you could possibly be worth half that sum." 
 
 11. " However, Mr. Adams," said he, squeezing him by the 
 hand, " I would not sell them all I am worth for double that 
 sum ; and as to what you believe, or they believe, I care not a 
 fig. I am not poor, because you think me so, nor because you 
 attempt to undervalue me in the country. I know the envy of 
 mankind very well ; but I thank heaven I am above them. It 
 is time, my wealth is of my own acquisition. I have not an es- 
 tate like Sir Thomas Booby, that hath descended in my family 
 through many generations ; but I know heirs of such estates, 
 who are forced to travel about the country, like some people in 
 torn cassocks, 1 and might be glad to accept of a pitiful curacy, 2 
 
 1 Cas' sock, a kind of long frock- • Cu' ra cy, the office of a curate, 
 coat worn by a priest ; close garment who performs the duties in the place 
 or gown. of the vicar, parson, cr incumbent. 
 
120 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 for what I know ; yes, sir, as shabby fellows as yourself, whom 
 no man of my figure, without that vice of good-nature about 
 him, would suffer to ride in a chariot with him." 
 
 12. " Sir," said Adams, "I value not your chariot of a rush ; 
 and if I had known you had intended to affront me, I would 
 have walked to the world's end on foot, ere I would have ac- 
 cepted a place in it. However, sir, I will soon rid you of that 
 inconvenience !" And so saying, he opened the chariot door, 
 without calling to the coachman, and leaped out into the high- 
 way, forgetting to take his hat along with him ; which, however, 
 Mr. Pounce threw after him with great violence. 
 
 Henry Fielding. 
 
 Henry Fielding was born at Sharpham, Somersetshire, England, April 22, 
 1707. He was educated at Eton, and afterward studied law at Leyden. He 
 was the author of "Joseph Andrews," "A Journey from this World to the 
 Next," " Jonathan Wild," " Tom Jones," and "Amelia," He received £600 for 
 the copyright of "Tom Jones," and such was its success, that Millei, the pub- 
 lisher, presented £100 more to the author. For "Amelia." he received £1000. 
 In 1749 Fielding was appointed one of the justices of Westminster and Middle- 
 sex, and was a zealous and active magistrate. He was a kind-hearted man; but 
 improvident, and in early life dissipated. He ranks as one of the first among 
 English novelists. His style is marked for light humor, lively description, and 
 keen, yet sportive satire. Endowed with little of the poetical or imaginative 
 faculty, his study lay in real*life and every-day scenes, which he depicted with 
 a truth and freshness, a buoyancy and vigor, and such an exuberance of prac- 
 tical knowledge, easy raillery, and lively fancy, that in his own department he 
 stands unrivaled. He died at Lisbon, on the 8th of October, 1754. 
 
 m. 
 
 17. CONVERSATIONS AFTER MARRIAGE. 1 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 Enter Lady Teazle and Sir Peter. 
 
 IR PETER. Lady Teazle, Lady Teazle, I'll not bear it I 
 Lady Teazle. [Rigid.] Sir Peter, Sir Peter, you may bear it 
 or not, as you please ; but I ought to have my own way in every 
 thing ; and what's more, I will too. What ! though I was edu- 
 cated in the country, I know very well that women of fashion in 
 London are accountable to nobody after they arc married. 
 
 Sir P. [Left.'] Very well, ma'am, very well — so a husband is 
 to have no influence, no authority? 
 
 Lady T. Authority! No, to be sure : — if you wanted authority 
 
 1 From " The School for Scandal." 
 
 s 
 
CONVERSATIONS AFTER MARRIAGE. 121 
 
 over me, you should have adopted me, and not married me ; I 
 am sure you were old enough. 
 
 Sir P. Old enough ! — ay — there it is. "Well, well, Lady 
 Teazle, though my life may be made unhappy by ydkir temper, 
 I'll not be ruined by your extravagance. 
 
 Lady T. My extravaganco ! I'm sure I'm not more extrava- 
 gant than a woman ought to be. 
 
 Sir P. No, no, madam, you shall throw away no more sums 
 on such unmeaning luxury. 'Slifel to spend as much to furnish 
 your dressing-room with flowers in winter as would suffice to 
 turn the Pantheon ' into a green-house. 
 
 Lady T. Lord, Sir Peter, am I to blame, because flowers are 
 dear in cold weather? You should find fault with the climate, 
 and not with me. For my part, I'm sure, I wish it was spring 
 all the year round, and that roses grew under our feet ! 
 
 Sir P. Zounds ' madam — if you had been born to this, I 
 shouldn't wonder at your talking thus ; but you forget what 
 your situation was when I married you. 
 
 Lady T. No, no, I don't ; 'twas a very disagreeable one, or I 
 should never have married you. 
 
 Sir P. Yes, yes, madam, you were then in somewhat a hum- 
 bler style, — the daughter of a plain country squire. Recollect, 
 Lady Teazle, .when I saw you first sitting at your tambor, in a 
 pretty figured linen gown, with a bunch of keys at your sido ; 
 your hair combed smooth over a roll, and your apartment hung 
 round with fruits in worsted of your own working. 
 
 Lady T. Oh yes ! I remember it very well, and a curious life 
 I led, — my daily occupation to inspect the dairy, superintend the 
 poultry, make extracts from the family reccipt-bcok, and comb 
 my aunt Deborah's lap dog. 
 
 Sir P. Yes, yes, ma'am, 'twas so indeed. 
 
 Lady T. And then, you know, my evening amusements ; — to 
 draw patterns for ruffles, which I had not materials to mako up ; 
 to play Pope Joan ' with the curate ; to read a novel to my aunt ; 
 or to be stuck down to an old spinet to strum my father to sleep 
 after a fox-chase. [C)*osses, L. 
 
 1 Pan the' on, a magnificent tern- pa, is of a round or cylindrical form, 
 
 pie at Rome, dedicated to all the gods, with a spherical dome, and one Iran- 
 
 lt is now converted into a church, drcd and forty-four feet in diameter. 
 
 It was built or embellished by Agrip- - Pope Jean, a gamo nt cards, 
 
 G 
 
122 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Sir P. [B-] I am glad you have so good a memory. Yes, 
 madam, these were the recreations I took you from ; but now 
 you must have your coach — vis-a-vis ' — and three powdered 
 footmen before your chair ; and, in the summer, a pair of white 
 cats to draw you to Kensington Gardens. No recollection, I 
 suppose, when you were content to ride double, behind the but- 
 ler, on a docked coach-horse. 
 
 Lady T. [LJ] No — I never did that : I deny the butler and 
 the coach-horse. 
 
 Sir P. This, madam, was your situation ; and what have I 
 done for you ? I have made you a woman of fashion, of fortune, 
 of rank ; in short, I have made you my wife. 
 
 Lady T. Well, then ; and there is but one thing more you 
 can make me add to the obligation, and that is — 
 Sir P. My widow, I suppose ? 
 Lady T. Hem ! hem ! 
 
 Sir P. I thank you, madam ; but don't natter yourself ; for 
 though your ill conduct may disturb my peace of mind, it shall 
 never break my heart, I promise you : however, I am equally 
 obliged to you for the hint. [ Crosses, L. 
 
 Lady T. Then why will you endeavor to make yourself so 
 disagreeable to me, and thwart me in every little elegant expense ? 
 Sir P. [LJ] 'Slife, madam, I say, had you any of these little 
 elegant expenses when you married me ? 
 
 Lady T. Lud, Sir Peter ! would you have me be out of the 
 fashion ? 
 
 Sir P. The fashion, indeed ! What had you to do with the 
 fashion before you married me ? 
 
 Lady T. For my part, I should think you would like to have 
 your wife thought a woman of taste. 
 
 Sir P. Ay ; there again — taste. Zounds ! madam, you had 
 no taste when you married me ! 
 
 Lady T. That's very true indeed, Sir Peter ; and after having 
 married you, I should never pretend to taste again, I allow. 
 But now, Sir Peter, since we have finished our daily jangle, I 
 presume I may go to my engagement at Lady Sneerwell's. 
 
 Sir P. Ay, there's another precious circumstance — a charm- 
 ing set of acquaintance you have made there. 
 
 Vis-a-vis, (zlv^ a ve'), a carriage in which two persons Pit face to face. 
 
• CONVERSATIONS AFTER MARRIAGE. 123 
 
 Lady T. Nay, Sir Peter, they arc all people of rank and for- 
 tune, and remarkably tenacious of reputation. 
 
 Sir P. Yes, egad, they arc tenacious of reputation with a 
 vengeance ; for they don't choose anybody shoukMiave a char- 
 acter but themselves ! — Such a crew ! Ah ! many a wretch has 
 rid on a hurdle ' who has done less mischief than these utterers 
 of forged tales, coiners of scandal, and clippers of reputation. 
 
 Lady T. What ! would you restrain the freedom of speech ? 
 
 Sir P. Ah ! they have made you just as bad as any one of 
 the society. 
 
 Lady T. Why, I believe I do bear a part with a tolerable grace. 
 
 Sir P. Grace, indeed ! 
 
 Lady P. But I vow I bear no malice against the people I 
 abuse. When I say an ill-natured thing, 'tis out of pure good- 
 humor ; and I take it for granted, they deal exactly in the same 
 manner with me. But, Sir Peter, you know you promised to 
 come to Lady Sncerwell's too. 
 
 Sir. P. Well, well, I'll call in just to look after my own char- 
 acter. 
 
 Lady T. Then indeed you must make haste after me, or 
 you'll be too late. So, good-by to you. [Exit Lady Teazle. 
 
 Sir P. So — I have gained much by my intended expostula- 
 tion : yet, with what a charming air she contradicts every thing 
 I say, and how pleasingly she shows her contempt for my au- 
 thority ! Well, though I can't make her love me, there is great 
 satisfaction in quarreling with her ; and I think she never ap- 
 pears to such advantage, as when she is doing everything in her 
 power to plague me. [Exit. 
 
 IV. 
 
 18. CONVERSATIONS AFTER MARRIAGE. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 Lady Teazle. Lud ! Sir Peter. I hope you haven't been quar- 
 reling with Maria ? It is not using me well to be ill-humored 
 when I am not by. 
 
 Sir Peter. [Left.] Ah! Lady Teazle, you might have the 
 power to make me good-humored at all times. 
 
 1 Hurdle, (h£r dl), a sort of sledge used to draw traitors to execution. 
 
124 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 Lady T. [Right] I am sure I wish I had ; for I want you to 
 be in a charming sweet temper at this moment. Do be good- 
 humored now, and let me have two hundred pounds, will you ? 
 
 Sir P. Two hundred pounds ! What, ain't I to be in a good 
 humor without paying for it ? But speak to me thus, and i' faith 
 there's nothing I could refuse you. You shall have it [gives her 
 notes'] ; but seal me a bond of repayment. 
 
 Lady T. Oh no ; there — my note of h^nd will do as well. 
 
 [Offering her hand. 
 
 Sir P. And you shall no longer reproach me with not giving 
 you an independent settlement. I mean shortly to surprise you : 
 ■ — but shall we always live thus, hey ? 
 
 Lady T. If you please. I'm sure I don't care how soon we 
 leave off quarreling, provided you'll own you were tired first. 
 
 Sir P. Well ; then let our future contest be, who shall be 
 most obliging. 
 
 Lady T. I assure you, Sir Peter, good-nature becomes you : 
 you look now as you did before we were married, when you used 
 to walk with me under the elms, and tell me stories of what a 
 gallant' you were in your youth, and chuck me under the chin, 
 you would ; and ask me if I thought I could love an old fellow, 
 who would deny me nothing — didn't you ? 
 
 Sir P. Yes, yes, and you were kind and attentive — 
 
 Lady T. Ay, so I was, and would always take your part when 
 my acquaintance used to abuse you, and turn you into ridicule. 
 
 Sir P. Indeed! 
 
 Lady T. Ay ; and when my cousin Sophy has called you a 
 stiff, peevish old bachelor, and laughed at me for thinking of 
 marrying one who might be my father, I have always defended 
 you, and said, I didn't think you so ugly by any means. 
 
 Sir P. Thank you. 
 
 Lady T. And I dared say you'd make a very good sort of a 
 husband. 
 
 Sir P. And you prophesied right : and we shall now be the 
 happiest couple — 
 
 Lady T. And never differ again ? 
 
 Sir P. No, never ! — though at the same time, indeed, my dear 
 Lady Teazle, you must watch your temper very seriously ; for 
 in all our little quarrels, my dear, if you recollect, my love, you 
 always begin first. 
 
CONVERSATIONS AFTER MARRIAGE, 125 
 
 Lady T. I beg your pardon, my dear Sir Peter ; indeed, you 
 always gave the provocation. 
 
 Sir P. Now see, my angel ! take care — contradicting isn't tho 
 way to keep friends. 
 
 Lady T. Then don't you begin it, my love. 
 
 Sir P. There, now ! you — you are going on. You don't per- 
 ceive, my life, that you are just doing the very thing which you 
 know always makes me angry. 
 
 Lady T. Nay, you know if you will be angry without any 
 reason, my dear — 
 
 Sir P. There ! now you want to quarrel again. 
 
 Lady T. No, I am sure I don't ; but if you will be so peevish — 
 
 Sir P. There now ! who begins first ? 
 
 Lady T. Why you, to be sure. I said nothing — but there's 
 no bearing your temper. 
 
 Sir P. No, no, madam ; the fault's in your own temper. 
 
 Lady T. Ay, you arc just what my cousin Sophy* said you 
 would be. 
 
 Sir P. Your cousin Sophy is a forward, impertinent gipsy. 
 
 Lady T. You are a great bear, I'm sure, to abuse my relations. 
 
 Sir P. Now may all the plagues of marriage be doubled on 
 me, if ever I try to be friends with you any more. 
 
 Lady T. So much the better. 
 
 Sir P. No, no, madam : 'tis evident you never cared a pin for 
 me, and I was a madman to marry you — a pert, rural coquette' 
 that had refused half tho honest squires in the neighborhood. 
 
 Lady T. And I am sure I was a fool to marry yon — an old 
 dangling bachelor, who was single at fifty, only because he never 
 could meet with any one who would have him. [Crosses L. 
 
 Sir P. Ay, ay, madam ; but you were pleased enough to listen 
 to me : 3-011 never had such an offer before. 
 
 Lady T. No ! didn't I refuse Sir Tivy Terrier, who every- 
 body said would have been a better match ? for his estate is 
 just as good as yours, and he has broke his neck since we have 
 been married. [Crosses R. 
 
 Sir P. [L.~] I have done with you, madam ! You are an un- 
 feeling, ungrateful — but there's an end of every thing. I believe 
 you capable of every thing that is bad. Yes, madam, I now 
 believe the reports relative to you and Charles, madam. Yes, 
 madam, you and Charles are — not without grounds. 
 
126 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Lady T. [P.] Take care, Sir Peter! you had better not in- 
 sinuate any such thing ! I'll not be suspected without cause, I 
 promise you. 
 
 Sir P. Very well, madam ! very well ! A separate main'ten- 
 ance as soon as you please ! Yes, madam, or a divorco ! — 1'il 
 make an example of myself for the benefit of all old bachelors. 
 
 Lady T. Agreed ! agreed ! And now, my dear Sir Peter, we 
 are of a mind onco more, we may be the happiest couple — and 
 never differ again, you know — ha ! ha ! ha ! Well, you aro go- 
 ing to be in a passion, I see, and I shall only interrupt you ; so, 
 bye — bye. [Exit Lady Teazls. 
 
 Sir P. Plagues and tortures ! Can't I make her angry 
 either ! Oh, I am the most miserable fellow ! But I'll not bear 
 her presuming to keep her temper : no ! she may break my 
 heart, but she shan't keep her temper. [Exit. 
 
 Sheridan. 
 
 Richard J5rinsley Sheridan, the celebrated orator, statesman, and comic 
 play-writer, was born at Dublin in 1751. His father, Thomas Sheridan, was 
 well known as an actor, elocutionist, and author of a pronouncing dictionary. 
 Richard, an idle and mischievous boy, passed at school for a hopeless blockhead. 
 He left Harrow at the age of eighteen, studied law with indifferent success in 
 the Middle Temple, and, when barely of age, made a runaway marriage with 
 Miss Linley, a beautiful and accomplished singer. His earliest comedy, " The 
 Rivals," a humorous and lively play, appeared in 1773, when the author was lit- 
 tle more than twenty-three years -old. About the same period he became one 
 of the proprietors of Drury Lane Theater. His farce of "St. Patrick's Day," 
 and opera of "The Duenna," appeared in 177G; and "The School for Scandal," 
 which in plot, character, incident, dialogue, humor, and wit, perhaps, surpasses 
 any comedy of modern times, was played in 1777. His last play, "The Critic," 
 appeared in 1779. He obtained a seat in parliament in 17S0. He worked hard 
 for the House of Commons, and, in his great efforts, was one of the most showy 
 and striking of parliamentary orators. His famous speech on the trial of War- 
 ren Hastings produced an impression on the public mind never, perhaps, sur- 
 passed. Losing his wife in 1792, he married again, in 179G, a lady with whom 
 he received £5000; and with this money, and £15,000 from shares in the theater, 
 he purchased an estate, but his sottish habits soon dispelled Lis dreams of splen- 
 dor, and finally reduced him to penury. He was treasurer of the navy during 
 the ministry of Fox and Grenvillc ; but after 1812 he was no longer able to speak 
 in the house. He died in 1816, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 V. 
 
 19. A CURTAIN LECTURE OF MRS. CAUDLE. 
 
 BAH I that's the third umbrella gone since Christmas. 'What 
 were you to do ? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be 
 sure. I'm very certain there was nothing about him that could 
 
A CURTAIN LECTURE OF MRS. CAUDLE. 127 
 
 spoil. — Take cold, indeed! Ho doesn't look like one of the 
 sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold than 
 taken our umbrella. — Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, 
 do you hear the rain ? And, as I'm alive, if it isn't St. Swithin's 
 day ! Do you hear it against the windows ? Nonsense ! you 
 don't impose upon mo ; you can't be asleep with such a shower 
 as that ! Do you hear it, I say ? Oh ! you do hear it ! Well, 
 that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks ; and no stir- 
 ring all tho time out of the house. 
 
 2. Pooh ! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle ; don't insult me ; 
 he return the umbrella ! Anybody would think you were born 
 yesterday. As if anybody ever did return an umbrella ! There : 
 do you hear it ? Worse and worse. Cats and dogs, and for six 
 weeks : always six weeks ; and no umbrella ! — I should like to 
 know how the children arc to go to school to-morrow ! They 
 shan't go through such weather ; I am determined. No ; they 
 shall stop at home and never learn any thing (the blessed crea- 
 tures!), sooner than go and get wet! And when they grow up, 
 I wonder who they'll have to thank for knowing nothing : who, 
 indeed, but their father. People who can't feel for their own 
 children ousrht never to be fathers. 
 
 o 
 
 3. But I know why you lent the umbrella : oh ! yes, I know 
 very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother's to-morrow : 
 you knew that, and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me ; you 
 hate to have me go there, and take every mean advantage to 
 hinder me. But don't you think it, Mr. Caudle ; no, sir : if it 
 comes down in bucketfulls, I'll go all the more. No ; and I 
 won't have a cab ! Where do you think the money's to como 
 from ? You'vo got nice high notions at that club of yours ! A 
 cab, indeed ! Cost me sixteen-pence, at least. Sixteen-penc© ! 
 two-and-eight-penco ; for there's back again. Cabs, indeed ! I 
 should like to know who's to pay for 'em ; for I'm suro you 
 can't, if you go on as you do, throwing away your property, and 
 beggaring your children, buying umbrellas ! 
 
 4. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle ? I say, do you hear it ? 
 But I don't care — I'll go to mother's to-morrow — I will ; and 
 what's more, I'll walk every step of the way ; and you know 
 that will give me my death. Don't call me a foolish woman ; 
 it's you that's the foolish man. You know I can't wear clogs ; 
 and with no umbrella, the wet's sure to give me a cold : it always 
 
128 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 does ; but what do you care for that ? Nothing at all. I may be 
 laid up, for what you care, as I dare say I shall ; and a pretty 
 doctor's bill there'll bo. I hope there will. It will teach you to 
 lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my 
 death : yes, and that'3 what you lent the umbrella for. Of course ! 
 
 5. Nice clothes I get, too, traipsing through weather like this. 
 My gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. Needn't I wear 'em, 
 then ? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, sir ; I'm not 
 going out a dowdy, to please you, or anybody else. Gracious 
 knows ! it isn't often that I step over the threshold : — indeed, I 
 might as well be a slave at once : better, I should say ; but 
 when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady. 
 
 6. Oh ! that rain — if it isn't enough to break in the windows. 
 Ugh ! I look forward with dread for to-morrow ! How am I to 
 go to mother's, I'm sure I can't tell ; but if I die, I'll do it. — No, 
 sir ; I won't borrow an umbrella : no ; and you shan't buy one. 
 Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I'll throw it 
 into the street. Ha ! And it was only last week I had a new 
 nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd have known as 
 much as I do now, it might have gone without one. Paying 
 for new nozzles for other people to laugh at you ! Oh ! it's all 
 very well for you ; you can go to sleep. You've no thought of 
 your poor patient wife, and your own dear children ; you think 
 of nothing but lending umbrellas ! Men, indeed ! — call them- 
 selves lords of the creation ! pretty lords, when they can't even 
 take care of an umbrella ! 
 
 7. I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me. But 
 that's what you want : then you may go to your club, and do as 
 you like ; and then nicely my poor dear children will be used ; 
 but then, sir, then you'll be happy. Oh! don't tell me! I 
 know you will : else you'd never have lent the umbrella ! — You 
 have to go on Thursday about that summons ; and, of course, 
 you can't go. No, indeed : you don't go without the umbrella. 
 You may loso tho debt, for whab I care — it won't be so much as 
 spoiling your clothes — better loso it : people deserve to lose 
 debts who lend umbrellas ! 
 
 8. And I should like to know how I'm to go to mother's with- 
 out the umbrella. Oh ! don't tell me that I said I icould go ; 
 that's nothing to do with it, — nothing at all. She'll think I'm 
 neglecting her ; and the little money we're to have, we shan't 
 
TIIAN'ATOPSIS. 129 
 
 have at all ; — because we've no umbrella. — The children, too ! 
 (dear things!) they'll be sopping wet : for they shan't stay at 
 home ; they shan't lose their learning ; it's all their father will 
 leave them, I'm sure ! But they shall go to school. DOn't tell 
 me they shouldn't (you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil 
 the temper of an angel !) ; they ahall go to school : mark that ! 
 and if they get their deaths of cold, it's not my fault ; I didn't 
 
 LEND THE UMBRELLA. JeRROLD. 
 
 Douglas Jekrold was born in London on the 3d of January, 1S03. His father, 
 Samuel Jerrold, was manager of the two theaters of Shccrness and Southend, 
 and in these sea-places much of his childhood was passed. His school-days 
 were few, and the results of his studies unimportant. At eleven years of age he 
 became a midshipman in the British navy, and served about two years, thns ac- 
 quiring nautical experience, which he used in writing " Black-eyed Susan," one 
 of his most successful plays. A mere boy when he came ashore, he went to 
 London, became an apprentice in a printing-office, and went through the ordi- 
 nary course of a printer's life. At this time, though the hours of labor were 
 long, he studied very hard, and wrote pieces for the magazines. Emboldened 
 by success, he wrote numerous plays for the theaters before he was twenty yens 
 old. Among the greatest and maturcst of his comedies arc "The Prisoner of 
 War," "Bubbles of a Day," "Time works Wonders," "St. Cupid," and "The 
 Heart of Gold." His chief brilliant and original prose writings, except "A Man 
 made of Money," were first prepared for magazines. " Men of Character" ap- 
 peared in "Blackwood's Magazine,"— " The Chronicles of Clovernook," in the 
 " Illuminated Magazine," of which he was founder and editor, — and " The Story 
 of a Feather," "Punch's Letters to his Son," and "The Caudle Lectures" in 
 " Punch," of which he was the originator. The last literary event in his life 
 was his assuming the editorship of " Lloyd's Newspaper," which rose under his 
 hand to great circulation and celebrity. He died, from disease of the heart, on 
 the 8th of June, 1857. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 I 
 
 20. TIIANATOPSIS. 1 
 
 TO him, who, in the love of naturo 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, 
 
 1 Th^n^ a top' sis, this Greek word means a view of, or meditation on, death, 
 
130 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 And gentle sympathy that steals away 
 Their sharpness, ere he is aware. 
 
 2. "When thoughts 
 Of the last biLter hour, come like a blight 
 Over thy spirit, and sad images 
 
 Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
 
 And breathless darkmss, and the narrow house, 
 
 Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; 
 
 Go forth into the open sky, and list 
 
 To nature's teaching, while, from all around, 
 
 Comes a still voice : 
 
 3. " 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 be 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 mold. 
 
 4. " 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 powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, 
 Fail* forms, and hoary seers of agc3 past, 
 All in one mighty sepulchre. 
 
 5. " The hills, 
 Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun ; the vales, 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
 
 The venerable woods : rivers that movo 
 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 
 That make the meadow green ; and poured round all, 
 
 Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, 
 
THANATOPSIS. 131 
 
 Aro but the solemn decorations all 
 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
 The planets, all the mfinito host of heaven, 
 Aro shining on the sad abodes of death, 
 Through the still lapse of ages. 
 
 G. "All that tread 
 
 The globe, are but a handful, to the tribes 
 That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
 Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 
 Or, lose thyself in the continuous woods, 
 Where rolls the Or'egon, and hears no sound, 
 Save its own dashings — yet the dead are there ; 
 And millions in those solitudes, since first 
 The flight of years began, have laid them down 
 In their last sleep : the dead reign there alone. 
 
 7. " So shalt thou rest ; and what, if thou shalt fall, 
 Unnoticed by 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 enjoyments, and shall come 
 And make their bed with thee. 
 
 8. " 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. 
 
 9. " 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, 
 
132 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Like one who wrajDS the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dream3 I" 
 
 W. C. Bryant. 
 
 William Ccllen Bryant was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, on the 
 third day of November, 1794. He gave indications of superior genius at a very 
 early age ; and fortunately received the most careful and judicious instruction 
 from his father, a learned and eminent physician. At ten years of age, he made 
 very creditable translations from some of the Latin poets, which were printed 
 in a newspaper at Northampton. At thirteen, he wrote " The Embargo," a po< 
 litical satire, which was never surpassed by any poet of that age. Bryant en« 
 tered an advanced class of Williams College in the sixteenth year of his age, in 
 which he soon became distinguished for his attainments generally, and espe- 
 cially for his proficiency in classical learning. He was admitted to the bar in 
 1815, and commenced the practice of his profession in the village of Great Bar- 
 rington, where he was soon after married. He wrote the above noble poem — 
 " Thanatopsis " — when but little more than eighteen years of age. In 1821 he 
 delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College his longest poem, 
 " The Ages," which is in the stanza of Spenser, and in its versification is not in- 
 ferior to "The Faerie Qucene." " To a Waterfowl,'* "Inscription for an entrance 
 to a Wood," and several other pieces of nearly equal merit were likewise written 
 during his residence at Great Barrington. After passing ten years in successful 
 practice in the courts, he determined to abandon the uncongenial business of a 
 lawyer, and devote his attention more exclusively to literature. With this view, 
 he removed to the city of New York in 1825, and, with a friend, established " The 
 New York Review and Athenaeum Magazine," in which he published several of 
 his finest poems. In 1820 he assumed the chief direction of the " Evening Post," 
 one of the best gazettes iu this country, with which he has ever since been con- 
 nected. In the summer of 1S34, Mr. Bryant visited Europe, with his family, 
 where he remained till 1830, when the illness of his partner and associate, tho 
 late William Leggctt, caused his hasty return. A splendid edition of his com- 
 plete poetical works was published in 1840. His last volume entitled " Thirty 
 Poems," appeared in 180-i. He is a favorite with men of every variety of tastes. 
 He has passages of profound reflection for the philosopher, and others of such 
 simple beauty as to please the most illiterate. He has few equals in grace and 
 power of expression. Every line has compactness, precision, and elegance, and 
 flows with its fellows in exquisite harmony. Mr. Bryant is the poet of nature. 
 He places before us, in picturos warmly colored by the hues of the imagination, 
 the old and shadowy forests, the sea-like prairies, the lakes, rivers, and moun- 
 tains of our own country. To the thoughtful critic every thing in his verse be- 
 longs to America, and is as different from what marks the poetry of England as 
 it is from that which most distinguishes the poetry of France or Germany. 
 
 n. 
 
 21. EUTHANASIA. 1 
 
 METHINKS, when on the languid eye 
 Life's autumn scenes grow dim, — 
 When evening's shadows veil the shy. 
 
 1 Euthanasia, (yiV than a' z.i 5), an easy death ; a mode of dYrn^ to be desired. 
 
EUTHANASIA. 133 
 
 And pleasure's siren ' hymn 
 Grows fainter on the tuneless oar, 
 Like echoes from another sphere, 
 
 Or dream of seraphim, — 
 It were not sad to cast away 
 This dull and cumbrous load of clay. 
 
 2. It were not sad to feel the heart 
 
 Grow passionless and cold ; 
 To feel those longings to depart 
 
 That cheered the good of old ; 
 To clasp the faith w r hich looks on high, 
 "Which fires the Christian's dying eye, 
 
 And makes the curtain-fold, 
 That falls upon his wasting breast, 
 The door that leads to endless rest. 
 
 3. It were not lonely thus to lie 
 
 On that triumphant bed, 
 Till the pure spirit mounts on high, 
 
 By white-winged seraphs led : 
 "Where glories earth may neycr know 
 O'er " many mansions " lingering glow, 
 
 In peerless luster shed ; 
 It were not lonely thus to soar, 
 "Where sin and grief can sting no more. 
 
 4. And, though the way to such a goal 
 
 Lies through the clouded toinb, 
 If on the free, unfettered soul 
 
 There rest no stains of gloom, 
 How should its aspirations riso 
 Far through the blue, unpillarcd skies, 
 
 Up to its final home ! 
 
 Beyond the journeyings of the sun, 
 
 Where streams of living waters run. 
 
 W. G. Class. 
 
 Willis Gatlokd Clakk, a journalist, poet, and miscellaneous writer, was born 
 
 1 Si' reu, one of three damsels, — who sailed by forgot their country, 
 or, according to some writers, of two, and died in an ecstacy of delight; 
 — '■said to dwell near the Island of hence, an enticing, alluring, or dan- 
 Caprea, in the Mediterranean, and to gcrous woman; one rendered dan- 
 sing "with such sweetness that they gerous by her enticements. 
 
134: NATIONAL, FIFTH READER. 
 
 at Otisco, an agricultural town in Central New York, in the 3 T ear 1810. Stimu- 
 lated by the splendid scenery outspread on every side around him, he began to 
 feel the poetic impulse at an early age ; and, in numbers most musical, painted 
 the beauties of nature with singular fidelity. As he grew older, a solemnity and 
 gentle sadness of thought pervaded his verse, and evinced, his desire to gather 
 from the scenes and images its reflected lessons of morality. When about twen- 
 ty years of age, he repaired to Philadelphia, where he commenced a weekly 
 miscellany, which was soon abandoned. He then assumed, with the Reverend 
 Doctor Brantley, the charge of the " Columbian Star," a religious and literary 
 periodical, of high character, in which he printed many brief poems of consid- 
 erable merit. Some years later, he took charge of the " Philadelphia Gazette," 
 one of the oldest and most respectable journals in Pennsylvania, of which he 
 ultimately became proprietor, and from that time until his death continued to 
 conduct it. In 1836 he married Anne Poyntell Caldcleugh, the daughter of one 
 of the wealthiest citizens of Philadelphia, and a woman of great personal beau- 
 ty, rare accomplishments, and affectionate disposition, who soon after died of 
 consumption, leaving her husband a prey to the deepest melancholy. From this 
 time his health gradually declined, though he continued to write for his paper 
 until the last day of his life, the twelfth of June, 1841. His metrical writings, 
 which are pervaded by a gentle religious melancholy, are all distinguished for a 
 graceful and elegant diction, thoughts morally and poetically beautiful, and 
 chaste and appropriate imagery. His prose writings, on the other hand, were 
 usually marked by passages of irresistible humor and wit. His perception of 
 the ludicrous was acute, and his jests and "cranks and wanton wiles" evinced 
 the fullness of his powers and the benevolence of his feelings. 
 
 m. 
 
 22. BROKEN HEARTS. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 MAN is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature 
 leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the -world. 
 Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped 
 in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for 
 space in the world's thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. 
 But a woman's whole life is a historv of the affections. The 
 heart is her world : it is there her ambition strives for empire ; 
 it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends 
 forth her sympathies on adventure : she embarks her whole 
 soul in the traffic of affection ; and if shipwrecked, her case is 
 hopeless — for it is a bankruptcy of the heart. 
 
 2. To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion somo 
 bitter pangs : it wounds some feelings of tenderntss — it blasts 
 some prospects of felicity ; but he is an active being — he may 
 dissipate his thoughts in the whirl of varied occupation, or may 
 plunge into the tide of pleasure : or, if the scene of disappoint- 
 
BROKEN HEARTS. 135 
 
 inent be too full of painful associations, ho can shift his abode 
 at will, and taking as it were the wings of the morning, can " fly 
 to the uttermost part of the earth, and be at rest." 
 
 3. But woman's is comparatively a fixed, a secluded, and a 
 meditative life. She is more the companion of her own thoughts 
 and feelings ; and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, 
 where shall she look for consolation ? Her lot is to be wooed 
 and won ; and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like some 
 fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and abandoned, 
 and left desolate. 
 
 4. How many bright eyes grow dim — how many soft cheeks 
 grow pale — how many lovely forms fade away into the tomb, 
 and none can tell the causo that blighted their loveliness ! As 
 the dove will clasp it3 wings to its side, and cover and conceal 
 the arrow that is preying on its vitals, so it is the nature of 
 woman to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. 
 
 5. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. 
 Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself ; but 
 when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and 
 there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. 
 Wifti her the desire of the heart has failed. The great charm 
 of existence is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exer- 
 cises which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the 
 tide of life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is 
 broken — the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melan- 
 choly dreams — " dry sorrow drinks her blood,'' until her en- 
 feebled frame sinks under the slightest external injury. 
 
 G. Look for her, after a little while, and you will find friend- 
 ship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one 
 who but lately glowed with all the radiance' of health and 
 beauty, should so speedily be brought down to " darkness and 
 the worm." You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual 
 indisposition that laid her low ; but no one knows of the mental 
 malady that previously sapped her strength, and made her so 
 easy a prey to the spoiler. 
 
 7. She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the 
 grove ; graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the 
 worm preying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering when 
 it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its 
 branches to the earth and shedding leaf by leaf ; until, wasted 
 
136 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the forest ; and 
 as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect 
 the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay. 
 8. I have seen many instances of women running to waste 
 and self-neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, 
 almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven ; and have repeat- 
 edly fancied that I could trace their death through the various 
 declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, 
 until I reached the first symptom of disappointed love. But an 
 instanco of the kind was lately told to me ; the circumstances 
 are well known in the country where they happened, and I shall 
 but give them in the manner they were related. 
 
 IV. 
 
 23. BROKEN HEARTS. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 EVERY one must recollect the tragical story of young Ern- 
 mett, 1 the Irish patriot : it was too touching to be soon for- 
 gotten. During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, condemned, 
 and executed, on a charge of treason. 2 His fate made a deep 
 impression on public sympathy. He was so young — so intelli- 
 gent — so generous — so brave — so everything that we are apt to 
 like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so lofty 
 and intrepid ! 3 The noble indignation with which he repelled 
 the charge of treason against his country — the eloquent vindi- 
 cation* of his name — and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in 
 the hopeless hour of condemnation — all these entered deeply 
 into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the 
 stern policy that dictated his execution. 
 
 2. But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be impos- 
 sible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had 
 won the affections of a beautiful and in'teresting girl, the daugh- 
 
 1 Robert Emmett, the Irish patri- ing the state into the hands of a 
 
 ot, was born in 1780. He was exc- foreign power, 
 
 cuted on the 20th of September, 1803. 3 In trep' id, undaunted ; brave. 
 
 3 Treason, (tre' zn), the offense of * Vin N di ca' tion, a justification 
 
 attempting to overthrow the govern- against censure, objections, or accu- 
 
 raent of the state to which the of- sations ; defense by proof, force, or 
 
 fender owes allegiance, or of betray- otherwise. 
 
BROKEN HEARTS. 137 
 
 ter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. 1 She loved him with the 
 disinterested fervor of a woman's first and early love. When 
 every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him ; when blasted 
 in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around liiij name, 
 she loved him the more ardently for his very Bufferings. If, then, 
 his fate could awaken tho sympathy even of hi3 foGS, what must 
 have been the agony of her, whoso whole soul was occupied by 
 his image ? Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb 
 suddenly closed botween them and the being they most loved 
 on earth — who havo sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a 
 cold and lonely world, from whence all that was most lovely and 
 loving had departed. 
 
 3. But then the horrors of such a grave ! so frightful, so dis- 
 honored ! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that could 
 soothe the pang of separation — none of those tender though 
 melancholy circumstances that endear tho parting scene — noth- 
 ing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent, like the dews 
 of heaven, to revive the heart in the parting hour of anguish. 
 
 4. To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had 
 incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, 
 and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could tho sympa- 
 thy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked 
 and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no want 
 of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous 
 sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were 
 paid her by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into 
 society, and they tried by all kinds of occupation and amuse- 
 ment to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story 
 of her love. 
 
 5. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity 
 that scath and scorch the soul — that penetrate to the vital scat 
 of happiness, and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blos- 
 som. She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but 
 she was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude. She 
 walked about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of tho 
 world around her. Sho carried with her an inward woo that 
 mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and " heeded 
 not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." 
 
 5 John Philpot Curran, celebrated for his eloquence, wit, and sarcasm, 
 born near C< rk, 1750, and died 1817. 
 
138 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 6. The person who told me her story had seen her at a mas- 
 querade. 1 There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness 
 more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To 
 nnd it wandering like a specter, lonely and joyless, where all 
 around is gay — to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, 
 and looking so wan and woe-begone, as if it had tried in vain to 
 cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. 
 
 7. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd 
 with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the 
 steps of an orchestra, and looking about for some time with a 
 vacant air, that showed her insensibility to the gairish 2 scene, 
 she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble 
 a little plaintive air. She had an ex'quisite voice ; but on this 
 occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed forth such a 
 soul of wretchedness, that she drew a crowd mute and silent 
 around her, and melted every one into tears. 
 
 8. The story of one so true and tender could not but excite 
 great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It com- 
 pletely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses 
 to her, and thought that one so true to the dead could not but 
 prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for 
 her thoughts were irrev'ocably engrossed by the memory of her 
 former lover. He, however, persisted in his suit. He solicited 
 not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her 
 conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and 
 dependent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of 
 friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, 
 though with the solemn assurance that her heart was unaltera- 
 bly another's. 
 
 9. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of 
 scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was 
 an amiable and ex'emplary 3 wife, and made an effort to be a happy 
 one ; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melan- 
 choly that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in 
 a slow but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, 
 the victim of a broken heart. Washington Irving. 
 
 1 Masquerade, (mis kcr id') an » Gairish, (gar'isli), gaudy; showy; 
 
 evening assembly of persons weari ng very fine. 
 
 masks, and amusing themselves with 3 Exemplary, (egz'cm pier I), serv- 
 
 dancing, conversation, etc. ing as a pattern ; commendable. 
 
LINES RELATING TO CURRAN'S DAUGHTER. 139 
 
 V. 
 
 24. LINES RELATING TO CURRAN'S DAUGHTER. 
 
 SHE is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 
 And lovers around her are sighing ; 
 But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, 
 For her heart in his grave is lying. 
 
 2. She sings the wild song of her dear native plains, 
 
 Every note which he loved awaking — 
 Ah ! little they think, who delight in her strains, 
 How the heart of the minstrel is breaking. 
 
 3. He had lived for his love — for his country he died ; 
 
 They were all that to life had entwined him — 
 Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, 
 Nor long will his love stay behind him. 
 
 4. Oh ! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest, 
 
 Allien they promise a glorious morrow ; 
 They'll shine o'er her sleep like a smile from the west, 
 From her own loved island of sorrow. Thomas Moore. 
 
 Thomas Mooke, the poet, was born in Dublin, in 17S0. He showed from boy« 
 hood an imaginative and musical turn ; and various circumstances combined in 
 impressing him early with that deep sense of the wrongs and sufferings of Ire- 
 land to which his poetry owes so many of its most powerful touches. He was 
 educated at Trinity College, where he took his degree in 17'JS, after which he 
 went to London to keep his terms for the bar. Poetry however had taken pos- 
 session of his mind ; and his gay translation of Anacreon was published in 1800. 
 In 1S04, having obtained a rcgistrarship in Bermuda, he went out to discharge 
 the duties of the office. It proved much less lucrative than he expected ; and 
 in a few months he returned home, from which time his course of life was very 
 uneventful. In 1S11 he married Miss Dyke, an amiable, attractive, and domestic 
 lady. He soon after established himself permanently at Sloperton, near Devizes, 
 visiting London, however, frequently, and making other excursions. In 1835 
 he received from government a pension of £300 a year; and in 1S50, when his 
 health was completely broken, Mrs. Moore obtained a pension of a hundred 
 pounds. He died in the beginning of 1852. Of his serious poems, M Irish Mel- 
 odies," and " Lalla Rookh " best support his fame. Many pieces of the former 
 are exquisite for grace of diction, for beauty, and for a refined and ideal kind of 
 pathos. The latter evinces great skill and care of execution, with marvelous 
 richness of fancy, and singular correctness of costume, and establishes his claim 
 to an important place among the great painters of romantic narrative. Moore's 
 political satires, perhaps, show his genius in a more brilliant light than any of 
 his other works. Of his prose writings, the most noted and worthy is the gor- 
 geous romance of " The Epicurean," which appeared in 1827. 
 
140 
 
 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 VI. 
 
 25. THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 
 
 1. 
 
 ONE more unfortunate, 
 Weary of breath, 
 Hashly importunate, 1 
 Gone to her death ! 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 Lift her with care ! 
 Fashioned so slenderly — 
 Young, and so fair ! 
 
 2. 
 
 Look at her garments, 
 Clinging like cerements, 3 
 "While the wave constantly 
 
 Drips from her clothing ; 
 Take her up instantly, 
 
 Loving, not loathing ! 
 3. 
 Touch her not scornfully ! 
 Think of her mournfully, 
 
 Gently and humanly — 
 Not of the stains of her ; 
 All that remains of her 
 
 Now is pure womanly. 
 4. 
 Make no deep scrutiny, 
 Into her mutiny, 
 
 Rash and undutiful ; 
 Past all dishonor, 
 Death has left on her 
 
 Only the beautiful. 
 5. 
 Still, for all slips of hers — 
 
 One of Eve's family — 
 
 » Im port' u nate, over-pressing in 5 Cere' ment, cloth dipped in 
 request or demand; troublesomely melted wax, and wrapped about dead 
 urgent. bodies previous to embalming. 
 
 Wipe those poor lips of hers, 
 
 Oozing so clammily. 
 Loop up her tresses 
 
 Escaped from the comb — 
 Her fair auburn tresses — 
 While wonderment guesses, 
 
 Where was her home ? 
 6. 
 
 Who was her father ? 
 
 Who was her mother ? 
 
 Had she a sister ? 
 
 Had she a brother ? 
 Or was there a dearer one 
 Still, and a nearer one 
 
 Yet, than all other ? 
 
 7. 
 Alas ! for the rarity 
 Of Christian charity 
 
 Under the sun ! 
 Oh ! it was pitiful ! 
 Near a whole city full, 
 
 Home she had none. 
 8. 
 Sisterly, brotherly, 
 Fatherly, motherly 
 
 Feelings had changed — 
 Love, by harsh evidence, 
 Throw r n from its eminence ; 
 Even God's j)rovidenco 
 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
 9. 
 
 Where the lamps quiver 
 So far in the river, 
 
THE BRIDGE OF 6IGHS. 
 
 U) 
 
 With many a light 
 From window and casement, 
 From garret to basement, 
 She stood, with amazement, 
 
 Houseless by night. 
 10. 
 The bleak wind ot March 
 
 Made her tremble and shiver; 
 But not the dark arch, 
 
 Or the black, flowing river : 
 Mad from life's history, 
 Glad to death's mystery, 
 
 Swift to be hurled — 
 Any where — any where 
 
 Out of the world ! 
 11, 
 In she plunged boldly — 
 No matter how coldly 
 
 The rough river ran — 
 Over the brink of it! 
 Picture it — think of it ! 
 
 Dissolute Man ! 
 Lave in it, drink of it, 
 
 Then, if you can ! — 
 Take her up tenderly, 
 
 Lift her with care ! 
 Fashioned so slenderly, 
 
 Young, and so fair. 
 
 12. 
 
 Ere her limbs, frigidly, 
 Stiffen too rigidly, 
 
 Decentlv, kindlv, 
 Smooth and compose them ; 
 And her eyes, close them, 
 
 Staring so blindly I 
 
 13. 
 
 Dreadfully staring 
 
 Through muddy impurity, 
 As when with the daring 
 Last look of despairing 
 
 Fixed on futurity. 
 
 14. 
 
 Perishing gloomily, 
 Spurred by contumely, 1 
 Cold inhumanity, 
 Burning insanity, 
 
 Into her rest ! 
 Cross her hands humblv, 
 As if praying dumbly, 
 
 Over her breast ! 
 Owning her weakness, 
 
 Her evil behavior, 
 And leaving with meekness 
 
 Her sins to her Saviour ! 
 
 Thomas Hood. 
 
 Thomas Hood, humorist and poet, was born at London, in 179$. The best 
 incident of his early boyhood was his instruction by a schoolmaster who appre- 
 ciated his talents, and was so interested in teaching as to render it impossible 
 not to interest his pupil. At this period he earned his first fee — a few guineas— 
 by revising for the press a new edition of " Paul and Virginia.'' In his fifteenth 
 year, after receiving a miscellaneous education, he was placed in the counting- 
 house of a Russian merchant; but, soon after learned the art of engraving. In 
 1821, having already written fugitive papers for periodicals, he became sub- 
 editor of the "London Magazine," a position which at once introduced him to 
 the best literary society of the time. " Odes and Addresses " soon after appear 
 ed. " Whims and Oddities," "National Tales/' "Tylncy Hall," a novel, and 
 u The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies," followed. In these, the humorous lac- 
 
 1 C3n' tu me ly, rudeness or reproach compounded of haughtiness and 
 contempt ; despiteful treatment. 
 
142 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ulty not only predominated, but expressed itself with a freshness, originality, 
 and power, which the poetical element could not claim. There was, however, 
 much true poetry in the verse, and much sound sense and keen observation in 
 the prose of these works. After publishing several annuals, he started a maga- 
 zine in his own name. Though aided by men of reputation and authority, this 
 work, which he conducted with surprising energy, was mainly sustained by his 
 own intellectual activity. At this time, confined to a sick-bed, from which he 
 never rose, in his anxiety to provide for his wife and children, he composed 
 those poems, too few in number, but immortal in the English language, sv^h as 
 the " Song of the Shirt," the " Song of the Laborer," and the " Bridge of Sighs." 
 His death occurred on the 3d of May, 1845. 
 
 vn. 
 
 26. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 
 
 I. SUCCESSION OF HUMAN BEINGS. 
 
 LIKE leaves on trees the life of man is found, 
 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ; 
 Another race the following spring supplies, 
 They fall successive, and successive rise : 
 So generations in their course decay ; 
 So nourish these, when those have passed away. 
 
 II. DEATH OF THE YOUNG AND FAIR. 
 She died in beauty, like a rose blown from its parent stem ; 
 She died in beauty, like a pearl dropped from some diadem ; 
 She died in beauty, like a lay along a moonlit lake ; 
 She died in beauty, like the song of birds amid the brake ; 
 She died in beauty, like the snow on flowers dissolved away ; 
 She died in beauty, like a star lost on the brow of day ; — 
 She lives in glory, like Night's gems set round the silver moon ; 
 She lives in glory, like the sun amid the blue of June. 
 
 TIL A LADY DROWNED.— Procter. 
 
 Is she dead ? . . . 
 Why so shall I be, — ere these autumn blasts 
 Have blown on the beard of Winter. Is she dead ? 
 Ay, she is dead, — quite dead! The wild Sea kissed her 
 Wifli its cold white lips, and then — put her to sleep : 
 She has a sand pillow, and a water sheet, 
 And never turns her head or knows 'tis morning ! 
 IV. LIFE OF MAN. -Beaumont. 
 Like to the falling of a star, 
 Or as the flights of eagles are, 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IX VERSE. 14;j 
 
 Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue, 
 Or silver drops of morning dew, 
 Or like a wind that chafes the flood, 
 Or bubbles which on water stood : 
 E'en such is man, whose borrowed light 
 Is straight called in and paid to-night : 
 The wind blows out, the bubble dies ; 
 The spring entombed in autumn lies ; 
 The dew's dried up, the star is shot, 
 The flight is past, and man forgot. 
 V. CORONACH.'— Scott. 
 He is gone on the mountain, he is lost to the forest, 
 Like a summer-dried fountain, when our need was the sorest ; 
 The fount, reappearing, from the rain-drops shall borrow, 
 But to us comes no cheering, to Duncan no morrow ! 
 The hand of the reaper takes the ears that are hoary, 
 But the voice of the weeper wails manhood in glory ; 
 The autumn winds rushing waft the leaves that are serest, 
 But our flower was in flushing when blighting was nearest. — 
 Fleet foot on the correi, 3 sage counsel in cumber,' 
 Bed hand in the foray, 4 how sound is thy slumber ! 
 Like the dew on the mountain, like the foam on the river, 
 Like the bubble on the fountain, thou art gone, and forever ! 
 VI. IMMORTALITY.— It. II. Dana. 
 "Man, thou shalt never die !" Celestial voices 
 Hymn it unto our souls : according harps, 
 By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars 
 Of morning sang together, sound forth still 
 The song of our great immortality ! 
 Thick-clustering orbs on this our fair domain, 
 The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas, 
 Join in this solemn, universal song. 
 O listen, ye our spirits ! drink it in 
 From all the air ! 'Tis in the gentle moonlight ; 
 'Tis floating mid day's setting glories ; night, 
 Wrapped in her sable 5 robe, with silent step, 
 
 J Coronach, (koV o uak), a song of 3 Cum' ber, perplexity ; distress, 
 
 lamentation . a lament. 4 Fo' ray, a sudden pillaging in- 
 
 ' Correi, (kor' ra), the side of a cmsion in peace or war. 
 
 hill where game usually lies. * Sa' ble, dark ; black. 
 
144 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears. 
 Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve, 
 All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse, 
 As one vast mystic l instrument, are touched 
 By an unseen, living hand, and conscious chords 
 Quiver with joy in this great jubilee : 2 
 The dying hear it ; and, as sounds of earth 
 Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls 
 To mingle in this heavenly harmony. 
 
 vni. 
 
 27. SELECTED EXTRACTS. 
 
 THE man who carries a lantern in a dark night, can have 
 friends all around him, walking safely by the help of its 
 rays, and he be not defrauded. So he who has the God-given 
 light of hope in his breast, can help on many others in this 
 world's darkness, not to his own loss, but to his precious gain. 
 
 2. As a rose after a shower, bent down by tear-drops, waits 
 for a passing breeze or a kindly hand to shake its branches, 
 that, lightened, it may stand once more upon its stem, — so one 
 who is bowed down with affliction longs for a friend to lift him 
 out of his sorrow, and bid him once more rejoice. Happ} r is the 
 man who has that in his soul which acts upon the dejected like 
 April airs upon violet roots. 
 
 3. Have you ever seen a cactus growing ? "What a dry, ugly, 
 spiny thing it is ! But suppose your gardener takes it when just 
 sprouting forth with buds, and lets it stand a week or two, and 
 then brings it to you, and lo ! it is a blaze of light, glorious above 
 all flowers. So the poor and lowly, when God's time comes, and 
 they begin to stand up and blossom, how beautiful they will be ! 
 
 4. The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for 
 the wide world's joy. The lonely pine upon the mountain-top 
 waves its somber boughs, and cries, " Thou art my sun." And 
 the little meadow violet lifts its cup of blue, and whispers with 
 its perfumed breath, " Thou art my sun." And the grain in a 
 thousand fields rustles in the wind, and makes answer, " Thou 
 
 1 Mys' tic, obscure ; involving fiftieth year, when the bondsmen 
 some secret meaning. were all set free and lauds restored 
 
 3 Ju' bi lee, among the Jews every to their former owners. 
 
SELECTED EXTRACTS. 145 
 
 art my sun." And so God sits effulgent in heaven, not for a fa- 
 vored few, but for the universe of life ; and there is no creature 
 so poor or so low that he may not look up with child-like con- 
 fidence and say, "My Father! Thou art mine." 
 
 5. I think the human heart is like an artist's studio. You 
 can tell what the artist is doing, not so much by his completed 
 pictures, for they are mostly scattered at once, but by the half- 
 finished sketches and designs which are hanging on his wall. 
 And so you can tell the course of a man's life, not so much by 
 his well-defined purposes, as by the half-formed plans — the faint 
 day-dreams, which are hung in all the chambers of his heart. 
 
 G. Men are like birds that build their nests in trees that hang 
 over rivers. And the birds sing in the tree-top, and the river 
 sings underneath, undermining and undermining, and in the 
 moment when the bird thinks not, it comes crashing down, and 
 the nest is scattered, and all goes floating down the flood. If 
 we build to ambition, we arc like men who build beforo the 
 track of a volcano's eruption, suro to be overtaken and burnt up 
 by its hot lava. If we build to wealth, we are as those who 
 build upon the ice. The spring will melt our foundations from 
 under us. 
 
 7. Shall we build to earthly affections ? If we can not trans- 
 figure 2 those whom we love — if we can not behold the eternal 
 world shining through the faces of father and mother, of hus- 
 band and wife — if we can not behold them all irradiated with 
 the glory of tho supernal 3 sphere, it were not best to build for 
 love. Death erects his batteries right over against our homes, 
 and in the hour when we think not, the missile ilies and explodes, 
 carrying destruction all around. 
 
 8. I think it is a sad sight to look at one of the receiving 
 hulks at the Navy Yard. To think that that was the ship which 
 once went so fearlessly across the ocean ! It has come back to 
 be anchored in the quiet bay, and to roll this way and that with 
 the tide. Yet that is what manv men set before them as tho 
 end of life — that the} 1- may come to that pass where they may 
 be able to cast out an anchor this way and an anchor that way, 
 and never move again, but rock lazily with the tide — without a 
 sail — without a voyage — waiting simply for decay to take their 
 
 1 Trans fig' ure, change the out- * Su per' nal, being in a higher 
 ward form or appearance of. region or place; heaveulv. 
 
 7 
 
14:6 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 timbers apart. And this is what men call, "retiring from busi- 
 ness " — to become simply an empty old hulk. 
 
 9. We are beleaguered by Time, and parallel after pai'allel is 
 drawn around us, and then a change is made, and we see the 
 enemy's flag waving on some outpost. And as the sense of 
 hearing, and touch, and sight fails, and a man finds all these 
 marks of time upon him, oh woe ! if he has no Hereafter, as a 
 final citadel into which to retreat. 
 
 10. Would that I could break this Gospel as a bread of life 
 to all of you ! My best presentations of it to you are so incom- 
 plete ! Sometimes, when I am alone, I have such sweet and 
 rapturous visions of the love of God and the truths of His word, 
 that I think if I could speak to you then, I should move your 
 hearts. I am like a child, who, walking forth some sunny sum- 
 mer's morning, sees grass and flowers all shining with drops of 
 dew, that reflect every hue of the rainbow. " Oh !" he cries, 
 " 111 carry these beautiful things to my mother," and eagerly 
 shakes them off into his little palm. But the charm is gone — 
 they are no more water-pearls. 
 
 11. There are days when my blood flows like wine ; when all 
 is ease and prosperity ; when the sky is blue, and the birds sing, 
 and flowers blossom, and every thing speaks to me ; and my 
 life is an anthem, walking in time and tune ; and then this 
 world's joy and affection suffice. But when a change comes — 
 when I am weary and disappointed — when the skies lower into 
 the somber night — when there is no song of bird, and the per'- 
 fume of flowers is but their dying breath breathed away — when 
 all is sunsetting and autumn, then I yearn for Him who sits with 
 the summer of love in His soul, and know that all earthly affec- 
 tion is but a glow-worm light compared to that which blazes 
 with such effulgence in the heart of God. 
 
 12. I think that in the life to come my heart will have feel 
 ings like God's. The little bell that a babe can hold in its fim 
 gers may strike the same note as the great bell of Mos'cow. 1 Its 
 
 1 MbV cow, a famous city of Rus- kol, or the Monarch, weighing near- 
 
 sia, formerly capital of the whole ly one hundred and eighty tons, is 
 
 Russian Empire. It is situated four about twenty -one and a-half feet in 
 
 hundred miles S. E. of St. Peters- height, and twenty-two and a-half 
 
 burg, with which it is connected by in diameter. A Inure fragment was 
 
 a first-class railroad. The stupendous broken from it, more than a century 
 
 bell here alluded to,called Czar Kolo- ago, when the bell-tower was burned. 
 
FULLER'S BIRD. 147 
 
 note may be soft as a bird's -whisper, and yet it is the same. 
 And so God may have a feeling-, and I, standing by him, shall 
 have the same feeling. Where he loves, I shall love. All the 
 processes of the Divine mind will be reflected in mine. And 
 there will be this companionship with him to eternity. What 
 else can bo the meaning of those expressions that all we have is 
 Christ's, and God is ours, and we are heirs of God ? To inherit 
 God — who can conceive of it ? It is the growing marvel, and 
 will be the growing wonder of eternity. 
 
 13. We are glad that there is a bosom of God to which we 
 can go and find refuge. As prisoners in castles look out of their 
 grated windows at the smiling landscape, where the sun comes 
 and goes, so we from this life, as from dungeon bars, look forth 
 to the heavenly land, and are refreshed with sweet visions of 
 
 the home that shall be ours when we are free. 
 
 Henry Ward Beecuer. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 I. 
 
 28. FULLER'S BIRD. 1 
 
 THE wild-winged creature, clad in gore 
 (His bloody human meal being o'er), 
 Comes down to the water's brink : 
 Tis the first time he there hath gazed, 
 And straight he shrinks — alarmed — amazed, 
 And dares not drink. 
 
 2. " Have I till now," he sadly said, 
 
 " Preyed on my brother's blood, and made 
 
 His flesh my meal to-day?" — 
 Once more he glances in the brook, 
 And once more sees his victim's look ; 
 
 Then turns away. 
 
 1 Puller's Bird, " I have read of a there by reflection that he had killed 
 bird, which hath a face like, and yet one like himself, pineth away by de- 
 will prey upon, a man ; who, coming grees, and never afterward enjoyrth 
 to the water to drink, and finding itself." — Fuller's WorViits. 
 
148 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 3. With such sharp pain as human hearts 
 May feel, the drooping thing departs 
 
 Unto the dark, -wild wood ; 
 And there, midst briers and sheltering weeds, 
 He hideth his remorse, and feeds 
 
 No more on blood. 
 4 And in that weedy brake he lies, 
 And pines, and pines, until he dies ; 
 
 And, when all's 6'cr, 
 
 What follows ? — Naught ! his brothers slake 
 Their thirst in blood in that same brake, 
 
 Fierce as before ! 
 
 5. So fable flows ! — But would you find 
 Its moral wrought in human kind, 
 
 Its tale made worse ; 
 Turn straight to Man, and in his fame 
 And forehead read " Tlie Harpy's" 1 name ; 
 
 But no remorse ! B. W. Procter. 
 
 Brtan Walter Procter, better known by his assumed name of Barry Corn- 
 wall, is a graceful and accomplished "writer, and a true poet. "If it be the 
 province of poetry to give delight," says Lord Jeffery, "this author should rank 
 very high among the poets." He is a genuine poet of love. There is an intense 
 and passionate beauty, a depth of affection, in his little dramatic poems, which 
 appear even in the affectionate triflings of his gentle characters. He, is chiefly 
 noted, however, as a song-writer. " The fair blosoms of his genius, though 
 light and trembling as the breeze, spring from a wide, and deep, and robust 
 stock, which will sustain far taller branches without being exhausted." 
 
 H. 
 
 29. THE BARBARITIES OF WAR. 
 
 THE first great obstacle to the extinction of war, is the way 
 in which the heart of man is carried oft* from its barbarities 
 and its horrors by the splendor of its deceitful accompaniments. 
 There is a feeling of the sublime in content 'plating the shock of 
 armies, just as there is in contenrplating the devouring energy 
 of a tempest ; and this so elevates and engrosses the whole man, 
 
 1 HaVpy, in antiquity, the harjrics with sharp claws. They were thrco 
 
 ■were fabulous winged monsters, rav- in number, Aello, Ocypetc, and Cele- 
 
 enous and filthy, having the face of no. The name harpy is often applied 
 
 a woman and the body of a vulture, to an extortioner, a plunderer, or 
 
 with their feet and fingers armed ravenous animals. 
 
THE BARBARITIES OF WAR. 149 
 
 that his eye is blind to the tears of bereaved parents, and his 
 ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of 
 their desolated families. 
 
 2. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a youthful warrior, 
 burning for distinction on the field, and lured by this generous 
 aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, where, in the 
 Lll work of death, the opposing sons of valor struggle for a re- 
 membrance and a name ; and this side of the picture is so much 
 the exclusive object of our regard, as to disguise from our view 
 the mangled carcases of the fallen, and the writhing agonies of 
 the hundreds and the hundreds more who have been laid on 
 the cold ground, where they are left to languish and to die. 
 
 3. There no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep over 
 them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying pos- 
 ture, or bind up the wounds which, in the maddening fury of the 
 combat, have been given and received by the children of one 
 common Father. There death spreads its pale ensigns over 
 every countenance, and when night comes on, and darkness 
 around them, how many a despairing wretch must take up with 
 the bloody field as the untended bed of his last sufferings, with- 
 out one friend to bear the message of tenderness to his distant 
 home, without one companion to close his eyes ! 
 
 4. I avow it. On every side of me I sec causes at work which 
 go to spread a most delusive coloring over war, and to remove 
 its shocking barbarities to the background of our contempla'- 
 tions altogether. I see it in the history, which tells me of the 
 superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their suc- 
 cessive charges. I see it in the poetry, which lends the magic 
 of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and transports its many 
 admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes 
 of chivalry it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene 
 of legalized slaughter. 
 
 5. I see it in the music, which represents the progress of the 
 battle ; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet notes cf 
 preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing-room 
 are seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment : nor elo I 
 hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones 
 of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded men 
 as they fade away upon the ear and sink into lifeless silence. 
 All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted creatures we 
 
150 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 are. Were it not so, war could never have been seen in any 
 other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness : and I can look 
 to nothing but to the progress of Christian sentiment upon earth 
 to arrest the strong current of its popular and prevailing par- 
 tiality for war. 
 
 6. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the check of 
 severe principle on all the subordinate tastes and faculties of our 
 nature. Then will glory be reduced to its right estimate, and 
 the wakeful benevolence of the Gospel, chasing away every spell, 
 will be turned by the treachery of no delusion whatever from its 
 sublime enterprises for the good of the species. Then the reign 
 of truth and quietness will be ushered into the world, and war, 
 cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war, will be stripped of its many 
 and its bewildering fascinations. Thomas Chalmers. 
 
 Thomas Chalmers, D.D., LL.D., the celebrated pulpit orator and divine, was 
 born on 17th March, 1780, at Anstruther, in Fifeshire, Scotland, of respectable 
 and pious, though humble, parents. He was entered a student in St. Andrews 
 College at the early age of twelve; and soon gave indications of that strong 
 predilection for the physical sciences which he retained through life. He ob- 
 tained license to preach in connection with the Established Church of Scotland, 
 while only 19, on the express ground that he was "a lad of pregnant parts;" 
 though, at that early age, he considered the functions of the sacred office to be 
 subordinate to scientilic pursuits. By long personal illness, and severe domestic 
 bereavements, he was brought from making religion a secondary concern with 
 him to regard it as a subject of paramount importance. In 1815 he took charge 
 of the Tron Church and Parish, Glasgow, from which time his reputation con- 
 tinued to advance, until the sensation produced by his preaching surpassed all 
 that was ever known or heard of in the annals of pulpit eloquence. In 1824 he 
 became professor of moral philosophy in the University of St. Andrews ; and in 
 1828 he was translated to the chair of divinity in the university at Edinburgh. 
 Dr. Chalmers now commenced a career of authorship, by which he still further 
 extended his reputation as a divine. The most ilattcring honors were now 
 heaped upon him ; for he was chosen President of the Royal Society of Edin- 
 burgh, created Doctor of Laws by the University of Oxford, and appointed cor- 
 responding member of the Royal Institute of France — a compliment which no 
 clergyman in Britain had ever previously enjoyed. His collected works, including 
 sermons, theological lectures, &c., amount to 25 volumes. Died May 30, 1847. 
 
 in. 
 
 30. BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 
 
 1. 
 
 SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, 
 
 A 
 
 There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of 
 woman's tears ; 
 Ihit a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed away, 
 
BINGEN ON THE RHINE. 151 
 
 And bent, wim pitying glances, to hear what ho might say. 
 The dying soldier faltered, as he took that comrade's hand, 
 And he said, " I never more shall see my own, my native land ; 
 Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends of mine, 
 For I was born at Bing'en — at Bingen on the Rhine. 
 
 2. 
 
 " Tell my brothers and companions, when they meet and crowd 
 
 around 
 To hear my mournful story in the pleasant vineyard ground, 
 That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was done, 
 Full many a corse Jay ghastly pale, beneath the setting sun. 
 And midst the dead and dying, were some grown old in wars, 
 The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many scars: 
 But some were young — and suddenly beheld life's morn decline ; 
 And one had come from Bingen — fair Bingen on the Rhine ! 
 
 3. 
 
 " Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old age, 
 
 And I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home a cage : 
 
 For my father was a soldier, and even as a child 
 
 My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild; 
 
 And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard, 
 
 I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's sword, 
 
 And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to 
 
 shine, 
 On the cottage-wall at Bingen — calm Bingen on the Rhine ! 
 
 o o o 
 
 4. 
 " TeU my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head, 
 When the troops are marching home again, with glad and gal- 
 lant tread ; 
 But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast eye, 
 For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die. 
 And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name 
 To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame ; 
 And to hang the old Btoord in its place (my father's sword and 
 
 mine), 
 For the honor of old Bincren — dear Bingen on the Rhine ! 
 
 5. 
 
 " There's another — not a sister ; in the happy days gone by, 
 You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye; 
 
152 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Too innocent for coquetry, — too fond for idle scorning, — 
 
 Oh ! friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest 
 
 mourning ; 
 Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon be risen 
 My body will be out of pain — my soul be out of prison), 
 I dreamed I stood with her, and saw tho yellow sunlight shine 
 On tho vine-clad hills of Bingen — fair Bingen on the Rhine ! 
 
 6. 
 
 " I saw the blue Rhine sweep along — I heard, or seemed to hear 
 The German songs wo used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear ; 
 And down tho pleasant river, and up the slanting hill, 
 The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and still ; 
 And her glad blue eyes were on me as we £>assed with friendly 
 
 talk 
 Down many a path beloved of yore, and w ell-remembered walk, 
 And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine : 
 But we'll meet no" more at Bingen — loved Bingen on the Rhine !" 
 
 7. 
 His voice grew faint and hoarser, — his grasp was childish weak, — 
 His eyes put on a dying look, — he sighed and ceased to speak: 
 His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled, — 
 The soldier of the Legion, in a foreign land — was dead ! 
 And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down 
 On the red sand of tho battle-field, with bloody corpses strown ; 
 Yea, calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shine, 
 As it shone on distant Bingen — fair Bingen on the Rhine ! 
 
 Mrs. Norton. 
 
 Mrs. Norton, Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan, was grand-daugter of Rich- 
 ard Brinsley Sheridan. The family of Sheridan has been proliGc of genius and 
 she has -well sustained the family honors. In her seventeenth year, this lady had 
 composed her poem, "The Sorrows of Rosalie." She termed her next poem, 
 founded on the ancient legend of the Wandering Jew, " The Undying One." 
 Her third volume, entitled "The Dream, and other Poems," appeared in 1840. 
 " This lady," says a writer in the Quarterly Review, " is the Byron of our modern 
 poetesses. She has very much of that intense personal passion by which Byron's 
 poetry is distinguished from the larger grasp and deeper communion with man 
 and naturo of Wordsworth. She has also Byron's beautiful intervals of tender- 
 ness, his strong practical thought, and his forceful expression. It is not an arti- 
 ficial imitation, but a natural parallel." She was married at the age of nineteen 
 to the Hon. George Chappie Norton, brother to Lord Grantley, and himself a 
 police magistrate in London. After being the object of suspicion and persecu- 
 tion of the most painful description, the union was dissolved in 1S40. 
 
LOCHIEL'S WARNING. 153 
 
 IV. 
 
 81. LOCIIIEI/S WARNING. 
 
 SEER. Locliicl, Locliiel, bewaro of the day 
 "When tho Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array I 
 For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, 
 And tho clan3 of Cullo'den ' are scattered in fight ; 
 They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown ; 
 Woe, woe, to the riders that trample them down ! 
 Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain, 
 And their hoof-beaten bosoms 1 arc trod to the plain. 
 But hark ! through tho fast-flashing lightning of war 
 What steed to tho desert flies frantic and far ? 
 'Tis thine, O Glenullin ! whose bride shall await, 
 Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate. 
 A steed comes at morning — no rider is there ; 
 But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. 
 Weep, Albin ! to death and captivity led ! 
 O weep ! but thy tears can not number the dead ; 
 For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave — 
 Culloden, that reeks with the blood of the brave ! 
 
 Lochiel. Go preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer ! 
 Or, if gory Cullo'den so dreadful appear, 
 Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight, 
 This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright. 
 
 Seer. Ha ! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn ? 
 Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn ! 
 Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth 
 From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the north ? 
 Lo ! the death-shot of focmen out-speeding, he rode 
 Companionless, bearing destruction abroad ; 
 But down let him stoop from his havoc on high ! 
 Ah ! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh. 
 Why flames the far summit ? Why shoot to the blast 
 Those embers, like stars from tho firmament cast ? 
 'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven 
 From his eyry (a/ri), that beacons the darknt-ss of heaven. 
 
 1 Cul 13' den, a wide, moory ridge army, on the lGth of April, 1740, by 
 
 in Scotland, county of Inverness, in the royal troops under the Duke of 
 
 the parish of Croy, memorable for Cumberland, 
 
 the total defeat of Prince Charles's ■ Bosoms, (buz' umz). 
 
154 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 crested Locliiel ! tlie peerless in might, 
 Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, 
 Heaven's fire is around thee to blast and to burn : 
 Return ' to thy dwelling ; all lonely return ! 
 
 For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, 
 And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood ! 
 
 Lochiel. False wizard, avaunt ! 3 I have marshalled my clan : 
 Their swords are a thousand ; their bosoms are one. 
 Thev are true to the last of their blood and their breath, 
 And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. 
 Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock ! 
 Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock ! 
 But woo to his kindred, and woe to his cause, 
 When Albin her claymore 3 indignantly draws ; 
 When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, 
 Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud, 
 All plaided and plumed in their tartan array 
 
 Seer. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day ! 
 For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal, 
 Yet man can not cover what God would reveal ? 
 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
 And corainp- events cast their shadows before. 
 
 O 
 
 1 tell thee, Cullo'den's dread echoes shall ring 
 
 With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive king. 
 
 Lo ! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath, 4 
 
 Behold where he flies on his desolate path ! 
 
 Now in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight : 
 
 Rise ! rise ! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight ! — 
 
 'Tis finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors ; 
 
 Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. 
 
 But where is the iron-bound prisoner ? Where ? 
 
 For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. 
 
 Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn, 
 
 Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn ? 
 
 Ah ! no ; for a darker departure is near ; 
 
 The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier ; 
 
 His death-bell is tolling : O, mercy, dispel 
 
 Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell ! 
 
 1 Return, (re tern'). sword, formerly used by the Scottish 
 
 5 Avaunt, (avant'). Highlanders. 
 
 1 C12y r moi*e, a large, tvro-handed * Wrath, (rath). 
 
LOCHIEL'S WARNING. 155 
 
 Life flutters, convulsed, in his quivering limbs, 
 
 And bis blood-streaming nostril in agony swims ! 
 
 Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet, 
 
 Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, 
 
 With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale 
 
 Lochiel. Down, soothless insnlter ! I trust not the talo ! 
 
 For never shall Albin a destiny meet 
 
 So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat ! 
 
 Though his perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, 
 
 Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, 
 
 Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, 
 
 While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, 
 
 Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, 
 
 With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe ! 
 
 And, leaving in battle no blot on his name, 
 
 Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame ! 
 
 Thomas Campbell. 
 TnoMAS Campbell, the distinguished poet, was born in Glasgow, on the 27th 
 of July, 1T77. Owing to the straightened circumstances of his father young 
 Campbell was obliged, while attending college, to have recourse to private teach- 
 ing as a tutor. Notwithstanding this additional labor, he made rapid progress in 
 his studies, and attained considerable distinction at the university of his native 
 city. He very early gave proofs of his aptitude for literary composition, especial- 
 ly in the department of poetry. At the age of twenty, he occasionally labored for 
 the booksellers, while attending lectures at the university in Edinburgh. In 17'.»0, 
 his first extended poem, "The Pleasures of Hope," was published. Its success 
 was instantaneous and without parallel. It is not too much to say, that it is, 
 without an exception, the finest didactic poem in the English language. In 1809, 
 he published "Gertrude of Wyoming," which holds the second place among 
 his lengthier poems, and to which were attached the most celebrated of his grand 
 and powerful lyrics. Though Campbell was too frequently timid, and noted 
 more for beauties of expression than for high inventive power and vigorous ex- 
 ecution, yet his lyrical pieces, particularly "The Battle of the Baltic," "Mariners 
 of England," "Hohenlindcn," and " Lochicl's Warning," which appear to have 
 been struck off at a heat, prove conclusively that his conception*, when not too 
 much subjected to elaboration, were glowing, bold, and powerful. In the latter 
 part of the poet's life his circumstances were materially improved. In 1S2C, he 
 was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. He died July 15th, 1S44, 
 and his remains were solemnly interred in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 V. 
 
 32. BATTLE OF WARSAW. 
 
 O SACRED Truth ! thy triumph ceased awhile, 
 And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, 
 When leagued oppression poured to northern wars 
 
156 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Her whiskered pandoors, and her fierce hussars, 
 Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, 
 Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn ! 
 Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, . 
 Presa<nncf wrath to Poland and to man. 
 
 o o 
 
 2. "Warsaw's last champion from her height surveyed, 
 Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid ; 
 
 Heaven ! he cried, my bleeding country save ! 
 Is there no hand on hisfh to shield the brave ? 
 Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains, 
 Rise, fellow-men ! our country yet remains ! 
 By that dread name, wo wave the su'Ord on high, 
 And swear for her to live, with her to die ! 
 
 3. He said, and on the rampart heights arrayed 
 His trusty warriors — few, but undismayed ; 
 Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, 
 Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm ; 
 Low, murmuring sounds along their banners fly, 
 Revenge or death ! — the watchword and reply : 
 Then pealed the notes omnipotent to charm, 
 And the loud tocsin tulled their last alarm. 
 
 4. In vain, alas ! in vain, ye gallant f ew ! 
 
 Prom rank to rank your volleyed thunder i!ev, r : 
 Oh, bloodiest picture in the "book of time!" 
 Sarmatia 1 fell, unwept, without a crime ! 
 Pound not a generous friend, a pityiog foe, 
 Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe ! 
 Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, 
 Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career : 
 Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, 
 And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko 3 fell ! 
 
 1 Sarmatia, (sax mi' sli! a), the clas- and a third in 1 795. The Poles have 
 
 eical name of Poland. For many made several attempts to recover 
 
 centuries Poland existed as an hide- their liberty, the last of which was 
 
 pendent and powerful State, but hav- in 18C0. 
 
 ing fallen a prey to internal disscn- 3 Thaddeus K6s x ci us' ko, a noble 
 
 sions, it was violently seized by Rus- Pole, was born in 1756. When young, 
 
 sin , Prussia, and Austria, and divided he served the United States in their 
 
 between them. The first partition war of independence against Eng- 
 
 took place in 1772, a second in 179:3, land, where he rose to the rank ef 
 
THE SIEGE OP LEYDEX. 157 
 
 5. Tho sun went down, nor ceased tho carnage there, 
 Tumultuous murder shook the midnight ah' ! 
 On Prague's proud arch tho fires of ruin glow, 
 His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below ; 
 The storm prevails, the rampart yields away. 
 Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay ! 
 Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall, 
 A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call : 
 Earth shook — red meteors flashed aloncr the sky, 
 And conscious nature shuddered at the cry. Campbell. 
 
 VI. 
 
 33. THE SIEGE OF LEYDEX. 
 
 MEANTIME the besieged city was at its last ga^). Tho 
 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 obstacles which it had to 
 surmount. They had guessed its progress by the illumination 
 from the blazing villages ; they had heard its salvos ' of artillery 
 on its arrival at North Aa ; 2 but since then, all had been dark 
 and mournful again, hope and fear, in sickening alternation, 
 distracting every breast. 
 
 2. 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. So long as the easterly breeze prevailed, they felt, 
 they anxiously stood on towers and housetops, that they must 
 look in vain for the welcome ocean. Yet, while thus patiently 
 waiting, they were literally starving. Bread, malt-cake, horse- 
 flesh, had entirely disappeared ; dogs, cats, rats, and other ver- 
 min, 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 propor- 
 
 general. He returned to Poland, and battle of Maciovice, October 1st, 1704. 
 
 signalized himself at the head of one and the complete downfall of his 
 
 of her armies in 1792 and 1793 ; and country soon followed. He closed 
 
 when the Poles rose up against their his unstained and noble life in Swit- 
 
 oppresscrs in 1794, he was made zerland in 1817. 
 
 their generalissimo, and their dicta- 'SaTvo, a general discharge of 
 
 tor. He was wounded and taken fire-arms ; a volley, 
 
 prisoner by the Russians at the fatal ? North Aa, (a). 
 
158 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 tions, hardly sufficient to support life among the famishing 
 population. 
 
 3. Starving "wretches swarmed daily around the shambles 
 -where these cattle were slaughtered, contending for any morsel 
 which might fall, and lapping eagerly the blood as it ran along 
 the pavement ; while the hides, chopped and boiled, were 
 greedily devoured. Women and children, all day long, were seen 
 searching gutters and dunghills 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 
 human food ; but these expedients could not avert starvation. 
 
 4. The daily mortality was frightful : infants starved to death 
 on the maternal breasts which famine had parched and with- 
 ered ; mothers dropped dead in the streets, with their dead 
 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, natur- 
 ally engendered of hardship and famine, now came, as if in 
 kindness, to abridge the agony of the people. The pestilence 
 stalked at noonday through the city, and the doomed inhabit- 
 ant s fell like grass beneath the scythe. From six thousand to 
 eight thousand human beings sank before this scourge alone ; 
 yet the people resolutely held out, — women and men mutually 
 encouraging each other to resist the entrance of their foreign 
 foe, — an evil more horrible than pest or famine. 
 
 5. Ley den w r as sublime in its despair. A few murmurs were, 
 however, occasionally heard at the steadfastness of the magis- 
 trates, and a dead body was placed at the door of the burgo- 
 master, as a silent witness against his inflexibility, A party of 
 the more faint-hearted even assailed the heroic Adrian Yan der 
 Werf with threats and reproaches as he passed through the 
 streets. A crowd had gathered around him as he reached a tri- 
 
 o 
 
 angular place in the center of the town, into which many of the 
 principal streets emptied themselves, and upon one side of which 
 stood the church of Saint Pancras. There stood the burgo- 
 master, 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 literally preserved : 
 
 C. " What v> r ould ye, my friends ? Why do ye murmur that 
 
THE SIEGE OF LEYDEN. 159 
 
 3 do not break our vows and surrender the city to the Span- 
 irds ? — a fate more horrible than the agony which she now en- 
 rres. I tell you I have made an oath to hold the city ; and 
 . .ay God give me strength 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 mc ; not so that of the city intrusted 
 to my care. I know that we shall starve if not soon relieved ; 
 but starvation is preferablo 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 hun- 
 ger, but expect no surrender so long as I remain alive." 
 
 7. Ou the 28th of September, a dove flew into the city, bring- 
 ing a letter from Admiral Boisot. In this despatch, the position 
 of the fleet at North Aa was described in encouraging terms, 
 and the inhabitants were assured that, in a very few days at 
 farthest, 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 full 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 Holland, and then dashed furiously landward, the ocean ris- 
 ing over the earth and sweeping with unrestrained power across 
 the rained dykes. 
 
 8. In the course of twenty-four hours, the fleet at North Aa, 
 
 instead of nine inches, had more than two feet of water. On 
 
 it went, sweeping over the broad waters which lay between Zoe- 
 
 terwoude and Zwieten ; and as they approached some shallows 
 
 which led into the great mere, the Zealandera dashed into the 
 
 sea, and with sheer strength shouldered every vessel through. 
 
 On again the fleet of Boisot still went, and, overcoming everv 
 
 obstacle, entered the city on the morning of the 3d of October. 
 
 Leyden was relieved. Motley. 
 
 John Latiikop Motley, the distinguished historian, was born in Dorchester, 
 Massachusetts, in 1814, and was graduated at Harvard College in ISol. Soon 
 after, he spent several years in Germany, studying in its universities. In 1S41, 
 he was appointed Secretary of Legation to Russia, which post he resigned in 
 less than two years, having written in the meantime for the N. A. Review a lead- 
 ing article on Peter the. Great. He has written numerous papers for leading 
 periodicals, — two anonymous novels, Morton's Hope, and Merrymount, — " The 
 Rise of the Dutch Republic," in 1850, — and quite recently, the "United Neth- 
 erlands." 
 
&~ 
 
 160 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 VII. 
 
 34. THE HAPPY WARRIOR 
 
 WHO is the happy warrior ? "Who is he 
 That every Man in arms should wish to be ? 
 It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought 
 Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
 Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought : — 
 "Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
 That makes the path before him always bright ; 
 "Who, with a natural instinct to discern 
 "What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn ; 
 Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, 
 But makes his moral being his prime care : — 
 
 2. "Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, 
 And Fear, and Bloodshed (miserable train!) 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain ; 
 
 In face of these doth exercise a power 
 "Which is our human nature's highest dower ; 
 Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves 
 Of their bad influence, and their good receives : — 
 By objects which might force the soul to abato 
 Her feeling, rendered more compassionate ; 
 Is placable, — because occasions rise 
 So of/en that demand such sacrifice ; 
 More skillful in self-knowledge, e'en more pure, 
 As tempted more ; more able to endure, 
 As more exposed to suffering and distress, 
 Thence, also, more alive to tenderness. 
 
 3. 'T is ho whose law is reason ; who depends 
 Upon that law as on the best of friends ; 
 "Whence, in a state where men are tempted still 
 To evil for a guard against worse ill, — 
 
 (And what in quality or act is best 
 Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,) 
 He Axes good on good alone, and owes 
 To virtue every triumph that ho knows : — 
 
 4. Who, if he rise to station of command, 
 Rises by open means ; and there will stand 
 
THE HAPPY WARRIOR, 1(31 
 
 On honorable terms, or else retire, 
 And in himself possess his own desire : — 
 "Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Kcep3 faithful with a singleness of aim ; 
 And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
 For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state ; — 
 "Whom they must follow ; on whose head must fall, 
 Like showers of manna, if they come at all : — 
 
 5, "Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, 
 Or mild concerns of ordinary life, 
 A constant influence, a peculiar grace ; 
 I3ut who, if he be called upon to face 
 Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 
 Great issues, good or bad, for human kind, 
 Is happy a3 a lover ; and attired 
 "With sudden brightness, like a man inspired ; 
 And through the heat of conflict, keeps the law 
 In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw ; 
 Or, if an unexpected call succeed, 
 Come when it will, is equal to the need : — 
 
 G. He who, though thus endued as with a sense 
 And faculty for storm and turbulence, 
 Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans 
 To homcfclt pleasures and to gentle scenes ; 
 Sweet images! which, whereso'er he be, 
 Are at his heart ; and such fidelity 
 It is his darling passion to aj^prove ; 
 More brave for this, that he hath much to love : — 
 
 7. 'T is finally the Man, who, lifted high, 
 Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye, 
 Or left un thought of in obscurity, — 
 And with a toward or untoward lot, 
 Prosperous or adverse to his wish or not, — 
 Plays in the many games of life that one 
 "Where what he most doth value must be won ! 
 "Whoin neither shape of danger can dismay, 
 Tsor thought of tender happiness betray ; 
 Who, not content that former worth stand fast, 
 Looks forward, persevering to the last, 
 From well to better, daily self-surpassed : — 
 
162 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 8. Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth, 
 Forever, and to noble deeds give birth, 
 Or he must go to dust without his fame, 
 And leave a dead, unprofitable name, — 
 Finds comfort in himself and in his cause ; 
 And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws 
 His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause ! 
 This is the happy WARRIOR ; this is he 
 Whom every Man in arms should wish to be. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 William Wordsworth, the greatest of metaphysical poets, and one of the 
 purest and most blameless of men, was born at Cockerinouth, Cumberland coun- 
 ty, England, April 7th, 1770. He read much in boyhood, and wrote some verses, 
 lie received his early education at the endowed school of Hawkshead ; entered 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1787, and though he disliked the system of the 
 university, and attended little to the studies of the place, graduated with his 
 degree of B. A. in 1791. In the close of the same year he went to France, where 
 he" passed nearly a year; and there he wrote the poem called "Descriptive 
 Sketches," which, with " The Evening Walk," was published in 1793. In 1795 
 he received a legacy of £900 from his friend, Raisley Calvert, and at the close of 
 the same began to live with his sister, their first residence being at Racedown, 
 Dorsetshire. He here made the acquaintance of Coleridge, and wrote many of 
 the fine passages that afterward appeared in " The Excursion." In the autumn 
 of 179S he published the first edition of his "Lyrical Ballads," and then went to 
 Germany with his sister and Coleridge ; and, the party separating, Miss Words- 
 worth and her brother passed the winter at Goslar, in Hanover. Here were 
 written "Lucy Gray," and several beautiful pieces. His long residence among 
 the lakes of his native district began immediately after his return to England. 
 His second volume of " Lyrical Ballads " appeared at the close of 1800. In 1802 he 
 married Mary Hutchinson, of Penrith, to whose amiability his poems pay warm 
 and beautiful tributes. In the spring of 1313, after various changes of residence, 
 he took up his abode at Rydal Mount, two miles from Grasmcre, which was his 
 home for thirty-seven years, and the scene of his death. There, too, he was ap- 
 pointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland ; an office which was executed 
 by a clerk, and yielded about £500 a year. In the summer of 1814 was published 
 " The Excursion," a poem which, if judged by its best passages, has hardly an 
 equal in our language. The following year appeared "The White Doe of Ryl- 
 stonc." From his fiftieth to his eightieth year the poet traveled much, suffered a 
 great deal, and wrote but little. In 1842 he resigned his distributorship in favor 
 of one of his two sons, and received from Sir Robert Peel, a pension of £300 a 
 year. In 1843 he was appointed poet-laureate. He died on the 23d of April, 1850. 
 
 vm. 
 
 35. THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE. 
 
 "TXT^ITHIN this lowly grave a conqueror lies ; 
 VV And yet the monument proclaims it not, 
 Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought 
 
THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE. 1C3 
 
 The emblems of a fame that never dies — 
 Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf 
 Twined wifh the laurel's fair, imperial leaf. 
 
 A simple name alone, 
 
 To the great world unknown, 
 Is graven here, and wild flowers rising round, 
 Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground, 
 Lean lovingly against the humble stone. 
 
 2. Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart 
 
 No man of iron mold and bloody hands, 
 
 Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 
 The passions that consumed his restless heart ; 
 
 But one of tender spirit and delicate frame, 
 Gentlest in mien and mind 
 Of gentle womankind, 
 
 Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame ; 
 One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 
 
 Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May ; 
 Yet at the thought of others' pain, a shade 
 
 Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away. 
 
 3. Nor deem that when the hand that moldcrs here 
 Was raised in menace, realms were chilled with fear, 
 
 And armies mustered at the sign, as when 
 Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy east, — 
 
 Gray captains leading bands of veteran men 
 And fiery youths to be the vultures' feast. 
 Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave 
 The victory to her who fills this grave ; 
 Alone her task was wrought ; 
 Alone the battle fought ; 
 Through that long strife her constant hope was staid 
 On God alone, nor looked for other aid. 
 
 4. She met the hosts of sorrow with a look 
 
 That altered not beneath the frown they wore ; 
 And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took 
 
 Meekly her gentle rule, and frowned no more. 
 Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, 
 And calmly broke in twain 
 The fiery shafts of pain, 
 
164 "NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 And rent the nets of passion from her path. 
 By that victorious hand despair was slain : 
 "With love she vanquished hate, and overcame 
 'Evil with good in her great Master's name. 
 
 5. Her glory is not of this shadowy state, 
 
 Glory that with the fleeting season dies ; 
 But when she entered at the sapphire gate, 
 
 "What joy was radiant in celestial eyes ! 
 How heaven's bright depths with sounding welcomes rung, 
 And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung ! 
 And He who, long before, 
 Pain, scorn, and sorrow bore, 
 The mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet, 
 Smiled on the timid stranger from His seat — 
 He who, returning glorious from the grave, 
 Dragged death, disarmed, in chains, a crouching slave. 
 
 6. See, as I linger here, the sun grows low ; 
 
 Cool airs are murmuring that the night is near. 
 O gentle sleeper, from thy grave I go 
 
 Consoled, though sad, in hope, and yet in fear. 
 Biief is the time, I know, 
 The warfare scarce begun ; 
 Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won ; 
 Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee. 
 
 The victors' names are yet too few to fill 
 Heaven's mighty roll ; the glorious armory 
 That ministered to thee is open still. 
 
 William Cullen Bryant. 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 I 
 
 8G. DESTINY OF AMERICA. 
 
 THE Muse, disgusted at an age and clime 
 Barren of every glorious theme, 
 In distant lands now waits a better time 
 Producing subjects worthy fame : 
 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 105 
 
 2. la happy climes, -where, from the genial sun 
 
 And virgin earth, such scenes ensue ; 
 The force of art by nature seems outdone, 
 And fancied beauties by the true : 
 
 3. In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 
 
 Where nature guides, and virtue rules ; 
 Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 
 The pedantry of courts and schools : 
 
 4. There shall be sung another golden age, 
 
 The rise of empire and of arts ; 
 The good and great inspiring epic rage, 
 The wisest heads and noblest hearts. 
 
 5. Not such a3 Europe breeds in her decay : 
 
 Such as she bred when fresh and young, 
 When heavenly flame did animate her clay, 
 By future poets shall be sung. 
 
 6. Westward the course of empire takes its way : 
 
 The four first acts already past, 
 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day 
 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last. Berkeley. 
 
 George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, waa born at Thomastown, County ot 
 Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1GS4, and died at Oxford, England, in 1753. He waa the 
 author of several works, principally on metaphysical science. He visited Amer- 
 ica in 1728 for the purpose of founding a college for the conversion of the In- 
 dians; but failing to obtain the promised funds from the government, after 
 remaining seven years in Rhode Island, he returned to Europe. While inspired 
 with his transatlantic mission, he penned the above fine moral verses, so truly 
 prophetic of the progress of the United States. 
 
 n. 
 
 37. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 
 
 H 
 
 E was decidedly a visionary, 1 but a visionary of an un- 
 common and successful kind. The manner in which his 
 ardent imagination and mercurial nature were controlled by a 
 powerful judgment, and directed by an acute sagacity, is the 
 most extraordinary 3 feature 3 in his character. Thus governed, 
 
 1 Visionary, (viz' un a ri), one who 3 Extraordinary, (eks trir' c! na- 
 
 13 confident of success in a project t\\ beyond or out of the common 
 
 which others perceive or think to be method or order ; remarkable. 
 
 idle and fanciful ; a dreamer. 3 Feature, (let' y3r). 
 
166 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 his imagination, instead of wasting itself in idle soarings, lent 
 wings to his judgment, and bore it away to conclusions at which 
 common minds could never have arrived ; nay, which they could 
 not perceive when pointed out. 
 
 2. To his intellectual vision it was given to read, in the signs 
 of the times and the reveries of past ages, the indications of an 
 unknown world, as soothsayers were said to read predictions in 
 the stars, and to foretell events from the visions of the night. 
 " His soul," observes a Spanish writer, " was superior to the age 
 in which he lived. For him was reserved the great enterprise 
 to plow the sea which had given rise to so many fables, and to 
 decipher the mystery of his time." 
 
 3. With all the visionary fervor of his imagination, its fondest 
 dreams fell short of the reality. He died in ignorance ol the 
 real grandeur of his discovery. Until his last breath, he enter- 
 tained the idea that he had merely opened a new way to the old 
 resorts of opulent commerce, and had discovered some of the 
 wild regions of the East. He supposed Hispaniola to be the 
 ancient Ophir which had been visited by the ships of Solomon, 
 and that Cuba and Terra Firma were but remote parts of Asia. 
 
 4. What visions of glory would have broke upon his mind, 
 could he have known that he had indeed discovered a new con- 
 tinent, equal tc the whole of the old world in magnitude, and 
 separated, by two vast oceans, from all the earth hitherto known 
 by civilized man ! And how would his magnanimous spirit have 
 been consoled, amid the chills of age and cares of penury, the 
 neglect of a fickle public and the injustice ot an ungrateful 
 king, could he have anticipated the splendid empires which were 
 to spread over the beautiful world he had discovered, and the 
 nations and tongues and languages which were to fill its lands 
 with his renown, and to revere and bless his name to the latest 
 posterity' Washington Irving 
 
 in. 
 
 38. RETURN OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 IN the spring of 1493, while the court was still at Barcelona, 
 letters were received from Christopher Columbus, announ- 
 cing his return to Spain, and the successful achievement of his 
 great enterprise, by the discovery of land beyond the western 
 
RETURN OF COLUMBUS. 107 
 
 ocean. The delight and astonishment, raised by this intelligence, 
 were proportioned to the skepticism with which his project had 
 been originally viewed. The sovereigns (suv'ermz) were now 
 filled with a natural impatience to ascertain the extent and other 
 particulars of the important discovery : and they transmitted 
 instant instructions to the admiral to repair to Barcelona, as 
 soon as he should have made the preliminary arrangements for 
 the further prosecution of his enterprise. 
 
 2. The great navigator had succeeded, as is well known, after 
 a voyage, the natural difficulties of which had been much aug- 
 mented by the distrust and mutinous spirit of his followers, in 
 descrying land on Friday, the 12th of October, 1492. After 
 some months spent in exploring the delightful regions, now for 
 the first time thrown open to the eyes of a Europe 'an, he em- 
 barked in the month of January, 1493, for Spain. One of his 
 yessels had previously foundered, and another had deserted him, 
 so that he was left alone to retrace his course across the Atlantic. 
 
 3. After a most tempestuous voyage, he was compelled to take 
 shelter in the Tagus, sorely against his inclination. He expe- 
 rienced, however, the most honorable reception from the Portu- 
 guese monarch, John the Second, who did ample justice to the 
 great qualities of Columbus, although he had failed to profit by 
 them. After a brief delay, the admiral resumed his voyage, and 
 crossing the bar of Saltes, entered the harbor of Palos about 
 noon, on the loth of March, 1493, being exactly seven months 
 and eleven days since his departure from that port. 
 
 4. Great was the agitation in the little community at Palos, 
 as they beheld the well-known vessel of the admiral reentering 
 their harbor. Their desponding imaginations had long since 
 consigned him to a watery grave ; for, in addition to the preter- 
 natural horrors which hung over the voyage, they had experienced 
 the most stormy and disastrous winter within the recollection 
 of the oldest mariners. Most of them had relatives or friends 
 on board. They thronged immediately to the shore, to assure 
 themselves with their own eves of the truth of their return. 
 
 5. "When they beheld their faces once more, and saw them 
 accompanied by the numerous evielences which they brought 
 back of the success of the expedition, they burst forth in accla- 
 mations of joy and gratulation. They awaited the landing of 
 Columbus, when the whole population of the place accompanied 
 
168 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 him and his crew to tho principal church, where solemn thanks- 
 givings were offered up for their return ; while every bell in the 
 village sent forth a joyous peal in honor of the glorious event. 
 
 6. The admiral was too desirous of presenting himself before 
 the sovereigns, to protract his stay long at Palos. He took with 
 him on his journey specimens of the multifarious products of the 
 newly-discovered regions. He was accompanied by several of 
 the native islanders, arrayed in their simple barbaric costume', 
 and decorated, as he passed through tho principal cities, with 
 collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, rudely fashioned : 
 he exhibited, also, considerable quantities of the same metal in 
 dust, or in crude masses, numerous vegetable exotics, 1 possessed 
 of aromatic 2 or medicinal virtue, and several kinds of quad- 
 rupeds unknown in Europe, and birds, whose varieties of gaudy 
 plumage gave a brilliant effect to the pageant. 
 
 7. The admiral's progress through the country was everywhere 
 impeded by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze at the ex- 
 traordinary spectacle, and the more extraordinary man, who, in 
 the emphatic language of that time, which has now lost its force 
 from its familiarity, first revealed the existence of a "New World." 
 As he passed through the busy, populous city of SeVille, every 
 window, bal'cony, and housetop, which could afford a glimpse 
 of him, is described to have been crowded with spectators. 
 
 8. It was the middle of April before Columbus reached Bar- 
 celona. The nobility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, 
 together with the authorities of the city, came to the gates to 
 receive him, and escorted him to the royal presence. Ferdinand 
 and Isabella were seated, with their son, Prince John, under a 
 superb canopy of state, awaiting his arrival. On his approach, 
 they rose from their seats, and extending their hands to him to 
 salute, caused him to be seated before them. 
 
 9. These were unprecedented marks of condescension to a per- 
 son of Columbus's rank, in the haughty and ceremonious court 
 of Castile (kas teT). It was, indeed, the proudest moment in the 
 life of Columbus. He had fully established the truth of his 
 long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry, sneer, 
 skepticism, and contempt. He had achieved this, not by chance, 
 but by calculation, supported through the most adverse circuru- 
 
 1 Exotic, ( egz 6t' ik ) a foreign " Ar v o mXt' ic, spicy ; fragrant ; 
 plant or production. odoriferous ; etrong-pcented. 
 
RETURN OF COLUMBUS. KJ9 
 
 etanco3 by consum'mate conduct. The honors paid him, which 
 had hitherto been reserved only for rank, or fortune, or military 
 success, purchased by the blood and tears of thousands, were, 
 in his case, a homage to intellectual power, successfully exerted 
 in behalf of the noblest interests of humanity. 
 
 10. After a brief interval, tho sovereigns requested from 
 Columbus a recital of his adventures. His manner was sedate 
 and dignified, but warmed by the glow of natural enthusiasm. 
 He enumerated tho several islands which he had visited, expa- 
 tiated on the temperate character of the climate, and the capacity 
 of the soil for every variety of agricultural production, appeal- 
 ing to the samples imported by him, as evidence of their natural 
 fruitfulncss. He dwelt more at large on the precious metals to 
 be found in these islands, which he inferred, less from the speci- 
 mens actually obtained, than from the uniform testimony of the 
 natives to their abundance in the unexplored regions of the in- 
 terior. Lastly, he pointed out the wide scope afforded to Chris- 
 tian 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 uncor- 
 rupted doctrine. 
 
 11. The last consideration touched Isabella's heart most sensi- 
 bly ; and the whole audience, kindled with various emotions by 
 the speaker's eloquence, filled up the perspective with tho gor- 
 geous coloring of their own fancies, as ambition, or avarice, or 
 devotional feeling predominated in their bosoms. When Colum- 
 bus ceased, the king and queen, together w T ith all present, pros- 
 trated themselves on their knees in grateful thanksgivings, while 
 the solemn strains of the To Deum ' were poured forth by the 
 choir of tho royal chapel, as in commemoration of some glorious 
 victory. William II. Prbscott. 
 
 "William IT. Pkescott, the eminent historian, was horn in Balem, Massachu 
 setts, on the 4th of May, 17%. His father, William Prescott, LL.D., a distin 
 guished lawyer and judge, noted for intellectual and moral worth, died in the 
 last mouth of 1844, at the advanced age of 84. His grandfather was the cele- 
 brated Colonel William Prescott, who commanded the American forces at Bun- 
 ker Hill on the memorable 17th of June, 1775. But Mr. Frcscott needs none of 
 the pride of ancestry to stamp him as one of nature's noblemen. An untoward 
 accident in college, by which he lost the sight of one eye, and the sympathy 
 subsequently excited in the other, rendered him almost totally blind; but, not- 
 
 1 Te Deum, (te de' urn), a hymn of thanksgiving, so called from the first 
 Words, " Te Deum laudar.ms" Thee, God, we praise. 
 
 8 
 
170 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ■withstanding, his indefatigable industry, united with fine taste and a well-stored 
 mind, elevated him to the highest rank in that diliieult department, historical 
 composition. Indeed, it is the concurrent judgment of the best European crit- 
 ics that he had no superior, if he had an equal, among contemporary historians. 
 His first work, " Ferdinand and Isabella," was published in the beginning of 1838, 
 and was soon republished in nearly all the great cities of Europe. That, with 
 his second work, " The Conquest of Mexico," are not only among the finest 
 models of historical composition, but in a very genuine sense they are national 
 works. The choicest words of panegyric can not do injustice to the exquisite 
 44 beauty of Mr. Prescott's descriptions, the just proportion and dramatic interest 
 of his narrative, his skill as a character writer, the expansiveness and complete- 
 ness of his views, and that careful and intelligent research which enabled him to 
 make his works as valuable for their accuracy as they are attractive by all the 
 graces of style." In private life Mr. Prescott was as much admired for his 
 amiability, simplicity, and highbred courtesy as for his remarkable abilities and 
 acquirements. He died January 28th, 1859. 
 
 IV. 
 
 39. THE REVOLUTIONARY ALARM. 
 
 DARKNESS closed upon the country and upon the town, 
 but it was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift relays of 
 horses transmitted the war-message from hand to hand, till 
 village repeated it to village ; the sea to the backwoods ; the 
 plains to the highlands ; and it was never suffered to droop, 
 till it had been borne North, and South, and East, and West, 
 throughout the land. 
 
 2. It spread over the bays that receive the Saco 1 and the 
 Penobscot. Its loud reveille 8 broke the rest of the trappers of 
 New Hampshire, and ringing like bugle-notes from peak to 
 peak, overleap t the Green Mountains, swept onward to Mon- 
 treal, and descended the ocean river, till the responses were 
 echoed from the cliffs of Quebec. The hills along the Hudson 
 told to one another the tale. 
 
 3. As the summons hurried to the South, it was one day at 
 New York ; in one more at Philadelphia ; the next it lighted a 
 watchfire at Baltimore ; thence it waked an answer at Annap- 
 olis. Crossing the Potomac near Mount Vernon, it was sent 
 forward without a halt to Williamsburg. It traversed the Dis- 
 mal Swamp 3 to Nansemond, along the route 4 of the first emi- 
 
 1 Saco, (sa' ko). to rise, and for the sentinels to stop 
 
 5 Reveille, (re val' yi), the beat of challenging. 
 
 drum about break of day, to give 9 Swamp, (swoinp). 
 
 notice that it is time for the soldiers * Route, (rot). 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY ALARM. 171 
 
 grants to North Carolina. It moved onwards and still onwards 
 through boundless groves of evergreen to Newbern and to 
 Wilmington. 
 
 4. " For God's sake, forward it by night and by day," wrote 
 Cornelius Harnett, by the express which sped for Brunswick. 
 Patriots of South Carolina caught up its tones at the border 
 and despatched it to Charleston, and through pines and palmet- 
 tos and moss-clad live oaks, further to the South, till it re- 
 sounded among the New England settlements beyond the 
 Savannah. 
 
 5. The Blue Ridge took up the voice and made it heard from 
 one end to the other of tho valley of Virginia. The Allegha- 
 nies, as they listened, opened their barriers that the " loud call" 
 might pass through to the hardy riflemen on the Holston, the 
 Watauga and the French Broad. Ever renewing its strength, 
 powerful enough even to create a commonwealth, it breathed 
 its inspiring word to the first settlers of Kentucky ; so that 
 hunters who made their halt in the matchless valley of the Elk- 
 horn, commemorated the 19th day of April, 177(3, by naming 
 their encampment Lexington. 
 
 6. With one impulse the colonies sprung to arms ; with one 
 spirit they pledged themselves to each other " to be ready for 
 the extreme event." With one heart the continent cried, " Lib- 
 erty or Death." Bancroft. 
 
 George Banckoft, the eminent historian, was born in 1S00, in Worcester, 
 Massachusetts. He graduated at Harvard College at the early age of seventeen. 
 The next year he went to Europe, and studied for four years at Gottingen and 
 Berlin, and traveled in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and England. On bis return, 
 in 1833, he published a volume of poems, which were principally written while 
 he was abroad. He soon after established the academy at Round Bill, at North- 
 ampton. He was appointed collector of Boston in 1838; was made secretary of 
 the navy in 1845; was sent as minister plenipotentiary to England in 1^4»">; and 
 on his return, in 1S10, became a resident of New York, where he has since de- 
 voted himself principally to the composition of his "History of the United 
 States," the ninth volume of which appeared in 1886. He has also lately pub- 
 lished a volume of "Literary and Historical Miscellanies." Ills" History of 
 the United States" has been published in its original language in London and 
 Paris, and has been translated into several foreign languages. It is a work of 
 great labor, originality, and ability, and eminently American, in the best sense 
 of that word as used in regard to literature. It is the most accurate and philo- 
 sophical account that has been given of the United States ; and is elaborately 
 and strongly, yet elegantly written. ** 
 
172 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 V. 
 
 40. THE REVOLUTIONARY RISING. 
 
 OUT of the North the wild news came, 
 Far flashing on its wings of flame, 
 Swift as the boreal ' light which flies 
 At midnight through the startled skies. 
 And there was tumult in the air, 
 
 The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat, 
 And through the wide land everywhere 
 
 The answering tread of hurrying feet ; 
 While the first 6ath of Freedom's gun 
 Came on the blast from Lexington ; 
 And Concord roused, no longer tame, 
 Forgot her old baptismal name, 
 Made bare her patriot arm of power, 
 And swelled the di.cord of the hour. 
 
 2. Within its shade of elm and oak 
 
 The church of Berkley Manor stood ; 
 There Sunday found the rural folk, 
 
 And some esteemed of gentle blood. 
 
 In vain their feet with loitering tread 
 Passed mid the graves where rank is naught ; 
 All could not read the lesson taught 
 
 In that republic of the dead. 
 
 8. How sweet the hour of Sabbath talk, 
 
 The vale with peace and sunshine full, 
 Where all the happy people walk, 
 
 Decked in their homespun flax and wool ! 
 
 Where youth's gay hats with blossoms bloom ; 
 And every maid, with simple art, 
 Wears on her breast, like her own heart, 
 
 A bud whose depths are all perfume ; 
 While every garment's gentle stir 
 Is breathing rose and lavender. 
 
 4- The pastor came ; hi3 snowy locks 
 
 Hallowed his brow of thought and care ; 
 
 1 B5' re al, northern ; pertaining to the north, or the north wind. 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY RISING. 173 
 
 And calmly, as shepherds lead their flocks, 
 
 He led into the house of prayer. 
 Then soon he rose ; the prayer was strong ; 
 The psalm was warrior David's song ; 
 The text, a few short words of might, — 
 " The Lord of hods shall arm Ihe rigid !" 
 He spoke of wrongs too long endured, 
 Of sacred rights to be secured ; 
 Then from his patriot tongue of flame 
 The startling words for Freedom came. 
 The stirring sentences he spake 
 Compelled the heart to glow or quake, 
 And, rising on his theme's broad wing, 
 
 And grasping in his nervous hand 
 
 The imaginary battle-brand, 
 In face of death he dared to fliug 
 Defiance to a tyrant king. 
 
 5. Even as he spoke, his frame, renewed 
 In eloquence of attitude, 
 
 Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher ; 
 Then swept his kindling glance of fire 
 From startled pew to breathless choir ; 
 When suddenly his mantle wide 
 His hands impatient flung aside, 
 And, lo ! he met their wondering eyes 
 Complete in all a warrior's guise. 
 
 6. A moment there was awful pause, — 
 
 When Berkley cried, "Cease, traitor! cease! 
 God's temple is the house of peace!" 
 
 The other shouted, " Nay, not so, 
 When God is with our righteous cause ; 
 His holiest places then are ours, 
 His temples are our forts and towers 
 
 That frown upon the tyrant foe ; 
 In this, the dawn of Freedom's day, 
 There is a time to fight and pray !" 
 
 7. And now before the open door — 
 
 The warrior priest had ordered so — 
 The enlisting trumpet's sudden roar 
 
174 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Rang through the chapel, o'er and o'er, 
 
 Its long reverberating blow, 
 So loud and clear, it seemed the ear 
 Of dusty death must wake and hear. 
 And there the startling drum and fife 
 Fired the living with fiercer life ; 
 "While overhead, with wild increase, 
 Forgetting its ancient toll of peace, 
 
 The great bell swung as ne'er before : 
 It seemed as it would never cease ; 
 And every word its ardor flung 
 From off its jubilant iron tongue 
 
 Was, " War ! War ! WAR !" 
 
 8. " Who dares ?" — this was the patriot's cry, 
 
 As striding from the desk he came, — 
 
 " Come out with me, in Freedom's name, 
 
 For her to live, for her to die ?" 
 
 A hundred hands flung up reply, 
 
 A hundred voices answered, " I !" Read. 
 
 Thomas Buchanan Read was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, March 
 12th, 1822. In 1839 he went to Cincinnati, where he was employed in the studio 
 of Clevenger, the sculptor, and here his attention was first called to painting, 
 which he chose for his profession, and soon practiced with marked skill and 
 success. He settled in New York City in 1841. After a few months he removed 
 to Boston, where he remained until 184G, and then went to Philadelphia, where 
 he practiced his profession, writing occasionally for periodicals, until 1850, when 
 he first visited Europe. In the summer of 1853 he went abroad a second time, 
 and settled in Florence, where until recently he has resided. In 1853 he issred 
 an illustrated edition of his poems, comprising, with some new pieces, all he 
 wished to preserve of volumes previously printed. In 1855, he published " The 
 House by the Sea" and "The New Pastoral," — the latter, in thirty-seven books, 
 being the longest of his poems. The above is from his latest work, "The Wag- 
 oner of the Allcghanies." Mr. Read's distinguishing characteristic is a delicate 
 and varied play of fancy. His verse, though sometimes irregular, is always 
 musical. He excels in homely descriptions. The flowers by the dusty wayside, 
 the cheerful murmur of the meadow brook, the village tavern, and rustic mill, 
 and all tender impulses and affections, are his choice sources of inspiration. 
 
 H 
 
 VI. 
 
 41. THE SETTLER. 
 
 IS echoing ax the settler swung 
 
 Amid the sea-like solitude, 
 And rushing, thundering, down were flung 
 
THE SETTLER. 175 
 
 The Titans ' of the wood ; 
 Loud shrieked the eagle as he dashed 
 From out his mossy nest, which crashed 
 
 With its supporting bough, 
 And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed 
 
 On the wolfs haunt below. 
 
 2. Rude was the garb, and strong the frame 
 
 Of him who plied his ceaseless toil : 
 To form that garb, the wild-wood game 
 
 Contributed their spoil ; 
 The soul that warmed that frame, disdained 
 The tinsel, gaud, and glare, that reigned 
 
 "Where men their crowds collect ; 
 The simple fur, untrimmed, unstained, 
 
 This forest tamer decked. 
 
 3. The paths which wound mid gorgeous trees, 
 
 The streams whose bright lips kissed their flowers, 
 The winds that swelled their harmonies 
 
 Through those sun-hiding bowers, 
 The temple vast — the green arcade, 
 The nestling vale, the grassy glade, 
 
 Dark cave and swampy lair ; 
 These scenes and sounds majestic, made 
 
 His world, his pleasures, there. 
 
 4. His roof adorned a pleasant spot, 
 
 Mid the black logs green glowed the grain, 
 And /ierbs and plants the woods knew not, 
 
 Throve in the sun and rain. 
 The smoke-wreath curling o'er the dell, 
 The low — the bleat — the tinkling bell, 
 
 All made a landscape strange, 
 Which was the living chronicle 
 
 Of deeds that wrought the change. 
 
 5. The violet sprung at Spring's first tinge, 
 
 The rose of summer spread its glow, 
 The maize hung on its Autumn fringe, 
 Rude Winter brought his snow ; 
 
 1 TV tans, fabled giants of ancient mythology ; hence, whatever is enor» 
 mous in size or strength. 
 
176 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 And still the settler labored there, 
 His shout and whistle woke the air, 
 
 As cheerily he plied 
 His garden spade, or drove his share 
 
 Along the hillock's side. 
 
 6. He marked the fire-storm's blazing flood 
 
 Roaring and crackling on its path, 
 And scorching earth, and melting wood, 
 
 Beneath its greedy wrath ; 
 He marked the rapid whirlwind shoot, 
 Trampling the pine-tree with its foot, 
 
 And darkening thick the dav 
 With streaming bough and severed root, 
 
 Hurled whizzing on its way. 
 
 7. His gaunt hound yelled, his rifle flashed, 
 
 The grim bear hushed its savage growl, 
 In blood and foam the panther gnashed 
 
 Its fangs with dying howl ; 
 The fleet deer ceased its flying bound, 
 Its snarling wolf foe bit the ground, 
 
 And with its moaning cry, 
 The beaver sank beneath the wound, 
 
 Its pond-built Venice ! by. 
 
 8. Humble the lot, yet his the race, 
 
 When Liberty sent forth her cry, 
 Who thronged in conflict's deadliest place, 
 
 To fight — to bleed — to die ; 
 Who cumbered Bunker's 2 height of red, 
 By hope, through weary years were led, 
 
 And witnessed Yorktown's 3 sun 
 
 1 Pond-built Venice. The city of Charlcstown, Massachusetts, celebra- 
 Venice, one of the finest in Europe, ted as the place where the first great 
 is built on eighty-two small islands, battlo was fought between the Brit- 
 separated by one hundred and fifty ish and Americans, on thememorable 
 canals, which are crossed by three 17th of June, 1775. 
 hundred and sixty bridges. Tho 3 Yorktown, Virginia, whero was 
 beaver constructs his habitation in fought tho final battle of the Revo- 
 the water, and the different parts lutionary war, resulting in tho sur- 
 bavo no communication except by render of Lord Cornwallis to Gen- 
 water,and hence the poetical all usioii. oral Washington, on the 19th of 
 
 9 Bunker Hill, a height near October, 1781. 
 
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 177 
 
 Blaze on a nation's banner spread, 
 
 A nation's freedom won. Street. 
 
 Albert B. Street was born in Poughkecpsic, a large and beautiful town on 
 the Hudson, on the ISth of December, 1811. His father, Geu. Randall S. Street, 
 was an officer in active service during our second war with England, and subse- 
 quently several years a representative in Congress. "When the poet was about 
 fourteen years of age his father removed to Mouticello, Sullivan County, then 
 what i3 called a "wild county," though extremely fertile. Its magniGccnt 
 scenery, deep forests, clear streams, gorges of piled rocks and black shade, and 
 mountains and valleys, called into life all the faculties that slumbered in tho 
 brain of the young poet. He studied law in the office of his father, and attended 
 lhe courts of Sullivan County for one year after his admission to the bar; but 
 in the winter of 1839 he removed to Albany, where he successfully practiced his 
 profession. For several years past he has been State Librarian. The most com- 
 plete edition of his poems was published in New York, in 1845. Mr. Street is a 
 descriptive poet, and in his peculiar department he has, perhaps, no superior in 
 this country. He writes with apparent case and freedom, from the impulses of 
 hia own heart, and from actual observations of life and nature. 
 
 VII. 
 
 42. THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. 
 
 1. 
 
 SAY, can you sec, by the dawn's early light, 
 
 o 
 
 "What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming ; 
 Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, 
 O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? 
 And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
 Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ; 
 O, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? 
 
 2. 
 
 On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
 Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 
 
 What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep, 
 As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? 
 
 Now it catehes the gleam of the morning's first beam ; 
 
 Its full glory, reflected, now shines on the stream ; 
 
 Tis the star-spangled banner, oh ! long may it wave 
 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 
 
 3. 
 
 And where is the band who so vauntingly swore, 
 'Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, 
 
178 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 A home and a country they'd leave us no more ? 
 
 Their blood hath washed out their foul footsteps' pollution ; 
 No refuge could save the hireling" and slave 
 From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave ; 
 And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 
 
 L 
 
 Oh ! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 
 
 Between our loved home and the war's desolation ; 
 
 Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land 
 
 Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation ' 
 
 Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, 
 
 And this be our motto, " In God is our. Tkust ;" 
 
 And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. Key. 
 
 Francis Scott Key, son of an army officer of the Revolution, -was born in 
 Frederick County, Maryland, in 1779. He commenced the practice of law at 
 Frcdcricktown in 1801, but soon removed to Washington, D. C, "where he became 
 District-Attorney for the city. He died January 11th, 1S-13. A small volume of 
 his poems was published in 1S57. 
 
 vm. 
 
 43. THE AMERICAN FLAG. 
 
 \ \ I IIHN Freedom from her mountain height 
 V V Unfurled her standard to the air, 
 She tore the azure robe of night, 
 And set the stars of glory there : 
 She mingled wi«h its gorgeous dyes 
 The milky baldric of the skies, 
 And striped its pure celestial white, 
 "With streaking3 of the morning light ; 
 Then from his mansion in the sun 
 She called her eagle-bearer down, 
 And gave into his mighty hand 
 The symbol of her chosen land. 
 
 2. Majestic monarch of the cloud ! 
 
 "Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 
 To hear the tempest-trumpings loud, 
 And see the lightning lances driven, 
 
 "When strive the warriors of the storm, 
 
THE AMERICAN FLAG. 179 
 
 And rolls the thunder drum of heaven — 
 Child of the sun ! to thee 'tis given 
 
 To guard the banner of the free, 
 To hover in the sulphur smoke, 
 To ward away the battle-stroke, 
 And bid its blendings shine afar, 
 Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 
 
 The harbingers of victory ! 
 
 3. Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fiy, 
 The sign of hope and triumph high, 
 AVhen speaks the signal trumpet tone, 
 And the long lino comes gleaming on. 
 Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, 
 Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, 
 Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn 
 To where thy sky-born glories burn ; 
 And, as his springing steps advance, 
 Catch war and vengeance from the glance : 
 And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
 Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud, 
 And gory sabers rise and fall 
 
 Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall ; 
 
 There shall thy meteor glances glow, 
 And cowering foes shall sink beneath 
 
 Each gallant arm that strikes below 
 That lovely messenger of death. 
 
 4. Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
 Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave ; 
 When Death, careering on the gale, 
 Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, 
 And frighted waves rush wildly back 
 Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
 Each dying wanderer of the sea 
 Shall look at once to heaven and thee, 
 And smile to sec thy splendors fly 
 
 In triumph o'er his closing eye. 
 
 5. Flag of the free heart's hope and home, 
 
 By angel hands to valor given ! 
 Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
 And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
 
180 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Forever float that standard sheet ! 
 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
 With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
 
 And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ! Drake. 
 
 Joseph Rodman Drake, author of "The Culprit Fay," was horn in the city 
 of New York, August 7th, 1795. He entered Columbia College at an early period, 
 through which he passed with a reputation for scholarship, taste, and admirable 
 social qualities. He soon after made choice of the medical profession, and com- 
 pleted his professional studies in his native city. Immediately after he was 
 married to Miss Sarah Eckford, a daughter of the noted marine architect, Henry 
 Eckford, through whom he inherited a moderate fortune. His health, about the 
 same time, began to decline ; and in the winter of 1S19 he visited New Orleans. 
 He had anticipated some benefit from the sea-voyage and the mild climate of 
 Louisiana, but was disappointed, and in the spring of 1S20, he returned to New 
 York. His disease — consumption — had now become deeply seated. He lingered 
 through the summer, and died near the close of September, in the twenty-sixth 
 year of his age. He began to write verses when very young, and was a contrib- 
 utor to several gazettes before he was sixteen years old. The secrets of his 
 authorship, however, were only known to his most intimate friends. His longest 
 poem, " The Culprit Fay," was composed in the summer of 1819, though it was 
 not printed until several years after his death. It exhibits the most delicate 
 fancy, and much artistic taste. Drake placed a very modest estimate on his own 
 productions, and it is thought that but a small portion of them has been pre- 
 served. A collection of them appeared in 1836. It includes, besides "The Cul- 
 prit Fay," eighteen short pieces, some of which are very beautiful. 
 
 SECTION VIII. 
 I. 
 
 44. WANTS. 
 
 PART TIRST. 
 
 EVERYBODY, young and old, children and gray-beards, lias 
 heard of the renowned Haroun Al Baschid, 1 the hero of 
 Eastern history and Eastern romance', and the most illustrious 
 of the caliphs 9 of Bagdad, 3 that famous city on which the light of 
 
 1 Haroun al Raschid, (ha ron^-al- tativc of Mohammed ; one vested 
 
 rash' id), a celebrated caliph of the with supreme dignity and power in 
 
 Saracens, ascended the throne in 78G, all matters relating to religion and 
 
 and was a contemporary of Charlc- civil policy. This title is borne by 
 
 magne. He was brave, munificent, the grand seignior in Turkey, and 
 
 and fond of letters, but cruel and by the sophi of Persia, 
 
 perfidious. s Bagdad, (bag dad'), a large and 
 
 9 Ca' liph, a successor or roprcscn- celebrated city of Asiatic Turkey, 
 
WANTS. 181 
 
 learning and science shone, long ere it dawned on the benighted 
 regions of Europe, which has since succeeded to the diadem that 
 once glittered on the brow of Asia. Though as the successor of 
 the Prophet he exercised a despotic sway over the lives and for- 
 tunes of his subjects, yet did ho not, like the Eastern despots of 
 more modern times, shut himself up within the walls of his 
 palace, hearing nothing but the adulation of his dependents ; 
 seeing nothing but the shadows which surrounded him ; and 
 knowing nothing but what he received through the medium of 
 interested deception or malignant falsehood. 
 
 2. That he miedit sec with his own eves and hear with his 
 own ears, he was accustomed to go about through the streets of 
 Bagdad' by night, in disguise, accompanied by (1 infer the Bar- 
 mecide, his grand vizier, 1 and Mcsrour, his executioner ; one to 
 give him his counsel, the other to fulfill his commands promptly, 
 on all occasions. If he saw any commotion among the people, 
 he mixed with them and learned its cause ; and if in passing a 
 house he heard the moanings of distress or the complaints of 
 suffering, he entered, for the purpose of administering relief. 
 Thus ho made himself acquainted with the condition of his sub- 
 jects, and often heard those salutary truths which never reached 
 his ears through the walls of his palace, or from the lrps of the 
 slaves that surrounded him. 
 
 3. On one of these occasions, as Al Haschid was thus peram- 
 bulating the streets at night, in disguise, accompanied by his 
 vizier and his executioner, in passing a splendid mansion he 
 overheard, through the lattico of a window, the complaints of 
 some one who seemed in the deepest distress, and silently ap- 
 proaching, looked into an apartment exhibiting all the signs of 
 wealth and luxury. On a sofa of satin embroidered with gold, 
 and sparkling with brilliant gems, he beheld a man richly dressed, 
 in whom he rec'ognized his favorite boon-companion Bedrcddin, 
 on whom he had showered wealth and honors with more than 
 Eastern prodigality. He was stretched out on the sofa, slapping 
 his forehead, tearing his beard, and moaning piteously, as if in 
 the extremity of suffering. At length starting up on his feet, he 
 
 formerly capital of the empire of tlic its junction with the Euphrates, 
 
 caliphs, now capital of the pashalic l Vizier, (viz' yer), a councilor of 
 
 of the same name, on both banks of state ; a high executive officer in 
 
 the Tigris, about 100 miles above Turkev and other Eastern countries. 
 
182 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 exclaimed in tones of despair, " O Allah (God) ! I beseech thee 
 to relieve me from my misery, and take away my life !" 
 
 4. The Commander of the Faithful, who loved Bedreddin, 
 pitied his sorrows, and being desirous to know their cause, that 
 he might relieve them, knocked at the door, which was opened 
 by a black slave, who, on being informed that they were stran- 
 gers in want of food and rest, at once admitted them, and in- 
 formed his master, who called them into his presence and bade 
 them welcome. A plentiful feast was spread before them, at which 
 the master of the house sat down with his guests, but of which 
 he did not partake, but looked on, sighing bitterly all the while. 
 
 5. The Commander of the Faithful at length ventured to ask 
 him what caused his distress, and why he refrained from partak- 
 ing in the feast with his guests, in proof that they were welcome. 
 " Has Allah afflicted thee with disease, that thou canst not enjoy 
 the blessings he has bestowed ? Thou art surrounded by all the 
 splendor that wealth can procure ; thy dwelling is a palace, and 
 its apartments are adorned with all the luxuries which captivate 
 the eye, or administer to the gratification of the senses. "Why 
 is it, then, O my brother, that thou art miserable r" 
 
 6. " True, O stranger," replied Bedreddin. " I have all these ; 
 I have health of body ; I am rich enough to purchase all that 
 wealth can bestow, and if I required more wealth and honors, I 
 am the favorite companion of the Commander of the Faithful, 
 on whose head lie the blessings of Allah, and of whom I have 
 only to ask, to obtain all I desire, save one thing only." 
 
 7. " And what is that ?" asked the caliph. " Alas ! I adore 
 the beautiful Zuleima, whose face is like the full moon, whose 
 eyes are brighter and softer than those of the gazelle, and whose 
 mouth is like the seal of Solomon. But she loves another, end 
 all my wealth and honors are as nothing. The want of one 
 thing renders the possession of every other of no value. I am 
 the most wretched of men ; my life is a burden, and my death 
 would be a blessing." 
 
 8. " By the beard of the Prophet," cried the caliph, " I swear, 
 thy case is a hard one. But Allah is great and powerful, and 
 will, I trust, either deliver thee from thy burden or give thee 
 strength to bear it." Then thanking Bedreddin for his hospi- 
 tality, the Commander of the Faithful departed, with his com- 
 panions. 
 
WANTS. 133 
 
 n. 
 
 45. WANTS. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 TAKING their way toward that part of the city inhabited 
 by the poorer classes of people, the caliph stumbled over 
 something, in the obscurity of night, and was nigh falling to 
 the ground : at the same moment a voice cried out, " Allah, 
 preserve me ! Am I not wretched enough already, that I must 
 be trodden under foot by a wandering beggar like myself, in the 
 darkness of night!" 
 
 2. Mesrour the executioner, indignant at this insult to the 
 Commindcr of the Faithful, was preparing to cut off his head, 
 when Ali II ischid interposed, and inquired of the beggar his 
 name, and why he was there Bleeping in the streets, at that hour 
 of the ni^ht. 
 
 3. " Mashallah," replied he, " I sleep in the street because I 
 have nowhere else to sleep ; and if I lie on a satin sofa, my joains 
 and infirmities would rob mo of rest. Whether on divans' of 
 silk or in the dirt, all one to me, for neither by day nor by night 
 do I know any rest. If I close my eyes for a moment, my 
 dreams arc of nothing but feasting, and I awake only to feel 
 more bitterly the pangs of hunger and disease." 
 
 4. " Hast thou no home to shelter thee, no friends or kindred 
 to relieve thy necessities, or administer to thy infirmities ?" 
 
 5. " No," replied the beggar ; " my house was consumed by 
 fire ; my kindred are all dead, and my friends have djscrted me. 
 Alas ! stranger, I am in want of everything — health, food, cloth- 
 ing, home, kindred, and friends. I am the most wretched of 
 mankind, and death alone can relieve me." 
 
 6. " Of one thing, at least, I can relieve thee," said the caliph, 
 giving him his purse. " Go and provide thyself food and shel- 
 ter, and may Allah restore thy health." 
 
 7. The beggar took the purse, but instead of calling down 
 blessings on the head of his benefactor, exclaimed, " Of what 
 use is money ? it can not cure disease ;"and the caliph again went 
 on his way with Giafcr his vizier, and Mesrour his executioner. 
 
184 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 m. 
 
 46. WANTS. 
 
 PAST THIRD. 
 
 ASSING from the abodes of want and misery, they at length 
 
 p 
 
 reached a splendid palace, and seeing lights glimmering 
 from the windows, the caliph approached, and looking through 
 the silken curtains, beheld a man walking backward and forward, 
 with languid step, as if oppressed with a load of cares. At length 
 casting himself down on a sofa, he stretched out his limbs, and 
 yawning desperately, exclaimed, " O Allah ! what shall I do ? 
 what will become of me ! I am weary of life ; it is nothing but 
 a cheat, promising what it never purposes, and affording only 
 hopes that end in disappointment, or, if realized, only in disgust." 
 
 2. The curiosity of the caliph being awakened to know the 
 cause of his despair, he ordered Mesrour to knock at the door ; 
 which being opened, they pleaded the privilege of strangers to 
 enter, for rest and refreshments. Again, in accordance with the 
 precepts of the Ko'ran and the customs of the East, the stran- 
 gers were admitted to the presence of the lord of the palace, 
 who received them with welcome, and directed refreshments to 
 be brought. But though he treated his guests with kindness, 
 he neither sat down with them nor asked any questions, nor 
 joined in their discourse, walking back and forth languidly, and 
 seeming oppressed with a heavy burden of sorrows. 
 
 3. At length the caliph approached him reverently, and said : 
 " Thou seemest sorrowful, O my brother ! If thy suffering is of 
 the body, I am a physician, and per adventure can afford thee 
 relief ; for I have traveled into distant lands, and collected very 
 choice remedies for human infirmity." 
 
 4. " My sufferings are not of the body, but of the mind," an- 
 swered the other. 
 
 5. " Hast thou lost the beloved of thy heart, the friend of thy 
 bosom, or been disappointed in the attainment of that on which 
 thou hast rested all thy hopes of happiness ?" 
 
 6. " Alas ! no. I have been disappointed, not in the means, 
 but in the attainment of happiness. I want nothing but a want. 
 I am cursed with the gratification of all my wishes, and the 
 fruition of all my hopes. I have wasted my life in the acquisition 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 185 
 
 of riches, that only awakened new desires, and honors that no 
 longer gratify my pride or repay me for the labor of sustaining 
 them. I have been cheated in the pursuit of pleasures that 
 weary me in the enjoyment, and am perishing for lack of the 
 excitement of some new want. I have every thing I wish, yet 
 enjoy nothing." 
 
 7. " Thy case is beyond my skill," replied the caliph ; and 
 the man cursed with the fruition of all his desires turned his 
 back on him in despair. The caliph, after thanking him for his 
 hospitality, departed with his companions, and when they hud 
 reached the street exclaimed — 
 
 8. "Allah preserve me! I will no longer fatigue myself in a 
 vain pursuit, for it is impossible to confer haj^piness on such a 
 perverse generation. I see it is all the same, whether a mail 
 wants one thing, every thing, or nothing. Let us go home and 
 sleep." Paulding. 
 
 James Kirke Paulding was born August 2~, 1770, in the town of Pawling, on 
 the Hudson, so named from one of his ancestors. After receiving a liberal edu- 
 cation, he removed to New York City, where he has since principally rc-sided. 
 After writing some trifles for the gazettes, Mr. Paulding, with Washington 
 Irving, established a periodical entitled "Salmagundi,'' in 1S07. It met with 
 extraordinary success, and was, perhaps, the determining cause of the author's 
 subsequent devotion to literature. In 1819, Mr. Paulding published a second 
 series of the "Salmagundi," of which he was the sole author. He is a volumin- 
 ous writer. His various works, including stories, essays, and other papers, which 
 he has published in periodicals, make more than thirty volumes. " The Dutch 
 man's Fireside," published in 1831, and "Westward Ho," published the next 
 year, arc regarded as his best novels. They arc distinguished for considerable 
 descriptive powers, skill in character-writing, natural humor, and a strong na- 
 tional feeling, which gives a tone to all his works. Mr. Paulding was many 
 years navy agent for the port of New York. When President Van Burin formed 
 his cabinet, in the spring of 1837, he was selected to be the head of the navy 
 department, in which ofhec he continued for four years. lie died at his country 
 seat in Hyde Park, in his native county, in l^. 
 
 IV. 
 
 47. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 
 
 PABT FIRST. 
 
 SWEET Auburn ! loveliest village of the plain, 
 YVTiere health and plenty cheered the laboring swain, 
 Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid, 
 And parting Summer's lingering blooms delayed : 
 Bear, lovely bowers of innocence and ease, 
 
186 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 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 seats beneath the shade, 
 For talking age and whispering lovers made ! 
 
 2. How often have I blessed the coming day, 
 When toil remitting lent its aid 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 6'er the ground, 
 
 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, 
 
 W T hile secret laughter tittered round the place ; 
 
 The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, 
 
 The matron's glance that would these looks reprove : 
 
 These were thy charms, sweet village ! sports like these, 
 
 With sweet succession, taught e'en toil to please ; 
 
 These round thy bowers their cheerful influence shed, 
 
 These were thy charms ; — but all these charms are fled. 
 
 3. Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, 
 
 Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn : 
 
 Amid 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 ; 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 187 
 
 Amid tliy desert walks tlie lapwing flics, 
 
 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 children leave the land 
 
 4. HI fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay : 
 Princes and lords may nourish 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, 
 
 When every rood of ground maintained its man ; 
 
 For him light labor spread her wholesome store, 
 
 Just gave what life required, but gave no more ; 
 
 His best companions, innocence and health ; 
 
 And his best riches, ignorance of wealth. 
 
 But times are altered : trade's unfeeling train 
 
 Usurp the land, and dispossess the swain ; 
 
 Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose, 
 
 Un wieldly wealth and cumbrous 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. 
 
 5. Sweet Aubum ! parent of the blissful hour, 
 Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. 
 Here, as I take my solitary rounds, 
 
 Amid thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
 And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
 Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 
 Bemembrance wakes with all her busy train, 
 Swells at my breast, and tarns the past to pain. 
 In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
 In all my griefs — and God has given my share — 
 
188 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, 
 Amid these humble bowers to lay me down ; 
 To husband out life's taper at the close, 
 And keep the ilame from wasting by repose : 
 I still had hopes, — for pride attends us still, — 
 Amid the swains to show my book-learned skill *, 
 Around my fire an evening group to draw, 
 And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 
 And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, 
 Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, 
 I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 
 Here to return — and die at home at last. 
 
 6. O blessed retirement ! friend to life's decline, 
 Retreat from care, that never must be mine, 
 
 How blessed is he who crowns, in shades like these, 
 A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 
 "Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 
 And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fly ! 
 For him no wretches, born to work and weep, 
 Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep ; 
 Nor surly porter stands, in guilty state, 
 To spurn imploring famine from the gate ; 
 But on he moves to meet his latter end, 
 Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 
 Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 
 While resignation gently slopes the way ; 
 And all his prospects brightening to the last, 
 His heaven commences ere the world be past. 
 
 7. Sweet was the sound, when 6ft, at evening's close, 
 Up yonder hill the village murmur rose : 
 There, as I passed with careless steps and slow 
 The mingling notes came softened from below ; 
 The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, 
 
 The sober herd that lowed to meet their young , 
 The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, 
 The playful children just let loose from school ; 
 The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, 
 And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind : 
 These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, 
 And filled each pause the nightingale had made. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 189 
 
 8. But now the sounds of population fail, 
 No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, 
 No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, 
 But all the bloomy Hush of life is fled : 
 All but yon widowed, solitary thing, 
 That feebly bends beside the plashy spring : 
 She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread, 
 To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, 
 To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn, 
 To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn — 
 She only left of all the harmless train, 
 The sad historian of the pensive plain. 
 
 V. 
 
 48. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 NEAR yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 
 And still where many a garden-flower grows wild, 
 There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
 The village preacher's modest mansion rose. 
 A man he was to all the country dear, 
 And passing rich witli forty pounds a year ; 
 Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place. 
 Unskillful ho to fawn or seek for power, 
 By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour : 
 Far other aims his heart had learned to prize, 
 More bent to raise the wretched than to rise. 
 2. His house was known to all the vagrant train : 
 He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain ; 
 The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 
 "Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast : 
 The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 
 Claimed kindred there, and had his claims allowed. 
 The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay. 
 Sat by his fire, and talked the niefht away. 
 "Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, 
 Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. 
 Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, 
 And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 
 
190 NATIONAL FIFTH READER, 
 
 Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 
 His pity gave ere charity began. 
 
 3. Thus, to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
 And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side ; 
 But in his duty prompt at every call, 
 
 He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for alL 
 And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
 To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 
 Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
 And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed, 
 The reverend champion stood. At his control, 
 Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; 
 Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
 And his last faltering accents whispered praise. 
 
 4. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
 His looks adorned the venerable place ; 
 Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
 And fools, who came to scuff, remained to pray. 
 The service past, around the pious man, 
 
 "With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran ; 
 
 E'en children followed with endearing wile, 
 
 And plucked his gown to share the good man's smile. 
 
 His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed ; 
 
 Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed : 
 
 To them his heart, his love, his griefs, were given, . 
 
 But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
 
 As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, 
 
 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 
 
 5. Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
 With blossomed furze unprofitably gay, 
 There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
 The village master taught his little school : 
 
 A man severe he was, and stern to view : 
 I knew him well, and every truant knew ; 
 "Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
 The day's disasters in his morning face ; 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 191 
 
 Full well tlicy laughed with counterfeited glee 
 At all Lis jokes, for many a joke had he ; 
 Full well the busy whisper, circling round, 
 Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. 
 
 G. Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, 
 The love he bore to learning was in fault ; 
 The village all declared how much he knew — 
 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too ; 
 Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
 And e'en the story ran that he could gauge. 
 In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, 
 For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 
 "While words of learned length and thundering sound 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 
 And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
 That one small head could carry all he knew. 
 But past is all his fame. The very spot 
 "Where many a time he triumphed is forgot. 
 
 7. Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high, 
 "Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye, 
 
 Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspired. 
 
 Where graybeard mirth and smiling toil retired, 
 
 "Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, 
 
 And news much older than their ale went round. 
 
 Imagination fondly stops to trace 
 
 The parlor splendors of that festive place ; 
 
 The white-washed wall, the nicely-sanded iloor, 
 
 The varnished clock that clicked behind the door ; 
 
 The chest, contrived a double debt to pay, 
 
 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day ; 
 
 The pictures placed for ornament and use, 
 
 The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose ; 
 
 The hearth, except when winter chilled the day, 
 
 "With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel gay ; 
 
 "While broken teacups, wisely kept for show, 
 
 Ranged O'er the chimney, glistened in a row. 
 
 8. Vain, transitory splendors ! could not all 
 Reprieve the tottering mansion from its fall ? 
 Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart 
 
 An hour's importance to the poor man's heart ; 
 
192 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Thither no more the peasant shall repair 
 To sweet oblivion of his daily care ; 
 No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale, 
 No more the w T ooclman's ballad shall prevail ; 
 No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear, 
 Eelax his ponderous strength, and learn to hear ; 
 The host himself no longer shall be found 
 Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ; 
 Nor the coy maid, half willing to be pressed, 
 Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest. 
 
 9. Yes ! let the rich deride, the proud disdain, 
 These simple blessings of the lowly train ; 
 To me more dear, congenial to my heart, 
 One native charm than all the gloss of art ; 
 Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, 
 The soul adopts, and owns their first-born sway ; 
 Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, 
 Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined. 
 But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade, 
 "With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed, 
 In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, 
 The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ; 
 And e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, 
 The heart, distrusting, asks if this be joy. 
 
 VI. 
 49. THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 
 
 PART THIRD. 
 
 YE friends to truth, ye statesmen, who survey 
 The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay, 
 'Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand 
 Between a splendid and a happy land. 
 Proud swells the tide with loads of freighted ore, 
 And shouting Folly hails them from her shore ; 
 Hoards e'en beyond the miser's wish abound, 
 And rich men flock from all the world around. 
 Yet count our gains. This wealth is but a name, 
 That leaves our useful products still the same. 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 193 
 
 Kot so the loss. The man of wealth and pride 
 
 Takes up a space that many poor supplied ; 
 
 Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, 
 
 Space for his horses, eq'uipage, and hounds ; 
 
 The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth 
 
 Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their growth ; 
 
 His seat, where solitary sports arc seen, 
 
 Indignant spurns the cottage from the green ; 
 
 Around the world each needful product flies, 
 
 For all the luxuries the world supplies, 
 
 While thus the land, adorned for pleasure all, 
 
 In barren splendor feebly waits the fall. 
 
 2. As some fair female, unadorned and plain, 
 Secure to please while youth confirms her reign, 
 Slights every borrowed charm that dress supplies, 
 Nor shares with art the triumph of her eyes ; 
 
 But when those charms are past — for charms are frail — 
 
 When time advances, and when lovers fail, 
 
 She then shines forth, solicitous to bless, 
 
 In all the glaring impotence of dress ; — 
 
 Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed, 
 
 In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed ; 
 
 But, verging to decline, its splendors rise, 
 
 Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise ; 
 
 While, scourged by famine from the smiling land, 
 
 The mournful peasant leads his humble band ; 
 
 And while he sinks, without one arm to save, 
 
 The country blooms — a garden and a grave. 
 
 3. Where, then, ah ! where shall Poverty reside, 
 To escape the pressure of contiguous Pride ? 
 If to some common's fenceless limits strayed, 
 He drives his flock to pick the scanty blade, 
 Those fenceless fields the sons of wealth divide. 
 And e'en the bare-worn common is denied. 
 
 If to the city sped — what waits him thero ? 
 To see profusion that he must not share ; 
 To see ten thousand baneful arts combined 
 To pamper luxury and thin mankind ; 
 To see each joy the sons of Pleasure know 
 Extorted from his fellow-creature's woe. 
 
 9 
 
194 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Here, while the courtier glitters in brocade, 
 There, the. pale artist plies the sickly trade ; 
 Here, while the proud their long-drawn pomp display, 
 There, the black gibbet glooms beside the way ; 
 The dome where Pleasure holds her midnight reign, 
 Here, richly decked, admits the gorgeous train ; 
 Tumultuous Grandeur crowds the blazing square, 
 The rattling chariots clash, the torches glare. 
 
 4. Sure scenes like these no troubles e'er annoy ! 
 Sure these denote one universal joy ! 
 
 Are these thy serious thoughts ? — Ah ! turn thine eyes 
 
 Where the poor, houseless, shivering female lies : 
 
 She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed, 
 
 Has wept at tales of innocence distrest ; 
 
 Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, 
 
 Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn ; 
 
 Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue fled, 
 
 Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, 
 
 And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower. 
 
 With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, 
 
 When idly first, ambitious of the town, 
 
 She left her wheel and robes of country brown. 
 
 5. Do thine, sweet Auburn, thine, the loveliest train, 
 Do thy fair tribes participate her pain ? 
 
 E'en now, perhaps, by cold and hunger led, 
 
 At proud men's doors they ask a little bread ! 
 
 Ah, no. To distant climes, a dreary scene, 
 
 Where half the convex world intrudes between, 
 
 Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, 
 
 Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. 
 
 Far different there from all that charmed before, 
 
 The various terrors of that horrid shore ; 
 
 Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, 
 
 And fiercely shed intolerable day ; 
 
 Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, 
 
 But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling ; 
 
 Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, 
 
 Where the dark scorpion gathers death around : 
 
 Where at each step the stranger fears to wako 
 
 The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake ; 
 
the deserted village. 1<j; 
 
 Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, 
 And savage men, mure murderous still than they ; 
 While 6ft in whirls the mad tornado flies, 
 Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies. 
 
 6. Far different these from every former scene, — 
 The cooling brook, the grassy-vested green, 
 The breezy covert of the warbling grove, 
 That Only sheltered thefts of harmless love. 
 
 Good Heaven ! what sorrows gloomed that parting day 
 That called them from their native walks away ; 
 When the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 
 Hung round the bowers, and fondly looked their last, 
 And took a long farewell, and wished in vain 
 For seats like these beyond the western main ; 
 And shuddering still to face the distant deep, 
 Returned and wept, and still rehu*ned to weep ! 
 
 7. The good old sire the first prepared to go 
 
 To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe ; 
 But for himself, in conscious virtue brave, 
 He only wished for worlds beyond the grave. 
 His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, 
 The fond companion of his helpless years, 
 Silent went next, neglectful of her charms, 
 And left a lover's for her father's arms. 
 With louder plaints the mother spoke her woes, 
 And blessed the cot where every pleasure rose ; 
 And kissed her thoughtless babes with manv a tear, 
 And clasped them close, in sorrow doubly dear ; 
 While her fond husband strove to lend relief, 
 In all the silent manliness of grief. 
 
 8. Oh, Luxury ! thou cursed by Heaven's decree, 
 How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee ! 
 How do thy potions, with insidious joy, 
 Diffuse their pleasures only to destroy ! 
 Kingdoms by thee to sickly greatness grown, 
 Baast of a florid vigor not their own. 
 
 At every draught more large and large they grow, 
 A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe ; 
 Till, sapped their strength, and every part unsound, 
 Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round. 
 
196 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 9. E'en now the devastation is begun, 
 
 And half the business of destruction done ; 
 
 E'en now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, 
 
 I see the rural virtues leave the land. 
 
 Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail, 
 
 That, idly waiting, flaps with every gale, 
 
 Downward they move, a melancholy band, 
 
 Pass from the shore, and darken all the strand. 
 
 Contented Toil, and hospitable Care, 
 
 And kind connubial Tenderness, are there ; 
 
 And Piety, with wishes placed above 
 
 And steady Loyalty, and faithful Love. 
 
 10. And thou, sweet Poetry ! thou loveliest maid, 
 Still first to fly, where sensual joys invade ! 
 Unfit, in these degenerate times of shame, 
 
 To catch the heart, or strike for honest Fame : 
 Dear, charming nymph, neglected and decried, 
 My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ; 
 Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe, 
 That found'st me poor at first, and keep's t me so, 
 Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel, 
 Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well. 
 
 11. Farewell ; and oh ! where'er thy voice be tried, 
 On Torno's cliffs or Pambamarca's side, 
 Whether where equinoctial fervors glow, 
 
 Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, 
 
 Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 
 
 Redress the rigors of the inclement clime ; 
 
 And slighted Truth, with thy persuasive strain, 
 
 Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ; 
 
 Teach him, that States, of native strength possessed, 
 
 Though very poor, may still be very blessed ; 
 
 That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 
 
 As ocean sweeps the labored mole away ; 
 
 While self-dependent power can time defy. 
 
 As rocks resist the billows and the sky. Goldsmith. 
 
 Oliveu GoLDSMiTn, one of the most pleasing English writers of the eighteenth 
 century, was horn at Pallas, Ireland, in Novemher, 1728. He was of a Protestant 
 and Saxon family which had long been settled in Ireland. At the time of Oli- 
 ver's birth, his father with difficulty supported his family on what he could earn, 
 partly as a curate and partly as a farmer. Soon after, he was presented with a 
 
THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 197 
 
 living, worth about £200 a-ycar, near the village ofLissoy, in Westmcatfa County, 
 where the boy passed his youth and received his preparatory instruction. In 
 his seventeenth year Oliver went up to Trinity College, Dublin, as a sizar. He 
 was quartered, not alone, in a garret, on the window of which hi- nanie, -crawled 
 by himself, is still read with interest. He neglected the Btudiea of the place, 
 stood low at the examinations, and led a life divided between squalid distress 
 and squalid dissipation. His father died, leaving a mere pittance. Oliver ob- 
 tained his bachelor's degree, and left the university. He was now in his twenty- 
 first year; it was necessary that he should do something; and his education 
 seemed to have litted him to do nothing of moment. He tried five or six pro 
 fessions, in turn, without success. He went to Edinburgh in his twenty-fourth 
 year, where he passed eighteen months in nominal attendance on lectures, and 
 picked up some superficial information about chemistry and natural history. 
 Thence he went to Lcyden, still pretending to study physic. He left that cele- 
 brated university in his twenty-seventh year, without a degree, and with no 
 property but his clothes and his flute. His flute, however, proved a useful friend. 
 He rambled on foot through Flanders, France, and Switzerland, playing tunes 
 which everywhere set the peasantry dancing, and which often procured for him 
 a supper and a bed. In 17oG the wanderer landed at Dover, England, without a 
 shilling, without a friend, and without a calling. After several expedients had 
 failed, the unlucky adventurer, at thirty, took a garret in a miserable court in 
 London, and sat down to the lowest drudgery of literature. In the succeeding 
 six years he produced articles for reviews, magazines, and newspapers; chil 
 drcn's books; "An Inquiry into the State of Polite Learning in Europe," a 
 "Life of Beau Nash," an excellent work of its kind; a superficial, but very 
 readable "History of England ;" and "Sketches of London Society." All these 
 works were anonymous; but some of them were well known to be Goldsmith's. 
 He gradually rose in the estimation of the booksellers, and became a popular 
 writer. He took chambers in the more civilized region of the Inns of Court, and 
 became intimate with Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and other eminent men. In 
 1704 he published a poem, entitled "The Traveler." It was the first work to 
 which he put his name; and it at once raised him to the rank of a legitimate 
 English classic. Its execution, though deserving of much praise, is far inferior 
 to the design. No philosophic poem, ancient or modern, has a plan so noble, 
 and at the same time so simple. Soon after his novel, the " Vicar of Wakefield," 
 appeared, and rapidly obtained a popularity which is likely to last as long as our 
 language. This was followed by a dramatic piece, entitled the u Good-natured 
 Man." It was acted at Covent Garden in 1708, but was coldly received. The 
 author, however, cleared by his benefit nights, and by the sale of the copyright, 
 no less than £500. In 1770 appeared the "Deserted Village.* 1 In diction and 
 versification, this celebrated poem is fully equal, perhaps superior, to "The 
 Traveler." In 1773, Goldsmith tried his chance at Covent Garden with "She 
 Stoops to Conquer," an incomparable farce in five acts, which met with unpre- 
 cedented success. While writing the " Deserted Village," and "She Stoops to 
 Conquer," he compiled, for the use of schools, a "History of Rome," by which 
 he made £300; a "History of England, 11 by which he made £000; a "History 
 of Greece," for which he received £250; and a "Natural History," for which the 
 booksellers covenanted to pay him 800 guineas. He produced these works by 
 selecting, abridging, and translating into his own clear, pure, and flowing lan- 
 guage, what he found in books well known to the world, but too bulky or too 
 dry for boys and girls. He was a great, perhaps an unequaled master of the arts 
 of selection and condensation. He died on the 4th of April, 1774, in hi* forty, 
 sixth year. 
 
198 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 SECTION IX. 
 I. 
 
 50. THE POWER OF ART. 
 
 "TTTHEN, from the sacred garden driven, 
 
 V V Man fled before his Maker's wrath, 
 An angel left her place in heaven, 
 
 And crossed the wanderer's sunless path. 
 'Twas Art ! sweet Art ! — new radiance broke 
 
 Where her light foot flew o'er the ground ; 
 And thus with seraph voice she spoke, — 
 
 " Tlie curse a blessing zhall be found." 
 
 2. She led him through the trackless wild, 
 
 Where noontide sunbeams never blazed ; 
 The thistle shrank, the harvest smiled, 
 
 And nature gladdened as she gazed. 
 Earth's thousand tribes of living things, 
 
 At Art's command to him are given ; 
 The village grows, the city springs, 
 
 And point their spires of faith to heaven. 
 
 3. He rends the oak, and bids it ride, 
 
 To guard the shores its beauty graced ; 
 He smites the rock, upheaved in pride, — 
 
 See towers of strength and domes of taste ! 
 Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal ; 
 
 Fire bears his banner on the wave ; 
 He bids the mortal poison heal ; 
 
 And leaps triumphant o'er the grave. 
 
 4. He plucks the pearls that stud the deep, 
 
 Admiring beauty's lap to fill ; 
 He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep, 
 
 And mocks his own Creator's skill. 
 W T ith thoughts that fill his glowing soul, 
 
 He bids the ore illume the page ; 
 And, proudly scorning Time's control, 
 
 Commerces with an unborn age. 
 
 5. In fields of air he writes his name, 
 
 And treads the chambers of the sky ; 
 
WORK. 199 
 
 Ho reads tho stars, and grasps the ilame 
 That quivers round the throne on high. 
 
 In war renowned, in peace sublime, 
 Ho moves in greatness and in grace ; 
 
 His power, subduing space and time, 
 
 Links realm to realm, and race to race. Sfragtje 
 
 Charles Sfbague was born in Boston, on the 2Gth day of October, 1791. lie 
 Was educated In the schools of his native city, which be left at an early period 
 to acquire a practical knowledge of trade. At twenty-one years of age, he com- 
 menced the business of merchant on his own account, and continued in it until 
 
 1820, when he was elected cashier of the Globe Bank. lie is still connected 
 with that institution. In this period he has found leisure to study tbe works of 
 the greatest authors, particularly those of tbe masters of English poetry, and to 
 write tbe admirable poems on which is based bis own reputation. Mr. Spragu 
 first productions that attracted much attention, were a series of brilliant pro- 
 logues, the lirst of which was written for the Park Theater, in New York, in 
 
 1821. "Shakspeore Ode," delivered in Boston Theater, in 1^2:;, at the exhibition 
 of a pageant in honor of Shakspcare, is one of the most vigorous and exquisite 
 lyrics In the English language. " Curiosity," the longest and best of his poems, 
 was delivered before tbe Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge, in August, 1829. 
 Several of his short poems evince great skill in the use of language, and show 
 him to be a master of the poetic art. 
 
 II. 
 
 51. WORK. 
 
 THERE is a perennial 1 nobleness, and oven saercdnesa, in 
 work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high 
 calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnest lv 
 works ; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never 
 so Mammonish, 3 mean, is in commimication witli Nature : the 
 real desire to get work done will itself lead one more and more to 
 truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations which are truth. 
 2. Blessed is he who has found his work ; let him ask no 
 other blessedness. He has a work, a life-puqiosc ; he has found 
 it, and will follow it. How, as a free flowing channel, dug and 
 torn by noble force through the sour mud-swamp of one's exist- 
 ence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows !— 
 draining off the sour festering water gradually from the root of 
 the remotest grass blade ; making, instead of pestilential swamp, 
 a green fruitful meadow with its clear flowing stream. How 
 
 1 Per en' ni al, literally, through or a Mam' mon ish, relating to Mam- 
 beyond a year ; hence, enduring ; mon, the Syrian god of riches : mer- 
 lasting perpetually. cenary, or procured by monoy. 
 
200 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its value be 
 great or small ! 
 
 3. Labor is life ; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his 
 God-given force, the sacred celestial life-essence, breathed into 
 him by Almighty God ; from his inmost heart awakens him to 
 all nobleness, to all knowledge, " self-knowledge," and much else, 
 so soon as work fitly begins. Knowledge ! the knowledge that 
 will hold good in working, cleave thou to that ; for Nature her- 
 self accredits that, says Yea to that. Properly, thou hast no 
 other knowledge but what thou hast got by working : the rest 
 is yet all a hypothesis ' of knowledge ; a thing to be argued of 
 in schools, a thing floating in the clouds in endless logic vor'tices 2 
 till we try it and fix it. " Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended 
 by action alone." 
 
 4. Older than all preached gospels 3 was this unpreached, in- 
 articulate, but ineradicable, 4 for-ever-enduring gospel : work, and 
 therein have well-being. Man, Son of Earth and Heaven, lies 
 there not, in the innermost heart of thee, a spirit of active 
 method, a force for work : — and burns like a painfully smoldering 
 fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it, till thou write it down 
 in beneficent b facts around thee ! What is immethodic, 6 waste, 
 thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable, 7 obedient and pro- 
 ductive to thee. Wheresoever thou findest disorder, there is 
 thy eternal enemy : attack him swiftly, subdue him ; make order 
 of him, tho subject not of chaos, but of intelligence, divinity, 
 and thee ! The thistle that grows in thy path, dig it out that a 
 blade of useful grass, a drop of nourishing milk, may grow there 
 instead. The waste cotton-shrub, gather its waste white down, 
 spin it, weave it ; that, in place of idle litter, there may be folded 
 webs, and the naked skin of man be covered. 
 
 i Hy p8th' e sis, a proposition or the great truths of Christianity, 
 
 principle assumed for tho purpose of * In^ e racT i ca ble, that can not 
 
 argument ; a supposition. he uprooted or destroyed. 
 
 3 Vor'tices, whirlpools; whirl- 'Beneficent, doing good; a- 
 winds ; hence, logical vortices are hounding in acts of goodness ; char- 
 intricate arguments, or arguments itahle. 
 
 that contain so many windings as to * Im'me th5d' ic, having no meth- 
 
 bewilder. od ; without systematic arrangement, 
 
 3 G5s' pel, good news, hence the order, or regularity, 
 
 four books which relato the history 7 Ar' a ble, fit for tillage or plow- 
 
 of the Saviour are called gospels ; ing ; plowed ; productive. 
 
WORK. 201 
 
 5. But, above all, where thou fmdest ignorance, stupidity, 
 brute-mindodness — attack it, I say ; smite it wisely, unwearied]}*, 
 and rest not whilo thou Hvest and it lives ; but smite, smite in 
 the name of God ! Tho highest God, as I understand ic, does 
 audibly so command thee : still audibly, if thou have ears to hear. 
 He, even He, with his unsj)okcn voice, is fuller than any Sinai ' 
 thunders, or syllabled speech of whirlwinds ; for the silence of 
 deep eternities, of worlds from beyond the morning stars, does 
 it not speak to thee ? Tho unborn ages ; the old graves, with 
 their long-nioldering dust, the very tears that wetted it, now all 
 dry — do not these speak to thee what ear hath not heard ? Tho 
 deep death-kingdoms, the stars in their never-resting courses, all 
 space and all time, proclaim it to thee in continual silent admo- 
 nition. Thou, too, if ever man should, shalt work while it is 
 called to-day ; for the night conieth, wherein no man can work. 
 
 6. All true work is sacred ; in all true work, were it but true 
 hand-labor, there i3 something of dlvmeness. Labor, wide as 
 the earth, has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow ; and 
 up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart ; which 
 includes all Kepler 2 calculations, Newton 3 meditations, all sci- 
 ences, all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms — up to 
 that " agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine ! 
 O brother, if this is not " worship," then I say, the more pit v 
 for worship ; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under 
 God's sky. 
 
 7. AYho art thou that complainest of thy life of toil ? Com- 
 plain not. Look up, my wearied brother ; see thy fellow-work- 
 men there, in God's eternity ; surviving there, they alone surviv- 
 ing : sacred band of the immortals, celestial body-guard of the 
 empire of mind. Even in the weak human memory they sur- 
 vive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods ; they alone surviving : 
 
 1 Si' nai, a mountain of Arabia was born in Lincolnshire, England, 
 Petraea, famous in Scripture. Height December 25, 1642. His investiga- 
 above the sea, 7,497 feet. tions have completely revolutionized 
 
 2 John Kepler, a distinguished modern science. His three great 
 mathematician and astronomer, was discoveries, of fluxions, the nature 
 born at Wiel, in Wirtemberg, on the of light and colors, and the laws of 
 21st of December, 1571, and died gravitation, have given him a nam<' 
 November 5th, o. s.. 1631. which will last as long as civilization 
 
 3 Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest exists. His " Principia "unfolds the 
 of philosophers and mathematicians, theoryof theuniverse. He died in 172 7. 
 
202 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 peopling, they alone, the imnieasured solitudes of Time ! To 
 thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind ; Heaven is kind — as 
 a noble mother ; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave 
 her son his shield, " With it, my son, or upon it !" Thou, too, 
 shalt return home, in honor to thy far-distant home, in honor ; 
 doubt it not — if in the battle thou keep thy shield ! Thou, in 
 the eternities and deepest death-kingdoms, art not an alien ; l 
 thou everywhere art a den'izen ! 2 Complain not ; the very Spar- 
 tans did not complain. Carlyle. 
 
 Tiiomas Carltle, the eminent essayist, reviewer, and historian, was born at 
 Middlebic, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1796. He received the rudiments of a 
 classical education at a school in Annan, a town about sixty miles south of Ed- 
 inburgh. At the University of Edinburgh, which he entered at the age of seven- 
 teen, he was distinguished for his attainments in mathematics. For some years 
 after leaving the universitj*, he supported himself by teaching, and writing for 
 booksellers. He is the author of various works and translations — " Life of Schil- 
 ler," "Sartor Hesartus," 1S36; "The French Revolution," a history in three 
 volumes, 1S37; " Chartism," 1S39 ; "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays," from 
 reviews and magazines, in 5 vols., 1839 ; " Hero Worship," a scries of lectures, 
 1841; "Past and Present," 1843; "Life of Oliver Cromwell," "Latter-day 
 Pamphlets," "Life of John Sterling," &e., &c. The peculiar style and diction 
 of Mr. Carlyle have with some retarded, and with others advanced his popularity. 
 It is more German than English, angular, objective, and unidiomatic : at times, 
 however, highly graphic, and swelling out into periods of fine imager}' and elo- 
 quence. He is an original and subtle thinker, and combines with his powers of 
 analysis and reasoning a vivid and brilliant imagination. His opinions and 
 writings tend to enlarge our sympathies and feelings — to stir the heart with 
 benevolence and affection — to unite man to man — and to build upon this love of 
 our fellow-beings a system of mental energy and purity far removed from the 
 operations of sense, and pregnant with high hopes and aspirations. 
 
 III. 
 
 52. ADDRESS TO THE INDOLENT. 
 
 IS not the field with lively culture green 
 A sight more joyous than the dead morass'? 
 Do not the skies, with active e'ther clean, 
 
 And fanned by sprightly zephyrs, far surpass 
 The foul November fogs, and slumberous mass, 
 "With which sad Nature vails her drooping face ? 
 
 Does not the mountain-stream, as clear as glass, 
 Gay dancing on, the putrid pool disgrace ? — 
 The same in all holds true, but chief in human race. 
 
 * Alien, (&!' yen), a foreigner who 3 Den' i zen, a naturalized for* 
 has not been naturalized ; a stranger, eiguer 
 
ADDRESS TO THE INDOLENT. 203 
 
 2. It was not by vile loitering in ease 
 
 That Greece obtained the brighter palm of art, 
 That soft yet ardent Ath'ens learnt to please, 
 
 To keen the wit, and to sublime the heart, 
 
 In all supreme ! complete in every part ! 
 It was not thence majestic Rome arose, 
 
 And o'er the nations shook her conquering dart! 
 For sluggard's brow the laurel never grows ; 
 Renown is not the child of indolent repose. 
 
 3. Had unambitious mortals minded naught 
 
 But in loose joy their time to wear away, — 
 Had they alone the lap of dalliance sought, 
 
 Pleased on her pillow their dull heads to lay, — 
 
 Rude Nature's state had been our state to-day : 
 No cities e'er their towery fronts had raised, 
 
 No arts had made us opulent and gay ; 
 "With brother-brutes the human race had grazed ; 
 None e'er had soared to fame, none honored been, none praised. 
 
 4. But should your hearts to fame unfeeling be, 
 
 If right I read, you pleasure all require : 
 Then see how best may be obtained this fee, 
 
 How best enjoyed this, nature's wide desire. 
 
 Toil and be glad! let In'dustry inspire 
 Into your quickened limbs her buoyant breath ! 
 
 Who does not act is dead ; — absorpt entire 
 In miry sloth, no pride, no joy he hath : 
 O leaden-hearted men, to be in love with death ! 
 
 5. Ah ! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, 
 
 "When drooping health and spirits go amiss? 
 How tasteless then whatever can be given ! 
 
 Health is the vital principle of bliss, 
 
 And exercise of health. In proof of this, 
 Behold the wretch who slugs his life away, 
 
 Soon swallowed in disease's sad abyss, 
 "While he whom toil has braced, or manly play, 
 Has light as air each limb, each thought as clear as day. 
 
 6. O, who can speak the vigorous joy of health, — 
 
 Unelogged the body, unobseured the mind ? 
 The morning rises gay, with pleasing stealth, 
 
204 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 The temperate evening falls serene and kind. 
 
 In health the wiser brutes true gladness find 
 See ! how the younglings frisk along the meads, 
 
 As May comes on, and wakes the balmy wind ; 
 Rampant with life, their joy all joy exceeds ; 
 Yet what but high-strung health this dancing pleasaunce breeds? 
 
 7. There are, I see, who listen to my lay, 
 
 Who wretched sigh for virtue, yet despair. 
 " All may be done," methinks I hear them say, 
 
 " Even death despised by generous actions fair, — 
 
 All, but for those who to these bowers repair ! 
 Their every power dissolved in luxury, 
 
 To quit of torpid sluggishness the lair, 
 And from the powerful arms of sloth get free — 
 'Tis rising from the dead : — Alas ! — it can not be !" 
 
 8. Would you, then, learn to dissipate the band 
 
 Of these huge threatening difficulties dire, 
 That in the weak man's wav like lions stand, 
 His soul appall, and damp his rising fire ? 
 Resolve — resolve ! and to be men aspire. 
 Exert that noblest privilege, — alone 
 
 Here to mankind indulged ; — control desire : 
 Let godlike Reason, from her sovereign throne, 
 Speak the commanding word, I will ! — and it is done. 
 
 James Thomson. 
 
 IV. 
 
 53. STUDY. 
 
 rjlHE favorite idea of a genius among us, is of one who never 
 JL studies, or who studies, nobody can tell when — at midnight, 
 or at odd times and intervals — and now and then strikes out, at 
 a heat, as the phrase is, some wonderful production. This is a 
 character that has figured largely in the history of our literature, 
 in the persons of our Moldings, our Savages, 1 and our Steeles 2 — 
 
 1 Richard Savage, a poet of con- ■ Richard Steele, the principal 
 siderahle merit, born 1G99, in Lon- author of the " Tattler," the " Spec- 
 don, died 1743. He was intimate tator," the " Guardian/' and other 
 with Johnson, who wrote an admir- periodical papers, an Irishman by 
 able Life of him. birth, born in 1671. and died in 1729. 
 
STUDY. 205 
 
 u loose fellows about town," or loungers in the country, who slept 
 in ale-houses and wrote in bar-rooms, who took up the pen as a 
 magician's ' wand to supply their wants, and when the pressure 
 of necessity was relieved, resorted again to their carousals. 
 
 2. Your real genius is an idle, irregular, vagabond sort of 
 personage, who muses in the fields or dreams by the fireside ; 
 whose strong impulses — that is the cant of it — must needs hurry 
 him into wild irregularities or foolish eccentricity ; who abhors 
 order, and can bear no restraint, and eschews all labor : such a 
 one, for instance, as Newton or Milton ! What ! they must have 
 been irregular, else they were no geniuses ! 
 
 3. "The young man," it is often said, "has genius enough, if 
 he would only study." Now the truth is, as I shall take the 
 liberty to state it, that genius will study, it is that in the mind 
 which does study ; that is the very nature of it. I care not to 
 say that it will always use books. All study is not reading, any 
 more than all reading is study. Study, says Cicero, 5 is the vol- 
 untary and vigorous application of the mind to any subject. 
 
 4. Such study, such intense mental action, and nothing else, 
 is genius. And so far as there is any native predisposition about 
 this enviable character of mind, it is a predisposition to that 
 action. This is the only test of the original bias ; and he who 
 does not come to that point, though he may have shrewdness, 
 and readiness, and parte, never had a genius. 
 
 5. No need to waste regrets upon him, as that he never could 
 be induced to give his attention or study to any thing ; he nevei- 
 had that which he is supposed to have lost. For attention it is 
 — though other qualities belong to this transcendent 3 power — 
 attention it is, that is the very soul of genius : not the fixed eye, 
 not the poiing over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in 
 fact, an action of the mind which is steadily concentrated upon 
 one ide'a or one series of ideas, — which collects in one point the 
 rays of the soul till they search, penetrate, and fire the whole 
 train of its thoughts. 
 
 1 Magician, (ma jlsh' an), one who of Rome, a distinguished orator, 
 
 is skilled in the art and science of writer, rhetorician, and philosopher, 
 
 putting into action the power of born at Arpinum in B. c. 106, be- 
 
 epirits or the secret operation of headed b. c. 43. 
 natural causes. 3 Trans cend' ent, surpassing ,• 
 
 8 Marcus Tullius Cicero, Consul very excellent. 
 
206 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 6. And while the fire burns within, the outward man may 
 indeed be cold, indifferent, and negligent, — absent in appear- 
 ance ; he may be an idler, or a wanderer, apparently without 
 aim or intent ; but still the fire burns within. And what though 
 " it bursts forth " at length, as has been said, " like volcanic fires, 
 with spontaneous, original, native force?" It only shows the 
 intenser action of the elements beneath. "What though it breaks 
 like lightning from the cloud ? The electric fire had been collect- 
 ing in the firmament through many a silent, calm, and clear day. 
 
 7. What though the might of genius appears in one decisive 
 blow, struck in some moment of high debate, or at the crisis of 
 a nation's peril? That mighty energy, though it may have 
 heaved in the breast of a Demosthenes, 1 was once a feeble in- 
 fant's thought. A mother's eye watched over its dawning. A 
 father's care guarded its early growth. It soon trod with youth- 
 ful steps the halls of learning, and found other fathers to wake 
 and to watch for it, — even as it finds them here. 
 
 8. It went on ; but silence was upon its path, and the deep 
 stragglings of the inward soul marked its progress, and the 
 cherishing powers of nature silently ministered to it. The ele- 
 ments around breathed upon it and " touched it to finer issues." 
 The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and ripened its expand- 
 ing faculties. The slow revolutions of years slowly added to 
 its collected treasures and energies ; till in its hour of glory, it 
 stood forth embodied in the form of living, commanding, irre- 
 sistible eloquence ! 
 
 9. The world wonders at the manifestation, and says, " Strange, 
 strange, that it should come thus unsought, unpremeditated, un- 
 prepared!" But the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it, 
 than there is in the towering of the preeminent forest-tree, or in 
 the flowing of the mighty and irresistible river, or in the wealth 
 and the waving of the boundless harvest. Dewey. 
 
 Ouville Dewey, D.D., was born in Sheffield, Berkshire County, Massachu- 
 setts, March 28th, 1794. His father ■was a farmer, occupying a highly respecta- 
 ble position as a citizen. He entered Williams College, in his native county, at 
 the age of seventeen, where he gained a high position. He was thorough in all 
 his studies. Rhetoric he cultivated with uncommon perseverance. He was 
 
 critical and severe upon his own literary productions, revising and pruning with 
 
 __^ *. ^ . , 
 
 1 De mos' the nes, the greatest of His orations present to us the mod- 
 Greek orators, was born at Athens, els which approach the nearest to 
 B. c. 382, and died b. C. about o22. perfection of all human productions. 
 
LETTERS. 207 
 
 a fidelity which gained him preeminence in his cla-s, as already attaining a 
 style of classic strength and purity, lie was graduated in 1*14, with the higl 
 honors of the institution, having received the appointment of Valedictorian. He 
 pursued his professional studies at Andover Theological Seminary. In 1^:J he 
 received and accepted a call to become pastor of a Unitarian Church in New- 
 Bedford, where he remained ten years. During this period he lectured frequently, 
 and wrote for the press. He lirst visited Europe for the improvement of his 
 health in June, 1833, where he spent a year. After his return, lie published 
 some results of his travels in a volume entitled, "The Old World and the New.'' 
 This book contains some of the best criticisms on painting, on music, on sculp- 
 ture, on men, things, and places ; and more than all, views of society, of govern- 
 ment, of the tendency of monarchical institutions, and of the condition of the 
 European people, which arc sound, comprehensive, and deeply interesting. On 
 his return from Europe he was settled over "The Second Congregational Unita- 
 rian Society" of New York. In 1842 he again went abroad for his health, taking 
 his family with him. He passed two years in France, Italy, Switzerland, and 
 England. In 1848, his health again failing, he dissolved his connection with his 
 church. Since that time he has occasionally preached and lectured in nearly all 
 the large cities of the Union. All, except his late writings, arc bound in one 
 volume, published at London, in 1844. His productions since that period are 
 published in New York, in three volumes, except his latest, "The Problem of 
 Human Destiny," which appeared in 1804. Dr. Dewey has gnat depth of 
 thought. His imagination is rich, but not superfluous ; ready, but not obtrusive. 
 His style is artistic and scholarly. His periods are perfectly complete and 
 rounded, yet tilled by the thought; the variety is great, yet a symmetry pre- 
 vails ; and in general we find that harmony between the thoughts and their 
 form which should always obtain. 
 
 SECTION X. 
 I. 
 
 54. LETTERS. 
 
 BLESSED be letters! — they are the monitors, they are also 
 the eomforters, and they are the only true heart-talkers. 
 Your speech, and their speeches, are conventional ; they are 
 molded by circumstances ; they are suggested by the observa- 
 tion, remark, and influence of the parties to whom the speaking 
 is addressed, or by whom it may be overheard. Your truest 
 thought is modified half through its utteranco by a look, a sign, 
 a smile, or a sneer. It is not individual : it is not integral : it 
 is social and mixed, — half of you, and half of others. It bends, 
 it sways, it multiplies, it retires, and it advances, as the talk of 
 others presses, relaxes, or quickens. 
 
 2. But it is not so with Letters : — there you are, with only 
 
208 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 the soulless pen, and the snow-white, virgin paper. Your soul 
 is measuring itself by itself, and saying its own sayings : there 
 are no sneers to modify its utterance, — no scowl to scare ; 
 nothing is present but you and your thought. Utter it then 
 freely — write it down — stamp it — burn it in the ink ! — There it 
 is, a true soul-print ! 
 
 3. Oh, the glory, the freedom, the passion of a letter ! It is 
 worth all the lip-talk of the world. Do you say, it is studied, 
 made up, acted, rehearsed, contrived, artistic? Let me see it 
 then ; let me run it over : tell me age, sex, cir'cuinstances, and I 
 will tell you if it be studied or real ; if it be the merest lip-slang 
 j)ut into words, or heart-talk blazing on the paper. 
 
 4. I have a little packet, not Very large, tied up with narrow 
 crimson ribbon, now soiled with frequent handling, which far 
 into some winter's night I take down from its nook upon my 
 shelf, and untie, and open, and run over, with such sorrow and 
 such joy, such tears and such smiles, as I am sure make me, for 
 weeks after, a kinder and holier man. 
 
 5. There are in this little packet letters in the familiar hand 
 of a mother : what gentle admonition — what tender affection ! 
 God have mercy on him who outlives the tears that such ad- 
 monitions and such affection c?4i up to the eye ! There are 
 others in the budget, in the delicate and unformed hand of a 
 loved and lost sister ; — written when she and you were full of 
 glee, and the best mirth of youthfuiness : does it harm you to 
 recall that mirthfulncss ? or to trace again, for the hundredth 
 time, that scrawling postscript at the bottom, with its i's so 
 carefully dotted, and its gigantic t's ?o carefully crossed, by the 
 childish hand of a little brother ? 
 
 6. I have added latterly to that packet of letters : I almost 
 need a new and longer ribbon ; the old one is getting too short. 
 Not a few of these new and cherished letters, a former Reverie 
 has brought to me ; not letters of cold praise, saying it was well 
 done, artfully executed, prettily imagined — no such thing ; but 
 letters of sympathy — of sympathy which means sympathy. 
 
 7. It would be cold and dastardly work to copy them ; I am 
 too selfish for that. It is enough to say that they, the kind 
 writers, have seen a heart in tho Reverie — have felt that it was 
 real, true. They know it : a secret influence has told it. "What 
 matters it, pray, if literally there was no wifo, and no dead child, 
 
LETTERS. 209 
 
 and no coffin, in the house ? Is not feeling, feeling ; and heart, 
 heart ? Are not these fancies thronging on my brain, bringing 
 tears to my eyes, bringing joy to my soul, as living as any thing 
 human can be living ? What if they have no material type — no 
 objective form ? All that is crude, — a mere reduction of ideality 
 to sense — a transformation of the spiritual to the earthy — a 
 leveling of soul to matter. 
 
 8. Are we not creatures of thought and passion ? Is any 
 thing about us more earnest than that same thought and passion ? 
 Is there any thing more real, — more characteristic of that great 
 and dim destiny to which we are born, and which may be writ- 
 ten down in that terrible word — Foeever ? Let those who will, 
 then, sneer at what in their wisdom they call untruth — at what 
 is false, because it has no material presence : this does not create 
 falsity ; would to Heaven that it did ! 
 
 9. And yet, if there was actual, material truth, superadded to 
 Reverie, would such objectors sympathize the more ? No ! — a 
 thousand times, no ; the heart that has no sympathy with 
 thoughts and feelings that scorch the soul, is dead also — what- 
 ever its mocking tears and gestures may say — to a coffin or a 
 grave ! Let them pass, and we will come back to these cher- 
 ished letters. 
 
 10. A mother who has lost a child, has. she says, shed a tear 
 ■ — not one, but many — over the dead boy's coldness. And 
 another, who has not, but who trembles lest she lose, has found 
 the words failing as she reads, and a dim, sorrow-borne mist 
 spreading over the page. Another, yet rejoicing in all those 
 family ties that make life a charm, has listened nervously to 
 careful reading, until the husband is called home, and the coffin 
 is in the house — " Stop !" she says ; and a gush of tears tells the 
 rest. Yet the cold critic will say — "It was artfully done." A 
 curse on him ! it was not art ; it was nature. 
 
 11 Another, a young, fresh, healthful girl-mind, has seen 
 something in the love-picture — albeit so weak — of truth ; and 
 has kindly believed that it must be earnest. Ay, indeed is it, 
 fair and generous one, — earnest as life and hope ! AVho, indeed, 
 with a heart at all, that has not yet slipped away irrep'arably 
 and forever from the shores of youth — from that fairy-land 
 which young enthusiasm creates, and over which bright dreams 
 hover — but knows it to be real? And so such things will be 
 
210 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 real, till hopes are dashed, and Death is come. Another, a 
 father, has laid down the book in tears. — God bless them all! 
 How far better this, than the cold praise of newspaper para- 
 graphs, or the critically contrived approval of colder friends ! 
 
 12. Let me gather up these letters carefully, — to be read 
 when the heart is faint, and sick of all that there is unreal and 
 selfish in the world. Let me tie them together, with a new, 
 and longer bit of ribbon, — not by a love knot, that is too hard 
 — but by an easy slipping knot, that so I may get at them the 
 better. And now they are all together, a snug packet, and we 
 will label them, not sentimentally (I pity the one who thinks it), 
 but earnestly, and in the best meaning of the term — Remem- 
 
 BKA.NCEKS OF THE HEART. D. G. MITCHELL. 
 
 II. 
 
 53. SELECT PASSAGES IN PROSE. 
 
 I. GOOD USE OF MEMORY. 
 
 I CAN not too strongly urge upon the young the advantage 
 of committing to memory the choicest passages in prose and 
 poetry in English literature. What we learn thoroughly when 
 young, remains by us through life. " Sir," said the great Dr. 
 Johnson to Boswell, 1 "in my early days I read very hard. It is 
 a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at 
 eighteen as I do now. My judgment, to be sure, was not so 
 good ; but I had all the facts. I remember very well when I 
 was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, ' Young man, ply 
 your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge ; 
 for when years come unto you, you will find that poring upon 
 books will be but an irksome task.' " 
 
 II. INJUDICIOUS HASTE IN STUDY.— Locke.' 
 
 The eagerness and strong bent of the mind after knowledge, 
 if not warily regulated, is often a hinderance to it. It still 
 presses into further discoveries and new objects, and catches at 
 
 1 James Boswell, the friend and celebrated " Essay Concerning the 
 
 biographer of Dr. Johnson, born Human Understanding," was born 
 
 1740, and died 1795. at Wrington, near Bristol, England, 
 
 3 John Locke, a name than which on the 29th of August, 1G32, and 
 
 there is none higher in English phil- died at Oates, in Essex, on the 28th 
 
 osophical literature, author of the of October, 1704. 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN PROSE. 211 
 
 the variety of knowledge, and therefore often stays not long 
 enough on what is before it, to look into it as it should, for haste 
 to pursue what is yet out of sight. He that rides post through 
 a country may be able, from the transient view, to tell in general 
 how the parts he, and may be able to give some loose descrip- 
 tion of here a mountain and there a plain, here a morass' and 
 there a river ; woodland in one part and savannas in another. 
 Such superficial ideas and observations as these he may collect 
 in galloping over it ; but the more useful observations of the 
 soil, plants, animals, and inhabitants, with their several sorts and 
 properties, must necessarily escape him ; and it is seldom men 
 ever discover the rich mines without some digging. Nature 
 commonly lodges her treasures and jewels in rocky ground. If 
 the matter be knotty, and the sense lies deep, the mind must 
 stop and buckle to it, and stick upon it with labor, and thought, 
 and close contemplation, and not leave it until it has mastered 
 the difficulty and got possession of truth. 
 
 But here, care must be taken to avoid the other extreme : a 
 man must not stick at every useless nicety, and expect mysteries 
 of science in every trivial question or scrapie that he may raise. 
 He that will stand to pick up and examine every pebble that 
 comes in his way, is as unlikely to return enriched and laded 
 with jewels, as the other that traveled full speed. Truths are 
 not the better nor the worse for their obviousness or difficulty, 
 but their value is to be measured by their usefulness and ten- 
 dency. Insignificant observations should not take up any of our 
 minutes ; and those that enlarge our view, and give light toward 
 further and useful discoveries, should not be neglected, though 
 they stop our course, and spend some of our time in a fixed 
 
 attention. 
 
 III. STUDIES.— Bacon.' 
 
 Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their 
 chief use for delight is in piivateness and retiring ; for orna- 
 
 1 Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor ment of labor, or species of activity, 
 
 of England under James I., author belonged to him peculiarly. From 
 
 of the " Instauratio Magna," was early manhood Bacon was immersed 
 
 born in London on 22d of January, in public affairs, intrusted with very 
 
 1561, and died in 162G. The immor- onerous functions : in the first rank 
 
 tal Englishman possessed a mind so of jurisconsult, he moved in the work 
 
 vast, with powers so varied, that it of reforming and arranging the laws 
 
 can not be said that any one depart- of England ; as a statesman, he la- 
 
212 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 raent, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment and 
 disposition of business ; for expert men can execute, and per- 
 haps judge of particulars, one by cno ; but the general counsels, 
 and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from those 
 that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth ; 
 to use them too much for ornament, is affectation ; to make judg- 
 ment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar : they per'- 
 feet nature, and are perfected by experience — for natural abili- 
 ties are like natural plants, that need pruning by study ; and 
 studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, 
 except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn 
 studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them ; for 
 they teach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom without 
 them, and above them, won by observation. 
 
 Head not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take 
 for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and 
 consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, 
 and some few to be chewed and digested : that is, some books 
 are to be read only in parts ; 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 ; but that would be only in the less 
 important arguments, and the meaner sort of books ; else dis- 
 tilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. 
 Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and 
 writing an exact man : and, therefore, if a man write little, 
 he had need have a great memory ; if he confer little, he need 
 have a present wit ; and if he read little, he had need have much , 
 cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. 
 
 IV. BOOKS.— ClIANNING. 
 
 It is chiefly through books that we enjoy inter course with 
 superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication 
 are in the reach of all. In the best books great men talk to us, 
 give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into 
 ours. God bo thanked for books. They are the voices of "the 
 distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of 
 
 bored effectively in promotion of tho viz., the " Reign of Henry VII. ;" as 
 
 British treaty of Union ; as a his- orator and Avriter, he had no equal 
 
 torian, ho produced the first nierito- in his age ; nm\, besides, he renovated 
 
 rious history in English literature, Philosophy. 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN PROSE. 2L3 
 
 past ages. Books are the true levelers. They give to all, who 
 will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the 
 best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am, — no 
 matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my 
 obscure dwelling, — if the sacred writers will enter and take up 
 their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to 
 sing to me of Paradise, and Shakspeare to open to me the 
 worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and 
 Franklin ' to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not 
 pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become 
 a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best 
 society in the place where I live. 
 
 V. THE BIBLE.— Hall.' 
 
 The Bible is the treasure of the poor, the solace of the sick, 
 and the support of the dying ; and while other books may 
 amuse and instruct in a leisure hour, it is the peculiar triumph 
 of that book to create light in the midst of darkness, to allevi- 
 ate the sorrow which admits of no other alleviation, to direct a 
 beam of hope to the heart which no other topic of consolation 
 can reach ; while guilt, despair, and death vanish at the touch 
 of its holy inspiration. 
 
 There is something in the spirit and diction of the Bible 
 which is found peculiarly adapted to arrest the attention of the 
 plainest and most uncultivated minds. The simple structure of 
 its sentences, combined with a lofty spirit of poetry — its famil- 
 iar allusions to the scenes of nature and the transactions of 
 common life — the delightful intermixture of narration with the 
 doctrinal and preceptive parts — and the profusion of inlrac'ulous 
 facts, which convert it into a sort of enchanted ground — its 
 constant advertence to the Deity, whoso perfections it renders 
 almost visible and palpable — unite in bsstowing upon it an in'- 
 terest which attaches to no other performance, and which, after 
 
 1 Benjamin Franklin, on eminent various erudition, and a thorough 
 
 American moralist, statesman, and intellectual training ; master alike of 
 
 philosopher, was born in Boston, the sternest weapons of logic, and 
 
 Mass., January Gth, 1 TOG, and died " the dazzling fence of rhetoric;" in 
 
 in Philadelphia, April 17th, 1790. style, combining the, sweetness of 
 
 5 Robert Hall, an eminent Baptist Addison with the sublimity of Burke; 
 
 clergyman, was born at Arnsby, he was regarded as the most eloquent 
 
 England, in 1764. Splendid, grace- preacher of modern times. He died 
 
 fill, and majestic, with a large and in February, 1831. 
 
214 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 assiduous and repeated perusal, invests it with much of the charm 
 of novelty ; like the great orb of day, at which we are wont 1 to 
 gaze with unabated astonishment from infancy to old age. 
 
 What other book besides the Biole could be heard in public 
 assemblies from year to year, with an attention that never tires, 
 and an interest that never cloys ? With few exceptions, let a 
 portion of the sacred volume be recited in a mixed multitude, 
 and though it has been heard a thousand times, a universal 
 stillness ensues, every eye is fixed, and every ear is awake and 
 attentive. Select, if you can, any other composition, and let it 
 be rendered equally familiar to the mind, and see whether it 
 will produce this effect. 
 
 in. 
 
 56. BUYING BOOKS. 
 
 HOW easily one may distinguish a genuine lover of books 
 from the worldly man ! With what subdued and yet glow- 
 ing enthusiasm does he gaze upon the costly front of a thousand 
 embattled volumes ! How gently he draws them down, as if 
 they were little children ! how tenderly he handles them ! He 
 peers at the title-page, at the text, or the notes, with the nicety 
 of a bird examining a flower. He studies the binding : the 
 leather, — Russia, English calf, morocco ; the lettering, the gild- 
 ing, the edging, the hinge of the cover ! He opens it, and shuts 
 it, he holds it off, and brings it nigh. It suffuses his whole body 
 with book-magnetism. He walks up and down, in amaze at 
 the mysterious allotments of Providence that gives so much 
 money to men who spend it upon their appetites, and so little 
 to men who would spend it in benevolence, or upon their refined 
 tastes ! It is astonishing, too, how one's necessities multiply in 
 the presence of the supply. One never knows how many things 
 it is impossible to do without till he goes to the house-furnishing 
 stores. One is surprised to perceive, at some bazaar, or fancy 
 and variety store, how many conveniences he needs. He is sat- 
 isfied that his life must have been utterly inconvenient aforetime. 
 And thus, too, one is inwardly convicted, at a bookstore, of 
 having lived for years without books which he is now satisfied 
 that one can not live without ! 
 
 1 Wont, (v/unt), used ; accustomed. 
 
BUYING BOOKS. 215 
 
 • ) 
 
 2. Then, too, the subtle process by which the man convinces 
 
 himself that he can afford to buy. No subtle manager or 1 >r< >ker 
 ever saw through a maze of financial embarrassmi uts half so 
 quick as a poor book-buyer sees his way clear to pay for what 
 he must have. He promises with himself marvels of retrench- 
 ment ; he will eat less, or less costly viands, that he may buy 
 more food for the mind. He will take an extra patch, and go 
 on with his raiment another year, and buy books instead of 
 coats. Yea, he will write books, that he may buy books. He 
 will lecture, teach, trade — he will do any honest thing for mom y 
 to buy books ! 
 
 3. The appetite is insatiable. Feeding does not satisfy it. It 
 rages by the fuel which is put upon it. As a hungry man rats 
 first, and pays afterward, so the book-buyer purchases, and then 
 works at the debt afterward. This paying is rather medicinal. 
 It cures for a time. But a relapse takes place. The same long- 
 ing, the same promises of self-denial. He promises himself to 
 put spurs on both heels of his in'dustry ; and then, besides all 
 this, he will somehow get along when the time for payment 
 comes ! Ah ! this Somehow ! That word is as big as a whole 
 world, and is stuffed with all the vaga'ries and fantasies that 
 Fancy ever bred upon Hope. 
 
 4. And yet, is there not some comfort in buying books, to be 
 paid for ? We have heard of a sot, who wished his neck as long 
 as the worm of a still, that he might so much the longer enjoy 
 the flavor of the draught ! Thus, it is a prolonged excitement 
 of purchase, if you feel for six months in a slight doubt whether 
 the book is honestly your own or not. Had you paid down, 
 that would have been the end of it. There would have been no 
 affectionate and beseeching look of your books at you, every 
 time you saw them, saying, as plain as a book's eyes can say. 
 "Do not let me be taken from you." 
 
 5. Moreover, buying books before you can pay for them, pro- 
 motes caution. You do not feel quite at liberty to take them 
 home. You are married. Your wife keeps an account-book. 
 She knows to a penny what you can and what you can not afford. 
 She has no " speculation " in her eyes. Plain figures make des- 
 perate work with airy "somehows". It is a matter of no small 
 skill and experience to get your books home, and into their 
 proper places, undiscovered. Perhaps the blundering Express 
 
216 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 brings tliem to the door just at evening. " What is it, my deal* ?" 
 she says to you. " Oh ! nothing — a few books that I can not 
 do without." 
 
 6. That smile ! A true housewife that loves her husband, can 
 smile a whole arithmetic at him in one look ! Of course she 
 insists, in the kindest way, in sympathizing with you in your 
 literary acquisition. She cuts the strings of the bundle (and of 
 your heart), and out comes the whole story. You have bought 
 a complete set of costly English books, full bound in calf, extra 
 gilt ! You are caught, and feel very much as if bound in calf 
 yourself, and admirably lettered. 
 
 7. Now, this must not happen frequently. The books must 
 be smuggled home. Let them be sent to some near place. Then, 
 when your wife has a headache, or is out making a call, or has 
 lain down, run the books across the frontier and threshold, hastily 
 undo them, stop only for one loving glance as you put them away 
 in the closet, or behind other books on the shelf, or on the top- 
 most shelf. Clear away the twine and wrapping-paper, and every 
 suspicious circumstance. Be very careful not to be too kind. 
 That often brings on detection. Only the other day we heard 
 it said, somewhere, "Why, how good you have been, lately. I 
 am really afraid that you have been carrying on mischief 
 secretly." Our heart smote us. It was a fact. That very day 
 we had bought a few books which " we could not do without." 
 
 8. After a while, you can bring out one volume, accidentally, 
 and leave it on the table. " Why, my dear, what a beautiful 
 book ! Where did you borrow it '?" You glance over the news- 
 paper, with the quietest tone you can command : " Tliat ! oh ! 
 that is mine. Have you not seen it before ? It has been in the 
 house these two months ; " and you rush on with anecdote and 
 incident, and point out the binding, and that peculiar trick of 
 gilding, and every thing else you can think of : but it all will 
 not do ; you can not rub out that roguish, arithmetical smile. 
 People may talk about the equality of the sexes ! They are not 
 equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman, will van- 
 quish ten men. Of course you repent, and in time form a habit 
 of repenting. 
 
 9. Another method, which will bo found peculiarly effective, 
 is, to make a present of some fine work to your wife. Of course, 
 whether she or you have the name of buying it, it will go into 
 
SELECTED EXTRACTS. 017 
 
 your collection and be yours to all intents and purposes. But, 
 it stops remark in the presentation. A wife could not reprove 
 you for so kindly thinking of her. No matter what she suspects, 
 she will say nothing. And then if there are three or four more 
 works, which have come home with the gift-book — they will 
 pass, through the favor of the other. 
 
 10. These are pleasures denied to wealth and old bachelors. 
 Indeed, one can not imagine the peculiar pleasure of buying 
 books, if one is rich and stupid. There must be some pleasure, 
 or so many would not do it. But the full flavor, the whole rel- 
 ish of delight only comes to those who are so poor that they 
 must engineer for every book. They set down before them, and 
 besiege them. They are captured. Each book has a secret 
 history of ways and means. It reminds you of subtle devices 
 by which you insured and made it yours, in spite of poverty I 
 
 II. W. Beeches. 
 
 IV. 
 
 57. SELECTED EXTRACTS. 
 
 ALL novels whatever, the best equally with the worst, have 
 faded almost with the generation that produced them. 
 This is a curse written as a superscription above the whole class. 
 The modes of combining characters, the particular objects 
 selected for sympathy, the diction, and often the manners, hold 
 up an imperfect mirror to any generation that is not their own. 
 And the reader of novels belonging to an obsolete era, whilst 
 acknowledging the skill of the groupings, or the beauty of the 
 situations, misses the echo to that particular revelation of human 
 nature which has met him in the social aspects of his own day ; 
 or too often ho is perplexed by an expression which, having 
 dropped into a lower use, disturbs the unity of the impression, 
 or is revolted by a coarse sentiment, which increasing refine- 
 ment has made unsuitable to the sex or to the rank of the 
 
 character. 
 
 2. Too constantly, when reviewing his own efforts for improve- 
 ment, a man has reason to say (indignantly, as one injured by 
 others ; penitentially, as contributing to this injury himself,) 
 "Much of my studies have been thrown away; many books 
 
 which were useless, or worse than useless, I have read ; manv 
 
 10 
 
218 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 books which ought to have been read, I have left unread ; such 
 is the sad necessity under the absence of all preconceived plan ; 
 and the proper road is first ascertained when the journey is 
 drawing to its close." 
 
 3. In a wilderness so vast as that of books, to go astray 
 often and widely is pardonable, because it is inevitable ; and 
 in proportion as the errors on this primary field of study 
 have been great, it is important to have reaped some compen- 
 satory benefits on the secondary field of conversation. Books 
 teach by one machinery, conversation by another ; and, if 
 these resources were trained into correspondence to their own 
 separate ide'als, they might become reciprocally the comple- 
 ments of each other. 
 
 4. It had happened that amongst our nursery collection of 
 books was the Bible illustrated with many pictures. And in 
 long dark evenings, as my three sisters with myself sat by the 
 firelight round the guard of our nursery, no book was so much 
 in request amongst us. It ruled us and swayed us as mysteri- 
 ously as music. One young nurse, whom we all loved, before 
 any candle was lighted, would often strain her eyes to read it for 
 us ; and, sometimes, according to her simple powers, would 
 endeavor to explain what we found obscure. We, the children, 
 were all constitutionally touched with pensiveness ; the fitful 
 gloom and sudden lambencies of the room by firelight suited 
 our evening state of feelings ; and they suited, also, the divine 
 revelations of power and mysterious beauty which awed us. 
 Above all, the story of a just man — man and yet not man, real 
 above all things, and yet shadowy above all things, who had 
 suffered the passion of death in Palestine — slept upon our 
 minds like early dawn upon the waters. 
 
 5. A man of original genius, shown to us as revolving through 
 the leisurely stages of a biographical memoir, lays open, to 
 readers prepared for sympathy, two separate theaters of in- 
 terest ; one in his personal career : the other in his works and 
 his intellectual development. Both unfold together ; and each 
 borrows a secondary interest from the other : the life from the 
 recollection of the works — the works from the joy and sorrow 
 of the life. There have, indeed, been authors whose great crea- 
 tions, severely preconceived in a region of thought transcen- 
 dent to all impulses of earth, would have been pretty nearly 
 
SELECTED EXTRACTS. 219 
 
 what they are under any possible changes in the dramatic ar- 
 rangement of their lives. Happy or not happy — gay or sad — 
 these authors would equally have fulfilled a mission too solemn 
 and too stern in its obligations to suffer any warping from chance, 
 or to bend before the accidents of life, whether dressed in sun- 
 shine or in wintry gloom. 
 
 6. But generally this is otherwise. Children of Paradise, 
 like the Miltons of our planet, have the privilege of stars — to 
 " dwell apart." But the children of hesh, whose pulses beat 
 too sympathetically with the agitations of mother-earth, can 
 not sequester themselves in that way. They walk in no such 
 altitudes, but at elevations easily reached by ground-winds of 
 humble calamity. And from that cup of sorrow, which upon 
 all lips is pressed in some proportion, they must submit, by the 
 very tenure on which they hold their gifts, to drink, if not more 
 profoundly than others, yet always with more bitterness. 
 
 7. " Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of princes," 
 — this has been the warning, — this has been the farewell moral, 
 winding up and pointing the experience of dying statesmen. 
 Not less truly it might be said, " Put not your trust in the in- 
 tellectual princes of your age :" form no connections too close 
 with any who live only in the atmosphere of admiration and 
 praise. The love or the friendship of such people rarely con- 
 tracts itself into the narrow circle of individuals. You, if you 
 are brilliant like themselves, they will hate ; you, if you are 
 dull, they will despise. Gaze, therefore, on the splendor of such 
 idols as a passing stranger. Look for a moment as one sharing 
 in the idolatry ; but pass on before the splendor has been sullied 
 by human frailty, or before your own generous homage has been 
 confounded with offerings of weeds. 
 
 8. Gkief ! thou art classed amongst the depressing passions. 
 And true it is that thou humblest to the dust, but also thou ex- 
 altest to the clouds. Thou shakest as with ague, but also thou 
 steadiest like frost. Thou sickenest the heart, but also thou 
 healest its infirmities. 
 
 9. Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is, like light, the 
 mightiest of agencies ; for solitude is essential to man. All 
 men come into this world alone ; all leave it alone. Even a little 
 child has a dread, whispering consciousness, that, if he should 
 be summoned to travel into God's presence, no gentle nurse 
 
220 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 will be allowed to lead him by the hand, nor mother to carry 
 him in her arms, nor little sister to share his trepidations. 
 King and priest, warrior and maiden, philosopher and child, 
 all must walk those mighty galleries alone. The solitude, 
 therefore, which in this world appalls or fascinates a child's 
 heart, is but the echo of a far deeper solitude, through which 
 already he has passed, and of another solitude deeper still, 
 through which he lias to pass : reflex of one solitude — prefigur- 
 ation of another. 
 
 10. Deep is the solitude of millions who, with hearts welling 
 forth love, have none (nun) to love them. Deep is the solitude 
 of those who, under secret griefs, have none to pity them. 
 Deep is the solitude of those who, fighting with doubts or dark- 
 ness, have none to counsel them. But deeper than the deepest 
 of these solitudes is that which broods over childhood under 
 the passion of sorrow — bringing before it, at intervals, the final 
 solitude which watches for it, and is waiting for it within the 
 gates of death. O mighty and essential solitude, that wast, 
 and art, and art to be, thy kingdom is made perfect in the 
 grave ; but even over those that keep watch outside the grave, 
 thou stretchest out a scepter of fascination. 
 
 11. The dream commenced with a music which now I offcn 
 heard in dreams — a music of preparation and of awakening 
 suspense ; a music like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, 
 and which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast march, of infinite 
 cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. The 
 morning was come of a mighty day — a day of crisis and of 
 final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious 
 eclipse, and laboring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I 
 knew not where — somehow, I knew not how — by some beings, 
 I knew not whom — a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, 
 — was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music ; with 
 which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my con- 
 fusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. 
 I, as is usual in dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves 
 central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the 
 power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, 
 to will it ; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of 
 twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable 
 guilt. " Deeper than ever plummet sounded," I lay inactive. 
 
GIL BLAS AND THE OLD ARCHBISHOP. 2*21 
 
 12. Then, liko a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater 
 interest was at stake ; some mightier cause than ever yet the 
 sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came 
 sudden alarms ; hurryings to and fro ; trepidations of innu- 
 merable fugitives. I knew not whether from the good cause or 
 the bad ; darkness and lights ; tempest and human faces ; and 
 at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and tho 
 features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment 
 allowed, — and clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and 
 then — everlasting farewells ! and, with a sigh, such as the caves 
 of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred 
 name of Death, the sound was reverberated — everlasting fare- 
 wells ! and again, and yet again reverberated — everlasting fare- 
 wells! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud — "I will 
 
 SLEEP NO MOKE!" De QUIKCBT, 
 
 SECTION XI. 
 I. 
 
 58. GIL BLAS AND THE OLD ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 A RCHBISHOP. "Well, young man, what is your business 
 i \ with me ? 
 
 Gil Bias. I am the young man whom your nephew, Don Fer- 
 nando, was pleased to mention to you. 
 
 ^I?*c/i. Oh! you are the person, then, of whom he spoke so 
 handsomely. I engage you in my service, and consider you a 
 valuable acquisition. From the specimens he showed me of 
 your powers, you must be pretty well acquainted with the 
 Greek and Latin authors. It is very evident your education has 
 not been neglected. I am satisfied with your handwriting, and 
 still more with your understanding. I thank my nephew, Don 
 Fernando, for having given me such an able young man, whom 
 I consider a rich acquisition. You transcribe so well, you must 
 certainly understand grammar. Tell me, ingenuously, my 
 friend, did you find nothing that shocked you in writing over 
 the homily I sent you on trial, — some neglect, perhaps, in style, 
 or some improper term ? 
 
222 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Gil B. Oh! sir, I am not learned enough to make critical 
 observations ; and if I was, I am persuaded the works of your 
 grace would escape my censure. 
 
 Arch. Young man, you are disposed to natter ; but tell me, 
 which parts of it did you think most strikingly beautiful. 
 
 Gil B. If, where all was excellent, any parts were particularly 
 so, I should say they were the personification of hope, and the 
 description of a good man's death. 
 
 Arch. I see you have a delicate knowledge of the truly beau- 
 tiful. This is what I call having taste and sentiment. Gil Bias, 1 
 henceforth give thyself no uneasiness about thy fortune, I will 
 take care of that. I love thee, and as a proof of my affection, 
 I will make thee my confidant : yes, my child, thou shalt be the 
 repository of my most secret thoughts. Listen with attention 
 to what I am going to say. My chief pleasure consists in 
 preaching, and the Lord gives a blessing to my homilies, but I 
 confess my weakness. The honor of being thought a perfect 
 orator has charmed my imagination ; my performances are 
 thought equally nervous and delicate ; but I would of all things 
 avoid the fault of good authors, who write too long. Where- 
 fore, my dear Gil Bias, one thing that I exact of thy zeal, is, 
 whenever thou shalt perceive my pen smack of old age, and my 
 genius flag, don't fail to advertise' me of it, for I don't trust to 
 my own judgment, which may be seduced by self-love. That 
 observation must proceed from a disinterested understanding, 
 and I make choice of thine, which I know is good, and am 
 resolved to stand by thy decision. 
 
 Gil B. Thank heaven, sir, that time is far off. Besides, a 
 genius like that of your grace, will preserve its vigor much 
 better than any other ; or, to speak more justly, will be always 
 the same. I look upon you as another Cardinal Ximenes," 
 whose superior genius, instead of being weakened, seemed to 
 acquire new strength by age. 
 
 Arch. No flattery, friend : I know I am liable to sink all at 
 once. People at my ago begin to feel infirmities, and the in- 
 
 1 Gil Bias, (zel bill). arose from his efforts to advance the 
 
 1 Francis Ximenes, (zi mo' nez), interests of the Church. He was a 
 
 archbishop of Toledo, confessor to great patron of letters, and by his 
 
 Queen Isabella of Spain, was born exertions and expenditure produced 
 
 in 1437. He received the cardinal's the earliest edition of a polyglot BU 
 
 feat, in 1507. His chief influence ble. He died November 8th, 1517. 
 
GIL BLAS AND THE OLD ARCHBISHOP. 223 
 
 firmities of the body often affect the understanding. I repeat 
 it to thee again, Gil Bias, as soon as thou shalt judge mine in 
 the least impaired, be sure to give me notice. And be not 
 afraid of speaking freely and sincerely, for I shall receive thy 
 advice as a mark of thy affection. 
 
 Gil B. Your grace may always depend upon my fidelity. 
 
 Arch. I know thy sincerity, Gil Bias ; and now tell me plainly, 
 hast thou not heard tho people make some remarks upon my 
 late homilies ? 
 
 Gil B. Your homilies have always been admired, but it seems 
 to me that tho last did not appear to have had so powerful an 
 effect upon the audience as former ones. 
 
 Arch. How, sir, has it met with any Aristarchus? 
 
 Gil B. No, sir, by no means, such works as yours are not to 
 be criticised ; everybody is charmed with them. Nevertheless, 
 since you have laid your injunctions upon me to bo free and sin- 
 cere, I will take the liberty to tell you that your last discourse, 
 in my judgment, has not altogether the energy of your other 
 performances. Did you not think so, sir, yourself ? 
 
 Arch. So, then, Mr. Gil Bias, this piece is not to your taste ? 
 
 Gil B. I don't say so, sir : I think it excellent, although a little 
 inferior to your other works. 
 
 Arch. I understand you ; you think I flag, don't you? Come, 
 be plain ; you believe it is time for me to think of retiring. 
 
 Gil B. I should not have been so bold as to speak so freely, 
 if your grace had not commanded me ; I do no more, there- 
 fore, than obey you ; and I most humbly beg that you will not 
 be offended at my freedom. 
 
 Arch. God forbid ! God forbid that I should find fault with it. 
 I don't at all take it ill that you should sneak vour sentiments, 
 it is your sentiment itself, only, that I find bad. I have been 
 most egregiously deceived in your narrow understanding. 
 
 Gil B. Your grace will pardon me for obeying — 
 
 Arch. Say no more, my child, you are yet too raw to make 
 proper distinctions. Be it known to you, I never composed a 
 better homily than that which you disapprove ; for, my genius, 
 thank Heaven, hath, as yet, lost nothing of its vigor : henceforth 
 
 i Ar N is tar'chus was a celebrated revised the poems of Homer with 
 grammarian of Samos. He was fa- such severity, that, ever after, all se- 
 mous for his critical powers ; and he vere critics were called Aristarchi. 
 
224 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 I will make a better choice of a confidant. Go ! go, Mr. Gil 
 Bias, and tell my treasurer to give you a hundred ducats, and 
 may Heaven conduct you with that sum. Adieu, Mr. Gil Bias ! 
 I wish you all manner of prosperity, with a little more taste. 
 
 Le Sage. 
 Alain Le Sage, a French novelist and dramatist, was born in 1668. In 1692, 
 after having studied at the Jesuit College of Vannes, he came to Paris, where 
 he was admitted as an advocate, but soon betook himself exclusively to litera- 
 ture. Few of his plays were successful ; and for many years his career was very 
 obscure. Entering on the study of Spanish literature, he used models from that 
 language for his comic novels, some of which are among the liveliest and witti- 
 est of their class. His most celebrated work is " Gil Bias," from which the 
 above is taken. He died at Boulogne, in 1747. 
 
 II. 
 
 59. THE POET AND HIS CRITICS. 
 
 THE poem was at length published. Alas, who that knows 
 the heart of an author — of an aspiring one — will need be 
 told what were the feelings of Maldura, when day after day, 
 week after week passed on, and still no tidings of his book. To 
 think it had failed, was wormwood to his soul. " No, that was 
 impossible." Still the suspense, the uncertainty of its fate were 
 insupportable. At last, to relieve his distress, he fastened the 
 blamo on his unfortunate publisher ; though how he was in 
 fault he knew not. Full of this thought, he was just saUying 
 forth to vent his spleen on him, when his servant announced the 
 Count Piccini. 1 
 
 2. " Now," thought Maldura, "I shall hear my fate :" and he 
 was not mistaken ; for the Count was a kind of talking gazette. 
 The poem was soon introduced, and Piccini rattled on wifh all 
 he had heard of it. He had lately been piqued 3 by Maldura, and 
 cared not to spare him. After a few hollow professions of regard, 
 and a careless remark about the pain it gave him to repeat un- 
 pleasant things, Piccini proceeded to p5ur them out one upon 
 another with ruthless volubility. Then, stopping as if to take 
 breath, he continued, " I see you are surprised at all this ; but 
 indeed, my friend, I can not help thinking it principaUy owing 
 to your not having suppressed your name ; for your high repu- 
 tation, it seems, has raised such extravagant expectations as 
 none but a first-rate genius could satisfy." 
 
 1 Piccini, (pit che' ne). 3 Piqued, (pekt), offended. 
 
THE POET AND HIS CRITICS. 225 
 
 3. "By which," observed Maldura, "lam to conclude that 
 my work has failed? " Why, no — not exactly that ; it has Only 
 not been praised — that is, I mean in the way you might have 
 wished. But do not be depressed ; there'3 no knowing but the 
 tide may yet turn in your favor." " Then I suppose the book is 
 hardly as yet known?" "I beg your pardon — quite the con- 
 trary. When your friend the Marquis introduced it at his last 
 conversazione 1 every one present seemed quite an fait 7 on it, at 
 least they all talked as if they had read it." 
 
 4. Maldura bit his lips. "Pray, who were the company?" 
 " Oh, all your friends, I assure you : Guattani, Martello, Pessuti, 
 the mathematician, Alfieri, Benuci, the Venetian Castelli, and 
 the old Ferraresc Carnesecchi : these were the principal, but 
 there were twenty others who had each something to say." 
 Maldura could not but perceive the malice of this enumeration ; 
 but he checked his rising choler. " Well," said he, " if I under- 
 stand you, there was but one opinion respecting my poem with 
 all this company?" 
 
 5. "Oh, by no means. Their opinions were as various aa 
 their characters." " Well, Pessuti — what said he ?" " Why you 
 know he's a mathematician, and should not regard him. But 
 yet, to do him justice, he is a very nice critic, and not unskilled 
 in poetry." " Go on, sir, I can bear it." " Why then, it was 
 Pessuti's opinion that the poem had more learning than genius." 
 "Proceed, sir." "Martello denied it both ; but he, you know, 
 is a disappointed author. Guattani differed but little from 
 Pessuti as to its learning, but contended that you eertainly 
 showed great invention in your fable — which was like nothing 
 that ever did, or could happen. But I fear I annoy you." 
 
 6. " Go on, I beg, sir." " The next who spoke was old 
 Carnesecchi, who confessed that he had no doubt he should 
 have been delighted with the poem, could he have taken hold 
 of it ; but it was so en regie, 3 and like a hundred others, that it 
 put him in mind of what is called a polished gentleman, who 
 talks and bows, and slips through a great crowd without leaving 
 any impression. Another person, whose name I have forgotten, 
 praised the versification, but objected to the thoughts." 
 
 1 Conversazione, (kon'ver safsc- a Au fait, (6 fa'), expert; well in- 
 b y na), a meeting for conversation, structed. 
 particularly on literary subjects. 3 En regie, according to rule ; stiff 
 
226 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 7. " Because they -were absurd ?" " Oh, no, for the opposite 
 reason — because they had all been long ago known to be good. 
 Castelli thought that a bad reason ; for his part, he said, he liked 
 them all the better for that — it was like shaking hands with an 
 
 Id acquaintance in every line. Another observed, that at least 
 no critical court could lawfully condemn them, as they could 
 each plead an alibi. 1 Not an alibi, said a third, but a double; 
 so they should be burnt for sorcery "With all my heart, said a 
 fourth ; but not the poor author, for he has certainly satisfied 
 us that he is no conjuror. 
 
 8. " Then Castelli — but, 'faith, I don't know how to proceed." 
 " You are over-delicate, sir. Speak out, I pray you." " Well, 
 Benuci finished by the most extravagant eulogy I ever heard." 
 Maldura took breath. "For he compared your hero to the 
 Apollo Belvedere, 2 your heroine to the Venus 3 de Medicis, and 
 your subordinate characters to the Diana, 4 the Hercules, 5 the 
 Antln'ous, 6 and twenty other celebrated antiques ; declared them 
 all equally well wrought, and beautiful — and like them too, 
 equally cold, hard, and motionless. In short, he maintained that 
 you were the boldest and most original poet he had ever known ; 
 for none but a hardy genius, who consulted nobody's taste but 
 his own, would have dared, like you, to draw his animal life 
 from a statue gallery, and his vegetable from a hortus siccus. 7 
 
 9. Maldura's heart stiffened within him, but his pride con- 
 trolled him, and he masked his thoughts with something like 
 composure. Yet he dared not trust himself to speak, but stood 
 looking at Piccini, as if waiting for him to go on. " I believe 
 
 1 Al r i bi, elsewhere. To plead an beauty. It was discovered in the 
 
 alibi is to show that the accused was villa of Adrian, at Tivoli, the favorite 
 
 in some other place when the crime country-seat of the ancient Romans, 
 
 was committed. and carried to Florence in 1695. 
 
 3 Apollo Belvedere, a statue of 4 Dl a' na, an ancient Italian di- 
 
 the Greek divinity Apollo. In this vinity, whom the Romans identified 
 
 the god is represented with com- with the Greek Artemis. 
 
 mandingbut serene majesty; sublime 6 Her' cu les, the most celebrated 
 
 intellect and physical beauty are of all the heroes of antiquity, 
 
 combined in the most wonderful • Antinous, (an tin' o us), a beauti- 
 
 manner. It was discovered in 1503 ful youth, celebrated as the compan- 
 
 at Rett uno, and is now in the Vatican ion and favorite of Adrian, the Ro- 
 
 at Rome. man emperor, drowned in 132. 
 
 3 Venus de Medicis, a statue ad- 7 Hortus siccus, a dry or unpro. 
 
 mired as the perfection of female ductive garden. 
 
THE SENSITIVE AUTHOR. 227 
 
 that's all," said the count, carelessly twirling his hat, and rising 
 to take leave. Maldura roused himself, and, making an effort, 
 said, " No, sir, there is one person whom you have only named 
 — Alfieri ; what did he say ?" — " Nothing !" Piccini pronounced 
 this word with a graver tone than usual : it was his fiercest bolt, 
 and he knew that a show of feeling would send it home. Then, 
 after pausing a moment, he hurried out of the room. 
 
 Allston. 
 Washington Allston, universally acknowledged as of the first eminence 
 among American painters, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, November 
 5th, 1779. He received his early education at the school of Mr. Robert Rogers, 
 in Newport, Rhode Island, entered Harvard College in 17%, and received his 
 baccalaureate degree in 1800. Immediately after leaving college he chose his 
 vocation, embarked for London in 1801, and became a student of the Royal 
 Academy, of which Benjamin West, the distinguished American painter, was 
 then president. Here he remained three years, and then, after a sojourn at Paris, 
 went to Rome, where he resided four years, and became the intimate associate- 
 of Coleridge. In 1809 he returned to America for a period of two years, which 
 he passed in Boston, where he married the sister of the Rev. Dr. Charming. In 
 1811 he went a second time to England, where his reputation as a painter was 
 now well established. He received by his picture of the " Dead Man raised by 
 the Bones of Elisha" a prize of two hundred guineas, at the British Institute, 
 where the first artists in the world were his competitors. Here he published a 
 small volume, "The Sylphs of the Seasons, and other Poems," which was re- 
 printed in Boston the same year. This year his wife died, an event which af- 
 fected him deeply. He returned home in 1818, and resumed his residence at 
 Boston. In 1830 he married a sister of Richard II. Dana, and removed to Cam- 
 bridgeport. His lectures on art were commenced about the same period, four 
 only of which were completed, and these did not appear until after his decease. 
 Besides his lectures, his poems, and many short pieces which have since been 
 given to the public, Mr. Allston was the author of u Monaldi," a story of extra- 
 ordinary power and interest, from which the above extract is taken. He died 
 very suddenly, on the night of the 8th of July, 1843, leaving but one painting 
 incomplete, " Belshazzar's Feast, or the Handwriting on the Wall," upon which 
 he had been engaged at intervals for nearly twenty years. 
 
 m. 
 
 60. THE SENSITIVE AUTHOR. 1 
 Dangle, Sneer, Sir Fretful Plagiary. 
 
 DANGLE. Ah, my dear friend ! AVe v>-ere just speaking of 
 your tragedy. Admirable, Sir Fretful, admirable ! 
 Sneer. You never did anything beyond it, Sir Fretful, — never 
 
 in your life. 
 
 ■ ~~ — ■ • 
 
 1 In this scene from " The Critic, Cumberland, a vain and sensitive, 
 
 or a Tragedy Rehearsed," Sheridan though excellent man, a writer of 
 
 caricatured the foibles of Richard several plays, who died in 1811. 
 
228 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Sir F. Sincerely, then, — you do like the piece ? 
 
 Sneer. Wonderfully! 
 
 Sir F. But come now, there must be something that you think 
 might be mended, hey ? — Mr. Dangle, has nothing struck you ? 
 
 Dan. Why, faith, it is but an ungracious thing, for the most 
 part, to 
 
 Sir F. Yv 7 ith most authors it is just so indeed ; they are in 
 general strangely tenacious ! But, for my part, I am never so 
 well pleased as when a judicious critic points out any defect in 
 me ; for what is the purpose of showing a work to a friend, if 
 you don't mean to profit by his opinion ? 
 
 Sneer. Very true. Why, then, though I seriously admire the 
 piece upon the whole, yet there is one small objection ; which, 
 if you'll give me leave, I'll mention. 
 
 Sir F. Sir, you can't oblige me more. 
 
 Sneer. I think it wants incident. 
 
 Sir F. You surprise me! — wants incident? 
 
 Sneer. Yes ; I own, I think the incidents arc too few. 
 
 Sir F. Believe me, Mr. Sneer, there is no person for whose 
 judgment I have a more implicit deference. But I protest to 
 you, Mr. Sneer, I am only apprehensive that the incidents are 
 too crowded. — My dear Dangle, how does it strike yon ? 
 
 Dan. Really, I can't agree with my friend Sneer. I think 
 the plot quite sufficient ; and the first four acts by many degrees 
 the best I ever read or saw in my life. If I might venture to sug- 
 gest anything, it is that the in'terest rather falls off in the fifth. 
 
 Sir F. Rises, I believe, you mean, sir 
 
 Dan. No ; I don't, upon my word. 
 
 Sir F. Yes, }*es, you do, upon my word, — it certainly don't 
 fall off, I assure you. No, no, it don't fall off. 
 
 Dan. Well, Sir Fretful, I wish 3*011 may be ablo to get rid as 
 easily of the newspaper criticisms as you do of ours. 
 
 Sir F. The newspapers ! — Sir, they are the most villainous — ■ 
 licentious — abominable — infernal — Not that I ever read them ! 
 No ! I make it a rule never to look into a newspaper. 
 
 Dan. You are quite right, — for it certainly must hurt an 
 author of delicate feelings to see the liberties they take. 
 
 Sir F. No ! — quite the contrary ; their abuse is, in fact, the 
 best panegyric — I like it of all things. An author's reputation 
 is only in danger from their support. 
 
THE SENSITIVE AUTHOR. 2?0 
 
 Surer. Wh}-, that's true, — and that attack now on you the 
 other day 
 
 SirF. What? where? 
 
 Dan. Ay, you moan in a paper of Thursday ; it was com- 
 pletely ill-natured, to be sure. 
 
 SirF. O, so much the better — Ha! ha! ha! — I wouldn't 
 have it otherwise. 
 
 Dan. Certainly, it's only to be laughed at • (or 
 
 Sir F. You don't happen to recollect what the fellow said, do 
 you ? 
 
 Sneer. Pray, Danq-le — Sir Fretful seems a little anxious 
 
 Sir F. O no ! — anxious, — not I, — not the least. I — But ono 
 may as well hear, you know. 
 
 Dan. Sneer, do you recollect? — [Aside to Sneer.] Make out 
 fjometking. 
 
 Sneer. [Aside to Dangle.] I will. [Aloud.] Yc.% yea, I re- 
 member perfectly. 
 
 Sir F. Well, and pray now — not that it signifies — what might 
 the gentleman say ? 
 
 Sheer. Why, he roundly asserts that you have not the slightest 
 invention or original genius whatever ; though you aro the 
 greatest traducer of all other authors living. 
 
 Sir F. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Very good ! 
 
 Sneer. That, as to comedy, you have not one idea of your 
 own, he believes, even in your commonplace-book, where stray 
 jokes and pilfered witticisms are kept with as much method a3 
 tho ledger of the Lost and Stolen Office. 
 
 Sir F. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Very pleasant ! 
 
 Sneer. Nay, that you are so unlucky as not to have the skill 
 even to steal with taste : but that you glean from the refuse of 
 obscure volumes, where more judicious plagiarists have been 
 before you ; so that the body of your work is a composition of 
 dregs and sediments, — like a bad tavern's worst wine. 
 
 Sir F. Ha ! ha ! 
 
 Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, your bombast 
 (bum'bast) would be less intolerable, if the thoughts were ever 
 suited to the expression ; but the homeliness of the sentiment 
 stares through the fantastic encumbrance of its fine language, 
 like a clown in one of the new uniforms ! 
 
 Sir F. Ha ! ha ! 
 
230 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Sneer. That your occasional tropes and flowers suit the gen- 
 eral coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground 
 of linsey-wolsey ; while your imitations of Shakspeare resem- 
 ble the mimicry of FalstafPs Page, and are about as near the 
 standard of the original. 
 
 SirF. Ha! 
 
 Sneer. In short, that even the finest passages you steal are of 
 no service to you ; for the poverty of your own language pre- 
 vents their assimilating ; so that they lie on the surface like 
 lumps of marl on a barren moor, encumbering what it is not in 
 their power to fertilize ! 
 
 Sir F. [After great agitation.] Now, another person would 
 be vexed at this. 
 
 Sneer. Oh ! but I wouldn't have told you, only to divert' you. 
 
 Sir F. I know it — I am diverted — Ha ! ha ! ha ! — not the 
 least invention ! — Ha ! ha ! ha ! very good ! very good ! 
 
 Sneer. Yes — no genius ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 
 Dan. A severe rogue ! ha ! ha ! But you are quite right, Sir 
 Fretful, never to read such nonsense. You are quite right. 
 
 Sir F. To be sure — for, if there is anything to one's praise, 
 
 it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it ; and if it is abuse, — 
 
 why, one is always sure to hear of it from one good-natured 
 
 friend or another ! _ _, 
 
 R. B. Sheridan. 
 
 SECTION XII. 
 I. 
 
 61. ANCIENT AND MODERN WRITERS. 
 
 THE classics possess a peculiar charm, from the circumstance 
 that they have been the models, I might almost say the 
 masters, of composition and thought in all ages. In the con- 
 templation of these august teachers of mankind, wo are filled 
 with conflicting emotions. 
 
 2. They are the early voice of the world, better remembered 
 and more cherished still than all the intermediate words that 
 have been uttered ; as the lessons of childhood still haunt us 
 when the impressions of later years have been effaced from the 
 
ANCIENT AND MODERN WRITERS. 231 
 
 mind. But they show with most unwelcome frequency the 
 tokens of the world's childhood, before passion had yielded to 
 the sway of reason and the affections. They want the highest 
 charm of purity, of righteousness, of elevated sentiments, of 
 love to God and man. 
 
 3. It is not in the frigid philosoj^hj' of the Porch and the 
 Academy that wo are to seek these ; not in the marvelous 
 teachings of Socrates, 1 as they come mended by the mellifluous 
 words of Plato ; not in the resounciing lino of Homer, on whose 
 inspiring tale of blood Alexander 3 pillowed his head ; not in the 
 animated strain of Pindar,* where virtue is pictured in the suc- 
 cessful strife of an ath'leto 5 at the Isthmian games ; not in the 
 torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of 
 vengeance ; not in the fitful philosophy and intemperate elo- 
 quence of Tully," not in the genial libertiuism of Horace, 7 or the 
 stately atheism of Lucretius. 8 No : these must not be our mas- 
 ters ; in none of these are we to seek the way of life. 
 
 4. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these writers has 
 been engaged in weaponless contest with the Sermon on the 
 Mount, and those two sublime commandments on which hang 
 all the law and the prophets. The strife is still pending. 
 Heathenism, which has £>ossessed itself of such siren forms, is 
 not yet exorcised. It still tempts the young, controls the affairs 
 of active life, and haunts the meditations of age. 
 
 5. Our own productions, though they may yield to those of 
 the ancients in the arrangement of ideas, in method, in beauty 
 
 1 S5c' rates, an illustrious Grecian in May or June, b. c. 323. 
 philosopher and teacher of youth, < Pindar, the greatest of the Greek 
 was born at Athens, in the year 4G8 lyric poets, born b. c. 518, and died 
 B. c. Though the best of all the b. c. 439. 
 
 men of his time, and one of the wisest ■ Ath' lete, a contender for victory 
 
 and most just of all men, he unjustly in wrestling or other games, 
 
 suffered the punishment of death e Tully, Marcus Tullius Cicero, 
 
 for impiety, at the age of seventy. 7 H5r r ace, the Roman poet, bom 
 
 2 Mel liTlu ous, flowing with hon- on the 8th of December, b. c. Go, 
 ey ; sweetly flowing ; smooth. and died on the 19th of November, 
 
 3 Alexander the Great, son of b. c. 8. 
 
 Philip, king of Macedonia, one of 8 Lucretius, (lu kreT shi us), an em- 
 the States of Greece, was born in the inent philosopher and poet ; born at 
 autumn, b. c. 35G. lie made so manv Rome about 9G B. c., and said to have 
 conquests that he was styled the died by his own hands in the forty- 
 Conqueror of the World. He died fourth year of his age, about 62. 
 
232 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 of form, and in freshness of illustration, are immeasurably 
 superior in the truth, delicacy, and elevation of their sentiments ; 
 above all, in the benign recognition of that great Christian reve- 
 lation, the brotherhood of man. How vain are eloquence and 
 poetry, compared with this heaven-descended truth! Put in 
 one scale that simole utterance, and in the other the lore of an- 
 tiquity, with its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the 
 last will be light and trivial in the balance. Greet poetry has 
 been likened to the song of the nightingale, as she sits in the 
 rich, symmetrical crown of the palm-tree, trilling her thick- 
 warbled notes ; but even this is less sweet and tender than the 
 music of the human heart. Sumner. 
 
 Charles Sumner, son of Charles Pinckney Sumner, sheriff of Suffolk, Massa- 
 chusetts, was born in Boston, 1811. lie is widely known for the extent of his 
 legal knowledge and general attainments. As an orator and writer, he 6tands 
 deservedly high. His style is rapid and energetic, with much fullness of thought 
 and illustration. He has a great deal of enthusiasm and courage, as is shown 
 by his discourse on the "True Grandeur of Nations." On the death of Judge- 
 Story, in 1845, he was offered the vacant seat on the bench of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, which honor he persisted in declining. He was elected to 
 the Senate of the United States in 1851, to fill the vacancy created by the resig- 
 nation of Daniel Webster, and still retains that position (18GG). 
 
 II. 
 
 C2. LANGUAGE. 
 
 SOME words on Language may be well applied ; 
 And take them kindly, though they touch your pride : 
 Words lead to things ; a scale is more precise, — 
 Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice. 
 Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips 
 The native freedom of the Saxon lips : 
 See the brown peasant of the plastic South, 
 How all his passions play about his mouth ! 
 "With us, the feature that transmits the soul, 
 A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. 
 
 2. The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's walk 
 Tie the small muscles, when he strives to talk ; 
 Not all the pumice of the polished town 
 Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down 
 Iiich, honored, titled, he betrays his race 
 By this one mark — he's awkward in tho face ; — 
 
LANGUAGE. 233 
 
 Nature's rude impress, long before he knew 
 The sunny street that holds the sifted few. 
 
 3. It can't be helped, though, if we're taken young, 
 We gain some freedom of the lips and tongue ; 
 But school and college often try in vain 
 
 To break the padlock of our boyhood's chain : 
 One stubborn word will prove this axiom true — 
 No late-caught rustic can enunciate view (vu). 
 
 4. A few brief stanzas may be well employed 
 To speak of errors we can all avoid. 
 Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope 
 Tho careless churl that speaks of soap for soap : 
 Her edict exiles from her fair abode 
 
 The clownish voice that utters road for road, 
 Less stem to him who calls his coat a coat, 
 And steers his boat believing it a boat, 
 She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, 
 Who said, at Cambridge, most instead of most ; 
 But knit her brows, and stamped her angry foot, 
 To hear a teacher call a root ' a root. 2 
 
 5. Once more : speak clearly, if you speak at all ; 
 Carve every word before you let it fall ; 
 Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, 
 
 Try over hard to roll the British E ; 
 
 Do put your accents in the proper spot ; 
 
 Don't— let me beg you— don't say " How?" for " Whatf* 
 
 And, when you stick on conversation's burrs, 
 
 Don't strew the pathway with those dreadful ur$S Holmes. 
 
 Oliver "Wendell Holmes, son of the late Abiel Holmes, D.D., was bom at 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 29th of August, 1S09. He received his early 
 education at Phillips Exeter Academy, and entered Harvard University in \> - 
 On being graduated, after a year's application to the study of law, he relinquished 
 it, and devoted himself with ardor and industry to the pursuit of medicine. He 
 visited Europe in the spring of 1S33, principally residing at Paris while abroad, 
 where he attended the hospitals, became personally acquainted with many of 
 
 : Root, (rot). Paying its place by the unmeaning 
 
 a Root, (rut). syllable " ur," is here happily con- 
 
 s Urs, the drawling style in which demned. Such habits may easily be 
 
 many persons are in tho habit of corrected by a little presence of mind, 
 
 talking,heedlesslyhesitatingtothink or by following the direction, Think 
 
 of a word, and the meanwhile 6iip- twice before you speak once. 
 
234 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 the most eminent physicians of France, and acquired an intimate knowledge of 
 the language. He returned to Boston near the close of 1835, and in the follow- 
 ing spring commenced the practice of medicine in that city. He soon acquired 
 a large and lucrative practice, and in 1847 succeeded Dr. Warren as Professor of 
 Anatomy in the medical department of Harvard University. His earlier poems 
 appeared in " The Collegian," a monthly miscellany, published in 1830, by the 
 under-graduates at Cambridge. His longest poem, " Poetry, a Metrical Essay," 
 was delivered before a literary society at Cambridge in 1835. He published 
 M Terpsichore," a poem read at the annual dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 
 in 1843 ; and in 1846, " Urania, a Rhyme Lesson," pronounced before the Mer- 
 cantile Library Association. Since the " Atlantic Monthly" was started in 1855, 
 he has been a leading contributor, both in prose and verse ; and here first ap- 
 peared his " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," and " Elsie Venner." A completo 
 edition of his poems was published in 1862. Dr. Holmes is a poet of art and 
 humor and genial sentiment, with a style remarkable for its purity, terseness, 
 and point, and for an exquisite finish and grace. "His lyrics ring and sparkle 
 like cataracts of silver, and his serious pieces arrest the attention by touches of 
 the most genuine pathos and tenderness." 
 
 m. 
 
 63. SOUND AND SENSE. 
 
 THAT, in the formation of language, men have been much 
 influenced by a regard to the nature of the things and ac- 
 tions meant to be represented, is a fact of which every known 
 speech gives proof. In our own language, for instance, who does 
 not perceive in the sound of the words thunder, boundless, terri- 
 ble, a something appropriate to the sublime ideas intended to be 
 conveyed ? In the word crash we hear the very action implied. 
 Imp, elf, — how descriptive of the miniature beings to which we 
 apply them ! Fairy, — how light and tripping, just like the fairy 
 herself ! — the word, no more than the thing, seems fit to bend 
 the grass-blade, or shake the tear from the blue-eyed flower. 
 
 2. Pea is another of those words expressive of light, diminu- 
 tive objects ; any man born without sight and touch, if such 
 ever are, could tell what kind of thing a pea was from the 
 sound of the word alone. Of picturesque 1 words, sylvan and 
 crystal are among our greatest favorites. Sylvan I — what vis- 
 ions of beautiful old sunlit forests, with huntsmen and bugle- 
 horns, arise at the sound! Crystal! — does it not glitter like 
 the very thing it stands for ? Yet crystal is not so beautiful as 
 its own adjective. Crystalline ! — why, the whole mind is light- 
 
 1 Picf ur Ssque', expressing that peculiar kind of beauty that is pleas- 
 ing in a picture, natural or artificial. 
 
SOUND AND SENSE. 235 
 
 ened up with its shine. And this superiority is as it should be ; 
 for crystal can only bo one comparatively small object, -while 
 crystalline may refer to a mass — to a world of crystals. 
 
 3. It will be found that natural objects have a larger propor- 
 tion of expressive names among them than any other things. 
 The eagle, — what appropriate daring and sublimity ! the dove, — 
 what softness ! the linnet, — what fluttering gentleness ! " That 
 which men call a rose" would not by any other name, or at least 
 by many other names, smell as sweet. Lily, — what tall, cool, 
 pale, lady-like beauty have we here! Violet, jessamine, hya- 
 cinth, a-nem'onc, geranium ! — beauties, all of them, to the ear as 
 well as the eye. 
 
 4. The names of the precious stones have also a beauty and 
 magnificence above most common things. Diamond, sajtpfiire, 
 am'ethyst, btr'yl, ruby, ag'ate, pearl, jasper, topaz, garnet, cnvrald, 
 — what a caskanet of sparkling sounds! Diadem and coronet 
 glitter with gold and precious stones, like the objects they rep- 
 resent. It is almost unnecessary to bring forward instances of 
 the fine things which are represented in English by fine words. 
 Let us take any sublime passage of our poetry, and we shall 
 hardly find a word which is inappropriate in sound. For ex- 
 ample : — 
 
 The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
 The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
 Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, 
 And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
 Leave not a rack l behind. 
 
 The "gorgeous palaces," "the solemn temples," — how ad'mira- 
 bly do these lofty sounds harmonize with the objects ! 
 
 5. The relation between the sound and sense of certain words 
 is to be ascribed to more than ono cause. Many are evidently 
 imitative representations of the things, movements, and acts, 
 which are meant to bo expressed. Others, in which we only 
 find a general relation, as between a beautiful thing, and a beau- 
 tiful word, a ridiculous thing and a ridiculous word, or a sublime 
 idea and a sublime word, must be attributed to those faculties, 
 
 1 Rack, properly, moisture ; clamp- quently read, "Leave not a wreck 
 
 ness ; hence, thin, flying, broken behind." It is manifest, however, 
 
 clouds, or any portion of floating that Shakspeare wrote rack, a more 
 
 vapor in the sky. This line is fre- poetical and descriptive epithet. 
 
236 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 native to every mind, which enable us to perceive and enjoy the 
 beautiful, the ridiculous, and the sublime. 
 
 6. Doctor Wallis, who wrote upon English grammar in the 
 reign of Charles II., represented it as a peculiar excellence of 
 our language, that, beyond all others, it expressed the nature of 
 the objects which it names, by employing sounds sharper, softer, 
 weaker, stronger, more obscure, or more stridulous, 1 according 
 as the idea which is to be suggested requires. He gives various 
 examples. Thus, words formed upon st always deuote firmness 
 and strength, analogous 2 to the Latin sto ; as, stand, stay, staff, 
 stop, stout, steady, stake, stamp, &c. 
 
 7. Words beginning with str intimate violent force and energy ; 
 as, strive, strength, stress, stripe, &c. TJir implies forcible mo- 
 tion : as, throw, throb, thrust, threaten, thraldom, thrill : gl, 
 smoothness or silent motion ; as, glib, glide : tor, obliquity or 
 distortion ; as, wry, wrest, wrestle, wring, wrong, wrangle, wrath, 
 &c. : siv, silent agitation, or lateral 3 motion ; as sway, swing, 
 swerve, sweep, swim : si, a gentle fall or less observable motion ; 
 as, slide, slip, sly, slit, slow, slack, sling : sp, dissipation or ex- 
 pansion ; as, spread, sprout, sprinkle, split, spill, spring. 
 
 8. Terminations in ash indicate something acting nimbly and 
 
 sharply ; as, crash, dash, rash, flash, lash, slash : terminations in 
 
 ash, something acting more obtusely and dully ; as, crush, brush, 
 
 hush, gush, blush. The learned author produces a great many 
 
 more examples of the same kind, which seem to leave no doubt 
 
 that the analogies of sound ha've had some influence on the 
 
 formation of words. At the same time, in all speculations of 
 
 this kind, there is so much room for fancy to operate, that they 
 
 ought to be adopted with much caution in forming any general 
 
 theory. Chambers. 
 
 Robert Chambers, a noted Scottish writer and publisher, remarkable for his 
 energy and industry, -was born in 1801. He, with his brother William, com- 
 menced trade in book-shops in Edinburgh ; and, subsequently, became author 
 and publisber. The brothers arc completely identified with the cheap and useful 
 literature of the day, in this country, as well as in the United Kingdom. 
 
 1 Strid' u lous, making a creaking form, design, effects, etc., or in the 
 Bound. relations borne to other objects. 
 
 2 A nal' o gous, correspondent ; s Lat' er al, pertaining or belong- 
 having a similarity with regard to ing to the sido ; from side to side. 
 
THE POWER OF WORDS. 237 
 
 IV. 
 
 64. THE POWER OF WORDS. 
 
 WORDS arc most effective when arranged in that order 
 which is called style. The great secret of a good style, 
 we are told, is to have proper words in proper places. To mar- 
 shal one's verbal battalions in such order that they must bear 
 at once upon all quarters of a subject, is certainly a great art. 
 This is done in different ways. Swift, 1 Temple, 2 Addison, Hume, 3 
 Gibbon, Johnson, Burke,* are all great generals in the discipline 
 of their verbal armies, and the conduct of their paper wars. 
 Each has a system of tactics of his own, and excels in the use 
 of some particular weapon. 
 
 2. The tread of Johnson's style is heavy and sonorous, resem- 
 bling that of an elephant or a mail-clad warrior. He is fond of 
 leveling an obstacle by a polysyllabic battering-ram. Burke's 
 words are continually practicing the broad sword exercise, and 
 sweeping down adversaries with every stroke. Arbuthnot, 1 ' 
 " plays his weapon like a tongue of flame." Addison draws up 
 his light infantry in orderly array, and marches through sen- 
 tence after sentence, without having his ranks disordered or his 
 line broken. 
 
 3. Luther is different. His words arc "half battle;" "his 
 smiting idiomatic phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of 
 
 1 Jonathan Swift, of English de- Edinburgh, Scotland, April 2Gtli, 
 
 scent, author of the" Travels of Lem- 1711, and died in August, 177G. 
 
 uel Gulliver," was born at Dublin, in * Edmund Burke, a celebrated 
 
 November, 1GG7. In the spring of British orator, statesman, and philos- 
 
 1713 he was appointed Dean of St. ophcr, was born at Dublin, Jan. 1st, 
 
 Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. As a 1730, and died July 8th, 1797. 
 
 writer of plain, pure, vigorous, idio- 6 John Arbuthnot, an eminent 
 
 matic English, Swift had no equal ; English physician of the 17th cen- 
 
 and he had hardly any superior as a tury, but more distinguished as a 
 
 satirist. He died in October, 1745. man of wit and letters ; the associate 
 
 3 Sir William Temple, an eminent of Popeand Swift, and the companion 
 
 statesman and writer, born at Lon- of Bolingbroke at the court of Queen 
 
 don, in 1628, and died in 1700. Anne : born in 1G75, and died in 1735. 
 
 3 David Hume, one of the most 6 Martin Luther, the great Ger- 
 
 celebrated historians and philoso- man reformer, was born November 
 
 phers of Great Britain, author of a 10th, 1483, and died on the 18th of 
 
 "Historv of England," was born at February, 1546. 
 
238 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 the matter." Gibbon's legions are heavily armed, and march 
 with precision and dignity to the music of their own tramp. 
 They are splendidly equipped, but a nice eye can discern a little 
 rust beneath their fine apparel, and there are suttlers in his 
 camp who lie, cog, and talk gross obscenity. Macaulay, brisk, 
 livery, keen, and energetic, runs his thoughts rapidly through 
 his sentence, and kicks out of the way every word which 
 obstructs his passage. He reins in his steed only when he has 
 reached his goal, and then does it with such celerity that he is 
 nearly thrown backward by the suddenness of his stoppage. 
 
 4. Gifford's ' words are moss-troopers, that waylay innocent 
 travelers and murder them for hire. Jeffrey is a fine ''lance," 
 with a sort of Ar'ab swiftness in his movement, and runs an 
 iron-clad horseman through the eye before he has had time to 
 close his helmet. John Wilson's 2 camp is a disorganized mass, 
 who might do effectual service under better discipline, but who 
 under his lead are suffered to carry on a rambling and predatory 
 warfare, and disgrace their general by flagitious excesses. Some- 
 times they steal, sometimes swear, sometimes drink, and some- 
 times pray. 
 
 5. Swift's words are porcupine's quills, which he throws with 
 unerring aim at whoever approaches his lair. All of Ebenezer 
 Elliot's 3 words are gifted with huge fists, to pummel and bruise. 
 Chatham 4 and Mirabeau 5 throw hot shot into their opponents' 
 magazines. Talfourd's 6 forces are orderly and disciplined, and 
 march to the music of the Dorian flute ; those of Keats 7 keep 
 time to the tones of the pipe of Phcebus ; 8 and the hard, harsh- 
 
 1 William Gifford, a celebrated greatest orators and writers of France, 
 
 English writer, was born in 1756, and a leader of the revolution, was 
 
 and died in 182G. born in 1749, and died in 1791. 
 
 8 John Wilson, a well-known and 6 Thomas Noon Talfourd, an able 
 
 very eminent Scottish writer, was English poet and prose writer, an 
 
 born in 1785, and died in 1854. advocate, judge, and member of Par- 
 
 8 Ebenezer Elliot, a genuine poet, liament,beloved for his social virtues, 
 
 the celebrated " Corn Law Rhymer," was born in 1795, and died in 1854. 
 
 was born in 1781, and died in 1849. 7 John Keats, a true poet, born in 
 
 4 Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of London, in 1796, and died at Rome, 
 
 Chatham, one of the most celebrated in 1820. 
 
 of British statesmen and orators, 8 Phoebus, the Bright or Pure, an 
 
 born November 15th, 1708, and died epithet of Apollo, used to signify the 
 
 May 11th, 1778. brightness and purity of youth, also 
 
 * Mirabeau, (me N ra bo'), one of the applied to him as the Sun-god. 
 
THE POWER OF WORDS 1>,'J9 
 
 featured battalions of Maginn, 1 are always preceded by a brass 
 band. Hallam's* word-infantry can do much execution, when 
 they are not in each other's way. Pope's phrases are cither 
 daggers or rapiers. 
 
 6. Willis's words are often tipsy with the champagne of the 
 fancy, but even when they reel and stagger they keep the line 
 of grace and beauty, and though scattered at first by a fierce 
 onset from graver cohorts, soon reunite without wound or loss.j 
 John Neal's forces are multitudinous, and fire briskly at every 
 thing. They occupy all the provinces of letters, and are nearly 
 useless from being spread over too much ground. Everett's 
 weapons are ever kept in good order, and shine well in the sun, 
 but they are little calculated for warfare, and rarely kill when 
 they strike. Webster's words are thunder-bolts, which some- 
 times miss the Titans at whom they are hurled, but always leave 
 enduring marks when they strike. 
 
 7. Hazlitt's 1 verbal army is sometimes drunk and surly, some- 
 times foaming with passion, sometimes cool and malignant ; but 
 drunk or sober, are ever dangerous to cope with. Some of Tom 
 Moore's words are shining dirt, which he flings with excellent 
 aim. This hst might be indefinitely extended, and arranged 
 with more regard to merit and chronology. My own words, in 
 this connection, might be compared to ragged, undisciplined 
 militia, w T hich could be easily routed by a charge of horse, and 
 which are apt to fire into each other's faces. WnirpLE. 
 
 E. P. Wniri'LE, one of the youngest and most brilliant of American writers, 
 was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on tbe 8th of March, 1B11>. "When four 
 years of age, his family removed to Salem, ■where he attended various schools 
 until he was fifteen, when he entered the Bank of General Interest in that city 
 as a clerk. In his eighteenth year, he went to Boston, where he has ever since 
 been occupied mainly with commercial pursuits. Although, from the age of 
 fourteen, Mr. Whipple has been a writer for the press, occasionally writing re- 
 markably well, he was only known as a writer to his few associates and confidants 
 until 1843, when he published in the Boston Miscellany a paper on Macaulay, 
 rivaling in analysis, and reflection, and richness of diction, the best productions 
 
 1 William Maginn, L.L.D., an able ar, one of the greatest British his- 
 
 British writer of prose and poetry, a torians, author of " View of the State 
 
 frequentcontributor to "Blackwood's of Europe during the Middle Ages," 
 
 Magazine," the founder of " Frazer's born in 1TT7, and died Jan. 21st, 18o9. 
 
 Magazine," was born at Cork, in s William Hazlitt, a well-known 
 
 1794, and died at Walton-on-the and very able British essayist and 
 
 Thames, in 1842. critic of art and poetry, born in 1778, 
 
 * Henry Hallam, a profound schol- and died in 1830. 
 
240 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 of that brilliant essayist. He has since published, in the North American lie- 
 view, articles on the Puritans, American Poets, Daniel Webster as an Author, 
 Old English Dramatists, British Critics, South's Sermons, Byron, Wordsworth, 
 Talfourd, Sydney Smith, and other subjects; in the American Review, on 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, English Poets of the Nineteenth Century, etc. ; and in 
 other periodicals, essays and reviewals enough to form several volumes. As a 
 critic, he writes with keen discrimination, cheerful confidence, and unhesitating 
 freedom ; illustrating truth with almost unerring precision, and producing a fair 
 and distinct impression of an author. His style is sensuous, flowing, and idio- 
 matic, abounding in unforced antitheses, apt illustrations, and natural grace. 
 
 V. 
 
 65. FROM THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM. 
 
 ~YXT"KOEVER thinks a faultless piece to sec 
 
 V V Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. 
 In every work regard the writer's end, 
 Since none can compass more than they intend ; 
 And, if the means be just, the conduct true, 
 Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due. 
 As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit, 
 To avoid great errors must the less commit ; 
 Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays ; 
 For not to know some trifles, is a praise. 
 Most critics, fond of some subservient art, 
 Still make the whole depend upon a part : 
 They talk of principles, but notions prize, 
 And all to one loved folly sacrifice. 
 
 2. Some to conceit alone their taste confine, 
 
 And glittering thoughts struck out at every line ; 
 
 Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit ; 
 
 One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. 
 
 Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace 
 
 The naked nature, and the living grace, 
 
 With gold and jewels cover every part. 
 
 And hide with ornaments their want of art. 
 
 True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, 
 
 What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed ; 
 
 Something, whoso truth convinced at sight we find, 
 
 That gives us back the image of our mind. 
 
 As shades more sweetly recommend the light, 
 
 So modest plainness sefes off sprightly wit ; 
 
FROM THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM. '241 
 
 For works may have more wit than does them good, 
 As bodies perish through excess of blood. 
 
 3. Others for language all their care express, 
 And value books, as women men — for dress : 
 Their praise is still — the style is excellent : 
 The sense, they humbly take upon content. 
 
 Words are like leaves ; and where they most abound, 
 
 Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. 
 
 False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, 
 
 Its gaudy colors spreads on every place ; 
 
 The face of Nature we no more survey, 
 
 All glares alike, without distinction gay : 
 
 But true expression, like the unchanging sun, 
 
 Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon ; 
 
 It gilds all objects, but it alters none. 
 
 4. Expression is the dress of thought, and still 
 Appears more decent, as more suitable : 
 
 A vile conceit in pompous words expressed, 
 
 Is like a clown in regal purple dressed ; 
 
 For different styles with different subjects sort, 
 
 As several garbs, with country, town, and court. 
 
 In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold ; 
 
 Alike fantastic, if too new or old : 
 
 Be not the first bv whom the new are tried, 
 
 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. 
 
 5. But most by numbers judge a poet's song ; 
 
 And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong. 
 In the bright Muse though thousand charms conspire, 
 Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire ; 
 "Who haunt Parnassus ' but to please their ear, 
 Not mend their minds ; as some to church repair, 
 Not for the doctrine, but the music thero. 
 These, equal syllables alone require, 
 Though oft the ear tho open vowels tire ; 
 "While expletives their feeble aid do join, 
 And ten slow words oft creep in one dull lino : 
 "While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, 
 "With sure returns of still expected rhymes ; 
 
 1 Par nas' sus, a celebrated mountain in Greece, considered in mythology 
 as sacred to Apollo and the Muses. 11 
 

 242 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Where'er you find the " cooling western breeze," 
 
 In the next line it "whispers through the trees :" 
 
 If crystal streams " with pleasing murmurs creep,' 
 
 The reader's threatened (not in Tain) with " sleep :' 
 
 Then at the last and only couplet, fraught 
 
 With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, 
 
 A needless Alexandrine 1 ends the song, 
 
 That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. 
 
 6. Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know 
 What's roundly smooth or languishingly slow ; 
 
 And praise the easy vigor of a line, 
 
 Where Denham's 2 strength and Waller's 3 sweetness join. 
 
 True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, 
 
 As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 
 
 Tis not enough no harshness gives offence ; 
 
 The sound must seem an echo to the sense : 
 
 Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, 
 
 And the cool stream in smoother numbers flows ; 
 
 But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 
 
 The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. 
 
 7. When Ajax 4 strives some rock's vast weight to throw; 
 The line too labors, and the words move slow : 
 
 Not so when swift Camilla 6 scours the plain, 
 
 Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main : 
 
 Hear how Timutheiis' G varied lays surprise, 
 
 Aud bids altern'ate passions fall and rise ! 
 
 While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove T 
 
 i Al ex an' drine, a verso or lino num, was one of the swift-footed ser 
 
 of twelve syllables, so called from a vants of Diana, accustomed to the 
 
 poem written in French, on the life chase and to war. Virgil represents 
 
 of Alexander. her as so swift and light of foot, that 
 
 3 Sir J. Denham, an English wri- she could run over a field of corn with- 
 
 ter of verse, born in 1C15, and died out bending the stalks, or over the 
 
 in 1GG8. sea without wetting her feet. 
 
 3 Edmund Waller, one of the most c Ti mo' the us, a fr mous musician 
 famous of the early English poets, and poet, born at Miletus, B. C. 446, 
 born in 1G03, and died in 1G8T. and died in 357, in the ninetieth 
 
 4 Ajax, one of the Grecian princes year of his age. Also the name of a 
 in the Trojan war, and, next to distinguished flute-player, the favor- 
 Achilles, the bravest. ite of Alexander the Great. 
 
 6 Camilla., daughter of King Meta- 7 Son of Libyan Jove, a name 
 
 bus, of the Volsoian town of Triver- which Alexander theGreatarrogated. 
 
PARALLEL BETWEEN POPE AND DRYDEN. 213 
 
 Now burns with glory, and then melts with love ; 
 
 Now his tierce eyes with sparkling fury glow ; 
 
 Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow : 
 
 Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, 
 
 And the world's victor stood subdued by sound. Por-E. 
 
 Alexander PorE, the poet, to whom English poetry and the English language 
 are greatly Indebted, was born May 22d, 1688, In London. He was a very sickly 
 child; and his bodily infirmities remained through life. He never grew to be 
 taller than about four feet; and his deformity and weakness of limbs were so 
 great, that, for several years before his death, he could not dress or undress him- 
 self. Yet, after his twelfth year, he attended no school, but educated himself. 
 The whole of his early life was that of a severe 6tudent. lie was a poet in 
 infancy. The "Ode to Solitude" dates from his twelfth yc~r. At the age of 
 sixteen he wrote his Rutonzfc, and his imitation of Chaucer. lie soon became 
 acquainted with most of the eminent persons of the day, both In politics and 
 literature. His " Essay on Criticism," which was composed when he was only 
 twenty-one, is regarded by many as the finest piece of argumentative poetry In 
 the English language. His celebrity was effectually and deservedly secured in 
 1712, by his first edition of the " Rape of the Lock." He soon after published 
 "The Messiah," "The Temple of Fame," "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," and 
 " Windsor Forest." His translation of the Iliad, published by subscription, 
 from 1715 to 1720, produced to the author more than £5,000. His edition of 
 Bhakspeare, and his Odyssey, appeared in 1725. The "Essay on Man," and 
 several other valuable poems, appeared in 1738. He died In May, 1744. For a 
 description of Pope's fine poetic endowments, sec the next exercise. 
 
 VI. 
 
 GG. PARALLEL BETWEEN POPE AND DRYDEN. 
 
 POPE professed to have learned Lis poetry from Dryden, 
 whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised 
 through his whole life wife unvaried liberality ; and perhaps his 
 character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with 
 his master. 
 
 2. Integrity of understanding, and nicety of discernment, were 
 not allotted in a ^?ss proportion to Dryden than to Pope. The 
 rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dis- 
 mission of his poetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural 
 thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to 
 apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed 
 to write, merely for the people ; and when he pleased others, 
 he contented himself. 
 
 3. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent j)Owers ; ho 
 never attempted to make that better which was already good, 
 nor often to mend what he must havo known to be faulty. He 
 
244 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration : when occa- 
 sion or necessity called upon him, ho poured out what the pres- 
 ent moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed 
 the press, ejected it from his mind ; for, when he had no pecu- 
 niary interest he had no further solicitude. 
 
 4. Pope was not content to satisfy ; he desired to excel, and 
 therefore always endeavored to do his best ; he did not court 
 the candor, but dared the judgment of his reader, and, expecting 
 no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself. He ex- 
 amined lines and words with minute and punctilious observa- 
 tion, and retouched every part with indefatigable diligence, till 
 he had left nothing (nuth'ing) to be forgiven. 
 
 5. For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, 
 while he considered and reconsidered them. The only poems 
 which can be supposed to have been written with such regard 
 to the times as might hasten their publication, were the two 
 satires of Thirty-eight : of which Dodsley ' told me, that they 
 were brought to him by the author, that they might be fairly 
 copied. "Every line," said he, "was then written twice over : 
 I gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some time after- 
 ward to me for the press, with every line written twice over a 
 second time." 
 
 6. His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their 
 publication, was not strictly true. His parental attention never 
 abandoned them : what he found amiss in the first edition, he 
 silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have 
 revised the Hi'dd, and freed it from some of its imperfections ; 
 and the Essay on Criticism received many improvements after 
 its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he altered 
 without adding clearness, elegance, or vigor Pope had per- 
 haps the judgment of Dryden ; but Dryden certainly wanted 
 the diligence of Pope. 
 
 7. In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to 
 Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before 
 he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, 
 with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, 
 and he collects his images and illustrations from a more exten- 
 sive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in 
 
 1 Robert Dodsley, an able miscellaneous ■writer and well-known London 
 bookseller, was born at Mansfield, 1703, and died 1764. 
 
PARALLEL BETWEEN POPE AND DRYDEN. 2-45 
 
 his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions 
 of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, and those 
 of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the 
 knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope. 
 
 8. Poetry was not the sole praise of either ; for both excelled 
 likewise in prose ; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his 
 predecessor. The stylo of Dryden is capricious and varied ; that 
 of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of 
 his own mind ; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of 
 composition. Dryden is sometimes ve'hement and rajnd ; Pope 
 is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a nat- 
 ural field, rising into inequalities, and diver'sified by the varied 
 exuberance of abundant vegetation ; Pope's is a velvet lawn, 
 shaven by the scythe, and leveled by the roller. 
 
 9. Of genius, — that power which constitutes a poet — that 
 quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert 
 — -that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates, 
 — the superiority must, with some hesitation, bo allowed to Dry- 
 den. It is not to be inferred, that of this poetical vigor Pope 
 had only a little, because Dryden had more ; for every other 
 writer since Milton must give place to Pope ; and even of Dry- 
 den it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has 
 not better poems. 
 
 10. Dryden's performances were always hasty, either excited 
 by some external occasion or extorted by domestic necessity ; 
 he composed without consideration, and published without cor- 
 rection. What his mind could supply at call, or gather in one 
 excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The 
 dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, 
 to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might 
 produce, or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, 
 therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of 
 Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more 
 regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and 
 Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent aston- 
 ishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. 
 
 11. This parallel will, I hope, when it is well considered, be 
 found just ; and if the reader should suspect me, as I suspect 
 myself, of some partial fondness for the memory of Dryden, let 
 him not too hastily condemn me ; for meditation and inqui'ry 
 
246 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 may, psrhap3, sliow hiin the reasonableness of ray determin- 
 ation. Johnson. 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the literary 
 men of the eighteenth century, was born at LitchQeld, England, on the ISth of 
 September, 1700. In the child, the peculiarities which afterward distinguished 
 the man were plainly discernible ;— great muscular strength, accompanied by 
 much awkwardness, and many iutirmitics ; great quickness of parts, with a mor- 
 bid propensity to sloth and procrastination; a kind and generous heart, with a 
 gloomy and irritable temper. Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge with 
 such ease and rapidity, that at every school to which he was sent he was soon the 
 best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, and learned much, 
 though his studies were without guidance and without plan. When the young 
 scholar presentod himself at Pembroke College, Oxford, he amazed the rulers of 
 that society not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by tho 
 quantity of his extensive and curious information. "While here, he early made 
 himself known by turning Pope's Messiah into Latin verse. He was poor, how- 
 ever, even to raggedness ; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity which 
 were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. After residing at Oxford about 
 three years, Johnson's resources failed; and he was under the necessity of quit- 
 ting the university without a degree, in the autumn of 1731. In the following 
 winter his father died. The old man left but a pittance; and of that pittance, 
 Samuel received not more than twenty pounds. He became usher of a grammar- 
 school in Leicestershire ; he soon after married, took a house in the neighbor- 
 hood of his native town, and advertised for pupils. But eighteen months passed 
 away, and only three pupils came to his academy, one of whom was the cele- 
 brated David Garrick. At length, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, he went 
 to London to seek his fortune as a literary adventurer. Some time elapsed before 
 he was able to form any literary connection from which he could expect more 
 than bread for the day that was passing over him. The effect of the privations 
 and sufferings which he endured at this time was discernible to the last in his 
 temper and deportment. His manners had never been courtly. They now be- 
 came almost savage. About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London, 
 he fortunately obtained regular employment as a reporter, or rather writer of 
 parliamentary speeches for the " Gentleman's Magazine." A few weeks after he 
 had entered on these obscure labors, he published a stately and vigorous poem, 
 entitled " London," which at once placed him high among the writers of his 
 age. From this period till 1763 he was subjected to anxiety and drudgery ; and 
 was only able to gain a bare subsistence by the most intense daily toil. This 
 was, however, in part owing to his having been singularly unskillful and un- 
 lucky in his literary bargains, as in the mean time he had published the "Vanity 
 of Human Wishes," in 1740; a "Dictionary of the English Language," in 1755; ( 
 and " Rassclas," in 1750. He also published a paper, entitled the " Rambler," 
 every Tuesday and Saturday, from March, 1750, to March, 1753; and a series of 
 weekly essays, entitled "The Idler," for two years, commencing in the spring- 
 of 175*3. Able judges have pronounced these periodicals equal, if not superior 
 to the " Speetator." In 1703, through the influence of Lord Bute, he received 
 a pension of £300 a year; and from t'.iat period a great change in his circum- 
 stances took place. The University of Oxford honored him with a doctor's de- 
 gree, and the Royal Academy with a professorship. I!e was now free to indulge 
 his constitutional idleness; still, though he wrote but little, his tongUO was 
 active. The influence exercised by his conversation, directly upon the members 
 of the celebrated olub over which he predominated, and iudircctly upon the 
 
CHARGE AGAINST LORD BYRON. 247 
 
 ■whole literary world, was altogether without a parallel. Tlis colloquial powers 
 •were of the highest order, lie had 6trong sense, quick discernment, humor, 
 wit, immense knowledge of literature and of life, and an infinite store of curious 
 anecdotes. Every sentence that fell from h'13 lips was correct in structure. All 
 was simplicity, ease, and vigor. Of all his numerous writings, those that arc 
 now most popular are the " Vanity of Human Wishes" and the " Lives of the. 
 Poets." In a serene frame of mind, he died on the 13th of Dcccmher, 17S4 5 
 and a week later was laid in Wcstmiuster Abbey. 
 
 SECTION XIII. 
 I. 
 
 G7. CHARGE AGAINST LORD BYRON. 
 
 THE charge we bring against Lord Byron is, that his writings 
 have a tendency to destroy all belief in the reality of virtue, 
 and to make all enthusiasm and constancy of affection ridicu- 
 lous : and this, not so much by direct maxims and examples of 
 an imposing or seducing kind, as by the constant exhibition of 
 the most profligate hcartlcssncss in the persons who had been 
 transiently represented as actuated by the purest and most 
 exalted emotions ; and in the lessons of that very teacher who 
 had been, but a moment before, so beautifully pathetic in tho 
 expression of the loftiest conceptions. 
 
 2. When a gay voluptuary descants, somewhat too freely, on 
 the intoxications of love and wine, wo ascribe his excesses to tho 
 effervescence of youthful spirits, and do not consider him as 
 seriously impeaching cither the value or the reality of the severer 
 virtues ; and, in the same way, when the satirist deals out his 
 sarcasms against the sincerity of human professions, and unmasks 
 the secret infirmities of our bosoms, we consider this as aimed at 
 hypocrisy, and not at mankind : or, at all events, and in tiihcr 
 case, we consider the sensualist and mis'anthrope as wandering, 
 each in his own delusion, and are contented to pity those who 
 have never known the charms of a tender or generous affection. 
 
 3. The true antidote to such seductive or revolting views of 
 human nature, is to turn to the scenes of its nobleness and at- 
 traction ; and to reconcile ourselves again to our kind, by listen- 
 ing to the accents of pure affection and incorruptible honor. 
 But, if those accents have flowed in all their sweetness from the 
 
248 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 very lips that instantly open again to mock and blaspheme them, 
 the antidote is mingled with the poison, and the draught is the 
 more deadly for the mixture ! 
 
 4. The reveler may pursue his orgies, and the wanton display 
 her enchantments, with comparative safety to those around 
 them, as long as they know or believe, that there are purer and 
 higher enjoyments, and teachers and followers of a happier way. 
 But, if the priest pass from the altar, with persuasive exhorta- 
 tions to peace and purity still trembling on his tongue, to join 
 familiarly in the grossest and most profane debauchery — if the 
 matron, who has charmed all hearts by the lovely sanctimonies 
 of her con'jugal and maternal endearments, glides out from the 
 circle of her children, and gives bold and shameless way to the 
 most abandoned and degrading vices, our notions of right and 
 wrong are at once confounded, our confidence in virtue shaken 
 to the foundation, and our reliance on truth and fidelity at an 
 end forever. 
 
 5. This is the charge which we bring against Lord Byron. 
 We say, that under some strange misapprehension as to the 
 truth, and the duty of proclaiming it, he has exerted all the 
 powers of his powerful mind to convince his readers, both di- 
 rectly and indirectly, that all ennobling pursuits and disinter- 
 ested virtues are mere deceits or illusions — hollow and des'picable 
 mockeries, for the most part, and, at best, but laborious follies. 
 Religion, love, patriotism, valor, devotion, constancy, ambition — 
 all are to be laughed at, disbelieved in, and despised! and 
 nothing is really good, so far as we can gather, but a succession 
 of dangers to stir the blood, and of banquets and intrigues to 
 soothe it again (a gen') ! 
 
 6. If this doctrine stood alone with its examples, it would 
 revolt, wo believe, more than it would seduce. But the author 
 has the unlucky gift of personating all those sweet and lofty 
 illusions, and that with such grace and force, and truth to nature, 
 that it is impossible not to suppose, for the time, that he is 
 among the most devoted of their votaries — till he casts off the 
 character with a jerk, and, the moment after he has moved and 
 exalted us to the very height of our conception, resumes his 
 mockery at all things serious or sublime, and lets us down at 
 once on some coarse joke, hard-hearted sarcasm, or fierce and 
 relentless personality, — as if on purpose to show " whoo'er was 
 
LOUD BYRON. 249 
 
 edified, himself was not," or to demon'strate, practically as it 
 wore, and by example, how possible it is to havo all line and 
 noble feelings, or their appearance, for a moment, and yet re- 
 tain no particle of respect for them, or of belief in their intrinsic 
 worth or permanent reality. Jeffrey. 
 
 Francis Jeffrey, one of the most eloquent writers and most masterly critics 
 in the English language, an eminent jurist and orator, was born at Edinburgh, 
 Scotland, on the 23d of October, 177a. He passed six years at the High School 
 of Edinburgh, studied at the University of Glasgow for two sessions of six months 
 each, and in his eighteenth year resided for a few months at Oxford. His read- 
 ing in his youth embraced classics, history, ethics, criticism, and the belle* 
 h'trcs: he was indefatigable in practicing composition, and in early manhood 
 wrote many verses. He was admitted to the Scottish bar at the age of twenty- 
 one. The first number of the " Edinburgh Review," which contained five papers 
 of Jeffrey's, appeared in October, ISO'J, when he was twenty-nine years old; 
 and he became its editor after the first two or three numbers. The celebrity 
 which the Review at once attained, was owing far more to him than any other of 
 the contributors. His professional practice became very great ; and from IMG 
 till he ceased to practice, he was the acknowledged leader of the Scottish bar. 
 In 1820, and again in 1821, he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glas- 
 gow. He was appointed president of the Faculty of Advocates in 1829, when 
 he resigned the editorship of the Review, a position which he had held for twenty- 
 seven years. During that period he contributed more than two hundred articles. 
 In 1830 he was appoiuted Lord Advocate, an office which, besides many other 
 duties, involved those of Secretary of State for Scotland. He thus entered par- 
 liament in his fifty-eighth year. In 1834 he was raised to the bench, and became 
 an eminent judge, assuming the title of Lord Jeffrey. In 1843 he published 
 three volumes, containing selections from his " Contributions to the Edinburgh 
 Jicvkw." He died at Edinburgh, January 2Gth, 1850. 
 
 n. 
 
 G3. LORD BYROX. 
 
 A MAN of rank, and of capacious soul, 
 AVho riches had, and fame, beyond desire • 
 An heir of flattery, to titles born, 
 And reputation, and luxurious life : 
 Yet, not content with ancestorial name, 
 Or to be known, because his fathers were, 
 He on this height hereditary stood, 
 And gazing higher, purposed in his heart 
 To take another step. 
 
 2. Above him seemed, 
 
 Alone, the inount of song, the lofty seat 
 Of canonized bards, and thitherward, 
 
250 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 is 
 
 By Nature taught, and inward melody, 
 In prime of youth, ho bent his eagle eye. 
 No cost was spared. What books he wished, he read ; 
 "What sago to hear, ho heard ; what scenes to see, 
 He saw. And first in rambling school-boy days, 
 Britannia's mountain-walks, and heath-girt lakes, 
 And story-telling glens, and founts, and brooks, 
 And maids, as dew-drops, pure and fair, his soul 
 With grandeur filled, and melody, and love. 
 
 3. Then travel came, and took him where he wished. 
 He cities saw, and courts, and princely pomp ; 
 And mused alone on ancient mountain-brows ; 
 And mused on battle-fields, where valor fought 
 In other days ; and mused on ruins gray 
 With years ; and drank from old and fabulous wells, 
 And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked ; 
 And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave 
 Of ocean mused, and on the desert waste ; 
 The heavens and earth of every country saw. 
 "Where'er the old-inspiring Genii dwelt, 
 Aught that could rouse, expand, refine the soul, 
 Thither he went, and meditated there. 
 
 4- He touched his harp, and nations heard entranced. 
 As some vast river of unfailing source, 
 Bapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed, 
 And oped new fountains in the human heart. 
 Where fancy halted, weary in her flight, 
 In other men, his, fresh as morning, rose, 
 And soared untrodden heights, and seemed at home, 
 WTiere angels bashful looked. Others, though great, 
 Beneath their argument seemed struggling ; whiles 
 He from above descending, stooped to touch 
 The loftiest thought ; and proudly stooped, as though 
 It scarce deserved his verse. 
 
 5. With Nature's self 
 
 He seemed an old acquaintance, free to jest 
 At will with all her glorious majesty. 
 He laid his hand upon " the Ocean's mane," 
 And played familiar with his hoary locks. 
 
LORD BYRON. 251 
 
 Stood on tho Alps, stood on tho Apennines, 
 And with tho thunder talked, as friend to friend ; 
 And wovo his garland of tho lightning's wing, 
 In sportive twist, — tho lightning's fiery wing, 
 Which, as the footsteps of tho dreadful God, 
 Marching upon the storm in vcngeanco seemed : 
 Then turned, and with the grasshopper, that sung 
 His evening song beneam his feet, conversed. 
 
 C. Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters were ; 
 Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms, 
 His brothers, — younger brothers, whom ho scarce 
 As equals deemed. All passions of all men, — 
 The wild and tame — tho gentle and severe ; 
 All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profano ; 
 All creeds ; all seasons, Time, Eternity ; 
 All that was hated, and all that was dear ; 
 All that was hoped, all that was feared by man, 
 Ho tossed about, as tempest-withered leaves, 
 Then smiling looked upon the wreck ho made. 
 
 7. With terror now he froze the cowering blood ; 
 And now dissolved the heart in tenderness : 
 Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself ; 
 Rut back into his soul retired, alone, 
 
 Dark, sullen, proud, — gazing contemptuously 
 On hearts and passions prostrate at his feet. 
 So Ocean from the plains his waves had late 
 To desolation swept, retired in pride, 
 Exulting in the glory of his might, 
 And seemed to mock the ruin he had wrought 
 
 8. As some fierce comet of tremendous size, 
 
 To which the stars did reverence as it passed, 
 So he through learning and through fancy took 
 His flight sublime ; and on the loftiest top 
 Of Fame's dread mountain sat : not soiled and worn, 
 As if he from the earth had labored up ; 
 Rut, as some bird of heavenly plumage fan- 
 He looked, which down from higher regions came, 
 And perched it there, to see what lay beneath. 
 
 9. The nations gazed, and wondered much, and praised : 
 
252 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Critics before him fell in humble plight, — 
 
 Confounded fell, — and made debasing signs 
 
 To catch his eye ; and stretched, and swelled themselves, 
 
 To bursting nigh, to utter bulky words 
 
 Of admiration vast : and many, too, 
 
 Many that aimed to imitate his flight, 
 
 With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made, 
 
 And gave abundant sport to after days. 
 
 10. Great man ! The nations gazed, and wondered much, 
 And praised ; and many called his evil good. 
 
 Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness ; 
 
 And kings to do him honor took delight. 
 
 Thus full of titles, flattery, honor, fame,— ■ 
 
 Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full, — 
 
 He died : he died of what ? Of wretchedness. 
 
 Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump 
 
 Of fame ; drank early, deeply drank ; drank draughts 
 
 That common millions might have quenched, then died 
 
 Of thirst, because there was no more to drink. 
 
 His goddess, Nature, wooed, embraced, enjoyed, 
 
 Fell from his arms, abhorred ; his passions died,— 
 
 Died, all but dreary, solitary pride ; 
 
 And all his sympathies in being died. 
 
 11. As some ill-guided bark, well-built, and tall, 
 Which angry tides cast out on desert shore, 
 And then, retiring, left it there to rot 
 
 And molder in the winds and rains of heaven ; 
 
 So he, cut from the sympathies of life, 
 
 And cast ashore from pleasure's boisterous surge, 
 
 A wandering, weary, worn, and wretched thing, 
 
 Scorched, and desolate, and blasted soul, 
 
 A gloomy wilderness of dying thought, 
 
 Repined and groaned, and withered from the earth. 
 
 His groanings filled the land his numbers filled ; 
 
 And yet he seemed ashamed to groan : Poor man ! — 
 
 Ashamed to ask, and yet he needed help. Pollok. 
 
 Robert Pollok was born in 1709, In Renfrewshire, Scotland, where his lather 
 
 was a small farmer. After receiving the usual elementary education, he entered, 
 at the age of nineteen, on a five years' course of study in the University of 
 Glasgow. His ambitious and energetic poem, " Course of Time," appeared in 
 the spring of 1827, and speedily obtained a popularity which it is not likely soon 
 
MIDNIGHT— THE COLISEUM. 253 
 
 to lose. Its deeply religious character recommended it to serious person* ; and 
 it was admired by critics for the many flashes of original genius which light up 
 the crude and un wieldly design, and atone for the narrow range of thought and 
 knowledge, as well as for the stiff pomposity that pervades the diction. A few 
 of its passages arc strikingly and most poetically imaginative, and some arc 
 beautifully touching. Immediately after the publication of his poem, he was 
 admitted as a preacher in the United Secession Church. He died of consump- 
 tion in September of the same year, before the age of thirty. 
 
 III. 
 
 CO. MIDNIGHT— THE COLISEUM. 
 
 THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops 
 Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful! 
 I linger yet with Nature, for the night 
 Hath been to me a more familiar face 
 Than that of man ; and in her starry shade 
 Of dim and solitary loveliness, 
 I learned the language of another world. 
 
 2. I do remember me, that in my youth, 
 "When I was wandering, upon such a night, 
 I stood within the Colise'um's ' wall, 
 'Midst the chief relics of all-mighty Rome : 
 The trees which grew along the broken arches 
 Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars 
 Shone through the rents of ruin ; from afar 
 The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber ; and 
 More near, from out of the Crcsar's palace came 
 The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, 
 
 Of distant sentinels the fitful song 
 Begun and died upon the gentle wind. 
 
 3. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach 
 Appeared to skirt the hori'zon, yet they stood 
 "Within a bow-shot. Where the Cresars dwelt, 
 And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst 
 
 1 C5rise'um, the amphitheatre Jews. It was called the Coliseum,, 
 
 of Vespasian, at Rome, the largest from the colossal statue of Nero, 
 
 in the world, said to have held which was placed in it. In this 
 
 110,000 spectators. The ruins are amphitheater were exhibited the 
 
 still standing. It is said to have contests of gladiators and wild ani- 
 
 been built in one year, by the com- mals, and other savage spectacles in 
 
 pulsory labor of twelve thousand which the Romans delighted. 
 
254 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 A grove vrhich springs through leveled battlements, 
 And twine3 its roots with the imperial hearths/ 
 Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ; 
 But the glad'iatorV bloody circus stands 
 A noble wreck in ruinous perfection ! 
 "While Caesar's chambers and the Augustan halls 
 Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. 
 4 And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon 
 All this, and cast a wide and tender light, 
 Which softened down the hoar austerity 
 Of rugged desolation, and filled up, 
 As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries ; 
 Leaving that beautiful which still was so, 
 And making that which was not, till the place 
 Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 
 With silent worship of the great of old — 
 The dead, but sceptered sovereigns, who still rule 
 Our spirits from their urns ! Lord Byron. 
 
 George Gordon Byron, the descendant and head of an ancient and noble 
 family, was born in London, January 22nd, 17S8. He entered Trinity College, 
 Cambridge, 1805, with a rare reputation for general information, having read an 
 almost incredible list of works in various departments of literature before the age 
 of fifteen. He neglected the prescribed course of study at the university, but 
 his genius kept him ever active. His first work, " The Hours of Idleness," ap- 
 peared in 1S07. It received a castigation from the " Edinburgh Review," to 
 which we owe the first spirited outbreak of his talents, in the able and vigorous 
 satire entitled, "English Bards and Scotish Reviewers," published in 1809. He 
 took his scat in the House of Lords a few days before the appearance of this 
 satire; but soon left for the Continent. He returned home in 1S11, with two 
 cantos of " Childe Harold," which he had written abroad. They were published 
 in March, 1812, and were immediately received with such unbounded admira- 
 tion, as to justify the poet's terse remark, "I awoke one morning, and found 
 myself famous." In May of the next year, appeared his "Giaour;" in Novem- 
 ber, the "Bride of Abydos," written in a week; and, about three months after, 
 the " Corsair," written in the almost incredible space of ten days. January 2d, 
 1815, he was married to Miss Milbankc, the only daughter and heiress of Sir 
 Ralph Milbankc ; and his daughter, Augusta Ada, was born in December of that 
 year. The husband and wife, for an unknown cause, separated forever, on the 
 15th of January of the nc:;t year. He quitted England for the last time on the 
 25th of April, 1810, and passed through Elandcrs, and along the Rhine to Swit- 
 zerland, where he resided until the close of the year. He here composed the 
 third canto of "Childe Harold," the "Prisoner of Chillon," "Darkness," "The 
 Dream," and a part of "Manfred." The next year he went to Italy, where he 
 resided several years, and where he wrote the fourth canto of " Childe Harold," 
 "Mazeppa," "The Lament of Tasso," "Beppo," "Don Juan," and his dramatic 
 
 1 Hearth, (birth). 2 Glad' i a tor, a swordplayor ; a prize-fighter. 
 
VIEW OF THE COLISEUM. 255 
 
 poems. In 1S23 he interested himself in the struggle of the Greeks to throw off 
 the Turkish yoke and gain their independence. In December of that year, after 
 making his arrangements with judgment and generosity, he sailed fur Greece, 
 and arrived at Missolonghi on the 5th of January, 1S24, where he WU received 
 with great enthusiasm. In threw months he did much to produce harmony and 
 introduce order; but he had scarcely arranged hie plans to aid the nation, when 
 he was seized with a fever, and expired on the 19th of April, 1824, soon after 
 having celebrated, in affecting verses, the completion of his thirty-sixth year. 
 
 IV. 
 
 70. VIEW OF THE COLISEUM. 
 
 I WENT to sec the Colise'um by moonlight It is the mon- 
 arch, the majesty of all ruins ; there is nothing like it. All 
 the associations of tho place, too, give it the most impressive 
 character. When you enter within this stupendous circle of 
 ruinous walls and arches, and grand terraces of masonry, rising 
 one above another, you stand upon the arena of the old gladia- 
 torial combats and Christian martyrdoms ; and as you lift your 
 eyes to the vast amphitheater, you meet, in imagination, the 
 eyes of a hundred thousand Romans, assembled to witness these 
 bloody spectacles. What a multitude and mighty array of hu- 
 man beings ! and how little do we know in modern times of 
 great assemblies ! One, two, and three, and at its last enlarge- 
 ment by Constantine, 1 more than three hundred thousand per- 
 sons could be seated in tho Circus Maximus ! 
 
 2. But to return to the Colise'um ; we went up under the con- 
 duct of a guide, upon the walls and terraces, or embankments 
 which supported the ranges of seats. The seats have long since 
 disappeared ; and grass overgrows the spots where the pride, 
 and power, and wealth, and beauty of Rome sat down to its bar- 
 barous entertainments. What thronging life was here then — 
 what voices, what greetings, what hurrying footsteps up the 
 staircases of the eighty arches of entrance ! And now, as we 
 picked our way carefully through the decayed passages, or 
 cautiously ascended some nioldering flight of steps, or stood by 
 the lonely walls — ourselves silent, and, for a wonder, the guide 
 silent too — there was no sound here but of the bat, and none 
 came from without, but the roll of a distant carriage or the 
 convent bell from the summit of the neighboring Esquiline. 
 
 1 Constantine I., called the Great, was born A.D. 271 proclaimed emperor 
 of Home by the army in 806, and died in 337 
 
256 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 3. It is scarcely possible to describe the effect of moonlight 
 upon this ruin. Through a hundred rents in the broken walls, 
 through a hundred lonely arches and blackened passage-ways, 
 it streamed in,, pure, bright, soft, lambent, and yet distinct and 
 clear, as if it came there at once to reveal, and cheer, and pity 
 the mighty desolation. But if the Colise'um is a mournful and 
 desolate spectacle as seen from within — without, and especially 
 on the side which is in best preservation, it is glorious. W6 
 passed around it ; and, as we looked upward, the moon shining 
 through its arches, from the opposite side it appeared as if it 
 were the coronet of the heavens, so vast was it — or like a glori- 
 ous crown upon the brow of night. 
 
 4. I feel that I do not and can not describe this mighty ruin 
 I can only say that I came away paralyzed, and as passive as a 
 child. A soldier stretched out his hand for a gratuity, as we 
 passed the guard ; and when my companion said I did wrong to 
 give, I told him that I should have given my cloak, if the man 
 had asked it. Would you break any spell that worldly feeling 
 or selfish sorrow may have spread over your mind, go and see 
 the Colise'um by moonlight. Okville Dewey. 
 
 V. 
 
 71. THE DYING GLADIATOR. 
 
 THE seal is set. — Now welcome, thou dread power ! 
 Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here 
 Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour 
 "With a deep awe, yet all distinct froni fear ; 
 Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear 
 Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene 
 
 Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear, 
 That we become a part of what has been, 
 And grow unto the spot, all-seeing, but unseen. 
 
 2. And here the buzz of eager nations ran, 
 
 In murmured pity, or loud-roared applause, 
 
 As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man. 
 
 And wherefore slaughtered ? wherefore, but because 
 Such were the bloody circus' genial laws, 
 
 And the imperial pleasure. Wherefore not ? 
 What matters where we fall to fill tho maws 
 
SCENE WITH A PANTHER. 257 
 
 Of worms — on battle-plains or listed spot ? 
 BcJth are but theaters where the chief actors rot. 
 
 3. I see before me the gladiator lie : 
 
 He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow 
 Consents to death, but conquers agony, 
 
 And his drooped head sinks gradually low ; 
 
 And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow 
 From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, 
 
 Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now 
 Tho arena swims around him : he is gone, 
 Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won 
 
 4. He heard it, but he heeded not ; his eyes 
 
 Were with his heart, and that was far away : 
 Ho recked not of tho life he lust, nor prize ; 
 But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, 
 There were his young barbarians all at play, 
 There was their Dacian l mother — he, their sire, 
 
 Butchered to make a Bom an holiday. 
 All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire, 
 And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, 2 and glut your ire ! 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 SECTION XIV. 
 I. 
 
 72. SCENE WITH A PANTHER. 
 
 AS soon as I had effected my dangerous passage, I screened 
 myself behind a cliff, and gave myself up to reflection. 
 While thu3 occupied, my eyes were fixed upon the opposite 
 steeps. The tops of tho trees, waving to and fro in the wildest 
 commotion, and their trunks occasionally bending to the blast, 
 
 J _ , , , m * 
 
 1 Daeian, (d&' slian), from Dacia, a quest by Trajan, in the year 103, af- 
 
 country of ancient Germany form- ter a war of fifteen years, 
 
 ing the modern countries, Hungary, 2 Goths, a celebrated nation of 
 
 YVallachia, Moldavia, and Transyl- Germans, warriors by profession, 
 
 vania. Many of the gladiators camo who, in the year 410, under their 
 
 from Dacia, especially after its con- king, Alaric, plundered Rome. 
 
258 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 which, in these lofty regions, blew with a violence unknown in 
 the tracts below, exhibited an awful spectacle. 
 
 2. At length my attention was attracted by the trunk which 
 lay across the gulf, and which I had converted into a bridge. I 
 perceived that it had already somewhat swerved from its original 
 position, that every blast broke or loosened some of the fibers by 
 which its roots were connected with the opposite bank, and that, 
 if the storm did not v speedily abate, there was imminent danger 
 of its being torn from the rock and precipitated into the chasm. 
 Thus my retreat would be cut off, and the evils from which I was 
 endeavoring to rescue another, would be experienced by myself. 
 
 3. I believed my destiny to hang upon the expedition with 
 which I should recross this gulf. The moments that were spent 
 in these deliberations were critical, and I shuddered to observe 
 that the trunk was held in its place by one or two fibers which 
 were already stretched almost to breaking. To pass along the 
 trunk, rendered slippery by the wet and unsteadfast by the 
 wind was eminently dangerous. To maintain my hold in pass- 
 ing, in defiance of the whirlwind, required the most vigorous 
 exertions. For this end, it was necessary to discommode myself 
 of my cloak. 
 
 4. Just as I had disposed of this encumbrance, and had risen 
 from my seat, my attention was again called to the opposite 
 steep, by the most unwelcome object that at this time could 
 possibly present itself. Something was perceived moving among 
 the bushes and rocks, which, for a time, I hoped was no more 
 than a raccoon or opossum, but which presently appeared to be 
 a panther. His gray coat, extended claws, fiery eyes, and a cry 
 which he at that moment uttered, and which, by its reseinblanco 
 to the human voice, is peculiarly terrific, denoted him to be the 
 most ferocious and untamable of that detested race. 
 
 5. The in'dustry of our hunters lias nearly banished animals 
 of prey from these precincts. The fastnesses of Norwalk, how- 
 ever, could not but afford refuge to some of them. Of lato I 
 had met them so rarelr, that my fears were seldom alive, and I 
 trod, without caution, the rnggedest and most solitary haunts. 
 Still, however, I had seldom been unfurnished in my rambles 
 with the means of defense. 
 
 6. The unfrequency with which I had lately encountered this 
 foe, and the encumbrance of provision, made mo neglect, on this 
 
SCENE WITH A PANTHER 259 
 
 occasion, to bring with mo my usual arms. The beast tliat was 
 now before mo, when stimulated by hunger, was accustomed to 
 assail whatever could provide him with a banquet of blood. Ho 
 would set upon man and tho deer with equal and irresistible 
 ferocity. His sagacity was equal to his strength, and he seemed 
 able to discover when his antagonist was armed. 
 
 7. My past experience enabled me to estimate the full extent 
 of my danger. Ho sat on tho brow of tho steep, eyeing tho 
 bridge, and apj^arcntly deliberating whether ho should cross it. 
 It was probable that ho had scented my footsteps thus far, and 
 should he pass over, his vigilance could scarcely fail of detecting 
 my asy'lura. 
 
 8. Should ho retain his present station, my dinger was 
 scarcely lessened. To pass over in the face of a famished tiger 
 was only to rush upon my fate. The falling of the trunk, which 
 had lately been so anxiously deprecated, was now, with no less 
 solicitude, desired. Every new gust I hoped would tear asunder 
 its remaining bands, and, by cutting oil* all communication be- 
 tween the opposite steeps, place ino in security. My hopes, 
 however, were destined to be frustrated. The fibers of tho 
 prostrato tree were obstinately tenacious of their hold, and 
 presently the animal scrambled down the rock and proceeded to 
 cross it. 
 
 9. Of all hinds of death, that which now menaced mo was tho 
 most abhorred. To die by disease, or by the hand of a fellow- 
 creature, was lenient in comparison with being rent to pieces by 
 tho fangs of this savage. To perish in this obscure retreat, by 
 means so impervious to the anxious curiosity of my friends, to 
 loso my portion of existence by so untoward and ignoble a 
 destiny, was insupportable. I bitterly deplored my rashness in 
 coming hither unprovided for an encounter like thi . 
 
 10. Tho evil of my present circumstances consisted chiefly in 
 suspense. My death was unavoidable, but my imagination had 
 leisure to torment itself by anticipations. One foot of t 
 savage was slowly and cautiously moved after tho other. He 
 struck his claws so deeply into the bark that they were with 
 difficulty withdrawn. At length ho leaped upon the ground. 
 We wero now separated by an interval of sca-veiy eight feet. 
 To leavo tho spot where I crouched was impossible. Behind 
 and beside mo the cliff rose perpendicularly, and before mo was 
 
260 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 this grim and terrific visage. I shrunk still closer to the ground 
 and closed my eyes. 
 
 11. From this pause of horror I was aroused by the noise 
 occasioned by a second spring of the animal. He leaped into 
 the pit in which I had so deeply regretted that I had not taken 
 refuge, and disappeared. My rescue was so sudden, and so 
 much beyond my belief or my hope, that I doubted for a moment 
 whether my senses did not deceive me. This opportunity of 
 escapo was not to be neglected. I left my place and scrambled 
 over the trunk with a precipitation which had liked to have 
 proved fatal. The tree groaned and shook under me, the wind 
 blew with unexampled violence, and I had scarcely reached the 
 opposite steep when the roots were severed from the rock, and 
 the whole fell thundering to the bottom of the chasm. 
 
 12. My trepidations were not cpeedily quieted. I looked back 
 with wonder on my hair-breadth escape, and on that singular 
 concurrence of events which had placed me in so short a period 
 in absolute security. Had the trunk fallen a moment earlier, I 
 should have been imprisoned on the hill or thrown headlong. 
 Had its fall been delayed another moment, I should have been 
 pursued ; for the beast now issued from his den, and testified 
 his surprise and disappointment by tokens, the sight of which 
 made my blood run cold. 
 
 13. He saw me, and hastened to the verge of the chasm. He 
 squatted on his hind-legs, and assumed the attitude of one pre- 
 paring to leap. My consternation was excited afresh by these 
 appearances. It seemed, at first, as if the rift was too wide for 
 any power of muscles to carry him in safety over ; but I knew 
 the unparalleled agility of this animal, and that his experience 
 had made him a better judge of the practicability of this exploit 
 than I was. 
 
 11. Still, there was hopo that he would relinquish this design 
 
 as desperate. This hope was quickly at an end. He sprung, 
 
 and his fore-legs touched the verge of the rock on which I stood. 
 
 In spite of vc'hemcnt exertions, however, the surface was too 
 
 smooth and too hard to allow him to make good his hold. He 
 
 fell, and a piercing cry, uttered below, showed that nothing had 
 
 obstructed his descent to the bottom. Brown. 
 
 Charles Brockden Brown, the first American who chose literature as a pro- 
 fession, was born in Philadelphia on the 17th of January, 1771, and died the 22d 
 of February, 1810. He was a gentle, unobtrusive enthusiast, who, though he 
 
COUNT FATHOM'S ADVENTURE. 261 
 
 resided principally in cities, passed a large portion of his life as a recluse. He 
 lived in an ideal, and had little sympathy with the actual world. lie had more 
 genius than talent, and more imagination than fancy. His works, which were 
 rapidly written, arc incomplete, and deficient in method. Though he disre- 
 garded rules, and cared little for criticism, his style was clear and nervous, with 
 little ornament, free of affectations, and indicated a singular sincerity and depth 
 of feeling. " Wicland, or the Transformed," the first of a series of brilliant nov- 
 els by which Brown gained his enduring reputation, was published in 1708. It 
 is in all respects a remarkable book. Its plot, characters, and style arc original 
 and peculiar. The novel from which the above extract was taken is entitled, 
 " Edgar Huntley, the Memoirs of a Somnambulist.' 1 The scene is located near 
 the forks of the Delaware, in Pennsylvania. Clithero, the sleep-walker, has be- 
 come insane, and has lied into one of the wild mountain fastnesses of Norwalk. 
 Edgar Huntley, when endeavoring to discover his retreat, meets with the adven- 
 ture described above. This description is written with a freedom, minuteness, 
 and truthfulness to nature, that render it fearfully interesting and effective. 
 
 n. 
 
 73. COUNT FATHOM'S ADVENTURE. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 FATHOM departed from the village that same afternoon 
 under the au'spices of his conductor, and found himself 
 benighted in the midst of a forest, far from the habitations of 
 men. The darkness of the night, the silence and solitude of the 
 place, the indistinct images of the trees that appeared on every 
 side stretching their extravagant arms athwart the gloom, con- 
 spired with the dejection of spirits occasioned by his loss to 
 disturb his fancy, and raise strange phantoms in his imagination. 
 Although he was not naturally superstitious, his mind began to 
 be invaded with an awful horror, that gradually prevailed over 
 all the consolations of reason and philosophy ; nor was his 
 heart free from the terrors of assassination. 
 
 2. In order to dissipate these disagreeable reveries, he had re- 
 course to the conversation of his guide, by whom he was enter- 
 tained with the history of divers travelers who had been robbed 
 and murdered by ruffians (riif'yanz), whose retreat was in the 
 recesses of that very wood. In the midst of this communication, 
 which did not at all tend to the elevation of our hero's spirits, 
 the conductor made an excuse for dropping behind, while our 
 traveler jogged on in expectation of being joined again by him 
 in a few minutes. He was, however, disappointed in that hope : 
 the sound of the horse's feet by degrees grew more and more 
 faint, and at last altogether died away. 
 
262 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 3. Alarmed at this circumstance, Fathom halted in the read, 
 and listened •with the most fearful attention ; but his sense of 
 hearing was saluted with naught but the dismal sighings of the 
 trees, that seemed to foretell an approaching storm. Accord- 
 ingly, the heavens contracted a mure dreary aspect, the lightning 
 began to gleam, the thunder to roll, and the tempest, raising its 
 voice to a tremendous roar, descended in a torrent of rain. 
 
 4. In this emergency, the fortitude of our hero was almost 
 quite overcome. So many concurring circumstances of danger 
 and distress might have appalled the most undaunted breast ; 
 what impression then must they have made upon the mind of 
 Ferdinand, who was by no means a man to set fear at defiance ! 
 Indeed, he had well-nigh lost the use of his reflection, and was 
 actually invaded to the skin, before he could recollect himself 
 so far as to quit the road, and seek for shelter among the thick- 
 ets that surrounded him. 
 
 5. Having rode some furlongs into the forest, he took his sta- 
 tion under a tuft of tall trees, that screened him from the storm, 
 and in that situation called a council with himself, to deliberate 
 upon his next excursion. He persuaded himself that his guido 
 had deserted him for the present, in order to give intelligence of 
 a traveler to some gang of robbers with whom he was connected ; 
 and that he must of necessity fall a prey to those banditti, un- 
 less he should have the good fortune to elude their search, and 
 disentangle himself from the mazes of the wood. 
 
 6. Harrowed with these apprehensions, he resolved to com- 
 mit himself to the mercy of the hurricane, as of two evils tho 
 least, and penetrate straight forward through some devious open- 
 ing, until he should be delivered from the forest. For this pur- 
 pose he turned his horse's head in a line quite contrary to the 
 direction of the high road which he had left, on the supposition 
 that the robbers would pursue that tract in quest of him, and that 
 they would never dream of his deserting the highway to traverse 
 an unknown forest amidst the darkness of such a boisterous night. 
 
 7. After he had continued in this progress through a succes- 
 sion of groves, and bogs, and thorns, and brakes, by which not 
 only his clothes, but also his skin suffered in a grievous manner 
 while every nerve quivered with eagerness and dismay, he at 
 length reached an open plain, and pursuing his course, in full 
 hope of arriving at some village where his life would be safe, ho 
 
COUNT FATHOM'S ADVENTURE. 203 
 
 descried a rushlight, at a distance, which he looked upon as iho 
 star of his good fortune ; and riding toward it at full speed, ar- 
 rived at the door of a lone cottage, into which he was admitted 
 by an old woman, who, understanding ho was a bewildered 
 traveler, received him with great hospitality. 
 
 8. When he learned from his hostess that there was not 
 another house within three leagues, and that she could accom- 
 modate him with a tolerable bed, and his horse with lodging 
 and oats, ho thanked Heaven for his good fortune in stumbling 
 upon this humble habitation, and determined to pass the night 
 under the protection of the old cottager, who gave him to un- 
 derstand, that her husband, who was a fagot-maker, had gone 
 to the next town to dispose of his merchandise, and that in all 
 probability he would not return till the next morning, on ac- 
 count of the tempestuous night. 
 
 9. Ferdinand sounded the beldam with a thousand artful in- 
 terrogations, and she answered with such an appearance of truth 
 and simplicity, that he concluded his person was quite secure ; 
 and, after having been regaled with a dish of eggs and bacon, 
 desired she would conduct him into the chamber where she pro- 
 posed he should take his repose. He was accordingly usher* d 
 up by a sort of ladder into an apartment furnished with a stand- 
 ing bed, and almost half filled with trusses of straw. He seemed 
 extremely well pleased with his lodging, which in reality ex* 
 ceeded his expectations ; and his kind landlady, cautioning him 
 against letting the candle approach the combustibles, took her 
 leave, and locked the door on the outside. 
 
 III. 
 
 74. COUNT FATHOM'S ADVENTURE. 
 
 TART SECOND. 
 
 FATHOM, whose own principles taught him to be suspicious, 
 and ever upon his guard against the treachery of his fellow- 
 creatures, covdd have dispensed with this instance of her care in 
 confining her guest to her chamber ; and began to be seized with 
 strange fancies, when he observed that there was no bolt on tho 
 inside of the door, by which he might secure himself from intru- 
 sion. In consequence of these suggestions, he proposed to take 
 an accurate sur'vey of every object in the aparment, and, in the 
 
264: NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 course of his inqui'ry, had the mortification to find the dead 
 body of a man, still warm, who had been lately stabbed, and 
 concealed beneath several bundles of straw. 
 
 2. Such a discovery could not fail to fill the breast of our hero 
 with unspeakable horror ; for he concluded that he himself would 
 undergo the same fate before morning, without the interposition 
 of a miracle in his favor. In the first transports of his dread ho 
 ran to the window, with a view to escape by that outlet, and 
 found his flight effectually obstructed by divers strong bars of 
 iron. Then his heart began to palpitate, his hair to bristle up, 
 and his knees to totter : his thoughts teemed with presages of 
 death and destruction ; his conscience rose up in judgment 
 against him ; and he underwent a severe paroxysm of dismay 
 and distraction. His spirits were agitated into a state of fer- 
 mentation that produced an energy akin to that which is inspired 
 by brandy or other strong liquors ; and, by an impulse that 
 seemed supernatural, he was immediately hurried into measures 
 for his own preservation. 
 
 3. What upon a less interesting occasion his imagination 
 durst not propose, he now executed without scruple or remorse. 
 He undressed the corpse that lay bleeding among the straw, and 
 conveying it to the bed in his arms, deposited it in the attitude 
 of a person who sleeps at his ease ; then he extinguished the 
 light, took possession of the place from whence the body had 
 been removed, and holding a pistol ready cocked in each hand, 
 waited for the sequel with that determined purpose which is 
 often the immediate production of despair. 
 
 4. About midnight he heard the sound of feet ascending the 
 ladder ; the door was softly opened ; he saw the shadow of two 
 men stalking toward the bed ; a dark lantern being unshrouded, 
 directed their aim to the supposed sleeper ; and he that held it 
 thrust a poniard to his heart. The force of the blow mado a 
 compression on the chest, and a sort of groan issued from the 
 windpipe of the defunct : the stroke was repeated without pro- 
 ducing a repetition of the note, so that the assassins concluded 
 the work was effectually done, and retired for the present, with 
 a design to return and rifle the deceased at their leisure. 
 
 5. Never had our hero spent a moment in such agony as he 
 felt during this operation. The whole surface of his body was 
 covered with a cold sweat, and his nerves were relaxed with a 
 
COUNT FATHOM'S ADVENTURE. 265 
 
 universal palsy. In short, he remained in a trance, that in all 
 probability contributed to his safety ; for had he retained the uso 
 of his senses, he might have been discovered by the transports 
 of his fear. The first use he made of his retrieved recollection, 
 was to perceive that the assassins had left the door open in their 
 retreat ; and he would have instantly availed himself of this their 
 neglect, by sallying out upon them at the hazard of his life, had 
 not he been restrained by a conversation he overheard in the 
 room below, importing that the ruffians were going to set out 
 upon another expedition, in hopes of finding more prey. 
 
 G. They accordingly departed, after having laid strong injunc- 
 tions on the old woman to keep the door fast locked during their 
 absence ; and Ferdinand took his resolution without further 
 delay. So soon as, by his conjecture, the robbers were at a suf- 
 ficient distance from the house, he rose from his lurking-place, 
 moved softly toward the bed, and rummaging the pockets of 
 the deceased, found a purse well stored with ducats, of which, 
 together with a silver watch and a diamond ring, he immediately 
 possessed himself without scruple ; and then, descending with 
 great care and circumspection into the lower apartment, stood 
 before the old beldam, before she had the least intimation of his 
 approach. 
 
 7. Accustomed as she was to the trade of blood, the hoary 
 hag did not behold this apparation without giving signs of infi- 
 nite terror and astonishment. Believing it was no other than 
 the spirit of her second guest, who had been murdered, she feQ 
 upon her knees, and began to recommend herself to the protec- 
 tion of the saints, crossing herself with as much devotion as if 
 she had been entitled to the particular care and attention of 
 Heaven. Nor did her anxiety abate when she was undeceived 
 in this her supposition, and understood it was no phantom, but 
 the real substance of the stranger ; who, without staying to 
 upbraid her with the enormity of her crimes, commanded her, 
 on pain of immediate death, to produce his horse ; to which 
 being conducted, ho set her on the saddle without delay, and 
 mounting behind, invested her with the management of the 
 reins, swearing, in a most peremptory tone., that the only chance 
 for her life was in directing him to the next town ; and that as 
 soon as she should give him the least cause to doubt her fidelity 
 in the performance of that task, he would on the instant act the 
 part of her executioner. ,« 
 
266 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 8. This declaration had its effect on the withered Hec'ate, 1 
 who, with many supplications for mercy and forgiveness, promised 
 to guide him in safety to a certain village at the distance of two 
 leagues, where he might lodge in security, and be provided with 
 a fresh horse, or other conveniences for pursuing his route. On 
 these conditions he told her she might deserve his clemency ; 
 and they accordingly took their departure together, she being 
 placed astride upon the saddle, holding the bridle in one hand, 
 and a switch in the other, and our adventurer sitting on the I 
 crupper superintending her conduct, and keeping the muzzle of 
 a pistol close to her ear. In this equipage 2 they traveled across 
 part of the same wood in which his guide had forsaken him ; and 
 it is not to be supposed that he passed his time in the most 
 agreeable reverie, while he found himself involved in the laby- 
 rinth of those shades, which he considered as the haunts of 
 robbery and assassination. 
 
 9. Common fear was a comfortable sensation to what he felt 
 in this excursion. 3 The first steps he had taken for his preser- 
 vation were the effect of mere instinct, while his faculties were 
 extinguished or suppressed by despair ; but now, as his reflection 
 began to recur, he was haunted by the most intolerable appre- 
 hensions. Every whisper of the wind through the thickets was 
 swelled into the hoarse menaces of murder ; the shaking of the 
 boughs was construed into the brandishing of poniards ; and 
 every shadow of a tree became the apparition of a ruffian eager 
 for blood. In short, at each of these occurrences he felt what 
 was infinitely more tormenting than the stab of a real dagger ; 
 and at every fresh fillip of his fear, he acted as a remembrancer to 
 his conductress in a new volley of imprecations, 4 importing, that 
 her life was absolutely connected with his opinion of his own safety. 
 
 10. Human nature could not long subsist under such compli- 
 cated terror ; but at last he found himself clear of the forest, 
 
 1 H&c' ate, represented in mythol- being, regardless of demons end tcr- 
 
 ©gy as a mysterious divinity who rible phantoms from the lower world, 
 
 ruled in heaven, on the earth, and in who taught sorcery, witchcraft, nnd 
 
 the sea,bestowing on mortalswealth, dwelt at places where two reads 
 
 victory, wisdom ; good luck to sailors crossed, on tombs, and near the blood 
 
 and hunters, and prosperity to youth of murdered persons, 
 
 and to the flocks of cattle. She was - Equipage, (£k' we ] ;\j). 
 
 afterward, however, regarded by the 3 Excursion, (eke kSr' shun). 
 
 Athenians and others as a spectral * Im v pro ca' tions, curses. 
 
DARKNESS. 2G7 
 
 and was blessed with a distant view of an inhabited place. He 
 yielded to the first importunity of the beldam, whom he dis- 
 missed at a very small distance from the village, after he had 
 earnestly exhorted her to quit such an atrocious course of life, 
 and atone for her past crimes by sacrificing her associates to the 
 demands of justice. She did not fail to vow a perfect reforma- 
 tion, and to prostrate herself before him for the favor she had 
 found ; then she betook herself to her habitation, with the full 
 purpose of advising her fellOw-murderers to repair with all dis- 
 patch to the village and impeach our hero ; who, wisely distrust- 
 ing her professions, stayed no longer in the place than to hire 
 a guide for the next stage, which brought him to the city of 
 Chalons-sur-Marne. ' Smollett. 
 
 Tobias George Smollett was born in the County of Dumbarton, Scotland, in 
 1721. His father, a younger son of Sir James Smollett, of Bonhill, having died 
 early, he was educated by his grandfather, in Glasgow, for the medical profes- 
 sion. At nineteen, his grandfather having died without making a provision for 
 him, the young author proceeded to London with his first work, "The Regi- 
 cide," which he attempted to bring out at the theaters. Foiled in this juvenile 
 effort, in 1741 he became a surgeon's mate in the navy, and was present in the 
 unfortunate expedition to Carthagcna, spent some time elsewhere in the West 
 Indies, and returned to England in 174G. Thenceforth he resided chiefly in 
 London, and became an author for life. His first novel, "Roderick Random," 
 appeared in 174S. From this date to that of his last production, Smollett im- 
 proved in taste and judgment, but his power of invention, his native humor, and 
 his knowledge of life and character, are as conspicuous in this as in any of his 
 works. He had fine poetic talents, but wrote no extended poem. His novel of 
 " Count Fathom" appeared in 1753. The above scene, extracted from this work, 
 is universally regarded as a masterpiece of interest ; a mixture of the terrible and 
 the probable that has never been surpassed. The writing is as fine as the con- 
 ception. In 1770, Smollett was compelled to seek for health In a warm climate. 
 He took up his residence in a cottage near Leghorn. Here, just before his death, 
 in the autumn of 1771, he finished his "Humphrey Clinker," the most rich, 
 varied, and agreeable of all his novels. 
 
 IV. 
 75, DARKNESS. 
 
 I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. 
 The bright sun was extinguished, and the §tars 
 Did wander, darkling, in the eternal space, 
 Rayless and pathless, arid the icy earth 
 
 1 Chalons-sur-Marne, (shilling' eer marn\ a city of France, capital of the 
 department of Marne, on the right bank of the river Marne, ninety miles E 
 of Paris. 
 
2c>8 national fifth reader. 
 
 Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. 
 
 Morn came, and went — and came, and brought no day, 
 
 And men forgot their passions, in the dread 
 
 Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 
 
 "Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light. 
 
 And they did live by watch-fires ; and the thrones, 
 
 The palaces of crowned kings, the huts, 
 
 The habitations of all things which dwell, 
 
 Were burnt for beacons : cities were consumed, 
 
 And men were gathered round their blazing homes, 
 
 To look once more into each other's face. 
 
 Happy were those who dwelt within the eye 
 
 Of the volcanoes and their mountain torch. 
 
 2. A fearful hope was all the world contained : 
 Forests were set on fire ; but, hour by hour, 
 They fell and faded ; and the crackling trunks 
 Extinguished with a crash — and all was black. 
 The brows of men, by their despairing light, 
 Wore an unearthly aspect, as, by fits, 
 
 The flashes fell upon them. Some lay down, 
 
 And hid their eyes, and wept ; and some did rest 
 
 Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled ; 
 
 And others hurried to and fro, and fed 
 
 Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up, 
 
 With mad disquietude, on the dull sky, 
 
 The pall of a past world ; and then again 
 
 With curses, cast them down upon the dust, 
 
 And gnashed their teeth, and howled. The wild birds shrieked, 
 
 And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, 
 
 And flap their useless wings : the wildest brutes 
 
 Came tame, and tremulous ; and vipers crawled 
 
 And twined themselves among the multitude, 
 
 Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food. 
 
 3, And War, which for a moment was no more, 
 Did glut himself again : — a meal was bought 
 With blood, and each sat sullenly apart, 
 Gorging himself in gloom ; ng love was left ; 
 All earth was but one thought — and that was death, 
 Immediate and inglorious ; and the pang 
 Of famine fed upon all entrails. Men 
 
DARKNESS. 269 
 
 Died ; and their bones were tombless as their flesh 
 The meager by the meager were devoured. 
 Even dogs assailed their masters, — all save one, 
 And he was faithful to a corse, and kept 
 The birds, and beasts, and famished men at bay, 
 Till hunger clung them, or the drooping dead 
 Lured their lank jaws : himself sought out no food, 
 But, with a piteous, and perpetual moan, 
 And a quick, desolate cry, licking the hand 
 "Which answered not with a caress — he died. 
 
 4. The crowd was famished by degrees. But two 
 Of an enormous city did survive, 
 
 And they were enemies. They met beside 
 
 The dying embers of an altar-place, 
 
 "Where had been heaped a mass of holy things 
 
 For an unholy usage. They raked up, 
 
 And, shivering, scraped with their cold, skeleton hands, 
 
 The feeble ashes : and their feeble breath 
 
 Blew for a little life, and made a flame, 
 
 "Which was a mockery. Then they lifted 
 
 Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld 
 
 Each other's aspects— saw, and shrieked, and died ; 
 
 Even of their mutual hideousness they died, 
 
 Unknowing who he was, upon whose brow 
 
 Famine had written Fiend. 
 
 5. The world was void : 
 The populous and the powerful was a lump, 
 Seasonltss, /icrbless, treeless, manless, lifeless ; 
 A lump of death, a chaos of hard clay. 
 
 The rivers, lakes, and ocean, all stood still, 
 
 And nothing stirred within their silent depths. 
 
 Ships, sailorless, lay rotting on the sea, 
 
 And their masts fell down piecemeal : as they dropped 
 
 They slept on the abyss, without a surge, — 
 
 The waves were dead ; the tides were in their grave ; 
 
 The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; 
 
 The winds were withered in the stagnant air, 
 
 And the clouds perished : Darkness had no need 
 
 Of aid from them — she was the universe. 
 
 Lord Byron. 
 
270 NATIONAL FIFTH READER, 
 
 V. 
 
 76. THE RATTLESNAKE. 1 
 
 " "T J"E does not come — lie does not come," she murmured, as 
 1 1 she stood contemplating the thick copse spreading be- 
 fore her, and forming the barrier which terminated the beautiful 
 range of oaks which constituted the grove. How beautiful were 
 the green and garniture 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 various texture. A small tree rose from the center of a 
 clump, around which a wild grape gadded luxuriantly ; and, 
 with an incoherent sense of what she saw, she lingered before 
 the little cluster, seeming to survey' that which, though it seemed 
 to fix her eye, yet failed to fill her thought. Her mind wan- 
 dered — her soul was far away ; and the objects in her vision 
 were far other than those which occupied her imagination. 
 
 2. 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 de- 
 tached 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 blacksnake, 
 with the rapidity of an arrow, darted over her path without 
 arousing a single terror in the form that otherwise would have 
 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 yet singularly fixed — fastened, as it were, to a single 
 spot — gathered and controled by a single object, and glazed, 
 apparently, beneath a curious fascination. 
 
 3. Before the maiden rose a little clump of bushes, — bright 
 tangled leaves flaunting wide in glossiest green, with vines trail- 
 ing over them, thickly decked with blue and crimson flowers. 
 Her eye communed vacantly with these ; fastened by a star-like 
 shining glance, a subtle ray, that shot out from the circle of 
 
 1 From " The Yemassee." The heroine, Bess Mathews, in the woods 
 waits the coming of her lover. 
 
THE RATTLESNAKE. 271 
 
 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 subtle brightness, of the sweetest, strangest power. 
 And now the leaves quivered and seemed to float away, only to 
 return ; and the vines waved and swung around in fantastic 
 mazes, unfolding ever-changing varieties of form and color to 
 her gaze : but the star-like eye was ever steadfast, bright, and 
 gorgeous, gleaming in their midst, and still fastened, with strange 
 fondness, upon her own. How beautiful with wondrous inten- 
 sity did it gleam and dilate, growing larger and more lustrous 
 with every ray which it sent forth ! 
 
 4. And her own glance became intense, fixed also ; but with 
 a dre:iming 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, she would have flown ; 
 but she had not the power to move. The will w r as wanting to her 
 flight. She felt that she could have bent forward to pluck the 
 gem-like thing from the bosom of the leaf in which it seemed to 
 grow, and which it irradiated with its bright white gleam ; but 
 ever 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 mock-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 unawakencd to full consciousness, it startled her and 
 forbade her effort. More than once, in her sur'vev 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. 
 
 5. But the star-like eye was yet upon her own — a small, 
 bright eye, quick, like that of a bird, now steady in its place, 
 and observant seemingly only of hers, now darting forward with 
 all the clustering leaves about it, and shooting up toward her, as 
 if wooing her to seize. At another moment riveted to the vine 
 which lav around it, it would whirl round and round, dazzlinglv 
 bright and beautiful, even as a torch, waving hurriedly by night 
 in the hands of some playful 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 subtle, burning, 
 
272 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 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 discrimi- 
 nation, and confusing strangely that of perception. 
 
 6. She felt dizzy, for, as she looked, a cloud of colors — bright, 
 gay, various colors — floated and hung like so much drapery 
 around the single object that had so secured her attention and 
 spell-bound her feet. Her hmbs felt momently more and more 
 insecure : her blood grew cold, and she seemed to feci the 
 gradual freeze of vein by vein, throughout her person. At that 
 moment a rustling was heard in the branches of the tree beside 
 her, and the bird, which had repeatedly uttered 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 so totally to 
 have been deprived of before. 
 
 7. She strove to move from before the beautiful but terrible 
 presence, but for a while she strove in vain. The rich, star-like 
 glance still riveted her own, and the subtle fascination 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 annoying uncertainty 
 and dread, she succeeded partly in the attempt, and threw her 
 arms backward, her hands grasping the neighboring tree, — 
 feeble, tottering, and depending upon it for that support which 
 her own Hmbs almost entirely denied her. "With her movement, 
 however, came the full development 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 articulated ring, like that of a watch when wound up 
 with the verge broken, announced the nature of that splendid 
 yet dangerous presence, in the form of tho monstrous rattle- 
 snake, 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. 
 
 8. She was, at length, conscious enough to perceive and to 
 feel all her danger ; but terror had denied her the strength 
 necessary to fly from her dreadful enemy. There still the eye 
 glared beautifully bright and piercing upon her own ; and, seem- 
 
tiie rattlesnake. 273 
 
 ingly in a spirit of sport, tho insidious reptile slowly unwound 
 himself from his coil, but only to gather himself up again into 
 his muscular rings, his great Hat head rising in the midst, and 
 slowly nodding, as it were, toward her, the eye still peering 
 deeply into her own ; — the rattle still slightly ringing at inter- 
 vals, and giving forth that paralyzing sound, which, once heard, 
 is remembered forever. The reptile all this while appeared to 
 be conscious of, and to sport with, while seeking to excite, her 
 terrors. Now, with his flat head, distended mouth, and curving 
 neck, would it dart forward its long form toward her, — its fatal 
 teeth, unfolding on either side of its upper jaws, seeming to 
 threaten her with instantaneous death ; while its powerful eye 
 shot forth glances of that fatal power of fascination, malignantly 
 bright, which, by paralyzing, with a novel form of terror and of 
 beauty, may readily account for the spell it possesses of binding the 
 feat of the timid, and denying to fear even the privilege of flight. 
 
 9. Could she have fled ! She felt the necessity ; but the 
 j)ower of her limbs was gone ! and there still it lay, coiling and 
 uncoiling, its arching neck glittering like a ring of brazed cop- 
 per, bright and lurid ; and the dreadful beauty of its eye still 
 fastened, eagerly contemplating the victim, while the pendulous 
 rattle still rang the death-note, as if to prepare the conscious 
 mind for the fate which is momently approaching to the blow. 
 Meanwhile the stillness became death-like with all surrounding 
 objects. The bird had gone, with its scream and rush. The breeze 
 was silent. The vines ceased to wave. The leaves faintly quiv- 
 ered on their stems. The serpent once more lay still ; but the eve 
 was never once turned away from the victim. Its corded mus- 
 cles are all in coil. They have but to unclasp suddenly, and tho 
 dreadful folds will be upon her, its full length, r.nd the fatal 
 teeth will strike, and the deadly venom which they secrete will 
 mingle with the life-blood in her veins. 
 
 10. The terrified damsel, her full consciousness restored, but 
 not her strength, feels all the danger. She sees that the spurt 
 of the terrible reptile is at an end. She can not now mistake 
 the horrid expression of its eye. She strives to scream, but the 
 voice dies away, a feeble gurgling in her throat. Her tongue is 
 paralyzed ; her lips are sealed. Once more she strives for flight, 
 but her limbs refuse their office. She has nothing left of life 
 but its fearful consciousness. It is in her despair, that, a last 
 
*274 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 effort, she succeeds to scream, — a single wild cry, forced from hef 
 by the accumulated agony : she sinks down upon the grass 
 before her enemy, — her eyes, however, still open, and still look- 
 ing upon those which he directs forever upon them. She sees 
 him approach — now advancing, now receding — now swelling in 
 every part with something of anger, while his neck is arched 
 beautifully, like that of a wild horse under the curb ; until, at 
 length, tired as it were of play, like the cat with its victim, she 
 sees his neck growing larger and becoming completely bronzed, 
 as about to strike, — the huge jaws unclosing almost directly 
 above her, the long tubulated fang, charged with venom, pro- 
 truding from the cav'emous mouth ; and she sees no more. 
 Insensibility came to her aid, and she lay almost lifeless under 
 the very folds of the monster. 
 
 11. In that moment the copse parted ; and an arrow, piercing 
 the monster through and through the neck, bore his head for- 
 ward to the ground, alongside the maiden, while his spiral ex- 
 tremities, now unfolding in his own agony, were actually, in part, 
 writhing upon her person. The arrow came from the fugitive 
 Occonestoga, who had fortunately reached the spot in season, 
 on the way to the Block-House. He rushed from the copse as 
 the snake fell, and, with a stick, fearlessly approached him where 
 he lay tossing in agony upon the grass. Seeing him advance, 
 the courageous reptile made an effort to regain his coil, shaking 
 the fearful rattle violently at every evolution which he took for 
 that purpose ; but the arrow, completely passing through his 
 neck, opposed an unyielding obstacle to the endeavor ; and 
 ■finding it hopeless, and seeing the new enemy about to assault 
 him, with something of the spirit of the white man under like 
 circumstances, he turned desperately round, and striking his 
 charged fangs, so that they were riveted in the wound they 
 made, into a susceptible part of his own body, he threw himself 
 over with a single convulsion, and, a moment after, lay dead be- 
 side the utterly unconscious maiden. Simms. 
 
 "William Gilmoke Simms was born at Charleston, South Carolina, April 17th, 
 1S0G. His mother died while he was an infant, and his father, failing 60011 after 
 as a merchant, emigrated to the West, leaving him to the earc of an aged and 
 penurious grandmother, who withheld the appropriations necessary for his edu- 
 cation. His love of books, industry, and richly endowed intellect, however, 
 triumphed over every obstacle, lie wrote for the press, at an early age, on a 
 great variety of subjects, and was admitted to the bar, in his native city, at the 
 oge of twenty-one. He did not long practice law, but turned his peculiar traiu* 
 
IRVING AND MACAULAY. 275 
 
 Ing to the uses of literature. He bceame editor and proprietor of the " Charles- 
 ton City Gazette," which, though conducted with industry and spirit, proved a 
 failure, owing to his opposition to the then popular doctrine of nullification. He 
 published his first book, "Lyrical and other Poems," in 1826, when about 
 eighteen years of age, followed the same year by "Early Lays." k> Atalantis," 
 the third work following, a successful poem with the publishers, a rarity at the 
 time, was published in New York, in 1832. It is written In smooth blank verse, 
 interspersed with frequent lyrics. The next year appeared in New York his 
 first tale, " Martin Faber," written in the intense passionate style, which secured 
 at once public attention. Since that period he has written numerous novels, 
 histories, biographies, and poems, and has contributed largely to reviews and 
 magazines. In 1849 he became editor of "The Southern Quarterly Review," 
 which was revived by his able contributions and personal influence. His writings 
 are characterized by their earnestness, sincerity, and thoroughness. His shorter 
 stories are his best works. Though somewhat wanting in elegance, they have 
 unity, completeness, and strength. Mr. Simms now resides on his plantation at 
 Midway, a town about seventy miles southwest of Charleston. 
 
 SECTION XV. 
 I. 
 
 77. IRVING AND MACAULAY. 
 
 PAKT FIRST. 
 
 ALMOST the last words which Sir Walter Scott spoke to 
 Lockhart, his son-in-law and biographer, were, "Be a 
 good man, my dear !" and with the last flicker of breath on his 
 dying lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and passed away 
 blessing them. Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just 
 left us, the Goldsmith and the Gibbon of our time. Ere a few 
 weeks are over, many a critic's pen will be at work, reviewing 
 their lives, and passing judgment on their works. 
 
 2. This is no review, or historv, or criticism ; onlv a word in 
 testimony of respect and regard from a man of letters, who owes 
 to his own professional labor the honor of becoming acquainted 
 with these two eminent literary men. One was the first ambas- 
 sador whom the New "World of Letters sent to the Old. He 
 was born almost with the Republic ; the pater patrice ' had laid 
 his hand on the child's head. He bore "Washington's 2 name : 
 
 1 Pa' ter pat' ri ae, father of his er-in-chief of the army of independ- 
 
 country. enceduringthe American Revolution, 
 
 « George Washington, command- first President of the United States, 
 
276 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 he cams among U3 bringing tho kindest sympathy, the most 
 artless, smiling good-will. 
 
 3. His new country (which some people here might be dis- 
 posed to regard rather superciliously) could send us, as he 
 showed in his own person, a gentleman, who, though himself 
 born in no very high sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, 
 witty, quiet, and, socially, the equal of the most refined Europe'- 
 ans. If Irving's welcome in England was a kind one, was it not 
 also gratefully remembered ? If he ate our salt, did he not pay 
 us with a thankful heart ? 
 
 4. In America the love and regard for Irving was a national 
 sentiment. It seemed to me, during a year's travel in the 
 country, as if no one ever aimed a blow at Irving. All men 
 held their hand from that harmless, friendly peacemaker. I had 
 the good fortune to see him at New York, Philadelphia, Balti- 
 more, and Washington, and remarked how in every place he was 
 honored and welcomed. Every large city has its " Irving House." 
 The country takes pride in the fame of its men of letters. 
 
 5. The gate of his own charming little domain on the beautiful 
 Hudson River was forever swinging before visitors who came 
 to him. He shut out no one. I had seen many pictures of his 
 house, and read descriptions of it, in both of which it was treated 
 with a not unusual American exaggeration. It was but a pretty 
 little cabin of a place ; the gentleman of the press who took 
 notes of it, while his kind old host w r as sleeping, might have 
 visited the house in a couple of minutes. 
 
 6. And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. 
 Irving's books were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, 
 — when his profits were known to be large, and the habits of 
 life of the good old bachelor were notoriously modest and sim- 
 ple ? Ho had loved once in his life. The lady he loved died ; 
 and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to replace her. 
 
 7. I can't say how much the thought of that fidelity has 
 touched me. Does not the very cheerfulness of his after life 
 add to the pathos of that untold story ? To grieve always was 
 not in his nature ; or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all tho 
 world in to condole wdth him and bemoan it. Deep and quiet 
 
 styled the " Father of his Country," He retired from public life in 179G, 
 was born in Westmoreland, Yir- and died December 14th, 1700, lcav- 
 ginio, on the $38 of February, 17^. ing a reputation without a stain. ' 
 
IRVING AND MACAULAY. 277 
 
 ho lays the lovo of Iris heart, and buries it, and grass and flowers 
 grow over the scarred ground in duo time. J 
 
 8. Irving had sueh a small house and such narrow rooms be- 
 cause there was a great number of people to occupy them. He 
 could only live very modestly because the w T ifeless, childless man 
 had a number of children to whom he was as a father. He had 
 as many as nine nieces, I am told, — I saw two of these ladies at 
 his house, — with all of whom the dear old man had shared the 
 produce of his labor and genius. " Be a good man, my dear." 
 One can't but think of these last words of the veteran Chief of 
 Letters, who had tasted and tested the value of worldly success, 
 admiration, prosperity. Was Irving not good, and, of his 
 works, was not his life the best part ? 
 
 9. In his family, gentle, generous, good-humored, affectionate, 
 self-denying ; in society, a delightful example of complete g< n- 
 tlemanhood ; quite unspoiled by prosperity ; never obsequious 
 to the great (or, worse still, to the base and mean, as some public 
 men are forced to be in his and other countries) ; eager to ac- 
 knowledge every contemporary's merit ; always kind and affa- 
 ble with the young members of his calling ; in his professional 
 bargains and iner'cantile dealings delicately honest and grateful; 
 he was at the same time one of the must charming masters of 
 our lighter language ; the constant friend to us and our nation ; 
 to men of letters doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, 
 but as an exemplar of goodness, probity, and a pure life ! 
 
 n. 
 
 78. IRVING AND MACAULAY. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 AS for Macaulay, whose departure many friends, some few 
 most dearly-loved relatives, and multitudes of admiring 
 readers deplore, our Republic 1 has already decreed his statue, 
 and he must have known that he had earned this post'hunious* 
 honor. He was not a poet and man of letters merely, but a 
 citizen, a statesman, a great British worthy. All sorts of suc- 
 cesses are easy to him : as a lad he goes down into the arena 
 
 1 Our Republic, meaning " the 2 Pfist' hu mous, continuing after 
 Republic of letters." one's death. 
 
278 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 with others, and wins all the prizes to which he has a mind. A 
 place in the Senate is straightway offered to the young man. 
 He takes his seat there ; he speaks, when so minded, without 
 party anger or intrigue, but not without party faith and a sort 
 of heroic enthusiasm for his cause. Still he is poet and philo- 
 sopher even more than orator. 
 
 2. If a company of giants were got together, very likely one 
 or two of the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the in* 
 contestable superiority of the very tallest of the party ; and so 
 I have heard some London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay's 
 superiority, complain that he occupied too much of the talk, 
 and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, 
 will not many a man grieve that he no longer has the chance to 
 listen ? To remember the talk is to wonder ; to think not only 
 of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the trifles he had 
 stored there, and could produce with equal readiness. 
 
 3. Many Londoners — not all — have seen the British Muse'uni 
 Library, — the dome where our million volumes are housed. 
 What peace, what love, what truth, what beauty, what happiness 
 for all, what generous kindness for you and me, are here spread 
 out ! It seems to me one can not sit down in that place without 
 a heart full of grateful reverence. I own to have said my grace 
 at the table and to have thanked Heaven for this my English 
 birthright, freely to partake of these bountiful books, and to 
 speak the truth I find there. 
 
 4. Under the dome which held Macaulay's brain, and from 
 which his solemn eyes looked out on the world but a fortnight 
 since, what a vast, brilliant, and wonderful store of learning 
 was ranged ! — what strange lore would he not fetch for you at 
 your bidding ! A volume of law or history, a book of poetry 
 familiar or forgotten (except by himself, who forgot nothing), a 
 novel ever so old, and he had it at hand ! 
 
 5. "With regard to Macaulay's style, there may be faults of 
 course ; but we are not talking about faults. Take at hazard 
 any three pages of his Essays or of his History ; and, glimmer- 
 ing below the stream of the narrative, as it were, you, an average 
 reader, see one, two, three, a half-score of allusions to other his- 
 toric facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which you are not 
 acquainted. "Why is this epithet used ? AVhence is that simile 
 drawn ? How does he manage, in two or three words, to paint 
 
IRVING AND MACAULAY. 279 
 
 an individual, or to indicato a landscape? He reads twenty 
 books to write a sentence ; ho travels a hundred miles to make 
 a lino of description ! 
 
 6. One paper I have read regarding Lord Macaulay says "he 
 had no heart." Why, a man's books may not always speak tho 
 truth, but they speak his mind in spite of himself ; and it seems 
 to me this man's heart is beating through every page he penned. 
 He is always in a storm of revolt and indignation against wrong, 
 craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic resistance ; how he backs 
 and applauds freedom struggling for its own ; how he hates 
 scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful ; how he recognizes 
 genius, though selfish villains possess it ! 
 
 7. Tho critic who says Macaulay had no heart, might say that 
 Johnson had none ; and two men more generous, and more 
 loving, and more hating, and more partial, and more noble, do 
 not live in our history. Those who knew Lord Maeaulav knew 
 how ad'mirably tender, and generous, and affectionate he was. 
 It was not his business to bring his family before the theater 
 footlights, and call for bouquets from the gallery as he wept 
 over them. 
 
 8. If any young man of letters reads this little sermon, — and 
 to him, indeed, it is addressed, — I would say to him, "Bear 
 Scott's words in your mind, and ' be good, my dear.' n Here are 
 two literary men gone to their account, and, hits Deo, 1 as far 
 as we know, that account is fair, and open, and clear. Here 
 is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or explanations 
 of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoidable 
 et cetera.' 1 
 
 9. Here arc two examples of men most differently gifted : 
 each pursuing his calling ; each speaking his truth as God bade 
 him ; each honest in life ; just and irreproachable in his deal- 
 ings ; dear to his friends ; honored by his country ; beloved at 
 his fireside. It has been the fortunate lot of both to give incal- 
 culable happiness and delight to the world, which thanks them 
 in return with an immense kindliness, respect, affection. It may 
 not be our chance, brother scribe, to bo endowed with such 
 merit, or rewarded with such fame. But the rewards of these 
 men are rewards paid to our service. We may not win the baton 3 
 
 • Laus De' o, praise to God. 4 Baton, ihtl tong 7 ), a truncheon of 
 
 ■ Et Jet' era, and the rest ; Sso. staff; a marshal's staff 
 
280 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 or epaulettes, 1 but Heaven give us strength to guard the honor 
 of the flag 1 Tiiackeray. 
 
 William Makepeace Tiiackeray, an English novelist, essayist, and humor, 
 ist, was bern in Calcutta in 1811. His father, who descended from an old family 
 of Yorkshire, was engaged in the civil service of the East India Company. Ho 
 was sent to England in his seventh year, and placed at the Charterhouse School, 
 London, from which he went to the university of Cambridge, but did not take 
 his degree. He traveled and studied for several years in France, Italy, and Ger- 
 many. He contributed to several leading magazines^ind published works both 
 in prose and verse, commencing before his thirtieth year; but his name was not 
 generally known until he published " Vanity Fair," which was finished in 1848, 
 when he was generally accounted, with Dickens and Bulwcr, among the first 
 British novelists. His " Pendennis," concluded in 1850, and " The Ncwcomcs," 
 in 1S55, fully sustained his reputation. In the summer of 1851, he lectured in 
 London before brilliant audiences on " The English Humorists of the 18th 
 Century," the success of which induced him to prepare another series, " The 
 Four Georges," which were first delivered in the principal cities of the United 
 States in 1855-'6, and afterward in London and most of the large towns of Eng- 
 land and Scotland. In January, 1860, appeared the first number of the " Corn- 
 hill Magazine," under his editorial charge, which soon reached a circulation of 
 some one hundred thousand copies. He died December 24th, 1863. 
 
 ^ III. 
 
 79. THE PURITANS. 
 
 THE Puritans 5 were men whose minds had derived a peculiar 
 character from the daily contemplation of superior beings 
 and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in gen- 
 eral terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed 
 every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power 
 nothing (nuth'ing) was too vast, for whose inspection nothing 
 was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was 
 with them the great end of existence. 
 
 2. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage 
 which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. 
 Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an 
 obscuring vail, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable bright- 
 ness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated 
 their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference be- 
 tween the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, 
 when compared with the boundless interval which separated the 
 
 1 Epaulettes, (ftp' a lot""). rision, because they professed to 
 
 a Pu' ri tans, persons, in the time follow the pure word of God, and 
 
 of Queen Elizabeth and her immc- rejected the ceremonies and govern- 
 
 diate successors, so called in <!c- meat of the Episcopal Church. 
 
THE PURITANS. 281 
 
 whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly 
 fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favor ; 
 and, confident of that favor, they despised ah the accomplish- 
 ments and all the dignities of the world. 
 
 3. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers 
 and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God ; if their 
 names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt as- 
 sured that they were recorded in the Book of Life ; if their steps 
 were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of 
 ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were 
 houses not made with hands : their diadems, crowns of glory 
 which should, never fade away ! 
 
 4. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they 
 looked down with contempt ; for they esteemed themselves rich 
 in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime lan- 
 guage — nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by 
 the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them 
 was a being to whoso fate a mysterious and terrible importance 
 belonged — on whose slightest actions the spirits of light and 
 darkness looked with anxious interest — who had been destined, 
 before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which 
 should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. 
 
 5. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly 
 causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake, em- 
 pires had risen, and flourished, and decayed ; for his sake, the 
 Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist 
 and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued by no com- 
 mon deliverer from the grasp of no common foe ; he had been 
 ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blcod of no 
 earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been dark- 
 ened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, 
 that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring 
 
 God! Macailay. 
 
 Thomas Batvbtngton Macati.av, the mo>t attractive, and one of the most 
 {earned and eloquent of the essayists and eritics of the age, was educated at 
 the University of Cambridge, England, where he took his degree in 1822, after 
 having achieved the highest honors of the university. After leaving the univer- 
 sity, he studied law at Lincoln's Inn, and was admitted to the bar in 1826. He 
 has been distinguished in politics, as an orator in parliament, and as an able 
 officer of the Supreme Council in Calcutta, India. He returned to England in 
 1838j and a few years later was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, 
 lie is very meritorious as a poet ; but his poetical merit dwindles into insignifi- 
 cance in comparison With' the unrivaled brilliancy of his \ rose. His" Ess- ys 
 
282 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 fi ora the Edinburgh Review" have been published in three volumes. They havt 
 attained a greater popularity than any other contributions to the periodical works 
 of the day. His last publication, the " History of England." is written in a style 
 of great clearness, force, and eloquence, and is as popular among all classes as 
 any history of the present century. He was raised to the peerage, as a tribute 
 to his eminent literary merit, in 1857. He died December 28th, 1S59. 
 
 80. THE PILGRIM'S VISION. 
 
 1. 
 
 I SAW in the naked forest our scattered remnant cast — 
 A screen of shivering branches between them and the blast ; 
 The snow was falling round them, the dying fell as fast ; 
 I looked to see them perish, when lo ! the vision passed. 
 
 2. 
 
 Again mine eyes were opened — the feeble had waxed strong ; 
 The babes had grown to sturdy men, the remnant was a throng. 
 By shadowed lake and winding stream, and all the shores along, 
 The howling demons quaked to hear the Christian's godly song. 
 
 3. 
 
 They slept — the village fathers — by river, lake, and shore, 
 When far adown the steep of Time the vision rose once more : 
 I saw along the winter snow a spectral column pour ; 
 And high above their broken ranks a tattered flag they bore. 
 
 4. 
 
 Their Leader rode before them, of bearing calm and high, 
 The light of Heaven's own kindling throned in his awful eye : 
 These were a Nation's champions Her dread appeal to try ; 
 " God for the right !" I faltered, And lo ! the train passed by 
 
 5. 
 
 Once more ; the strife was ended, the solemn issue tried ; 
 The Lord of Hosts, his mighty arm had helped our Israel's side : 
 Gray stone and grassy hillock, told where her martyrs died ; 
 And peace was in the borders of victory's chosen bride 
 
 6. 
 
 A crash — as when some swolfcn cloud cracks o'er the tangled trees ! 
 With side to side, and spar to spar, whose smoking decks are these ? 
 I know Saint George's blood-red cross, thou Mistress of the Seas ; 
 But what is she, whose streaming bars roll out beforo the breoze. 
 
THE ROCK OF THE PILGRIMS. 283 
 
 7. 
 Ah ! well her iron ribs are knit, whose thunders strive to quell 
 The bellowing throats, the blazing lips that pealed the Armada's 
 
 knell ! 
 The mist was cleared, a wreath of stars rose o'er the crimsoned 
 
 swell, 
 And wavering from its haughty peak, the cross of England fell 1 
 
 8. 
 O, trembling Faith ! though dark the morn, a heavenly torch is 
 
 thine ; 
 While feebler races melt away, and paler orbs decline, 
 Still shall the fiery pillar's ray along thy jmthway shine, 
 To light the chosen tribe that sought this Western Palestine ! 
 
 9. 
 I see the living tide roll on, it crowns with flaming towers 
 The icy capes of Labrador, the Spaniard's " land of flowers ;" 
 It streams beyond the splintered ridge that parts the Northern 
 
 showers — 
 From eastern rock to sunset wave the Continent is ours ! 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 V. 
 
 81. THE ROCK OF THE PILGRIMS. 
 
 A ROCK in the wilderness welcomed our sires, 
 From bondage far over the dark rolling sea ; 
 On that holy altar they kindled the fires, 
 
 Jehovah, which glow in our bosoms for Thee. 
 
 2. Thy blessings descended in sunshine and shower, 
 
 Or rose from the soil that was sown by Thy hand ; 
 The mountain and valley rejoiced in Thy power, 
 And Heaven encircled and smiled on the land. 
 
 3. The Pilgrims of old an example have given 
 
 Of mild resignation, devotion, and love, 
 Which beams like a star in the blue vault of heaven, 
 A beacon-light hung in their mansion above. 
 
 4. In church and cathedral we kneel in our prayer— - 
 
 Their temple and chapel were valley and hill : 
 But God is the same in the aisle or the ah*, 
 And He is the Rock that we lean upon still. Mortus. 
 
284 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 George P. Morris, the popular song-writer, -was born at Philadelphia, in 1801. 
 He commenced his literary career by contributions to the journals at the early 
 age of fifteen. In 18:23, with Mr. Woodworth, he established the "New York 
 Mirror," a Meekly miscellany, which was conducted with much taste and ability 
 for nearly nineteen years. In conjunction with Mr. Willis, he reestablished 
 " The Mirror" in 1843, which was soon after succeeded by " The Home Journal," 
 which he aided in conducting until a short time before his death. In 1827, his 
 play, in five acts, entitled " Brier Cliff, a tale of the American Revolution," was 
 brought out by Mr. Wallack, and acted forty nights successively. So great was 
 its popularity, that it was played at four theaters in New York on the same 
 evening, to full houses, and yielded its author a profit of three thousand five 
 hundred dollars. The last complete edition of his works appeared in 18G0. He 
 died in New York, July Gth, 1864, 
 
 VI. 
 
 82. ADVANTAGES OF ADVERSITY. 
 
 FROM the dark portals of the star-chamber, and in the stern 
 text of the acts of uniformity, the Pilgrims received a com- 
 mission, more efficient than any that ever bore the royal seal. 
 Their banishment to Holland was fortunate ; the decline of their 
 little company in the strange land was fortunate ; the difficulties 
 which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish 
 themselves to this wilderness were fortunate ; all the tears and 
 heart-breakings of that ever memorable parting at Delfthaven ' 
 had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New Eng- 
 land. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough 
 touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. 
 They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and re- 
 quired of those who engaged in it to be so too. They cast a 
 broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause ; and, 
 if this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness, can 
 we find no apology for such a human weakness ? 
 
 2. It is sad, indeed, to reflect on the disasters which the little 
 band of Pilgrims encountered ; sad to see a portion of them, 
 the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an 
 unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon obliged to aban- 
 don, and crowd themselves into one vessel ; one hundred per- 
 sons, besides the ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and 
 sixty tons. One is touched at the story of the long, cold, and 
 
 1 Delft ha' ven, a fortified town this place the Pilgrims of New Eug- 
 in South Holland (now Belgium), be- land took their last farewell of their 
 tween Rotterdam and Schiedam. At European friends. 
 
ADVANTAGES OF ADVERSITY. v>85 
 
 weary autumnal passage ; of the landing on the inhospitable 
 rocks at this dismal season ; where they are deserted, before 
 long, by the ship which had brought them, and which seemed 
 their only hold upon the world of fellow-men, a prey to the 
 elements and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the numb, 
 the power, and the temper of the savage tribes, that filled the 
 unexplored continent, upon whose verge they had ventured. 
 
 3. Bat all this wrought together for good. These trials of 
 wandering and exile, of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness, 
 and the savage foe, were the final assurances of success. It was 
 these that put far away from our fathers' cause all patrician 
 softness, all hcreditar} r claims to preeminence. No effeminate 
 nobility crowded into the dark and austere ranks of the Pilgrims. 
 No Carr nor Villiers ' would lead on the ill-provided band of 
 despised Puritans. No well-endowed clergy were on the alert 
 to quit their cathedrals, and set up a pompous hierarchy in the 
 frozen wilderness. No craving governors were anxious to bo 
 sent over to our cheerless El Dorados 2 of ice and snow. 
 
 4. No ; they could not say they had encouraged, patronized, 
 or helped the Pilgrims : their own cares, their own labors, their 
 own councils, their own blood, contrived all, achieved ail, bore 
 all, sealed all. They could not afterward fairly pretend to reap 
 where they had not strewn ; and, as our fathers reared this 
 broad and solid fabric with pains and watchfulness, unaided, 
 barely tolerated, it did not fall when the favor, which had always 
 be?n withholden, was changed into wrath ; when the arm, which 
 had never supported, was raised to destroy. 
 
 5. Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, 
 the Mayflower 3 of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects 
 of a future State, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold 
 it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious 
 voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and 
 winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the 
 sight of the wished-for shore. 
 
 1 Carr and Villiers, the unworthy in the interior cf South America, 
 
 favorites of James I., the English supposed to be immensely rich in 
 
 monarch. Villiers is better known gold, gems, etc. 
 
 inhistoryastheDukeof Buckingham, 3 Mayflower, the name of the ves- 
 
 and Carr, as the Earl of Somerset. sel in whiehthe settlers of Plymouth, 
 
 * El Dora' do, a fabulous region in Mass.. came to America, in 1620. 
 
28G NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 6. I see them now scantily supplied with provisions ; crowded 
 almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison ; delayed by calms, 
 pursuing a circuitous route, — and now driven in fury before tho 
 raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice 
 of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts 
 seem straining from their base ; the dismal sounds of the pumps 
 is heard ; the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow ; 
 the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the float- 
 ing deck, and beats, with deadening, shivering weight, against 
 the staggered vessel. 
 
 7. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but 
 desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' 
 passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, — weak and weary 
 from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending 
 on the charity of their shipmaster for a draught of beer on 
 board, drinking nothing but water on shore, — without shelter, 
 without means,— surrounded by hostile tribes. 
 
 8. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any prin- 
 ciple of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful 
 of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many 
 months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes, enu- 
 merated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, 
 politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your 
 conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant 
 coast ? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, 
 the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other 
 times, and find the parallel of this. 
 
 9. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads 
 of women and children ; was it hard labor and spare meals ; 
 was it disease ; was it the tomahawk ; was it the deep malady 
 of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, 
 aching in its last moments at the recollection of the loved and 
 left beyond the sea ; — was it some, or all of these united, that 
 hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate ? And 
 is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, 
 were able to blast this bud of hope ? Is it possible, that, from a 
 beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration 
 as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth 
 so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a 
 promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious ? Edward Everett. 
 
THE GRAVES OF THE PATRIOTS. 287 
 
 Edward Everett, an American statesman, orator, and man of letters, wa| 
 born in Dorchester, near Boston, Mass., April 11th, 1794. He entered Harvard 
 College in 1807, where he graduated with the highest honors at the carlj 
 age of seventeen. He studied theology; was settled as pastor over the Brattle 
 Street Church in Boston; and in 1815, elected Greek Professor at Harvard 
 College. He now visited Europe, where he devoted four years to study and 
 travel, and made the acquaintance of Scott, Byron, Campbell, Jeffrey, and other 
 noted persons. He was subsequently a member of both houses of Congn •—, 
 Governor of Massachusetts, Embassador to England, President of Harvard 
 College, and Secretary of State. As a scholar, rhetorician, and orator, he has 
 had but few equals. Through his individual efforts, chiefly as lecturer, the sum 
 of about $90,000 was realized and paid over to the Mount Vernon fund, and 
 sundry charitable associations. Ho died in January, 1805. 
 
 VII. 
 
 83. THE GRAVES OF THE PATRIOTS. 
 
 HERE rest the great and good. Here they repose 
 After their generous toil. A sacred band, 
 They take their sleep together, while the year 
 Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves, 
 And gathers them again, as Winter frowns. 
 Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre — green sods 
 Are all their monument, and yet it tells 
 A nobler history than pillared piles, 
 Or the eternal pyramids. 
 
 2. They need 
 No statue nor inscription to reveal 
 
 Their greatness. It is round them ; and the joy 
 With which their children tread the hallowed ground 
 That holds their venerated bones, the peace 
 That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth 
 That clothes the land they rescued — these, though mute 
 As feeling ever is when deepest — these 
 Are monuments more lasting than the fanes 
 Reared to the kings and demigods of old. 
 
 3. Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade 
 Over their lowly graves ; beneath their boughs 
 There is a solemn darkness even at noon, 
 Suited to such as visit at the shrine 
 
 Of serious Liberty. No factious voice 
 Called them unto the field of generous fame, 
 But the pure consecrated love of home. 
 No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes 
 
290 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Have forged thy chain ; yet while he deems thee bound. 
 
 The links are shivered, and the prison walls 
 
 Fall outward : terribly thou springest forth, 
 
 As springs the flame above a burning pile, 
 
 And shoutest to the nations, who return 
 
 Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies. 
 
 4. Thy birth-right was not given by human hands : 
 Thou wert twin-bom with man. In pleasant fields, 
 "While yet our race was few, thou sat'st with him, 
 To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars, 
 And teach the reed to utter simple airs. 
 Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood, 
 Didst war upon the panther and the wolf, 
 His only foes ; and thou with him didst draw 
 The earliest furrows on the mountain side, 
 Soft with the Deluge. Tyranny himself, 
 The enemy, although of reverend look, 
 Hoary with many years, and far obeyed, 
 Is later born than thou ; and as he meets 
 The grave defiance of thine elder eye, 
 The usurper trembles in his fastnesses. 
 
 5. Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years, 
 But he shall fade into a feebler age ; 
 Feebler, yet subtler : he shall weave his snares, 
 And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap 
 His withered hands, and from their ambush call 
 His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send 
 Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien, 
 To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words 
 To charm thy ear ; while his sly imps, by stealth, 
 Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread, 
 That grow to fetters ; or bind down thy arms 
 
 With chains concealed in chaplets. 
 
 6. Oh! not yet 
 Mayst thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by 
 Thy sword, nor yet, O Freedom ! close thy lids 
 In slumber ; for thine enemy never sleeps. 
 And thou must watch and combat, till the day 
 
 Of the new Earth and Heaven. But wouldst thou rest 
 Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men, 
 
LIBERTY. 291 
 
 These old and friendly solitudes invite 
 
 Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees 
 
 AVere young upon the unviolated earth, 
 
 And yet the moss-stains on tho rock were new, 
 
 Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced. Bryant. 
 
 IX. 
 
 85. LIBERTY. 
 
 LIBERTY, gentlemen, is a solemn thing — a welcome, a joyous, 
 a glorious thing, if you please ; but it is a solemn thing. 
 A free people must be a thoughtful people. The subjects of a 
 despot may be reckless and gay if they can. A free peoplo 
 must be serious ; for it has to do the greatest thing that ever 
 was done in the world — to govern itself. 
 
 2. That hour in human life is most serious, when it passes 
 from parental control, into free manhood : then must the man 
 bind the righteous law upon himself, mure strongly than father 
 or mother ever bound it upon him. And when a people leaves 
 the leading-strings of prescriptive authority, and enters upon 
 the ground of freedom, that ground must be fenced with law ; 
 it must be tilled with wisdom ; it must be hallowed with prayer. 
 The tribunal of justice, the free school, the holy church must bo 
 built there, to intrench, to defend, and to keep the sacred heritage. 
 
 3. Liberty, I repeat, is a solemn tiling. The world, up to this 
 time, has regarded it as a boon — not as a bond. And there is 
 nothing, I seriously believe, in the present crises of human affairs 
 — there is no point in the great human welfare, on which men's 
 ideas so much need to be cleared up — to be advanced — to be 
 raised to a higher standard, as this grand and terrible responsi- 
 bility of freedom. 
 
 4. In the universe there is no trust so awful as mural freedom ; 
 and all good civil freedom depends upon the use of that. But 
 look at it. Around every human, every rational being, is drawn 
 a circle ; the space within is cleared from obstruction, or, at 
 least, from all coercion ; it is sacred to the being himself who 
 stands there ; it is secured and consecrated to his own respon- 
 sibility. May I say it ? — God himself does not penetrate there 
 with any absolute, any coercive power ! He compels the winds 
 and waves to obey him ; he compels animal instincts to obey 
 
292 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 him ; but he does not compel man to obey. That sphere he 
 leaves free ; he brings influences to bear upon it ; but the last, 
 final, solemn, infinite question between right and wrong, he 
 leaves to man himself. 
 
 5. Ah ! instead of madly delighting in his freedom, I could 
 imagine a man to protest, to complain, to tremble that such a 
 tremendous prerogative l is accorded to him. But it is accorded 
 to him ; and nothing but willing obedience can discharge that 
 solemn trust ; nothing but a heroism greater than that which 
 fights battles, and pours out its blood on its country's altar — the 
 heroism of self-renunciation a and self-control. 
 
 6. Come that liberty ! I invoke it with all the ardor of the 
 poets and orators of freedom ; with Spenser 3 and Milton, with 
 Hampden 4 and Sydney, 5 with Bienzi 6 and Dante, 7 with Hamil- 
 ton 8 and Washington, I invoke it. Come that liberty ! come 
 
 1 Pre rog' a tive, an exclusive or death with iron resolution. His very 
 
 peculiar privilege or right. able "Discourses concerning Govern- 
 
 a Renunciation, fnun^shi a' shun), ment " was a posthumous work. 
 
 'Edmund Spenser, excepting 6 Rienzi, (reen'ze), the orator, 
 
 Shakspeare, the greatest poet of his famous in Roman history for his 
 
 time, author of the " Faerie Queene," assumption of dictatorship in that 
 
 was born in London about 1553, where capital, born about 1310, was distin 
 
 he died on the 16th of January, 1599. guished by his love of the ancient 
 
 * John Hampden, celebrated for republican institutions of Rome, and 
 his resistance to the imposition of by his profound knowledge of anti- 
 taxes without authority of parlia- quity. He was massacred in 1354. 
 ment, and to the royal prerogative 7 Dante, (dan' te), the poet, author 
 of Charles I., commander of a troop of the " Divina Commedia," was 
 in the parliamentary army, was born born at Florence in 1265, and died 
 at London in 1594, and was mortally at Ravenna, in 1321. 
 
 wounded in an affair with Prince 8 Alexander Hamilton, distin- 
 
 Rupert on 18th of June, 1643. guished asa statesman, jurist, soldier, 
 
 * Algernon Sydney, second son of and financier, one of the ablest offi- 
 Robert, Earl of Leicester, England, cersinthe American Revolution, was 
 was born about the year 1621. In born in the West Indies, in 1757. In 
 early youth ho fought in the ranks 1782 he was a member of Congress 
 of the parliamentary forces. A thor- fromNew York. In 1789, Washington, 
 ough republican, he was inimical to the first President, placed him at the 
 all monarchy, and opposed to the as- head of the Treasury. On the death 
 cendancy of Cromwell. Ho was of Washington, in 1799, his rank 
 abroad at the Restoration, and was made him commander-in-chief of the 
 permitted to return to England in American army. He was challenged 
 1677. For his supposed connection by Aaron Burr, and a duel was the 
 with the Ryehouse Plot, he was be- consequence, in which he was mortal- 
 headed December 7th, 1683. He met 1 v wounded, at the aire of fort v seven. 
 
THE INQUIRY. 293 
 
 none that docs not lead to that ! Come the liberty that shall 
 strike off every chain, not only of iron, and iron-law, but of 
 painful constriction, of fear, of enslaving passion, of mad self- 
 will ; the liberty of perfect truth and love, of holy faith and glad 
 obedience! Orville Dewey. 
 
 SECTION XVI. 
 I. 
 
 86. THE INQUIRY. 
 
 TELL me, ye winged winds, that round my pathway roar, 
 Do ye not know some spot where mortals weep no more ? 
 Some lone and pleasant dell, some valley in the west, 
 Where, free from toil and pain, the weary soul may rest ? 
 The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low, 
 And sighed for pity as it answered — " No." 
 
 2. Tell me, thou mighty deep, whose billows round me play, 
 Know'st thou some favored spot, some island far away, 
 Where weary man may find the bliss for which he sighs, — 
 Where sorrow never lives, and friendship never dies ? 
 
 The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow, 
 Stopped for a while, and sighed to answer — "No." 
 
 3. And thou, serenest moon, that, with such lovely face, 
 Dost look upon the earth, asleep in night's embrace ; 
 Tell me, in all thy round, hast thou not seen some spot, 
 Where miserable man might find a happier lot ? 
 
 Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe, 
 And a voice, sweet, but sad, responded — " No." 
 
 4. Tell me, my secret soul ; — oh ! tell me, Hope and Faith, 
 Is there no resting-place from sorrow, sin, and death ? — 
 Is there no happy spot, where mortals may be blessed, 
 Where grief may find a balm, and weariness a rest ? 
 
 Faith, Hope, and Love, best boons to mortals given, 
 Waved their bright wings, and whispered — "Yes, rx 
 Heaven l" Chaeles Mackat. 
 
294: NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 n. 
 
 87. THE DEATH OF HAMILTON. 
 
 A SHORT time since, and he, who is the occasion of oar 
 sorrows, was the ornament of his country. He stood on 
 an eminence, and glory covered him. From that eminence ho 
 has fallen : suddenly, forever fallen. His intercourse with the 
 living world is now ended ; and those who would hereafter find 
 him, must seek him in the grave. There, cold and lifeless, is 
 the heart which just now was the seat of friendship ; there, dim 
 and sightless, is the eye, whose radiant and enlivening orb 
 beamed with intelligence ; and there, closed forever, are those 
 lips, on whose persuasive accents we have so often, and so lately 
 hung with transport ! 
 
 2. From the darkness which rests upon his tomb there pro- 
 ceeds, methinks, a light, in which it is clearly seen, that those 
 gaudy objects which men pursue are only phantoms. In this 
 light how dimly shines the splendor of victory — how humble 
 appears the majesty of grandeur! The bubble, which seemed 
 to have so much solidity, has burst ; and we again see, that all 
 below the sun is vanity. 
 
 3. True, the funeral eulogy has been pronounced, the sad and 
 solemn procession has moved, the badge of mourning has al- 
 ready been decreed, and presently the sculptured marble will 
 lift up its front, proud to perpetuate the name of Hamilton, and 
 rehearse to the passing traveler his virtues (just tributes of re- 
 spect, and to the living useful) ; but to him, moldering in his 
 narrow and humble habitation, what are they? How vain! 
 how unavailing ! 
 
 4. Approach, and behold, while I lift from his sepulcher its 
 covering! Ye admirers of his greatness! ye emulous of his 
 talents and his fame ! approach and behold him now. How 
 pale ! how silent ! No martial bands admire the adroitness of 
 his movements ; no fascinating throng weep, and melt, and 
 tremble at his eloquence ! Amazing change ! a shroud ! a cof- 
 fin ! a narrow, subterraneous cabin ! — this is all that now re- 
 mains of Hamilton ! And is this all that remains of Hamilton ? 
 During a life so transitory, what lasting monument, then, can 
 our fondest hopes erect ! 
 
PASS ON, RELENTLESS WORLD. 295 
 
 5. My brethren, we stand on the borders of an awful gulf, 
 which is swallowing up all thing.s human. And is there, amidst 
 this universal wreck, nothing stable, nothing abiding, nothing 
 immortal, on which poor, frail, dying man can fasten ? Ask the 
 hero, ask the statesman, whose wisdom you have been accus- 
 tomed to revere, and he will tell you. He will tell you, did I 
 say ? He has already told you, from his death-bed ; and his 
 illumined spirit still whispers from the heavens, with well-known 
 eloquence, the solemn admonition : " Mortals hastening to the 
 tomb, and once the companions of my pilgrimage, take warning 
 and avoid my errors ; cultivate the virtues I have recommended ; 
 choose the Saviour I have chosen : live disinterestedly ; live 
 for immortality ; and would you rescue any thing from final 
 dissolution, lay it up in God." Nott. 
 
 Elipiiai.et Nott, D.D., LL.D., was born in Ashford, Connecticut, In 1773, and 
 passed his youth as a teacher, thereby acquiring the means of educating himself. 
 He received the degree of Master of Arts from Brown University in 1795. He 
 soon after established himself as clergyman and principal of an academy at 
 Cherry Valley, in the State of New York. From 1798 to his election as president 
 of Union College, in 1S03, he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church, at Albany, 
 where he delivered a discourse "On the Death of Hamilton,' 1 from which the 
 above extract is taken. In 1S54, the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Nott'a presidency 
 was celebrated at Union College, at the Commencement in July. Very many 
 graduates assembled, and addresses were delivered by Dr. "Way land of Brown 
 University, and Judge Campbell of New York. Dr. Nott also spoke with hif 
 old eloquence. His " Addresses to Young Men," M Temperance Addresses," and 
 a collection of " Sermons," are his only published volumes. He died in 1S66. 
 
 in. 
 
 88. PASS OX, RELENTLESS WORLD. 
 
 SWIFTER and swifter, day by day, 
 Down Time's unquiet current hurled, 
 Thou passest on thy restless way, 
 
 Tumultuous and unstable world ! 
 Thou passest on ! Time hath not seen 
 
 Delay upon thy hurried path ; 
 And prayers and tears alike have been 
 In vain to stay thy course of wrath ! 
 
 2. Thou passest on, and with thee go 
 
 The loves of youth, the cares of age ; 
 And smiles and tears, and joy and woe, 
 Are on thy history's troubled page ! 
 
296 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 There, every day, like yesterday, 
 
 Writes hopes that end in mockery ; 
 But who shall tear the veil away 
 
 Before the abyss of things to be ? 
 
 3. Thou passest on, and at thy side, 
 
 Even as a shade, Oblivion treads, 
 And 6'er the dreams of human prido 
 
 His misty shroud forever spreads ; 
 Where all thine iron hand hath traced 
 
 Upon that gloomy scroll to-day, 
 With records ages since effaced, — 
 
 Like them shall live, like them decay. 
 
 4. Thou passest on, with thee the vain, 
 
 Who sport upon thy flaunting blaze, 
 Pride, framed of dust and folly's train, 
 
 Who court thy love, and run thy ways : 
 But thou and I, — and be it so, — 
 
 Press onward to eternity ; 
 Yet not together let us go 
 
 To that deep-voiced but shoreless sea. 
 
 6. Thou hast thy friends, — I would have mine ; 
 
 Thou hast thy thoughts, — leave me my own ; 
 I kneel not at thy gilded shrine, 
 
 I bow not at thy slavish throne : 
 I see them pass without a sigh, — 
 
 They wake no swelling raptures now, 
 The fierce delights that fire thine eye, 
 
 The triumphs of thy haughty brow. 
 
 6. Pass on, relentless world ! I grieve 
 
 No more for all that thou hast riven ; 
 Pass on, in God's name, — only leave 
 
 The things thou never yet hast given — 
 A heart at ease, a mind at home, 
 
 Affections fixed above thy sway, 
 Faith set upon a world to come, 
 
 And patience through life's little day. Luxt. 
 
 George Lunt, born at Nc\vbur3'port, Massachusetts, was graduated at Har- 
 vard in 1834; admitted to the bar in 1S81 ; practiced for a while at his native 
 place, and since 1848 has pursued the profession in Boston. He published his 
 
THE WORLD FOR SALE. 297 
 
 first volume of poems in 1839, followed in 1843 by " The Age of Gold and other 
 Poems," and in 1854 by "Lyric Poems, Sonnets, and Miscellanies." His novel 
 of New England life, entitled "Eastford, or Household Sketches, by Westlcy 
 Brooke," was also published in 1854. 
 
 rv. 
 
 89. THE WORLD FOR SALE. 
 
 THE Wokld for sale ! — Hang out the sign ; 
 Call every traveler here to mc : 
 Who'll buy this brave estate of mine, 
 
 And set me from earth's bondage free ? — 
 "lis going ! — yes, I mean to fling 
 
 The bauble from my soul away ; 
 I'll sell it, whatsoe'er it bring ; — 
 The World at Auction here to-day ! 
 
 2. It is a glorious thing to see, — 
 
 Ah, it has cheated me so sore ! 
 It is not what it seems to be : 
 
 For sale ! It shall be mine no more. 
 Come, turn it o'er and view it well ; — 
 
 I would not have you purchase dear : 
 'Tis going ! going ! — I must sell ! 
 
 Who bids ?— Who'll buy the splendid Tear? 
 
 3. He-re's Wealth in glittering heaps of gold ; — 
 
 Who bids? — But let me tell you fair, 
 A baser lot was never sold ; — 
 
 Who'll buy the heavy heaps of care ? 
 And here, spread out in broad domain, 
 
 A goodly landscape all may trace ; 
 Hall, cottage, tree, field, hill, and plain ; — 
 
 Who'll buy himself a burial-place ! 
 
 4. Here's Love, the dreamy potent spell 
 
 That beauty flings around the heart ; 
 I know its power, alas ! too well ; — 
 
 'Tis going, — Love and I must part! 
 Must part ? — What can I more with Love! — 
 
 All over the enchanter's reign ; 
 Who'll buy the plumeless, dying dove, — 
 
 An hour of bliss, — an ago of pain 
 
298 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. And Friendship, — rarest gem of earth, — 
 
 (Who e'er hath found the jewel his ?) 
 Frail, fickle, false, and little worth, — 
 
 Who bids for Friendship — as it is ! 
 'Tis going ! going ! — Hear the call : 
 
 Once, twice, and thrice ! — 'tis very low ! 
 'Twas once my hope, my stay, my all, — 
 
 But now the broken staff must go ! 
 
 6. Fame! hold the brilliant meteor high ; 
 
 How dazzling every gilded name ! 
 Ye millions, now's the time to buy ! 
 
 How much for Fame ? — How much for Fame ? 
 Hear how it thunders ! — Would you stand 
 
 On high Olympus, 1 far renowned, — 
 Now purchase, and a world command ! — 
 
 And be with a world's curses crowned ! 
 
 7. Sweet star of Hope ! with ray to shine 
 
 In every sad foreboding breast, 
 Save this desponding one of mine, — 
 
 Who bids for man's last friend and best ? 
 Ah ! were not mine a bankrupt life, 
 
 This treasure should my soul sustain ; 
 But Hope and I are now at strife, 
 
 Nor ever may unite again. 
 
 8. And Song ! For sale my tuneless lute ; 
 
 Sweet solace, mine no more to hold ; 
 The chords that charmed my soul are mute, 
 
 I can not wake the notes of old ! 
 Or e'en were mine a wizard shell, 
 
 Could chain a world in rapture high ; 
 Yet now a sad farewell ! — farewell ! 
 
 Must on its last faint echoes die. 
 
 9. Ambition, fashion, show, and pride, — 
 
 I part from all forever now ; 
 Grief, in an overwhelming tide, 
 
 Has taught my haughty heart to bow. 
 
 1 O lym' pus, a mountain range mcr and other poets as the throne 
 of Thessaly, on the horder of Mac- of tho gods, is estimated to be 9,745 
 cdoiiia. Its summit, famed by lie- feet high. 
 
GLOBY. 299 
 
 Poor heart ! distracted, all, so long, — 
 
 And still its aching throb to bear ; 
 How broken, that was once so strong I 
 
 How heavy, once so free from care ! 
 
 10. No more for mo life's fitful dream ; — 
 
 Bright vision, vanishing away ! 
 My bark requires a deeper stream ; 
 
 My sinking soul a surer stay. 
 By Death, stern sheriff! all bereft, 
 
 I weep, yet humbly kiss the rod ; 
 The best of all I still have left, — 
 
 My Faith, my Bible, and my God. Hott. 
 
 Rev. IlALrn Hoyt is a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New 
 York. lie is a native of the city. After passing several years as a teacher, and 
 a "writer for the gazettes, he studied theology, and took orders in the church in 
 1S42. lie may have written much, but he has acknowledged little. " The Chant 
 of Life and other Poems," appeared in 1844, and the second portion of the same, 
 in 1S45. These works arc principally occupied with passages of personal senti- 
 ment and reflection. His pieces, entitled "Snow," "The World for Sale," "New," 
 and " Old," have attracted considerable attention, and become popular. A sim- 
 ple, natural current of feeling runs through them : the versification grows out 
 of the subject, and the whole clings to us as something written from the heart 
 of the author. A new edition of his " Sketches of Life and Landscape n waa 
 published in 1S53. 
 
 V. 
 
 90. GLORY. 
 
 THE crumbling tombstone and the gorgeous mausole'um, 1 
 the sculptured marble, and the venerable cathedral, all bear 
 witness to the instinctive desire within us to be remembered by 
 coming generations. But how short-lived is the immortality 
 which the works of our hands can confer ! The noblest monu- 
 ments of art that the world has ever seen are covered with the 
 soil of twenty centuries. The works of the age of Pericles 3 lie 
 at the foot of the Acrop'olis 3 in indiscriminate ruin. The plow- 
 
 1 MaiT so la' urn, a magnificent gree of perfection that has not since 
 
 tomb or monument. been equaled, and poetry reached the 
 
 1 Per' i cles, the greatest of Athcn- highest excellence. He died B. c. 429. 
 
 ian statesmen, was born about 495 B. 3 A crbp' o lis, the citadel of Ath- 
 
 c. During his administration archi- ens, built on a rock, and accessible 
 
 lecture and sculpture attained a de- only on one side. 
 
800 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 share turns up the marble which the hand of Phidias ' had chis- 
 eled into beauty, and the Mussulman has folded his flock beneath 
 the falling columns of the temple of Minerva. 3 
 
 2. But even the works of our hands too frequently survive the 
 memory of those who have created them. And were it other- 
 wise, could we thus carry down to distant ages the recollection 
 of our existence, it were surely childish to waste the energies of 
 an immortal spirit in the effort to make it known to other times, 
 that a being whose name was written with certain letters of the 
 alphabet, once lived, and nourished, and died. Neither sculp- 
 tured marble, nor stately column, can reveal to other ages the 
 lineaments of the spirit ; and these alone can embalm our mem- 
 ory in the hearts of a grateful posterity. 
 
 3. As the stranger stands beneath the dome of St. Paul's, 3 or 
 treads, with religious awe, the silent aisles of Westminster Ab- 
 bey, 4 the sentiment, which is breathed from every object around 
 him, is, the utter emptiness of sublunary 5 glory. The fine arts, 
 obedient to private affection or public gratitude, have hero em- 
 bodied, in every form, the finest conceptions of which their age 
 was capable. Each one of these monuments has been watered 
 by the tears of the widow, the orphan, or the patriot. 
 
 4. But generations have passed away, and mourners and 
 mourned have sunk together into forgetfulness. The aged crone, 
 or the smooth-tongued beadle, as now he hurries you through 
 aisles and chapel, utters, with measured cadence and unmeaning 
 tone, for the thousandth time, the name and lineage of the once 
 honored dead ; and then gladly dismisses you, to repeat again 
 his well-conned lesson to another group of idle passers-by. 
 
 5. Such, in its most august form, is all the immortality that 
 matter can confer. It is by what we ourselves have done, and 
 
 1 Phid' i as, a Greek sculptor, and Christopher Wren in 1718. 
 
 the most celebrated of antiquity, « Westminster Abbey, a church 
 
 was born at Athens about 490 b. c., in Westminster, built by Edward the 
 
 and died 432 b. c. Confessor, in 1050. Henry III. made 
 
 2 Mi ner / va, called Athena by the additions and rebuilt a part between 
 Greeks, was usually regarded, in 1220 and 1269. Many of the most 
 heathen my thology, as the goddess of distinguished statesmen, warriors, 
 wisdom, knowledge, and art. scholars, and artists of England He 
 
 ' St. Paul's, a celebrated church in buried here. 
 London, of very great size. It was 6 SuV lunary, being under the 
 begun about 1675, and finished by moon ; terrestrial ; earthly. 
 
PASSING AWAY. 301 
 
 not by what others have done for us, that wo shall be remem- 
 bered by after ages. It is by thought that has aroused my in- 
 tellect from its slumbers, which has " given luster to virtue, and 
 dignity to truth," or by those examples which have inflamed my 
 soul with the love of goodness, and not by means of sculptured 
 marble, that I hold communion with Shakspeare and Milton, 
 with Johnson and Burke, with Howard l and "Wilberforce. 3 
 
 Dr. Waylaxd. 
 
 Dr. Francis "Wayland was born in the city of New York, March 11th, 1706, 
 and in the seventeenth year of his age he was graduated at Union College, in 
 Schenectady. After studying medicine for three years, and his admission to 
 practice, he entered the Theological Seminary at Andovcr, which he left at the 
 end of a year, to become a tutor in Union College. In 1831 he became pastor of 
 the First Baptist Church in Boston, where he continued five years. He was 
 elected to the presidency of Brown University, Providence, in 1828. His lir-t 
 publication was a sermon on the Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise, 
 delivered in Boston, in 1823, which had an extraordinary success, passing through 
 many editions, in England and this country. Very many of his discourses, since 
 that period, have been equally popular. He has also written numerous articles 
 in the journals and quarterly reviews. His works on Moral Science, Tblitical 
 Economy, and Intellectual PldlosopJuj, have deservedly met with great success. 
 His very interesting " Life of the Missionary, Dr. Judson," appeared in 1S53. 
 This able thinker is equally popular as an orator and a writer. Clear, exact, and 
 searching in his analysis, he penetrates to the very heart of his subject, and 
 enunciates its ultimate principles in a stvle of transparent clearness, and clas- 
 sical purity and elegance, and not unfrequently rises to strains of impassioned 
 eloquence. He died September 30th, 1SG5. 
 
 VI. 
 
 01. PASSING AWAY. 
 
 ~VTT*AS it the chime of a tiny bell, 
 
 V V That came so sweet to my dreaming ear, 
 Like the silvery tones of a fairy's shell, 
 
 That he winds on the beach so mellow and clear, 
 "When the winds and the waves lie together asleep, 
 And the moon and the fairy are watching the deep, 
 
 1 John Howard, the celebrated ons of Europe. On a second tour 
 
 Christian philanthropist, was born of inquiry, he was seized with a ma- 
 
 at Hackney, London, in 1720. With lignant fever, of which he died, at 
 
 a view to the amelioration of pris- Kherson, Russia, Jan. 20th, 1700. 
 
 oners, in 1777 he visited all the pris- 2 William Wilberforce, a distin- 
 
 ons in the United Kingdom ; and in guished British statesman, author. 
 
 1778, and the four following years, and Christian philanthropist, was 
 
 he inspected the principal public pris- born in 17o9.and died July 28th, 1833. 
 
<J02 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 She dispensing her silvery light, 
 
 And he his notes as silvery quite, 
 While the boatman listens and ships his oar, 
 To catch the music that comes from the shore ? — 
 
 Hark ! the notes on my ear that play, 
 
 Are set to words : as they float, they say, 
 " Passing ' away ! passing away !" 
 
 2 But, no ; it was not a fairy's shell, 
 
 Blown on the beach, so mellow and clear : 
 Nor was it the tongue of a silver bell 
 
 Striking the hours that fell on my ear, 
 As I lay in my dream : yet was it a chime 
 That told of the flow of the stream of Time ; 
 For a beautiful clock from the ceiling hung, 
 And a plump little girl for a pendulum, swung ; 
 (As you've sometimes seen, in a little ring 
 That hangs in his cage, a canary bird swing ;) 
 And she held to her bosom a budding bouquet ,* 
 And as she enjoyed it, she seemed to say, 
 " Passing away ! passing away !" 
 
 3. Oh, how bright were the wheels, that told 
 
 Of the lapse of time as they moved round slow 1 
 And the hands, as they swept o'er the dial ot gold, 
 
 Seemed to point to the girl below. 
 And lo ! she had changed ; — in a few short hours, 
 Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers, 
 That she held in her outstretched hands, and flung 
 This way and that, as she, dancing, swung 
 In the fullness of grace and womanly pride, 
 That told me she soon was to be a bride ; 
 
 Yet then, when expecting her happiest day, 
 In the same sweet voice I heard her say, 
 " Passing away ! passing away !" 
 
 4. "While I gazed on that fair one's cheek, a shade 
 
 Of thought, or care, stole softly over, 
 Like that by a cloud in a summer's day made, 
 Looking down on a field of blossoming clover. 
 
 1 Passing, (p&s' ing), Note 3, p. 22. " Bouquet, (bo k&')- 
 
PASSING AWAY. 303 
 
 The rose yet lay on her cheek, but its flush 
 Had something lost of its brilliant blush ; 
 
 And the light in her eye, and the light on the wheels, 
 That marched so calmly round above her, 
 
 Was a little dimmed — as when evening steals 
 Upon noon's hot face : — yet one couldn't but love her ; 
 For she looked like a mother whoso first babe lay 
 Rocked on her breast, as she swung all day ; 
 And she seemed in the same silver tone to say, 
 " Passing away ! passing away !" 
 
 5. "While yet I looked, what a change there came ! 
 
 Her eye was quenched, and her cheek was wan ; 
 Stooping and staffed was her withered frame, 
 
 Yet just as busily swung she on : 
 The garland beneafh her had fallen to dust ; 
 The wheels above her were eaten with rust ; 
 The hands, that over the dial swept, 
 Grew crook'd and tarnished, but on they kept ; 
 And still there came that silver tone 
 From the shriveled lips of the toothless crone, 
 (Let me never forget, to my dying day, 
 The tone or the burden of that lay) — 
 
 " Passing away ! passing away 1" Pierpo^t. 
 
 Rev. John PiERrbNT, author of the "Airs of Palestine," was born at Litch- 
 field, Connecticut, April 0th, 1785. He entered Yale College when fifteen years 
 old, graduated in 1804, and passed the four subsequent years as a private tutor 
 in the family of Col. Win. Allston, of South Carolina. He then returned home, 
 studied law in the celebrated school of his native town, and was admitted to 
 practice in 1813. About the same period he delivered his poem entitled "The 
 Portrait," before the Washington Benevolent Society, of Xewburyport, to which 
 place he had removed. Impaired health, and the unsettled state of affairs pro- 
 duced by the war, induced him soon after to relinquish his profession. He be- 
 came a merchant, first in Boston, and afterward in Baltimore. The "Airs of 
 Palestine," which he published in Baltimore, in 1818, was well received, and 
 twice reprinted in the course of the following year. In 1810 he was ordained 
 minister of the Hollis Street Unitarian Church, in Boston. He passed a portion 
 of the years 1835-6 in Europe, and in 1840 published a choice edition of his 
 poems. At different periods, he also published several very able discourses. 
 In 1851 he delivered a poem of considerable length at the centennial celebration 
 in Litchfield. He has written in almost every meter, and many of his poems 
 are remarkably elevated, spirited, and melodious. He died suddenly at 
 Medford, Mass., August 26th, 1800. 
 
304: NATIONAL FIFTn READER. 
 
 SECTION XVII. 
 I. 
 
 92. THE STOLEN RIFLE. 
 
 MACKENZIE offered to cross the river and demand the rifle, 
 if any one would accompany him. It was a hair-brained 
 project, for these villages were noted for the ruffian character of 
 their inhabitants ; yet two volunteers promptly stepped forward, 
 Alfred Seton, the clerk, and Joe de la Pierre, the cook. The 
 tri'o soon reached the opposite side of the river. On landing, 
 they freshly primed their rifles and pistols. A path winding for 
 about a hundred yards among rocks and crags, led to the village. 
 
 2. No notice seemed to be taken of their approach. Not a 
 solitary being — man, woman, or child — greeted them. The very 
 dogs, those noisy pests of an Indian town, kept silence. On 
 entering the village a boy made his appearance, and pointed to 
 a house of larger dimensions than the rest. They had to stoop 
 to enter it : as soon as they had passed the threshold, the nar- 
 row passage behind them was filled by a sudden rush of Indians, 
 who had before kept out of sight. 
 
 3. Mackenzie and his companions found themselves in a rude 
 chamber of about twenty-five feet long, and twenty wide. A 
 bright fire was blazing at one end, near which sat the chief, 
 about sixty years old. A large number of Indians, wrapped in 
 buffalo robes, were squatted in rows, three deep, forming a semi- 
 circle round three sides of the room. A single glance sufficed 
 to show them the grim and dangerous assembly into which they 
 had intruded, and that all retreat was cut off by the mass which 
 blocked up the entrance. 
 
 4. The chief pointed to the vacant side of the room opposito 
 to the door, and motioned for them to take their seats. They 
 complied. A dead pause ensued. The grim warriors around 
 sat like statues ; each muffled in his robe, with his fierce eyes 
 bent on the intruders. The latter felt they were in a perilous 
 predicament. 
 
 5. " Keep your eyes on the chief while I am addressing him," 
 said Mackenzie to his companions. " Should he give any sign 
 to his band, shoot him, and make for the door." Mackenzie 
 
THE TOMAHAWK SUBMISSIVE TO ELOQUENCE. 305 
 
 advanced, and offered the pipe of peace to the chief, but it was 
 refused. He then made a regular speech, explaining the object 
 of their visit, and proposing to give, in exchange for the rifle, 
 two blankets, an ax, some beads, and tobacco. 
 
 6. When he had done, the chief rose, began to address him 
 in a low voice, but soon became loud and violent, and ended by 
 working himself up into a furious passion. He upbraided the 
 white men for their sordid conduct, in passing and repassing 
 through their neighborhood without giving them a blanket or 
 any other article of goods, merely because they had no furs to 
 barter in exchange ; and he alluded, with menaces of vengeance, 
 to the death of the Indians, killed by the whites at the skirmish 
 at the Falls. 
 
 7. Matters were verging to a crisis. It was evident the sur- 
 rounding savages were only waiting a signal froni the chief to 
 spring upon their prey. Mackenzie and his companions had 
 gradually risen on their feet during the speech, and had brought 
 their rifles to a horizontal position, the barrels resting in their 
 left hands : the muzzle of Mackenzie's piece was within three 
 feet of the speaker's heart. 
 
 8. They cocked their rifles ; the click of the locks for a mo- 
 ment suffused the dark cheek of the savage, and there was a 
 pause. They coolly, but promptly advanced to the door ; the 
 Indians fell back in awe, and suffered them to pass. The sun 
 was just setting as they emerged from this dangerous den. They 
 took the precaution to keep along the tops of the rocks as much 
 as possible, on their way back to the canoe, and reached their 
 camp in safety, congratulating themselves on their escape, and 
 feeling no desire to make a second visit to the grim warriors of 
 the ^Yish-ram." Washington Irving. 
 
 n. 
 
 93. THE TOMAHAWK SUBMISSIVE TO ELOQUENCE. 
 
 riHWENTY tomahawks were raised ; twenty arrows drawn to 
 JL their head. Yet stood Harold stern and collected, at bay 
 — parleying only with his Btoord. He waved his arm. Smitten 
 with a sense of their cow'ardice, perhaps, or by his great dig- 
 nity, more awful for his very youth, their weapons dropped, and 
 their countenances were uplifted upon him, less in hatred than 
 in wonder. 
 
306 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. The old men gathered about him : he leaned upon his saber. 
 Their eyes shone with admiration : such heroic deportment, in 
 one so young — a boy ! so intrepid ! so prompt ! so graceful ! so 
 eloquent, too ! — for, knowing the effect of eloquence, and feeling 
 the loftiness of his own nature, the innocence of his own heart, 
 the character of the Indians for hospitality, and their veneration 
 for his blood, Harold dealt out the thunder of his strength to 
 these rude barbarians of the wilderness, till they, young and old, 
 gathering nearer and nearer in their devotion, threw down their 
 weapons at his feet, and formed a rampart of locked arms and 
 hearts about him, through which his eloquence thrilled and 
 lightened like electricity. The old greeted him with a lofty step, as 
 the patriarch welcomes his boy from the triumph of far-off battle ; 
 and the young clave to him and clung to him, and shouted in their 
 self-abandonment, like brothers round a conquering brother. 
 
 3. " Warriors !" he said, " Brethren !" — (their tomahawks were 
 
 brandished simulta'neously, at the sound of his terrible voice, as 
 
 if preparing for the onset). His tones grew deeper, and less 
 
 threatening. "Brothers! let us talk together of Logan! 1 Ye 
 
 who have known him, ye aged men ! bear ye testimony to the 
 
 deeds of his strength. Who was like him ? Who could resist 
 
 him? Who may abide the hurricane in its volley? Who may 
 
 withstand the winds that uproot the great trees of the mountain ? 
 
 Let him be the foe of Logan. Thrice in one day hath he given 
 
 battle. Thrice in one day hath he come back victorious. Who 
 
 may bear up against the strong man — the man of war ? Let 
 
 them that are young, hear me. Let them follow the course of 
 
 Logan. He goes in clouds and whirlwind — in the fire and in 
 
 the smoke. Let them follow him. Warriors ! Logan was the 
 
 father of Harold !" They fell back in astonishment, but they 
 
 believed him ; for Harold's word was unquestioned, undoubted 
 
 evidence, to them that knew him. Neal. 
 
 JonN Neal was born in Portland, Maine, about 1794. He was brought up as 
 a shop-boy, and in 1815 became a wholesale dry-goods dealer in Baltimore, with 
 John Pierpont, the poet. The concern failed, and Neal commenced the study 
 of law, and with it the profession of literature, by writiog a series of critical es- 
 says on the works of Byron for "The Portico," a monthly magazine. In 1818 
 he published "Keep Cool," a novel, and in the following year "The Battle of 
 
 1 Logan, an Indian chief of the when lie took an Indian's revenge. 
 
 Cayugas, murdered in 1781. lie was A speech of his, addressed to Lord 
 
 remarkable for his attachment to the Dunmore, is an eloquent rebuke of 
 
 whites until cruelly treated by them, the conduct of the whites. 
 
THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET. 307 
 
 Niagara, Goldau the Maniac Tlarpcr, and other Poem?," and "Otho," a tragedy, 
 lie wrote a large portion of Allen's "History of the American Revolution," 
 which appeared in 183L Four novels, "Logan," "Randolph," "Errata," and 
 " Seventy-six," some of which were republished in London, followed in quick 
 succession. Meanwhile the author had studied law; been admitted, and was 
 practicing as energetically as he was writing. Near the close of 1823 he went 
 abroad; and, soon after his arrival in London, became a contributor to several 
 periodicals, making his first appearance in " Blackwood's Magazine," in " Sketch 
 cf the Five American Presidents and the Five Candidates for the Presidency," a 
 paper which was widely republished. After passing four years in Great Britain 
 and on the Continent, in which time appeared his " Brother Jonathan," a novel, 
 he came back to his native city of Portland, where he now resides. He has 
 since published " Rachel Duer," "Authorship," "The Down Eastcrs," " Ruth 
 Elder," "One Word More," 1S54, and "True Womanhood, a Talc," 18.59; and 
 contributed largely to periodicals. His novels arc original, and written from 
 the impulses of his heart, containing numerous passages marked by dramatic 
 power, and brilliancy of sentiment and cxprcs>ion ; but most of them having 
 been produced rapidly, and without unity, aim, or continuous interest, are now 
 undergoing revision. Mr. Ncal's poems have the unquestionable stamp of genius. 
 His imagination is marked by a degree of sensibility and energy rarely surpassed. 
 
 m. 
 
 91 THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET. 
 
 1. 
 
 O'ER a low coucli the setting sun had thrown its latest ray, 
 "Where, in his last strong agony, a dying warrior lay,— 
 The stern old Baron Rudiger, whose frame had ne'er been bent 
 By wasting pain, till time and toil its iron strength had sj^ent. 
 
 2. 
 
 " They come around me here, and say my days of life are o'er, — 
 That I shall mount my noble steed and lead my band no more ; 
 They come, and, to my beard, they dare to tell me now that I, 
 Their own liege lord aud master born, that I — ha ! ha ! — must die. 
 
 3. 
 
 And what is death ? I've dared him oft, before the Painim ] spenr ; 
 Think ye he's entered at my gate — has come to seek me here ? 
 I've met him, faced him, scorned him, when the fight was rag- 
 ing hot ; — 
 I'll try his might, I'll brave his power ! — defy, and fear him not ! 
 
 4. 
 "Ho! sound the tocsin 1 from my tower, and fire the cul'verin,* 
 Bid each retainer arm with speed ; call every vassal in. 
 
 » FaP nim, pagan ; infidel. s CuT ver in, a long, slender can- 
 
 * T6c' sin, a bell for giving alarm, non, to carry a ball a great distance* 
 
308 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Up with my banner on the wall, — the banquet-board prepare, — 
 Throw wide the portal of my hall, and bring my armor there J' 1 
 
 5. 
 
 A hundred hands were busy then : the banquet forth was spread, 
 And rung the heavy oaken floor with many a martial tread ; 
 While from the rich, dark tracery, along the vaulted wall, 
 Lights gleamed on harness, plume, and spear, o'er the proud 
 
 old Gothic hall. 
 
 6. 
 Fast hurrying through the outer gate, the mailed retainers poured, 
 On through the portal's frowning arch, and thronged around 
 
 the board ; 
 While at its head, within his dark, carved, oaken chair of state, 
 Armed cap-a-pie, 1 stern Eudiger, with girded falchion 2 sate. 
 
 7. 
 " Fill every beaker up, my men ! — pour forth the cheering wine ! 
 There's life and strength in every drop, — thanksgiving to the vine ! 
 Are ye all there, my vassals true ? — mine eyes are waxing dim : 
 Fill round, my tried and fearless ones, each goblet to the brim ! 
 
 8. 
 
 " Ye're there, but yet I see you not ! — draw forth each trusty sieord, 
 And let me hear your faithful steel clash once around my board ! 
 I hear it faintly : Louder yet ! What clogs my heavy breath ? 
 Up, all! — and shout for Eudiger, 'Defiance unto Death!'" 
 
 9. 
 Bowl rang to bowl, steel clanged to steel, and rose a deafening cry, 
 That made the torches flare around, and shook the flags on high •. 
 " Ho ! cravens ! do ye fear him ? Slaves ! traitors ! have ye flown ? 
 Ho ! cowards, have ye left me to meet him here alone ? 
 
 10. 
 " But I defy him ! — let him come !" Down rang the massy cup, 
 WTiile from its sheath the ready blade came flashing half-way up; 
 And, with the black and heavy plumes scarce trembling on his 
 
 head, 
 There, in his dark, carved, oaken chair, old Eudiger sat — dead ! 
 
 Greene. 
 
 1 Cap N apie', from head to foot; shorter than the ordinary military 
 
 all over. sword, and less heavy, much used 
 
 3 Falchion, (fir chun), a broad from the eighth to the fifteenth 
 
 sword, with a slightly curved point, century. 
 
BERNARDO DEL CARPIO. 309 
 
 . Mr. Albert G. Greene was born at Providence, Rhode Inland, February 10th, 
 1803. lie was a graduate at Brown University in 1820, practiced law in his nativo 
 city until 1834, since which time he has held office under the city government. 
 One of his earliest metrical compositions was the popular ballad of " Old Grimes." 
 His poems, which were principally written for periodicals, have never been pub- 
 lished in a collected form. One of his longest serious ballads, entitled " Canon- 
 chet," is published in Updike's "History of the Narraghansett Church." 
 
 IV. 
 95. BERNARDO DEL CARPIO. 1 
 
 1. 
 
 rTIHE warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire, 
 
 _A_ And sued the haughty king to free his long-imprisoned sire ; 
 
 " I bring thee here my fortress-keys, I bring my captive train, 
 
 I pledge thee faith, my liege, my lord ! — Oh ! break my father's 
 
 chain !" 
 
 2. 
 " Rise, rise ! even now thy father comes, a ransomed man this day : 
 Mount thy good horse ; and thou and I will meet him on his way." 
 Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed, 
 And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger's foamy speed. 
 
 3. 
 And lo ! from far, as on they pressed, there came a glittering band, 
 With one that 'midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land : 
 " Now haste, Bernardo, haste ! for there, in very truth, is he, 
 The father whom thy faithful heart hath yearned so long to see." 
 
 4. 
 
 His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his cheek's hue 
 came and went : 
 
 He reached that gray-haired chieftain's side, and there, dismount- 
 ing, bent ; 
 
 A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father's hand he took — 
 
 What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook ? 
 
 1 Bernardo del Carpio, a eclcbra- release. Alphonso therefore offered 
 
 ted Spanish champion, after many in- Bernardo the person of his father in 
 
 effectual efforts to procure the release exchange for the castle of Carpio. 
 
 of his father, Count Saldana, whom Bernardo immediately gave up his 
 
 King Alphonso, of Asturias, had long stronghold with all his captives ; and 
 
 retainedin prison, at last tookuparms rode forth with the king to meet his 
 
 in despair. He maintained so de- father, who he was assured was on 
 
 structive a war that the king's sub- his way from prison. The remainder 
 
 jects united in demanding Saldanas of the story is related in the ballad. 
 
310 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 * 
 
 5. 
 
 That hand was cold, a frozen thing, — it dropped from his like lead ! 
 He looked up to the face above, — the face was of the dead! 
 A plume waved o'er the noble brow, — the brow was fixed and 
 
 white : 
 He met, at last, his father's eyes, — but in them was no sight ! 
 
 6. 
 Up from the ground he sprang and gazed ; — but who could paint 
 
 that gaze ? 
 They hushed their very hearts, that saw its horror and amaze : — 
 They might have chained him, as before that stony form he stood ; 
 For the power was stricken from his arm, and from his lip the blood. 
 
 7. 
 
 " Father !" at length he murmured low, and wept like childhood 
 
 then : 
 Talk not of grief till thou hast seen the tears of warlike men ! 
 He thought on all his glorious hopes, and all his young renown, — 
 He flung his falchion from his side, and in the dust sat down. 
 
 8. 
 Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful 
 
 brow, 
 "No more, there is no more," he said, " to lift the sword for, now ; 
 My king is false — my hope betrayed ! My father — Oh ! the worth, 
 The glory, and the loveliness, are passed away from earth ! 
 
 9. 
 
 "I thoughtto stand wherebanners waved, my sire, beside thee,yet! 
 I would that there our kindred blood on Spain's free soil had met ! 
 Thou wouldst have known my spirit, then ; — for thee my fields 
 
 were won ; 
 And thou hast perished in thy chains, asthoughthouhadst noson!" 
 
 10. 
 Then, starting from the ground once more, he seized the mon- 
 arch's rein, 
 Amidst the pale and wildered looks of all the courtier train ; 
 And, with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rearing war-horse led, 
 Ajid sternly set them face to face — the king before the dead : 
 
 11. 
 
 " Came I not forth, upon thy pledge, my father's hand to kiss ? 
 Be still, and gaze thou on, false king ! and tell me, what is this ? 
 
MARIUS IN PRISON. 3H 
 
 The voice, the glance, the heart I sought, — give answer, where 
 
 are they ? 
 If thou wouldst dear thy perjured soul, send life through this 
 
 cold clay ! 
 
 12. 
 
 "Into these glassy eyes put light ; — be still! keep down thine ire! — 
 
 \Bid these white lips a blessing speak, — this earth is not my sire : 
 
 7 Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was 
 
 shed ! — 
 Thou canst not ? and a king! — his dust be mountains on thy head!" 
 
 13. 
 He loosed the steed, — his slack hand fell; — upon the silent face 
 He cast one long, deep, troubled look, then turned from that sad 
 
 place : 
 His hope was crushed, his after fate untold in martial strain : — 
 His banner led the spears no more, amidst the hills of Spain. 
 
 Mrs. II em ax s. 
 Mrs. Hemaks (Felicia Dorothea Browne), the daughter of a Liverpool mer- 
 chant, was born in that town on the 25th of September, 1793. Her father, soon 
 after, experiencing some reverses, removed with his family to Wales, and there 
 the young poetess imbibed that love of nature which is displayed in all her 
 works. She wrote verses from her childhood, and published a poetical volume 
 in her fourteenth year. Her second volume, " The Domestic Affections," which 
 appeared in 1812, established her poetical reputation. In the same year she mar- 
 ried Captain Ilemans, who, after some years, went to reside on the Continent, 
 his wife remaining at home with her five sons. She became more and more de- 
 voted to study and composition. In 1S19 she won a prize of £50, offered by some 
 patriotic Scots for the best poem on Sir William Wallace, and in June, 1821, she 
 obtained the prize awarded by the Royal Society of Literature for the best poem 
 on the subject of Dartmoor. She succeeded well in narrative and dramatic 
 poetry, though the character of her genius was decidedly lyrical and reflective. 
 Her numerous poems arc admirable for purity of sentiment and gentle pathos; 
 and her personal character was amiable, modest, and exemplary. After several 
 changes of residence, she died in Dublin, ou the ICth of May, 1S35. 
 
 V. 
 
 96. MARIUS m PRISON. 
 
 THE peculiar sublimity of the Roman mind does not express 
 itself, nor is it at all to be sought, in their poetry. Poetry, 
 according to the Roman ideal of it, was not an adequate organ 
 for the grander movements of the national mind. Roman sub- 
 limity must be looked for in Roman acts, and in Roman sayings. 
 Where, again, y\ill you find a more adequate expression of the 
 
312 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Roman majesty, than in the saying of Trajan 1 — Imperalorem 
 oportere stantem mori — that Caesar 3 ought to die standing? — a 
 speech of impsratorial 3 grandeur. Implying that he, who was 
 "the foremost man of all this world," and, in regard to all 
 other nations, the representative of his own, should express its 
 characteristic virtue in his farewell act — should die in procinctu,* 
 and should meet the last enemy as the first, with a Roman 
 countenance and in a soldier's attitude. If this had an imper- 
 atorial, what follows had a consular majesty, and is almost the 
 grandest story upon record. 
 
 2. Mariiis, 5 the man who rose to be seven times consul, was in 
 a dungeon, and a slave was sent in with commission to put him 
 to death. These were the persons — the two extremities of ex- 
 alted and forlorn humanity, its vanward and its rearward man, a 
 Roman consul and an abject slave. But their natural relations 
 to each other were, by the caprice of fortune, monstrously in- 
 verted : the consul was in chains ; the slave was for a moment 
 the arbiter of his fate. By what spells, what magic, did Marius 
 reinstate himself in his natural prerogatives ? By what marvels 
 drawn from heaven or from earth, did he, in the twinkling of 
 an eye, again invest himself with the purple, and place between 
 himself and his assassin a host of shadowy lictors ? 
 
 3. By the mere blank supremacy of great minds over weak 
 ones. He fascinated the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. 
 Standing "like Teneriffe," he smote him with his eye, and said, 
 " Tunc, homo, audes occidere C. Marium ?" — Dost thou, fellow, 
 
 1 Tra'jan, one of the most illustri- and died by the hands of assassins, 
 ous emperors of Rome, was born near in the Senate House, in the loth of 
 Seville, in Spain, in the year 53. By March, in the fifty-sixth year of his 
 his great victories over tho Dacians, age. As a warrior, a statesman, and 
 Germans, and Parthians, he fixed sc- a man of letters, he was one of tho 
 curely the boundaries of the Roman most remarkable men of any age. 
 empire on tho banks of the Rhine ■ Im per x a to' ri al, of, or relating 
 and the Tigris. His internal admin- to the office of Imperator, or Com- 
 istration was equally glorious, his mander-in-chief, a title of honor con- 
 reign being celebrated for its great ferred on Roman generals for great 
 clemency, and rigid discipline of military exploits ; commanding, 
 justice, and for its humanity to * In procinctu, about to join bat- 
 Christians. Ho died at Selinus, a tic; ready for action, 
 town in Cilicia, August, 117. 6 Ma'rius, one of the greatest 
 
 3 Caius Julius Caesar, Dictator of generals and dictators of the Roman 
 
 Rome, was born July 12 th, n. c. 100, republic, born about 157, died r$. c. CO. 
 
THE ANNOYEB. $13 
 
 presumo to kill Caius Marius ? Whereat, the rep'tile, quaking 
 under the voice, nor daring to affront the consular eye, sank 
 gently to the ground, turned round upon his hands and feet, 
 and, crawling out of the prison like any other vermin, left Marius 
 standing in solitude as steadfast and immovable as the capitol. 
 
 De Quincet. 
 
 SECTION XVIII. 
 L 
 
 97. THE ANNOYER. 
 
 LOVE knoweth every form of air, 
 And every shape of earth, 
 And comes, unbidden, everywhere, 
 Like thought's mysterious birth. 
 The moonlit sea and the sunset sky 
 
 Are written with Love's words, 
 And you hear his voice unceasingly, 
 Like song, in the time of birds. 
 
 2. He peeps into the warrior's heart 
 
 From the tip of a stooping plume, 
 And the serried ' spears, and the many men, 
 
 May not deny him room. 
 He'll come to his tent in the weary night, 
 
 And be busy in his dream, 
 And he'll float to his eye in the morning light, 
 
 Like a fay on a silver beam. 
 
 3. He hears the sound of the hunter's gun, 
 
 And rides on the echo back, 
 And sighs in his car like a stirring leaf, 
 
 And flits in his woodland track. 
 The shade of the wood, and the sheen* of the river, 
 
 The cloud, and the open sky, — 
 Ho will haunt them all with his subtle quiver, 
 
 Like the light of your very eye. 
 
 ■ SSr' rifcd, close ; crowded ; compact. a Shsen, brightness. 
 
 14 
 
314 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 4 The fisher hangs over the leaning boat. 
 
 And ponders the silver sea, 
 For Love is under the surface hid, 
 
 And a spell of thought has he : 
 He heaves the wave like a bosom sweet, 
 
 And speaks in the ripple low, 
 Till the bait is gone from the crafty line, 
 
 And the hook hangs bare below. 
 
 5. He blurs the print of the scholar's book, 
 
 And intrudes in the maiden's prayer, 
 And profanes the cell of the holy man 
 
 In the shape of a lady fair. 
 In the darkest night, and the bright daylight, 
 
 In earth, and sea, and sky, 
 In every home of human thought, 
 
 Will Love be lurking nigh. Willis. 
 
 Nathaniel Parker Willis, one of the most voluminous and successful of 
 American writers, was born in Portland, Maine, January 20th, 1807. His father, 
 a distinguished journalist, removed to Boston when he was six years of age. He 
 was prepared for college at the Latin School of Boston and at the Phillips Acad- 
 emy at Andover. He graduated with high honors at Yale in 1827. While in 
 college, he distinguished himself by a series of sacred poems, and gained the 
 prize of fifty dollars for the best poem, offered by Lockwood, the publisher of 
 " The Album." After his graduation he edited " The Legendary," a series of 
 volumes of tales, and then established the " American Monthly Magazine," which, 
 after two years and a half, was merged in the " New York Mirror," and the liter- 
 ary fraternity of N. P. Willis and George P. Morris began. Immediately after 
 the partnership was formed, he set sail for a tour in Europe, palatable and 
 piquant reports of which appeared in the " Mirror," entitled "Pencilings by the 
 Way." This first and extended residence abroad led our traveler through all the 
 capitals of Europe, and even to " the poetic altars of the Orient." In 1835, after 
 residing two years in London, and contributing to the "New Monthly Maga- 
 zine" talcs and sketches, republished under the title of " Inklings of Adventure," 
 he married Mary Leighton Stacy, the daughter of a distinguished officer who 
 had won high honors at Waterloo, and was then Commissary-general in com- 
 mand of the arsenal, Woolwich. In 1837, he returned to his native land, and 
 established himself at " Glenmary," in Central New York, near the village of 
 Owego. The portrait of this happy home and the landscape around, is drawn 
 in " Letters from under a Bridge." In 1839, he became one of the editors of 
 14 The Corsair," a literary gazette, and made a short trip to England. On his 
 return home, "The Corsair" having been discontinued, he revived, with his for- 
 mer partner, Gen. Morris, the "Mirror." Upon the death of his wife, in 1844, 
 he again visited Europe for the improvement of his health. Soon after, the 
 " Mirror" having passed into other hands, the partners established " The Home 
 Journal." In October, 1846, he married Cornelia, only daughter of the Hon. 
 Joseph Grinnell, of Massachusetts, since which time he has resided at "Idle- 
 wild," a romantic place, which he has cultivated and onibelllshed, near Newburg. 
 
THE PALM AND THE PINE. 315 
 
 on the Hudson. His poems have recently been published in an elegant octavo 
 volume, richly illustrated, and a uniform collection of his prose writings, in 
 twelve volumes, of some live hundred pages each, has also come from the press. 
 Mr, Willis is equally happy as a writer of prose and verse. With a felicitous 
 Style, a warm and exuberant fancy, and a ready and sparkling wit, he wins the 
 admiration of readers of the most refined sentiment and the daintiest fancy, and 
 at the same time commands the full sympathy of the masses. 
 
 II. 
 
 98. THE PALM AND THE PINE. 
 
 WHEN Peter led the First Cmsade, 
 A Norseman wooed an Ar'ab inaicL 
 He loved her lithe and palmy grace, 
 And the dark beauty of her face : 
 She loved his cheeks, so ruddy fair, 
 His sunny eves and yellow hair. 
 
 2. He called : she left her father's tent ; 
 She followed wheresoeer he went. 
 She left the palms of Palestine 
 
 To sit beneath the Norland pine. 
 She sang the musky Orient strains 
 Where Winter swept tho snowy plains. 
 
 3. Their natures met like Night and Morn 
 "What time the morning-star is born. 
 The child that from their meeting grew 
 Hung, like that star, between the two. 
 The glossy night his mother shed 
 From her long hair was on his head : 
 But in its shade thev saw ariso 
 
 The morning of his father's eyes. 
 
 4. Beneath the Orient's tawny stain 
 Wandered the Norseman's crimson vein : 
 Beneath the Northern force was seen 
 The Ar'ab sense, alert and keen. 
 
 His were the Viking's ' sinewy hands, 
 The arching foot of Eastern lands. 
 
 5. And in his soul conflicting strove 
 Northern indifference, Southern love : 
 
 1 VY king, one of the pirate chiefs from among the Northmen, who plui> 
 dered the coasts of Europe in the eighth and ninth. centuries, . . 
 
316 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 The chastity of temperate blood, 
 Impetuous passion's fiery flood ; 
 The settled faith that nothing shakes, 
 The jealousy a breath awakes ; 
 The planning Reason's sober gaze, 
 And fancy's meteoric blaze. 
 
 6. And stronger, as he grew to man, 
 The contradicting natures ran, — 
 As minified streams from Etna flow, 
 One born of fire, and one of snow. 
 And one impelled, and one withheld, 
 And one obeyed, and one rebelled. 
 One gave him force, the other fire ; 
 This self-control, and that desire. 
 One filled his heart with fierce unrest ; 
 With peace serene the other blessed. 
 
 7. He knew the depth and knew the height, 
 The bounds of darkness and of light ; 
 And who these far extremes has seen 
 Must needs know all that lies between. 
 
 8. So, with untaught, instinctive art, 
 He read the inyriad-natured heart. 
 He met the men of many a land ; 
 They gave their souls into his hand ; 
 And none of them was long unknown : 
 The hardest lesson was his own. 
 
 9. But how he lived, and where, and when, 
 It matters not to other men ; 
 
 For, as a fountain disappears, 
 To gush again in later years, 
 So hidden blood may find the day, 
 When centuries have rolled away ; 
 And fresher lives betray at last 
 The lineage of a far-off Past. 
 
 10. That nature, mixed of sun and snow, 
 
 Repeats its ancient ebb and now : 
 
 The children of the Palm and Pino 
 
 Renew their blended lives — in mine. Taylor. 
 
 Bayard Taylor, the noted American traveler and poet, was born in the vil- 
 lage of Kennett Square, Chester County, Pennsylvania. January 11th, 1825. At 
 
FAIR IKES. 317 
 
 the age of seventeen he became an apprentice in a printing office in Westches- 
 ter ; and about the same period wrote verses, which appeurcd in the " New York 
 Mirror" and " Graham's Magazine." He collected and published a small volumo 
 of his poems in 1844, and visited Europe the same year. Having passed two 
 years in Great Britain, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and France, he returned 
 home; published an account of his travels under the title of" Views a-Foot ;" 
 6Cttled in New York; and in 1848, soon after publishing "Rhymes of Travel," 
 secured a place as a permanent writer for " The Tribune. " He visited California 
 m 1840, returned by the way of Mexico in 1850, and soon after published his 
 "Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire." His "Book of Romances, 
 Lyrics, and Songs," which appeared in 1851, greatly increased his reputation as 
 a poet. The same year he set out on a protracted tour in the East, upon which 
 he was absent two years and four months) traveling more than fifty thousand 
 miles. His spirited, graphic, and entertaining history of this journey is given 
 in three works, entitled " A Journey to Central Africa, "The Land of the Sara- 
 cen," and " India, Loo Choo, and Japan." " Tocms of the Orient •' appeared in 
 1854, embracing only such pieces as were written while he was on his passage 
 round the world. They contain passages "rich, sensuous, and impetuous, as 
 the Arab sings in dreams," with others gentle, tender, and exquisitely modulated. 
 A complete edition of his poems appeared in 1864; and his latest novel, "Keu- 
 nett," in 18GG. 
 
 III. 
 99. FAIR INES. 
 
 OSAW ye not fair Ines ? she's gone into the west, 
 To dazzle when the sun is down, and rob the world of rest ; 
 She took our daylight with her, the smiles that we love best, 
 With morning blushes on her cheek, and pearls upon her breast. 
 
 2. 
 
 turn again, fair Ines, before the fall of night, 
 
 For fear the moon should shine alone, and stars unrivaled bright ; 
 And blessed will the lover be that walks beneath their light, 
 And breathes the love against thy cheek I dare not even write ! 
 
 3. 
 
 Would I had been, fair Ines, that gallant cavalier 
 "W ho rode so gayly by thy side, and whispered thee so near ! — 
 Were there no bonny dames at home, or no true lovers hero, 
 That he should cross the seas to win the dearest of the dear ? 
 
 4. 
 
 1 saw thee, lovely Ines, descend along the shore, 
 
 'With bands of noble gentlemen, and banners waved before ; 
 Andgentle youth andmaidens gay, and snowyplumesthey wore) — 
 It would have been a beauteous dream — if it had been no more ! 
 
318 • NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. 
 
 Alas ! alas ! fair Ines ! slio went away with song, 
 With music waiting on her steps, and shoutings of the throng ; 
 But some were sad, and felt no mirth, but only Music's wrong, 
 In sounds thatsangFarewell, Farewell to her you've loved so long. 
 
 6. 
 
 Farewell, farewell, fair Ines ! that vessel never bore 
 So fair a lady on its deck, nor danced so light before — 
 Alas for pleasure on the sea, and sorrow on the shore I 
 The smile that blest one lover's heart has broken many more ! 
 
 Thomas Hood. 
 
 IV. 
 
 100. LOVE. 
 
 ALL thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
 "Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
 All are but ministers of Love, 
 And feed his sacred flame. 
 
 2. Oft in my waking dreams do I 
 Live o'er again that happy hour, 
 "When midway on the mound I lay, 
 
 Beside the ruined tower. 
 
 3. The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, 
 Had blended with the lights of eve ; 
 And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
 
 My own dear Genevieve ! 
 
 4. She leaned against the armed man, 
 The statue of the armed knight ; 
 She stood and listened to my lay, 
 
 Amid the lingering light. 
 
 5. Few sorrows hath she of her own. 
 My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve ! 
 She loves me best whene'er I sing 
 
 The songs that make her grieve. 
 
 6. I played a soft and doleful air ; 
 I sang an old and moving story — 
 An old, rude song, that suited well 
 
 That ruin wild and hoary. 
 
love. 319 
 
 7. She listened with a flitting blush, 
 
 With downcast eyes and modest grace ; 
 For well she knew I could not choose 
 But gaze upon her face. 
 
 #. I told her of the knight that woro 
 Upon his shield a burning brand ; 
 And that for ten long years he wooed 
 The Lady of the Land. 
 
 9. I told her how he pined — and ah ! 
 The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
 With winch I sang another's love, 
 Interpreted my own. 
 
 10. She listened with a flitting blush, 
 With downcast eyes and modest grace ; 
 And sho forgave me that I gazed 
 
 Too fondlv on her face ! 
 
 11. But when I told the cruel scorn 
 
 That crazed that bold and lovely knight, 
 And that he crossed the mountain-woods, 
 Nor rested day nor night ; 
 
 12. That sometimes from the savage den, 
 And sometimes from the darksome shade, 
 And sometimes starting up at once 
 
 In green and sunny glade, — 
 
 13. There came and looked him in the face 
 An angel beautiful and bright ; 
 
 And that he knew it was a fiend, 
 This miserable knight ! 
 
 14. And that, unknowing what he did, 
 Ho leaped amid a murderous band, 
 
 And saved from outrage worse than death, 
 The Lady of the Land. 
 
 15. And how she wept, and clasped his knees ; 
 And how she tended him in vain — 
 
 And ever strove to expiate 
 
 The scorn that crazed his brain ; — 
 
 1G. And that she nursed him in a cave ; 
 And how his madness went away, 
 
320 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 When on the yellow forest-leaves 
 A dying man lie lay. 
 
 17. His dying words — but when I reached 
 That tenderest strain of all the ditty, 
 My faltering voice and pausing harp 
 
 Disturbed her soul with pity I 
 
 18. All impulses of soul and sense 
 
 Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve ; 
 The music and the doleful tale, 
 The rich and balmy eve ; 
 
 19. And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, 
 An undistinguishable throng, 
 
 And gentle wishes long subdued, 
 Subdued and cherished long ! 
 
 20. She wept with pity and delight — 
 
 She blushed with love, and virgin shame ; 
 And like the murinur of a dream, 
 I heard her breathe my name. 
 
 21. Her bosom heaved ; she stepped aside — 
 As conscious of my look she stept — 
 Then suddenly, with timorous eye, 
 
 She fled to me and wept. 
 
 22. She half inclosed me with her arms : 
 She pressed mo with a meek embrace ; 
 And bending back her head, looked up, 
 
 And gazed upon my face. 
 
 23. 'Twas partly love, and partly fear, 
 And partly 'twas a bashful art, 
 That I might rather feel, than see, 
 
 The swelling of her heart. 
 
 24. I calmed her fears, and she was calm, 
 And told her love with virgin pride ; 
 And so I won my Genevieve, 
 
 My bright and beauteous bride. Coleridge. 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most imaginative and original of 
 poets, the youngest son of the vicar of St. Mary Ottery, in Devonshire, England, 
 was born at that place in October, 1773. Left an orphan in his ninth year, he 
 was educated for seven years at Christ's Hospital; and in 1791 he became student 
 ©f Jesus College, Cambridge. His reading embraced almost numberless books, 
 
LADY CLARE. 321 
 
 especially on theology, metaphysics, and poetry. In 1794 -was published the 
 drama called "The Fall of Robespierre," of which the first act was Coleridge's, 
 and the other two were Southey's. In 17<J5 he married Bliss Frieker, whose 
 sister soon afterward became Mrs. Southcy ; and In the same year he became 
 acquainted with Wordsworth. About the same period he went to reside in a 
 cottage at Stowey, Somersetshire, about two miles from the residence of the 
 latter; and the poets bound themselves in the closest friendship. He here wrote 
 some of his most beautiful poetry— his "Ode on the Departing Tear," "Tears in 
 Solitude," A France, an Ode," " Frost at Midnight," the first part of "Christabcl," 
 "The Ancient Mariner," and his tragedy of " Remorse.' 1 In 1793 he went to 
 Germany to complete his education, and resided for fourteen months at Ratz- 
 burg and Gottingcn. On his return to England he resided in the lake district 
 near Southcy and Wordsworth, and contributed political articles and poems for 
 the " Morning Post" newspaper, which was followed, some years later, by simi- 
 lar employment in the " Courier." For liftecn months, in 1S01 and 1S05, he was 
 secretary to Sir Alexander Ball, the governor of Malta. In 1S10 he found a quiet 
 and friendly home in the house of Mr. Gillman, surgeon of Iligbgate, where, 
 after a residence of eighteen years, he died in July, 183#. There both mind and 
 body were restored from the excitement and ill health caused by the use of 
 opium, lirst taken in illness, and afterward used habitually. His numerous pro- 
 ductions in prose and verse, as well as his unsurpassed Table-Talk, have since 
 been published, proving a perpetual delight ; and, like Nature, furnishing sub- 
 jects of admiration and imitation for the refined and observing. 
 
 V. 
 
 101. LADY CLARE. 
 
 IT was the time when lilies blow, 
 And the clouds are highest up in air, 
 Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
 To give his cousin, Lady Clare. 
 
 2. I trow they did not part in scorn : 
 
 Lovers long-betrothed were they : 
 They two shall wed the morrow morn ; 
 God's blessing on the day ! 
 
 3. " He does not love me for my birth, 
 
 Nor for my lands so broad and fair ; 
 Pie loves me for my own true worth, 
 And that is well," said Lady Clare. 
 
 ■I 
 
 4. In there came old Alice the nurse, 
 
 Said, " Who was this that went from thee ? 
 " It was my cousin," said Lady Clare ; 
 " To-morrow he weds with me." 
 
 5. " God be thanked !" said Alice the nurse, 
 
 " That all comes round so just and fair : 
 
322 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Lord Eonald is heir of all your lands, 
 And you are not the Lady Clare." 
 
 6. " Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse 7" 
 
 Said Lady Clare, " that ye speak so wild ?" 
 " As God's above," said Alice the nurse, 
 " I speak the truth : you are my child. 
 
 7. " The old Earl's daughter died at my breast ; 
 
 I speak the truth as I live by bread ! 
 I buried her like my own sweet child, 
 And put my child in her stead." 
 
 8. " Falsely, falsely have ye done, 
 
 O mother," she said, " if this be true, 
 To keep the best man under the sun 
 So many years from his due." 
 
 9. " Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 
 
 " But keep the secret for your life, 
 And all you have will be Lord Konald's 
 When you are man and wife." 
 
 10. " If I'm a beggar born," she said, 
 
 " I will speak out, for I dare not lie : 
 Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold, 
 And fling the diamond necklace by." 
 
 11. " Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 
 
 " But keep the secret all ye can." 
 She said, " Not so : but I will know, 
 If there be any faith in man." 
 
 12: " Nay now, what faith ?" said Alice the nurse ; 
 " The man will cleave unto his right." 
 " And he shall have it," the lady replied, 
 " Though I should die to-night." 
 
 13. " Yet give one kiss to your mother dear ! 
 
 Alas, my child, I sinned for thee." 
 " O mother, mother, mother," she said, 
 " So strange it seems to me. 
 
 14. " Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, 
 
 My mother dear, if this be so ; 
 And lay your hand upon my head, 
 And bless me, mother, ere I go." 
 
LADY CLARE. - 323 
 
 15. She clad herself in a russet gown — 
 
 She was no longer Lady Clare : 
 She went by dale, and she went by down, 
 AVith a single rose in her hair. 
 
 16. The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought 
 
 Leapt up from where she lay, 
 Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, 
 And followed her all the way. 
 
 17. Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower 
 
 " O Lady Clare, you shame your worth ! 
 Why come you drcst like a village maid, 
 That are the flower of all the earth ?" 
 
 18. " If I come drest like a village maid, 
 
 I am but as my fortunes are : 
 I am a beggar born," she said, 
 " And not the Lady Clare." 
 
 19. " Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
 
 " For I am yours in word and deed. 
 Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
 " Your riddle is hard to read." 
 
 20. Oh, and proudly stood she up ! 
 
 Her heart within her did not fail : 
 She looked into Lord Ronald's eyes, 
 And told him all her nurse's tale. 
 
 21. He — laughed a laugh of merry scorn : 
 
 He turned and kissed her where she stood : 
 "If you are not the heiress born, 
 
 And I," said he, " the next of blood — 
 
 22. " If you are not the heiress born, 
 
 And I," said he, " the lawful heir, 
 
 "We two will wed to-morrow morn, 
 
 And you shall still be — Lady Clare." Teknyson. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson, poet laureate of England, the son of a clergyman, was 
 born in Lincolnshire, in 1810. He received his university education at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. His first volume of poems was published in 1830; his 
 second, three years afterward. Some of his early minor pieces, as well as selec- 
 tions from "The Princess," are simple, true to nature, and exquisitely beautiful. 
 "In Memoriam," one of his most characteristic poems, is the most important 
 contribution which has yet been given to what may strictly be entitled Elegiac 
 Poetry. It first appeared in ISoO, nearly twenty years after the death of young 
 Hallam, the &on of the celebrated historian, to whom he was bound by many 
 
324: NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 endearing ties, and to whose memory the work is a tribute. Careful study, and 
 reflection on the reader's own inmost being, are required to fully reveal the 
 imaginative power, the wisdom, and the spiritual beauty of this work. The 
 poet's early fame is fully sustained by his later writings. " The Charge of the 
 Light Brigade" is one of the most spirited and effective poems ever written. 
 "Idyls of the King," for vigor, exquisite utterance, and varied interest, is 
 probably inferior to no corresponding poem in any language. " Lady Clare," 
 the selection here introduced, while well adapted to public reading and poetu? 
 recitation, is especially valuable as an exercise in Personation — see p. 69. 
 
 VI. 
 
 102. MAUD MULLER. 
 
 MAUD MULLER, on a summer's day, 
 Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 
 Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
 Of simple beauty and rustic health. 
 Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
 The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 
 
 2. But when she glanced to the far-off town, 
 White from its hill-slope looking down, 
 The sweet song died, 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. 
 
 3. 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 draught from the spring that flowed 
 Through the meadow, across the road. 
 
 4. She stooped where the cool spring 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 I" said tde Judge ; " a sweeter draught 
 From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 
 
 5. 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. 
 
MAUD MCLLER. 325 
 
 And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 
 And her graceful ankles, bare and brown, 
 And listened, while a pleased surprise 
 Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 
 At last, liko one who for delay 
 Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 
 
 6. Maud Miillcr looked and sighed : "Ah me! 
 That I the Judge's bride might be ! 
 
 He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
 And praise and toast mo at his wine. 
 My father should wear a broadcloth coat, 
 My brother should Bail 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/' 
 
 7. The Judgo looked back as he climbed 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 i3 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 loviug words." 
 
 8. But he thought of his sister, 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, 
 "When he hummed in court an old love-tune ; 
 And the young girl mused beside the well, 
 Till the rain on the unrated clover fell. 
 
 9. He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
 Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 
 Yet 6ft, in. his marble hearth's bright glow, 
 
326 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 He watched a picture come and go ; 
 And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
 Looked out in their innocent surprise. 
 
 10. 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 
 
 Wnere the barefoot maiden raked the hay." 
 
 11. 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 6ft, when the summer's 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. 
 
 12. Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
 Stretched away into' stately halls ; 
 The weary wheel to a spinet ' turned, 
 The tallow candle an astral 2 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. 
 Then she took up her burden of life again, 
 Saying only, " It might have been." 
 
 13. 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 ; 
 
 1 Spinet, a musical instrument re- lamp having the oil in a flattened 
 eembling a harpsichord, but smaller, ring surmounted by a hemisphere 
 * Astral, (as'tral-lamp), an argaud of ground glass. 
 
THE DREAM. 327 
 
 For 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 
 
 Roll tho stone from its grave away. Whither. 
 
 JonN Gkeenleaf Wiiittiek, one of the truest and most worthy of American 
 poets, was born near Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1S0S. Of a Quaker family, 
 his youth was passed at home, assisting his father on the farm, and attending 
 the district school and Haverhill Academy. In 1828 he went to Boston, and be- 
 came editor of a newspaper entitled the "American Manufacturer," and in 1830 
 he succeeded George D. Prentice as editor of the " New England Weekly Re- 
 view," at Hartford, and remained connected with it for two years. For several 
 years he was corresponding editor of the Washington " National Era." He has 
 been a prolific and popular writer both in prose and vrrsc. A complete edition 
 of his poems, in two volumes, appeared in 18G3; and "Snow-Bound, a Winter 
 Idyl," in 1806. In 1840 Mr. Whittier removed to Amcsbury, Massachusetts, 
 where all his later publications have been written, and where he still resides. 
 
 VII. 
 
 103. THE DREAM. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 OUR life is twofold : sleep hath its own world — 
 A boundary between the things misnamed 
 Death and existence : sleep hath its own world, 
 And a wide realm of wild reality ; 
 And dreams in their development have breath, 
 And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy ; 
 They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts ; 
 They take a weight from off our waking toils ; 
 They do divide our being ; they become 
 A portion of ourselves as of our time, 
 And look like heralds of Eternity ; 
 They pass like spirits of the past, — they speak 
 Like sibyls ' of the future ; they have power — 
 The tyranny of pleasure and of pain ; 
 They make us what we were not — what they will : 
 
 1 Sib'yl, a woman supposed to be variously stated ; but among the an- 
 
 endowed with a spirit of prophecy : cients, they were believed to be ten. 
 
 hence, a female fortune-teller, or They resided in various parts of Per- 
 
 gipsy. The number of the sibyls is sia, Greece, and Italy. 
 
328 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. They shake us with the vision that's gone by, 
 The dread of vanished shadows — are they so ? 
 Is not the past all shadow ? What are they ? 
 Creations of the mind ? — the mind can niake 
 Substance, and people planets of its own 
 "With beings brighter than have been, and give 
 A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. 
 
 I would recall a vision, which I dreamed 
 Perchance in sleep — for in itself a thought, 
 A slumbering thought, is capable of years, 
 And curdles a long life into one hour. — 
 
 3. I saw two beings in the hues of youth 
 Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, 
 Green and of mild declivity ; the last, 
 
 As 't were the cape, of a long ridge of such, 
 Save that there was no sea to lave its base, 
 But a most living landscape, and the wave 
 Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men 
 Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke 
 Arising from such rustic roofs ; — the hill 
 "Was crowned with a peculiar diadem 
 Of trees, in circular array — so fixed, 
 Not by the sport of Nature, but of man : 
 These two, a maiden and a youth, were there 
 Gazing — the one on all that was beneath ; 
 Fair as herself — but the boy gazed on her ; 
 And both were young, and one was beautiful ; 
 And both were young — yet not alike in youth. 
 
 4. As the sweet moon on the hori'zon's verge, 
 The maid was on the eve of womanhood : 
 The boy had fewer summers ; but his heart 
 Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye 
 There was but one beloved face on earth, 
 And that was shining on him : he had looked 
 Upon it till it could not pass away ; 
 
 He had no breath, no being, but in hers ; 
 She was his voice ; he did not speak to her, 
 But trembled on her words ; she was his sight, 
 For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers, 
 
THE DREAM. 329 
 
 Which colored all his objects ; — he had ceased 
 
 To livo within himself ; she was his life, 
 
 The ocean to the river of his thoughts, 
 
 "Which terminated all ; upon a tone, 
 
 A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow, 
 
 And his check change tempestuously — his heart 
 
 Unknowing of its cause of agony. 
 
 5. But she in these fond feelings had no sharo : 
 Her sighs were not for him ; to her he was 
 Even as a brother — but no more ; 't was much ; 
 For brotherless she was, save in the name 
 Her infant friendship had bestowed on him — 
 Herself tho solitary scion left 
 
 Of a time-honored race. — It was a name 
 
 Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not — and why ? 
 
 Time taught him a deep answer — when she loved 
 
 Another. Even now she loved another ; 
 
 And on the summit of that hill she stood 
 
 Looking afar, if yet her lover's steed 
 
 Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. — 
 
 6. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream : 
 There was an ancient mansion ; and before 
 Its walls there was a steed caparisoned. 
 Within an antique oratory stood 
 
 The Boy of whom I spake — he was alone, 
 
 And pale, and pacing to and fro. Anon 
 
 He sate him down, and seized a pen and traced 
 
 Words which I could not guess of ; then he leaned 
 
 His bowed head on his hands, and shook, as 't were 
 
 With a convulsion — then arose again ; 
 
 And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear 
 
 What he had written ; but he shed no tears. 
 
 And ho did calm himself, and fix his brow 
 
 Into a kind of quiet. 
 
 7. As he paused 
 The lady of his love reentered there ; 
 She was serene and smiling then ; and yet 
 She knew she was by him beloved ; she knew — 
 How quickly comes such knowledge ! that his heart 
 Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw 
 
330 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 That he was wretched ; but she saw not all. 
 
 He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp 
 
 He took her hand ; a moment o'er his face 
 
 A tablet of unutterable thoughts 
 
 Was traced ; and then it faded as it came. 
 
 He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps 
 
 Retired ; but not as bidding her adieu, 
 
 For they did part with mutual smiles. He passed 
 
 From out the massy gate of that old Hall ; 
 
 And, mounting on his steed, he went his way ; 
 
 And ne'er repassed that hoary threshold more. 
 
 VIII. 
 104. THE DREAM. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 A CHANGE came o'er the spirit of my dream : 
 The Boy was sprung to manhood. In the wilds 
 Of fiery climes he made himself a home, 
 And his soul drank their sunbeams ; he was girt 
 Wifti strange and dusky aspects ; he was not 
 Himself like what he had been ; on the sea 
 And on the shore he was a wanderer ; 
 There was a mass of many images 
 Crowded like waves upon me, but he was 
 A part of all ; and in the last he lay, 
 Reposing from the noontide sultriness, 
 Couched among fallen columns, in the shade 
 Of ruined walls that had survived the names 
 Of those who reared them ; by his sleeping side 
 Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds 
 Were fastened near a fountain ; and a man 
 Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, 
 While many of his tribe slumbered around ; 
 And they were canopied by the blue sky — 
 So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful, 
 That God alone was to be seen in Heaven. — 
 
 2 A change came o'er the spirit of my dream : 
 The Lady of his love was wed with one 
 Who did not love her better. In her home, 
 
THE DREAM. 331 
 
 A thousand leagues from his, — her native home — 
 She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy, 
 Daughters and sons of Beauty. But behold ! 
 Upon her face there was the tint of grief, 
 The settled shadow of an inward strife, 
 And an unquiet drooping of the eye, 
 As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. 
 What could her grief be ? — She had all she loved ; 
 And he who had so loved her was not there 
 To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish, 
 Or ill-repressed affection, her pure thoughts. 
 What could her grief be ? — she had loved him not, 
 Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved ; 
 Nor could he be a part of that which preyed 
 Upon her mind — a spectre of the past. — 
 
 3. A change camo 6'er the spirit of my dream : 
 The Wanderer was returned — I saw him stand 
 BefOre an altar, with a gentle bride ; 
 
 Her face was fair ; but was not that which made 
 The starlight of his Boyhood. As he stood, 
 Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came 
 The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock 
 That in the antique oratory shook 
 His bosom in its solitudo ; and then — 
 As in that hour — a moment o'er his face 
 The tablet of unutterable thoughts 
 Was traced — and then it faded as it came 
 And he stood calm and quiet ; and he spoke 
 The fitting vows, but heard not his own words ; 
 And all things reeled around him ; he could see 
 Not that which was, nor that which should have been — 
 But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall, 
 And the remembered chambers, and the place, 
 The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade- 
 All things pertaining to that place and hour, 
 And her who was his destiny — came back 
 And thrust themselves between him and the light : 
 What business had they there at such a time '? — 
 
 4. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream : 
 The Ladv of his love — Oh ! she was changed, 
 
332 NATIONAL FIFTH READER, 
 
 As by the sickness of the soul ; her mind 
 Had wandered from its dwelling ; and her eyes, 
 They had not their own luster, but the look 
 Which is not of the earth ; she was become 
 The queen of a fantastic realm ; her thoughts 
 Were combinations of disjointed things ; 
 And forms impalpable, and unperceived 
 Of others' sight, familiar were to hers. 
 And this the world calls frenzy ; but the wise 
 Have a far deeper madness, and the glance 
 Of melancholy is a fearful gift ; 
 What is it but the telescope of truth ? 
 Which strips the distance of its fantasies, 
 And brings life near in utter nakedness, 
 Making the cold reality too real ! — 
 
 5. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream : 
 The Wanderer was alone, as heretofore ; 
 The beings which surrounded him were gone, 
 Or were at war with him ; he was a mark 
 For blight and desolation — compassed round 
 With Hatred and Contention ; Pain was mixed 
 In all which was served up to him ; until, 
 Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, 
 
 He fed on poisons ; and they had no power, 
 But were a kind of nutriment. 
 
 6. He lived 
 Through that which had been death to many men ; 
 And made him friends of mountains. With the stars, 
 And the quick spirit of the Universe, 
 
 He held his dialogues ! and they did teach 
 To him the magic of their mysteries ; 
 To him the book of Night was opened wide, 
 And voices from the deep abyss revealed 
 A marvel and a secret — Be it so. 
 
 7. My dream was past : it had no further change. 
 It was of a strange order, that the doom 
 
 Of these two creatures should be thus traced out 
 
 Almost like a reality — the one 
 
 To end in madness — both in misery. Lord Byeon. 
 
SCENE FROM THE LADY OF LYONS. 333 
 
 A. 
 
 105. SCENE FROM THE LADY OF LYONS. 1 
 Melnotte's cottage — Widow bustling about. A table spread for supper. 
 
 ~TT~TLDOW. So — I think that looks very neat. He sent me 
 
 V V a line, so blotted that I can scarcely read it, to say he 
 would be here almost immediately. She must have loved him 
 well indeed, to have forgotten his birth ; for though he was 
 introduced to her in disguise, he is too honorable not to have 
 revealed to her the artifice which her love onlv could forgive. 
 Well, I do not wonder at it ; for though my son is not a prince, 
 he ought to be one, and that's almost as good- [Knock at the 
 door.'] Ah! here they are. [Enter Melnotte and Pauline.*] 
 
 Widow. Oh, my boy — the pride of my heart! — welcome, wel- 
 come ! I beg pardon, Ma'am, but I do love him so ! 
 
 Pauline. Good woman, I really — \Vhy, Prince, what is this? 
 — does the old woman know you ? Oh, I guess you have done 
 her some service. Another proof of your kind heart, is it not ? 
 
 Melnotte. Of my kind heart, ay ! 
 
 Pauline. So, you know the prince? 
 
 Widow. Know him, Madame ? — Ah, I begin to fear it is you 
 who know him not ! 
 
 Pauline. Do you think she is mad? Can we stay here, my 
 lord ? I think there's something very wild about her. 
 
 Melnotte. Madame, I — No, I can not tell her! My knee3 
 knock together : what a coward ij a man who has lost his 
 honor! Speak to her — speak to her — [to his mother] — tell her 
 that — Heaven, that I were dead ! 
 
 Pauline. How confused he looks! — this strange place — this 
 woman — what can it mean? I half suspect — Who are you, 
 Madame? — who are you? Can't you speak? are you struck 
 dumb? 
 
 Widow. Claude, you have not deceived her? — Ah, shame upon 
 
 1 Claude Melnotte, who had immediate amends; and, impelled 
 
 received many indignities to his by affection, virtue, and a laudable 
 
 slighted love, from Pauline, married ambition, finally conquers a posi- 
 
 her under the false appearance of tion, and becomes, in fact, her 
 
 an Italian prince. He afterward husband, 
 
 repents his bitter revenge ; makes 3 Pauline, (pa lcn'). 
 
334 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 you ! I thought that, before you went to the altar, she was to 
 have known all ? 
 
 Pauline. All ! what ? My blood freezes in my veins ! 
 
 Widow. Poor lady! — dare I tell her, Claude? [Melnotte 
 makes a sign of assent.] Know you not then, Madame, that this 
 young man is of poor though honest parents ? Know you not 
 that you are wedded to my son, Claude Melnotte ? 
 
 Pauline. Your son! hold! hold! do not speak to me — [ap- 
 proaches Melnotte and lays her hand on his a7in.] Is this a jest? 
 Is it ? I know it is . only speak — one word — one look — one 
 smile. I can not believe — I, who loved thee so — I can not be- 
 lieve that thou art such a — No, I will not wrong thee by a harsh 
 word. — Speak ! 
 
 Melnotte. Leave us — have pity on her, on me : leave us. 
 
 Widow. O Claude ! that I should live to see thee bowed by 
 shame ! thee, of whom I was so proud ! [Exit Widow. 
 
 Pauline. Her son ! her son ! 
 
 Melnotte. Now, lady, hear me. 
 
 Pauline. Hear thee 
 
 Ay, speak. Her son ! have fiends a parent ? Speak, 
 That thou mayst silence curses — Speak ! 
 
 Melnotte. No, curse me : 
 
 Thy curse would blast me less than thy forgiveness. 
 
 Pauline, [laughing wildly.] " This is thy palace, where the 
 perfumed light 
 Steals through the mist of alabaster lamps, 
 And every air is heavy with the sighs 
 Of orange-groves, and music from the sweet lutes, 
 And murmurs of low fountains, that gush forth 
 I* the midst of roses ! Dost thou like the picture ? 
 This is my bridal home, and tiiou my bridegroom ! 
 
 fool ! — O dupe ! — O wretch ! — I see it all — 
 The by-word and the jeer of every tongue 
 
 In Lyons ! Hast thou in thy heart one touch 
 Of human kindness ? If thou hast, why, kill me, 
 And save thy wife from madness. No, it can not, 
 It can not be ! this is some horrid dream : 
 
 1 shall wake soon. [ Touching him.] Art flesh ? art man ? or but 
 The shadows seen in sleep ? — It is too real. 
 
 What have I done to thee — how sinned against thee, 
 
SCENE FROM THE LADV OF LYONS. 3&> 
 
 That thou shouldst crush me thus ? 
 
 Melnotte. Pauline ! by pride 
 
 Angels have fallen ere thy time ; by pride — 
 That sole alloy of thy most lovely mold — 
 The evil spirit cf 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 if 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 ; 
 And from that hour I grew — what to the last 
 I shall be — thine adorer ! Well ! this love, 
 Vain, frantic, guilty, if thou wilt, becamo 
 A fountain of ambition and bright hope : 
 I thought of tales that by the winter hearth 
 Old gossips tell — how maidens, sprung from kings, 
 Have stooped 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, bay my ransom 
 From those twin jailers of the daring heart — 
 Low Birth and iron Fortune. Thy bright image, 
 Glassed in my soul, took all the hues of glury, 
 And lured me on to those inspiring toils 
 By which man masters "man ! 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, 
 And Passion taught me poesy — of thee, 
 And on the painter's canvas grew the life 
 Of beauty ! — Art became the shadow 
 
336 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Of the dear star-light 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 ! 
 
 Pauline. Has he a magic to exorcise hate? 
 
 Melnotle. 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 
 That should have been thy triumph, was thy scorn ! 
 That very hour, — when passion, turned to wrath, 
 Resembled hatred most — when thy disdain 
 Made my whole soul a chaos, — in that hour 
 The tempters found me a revengeful tool 
 For their revenge ! Thou hadst trampled on the worm — 
 It turned and stung thee ! 
 
 Pauline. Love, Sir, hath no sting, 
 
 What was the slight of a poor powerless girl, 
 To the deep wrong of this most vile revenge ? 
 Oh, how I loved this man ! — a serf! — a slave ! 
 
 Melnotle. Hold, lady I — No, not slave ! Despair is free. 
 I will not tell thee of the throes — the struggles — 
 The anguish — the remorse. No — let it pass ! 
 And let me come to such most poor atonement 
 Yet in my power. Pauline ! — [Approaching her with great 
 
 emotion, and about to take her hand % 
 
 Pauline. No, touch me not ! 
 
 I know my fate. You are, by law, my tyrant ; 
 And I — O Heaven ! — a peasant's wife ! I'll work, 
 Toil, drudge ; do what thou wilt ; but touch mo not : 
 Let my wrongs make me sacred ! 
 
 Melnotle. Do not fear me. 
 
 Thou dost not know me, Madame : at the altar 
 My vengeance ceased — my guilty oath expired ! 
 Henceforth, no imago of some marble saint, 
 Niched in cathedral's aisles, is hallowed more 
 From the rude hand of sacrilegious wrong. 
 
SCENE FROM THE LADY OF LYONS. 3^7 
 
 I am thy husband — nay, thou need'st not shudder ; — 
 
 Here, at thy feet, I lay a husband's rights. 
 
 A marriage thus unholy — unfulfilled — 
 
 A bond of fraud — i3, by the laws of France, 
 
 Made void and null. To-night, then, sleep — in peace. 
 
 To-inorrow, pure and virgin as this morn 
 
 I bore thee, bathed in blushes, from the altar, 
 
 Thy father's arms shall take thee to thy home. 
 
 The Jaw shall do thee justice, and restore 
 
 Thy right to bless another with thy love, 
 
 And when thou art happy, and hast half forgot 
 
 Him who so loved — so wronged thee, think at least 
 
 Heaven left some remnant of the angel still 
 
 In that poor peasant's nature ! — Ho ! my mother ! 
 
 Enter Widow. 
 Conduct this lady (she is not my wife — 
 She is our guest, our honored guest, my mother!) 
 To the poor chamber where the sleep of virtue 
 Never beneath my father's honest roof 
 E'en villains dared to mar ! Now, lady, now, 
 I think thou wilt believe me. — Go, mv mother! 
 
 Widowi She is not thy wife ! 
 
 Mdnotte. Hush ! hush ! for mercy sake : 
 
 Speak not, but go. [Widow ascends the stairs; Pauline 
 
 follows weeping — turns to look back. 
 
 Melnotte [sinking down.] All angels bless and guard her! 
 
 fcYTTON. 
 
 Sir Edwakd Bi.lweu Lttton, youngest son of the late Gen. Bulwer, of Hey - 
 don Hall, Norwalk, England, who has assumed the surname of his mother's 
 family, was born in 1S05. He exhibited proofs of superior talents at a very early 
 period, having written verses when only live or six yean old. His preliminary 
 studies were conducted under the eye of his mother, a woman of cultivated taste 
 and rare accomplishments. He graduated with honor at Trinity College, Ox- 
 ford, having won the chancellor's medal for the best English poem. In 1S2G he 
 published " Weeds and Wild Flowers," a small volume of poems; and the fol- 
 lowing year his first novel, " Falkland," appeared. Since that time he has been 
 constantly before the public a> an author, both in prose and verse. Of his early 
 novels, perhaps, " Ricnzi" is the most complete, high-toned, and energetic: of his 
 more recent ones his " Caxtons," nnd "My Novel, or Varieties in English Life," 
 arc regarded as the best. About 1S32, he became editor of the " New Monthly 
 Magazine; and to that journal he contributed essays and criticisms, subse- 
 quently published under the title of "The Student." Of his dramas, "The Lady 
 of Lyons," "Richelieu," and " Money." are, perhaps, three of the most popular 
 plays now upon the stage. The lirst of these, from which the preceding extract 
 
338 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 is taken, seldom fails of drawing tears when well represented. - Few authors 
 have displayed more versatility. His language and imagery are often exquisite, 
 and his power of delineating certain classes of character and manners superior 
 to that of any of his contemporaries. He commenced his political life in 1831, 
 when he entered parliament, where he became conspicuous for his advocacy of 
 the rights of dramatic authors, and for his liberal opinions on other questions. 
 His speeches in parliament, and his addresses, have served to raise his reputation. 
 His inaugural address as rector of the University of Glasgow, in particular, has 
 b:en greatly admired. 
 
 SECTION XIX. 
 I. 
 
 106. A GREAT MAN DEPARTED. 
 
 THERE was a festive hall with mirth resounding ; 
 Beauty and wit, and friendliness surrounding ; 
 "With minstrelsy above, and dancing feet rebounding. 
 
 2. And at the height came news, that held suspended 
 The sparkling glass ! — till slow the hand descended — 
 
 And ruddy cheeks grew pale — and all the mirth was ended. 
 
 3. Beneath a sunny sky, 'twas heard with wonder, — 
 A flash had cleft a lofty tree asunder, 
 
 Without a previous cloud, and with no rolling thunder. 
 
 4. Strong was the stem — its boughs above all 'thralling — 
 And in its roots and sap no cankers galling — 
 
 Prosperity was perfect, while Death's hand was falling. 
 
 5. Man's body is less safe than any tree ; 
 We build our ship in strong security — 
 
 A Finger, from the dark, points to the trembling sea. 
 
 6. Man, like his knowledge, and his soul's endeavor, 
 Is framed for no fixed altitude ; but ever 
 
 Moves onward ; the first pause, returns all to the Giver. 
 
 7. Riches and health, fine taste, all means of pleasure ; 
 Success in highest efforts — fame's best treasure — 
 
 All these were thine — o'crtopped and overweighed the 
 measure, 
 
 8. But in recording thus life's night-shade warning, 
 
 We hold the memory of thy kind heart's morning :— 
 Man's intellect is not man's sole nor best adorning. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER 33<J 
 
 n. 
 
 107. DANIEL WEBSTER. 1 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 BORN upon tho vorgc of civilization, — his father's house the 
 furthest by four miles on the Indian trail to Canada, — Mr. 
 "Webster retained to the last his love for that pure fresh nature 
 in which he was cradled. Tho dashing streams, which conduct 
 the waters of tho queen of New Hampshire's lakes 2 to the noble 
 Merrimac ; tho superb group of mountains 3 (the Switzerland of 
 tho United States), among which those waters have their sources ; 
 the primeval forest, whose date runs back to the twelfth verso of 
 the first chapter of Genesis,* and never since creation yielded to 
 the settler's ax ; tho gray buttresses of granite which prop tho 
 eternal hills ; the sacred alternation of the seasons, wife its 
 magic play on field and forest and flood ; the gleaming surfaco 
 of lake and stream in summer ; the icy pavement with which 
 they are floored in winter ; the verdure of spring, the prismatic 
 tints of the autumnal woods, the leafless branches of December, 
 glittering like arches and cor'ridors of silver and crystal in the 
 enchanted palaces of fairy -land — sparkling in the morning sun 
 with winter's jewelry, diamond and amethyst, and ruby and 
 sapphire ; the cathedral aisles of pathless woods, — the mournful 
 hemlock, the "cloud-seeking " pine, — hung with drooping creep- 
 ers, like funeral banners pendant from the roof of chancel or 
 transept over the graves of the old lords of the soil ; — these all 
 retained for him to the close of his life an undying charm. 
 
 2. But though he ever clun^ with fondness to the wild inoun- 
 tain scenery amidst which he was born and passed his youth, he 
 loved nature in all her other aspects. The simple beauty to 
 which he had brought his farm at Marsh field/ its approaches, 
 its grassy lawns, its well-disposed plantations on the hill-sides, 
 
 1 Extract from a speech at the Re- * Genesis, chap, i., v. 12, And the 
 
 vere House, Boston, Jan. ISth, ISoG, earth brought forth gnus, and herb 
 
 in commemoration of the 74th anni- yielding seed after his kind, and tho 
 
 versary of Mr. Webster's birth-day. tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in 
 
 a Win., (win^ne pissokMu). itself, after his kind. 
 
 * Mountains, the White Moun- b Marsh' field, a village on Massa- 
 
 tains, of which Mount Washington chusetts Buy, 28 miles 8. E. by S. of 
 
 is the principal summit. B<»ston. 
 
340 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 unpretending but tasteful, and forming a pleasing interchange 
 with his large corn-fields and turnip-patches, showed his sensi- 
 bility to the milder beauties of civilized culture- 
 
 3. He understood, no one better, the secret sympathy of na- 
 ture and art, and often conversed on the principles which govern 
 their relations with each other. He appreciated the infinite 
 bounty with which nature furnishes materials to the artistic 
 powers of man, at once her servant and master ; and he knew 
 not less that the highest exercise of art is but to imitate, inter- 
 pret, select, and combine the properties, affinities, and propor- 
 tions of nature ; that in reality they are parts of one great sys- 
 tem ; for nature is the Divine Creator's art, and art is rational 
 man's creation. 
 
 4. But not less than mountain and plain he loved the sea. 
 He loved to walk and ride and drive upon that magnificent 
 beach which stretches from Green Harbor 1 all round to the 
 Gurnet. He loved to pass hours, I may say days, in his little 
 boat. He loved to breathe the healthful air of the salt-water. 
 He loved the music of the ocean, through all the mighty octaves 
 deep and high of its far-resounding register ; from the lazy plash 
 of a midsummer's ripple upon the margin of some oozy creek to 
 the sharp howl of the tempest, which wrenches a light-house 
 from its clamps and bolts, fathoms deep, in the living rock, as 
 easily as a gardener pulls a weed from his flower-border. 
 
 5. There was, in fact, a manifest sympathy between his great 
 mind and this world-surrounding, deep-heaving, measureless, 
 everlasting, infinite deep. His thoughts and conversation of/en 
 turned upon it, and its great organic relations with other parts 
 of nature and with man. I have heard him allude to the mvs- 
 terious analogy between the circulation carried on by veins and 
 arteries, heart and lungs, and that wonderful interchange of 
 venous and arterial blood, — that miraculous complication which 
 lies at the basis of animal life, — and that equally complicated 
 and more stupendous circulation of river, ocean, vapor, and rain, 
 which from the fresh currents of the rivers fills the depths of 
 the salt sea ; then by vaporous distillation carries the waters 
 
 1 Green Harbor is tho name of Plymouth li^ht-houses are erected. 
 
 a small creek on the sea-shore of The distance between Ci reen Harbor 
 
 Marshfield, and the Gurnet is a and the Gurnet is between four and 
 
 projection or point on which the five miles. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 341 
 
 •which are under the firmament up to the oioudy cisterns cf the 
 waters above the firmament ; wafts them on the dripping wings 
 of the wind against the mountain sides, precipitates them to the 
 earth in the form of rain, and leads them again through a thou- 
 sand channels, open and secret, to the beds of the rivers, and 
 so back to the sea. 
 
 HI. 
 108. DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 PAliT SECOND. 
 
 W^ERE I to fix upon any one trait as the prominent trait of 
 Mr. Webster's personal character it would be his social 
 disposition, his loving heart. If there ever was a person who 
 felt all the meaning of the divine utterance, " it is not good that 
 man should be alone," it was he. Notwithstanding the vast re- 
 sources of his own mind, and the materials for self-communion 
 laid up in the storehouse of such an intellect, few men whom I 
 have known have been so little addicted to solitary and medita- 
 tive introspection ; l to few have social intercourse, sympathy, 
 and communion with kindred or friendly spirits been so grateful 
 and even necessary. 
 
 2. He loved to live with his friends, with "good, pleasant men 
 who loved him." This was his delight, aliko when oppressed 
 with his multiplied cares of office at "Washington, and when 
 enjoying the repose and quiet of Marshficld. He loved to meet 
 his friends at the social board, because it is there that men most 
 cast off the burden of business and thought ; there, as Cicero 
 says, that conversation is sweetest ; there that the kindly affec- 
 tions have the fullest play. 
 
 3. By the social sympathies thus cultivated, the genial con- 
 sciousness of individual existence becomes more intense. And 
 who that ever enjoyed it can forget the charm of his hospitality, 
 so liberal, so choice, so thoughtful ? In tho very last days of 
 his life, and when confined to tho couch from which he never 
 rose, he continued to give minute directions for the hospitable 
 entertainment of the anxious and sorrowful Mends who camo 
 to Marshficld. 
 
 4. If ho enjoyed society himself, how much he contributed to 
 
 ' InM-ro spec'tion, a view of the interior or inside. 
 
342 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 its enjoyment in others ! His colloquial powers were, I think, 
 quite equal to his parliamentary and forensic talent. He had 
 something instructive or ingenious to say on the most familiar 
 occasion. In his playful mood he was not afraid to trifle ; but he 
 never prosed, never indulged in common-place, never dogmatized, 
 was never affected. His range of information was so vast, his 
 observation so acute and accurate, his tact in separating the im- 
 portant from the unessential so nice, his memory so retentive, his 
 command of language so great, that his common table-talk, if 
 taken down from his lips, would have stood the test of publication. 
 
 5. He had a keen sense of the ludicrous, and repeated or list- 
 ened to a humorous anecdote with infinite glee. He narrated with 
 unsurpassed clearness, brevity, and grace, — no tedious, unneces- 
 sary details to spin out the story, the fault of most professed 
 raconteurs, 1 — but its main points set each in its place, so as often 
 to make a little dinner-table epic, but all naturally and without 
 effort. He delighted in anecdotes of eminent men, especially 
 of eminent Americans, and his memory was stored with them. 
 He would sometimes briefly discuss a question in natural his- 
 tory, relative, for instance, to climate, or the races and habits 
 and breeds of the different domestic animals, or the various 
 kinds of our native game, for he knew the secrets of the forest. 
 
 6. He delighted to treat a topic drawn from life, manner, 
 and the great industrial pursuits of the community ; and he did 
 it with such spirit and originality as to throw a charm around 
 subjects which, in common hands, are trivial and uninviting. 
 Nor were the stores of our sterling literature less at his command. 
 He had such an acquaintance with the great writers of our lan- 
 guage, especially the historians and poets, as enabled him to en- 
 rich his conversation with the most apposite allusions and illus- 
 trations. When the occasion and character of the company 
 invited it, his conversation turned on higher themes, and some- 
 times rose to the moral sublime. 
 
 7. Ho was not fond of the technical language of metaphysics, 
 but he had grappled, like the giant he was, with its most formi- 
 dable jDroblems. Dr. Johnson was wont (wunt) to say of Burke, 
 that a stranger who should chance to meet him under a shed in 
 a shower of rain, would say, " This was an extraordinary man." 
 A stranger who did not know Mr. Webster, might have passed 
 
 9 Raconteur, (ra kon' tor), a relator or teller of stories. 
 
FROM A HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 343 
 
 a day with him, in his seasons of relaxation, without detecting 
 the jurist or the statesman ; but he could not pass a half hour 
 with him without coming to the conclusion that he was one of 
 the best informed of men. 
 
 8. His personal appearance contributed to the attraction of 
 his social Intercourse. His countenance, frame, expression, and 
 presence, arrested and fixed attention. You could not pass him 
 unnoticed in a crowd ; nor fail to observe in him a man of high 
 mark and character. No one could see him and not wish to 
 see more of him, and this alike in public and private. 
 
 Edward Everett. 
 
 IV. 
 
 109. FROM A HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 1 
 
 UNBORN ages and visions of glory crowd upon my soul, the 
 realization of all which, however, is in the hands and good 
 pleasure of Almighty God ; but, under his divine blessing, it will 
 be dependent on the character and the virtues of ourselves, and 
 of our posterity. If classical history has been found to be, is 
 now, and shall continue to be, the concomitant 3 of free institu- 
 tions, and of popular eloquence, what a field is opening to us for 
 another Herod'otus, 3 another Thucydides, 4 and another Livy ! * 
 
 1 Delivered before the N. Y. His- * Thu cyd' i des, the historian, an 
 
 torical Society, February 23, 1852. Athenian citizen, was born about 
 
 3 Con cSm' i tant, an attendant; B. c. 471. His immortal history of 
 
 that which accompanies. the Peloponnesian war is divided 
 
 1 He r6d' o tus, called the "Father into eight books. He is regarded as 
 
 of History," a native of Ilalicarnas- first in the first rank of philosophical 
 
 bus, in Asia Minor, was born b. c. 484. historians. His style is concise, vig- 
 
 His history consists of nine books, orous,and energetic; his moral reflec- 
 
 which bear the name of the nine tions arc searching and profound; his 
 
 Muses. In the complexity of its speeches abound in political wisdom ; 
 
 plan, as compared with the simplic- and the simple minuteness of his 
 
 ity of its execution — in the multi- pictures is often striking and tragic, 
 plicity and heterogeneous nature of i Livy, an illustrious Roman his- 
 
 its material, and the harmony of torian, was born in Italy, b. c. 59, 
 
 their combinations — in the grandeur and died, A. D. 18. He has erected 
 
 of its historical masses, and the to himself an enduring monument 
 
 minuteness of its illustrative details in his History of Rome. This great 
 
 — it is without rival or parallel. It work contained tho history of the 
 
 may be regarded as the perfection Roman State from the earliest period 
 
 of epic prose. till the death of Prusus, b. c. 9, and 
 
344 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 2. And let roe say, gentlemen, that if we and our posterity 
 shall be true to the Christian religion, — if we and they shall live 
 always in the fear of God, and shall respect his commandments, — 
 if we and they shall maintain just, moral sentiments, and such 
 conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and 
 life, — we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of 
 our country ; and if we maintain those institutions of govern- 
 ment and that political union, exceeding all praise as much as it 
 exceeds all former examples of political associations, we may be 
 sure of one thing — that, while our country furnishes materials 
 for a thousand masters of the historic art, it will afford no topic 
 for a Gibbon. It will have no Decline and Fall. It will go on 
 prospering and to prosper. 
 
 3. But, if we and our posterity reject religious instruction and 
 authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the in- 
 junctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political consti- 
 tution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a 
 catas'trophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in 
 profound obscurity. Should that catastrophe happen, let it have 
 no history ! Let the horrible narrative never be written ! Let 
 its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which no human 
 eye shall ever read ; or the missing Pleiad, 1 of which no man 
 can ever know more, than that it is lost, and lost forever ! 
 
 4. But, gentlemen, I will not take my leave of you in a tone 
 of despondency. "We may trust that Heaven will not forsake 
 us, nor permit us to forsake ourselves. We must strengthen 
 ourselves, and gird up our loins with new resolution ; we must 
 counsel each other ; and, determined to sustain each other in 
 the support of the Constitution, prepare to meet manfully, and 
 united, whatever of difficulty or of danger, whatever of effort or 
 of sacrifice, the providence of God may call upon us to meet. 
 
 5. Are we of this generation so derelict, 2 have we so little of 
 the blood of our revolutionary fathers coursing through our 
 
 originally consisted of 142 books, of seven stars in the neck of the const el- 
 
 •which only o5 have descended to us. lation Taurus. There are, however, 
 
 His style may be pronounced almost but six visible to the naked eye, Al- 
 
 faultless. cyon being the brightest, and hence 
 
 1 Pleiad (pie' yad). The Pleiades, the expression the lost Ph iad. 
 
 in heathen mythology, were the seven a DeV e lici, given up or forsaken 
 
 daughters of Atlas, "who were trans- by the natural owner or guardian ; 
 
 lated to the heavens, and formed the unfaithful. 
 
FROM A HISTORICAL ADDRESS 345 
 
 vela 3, that we c;m not preserve what they achieved? The world 
 will cry out " shame " upon us, if we show ourselves unworthy 
 to bo the descendants of those great and illustrious men, who 
 fought for their liberty, and secured it to their posterity, by 
 the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 6. Gentlemen, inspiring auspices, this day, surround us and 
 cheer us. It is the anniversary of the birth of Washington. 
 We should know this, even if we had lost our calendars, for we 
 should be reminded of it by the shouts of joy and gladness. The 
 whole atmosphere is redolent of his name ; hills and forests, 
 rocks and rivers, echo and reecho his praises. All the good, 
 whether learned or unlearned, high or low, rich or poor, feel, 
 this day, that there is one treasure common to them all, and that 
 is the fame and character of Washington. They recount his 
 deods, ponder over his principles and teachings, and resolve to 
 be more and more guided by them in the future. 
 
 7. To the old and the young, to all born in the land, and 1<> 
 all whose love of liberty has brought them from foreign shores 
 to make this the home of their adoption, the name of Washing- 
 ton is this day an exhilarating theme. Americans by birth an' 
 proud of his character, and exiles from foreign shores are eager 
 to participate in admiration of him ; and it is true that he is, 
 this day, here, everywhere, all the world over, more an object of 
 love and regard than on any day since his birth. 
 
 8. Gentlemen, on Washington's principles, and under the 
 guidance of his example, will we and our children uphold the 
 Constitution. Under his military leadership our fathers con- 
 quered ; and under the outspread banner of his political and 
 constitutional principles will we also conquer. To that standard 
 we shall adhere, and uphold it through evil report and through 
 good report. We will meet danger, we will meet death, if they 
 como, in its protection ; and we will struggle on, in daylight and 
 in darkness, ay, in the thickest darkness, with all the storms 
 which it may bring with it, till " Danger's troubled night is o'er, 
 and the star of Peace return." Webster. 
 
 D.vniel Webster, one of the greatest, if not the greatest of American orators, 
 jurists, and statesmen, was born in the town of Salisbury, New Hampshire, 
 January 18th, 1783. At the age of fifteen he entered Dartmouth College, where 
 he graduated in due course, exhibiting remarkable faculties of mind. When in 
 his nineteeuth year, he delivered a Fourth of July oration, at the request of the 
 citizens of Hanover, which, energetic, and well stored with historical matter, 
 
346 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 proved hiin, at that early age, something more than a sounder of empty words. 
 Upon graduating, in 1801, he assumed the charge of an academy for a year ; 
 then commenced the study of law in his native village, which he completed in 
 Boston, in 1S05. He first practiced his profession near his early home ; but, not 
 long after, feeling the necessity of a wider sphere of action, he removed to Ports* 
 mouth, where he soon gained a prominent position. In 1812 he was elected to a 
 scat in the National Congress, where he displayed remarkable powers both as a 
 debater and an orator. In lS17he removed to Boston, and resumed the practice 
 of his profession with the highest distinction. In 1822 he was elected to a seat 
 in Congress from the crty of Boston ; and in 1827 was chosen senator of the 
 United States, from Massachusetts. From that period he was seldom out of 
 public life, having been twice Secretary of State, in which office he died. In 
 1839 he visited England and France, and was received with the greatest distinc- 
 tion in both countries. His works, arranged by his friend, Edward Everett, 
 were published in six volumes, at Boston, in 1851. They bear the impress of a 
 comprehensive intellect and exalted patriotism. He died at Marshfield, sur- 
 rounded by his friends, October 24th, 1852. The last words he uttered were, M I 
 still live." Funeral honors were paid to his memory, in the chief cities of the 
 Union, by processions and orations. A marble block, placed in front of hid 
 tomb, bears the inscription : " Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." 
 
 V. 
 
 110. PUBLIC VIRTUE. 
 
 I HOPE, that in all that relates to personal firmness, all that 
 concerns a just appreciation of the insignificance of human 
 life, — whatever may be attempted to threaten or alarm a soul not 
 easily swayed by opposition, or awed or intimidated by menace, 
 — a stout heart and a steady eye, that can survey', unmoved and 
 undaunted, any mere personal perils that assail this poor, tran- 
 sient, perishing frame, — I may, without disparagement, compare 
 with other men. 
 
 2. But there is a sort of courage, which, I frankly confess it, 
 I do not possess, — a boldness to which I dare not aspire, a valor 
 which I can not covet. I can not lay myself down in the way 
 of the welfare and happiness of my country. That I can not, I 
 have not the courage to do. I can not interpose the power with 
 which I may be invested — a power conferred, not for my per- 
 sonal benefit, nor for my aggran'dizement, but for my country's 
 good — to check her onward march to greatness and glory. I 
 have not courage enough. I am too cowardly for that. 
 
 3. I would not, I dare not, in the exercise of such a trust, lio 
 down, and place my body across the path that leads my country 
 to prosperity and happiness. This is a sort of courage widely 
 different from that which a man may display in his private con- 
 
PUBLIC VIRTUE. 347 
 
 duct and personal relations. Personal or private courage is to- 
 tally distinct from that higher and nobler courage which prompts 
 the patriot to oiier himself a voluntary sacrifice to his country's 
 good. 
 
 4. Apprehensions of the imputation of the "want of firmness 
 sometimes impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It 
 is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the 
 want of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiablo and 
 offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character 
 of crimes, in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate vic- 
 tim of these passions can not see beyond the little, petty, con- 
 temptible circle of hia own personal interests. All his thoughts 
 are withdrawn from his country, and concentrated on his con- 
 sistency, his firmness, himself. 
 
 5. The high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a patriot- 
 ism, which, soaring toward heaven, rises far above all mean, low, 
 or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting 
 thought of the good and the glory of one's country, are never felt 
 in his impenetrable bosom. That patriotism, which, catching its 
 inspirations from the immortal God, and leaving at an im- 
 measurable distance below all lesser, groveling, personal interests 
 and feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of 
 valor, of devotion, and of death itself, — that is public virtue ; that 
 is the noblest, the sublimcst, of all public virtues. II. Clay. 
 
 Henry Clay, a distinguished statesman of the United States, was born at the 
 Slavics, Hanover County, Virginia, on the 12th of April, 1777. His father, a 
 clergyman, died in 17S1, and Henry acquired the rudiments of an education at 
 a log school-house. At an early age he became clerk of the Court of Chancery 
 in Richmond. He commenced the study of law at the age of nineteen, -was 
 admitted to the bar at the close of one year, and removed to Lexington, Ky., 
 where he practiced his profession with great success. In ISOo he was elected to 
 the legislature of his State, and in 1K)G and 1S09, was appointed to fill vacancies 
 in the national senate. In 1811 he was chosen a member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and was at once elected speaker, which office ho retained until his 
 appointment, in January, 1S14, as one of the commissioners to negotiate the 
 Treaty of Ghent. On his return he was reelected to Congress; and, in l v - . 
 was again elected speaker of the House. During the presidency of John Quiney 
 Adams he was secretary of state. In 1831 he was elected United States senator 
 from Kentucky, and was soon after nominated a candidate for the presidency, 
 but was defeated. In 1S36 he was reelected to the United States Senate, and 
 6crved until 1842. In 1844 he was again nominated to the presidency, and again 
 defeated. He was returned to the U. S. Senate in 1849, and died on the 29th of 
 June, 1852. He was ever an advocate of " protection to American industry " by 
 a sufficient tariff, and of " internal improvements." He was in favor of the war of 
 1812, of the recognition of the South American republics, and of the independence 
 
3iS NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 of Greece. Some of his noblest oratorical efforts were delivered in support of 
 these measures. His speeches are sincere, impassioned, and distinguished for 
 their eminent practicalness. Full, flowing, sensuous, his style of oratory was 
 modulated by a voice of sustained sweetness and power, and a heart of chivalrous 
 courtcs}'. His Life and Speeches, complied and edited by Mallory, in two vol- 
 umes, 8vo., appeared in 1843; and his "Life and Times," and entire works, by 
 Calvin Colton, have since been published in New York. 
 
 VI. 
 
 111. WASHINGTON'S SWORD AND FRANKLIN'S STAFF o 
 
 THE sword of "Washington ! Tlio staff of Franklin ! Oh, Sir, 
 what associations are linked in adamant with these names ! 
 Washington, whose sword was never drawn but in the cause of 
 his country, and never sheathed when wielded in his country's 
 cause ! Franklin, the philosopher of the thunderbolt, the print- 
 ing-press, and the plowshare ! WTiat names are these in the 
 scanty catalogue of the benefactors of human kind ! Washing- 
 ton and Franklin ! What other two men, whose lives belong to 
 the eighteenth century of Christendom, have left a deeper im- 
 pression of themselves upon the age in which they lived, and 
 upon all after-time ? 
 
 2. Washington, the warrior and the legislator ! In war, con- 
 tending, by the wager of battle, for the independence of his 
 country, and for the freedom of the human race, — ever manifest- 
 ing, amidst its horrors, by precept and by example, his reverence 
 for the laws of peace, and for the tender est sympathies of hu- 
 manity ; in peace, soothing the ferocious spirit of discord, among 
 his own countrymen, into harmony and union, and giving to that 
 very sword, now presented to his country, a charm more potent 
 than that attributed, in ancient times, to the lyre of Orpheus.' 
 
 3. Franklin ! The mechanic of his own fortune ; teaching, in 
 early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth, 
 and, in the shade of obscurity, the path to greatness ; in the ma- 
 turity of manhood, disarming the thunder of its terrors, the light- 
 
 1 From an address in the U. S. Presented with tho lyre of Apollo, 
 
 II. R., on the reception of these me- and instructed by the Muses in its 
 
 morials by Congress. use, he enchanted with its music not 
 
 8 Orpheus, a mythical personage, only the wild beasts, but tho trees 
 
 was regarded by the Greeks as tho and rocks upon Olympus, so that 
 
 most celebrated of the early poets they moved from their places to fcl- 
 
 who lived before the time of Homer, low the sound of his golden barp. 
 
WASHINGTON'S SWORD AND FRANKLIN'S STAFF. o.|9 
 
 ning of its fatal blast ; and wresting from the tyrant's hand the 
 stiil more aillictivc scepter of oppression : while descending into 
 the vale of years, traversing the Atlantic Ocean, braving, in t 
 dead of winter, the battle and the breeze, bearing in his hand 
 the charter of Independence, which he had contributed to form, 
 and tendering, froni the self-created Nation to the mightiest 
 monarchs of Europe, the olive-branch of peace, the mercurial 
 wand of commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to 
 the man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable 
 cruelty and merciless rapacity of war. 
 
 4. And, finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore winters 
 upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease, return- 
 ing to his native land, closing his days as the chief magistrate of 
 his adopted commonwealth, after contributing by his counsels, 
 under the presidency of Washington, and recording his name, 
 under the sanction of devout prayer, invoked by him to Gud, to 
 that Constitution under the authority of which we are here as- 
 sembled, as the Representatives of the North American People, 
 to receive, in their name and for them, these venerablo relics of 
 the wise, the valiant, and the good founders of our great con- 
 federated Republic — these sacred symbols of our golden age. 
 
 5. May they be deposited among the archives ' of our govern- 
 ment! And may every American, who shall hereafter behold 
 them, ejaculate a mingled offering of praise to that Supreme 
 Ruler of fho Universe, by whose tender mercies our Union has 
 been hitherto preserved, through all the vicissitudes and revolu- 
 tions of this turbulent world ; and of prayer for the continuan -c 
 of these blessings, by the dispensations of Providence, to our be- 
 loved country, from age to age, till time shall be no more ! 
 
 Adams. 
 
 John Qctnct Adams, a distinguished American statesman and scholar, son of 
 John Adams, the second president of the United States, was born at Brain: ree, 
 Massachusetts, on the 11th of July, 1707. He was cradled in the Revolution, 
 and when but nine years old heard the first reading of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence from the old State House in Boston. His early education devolved 
 principally on his noble and accomplished mother. In 177S, in his eleventh year, 
 he accompanied his father on his mission to France; and during that and the 
 following year he was at school in Paris. In 17S0 he entered the public school 
 of Amsterdam, and subsequently the University of Lcyden. In 17S1 he was 
 made private secretary to the Hon. Francis Dana, Minister to Russia. He 
 
 1 Archives, (h r klvz), public records and papers vruicli are preserved as 
 evidence of facts. 
 
350 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 joined his father in Holland in 17S3, and returned home in 1785. He entered an 
 advanced class at Harvard, and took his degree in 1787, the year after his ad- 
 mission. In 1790 he was admitted to the bar, and commenced the practice of 
 law at Boston, which he continued, varying his occupation by communications 
 for the " Centinel," signed Publicola and Marcellus, until his appointment as 
 Minister to the Hague, in 1794, by Washington. He was elected to the State 
 Senate in 1801, and in 1803 a member of the Senate of the United States, and sat 
 until 1808. He had previously, in 180G, been appointed professor of rhetoric in 
 Harvard, and continued the discharge of his duties until his resignation, in 1809, 
 to accept the mission to Russia, offered him by Madison. He published his col- 
 lege lectures, in two octavo volumes, in 1810. He was called from his brilliant 
 Russian diplomatic career in 1S15, to aid in negotiating the treaty of peace with 
 England at Ghent, and was appointed minister to that country in the same year. 
 In 1817 he returned home, was appointed secretary of state by Monroe, and re- 
 mained in that office eight years, when he was himself chosen to the presidency. 
 He remained in office one term, and was immediately after elected a member 
 of the House of Representatives from his native State, a position which he retain- 
 ed till his death. In the sixty-fifth year of active public service, he died in the 
 capitol at Washington — in the scene of his chief triumphs — suddenly, on the 23d 
 of February, 1S48. His last words were, " Tins is the end of earth— I am con- 
 tent." Through his long and active political career, Mr. Adams retained a 
 fondness for literature. He was, altogether, one of the most remarkable men of 
 this century. His various and voluminous works exhibit a marked nationality, 
 and a wisdom which astonishes by its universality and profoundness. 
 
 SECTION XX. 
 I 
 
 112. PROCRASTINATION. 
 
 BE wise to-day ; 'tis madness to defer ; 
 Next day the fatal pree'edent 1 will plead ; 
 Thus on, tiU wisdom is pushed out of life. 
 Procrastination is the thief of time ; 
 Year after year it steals, till all are fled, 
 And to the mercies of a moment leaves 
 The vast concerns of an eternal scene. 
 If not so frequent, would not this be strange? 
 That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still. 
 
 2. Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears 
 The palm, " that all men are about to live," 
 Forever on the brink of being born ; 
 
 1 Prec' e dent, something done or said that may serve as an example to 
 authorize an after act of the like kind ; authoritutivc example. 
 
PROCRASTINATION. 351 
 
 All pay themselves the compliment to think 
 
 They one day shall not drivel, and their pride 
 
 On this reversion ' takes up ready praise ; 
 
 At least their own ; their future selves applaud ; 
 
 How excellent that life they ne'er will lead! 
 
 Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails ; * 
 
 That lodged in Fate's to wisdom they consign ; 
 
 The thing they can't 3 but purpose, they postpone. 
 
 'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool, 
 
 And scarce in human wisdom to do more. 
 
 3. All promise is poor dilatory 4 man, 
 
 And that through every stage. ^Yhen young indeed, 
 
 In full content we sometimes nobly rest, 
 
 Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish, 
 
 As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise. 
 
 At thirty man suspects himself a fool ; 
 
 Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan ; 
 
 At fifty chides his in'fanious delay, 
 
 Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve ; 
 
 In all the magnanimity of thought, 
 
 Resolves, and re-resolves ; then dies the same. 
 
 4. And why ? because he thinks himself immortal. 
 All men think all men mortal but themselves ; 
 Themselves, when some alarming shock of fato 
 Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread ; 
 But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, 
 
 Soon close ; where past the shaft no trace is found, 
 
 As from the wing no scar the sky retains, 
 
 The parted wave no furrow from, the keel, 
 
 So dies in human hearts the thought of death ; 
 
 E'en with the tender tear which nature sheds 
 
 O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. Young. 
 
 Edward You>"o", author of the " Night Thoughts," was born at his father's 
 parsonage, in Hampshire, England, in 1G81. He was educated at Winchester 
 School, and at All Souls College, Oxford. In 1712 he commenced public life as 
 a courtier and poet, and continued both characters till he was past eighty. 
 
 m l Re ver' sion, a right to future 3 Can't, (kant\ 
 possession or enjoyment ; benefit to 4 Dil' a to ry, inclined to defer or 
 
 be received from some future event, put off what ought to be done at 
 
 3 Vails, avails ; unexpected gains, once ; delaying. 
 
352 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 From 170S he held a fellowship at Oxford. In 1730 his college presented him to 
 the rectory of Wclwyn, in Hertfordshire, valued ai £300 a year. In 17C1 he 
 married a widow, the daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, which proved a happy 
 union. Lady Elizabeth Young died in 1741 ; and her husband is supposed to 
 have begun soon afterward the composition or the " Night Thoughts." Of his 
 numerous works published previous to this period, the best arc his satires, which 
 were collected in 1728, under the title of " The Love of Fame the Universal 
 Passion," and " The Revenge," a tragedy, which appeared in 1721. Sixty 
 years of labor and industry had strengthened and enriched his genius, and aug- 
 mented the brilliancy of his fancy, preparatory to writing "Night Thoughts." 
 The publication of this poem, taking place in sections, was completed in 1710. 
 It is written in a highly artificial style, and has more of epigrammatic point than 
 any other work in the language. Though often brilliant at the expense of higher 
 and more important qualities, the poet introduces many noble and sublime pas- 
 pages, and enforces the truths of religion with a commanding energy and per- 
 suasion. The fertility of his fancy, the pregnancy ot his wit and knowledge, the 
 striking and felicitous combinations everywhere presented, are truly remarkable. 
 Young died in April, 1765, at the advanced age of eighty-four. 
 
 n. 
 
 113. PAUL FLEMMING RESOLVES. 
 
 AND now tho sun was growing liigh and warm. A little 
 chapel, whose door stood open, seemed to invite Flemming 
 to enter and enjoy the grateful coolness. He went in. There 
 was no one there. The walls were covered with paintings and 
 sculpture of the rudest kind, and with a few funeral tablets. 
 There was nothing there to move the heart to devotion ; but in 
 that hour tho heart of Flemming was weak, — weak as a child's. 
 He bowed his stubborn knees and wept. And oh ! how many 
 disappointed hopes, how many bitter recollections, how much of 
 wounded pride, and unrequited love, were in those tears, through 
 which he read on a marble tablet in the chapel wall opposite, 
 this singular inscription : "Look not mournfully into the tast : 
 It comjls not back again. Wisely improve the present : It is 
 thine. Go FoRTH to meet the shadowy future, without teak, 
 
 AND WITH A MANET HEART." 
 
 2. It seemed to him as if tho unknown tenant of that grave 
 had opened his lips of dust, and spoken to him the words of con- 
 solation, which his soul needed, and which no friend had yet 
 spoken. In a moment the anguish of his thoughts was still. 
 Tho stone was rolled away from the door of his heart ; death, 
 was no longer there, but an angel clothed in white. He stood 
 up, and his eyes were no more bleared with tears ; and, looking 
 into the bright, morning heaven, he said, "I well SB stbojmjI" 
 
PAUL FLEMMINQ RESOLVES. 3.;:; 
 
 3. Men sometimes go down into tombs, with painful longings 
 to behold once more the faces of their departed friends ; and as 
 they gaze upon them, lying there so peacefully with the sem- 
 blance that they wore on earth, the sweet breath of heaven 
 touches them, and the features crumble and fall together, and 
 are but dust. So did his soul then descend for the last time 
 into the great tomb of the past, with painful longings to behold 
 once more the dear faces of those he had loved ; and the sweet 
 breath of heaven touched them, and they would not stay, but 
 crumbled away and perished as he gazed. They, too, were dust. 
 And thus, far-sounding, he heard the great gate of the past shut 
 behind him as the divine poet did the gate of paradise, when 
 the angel pointed him the way up the holy mountain ; and to 
 him likewise was it forbidden to look back. 
 
 4. In the life of every man, there are sudden transitions of 
 feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if seme 
 magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds 
 melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. 
 The causes which produce these sudden changes may have been 
 long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instan- 
 taneous, and apparently without sufficient cause. It was so with 
 Flemming, and from that hour forth he resolved that he would 
 no longer veer with every shifting wind of circumstance ; no 
 longer be a child's plaything in the hands of fate, which we our- 
 selves do make or mar. He resolved henceforward not to lean 
 on others ; but to walk self-confident and self-possessed : no 
 longer to waste his years in vain regrets, nor wait the fulfilment 
 of boundless hopes and indiscreet desires ; but to live in the 
 present wisely, alike forgetful of the past, and careless of what 
 the mysterious future might bring. And from that moment he 
 was calm, and strong ; he was reconciled with himself ! 
 
 5. His thoughts" turned to his distant home bevond the sea. 
 An indescribable, sweet feeling rose within him. " Thither will 
 I turn ray wandering footsteps/' said he ; " and be a man among 
 men, and no longer a dreamer among shadows. Henceforth be 
 mine a life of action and reality ! I will work in my own sphere 
 nor wish it other than it is. This alone is health and happiness. 
 This alone is life — 
 
 4 Life that shall send 
 A challenge to its end, 
 And when it comes, say, Welcome, friend !' 
 
354: NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 6. " Why have I not made these sage reflections, this wise 
 
 resolve, sooner ? Can such a simple result spring only from the 
 
 long and intricate process of experience? Alas! it is not till 
 
 time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the 
 
 book of human life, to light the fires of passion with, from day 
 
 to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are 
 
 few in number, and to remember, faintly at first, and then more 
 
 clearly, that upon the earlier pages of that book was written a 
 
 story of happy innocence, which ho would fain read over again. 
 
 Then come listless irresolution, and the inevitable inaction of 
 
 despair ; or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that 
 
 still remain, a mere noble history than the child's story, with 
 
 which the book began. Longfellow. 
 
 Henry Wadswortii Longfellow was born in the city of Portland, Maine, 
 on the 27th of February, 1807. He entered Bowdoin College at fourteen, and 
 graduated in due course. He soon after commenced the study of law, in tho 
 office of his father, the Hon. Stephen Longfellow, but being appointed pro- 
 fessor of modern languages at Bowdoin, in 1S26, he sailed for Europe to prepare 
 himself for the duties of his office, where he passed three years and a half. On 
 his return, he entered upon the labors of instruction. Mr. Longfellow being 
 elected professor of modern languages and literature in Harvard College, in 
 1835, resigned his place in Brunswick, and went a second time to Europe, to 
 make himself better acquainted with the subjects of his studies in Denmark, 
 Sweden, and Germany. On his return home, in 1836, he immediately entered 
 upon his labors at Cambridge, where he has since resided. In 1854 he resigned 
 his professorship at Harvard. His earliest poems were written for " The United 
 States Gazette," printed in Boston, while he was an undcr-graduate, from which 
 period he has been recognized as among the first writers of prose and verse of 
 the nineteenth century. During his subsequent residence at Brunswick, ho 
 wrote several elegant and very able papers for the "North American Review," 
 translated " Coplas de Manrique," and published " Outre Mer," a collection of 
 agreeable tales and sketches, chiefly written during his first residence abroad. 
 "Hyperion," a romance, appeared in 1S39, and "Kavanagh," another, prose 
 work, in 1848. The first collection of his poems was published in 1839, entitled 
 "Voices of the Night." His "Ballads and other Poems" followed in 1841; 
 " The Spanish Student," a play, in 1843; "Poems on Slavery," in 1844 ; "The 
 Belfry of Bruges, and other Poems," in 1845; " Evangeline, a Talc of Arcadie," 
 in 1847 ; " The Sea and Fireside," in 1849 ; " The Golden Legend," in 1S51 ; 
 " Hiawatha," in 1855 ; and " Tales of a Wayside Inn," in 1863. In 1845 ; he pub- 
 lished "The Poets and Poetry of Europe," the most complete and satisfactory 
 work of the kind that has ever appeared in any language. " The Skeleton in 
 Armor " is one of the longest and most unique of his original poems. " Hiawatha," 
 his longest poem, which is purely original and American, has been republished 
 in England, and has met with a popularity, both in Europe and America, not 
 surpassed by any poem of the present century. The high finish, gracefulness, 
 and vivid beauty of his style, and the moral purity and earnest humanity por- 
 trayed in his verse, excite the sympathy and reach the heart of the public. 
 
ODE TO ADVERSITY. 355 
 
 rn. 
 
 114. ODE TO ADVERSITY. 
 
 DAUGHTER of Jove, relentless power, 
 Thou tamer of the human breast, 
 "Whoso iron scourge and torturing hour 
 
 The bad affright, afflict the best ! 
 Bound in thy adamantine chain, 
 The proud are taught to taste of pain ; 
 And purple tyrants vainly groan 
 With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone. 
 
 2. "When first thy sire to send on earth 
 
 Virtue, his darling child, designed, 
 To thee he gave the heavenly birth, 
 
 And bade to form her infant mind. 
 Stern, rugged nurse ! thy rigid lore 
 "With patience many a year she bore : 
 "What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, 
 And from her own she learned to melt at others' woe. 
 
 3. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly 
 
 Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, 
 "Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, 
 
 And leave us leisure to be good. 
 Light they disperse, and with them go 
 The summer friend, the flattering foe : 
 By vain Prosperity received, 
 To her they vow their truth, and are again believed. 
 
 4. "Wisdom in sable garb arrayed, 
 
 Immersed in rapturous thought profound, 
 And Mel'ancholy, silent maid, 
 
 With leaden eye that loves the ground, 
 Still on thy solemn steps attend : 
 "Warm Charity, the general friend, 
 With Justice, to herself severe, 
 And Pity, dropping soft the sadly -pleasing tear. 
 
 5. Oh ! gently on thy suppliant's head, 
 
 Dread goddess, lay thy chasfrning hand ! 
 
35Q NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 Not in thy Gorgon ' terrors clad, 
 
 Nor circled with the vengeful band 
 (As by the iin'pious thou art seen), 
 With thundering voice, and threatening mien, 
 "With screaming Horror's funeral cry, 
 Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty. 
 
 6. Thy form benign, 2 O goddess, wear, 
 Thy milder influence impart ; 
 
 Thy philosophic train be there 
 
 To soften, not to wound, 3 my heart. 
 
 The generous spark extinct revive ; 
 
 Teach me to love, and to forgive ; 
 
 Exact, my own defects to scan ; 
 W T hat others are, to feel ; and know myself a man. 
 
 Gray. 
 TnoMAS Gray was born in London in 1710. He was educated at Eton and 
 Cambridge. When his college education "was completed, Horace Walpole in- 
 duced him to accompany him in a tour through France and Italy ; but a misun- 
 derstanding taking place, Gray returned to England in 1741. His father being 
 dead, he went to Cambridge to take his degree in civil law, though he was pos- 
 sessed of sufficient means to enable him to dispense with the labor of his pro- 
 fession. He settled himself at Cambridge for the remainder of his days, only 
 leaving home when he made tours to Wales, Scotland, and the lakes of West- 
 moreland, and when he passed three years in London for access to the library 
 of the British Museum. His life thenceforth was that of a scholar. His "Ode 
 to Eton College," published in 1747, attracted little notice ; but the " Elegy in a 
 Country Church-yard," which appeared in 1749, became at once, as it will always 
 continue to be, one of the most popular of all poems. Most of his odes were 
 written In the course of three years following 1753; and the publication of the 
 collection in 1757 fully established his reputation. His poems, flowing from an in- 
 tense, though not fertile imagination, inspired by the most delicate poetic feeling, 
 and elaborated into exquisite terseness of diction, are among the most splendid 
 ornaments of English literature. His "Letters," published after his death, are 
 admirable specimens of English style, full of quiet humor, astute, though fas- 
 tidious criticism, and containing some of the most picturesque pieces of de- 
 scriptive composition in the language. He became professor of modern history 
 at Cambridge, in 1708. He died by a severe attack of the gout in 1771. 
 
 1 Gorgon, the Gorgons, in heathen Euryalo, and Medusa. The head of 
 
 mythology, were frightful beings, the latter was so frightful that every 
 
 that had hissing serpents instead of one who looked at it was changed 
 
 hair upon their heads ; and they had into stone, 
 
 wings, brazen claws, and enormous 2 Be nlgn', gracious ; kind, 
 
 teeth. Their names were Sthcno, 3 Wound, (wond). 
 
urn 357 
 
 IV. 
 
 115. LIFE. 
 
 " ~\ /TAN," says Sir Thomas Browne, "is a noble animal! splen- 
 _LVJL did in ashes, glorious in the grave ; solemnizing nativities 
 and funerals with equal luster, and not forgetting ceremonies of 
 bravery in the infamy of his nature I" Thus spake one who 
 mocked while he wept at man's estate, and gracefully tempered 
 the higli seonmgs of philosophy with the profound compassion 
 of religion. As the sun's proudest moment is his latest, and as 
 the forest puts on its brightest robe to die in, so does man sum- 
 mon ostentation to invest the hour of his weakness, and prido 
 survives when power has departed ; and what, we ma}' ask, does 
 this instinctive contempt for the honors of the dead proclaim, 
 except the utter vanity of the glories of the living? — for mean 
 indeed must be the real state of man, and false the vast assump- 
 tions of his life, when the poorest pageantry of a decent burial 
 strikes upon the heart as a mockery of helplessness. 
 
 2. Certain it is that pomp chielly waits upon the beginning 
 and the end of life : what lies between, may either raise a sigh 
 or wake a laugh, for it mostly partakes of the littleness of one 
 and the sadness of the other. The monuments of man's blessed- 
 ness and of man's wretchedness lie side by side : we can not 
 look for the one without discovering the other. The echo of 
 joy is the moan of despair, and the cry of anguish is stilled in 
 rejoicing. To make a monarch, there must be slaves ; and that 
 one may triumph, many must be weak. 
 
 3. To one limiting his belief within the bounds of his observa- 
 tion, and " reasoning" but from what he " knows," the condition 
 of man presents mysteries which thought can not explain. The 
 dignity and the destiny of man seem utterly at variance. He 
 turns from contem'plating a monument of genius to inquire for 
 the genius which produced it, and finds that while the work has 
 survived, the workman has perished for ages. The meanest 
 work of man outlives the noblest work of God. The sculptures 
 of Phidias endure, where the dust of the artist has vanished from 
 the earth. Man can immortalize all things but himself. 
 
 4. But, for my own part, I can not help thinking that our 
 high estimation of ourselves is the grand error in our account. 
 Surely, it is argued, a creature so ingeniously (in jen' yus li) fash- 
 
358 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ioned and so bountifully furnished, lias not been created but for 
 lofty ends. But cast your eye on the humblest rose of the gar- 
 den, and it may teach a wiser lesson. There you behold con- 
 trivance and ornament — in every leaf the finest veins, the most 
 delicate odor, and a per'fume ex'quisite beyond imitation ; yet 
 all this is but a toy — a plaything of nature ; and surely she 
 whose resources are so boundless that upon the gaud of a sum- 
 mer day she can throw away such lavish wealth, steps not beyond 
 her commonest toil when she forms of the dust a living man. 
 When will man learn the lesson of his own insignificance ? 
 
 5. Immortal man ! thy blood flows freely and fully, and thou 
 standest a Napoleon ; thou reclinest a Shakspeare ! — it quickens 
 its movement, and thou liest a parched and fretful thing, with 
 thy mind furied by the phantoms of fever ! — it retards its action 
 but a little, and thou crawlest a crouching, soulless mass, the 
 bright world a blank, dead vision to thine eye. Verily, O man, 
 thou art a glorious and godlike being ! 
 
 6. Tell life's proudest tale : what is it ? A few attempts suc- 
 cessless ; a few crushed or moldered hopes ; much paltry fret- 
 ting ; a little sleep, and the story is concluded ; the curtain falla 
 — the farce is over. The world is not a place to live in, but to 
 die in. It is a house that has but two chambers ; a lazar and a 
 charnel — room only for the dying and the dead. There is not 
 a spot on the broad earth on which man can plant his foot and 
 affirm with confidence, " No mortal sleeps beneath !" 
 
 7. Seeing then that these things are, what shall we say ? Shall 
 we exclaim with the gay-hearted Grecian, " Drink to-day, for to- 
 morrow we are not ?" Shall we calmly float down the current, 
 smiling if wo can, silent when we must, lulling cares to sleep by 
 the music of gentle enjoyment, and passing dream-like through 
 a land of dreams ? No ! dream-like as is our life, there is in it 
 one reality— our duty. Let us cling to that, and distress may 
 overwhelm, but can not disturb us — may destroy, but can not 
 hurt us : the bitterness of earthly things and the shortness of 
 earthly life will cease to be evils, and begin to be blessings. 
 
 Wallace. 
 Horace Binney Wallace was born in Philadelphia on the 2Gth of February, 
 1817. He passed the first two years of his collegiate course at the University of 
 Pennsylvania, and the residue at Princeton College, where lie was graduated in 
 1835. ne studied law with great thoroughness, and at the age of twenty-seven, 
 prepared notes, that have been commended by the highest legal authorities, /or 
 "Smith's Selections of Leading Cases in various Branches of the Law," aud 
 
BLENNERHASSETT'S TEMPTATION. 359 
 
 "White and Tudor' s Selection of Leading Cases in Equity." He also devote-d 
 much time to scientific study; produced "Stanley," a novel; and published a 
 number of articles anonymously in various periodicals. He sailed for Europe in 
 April, 1K49, and passed a year in England, Germany, France, and Italy. On his 
 return he resumed with increased energy, his literary pursuits. His eye-sight 
 became impaired in the spring of 1352, owing to the incipient stages of conges- 
 tion of the brain, caused by undue mental exertion. By the advice of physicians, 
 he embarked for England In November. Finding no improvement in his condi- 
 tion, on his arrival, he went to Paris for medical advice, where his cerebral dis- 
 ease increased, and led to his death suddenly, on the 16th of December following. 
 In 1S55 appeared in Philadelphia a volume of his writings, entitled "Art, Scenery, 
 and Philosophy in Europe." These essays on the principles of art, descriptions 
 of cathedrals, traveling sketches, and papers on distinguished artists, though 
 not designed for publication, and mostly in an unfinished state, display great 
 depth of thought, command of language, knowledge of the history and aesthetic 
 principles of art, and a finely cultivated taste. A second volume of his writings, 
 u Literary Criticisms and other Papers," appeared in 185G. These two works 
 form but a small part of Mr. Wallace's literary productions. 
 
 SECTION XXI. 
 I. 
 
 116. BLENNERHASSETT'S TEMPTATION. 
 
 A PLAIN man, who knew nothing- of the curious transmuta- 
 tions ' which the wit of man can work, would be very apt 
 to wonder by what kind of legerdemain 2 Aaron Burr 3 had con- 
 trived to shuffle himself down to the bottom of the pack, as an 
 ac'cessory, and turn up poor Blennerhasset as principal, in this 
 treason. "Who, then, is Aaron Burr, and what the part which 
 he has borne in this transaction ? He is its author, its projector, 
 its active ex'eciiter. Bold, ardent, restless, and aspiring, his 
 brain conceived it, his hand brought it into action. 
 
 1 Trans^ mu ta'tion, a change into he was made attorney-general in 
 
 another substance or form. 1789. lie was a member of the Uni- 
 
 5 Leg y er demain', sleight of hand; ted States Senate from 1791 to 1797, 
 
 an artful trick. and the leader of the republican 
 
 3 Aaron Burr was born in Newark, party. He was made vice-president 
 
 N. J., February 5, 1750. His military in 1800 ; killed Alexander Hamilton 
 
 talents secured for him the high po- in a duel in 1804 ; was tried on a 
 
 sition of lieutenant-colonel in the charge of treasonable designs against 
 
 army of the Revolution ; after which Mexico, at Richmond, Va., in 1807, of 
 
 he acquired a prominent position as which he was finally acquitted : and 
 
 a great lawyer in New York, where died on Staten Island, Sept. 14,1696. 
 
360 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. Who is Blennerhasset ? A native of Ireland, a man of 
 letters, who fled from the storms of his own country, to find 
 quiet in ours. On his arrival in America, he retired, even from 
 the population of the Atlantic States, and sought quiet and soli- 
 tude in the bosom of our western forests. But he brought with 
 him taste, and science, and wealth ; and "lo, the desert smiled !" 
 Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears 
 upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic embel- 
 lishment of fane}'. A shrubbery that Shenstone ' might have 
 envied, blooms around him. Music that might have charmed 
 Calypso 3 and her nymphs, is his. An extensive library spreads 
 its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus oners to 
 him all the secrets and mysteries of nature. Peace, tranquillity," 
 and innocence, shed their mingled delights around him. And, 
 to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be 
 lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplish- 
 ment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him with her 
 love, and made him the father of several children. 
 
 3. The evidence would convince you, Sir, that this is but a 
 faint picture of the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this 
 innocence, and this tranquillity, — this feast of the mind, this 
 pure banquet (bangk'wet) of the heart, — the destroyer comes. 
 He comes to turn this paradise into a hell. Yet the flowers do 
 not wither at his approach, and no monitory shuddering through 
 the bosom of their unfortunate possessor warns him of the ruin 
 that is coming upon him. A stranger presents himself. It is 
 Aaron Burr. Introduced to their civilities by the high rank 
 which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way 
 to their hearts, by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, 
 the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and 
 fascinating power of his address. 
 
 • 4. The conquest (kongk'west) was not difficult. Innocence is 
 ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no designs itself, it 
 suspects none in others. It wears no guards before its breast. 
 Every door and portal and avenue of the heart is thrown open, 
 and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden when 
 
 1 William Shenstone, a pleasing 1714, and died in 17G3. 
 
 writer both of prose and verse, noted 3 Ca lyp' so, a fabled nymph, who 
 
 for his taste in landscape-garden ing, inhabited the island of Ogygia, on 
 
 was born in Shropshire, England, in which Ulysses was shipwreeked. 
 
BLENNERHASSETT'S TEMPTATION. 301 
 
 the scrpont entered its bowers ! The prisoner, in a more en- 
 gaging form, winding himself into the open andunpracticed heart 
 of the unfortunate Blennerhasset, found but little difficulty in 
 changing the native character of that heart, and the objects of 
 its affections. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his 
 own ambition. He breathes into it the fire of his own courage ; 
 —a daring and desperate thirst for glory ; an ardor, panting for 
 all the storm, and bustle, and hurricane of life. 
 
 5. In a short time, the whole man is changed and every object 
 of his former delight relinquished. No more he enjoys the tran- 
 quil scene : it has become flat and insipid to his taste. His books 
 arc abandoned. His retort and crucible arc thrown aside. His 
 shrubbery blooms and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain 
 — he likes it not. His car no longer drinks the rich melody of 
 music : it longs for the trumpet's clangor, and the cannon's roar. 
 Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects 
 him ; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched 
 his bosom with ccstacy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. 
 Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. 
 
 G. His imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, and 
 stars, and garters, and titles of nobility. He has been taught to 
 burn with restless emulation at the names of great heroes and 
 conquerors, — of Cromwell, 1 and Caesar, and Bonaparte. His 
 enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wilderness ; 
 and, in a few months, Ave find the tender and beautiful partner 
 of his bosom, whom he lately " permitted not the winds " of 
 summer " to visit too roughly," — wo find her shivering, at mid- 
 night, on the wintry banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears 
 with the torrents that froze as they fell. 
 
 7. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest 
 and his happiness — thus seduced from the paths of innocence 
 and peace — thus confounded in the toils which were deliberately 
 spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and 
 genius of another, — this man, thus rained and undone, and made 
 to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and 
 treason — this man is to be called the principal offender ; while 
 he, by whom he was thus plunged in misery, i3 comparatively 
 innocent, a mere ae'ecssory ! Is this reason ? Is it law ? Is it 
 
 1 Oliver Cromwell, a groat warrior arid statesman, Lord Protector of 
 England, born April, 1599, and died September, 1659, 
 
 10 
 
302 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 humanity? Sir, neither the human heart nor the human un- 
 derstanding will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd ; so 
 shocking to the soul ; so revolting to reason ! Wikt. 
 
 William "Wirt, an able American lawyer and miscellaneous writer, was born 
 in Bladensburg, Maryland, November 8th, 1772. He was a private tutor at fifteen ; 
 6tudied law; was admitted to the bar, in his twentieth year; removed to Rich- 
 mond, Virginia, where he met with eminent success in his profession, and became 
 chancellor and district-attorney. In 1817, in the presidency of Monroe, he be- 
 came attorney-general of the United States, an office which he held for twelve 
 years. His defense of Blennerhasset, in the famous trial of Aaron Burr for trea- 
 son, in 1S07, from which the above extract is taken, won for him a great reputa- 
 tion for fervid eloquence. On his retirement from office, in 1859, he took up his 
 permanent residence at Baltimore, where he became actively engaged in the 
 practice of the law. He was the author of the "Old Bachelor," "The British 
 Spy," "Life of Patrick Henry," etc. He died February 18, 1834. 
 
 II. 
 
 117. ROGER ASCHAM 1 AND LADY JANE GREY.* 
 
 ASCHAM. Thou art going, my dear young lady, into a most 
 awful state ; thou art passing into matrimony and great 
 wealth. God hath willed it : submit in thankfulness. Thy affec- 
 tions are rightly placed and well distributed. Love is a secon- 
 dary passion in those who love most, a primary in those who love 
 least. He who is inspired by it in a high degree, is inspired by 
 honor in a higher ; it never reaches its plentitude of growth and 
 perfection but in the most exalted minds. Alas ! alas ! 
 
 Jane. What aileth my virtuous Ascham ? what is amiss ? why 
 do I tremble ? 
 
 As. I remember a sort of prophecy, made three years ago : 
 it is a prophecy of thy condition and of my feelings on it. Rec- 
 ollectest thou who wrote, sitting upon the sea-beach the evening 
 after an excursion to the Isle of Wight, theso verses ? — 
 " Invisibly bright water ! so like air, 
 On looking down I feared thou couldst not bear 
 
 1 Roger Ascham, (as' kam), a man ccssor, married his son, Lord Guilford 
 of great learning, the instructor of Dudley, to her ; and, the nation hav- 
 queon Elizabeth, was born in 1515, ing declared in favor of Mary, they 
 and died in 1568. were both executed, after a phantom 
 
 2 Lady Jane Grey, daughter of royalty of nine days, on the 12th of 
 thcMarquisof Dorset, descended from February, 1554. Lady Jane was only 
 the royal family of England by both in her seventeenth year, and was re- 
 parents, was born in 1537. The Duke markable for her skill in the classical, 
 of Northumberland having prevailed Oriental, and modern languages, and 
 on Edward VI. to name her his tuc- for the sweetness of her disposition. 
 
ROGER ASCHAM AND LADY JANE GBEY. 363 
 
 My little bark, of all light barks most light ; 
 And looked again, and drew me from the sight, 
 And, hanging back, breathed each fresh gale aghast, 
 And held the bench, not to go on so fast." 
 
 Jane. I was very childish when I composed them ; and, if I 
 had thought any more about the matter, I should have hoped 
 you had been too generous to keep them in your memory as 
 witnesses against me. 
 
 As. Nay, they are not much amiss for so young a girl, and 
 there being so few of them, I did not reprove thee. Half an 
 hour, I thought, might have been spent more unprofitable ; and 
 I now shall believe it firmly, if thou wilt but be led by them to 
 meditate a little on the similarity of situation in which thou then 
 wert to what thou art now in. 
 
 Jane. I will do it, and whatever else you command ; for I am 
 weak by nature and very timorous, unless where a strong sense 
 of duty holdeth and supporteth me. There God acteth, and not 
 his creature. Those were with me at sea who would have been 
 •attentive to me if I had seemed to be afraid, even though wor- 
 shipful men and women were in the company ; so that some- 
 thing more powerful threw my fear overboard. Yet I never will 
 go again upon the water. 
 
 As. Exercise that beauteous couple, that mind and body much 
 and variously, but at home, at home, Jane ! indoors, and about 
 things indoors ; for God is there, too. AVe have rocks and quick- 
 sands on the banks of our Thames (temz), O lady ! such as Ocean 
 never heard of ; and many (who knows how soon !) may be en- 
 gulfed in the current under their garden walls. 
 
 Jane. Thoroughly do I now understand you. Yes, indeed, I 
 have read evil things of courts ; but I think nobody van go out 
 bad who entereth good, if timely and true warning shall have 
 been given. 
 
 As. I see perils on perils which thou dost not see, albeit thou 
 art wiser than thy poor old master. And it is not because Love 
 hath blinded thee, for that surpasseth his supposed oinuirjotence ; 
 but it is because thy tender heart, having always leant afiection- 
 ately upon good, hath felt and known nothing of evil. I once 
 persuaded thee to reflect much ; let me now persuade thee to 
 avoid the habitude of reflection, to lay aside books, and to gaze 
 carefully and steadfastly on what is under and before thee. 
 
364 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 Jane. I have well bethought rac of my duties : oh, how ex- 
 tensive they are ! what a goodly and fair inheritance ! But tell 
 me, would you command mo never more to read Cicero, and 
 Epictetus, 1 and Plutarch, 2 and Polybius? 3 The others I do re- 
 sign ; they are good for the arbor and for the gravel-walk ; yet 
 leave unto me, I beseech you, my friend and father, leave unto 
 me for my fireside and for my pillow, truth, eloquence, courage, 
 constancy. 
 
 As. Read them on thy marriage-bed, on thy child-bed, on thy 
 death-bed. Thou spotless, undrooping lily, they have fenced 
 thee right well. These are the men for men ; these are to fashion 
 the bright and blessed creatures whom God one day shall smile 
 upon in thy chaste bosom. 4 Mind thou thy husband. 
 
 Jane. I sincerely love the youth (yooth) who hath espoused 
 me ; I love him with the fondest, the most solicitous affection ; 
 I pray to the Almighty for his goodness and happiness, and do 
 forget at times — unworthy supplicant ! — the prayers I should 
 have offered for myself. Never fear that I will disparage my 
 kind religious teacher, by disobedience to my husband in tho 
 most trying duties. 
 
 As. Gentle is he, gentle and virtuous ; but time will harden 
 him : time must harden even thee, sweet Jane ! Do thou, com- 
 placently and indirectly, lead him from ambition. 
 
 Jane. He is contented with me and with home. 
 
 As. Ah, Jane ! Jane ! men of high estate grow tired of con- 
 tentedness. 
 
 Jane. He told me he never liked books unless I read them to 
 him : I will read them to him every morning ; I will open new 
 worlds to him richer than those discovered by the Spaniard ; I 
 
 1 Ep^ ic te'tus, a stoic philosopher, of " Moralia " or " Ethical Works," 
 
 the moralist of Rome, lived about 90 amount to upward of sixty. They 
 
 years after Christ. His moral wri- are pervaded by a kind, humane dis- 
 
 tings are justly very celebrated. position, and a love of every thing 
 
 ' 2 Plutarch, (pin' tark), an eminent that is ennobling and excellent, 
 
 ancient philosopher and -writer, au- 3 Polyb'ius, a celebrated Greek 
 
 thor of " Parallel Lives," which con- historian and statesman, was born in 
 
 tains the biography of forty-six dis- Arcadia, n. c. 203. He -wrote a " Uni- 
 
 tinffuished Greeks and Romans, was vorsal Ilistorv" in fortv books, of 
 
 born in Ckoeronea, a city of Bceotia, "which we have only five complete, 
 
 about 50 years after Christ. His writ- and an abridgment of twelve others, 
 
 ings, comprehended under the title * Bosom, (buz' um). 
 
PARIIII ASICS AND THE CAPTIVE. 3G5 
 
 will conduct him to treasures — oh what treasures ! on which he 
 may sleep in innocence and peace. 
 
 As. Rather do thou walk with him, ride with him, play with 
 him — be his faery, his page, his every thing that love and poetry 
 have invented, — but watch him well ; sport with his fancies ; 
 turn them about liko the ringlets round his cheek ; and if ever 
 he meditate on power, go toss up thy baby to his brow, and 
 bring back his thoughts into his heart by the music of thy dis- 
 course. Teach him to live unto God and unto thee ; and he 
 will discover that women, like the plants in woods, derive their 
 softness and tenderness from the shade. Landor. 
 
 Waltbb Savage Lakdob was born in Warwick, England, on the 30th of Jan- 
 nary, 1775, and was educated at Rugby and Oxford. He first resided at Swansea, 
 in Wales, dependent on his father for a small Income, where he commenced his 
 " Imaginary ( lonversations," a work which alone establishes his fame. His Hr-L 
 publication waa a small volume of poems, dated 1793. On succeeding to the 
 family estate he became entirely independent, and was enabled to indulge to the 
 fullest his propensity to literature. He left England in 1806, married in 1814, and 
 went to Italy the following year, where he has since chiefly resided. His col- 
 lected works, of prose and verse, were published in 1846, in two large volumes. 
 Mr. Landon is a poet of great originality and power. But he is most favorably 
 known now, as he will be by posterity, for bisprose productions, which, written 
 in pure nervous English, are full of thoughts that fasten themselves on the mind, 
 and arc "a joy forever." His " Imaginary Conversations," from which the pre- 
 ceding dialogue was selected, is a very valuable work. It is rich in scholarship ; 
 full of imagination, wit, and humor; correct, concise, and pure in style ; various 
 in interest, and universal in sympathy. He died at Florence, Sept. 17, 1S64. 
 
 III. 
 118. PARRIIASIUS AND THE CAPTIVE. 
 
 THERE stood an unsold captive in the mart, 
 A gray-haired and inajes'tical old man, 
 Chained to a pillar. It was almost night, 
 And the last seller from his place had gone, 
 And not a sound was heard but of a dog 
 Crunching beneath the stall a refuse bone, 
 Or the dull echo from the pavement rung, 
 As the faint captive changed his weary feet. 
 
 2. He had stood there since morning, and had borne 
 From every eye in Ath'ens the cold gaze 
 Of curious scorn. The Jew had taunted him 
 For an Olvnthian slave. The buver came 
 And roughly struck his palm upon his breast, 
 
386' NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 And touched his unhealed wounds, and with a sneer 
 Passed on ; and when, with weariness 6'erspent, 
 He bowed his head in a forgetful sleep, 
 The inhuman soldier smote him, and, with threats 
 Of torture to his children, summoned back 
 The ebbing blood into his pallid face. 
 
 3 'Twa3 evening, and the half-descended sun 
 Tipped with a golden fire the many domes 
 Of Ath'ens, and a yellow atmosphere 
 Lay rich and dusky in the shaded street 
 Through which the captive gazed. He had bjrne up 
 With a stout heart that long and weary day, 
 Haughtily patient of his many wrongs ; 
 But now he was alone, and from his nerves 
 The needless strength departed, and ho leaned 
 Prone on his massy chain, and let his thoughts 
 Throng on him as they would. 
 
 4. Unmarked of him, 
 Parrhasius x at the nearest pillar stood, 
 Gazing upon his grief. The Athenian's cheek 
 Flushed as he measured with a painter's eye 
 The moving picture. The abandoned limbs, 
 Stained with the oozing blood, were laced with veins 
 Swollen to purple fullness ; the gray hair, 
 
 Thin and disordered, hung about his eyes ; 
 And as a thought of wilder bitterness 
 Rose in his memory, his lips grew white, 
 And the fast workings of his bloodless face 
 Told what a tooth of fire was at his heart. 
 
 5. The golden light into the painter's room 
 Streamed richly, and the hidden colors stole 
 From the dark pictures radiantly forth, 
 And in the soft and dewy atmosphere 
 
 1 Parrhasius, (par ra' zl us), a distin- Parrhasius having 1 exhibited a piece, 
 
 guished painter of antiquity, born Zeuxis said, "Remove your curtain 
 
 about the year 430 B. c, was a nativo that we may see your painting." 
 
 of Ephesus, though others say lie was The curtain was the painting. Zeuxis 
 
 an Athenian, and the rival of Zeuxis. acknowledged his defeat, saying, 
 
 The latter painted grapes so natur- " Zeuxis has deceived birds, but 
 
 ally that birds came to pick them. Parrhasius has deceived Zeuxis." 
 
PARRIIASIUS AND TnE CAPTIVE 367 
 
 Like forms and landscapes magical they lay. 
 The walls were hung with armor, and about 
 In the dim corners stood the sculptured forms 
 Of Cytheris, 1 and Diiin, 3 and stern Jove, 3 
 And from tho casement soberly away 
 Fell the grotesque long shadows, full and true, 
 And, like a vail of lilmy mellowness, 
 Tho lint-specks floated in the twilight air. 
 
 6. Parrhasius stood, gazing forgetfully 
 Upon his canvas. There Prome'theua * lay, 
 Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus — 
 The vulture at his vitals, and' the links 
 
 Of the lame Lem'nian 5 festering in his flesh ; 
 And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim, 
 Eapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth 
 With its far-reaching fancy, and with form 
 And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye, 
 Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl 
 Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip, 
 Were like the winged god's, breathing from his flight. 
 
 7. " Bring me the captive now ! 
 
 My hand feels skillful, and the shadows lift 
 From my waked spirit airily and swift, 
 
 And I could paint the bow 
 Upon the bended heavens — around me play 
 Colors of such divinity to-day. 
 
 1 Cy the' ris, a celebrated courte- thology, -was son of the Titan Sapetus 
 6an, the mistress of Antony, and sub- and Clymene. His name signifies 
 sequently of the poet Gallus, who forethought. For offenses against Ju- 
 mentions her in his poems under the piter, he was chained to a rock on 
 name of Lycoris. Mount Caucasus, where an eagle con 
 
 2 Diana, (dla'na), an ancient Ital- sumed in the daytime his liver, which 
 ian divinity, whom the Romans iden- was restored ineachsucceedingnight, 
 titled with the Greek Artemis. Ac- 6 Lena' ni an, from Lemnos, now 
 cording to the mostancient accounts, Stalimni. an island of the Greek Ar- 
 she was the daughter of Jupiter and chipelago, where the lame Heph»s- 
 Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo, tus, or Vulcan, the god of fire, is said 
 
 3 Jove, Jupiter, the supreme deity to have fallen, when Jupiter hurled 
 of the Romans, called Zeus by the him down from heaven. Hence the 
 Greeks. workshop of the god is sometimes 
 
 4 Pro me' theus, in heathen my- placed in this island. 
 
368 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER, 
 
 8. " Ha ! bind him on his back ! 
 
 Look ! — as Prome'theus in my picture here ! 
 Quick — or he faints! — stand with the cordial near! 
 
 Now — bend him to the rack ! 
 Press down the poisoned links into his ilesh ! 
 And tear agape that healing wound afresh ! 
 
 9. " So — let him writhe ! How long 
 
 Will he live thus ? Quick, my good pencil, now ! 
 What a line agony works upon his brow ! 
 
 Ha ! gray-haired, and so strong ! 
 How fearfully he stifles that short moan ! 
 Gods ! if I could but paint a dying groan ! 
 
 10. "'Pity' thee! Soldo! 
 
 I pity the dumb victim at the altar — 
 
 But does the robed priest for his pity falter ? 
 
 I'd rack thee, though I knew 
 A thousand lives were perishing in thine — 
 What were ten thousand to a fame like mine. 
 
 11. " 'Hereafter!' Ay — hereafter! 
 
 A whip to keep a coward to his track ! 
 
 What gave Death ever from his kingdom back 
 
 To check the skeptic's laughter ? 
 Come from the grave to-morrow with that story — 
 And I may take some softer path to glory. 
 
 12. "No, no, old man! we die 
 
 Even as the flowers, and we shall breathe away 
 Our life upon the chance wind, even as they ! 
 
 Strain well thy fainting eye — 
 For when that bloodshot quivering is o'er, 
 The light of heaven will never reach thee more. 
 
 13. " Yet there's a deathless name ! 
 
 A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, 
 And like a steadfast planet mount and burn— 
 
 And though its crown of flame 
 Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone, 
 By all the fiery stars ! I'd bind it on ! 
 
 14. " Ay — though it bid me rifle 
 
 My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst — 
 Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first— 
 
PARlillASIUS AND THE CAPTIVE. 339 
 
 i 
 
 Though it should bid me stifle 
 The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, 
 And taunt its mother till my brain went wild — 
 
 15. " All— I would do it all— 
 
 Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot — 
 Thrust foullv into earth to be forgot ! 
 O heavens ! — but I appall 
 
 Your heart, old man ! forgive ha ! on your livo3 
 
 Let him not faint ! — rack him till he revives ! 
 
 16. " Vain — vain — give o'er ! His eyo 
 Glazes apace. He does not feel you now — 
 Stand back ! I'll paint tho death-dew on his brow I 
 
 Gods ! if he do not die 
 But for one moment — one — till I eclipse 
 Conception with the scorn of those calm lips 1 
 
 17. " Shivering ! Hark ! he mutters 
 Brokenly now — that was a difficult breath— 
 Another ? Wilt thou never come, O Death ! 
 
 Look! how his temple flutters! 
 Is his heart still ? Aha ! lift up his head ! 
 He shudders — gasps — Jove help him! — so — he's dead." 
 
 IS. How like a mounting devil in the heart 
 Rules the unreined ambition ! Let it once 
 But play the monarch, and its haughty brow 
 Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought 
 And unthrones peace forever. Putting on 
 The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns 
 The heart to ashes, and with not a spring 
 Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip, 
 We look upon our splendor and forget 
 The thirst of which we perish ! Yet hath life 
 Many a falser idol. There are hopes 
 Promising well ; and love-touched dreams for some ; 
 And passions, many a wild one ; and fair schemes 
 For gold and pleasure — yet will only this 
 Balk not the soul — Ambition only, gives, 
 Even of bitterness, a beaker full! 
 
 19. Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream, 
 
 Troubled at best — Love is a lamp unseen, 
 
 16* 
 
370 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 4 
 
 Burning to waste, or, if its light is found, 
 Nursed for an idle hour, then idly broken — 
 Gain is a groveling care, and Folly tires, 
 And Quiet is a hunger never fed — 
 And from Love's very bosom, and from Gain, 
 Or Folly, or a Friend, or from Repose — 
 From all but keen Ambition — will the soul 
 Snatch the first moment of forge tfulness 
 To wander like a restless child away. 
 
 20* Oh, if there were not better hopes than these — 
 Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame — 
 If the proud wealth flung back upon the heart 
 Must canker in its coffers — if the links 
 Falsehood hath broken will unite no more — 
 If the deep-yearning love, that hath not found 
 Its like in the cold world, must waste in tears — 
 If truth, and fervor, and devotedness, 
 Finding no worthy altar, must return 
 And die of their own fullness — if beyond 
 The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air 
 The spirit may find room, and in the love 
 Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart 
 May spend itself — what thrice-mocked fools aee we ! 
 
 Nl P. Willis. 
 
 section XXII. 
 I. 
 
 119. CHARACTER OF SCOTT. 
 
 TAKE it for all and all, it is not too much to say that the char- 
 acter of Sir Walter Scott is probably the most remarkable 
 on record. There is no man of historical celebrity that we now 
 recall, who combined, in so eminent a degree, the highest quali- 
 ties of the moral, the intellectual, and the physical. He united 
 in his own character what hitherto had been found incompatible. 
 2. Though a poet, and living in an ideal world, he was an 
 exact, methodical man of business ; though achieving with the 
 
CHARACTER OF SCOTT. 37I 
 
 most wonderful facility of genius, lie was patient and laborious ; 
 a mousing antiquarian, yet with the most active interest in the 
 present and whatever was going on around him ; with a strong 
 turn for a roving life and military adventure, he was yet chained 
 to his desk more hours, at somo periods of his life, than a monk- 
 ish recluse ; a man with a heart as capacious as his head ; a 
 Tory, brimful of Jac'obitism, 1 yet full of sympathy and unaffect- 
 ed familiarity with all classes, even the humblest ; a successful 
 author, without pedantry and without conceit ; one, indeed, at 
 tho head of the republic of letters, and yet with a lower estimate 
 of letters, as compared with other intellectual pursuits, than 
 was ever hazarded before. 
 
 3. The first quality of his character, or, rather, that which 
 forms tho basis of it, as of all great characters, was his energy. 
 "We see it in his early youth, triumphing over the impediments 
 of nature, and in spite of lameness, making him conspicuous in 
 every sort of athletic exercise — clambering up dizzy precipices, 
 wading through treacherous fords, and performing feats of pe- 
 destrianism that make one's joints ache to read of. As he ad- 
 vanced in life, we see the same force of purpo:;c turned to 
 higher objects. 
 
 4. We see the same powerful energies triumphing over disease 
 at a later period, when nothing but a resolution to get the bet- 
 ter of it enabled him to do so. " Be assured," he remarked to 
 Mr. Gillies, " that if pain could have prevented my application 
 to literary labor, not a page of Ivanhoe would have been written. 
 Now if I had given way to mere feelings, and had ceased to work, 
 it is a question whether the disorder might not have taken a 
 deeper root, and become incurable." 
 
 5. Another quality, which, like the last, seems to have given 
 tone to his character, was his social or benevolent feelings. His 
 heart was an unfailing fountain, which not merely the distresses, 
 but the joys of his fellow-creatures made to How like water 
 
 6. Rarely indeed is this precious quality found united with 
 the most exalted intellect. "Whether it be that nature, chary of 
 her gifts, does not care to shower too many of them on one head ; 
 or that the public admiration has led the man of intellect to set 
 too high a value on himself, or at least his own pursuits, to take 
 
 1 Jac' obit ism, the principles of the adherents of James the Second, of 
 
 England. 
 
372 NATIONAL FIFTn READER. 
 
 an interest in the inferior concerns of others ; or that the fear 
 of compromising his dignity puts him " on points " with those 
 who approach him ; or whether, in truth, the very magnitude 
 of his own reputation throws a freezing shadow over us littlo 
 people in his neighborhood — whatever be the cause, it is too truo 
 that the highest powers of the mind are very often deficient in 
 the only one which can malic the rest of much worth in society 
 — the power of pleasing. 
 
 7. Scott was not one of these little great. His was not one of 
 those dark-lantern visages which concentrate all their light on 
 their own path, and are black as midnight to all about them. 
 He had a ready sympathy, a word of contagious kindness or 
 cordial greeting for all. His manners, too, were of a kind to 
 dispel the icy reserve and awe which his great name was calcu- 
 lated to inspire. 
 
 8. He relished a good joke, from whatever quarter it came, 
 and was not over-dainty in his manner of testifying his satisfac- 
 tion. " In the full tide of mirth, he did indeed laugh the heart's 
 laugh," says Mr. Adolphus. " Give me an honest laugher," 
 said Scott himself on another occasion, when a buckram man of 
 fashion had been paying him a visit at Abbotsford. 
 
 9. His manners, free from affectation or artifice of any sort, 
 exhibited the spontaneous movements of a kind disposition, 
 subject to those rules of good breeding which Nature herself 
 might have dictated. In this way he answered his own purpose 
 admirably as a painter of character, by putting every man in 
 good humor with himself, in the same manner as a cunning 
 portrait-painter amuses his sitters with such store of fun and 
 anecdote as may throw them off their guard, and call out the 
 happiest expressions of their countenances. 
 
 10. The place where his benevolent impulses found their 
 proper theater for expansion was his own home ; surrounded by 
 a happy family, and dispensing all the hospitalities of a great 
 feudal proprietor. "There are many good things in life," he 
 says, in one of his letters, "whatever satirists ' and mis'anthropes 3 
 may say to the contrary ; but probably the best of all, next to a 
 
 1 SaT ir ist, one who writes com posure of what in public or private 
 positions, generally poetical, that hold morals deserves rebuke, 
 up vice or folly to severe disapproval ; a Mis' an thrope, a hater of man- 
 one who makes a keen or severe ex kind. 
 
scene from ivanhoe. 373 
 
 conscienco void of offence, (without which, by-the-by, they can 
 hardly exist,) arc the quiet exercise and enjoyment of the social 
 feelings, in which we arc at once happy ourselves, and tho cause 
 of happiness to them who are dearest to us." 
 
 11. Every page of the work, almost, shows us how intimately 
 he blended himself with the pleasures and the pursuits of his 
 own familv, watched over the education of his children, shared 
 in their rides, their rambles, and sports, losing no opportunity 
 of kindling in their young minds a love of virtue, and honorable 
 principles of action. 
 
 12. But Scott's sympathies were not confined to his species, 
 and if he treated them like blood relations, he treated his brute 
 followers like personal friends. Every one remembers old Maida 
 and faithful Camp, the " dear old friend," whose loss cost him a 
 dinner. Mr. Gillies tells us that he went into his study on one 
 occasion, when he was winding off his " Vision of Don Roderick." 
 " 'Look here,' said the poet, ' I have just begun to copy over tho 
 rhymes that you heard to-day and applauded so much. Return 
 to supper if you can ; only don't be late, as you perceive we 
 keep early hours, and Wallace will not suffer me to rest after 
 six in the morning. Come, good dog, and help the poet.' 
 
 13. "At this hint, Wallace seated himself upright on a chair 
 next his master, who offered him a newspaper, which he directly 
 seized, looking very wise, and holding it firmly and contentedly 
 in his mouth. Scott looked at him with great satisfaction, for 
 he was excessively fond of dogs. 'Very well,' said he ; 'now 
 we shall get on.' And so I left them abruptly, knowing that 
 my ' absence would be the best company. 5 " w. II. Prescott. 
 
 II. 
 
 120. SCENE FROM IVANHOE. 1 
 
 FOLLOWING with wonderful promptitude the directions 
 of Ivanhoe, and availing herself of the protection of the 
 large ancient shield, which she placed against the lower part of 
 
 1 This scene is laid in England, in Rebecca, the young Jewess, while 
 
 the twelfth century. "Wounded and the castle is undergoing an assault 
 
 a captive in the castle of Front-de- from a party of outlawed forest 
 
 Bceuf, a Norman knight, Ivanhoe, rangers, led on by Richard, king of 
 
 carries on this conversation with England, the unknown knight. 
 
374: NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 the window, Rebecca, with tolerable security to herself, could 
 witness part of what was passing without the castle, and report 
 to Ivanhoe the preparations which the assailants were making 
 for the storm. 
 
 2. " The skirts of the wood seem lined with archers, although 
 only a few are advanced from its dark shadow." " Under what 
 banner ?" asked Ivanhoe. " Under no ensign of war which I 
 can observe," answered Bebecca. " A singular novelty," mut- 
 tered the knight, " to advance to storm such a castle without 
 pennon or banner displayed ! — Seest thou who they be that act 
 as leaders ?" " A knight, clad in sable armor, is the most con- 
 spicuous," said the Jewess ; " he alone is armed from head to 
 heel, and seems to assume the direction of all around him." 
 
 3. " What device does he bear on his shield ?" replied Ivan- 
 hoe. " Something resembling a bar of iron, and a padlock 
 painted blue on the black shield." " A fetterlock and shackle- 
 bolt azure," said Ivanhoe ; " I know not who may bear the de- 
 vice, but well I ween it might now be mine own. Canst thou 
 not see the motto ?" " Scarce the device itself, at this distance," 
 replied Rebecca ; " but when the sun glances fair upon his 
 shield, it shows as I tell you." 
 
 4. " Seem there no other leaders r" exclaimed the anxious in- 
 quirer. " None (nun) of mark and distinction that I can behold 
 from this station," said Rebecca ; " but, doubtless, the other 
 side of the castle is also assailed. They appear even now pre- 
 paring to advance." Her description was here suddenly inter- 
 rupted by the signal for assault, which was given by the blast 
 of a shrill bugle, and at once answered by a nourish of the 
 Norman trumpets from the battlements. 
 
 5. " And I must he here like a bedridden monk," exclaimed 
 Ivanhoe, " while the game that gives me freedom or death is 
 played out by the hand of others ! — Look from the window once 
 again, kind maiden, — but beware that you are not marked by 
 the archers beneath, — look out once more, and tell me if they 
 yet advance to the storm." — With patient courage, strengthened 
 by the interval which she had employed in mental devotion, 
 Rebecca again (a gen') took post at the lattice, sheltering her- 
 self, however, so as not to be visible from beneath. 
 
 6. "What dost thou see, Rebecca?" again demanded the 
 wounded knight. " Nothing (nuth'ing) but the cloud of arrows 
 
sce:;e from iyanhoe. 375 
 
 flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes, and to hide the bowmen 
 who shoot them." " That can not endure," said Ivanhoo ; " if 
 they press not right on to carry the castle by pure force of arms, 
 the archery may avail but little against stone walls and bul- 
 warks. Look for tho Knight of the Fetterlock, fair Rebecca, 
 and see how he bears himself ; for, as the leader is, so will his 
 followers bo." " I see him not," said Rebecca. 
 
 7. " Foul craven !" exclaimed Ivanhoe ; " does he blench from 
 the helm when tho wind blows highest ?" " Ho blenches not ! 
 he blenches not!" said Rebecca ; "I seo him now ; he leads a 
 body of men close under tho outer barrier of the barbacan. 1 
 They pull down the piles and palisades ; 3 they hew down tho 
 barriers with axes. His high black plume floats abroad over 
 the throng, like a raven over the field of the slain. They havo 
 made a breach in the barriers — they rush in — they are thrust 
 back! — Front-de-Bceuf 3 heads the defenders ; — I see his gigan- 
 tic form above the press. They throng again to the breach, and 
 the pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. It is tho 
 meeting of two fierce tides — tho conflict of two oceans, moved 
 by ad'verse winds !" 
 
 8. She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer 
 to endure a sight so terrible. "Look forth again, Rebecca," 
 said Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her retiring ; " the archery 
 must in some degree have ceased, since they are now fighting 
 hand to hand. Look again ; there is now less danger." Re- 
 becca again looked forth, and almost immediately exclaimed : — 
 "Front-de-Bceuf and the Black Knight fight hand to hand on 
 the breach, amid tho roar of their followers, who watch tho 
 progress of the strife. Heaven strike with the cause of the op- 
 pressed, and of the captive!" She then uttered a loud shriek, 
 and exclaimed: — "Ho is down! — he is down!" "AVho is 
 down?" cried Ivanhoe. "For our dear lady's sake, tell mc 
 which has fallen ?" 
 
 9. " The Black Knight," answered Rebecca, faintly ; then in- 
 stantly again shouted, with joyful eagerness, — "But no — but 
 no ! — he is on foot again, and fights as if there were twenty 
 
 1 Bar' ba can, an advanced work one end of which is set firmly in 
 defending the entrance to a castle or the ground ; a fence formed of pal- 
 city, as at a draw-bridge or gate. isades, used as n moans of defense. 
 
 8 Pal N i sade', a strong sharp stake, 3 Front-cIe-Eceuf, (frong-du-buf.) 
 
37G NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 men's strength, in his single arm — his stoord is broken — he 
 snatches an axe from a yeoman — he presses Front-de-Bceuf with 
 blow on blow — the giant stoops and totters, like an oak under 
 the steel of the woodman — he falls — he falls !" 
 
 10. " Front-de-Bceuf ?" exclaimed Ivanhoe. " Front-de- 
 Bceuf !" answered the Jewess. " His men rash to the rescue, 
 headed by the haughty Templar — their united force compels the 
 champion to pause — they drag Front-de-Bceuf within the walls." 
 
 11. "The assailants have won the barriers, have they not?" 
 said Ivanhoe. "They have — they have!" exclaimed Rebecca, 
 " and they press the beseiged hard upon the outer wall ; some 
 plant ladders, some swarm like bees, and endeavor to ascend 
 upon the shoulders of each other — down go stones, beams, and 
 trunks of trees upon their heads, and as fast as they bear the 
 wounded men to the rear, fresh men supply their place in tho 
 assault. Great God! hast thou given men thine own image, 
 that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their 
 brethren !" 
 
 12. "Think not of that," said Ivanhoe ; "this is no time for 
 such thoughts. Who yield? — who push their way?" "The 
 ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering. " The 
 soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles — the be- 
 sieged have the better !" 
 
 13. " Saint George strike for us !" exclaimed the knight ; " do 
 the false yeomen 1 give way?" "No!" exclaimed Rebecca; 
 " they bear themselves right yeomanly — the Black Knight ap- 
 proaches the postern 2 with his huge axe — the thundering blows 
 which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts 
 of the battle — stones and beams are hailed down on the bold 
 champion — he regards them no more than if they were thistle- 
 down or feathers !" 
 
 14. "By Saint John of Acre!" said Ivanhoe, raising himself 
 joyfully on his couch ; " methought there was but one man in 
 England that might do such a deed!" — "The postern gate 
 shakes," continued Rebecca ; " it crashes — it is splintered by 
 his blows — they rush in — the outwork is won — they hurl the 
 defenders from the battlements — they throw them into the 
 
 'Yeo'man, a man frco born; a sage between the parade and the 
 
 freeholder. main ditch, or between the ditches of 
 
 2 Fos' tern, an under-ground pas- the interior of the outworks of a fort 
 
SCENE FEOM IVANIIOE. 377 
 
 moat ! Oil, men, — if yc be indeed men, — spare them that can 
 resist no longer!" 
 
 15. " The bridge, — the bridge which communicates with the 
 castle, — have they won that pass?" exclaimed Ivanhoc. " No/' 
 replied Rebecca; "the Templar has destroyed the plank on 
 which they crossed — few of the defenders escaped with him 
 into the castle — the shrieks and cries which you hear, tell the 
 fate of the others ! Alas ! I see it is still more difficult to look 
 upon victory than upon battle !" 
 
 1G. ""What do they now, maiden?" said Ivanhoc; "look 
 forth yet again — this is no time to faint at bloodshed." "It is 
 over for the time," answered Rebecca. " Our friends strengthen 
 themselves within the outwork which they have mastered, and 
 it affords them so good a shelter from the foeman's shot, that 
 the garison only bestow a few bolts on it, from interval to inter- 
 val, as if rather to disquiet than effectually to injure them." 
 
 Scott. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish poet and novelist, one of the most remarkable 
 and laborious writers of any age, was born in Edinburgh, August 15th, 1771. 
 Being a delicate child, he was sent at three years of age to reside on his pater- 
 nal grandfather's farm, in Roxburghshire, a region abounding in traditions of 
 the border wars, to which even in infancy he was an eager listener. lie returned 
 to Edinburgh in 1779, greatly improved in health, excepting a lameness from 
 which he never recovered. He soon became a pupil in the high school of Edin- 
 burgh, whence, in 17S3, he was transferred to the university. His carte rat school 
 or college was not brilliant ; but he was an indefatigable reader of romance 5 , old 
 plays, poetry, and miscellaneous literature, and a keen observer of natural 
 6ccnery. After six years devoted to professional study in his father's office, to 
 miscellaneous reading, and composition, Uc was called to the Scottish bar, in 
 1792. He married Miss Charlotte Carpenter, a young lady of great beauty, in 
 1797. His first great poem, "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," on n~ publication 
 in 1S05. was received with universal admiration, and placed the author among the 
 foremost poets of the ngc. His appointment, in 1806, to one of the chief clerk* 
 ships in the Scottish Court of Sessions, with a salary Boon increased to £1900, 
 enabled him to devote himself exclusively to literature. In 1806 ** Mannion" ap- 
 peared; in 1S10, the "Lady of the Lake;" which were followed by the u Vision 
 of Don Roderlc," "Rokcby," and in 1815, "The Lord of the Isles." In the 
 summer of 1814, he commenced his more splendid career, a? a novelist, by pub- 
 lishing " Wavcrlcy." In that year a portion of his literary gains were devoted 
 to the purchase of a small farm on the river Tweed, not far from Melrose, to 
 which he gave the name of Abbotsford, now one of the most famous literary 
 shrines of Scotland. To " Wavcrlcy" rapidly succeeded, for nearly fifteen years, 
 his series of novels that appeared anonymously. In 1886, two firms, his pub- 
 lishers and his printers, failed, leaving Scott's liabilities little less than £150,000. 
 Unappalled by the magnitude of his misfortunes, having secured an extension 
 of time, at the age of fifty-five, he heroically set to work to reimburse his cred- 
 itors by his literary labors. At the time of his death, at Abbotsford, September 
 
378 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 21st, 1832, he had paid upward of £100,000 of his debts ; and soon after by the 
 sale of his copyright interest in the Waverley novels, the claims of all his cred- 
 itors were fully satisfied — a result perhaps never achieved before or since within 
 so brief a space of time by the literary efforts of a single person. His character 
 is most happily sketched by Prescott, p. 370. 
 
 m. 
 
 121. SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 SHAKSPEARE is, above all writers, — at least above all 
 modern writers, — the poet of nature ; the poet that holds 
 up to his readers a faithful mirror of manners and of life. His 
 characters are not modified by the customs of particular places, 
 unpracticed by the rest of the world ; by the peculiarities of 
 studies or professions, which can operate but upon smaU num- 
 bers ; or by the accidents of transient fashions or temporary 
 opinions ; they are the genuine progeny of common humanity, 
 such as the world will always supply, and observation wiU always 
 find. His persons act and speak by the influence of those gen- 
 eral passions and principles by which all minds are agitated, 
 and the whole system of life is continued in motion. In the 
 writings of other poets a character is too often an individual : 
 in those of Shaks'peare it is commonly a species. 
 
 2. It is from this wide extension of design that so much in- 
 struction is derived. It is this which fills the plays of Shaks- 
 peare wifh practical axioms and domestic wisdom. It was said 
 of Euripides, 1 that every verse was a precept ; and it may be 
 said of Shakspeare, that from his works may be collected a sys- 
 tem of civil and economical prudence. Yet his real power is 
 not shown in the splendor of particular passages, but by the 
 progress of his fable, and the tenor of his dialogue : and he that 
 tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like 
 the pedant in Hier'ocles, 2 who, when he offered his house to 
 sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen. 
 
 1 Eu rip' ides, one of the three with Socrates. According to somo 
 
 great Greek tragedians, was born in authorities, Euripides wrote ninety- 
 
 Salamis, whither his parents retired two tragedies, according to others, 
 
 during the occupation of Attica by seventy -five. Of these nineteen are 
 
 Xerxes, on the day of the glorious extant. He died b. c 40G. 
 
 victory near that island, B. c. 480. a Hi eV o cles, a Platonic philoso- 
 
 He was highly learned and accom- pher of Alexandria, who wrote 
 
 plished, and on terms of intimacy many facetious stories. 
 
SHAKSPEARE. 379 
 
 3. It will not easily be imagined how much Shakspeare ex- 
 cels in accommodating his sentiments to real life, but by com- 
 paring him with other authors. It was observed of the ancient 
 schools of declamation, that the mure diligently they were fre- 
 quented, the more was the student disqualified for the world, 
 because he found nothing there which he should ever meet in 
 any other place. The same remark may be applied to every 
 stage but that of Shakspeare. The theater, when it is under 
 any other direction, is peopled by such characters as were never 
 seen, conversing in a language which was never heard, upon 
 topics which will never arise in the commerce of mankind. 
 But the dialogue of this author is often so evidently determined 
 by the incident which produces it, and is pursued with so much 
 ease and simplicity, that it seems scarcely to claim the merit of 
 fiction, but to have been gleaned by diligent selection out of 
 common conversation and common occurrences. 
 
 4. Upon every other stage the universal agent is love, by 
 whose power all good and evil is distributed, and every action 
 quickened or retarded. To bring a lover, a lady, and a rival 
 into the fable ; to entangle them in contradictory obligations, 
 perplex them with oppositions of interest, and harass them with 
 violence of desires inconsistent with each other ; to make them 
 meet in rapture, and part in agony ; to fill their mourns with 
 hyperbolical l joy and outrageous sorrow ; to distress them as 
 nothing human ever was distressed ; to deliver them as nothing 
 human ever was delivered ; is the business of a modern dram- 
 atist. For this, probability is violated, life is misrepresented, 
 and language is depraved. 
 
 5. But love is only one of many passions ; and as it has no 
 great influence upon the sum of life, it has little operation in 
 the dramas of a poet, who caught his ideas from the living 
 world, and exhibited only what he saw before him. He knew 
 that any other passion, as it was regular or exorbitant, was a 
 cause of happiness or calamity. This, therefore, is the praise 
 of Shakspeare, that his driiina is the mirror of life ; that he who 
 has mazed his imagination, in following the jmantoms which 
 other writers raise up before him, may here be cured of his 
 delirious ecstasies, by reading human sentiments in human lan- 
 guage, by scenes from which a hermit may estimate the trans- 
 
 1 Hy v per bbV ic al. exaggerating or diminishing greatly. 
 
380 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 actions of the world, and a confessor predict the progress of 
 the passions. 
 
 6. Shakspeare's plays are not, in the rigorous and critical 
 sense, either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a dis- 
 tinct kind ; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which 
 partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless 
 variety of proportion, and innumerable modes of combination ; 
 and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one 
 is the gain of another ; in which, at the same time, the reveler 
 is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend ; in 
 which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic 
 of another ; and many mischiefs and many benefits arc done 
 and hindered without design. 
 
 7. Shakspeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and 
 sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition. Almost 
 all his plays are divided between serious and ludicrous charac- 
 ters, and, in the successive evolutions of the design, sometimes 
 produce seriousness and sorrow, and sometimes levity and 
 laughter. That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criti- 
 cism will be readily allowed ; but there is alway an appeal open 
 from criticism to nature. The end of writing is to instruct ; 
 the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing. That the mingled 
 drama may convey all the instruction of tragedy or comedy can 
 not be denied, because it includes both in its alternations of ex- 
 hibition, and approaches nearer than either to the appearance 
 of life, by showing how great machinations ' and slender designs 
 may promote or obviate one another, and the high and the low 
 cooperate in the general system by unavoidable concatenation.' 
 
 8. The force of his comic scenes has suffered little diminution 
 from the changes made by a century and a half, in manners or 
 in words. As his personages act upon principles arising from 
 genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their 
 pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all 
 places ; they are natural, and therefore durable. 3 The adventi- 
 tious peculiarities of personal habits are only superficial dyes, 
 bright and pleasing for a littlo while, yet soon fading to a dim 
 
 . . . t. 
 
 1 Machination, (mak"* i na' shun), 2 Ccn cat^ c na' tion, connection 
 
 the act of planning or contriving a by links; a series of links united, cr 
 
 Bchemc for executing some purpose, of things depending on each other, 
 usually an evil one. 3 Du' ra fclc, lasting. 
 
BCENE FROM KING RICHARD III. 33X 
 
 tinct, 1 -without any remains of former luster ; but the discrimina- 
 tions of true passion are the colors of nature ; they pervade the 
 whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits 
 them. The accidental compositions of heterogeneous modes 
 are dissolved by tho chance which combined them ; but the 
 uniform simplicity of primitive qualities neither admits increase, 
 nor suffers dcc:i} r . The sand heaped by one flood is scattered 
 by another ; but the rock alway continues in its place. The 
 stream of time, which is continually washing the dis'soluble 
 fabrics of tho poets, passes without injury by the adamant of 
 Shakspeare. Da. Johnson, 
 
 IV. 
 
 122. BCENE FROM KING RICHARD IH. 
 
 BRAKENBURY. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day ? 
 Clarence. Oh, I have passed a miserable night, 
 So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, 
 That, as I am a Christain faithful man, 
 I would not spend another such a night, 
 Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days, 
 So full of dismal terror was tho time ! 
 
 Brat. What was your dream, my lord ? I pray you toll me. 
 
 Clar. Methought that I had broken from tho tower, 
 And was embarked to cross to Bur'gundy, 
 And in my company my brother Glostcr, 
 Who from my cabin tempted mo to walk 
 Upon tho hatches. Thence we looked toward England, 
 And cited up a thousand heavy times, 
 During the wars of York and Lanc'astcr, 
 That had befallen us. As we passed along 
 Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, 
 Methought that Gloster stumbled ; and, in falling, 
 Struck me, that sought to stay him, o'verboard, 
 Into the tumbling billows of the main. 
 
 heaven ! Methought what pain it was to drown ! 
 W T hat dreadful noise of waters in my ears ! 
 What sights of uglv death within mv eves ! 
 
 1 thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks ; 
 
 1 Ti-ct. (tlngt), stain ; color: tinj?. 
 
382 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon : 
 
 Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 
 
 Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, 
 
 All scattered in the bottom of the sea. 
 
 Some lay in dead men's skulls : and in those holes 
 
 "Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, 
 
 As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, 
 
 That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, 
 
 And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by. 
 
 Brak. Had you such leisure, in the time of death, 
 To gaze upon the secrets of the deep ? 
 
 Clar. Meth ought I had ; and of ten did I strive 
 To yield the ghost ; but still the envious flood 
 Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth 
 To find the empty, vast, and wandering air ; 
 But smothered it within my panting bulk, 
 Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. 
 
 Brak. Awaked you not wifti this sore agony ? 
 
 Clar. No, no ! my dream was lengthened after life ; 
 Oh, then began the tempest to my soul ! 
 I passed, methought, the melancholy flood, 
 With that grim ferryman 1 which poets write of, 
 Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. 
 The first that there did greet my stranger soul 
 Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,' 
 Who cried aloud — " What scourge for perjury 
 Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?" 
 And so he vanished. Then came wandering by 
 A shadow like an angel, with bright hair 
 Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud — 
 "Clarence is come,— false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, — 
 TJiat stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury ! 
 Seize on him, furies ! take him to your torments !" 
 With that, methought a legion of foul fiends 
 
 1 Charon, (ka' ron), who, according three cents in value, which was 
 
 to ancient mythology, conveyed in placed in the mouth of every corpse 
 
 his boat the shades of the dead across previous to its burial. He is repre' 
 
 the rivers of the lower world. For sented as an aged man, with a dirty 
 
 this service he was paid with an board and a mean dress, 
 
 obolus, a small silver coin ot about ■ Warwick, (wor 7 rik). 
 
SCENE FROM KING RICHARD III. 383 
 
 Environed me, and howled in mine ears 
 Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise, 
 I trembling waked, and, for a season after, 
 Could not believe but that I was in hell ; 
 Such terrible impression made my dream. 
 
 Brak. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you ; 
 I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it. 
 
 Clar. Ah ! Brakenbury, I have done these things, 
 That now give evidence against my soul, 
 For Edward's sake ; and, see how he requites me ! 
 
 God ! if my deep prayers can not appease thee, 
 But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds, 
 
 Yet execute thy wrath on me alone : 
 
 Oh, spare my guiltless wife, and my poor children ! — 
 
 1 prithee, Brakenbury, stay by me ; 
 
 My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep. 
 
 Brak. I will, my lord ; God give your grace good rest ! — 
 
 [Clarence reposing himself on a chair. 
 
 Sorrow breaks seasons, and reposing hours, 
 
 Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night. 
 
 Princes have but their titles for their glories, 
 
 An outward honor for an inward toil : 
 
 And, for unfelt imaginations, 
 
 They often feel a world of restless cares : 
 
 So that between their titles and low name, 
 
 There's nothing differs but the outward fame. Shakspeare. 
 
 William Siiakspeake, one of the greatest of all poets, was born at Stratford- 
 on-Avon, Warwick County, England, in April, 1504. His father, John Shak- 
 speare, a woolcombcr or glover, rose to be high bailiff and chief alderman of 
 Stratford. William is supposed to have received bis early education at tbe 
 grammar-school in bis native town. We have ho trace how he was employed 
 between bis scbool-days and manhood. Some bold that be was an attorney's 
 clerk. Doubtless he was a bard, though perhaps an irregular student. He mar- 
 ried Anne Hatbaway in 1582, and soon after became connected with tbe Black- 
 friar's Theater, in London, to which city be removed in 15S6 or 13S7. Two years 
 subsequent be was a joint proprietor of that theater, with four others below him 
 in the list. Though we know nothing of the date of his lirst play, he had most 
 probably begun to write long before he left Stratford. Of bis thirty-seven plays, 
 the existence of thirty-one is defined by contemporary records. He became rich 
 in the theaters, with which he ceased to be connected about 1609. He had pre- 
 viously purchased tbe principal house in his native town, where he passed the 
 residue of his life, and died in April, 1616. We can only refer students that wish 
 to know more of this great poet, to his writings, an extended description of 
 which is rendered unnecessary by tbe selection immediately preceding the above. 
 
384 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 V. 
 
 123. NORVAL. 
 
 Enter first Glenalvon ; and soon after, Norval. Tlie latter seems 
 
 looting off at some distant object. 
 
 aLENALVON. His port I love ; he's in a proper mood 
 To chide the thunder, if at him it roared. [Aside. 
 [Aloud.] Has Nerval seen the troops? 
 
 Norval. The setting sun 
 
 With yellow radiance lightened all the vale, 
 j^nd as the warriors moved, each polished helm, 
 Corslet, or spear, glanced back his gilded beams. 
 The hill they climbed, and, halting at its top, 
 Of more than mortal size, towering they seemed 
 A host angelic, clad in burning arms. 
 
 Glen. Thou talk'st it well ; no leader of our host 
 In sounds more loftv talks of glorious war. 
 
 Norv. If I should e'er acquire a leader's name, 
 My speech will be less ardent. Novelty 
 Now prompts my tongue, and youthful admiration 
 Vents itself freely ; since no part is mine 
 Of praise pertaining to the great in arms. 
 
 Glen. You wrong yourself, brave sir ; your martial deed3 
 Have ranked you with the great. But mark me, Norval, 
 Lord Randolph's favor now exalts your youth 
 Above his veterans of famous service. 
 Let me, who know these soldiers, counsel you. 
 Give them all honor : seem not to command, 
 Else they will hardly brook your late-sprung power, 
 Which nor alliance props nor birth adorns. 
 
 Norv. Sir, I have been accustomed, all my days, 
 To hear and speak the plain and simple truth ; 
 And though I have been told that there are men 
 Who borrow friendship's tongue to speak their scorn, 
 Yet in such language I am little skilled ; 
 Therefore I thank Glenalvon for his counsel, 
 Although it sounded harshly. Why remind 
 Me of my birth obscure ? Why slur my power 
 With such contemptuous terms? 
 
NORVAL. 380 
 
 Glen. I did not mean 
 
 To gall your pride, which now I see is great. 
 
 Norv. My pride ! 
 
 Glen. Suppress it, as you wish to prosper ; 
 
 Your pride's excessive. Yet, for Randolph's sake, 
 I will not leave you to its rash direction. 
 If thus you swell, and frown at high-bom men, 
 "Will high-born men endure a shepherd's scorn ? 
 
 Norv. A shepherd's scorn ! [tfrvsees left 
 
 Glen. [Right.] ^Vhy yes, if you presume 
 
 To bend on soldiers those disdainful eyes 
 As if you took the measure of their minds, 
 And said in secret, You're no match for me, 
 What will become of you ? 
 
 Nerv. Hast thou no fears for thy presumptuous self ? 
 
 Glen. Ha ! dost thou threaten me ? 
 
 Norv. Didst thou not hear ? 
 
 Glen. Unwillingly I did ; a nobler foe 
 Had not been questioned thus ; but such as thou — 
 
 Norv. "Whom dost thou think me ? 
 
 Glen. Norval. 
 
 Norv. So I am ; 
 
 And who is Norval in Glenalvon's eyes? 
 
 Glen. A peasant's son, a wandering beggar boy ; 
 At best no more, even if he speaks the truth. 
 
 Norv. False as thou art, dost thou suspect my truth ? 
 
 Glen. Thy truth ! thou'rt ail a lie ; and basely false 
 Is the vain-glorious tale thou told'st to Randolph. 
 
 Norv. If I were chained, unarmed, or bedrid old, 
 Perhaps I should revile ; but, as I am, 
 I have no tongue to rail. The humble Norval 
 Is of a race who strive not but with deeds. [Crosses It. 
 Did I not fear to freeze thy shallow valor, 
 And make thee sink too soon beneath my Bioord, 
 I'd tell thee — what thou art. I know thee well. 
 
 Glen. [L.~] Dost thou not know Glenalvon born to command 
 Ten thousand slaves like thee ? 
 
 Norv. Villain, no more ! 
 
 Draw, and defend thv life. I did desnm 
 To have defied thee in another cause ; 
 
 17 
 
386 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 But heaven accelerates its vengeance on thee. 
 Now for my own and Lady Randolph's wrongs ! 
 
 [Both draw their swords. 
 Enter Lord Randolph, R. 
 
 Lord Randolph. Hold! I command you both ! the man that stirs 
 Makes me his foe. 
 
 Norv. Another voice than thine 
 That threat had vainly sounded, noble Randolph. 
 
 Glen. Hear him, my lord ; he's wondrous condescending ! 
 Mark the humility of shepherd Norval ! 
 
 Norv. Now you may scoff in safety. [Both sheathe their swords. 
 
 Lord R. [R.] Speak not thus, 
 
 Taunting each other, but unfold to me 
 The cause of quarrel ; then I judge betwixt you. 
 
 Norv. Nay, my good lord, though I revere you much. 
 My cause I plead not, nor demand your judgment. 
 I blush to speak ; and will not, can not speak 
 The opprobrious words that I from him have borne. 
 To the liege lord of my dear native land 
 I owe a subject's homage ; but even him 
 And his high arbitration I'd reject! 
 Within my bosom reigns another lord — 
 Honor ! sole judge and umpire of itself. 
 If my free speech offend you, noble Randolph, 
 Revoke your favors, and let Norval go 
 Hence as he came ; alone — but not dishonored ! 
 
 Lord R. Thus far I'll mediate with impartial voice : 
 The ancient foe of Caledonia's land 
 Now waves his banner 6'er her frighted fields ; 
 Suspend your purpose till your country's arms 
 Repel the bold invader ; then decide 
 The private quarrel. 
 
 Glen. I agree to this. 
 
 Norv. And I. [Lord R. retires. 
 
 Glen. Norval, 
 
 Let not our variance mar the social hour, 
 Nor wrong the hospitality of Randolph. 
 Nor frowning anger, nor yet wrinkled hate, 
 Shall stain my countenance. Smooth thou thy brow ; 
 Nor let our strife disturb the gentle dame. 
 
SCENE FROM CATILINE. 387 
 
 Korv. Think not so lightly, sir, of my resentment : 
 
 When we contend again, our strife is mortal. 
 
 [Exeunt Glln., Nobv. 
 
 Home. 
 
 John Home, author of " Douglas" and various other tragedies, "was born at 
 Lcith, Scotland, In 1722. lie entered the Church, and succeeded Blair, author 
 of "The Grave," as minister of Athelstaneford. After writing " Douglas," 60 
 violent a storm was raised bj the fact that a Presbyterian minister had written 
 a play, that he was obliged to resign his living. Lord Bute rewarded him with 
 the sinecure office of conservator of Scots privileges at Campvere, and on the 
 accession of George III., in 17G0, he secured a pension for the poet of £300 per 
 annum. With an income of some £G00, and the friendship of David Hume, 
 Blair, Robertson, and other distinguished men, Home's life was passed in happy 
 tranquillity. He died in 1808, aged eighty-six. 
 
 VI. 
 
 124. SCENE FROM CATILINE. 
 
 [In the Senate. ] 
 
 CICERO. Our long dispute must close. Take one proof more 
 Of this rebellion. — Lucius Catiline l 
 Has been commanded to attend the senate. 
 He dares not come. I now demand your votes ! — 
 Is he condemned to exile ? 
 
 [Catiline comes in hastily, and flings himself on the 
 bench ; all the senators go over to the other side. 
 Cicero, [turning to Catiline]. Here I repeat the charge, to 
 gods and men, 
 Of treasons manifold ; — that, but this day, 
 He has received dispatches from the rebels ; 
 That he has leagued with deputies from Gaul 
 To seize the province ; nay, has levied troops, 
 And raised his rebel standard : — that but now 
 
 1 Lucius Sergius Catiline, the do- province, and frustrated in a conspir- 
 
 scendantof an ancient and patrician acy to kill the new consuls, he or- 
 
 family in Rome, whose youth and ganized the extensive conspiracy in 
 
 manhood were stained by every vice which the scene here given occurs, 
 
 and crime. He was praetor in B.C. The history of this conspiracy, which 
 
 6S, was governor of Africa during ended by the death of Catiline, in a 
 
 the following year, and returned to decisive battle fought early in G"2, 
 
 Rome in 66, to sue for the consulship, has been written by Sallust. He was 
 
 Disqualified for a candidate, by an a man of great mental and physical 
 
 impeachment for oppression in his powers, without moral qualities. 
 
388 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 A meeting of conspirators was held 
 Under his roof, with mystic rites, and oaths, 
 Pledged round the body of a murdered slave. 
 To these he has no answer. 
 
 Catiline, [rising calmly]. Conscript fathers! 
 I do not rise to waste the night in words ; 
 Let that plebe'ian l talk ; 'tis not my trade ; 
 But here I stand for right — let him show proofs — 
 For Roman right ; though none, it seems, dare stand 
 To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there, 
 Cling to your masters ; judges, Romans — slaves! 
 His charge is false ; I dare him to his proofs. 
 You have my answer. Let my actions speak ! 
 
 Cic. [interrupting him]. Deeds shall convince you ! Has the 
 traitor done ? 
 
 Cat. But this I will avow, that I have scorned, 
 And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong : 
 "Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword, 
 Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back, 
 "Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts 
 The gates of honor on me, — turning out 
 
 The Roman from his birthright ; and for what ? [Looking round. 
 To fling your offices to every slave ; 
 Vipers that creep where man disdains to climb ; 
 And having wound their loathsome track to the top 
 Of this huge moldering monument of Rome, 
 Hang hissing at the nobler man below. 
 
 Cic. This is his answer ! Must I bring more proofs ? 
 Fathers, you know there lives not one of us, 
 But lives in peril of his midnight sword. 
 Lists of proscription have been handed round, 
 In which your general properties are made 
 Your murderer's hire. 
 
 [A cry is heard without — " More prisoners /" An officer enters 
 with letters for Cicero ; who, after glancing at them, sends 
 them round the Senate. Catiline is strongly perturbed. 
 
 Cic. Fathers of Rome ! If man can be convinced 
 By proof, as clear as daylight, here it is ! 
 
 1 Plebeian, (pie be' yan), one of the common people or lower ranks of 
 men ; — usually applied to the common people of ancient Rome. 
 
SCENE FROM CATILINE. 389 
 
 * 
 
 Look on these letters ! Here's a deep-laid plot 
 To wreck the provinces : a solemn league, 
 Made with all form and circumstance. The time 
 Is desperate, — all the slaves are up ; — Rome shakes ! 
 The heavens alone can tell how near our graves 
 We stand even here! — The name of Catiline 
 I3 foremost in the league. He was their king. 
 Tried and convicted traitor ! go from Rome ! 
 
 Cat. [haughtily rising]. Come, consecrated lictors, from your 
 thrones : [ To the Senate. 
 
 Fling down your scepters : — take the rod and ax, 
 And make the murder as you make the law. 
 
 Cic. [interrupting him]. Give up the record of his banishment. 
 
 [ To an officer. 
 [TJie officer gives it to the Consul.] 
 
 Cat. Banished from Rome ! What's banished, but set free 
 From daily contact of the things I loathe ? 
 " Tried and convicted traitor !" Who says this ? 
 Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head ? 
 Banished — I thank you for 't. It breaks my chain ! 
 I held some slack allegiance till this hour — 
 But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords ! 
 I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, 
 Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs, 
 I have within my heart's hot cells shut up, 
 To leave you in your lazy dignities. 
 But here I stand and scoff you : here I fling 
 Hatred and full defiance in vour face. 
 Your Consul's merciful. For this, all thanks. 
 He dares not touch a hair of Catiline. 
 
 [TJie Consul reads] : — £k Lucius Sergius Catiline: by the 
 decree of the Senate, you are declared an enemy and 
 alien to the State, and banished from the territory of 
 the Commonwealth." 
 
 TJie Consul. Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple ! 
 
 Cat. [furious]: "Traitor!" I go— but I return. This— trial! 
 Here I devote your Senate ! I've had wrongs 
 To stir a fever in the blood of age, 
 Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel. 
 This day's the birth of sorrows ! — this hour's work 
 
390 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 "Will breed proscriptions : — look to your hearths, my lords ! 
 For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods, 
 Shapes hot from Tartarus ! ' — all shames and crimes 1 
 Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ; 
 Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup ; 
 Naked Rebellion, with the torch and ax, 
 Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones ; 
 Till Anarchy comes down on you like Night, 
 And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave ! 
 
 [ TJw Senators rise in tumult and cry out. 
 Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome ! 
 
 Cic. Expel him, lictors ! Clear the Senate-house ! 
 
 ( They surround him. 
 Cat. [struggling through them]. I go, but not to leap the gulf 
 
 alone. 
 I go — but when I come, 'twill be the burst 
 Of ocean in the earthquake — rolling back 
 In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well ! 
 You build my funeral-pile, but your best blood 
 Shall quench its flame. Back, slaves! [To the hclors.] — I will 
 
 return! [He rushes out.] Croly. 
 
 George Ckoly, LL.D., for many years rector of St. Stephens, TValbrook, 
 London, was born in Ireland, toward the close of the last century, and was edu- 
 cated at Trinity College, Dublin. Talented, and astonishingly industrious, he 
 wrote much both in prose and verse. Among his productions are his tragedy of 
 " Catiline ;" his comedy of " Pride shall have a Fall ;" " Salathiel," a romance ; 
 "Political Life of Burke;" "Tales of the Great St. Bernard," and "Marston." 
 He was a correct and elegant poet. His prose style is clear, rich, idiomatic, and 
 at times remarkably eloquent. He died in 18G0. 
 
 SECTION XXIII. 
 
 I. 
 
 125. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 
 
 I. PATRIOTISM.— Scott. * 
 
 BREATHES there a man with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 " This is my own — my native land !" 
 
 1 Tar' ta rus, in Homer's Iliad, a Hades as heaven is above the earth, 
 place beneath the earth, as far below and closed by iron gates. Later poets 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 391 
 
 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's 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. 
 
 II. AMBITION.— Byuon. 
 He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find 
 
 The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow : 
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind 
 
 Must look down on the hate of those below. 
 Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
 
 And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
 Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
 
 Contending tempests on his naked head ; 
 And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. 
 
 III. INDEPENDENCR-Thomsoh. 
 
 I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; 
 
 You can not rob me of free Nature's grace ; 
 You can not shut the windows of the skv, 
 
 Through which Aurora ' shows her brightening face ; 
 
 You can not bar my constant feet to trace 
 The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve : 
 
 Let health my nerves and finer fibers brace, 
 And I their toys to the great children leave : 
 Of Fancy, Reason, Virtue, naught can me bereave ! 
 
 describe tliis as the place of punish- Tithonus, and, on a chariot drawn by 
 
 ment in the lower world ; also as the swift horses Lampus and Phae- 
 
 Hades, or the lower world in general, thon, ascended up to heaven from 
 
 1 Aurora, (a r6' ra), the goddess of the river Oceanus, to announce the 
 
 the morning red. It is said, in my- coming light of the sun to gods as 
 
 thology, at the close of every night well as to mortals : hence, the dawa- 
 
 Bhe rose from the couch of her spouse, ing light ; the morning. 
 
392 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 IV. THE CAPTIVE'S DREAMS.— Mrs. Hkmaks, 
 I dream of all things free ! of a gallant, gallant bark, 
 That sweeps through storm and sea like an arrow to its mark ; 
 Of a stag that o'er the hills goes bounding in its glee ; 
 Of a thousand flashing rills, — of all things glad and free. 
 I dream of some proud bird, a bright-eyed mountain king : 
 In my visions I have heard the rushing of his wing. 
 I follow some wild river, on whose breast no sail may be ; 
 Dark woods around it shiver, — I dream of all things free : 
 Of a happy forest child, with the fawns and flowers at play, 
 Of an Indian midst the wild, with the stars to guide his way ; 
 Of a chief his warriors leading ; of an archer's greenwood tree : 
 My heart in chains is bleeding, and I dream of all things free ! 
 
 V. WILLIAM TELL.-Brtant. 
 Chains may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee, 
 
 Tell, of the iron heart ! they could not tame ! 
 
 For thou wert of the mountains ; they proclaim 
 The everlasting creed of liberty. 
 That creed is written on the untrampled snow, 
 
 Thundered by torrents which no power can hold, 
 
 Save that of God, when he sends forth his cold, 
 And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow -• 
 Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around, 
 
 Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught, 
 
 And to thy brief captivity was brought 
 A vision of thy Switzerland unbound. 
 
 The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee 
 
 For the great work to set thy country free. 
 
 VI. TELL ON SWITZERLAND.— Knowles.' 
 
 Once Switzerland was free! Wifli what a pride 
 I used to walk these hills, — look up to Heaven, 
 And bless God that it was so ! It was free 
 
 1 James Sheridan Knowles, an lislied, of -which, perhaps, none is 
 English poet, one of the most sue- more deservedly popular than " Wil- 
 cessful of modern actors and tragic liam Tell," from which tho above 
 dramatists, was born in Cork, Ireland, was extracted. A few years since, 
 in 1784. His second play; "Virgin- he became a zealous and eloquent 
 ius," appeared in 1820, and had an preacheroftheBaptist denomination, 
 extraordinary run of success. All his He died at Torquay, England, No- 
 plays have been collected and repub- vember oOth, 186:2. 
 
SELECT PASSxiQES IN VERSE. 393 
 
 From end to end, from cliff to lake 'twas free ! 
 
 Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks, 
 
 And plow our valleys, without asking leave ; 
 
 Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow 
 
 In very presence of the regal sun ! 
 
 How happy was I in it then ! I loved 
 
 Its very storms. Ay, often have I sat 
 
 In my boat at night, when midway o'er the lake 
 
 The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge 
 
 The wind came roaring, — I have sat and eyed 
 
 The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled 
 
 To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head, 
 
 And think I had no master save his own. — 
 
 You know the jutting cliff, round which a track 
 
 Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow 
 
 To such another one, with scanty room 
 
 For two abreast to pass ? O'ertaken there 
 
 Bv the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along 
 
 And while gust followed gust more furiously, 
 
 As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink, 
 
 And I have thought of other lands, whose storms 
 
 Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just 
 
 Have wished me there ; — the thought that mine was free 
 
 Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head, 
 
 And cried in thralldom to that furious wind, 
 
 Blow on ! Tins is the land of liberty ! 
 
 VII.— HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE. -Collins. 
 
 How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, 
 Bv all their country's wishes blest ! 
 "When Spring, w r ith dewy lingers cold, 
 Returns to deck their hallowed mold, 
 She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
 Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 
 By fairy hands their knell is rung ; 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
 There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; 
 And Freedom shall awhile repair, 
 To dwell, a v/eeping hermit, there. 
 
394 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 VIII.— THE GREEKS AT THERMOPYLAE.— Btkon. 
 They fell devoted, but undying ; 
 The very gale their names seemed sighing ; 
 The waters murmured of their name ; 
 The woods were peopled with their fame ; 
 The silent pillar, lone and gray, 
 Claimed kindred with their sacred clay : 
 Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain, 
 Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain ; 
 The meanest rill, the mightiest river, 
 Kolled mingling with their fame forever. 
 Despite of every yoke she bears, 
 The land is glory's still and theirs. 
 Tis stiU a watchword to the earth : 
 "When man would do a deed of worth, 
 He points to Greece, and turns to tread. 
 So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head ; 
 He looks to her, and rushes on 
 "Where life is lost, or freedom won. 
 
 II. 
 
 126. GREECE. 
 
 HE who hath bent him o'er the dead, 
 Ere the first day of death is fled, 
 The first dark day of nothingness, 
 The last of danger and distress, 
 Before Decay's effacing fingers 
 Have swept the lines where beauty lingers, 
 And marked the mild, angelic air, 
 The rapture of repose, that's there, 
 The fixed yet tender traits that streak 
 The languor of the placid cheek — 
 
 And but for that sad, shrouded eye, 
 That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, 
 And but for that chill, changeless brow, 
 
 "Where cold obstruction's apathy 
 Appalls the gazing mourner's heart, 
 As if to him it could impart 
 The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon^ 
 
GREECE. 395 
 
 Yes, but for these, and these alone, 
 
 Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour, — 
 
 He still might doubt the tyrant's power ; . 
 
 So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, 
 
 The first — last look by death revealed ! 
 
 2. Such is the aspect of this shore ; 
 
 ^ Tis Greece — but living Greece no more ! 
 
 *-* So coldly sweet, so deady fair, 
 
 f* We start — for soul is wanting there, 
 
 n^ Hers is the loveliness in death, 
 
 That parts not quite with parting breath ; 
 But beauty with that fearful blooni, 
 That hue which haunts it to the tomb — 
 Expression's last receding ray, 
 A gilded halo hovering round decay, 
 The farewell beam of feeling past away ! 
 Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, 
 "Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth. 
 
 3. Clime of the unforgotten brave ! 
 Whose land from plain to mountain-cave 
 Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave 1 
 Shrine of the mighty ! can it be 
 That this is all remains of thee ? 
 Approach, thou craven, crouching slave I 
 
 Say, is not this Thermopylae ? l 
 These waters blue that round you lave, 
 
 O servile offspring of the free — 
 Pronounce what sea, what shore is this. 
 The gulf, the rock, of Salamis ! ■ 
 These scenes, their story not unknown, 
 
 i Ther m5p' y las, a famous pass of Xerxes, B. c. 489. 
 of Greece, about five miles long, and 3 SaT a mis, an island of Greece, 
 
 originally from 50 to GO yards in in the Gulf of iEgina, ten miles W 
 
 width. It is hemmed in on one side of Athens. Its shape is very irreg 
 
 by precipitous rocks of from 400 to ular ; the surface is mountainous 
 
 GOO feet in height, and on the other and wooded in some parts. In the 
 
 side by the sea and an impassable channel between it and the main 
 
 morass. Here Leonidas and his land, the Greeks, underThemistocles, 
 
 three hundred Spartans died in de- gained a memorable naval victory 
 
 fending Greece against the invasion over the Persians, b. c. 480. 
 
396 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 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, 
 That 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 begun, 
 Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, 
 Though baffled 6ft, is ever won. 
 
 4. 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 can not die ! 
 'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, 
 Each step from splendor to disgrace : 
 Enough, no foreign foe could quell 
 Thy soul, till from itself it fell. 
 Yes ! s«slf-abasement paved the way 
 To villain-bonds and despot sway. Bykojj. 
 
 
 A' 
 
 m. 
 
 127. SONG OF THE GREEKS, 1822. 
 
 GAIN to the battle, Achaians ! J 
 Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance ; 
 Our land, — the first garden of Liberty's tree, — 
 It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free ; 
 For the cross of our faith is replanted, 
 The pale dying crescent is daunted, 
 
 m ' ■- .... - i - - ■ ,--. i ■■■-■■ ..I, — , 
 
 1 Achaians, (a ka' anz), the people of Achaia, a department of the king- 
 dom of Greece. 
 
SONG OF THE GREEKS, 1822. 397 
 
 And we march that the footprints of Ivla'homet's ' slaves 
 May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves. 
 Their spirits are hovering o'er us, 
 And the sicord shall to glory restore us. 
 
 2. Ah ! what though no succor advances, 
 Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances 
 
 Arc stretched in our aid ?— Be the combat our own ! 
 
 And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone ; 
 For we've sworn by our country's assaulters, 
 By the virgins they've dragged from our altars, 
 
 By our massacred patriots, our children in chains, 
 
 By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins, 
 That, living, we icill be victorious, 
 Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious. 
 
 3. A breath of submission we breathe not : 
 
 The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not : 
 Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid, 
 And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade. 
 
 Earth may hide, waves engulf, fire consume us ; 
 
 But they shall not to slavery doom us : 
 If they rule, it shall be 6'er our ashes and graves : — ■ 
 But we've smote them already with lire on the waves, 
 
 And new triumphs on land are before us ; — 
 
 To the charge ! — Heaven's banner is o'er us. 
 
 4. This day — shall ye blush for its story ; 
 Or brighten your lives with its glory ? — 
 
 Our women — oh, say, shall they shriek in despair, 
 
 Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair ? 
 
 Accursed may his memory blacken, 
 
 If a coward there be that would slacken 
 Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth 
 Being sprung from, and named for, the god-like of earth. 
 
 Strike home ! — and the world shall revere us 
 
 As heroes descended from heroes. 
 
 1 Ma' horn et, a false prophet of and whose authority at the present 
 
 Arabia, who, by the mere force of time is acknowledged by nearly two 
 
 his genius and his convictions, hundred millions of souls. He was 
 
 subdued many nations to his re- born in 570, and died on the 8th of 
 
 ligion, his laws and his scepter; July, C32. 
 
398 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. Old Greece lightens up with emotion ! 
 Her inlands, her isles of the ocean, 
 Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring, 
 And the Nine shall new hallow their Helicon's 1 spring. 
 Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness, 
 That were cold, and extinguished in sadness ; 
 Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms, 
 Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms, — 
 When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens 
 Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens ! 
 
 Thomas Campbell. 
 
 IV. 
 
 128. MARCO BOZZARIS. 
 
 AT midnight, in his guarded tent, 
 The Turk was dreaming of the hour 
 When Greece her knee in suppliance bent, 
 
 Should tremble at his power ; 
 In dreams, through camp and court, he bore 
 The trophies of a conqueror ; 
 
 In dreams, his song of triumph heard ; 
 Then wore his monarch's signet ring ; 
 Then pressed that monarch's throne, — a king ; 
 As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, 
 
 As Eden's garden bird. 
 
 2. At midnight, in the forest shades, 
 
 Bozzaris * ranged his Suliote band, 
 True as the steel of their tried blades, 
 
 Heroes in heart and hand. 
 There had the Persian's thousands stood, 
 There had the glad earth drunk their blood 
 
 1 Hel' i con, a famous mountain here described, in which, with a 
 
 in Bceotia, in Greece, from which handful of five hundred Suliotes, at 
 
 flows a fountain, and where resided midnight, August 20th, 1823, he 
 
 the Muses. surprised a Turkish army of twenty 
 
 8 Marco Bozzaris, (bot' sa ris), a thousand men, fought his way to the 
 
 Sulioteof Arnaout and Greek descent, very tent of the commander-in-chief, 
 
 was born in 1789. He was early in- and was killed by a random shot, 
 
 volved in revolutionary movements, while making the pasha prisoner. 
 
 His most brilliant exploit is the one The victory, however, was complete. 
 
MARCO BOZZARIS. 399 
 
 On old Platsea's l day ; 
 And now, there breathed that haunted air 
 The sons of sires who conquered there, 
 With arm to strike, and soul to dare, 
 
 As quick, as far as they. 
 
 3. An hour passed on — the Turk awoke ; 
 
 That bright dream was his last ; 
 He woke to hear his sentries shriek, 
 " To arms ! — they come ! the Greek ! the Greek ! 
 He woke — to die midst flame, and smoke, 
 And shout, and groan, and saber-stroke, 
 
 And death-shots falling thick and fast 
 As lightnings from the mountain-cloud ; 
 And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, 
 
 Bozzaris cheer his band : 
 " Strike — till the last armed foe expires ; 
 Strike — for your altars and your fires ; 
 STRIKE — for the green graves of your sires ; 
 
 God — and your native land ! 
 
 4. They fought — like brave men, long and well ; 
 
 They piled that ground with Moslem slain ; 
 They conquered — but Bozzaris fell, 
 
 Bleeding at every vein. 
 His few surviving comrades saw 
 His smile, when rang their proud huzza, 
 
 And the red field was won ; 
 Then saw in death his eyelids close, 
 Calmly as to a night's repose, 
 
 Like flowers at set of sun. 
 
 5. Come to the bridal chamber, Death ! 
 
 Come to the mother, when she feels, 
 For the first time, her first-born's breath ; 
 
 Come when the blessed seals 
 That close the pestilence are broke, 
 And crowded cities wail its stroke ; 
 Come in consumption's ghastly form, 
 The earthquake's shock, the ocean's storm ; 
 
 1 Plataea, (pld to' a), a ruined city feated and nearly annihilated the 
 of Greece. Near it, B. c. 479, the grand Persian army, under Mar- 
 Greeks, under Pausanias, totally de- donius, who was killed in the action. 
 
400 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 Come when the heart beats high and warm 
 With banquet-song, and dance, and wine, — 
 
 And thou art terrible ! — The tear, 
 
 The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier ; 
 
 And all we know, or dream, or fear, 
 Of agony, are thine. 
 
 6. But to the hero, when his sword 
 
 Has won the battle for the free, 
 Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word ; 
 And in its hollow tones are heard 
 
 The thanks of millions yet to be. 
 Bozzaris ! with the storied brave 
 
 Greece nurtured in her glory's time, 
 Best thee : there is no prouder grave, 
 
 Even in her own proud clime. 
 
 We tell thy doom without a sigh ; 
 For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's, — 
 One of the few, the immortal names, 
 
 That were not born to die ! Halleck. 
 
 Fitz-Giieene Halleck was born at Guilford, in Connecticut, August, 1795, 
 and at the age of eighteen entered the banking-house of Jacob Barker, in New 
 York, with which he was associated several years, susequcntly performing the 
 duties of a book-keeper in the private office of John Jacob Astor. Soon after 
 the decease of that noted millionaire, in 1848, he retired to his birth-place, where 
 he has since resided. He evinced a taste for poetry and wrote verses at a very 
 early period. " Twilight," his first offering to the " Evening Post," appeared in 
 October, 1818. The year following he gained his first celebrity in literature as a 
 town wit, by producing, with his friend Drake, several witty and satirical pieces, 
 which appeared in the columns of the " Evening Post" with the signature of 
 Croaker <fc Co. ; and his fame was fully established by the publication of a vol- 
 ume of his poems in 1827. His poetry is characterized by its music and perfec- 
 tion of versification, and its vigor and healthy sentiment. 
 
 SECTION XXIV. 
 I. 
 
 129. THE CLOSING YEAR 
 
 *t I ^IS midnight's holy hour — and silence now 
 
 _L Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 
 The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 
 The beU's deep tones are swelling — 'tis the knell 
 
THE CLOSING YEAR 401 
 
 Of the departed year. No funeral train 
 
 Is sweeping past ; yet, on the stream and wood, 
 
 "With mel'ancholy light, the moonbeams rest 
 
 Like a pale, spotless shroud ; the air is stirred 
 
 As by a mourner's sigh ; and on yon cloud, 
 
 That floats so still and placidly through heaven, 
 
 The spirits of the seasons seem to stand, — 
 
 Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 
 
 And Winter with his aged locks, — and breathe, 
 
 In mournful cadences, that come abroad 
 
 Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, 
 
 A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year, 
 
 Gone from the earth forever. 
 
 2. 'Tis a time 
 For memory and for tears. "Within the deep, 
 Still chambers of the heart, a specter dim, 
 Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time, 
 Heard from the tomb of ages, i)oints its cold 
 And solemn finger to the beautiful 
 And holy visions that have passed away, 
 And left no shadow of their loveliness 
 On the dead waste of life. That specter lifts 
 The eofim-lid of Hope, and Jo} r , and Love, 
 And, bending mournfully above the pale, 
 
 Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers 
 O'er what has passed to nothingness. 
 
 3. The year 
 
 Has gone, and with it, many a glorious throng 
 Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow, 
 Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course, 
 It waved its scepter 6'er the beautiful — 
 And they are not. It laid its pallid hand 
 Upon the strong man — and the haughty form 
 Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim. 
 It trod the hall of revelrv, where thronged 
 The bright and joyous — and the tearful wail 
 Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song 
 And reckless shout resounded. 
 
 4. It passed o'er 
 
 The battle-plain, where sicord, and spear, and shield, 
 
402 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Flashed in the light of mid-day, — and the strength 
 Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass, 
 Green from the soil of carnage, waves above 
 The crushed and moldering skeleton. It came, 
 And faded like a wreath of mist at eve ; 
 Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air, 
 It heralded its millions to their homo 
 In the dim land of dreams. 
 
 5. Kemorseless Time ! 
 Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe ! — what power 
 Can stay him in his silent course, or melt 
 
 His iron heart to pity ? On, still on 
 
 He presses, and forever. The proud bird, 
 
 The condor of the Andes, that can soar 
 
 Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave 
 
 The fury of the northern hurricane, 
 
 And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, 
 
 Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down 
 
 To rest upon his mountain crag, — but Time 
 
 Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, 
 
 And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind 
 
 His rushing pinions. 
 
 6. Revolutions sweep 
 
 O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast 
 Of dreaming sorrow ; cities rise and sink, 
 Like bubbles on the water ; fiery isles 
 Spring blazing from the ocean, and go back 
 To their mysterious caverns ; mountains rear 
 To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow 
 Their tall heads to the plain ; new empires rise, 
 Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, 
 And rush down like the Al'pine avalanche, 
 Startling the nations, — and the very stars, 
 Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, 
 Glitter a while in their eternal depths, 
 And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, 
 Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away, 
 To darkle in the trackless void : yet Time — 
 Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career, 
 Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not 
 
OUR HONORED DEAD. 403 
 
 Amid the mighty -wrecks that strew his path, 
 
 To sit and muse, like other conquerors, 
 
 Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought. Prentice. 
 
 George D. Pkentice was born at Preston, in Connecticut, December 18th, 
 180?,and was educated at Brown University, in Providence, where he graduated 
 in 1823. In 18:23 he commenced "The New England Weekly Review," at Hart- 
 ford, which he edited for two years, when, resigning its management to Mr. 
 Whitlier, he removed to Louisville, Kentucky, where he has since conducted 
 the "Journal," of that city, one of the most popular gazettes ever published in 
 this country. His numerous poetical writings have never been published col- 
 lectively. 
 
 H. 
 
 130. OUR HONORED DEAD. 
 
 HOW bright are the honors "which await those who "with 
 sacred fortitude and patriot' ic patience have endured all 
 things that they might save their native land from division 
 and from the power of corruption ! The honored dead ! They 
 that die for a good cause are redeemed from death. Their 
 names are gathered and garnered. Their memory is precious. 
 Each place grow r s proud for them who were born there. 
 
 2. There is to be, ere long, in every village and in every 
 neighborhood, a glowing pride in its martyred heroes. Tablets 
 shall preserve their names. Pious love shall renew their in- 
 scriptions as time and the unfeeling elements decay them. And 
 the national festivals shall give multitudes of precious names to 
 the orator's lips. Children shall grow up under more sacred 
 inspirations, whose elder brothers, dying nobly for their coun- 
 try, left a name that honored and inspired all who bore it. 
 Orphan children shall find thousands of fathers and mothers to 
 
 ove and help those whom dying heroes left as a legacy to the 
 gratitude of the public. 
 
 3. Oh, tell me not that they are dead — that generous host, 
 that airy army of invisible heroes ! They hover as a cloud of 
 witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet speak 
 louder than we can speak, and a more universal language ? 
 Axe they dead that yet act ? Are they dead that yet move upon 
 society, and inspire the people with nobler motives and more 
 heroic patriotism ? 
 
 4. Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. He 
 was your son ; but now he is the nation's. He made your 
 
404 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 household bright : now his example inspires a thousand house- 
 holds. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now brother to 
 every generous youth in the land. Before he was narrowed, 
 appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, 
 and given to all. He has died from the family, that he might 
 live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or 
 neglected ; and it shall by-and-by be confessed, as of an ancient 
 hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his 
 whole life. 
 
 5. Neither are they less honored who shall bear through life 
 the marks of wounds and sufferings. Neither ep'aulette nor 
 badge is so honorable as wounds received in a good cause. 
 Many a man shall envy him who henceforth limps. So strange 
 is the transforming power of patriotic ardor, that men shall 
 almost covet disfigurement. Crowds will give way to hobbling 
 cripples, and uncover in the presence of feebleness and help- 
 lessness. And buoyant children shall pause in their noisy 
 games, and with loving reverence honor them whose hands can 
 work no more, and whose feet are no longer able to march 
 except upon that journey which brings good men to honor and 
 immortality. 
 
 6. O mother of lost children ! set not in darkness nor sorrow 
 whom a nation honors. O mourners of the early dead ! they 
 shall live again, and live forever. Your sorrows are our glad- 
 ness. The nation lives, because you gave it men that loved 
 it better than their own lives. And when a few more days 
 shall have cleared the perils from around the nation's brow, 
 and she shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty, with justice 
 upon her fore/iead, love in her eyes, and truth upon her lips, 
 she shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to 
 her heart, and whose life, given to her, shall live with her life 
 till time shall be no more. 
 
 7. Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, 
 every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and every 
 lake shall cherish its honored register ; and till the mountains 
 are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow, till the clouds are 
 weary of replenishing springs, and the springs forget to gush, 
 and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept fresh with rev- 
 erent honors, which are inscribed upon the book of National 
 Remembrance ! II. W. Beecher, 
 
TIIE HOLY DEAD. 405 
 
 in. 
 
 131. THE HOLY DEAD. 
 
 THEY dread no storm that lowers, 
 No perished joys bewail ; 
 They pluck no thorn-clad flowers, 
 Nor drink of streams that fail : 
 There is no tear-drop in their eye, 
 
 No change upon their brow ; 
 Their placid bosom heaves no sigh, 
 Though all earth's idols bow. 
 
 2. Who are so greatly blest ? 
 
 From whom hath sorrow fled ? 
 Who share such deep, unbroken rest, 
 
 "Where all things toil '? The dead ! 
 The holy dead. Why weep ye so 
 
 Above yon sable bier ? 
 Thrice blessed ! they have done with woe, 
 
 The living claim the tear. 
 
 3. Go to their sleeping bowers, 
 
 Deck their low couch of clay 
 With earliest spring's soft breathing flowers ; 
 
 And when they fade away, 
 Think of the amaranth' me wreath, 
 
 The garlands never dim, 
 And tell me why thou flv'st from death, 
 
 Or hid'st thy friends from him. 
 
 4. We dream, but they awake ; 
 
 Dread visions mar our rest ; 
 Through thorns and snares our way we take, 
 
 And yeb we mourn the blest ! 
 For spirits round the Eternal Throne 
 
 How vain the tears we shed ! 
 They are the living, they alone, 
 
 Whom thus we call the dead. Mrs. Sigourney. 
 
 Mrs. L. H. Sigourney was born at Norwich, Connecticut, 1791. Her maiden 
 name was Lydia Huntley. She was married to Charles Sigourney in 1S19. She 
 is one of the most voluminous of American female writers, and equally happy in 
 prose and verse. Her rare and highly cultivated intellect, her fine sensibilities, 
 and her noble heart, have enabled her, in all her works, to plead successfully 
 the cause of humanity and religion. She died at Ilartford, Ct., June 10th, 1S05. 
 
406 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 IV. 
 
 132. DEATH OF THE OLD TRAPPER. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 THE trapper was placed on a rude seat, which had been 
 made with studied care, to support his frame in an upright 
 and easy attitude. The first glance of the eye told his former 
 friends that the old man was at length called upon to pay the 
 last tribute of nature. His eye was glazed, and apparently as 
 devoid of sight as of expression. His features were a little 
 more sunken and strongly marked than formerly ; but there, 
 all change, so far as exterior was concerned, might be said to 
 have ceased. 
 
 2. His approaching end was not to be ascribed to any posi- 
 tive disease, but had been a gradual and mild decay of the 
 physical powers. Life, it is true, still lingered in his system ; 
 but it was as if at times entirely ready to depart, and then it 
 would appear to reanimate the sinking form, reluctant to give 
 up the possession of a tenement that had never been corrupted 
 by vice or undermined by disease. It would have been no 
 violent fancy to have imagined that the spirit fluttered about 
 the placid lips of the old woodsman, reluctant to depart from a 
 shell that had so long given it an honest and honorable shelter. 
 
 3. His body was placed so as to let the light of the setting 
 sun fall full upon the solemn features. His head was bare, the 
 long, thin locks of gray fluttering lightly in the evening breeze. 
 His rifle lay upon his knee, and the other accouterments of the 
 chase were placed at his side, within reach of his hand. Be- 
 tween his feet lay the figure of a hound, with its head crouch- 
 ing to the earth, as if it slumbered ; and so j>erfectly easy and 
 natural was its position, that a second glance was necessary to 
 tell Middleton he saw only the skin of Hector, stuffed, by In- 
 dian tenderness and ingenuity, in a manner to represent the 
 living animal. 
 
 4. The old man was reaping the rewards of a life remarkable 
 for temperance and activity, in a tranquil and placid death. 
 His vigor, in a manner, endured to the very last. Decay, when 
 it did occur, was rapid, but free from pain. Ho had hunted 
 with the tribe in the spring, and even throughout most of the 
 
DEATH OF THE OLD TKAPPER. 407 
 
 summer ; when his limbs suddenly refused to perform their 
 customary offices. A sympathizing weakness took possession 
 of all his faculties ; and the Pawnees believed they were going 
 to lose, in this unexpected manner, a sage and counsellor whom 
 they had begun both to love and respect. 
 
 5. But, as we have already said, the immortal occupant 
 seemed unwilling to desert its tenement. The lamp of life 
 nickered, without becoming extinguished. On the morning of 
 the day on which Middleton arrived, there was a general reviv- 
 ing of the powers of the whule man. His tongue was again 
 heard in wholesome maxims, and his eye from time to time 
 recognized the persons of his friends. It merely proved to be 
 a brief and final intercourse with the world, on the part of one 
 who had already been considered, as to mental communion, to 
 have taken its leave of it forever. 
 
 5. When he had placed his guests in front of the dying man, 
 Hard-Heart, after a pause, that proceeded as much from sorrow 
 as decorum, leaned a little forward, and demanded — "Does my 
 father hear the words of his son ?" " Speak," returned the 
 trapper, in tones that issued from his chest, but which were 
 rendered awfully distinct by the stillness that reigned in the 
 place. " I am about to depart from the village of the Loups, 
 and shortly shall be beyond the reach of your voice." 
 
 7. "Let the w r ise chief have no cares for his journey," con- 
 tinued Hard-Heart, with an earnest solicitude that led him to 
 forget, for the moment, that others were waiting to address his 
 adopted parent ; "a hundred Loups shall clear his path from 
 briers." "Pawnee, I die, as I have lived, a Christian man!" 
 resumed the trapper, with a force of voice that had the same 
 startling effect on his hearers as is produced by the trumpet, 
 when its blast rises suddenly and freely on the air, after its ob- 
 structed sounds have been heard struggling in the distance : 
 " as I came unto life so will I leave it. Horses and arms are 
 not needed to stand in the presence of the Great Spirit of my 
 people. He knows my color, and according to my gifts will ho 
 judge my deeds." 
 
 8. " My father will tell my young men how many Mingoes he 
 has struck, and what acts of valor and justice he has done, that 
 they may know how to imitate him." "A boastful tongue is 
 not heard in the heaven of a white man !" solemnlv returned 
 
408 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 the old man. " What I have done He has seen. His eyes are 
 alway open. That which has been well done will He remem- 
 ber ; wherein I have been wrong will He not forget to chastise, 
 though He will do the same in mercy. No, my son, a pale-face 
 may not sing his own praises, and hope to have them accepta- 
 ble before his God !" 
 
 9. A little disappointed, the young partisan stepped modestly 
 back, making way for the recent comers to approach. Middle- 
 ton took one of the meager hands of the trapper, and struggling 
 to command his voice, he succeeded in announcing his presence. 
 The old man listened like one whose thoughts were dwelling on 
 a very different subject ; but when the other Had succeeded in 
 making him understand that he was present, an expression of 
 joyful recognition passed over his faded features. "I hope you 
 have not so soon forgotten those whom you so materially 
 served!" Middleton concluded. "It would pain me to think 
 my hold on your memory was so light." 
 
 10. " Little that I have ever seen is forgotten," returned the 
 trapper : " I am at the close of many weary days, but there is 
 not one among them all that I could wish to overlook. I re- 
 member you, with the whole of your company ; ay, and your 
 gran'ther, that went before you. I am glad that you have come 
 back upon these plains ; for I had need of one who speaks the 
 English, since little faith can be put in the traders of these re- 
 gions. "Will you do a favor to an old and dying man ?" 
 " Name it," said Middleton ; " it shall be done." " It is a far 
 journey to send such trifles," resumed the old man, who spoke 
 at short intervals, as strength and breath permitted ; "a far and 
 weary journey is the same ; but kindnesses and friendships are 
 things not to be forgotten. There is a settlement among the 
 Otsego hills— " 
 
 11. "I know the place," interrupted Middleton, observing 
 that he spoke with increasing difficulty ; " proceed to tell me 
 what you would have done." " Take this rifle, and pouch, and 
 horn, and send them to the person whose name is graven on the 
 plates of the stock, — a trader cut the letters with his knife, — for 
 it is long that I have intended to send him such a token of my 
 love !" " It shall be so. Is there more that you could wish ?" 
 "Little else have I to bestow. My traps I give to my Indian 
 son ; for honestly and kindly has he kept his faith. Let him 
 
DEATH OF THE OLD TRAPPER. 409 
 
 stand before me." Middleton explained to the chief "what the 
 trapper had said, and relinquished his own place to the other. 
 
 12. "Pawnee," continued the old man, alway changing his 
 language to suit the person he addressed, and not unfrequently 
 according to the ideas he expressed, " it is a custom of my people 
 for the father to leave his blessing with the son before he shuts 
 his eyes forever. This blessing I give to you : take it ; for the 
 prayers of a Christian man will never make the path of a just 
 warrior to the blessed prairies either longer or more tangled. 
 May the God of a white man look on your deeds with friendly 
 eyes, and may you never commit an act that shall cause him to 
 darken his face. I know not whether we shall ever meet again. 
 
 13. " There arc many traditions concerning the place of Good 
 Spirits. It is not for one like me, old and inexperienced though 
 I am, to set up my opinions against a nation's. You believe in 
 the blessed prairies, and I have faith in the sayings of my 
 fathers. If both are true, our parting will bo final ; but if it 
 should prove that the same meaning is hid under different 
 words, we shall yet stand together, Pawnee, before the face of 
 your "Walicondah, who will then be no other than my God. 
 
 14. " There is much to be said in favor of both religions, for 
 each seems suited to its own people, and no doubt it was so in- 
 tended. I fear I have not altogether followed the gifts of my 
 color, inasmuch as I find it a little painful to give up forever the 
 use of the rifle, and the comforts of the chase. But then the 
 fault has been my own, seeing that it could not have been His. 
 Ay, Hector," he continued, leaning forward a little, and feeling 
 for the ears of the hound, " our parting has come at last, dog, 
 and it will bo a long hunt. You have been an honest, and a 
 bold, and a faithful hound. Pawnee, you can not slay the pup 
 on my grave, for where a Christian dog falls there ho lies for- 
 ever ; but you can be kind to him after I am gone, for the love 
 you bear his master." 
 
 15. " The words of my father are in my cars," returned the 
 young partisan, making a grave and respectful gesture of assent. 
 " Do you hear what the chief has promised, dog ?" demanded 
 the trapper, making an effort to attract the notice of the insen- 
 sible effigy of his hound. Receiving no answering look, nor 
 hearing any friendly whine, the old man felt for the mouth, and 
 
 endeavored to force his hand between the cold lips. The truth 
 
 IS 
 
410 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 then flashed npon him, although he was far from perceiving the 
 whole extent of the deception. Falling back in his seat, he hung 
 his head, like one who felt a severe and unexpected shock. 
 Profiting by this momentary forgetfulness, two young Indians 
 removed the skin with the same delicacy of feeling that had in- 
 duced them to attempt the pious fraud, 
 
 V. 
 
 133. DEATH OF THE OLD TRAPPER, 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 " rMHK dog is dead," muttered the trapper, after a pause of 
 JL many minutes ; " a hound has his time as well as a man ; 
 and well has he filled his days ! Captain," he added, making 
 an effort to wave his hand for Middleton, " I am glad you have 
 come ; for though kind, and well meaning according to the gifts 
 of their color, these Indians are not the men to lay the head of 
 a white man in his grave. I have been thinking, too, of this 
 dog at my feet : it will not do to set forth the opinion that a 
 Christian can expect to meet his hound again ; still there can be 
 little harm in placing what is left of so faithful a servant nigh 
 the bones of his master." "It shall be as you desire." "I'm 
 glad you think with me in this matter. In order, then, to save 
 labor, lay the pup at my feet ; or, for that matter, put him side 
 by side. A hunter need never be ashamed to be found in com- 
 pany with his dog !" " I charge myself with your wish.' 
 
 2. The old man made a long, and apparently a musing pause. 
 At times he raised his eyes wistfully, as if he would again ad- 
 dress Middleton, but some innate feeling appeared alway to sup- 
 press his words. The other, who observed his hesitation, in- 
 quired in a way most likely to encourage him to proceed, 
 whether there was aught else that he could wish to have done. 
 "I am without kith or kin in the wide world !" the trapper an- 
 swered : " when I am gone there will be an end of my race. 
 We have never been chiefs ; but honest, and useful in our way, I 
 hope it can not be denied we have alway proved ourselves. My 
 father lies buried near the sea, and the bones of his son will 
 whiten on the prairies." " Name the spot, and your remains shall 
 be placed by the side of your father," interrupted Middleton. 
 
 3. " Not so, not so, Captain. Let me sleep where I have lived 
 
DEATH OF THE OLD TKAPPER. 411 
 
 — beyond the din of the settlements ! Still I see no need why 
 the grave of an honest man should be hid, like a red-skin in his 
 ambushment. I paid a man in the settlements to make and put 
 a graven stone at the head of my father's resting-place. It was 
 of the value of twelve beaver-skins, and cunningly and curiously 
 was it carved ! Then it told to all comers that the body of such 
 a Christian lay beneath ; and it spoke of his manner of life, of 
 his years, and of his honesty. When we had done with the 
 Frenchers, in the old war, I made a journey to the spot, in order 
 to sec that all was rightly performed, and glad I am to say, the 
 workman had not forgotten his faith." 
 
 4. " And such a stone you would have at your grave ?" " I ! 
 no, no, I have no son but Hard-Heart, and it is little that an In- 
 dian knows of white fashions and usages. Besides, I am his 
 debtor already, seeing it is so little I have done since I have 
 lived in his tribe. The rifle might bring the value of such a 
 thing — but then I know" it will give the boy pleasure to hang 
 the piece in his hall, for many is the deer and the bird that ho 
 has seen it destroy. No, no, the gun must be sent to him whose 
 name is graven on the stock !"' 
 
 5. " But there is one who would gladly prove his affection in 
 the way you wish ; he who owes you not only his own deliver- 
 ance from so many dangers, but who inherits a heavy debt of 
 gratitude from his ancestors. The stone shall be put at the head 
 of your grave." The old man extended his emaciated hand, and 
 gave the other a squeeze of thanks. " I thought you might be 
 willing to do it, but I was backward in asking the favor," he 
 said, "seeing that you are not of my kin. Put no boastful 
 words on the same, but just the name, the age, and the time of 
 the death, with something from the holy book ; no more, no 
 more. My name will then not be altogether lost on 'arth ; I 
 need no more." 
 
 6. Middleton intimated his assent, and then followed a pause 
 that was onlv interrupted bv distant and broken sentences from 
 the dying man. He appeared now to have closed his accounts 
 with the world, and to await merely for the final summons to 
 quit it. Middleton and Hard-Heart placed themselves on the 
 opposite sides of his seat, and watched with melancholy solici- 
 tude the variations of his countenance. 
 
 7. For two hours there was no verv sensible alteration. The 
 
412 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 expression of his faded and time-worn features was that of a 
 calm and dignified repose. From time to time he spoke, utter- 
 ing some brief sentence in the way of advice, or asking some 
 simple questions concerning those in whose fortunes he still 
 took a friendly interest. During the whole of that solemn and 
 anxious period, each individual of the tribe kept his place, in 
 the most self-restrained patience. When the old man spoke, 
 all bent their heads to listen ; and when his words were uttered, 
 they seemed to ponder on their wisdom and usefulness. 
 
 8. As the flame drew nigher to the socket, his voice was 
 hushed ; and there were moments when his attendants doubted 
 whether he still belonged to the living. Middleton, who watched 
 each wavering expression of his weather-beaten visage with the 
 interest of a keen observer of human nature, softened by the 
 tenderness of personal regard, fancied he could read the work- 
 ings of the old man's soul in the strong lineaments of his coun- 
 tenance. Perhaps what the enlightened soldier took for the 
 delusion of mistaken opinion did actually occur — for who has 
 returned from that unknown world to explain by what forms, 
 and in what manner, he was introduced into its awful precincts ? 
 Without pretending to explain what must ever be a mystery to 
 the quick, we shall simply relate facts as they occurred. 
 
 9. The trapper had remained nearly motionless for an hour. 
 His eyes alone had occasionally opened and shut. WTaen opened, 
 his gaze seemed fastened on the clouds which hung around the 
 western horl'zon, reflecting the bright colors, and giving form 
 and loveliness to the glorious tints of an American sunset. The 
 hour — the calm beauty of the season — the occasion — all con- 
 spired to fill the spectators with solemn awe. Suddenly, while 
 musing on the remarkable position in which he was placed, 
 Middleton felt the hand, which he held, grasp his own with in- 
 credible power, and the old man, supported on either side by 
 his friends, rose upright to his feet. For a moment he looked 
 about him, as if to invite all in his presence to listen (the lingering 
 remnant of human frailty), and then, with a fine military elevation 
 of the head, and with a voice that might be heard in every part 
 of that numerous assembly, he pronounced the word — " Here!" 
 
 10. A movement so entirely unexpected, and the air of grand- 
 eur and humility which were so remarkably united in the mien 
 of the trapper, together with the clear and uncommon force of 
 
DEATH OF THE OLD TRAPPER. 413 
 
 his utterance, produced a short period of confusion in the facul- 
 ties of all present. Yvlien Middleton and Hard-Heart, each of 
 whom had involuntarily extended a hand to support the form of 
 the old man, turned to him again, they found that the subject of 
 their interest was removed forever beyond the necessity of their 
 care. They mournfully placed the body in its seat, and the 
 voice of the old Indian, who arose to announce the termination 
 of the scene to the tribe, seemed a sort of echo from that invisi- 
 ble world to which the meek spirit of the trapper had just de- 
 parted. " A valiant, a just, and a wise warrior has gone on the 
 path which will lead him to the blessed grounds of his people !" 
 he said. " When the voice of the "Wahcondah called him, he 
 was ready to answer. Go, my children ; remember the just 
 chief of the pale-faces, and clear your own tracks from briers !" 
 11. The grave was made beneath the shade of some noble 
 oaks. It has been carefully watched to the present hour by the 
 Pawnees of the Loup, and is 6f/m shown to the traveler and 
 the trader as a spot where a just white man sleeps. In due time 
 the stone was placed at its head, with the simple inscription 
 which the trapper had himself requested. The only liberty 
 taken by Middleton was to add — "May no wanton hand ever 
 
 DISTURB HIS REMAINS." JAMES FENNIMORE COOPER. 
 
 James Fennimoke Coopek, the celebrated American novelist, was born at 
 Burlington, New Jersey, in 1789. His father, Judge William Cooper, born in 
 Pennsylvania, became possessed, in 1785, of a large tract of land near Otsego 
 Lake, in the State of New York, where, in the spring of 1786, he erected the 
 first house in Cooperstown. In 1 70."> and K'.t'.i he was elected to represent that 
 district in Congress. Here the novelist chiefly passed his boyhood to his thir- 
 teenth year, and became perfectly conversant with frontier life. At that early 
 age he entered Yale College, where he remained three years, when he obtained 
 a midshipman's commission and entered the navy lie passed the six following 
 years in that service, and thus became master of the second great field of his 
 future literary career. In 1811 he resigned his commission, married Miss De- 
 lancey, a descendant of one of the oldest and most influential families in Amer- 
 ica, and settled down to a home life in "Westchester, near New York, where he 
 resided for a short time before removing to Cooperstown. Here he wrote bis 
 first book, " Precaution." This was followed, in 1821, by "The Spy," one of the 
 best of all historical romances. It was almost immediately republished in all 
 parts of Europe. It was followed, two years later, by "The Pioneers." "The 
 Pilot," the first of his sea novels, next appeared. It is one of the most remark- 
 able novels of the time, and everywhere obtained instant and high applause. 
 In 1S2G he visited Europe, where his reputation was already well established a* 
 one of the greatest writers of romantic fiction which our age has produced. He 
 passed several years abroad, and was warmly welcomed in every country he 
 visited. His literary activity was not impaired by his change of scene, as sev- 
 
^14 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 eral of his best works were written while traveling. He returned home in 1833. 
 " The Prairie," from which the above touching and effective scene was taken, 
 the first of his works written in Europe, published in 1827, was one of the most 
 successful of the novelist's productions. His writings throughout are distin- 
 guished by purity and brilliancy of no common merit. He was alike remarkable 
 for his fine commanding person, his manly, resolute, independent nature, and 
 his noble, generous heart. He died at Cooperstown, September 14, 1851. 
 
 VI. 
 
 134. ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCH- YARD. 
 
 rTIHE curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
 JL The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
 
 2. Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
 And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds ; 
 
 3. Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
 
 The moping owl does to the moon complain 
 Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, 
 Molest her ancient solitary reign. 
 
 4. Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
 
 Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, 
 Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
 
 The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 5. The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 
 
 The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 6. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
 
 Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; 
 No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
 Or climb his knees, the envied kiss to share. 
 
 7. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 
 
 Their furrow 6ft the stubborn glebe has broke : 
 How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 
 
 How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke 
 
ELEGY IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD. 415 
 
 8. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 
 Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 9. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave, 
 Await alike th* inevitable hour : 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 
 
 10. Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
 
 If Memory 6'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
 "Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 
 
 11. Can storied urn, or animated bust, 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
 Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 
 Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? 
 
 12. Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; 
 Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 
 Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre : 
 
 13. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
 
 Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; 
 Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of the soul. 
 
 14. Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, 
 
 The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
 Full many a flower is bom to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 15. Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast 
 
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood, — 
 Some mute, inglorious Milton, — here may rest ; 
 Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. 
 
 16. Th' applause of listening senates to command, 
 
 The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
 And read their history in a nation's eyes, 
 
 17. Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone 
 
 Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ; 
 
416 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; 
 
 18. The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
 
 To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 
 Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride 
 With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 
 
 19. Far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife, 
 
 Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; 
 Along the cool, sequestered vale of life 
 
 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 
 
 20. Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, 
 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
 With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 
 
 21. Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse, 
 
 The place of fame and elegy supply ; 
 And many a holy text around she strews, . 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 
 22. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 
 
 This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
 Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? 
 
 23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies, 
 
 Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; 
 E'en from the tomb the voice of nature cries, 
 
 E'en in our ashes live their wonted (wunt'ed) fires. 
 
 24. For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonored dead, 
 
 Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, 
 If 'chance, by lonely contemplation led, 
 
 Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, — 
 
 25. Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 
 
 " Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn, 
 Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, 
 To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 
 
 26. " There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
 
 That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
 His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
 And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 
 
THE PHANTOM SHIP. 417 
 
 27. " Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
 
 Muttering bis wayward fancies, would he rove, 
 Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, 
 
 Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. 
 
 28. " One morn I missed him on the customed hill, 
 
 Along the heath, and near his favorite tree : 
 Another came, — nor yet beside the rill, 
 Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he : 
 
 29. " The next, with dirges due, in sad array, 
 
 Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne ; 
 Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
 Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." 
 
 THE EPITAPH. 
 
 Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth, 
 a youth to fortune and to fame unknown i 
 
 Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth, 
 And Melancholy marked him for her own. 
 
 Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, 
 Heaven did a recompense as largely send : 
 
 He gave to misery — all he had — a tear, 
 
 He galned from heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend. 
 
 no further seek his merits to disclose, 
 
 Or draw his FRAILTIES from THEIR dread ABODE, 
 
 (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) 
 
 The bosom of his Father and ms God. Gray. 
 
 SECTIOX XXY. 
 I. 
 
 135. THE PHANTOM SHIP. 
 
 1. 
 
 a^HE breeze had sunk to rest, the noonday sun was high, 
 . And ocean's breast lay motionless beneath a cloudless sky, 
 There was silence in the air, there was silence in the deep ; 
 And it seemed as though that burning calm were nature's final 
 sleep. 
 
418 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. 
 
 The mid-day watch was set, beneath the blaze of light, 
 When there came a cry from the tall mast-head, " A sail! a sail, 
 in sight /" 
 
 And o'er the far horl'zon a snowy speck appeared, 
 
 And every eye was strained to watch the vessel as she neared. 
 
 3. 
 
 There was no breath of air, yet she bounded on her way, 
 And the dancing waves around her prow were flashing into spray. 
 She answered not their hail, alongside as she passed : 
 There were none who trod her spacious deck ; not a seaman on 
 the mast ; 
 
 4 
 
 No hand to guide her helm : yet on she held her course ; 
 She swept along that waveless sea, as with a tempest's force : 
 A silence, as of death, was o'er that vessel spread 
 She seemed a thing of another world, the world where dwell the 
 dead. 
 
 5. 
 
 She passed away from sight, the deadly calm was o'er, 
 
 And the spell-bound ship pursued her course before the breeze 
 
 once more ; 
 And clouds across the sky obscured the noonday sun, 
 And the winds arose at the tempest's call, before the day was done. 
 
 6. 
 
 Midnight — and still the storm raged wrathfully and loud, 
 And deep in the trough of the heaving sea labored that vessel 
 
 proud : 
 There was darkness all around, save where lightning flashes keen 
 Played on the crest3 of the broken waves, and lit the depths 
 
 between. 
 
 7. 
 
 Around her and below, the waste of waters roared, 
 
 And answered the crash of the falling masts as they cast them 
 
 overboard. 
 At every billow's shock her quivering timbers strain ; 
 And as she rose on a crested wave, that strange ship passed again. 
 
THE DROWNED MARINER 419 
 
 8. 
 And o'er that stormy sea she flew before the gale, 
 Yet she had not struck her lightest spar, nor furled her loftiest sail. 
 Another blinding flash, and nearer yet she seemed, 
 And a pale blue light along her sails and o'er her rigging gleamed. 
 
 9. 
 But it showed no seaman's form, no hand her course to guide; 
 And to their signals of distress the winds alone replied. 
 The Phantom Ship passed on, driven o'er her pathless way, 
 But helplessly the sinking wreck amid the breakers lay. 
 
 10. 
 
 The angry tempest ceased, the winds were hushed to sleep, 
 And calm and bright the sun again shone out upon the deep. 
 But that gallant ship no more shall roam the ocean free ; 
 She has reached her final haven, beneath the dark blue sea. 
 
 11. 
 And many a hardy seaman, who fears nor storm nor fight, 
 Yet trembles when the Phantom Ship drives past his watch at 
 
 night; 
 For it augurs death and danger : it bodes a watery grave, 
 With sea-weeds for his pillow — for his shroud,the wandering wave. 
 
 n. 
 
 136. THE DROWNED MARINER. 
 
 A MARINER sat in the shrouds one night, 
 The wind was piping free ; 
 Now bright, now dimmed was the moonlight pale, 
 And the phosphor gleamed in the wake of the whale, 
 
 As it floundered in the sea ; 
 The scud was flying athwart the sky, 
 The gathering winds went whistling by, 
 And the wave, as it towered then fell in spray, 
 Looked an emerald wall in the moonlight ray. 
 
 2. The mariner swayed and rocked on the mast, 
 
 But the tumult pleased him well : 
 Down the yawning wave his eye he cast, 
 And the monsters watched, as they hurried past, 
 
 Or lightly rose and fell. — 
 
420 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 For their broad, damp fins were under the tide, 
 And they lashed, as they passed, the vessel's side, 
 And their filmy eyes, all huge and grim, 
 Glared fiercely up, and they glared at him. 
 
 3. Now freshens the gale, and the brave ship goes 
 
 Like an uncurbed steed along ; 
 A sheet of flame is the spray she throws, 
 As her gallant prow the water plows ; 
 
 But the ship is fleet and strong ; 
 The topsails are reefed, and the sails are furled, 
 And onward she sweeps o'er the watery world, 
 And dippeth her spars in the surging flood ; 
 But there cometh no chill to the mariner's blood. 
 
 4. "Wildly she rocks, but he swingeth at ease, 
 
 And holds him by the shroud ; 
 And, as she careens to the crowding breeze, 
 The gaping deep the mariner sees, 
 
 And the surging heareth loud. 
 Was that a face, looking up at him 
 With its pallid cheek, and its cold eyes dim ? 
 Did it beckon him down ? Did it call his name ? 
 Now rolleth the ship the way whence it came. 
 
 5. The mariner looked, and he saw, with dread, 
 
 A face he knew too well ; 
 And the cold eyes glared, the eyes of the dead, 
 And its long hair out on the waves was spread— - 
 
 Was there a tale to tell ? 
 The stout ship rocked with a reeling speed — 
 And the mariner groaned, as well he need — 
 For ever down, as she plunged on her side, 
 The dead face gleamed from the briny tide. 
 
 6. Bethink thee, mariner, well of the past : 
 
 A voice calls loud for thee ; 
 There's a stifled prayer, the first, the last ; 
 The plunging ship on her beam is cast — 
 
 Oh, where shall thy burial be ? 
 Bethink thee of oaths, that were lightly spoken ; 
 Bethink thee of vows, that were lightly broken ; 
 
THE DROWNED MARINER. 421 
 
 Bethink thee of all that is dear to thee, 
 For thou art alone on the raging sea. 
 
 7. Alone in the dark, alone on the wavo 
 
 To buffet the storm alone ; 
 To struggle aghast at thy watery grave, 
 To struggle and feel there is none to save I 
 
 God shield thee, helpless one ! 
 The stout limb3 yield, for their strength is past ; 
 The trembling hands on the deep are cast ; 
 The white brow gleams a moment more, 
 Then slowly sinks — the struggle is o'er. 
 
 8. Down, down, where the storm is hushed to sleep, 
 
 "Where the sea its dirge shall swell ; 
 "Where the amber-drops for thee shall weep, 
 And the rose-lipped shell its music keep ; 
 
 There thou shalt slumber well. 
 The gem and the pearl lie heaped at thy side ; 
 They fell from the neck of the beautiful bride, 
 From the strong man's hand, from the maiden's brow, 
 As they slowly sunk to the wave below. 
 
 9. A peopled home is the ocean-bed ; 
 
 The mother and child are there : 
 The fervent youth and the hoary head, 
 The maid with her floating locks outspread, 
 
 The babe with its silken hair : 
 
 As the water moveth they slightly sway, 
 
 And the tranquil light on their features play : 
 
 And there is each cherished and beautiful form, 
 
 Away from decay, and away from the storm. 
 
 Mrs. Smith. 
 
 Elizabeth Oakes Smith, the accomplished writer, whose maiden name was 
 Prince, was born near Portland, Maine. She early showed remarkable skill in 
 composition. When sixteen years of a<rc she was married to Mr. Seba Smith, 
 author, who in 1S39 removed to New York, where they still reside. Her first 
 published book was entitled " Riches without "Wings." In 1S44 appeared " The 
 Sinless Child, and other Poems," and since, a number of other works, some of 
 which have passed through many editions. 
 
422 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 m. 
 
 137. THE DIVER. 
 
 "/~\H, where is the knight or the squire so bold, 
 
 V-/ As to dive to the howling charybdis ' below ? — 
 I cast into the whirlpool a goblet of gold, 
 
 And o'er it already the dark waters flow : 
 "Whoever to me may the goblet bring, 
 Shall have for his guerdon 3 that gift of his king." 
 
 2. He spoke, and the cup from the terrible steep, 
 
 That rugged and hoary, hung over the verge 
 Of the endless and measureless world of the deep, 
 
 Swirled into the maelstrom that maddened the surge. 
 " And where is the diver so stout to go — 
 I ask ye again— to the deep below?" 
 
 3. And the knights and the squires that gathered around, 
 
 Stood silent — and fixed on the ocean their eyes ; 
 They looked on the dismal and savage profound, 
 
 And the peril chilled back every thought of the prize. 
 And thrice spoke the monarch — " The cup to win, 
 Is there never a wight who will venture in ?" 
 
 4. And all as before heard in silence the king — 
 
 Till a youth, with an aspect unfearing but gentle, 
 'Mid the tremulous squires, stept out from the ring, 
 
 Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle ; 
 And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder, 
 On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder. 
 
 5. As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave 
 
 One glance on the gulf of that merciless main ; 
 Lo ! the wave that for ever devours the wave, 
 
 Casts roaringly up the charybdis again ; 
 And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom, 
 Rushes foamingly forth from the heart of the gloom. 
 
 ^ — .... 
 
 1 Cha ryb' dis, one of the two immense fig-tree, under which dwelt 
 
 rocks, Scylla and Charybdis, describ- Charybdis, who thrice every day 
 
 ed by Homer as lying near together, swallowed down the waters of the 
 
 between Italy and Sicily ; both for- sea, and thrice threw them up again, 
 
 midable to ships which had to pass 3 Guerdon, (gcVdon), recompense ; 
 
 between them. One contained an reward. 
 
THE DIVER. 423 
 
 6. And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars, 
 
 As when fire is with water commixed and contending ; 
 And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars, 
 
 And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending. 
 And it never will rest, nor from travail be free, 
 Like a sea that is laboring the birth of a sea. 
 
 7. And at last there lay open the desolate realm I 
 
 Through the breakers that whitened the waste of the swell, 
 Dark — dark yawned a cleft in the midst of the whelm, 
 
 The path to the heart of that fathomless hell. 
 Round and round whirled the waves — deep and deeper still 
 
 driven, 
 Like a gorge thro' the mountainous main thunder-riven. 
 
 8. The youth gave his trust to his Maker ! Before 
 
 That path through the riven abyss closed again — 
 Hark ! a shriek from the crowd rang aloft from the shore, 
 
 And, behold ! he is whirled in the grasp of the main ! 
 And o'er him the breakers mysteriously rolled, 
 And the giant-mouth closed on the swimmer so bold. 
 
 9. O'er the surface grim silence lay dark and profound, 
 
 But the deep from below murmured hollow and fell ; 
 And the crowd, as it shuddered, lamented aloud — 
 
 "Gallant youth — noble heart — fare-thee-well, fare-thee- 
 well !" 
 And still ever deepening that wail as of woe, 
 More hollow the gulf sent its howl from below. 
 
 10. If thou should'st in those waters thy diadem fling, 
 
 And cry, " "Who may find it shall win it, and wear ;" 
 God's wot, though the prize were the crown of a king — 
 
 A crown at such hazard were valued too dear. 
 For never did lips of the living reveal, 
 What the deeps that howl yonder in terror conceal. 
 
 11. Oh many a ship, to that breast grappled fast, 
 
 Has gone down to the fearful and fathomless grave ; 
 Again, crashed together, the keel and the mast, 
 
 To be seen, tossed aloft in the glee of the wave. — 
 Like the growth of a storm ever louder and clearer, 
 Grows the roar of the gulf rising nearer and nearer. 
 
424 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 12. And it bubbles and seethes, and it hisses and roars, 
 
 As when fire is with water commixed and contending ; 
 And the spray of its wrath to the welkin up-soars, 
 
 And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending. 
 And, as with the swell of the far thunder-boom, 
 Rushes roaringly forth from the heart of the gloom. 
 
 13. And, lo ! from the heart of that far-floating gloom, 
 
 What gleams on the darkness so swanlike and white ? 
 Lo ! an arm and a neck, glancing up from the tomb ! — 
 
 They battle — the Man's with the Element's might. 
 It is he — it is he !--in his left hand behold, 
 As a sign — as a joy! — shines the goblet of gold! 
 
 14 And he breathed deep, and he breathed long, 
 
 And he greeted the heavenly delight of the day. 
 They gaze on each other — they shout as they throng — 
 
 " He lives — lo the ocean has rendered its prey ! 
 And out of the grave where the Hell began, 
 His valor has rescued the living man !" 
 
 15. And he comes with the crowd in their clamor and glee, 
 And the goblet his daring has won from the water, 
 He lifts to the king as he sinks on his knee ; 
 
 And the king from her maidens has beckoned his daughter, 
 And he bade her the wine to his cup-bearer bring, 
 And thus spake the Diver — "Long life to the king! 
 
 1G. "Happy they whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice, 
 The air and the sky that to mortals are given ! 
 May the horror below never more find a voice — 
 
 Nor Man stretch too far the wide mercy of Heaven ! 
 Never more — never more may he lift from the mirror, 
 The Veil which is woven with Night and with Tereok I 
 
 17. " Quick-brightening like lightning — it tore me along, 
 
 Down, down, till the gush of a torrent at play, 
 In the rocks of its wilderness caught me — and strong 
 
 As the wings of an eagle, it whirled me away. 
 Vain, vain were my struggles — the circle had won me, 
 Round and round in its dance the wild element spun me. 
 
 18. " And I called on my God, and my God heard my prayer. 
 In the strength of my need, in the gasp of my breath — • 
 
THE DIVER. 426 
 
 And showed me a crag that rose up from the lair, 
 
 And I clung to it, trembling — and baffled the death ! 
 And, safe in the perils around me, behold 
 On the spikes of the coral the goblet of gold. 
 
 19. " Below, at the foot of that precipice drear, 
 
 Spread the gloomy, and purple, and pathless obscure ! 
 A Silence of Horror that slept on the ear, 
 
 That the eye more appalled might the Horror endure ! 
 Salamander — snake — dragon — vast reptiles that dwell 
 In the deep — coiled about the grim jaws of their hell. 
 
 20. "Dark-crawled — glided dark the unspeakable swarms, 
 
 Like masses unshapen, made life hideously — 
 Here clung and here bristled the fashionless forms — 
 
 Here the Hammer-fish darkened the dark of the sea — 
 And with teeth grinning white, and a menacing motion, 
 Went the terrible Shark— the Hyena of Ocean. 
 
 21. " There I hung, and the awe gathered icily o'er me, 
 
 So far from the earth where man's help there was none ! 
 The One Human Thing, with the Goblins before me — 
 
 Alone — in a loneness so ghastly — Alone ! 
 Fathom-deep from man's eye in the speechless profound, 
 With the death of the Main and the Monsters around. 
 
 22. " Methought, as I gazed through the darkness, that now 
 
 A hundred-limbed creature caught sight of its prey, 
 And darted — O God ! from the far-flaming bough 
 
 Of the coral, I swept on the horrible way ; 
 And it seized me, the wave with its wrath and its roar, 
 It seized me to save — King, the danger is o'er!" 
 
 23. On the youth gazed the monarch, and marveled — quoth he, 
 
 "Bold Diver, the goblet I promised is thine, 
 And this ring will I give, a fresh guerdon to thee, 
 
 Never jewels more precious shone up from the mine ; 
 If thou'lt bring me fresh tidings, and venture again, 
 To say what lies hid in the innermost main!" 
 
 24. Then outspake the daughter in tender emotion, 
 
 "Ah! father, my father, what more can there rest? 
 Enough of this sport with the pitiless ocean — 
 
 He has served thee as none would, thyself hast confest 
 
426 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 If nothing can slake thy -wild thirst of desire, 
 
 Be your knights not, at least, put to shame by the squire I* 
 
 25. The king seized the goblet — he swung it on high, 
 
 And whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide ; 
 " But bring back that goblet again to my eye, 
 
 And I'll hold thee the dearest that rides by my side, 
 And thine arms shall embrace as thy bride, I decree, 
 The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee. 5 ' 
 
 26. In his heart, as he listened, there leapt the wild joy — 
 
 And the hope and the love through his eyes spoke in fire, 
 On that bloom, on that blush, gazed, delighted, the boy ; 
 
 The maiden she faints at the feet of her sire ! 
 Here the guerdon divine, there the danger beneath ; 
 He resolves ! — To the strife with the life and the death ! 
 
 27. They hear the loud surges sweep back in their swell ; 
 
 Their coming the thunder-sound heralds along ! 
 Fond eyes yet are tracking the spot where he fell — 
 
 They come, the wild waters, in tumult and throng, 
 
 Rearing up to the cliff — roaring back as before ; 
 
 But no wave ever brought the lost youth to the shore. 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 JohA'nn Ciiristoph Friedrich von Schiller, a German poet, dramatist, 
 and historian, was born in Marbach, Wiirtemberg, November 10th, 1759, and 
 died in Weimar, May 9th, 1805. His best prose production, "History of the 
 Thirty Years' War," published in 1791, is probably the best historical perform- 
 ance of which Germany can boast. His greatest performance, the drama of 
 " Wallenstein," appeared in 1799. " William Tell," his most popular drama, was 
 published in 1804 He is probably best known by his ballads and lyric poems. 
 
 IV. 
 
 138. MORTE D'ARTHUR. 
 
 SO all day long the noise of battle rolled 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea ; 
 Until King Arthur's * table, man by man, 
 Had fallen in Lyonness about their Lord, 
 
 »■ — ■ ■ ■ ■ 1 -■ - ■ 
 
 1 King Arthur. The life and death Ian, in Cornwall, in 542. Modred was 
 
 of this ancient British hero, if indeed slain and Arthur mortally wounded, 
 
 there ever was such a person, are The British Celts long believed that 
 
 involved in fiction. Modred, his he would some day come back and 
 
 nephew, revolted from him, which vindicate for them the undivided 
 
 brought on the fatal battle of Com- sovereignty of Britannia. 
 
MORTE D'ARTIIUR. 427 
 
 King Arthur : then, because his wound was deep, 
 The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 
 Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, 
 And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
 A broken chancel with a broken cross, 
 That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 
 On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
 Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 
 
 2. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
 " The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
 
 The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
 \Vhereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
 They sleep — the men I loved. I think that wo 
 Shall never more, at any future time, 
 Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 
 Walking about the gardens and the halls 
 Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
 I perish by this people which I made, — 
 Though Merlin ' sware that I should come again 
 To rule once more — but let what will be, be, 
 I am so deeply smitten through the helm 
 That without help I can not last till morn. 
 
 3. Thou, therefore, take my brand Excalibur, 
 Which was my pride ; for thou rememberest how 
 In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
 Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 
 Clothed in white samite, 3 mystic, wonderful, 
 Holding the sword — and how I rowed across 
 And took it, and have worn it, like a king : 
 And, wheresoever I am sung or told, 
 
 In aftertime, this also shall be known : 
 
 But now delay not : take Excalibur, 
 
 And fling him far into the middle meer : 
 
 "Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word." 
 
 4. To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 
 "It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
 Aidless, alone, and smitten through the helm. 
 
 1 Merlin, two British seers and sor- 2 Sa' mite, a kind of silk stuff, or 
 cerers, of tho 5th and 6th centuries, taffeta, often adorned with geld. 
 
428 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
 
 Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, 
 
 Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 
 
 So saying, from the ruined, shrine he stept, 
 
 And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
 
 "Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 
 
 Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
 
 Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
 
 By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 
 
 Came on the shining levels of the lake. 
 
 5. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
 And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
 Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
 And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt ; 
 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
 Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
 
 Of subtlest jewelry. He gazed so long 
 That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood 
 This way and that dividing the swift mind, 
 In act to throw ; but at the last it seemed 
 Better to leave Excalibur concealed 
 There in the many-knotted waterflags, 
 That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
 So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 
 
 6. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
 
 " Hast thou performed my mission which I gave ? 
 
 What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ?" 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 
 " I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
 
 And the wild water lapping on the crag." 
 
 To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale, 
 
 " Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name, 
 
 Not rendering true answer, as beseemed 
 
 Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight ; 
 
 For surer sign had followed, either hand 
 
 Or voice, or else a motion of the meer. 
 
 This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
 
 Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again 
 
 As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
 
 I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 
 
MORTE D'ARTHUR. 4 l 29 
 
 7. Then went Sir Bedivcrc the second time 
 Across the ridge, and paced beside the meer, 
 Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought ; 
 But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, • 
 How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
 His palms together, and he cried aloud : 
 
 " And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
 Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 
 Should thus be lost forever from the earth, 
 Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
 What good should follow this, if this were done ? 
 What harm, undone ? deep harm to disobey, 
 Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
 Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
 An act unprofitable, against himself '? 
 
 8. " The king is sick, and knows not what he does. 
 What record, or what relic of my lord 
 Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 
 
 And rumors of a doubt ? but were this kept, 
 
 Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
 
 Some one might show it at a joust of arms, 
 
 Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
 
 Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 
 
 Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
 
 Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
 
 So might some old man speak in the aftertime 
 
 To all the people, winning reverence. 
 
 But now much honor and much fame were lost." 
 
 9. So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
 And hid Excalibur the second time, 
 
 And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 
 
 Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : 
 
 " What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard? 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivcrc : 
 
 " I heard the water hvpping on the crag, 
 
 And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 
 
 10. To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath ; 
 " Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
 Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 
 
430 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Authority forgets a dying king, 
 
 Laid widowed of the power in his eye 
 
 That bowed the will. I see thee what thou art ; 
 
 For thou, the latest left of all my knights, 
 
 In whom should meet the offices of all, 
 
 Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; 
 
 Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
 
 Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
 
 Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
 
 And the third time may prosper, get thee hence ; 
 
 But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
 
 I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 
 
 11. Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
 
 And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
 
 Among the bulrush-beds, and clutched the stoord, 
 
 And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand 
 
 Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, 
 
 And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch, 
 
 Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
 
 Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
 
 By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
 
 So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur ; 
 
 But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 
 And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 
 
 Three times, and drew him under in the meer. 
 
 And lightly went the other to the King. 
 
 3 2. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath, 
 " Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
 Speak out : what is it thou hast heard, or seen !" 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 
 Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
 Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
 Not though I live three lives of mortal men, 
 So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
 Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ; 
 But when I looked again, behold an arm, 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 
MORTE D'ARTHUR. 431 
 
 That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 
 Three times, and drew him under in the nicer." 
 
 13. And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard. 
 " My end draws nigh ; 'tis time that I were gone. 
 Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 
 And bear me to the margin : yet I fear 
 
 My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 
 So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 
 Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
 And looking wistfully with wild blue eyes 
 As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
 Remorsefully regarded through his tears, 
 And would have spoken, but he found not words, 
 Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, 
 O'er buth his shoulders drew the languid hands, 
 And rising bore him through the place of tombs. 
 
 14. But as he walked, King Arthur panted hard 
 Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
 AVhen all the house is mute. So sighed the King, 
 Muttering and murmuring at his ear, " Quick, quick ! 
 I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
 
 But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 
 Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked 
 Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
 He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
 Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
 Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves 
 And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
 The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based 
 His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
 Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
 And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
 And the long glories of the winter moon. 
 
 1 5. Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
 Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stem, 
 Beneath them ; and descending they were ware 
 That all the decks were dense with stately forms 
 Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream — by these 
 Three Queens with crowns of gold — and from them rose 
 
432 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, 
 
 And, as it were one voice, an agony 
 
 Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills 
 
 All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 
 
 Or hath come, since the making of the world. 
 
 Then murmured Arthur, " Place me in the barge," 
 
 And to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
 
 Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
 
 16. But she that rose the tallest of them all 
 And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
 
 And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his hands, 
 
 And called him by his name, complaining loud, 
 
 And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
 
 Striped with dark blood ; for all his face was white 
 
 And colorless, and like the withered moon 
 
 Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
 
 And all his greaves * and cuisses a dashed with drops 
 
 Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls — 
 
 That made his iovehead like a rising sun 
 
 High from the dais-throne — were parched with dust ; 
 
 Or, clotted into points, and hanging loose, 
 
 Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
 
 So like a shattered column lay the King ; 
 
 Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 
 
 From spur to plume a star of tournament, 
 
 Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged 
 
 Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 
 
 17. Then lordly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, — 
 " Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
 Where shall I hide my fore/iead and my eyes? 
 For now I see the true old times are dead, 
 When every morning brought a noble chance, 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 Such times have been not since the light that led 
 The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
 
 But now the whole Round Table is dissolved, 
 Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
 
 1 Greaves, armor for the legs; a 2 Cuisse, (lewis), defensive armor 
 «ort of boots for the thighs. 
 
MOETE D'AKTIIL'tt. 4^3 
 
 And I, tho last, go forth companionless, 
 
 And the days darken round me, and tho years, 
 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 
 
 18. And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 
 "The old order change th, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfills himself in many ways, 
 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
 
 Comfort thyself : what comfort is in me? 
 
 I have lived my life, and that which I havo done 
 
 May Ho within himself make pure ! but thou, 
 
 If thou shouldst never sec my face again, 
 
 Pray for my soul. More things arc wrought by prayer 
 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 
 For what arc men better than sheep or goats 
 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
 
 For so tho whole round earth is every way 
 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
 
 19. But now farewell. I am going a long way 
 With these thou seest — if indeed I go 
 (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
 To the island-valley of Avilion ; 
 
 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
 Deep-mcadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
 And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea, 
 Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
 
 20. So said he, and tho barge with oar and sail 
 Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan, 
 That, iluting a wild carol, ere her death, 
 
 Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
 With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
 Revolving many memories, till the hull 
 Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
 And on the mcer the wailing died awav. 
 
 Alfhed Te^tntson. 
 19 
 
434 
 
 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 V. 
 
 139. THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. 1 
 
 1. 
 " O PEAK ! speak ! thou fearful 
 
 ^ guest ! 
 Who, with thy hollow breast 
 Still in rude armor drest, 
 Comest to daunt me ! 
 "Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
 But with thy fleshless palms 
 Stretched, as if asking alms, 
 Why dost thou haunt me ?" 
 
 2. 
 
 Then, from those cavernous eyes 
 Pale flashes seemed to rise, 
 As when the Northern skies 
 
 Gleam in December ; 
 And, like the water's flow 
 Under December's snow, 
 Came a dull voice of wGe 
 
 From the heart's chamber. 
 
 3. 
 
 11 1 was a Viking old ! 
 
 My deeds, though manifold, 
 
 No Skald 2 in song has told, 
 
 No Saga 3 taught thee ! 
 Take heed, that in thy verse 
 Thou dost the tale rehearse, 
 Else dread a dead man's curse ; 
 
 For this I sought thee. 
 
 1 The author says : M The follow- 
 ing ballad was suggested to me 
 while riding on the seashore at 
 Newport. A year or two previous a 
 skeleton had been dug up at Fall 
 River, clad in broken and corroded 
 armor ; and the idea occurred to me 
 of connecting it with the Round 
 Tower at Newport, generally known 
 hitherto as the Old Wind Mill, 
 though now claimed by the Danes 
 
 " Far in the Northern Land, 
 By the wild Baltic's strand, 
 I, with my childish hand, 
 
 Tamed the ger-falcon ; * 
 And, with my skates fast-bound, 
 Skimmed the half-frozen Sound, 
 That the poor whimpering hound 
 
 Trembled to walk on. 
 
 5. 
 
 " Oft to his frozen lair 
 Tracked I the grisly bear, 
 While from my path the hare 
 
 Fled like a shadow ; 
 Oft through the forest dark 
 Followed the were-wolf s bark, 
 Until the soaring lark 
 
 Sang from the meadow. 
 
 6. 
 
 " But when I older grew, 
 Joining a corsair's crew, 
 O'er the dark sea I flew 
 
 With the marauders. 
 Wild was the life we led ; 
 Many the souls that sped, 
 Many the hearts that bled, 
 
 By our stern orders. 
 
 as a work of their early ancestors. 
 This is an admirable exercise in 
 Monotone, see p. G7. 
 
 2 Skald, an ancient Scandinavian 
 bard or poet ; a reciter and singer ot 
 heroic poems, eulogies, etc., among 
 the Norsemen. 
 
 3 Sa' ga, a Scandinavian legend 
 or story handed down among tho 
 Norsemen and kindred people. 
 
 4 Ger-falcon, (j6V fa kn). 
 
 
TUE SKELETON LN ARMOR. 
 
 4;j5 
 
 7. 
 44 Many a wassail-bout ' 
 Wore the long Winter out; 
 Often our midnight shout 
 
 Set the cocks crowing, 
 As we the Berserk's tale 
 Measured in cups of ale, 
 Draining the oaken pail, 
 
 Filled to overflowing. 
 
 8. 
 " Once as I told in glee 
 Tales of the stormy sea, 
 Soft eyes did gaze on me, 
 
 Burning yet tender; 
 And as the white stars shine 
 On the dark Norway pine, 
 On that dark heart of mine 
 
 Fell their soft splendor. 
 
 9. 
 
 "I wooed the blue-eyed maid, 
 Yielding, yet half afraid, 
 And in the forest's shade 
 
 Our vows were plighted. 
 Under its loosened vest 
 Fluttered her little breast, 
 Like birds within their nest 
 
 By the hawk frighted. 
 
 10. 
 " Bright in her father's hall 
 Shields gleamed upon the wall, 
 Loud sang the minstrels all, 
 
 Chaunting his glory ; 
 "When of old Hildebrand 
 I asked his daughter's hand. 
 Mute did the minstrels stand 
 
 To hear my story. 
 
 11. 
 
 i; While the brown ale he quaffed, 
 Loud then the champion laughed, 
 And as the wind-gusts waft 
 The sea-foam bricrhtlv, 
 
 o v 7 
 
 So the loud laugh of scorn, 
 Out of those lips unshorn, 
 From the deep drinking-horn 
 Blew the foam lightly. 
 
 " She was a Prince's child, 
 
 I but a Viking wild, 
 
 And though sheblushed and smiled 
 
 I was discarded ! 
 Should not the dove so white 
 Follow the sea-mew's flight, 
 "Why did they leave that night 
 
 Her nest unguarded ? 
 
 13. 
 
 " Scarce had I put to sea, 
 Bearing the maid with me,— 
 Fairest of all was she 
 
 Among the Norsemen ! — 
 "When on the white sea-strand, 
 "Waving his armed hand, 
 
 O 7 
 
 Saw we old Hildebrand, 
 "With twenty horsemen. 
 
 14. 
 
 " Then launched they to the blast, 
 Bent like a reed each mast, 
 Yet we were gaining last, 
 
 When the wind failed us ; 
 And with a sudden flaw 
 Came round the gusty Skaw, 
 So that our foe we saw 
 
 Laugh as he hailed us. 
 
 15. 
 
 II And as to catch the gale 
 Round veered the flapping sail, 
 Death ! was the helmsman's hail 
 
 Death without quarter ! 
 Mid-ships with iron keel 
 Struck we her ribs of steel ; 
 Down her black hulk did reel 
 
 Through the black water I 
 
 1 Wassail-bout, (w6s' sil-bout), a drinking-bout; a contest or set-to at 
 wassail, a kind of liquor used on festive occasions. 
 
436 
 
 RATIONAL FIFTH READER, 
 
 16. 
 " As with his wings aslant, 
 Sails the tierce cormorant, 
 Seeking some rocky haunt, 
 
 With his prey laden, 
 So toward the open main, 
 Beating to sea again, 
 Through the wild hurricane, 
 
 Bore I the maiden. 
 
 17. 
 
 " Three weeks we westward bore, 
 And when the storm was o'er, 
 Cloud-like we saw the shore 
 
 Stretching to lee-ward ; 
 There for my lady's bower 
 Built I the lofty tower, 
 Which, to this very hour, 
 
 Stands looking sea-ward. 
 
 18. 
 11 There lived we many years : 
 Time dried the maiden's tears; 
 She had forgot her fears, 
 She was a mother ; 
 
 Death closed her mild blue eyes, 
 Under that tower she lies ; 
 Ne'er shall the sun arise 
 On such another ! 
 
 19. 
 
 " Still grew my bosom then, 
 Still as a stagnant fen ! 
 Hateful to me were men, 
 
 The sun-light hateful ! 
 In the vast forest here, 
 Clad in my warlike gear, 
 Fell I upon my spear, 
 
 O, death was grateful ! 
 
 20. 
 " Thus, seamed with meny scars 
 Bursting these prison bars, 
 Up to its native stars 
 
 My soul ascended ! 
 There from the flowing bowl 
 Deep drinks the warrior's s6ul, 
 Skoal! to the Northland ! slcOalP^ 
 
 — Thus the tale ended. 
 
 II. W. Longfellow. 
 
 SECTION XXYI. 
 
 L 
 
 140. SCENES FROM PICKWICK. 
 
 THE DILEMMA. 
 
 MR. Pickwick's apartments in Goswell street, although on 
 a limited scale, were not only of a very neat and com- 
 fortable description, but peculiarly adapted for the residence of 
 a man of his genius and observation. His sitting-room was the 
 first floor front, his bed-room w T as the second floor front ; and 
 thus, whether ho was sitting at his desk in the parlor, or stand- 
 ing before the dressing-glass in his dormitory-, he had an equal 
 
 1 Skoal, in Scandanavia this is the the word is slightly changed, in 
 customary salutation when drink- order to preserve the correct pro- 
 liig a health. The orthography of nuneiation. 
 
SCENES FliOAi PICKWICK. J^yj 
 
 opportanity of contemplating human nature in all the numerous 
 phases it exhibits, in that not more populous than popular 
 thoroughfare. 
 
 2. His landlady, Mrs. Bardell — the relict and sole executrix 
 of a deceased custom-house officer — was a comely (kiim'ly) 
 woman of bustling manners and agreeable appearance, with a 
 natural genius for cooking, improved by study and long prac- 
 tice into an ex'quisite talent. There were no children, no ser- 
 vants, no fowls. The only other inmates of the house were a 
 largo man and a small boy ; the first a lodger, the second a 
 production of Mrs. Bardell's. The large man was always at 
 home precisely at ten o'clock at night, at which hour he regu- 
 larly condensed himself into the limits of a dwarfish French 
 bedstead in the back parlor ; and the infantine sports and gym- 
 nastic exercises of Master Bardell were exclusively confined to 
 the neighboring pavements and gutters. Cleanliness and quiet 
 reigned throughout tho house ; and in it Mr. Pickwick's will 
 was law. 
 
 3. To any one acquainted with these points of the domestic 
 economy of the establishment, and conversant with the admira- 
 blc regulation of Mr. Pickwick's mind, his appearance and be- 
 havior, on the morning previous to that which had been fixed 
 upon for the journey to Eatansvill, would have been most mys- 
 terious 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, constantly 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. 
 
 4. " Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at last, as that amiable 
 female approached the termination of a prolonged dusting of 
 the apartment, "Sir," said Mrs. Bardell. "Your little boy 
 is a very long time gone." " Why, it's a good long way to tho 
 Borough, sir," remonstrated Mrs. Bardell. " Ah," said Mr. Pick- 
 wick, " very true ; so it is." Mr. Pickwick relapsed into silence, 
 and Mrs. Bardell resumed her dusting. 
 
 5. Mrs. Bardell," said Mr. Pickwick, at the expiration of a 
 few minutes. " Sir," said Mrs. Bardell again. " Do you think 
 it's a much greater expense to keep two people, than to keep 
 
438 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 one ?" " La, Mr. Pickwick/' said Mrs. Bardell, coloring up to 
 the very border of her cap, as she fancied she observed a species 
 of matrimonial 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 
 Imow, Mr. Pickwick ; and whether it's a saving and careful per- 
 son, sir." " That's very true," said Mr. Pickwick ; " but the 
 person I have in my eye (here he looked very hard at Mrs. Bar- 
 dell) I think possesses these qualities ; and has, moreover, a 
 considerable knowledge of the world, and a great deal of sharp- 
 ness, Mrs. Bardell ; which may be of material use to me." 
 
 6. " 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 (wunt) 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'll think it not very strange now," said the 
 amiable Mr. Pickwick, with a good-humored glance at his com- 
 panion, " that I never consulted you about this matter, and never 
 mentioned it, till I sent your little boy out this morning — eh '?" 
 
 7. Mrs. Bardell could only reply by a look. She had long 
 worshipped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at 
 once, raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extrav- 
 agant 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 con- 
 siderate !— " Well," said Mr. Pickwick, " what do you think f M 
 " Oh, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, trembling with agita- 
 tion, " you're very kind, sir." " It will save you a great deal of 
 trouble, won't it ?" said Mr. Pickwick. " Oh, 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 consid- 
 eration for my loneliness." 
 
 8. " Ah to be sure," said Mr. Pickwick ; " I never thought of 
 that. When I am in town, vou'll alwavs have somebodv to sit 
 with you. To be sure, so you will." "I'm sure I ought to bo a 
 very happy woman," said Mrs. Bardell. " And your little boy — " 
 
SCENES FROM PICKWICK. 439 
 
 said Mr. Pickwick. " Bless his heart," interposed Mrs. Bardell, 
 with a maternal sob. " He, too, will have a companion," re- 
 sumed Mr. Pickwick, "a lively one, who'll teach him, I'll bo 
 bound, more tricks in a week, than he would ever learn in a 
 year." And Mr. Pickwick smiled placidly. 
 
 9. " Oh you dear — " said Mrs. Bardell. Mr. Pickwick started. 
 " Oh 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 tho astonished Mr. 
 Pickwick ; — " Mrs. Bardell, my good woman — dear me, what a 
 situation — pray consider. Mrs. Bardell, don't — if anybody 
 should come — " " Oh, let them come," exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, 
 frantically ; "I'll never leave you — dear, kind, good, soul ;" and, 
 with theso words, Mrs. Bardell clung the tighter. 
 
 ] 0. " 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 unavailing : 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 tho room, ushering in Mr. Tupman, 
 Mr. Winkle, and Mr. Snodgrass. Mr. Pickwick was struck 
 motionless and speechless. He stood with his lovely burden 
 in his arms, gazing vacantly on the countenances of his friends, 
 without the slightest attempt at recognition or explanation. 
 They, in their turn, stared at him ; and Master Bardell, in his 
 turn, stared at evervbody. 
 
 11. The astonishment of the Pickwickians was so absorbing, 
 and the perplexity of Mr. Pickwick was so extreme, that they 
 might have remained in exactly the same relative situation 
 until the suspended animation of tho lady was restored, had it 
 not been for a most beautiful and touching expression of filial 
 affection on the part of her youthful son. Clad in a tight suit 
 of corduroy, spangled with brass buttons of a very considerable 
 size, he at first stood at the door astounded and uncertain ; but 
 by degrees, 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, 
 with his head, commenced assailing that immortal gentleman 
 
440 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 about the back and legs, with such blows and pinches as the 
 strength of his arm, and the violence of his excitement allowed. 
 
 12. Take this little villain away," said the agonized Mr. Pick- 
 wick, "he's mad." "What is the matter?" said the three 
 tongue-tied Pickwickians. " I don't know," replied Mr. Pick- 
 wick, pettishly. " Take away the boy — (here Mr. Winkle earned 
 the in'teresting boy, screaming and struggling, to the farther 
 end of the apartment.) Now help me to lead this woman down 
 stairs.*' " Oh, I'm better now," said Mrs. Bardell, faintly. "Let 
 me lead you down stairs," said the ever gallant Mr. Tupman. 
 " Thank you, sir — thank you ;" exclaimed Mrs. Bardell, hys- 
 terically. And down stairs she was led accordingly, accompanied 
 by her affectionate son. 
 
 13. " I can not conceive" — said Mr. Pickwick, when his friend 
 returned — " I can not 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 ex- 
 tremely awkward situation," continued Mr. Pickwick. " Very ;** 
 was the reply of his followers, as they coughed slightly, and 
 looked dubiously at each other. 
 
 4. This behavior was not lost upon Mr. Pickwick. He re- 
 marked 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. Pickwick, " I sent 
 for him to tho Borough this morning. Have the goodness to 
 call him up, Snodgrass." 
 
 n. 
 
 141. SCENES FROM PICKWICK. 
 
 SPEECH OF SEXIGEINT BUZFUZ. 
 
 YOU heard from ray learned friend, Gentlemen of the Jury, 
 that this is an action for a breach of promise of marriage, 
 in which the damages are laid at fifteen hundred pounds. The 
 plaintiff, Gentlemen, is a widow ; yes, Gentlemen, a widow. The 
 late Mr. Bardell, some time before his death, became the father, 
 Gentlemen, of a little boy. With this little boy, the only pledge 
 of her depai-ted exciseman, Mrs. Bardell shrunk from the world 
 
tt 
 
 SCENES FROM PICKWICK. 441 
 
 and courted the retirement and tranq uillity of Goswcll street : 
 and here she placed in her front parlor-window a written pla- 
 card', bearing this inscription, — "Apartments fubnkhed rcr. \ 
 
 SINGLE GENTLEMAN. InQUIIIE WITHIN." 
 
 2. Mrs. Bardell's opinions of tho opposite sex, Gentlemen, 
 were derived from a long contemplation of the ines'thnablc qual- 
 ities of her lost husband. She had no fear, — she had no distrust, 
 
 11 was confidence and rel Lance. " Mr. Bardell," said the widow, 
 was a man of honor, — Mr. Bardell was a man of his word, — 
 Mr. Bardell was no deceiver, — Mr. Bardell was onco a single 
 gentleman himself : to single gentlemen I look for protection, 
 for assistance, for comfort, and consolation ; in single gentlemen 
 I shall perpetually see something to remind me of what Mr. 
 Bardell was, when he first won my young and untried aiiections ; 
 to a single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let." 
 
 3. Actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among 
 the best impulses of our imperfect nature, Gentlemen), the lonely 
 and desolate widow dried her tears, furnished her first floor, 
 caught her innocent boy to her maternal bosom, and put the 
 bill up in her parlor-window. Did it remain there long? No. 
 The serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the mine was 
 preparing, the sapper and miner was at work ! Before the bill 
 had been in the parlor-window three days, — three days, Gentle- 
 man, — a being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward 
 semblance of a man, and not of a monster, knocked at the door 
 of Mrs. Bardell's house ! He inquired within ; he took the 
 lodgings ; and on the very next day he entered into possession 
 of them. This man was Pickwick, — Pickwick, the defendant! 
 
 •1. Of this man I will say little. The subject presents but few 
 attractions ; and I, Gentlemen, am not the man, nor are you, 
 Gentlemen, the men, to delight in the contemplation of revolt- 
 ing heartlessness, and of systematic villainy. I say systematic 
 villainy, Gentlemen ; and when I say systematic villainy, let mo 
 tell the defendant Pickwick, if he be in court, as I am info lined 
 he is, that it would have been more decent in him. more becom- 
 ing, if he had stopped away. Let me tell him, further, that a 
 counsel, in the discharge of his duty, is neither to be intimida- 
 ted, nor bullied, nor put down ; and that any attempt to do 
 either the one or the other will recoil on the head of the 
 at tempter, be ho plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name 
 
442 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 Pickwick, or Xoakes, cr Stoakes, or Stiles, or Brown, or 
 Thompson. 
 
 5. I shall show you, Gentlemen, that for two years Pickwick 
 continued to reside constantly, and without interruption or in- 
 termission, at Mrs. BardelTs house. I shall show you that Mrs. 
 Bardell, during the whole of that time, waited on him, attended 
 to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen for the 
 washerwoman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared 
 it for wear when it came home, and, in short, enjoyed his fullest 
 trust and confidence. I shall show you that, on many occasions, 
 he gave half-pence, and on some occasions even sixpence, to her 
 little bey. I shall prove to you, that on one occasion, when he 
 returned from the country, he distinctly and in terms offered her 
 marriage, — previously, however, taking special care that there 
 should be no witnesses to their solemn contract ; and I am in a 
 situation to prove to you, on the testimony of three of his own 
 friends, — most unwilling witnesses, Gentlemen — most unwilling 
 witnesses, — that on that mominsf he was discovered bv them 
 holding the plaintiff in his amis, and soothing her agitation by 
 his caresses and endearments. 
 
 6. And now, Gentlemen, but one word more. Two letters 
 have passed between these parties, — letters that must be viewed 
 with a cautious and suspicious eye, — letters that were evidently 
 intended, at the time, bv Pickwick, to mislead and delude any 
 third parties into whose hands they might fall. Let me read 
 the first : — " Garraway's, twelve o'clock. — Dear Mrs. B. — Chops 
 and Tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick." Gentleman, what does 
 this mean ? Chops and Tomato sauce ! Yours, Pickwick ! 
 Chops ! Gracious heavens ! And Tomato sauce ! Gentlemen, 
 is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trilled 
 awav bv such shallow artifices as these ? 
 
 7. The next has no date whatever, which is in itself suspi- 
 cious : — " Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home to morrow. Slow 
 coach." And then follows this very remarkable expression, — 
 "Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan. " The warm- 
 ing-pan ! Why, Gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a 
 warming-pan ? Why is Mrs. Bardell so earnestly entreated not 
 to agitate herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt 
 the case) it is a mere cover for hidden fire — a mere substitute 
 for sonic endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted 
 
SCENES FROM PICKWICK. 443 
 
 system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a 
 view to his contemplated desertion ? And what does this allu- 
 sion to the slow coach mean ? For aught I know, it may be a 
 reference to Pickwick himself, who has most unquestionably 
 been a criminally slow coach during the wholo of this transac- 
 tion, but whose speed will now be very unexpectedly accelerated, 
 and whose wheels, Gentlemen, as he will find to his cost, will 
 very soon bo greased by you ! 
 
 8. But enough of this, Gentlemen. It is difficult to smile with 
 an aching heart. My client's hopes and prospects are ruined, 
 and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone 
 indeed. The bill is dow T n ; but there is no tenant ! Eligible 
 single gentlemen pass and repass ; but there i3 no invitation for 
 them to inquire within, or without ! All is gloom and silence 
 in the house : even the voice of the child is hushed ; his infant 
 sports are disregarded, when his mother w r ceps. 
 
 9. But Pickwick, Gentlemen, Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer 
 of this domestic 6'asis in the desert of Goswell street, — Pickwick, 
 who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward, — 
 Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless 
 tomato-sauce and warming-pans, — Pickwick still rears his head 
 with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin 
 he has made ! Damages, Gentlemen, heavy damages, is the only 
 punishment with w r hich you can visit him, — the only recompense 
 you can award to my client ! And for those damages she now 
 appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a con- 
 scientious, a dispassionate, a sympathizing, a contemplative Jury 
 of her civilized countrymen ! 
 
 m. 
 
 142. SCENES FROM PICKnVICK. 
 
 SAM TYELLER AS WITNESS. 
 
 "~TTT"HATS your name, sir?" inquired the judge. "Sam 
 V V Weller, my lord," replied that gentleman. " Do you 
 spell it with a ' V or a ' W ?' " inquired the judge. " That de- 
 pends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my lord," replied 
 Sam ; " I never had occasion to spell it more than once or twice 
 in my life, but I spells it w T ith a ' \7 " Here a voice in the gal- 
 lery exclaimed aloud, — " Quite right, too, Samivel ; quite right. 
 
444 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Put it down a we, my lord, put it down a we" " Who is that 
 that dares to address the court ?" said the little judge looking 
 
 U p; "Usher!" "Yes, my lord!" "Bring that person hero 
 
 instantly." " Yes, my lord." 
 
 2. But, as the usher didn't find the person, he didn't bring 
 him ; and, after a great commotion, all the people who had got 
 up to look for the culprit, sat down again. The little judge 
 turned to the witness as soon as his indignation would allow 
 him to speak, and said — "Do you know who that was, sir?" 
 "I rather suspect it was my father, my lord," replied Sam. 
 " Do you see him here now ?" said the judge. " No, I don't, 
 my lord," replied Sam, staring right up into the lantern in the 
 roof of the court. "If you could have pointed him out, I 
 would have committed him instantly," said the judge. Sam 
 bowed his acknowledgments, and turned with unimpaired cheer- 
 fulness of countenance toward Sergeant ' Buzfuz. 
 
 3. " Now, Mr. TVcller," said Sergeant Buzfuz. " Now, sir," 
 replied Sam. " I believe you are in the service of Mr. Pick- 
 wick, the defendant in this case. Speak up, if you please, Mr. 
 Weller." " I mean to speak up, sir," replied Sam. " I am in 
 the service o' that 'ere genTman, and a wery good service it is." 
 "Little to do, and plenty to get, I suppose?" said Sergeant 
 Buzfuz, with jocular'ity. " Oh, quite enough to get, sir, as the 
 soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty 
 lashes," replied Sam. " You must not tell us what the soldier 
 or any other man said, sir," interposed the judge ; " it's not evi- 
 bence." M Wery good, my lord," replied Sam. 
 
 4. " Do you recollect anything particular happening on the 
 morning when you were first engaged by the defendant, ch, Mr. 
 Weller?" said Sergeant Buzfuz. "Yes I do, sir," replied Sam. 
 "Have the goodness to tell the jury what it was." "I had a 
 reg'lar new fit out o' clothes that morn in', gen'l'men of the jury," 
 said Sam, " and that was a wery particler and uncommon cir- 
 cumstance vith me in those days." 
 
 5. Hereupon there was a general laugh ; and the little judge, 
 looking with an angry countenance over his desk, said, — " You 
 had better be careful, sir." " So Mr. Pickwick said at the time, 
 my lord," replied Sam, " and I was wcry careful o' that 'ere suit 
 o' clothes ; wery careful, indeed, my lord." The judge looked 
 
 1 Sergeant, (tar'jent), a lawyer of the burliest rank. 
 
SCENES FROM PICKWICK. 445 
 
 sternly at Sain for full two minutes, but Sam's features were so 
 perfectly calm and sercno that he said nothing, and motioned 
 Sergeant Buzfuz to proceed. 
 
 G. " Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller," said Sergeant Buz- 
 fuz, folding his arms emphatically, and turning half round to 
 the jury, as if in mute assurance he would bother the witnt ss 
 yet — " Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Weller, that you saw noth- 
 ing of this fainting on the part of the plaintiff in the arms of 
 the defendant, which you have heard described by the wit- 
 nesses ?" " Certainly not," replied Sam. " I was in the passago 
 till the v called me up, and then the old lady was not there." 
 
 7. " Now attend, Mr. Weller," said Sergeant Buzfuz, dipping a 
 large nun into the inkstand before him, for the purpose of fright- 
 ening Sam with a show of taking down his answer, " you wcro 
 in the passage and yet saw nothing of what was going forward. 
 Have you a pair of eves, Mr. Weller?" "Yes, I have a pair cf 
 eyes," replied Sam, " and that's just it. If they wos a pair o' 
 patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra 
 power, p'raps I might be able to see through a ilight o' stairs and 
 a deal door ; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited." 
 
 8. At this answer, which was delivered without the slightest 
 appearanco of irritation,- and with the most complete simplicity 
 and equanimity of manner, the spectators tittered, the little 
 judge smiled, and Sergeant Buzfuz looked particularly foolish. 
 After a short consultation vs'ith Dodson and Fogg, the learnt d 
 sergeant again turned to Sam, and said, with a painful effort to 
 conceal his vexation, — " Now, Mr. Weller, 111 ask you a ques- 
 tion on another point, if you please." " If you please, sir," 
 rejoined Sam, with the utmost good-humor. 
 
 9. "Do you remember going up to Mrs. BardelTa house, one 
 night in November last?" "Oh, yes ; wcrv well." "Oh, vou 
 do remember that, Mr. Weller," said Sergeant Buzfuz, recover- 
 ing his spirits, " I thought we should get at something at last." 
 "I rather thought that, too, sir," replied Sam ; and at this tho 
 spectators tittered again. " Well ; I suppose you went up to 
 
 lave a little talk about this trial — eh, Mr. Weller T said Ser- 
 geant Buzfuz, looking knowingly at the jury. "I went up to 
 pay Vhe rent ; but we did gefc a talking about the trial," replied 
 Sam. \" Oh, vou did get a talking about the trial," said Ser- 
 
44:6 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 important discovery. "Now what passed about the trial ; will 
 you have the goodness to tell us, Mr. Weller ?" 
 
 10. "Yith all the pleasure in my life, sir," replied Sam. " Arter 
 a few unimportant observations from the two wirtuous females 
 as has been examined here to-day, the ladies gets into a wery 
 great state o' admiration at the honorable conduct of Mr. Dod- 
 son and Fogg — them two genTmen as is sittin' near you now." 
 This, of course, drew general attention to Dodson and Fogg, 
 who looked as virtuous as possible. " The attorneys for the 
 plaintiff," said Mr. Sergeant Buzfuz ; " well, they spoke in high 
 praise of the honorable conduct of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg, 
 the attorneys for the plaintiff, did they ?" " Yes," said Sam ; 
 " they said what a wery gen'rous thing it was o' them to have 
 taken up the case on spec, and to charge nothin' at all for costs, 
 unless they got 'em out of Mr. Pickwick." 
 
 11. At this very unexpected reply, the spectators tittered 
 again, and Dodson and Fogg, turning very red, leaned over to 
 Sergeant Buzfuz, and in a hurried manner whispered something 
 in his ear. " You are quite right," said Sergeant Buzfuz aloud, 
 with affected composure. " It's perfectly useless, my lord, at- 
 tempting to get at any evidence through the impenetrable stu- 
 pidity of this witness. I will not trouble the court by asking 
 him any more questions. Stand down, sir." 
 
 12. " Would any other gen 'I'm an like to ask me any thin' ?" 
 inquired Sam, taking up his hat, and looking round most delib- 
 erately. "Not I, Mr. Weller, thank you," said Sergeant Snub- 
 bin, laughing. "You may go down, sir," said Sergeant Buzfuz, 
 waving his hand impatiently. Sam went down accordingly, 
 after doing Messrs. Dodson and Fogg's case as much harm as 
 he conveniently could, and saying just as little respecting Mr. 
 Pickwick as might be, which was precisely the object he had in 
 view all along. Dickens. 
 
 Charles Dickens, tliG famous English novelist, -was born at Portsmouth, in 
 February, 1812. At an curly period he became reporter for the newspaper press 
 of London, and thus escaped the cramping necessity of depending for subsist- 
 ence upon his first purely literary labors. His earliest work?, " Sketches by Boz," 
 first written for periodicals, were collected and published in two volumes, bear- 
 ing respectively the dates of 1836 and 1837. His works immediately succeeding, 
 "Pickwick," "Oliver Twist," and "Nicholas Nickleby," fully established his 
 reputation. The " Pickwick Papers," from which the preceding scenes were 
 selected, is one of his best works. He has probably never drawn a character 
 more original in conception and more happily sustained than that of Sam Weller. 
 
MY ORATORICAL EXPERIENCE 447 
 
 The career of Dickens has been one of uniform success. His more recent pub- 
 lication, "Dombcy and Son," "David Copperfleld," "Bleak House," and " Lit- 
 tle Dorrit," prove conclusively that, far from having "written himself out," the 
 resources of his mind arc well-nigh inexhaustible. His genius, which has 
 peopled our literature with such a crowd of living and moving characters, gives 
 promise of as many new creations, equally varied and true to nature. He is 
 now editor of "All the Year Round," a first class magazine. 
 
 IV. 
 143. MY ORATORICAL EXPERIENCE. 1 
 
 fTlHE Mayor had got up to propose another toast ; and, 
 1 listening rather inattentively to the first sentence or two, 
 I soon became sensible of a drift in his Worship's remarks that 
 made me glance ajiprchensively toward Sergeant Wilkins. 
 " Yes," grumbled that gruff personage, shoving a decanter of 
 Port toward me, "it is your turn next"; and seeing in my 
 face, I suppose, the consternation of a wholly unpracticed 
 orator, he kindly added, — "It is nothing. A mere acknowl- 
 edgment will answer the purpose. The less you say, the better 
 they will like it." That being the case, I suggested that per- 
 haps they would like it best if I said nothing at all. But the 
 Sergeant shook his head. 
 
 2. Now, on first receiving the Mayor's invitation to dinner, 
 it had occurred to me that I might possibly be brought into 
 my present predicament ; but I had dismissed the ide'a from 
 my mind as too disagreeable to be entertained, and, moreover, 
 as so alien from my disposition and character that Fate surely 
 could not keep such a misfortune in store for me. If nothing 
 else prevented, an earthquake or the crack of doom would cer- 
 tainly interfere before I need rise to speak. Yet here was the 
 Mayor getting on inex'orably, — and, indeed, I heartily wished 
 that he might get on and on forever, and of his wordy wander- 
 ings find no end. 
 
 3. If the gentle reader, my kindest friend and closest confi- 
 dant, deigns to desire it, I can impart to him my own experi- 
 ence as a public speaker quite as indifferently as if it concerned 
 another person. Indeed, it does concern another, or a mere 
 
 1 The author, in an article which the following humorous account 
 
 describes the Civic Banquets, which of the oratorical ordeal he passed 
 
 he attended in London, while United at one of the Mayor's dinner-par- 
 
 States Consul at Liverpool, gives tics. 
 
448 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 spectral phenomenon, for it "was not I, in my proper and natn- 
 ral self, that sat there at table or subsequently rose to speak. 
 
 d. At the moment, then, if the choice had been offered me 
 whether the Mayor should let off a speech at my head or a pis- 
 tol, I should unhesitatingly have taken the latter alternative. I 
 had really nothing to say, not an idea in my head, nor, which 
 was a good deal worse, any flowing words or embroidered sen- 
 tences in vrhich to dress out that empty Nothing, and give it a 
 cunning aspect of intelligence, such as might last the poor 
 vacuity the little time it had to live. 
 
 5. But time pressed ; the Mayor brought his remarks, affec- 
 tionately eulogistic of the United States and highly compli- 
 mentary to their distinguished representative at that table, to 
 a close, amid a vast deal of cheering ; and the band struck up 
 " Hail Columbia," I believe, though it might have been " Old 
 Hundred," or "God save the Queen" over again, for anything 
 that I should have known or cared. When the music ceased, 
 there was an intensely disagreeable instant, during which I 
 seemed to rend away and fling off the habit of a lifetime, and 
 rose, still void of ideas, but with preternatural composure, to 
 make a speech. 
 
 G. The guests rattled on the table, and cried "Hear!" most 
 vociferously, as if now, at length, in this foolish and idly gar- 
 rulous world, had come the long-expected moment when one 
 golden word was to be spoken ; and in that imminent crisis, I 
 caught a glimpse of a little bit of an effusion of international 
 sentiment which it might and must and should do to utter. 
 
 7. Well ; it was nothing, as the Sergeant had said. What 
 surprised me most was the sound of my own voice, which I had 
 never before heard at a declamatory pitch, and which impress- 
 ed me as belonging to some other person, who, and not myself, 
 would be responsible for the speech : a prodigious consolation 
 and encouragement under the circumstances ! 
 
 8. I went on without the slightest embarrassment, and sat 
 down amid great applause, wholly undeserved by anything that 
 I had spoken, but well won from Englishmen, mcthought, by 
 the new development of pluck that alone had enabled me to 
 speak at all. "It was handsomely done !" quoth Sergeant Wil- 
 luns ; and I felt like a recruit who had been for the first time 
 under tire. 
 
MY ORATORICAL EXPERIENCE 419 
 
 9. I would gladly have ended my oratorical career then and 
 there forever, but was often placed in a similar or worse posi- 
 tion, and compelled to meet it an I best might ; for this was 
 one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken 
 on my shoulders, and beneath which I might bo crushed by no 
 moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without 
 cowardice and shame. My subsequent fortune was various. 
 
 10. Once, though I felt it to be a kind of imposture, I got a 
 speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty ■ 
 one, only I forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and 
 had to improvise 3 another as well as I could. I found it a 
 better method to pre-arrange a few points in my mind, and 
 trust to the spur of the occasion, and the kind aid of Provi- 
 dence for enabling me to bring them to bear. 
 
 11. The presence of any considerable proportion cf personal 
 friends generally dumbfounded me. I would rather have talked 
 with an enemy in the gate. Invariably, too, I was much em- 
 barrassed by a small audience, and succeeded better with a 
 large one, — the sympathy of a multitude possessing a buoyant 
 effect, which lifts the speaker a little way out cf his individual- 
 ity and tosses him toward a perhaps better range of sentiment 
 than his private one. 
 
 12. Again, if I rose carelessly and confidently, with an ex- 
 pectation of going through the business entirely at my ease, I 
 often found that I had little or nothing to say ; whereas, if I 
 came to the scratch in perfect despair, anel at a crisis when 
 failure would have been horrible, it once or twice happcucel 
 that the frightful emergency concentrated my poor faculties, 
 anel enabled me to give definite anel vigorous expression to sen- 
 timents which an instant before lookeel as vague and far-off as 
 the clouds in the atmosphere. 
 
 13. On the whole, poor as my own success may have been, I 
 apprehend that any intelligent man with a tongue possesses the 
 chief requisite of oratorical power, and may develop many of 
 the others, if he deems it worth while to bestow a great amount 
 of labor and pains on an object which the most aecompliskcel 
 orators, I suspect, have not found altogether satisfactory to 
 their highest impulses. At any rate, it must bo a remarkably 
 
 1 Pretty (prft'tl). ranoously, or off-hand, without pre- 
 
 * Im'provise\ to speak extempo- vioua preparation. 
 
450 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 true man who can keep his own elevated conception of truth 
 
 when the lower feeling of a multitude is assailing his natural 
 
 sympathies, and who can speak out frankly the best that there 
 
 is in him, when by adulterating it a little, or a good deal, he 
 
 knows that he may make it ten times a3 acceptable to the 
 
 audience. Hawthorne. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American novelist and essayist, was born in 
 Salem, Massachusetts, July 4th, 1804. Owing to ill health, at the age of ten 
 years, he left home to try the effects of farm-life, going to a farm owired by the 
 family, and located on the shores of Sebago Lake, Maine. He returned to 
 Salem, resumed his studies, and graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825. In 1837 
 he collected his early contributions to magazines, and published them under the 
 title of "Twice-told Tales." The work was highly lauded by the N. A. Review. 
 It was republished, with a second series, in 1S43. Probably his most popular 
 romances are the "Scarlet Letter," " The House of the Seven Gables," and the 
 " Marble Faun." During the administration of President Pierce, he was U. S. 
 Consul at Liverpool. This office he resigned in 1S57. He died suddenly, while 
 on a journey to the White Mountains for his health, at Plymouth, New Hamp- 
 shire, May 19, 1864. Mr. Hawthorne's literary reputation was not confined to 
 the United States. His most important works have been republished and 
 widely read in England, and, in the form of translations, in Germany 
 
 SECTION XXVII. 
 
 I. 
 
 144. A FOREST NOOK. 
 
 A NOOK within the forest ; overhead 
 The branches arch, and shape a pleasant bower, 
 Breaking white cloud, blue sky, and sunshine bright, 
 Into pure ivory and sapphire spots, 
 And flecks of gold ; a soft cool emerald tint 
 Colors the air, as though the delicate leaves 
 Emitted self-born light. What splendid walls 
 And what a gorgeous roof carved by the hand 
 Of glorious Nature ! 
 
 2. Here the spruce thrusts in 
 
 Its bristling plume, tipped with its pale-green points ; 
 
 The scalloped beech leaf, and the birch's, cut 
 
 Into firm rugged edges, interlace : 
 
 While here and there, through clefts, the laurel lifts 
 
 Its snowy chalices half -brim med with dew, 
 
A FOREST NOOK. 451 
 
 As though to hoard it for the haunting elves 
 The moonlight calls to thi3 their festal hall. 
 A thick, rich, grassy carpet clothes the earth, 
 Sprinkled with autumn leaves. The fern displays 
 Its fluted wreath, beaded beneath with drops 
 Of richest brown ; the wild-rose spreads its breast 
 Of delicate pink, and the o'erhanging fir 
 Has dropped its dark, long cone. 
 
 3. The scorching glare 
 Without, makes this green nest a grateful haunt 
 For summer's radiant things ; the butterfly 
 Fluttering within and resting on some flower, 
 Fans his rich velvet form ; the toiling bee 
 
 Shoots by, with sounding hum and mist-like wings ; 
 
 The robin perches on the bending spray 
 
 "With shrill, quick chirp ; and like a flake of fire 
 
 The redbird seeks the shelter of the leaves. 
 
 And now and then a flutter overhead 
 
 In the thick green, betrays some wandering wing 
 
 Coming and going, yet concealed from sight. 
 
 A shrill, loud outcry — on yon highest bough 
 
 Sits the gray squirrel, in his burlesque wrath 
 
 Stamping and chattering fiercely : now he drops 
 
 A hoarded nut, then at my smiling gaze 
 
 Buries himself within the foliage. 
 
 4. The insect tribe arc hero : the ant toils on 
 "With its white burden ; in its netted web 
 Gray glistening o'er the bush, the spider lurks, 
 A close crouched ball, out-darting as a hum 
 
 Tells its trapped prey, and looping quick its threads, 
 
 Chains into helplessness the buzzing wings. 
 
 The wood-tick taps its tiny muffled drum 
 
 To the shrill cricket-fife, and swelling loud, 
 
 The grasshopper its swelling bugle winds. 
 
 Those breaths of Nature, the light fluttering air3, 
 
 Like gentle respirations, come and go, 
 
 Lift on its crimson stem the niaple leaf, 
 
 Displaying its white lining underneath, 
 
 And sprinkle from the tree-tops golden rain 
 
 Of sunshine on the velvet sward below. 
 
452 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 5. Such nooks as this are common in the woods : 
 
 And all these sights and sounds the commonest 
 
 In Nature, when she wears her summer prime. 
 
 Yet by them pass not lightly : to the wiso 
 
 They tell the beauty and the harmony 
 
 Of e'en the lowliest things that God has made ; 
 
 That his familiar earth and sky are full 
 
 Of his ineffable power and majesty ; 
 
 That in the humble objects, seen too 6ft 
 
 To be regarded, is such wondrous grace, 
 
 The art of man is Tain to imitate ; 
 
 That the low flower our careless foot treads down 
 
 Is a rich shrine of incense delicate, 
 
 And radiant beautv, and that God hath formed 
 
 All, from the cloud-wreathed mountain, to the grain 
 
 Of silver sand the bubbling spring casts up, 
 
 "With deepest forethought and severest care. 
 
 And thus these noteless lovely things are types 
 
 Of his perfection and divinity. A. B. Street. 
 
 n. 
 
 145. FOREST TREES. 
 
 I HAVE paused mure than once in the wilderness of America, 
 to contem'plate the traces of some blast of wind, which 
 seemed to have rushed down from the clouds, and ripped its 
 way through the bosom of the woodlands ; rooting up, shiver- 
 ing, and splintering the stoutest trees, and leaving a long track 
 of desolation. There is something awful in the vast havoc made 
 among these gigantic plants ; and in considering their magnifi- 
 cent remains, so rudely torn and mangled, hurled down to per- 
 ish prematurely on their native soil, I was conscious of a strong 
 movement of sympathy wife the wood-nymphs, grieving to be 
 dispossessed of their ancient habitations. 
 
 2. I recollect also hearing a traveler of poetical temperament, 
 expressing the kind of horror which he felt in beholding, on the 
 banks of the Missouri, an oak of prodigious size, which had been 
 in a manner overpowered by an enormous wild grape-Tine. The 
 vine had clasped its huge folds round the trunk, and from thence 
 had wound about every branch and twig, until the mighty tree 
 
FOREST TREES. 453 
 
 had withered in its embrace. It seemed like Laoc'oon ' strag- 
 gling ineffectually in the hideous coils of the monster Python. 3 It 
 was tlia lion of trees perishing in the embraces of a \ tble Vj< >a. 
 
 3. I am fond of listening to the conversation of English gen- 
 tlemen on rural concerns, and of noticing with what taste and 
 discrimination, and what strong, unaffected interest, they will 
 discuss topics, which, in other countries, arc abandoned to 
 mere woodmen or rustic cultivators. I have heard a noble carl 
 descant on park and forest scenery, with the science and feeling 
 of a painter. Ho dwelt on the shape and beauty of particular 
 trees on his estate with as much pride and technical precision 
 a3 though he had been discussing the merits of statues in his 
 collection. I found that he had gone considerable distances to 
 examine trees which were celebrated among rural amateurs' ; 
 for it seems that trees, like horses, have their established points 
 of excellence, and that there arc some in England which enjoy 
 very extensive celebrity from being perfect in their kind. 
 
 •1. There is something nobly simple and pure in such a taste. 
 It argues, I think, a sweet and generous nature, to have this 
 strong relish for the beauties of vegetation, and thi3 friendship 
 for the hardy and glorious sons of the forest. There is a grand- 
 eur of thought connected with this part of rural economy. It i c ;, 
 if I may be allowed the figure, the heroic line of husbandry. It 
 is worthy of liberal, and free-born, and aspiring men. He who 
 plants an oak looks forward to future ages, and plants for pos- 
 terity. Nothing can be less selfish than this. He can not ex- 
 pect to sit in its shade nor enjoy its shelter ; but he exults in the 
 idea that the acorn which he has buried in the earth shall grow 
 up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing, and increas- 
 
 1 La 5c' oon, a Trojan, and a priest an J lii3 two sons entwined by the 
 
 of Apollo, who tried to dissuade his two serpents, is still extant, and prc- 
 
 couutrym:ni from drawing into the served in the Vatican, at Rome, 
 city the wooden horse of the Greeks, ' Py' thon, a celebrated serpent 
 
 which finally caused the overthrow that lived in the caves of Mount 
 
 of Troy. When preparing to sacri- Parnassus, but was slain by Apollo, 
 
 fice a bull to Xeptune, two fearful who founded the Pythian games in 
 
 serpents suddenly rushed upon him commemoration of his victory, and 
 
 and his two sons, and strangled them, received, in consequence, tho sur- 
 
 His death formed the subject of many name Pythius. This, however, was 
 
 ancient works of art ; and a magnifi- not one of the serpents that destroy, 
 
 cent group, representing the father ed Laocoon. 
 
454 NATIONAL FIFTH READER, 
 
 ing, and benefiting mankind, long after lie shall have ceased to 
 tread his paternal fields. 
 
 5. Indeed, it is the nature of such occupations to lift the 
 thought above mere worldliness. As the leaves of trees are said 
 to absorb all noxious qualities of the air, and breathe forth a 
 purer atmosphere, so it seems to me as if they drew from us all 
 sordid and angry passions, and breathed forth peace and philan- 
 thropy. There is a serene and settled majesty in woodland 
 scenery that enters into the soul, and dilates and elevates it, and 
 fills it with noble inclinations. The ancient and hereditary 
 groves, too, that embower this island, are ■ most of them full of 
 story. They are haunted by the recollections of the great 
 spirits of past ages, who have sought for relaxation among them, 
 from the tumult of arms, or the toils of state, or have wooed the 
 muse beneath their shade. 
 
 6. It is becoming, then, for the high and generous spirits of 
 an ancient nation to cherish these sacred groves that surround 
 their ancestral mansions, and to perpetuate them to their de- 
 scendants. Brought up, as I have been, in republican habits 
 and principles, I can feel nothing of the serv'ile reverence for 
 titled rank, merely because it is titled. But I trust I am neither 
 churl nor bigot in my creed. I do see and feel how hereditary 
 distinction, when it falls to the lot of a generous mind, may ele- 
 vate that mind into true nobility. 
 
 7. It is one of the effects of hereditary rank, when it falls thus 
 happily, that it multiplies the duties, and, as it were, extends the 
 existence of the possessor. He does not feel himself a mere in- 
 dividual link in creation, responsible only for his own brief term 
 of being. Ho carries back his existence in proud recollection, 
 and ho extends it forward in honorable anticipation. He lives 
 with his ancestry, and he lives with his posterity. To both does 
 he consider himself involved in deep responsibilities. As he has 
 received much from those that have gone before, so he feels 
 bound to transmit much to those who are to come after him. 
 
 8. His domestic undertakings seem to imply a longer exist- 
 ence than those of ordinary men. None are so apt to build and 
 plant for future centuries, as noble-spirited men who have re- 
 ceived their heritages from foregoing ages. I can easily imagine, 
 therefore, the fondness and pride with which I have noticed 
 English gentlemen, of generous temperaments, but high aristo- 
 
GODS FIRST TEMPLES. 455 
 
 cratic feelings, contem'plating those magnificent trees, which 
 rise liko towers and pyramids from the midst of their paternal 
 lands. There is an affinity between all natures, animate and in- 
 animate. The oak, in the pride and lustihood of its growth, 
 seems to mo to take its range with the lion and the eagle, and 
 to assimilate, in the grandeur of its attributes, to heroic and in- 
 tellectual man. 
 
 0. With its mighty pillar rising straight and direct toward * 
 heaven, bearing up its leafy honors from the impurities of 
 earth, and supporting them aloft in free air and glorious sun- 
 shine, it is an emblem of what a true nobleman should be : a 
 refuge for the weak, — a shelter for the oppressed, — a defence for 
 the defenceless ; warding 6ft' from them the peltings of the 
 storm, or the scorching rays of arbitrary power. He who is 
 this, is an ornament and a blessing to his native land. He who 
 i3 otherwise, abuses his eminent advantages ; — abuses the grand- 
 cur and prosperity which he has drawn from the bosom of his 
 country. Should tempests arise, and he be laid prostrate by the 
 storm, who would mourn over his fall ? Should he be borne 
 down by the oppressive hand of power, who would murmur at 
 his fate ? — " Why cumbereth he the ground ?" Ikvikg. 
 
 in. 
 
 146. GOD'S FIRST TE3IPLES. 
 
 THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
 To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, 
 And spread the roof above them, — ere he framed 
 The lofty vault, to gather and roll back 
 The sound of anthems, — in the darkling wood, 
 Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down 
 And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks 
 And supplication. For his simple heart 
 Might not resist the sacred influences, 
 That, from the stilly twilight of the place, 
 And from the gray old trunks, that, high in heaven, 
 Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound 
 Of the invisible breath, that swaved at once 
 All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed 
 His spirit with the thought of boundless Power 
 
456 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 And inaccessible Majesty. Ah ! why 
 
 Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect 
 
 God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore 
 
 Only among the crowd, and under roof3 
 
 That our frail hands have raised ? Let me, at least, 
 
 Here, in the shadow of this aged wood, 
 
 Offer one hymn ; thrice happy, if it find 
 
 Acceptance in his ear. 
 
 2. Father, thy hand 
 Hath reared these venerable columns : thou 
 
 Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down 
 Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith, rose 
 All these fair ranks of trees. They in thy sun 
 Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze, 
 And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow, 
 "Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died 
 Among their branches ; till, at last, they stood, 
 As now they stand, massy, and tali, and dark, 
 Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold 
 Communion with his Maker. 
 
 3. Hero are seen 
 No traces of man's pomp or prido ; no silks 
 Hustle, no jewels shine, nor envious eyes 
 Encounter ; no fantastic carvings show 
 
 The boast of our vain race to change the form 
 Of thy fair works. But thou art here ; thou filTst 
 The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds 
 That run along the summits of these trec3 
 In music ; thou art in the cooler breath, 
 That, from the inmost darkness of the place, 
 Comes, scarcely felt ; the barky trunks, the ground, 
 The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with thee. 
 
 4. Here is continual worship ; nature, here, 
 In the tranquillity that thou dost love, 
 Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around, 
 From perch to perch, the solitary bird 
 
 Passes ; and yon clear spring, that, midst its Zierbs, 
 Wells softly forth, and visits the strong roots 
 Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale 
 Of all the good it does. 
 
GOD'S FIRST TEMPLES. 457 
 
 5. Tliou hast not left 
 Thyself without a witness, in these shades, 
 
 Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace, 
 
 Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak — 
 
 By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem 
 
 Almost annihilated — not a prince, 
 
 In all the proud old world beyond the deep, 
 
 E'er wore his crown as loftily as he 
 
 "Wears the green coronal of leaves, with which 
 
 Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root 
 
 Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare 
 
 Of the broad sim. That delicate forest flower, 
 
 "With scented breath, and look so like a smile, 
 
 Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mold, 
 
 An emanation of the indwelling Life, 
 
 A visible token of the upholding Love, 
 
 That are the soul of this wide universe. 
 
 6. My heart is awed within me, when I think 
 Of the great miracle that still goes on, 
 
 In silence, round me — the perpetual work 
 Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed 
 Forever. Written on thy works, I read 
 The lesson of thy own eternity. 
 Lo ! all grow old and die : but see, again, 
 How, on the faltering footsteps of decay, 
 Youth presses — ever gay and beautiful youth — . 
 In all its beautiful forms. These loftv trees 
 "Wave not less proudly that their ancestors 
 Holder beneath them. 
 
 7. Oh ! there is not lost 
 One of earth's charms : upon her bosom yet, 
 After the flight of untold centuries, 
 
 The freshness of her far beginning lies, 
 And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hato 
 Of his arch enemy Death ; yea, seats himself 
 Upon the sepulcher, and blooms and smiles, 
 And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe 
 Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth 
 From thine own bosom, and shall have no end. 
 
 20 
 
458 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 8. There have been holy men, who hid themselves 
 Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave 
 
 Their lives to thought and prayer till they outlived 
 The generation born with them, nor seemed 
 Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks 
 Around them ; and there have been holy men, 
 "Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus. 
 But let me often to these solitudes 
 Eetire, and, in thy presence, reassure 
 My feeble virtue. Here, its enemies, 
 The passions, at thy plainer footsteps, shrink, 
 And tremble, and are still. 
 
 9. O God ! when thou 
 Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire 
 The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, 
 With all the waters of the firmament, 
 The swift, dark whirlwind, that uproots the woods, 
 And drowns the villages ; when, at thy call, 
 Uprises the great deep, and throws himself 
 Upon the continent, and overwhelms 
 Its cities ; — who forgets not, at the sight 
 Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, 
 His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by ! 
 Oh ! from these sterner aspects of thy face 
 Spare me and mine ; nor let us need the wrath 
 Of the mad, unchained elements, to teach 
 Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate, 
 In these calm shades, thy milder majesty, 
 And to the beautiful order of thy works 
 Learn to conform the order of our lives. Bkyant. 
 
 IV. 
 
 147. LANDSCAPE BEAUTY. 
 
 IT is easy enough to understand how the sight of a picture or 
 statue should affect us nearly in the same way as the sight of 
 the original : nor is it much more difficult to conceive, how the 
 sight of a cottage should give us something of the same feeling 
 as the sight of a peasant's family ; and the aspect of a town 
 raise many of the same ideas as the appearance of a multitude 
 
LANDSCAPE BEAUTY. 459 
 
 of persons. "We may begin, therefore, with an example a little 
 more complicated. Take, for instance, tho case of a common 
 English landscape — green meadows with grazing and ruminating 
 cattle — canals or navigable rivers — well-fenced, well cultivated 
 fields — neat, clean, scattered cottages — humble antique churches, 
 with church-yard elms, and crossing hedgerows, — all seen under 
 bright skies, and in good weather. 
 
 2. There is much beauty, as every one will acknowledge, in 
 such a scene. But in what does the beauty consist ? Not cer- 
 tainly in the mere mixture of colors and forms ; for colors more 
 pleasing, and lines more graceful (according to any theory of 
 grace that may be preferred), might be spread upon a board, or 
 a painter's pallet, without engaging the eye to a second glance, 
 or raising the least emotion in the mind : but in the picture of 
 human happiness that is presented to our imaginations and 
 affections ; in the visible and unequivocal signs of comfort, and 
 cheerful and peaceful enjoyment — and of that secure and suc- 
 cessful in'dustry that insures its continuance — and of the piety 
 by which it is exalted — and of the simplicity by which it is con- 
 trasted with the guilt and the fever of a city life ; in the images 
 of health, and temperance, and plenty which it exhibits to every 
 eye ; and in the glimpses which it affords to warmer imagina- 
 tions, of those primitive or fabulous times, when man was un- 
 corrupted by luxury and ambition, and of those humble retreats 
 in which wo still delight to imagine that love and philosophy 
 may find an unpolluted asy'luni. 
 
 3. At all events, however, it is human feeling that excites our 
 sympathy, and forms tho truo object of our emotions. It is 
 man, and man alone, that we see in the beauties of the earth 
 which he inhabits ; or, if a more sensitive and extended sympa- 
 thy connect us with the lower families of animated nature, and 
 make us rejoice with the lambs that bleat on the uplands, or tho 
 cattle that repose in the valley, or even with the living plants 
 that drink the bright sun and the balmy air beside them, it is 
 still the idea of enjoyment — of feelings that animate the exist- 
 ence of sentient beings — that calls forth all our emotions, and 
 is the parent of all the beauty with which we proceed to invest 
 the inanimate creation around us. 
 
 4. Instead of this quiet and tame English landscape, let us 
 now take a Welsh or a Highland scene, and sec whether its 
 
460 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 beauties will admit of being explained on the same principle. 
 Here, we shall have lofty mountains, and rocky and lonely re- 
 cesses — tufted woods bung over precipices — lakes intersected 
 with castled promontories — ample solitudes of unplowed and 
 untrodden valleys — nameless and gigantic ruins — and mountain 
 echoes repeating the scream of the eagle and the roar of the 
 cataract. 
 
 5. This, too, is beautiful, and to those who can interpret the 
 language it speaks, far more beautiful than the prosperous scene 
 with which we have contrasted it. Yet, lonely as it is, it is to 
 the recollection of man and the suggestion of human feelings 
 that its beauty also is owing. The mere forms and colors that 
 compose its visible appearance are no more capable of exciting 
 any emotion in the mind than the forms and colors of a Turkey 
 carpet. It is sympathy with the present or the past, or the 
 imaginary inhabitants of such a region, that alone gives it either 
 interest or beauty ; and the delight of those who behold it will 
 always be found to be in exact proportion to the force of their 
 imaginations and the warmth of their social affections. 
 
 6. The leading impressions here are those of romantic seclu- 
 sion and prime'val simplicity ; lovers sequestered in these blissful 
 solitudes, "from towns and toils remote," and rustic poets and 
 philosophers communing with nature, and at a distance from the 
 low pursuits and selfish malignity of ordinary mortals : then 
 there is the subhme impression of the Mighty Powers which 
 piled the mighty cliffs upon each other, and rent the mountains 
 asunder, and scattered their giant fragments at their base, and 
 all the images connected with the monuments of ancient mag- 
 nificence and extinguished hostility — the feuds, and the combats, 
 and the triumphs of its wild and primitive inhabitants, contrasted 
 with the stillness and desolation of the scenes where they lie 
 interred ; and the romantic ideas attached to their ancient tradi- 
 tions, and the peculiarities of the actual life of their descendants 
 — their wild and enthusiastic poetry — their gloomy superstitions 
 — their attachment to their chiefs — the dangers, and the hard- 
 ships, and enjoyments of their lonely huntings and fishings — 
 their pastoral shielings on the mountains in summer — and tho 
 tales and the sports that amuse the little groups that arc frozen 
 into their vast and trackless valleys in the winter. 
 
 7. Add to all this the traces of vast and obscure antiquity 
 
MORNING HYMN TO MOUNT BLANC. 4G1 
 
 that arc impressed on the language and the habits of the people, 
 and on the cliffs, and caves, the gulfy torrents of the land ; and 
 the solemn and touching reflection, perpetually recurring, of the 
 -weakness and insignificance of perishable man, whose genera- 
 tions thus pass away into oblivion, with all their toils and ambi- 
 tion ; while nature holds on her unvarying course, and pours out 
 her streams, and renews her forests, with undecaying activity, 
 regardless of the fate of her proud and perishable sovereign. 
 
 Jeffrey. 
 
 V. 
 148. MORNING HYMN TO MOUNT BLANC. 
 
 HAST thou a charm to stay the morning star 
 In his steep course ? — so long he seems to pause 
 On thy l^ald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc ! 
 The Arve and Aveiron at thy base 
 Rave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form! 
 Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, 
 How silently ! Around thee and above 
 Deep is the air and dark, — substantial black, — 
 An ebon mass ; methinks thou piercest it, 
 As with a wedge ! But when I look again, 
 It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, 
 Thy habitation from eternity ! 
 
 2. O dread and silent mount ! I gazed upon thee, 
 Till thou, still present to the bodily sense, 
 
 Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer 
 
 I worshiped the Invisible alone. 
 
 Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody. 
 
 So sweet, we know not we are listening to it, 
 
 Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thoughts 
 
 Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy, — 
 
 Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused, 
 
 Into the mighty vision passing — there 
 
 As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven. 
 
 3. Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise 
 Thou owest — not alone these swelling tears, 
 Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy. Awake, 
 Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! 
 
462 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Green vales and icy cliffs all join my hymn. 
 Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale ! 
 Oh ! struggling with the darkness all the night, 
 And visited all night by troops of stars, 
 Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink : 
 Companion of the morning-star at dawn, 
 Thyself, earth's rosy star, and of the dawn 
 Co-herald ! wake, oh wake ! and utter praise. 
 Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ? 
 Who filled thy countenance with rosy light ? 
 Who made thee parent of perpetual streams ? 
 
 4 And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad ! 
 
 Who called you forth from night and utter death, 
 
 From dark and icy caverns called you forth, 
 
 Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks. 
 
 Forever shattered and the same forever ? 
 
 Who gave you your invulnerable life, 
 
 Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, 
 
 Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ? 
 
 And who commanded, — and the silence came, — 
 
 "Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?" 
 
 5. Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
 Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — 
 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 
 And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! 
 Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! — 
 
 Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven 
 Beneath the keen full moon ? Who bade the sun 
 Clothe you with rainbows ? Who with living flowers 
 Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ? — 
 " God !" let the torents, like a shout of nations, 
 Answer ; and let the ice-plains echo, "God!" 
 
 6. " God !" sing, yo meadow-streams, with gladsome voice, 
 Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds ! 
 And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 
 
 And in their perilous fall shall thunder, " God !" 
 Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost ! 
 Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! 
 Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm 1 
 
ELEMENTS OF THE SWISS LANDSCAPE. 403 
 
 Te lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! 
 
 Ye signs and wonders of the elements! 
 
 Utter forth " God!" and fill the hills with p>raise. 
 
 7. Once more, hoar mount ! with thy sky-pointing peak, 
 Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, 
 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, 
 Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast, — 
 Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain ! thou, 
 That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 
 In adoration, upward from thy baso 
 Slow-traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears, 
 Solemnly scemest, like a vapory cloud, 
 To rise before me — rise, oh ever rise, 
 Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth ! 
 Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, 
 Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, 
 Great hierarch ! tell thou the silent sky. 
 And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, 
 Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God ! Coleridge. 
 
 VI. 
 
 149. ELE^LENTS OF THE SWISS LANDSCAPE. 
 
 PASSING out through a forest of larches, whose dark verdure 
 is peculiarly appropriate to it, and going up toward the 
 baths 1 of Lcuk, 2 the interest of the landscape does not at all 
 diminish. What a concentration and congregation of all ele- 
 ments of sublimity and beauty are before you ! what surprising 
 contrasts of light and shade, of form and color, of softness and 
 ruggedness ! Here are vast heights above you, and vast depths 
 below, villages hanging to the mountain sides, green pasturages 
 and winding paths, lovely meadow slopes enameled with flowers 
 deep immeasurable ravines', torrents thundering down them 
 colossal, overhanging, castellated 3 reefs of granite ; snowy 
 peaks with the setting sun upon them. 
 
 2. You command a view far down over the valley of the 
 
 1 Baths, (bafhz). and about 5000 feet above the sea. 
 
 3 Leuk, (loik), a villago and ecle- 3 CaVtellaHed, inclosed; adorned 
 
 brated bathing-place of Switzerland, with turrets and battlement*, like a 
 
 in the canton of Valais, on the Rhone, castle. 
 
464 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 Bhone, with its villages and castles, and its mixture of rich 
 farms and vast beds and heaps of mountain fragments, deposited 
 by furious torrents. What affects the mind very powerfully on 
 first entering upon these scenes, is the deep dark blue, so in- 
 tensely deep and overshadowing, of the gorge at its upper end, 
 and at the magnificent proud sweep of the granite barrier, which 
 there shuts it in, apparently without a passage. The mountains 
 rise like vast supernatural intelligences taking a material shape $ 
 and drawing around themselves a drapery of awful grandeur ; 
 there is a fore/iead of power and majesty, and the likeness of a 
 kingly crown above it. 
 
 3. Amidst all the grandeur of this scenery, I remember to 
 have been in no place more delighted with the profuse richness, 
 delicacy, and beauty of the Al'pine flowers. The grass of the 
 meadow slopes, in the gorge of the Dala, had a depth and power 
 of verdure, a clear, delicious greenness, that in its effect upon 
 the mind was like that of the atmosphere in the brightest au- 
 tumnal morning of the year ; or rather, perhaps, like the colors 
 of the sky at sunset. There is no such grass-color in the world 
 as that of these mountain meadows. It is just the same at the 
 verge of the ice oceans of Mount Blanc. It makes you think of 
 one of the points chosen by the Sacred Poet to illustrate the 
 divine benevolence (and I had almost said, no man can truly 
 understand why it was chosen, who has not traveled in Switzer- 
 land), " Who maketh the grass to grow upon the mountains." 
 
 4. And then the flowers, so modest, so lovely, yet of such 
 deep ex'quisite hue, enameled in the grass, sparkling amidst it, 
 " a starry multitude," underneath such awful brooding mountain 
 forms and icy precipices — how beautiful ! All that the poets 
 have ever said or sung of daisies, violets, snow-drops, king-cups, 
 primroses, and all modest flowers, is here outdone by the mute 
 poetry of the denizens of these wild pastures. Such a meadow 
 slope as this, watered with pure rills from the glaciers, would 
 have set the mind of Edwards ' at work in contemplation on the 
 
 Jonathan Edwards, one of tlie his thirteenth year; graduated with 
 
 first metaphysicians of his age, au- the highest honors ; and continued 
 
 thor of an " Essay on the Freedom his residence in the institution for 
 
 of the Will," was horn in East two years, for the study of theol- 
 
 Windsor, Connecticut, October 5th, ogy. He first preached to a congre- 
 
 1703. He entered Yale College in gation in New York, in his nine- 
 
ELEMENTS OF THE SWISS LANDSCAPE. 4G5 
 
 beauty of holiness. He lias connected these meek and lowly 
 flowers with an imago, which none (nun) of the poets of this 
 world have ever thought of. 
 
 5. To him tho divine beauty of holiness " made the soul like 
 a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant flowers ; 
 all pleasant, delightful, and undisturbed ; enjoying a sweet calm, 
 and tho gentle, vivifying beams of the sun. The soul of a true 
 Christian appears like such a little white ilowcr as we see in tho 
 spring of tho year ; low and humble on tho ground ; opening 
 its bosom to receive tho pleasant beams of the sun's glory ; re- 
 joicing, as it were, in a calm rapture ; diffusing around a sweet 
 fragrancy ; standing peacefully and lovingly in tho midst of 
 other flowers round about ; all in like manner opening their 
 bosoms to drink in the light of the sun." 
 
 G. Very likely such a passage as this, coming from the soul 
 of the great theologian (for this is the poetry of the soul, and 
 not of the artificial sentiment, nor of the mere worship of na- 
 ture), will seem to many persons like violets in the bosom of a 
 glac'ier. But no poet ever described the meek, modest flowers 
 so beautifully, rejoicing in a calm rapture. Jonathan Edwards 
 himself, with his grand views of sacred theology and history, his 
 living piety, and his great experience in the deep things of God, 
 was like a mountain glacier, in one respect, as the " par'ent of 
 perpetual streams," that arc then the deepest, when all the foun- 
 tains of tho world arc the driest ; like, also, in another respect, 
 that in climbing his theology you get very near to heaven, and 
 are in a very pure and bracing atmosphere ; like, again, in this, 
 that it requires much spiritual labor and discipline to surmount 
 his heights, and some care not to fall into the crev&ssfes; and 
 like, once more, in this, that when you get to the top, you have 
 a vast, 1 wide, glorious view of God's great plan, and see things 
 in their chains and connections, which before you only saw 
 separate and piecemeal. Ciieever. 
 
 George B. Ciieeveu was horn at ITallowell, "Maine, on the 17th of April, 1S07. 
 lie was graduated at Bowdoin College, September, 1S25, studied theology at 
 Andover, was licensed to preach in 1830, and was first settled as pastor over 
 Howard Street church of Salem, Massachusetts. lie went to Europe in 18GG, 
 
 teenth year. He preached in North- stalled president of Princeton College 
 ampton twenty-three years: was in January, 1758; and died on the 
 missionary to the Indians near Stock- 2'2d of March of the same vear. 
 
 * » 
 
 bridge, Mass., for six years ; was in- ' Vast, (vast), see Note 3, p. 22. 
 
 2<P 
 
±Q>G NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ■where he spent two years and six months. In 1839 he became pastor of tha 
 Allen Street church, New York, and in 1846 of the Church of the Puritans, a 
 position which he still retains. In 1844 he again visited Europe for a year. Dr. 
 Chcevcr is celebrated as a logician. He has a keen analytical mind, and com- 
 bining fancy with logic, succeeds equally well in allegory and in argumentation 
 His numerous and valuable works have gained him an enviable position in Amer- 
 ican literature. He has written extensively for our ablest reviews and periodicals, 
 lie was a valuable correspondent of the " New York Observer," when in Europe, 
 find editor of the " New York Evangelist" during 1845 and 1846. He is now a 
 contributor of "The Independent." His "Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress," 
 published in 1843, and " Voices of Nature," 1852, are among the ablest of his 
 productions, and indicate most truly his mode and range of thought. " Wander- 
 ings of a Pilgrim in the Shadow of Mont Blanc and the Yungfrau Alp," from 
 which the above extract is taken, published in 1846, on his return from his second 
 i isit to Europe, met with a very favorable reception. As a writer he is always 
 dear and unimpassioned ; he sees and hears and describes, never falling, through 
 excess of feeling, into confusion, or figure, or redundancy of expression. The 
 reader is strengthened by his power, calmed by his tranquillity, and incited to 
 eelf-denying and lofty views, by his earnest and vigorous presentation of truth. 
 
 vn. 
 
 150. ALPINE SCENERY. 
 
 ABOVE me are the Alps — most glorious Alps — 
 The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls 
 Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, 
 And throned Eternity in icy halls 
 Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 
 The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow ! 
 All that expands the spirit, yet appalls, 
 Gather around these summits, as to show 
 How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. 
 
 2. Lake Leman ' woos me with its crystal face, — 
 
 The mirror, where the stars and mountains view 
 The stillness of their aspect in each trace 
 
 Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue. 
 
 There is too much of man here, to look through, 
 With a fit mind, the might which I behold ; 
 
 But soon in me shall loneliness renew 
 
 1 L>e' man or Geneva, a crescent- eighty-four feet. Its waters, which 
 
 shaped lake of Europe, between are never entirely frozen over, havo 
 
 Switzerland r.ndtheSardinian States, a peculiar deep-blue color, are very 
 
 Length, forty-five miles ; breadth, transparent, and contain a great va- 
 
 from one to nine and a half miles ; riety of fish. Steam navigation was 
 
 and greatest depth, nine hundred and introduced in 1823. 
 
ALPINE SCENERY. 467 
 
 Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old, 
 Ere mingling with the herd that penned me in their fold. 
 
 3. Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake 
 
 With the wide world I've dwelt in is a thing 
 "Which w r arns me, with its stillness, to forsako 
 
 Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
 
 This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
 To waft me from distraction ; once I loved 
 
 Torn ocean's roar ; but thy soft murmuring 
 Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, 
 That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved, 
 
 4. It is the hush of night ; and all between 
 
 Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
 Mellowed and mingling, 3-et distinctly seen, 
 
 Save darkened Jura, 1 whose capped heights appear 
 
 Precipitously steep ; and drawing near, 
 There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 
 
 Of flowers yet fresh w T ith childhood ; on the ear 
 Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 
 Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more. 
 
 5. He is an evening reveler, who makes 
 
 His life an infancy, and sings his fill ; 
 At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
 
 Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
 
 There seems a floating whisper on the hill ; — 
 But that is fancy ; for the starlight dews 
 
 All silently their tears of love distill, 
 Weeping themselves away till they infuse 
 Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 
 
 G. Ye stars ! which arc the poetry of heaven, 
 
 If, in your bright leaves, we would read the fato 
 Of men and empires, — 'tis to be forgiven, 
 That in our aspirations to be great, 
 Our destinies 6'erleap their mortal state, 
 
 fc. — — ■ ■ 1 — — — . — - — - - ■■ - 1 1 , 
 
 3 Jura, (jo' ra), a chain of mount- breadth of thirty miles. One of the 
 
 ains which separates France from culminating points, and the highest, 
 
 Switzerland, extending for one hun- is Mount Molesson six thousand five 
 
 dred and eighty miles in the form of hundred and eighty-eight feet above 
 
 a curve, from S. to N. E., with a mean the level of tho sea. 
 
468 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 And claim a kindred with you ; for ye are 
 
 A beauty and a mystery, and create 
 In us such love and reverence from afar, 
 That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. 
 
 7. All heaven and earth are still, — though not in sleep, 
 
 But breathless, as we grow when feeling most ; 
 And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep : — 
 
 All heaven and earth are still ! From the high host 
 
 Of stars to the lulled lake, and mountain coast, 
 All is concentered in a life intense, 
 
 "Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
 But hath a part of being, and a sense 
 Of that which is of all Creator and Defense. 
 
 8. The sky is changed ! and such a change ! O Night, 
 
 And Storm, and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
 Yet lovely in your strength, as the light 
 
 Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 
 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
 Leaps the live thunder ! — not from one lone cloud, 
 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue ; 
 And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 
 
 9. And this is in the night. — Most glorious night ! 
 
 Tliou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
 ,A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, — 
 A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 
 How the lit lake shines, — a phosphoric sea — 
 And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 
 
 And now again 'tis black — and now, the glee 
 
 Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth, 
 
 As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 
 
 10. Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye, 
 With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
 To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
 
 Things that have made me watchful : — the far roll 
 Of your departing voices is the knoll 
 Of what in me is sleepless, — if I rest. 
 
 But where, of ye, O tempests ! is the goal ? 
 Are ye like those within the human breast? 
 Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest ? 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 469 
 
 11. The morn is up again, the dewy morn, 
 
 With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, 
 Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, 
 And living as if earth contained no tomb, — 
 And glowing into day : wo may resume 
 The march of our existence ; and thus I, 
 
 Still on thy shores, fair Leman ! may find room 
 And food for meditation, nor pass by 
 Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. 
 
 Lori> BrcioN. 
 
 SECTION XX NTIII. 
 
 I. 
 
 151. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 
 
 n^ I. EARLY DAWN.— Shelley. 
 
 THE point of one white star is quivering still 
 Deep in the orange light of widening morn, 
 Beyond the purple mountains : through a chasm 
 Of wind-divided mist the darker lake 
 Reflects it. Now it wanes : it gleams again 
 As the waves fade, and as the burning threads 
 Of woven cloud unravel in pale air : 
 'Tis lost ! and through yon peaks of cloud-lilje snow 
 The roseate sunlight quivers : hear I not 
 The iEolian ' music of her sea-green plumes 
 Winnowing the crimson dawn ? 
 
 II. DAYBREAK.— Longfellow. 
 A wind came up out of the sea, 
 And said, " O mists, make room for me !" 
 It hailed the ships, and cried, " Sail on, 
 Ye mariners ! the night is gone !" 
 And hurried landward far away, 
 Crying, "Awake! it is the day!" 
 It said unto the forest, " Shout ! 
 Hang all your leafy banners out !" 
 
 1 2E o' li an, pertaining to JEolus, the £od of the winds; hence, music 
 produced by wind may be termed JEolian music. 
 
470 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, 
 And said, "O bird, awake and sing!" 
 And o'er the farms, " O chanticleer, 
 Your clarion blow! the day is near!" 
 It whispered to the fields of corn, 
 " Bow down, and hail the coming morn 1" 
 It shouted through the belfry-tower, 
 " Awake, bell ! proclaim the hour I" 
 It crossed the church-yard with a sigh, 
 And said, " Not yet ! in quiet lie !" 
 
 III. DAYBREAK.— Shelley. 
 Bay had awakened all things that be, 
 The lark, and the thrush, and the swallow free, 
 And the milkmaid's song, and the mower's scythe, 
 And the matin bell, and the mountain bee : 
 
 Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn, 
 Glow-worms went out, on the river's brim, 
 Like lamps which a student forgets to trim : 
 
 The beetle forgot to wind his horn, 
 The crickets were still in the meadow and hill : 
 Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun, 
 Night's dreams and terrors, every one, 
 Fled from the brains which are their prey, 
 From the lamp's death to the morning ray. 
 
 IV. SUNRISE IN SOUTH AMERICA.— Bowles.* 
 'Tis dawn : — the distant Andes' rocky spires, 
 One after one, have caught the oriental fires. 
 Where the dun condor shoots his upward flight, 
 His wings are touched with momentary light. 
 
 William Lisle Bowles was born other poems in 1789. His sonnets 
 
 at Northamptonshire, England, on have, probably, never been surpassed. 
 
 September 25th, 1762. He received " The Missionary of the Andes," 
 
 his early education at Winchester, published in 1815, is, perhaps, as 
 
 where he was at the head of the good as any of his numerous and 
 
 school during his last year, and, in excellent poems. He entered the 
 
 consequence, was elected a scholar ministry, and in 1804, became Vicar 
 
 of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1781. of Bremhill, which was his residence 
 
 In 1783 he gained the chancellor's for nearly a quarter of a century, 
 
 prize for Latin verse ; and published He died at Salisbury, his last resi- 
 
 sevcral of his beautiful sonnets and dence, April 7th, 1850. 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 471 
 
 Meantime, beneath the mountains' glittering heads, 
 A boundless ocean of gray vapor spreads, 
 That o'er the champaign, stretching far below, 
 Moves on, in clustered masses, rising slow, 
 Till all the living landscape is displayed 
 In various pomp of color, light, and shade, — 
 Hills, forests, rivers, lakes, and level plain, 
 Lessening in sunshine to the southern main. 
 The lama's fleece fumes with ascending dew ; 
 The gem-like humming-birds their toils renew ; 
 And see, where yonder stalks, in crimson pride, 
 The tall flamingo, by the river's side, — 
 Stalks, in his richest plumage bright arrayed, 
 With snowy neck superb, and legs of lengthening shade. 
 
 V. DAWN.— Willis. 
 Throw up the window 1 'Tis a morn for lifo 
 In its most subtle luxury. The air 
 Is like a breathing from a rarer world ; 
 And the south wind is like a gentle friend, 
 Parting the hair so softly on my brow. 
 It has come over gardens, and flowers 
 That kissed it are betrayed ; for as it parts, 
 With its invisible fingers, my loose hair, 
 I know it has been trifling with the rose, 
 And stooping to the violet. There is joy 
 For all God's creatures in it. The wet leaves 
 Are stirring at its touch ; and birds are singing, 
 As if to breathe were music ; and the grass 
 Sends up its modest odor with the dew, 
 Like the small tribute of humility. 
 VI. MORNING.— Milton. 
 
 Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, 
 "With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun, 
 When first on this delightful land ho spreads 
 His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, 
 Glistering with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
 After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on 
 Of grateful evening mild : then silent Night, 
 With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, 
 And these the gems of heaven, her starry train. 
 
£72 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 VII. MORNING ON THE RHINE.— Bowles. 
 
 'Twas morn, and beautiful the mountain's brow — 
 Hung with the clusters of the bending vino — 
 Shone in the early light, when on the Khine 
 
 "We sailed, and heard the waters round the prow 
 
 In murmurs parting : varying as we go, 
 Bocks after rocks come forward and retire, 
 As some gray convent-wall or sun-lit. sjrire 
 
 Starts up, along the banks, unfolding slow. 
 
 Here castles, like the prisons of despair, 
 
 Frown as we pass! — There, on the vineyard's side, 
 The bursting sunshine pours its streaming tide ; 
 "While Gkief, forgetful amid scenes so fair, 
 
 Counts not the hours of a long summer's day, 
 
 Nor heeds how fast the prospect winds away. 
 
 VIII. MORNING SOUNDS.— Beattie.i 
 
 But who the melodies of morn can tell ?— 
 The wild brook babbling down the mountain's side ; 
 
 The lowing herd ; the sheepfold's simple bell ; 
 The pipe of early shepherd, dim descried 
 In the lone valley ; echoing far and wide, 
 
 The clamorous horn along the cliffs above ; 
 The hollow murmur of the ocean-tide ; 
 
 The hum of bees ; the linnet's lay of love ; 
 And the full choir that wakes the universal crove. 
 
 & j 
 
 The cottage cur3 at early pilgrim bark ; 
 Crowned with her pail, the tripping milkmaid sings ; 
 
 The whistling plowman stalks afield ; and hark! 
 Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings ; 
 Through rustling corn the hare astonished springs ; 
 
 Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour ; 
 The patridge bursts away on whirring wings ; 
 
 Deep mourns the turtle in sequestered bower ; 
 And shrill lark carols clear from her aerial tower. 
 
 1 James Beattie, the well-known and of the " Essay on Truth," was 
 Scotch poet and moralist, author of born December 5th, 17G5, and died 
 the celebrated poem, the " Minstrel," August 18th, 1803. 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 473 
 
 IX. EARLY RISING.— IIurdis.i 
 Rise wim the lark, and with the lark to bed. 
 The breath of night's destructive to the hue 
 Of every flower that blows. Go to the field, 
 And ask the humble daisy why it sleeps, 
 Soon as the sun departs. AVhy close the eyes 
 Of blossoms infinite, ere the still moon 
 Her oriental vail puts off? Think why, 
 Nor let the sweetest blossom be exposed, 
 That nature boasts, to night's unkindly damp. 
 "Well may it droop, and all its freshness lose, 
 Compelled to taste the rank and poisonous steam 
 Of midnight theater, and morning ball. 
 Give to repose the solemn hour she claims ; 
 And from the fore/iead of the morning steal 
 The sweet occasion. 
 
 Oh ! there is a charm 
 That morning has, that gives the brow of age 
 A smack of youth, and makes the lip of youth 
 Breathe per'fumes exquisite. Expect it not, 
 Ye who till noon upon a down-bed lie, 
 Indulging feverish sleep ; or wakeful, dream 
 Of happiness no mortal heart has felt, 
 But in the regions of romance'. Ye fair, 
 Like you it must be wooed, or never won ; 
 And, being lost, it is in vain ye ask 
 For milk of roses and Olympian dew. 
 Cosmetic art no tincture can afford 
 The faded features to restore : no chain, 
 Be it of gold, and strong as adamant, 
 Can fetter beauty to the fair one's will. 
 
 n. 
 
 152. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 
 
 I. INVOCATION TO NIGHT.— J. F. Rollings. 
 
 COME, with thy sweeping cloud and starry vest 
 Mother of counsel, and the joy which lies 
 In feelings deep, and inward sympathies, 
 
 5 James Hurdis, an English poet, born in 1763, and died in 1801. 
 
474 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Soothing, like founts of health, the wearied breast. 
 Lo ! o'er the distant hills the day-star's crest 
 
 Sinks redly burning ; and the winds arise, 
 
 Moving with shadowy gusts and feeble sighs 
 Amid the reeds which veil the bittern's nest ! 
 Day hath its melody and light — the sense 
 
 Of mirth which sports round fancy's fairy mine ; 
 But the full power, which loftier aids dispense, 
 
 To speed the soul where scenes unearthly shine — 
 Silence, and peace, and stern magnificence, 
 
 And awe, and throned solemnity — are thine ! 
 
 II. A TWILIGHT PICTURE.— Whittieb. 
 The twilight deepened round us. Still and black 
 The great woods climbed the mountain at our back : 
 And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day 
 On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, 
 
 The brown old farm-house like a bird's nest hung. 
 With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred : 
 The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard, 
 The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, 
 The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell ; 
 Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed ; the gate 
 Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry weight 
 
 Of sun-brown children, listening, while they swung. 
 The welcome sound of supper-call to hear ; 
 And down the shadowy lane, in tinklings clear, 
 
 The pastoral curfew of the cow-beU rung. 
 
 III. EVENING.— Cbolt. 
 "When eve is purpling cliff and cave, 
 
 Thoughts of the heart, how soft ye flow I 
 Not softer on the western wave 
 
 The golden lines of sunset glow. 
 Then all by chance or fate removed, 
 
 Like spirits crowd upon the eye, — 
 The few we liked, the one we loved, — 
 
 And the whole heart is memory : 
 And life is like a fading flower, 
 
 Its beauty dying as we gaze ; 
 Yet as the shadows round us lower, 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 475 
 
 Heaven p6ur3 above a brighter blaze. 
 When morning sheds its gorgeous dye, 
 
 - Our hope, our heart, to earth is given ; 
 But dark and lonely is the eye 
 
 That turns not, at its eve, to heaven. 
 
 IV. NIGHT.— COLEBIDQE.1 
 
 TnE crackling embers on the hearth are dead ; 
 
 The in-door note of in'dustry is still ; 
 
 The latch is fast ; upon the window-sill 
 The small birds wait not for their daily bread : 
 The voiceless flowers — how quietly they shed 
 
 Their nightly odors ! and the household rill 
 
 Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds, that fill 
 The vacant expectation, and the dread 
 Of listening night. And haply now she sleeps ; 
 
 For all the garrulous noises of the air 
 Are hushed in peace : the soft dew silent weeps, 
 
 Like hopeless lovers, for a maid so fair .• — 
 Oh ! that I were the happy drearn that creeps 
 
 To her soft heart, to find my image there. 
 
 V. NIGHT AT CORINTH.'— Byrox. 
 'Tis midnight : on the mountains brown 
 The cold round moon shines deeply down : 
 Blue roll the waters : blue the sky 
 Spreads like an ocean hung on high, 
 Bespangled with those isles of light, 
 So widely, spiritually bright ; — 
 "Who ever gazed upon them shining, 
 And turned to earth without repining, 
 Nor wished for wings to flee away, 
 And mix with their eternal ray ? 
 The waves on either shore lay there 
 
 1 Hartley Coleridge, eldest son of brilliancy of imagery, beauty of 
 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was born thought, pure English style, and 
 
 at Clevcdown, a small village near pleasing and instructive suggestions. 
 
 Bristol, England, September 19th, Ho died on the Gth of January, 1849. 
 
 1796. Some of his poems are ex- 3 The night here described is sup- 
 
 quisitely beautiful, and his sonnets posed to have been in 1715, when 
 
 are surpassed by few in the language. Corinth, then in possession of the 
 
 His prose works are remarkable for Venetians, was besieged by theTurks. 
 
4:76 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Calm, clear, and azure as the air ; 
 And scarce their foam the pebbles shook, 
 But murmured meekly as the brook. 
 The winds were pillowed on the waves ; 
 The banners drooped along their staves, 
 And, as they fell around them furling, 
 Above them shone the crescent curling : 
 And that deep silence was unbroke, 
 Save where the watch his signal spoke, 
 Save where the steed neighed 6ft and shrill, 
 And echo answered from the hill ; 
 And the wild hum of that wild host 
 Rustled like leaves from coast to coast, 
 As rose the Muezzin's x voice in air 
 In midnight call to wonted a prayer. 
 
 VI. A SUMMER'S NIGHT.— Bailey.' 
 
 The last high upward slant of sun on the trees, 
 
 Like a dead soldier's sword upon his pall, 
 
 Seems to console earth for the glory gone. 
 
 Oh ! I could weep to see the day die thus. 
 
 The death-bed of a day, how beautiful ! 
 
 Linger, ye clouds, one moment longer there ; 
 
 Fan it to slumber with your golden wings! 
 
 Like pious prayers, ye seem to soothe its end. 
 
 It will wake no more till the all-revealing day ; 
 
 When, like a drop of water, greatened bright 
 
 Into a shadow, it shall show itself, 
 
 With all its little tyrannous things and deeds, 
 
 Unhomed and clear. The day hath gone to God, — 
 
 Straight — like an infant's spirit, or a mocked 
 
 And mourning messenger of grace to man. 
 
 Would it had taken me too on its wings ! 
 
 My end is nigh. Would I might die outright ! 
 
 1 Mu ez' zin, one appointed by the 22d, 1816. He was educated in the 
 
 Turks, who use no bells for the pur- schools of his native town and at 
 
 pose, to summon the religious to their the university of Glasgow. His first 
 
 devotions, to the extent of his voice, and most remarkable poem, "Festus," 
 
 3 Wonted, (wunf ed). appeared in 1839. His principal 
 
 ■ Philip James Bailey, an English publications since are the "Angel 
 
 poet, was born in Nottingham, April World " and " Mystic." 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 477 
 
 So o'er tho sunset clouds of red mortality 
 The emerald hues of deathlessness diffuse 
 Their glory, heightening to the starry blue 
 Of all embosoming eternity. 
 
 VII. NIGHT AND DEATH.— Wiiite." 
 Mysterious night ! when our first parent knew 
 
 Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, 
 
 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 
 This glorious canopy of light and blue ? 
 Yet 'neam a curtain of translucent dew, 
 
 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
 
 Hesperus, 2 with the host of heaven came ; 
 And lo ! creation widened in man's view. 
 Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
 
 Within thy beams, Sun ? or who could find, 
 While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, 
 
 That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind ? 
 Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ? — 
 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? 
 
 VIII. NIGHT.— Shelley. 
 How beautiful this night ! The balmiest sigh, 
 Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, 
 Were discord to the speaking quietude 
 That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, 
 Studded with stars unutterably bright, 
 Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, 
 Seems like a canopy which love has spread 
 To curtain her sleeping world. Y6n gentle hills, 
 Eobed in a garment of untrodden snow ; 
 Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend, — 
 So stainless, that their white and glittering spires 
 Tinge not the moon's pure beam ; yon castled steep, 
 Whose banner hangtth o'er the time-worn tower 
 So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it 
 A metaphor of peace ; — all form a scene 
 
 1 Joseph Blanco White, a Spanish, the magazines and periodical press, 
 
 gentleman of Irish descent, "who lie was born in 1775, and died in 1841. 
 
 came to England in lS10,and devoted 5 Hes' perils, the evening star, 
 
 himself to literature, chiefly through especially Venus. 
 
478 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Where musing solitude might love to lift 
 Her soul above this sphere of earthliness ; 
 Where silence, undisturbed, might watch alone, 
 So cold, so bright, so still. 
 
 IX. THE MOON.— Charlotte Smith.* 
 
 Queen of the silver bow ! by thy pale beam, 
 
 Alone and pensive, I delight to stray, 
 And watch thy shadow trembling in the stream, 
 
 Or mark the floating clouds that cross thy way : 
 And while I gaze, thy mild and placid light 
 
 Sheds a soft calm upon my troubled breast ; 
 And 6ft I think, fair planet of the night, 
 
 That in thy orb the wretched may have rest ; 
 The sufferers of the earth perhaps may go, 
 
 Released by death, to thy benignant sphere, 
 And the sad children of despair and woe 
 
 Forget, in thee, their cup of sorrow here. 
 Oh ! that I soon may reach thy world serene 
 Poor wearied pilgrim in this toiling scene ! 
 
 X. THE STARS.— Darwin.» 
 
 Roll on, ye stars ; exult in youthful prime ; 
 Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time ; 
 Near and more near your beamy cars approach, 
 And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach. 
 Flowers of the sky, ye, too, to age must yield, 
 Frail as your silken sisters of the field. 
 
 1 Mrs. Charlotte Smith (Miss for her poetry, which abounds with 
 
 Turner) was born in King Street, touches of tenderness, grace, and 
 
 St. James Square, London, May beauty. She died on the 28th of 
 
 4th, 1749. Her first collection of October, 180G. 
 
 sonnets and other poems was very " Erasmus Darwin, an English 
 
 popular, passing through no less physician, poet, and botanist, was 
 
 than eleven editions. Her first born at Elton, in 1731, and after 
 
 novel, " Emmeline," which was ex- taking his degree at Edinburgh, 
 
 ceedingly popular, appeared in 1788. pursued his professional career at 
 
 Her novels and other prose works, Litchfield, from which place he re. 
 
 in all about forty volumes, were moved to Derby, where he died in 
 
 much admired by Sir Walter Scott 1802. Dr. Darwin was an original 
 
 and other contemporaries ; but she thinker, a great adept in analogies, 
 
 is now most known and most valued and nn able versifier. 
 
LOCHINVAR'S RIDE. 479 
 
 Star after star from heaven's high arch shall rush, 
 Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush, 
 Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall, 
 And death, and night, and chaos mingle all ; 
 Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm, 
 Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form, 
 Mounts from her funeral pyre, on wings of flame, 
 And soars and shines, another and the same. 
 
 SECTION XXIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 153. LOCHINVAR'S RIDE. 
 
 OH, young Lochinvar is come out of the West, — 
 Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ! 
 And save his good broadsirord 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. 
 
 2. 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 Netherby 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. 
 
 3. So boldly he entered the Xetherby hall, 
 
 'Mong bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all : 
 Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword 
 (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word), 
 " O, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, 
 Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar ?" 
 
 4. "I long wooed your daughter, — my suit you denied ; — 
 Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide ; 
 And now am I 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 gladly be bride to the vourig Lochinvar.' 1 
 
4:80 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. 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 bar, — 
 "Now tread we a measure V said young Lochinvar. 
 
 6. So stately his form, and so lovely her face, 
 That never a hall such a galliard did grace ; 
 While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, 
 
 And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume ; 
 And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better, by far, 
 To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." 
 
 7. 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 croup the fair lady he swung, 
 
 So light to the saddle before her he sprung ! 
 
 " She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scar ; 
 
 They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar. 
 
 8. There was mounting 'mong Grsemes of the Netherby clan ; 
 Forsters, Fenwicks, 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 ? 
 
 Scott. 
 
 II. 
 
 154. THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE. 
 
 ~VYT"ORD was brought to the Danish king 
 
 V V (Hurry !) 
 
 That the love of his heart lay suffering, 
 And pined for the comfort his voice would bring ; 
 
 (O ! ride as though you were flying !) 
 Better he loves each golden curl 
 On the brow of that Scandinavian girl 
 Than his rich crown jewels of ruby and pearl ; 
 
 And his Rose of the Isles is dying ! 
 
 2. Thirty nobles saddled with speed ; 
 (Hurry!) 
 
THE KING OF DENMARK'S RIDE 481 
 
 Each one mounting a gallant steed 
 
 Which ho kept for battle and days of need ; 
 
 (0 ! ride as though you were flying !) 
 Spurs were struck in the foaming flank ; 
 "Worn-out chargers staggered and sank ; 
 Bridles were slackened, and girths were burst ; 
 But ride as they would, the king rode first, 
 
 For his Rose of the Isles lay dying ! 
 
 3. His nobles are beaten, one by one ; 
 (Hurry !) 
 They have fainted, and faltered, and homeward gone ; 
 His little fair page now follows alone, 
 
 For strength and for courage trying 
 The king looked back at that faithful child ; 
 "Wan was the face that answering smiled ; 
 They passed the drawbridge with clattering din, 
 Then he dropped ; and only the king rode in 
 Where his Rose of the Isles lay dying ! 
 
 4 The king blew a blast on his bugle horn ; 
 (Silence !) 
 No answer came ; but faint and forlorn 
 An echo returned on the cold gray morn, 
 
 Like the breath of a spirit sighing. 
 The castle portal stood grimly wide ; 
 None welcomed the king from that weary ride ; 
 For dead, in the light of the dawning day, 
 The pale sweet form of the wclcomer lay, 
 Who had yearned for his voice while dying ! 
 
 5. The panting steed, with a drooping crest, 
 
 Stood weary. 
 
 The king returned from her chamber cf lest, 
 
 The thick sobs choking in his breast ; 
 
 And, that dumb companion eyeing, 
 
 The tears gushed forth which he strove to check ; 
 
 He bowed his head on his charger's neck : 
 
 " O, steed — that every nerve didst strain, 
 
 Dear steed, our ride hath been in vain 
 
 To the halls where my love lay dying l" 
 
 Caroline No-rton. 
 
4S2 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 m. 
 
 155. SHERIDAN'S RIDE. 
 
 UP from the South at break of day, 
 Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, 
 The affrighted air with a shudder bore, 
 Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door, 
 The terrible grumble and rumble and roar, 
 Telling the battle was on once more, 
 And Sheridan — twenty miles away. 
 
 2. And wider still those billows of war 
 Thundered along the horl'zon's bar, 
 And louder yet into Winchester rolled 
 The roar of that red sea uncontrolled, 
 Making the blood of the listener cold 
 
 As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray, 
 And Sheridan — twenty miles away. 
 
 3. But there is a road from Winchester town, 
 A good, broad highw T ay leading down ; 
 
 And there, through the flush of the morning light, 
 
 A steed, as black as the steeds of night, 
 
 Was seen to pass as with eagle flight — 
 
 As if he knew the terrible need, 
 
 He stretched away with the utmost speed ; 
 
 Hills rose and fell — but his heart was gay, 
 
 W T ith Sheridan fifteen miles away. 
 
 4. Still sprung from these swift hoofs, thundering South, 
 The dust, like the smoke from the cannon's mouth, 
 Or the trail of a comet sweeping faster and faster, 
 Foreboding to foemen the doom of disaster ; 
 
 The heart of the steed and the heart of the master 
 Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, 
 Impatient to be where the battle-field calls ; 
 Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, 
 AVith Sheridan only ten miles away. 
 
 6. Under his spurning feet, the road 
 Like an arrowy Al'pine river flowed, 
 And the landscape sped away behind 
 Like an ocean flying before the wind ; 
 
THK HIDE FROM GHENT TO A IX. 483 
 
 And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire, 
 Swept on with his wild eyes full of fire. 
 But, lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire — 
 He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, 
 With Sheridan only five miles away. 
 
 6. The first that the General saw were the groups 
 Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops ; — 
 What was done — what to do — a glance told him both, 
 Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath, 
 
 He dashed down the line 'mid a storm of huzzahs, 
 
 And the wave of retreat checked its course there because 
 
 The sight of the master compelled it to pause. 
 
 With foam and with dust the black charger was gray ; 
 
 By the flash of his eye, and his red nostril's play, 
 
 He seemed to the whole great army to say, 
 
 " I have brought you Sheridan all the way 
 
 From Winchester down lo save the day!" 
 
 7. Hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan ! 
 Hurrah, hurrah for horse and man ! 
 
 And when their statues are placed on high 
 
 Under the dome of the Union sky, — 
 
 The American soldier's Tenrole of Fame, — 
 
 There, with the glorious General's name, 
 
 Be it said in letters both bold and bright : 
 
 " Here is the steed that saved the day 
 
 By carrying Sheridan into the fight 
 
 From Winchester — twenty miles away!" T. B. Reed. 
 
 IV. 
 
 15G. THE RIDE FROM GHENT TO AIX. 
 
 I SPRANG to the stirrup (stur'rup), and Joris and he : 
 I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 
 "Good speed !" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; 
 " Speed !" echoed the wall to us galloping through ; 
 Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 
 And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 
 
 2. Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace — 
 Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place ; 
 
484 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 I turned in rny saddle and made its girths tigLfc, 
 Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 
 Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit, 
 Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 
 
 3. 'Twas moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 
 Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; 
 At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; 
 
 At Diifleld 'twas morning as plain as could be ; 
 
 And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime — > 
 
 So Joris broke silence with " Yet there is time ! " 
 
 4. At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun, 
 And against him the cattle stood black every one, 
 To stare through the mist at us galloping past ; 
 And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 
 With resolute shoulders, each butting away 
 
 The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray. 
 
 5. And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 
 For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 
 And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 
 
 O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ; 
 And the thick heavy spume-flakes, which aye and anon 
 His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on. 
 
 6. By Hasselt Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, " Stay spur ! 
 Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her ; 
 We'll remember at Aix" (aks) — for one heard the quick wheeze 
 Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and staggering knees, 
 And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 
 
 As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 
 
 7. So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
 
 Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; 
 
 The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh ; 
 
 'Neath our feet broke the brittle, bright stubble like chaff ; 
 
 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 
 
 And " Gallop" gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight ! 
 
 8. " How they'll greet us !" — and all in a moment his roan 
 Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 
 And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 
 
 Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, 
 With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 
 And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 
 
CHARACTER OF HAMLET. 485 
 
 9. Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, 
 Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 
 Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
 Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer ; 
 Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, 
 Till at length into Aix lioland galloped and stood. 
 
 10. And all I remember is friends flocking round, 
 
 As I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; 
 
 And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 
 
 As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 
 
 "Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
 
 Was no more than his due who brought good news from 
 
 Ghent. Browning. 
 
 Robert Browning, one of the most remarkable English poets of the age, was 
 born in Camberwell, a suburb of London, in 1812, and educated at the London 
 University. At the age of twenty he went to Italy, where he passed some time 
 studying the mediaeval history of the country, and making himself acquainted 
 with the life, habits, and characteristics of its people. The effect of his Italian 
 life is distinctly perceivable in the selection of subjects for his poems and his 
 treatment of them. His first work, " Paracelsus," a dramatic poem of great 
 power, appeared in is;;5. Mr. Browning was married to Elizabeth Barrett, in 
 November, 1846. His collective poems, in two volumes, appeared in London 
 in 1840, and since then three additional volumes were publbhcd, all of which 
 have been republished in this country. Though a true poet, of original genius, 
 both dramatic and lyrical, his poems are not popular among the masses. Much 
 of his poetry is written for poets, requiring careful study, and repaying all that 
 is given to it. A few of his dramatic lyrics, however, such as "The Pied Piper 
 of Hamelin," "The Lost Leader," "Incident of the French Camp," and "How 
 they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," are unrivaled in elements of 
 popularity. 
 
 SECTION XXX. 
 I. 
 
 157. CHARACTER OF HAMLET. 
 
 HAMLET is a name : his speeches and sayings but the idle 
 coinage of the poet's brain. But are they not real ? They 
 are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the reader's 
 mind. It is we who are Hamlet. This play is a prophetic truth, 
 which is above that of history. 
 
 2. Whoever has become thoughtful and inel'aneholv through 
 his own mishaps or those of others ; whoever has borne about 
 
4:8(3 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 wifih liim the clouded brow of reflection, and thought himself 
 " too much i' th' sun ;" whoever has seen the golden lamp of 
 day dimmed by envious mists rising in his own breast, and 
 could find in the world before him only a dull blank, with 
 nothing left remarkable in it ; whoever has known " the pangs 
 of despised love, the insolence of office, or the spurns which 
 patient merit of the unworthy takes ;" he who has felt his mind 
 sink within him, and sadness cling to his heart like a malady ; 
 who has had his hopes blighted and his youth staggered by the 
 apparitions of strange things ; who can not be well at ease, 
 while he sees evil hovering near him like a specter ; whose 
 powers of action have been eaten up by thought ; he to whom 
 the universe seems infinite, and himself nothing ; whose bitter- 
 ness of soul makes him careless of consequences : this is the 
 true Hamlet. 
 
 3. We have been so used to this tragedy, 1 that we hardly 
 know how to criticise it, any more than we should know how 
 to describe our own faces. But we must make such observa- 
 tions as we can. It is the one of Shakspeare's plays, that we 
 think of oftenest, because it abounds most in striking reflections 
 on human life, and because the distresses of Hamlet are trans- 
 ferred, by the turn of his mind, to the general account of human- 
 ity. Whatever happens to him, we apply to ourselves ; because 
 he applies it so himself, as a means of general reasoning. 
 
 4. He is a great nioralizer, and what makes him worth at- 
 tending to, is, that he moralizes on his own feelings and expe- 
 rience. He is not a commonplace pedant. If Lear shows the 
 greatest depth of passion, Hamlet is the most remarkable for 
 the ingenuity, originality, and unstudied development of char- 
 acter. There is no attempt to force an interest : every thing is 
 left for time and cir'cumstances to unfold. The attention is 
 excited without effort ; the incidents succeed each other as 
 matters of course ; the characters think, and speak, and act, 
 just as they might do, if left entirely to themselves. There is 
 no set purpose, no straining aj; a point. 
 
 5. The observations are suggested by the passing scene — the 
 gusts of passion come and go like sounds of music borne on the 
 
 1 Trag' e dy, a poem prepared for persons, having a fatal and mourn- 
 the stage, representing some remark- ful end ; any event by which human 
 able action, performed by illustrious lives are lost by human violence. 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. . 437 
 
 'wind. The whole play is an exact transcript of what might be 
 supposed to have taken place at the court of Denmark, at the 
 remote period of time fixed upon, before the modern refinements 
 in morals and manners were heard of. It w T ould have been 
 m'teresting enough to have been admitted, as a by-stander in 
 such a scene, at such a time, to have heard and seen something 
 of what was going on. 
 
 6. But hero we are more than spectators. We have not only 
 "the outward pageants and the signs of grief," but "we have 
 that within which passes show." We read the thoughts of the 
 heart, we catch the passions living as they rise. Other dramatic 
 writers give us very fine versions and paraphrases of nature ; 
 but Shakspeare, together with his own comment, gives us the 
 original text, that we may judge for ourselves. This is a great 
 advantage. 
 
 7. The character of Hamlet is itself a pure effusion of genius. 
 It is not a character marked by strength of will, or even of 
 passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet 
 is as little of the hero as man well can be : but he is a young 
 and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensi- 
 bility, — the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune, 
 and refining on his own feelings ; and forced from the natural 
 bias of his disposition by the strangeness of his situation. 
 
 Hazlitt. 
 William Hazlitt, an English author, was horn at Maidstone, April 10th, 
 1778. After graduating at college, he first became a painter, but finding he was 
 not likely to reach the highest standard, he renounced the art and embarked in 
 a literary career. His essay on "The Principles of Human Action," appeared 
 in 1805. Thenceforth his principal support was derived from his contributions 
 to the periodicals, and his occasional publications and lectures. Among his 
 best known works are : "Characters of Sbakspeare's Plays," which appeared in 
 London in 1817; "A View of the English Stage," 1818; "Lectures on the En- 
 glish Poets," 1818; "Lectures on the English Comic Writers," 1819; "Tkble 
 Talk," 1821 ; and " Life of Napoleon Bonaparte." He lived In Loudon daring the 
 last twenty years of his life, in a house in Westminster, once occupied by Milton. 
 He died September IS, 1SC0. 
 
 n. 
 
 158. SCENES FROM HAMLET. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 Enter the King, Queen, Hamlet, Lords, and Attendants. 
 
 KING. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death 
 The memory be green ; and that it us befitted 
 To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom 
 
488 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 To be contracted in one brow of woe ; 
 Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature, 
 That we with wisest sorrow think on him, 
 Together with remembrance of ourselves. 
 Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen. 
 The imperial jointress of this warlike state, 
 Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy, — 
 Taken to wife : nor have we herein barred 
 Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone 
 With this affair along : — For all, our thanks. 
 But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son, 
 
 Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind. [Aside 
 
 King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you ? 
 
 Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i J the sun. 
 
 Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, 
 And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. 
 Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids, 
 Seek for thy noble father in the dust : 
 Thou know'st, 'tis common ; all that live, must die, 
 Passing through nature to eternity. 
 
 Ham. Ay, madam, it is common. 
 
 Queen. If it be, 
 
 Why seems it so particular with thee ? 
 
 Ham. Seems, madam ! nay, it is ; I know not seems. 
 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 
 Nor customary suits of solemn black, 
 Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, 
 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, 
 Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, 
 Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, 
 That can denote me truly : These, indeed, seem ; 
 For they are actions that a man might play : 
 But I have that within, which passeth show ; 
 These, but the trappings and the suits of woe. 
 
 King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, 
 To give these mourning duties to your father : 
 But, you must know, your father lost a father ; 
 That father lost, lost his ; and the survivor bound, 
 In filial obligation, for some term 
 To do obsequious sorrow : but to persevere 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. 489 
 
 In obstinate condolemtnt, is a course 
 
 Of impious stubbormiess ; 'tis unmanly grief : 
 
 It shows a will most incorrect to heaven ; 
 
 A heart unfortified, or mind impatient : 
 
 An understanding simple and unschooled : 
 
 For what, we know, must be ; and is as common 
 
 As any of the most vulgar thing to sense, 
 
 Why should we, in our peevish opposition, 
 
 Take it to heart ? Fye ! 'tis a fault to heaven. 
 
 We pray you, throw to earth 
 
 This unprevailing woe ; and think of us 
 
 As of a father : for let the world take note, 
 
 You are the most immediate to our throne ; 
 
 Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son. 
 
 Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet : 
 I pray thee stay with us ; go not to Wittenberg. 
 
 Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, madam. 
 
 King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply ; 
 Be as ourself in Denmark. — Madam, come ; 
 This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet 
 Sits smiling to my heart : in grace whereof, 
 No jocund health, that Denmark drinks to-day 
 But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell ; 
 Ilc-speaking earthly thunder. Come away. 
 
 [Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. 
 
 Earn. Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt, 
 Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ! 
 Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 
 His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! 
 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable 
 Seem to me all the uses of this world ! 
 Fye on't ! Oh fye ! 'tis an unweeded garden, 
 That grows to seed : things rank, and gross in nature, 
 Possess it merely. That it should come to this ! 
 But two months dead ! — nay, not so much, not two ; 
 So excellent a king ; that was, to this, 
 Hyperion ' to a satyr : 3 so loving to my mother, 
 
 1 Hy pe'ri on, the father of Au- of Apollo, the god of day, who was 
 rora, and the Sun and Moon ; or, as distinguished for his beauty. 
 Shakspeare represents, this is a name ' Sa'tyr, a demigod or dehy of 
 
 21* 
 
490 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 That lie might not beteem'the winds of heaven 
 
 Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth ! 
 
 Must I remember ? And yet, within a month, — 
 
 Let me not think on't ; — Frailty, thy name is woman I— 
 
 A little month ; or ere those shoes were old, 
 
 "With which she followed my poor father's body, 
 
 Like Ni'obe, all tears ; — why she, even she, — 
 
 heaven ! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 
 Would have mourned longer, — married with my uncle, 
 My father's brother ; but no more like my father, 
 Than I to Hercules : 
 
 It is not, nor it can not come to, good ; 
 But break, my heart ; for I must hold my tongue ! 
 Enter Horatio, Bernardo, and Marcellus. 
 
 Hor. Hail to your lordship ! 
 
 Ham. I am glad to see you well : 
 
 Horatio, — or I do forget myself. 
 
 Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever. 
 
 Ham. Sir, my good friend ; I'll change that name with you 
 And what make you from Wit'tenberg, Horatio ? — 
 Marcellus ? 
 
 Mar. My good lord. 
 
 Ham. I am very glad to see you ; good even, sir, — 
 But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg ? 
 
 Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord. 
 
 Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so ; 
 Nor shall you do mine ear that violence, 
 To make it truster of your own report 
 Against yourself : I know, you are no truant. 
 But what is your affair in Elsinore ? 
 We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart. 
 
 Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. 
 
 Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student ; 
 
 1 think, it was to see my mother's wedding. 
 
 Hor. Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon. 
 
 the wood, described as a monster, the nose round and turned upward, 
 
 part man and part goat, and charac- the ears pointed, with two small 
 
 terized by riotous merriment and in- horns growing out of the forehead, 
 
 dulgence in sensual pleasure. Sa- and a tail like that of a goat, 
 
 tyrs are represented with bristly hair, ' Be teem', allow; Buffer. 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. 491 
 
 Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio ! the funeral baked meats 
 Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 
 'Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven 
 Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio ! — 
 My father, — Methinks, I see my father. 
 
 Ilor. Where, 
 
 My lord ? 
 
 Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio. 
 
 Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly king. 
 
 Ham. He was (woz) a man, take him for all in all, 
 I shall not look upon his like again. 
 
 Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight 
 
 Ham. Saw ! whom ? 
 
 Hor. My lord, the king your father. 
 
 Ham. The king, my father ? 
 
 Hor. Season your admiration for a while 
 With an atteut ear ; till I may deliver, 
 Upon the witness of these gentlemen, 
 This marvel to you. 
 
 Ham. For heaven's love, let me hear. 
 
 Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen, 
 Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch, 
 In the dead waist and middle of the night, 
 Been thus encountered. A figure like your father, 
 Armed at point, exactly, cap-a-pe, 
 Appears before thein, and, with solemn march, 
 Goes slow and stately by them : thrice he walked, 
 By their oppressed and fear-surprised eyes, 
 Within his truncheon's length ; whilst they, distilled 
 Almost to jelly with the act of fear, 
 Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me 
 In dreadful secrecy impart they did ; 
 And I with them, the third night kept the watch , 
 WTiere, as they had delivered, both in time, 
 Form of the thing, each word made true and good, 
 The apparition comes : I knew your father ; 
 These hands are not more like. 
 
 Ham. But where was this ? 
 
 Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watched. 
 
 Ham. Did you not speak to it ? 
 
492 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Hor. My lord, I did ; 
 
 But answer made it none (nun) ; yet once, niethought, 
 It lifted up its head, and did address 
 ^Itself to motion, like as it would speak ; 
 But, even then, the morning cock crew loud ; 
 And, at the sound, it shrunk in haste away, 
 And vanished from our sight. 
 
 Ham. 'Tis very strange. 
 
 Hor. As I do live, my honored lord, 'tis true ; 
 And we did think it writ down in our duty, 
 To let you know of it. 
 
 Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles ma 
 Hold you the watch to-night ? 
 
 All. We do, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Armed, say you ? 
 
 All. Armed, my lord. 
 
 Ham. From top to toe ? 
 
 All. My lord, from head to foot. 
 
 Ham. Then saw vou not 
 
 His face ? 
 
 Hor. O, yes, my lord ; he wore his beaver up 
 
 Ham. What ! looked he frowningly ? 
 
 Hor. A countenance more 
 
 In sorrow than in anger. 
 
 Ham. Pale, or red ? 
 
 Hor. Nay, very pale. 
 
 Ham. And fixed his eyes upon you ? 
 
 Hor. Most constantly. 
 
 Ham. I would, I had been there. 
 
 Hor. It would have much amazed you. 
 
 Ham. Very like, 
 
 Very like. Stay'd it long ? 
 
 Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred* 
 
 Ham. His beard was grizzled ? — no ? 
 
 Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, 
 A sable silvered. 
 
 Ham. I will watch to-night ; 
 
 Perchance, 'twill walk again. 
 
 Hor. I wan-ant, 'twill. 
 
 Ham. If it assume my noble father's person, 
 
SCENES FKOM HAMLET. 493 
 
 I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, 1 
 And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all, 
 If you have hitherto concealed this sight, 
 Let it be tenable in your silence still ; 
 And whatsoever else shall hap to-night, 
 Give it an understanding, but no tongue : 
 I will requite your loves. So, fare you well : 
 Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve, 
 I'll visit you. 
 
 All. Our duty to your honor. 
 
 Ham. Your loves, as mine to you : Farewell. 
 
 [Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo. 
 My father's spirit in arms ! all is not well ; 
 I doubt some foul play : 'would, the night were come ! 
 Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise, 
 Though all the earth 6'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. 
 
 m. 
 
 159. SCENES FROM HAMLET. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus. 
 
 HAMLET. The air bites shrewdly ; it is very cold. 
 Horatio. It is a nipping and an eager air. 
 
 Ham. What hour now ? 
 
 Hor. I think, it lacks of twelve. 
 
 Mar. No, it is struck. 
 
 Hor. Indeed ? I heard it not ; then it draws near the season, 
 "Wherein the spirit held his wont 3 to walk. 
 
 [A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within. 
 What does this mean, my lord ? 
 
 Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,' 
 And, as he drains his draughts of R/ienish down, 
 The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out 
 The triumph of his pledge. 
 
 Hor. Is it a custom ? 
 
 Ham. Ay, marry, is't ; 
 
 • _ — _ — . — . — - ■ » 
 
 1 Gape, (gap). * Rouse, (rouz), a carousal ; a fes- 
 
 1 Wotit, (wunt), custom ; habit. tival ; a drinking frolic. 
 
494 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 But to my mind, — though I am native here, 
 And to the manner born, — it is a custom 
 More honored in the breach, than the observance. 
 
 Enter Ghost. 
 
 Hor. Look, my lord, it comes ! 
 
 Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! 
 Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned, 
 Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell, 
 Be thy intents wicked, or charitable, 
 Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, 
 That I will speak to thee ; I'll call thee Hamlet, 
 King, father, royal Dane : O, answer me : 
 Let me not burst in ingorance ! but tell, 
 Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, 
 Have burst their cere'ments ! why the sepulcher 
 Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urned, 
 Hath 6ped his ponderous and marble jaws, 
 To cast thee up again ! What may this mean, 
 That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, 
 Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, 
 Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature, 
 So horribly to shake our disposition, 
 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls ? 
 Say why is this ? wherefore ? what should we do ? 
 
 Hor. It beckons you to go away with it, 
 As if it some impartment did desire 
 To you alone. 
 
 Mar. Look, with what courteous 1 action 
 
 It waves you to a more removed ground ; 
 But do not go with it. 
 
 Hor. No, by no means. 
 
 Ham. It will not speak ; then I will follow it. 
 
 Hor. Do not, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Whv, what should be the fear ? 
 
 I do not set my life at a pin's fee ; 
 And, for my soul, what can it do to that, 
 Being a thing immortal as itself? 
 It waves me forth again ; — I'll follow it. 
 
 1 • 3 Corteous, (kert' e us), of court-like or elegant and condescending man 
 new ; well-bred ; complaisant. 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. 4 f J.j 
 
 Hor. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, 
 Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff, 
 That beetles 6'er his base into the sea ? 
 And there assume some other horrible form, 
 And draw you into madness ? 
 
 Ham. It waves me still : — 
 
 Go on, I'll follow thee. 
 
 Mar. You shall not go, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Hold off your hands. 
 
 Hor. Be ruled, you shall not go. 
 
 Ham. My fate cries out, 
 
 And makes each petty artery in this body 
 As hardy as the Ne'mean lion's nerve. — [Ghost beckons. 
 
 Still am I called ; — unhand me, gentlemen : — 
 
 [Breaking from them. 
 By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets 1 me : — 
 I say, away! — Go on, I'll follow thee. 
 
 [Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet, followed 
 by Horatio and Marcellus. 
 Re-enter Ghost and Hamlet. 
 
 Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me ? speak, I'll go no further. 
 
 Ghost. Mark me. 
 
 Ham. I will. 
 
 Ghost. My hour is almost come, 
 
 When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames 
 Must render up myself. 
 
 Ham. Alas, poor ghost! 
 
 GJiost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing 
 To what I shall unfold. 
 
 Ham. Speak, I am bound to hear. 
 
 Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. 
 
 Ham. What? 
 
 Ghost. I am thy father's spirit ; 
 Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, 
 And, for the day confined to fast in fires, 
 Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, 
 Axe burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid 
 To tell the secrets of m}' prison-house, 
 I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word 
 
 1 Lets, retards ; hinders. 
 
496 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 Would harrow up thy soul ; freeze thy young blood ; 
 
 Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ; 
 
 Thy knotted and combined locks to part, 
 
 And each particular hair to stand on end, 
 
 Like quills upon the fretful porcupine : 
 
 But this eternal blazon must not be 
 
 To ears of flesh and blood :— List, — list, — O list! — 
 
 If thou didst ever thy dear father love, ■ 
 
 Ham. heaven ! 
 
 GJwst. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. 
 
 Ham. Murder? 
 
 Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is ; 
 But this most foul, strange, and unnatural, 
 
 Ham. Haste me to know it ; that I, with wings as swift 
 As meditation, or the thoughts of love, 
 May sweep to my revenge. 
 
 Ghost. I find thee apt ; 
 
 And duller should'st thou be than the fat weed 
 That rots itself in ease on Lethe ' wharf, 
 Would'st thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear : 
 'Tis given out, that sleeping in mine orchard, 
 A serpent stung me ; so the whole ear of Denmark 
 Is by a forged process of my death 
 Rankly abused : but know, thou noble youth, 
 The serpent that did sting thy father's life, 
 Now wears his crown. 
 
 Ham. 0, my prophetic soul ! my uncle ! 
 
 Ghost. Ay, — 
 
 With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, 
 He won to his shameful love 
 The will of my most seeming virtuous queen : 
 O, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there ! 
 From me, whose love was of that dignity, 
 That it went hand and hand even with the vow 
 I made to her in marriage ; \ and to decline 
 
 1 L6' the, a river of Africa, water- cause the name signifies oblivion, 
 
 ing the city of Berenice, which, be- was feigned to cause forgetfulness 
 
 cause it runs many miles under of all that was past to those who 
 
 ground, was fabled by the poets to drank of its waters ; oblivion ; for- 
 
 be one of the rivers of hell, and be- get-fulness. 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. 497 
 
 Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor 
 
 To those of mine ! — 
 
 But, soft ! methinks, I scent the morning air ; 
 
 Brief let me be : — Sleeping within my orchard, 
 
 My custom always of the afternoon, 
 
 Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole, 
 
 With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, 
 
 And in the porches of mine ears did pour 
 
 The leperous distillment ; whose effect 
 
 Holds such an enmity with blood of man, 
 
 That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through 
 
 The natural gates and alleys of the body ; 
 
 And, with a sudden vigor, it doth posset 
 
 And curd, like eager droppings into milk, 
 
 The thin and wholesome blood : so did it mine ; 
 
 Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand, 
 
 Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched : 
 
 Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, 
 
 No reckoning made, but sent to my account 
 
 With all my imperfections on my head. 
 
 Ham. O, horrible ! O, horrible ! most horrible ! 
 
 Ghost. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not ; 
 But, howsoever thou pursu'st this act, 
 Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 
 Against thy mother aught : leave her to heaven, 
 And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, 
 To goad and sting her. Fare thee well at once ! 
 The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, 
 And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire : 
 Adieu, adieu, adieu ! remember me. [Exit. 
 
 Ham. Hold, hold, my heart : 
 And you my sinews, grow not instant old, 
 Bat bear me stiffly up ! — Remember thee ! 
 Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat 
 In this distracted globe. Ilemember thee ? 
 Yea, from the table of my memory 
 I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, 
 All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past 
 That youth and observation copied there ; 
 And thy commandment all alone shall live 
 
£9S NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Within the book and volume of my brain, 
 Unmixed with baser matter : yes, by heaven, 
 I have sworn't. 
 
 IV. 
 
 160. SCENES FROM HAMLET. 1 
 
 PART THIIID. 
 
 PoLOtfius interrupts Hamlet who is reading a booh. 
 
 POLONIUS. Do you know me, my lord ? 
 Hamlet. Excellent well ; you are a fishmonger. 
 
 Pol. Not I, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man. 
 
 Pol. Honest, my lord ? 
 
 Ham. Ay, sir ; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one 
 man picked out of ten thousand. 
 
 Pol. That's very true, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Have you a daughter ? 
 
 Pol. I have, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun : friend, look to't. 
 
 Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harping on my 
 daughter : — yet he knew me not at first ; he said, I was a fish- 
 monger. He is far gone, far gone ; and, truly, in my youth I 
 suffered much extremity for love ; — very near this. I'll speak to 
 him again. [To Hamlet.] What do you read, my lord? 
 
 Ham. Words, words, words. 
 
 Pol. What is the matter, my lord ? 
 
 Ham. Between whom ? 
 
 Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Slanders, sir : for the satirical rogue says here, that 
 old men have gray beards ; that their faces are wrinkled ; all of 
 which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet 
 I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down ; for yourself, sir, 
 should be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward. 
 
 1 Hamlet, after the interview with of his former companions, to draw 
 the ghost of his father, in order that out, if possible, the secret which 
 he may verify his belief of the mur- oppresses him. Polonius, lord chain- 
 der and successfully avenge it, affects berlain of the palace, an aged man, 
 insanity. The king and queen are also tries to fathom him, and con- 
 so disturbed by this that they send fidently declares him crazy through 
 Rosencrantz and Guildenstcrn, two lovesickness. 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. 499 
 
 Pol. [Aside.'] Though this be madness, yet there's method in 
 it. [To Hamlet.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord? 
 
 Ham. Into my grave ? 
 
 Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air. [Aside] How pregnant 
 sometimes his replies are ! a happiness that often madness hits 
 on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be deliv- 
 ered of. [ To Hamlet.] My honorable lord, I will most humbly 
 take my leave of you. 
 
 Ham. You can not, sir, take from me anything that I will 
 more willingly part withal ; except my life, except my life, ex- 
 cept my life. 
 
 Pol. Faie you well, my lord. [Exit. 
 
 Enter Rosencbantz and Qutldenstebn. 
 
 Guil. My honored lord ! — 
 
 Bos. My most dear lord ! — 
 
 Ham My excellent good friends ! How dost thou, Guilden- 
 stern ? Ah, Roscncrantz ! Good lads, how do ye both ? What 
 news? 
 
 Pos. None, my lord, but that the world 's grown honest. 
 
 Ham. Then is dooms-day near. But your news is not true. 
 Let me question more in particular. What have you, my good 
 friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to 
 prison hither ? 
 
 Guil. Prison, my lord! 
 
 Ham. Denmark's a prison. 
 
 Pos. Then is the world one. 
 
 Ham. A goodly one ; in which there are many con'nnes, 
 wards, and dungeons ; Denmark being one of the worst. 
 
 Pos. We think not so, my lord. 
 
 Ham. Why, then, 't is none (nun) to you ; for there is noth- 
 ing (nuth'ing) either good or bad, but thinking makes it so : 
 to me it is a prison. 
 
 Pos. Why, then your ambition makes it one : 't is too narrow 
 for your mind. 
 
 Ham. 0, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count mysell 
 a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. 
 But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore ? 
 
 Pos. To visit you, my lord ; no other occasion. 
 
 Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks ; but I 
 thank you. Were you not sent for ? Is it your own inclining? 
 
500 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Is it a free visitation ? Coine, come ; deal justly with me : 
 come, come ; nay, speak. 
 
 Guil. What should we say, my lord ? 
 
 Ham. Any thing — hut to the purpose. You were sent for ; 
 and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your 
 modesties have not craft enough to color ; I know the good 
 king and queen have sent for you. 
 
 Bos. To what end, my lord ? 
 
 Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure' you, by 
 the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, 
 by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more 
 dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and 
 direct with me, whether ye were sent for, or no ? 
 
 Bos. [To Guildenstern.] What say you ? 
 
 Ham. [Aside.'] Nay, then I have an eye of you. [To them.] 
 If you love me, hold not off. 
 
 Guil. My lord, we were sent for. 
 
 Ham. I will tell you why ; so shall my anticipation prevent 
 your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult 
 no feather. I have of late (but, wherefore, I know not,) lost all 
 my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises : and, indeed, it goes 
 so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, 
 seems to me a sterile prorn'ontory ; this most excellent canopy, 
 the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majes- 
 tical roof, fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other 
 thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. 
 WTiat a piece of work is a mr,n ! How noble in reason ! how 
 infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and 
 admirable ! in action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, how 
 like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! 
 And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust ? — Gentlemen, 
 you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. You are welcome ; 
 but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. 
 
 Guil. In what, my dear lord ? 
 
 Ham. I am but mad north-north-west : when the wind is 
 southerlv, I know a hawk from a hand-saw. 
 
 Be'enter Polonius. 
 Pol. My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently. 
 Ham. Do you see yonder cloud, that's almost in shape of a 
 camel ? 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. 501 
 
 Pol. By the mass, and t is like a camel, indeed. 
 
 Ham. Methinks, it is like a weasel. 
 
 Pol. It is backed like a weasel. 
 
 Ham. Or, like a whale. 
 
 Pol. Very like a whale. 
 
 Ham. Then will I come to my mother by and by. — They fool 
 me to the top of my bent. — I will come by and by. 
 
 Pol. I will say so. [Exit Polonius. 
 
 Ham. By and by is easily said. — Leave me, friends. 
 
 [Exeunt Ros. and Guil. 
 'Tis now the very witching time of night ; 
 When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out 
 Contagion to this world : now could I drink hot blood, 
 And do such bitter business as the day 
 Would quake to look on. Soft ; now to my mother ! — 
 
 heart, lose not thy nature ; let not ever 
 The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom ; 
 Let me be cruel, not unnatural : 
 
 1 will speak daggers to her, but use none. 
 
 V. 
 
 161. SCENES FROM HAMLET. 
 
 PART FOURTH. 1 
 
 H 
 
 Enter Queen and Hamlet. 
 
 AMLET. Now, mother, what's the matter? 
 Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended. 
 Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. 
 Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle toDgue. 
 Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue. 
 Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet ? 
 
 Ham. . "What's the matter now? 
 
 Queen. Have you forgot me ? 
 Ham. No, by the rood, 2 not so : 
 
 1 Hamlet, doubtful of the relation the plot, and he becomes fully con- 
 
 of the ghost, and fearful that it vinced that his uncle was the mut- 
 
 might be only the tale of a wicked derer of his father, 
 
 spirit, laid a plot to convince himself 2 Rood, (rfld), the cross, or an im- 
 
 of his uncle's participation in the age of Christ on the cross, with the 
 
 murder : and the scene here given Virgin Mary and a saint, or St. 
 
 occurs after the successful issue of John, on each side of it. 
 
502 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife ; 
 And — would it were not so ! — you are ray mother. 
 
 Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak. 
 
 Ham. Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge ; 
 You go not till I set you up a glass 
 Where you may see the inmost part of you. 
 
 Queen. What wilt thou do ? — thou wilt not murder me ? 
 
 Ham. Leave wringing of your hands : peace ; sit you down, 
 And let me wring your heart : for so I shall, 
 If it be made of penetrable stuff ; 
 If damned custom have not brazed it so, 
 That it is proof and bulwark against sense. 
 
 Queen. WTiat have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue 
 In noise so rude against me ? 
 
 Ham. Such an act, 
 
 That blurs the grace and blush of modesty ; 
 Calls virtue, hypocrite ; takes off the rose 
 From the fair forehead of an innocent love, 
 And sets a blister there ; makes marriage vows 
 As false as dicer's oath ! oh, such a deed 
 As from the body of contraction plucks 
 The very soul ; and sweet religion makes 
 A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow ; 
 Yea, this solidity and compound mass, 
 With tristful visage, as against the doom, 
 Is thought-sick at the act. 
 
 Queen. Ah me ! what act, 
 
 That roars so loud, and thunders in the index ? 
 
 Ham. Look here, upon this picture, and on this ; 
 The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. 
 See what a grace was seated on this brow : 
 Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself ; 
 An eye like Mars, 1 to threaten and command ; 
 A station like the herald Mercury, 2 
 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill ; 
 
 1 Mars, an ancient Roman god,' est honors at Rome ; also, a planet, 
 who, at an early period, was iden- 2 Mer'cury, in mythology, themes' 
 
 tified with the Greek Ares, or the sender and interpreter of the gods, 
 
 god delighting in bloody war. Next and the god of eloquence and of com- 
 
 to Jupiter, Mars enjoyed the high- nierce, called Hermes by the Greeks 
 
SCENES FROM HAMLET. 503 
 
 A combination, and a form, indeed, 
 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
 
 To give the world assurance of a man : 
 
 This was your husband. — Look you, now, what follows r 
 
 Here is your husband ; like a mildewed ear, 
 
 Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes ? 
 
 Could you on this fail mountain leave to feed, 
 
 And batten on this moor? Ha! have 3-ou eyes ? 
 
 You can not call it love ; for at your age 
 
 The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble, 
 
 And waits upon the judgment ; and what judgment 
 
 Would step from this to this ? 
 
 Queen. Oh, speak no more ! 
 
 Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul ; 
 And there I see such black and grained spots, 
 As will not leave their tinct. 1 Oh, speak to me no more! 
 These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears : 
 No more, sweet Hamlet ! 
 
 Ham. A murderer and a villain : 
 
 A slave that is not twentieth part the time 
 Of your precedent lord : — a vice of kings : 
 A cut-purse of the empire and the rule ; 
 That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, 
 And put it in his pocket ! 
 
 Queen. No more ! 
 
 Ham. A king 
 
 Of shreds and patches ; — [Enter Ghost. 
 
 Save me and hover o'er me with vour win^s, 
 You heavenly guards ! — What would your gracious figure ? 
 
 Queen. Alas, he's mad ! 
 
 Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide, 
 That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by 
 The important acting of your dread command? 
 O, say! 
 
 Ghost. Do not forget : this visitation 
 Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. 
 But look! amazement on thy mother sits : 
 O, step between her and her fighting soul : 
 
 1 Tinct, (tlngkt), spot ; stain ; color. 
 
504 NATIONAL FIFTH READER, 
 
 Speak to her, Hamlet. 
 
 Ham. How is it with you, lady ? 
 
 Queen. Alas ! how is't with you, 
 That you do bend your eye on vacancy, 
 And with the in corporal air do hold discourse ? 
 Whereon do you look ? 
 
 Ham. On him ! on him ! Look you, how pale he glares ! 
 His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, 
 Would make them capable. Do not look on me, 
 Lest, with this piteous action, you convert 
 My stern effects : then what I have to do 
 Will want true color ; tears, perchance, for blood. 
 
 Queen. To whom do you speak this ? 
 
 Ham. Do you see nothing there ? 
 
 Queen. Nothing at all ; yet all that is I see. 
 
 Ham, Nor did you nothing hear ? 
 
 Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves. 
 
 Ham. Why, look you there ! look, how it steals away ! 
 My father, in his habit as he lived ! 
 Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal ! 
 
 [Exit Ghost. 
 
 Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain : 
 This bodiless creation, ecstasy 
 Is very cunning in. 
 
 Ham. Ecstasy ! 
 
 My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 
 And makes as healthful music. It is not madness, 
 That I have uttered : bring me to the test, 
 And I the matter will re-word ; which madness 
 Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace, 
 Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
 That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks : 
 It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 
 While rank corruption, mining all within, 
 Infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven ; 
 Repent what's past ; avoid what is to come ; 
 And do not spread the compost on the weeds 
 To make them ranker. 
 
 Queen. O Hamlet ! thou hast cleft my heart in twain. 
 
 Ham. Oh, throw away the worser part of it, 
 
SOCIETY THE (J HEAT EDUCATOR. 505 
 
 And live the purer with the other half. 
 
 Good-night : once more, good-night ! 
 
 And when you are desirous to be blest, 
 
 I'll blessing beg of you. Shakspeahe. 
 
 SECTION XXXI. 
 I. 
 
 102. SOCIETY THE GREAT EDUCATOR. 
 
 SOCIETY is the great educator. Mure than universities, 
 more than schools, more than books, society educates. 
 Nature is the schoolhouse, and many lessons are writ* en upon 
 its walls ; but man is the effective teacher. Parents, relatives, 
 friends, associates ; social manners, maxims, morals, worships, 
 the daily example, the fireside conversation, the casual inter- 
 view, the spirit that breathes through the whole atmosphere of 
 life — these are the powers and influences that train the mass of 
 mankind. Even books, which are daily assuming a larger place 
 in human training, are but the influence of man on man. 
 
 2. It is evident that one of the leading and ordained means 
 by which men are raised in the scale of knowledge and virtue, 
 is the conversation, example, influence of men superior to them- 
 selves. It seems, if one may say so, to be the purpose, the in- 
 tent, the effort of nature — of Providence, to bring men together, 
 and to bring them together, for the most part, in relations of 
 discipleship and teaching. 
 
 3. The social nature, first, draws them to intercourse. Per- 
 petual solitariness is intolerable. But then, much of their in- 
 tercourse is on terms of inequality. Equals in age, people in 
 society, seldom meet, but one is able to teach or tell something, 
 and the other is desirous to learn it. The lower are strongly 
 drawn to the higher. Children are not content to be always 
 by themselves ; curiosity, reverence, filial affection draw them 
 to their superiors. In the whole business of life — tillage, 
 mechanism, manufacture, merchandise — a younger generation 
 is connected with an elder, to be taught bv it. 
 
 4. Barbarous tribes go on forever in their barbarism, till they 
 are brought into the presence of superior culture. The Chinese 
 
 22 
 
506 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 exclusion has kept that people stationary, though civilization 
 has been knocking at their gates for more than three centuries. 
 And it is better — I speak of mere results, not principles — that 
 the way for light should be opened into that country by English 
 cannon balls, or the rending asunder of the empire, than never 
 to be opened. 
 
 5. But such a fixed barrier to civilization is a solitary phe- 
 nomenon in history. Nations, the barbarous and civilized, by 
 some means or other, in the everlasting fer'ruent of human 
 interests and passions, are thrown into communication and 
 interfusion — if by no better means, by war, by subjugation, by 
 capture : for Providence, if one may say so, will have them 
 come together. Human injustice and cruelty are not to be 
 abetted in this matter. There are better ways, which Christian 
 civilization ought to learn — travel, trade, missions of light and 
 mercy ; but, some way, the nations must mingle together, or the 
 ignorant will never be enlightened, the savage never civilized. 
 
 6. Where are the ruder peasantry of Europe now resorting, 
 for work and for subsistence ? To the heart of England and 
 America. Many an enlightened man, building a railroad, or 
 improving his estate, many a refined woman in her household, 
 is made their teacher — little suspecting the office, perhaps. It 
 were fortunate, I think, for both parties, if they did ; it might 
 make the relation more kindly and holy ; but any way, the 
 work will be done. How fine and delicate and penetrating is 
 this power of man to influence his kind ! A word, a tone, a 
 look — nothing (nuth'ing) goes to the, depths of the soul like 
 that. The dexterous hands, and the embracing arms, the com- 
 manding eye and the persuasive lips and the stately presence 
 are fitted for nothing more remarkably than to teach. 
 
 7. Traveling on a railroad, one day, I saw a little child in 
 the company of some half a dozen affectionate relatives. From 
 hand to hand it passed — to be amused, to be soothed, to be 
 taught something from moment to moment — to receive mrny 
 lessons, and more caresses, all the day long. " Here," I thought 
 with myself, " is a company of unpaid, loving, willing, unwearied 
 teachers. Such governesses could scarce be hired on any terms." 
 "Well, it was not a nobleman's child ; it was not a rich man's 
 child, that I know : the same thing, substantially, is passing in 
 every house where childhood lives, every day. 
 
SOCIETY THE GREAT EDUCATOR. 5^7 
 
 8. How sharp, too, and jealous, is the guardianship of society 
 over the virtue of its members ! How preventive and corrective 
 are its sorrow and indignation at their failures ! A parent's 
 grief is such a warning and retribution as prisons and dungeons 
 could not bring upon his erring child. And then it is to be 
 observed that the grosser and mure ruinous vices are such as 
 soon betray themselves, and can not be long concealed. The 
 police of society is very likely to find them out. 
 
 9. And selfishness, covetousness, vanity, do not escape. The 
 repulsive atmosphere of common feeling about the seiiish man, 
 the cold shadow in which the miser walks, the stinging criti- 
 cisms upon the vain man, proclaim that society is not an idle 
 censor What does public opinion brand, what does literature 
 satirize, all over the world, but the faults and foibles of men ? 
 
 10. Society has thrones for the good and noble, and purple 
 and gold are but rags and dust in the comparison. Society has 
 prisons and penitentiaries for the base and bad, and stone walls 
 and silent cells are not so cold and death-like. Dewey. 
 
 n. 
 
 163. THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE CONQUEROR. 
 
 THERE is nothing (nuth'ing) which the adversaries of im- 
 provement are mure wont (wimt) to make themselves 
 merry with than what is termed the "march of intellect;" and 
 here I will confess, that I think, as far as the phrase goes, they 
 are in the right. It is a very absurd, because a very incorrect 
 expression. It is little calculated to describe the operation in 
 question. It does not picture an image at all resembling the 
 proceedings of the true friends of mankind. It much more re- 
 sembles the progress of the enemy to all improvement. The 
 conqueror moves in a march. He stalks onward with the 
 "pride, pomp, and circumstance of war'' — banners flying — 
 shouts rending the air — guns thundering — and martial music 
 pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded, and the lamenta'- 
 tions for the slain. 
 
 2. Not thus the schoolmaster, in his peaceful vocation. He 
 meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to bless 
 mankind ; he slowly gathers round him those who are to further 
 their execution — he quietly, though firmly, advances in his 
 
508 NATIONAL FIFTH READER'. 
 
 humble path, laboring steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to 
 the light all the recess'es of ignorance, and torn up by the roots 
 the weeds of vice. His is a progress not to be compared with 
 any thing like a march ; but it leads to a far more brilliant 
 triumph, and to laurels more imperishable than the destroyer 
 of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won. 
 
 3. Such men — men deserving the glorious title of Teachers 
 of Mankind — I have found, laboring conscientiously, though, 
 perhaps, obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have 
 gone. I have found them, and shared their fellowship, among 
 the daring, the ambitious, the ardent, the indomitably active 
 French ; I have found them among the persevering, resolute, 
 industrious Swiss ; I have found them among the laborious, the 
 warm-hearted, the enthusiastic Germans ; I have found them 
 among the high-minded, but enslaved Italians (i tal'yanz) ; and 
 in our own country, God be thanked, their number everywhere 
 abound, and are every day increasing. 
 
 4. Their calling is high and holy ; their fame is the property 
 of nations ; their renown will fill the earth in after ages, in pro- 
 portion as it sounds not far off in their own times. Each one of 
 those great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, 
 performs his appointed course ; awaits in patience the fulfill- 
 ment of the promises ; and, resting from his labors, bequeaths 
 his memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, 
 and sleeps under the humble but not inglorious epitaph, com- 
 memorating " one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man 
 got rid of an enemy." Brougham. 
 
 Henry Brougham, the distinguished philanthropist, orator, and statesman, 
 was horn in Westmoreland, England, in 1779. He received his preparatory 
 education at the high school in Edinburgh, and in 1795 entered the university, 
 where his course was a complete triumph. He was one of the projectors and 
 chief contributors of the Edinburgh Review, and in 1803 published " An Inquiry 
 into the Colonial Policy of the European Powers," which at once called the 
 attention of the public to its author. After his admission to the Scottish bar, he 
 visited the north of Europe, and on his return commenced practice in the Court 
 of King's Bench, London, where he soon gained both popularity and emolument. 
 He first entered Parliament in 1810, and here the vastness and universality of 
 his acquirements, his singular activity, and untiring energies rendered him very 
 serviceable in the promotion of reforms. He was elected Lord Rector of the 
 University of Glasgow in 1825, and was president of the "Society for the Dif- 
 fusion of Useful Knowledge," established in 1827. He was appointed Lord 
 Chancellor and elevated to the peerage in 1830. Since 1S34 he has been con- 
 stantly exerting his transcendent abilities in the House of Lords in favor of all 
 measures that are calculated to advance the best interests of society. Among 
 
INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 509 
 
 hla most valuable works arc, "Biography of Eminent Statesmen and Men ol 
 Letters in the Reign of George III.," 3 vols. ; "A Discourse on Natural Theo- 
 logy," and an edition of his Parliamentary Speeches, revised by himself. I lis 
 speeches unquestionably stand in the very lirst rank of oratorical masterpieces. 
 
 in. 
 
 iG4. INTELLECTUAL POWER 
 
 IF wo pass in review all the pursuits of mankind, and all the 
 ends they aim at under the instigation of their appetites 
 and passions, or at the dictation of shallow utilitarian philos'- 
 ophy, we shall find that they pursue shadows and worship idols, 
 or that whatever there is that is good and great and catholic in 
 their deeds and purposes, depends for its accomplishment upon 
 the intellect, and is accomplished just in proportion as that in- 
 tellect is stored with knowledge. And whether we examine the 
 present or the past, we shall find that knowledge alone is real 
 power — "more powerful," says Eacon, "than the will, com- 
 manding the reason, understanding, and belief," and "setting 
 up a throne in the spirits and souls of men." 
 
 2. We shall find that the progress of knowledge is the only 
 true and permanent progress of our race, and that however in- 
 ventions, and discoveries, and events which change the face of 
 human affairs, may appear to be the results of contemporary 
 efforts, or providential accidents, it is, in fact, the men of learn- 
 ing who lead with noiseless step the vanguard of civilization, 
 that mark out the road over which — opened sooner or later — 
 posterity marches ; and from the abundance of their precious 
 stores sow seed by the wayside, which spring up in due season 
 and produce a hundred fold ; and cast bread upon the waters 
 which is gathered after many days. The age which gives birth 
 to the largest niunber of such men is always the most enlight- 
 ened ; and the age in which the highest reverence and most 
 intelligent obedience is accorded to them, always advances most 
 rapidly in the career of improvement. 
 
 3. And let not the ambitious aspirant to enrol himself with 
 this illustrious band, to fill the throne which learning " setteth 
 up in the spirits and souls of men," and wield its absolute 
 power, be checked, however humble he may be, however un- 
 likely to attain wealth or office, or secure homage as a practical 
 man or man of action, by any fear that true knowledge can be 
 
510 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 stifled, overshadowed, or compelled to involuntary barrenness. 
 Whenever or wherever men meet to deliberate or act, the 
 trained intellect will always master. 
 
 4. But for the most sensitive and modest, who seeks retire- 
 ment, there is another resource. The public press, accessible 
 to all, will enable him, from the depths of solitude, to speak 
 trumpet-tongued to the four corners of the earth. No matter 
 how he may be situated — if he has facts that will bear scrutiny, 
 if he has thoughts that burn, if he is sure he has a call to teach 
 — the press is a tripod ' from which he may give utterance to 
 his oracles ; and if there be truth in them, the world and future 
 ages will accept it. 
 
 5. It is not commerce that is king, nor manufactures, nor 
 cotton, nor any single art or science, any more than those who 
 wear the bauble crowns. Knowledge is sovereign, 2 and the 
 press is the royal seat on which she sits, a sceptered monarch. 
 From this she rules public opinion, and finally gives laws alike 
 to prince and people, — laws framed by men of letters ; by the 
 wandering bard ; by the philosopher in his grove or portico, 
 his tower or laboratory ; by the pale student in his closet. 
 
 6. We contemplate with awe the mighty movements of the 
 last eighty years, and we held our breath while we gazed upon 
 the heaving human mass so lately struggling, like huge levia- 
 than, over the broad face of Europe. What has thus stirred 
 the world ? The press. The press, which has scattered far 
 and wide the sparks of genius, kindling as they fly. Books, 
 journals, pamphlets, these are the cannon-balls — moulded often 
 by the obscure and humble, but loaded with fiery thoughts — 
 which have burst in the sides of every structure, political, social, 
 and religious, and shattered, too often, alike the rotten and the 
 sound. For in knowledge, as in everything else, the two great 
 principles of Good and Evil maintain their eternal warfare, — a 
 war amid and above all other wars. 
 
 7. But in the strife of knowledge, unlike other contests, vic- 
 tory never fails to abide with truth. And the wise and vir- 
 tuous who find and use this mighty weapon, are sure of their 
 
 1 TrT pod, any utensil or vessel, the temple of Apollo, at Delplii, sat 
 
 supported on three feet, as a stool, while giving responses to those con- 
 
 a table, an altar, and the like. On suiting the oracle, 
 
 inch a stool the Pythian priest, in 2 Sovereign (euV er in). 
 
MORAL PROGRESS OF TIIE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 5H 
 
 reward. It may not come soon. Years, ages, centuries may 
 
 pas3 awa}', and the grave-stone may have crumbled above tho 
 
 Lead that should have worn the wreath. But to the eye of 
 
 faith, the vision of the imperishable and inevitable halo that 
 
 shall enshrine the memory is forever present, cheering and 
 
 sweetening toil, and compensating for privation. And it often 
 
 happens that the great and heroic mind, unnoticed by the world, 
 
 buried apparently in profoundest darkness, sustained by faith, 
 
 works out the grandest problems of human progress ; working 
 
 under broad rays of brightest light ; light furnished by that 
 
 inward and immortal lamp, which, when its mission upon earth 
 
 has closed, is trimmed anew by angels' hands, and placed among 
 
 the stars of heaven. Hammond. 
 
 James Henry Hammond, a statesman and a political writer of distinction, was 
 born in Newberry District, South Carolina, November 15, 1807. He graduated 
 in South Carolina College, in Columbia, of whicb his fatber was president, in 1S25 • 
 was admitted to the bar in 1S28; and in 1830 became editor, at Columbia, of the 
 "Southern Times." He retired from his profession, on his marriage with lOsa 
 Fitzsimmons, in 1831. He was elected member of Congress, in which body he 
 took his seat in 1S35. Owing to the failure of his health, he resigned his seat 
 in Congress the following spring, and traveled a year and a half in Europe. He 
 was, in 1843, elected Governor of his native State, in which capacity he gave 
 special attention to the State military organization, Introducing the West Point 
 system into several of the academies and colleges. In 1857 he was elected to 
 the U. S. Senate, from which he withdrew on the secession of South Carolina. 
 After the outbreak of hostilities he remained quietly at home, superintending 
 the affairs of his large estate, until declining health withdrew him from active 
 pursuits. He was an ardent supporter of Mr. Calhoun's views, advocating with 
 zeal and ability the doctrine of State Rights. His published speeches and essays, 
 and his elaborate review of the Life, Character, and Services of John C. Calhoun, 
 severally display the statesman, and the industrious and energetic scholar. The 
 above extract is from an Oration before the Literary Societies of S. C. College. 
 He died November 13, 1SGL 
 
 IT. 
 
 165. MORAL PROGRESS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 A KIND of reverence is paid by all nations to antiquity. 
 There is no one that does not trace its lineage from the 
 gods, or from those who were especially favored by the gods. 
 Every people has had its ago of gold, or Augustan age, or heroic 
 age — an age, alas! forever passed. These prejudices are not 
 altogether unwholesome. Although they produce a conviction 
 of declining virtue, which is unfavorable to generous emulation, 
 yet a people at once ignorant and irrevcrential, would necessarily 
 
512 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 become licentious. Nevertheless, such prejudices ought to be 
 modified. 
 
 2. It is untrue, that in the period of a nation's rise from dis- 
 order to refinement, it is not able to continually surpass itself. 
 We see the present, plainly, distinctly, with all its coarse out- 
 lines, its rough inequalities, its dark blots, and its glaring de- 
 formities. We hear all its tumultuous sounds and jarring dis- 
 cords. We see and hear the past, through a distance which re- 
 duces all its inequalities to a plane, mellows all its shades into a 
 pleasing hue, and subdues even its hoarsest voices into harmony. 
 
 3. In our own case, the prejudice is less erroneous than in 
 most others. The revolutionary age was truly a heroic one. Its 
 exigencies called forth the genius, and the talents, and the vir- 
 tues of society, and they ripened amid the hardships of a long 
 and severe trial. But there were selfishness, and vice, and fac- 
 tions, then, as now, although comparatively subdued and re- 
 pressed. You have only to consult impartial history, to learn 
 that neither public faith, nor public loyalty, nor private virtue, 
 culminated at that period in our own country ; while a mere 
 glance at the literature, or at the stage, or at the politics of any 
 Europe'an country, in any previous age, reveals the fact that it 
 was marked, more distinctly than the present, by licentious 
 morals and mean ambition. 
 
 4. It is only just to infer in favor of the United States an im- 
 provement of morals from their established progress in knowl- 
 edge and power ; otherwise, the philosophy of society is misun- 
 derstood, and we must change all our courses, and henceforth 
 seek safety in imbecility, and virtue in superstition and ignorance. 
 What shall be the test of the national morals ? Shall it be the 
 eccentricity of crimes ? Certainly not ; for then we must com- 
 pare the criminal eccentricity of to-day with that of yesterday. 
 The result of the comparison would be only this, that the crimes 
 of society change with changing circumstances. 
 
 5. Loyalty to the state is a public virtue. Was it ever deeper- 
 toned or more universal than it is now ? I know there are eb- 
 ullitions of passion and discontent, sometimes breaking out into 
 disorder and violence ; but was faction ever more effectually 
 disarmed and harmless than it is now ? — There is a loyalty that 
 springs from the affection that we bear to our native soil. This 
 we have as strong as any people. But it is not the soil alone, 
 
MORAL PROGRESS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 51 3 
 
 nor yet the soil beneath our feet and the skies over our heads, 
 that constitute our country. It is its freedom, equality, justice, 
 greatness, and glory. Who amoDg us is so low as to be insen- 
 sible of an interest in them ? Four hundred thousand natives of 
 other lands every year voluntarily renounce their own sovereigns, 
 and swear fealty to our own. Who has ever known an Ameri- 
 can to transfer his allegiance permanently to a foreign power ? 
 
 6. The spirit of the laws, in any country, is a true index to 
 the morals of a people, just in proportion to the power they 
 exercise in making them. Who complains here or elsewhere, 
 that crime or immorality blots our statute-books with licentious 
 enactments? The character of a country's magistrates, legisla- 
 tors, and captains, chosen by a people, reflects their own. It is 
 true that in the earnest canvassing which so frequently recurring 
 elections require, suspicion often follows the magistrate, and 
 scandal follows in the footsteps of the statesman. Yet, when 
 his course has been finished, what magistrate has left a name 
 tarnished by corruption, or what statesman has left an act or an 
 opinion so erroneous that decent charity can not excuse, though 
 it may disapprove ? What chieftain ever tempered military tri- 
 umph with so much moderation as he who, when he had placed 
 our standard on the battlements of the capital of Mexico, not 
 only received an offer of supreme authority from the conquered 
 nation, but declined it ? 
 
 7. The manners of a nation are the outward form of its iuner 
 life. Where is woman held in so chivalrous respect, and where 
 does she deserve that eminence better ? Where is property 
 more safe, commercial honor better sustained, or human life 
 more sacred ? Moderation is a virtue in private and in public 
 life. Has not the great increase of private wealth manifested 
 itself chiefly in widening the circle of education and elevating 
 the standard of popular intelligence? With forces which, if 
 combined and directed by ambition, would subjugate this conti- 
 nent at once, we have made only two very short wars — the one 
 confessedly a war of defence, and the other ended by paying for 
 a peace and for a domain already fully conquered. 
 
 8. Where lies the secret of the increase of virtue which has 
 thus been established ? I think it will be found in the entire 
 emancipation of the consciences of men from either direct or 
 indirect control by established ecclesiastical or political systems. 
 
 22* 
 
514 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Religious classes, like political parties, have been left to compete 
 in the great work of moral education, and to entitle themselves 
 to the confidence and affection of society, by the purity of their 
 faith and of their morals. 
 
 9. I am well aware that some, who may be willing to adopt 
 the general conclusions of this argument, will object that it is 
 not altogether sustained by the action of the government itself, 
 however true it may be that it is sustained by the great action 
 of society. I can not enter a field where truth is to be sought 
 among the disputations of passion and prejudice. I may say, 
 however, in reply first, that the governments of the United 
 States, although more perfect than any other, and although they 
 embrace the great ideas of the age more fully than any other, 
 are, nevertheless, like all other governments, founded on com- 
 promises of some abstract truths and of some natural rights. 
 
 10. As government is impressed by its constitution, so it must 
 necessarily act. This may suffice to explain the phenomenon 
 complained of. But it is true, also, that no government ever 
 did altogether act out, purely, and for a long period, all the vir- 
 tues of its original constitution. Hence it is that we are so well 
 told by Bolingbroke, 1 that every nation must perpetually renew 
 its constitution or perish. Hence, moreover, it is a great excel- 
 lence of our system, that sovereignty resides, not in Congress and 
 the President, nor yet in the governments of the States, but in 
 the people of the United States. If the sovereign be just and 
 firm and uncorrupted, the governments can always be brought 
 back from any aberrations, and even the constitutions themselves, 
 if in any degree imperfect, can be amended. This great idea of 
 the sovereignty of the people over the government glimmers in 
 the British system, while it fills our own with a broad and glow- 
 ing light. Seward. 
 
 William H. Seward, son of Dr. Samuel S. Seward, of Florida, Orange 
 County, New York, was born in that village on the 16th of May, 1S01. lie en- 
 
 1 Henry St. John Viscount Bo- was elevated to the peerage in 1712. 
 
 lingbroke, an orator, statesman, and Unfortunately, none of the speeches 
 
 philosophical essayist, was horn at delivered by him in either house 
 
 Battersea, in Surrey, England, in have been preserved, though they are 
 
 1672. He was educated at Eton and reported to have been very brilliant. 
 
 Oxford. St. John entered parliament He died in 1751, and a complete 
 
 in 1701, and was successively secre- edition of his works, in five volumes, 
 
 tary of war and secretary of state. He appeared soon after. 
 
TO THE SKYLARK. 515 
 
 tered Union College in 1816. After completing his course with distinguished 
 honor, he studied law at New York with John Anthon,and afterward with John 
 Duer and Ogden Hoffman. Soon after his admission to the bar he commenced 
 practice in Auburn, New York, where be married in 1824. He rose rapidly to 
 distinction in his profession. In 1838 he first took a prominent part in politics, 
 when he labored for the reelection of John Quincy Adams to the presidency. 
 He became a member of the State Senate in 1830, where he remained for four 
 years. He made a tour in Europe, of a few months, in 1833, during which he 
 wrote a series of letters, which were published in the " Albany Evening Jour- 
 nal." He was elected governor of the State by the whig party in 1838 ; reelected 
 in 1840; but in 1842, declining a renomiuation, retired to the practice of his 
 profession. He was chosen United States senator in 1849, by a large majority ; 
 and, on the expiration of his term in 1855, he was reelected to the same body. 
 When Mr. Lincoln became president, Mr. Seward was appointed secretary of 
 State. In 1853 an edition of his works was published in New York, in three 
 octavo volumes, containing his specehes in the State and national Senate, and 
 before popular assemblies, with his messages as governor, his forensic argu- 
 ments, miscellaneous addresses, letters from Europe, and selections from his 
 public correspondence. His writings and speeches are models of correct com- 
 position ; their grammatical construction, rhetorical finish, and accurate arrange- 
 ment, rendering them well-nigh faultless. Though not remarkable for oratory, 
 his classic style, his perfect self-control, his truthful manner, his uncommon 
 6ensc, and his thorough knowledge of the leading questions of the day, com- 
 mand the attention and admiration of the hearer. The above extract is from 
 his address at Yale College, 1S54. 
 
 H 
 
 SECTION XXXII. 
 
 L 
 
 166. TO A SKYLARK. 
 
 AIL to thee, blithe spirit ! — bird thou never wert, — 
 That from heaven, or near it, pourest thy full heart 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 
 
 2. Higher still, and higher, from the earth thou springest 
 Like a cloud of fire ; the blue deep thou wingest, 
 
 And singing still dost (dust) soar, and soaring ever, singtst. 
 
 3. In the golden lightening of the sunken sun, 
 
 O'er which clouds are brightening, thou dost float and run, 
 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 
 
 4. The pale purple even melts around thy flight : 
 Like a star of heaven, in the broad daylight 
 Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. 
 
516 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. Keen are the arrows of that silver sphere, 
 
 Whose intense lamp narrows in the white dawn clear 
 Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 
 
 6. All the earth and air with thy voice is loud, 
 As, when night is bare, from one lonely cloud 
 
 The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 
 
 7. "What thou art we know not : what is most like thee ? 
 From rainbow clouds there flow not drops so bright to see, 
 As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 
 
 8. Like a poet hidden in the light of thought, 
 Singing hymns unbidden, till the world is wrought 
 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. 
 
 9. Like a high-born maiden in a palace tower, 
 Soothing her love-laden soul in secret hour 
 
 AVith music sweet as love, which overflows her bower. 
 
 10. Like a glow-worm golden in a dell of dew, 
 Scattering unbeholden its aerial hue 
 
 Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. 
 
 11. Like a rose embowered in its own green leaves, 
 By warm winds deflowered, till the scent it gives 
 
 Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy- winged thieves. 
 
 12. Sound of vernal showers on the twinkling grass, 
 Bain-awakened flowers, all that ever was 
 
 Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 
 
 13. Teach us, sprite or bird, what sweet thoughts are thine : 
 I have never heard praise of love or wine 
 
 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 
 
 14. Chorus hymene'al, or triumphal chant, 
 
 Matched with thine would be all but an empty vaunt — 
 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 
 
 15. What objects are the fountains of thy happy strain ? 
 "What fields, or waves, or mountains ? what shapes of sky 
 
 or plain ? 
 What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? 
 
 16. With thy clear keen joyance languor can not be : 
 Shadow of annoyance never came near thee : 
 Thou lovest ; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 
 
 17. Waking or asleep, thou of death must deem 
 
TO THE SKYLARK. 517 
 
 Things more true and deep than we mortals dream, 
 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 
 
 18. We look before and after, and pine for what is not : 
 Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught : 
 
 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 
 
 19. Yet if we could scorn hate, and pride, and fear ; 
 If we were things born not to shed a tear, 
 
 I know not how thy joy we ever could come near. 
 
 20. Better than all measures of delight and sound, 
 Better than all treasures that in books are found, 
 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 
 
 21. Teach me half the gladness that thy brain must know, 
 Such harmonious madness from my lips would flow, 
 The world should listen then, as I am listt ning now. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 Percy Btssiie Siiei.t.et, a poet of admirable genius, the son and heir of a 
 wealthy baronet in Sussex, England, was born in that county in 1702. He was 
 educated first at Eton, and afterward at Oxford, where he studied hard, but irreg- 
 ularly ; incessantly speculated, thought, and read ; became entangled in meta- 
 physical difficulties, and, at the age of seventeen, published, with a direct appeal 
 to the heads of the colleges, a pamphlet entitled "The Necessity of Atheism." 
 He was immediately expelled; and his friends being disgusted with him, he was 
 cast on the world a prey to the undisciplined ardor of youth and passion. At 
 the age of eighteen he printed his poem of " Queen Mab," in which singular 
 poetic beauties arc interspersed with many speculative absurdities. Shortly 
 after this he married a young woman of humble station in life, which completed 
 his alienation from his family. After a tour on the continent, during which he 
 visited some of the most magnificent scenes of Switzerland, he settled near 
 Windsor Forest, where he composed his poem, " Alastor, or the Spirit of Soli- 
 tude," which contains descriptive passages excelled by none of his subsequent 
 works. His domestic unhappincss soon after induced him to separate from his 
 wife, and the unhappy woman destroyed herself. This event subjected him to 
 much misrepresentation, and by a decree of chancery he was deprived of the 
 guardianship of his two children, on the ground of immorality and atheism. 
 Not long after his wife's death he married the daughter of Godwin, authoress 
 of "Frankenstein," and other novels. They resided for a few months in Buck- 
 inghamshire, where they made themselves beloved by their charity for the poor. 
 Here he composed the "Revolt of Islam," a poem still more energetic than 
 "Alastor." In the spring of 1818 he and his family removed to Italy, where 
 they at length settled themselves at Pisa. In that country, with health already 
 failing, Shelley produced some of his principal works, in a period of four years. 
 In July, 1823, he was drowned in a storm which he encountered in his yacht on 
 the Gulf of Spezzia. In accordance with his own desire, his body was burned, 
 under the direction of Lord Byron and other friends, and the ashes were carried 
 to Rome and deposited in the Protestant burial-ground, near those of a child he 
 had lost in that city. A complete edition of "Shelley's Poetical Works," with 
 notes by his widow, has been published. The above ode to the Skylark bears, 
 perhaps, as pure a poetical stamp as any of his productions. 
 
518 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 n. 
 
 167. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 
 
 I. VOICE OF THE WIND.— Henry Taylor. 
 riH HE wind, when first he rose and went abroad 
 JL Through the waste region, felt himself at fault, 
 Wanting a voice, and suddenly to earth 
 Descended with a wafture and a swoop, 
 Where, wandering volatile, from kind to kind, 
 He wooed the several trees to give him one. 
 First he besought the ash ; the voice she lent 
 Fitfully, with a free and lashing change, 
 Flung here and there its sad uncertainties : 
 The aspen next ; a fluttered frivolous twitter 
 Was her sole tribute : from the willow came, 
 So long as dainty summer dressed her out, 
 A whispering sweetness ; but her winter note 
 Was hissing, dry, and reedy : lastly the pine 
 Did he solicit ; and from her he drew 
 A voice so constant, soft, and lowly deep, 
 That there he rested, welcoming in her 
 A mild memorial of the ocean cave 
 Where he was born. 
 
 II. MINISTRATIONS OF NATURE.— Coleridgb. 
 
 With other ministrations thou, O Nature, 
 
 Healest thy wandering and distempered child ! 
 
 Thou pourest on him thy soft influences, 
 
 Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets, 
 
 Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters ; 
 
 Till he relent, and can no more endure 
 
 To be a jarring and discordant thing 
 
 Amid this general dance and minstrelsy ; 
 
 But, bursting into tears, wins back his way, 
 
 His angry spirit healed and harmonized 
 
 By the benignant touch of love and beauty. 
 
 III. MOONLIGHT.— Shakspeare. 
 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ? 
 Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music 
 Creep in our ears : soft stillness, and the night, 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE. 519 
 
 Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
 Sit, Jessica. 1 Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patens ' of bright gold. 
 There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, 
 But in his motion like an angel sings, 
 Still quiring to the young-eyed chcrubins : 
 Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
 But w T hilo this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we can not hear it. 
 
 IV. THE BELLS OF OSTEND.— Bowles. 
 
 No, I never, till life and its shadows shall end, 
 
 Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend ! * 
 
 The day set in darkness, the w T ind it blew loud, 
 
 And rung as it passed through each murmuring shroud. 
 
 My fore/iead was wet with the foam of the spray, 
 
 My heart sighed in secret for those far away ; 
 
 When slowly the morning advanced from the east, 
 
 The toil and the noise of the tempest had ceased : 
 
 The peal from a land I ne'er saw 7 , seemed to say, 
 
 " Let the stranger forget every sorrow to-day !" 
 
 Yet the short-lived emotion was mingled with pain — 
 
 I thought of those eye3 I should ne'er see again ; 
 
 I thought of the kiss, the last kiss which I gave, 
 
 And a tear of regret fell unseen on the wave ; 
 
 I thought of the schemes fond affection had planned, 
 
 Of the trees, of the towers, of my own native land. 
 
 But still the sweet sounds, as they swelled to the air, 
 
 Seemed tidings of pleasure, though mournful to bear, 
 
 And I never, till life and its shadows shall end, 
 
 Can forget the sweet sound of the bells of Ostend ! 
 
 V. MTSIC. — Shakspeare. 
 
 Do but note a wild and wanton herd, 
 
 Or race of youthful and unhandled colts, 
 
 Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud, 
 
 i Jessica, daughter of Shy lock, in ■ Os tend', a fortified seaport town 
 
 the " Merchant of Venice." of Belgium, province of W. Flanders, 
 
 2 Pat' en, the plate or vessel on on the N. Sea. It is neatly built, 
 
 which the consecrated bread is being a watering-place sometimes 
 
 placed ; a plate, resorted to by the Belgian court. 
 
520 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 "Which is the hot condition of their blood ; 
 
 If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound, 
 
 Or any air of music touch their ears, 
 
 You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, 
 
 Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze, 
 
 By the sweet power of music : therefore, the poet 
 
 Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods ; 
 
 Since naught so stockish hard, and full of rage, 
 
 But music for the time doth change his nature. 
 
 The man that hath no music in himself, 
 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 
 Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils ; 
 
 The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
 
 And his affections dark as Erebus : ' 
 
 Let no such man be trusted. 
 
 VI. MUSIC— Shelley. 
 My soul is an enchanted boat, 
 "Which, like a sleeping swan doth float 
 Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 
 And thine doth like an angel sit 
 Beside the helm, conducting it, 
 "While all the winds with melody are ringing. 
 It seems to float ever, forever 
 Upon that many winding river, 
 Between mountains, woods, abysses, 
 A paradise of wildernesses ! 
 
 VII. PASTOKAL MUSIC— Byron. 
 Hark! the note, 
 The natural music of the mountain reed — 
 For here the patriarchal days are not 
 A pastoral fable — pipes in the liberal air, 
 Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd : 
 My soul would drink those echoes. Oh that I were 
 The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, 
 A living voice, a breathing harmony, 
 A bodiless enjoyment, born and dying 
 "With the blest tone which made me ! 
 
 ^ ... ■ — — . — --- - . i — _ . ,_.,, ,— — .... — . I, , . ■ ' 
 
 1 Er/e bus, son of Chaos, in heathen dark and gloomy space under the 
 mythology. The name signifies dark- earth, through which the shades pass 
 ness, and is therefore applied to the into Hades. 
 
HYMNS. 521 
 
 m. 
 
 168. HYMNS. 
 
 THE discovery of a statue, a vase, or even of a cameo, inspires 
 art-critics and collectors with enthusiastic in'dustrv, to 
 search whether it be a copy or an original, of what age, and by 
 what artist. But I think that a heart-hymn, sprung from the 
 soul's deepest life, and which is, as it were, the words of the 
 heart in those hours of transfiguration in which it beholds God, 
 and heavenly angels, is nobler by far than any old simulacrum, 1 
 or carved ring, or heathen head, however ex'quisite in lines 
 and feature ! 
 
 2. To trace back a hymn to its source, to return upon the 
 path along which it has trodden on its mission of mercy through 
 generations, to witness its changes, its obscurations and reap- 
 pearances, is a work of the truest religious enthusiasm, and far 
 surpasses in importance the tracing of the ideas of mere art. 
 For hymns are the expo'nents of the inmost piety of the Church. 
 They are crystalline tears, or blossoms of joy, or holy prayers, 
 or incarnated raptures. They are the jewels which the Church 
 has worn : the pearls, the diamonds and precious stones, formed 
 into amulets more potent against sorrow and sadness than the 
 most famous charms of wizard or magician. And he who knows 
 the way that hymns flowed, knows where the blood of piety ran, 
 and can trace its veins and arteries to the very heart. 
 
 3. No other composition is like an experimental hymn. It is 
 not a mere poetic impulse. It is not a thought, a fancy, a feel- 
 ing threaded upon words. It is the voice of experience speak- 
 ing from the soul a few words that condense and of ten represent 
 a whole life. It is the life, too, not of the natural feelings 
 growing wild, but of regenerated feeling, inspired by God to a 
 heavenly destiny, and making its way through troubles and hin- 
 drances, through joys and victories, dark or light, sad or serene, 
 yet always struggling forward. Forty years the heart may have 
 been in battle, and one verse shall express the fruit of the whole. 
 
 4. One great hope may come to fruit only at the end of many 
 years, and as the ripening of a hundred experiences. As there 
 be flowers that drink up the dews of spring and summer, and 
 
 1 Sim' u la N cram, the likeness, resemblance, or representation of any- 
 thing ; an image, picture, figure, effigy, or statue. 
 
522 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 feed upon all the rains, and, only just before the winter comes, 
 burst forth into bloom, so it is with some of the noblest blossoms 
 of the soul. The bolt that prostrated Saul gave him the ex- 
 ceeding brightness of Christ ; and so some hymns could never 
 have been written but for a heart-stroke that well-nigh crushed 
 out the life. It is cleft in two by bereavement, and out of the 
 rift comes forth, as by resurrection, the form and voice that shall 
 never die out of the world. Angels sat at the grave's mouth ; 
 and so hymns are the angels that rise up out of our griefs and 
 darkness and dismay. 
 
 5. Thus born, a hymn is one of those silent ministers which 
 God sends to those who are to be heirs of salvation. It enters 
 into the tender imagination of childhood, and casts down upon 
 the chambers of its thought a holy radiance which shall never 
 quite depart. It goes with the Christian, singing to him all the 
 way, as if it were the airy voice of some guardian spirit. When 
 darkness of trouble, settling fast, is shutting out every star, a 
 hymn bursts through and brings light like a torch. It abides 
 by our side in sickness. It goes forth with us in joy to syllable 
 that joy. 
 
 6. And thus, after a time, we clothe a hymn with the memo- 
 ries and associations of our own life. It is garlanded with flowers 
 which grew in our hearts. Born of the experience of one mind, 
 it becomes the unconscious record of many minds. We sang it, 
 perhaps, the morning that our child died. We sang this one 
 on that Sabbath evening when, after ten years, the family were 
 once more all together. There be hymns that were sung while 
 the mother lay a-dying ; that were sung when the child, just 
 converted, was filling the family with the joy of Christ new-born, 
 and laid, not now in a manger, but in a heart. And thus sprung 
 from a wondrous life, they lead a life yet more wonderful. When 
 they first come to us they are like the single strokes of a bell 
 ringing down to us from above ; but, at length, a single hymn 
 becomes a whole chime of bells, mingling and discoursing to 
 us the harmonies of a life's Christian experience. 
 
 7. And oftentimes, when in the mountain country, far from 
 noise and interruption, we wrought upon these hymns ' for our 
 vacation tasks, we almost forgot the living world, and were lifted 
 up by noble lyrics as upon mighty wings, and went back to the 
 
 Hymns, " Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes," published in 1855. 
 
HYMNS. 523 
 
 days when Christ sang with his disciples, when the disciples 
 sang too, as in our churches they have almost ceased to do. 
 Oh ! but for one moment even, to have sat transfixed, and to 
 have listened to the hymn that Christ sang and to the singing ! 
 But the olive-trees did not hear his murmured notes more clearly 
 than, rapt in imagination, we have heard them ! 
 
 8. There, too, are the hymns of St. Ambrose ' and many 
 others, that rose up like birds in the early centuries, and have 
 come flying and singing all the way down to us. Their wing is 
 untired yet, nor is the voice less sweet now than it was a thou- 
 sand years ago. Though they sometimes disappeared, they 
 never sank ; but, as engineers for destruction send bombs 
 that, rising high up in wide curves, overleap great spaces and 
 drop down in a distant spot, so God, in times of darkness, 
 seems to have caught up these hymns, spanning long periods 
 of time, and letting them fall at distant eras, not for explosion 
 and wounding, but for healing and consolation. 
 
 9. There are crusaders' hymns, that rolled forth their truths 
 upon the oriental air, while a thousand horses' hoofs kept time 
 below, and ten thousand palm-leaves whispered and kept time 
 above ! Other hymns, fulfilling the promise of God that His 
 saints should mount up with wings as eagles, have borne up the 
 sorrows, the desires, and the aspirations of the poor, the op- 
 pressed, and the persecuted, of Huguenots, of Covenanters, and 
 of Puritans, and winged them to the bosom of God. 
 
 10. In our own time, and in the familiar experiences of daily 
 life, how are hymns mossed over and vine-clad with domestic 
 associations ! One hymn hath opened the morning in ten thou- 
 sand families, and dear children with sweet voices have charmed 
 the evening in a thousand places with the utterance of another. 
 Nor do I know of any steps now left on earth by which one may 
 
 1 St. Ambrose, a celebrated Chris- much influence, that after the mas- 
 
 tian father, was probably born at sacreof Thessalonica in 39, he refused 
 
 Treves, in 340. After a careful edu- the Emperor Theodosius to the 
 
 cation at Rome, he practiced with Church of Milan for a period of eight 
 
 greatsuccess,asanadvocate,at Milan ; months, and then caused him to per- 
 
 and about 370 was appointed prefect form a public penance. Ambrose 
 
 of the provinces of Liguria and. Emi- was a man of eloquence, firmness, 
 
 lia, whose seat of government was and ability. The best edition of his 
 
 Milan. He was appointed Bishop of works is that of the Benedictines. 
 
 Milan in 374 ; and finally acquired ro » Bombs, (bumz). 
 
524 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 so soon rise above trouble or weariness as the verses of a hymn 
 and the notes of a tune. And if the angels, that Jacob saw, 
 sang when they appeared, then I know that the ladder which 
 he beheld was but the scale of divine music let down from 
 heaven to earth. H. W. Beeches. 
 
 IV. 
 
 169. THE PASSIONS. 
 
 WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young, 
 While yet in early Greece she sung, 
 The Passions 6ft, to hear her shell, 
 Thronged around her magic cell, — 
 Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, — 
 Possessed beyond the Muse's painting ; 
 By turns they felt the glowing mind 
 Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined : 
 Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired, 
 Filled wim fury, rapt, inspired, 
 From the supporting myrtles round 
 They snatched her instruments of sound ; 
 And, as they oft had heard apart 
 Sweet lessons of her forceful art, 
 Each — for Madness ruled the hour — 
 Would prove his own expressive power. 
 
 2. First Fear, his hand, its skill to try, 
 
 Amid the chords bewildered laid ; 
 And back recoiled, he knew not why, 
 
 E'en at the sound himself had made. — 
 Next Anger rushed — his eyes on fire, 
 
 In lightnings owned his secret stings : 
 In one rude clash he struck the lyre, 
 
 And swept, with hurried hands, the strings. — 
 With woful measures, wan Despair — 
 
 Low sullen sounds ! — his grief beguiled ; 
 A solemn, strange, and mingled air ; 
 
 'Twas sad, by fits — by starts, 'twas wild. 
 
 3. But thou, O Hope ! with eyes so fair — 
 
 What was thy delighted measure ? 
 Still it whispered promised pleasure, 
 
THE PASSIONS. 525 
 
 And bade the lovely scenes at distance bail I 
 Still would her touch the strain prolong ; 
 
 And, from the rocks, the woods, the vale, 
 
 She called on Echo still, through all her song ; 
 
 And where her sweetest theme she chose, 
 
 A soft responsive voice was heard at every close ; 
 And Hofe, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair. 
 
 4. And longer had she sung — but, with a frown, 
 
 Revenge impatient rose. 
 He threw his blood-stained sttford in thunder down ; 
 And, with a withering look, 
 The war-denouncing trumpet took, 
 And blew a blast so loud and dread, 
 
 "Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woes ; 
 And ever and anon, he beat 
 The doubling drum with furious heat ; 
 And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between, 
 Dejected Pitt, at his side, 
 Her soul-subduing voice applied, 
 Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien ; 
 While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head. 
 
 5. Thy numbers, Jealousy, to naught were fixed — 
 
 Sad proof of thy distressful state ! 
 Of differing themes the veering song was mixed ; 
 
 And now it courted Love — now, raving, called on Hate.— 
 
 With eyes upraised, as one inspired, 
 
 Pale Melancholy sat retired ; 
 
 And, from her wild, sequestered seat, 
 
 In notes, by distance made more sweet, 
 Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul ; 
 And, dashing soft from rocks around, 
 Bubbling runnels joined the sound ; 
 Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole ; 
 Or, o'er some haunted streams, with fond delay, — 
 
 Round a holy calm diffusing, 
 
 Love of peace, and lonely musing, — 
 In hollow murmurs died away. 
 
 6. But, oh I how altered was its sprightlier tone, 
 
 When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, 
 
52G NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Iler bow across her shoulder flung, 
 Her buskins gemmed with morning dew, 
 
 Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung, — 
 The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known ! 
 
 The oak-crowned sisters, and their chaste -eyed queen, 
 Satyrs, and sylvan boys, were seen, 
 Peeping from forth their alleys green : 
 Brown Exekctse rejoiced to hear ; 
 And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear. 
 
 7. Last came Joy's ecstatic trial : — 
 
 He, with viny crown, advancing, 
 
 First to the lively pipe his hand addressed ; 
 
 But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol, 
 
 Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. 
 
 They would have thought, who heard the strain, 
 
 Tney saw in Tempe's ' vale her native maids, 
 
 Amid the festal-sounding shades, 
 
 To some unwearied minstrel dancing ; 
 
 "While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings, 
 
 Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round — 
 
 Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound— 
 
 And he, amid his frolic play, 
 
 As if he would the charming air repay, 
 
 Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. Collins. 
 
 "William Collins, one of the most interesting and exquisite of English poets, 
 was born at Chichester on Christmas-day, 1720. He was educated at Winchester, 
 and Magdalen College, Oxford. Before leaving college he published the " Orien- 
 tal Eclogues," which, to the disgrace of the university and the literary public, 
 were wholly neglected. In 1744 he came to London as a literary adventurer, 
 and about two years later published his "Odes," and made the acquaintance 
 of Dr. Johnson, who held him in the highest esteem. His life in the metropolis 
 was irregular, and, until the death of an uncle, who left him a legacy of £2000, 
 was one of continual hardship. On the receipt of this little fortune, he repaid 
 Miller, the bookseller, the loss sustained by the publication of his neglected 
 "Odes," which were afterward destined to become immortal. Unhappily, the 
 seeds of disease and occasional insanity had been too deeply sown in his former 
 poverty to be eradicated, and after a short sojourn in France, he passed through 
 the doors of a lunatic asylum to his early home, where, in care of his sister, he 
 died, in 1750, at the early age of thirty-six. His appearance was manly, his con- 
 versation elegant, his views extensive, his disposition cheerful, and his morals 
 
 1 Tempe, (tern' pa), a valley of Eu- pus on the N., and Ossa on the S. 
 ropean Turkey, in the N. E. of Thes- The beauties of its scenery are much. 
 Baly,between the mountains of Oly in- celebrated by ancient writers. 
 
ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 527 
 
 pure. He was a man of extensive literature, and of vigorous faculties. The 
 " Oriental Eclogues" are written in a clear, correct style, and they charm by their 
 figurative language and descriptions, the simplicity and beauty of their dialogues 
 and sentiments, and their musical versification. No poet has been more happy 
 in the use of metaphors and personification. Collins' "Odes" arc unsurpassed 
 by any thing of the same species of composition in the English language, and 
 that to the "Passions" is a perfect master-piece of poetical description. 
 
 V. 
 
 170. ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 
 
 TT^WAS at the royal feast for Persia won 
 JL By Philip's warlike son : 
 Aloft, in awful state, 
 The godlike hero sate, 
 
 On his imperial throne. 
 His valiant r>eers were placed around 
 Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound ; 
 
 So should desert in arms be crowned. 
 The lovely Thais ' by his side 
 Sat, like an eastern blooming bride, 
 In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 
 Happy, happy, happy pair ! 
 
 None (nun) but the brave, 
 None but the brave, 
 None but the brave, deserves the fair. 
 
 2. Timotheiis, placed on high 
 
 Amid the tuneful choir, 
 
 "With flying Angers touched the lyre : 
 The trembling notes ascend the sky, 
 
 And heavenly joys inspire. 
 The song began from Jove, 
 Who left his blissful seats above — 
 Such is the power of mighty love ! 
 A dragon's fiery form belied the god : 
 Sublime on radiant spheres he rode, 
 
 ^ha'is, a celebrated beauty of palace of the Persian kings. On the 
 
 Athens, an attendant of Alexander, death of the conqueror, she married 
 
 who gained such influence over him, Ptolemy, king of Egypt, one of Alex- 
 
 as to cause him, during a great fes- ander's generals. She is sometimes 
 
 tival at Persepolis, to set fire to the called Menandria. 
 
528 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 
 When he to fair Olympia ' pressed, 
 And stampt an image of himself, a sovereign of the world. 
 The listening crowd admire the lofty sound ; 
 "A present deity!" they shout around ; 
 " A present deity !" the vaulted roofs rebound : 
 
 With ravished ears 
 
 The monarch hears, 
 
 Assumes the god, 
 
 Affects to nod, 
 And seems to shake the spheres. 
 
 3. The praise of Bacchus, 2 then, the sweet musician sung, — 
 Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young ! 
 
 The jolly god in triumph comes ! 
 
 Sound the trumpet ! beat the drums ! 
 
 Flushed with a purple grace, 
 
 He shows his honest face. 
 Now give the hautboys breath ! — he comes ! he comes 1 
 
 Bacchus, ever fair and young, 
 
 Drinking joys did first ordain : 
 Bacchus' blessings are a treasure ; 
 Drinking is the soldier's pleasure : 
 Rich the treasure, 
 Sweet the pleasure ; 
 
 Sweet is pleasure, after pain ! 
 
 4. Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain ; 
 Fought all his battles o'er again ; 
 
 And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain, 
 The master saw the madness rise ; 
 His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes ! 
 And, while he heaven and earth defied, 
 Changed his hand and checked his pride. 
 
 He chose a mournful muse, 
 Soft pity to infuse : 
 He sung Darius, 3 great and good, 
 
 'Olympia (ollm'pia), or Juno, ■ Da ri' us III., sometimes called 
 
 the sister and wife of Jupiter. Codomannus, in whose defeat by 
 
 1 Bac' chus, or rather Dionysus, Alexander the Great the Persian 
 
 the beautiful, but effeminate god of empire was consummated, succeeded 
 
 wine, in mythology, represented as to the throne b. c. 336, and was 
 
 crowned with vine leaves. killed 330. 
 
ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 52'J 
 
 By too severe a fate, 
 
 Fallen! fallen! fallen ! fallen I— 
 
 Fallen from his high estate. 
 And weltering in his blood ! 
 Deserted at his utmost need 
 By those his former bounty fed, 
 On the bare earth exposed he lies, 
 With not a friend to close his eyes. 
 
 "With downcast look the joyous victor sate, 
 
 Revolving, in his altered soul, 
 The various turns of fate below ; 
 
 And now and then a sigh he stole, 
 And tears began to flow. 
 
 5. The mighty master smiled to see 
 That love was in the next degree : 
 'Twas but a kindred strain to move ; 
 For pity melts the mind to love. 
 
 Softly sweet, in Lvdian ' measures, 
 Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures : 
 War, he sung, is toil and trouble ; 
 Honor but an empty bubble ; 
 
 Never ending, still beginning, 
 
 Fighting still, and still destroying : 
 If the world be worth thy winning, 
 
 Think, oh think it worth enjoying ! 
 Lovely Thais sits beside thee ; 
 Take the good the gods provide thee. 
 The many rend the skies with loud applause : 
 So love was crowned ; but music won the cause. 
 The prince, unable to conceal his pain, 
 Gazed on the fair 
 Who caused his care, 
 And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, 
 Sighed and looked; and sighed again : 
 At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, 
 The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. 
 
 1 Lyd'ian, pertaining to Lydia, said especially of one of the ancient 
 a country of Asia Minor, or to its in- Greek modes or keys, the music in 
 habitants : hence, soft; effeminate ; — which was soft and pathetic. 
 
530 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER 
 
 6. Now strike the golden lyre again — 
 
 A louder yet, and yet a louder strain I 
 Break his bands of sleep asunder, 
 And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. 
 Hark ! hark ! — the horrid sound 
 Has raised up his head ! 
 As awaked from the dead, 
 And amazed, he stares around. 
 Revenge ! revenge ! Timotheiis cries — 
 See the furies arise ! 
 See the snakes that they rear, 
 How they hiss in their hair, 
 And the sparkles that flash from their eyes ! 
 
 7. Behold a ghastly band, 
 Each a torch in his hand ! 
 
 Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain, 
 And unburied remain, 
 Inglorious, on the plain. 
 Give the vengeance due 
 To the valiant crew. 
 Behold how they toss their torches on high ! 
 How they point to the Persian abodes, 
 And glittering temples of their hostile gods ! 
 The princes applaud with a furious joy ; 
 And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy : 
 Thais led the way 
 To light him to his prey ; 
 And, like another Helen, 1 fired another Troy. 
 
 8. Thus long ago, — 
 
 Ere heaving bellows 1 learned to blow, 
 "While organs yet were mute, — 
 Timotheiis to his breathing flute 
 And sounding lyre, 
 Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. 
 
 1 Helen, a most beautiful woman elaus, who, with the other Greek 
 
 of ancient Greece, whom Paris, the chiefs, resolved to avenge her abduo 
 
 son of Priam, king of Troy, stole tion. Hence rose the Trojan war. 
 from the arms of her husband, Men- 2 Bellows, (bel' lus). 
 
ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 531 
 
 At last, divine Cecilia 5 came, 
 
 Inventress of the vocal frame : 
 The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, 
 
 Enlarged the former narrow bounds, 
 
 And added length to solemn sounds, 
 With nature's mother wit, and arts unknown before. 
 
 Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 
 Or both divide the crown : 
 
 He raised a mortal to the skies ; 
 
 She drew an angel down. Dryden. 
 
 John Dkyden, one of the great masters of English verse, was born at Old- 
 winckle, in Northamptonshire, August, 1631. He was educated at Westminster 
 and Trinity College, Cambridge. He began his literary career by a set of heroic 
 stanzas on the death of Cromwell, which was a good precursor of his future 
 excellence. The Restoration occurring when he was in his thirtieth year, ex- 
 eluded him for the time from government employment and patronage, and he 
 at once devoted himself to literature for a profession. The stage now offered 
 itself as the only means through which his pen could furnish a livelihood ; and, 
 in the course of twenty-five years, he wrote twenty-seven dramas, the most re- 
 markable of which are his "Heroic Plays." From these rhymed dialogues 
 arose that mastery of the English heroic couplet which he was the first to ac- 
 quire, and in which no succeeding poet has nearly equaled hi in. The prefaces, 
 dedications, and essays, with which he accompanied his dramas, exhibit him 
 at once as the earliest writer of regular and elegant English prose, and as the 
 first who aimed in our language at any thing like philosophical criticism. These 
 prose fragments contain some of the most felicitous specimens of style which our 
 tongue has ever produced. His engagement to write plays for the King's The- 
 ater gave him £300 a year : his circumstances were improved by his marriage, 
 in 1665, with Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire ; and in 
 1670 he received, with a salary of £200 a year and the famous butt of wine, the 
 joint offices of historiographer-royal and poet-laureate. "Absalom and Achito- 
 phel," the best of all his political satires, appeared in 1681. "The Medal" and 
 "Mac Flecknoe," works of the same kind, followed soon after. Inl6S5, Dryden 
 was received into the Church of Rome, the first public fruit of which was the 
 " Hind and Panther," a rich allegorical poem, in which the main arguments of 
 the Roman Church are stated. The Revolution, taking place in his fifty-seventh 
 year, deprived the poet of his courtly patrons and pensions, and forced him to 
 spend the last twelve years of his life in hard toil. Some of his best works weie 
 produced in this period. In 1690 appeared his tragedy of " Dou Sebastian," the 
 best of his serious plays. In 1697 he threw off at a heat his " Alexander's Feast," 
 one of the most animated of all lyrical poems; and his spirited translation of 
 Virgil appeared the same year. Lastly, in the spring of 1700, were published 
 his " Fables," which prove that his warm imagination then burned as brightly 
 
 8 Cecilia, the patron saint of mu- and depicted on canvas by more 
 
 sic, erroneously regarded as the in- than one of the great painters. Ra- 
 
 ventress of the organ, suffered mar- phael has most admirably presented 
 
 tyrdom A. D. 220. She has been her as the personification of heavenly 
 
 celebrated by several of the poets, devotion. 
 
532 NATIONAL FIFJTH READER. 
 
 as ever, and that his metrical skill increased at the close of his life. These ad- 
 mirable poems shed a glory on the last days of the poet, who died on the 1st of 
 May, 1700. For an extended description of Dryden's poetical endowments, the 
 reader is referred to the 66th Exercise, p. 243. 
 
 SECTION XXXIII. 
 
 I. 
 
 171. HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY. 
 
 TO be — or not to be — that is the question ! 
 Whether 'tis 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 ? 'Tis 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 ! 
 
 2. There's the respect 
 That makes calamity of so long life ; 
 
 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
 
 The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's con'tumely, 
 
 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 ? 
 
 3. Who would fardels bear, 
 To groan and sweat under a weary life ; 
 
 But that the dread of something after death, — 
 That 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? 
 
CATO'S SOLILOQUY. 533 
 
 4. 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. Shakspeare* 
 
 n. 
 
 172. CATO'S 1 SOLILOQUY. 
 
 IT must be so — Plato, thou reasonest well ! 
 Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 This longing after immortality ? 
 Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, 
 Of falling into naught ? AVhy shrinks the soul 
 Back on hersolf, and startles at destruction ? 
 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 
 'Tis Heaven itself, that points out a hereafter, 
 And intimates eternity to man. 
 
 2. Eternity ! — thou pleasing, dreadful thought ! 
 Through what variety of untried being, 
 Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! 
 The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me ; 
 But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. 
 Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us, — 
 And that there is, all Nature cries aloud 
 Through all her works, — He must delight in virtue ; 
 And that which He delights in must be happy. 
 
 i Marcus Porcius Cato, great- of the republican party were finally 
 grandson of Cato the Censor, -was extinguished by the battle of Thap- 
 born B. C 95. From his youth he bus, April 6th, B. C. 46. Failing to 
 -was celebrated for his bravery, vir- inspire his countrymen, who were 
 tue, decision, severity, and harshness collected at Utica, with courage to 
 of character. He was the principal endure a siege, he resolved not to 
 supporter of Cicero in his measures outlive the downfall of the republic, 
 for suppressing the Catilinerian con- After providing for the safety of his 
 spiracy ; and on the commencement friends, and spending the greater 
 of civil war, in B. C. 40, he joined part of the night in perusing Plato's 
 the party of Pompey against Caesar. Phanlo, he inflicted on himself the 
 After the defeat of the former, Cato wound of which he died, in the forty- 
 proceeded to Africa, where the hopes ninth year of his age. 
 
534 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 But when ? or where ? This world was made for Caesar. 
 I'm weary of conjectures, — this must end them. 
 
 [Laying his hand on his sword. 
 
 3. Thus am I doubly armed. My death ' and life, 
 My bane and antidote, are both before me. 
 This in a moment brings me to my end ; 
 But this informs me I shall never die. 
 The soul, secure in her existence, smiles 
 At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 
 The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
 Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years ; 
 But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
 Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
 The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. Addisow. 
 
 Joseph Addison, the eldest son of an able and learned clergyman, was born 
 at his father's rectory of Milston, in Wiltshire, England, on the first day of May, 
 1672. He was educated chiefly at the Charter-house and at Oxford, and distin- 
 guished himself as a writer of Latin verse. He took his master's degree in 1693, 
 and held a fellowship from 1699 to 1711. He first appeared in print by contribu- 
 ting English verses, some of which are original, and others translations from the 
 classics, to Dryden's Miscellanies. Political encouragement from the whig 
 party, soon after induced him to write a poem complimenting King William on 
 the campaign in which he took Namur. A pension, procured for him by Lord 
 Somers, enabled him, in 1699, to visit the Continent, where he resided for three 
 years. The best of his poems, a " Letter from Italy," was written in 1701, while 
 he was still abroad ; and his " Travels in Italy," his first extended prose work, 
 exhibited his extensive knowledge, and his skill and liveliness in composition. 
 Soon after his return to England he wrote " The Campaign," a poem celebrating 
 Marlborough's victory at Blenheim, which, receiving extraordinary applause, 
 secured him an appointment, in 1704, as one of the commissioners of appeal in 
 excise. He became an under secretary of state in 1706, and secretary to the 
 lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1709, about a year and a half before the dismissal 
 of the ministry which he served. From the autumn of 1710 till the end of 171-1, 
 four of the best years of his life, the opposition having deprived him of office, 
 Addison's principal employment was the composition of his celebrated Periodical 
 Essays. In 1709 he began to furnish papers for the " Tattler," a periodical con- 
 ducted by his schoolfellow and friend, Richard Steele, writing, in all, more 
 than sixty of the two hundred and seventy-one essays which the work contained. 
 On the first day of March, 1711, these two writers commenced the "Spectator," 
 which appeared every week-day till the 6th day of December, 1712. The two 
 contributing almost equally, seem together to have written not very much less 
 than five hundred of the papers. On the cessation of the " Spectator," Steele 
 set on foot the " Guardian," which, started in March, 1713, came to an end in 
 October, with its one hundred and seventy-fifth number, fifty-three of the papers 
 
 1 Death, bane, and the first this, refer to his sword ; and life antidote 
 and the second this, to the book lie held in his hand. 
 
SELECT PASSAGES IN PROSE. 535 
 
 being Addison's. In point of style the two friends resembled each other very 
 closely, when dealing with familiar objects; but, in the higher tones of thought 
 and composition, Addison showed a mastery of language raising him very de- 
 cisively, not above Steele only, but above all his contemporaries. In April, 
 1713, he brought on the stage his tragedy of " Cato," which was rendered so im- 
 mensely popular, partly through political considerations, as to raise the reputa- 
 tion of the author to its highest point. The accession of George I. occurring in 
 the latter part of 1714, restored the whigs to power, and thus again diverted Ad- 
 dison from literature to politics. After acting as secretary to the regency, he 
 was made one of the lords of trade early in 1715. Owing, it is said, to the influ- 
 ence of his wife, the Countess-dowager of Warwick, whom he had married a 
 few months before, he was induced to become one of the two principal secre- 
 taries of state in 1717; but ill health caused him to resign, eleven months after 
 his appointment, from which period he received a pension of £1500 a year, lie 
 died at Holland House, on the 17th of June, 1719. His body, after lying in state, 
 was interred in the poet's corner of Westminster Abbey. 
 
 m. 
 
 173 SELECT PASSAGES IN PROSE. 
 I. EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR.— Tillotson.' 
 OW often might a man, after he had jumbled a set of 
 
 H 
 
 letters in a bag, fling them out upon the ground before 
 they would fall into an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a 
 good discourse in prose ! And may not a little book be as 
 easily made by chance, as this great volume of the world ? — 
 How long might a man be in sprinkling colors upon a canvas 
 with a careless hand, before they could happen to make the 
 exact picture of a man ! And is a man easier made by chance 
 than this picture ? — How long might twenty thousand blind 
 men, which should be sent out from the several remote parts 
 of England, wander up and down before they would all meet 
 upon Salisbury Plains, and fall into rank and file in the exact 
 order of an army ! And yet this is much more easy to be 
 imagined, than how the innumerable blind parts of matter 
 should rendezvous 3 themselves into a world. 3 
 
 1 John Tillotson, a distinguished of Canterbury. Died in 169-4. His 
 
 prelate of the English Church, was sermons, his principal compositions, 
 
 born in Sowerby, Yorkshire, in 1630. were, for half a century, more read 
 
 He was educated at Clare Hall Col- than any in our language, 
 
 lege, Cambridge. Soon after leaving 2 Rendezvous (r£n'de v6), toassem- 
 
 that institution, he rose to distinc- ble, or meet at a particular place, as 
 
 tion as a preacher, and preferments troops, ships, &c. ; to bring together 
 
 flowed upon him in rapid succession, at a certain place, 
 
 till in 1690 he became Archbishop ■ World, (we'rld). 
 
536 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 II. NATURE PROCLAIMS A DEITY.— Chateaubriand.* 
 
 There is a God ! The herbs of the valley, the cedars of the 
 mountain, bless him ; the insect sports in his beam ; the bird 
 sings him in the foliage ; the thunder proclaims him in the 
 heavens ; the ocean declares his immensity ; — man alone has 
 said, There is no God ! Unite in thought at the same instant 
 the most beautiful objects in nature. Suppose that you see, at 
 once, all the hours of the day, and all the seasons of the year, 
 — a morning of spring, and a morning of autumn — a night be- 
 spangled with stars, and a night darkened by clouds — meadows 
 enameled with flowers — forests hoary with snow — fields gilded 
 by the tints of autumn, — then alone you will have a just con- 
 ception of the universe ! 
 
 While you are gazing on that sun which is plunging into the 
 vault of the West, another observer admires him emerging from 
 the gilded gates of the East. By what inconceivable power does 
 that aged star, which is sinking fatigued and burning in the 
 shades of the evening, reappear at the same instant fresh and 
 humid with the rosy dew of the morning ? At every hour of 
 the day, the glorious orb is at once rising, resplendent as noon- 
 day, and setting in the west ; or, rather, our senses deceive us, 
 and there is, properly speaking, no East or West, no North or 
 South, in the world. 
 
 III. THE UNBELIEVER.— Chalmers. 
 
 I pity the unbeliever — one who can gaze upon the grandeur, 
 and glory, and beauty of the natural universe, and behold not 
 the touches of His finger, who is over, and with, and above all ; 
 from my very heart I do commiserate his condition. The un- 
 believer ! — one whose intellect the light of revelation never 
 penetrated ; who can gaze upon the sun, and moon, and stars, 
 and upon the unfading and imperishable skj', spread out so mag- 
 nificently above him, and say all this is the work of chance ! 
 
 The heart of such a being is a drear and cheerless void. In 
 him, mind — the god-like gift of intellect — is debased, destroyed ; 
 all is dark — a fearful chaotic labyrinth, rayless, cheerless, hope- 
 less ! No gleam of light from heaven penetrates the blackness 
 of the horrible delusion ; no voice from the Eternal bids the 
 
 1 Chateaubriand, (sh& to bre fin"), Christianity," was born in Brittany, 
 a noted French writer and states- in 17(>i>, and died in Paris, in 1848, 
 man, author of the " Genius of at nearly the close of bis 80th year. 
 
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY 537 
 
 desponding heart rejoice. No fancied tones from the harps of 
 seraphim arouse the dull spirit from its lethargy, or allay the con- 
 suming fever of the brain. The wreck of mind is utterly rem'edi- 
 less ; reason is prostrate ; and passion, prejudice, and supersti- 
 tion, have reared their temple on the ruins of his intellect. 
 
 I pity the unbeliever. "What to him is the revelation from 
 on high but a sealed book ? He sees nothing above, or around, 
 or beneath him, that evinces the exist once of a God ; and he de- 
 nies — yea, while standing on the footstool of Omnipotence, and 
 gazing upon the dazzling throne of Jehovah, he shuts his intel- 
 lect to the light of reason, and denies there is a God. 
 
 IV. BLESSINGS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH.— Davy.' 
 
 I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others — not 
 genius, power, wit, or fancy ; but if I could choose what would 
 be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should 
 prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing ; for it 
 makes life a discipline of goodness ; creates new hopes, when 
 all earthly hopes vanish ; and throws over the decay, the de- 
 struction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights ; awakens 
 life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up 
 beauty and divinity ; makes an instrument of torture and of 
 shame the ladder of ascent to paradise ; and far above all com- 
 binations of .earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions 
 of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security 
 of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the skeptic view 
 only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair. 
 
 IV. 
 
 174. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
 The earth, and every common sight, 
 To me did seem appareled in celestial light — 
 
 •Sir Humphrey Davy, who ranks, not an extended, he was an able 
 
 as a man of science, second to none prose writer, and possessed a fine 
 
 in the nineteenth century, was born poetical imagination, which, had he 
 
 at Penzance, in Cornwall, England, not been the first chemist, would 
 
 December, 1778. Of his numerous have placed him among the first 
 
 discoveries, that of the safety-lamp poets of his age. He died at Geneva, 
 
 was, perhaps, m^st useful. Though on the 30th of Mav, 1820. 
 
 ' 2?* 
 
538 NATIONAL FIFTH READER 
 
 The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
 
 It is not now as it hath been of yore ; 
 
 Turn where so e'er I may, by night or day. 
 
 The things which I have seen, I now can see no more, 
 
 2. The rainbow comes and goes, and lovely is the rose ; 
 
 The moon doth with delight 
 Look round her when the heavens are bare ; 
 Waters on a starry night 
 Are beautiful and fair ; 
 The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 
 But yet I know, where'er I go, 
 That there hath passed away a glory from the earth, 
 
 3. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 
 
 And while the young lambs bound 
 As to the tabor's sound, 
 To me alone there came a thought of grief ; 
 A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 
 
 And I again am strong. 
 The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep — 
 No more shall grief of mine the season wrong. 
 I hear the echoes through the mountains throng ; 
 The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, 
 And all the earth is gay ; ♦ 
 
 Land and sea 
 Give themselves up to jollity ; 
 And with the heart of May 
 Doth every beast keep holiday ; — 
 Thou child of joy, 
 Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shep 
 
 herd boy ! 
 
 4. Ye blessed creatures ! I have heard the call 
 
 Ye to each other make ; I see 
 The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; 
 My heart is at your festival, 
 My head hath its coronal — 
 The fullness of your bliss, I feel, I feel it alL 
 O evil day ! if I were sullen 
 While Earth herself is adorning, 
 This sweet May-morning, 
 
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 539 
 
 And the children are culling 
 
 On every side, 
 In a thousand valleys far and wide, 
 Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm, 
 And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm — 
 I hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! 
 — But there's a tree, of many one, 
 A single field which I have looked upon — 
 Both of them speak of something that is gone ; 
 The pansy at my feet 
 Doth the same tale repeat. 
 Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
 Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? 
 
 6. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ; 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And conieth from afar. 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
 
 From God, who is our home. 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy ! 
 Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 
 Upon the growing boy : 
 But he beholds the light, and whence it flows — 
 
 He sees it in his iov. 
 The vouth, who daily farther from the east 
 
 Must travel, still is nature's priest, 
 
 And by the vision splendid 
 
 Is on his way attended : 
 At length the man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day. 
 6. Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own. 
 Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind ; 
 And, even with something of a mother's mind, 
 
 And no unworthy aim, 
 
 The homely nurse doth all she can 
 To make her foster-child, her inmate man, 
 
 Forget the glories he hath known, 
 And that imperial palace whence he came. 
 
540 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 7. Behold the child among his new-born blisses 
 A six years' darling of a pigmy size ! 
 
 See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 
 Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, 
 With light upon him from his father's eyes ! 
 See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 
 Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
 Shaped by himself with newly-learned art — - 
 
 A wedding or a festival, 
 
 A mourning or a funeral — 
 And this hath now his heart, 
 
 And unto this he frames his song. 
 Then will he fit his tongue 
 To dialogues of business, love, or strife ; 
 
 But it will not be long 
 
 Ere this be thrown aside, 
 
 And with new joy and pride 
 The little actor cons another part — 
 Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" 
 With all the persons, down to palsied age, 
 That life brings with her in her equipage ; 
 
 As if his whole vocation 
 
 Were endless imitation. 
 
 8. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 
 
 Thy soul's immensity ! 
 Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep 
 Thy heritage ! thou eye among the blind, 
 That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep 
 Haunted for ever by the eternal mind ! — 
 Mighty prophet ! Seer blest, 
 On whom those truths do rest 
 Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
 In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ! 
 Thou over whom thy immortality 
 Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, 
 A presence which is not to be put by ! 
 Thou little child, yet glorious in the might 
 Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, 
 Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoko 
 The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 
 
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 5^1 
 
 Tims blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 
 Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, 
 And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
 Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ! 
 
 9. O joy ! that in our embers 
 
 Is something that doth live, 
 That nature yet remembers 
 AMiat was so fugitive ! 
 The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
 Perpetual benediction : not, indeed, 
 For that which is most worthy to be blest- 
 Delight and liberty, the simple creef. 
 Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, 
 With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast — 
 Not for these I raise the song of thanks and praise ; 
 But for those obstinate questionings 
 Of sense and outward things, 
 Fallings from us, vanishings, 
 Blank misgivings of a creature 
 Moving about in worlds not realized, 
 High instincts, before which our mortal nature 
 Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised — 
 But for those first affections, 
 Those shadowy recollections, 
 Which, be they what they may, 
 Are yet the fountain -light of all our day, 
 Are yet a master light of all our seeing, 
 
 Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
 Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of the eternal Silence : truths that wake, 
 
 To perish never — 
 Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 
 
 Nor man nor boy, 
 Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
 Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 
 
 Hence in a season of calm weather, 
 Though inland far we be, 
 Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
 Which brought us hither — 
 Can in a moment travel thither, 
 
542 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 V 
 
 And see the children sport upon the shore, 
 And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 
 
 10. Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song I 
 
 And let the young lambs bound 
 
 As to the tabor's sound ! 
 "We in thought will join your throng, 
 
 Ye that pipe and ye that play, 
 
 Ye that through your hearts to-day 
 
 "Feel the gladness of the May ! 
 What though the radiance which was once so bright 
 Be now for ever taken from my sight, 
 Though nothing can bring back the hour 
 Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower — 
 
 We will grieve not, rather find 
 
 Strength in what remains behind : 
 
 In the primal sympathy 
 
 Which, having been, must ever be ; 
 
 In the soothing thoughts that spring 
 
 Out of human suffering ; 
 
 In the faith that looks through death, 
 In years that bring the philosophic mind. 
 
 11. And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, 
 Forebode not any severing of our loves ! 
 
 Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; 
 
 I only have relinquished one delight 
 
 To live beneath your more habitual sway. 
 
 I love the brooks which down their channels fret, 
 
 Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; 
 
 The innocent brightness of a new-born day 
 
 Is lovely yet ; 
 The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
 Do take a sober coloring from an eye 
 That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; 
 Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 
 Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
 Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears — 
 To me the "meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 
 
 William Wordsworth. 
 
THE POET. 543 
 
 SECTION XXXIV. 
 
 I. 
 
 175. THE POET. 
 
 HOW glorious, above all earthly glory, are the faculty and 
 mission of the Poet ! His are the flaming thoughts that 
 pierce the vail of heaven — his arc the feelings, which on the wings 
 of rapture sweep over the abyss of ages. The star of his being 
 is a splendor of the world. 
 
 2. The Poet's state and attributes are half divine. The 
 breezes of gladness are the heralds of his approach ; the glimpse 
 of his coming is as the flash of the dawn. The hues of Con- 
 quest flush his brow : the anger of triumph is in his eyes. The 
 secret of Creation is with him ; the mystery of the Immortal is 
 among his treasures. The doom of unending sovereignty is 
 upon his nature. 
 
 3. The meditations of his mind are Angels, and their issuing 
 forth is with the strength of eternity. The talisman 1 of his 
 speech is the scepter of the free. The decrees of a dominion 
 whose sway is over spirits, and whose continuance is to ever- 
 lasting, go out from before him ; and that ethereal essence, which 
 is the untamable in man — which is the liberty of the Infinite 
 within the bondage of life — is obedient to them. His phrases 
 are the forms of Power : his syllables are agencies of Joy. 
 
 4. With men in his sympathies, that he may be above them 
 in his influence, his nature is the jewel-clasp that binds Humanity 
 to Heaven. It mediates between the earthly and celestial : in 
 the vigor of his production, divinity becomes substantial ; in the 
 sublimity of his apprehensions, the material loses itself into 
 spirit. It is his to drag forth the eternal from our mortal form 
 of being — to tear the Infinite into our bounden state of action. 
 
 5. What conqueror has troops like his ? — the spirit-forces of 
 Language — those subtle slaves of mind, those impetuous masters 
 of the Passions ; whose mysterious substance who can compre- 
 hend—whose mighty operation what can com 'bat? Evolved, 
 none knoweth how, within the curtained chambers of existence 
 
 1 Talisman, (tal'izman\ something as preservation from sickness, in- 
 formed by magical skill, to which jury, cVc. ; that which produces re- 
 wonderful effects were ascribed, such markabl^ effects. 
 
544 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 — half-physical, half-ideal, and finer than all the agencies of 
 Time — linked together by spells, which are the spontaneous 
 magic of genius, which he that can use, never understands — the 
 weird hosts of words fly forth, silently, with silver wings, to win 
 resistlessly against the obstacles of Days, and Distance, and 
 Destruction, to fetter nations in the viewless chains of admira- 
 tion, and be, in the ever-presence of their all-vitality, the immor- 
 tal portion of the'r author's being. 
 
 G. Say what we will of the real character of the strifes of war, 
 and policy, and wealth, the accents of the singer are the true 
 acts of the race. What prince, in the secret places of his dalli- 
 ance, uses such delights as his ? Passing through the life of the 
 actual, with its transitory blisses, its deciduous ' hopes, its quickly 
 waning fires, his interests dwell only in the deep consciousness 
 of the soul and mind, to which belong uu decaying raptures, and 
 the tone of a godlike force. Within that glowing universe of 
 Sentiment and Fancy, which he generates from his own strenu- 
 ous and teeming spirit, he is visited by immortal forms, whose 
 motions torment the heart with ecstasy — whose vesture is of 
 light — whose society is a fragrance of all the blossoms of Hope. 
 
 7. To him the True approaches in the radiant garments of the 
 Beautiful ; the Good unvails to him the princely splendors of 
 her native lineaments, and is seen to be Pleasure. His soul lies 
 strewn upon its flowery desires, while, from the fountains of ideal 
 loveliness, flows softly over him the rich, warm luxury of the 
 Fancy's passion. His Joys are Powers ; and it is the blessedness 
 of his condition that Triumph to him is prepared not by toil, but 
 by indulgence. Begotten by the creative might of rapture, and 
 beaming with the strength of the delight of their conception, the 
 shapes of his imagination come forth in splendor, and he fasci- 
 nates the world with his felicities. H. B. Wallace. 
 
 n. 
 
 176. TO THE SPIRIT OF POETRY. 
 
 LEAVE me not yet! Leave me not cold and lonely, 
 Thou dear ideal of my pining heart ! 
 Thou art the friend — the beautiful — the only. 
 
 Whom I would keep, though all the world depart ! 
 
 De cH'u ons, falling in autumn, as leaves; not permanent. 
 
TO THE SPIRIT OF POETRY. 545 
 
 Thou, that dost vail the frailest flower with glory, 
 
 Spirit of light and loveliness and truth ! 
 Thou that didst tell me a sweet, fairy story 
 
 Of the dim future, in my wistful youth ! 
 Thou, who canst weave a halo round the spirit, 
 
 Through which naught mean or evil dare intrude, 
 Resume not yet the gift, which I inherit 
 
 From heaven and thee, that dearest, holiest good ! 
 Leave me not now! Leave me not cold and lonely, 
 
 Thou starry prophet of my pining heart ! 
 Thou art the friend — the tenderest, the only, 
 
 With whom, of all, 'twould be despair to part. 
 
 2. Thou that earnest to mo in my dreaming childhood, 
 
 Shaping the changeful clouds to pageants rare, 
 Peopling the smiling vale and shaded wildwood 
 
 "With airy beings, faint yet strangely fair ; 
 Telling me all the sea-born breeze was saying, 
 
 While it went whispering through the willing leaves ; 
 ■ Bidding me listen to the light rain playing 
 
 Its pleasant tune about the household eaves ; 
 Tuning the low, sweet ripple of the river, 
 
 Till its melodious murmur seemed a t-ong! 
 A tender and sad chant, repeated ever, 
 
 A sweet, impassioned plaint of love and wrong I 
 Leave me not yet ! Leave me not cold and lonely, 
 
 Thou star of promise o'er my clouded path ! 
 Leave not the life, that borrows from thee only 
 
 All of delight and beauty that it hath ! 
 
 3. Thou, that when others knew not how to love me, 
 
 Nor cared to fathom half my yearning soul, 
 Didst wreathe thy flowers of light around, above me, 
 
 To woo and win me from my griefs control ; 
 By all my dreams, the passionate, the holy, 
 
 When thou hast sung love's lullaby to me ; 
 By all the childlike worship, fond and lowly, 
 
 Which I have lavished upon thine and thee ; 
 By all the lays my simple lute was learning, 
 
 To echo from thy voice — stay with me still ! 
 Once flown — alis ! for thee there's no returning ! 
 
 The charm will die o'er valley, wood, and hill. 
 
546 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Tell me not Time, whose wing my brow has shaded, 
 Has withered spring's sweet bloom within my heart : 
 
 Ah, no ! the rose of love is yet un faded, 
 
 Though hope and joy, its sister flowers, depart. 
 
 4. Well do I know that I have wronged thine altar 
 
 With the light offerings of an idler's mind ; 
 And thus with shame, my pleading prayer I falter, 
 
 Leave me not, spirit ! deaf, and dumb, and blind I 
 Deaf to the mystic harmony of nature, 
 
 Blind to the beauty of her stars and flowers ; 
 Leave me not, heavenly yet human teacher, 
 
 Lonely and lost in this cold world of ours! 
 Heaven knows I need thy music and thy beauty 
 
 Still to beguile me on my weary way, 
 To lighten to my soul the cares of duty, 
 
 And bless with radiant dreams the darkened day ; 
 To charm my wild heart in the worldly revel, 
 
 Lest I, too, join the aimless, false and vain : 
 Let me not lower to the soulless level 
 
 Of those whom I now pity and disdain ! 
 Leave me not yet ! — leave me not cold and pining, 
 
 Thou bird of paradise, whose plumes of light, 
 Where'er they rested, left a glory shining : 
 
 Fly not to heaven, or let me share thy flight ! Osgood. 
 
 Frances Sargent Osgood, daughter of Joseph Locke, a Boston merchant, 
 was born in that city about the year 1812. Some of her first poems appeared in 
 a juvenile Miscellany, conducted by Mrs. L. M. Child, rapidly followed by others, 
 which soon gave their signature, " Florence," a wide reputation. About 1834 
 she was married to S. S. Osgood, a young painter already distinguished in his 
 profession. They soon after went to London, where Mr. Osgood pursued his 
 art of portrait-painting with success ; and his wife's poetical compositions to 
 various periodicals met with equal favor. In 1839 a collection of her poems was 
 published in London, entitled " A Wreath of Wild-Flowers from New England." 
 About the same period she wrote " The Happy Release, or the Triumphs of 
 Love," a play in three acts. She returned with Mr. Osgood to Boston in 1840. 
 They removed to New York soon afterward, where the remainder of her life 
 was principally passed. Her poems, and prose tales and sketches, appeared at 
 brief intervals in the magazines. In 1841 she edited " The Poetry of Flowers and 
 Flowers of Poetry," and in 1847, "The Floral Offering," two illustrated gift-books. 
 Her poems were collected and published in New York in 1816. She possessed an 
 unusual facility in writing verses, with a felicitous style, and was happy in the 
 selection of subjects. Her rare gracefulness and delicacy, and her unaffected and 
 lively manners, won her a large circle of warm friends. She died on the 12th 
 of May, 1850. 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 547 
 
 ILL 
 177. THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 
 
 WE believe that poetry, far from injuring society, is one 
 of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. 
 It lifts the mind above ordinary life, gives it a respite from de- 
 pressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity 
 wim what is pure and noble. In its legitimate and highest 
 efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity 
 (krist yan'i ti), — that is, to spiritualize our nature. 
 
 2. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the 
 pander of bad passions ; but when genius thus stoops, it dims 
 its fires, and parts with much of its. power ; and even when 
 poetry is enslaved to licentiousness and misan'thropy, she can 
 not wholly forget her true vocation. Strains of pure feeling, 
 touches of tenderness, images of innocent happiness, sympa- 
 thies with what is good in our nature, bursts of scorn or indig- 
 nation at the hollowness of the world, passages true to our 
 moral nature, often escape in an immoral work, and show us 
 how hard it is for a gifted spirit to divorce itself wholly from 
 what is good. 
 
 3. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affections. It 
 delights in the beauty and sublimity of outward nature and of 
 the soul. It indeed portrays with terrible energy the excesses 
 of the passions ; but they are passions which show a mighty 
 nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and ex- 
 cite a deep though shuddering sympathy. Its great tendency 
 and purpose is to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, 
 dusty, weary walks of ordinary life ; to lift it into a purer ele- 
 ment, and to breathe into it more profound and generous 
 emotion. 
 
 4. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the 
 freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleas- 
 ures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the 
 spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our 
 interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest 
 and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of 
 society, knits us by new ties with universal being, and, through 
 the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold 
 on the future life. 
 
548 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 5. We are aware that it is objected to poetry that it gives 
 wrong views and excites false expectations of life, peoples the 
 mind with shadows and illusions, and builds up imagination on 
 the ruins of wisdom. That there is a wisdom against which 
 poetry wars — the wisdom of the senses, which makes physical 
 comfort and gratification the supreme good, and wealth the 
 chief interest of life — we do not deny ; nor do we deem it the 
 least service which poetry renders to mankind, that it redeems 
 them from the thraldom of this earth-born prudence. 
 
 6. But, passing over this topic, we would observe that the 
 complaint against poetry, as abounding in illusion and decep- 
 tion, is, in the main, groundless. In many poems there is more 
 of truth than in many histories and philosophic theories. The 
 fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest veri- 
 ties, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and 
 throw new light on the mysteries of our being. In poetry, when 
 the letter is falsehood, the spirit is often profoundest wisdom. 
 
 7. And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the 
 poet, much mure may it be expected in his delineations of life ; 
 for the present life, which is the first stage of the immortal 
 mind, abounds in the materials of poetry, and it is the highest 
 office of the bard to detect this divine element among the 
 grosser pleasures and labors of our earthly being. The present 
 life is not wholly prosaic, precise, tame, and finite. To the 
 gifted eye it abounds in the poetic. 
 
 8. The affections which spread beyond ourselves, and stretch 
 far into futurity ; the workings of mighty passions, which seem 
 to arm the soul with an almost superhuman energy ; the inno- 
 cent and irrepressible joy of infancy ; the bloom, and buoyancy, 
 and dazzling hopes of youth ; the throbbings of the heart when 
 it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for 
 earth ; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and 
 fullness oi feeling, and depth of affection, and her blushes of 
 purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's heart 
 can inspire, — these are all poetical. 
 
 9. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not 
 exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's 
 ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, 
 brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more 
 refined but evanes'cent joys ; and in this he does well ; for it is 
 
TO THE POET. 5^<J 
 
 good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for sub- 
 sistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures 
 which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights 
 worthy of a higher being. 
 
 10. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and hap- 
 piness is more and more needed as society advances. It is 
 needed to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artifi- 
 cial manners, which makes civilization so tame and unin'ter- 
 esting. It is needed to counteraet the tendency of physical 
 science, which — being now sought, not, as formerly, for intel- 
 lectual gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts — re- 
 quires a new development of imagination, taste, and poetry, to 
 preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material, ep y icure'an ' 
 life. Cuanninq. 
 
 William Elleiiy Channing, D. D., an eminent American divine, was bora 
 at Newport, R. I., April 7th, 1780. At the age of twelve he was sent to New 
 London, Conn., to prepare for college under his uncle, the Rev. Henry Chan- 
 ning. His father, an able and hospitable lawyer, soon afterward died, to 
 which, in connection with a revival which then swept over New England, he 
 attributed the commencement of his decidedly religious life. He entered the 
 freshman class of Harvard College in 1794, where he graduated with the highest 
 honors. He became pastor of the Federal Street Church, Boston, in 1803. The 
 society rapidly increased under his charge, and his reputation and influence 
 became marked and extensive. He married, in 1814; visited Europe for his 
 health, in 1823; and died at Bennington, Vt., October 2, 1S42. He published 
 many admirable addresses and letters. His nephew, William E. Channing, col 
 lected and published six volumes of his writings in 1848. A selection of his 
 writings, entitled "Beauties o* Channing," has been published in London; and 
 many of his essays, at various times, have been translated into German. Among 
 the best of his general writings are his "Remarks on the Character and Writings 
 of Milton;" on "Bonaparte;" on "Fenelon;" and on "Self-Culture." 
 
 IV. 
 
 178. TO THE POET. 
 
 THOU, who wouldst wear the name 
 Of poet mid thy brethren of mankind, 
 And clothe in words of flame 
 
 Thoughts that shall live within the general mind,— 
 Deem not the framing of a deathless lay 
 The pastime of a drowsy summer day. 
 
 1 Ep v i cu re' an, pertaining to upon the opinion that pleasure con- 
 Epicurus, a celebrated Greek philo- stitutes the highest human happi- 
 sopher, whose theory was based ness; hence, given to luxury. 
 
550 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. But gather all thy powers, 
 
 And wreak them on the verse that thou dost weave 5 
 And in thy lonely hours, 
 
 At silent morning or at wakeful eve, 
 "While the warm current tingles through thy veins, 
 Set forth the burning words in fluent strains. 
 
 3. No smooth array of phrase, 
 
 Artfully sought and ordered though it be, 
 Which the cold rhymer lays 
 
 Upon his page with languid m'dustry, 
 Can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed, 
 Or fill with sudden tears the eyes that read. 
 
 4. The secret wouldst thou know 
 
 To touch the heart or fire the blood at will ? 
 Let thine own eyes 6'erflow ; 
 
 Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill ; 
 Seize the great thought, ere yet its power be past, 
 And bind, in words, the fleet emotion fast. 
 
 5. Then, should thy verse appear 
 
 Halting and harsh, and all unaptly wrought, 
 Touch the crude line with fear, 
 
 Save in the moment of impassioned thought ; 
 Then summon back the original glow, and mend 
 The strain with rapture that with fire was penned. 
 
 6. Yet let no empty gust 
 
 Of passion find an utterance in thy lay, 
 A blast that whirls the dust 
 
 Along the howling street and dies away ; 
 But feelings of calm power and mighty sweep, 
 Like currents journeying through the windless deep. 
 
 7. Seek'st thou, in living lays, 
 
 To limn the beauty of the earth and sky ? 
 Before thine inner gaze 
 
 Let all that beauty in clear vision lie ; 
 Look on it with exceeding love, and write 
 The words inspired by wonder and delight. 
 
 8. Of tempests wouldst thou sing, 
 
 Or tell of battles — make thyself a part 
 
THE BELLS. 551 
 
 Of the great tumult ; cling 
 
 To the tossed wreck with terror in thy heart ; 
 Scale, with the assaulting host, the rampart's height, 
 And strike and struggle in the thickest fight. 
 
 9. So shalt thou frame a lay 
 
 That haply may endure from age to age, 
 And they who read shall say : 
 
 What witchery hangs upon this poet's page ! 
 What art is his the written spells to find 
 That sway from mood to mood the willing mind ! Bryant. 
 
 SECTIOX XXXV. 
 I. 
 
 179. THE BELLS. 
 
 H 
 
 EAR 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 ' rhvme, 
 To the tintinnabulation J that so musically wells 
 From the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 Bells, bells, bells — 
 From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. 
 
 2. Hear the mellow wedding-bells, 
 Golden bells ! 
 What a world 3 of happiness their harmony foretells I 
 Through the balmy air of night 
 How they ring out their delight ! 
 
 » Runic (r5' nik), an epithet ap- 3 Tin r tin naV u la' tion, a tink- 
 plied to the language and letters of ling sound, as of a bell or bells, 
 the ancient Goths. s World, (w&rld). 
 
552 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 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 ! 
 Oh, 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 ! 
 3. 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 a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, 
 In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire 
 Leaping higher, higher, higher, 
 With a desperate desire, 
 And a resolute endeavor, 
 Now — now to sit or never, 
 By the side of the pale-faced moon. 
 Oh, the bells, bells, bells ! 
 What a tale their terror tells 
 Of despair ! 
 How they clang, and clash, and roar ! 
 What a horror they outpour 
 On the bosom of the palpitating air ! 
 Yet the air, it fully knows, 
 By the twanging 
 And the clanging, 
 
THE BELLS 553 
 
 How the danger ebbs and flows ; 
 Yet the car 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, 
 Bells, bells, bells— 
 In tha clamor and the clangor of the bells ! 
 
 4. Hear the tolling of the belh — 
 Iron bells ! 
 What a world of solemn thought their monody ' compels ! 
 In the silence of the night, 
 How we shiver with affright 
 At the mel'ancholy menace of their tone 1 
 For every sound that floats 
 From the rust within thuir throats 
 
 Is a groan. 
 And the people — ah, the people — 
 They that dwell up in the steeple, 
 
 All alone, 
 And who tolling, tolling, tolling, 
 
 In that muffled monotone, 
 Feel a glory in so rolling 
 
 On the human heart a stone — 
 They are neither man nor woman — 
 They are neither brute nor human — 
 
 They are Ghouls : a 
 And their king it is who tolls ; 
 And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls, 
 
 A prean 3 from the bells ! 
 And his merry bosom swells 
 With the pa?an of the bells ! 
 
 1 M5n' o dy, a species of poem of was supposed to prey upon human 
 
 a mournful character, in which a bodies. 
 
 single mourner is supposed to bewail 3 Pae' an, among the antfentt, a 
 
 himself. song of rejoicing in honor of Apollo ; 
 
 5 Ghoul (g6l), an imaginary evil hence, a loud and joyous song ; a 
 
 being among Eastern nations, which song of triumph- 
 
554 NATIONAL FIFTH READEtt. 
 
 And he dances and lie yells ; 
 
 Keeping time, time, time, 
 
 In a sort of Runic rhyme, 
 
 To the psean 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 bells, bells, bells — 
 
 To the tolling of the bells, 
 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells — 
 
 Bells, bells, bells — 
 
 To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. 
 
 Edgar A. Poe. 
 
 Edgar A. Poe, born in Baltimore, in January, 1811, was left an orphan by the 
 death of his parents at Richmond, in 1815. He was adopted by John Allen, a 
 wealthy merchant of Virginia, who in the following year took him to England, 
 and placed him at a school near London, from which, in 1822, he was removed 
 to the University of Virginia, where he graduated with distinction in 1826. 
 While at the Military Academy at West Point, in 1830, he published his first 
 work, a small volume of poems. He secured prizes for a poem and a tale at 
 Baltimore, in 1833; in 1835 he was employed to assist in editing "The Southern 
 Literary Gazette," at Richmond ; in 1838 he removed to Philadelphia, where he 
 was connected as editor with Burton's Magazine one year, and with Graham's a 
 year and a half; and subsequently, while in that city, published several volumes 
 of tales, besides many of his finest criticisms, tales, and poems, in periodicals. He 
 went to New York in 1844, where he wrote several months for the " Evening 
 Mirror." In 1845 appeared his very popular poem of " The Raven," and the 
 same year he aided in establishing the " Broadway Journal," of which he was 
 afterward the sole editor. His wife, to whom he had been married about twelve 
 years, died in the spring of 1849. In the summer of that year he returned to 
 Virginia, where it was supposed he had mastered his previous habits of dissipa- 
 tion ; but he died from his excesses, at Baltimore, on the seventh of October, at 
 the age of thirty-eight years. In poetry, as in prose, he was eminently success- 
 ful in the metaphysical treatment of the passions. He had a great deal of imag- 
 ination and fancy, and his mind was highly analytical. His poems are con- 
 structed with wonderful ingenuity, and finished with consummate art. 
 
THE CRY OF THE HUMAN. ~,~>3 
 
 II. 
 
 180. THE CRY OF THE nUMAN. 
 
 « rpHERE is no God,' the foolish saith, 
 I But none, ' There is no sorrow ;' 
 And nature oft, the cry of faith, 
 
 In bitter need will borrow : 
 Eyes which the preacher could not school, 
 
 By wayside graves are raised ; 
 And lips say, ' God be pitiful/ 
 Who ne'er said, ' God be praised.' 
 
 Be pitiful, O God ! 
 
 2. The tempest stretches from the steep 
 The shadow of its coming ; 
 The beasts grow tame, and near us creep, 
 
 As help were in the human : 
 Yet, while the cloud- wheels roll and grind 
 
 We spirits tremble under ! — 
 The bills have echoes ; but we find 
 No answer for the thunder. 
 
 Be pitiful, OGod! 
 
 8. The battle hurtles ' on the plains — 
 Earth feels new scythes upon her : 
 We reap our brothers for the wains, 
 
 And call the harvest . . honor, 
 Draw face to face, front line to line, 
 
 One image all inherit, — 
 Then kill, curse on, by that same sign, 
 Clay, clay — and spirit, spirit. 
 
 Be pitiful, OGod! 
 
 4. The plague runs festering through the town, 
 
 And never a bell is tolling ; 
 And corpses, jostled 'neath the moon, 
 
 Nod to the dead-cart's rolling. 
 The young child calleth for the cup — 
 
 The strong man brings it weeping ; 
 
 1 Hurtle (hSr'tl), to make a clashing, terrifying, or threatening sound ; 
 to resound. 
 
556 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 The mother from her babe looks up, 
 And shrieks away its sleeping. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God f 
 
 5. The plague of gold strikes far and near, 
 
 And deep and strong it enters : 
 This purple simar ' which we wear, 
 
 Makes madder than the centaur's. 2 
 Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange ; 
 
 We cheer the pale gold-diggers — 
 Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, 
 
 And marked, like sheep, with figures. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 6. The curse of gold upon the land, 
 
 The lack of bread enforces — 
 The rail-cars snort from strand to strand, 
 
 Like more of Death's White Horses ! 
 The rich preach ' rights' and future days, 
 
 And hear no angel scoffing : 
 The poor die mute — with starving gaze 
 
 On corn-ships in the ofnng. 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 7. We meet together at the feast — 
 
 To private mirth betake us — 
 We stare down in the winecup, lest 
 
 Some vacant chair should shake us ! 
 We name delight, and pledge it round — 
 
 ' It shall be ours to-morrow !' 
 God's seraphs ! do your voices sound 
 
 As sad in naming sorrow ? 
 
 Be pitiful, God ! 
 
 8. We sit together, with the skies, 
 
 The steadfast skies, above us : 
 We look into each other's eyes, 
 4 And how long will you love us ?' 
 
 i Simar (si mar'), a kind of long as man from the head to the loins, 
 
 gown or robe. the remainder of the body being 
 
 2 Cen' taur, a fabulous being, sup- that of a horse with its four feet 
 
 posed to be half man and half horse, and tail ; also, as here used, a bulk 
 
 represented in ancient works of art killer. 
 
THE CRY OF TIIE HUMAN. 557 
 
 The eyes grow dim with prophecy, 
 
 The voices, low and breathless — 
 'Till death us part' — words, to be 
 
 Our best for love the deathless ! 
 
 Be pitiful, dear God ! 
 
 9. Wo tremble by the harmless bed 
 Of one loved and departed — 
 Our tears drop on the lips that said 
 Last night, ' Be stronger hearted !' 
 O God, — to clasp those fingers close, 
 
 And yet to feel so lonely ! — 
 
 To see a light upon such brows, 
 
 Which is the daylight only ! 
 
 Be pitiful, OGod! 
 
 10. The happy children come to us, 
 
 And look up in our faces : 
 They ask us — Was it thus, and thus, 
 
 When we were in their places ? 
 We can not speak : — we see anew 
 
 The hills we used to live in ; 
 And feel our mother's smile press through 
 
 The kisses she is giving. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God ! 
 
 11. We pray together at the kirk, 
 
 For mercy, mercy, solely — 
 Hands weary with the evil work, 
 
 We lift them to the Holy ! 
 The corpse is calm below our knee — 
 
 Its spirit, bright before Thee — 
 Between them, worse than either, we — 
 
 Without the rest of glory ! 
 
 Be pitiful, O God J 
 
 12. We leave the communing of men, 
 
 The murmur of the passions ; 
 And live alone, to live again 
 
 With endless generations. 
 Are we so bravo ? — The sea and sky 
 
 In silence lift their mirrors ; 
 
558 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 And, glassed therein, our spirits high 
 Recoil from their own terrors. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God ! 
 
 13. We sit on hills our childhood wist, 
 
 Woods, hamlets, streams, beholding : 
 The sun strikes through the farthest mist, 
 
 The city's spire to golden. 
 The city's golden spire it was, 
 
 When hope and health were strongest, 
 But now it is the churchyard grass, 
 We look upon the longest. 
 
 Be pitiful, O God ! 
 
 15. And soon all vision waxeth dull — 
 Men whisper, ' He is dying :' 
 We cry no more, ' Be pitiful !' — 
 
 We have no strength for crying : 
 No strength, no need ! Then, Soul of mine, 
 
 Look up and triumph rather — 
 Lo ! in the depth of God's Divine, 
 The Son adjures the Father — 
 
 Be pitiful, O God ! 
 
 Mrs. Browning. 
 
 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, an English poetess, and one of the greatest, 
 if not the greatest, was born in London, in 1809. Educated with great care, she 
 became a ripe scholar, uniting remarkably the distinctive characteristics of the 
 masculine understanding and the feminine heart. She began to write at a very 
 early age for periodicals. Her first volume of poems appeared in 1826. She 
 became the wife of Robert Browning in 1846. She died at Florence, the princi- 
 pal residence of the Brownings for several years, June 29th, 1861. Her range ot 
 subjects was wide. Her genius grew apace, every new performance giving better 
 promise for the next. She abounded in figures, strong and striking, in happy 
 conceits, and successful expressions. She knew the true art of choosing words, 
 a large per cent, of them being Saxon. Of her numerous poems, probably none 
 surpasses " Aurora Leigh," a narrative poem in 9 books, published in 1856. 
 
 in. 
 
 181. THE RAVEN. 
 
 1. 
 
 ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and 
 weary, 
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore — 
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
 
THE RAVEN. 559 
 
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door. 
 " "lis some visitor," I muttered, " tapping at my chamber-door — 
 Only this, and nothing more." 
 
 2. 
 
 Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, 
 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor, 
 Eagerly I wished the morrow : vainly I had sought to borrow 
 From my books surcease of Borrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore — 
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore — 
 Nameless here forevermore. 
 
 3. 
 
 And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain, 
 Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before ; 
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, 
 " Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door, — 
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door ; 
 That it is, and nothing more." 
 
 4. 
 
 Presently my soul grew stronger : hesitating then no longer, 
 " Sir," Raid I, " or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore ; 
 But the fact is, I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, 
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber-door, 
 That I scarce was sure I heard you" — here I opened wide the door: 
 Darkness there, and nothing more. 
 
 5. 
 
 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, 
 
 fearing, 
 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream 
 
 before ; 
 But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 
 And the only word there spoken was the whispered word 
 
 " Lenore!" 
 This 7whisper'd,and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore !" 
 Merely this, and nothing more. 
 
 6. 
 
 Back "into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning, 
 Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before. 
 " Surely," said I, " surely that is something at my window-lattice ; 
 
560 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Let me see then what thereat is, and this mystery explore, — 
 
 Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore ; — 
 
 "lis the wind, and nothing more." 
 
 7. 
 
 Open here 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 a minute stopp'd or stay'd he ; 
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perch'd above my chamber-door, — 
 Perch'd upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door — 
 Perch'd, and sat, and nothing more. 
 
 8. 
 
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 
 By the grave and stern 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 !" 
 
 9. 
 
 Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, 
 Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore ; 
 Eor we can not help agreeing that no living human being 
 Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber-door — 
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber-door, 
 With such name as " Nevermore !" 
 
 10. 
 
 But the raven sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only 
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. 
 Nothing further then he utter'd — not a feather then he flutter'd — 
 Till I scarcely more than mutter 'd, " Other friends have flown 
 
 before — 
 On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before* 
 Then the bird said, " Nevermore !" 
 
 11. 
 
 Startled at the stillness, broken by reply so aptly spoken, 
 "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, 
 Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster 
 
THE RAVEN. 561 
 
 Follow'd fast and follow'd faster, till his songs one burden bore, — 
 Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore, 
 Of — " Never — nevermore !" 
 
 12. 
 
 But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, 
 Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust, 
 
 and door, 
 Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking 
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore — 
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore 
 Meant in croaking " Nevermore !" 
 
 13. 
 
 This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing 
 To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core 
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining 
 On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er, 
 But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamp-light gloating o'er 
 She shall press — ah ! nevermore ! 
 
 14. 
 
 Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen 
 
 censer 
 Swung by seraphim, whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. 
 11 Wretch," I cried, " thy God hath lent thee — by these angels 
 
 he hath sent thee 
 Respite — respite and nepenthe ' from thy memories of Lenore ! 
 Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!" 
 Quoth the raven, " Nevermore !" 
 
 15. 
 
 " Prophet !" said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet still, if bird or devil ! 
 Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest toss'd thee here ashore, 
 Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted — 
 On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore — 
 Is there — is there balm in Gilead ? — tell me — tell me, I implore P 
 Quoth the raven, "Nevermore !" 
 
 16. 
 
 " Prophet !" said I, " thing of evil ! — prophet still, if bird or devil ! 
 By that heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore, 
 
 1 Ne pSn'the, a drug or medicine that relieves pain and exhilarates. 
 
 24* 
 
562 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Tell this soul, with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn, 1 
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore ; 
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore!" 
 Quoth the raven, " Nevermore !" 
 
 17. 
 
 " Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend !" I shrieked, 
 
 upstarting — 
 " Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! 
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken ! 
 Leave my loneliness unbroken ! — quit the bust above my door ! 
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off 
 
 my door !" 
 
 Quoth the raven, " Nevermore I" 
 
 18. 
 And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 
 On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door ; 
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, 
 And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the 
 
 floor ; 
 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
 Shall be lifted — Nevermore ! Edgar A. Poe. 
 
 SECTION XXXYI. 
 
 I. 
 
 182. THE SARACEN BROTHERS. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 ATTENDANT. A stranger craves admittance to your 
 highness. 
 Saladin. Whence comes he ? 
 Atten. That I know not. 
 Enveloped with a vestment of strange form, 
 His countenance is hidden ; but his step, 
 
 J Aidenn, from Aides, a name pre- transferred to his house, his abode, 
 
 ferred by the poets for Hades. In or kingdom, so that it became a 
 
 Homer, Aides is invariably the name name in quite general use for the 
 
 of the god ; but in latter times it was nether world. 
 
THE SARACEN BROTHERS. 563 
 
 His lofty port, bis voice in vain disguised, 
 Proclaim — if that I dare pronounce it. 
 
 Sal. Whom ? 
 
 Atten. Thy royal brother ! 
 
 Sal. Bring him instantly. [Exit Attendant. 
 
 Now, with his specious, smooth, persuasive tongue, 
 Fraught with some wily subterfuge, he thinks 
 To dissipate my anger. He shall die. 
 
 [Enter Attendant and Ma lee Adhel. 
 Leave us together. [Exit Attendant.] [Aside.'] I should know 
 
 that form. 
 Now summon all thy fortitude, my soul, 
 Nor, though thy blood cry for him, spare the guilty ! 
 [Aloud j Well, stranger, speak ; but first unvail thyself, 
 For Sal'adm l must view the form that fronts him. 
 
 Malek Adhel. Behold it, then ! 
 
 Sal I see a traitor's visage. 
 
 Mai. Ad. A brother's ! 
 
 Sal. No ! 
 
 Saladin owns no kindred with a villain. 
 
 Mai. Ad. O, patience, Heaven. Had any tongue but thine 
 Uttered that word, it ne'er should speak another. 
 
 Sal. And why not now ? Can this heart be more pierced 
 By Malek Adhel's sword than by his deeds ? 
 Oh, thou hast made a desert of this bosom ! 
 For open candor, planted sly disguise ; 
 For confidence, suspicion ; and the glow 
 Of generous friendship, tenderness, and love, 
 Forever banished ! Whither can I turn, 
 When he by blood, by gratitude, by faith, 
 By every tie, bound to support, forsakes me ? 
 Who, who can stand, when Malek Adhel falls ? 
 
 1 Sal' a din, the hero of this dra- and conquests. Christians and Sara- 
 
 matic piece, was born in 1137. He cens have vied with each other in 
 
 became Sultan of Egypt and Syria writing panegyrics on the justice, 
 
 in 1168, from which period he is valor, generosity, and political wis- 
 
 noted for his wars with the Chris- dom of this prince, who possessed 
 
 tian crusaders. He died at Damas- the art, not simply of acquiring 
 
 cus in 1193, leaving a brother and power, but of devoting it to the 
 
 seventeen eons to 6hare his power good of his subjects. 
 
584 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Henceforth. I turn me from the sweets of love : 
 The smiles of friendship, and this glorious world, 
 In which all find some heart to rest upon, 
 Shall be to Saladin a cheerless void, — 
 His brother has betrayed him ! 
 
 Mil. Ad. Thou art softened ; 
 
 I am thy brother, then ; but late thou saidst > 
 
 My tongue can never utter the base title ! 
 
 S.il. Was it traitor ? True ! 
 Thou hast betrayed me in my fondest hopes ! 
 Villain ? 'Tis just ; the title is appropriate 
 Dissembler ? 'Tis not written in thy face ; 
 No, nor imprinted on that specious brow ; 
 But on this breaking heart the name is stamped, 
 Forever stamped, with that of Malek Adhel ! 
 Think'st thou I'm softened ? By Mahomet ! these hands 
 Should crush these aching eyeballs, ere a tear 
 Fall from them at thy fate ! O monster, monster ! 
 The brute that tears the infant from its nurse 
 Is excellent to thee, for in his form 
 The impulse of his nature may be read ; 
 But thou, so beautiful, so proud, so noble, 
 Oh, what a wretch art thou ? Oh ! can a term 
 In all the various tongues of man be found 
 To match thy infamy ? 
 
 Mai. Ad. Go on ! go on ! 
 
 'Ti3 but a little while to hear thee, Saladin ; 
 And, bursting at thy feet, this heart will prove 
 Its penitence, at least. 
 
 Sal. That were an end 
 
 Too noble for a traitor ! The bowstring is 
 A more appropriate finish ! Thou shalt die ! 
 
 Mai. Ad. And death were welcome at another's mandate ! 
 What, what have I to live for ? Be it so, 
 If that, in all thy armies, can be found 
 An executing hand. 
 
 Sal. Oh, doubt it not ! 
 
 They're eager for the office. Perfidy, 
 So black as thine, effaces from their minds 
 All memory of thy former excellence. 
 
THE SARACEN BROTHERS. 565 
 
 Mai. Ad. Defer not then their -wishes. Saladin, 
 If e'er this form was joyful to thy sight, 
 This voice seemed grateful to thine ear, accede 
 To my last prayer : — Oh, lengthen not this scene, 
 To which the agonies of death were pleasing ! 
 Let me die speedily ! 
 
 Sal. This very hour ! 
 
 [Aside,'] For, oh ! the more I look upon that face, 
 The more I hear the accents of that voice, 
 The monarch softens, and the judge is lost 
 In all the brother's weakness ; yet such guilt, — 
 Such vile ingratitude, — it calls for vengeance ; 
 And vengeance it shall have ! AVhat, ho ! who waits there ? 
 
 [Enter Attendant. 
 
 Atten. Did your highness call ? 
 
 Sal. Assemble quickly 
 
 My forces in the court. Tell them they come 
 To view the death of yonder bosom-traitor. 
 And, bid them mark, that he who will not spare 
 His brother when he errs, expects obedience, 
 Silent obedience, from his followers. [ Exit Attendant. 
 
 n. 
 
 183. THE SARACEN BROTHERS. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 MALEK ADHEL. Now, Sal'adin, 
 The word is given, I have nothing more 
 To fear from thee, my brother. I am not 
 About to crave a miserable life. 
 Without thy love, thy honor, thy esteem, 
 Life were a burden to me. Thiuk not, either, 
 The justice of thy sentence I would question. 
 But one request now trembles on my tongue, — 
 One wish still clinging round the heart, which soon 
 Not even that shall torture, — will it, then, 
 Think'st thou, thy slumbers render quieter, 
 Thy waking thoughts more pleasing, to reflect, 
 That when thv voice had doomed a brother's death, 
 The last request which e'er was his to utter, 
 
566 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Thy harshness made him carry to the grave ? 
 
 Sal. Speak, then ; but ask thyself if thou hast reason 
 To look for much indulgence here. 
 
 Mai. Ad. I hare not ! 
 
 Yet will 1 ask for it. We part forever ; 
 This is our last farewell ; the king is satisfied ; 
 The judge has spoke the irrevocable sentence. 
 None sees, none hears, save that omniscient Power, 
 "Which, trust me, will not frown to look upon 
 Two brothers part like such. When, in the face 
 Of forces once my own, I'm led to death, 
 Then be thine eye unmoistened ; let thy voice 
 Then speak my doom untrembling ; then 
 Unmoved, behold this stiff and blackened corse : 
 But now I ask — nay, turn not, Saladin ! — 
 I ask one single pressure of thy hand ; 
 From that stern eye one solitary tear — 
 Oh, torturing recollection ! — one kind word 
 From the loved tongue which once breathed naught but kindness. 
 Still silent ? Brother ! friend ! beloved companion 
 Of all my youthful sports ! — are they forgotten ? 
 Strike me with deafness, make me blind, O Heaven ! 
 Let me not see this unforgiving man 
 Smile at my agonies ! nor hear that voice 
 Pronounce my doom, which would not say one word, 
 One little word, whose cherished memory 
 Would soothe the struggles of departing life ! 
 Yet, yet thou wilt ! Oh, turn thee, Saladin ! 
 Look on my face — thou canst not spurn me then ; 
 Look on the once-loved face of Malek Adhel 
 For the last time, and call him — 
 
 Sal. [seizing his hand.] Brother! brother! 
 
 Mai. Ad. [breaking away.] Now, call thy followers. 
 Death has not now a single pang in store. Proceed ! I'm ready. 
 
 Sal. Oh, art thou ready to forgive, my brother ? 
 To pardon him who found one single error, 
 One little failing, mid a splendid throng 
 Of glorious qualities — 
 
 Mai. Ad. Oh, stay thee, Saladin ! 
 I did not ask for life. I only wished 
 
THE SARACEN BROTHERS. 567 
 
 To carry thy forgiveness to the grave. 
 
 No, Emperor, the loss of Cesarea 
 
 Cries loudly for the blood of Malek Adhel. 
 
 Thy soldiers, too, demand that he who lost 
 
 What cost them many a weary hour to gain, 
 
 Should expiate his offences with his life. 
 
 Lo ! even now they crowd to view my death, 
 
 Thy just impartiality. I go ! 
 
 Pleased by my fate to add one other leaf 
 
 To thy proud wreath of glory. [Going. 
 
 Sal. Thou shalt not. [Enter Attendant. 
 
 Atten. My lord, the troops assembled by your order 
 Tumultous throng the courts. The prince's death 
 Not one of them but vows he will not suffer. 
 The mutes have fled ; the very guards rebel. 
 Nor think I, in this city's spacious round, 
 Can e'er be found a hand to do the office. 
 
 Mai. Ad. O faithful friends ! [To Atten.] Thine shalt. 
 
 Atten. Mine ? — Never ! — 
 The other first shall lop it from the body. 
 
 Sal. They teach the Emperor his duty well. 
 Tell them he thanks them for it. Tell them, too, 
 That ere their opposition reached our ears, 
 Saladin had forgiven Malek Adhel. 
 
 Atten. O joyful news ! 
 I haste to gladden many a gallant heart, 
 And dry the tear on many a hardy cheek, 
 Unused to such a visitor. [Exit. 
 
 Sal. These men, the meanest in society, 
 The outcasts of the earth, — by war, by nature 
 Hardened, and rendered callous, — these, who claim 
 No kindred with thee, — who have never heard 
 The accents of affection from thy lips, — 
 Oh, these can cast aside their vowed allegiance, 
 Throw off their long obedience, risk their lives, 
 To save thee from destruction ! While I, 
 I, who can not, in all my memory, 
 Call back one danger which thou hast not shared, 
 One day of grief, one night of revelry, 
 Which thy resistless kindness hath not soothed, 
 
5ft8 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Or thy gay smile and converse rendered sweeter, — 
 
 I, who have thrice in the ensanguined field, 
 
 When death seemed certain, only uttered " Brother !" 
 
 And seen that form like lightning rush between 
 
 Saladin and his foes, and that brave breast 
 
 Dauntless exposed to many a furious blow 
 
 Intended for my own, — I could forget 
 
 That 'twas to thee I owed the very breath 
 
 Which sentenced thee to perish ! Oh, 'tis shameful I 
 
 Thou canst not pardon me ! 
 
 Mai. Ad. By these tears, I can ! 
 O brother ! from this very hour, a new, 
 A glorious life commences ! I am all thine ! 
 Again the day of gladness or of anguish 
 Shall Malek Adhel share ; and 6ft again 
 May this siuord fence thee in the bloody field. 
 Henceforth, Saladin, 
 My heart, my soul, my sword, are thine forever. 
 
 ni. 
 
 184. BRUTUS AND TITUS. 
 
 BRUTUS. Well, Titus, speak ; how is it wifli thee now? 
 I would attend awhile this mighty motion, 
 Wait till the tempest were quite overblown, 
 That I might take thee in the calm of nature, 
 With all thy gentler virtues brooding on thee : 
 So hushed a stillness, as if all the gods 
 Looked down and listened to what we were saying : 
 Speak, then, and tell me, O my best beloved, 
 My son, my Titus ! is all well again ? 
 
 Titus. So well, that saying how must make it nothing : 
 So well, that I could wish to die this moment, 
 For so my heart, with powerful throbs, persuades me 
 That were indeed to make you reparation ; 
 That were, my lord, to thank you home — to die 
 And that, for Titus, too, would be most h#ppy. 
 
 Brutus. How's that, my son ? would death for thee be happy ? 
 
 Titus. Most certain, Sir ; for in my grave I 'scape 
 All those affronts which I, in life, must look for ; 
 
BRUTUS AND TITUS. 50 f J 
 
 All those reproaches which the eyes, the fingers, 
 And tongues of Home will daily cast upon me,— 
 From whom, to a soul so sensible as mine, 
 Each single scorn would be far worse than dying. 
 Besides, I 'scape the stings of my own conscience, 
 Which will forever rack me with remembrance, 
 Haunt me by day, and torture me by night, 
 Casting my blotted honor in the way, 
 Where'er my mel'ancholy thoughts shall guide me. 
 
 Brutus. But, is not death a very dreadful thing ? 
 
 Titus. Not to a mind resolved. No, Sir ; to mo 
 It seems as natural as to be born. 
 Groans and convulsions, and discolored faces, 
 Friends weeping round us, crapes and obsequies, 
 Make it a dreadful thing : the pomp of death 
 Is far more terrible than death itself 
 Yes, Sir ; I call the powers of heaven to witness, 
 Titus dares die, if so you have decreed ; 
 Nay, he shall die with joy to honor Brutus. 
 
 Brutus. Thou perfect glory of the Junian race ! 
 Let me endear thee once more to my bosom ; 
 Groan an eternal farewell to thy soul ; 
 Instead of tears, weep blood, if possible ; — 
 Blood, the heart-blood of Brutus, on his child ! 
 For thou must die, my Titus — die, my son ! 
 I swear, the gods have doomed thee to the grave. 
 The violated genius of thy country 
 Bares his sad head, and passes sentence on thee. 
 This morning sun, that lights thy sorrows on 
 To the tribunal of this horrid vengeance, 
 Shall never see thee more ! 
 
 Titus. Alas ! my lord, 
 
 Why art thou moved thus? Why am I worth thy sorrow ? 
 Why should the godlike Brutus shake to doom me? 
 Why all these trappings for a traitor's hearse ? 
 The gods will have it so. 
 
 Brutus. They will, my Titus ; 
 
 Nor heaven nor earth can have it otherwise. 
 Nay, Titus, mark ! the deeper that I search, 
 My harassed soul returns the more confirmed. 
 
570 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Methinks I see the very hand of Jove 
 Moving the dreadful wheels of this affair, — 
 Like a machine, they whirl thee to thy fate. 
 It seems as if the gods had preordained it, 
 To fix the reeling spirits of the people, 
 And settle the loose liberty of Rome. 
 'Tis fixed ; O, therefore let not fancy dupe thee ! 
 So fixed thy death, that 'tis not in the power 
 Of gods or men to save thee from the ax. 
 
 Titus. The ax! O Heaven! must I, then, fall so basely? 
 "What ! shall I perish by the common hangman ? 
 
 Brutus. If thou deny me this, thou givest me nothing. 
 Yes, Titus, since the gods have so decreed 
 That I must lose thee, I will take the advantage 
 Of thy important fate ; cement Rome's flaws, 
 And heal her wounded freedom with thy blood. 
 I will ascend myself the sad tribunal, 
 And sit upon my son — on thee, my Titus ; 
 Behold thee suffer all the shame of death, 
 The lictor's lashes, bleed before the people ; 
 Then, with thy hopes and all thy youth upon thee, 
 Soe thy head taken by the common ax, 
 Without a groan, without one pitying tear 
 (If that the gods can hold me to my purpose), 
 To make my justice quite transcend example. 
 
 Titus. Scourged like a bondman ! Ha ! a beaten slave I 
 But I deserve it all : yet, here I fail ; 
 The image of this suffering quite unmans me. 
 O Sir! O Brutus! must I call you father, 
 Yet have no token of your tenderness — 
 No sign of mercy ? What ! not bate me that ? 
 Can you resolve on all the extremity 
 Of cruel rigor ? To behold me, too — 
 To sit, unmoved, and see me whipped to death — 
 Is this a father ? 
 
 Ah, Sir, why should you make my heart suspect 
 That all your late compassion was dissembled ? 
 How can I think that you did ever love me ? 
 
 Brutus. Think that I love thee, by my present passion, 
 By these unmanly tears, these earthquakes here ; 
 
THE PHRENSY OF ORRA. 571 
 
 These sighs, that twitch the very strings of life ; 
 
 Think that no other cause on earth could move me 
 
 To tremble thus, to sob, or shed a tear, 
 
 Nor shake my solid virtue from her point, 
 
 But Titus' death. 0, do not call it shameful 
 
 That thus shall fix the glory of the world. 
 
 I own thy suffering ought to unman me thus, 
 
 To make me throw my body on the ground, 
 
 To bellow like a beast, to gnaw the earth, 
 
 To tear my hair, to curse the cruel fates 
 
 That force a father thus to kill his child ! 
 
 Titus. O, rise, thou violated majesty ! 
 I now submit to all your threatened vengeance. 
 Come forth, ye executioners of justice! 
 Nay, all ye lictors, slaves, and common hangmen 
 Come, strip me bare, unrobe me in his sight, 
 And lash me till I bleed ! Whip me, like furies ! 
 Ajid, when you've scourged me till I foam and fall 
 For want of spirits, groveling in the dust, 
 Then take my head, and give it to his justice : 
 By all the gods, I greedily resign it ? Lee. 
 
 Nathaniel Lee, an English dramatic writer, was born in Hertfordshire in 
 1651. He received a classical education at Westminster school, and at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge. He tried the stage both as an actor and author; was four 
 years in bedlam from wild insanity; but recovered his reason, resumed his 
 labors as a dramatist, and though subject to fits of partial derangement, con- 
 tinued to write till the end of his life. He was the author of eleven tragedies, 
 besides assisting Dryden in the composition of "(Edipns" and u The Duke of 
 Guise." His best tragedies are the "Rival Queens," " Mithridates," "Theo- 
 dosius," and Lucius Junius Brutus." He possessed no small degree of the tire 
 of genius, excelling in tenderness and genuine passion; but his style often de- 
 generates Into bombast and extravagant phrensy, in part caused by his mental 
 malady. He died in London on the 6th of April, 1692. 
 
 IV. 
 185. THE PHRENSY OF ORRA. 
 
 HARTMAN. Is she well ? 
 Tlicobahl Her body is. 
 
 Hart. And not her mind? Oh, direst wreck of all! 
 That noble mind ! — But 'tis some passing seizure, 
 Some powerful movement of a transient nature ; 
 It is not madness ! 
 
572 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Theo. 'Tis Heaven's infliction ; let us call it so ; 
 Give it no other name. 
 
 Eleanora. Nay, do not thus despair ; when she beholds us, 
 She'll know her friends, and, by our kindly soothing, 
 Be gradually restored — 
 
 Alice. Let me go to her. 
 
 T)ieo. Nay, forbear, I pray thee ; 
 I will myself with thee, my worthy Hartman, 
 Go in and lead her forth. 
 
 Orra. Come back, come back! the fierce and fiery light! 
 
 Theo. Shrink not, dear love ! it is the light of day. 
 
 Orra. Have cocks crowed yet ? 
 
 TJieo. Yes ; twice I've hearxl already 
 Their matin sound. Look up to the blue sky — 
 Is it not daylight ? And these green boughs 
 Are fresh and fragrant round thee : every sense 
 Tells thee it is the cheerful early day. 
 
 Orra. Aye, so it is ; day takes his daily turns, 
 Rising between the gulfy dells of night, 
 Like whitened billows on a gloomy sea. 
 Till glow-worms gleam, and stars peep through the dark, 
 And will-o'-the wisp his dancing taper light," 
 They will not come again. [Bending her ear to the ground. 
 
 Hark, hark ! aye, hark ! 
 They are all there : I hear their hollow sound 
 Full many a fathom down. 
 
 Theo. Be still, poor troubled soul ! they'll ne'er return — 
 They are forever gone. Be well assured 
 Thou shalt from henceforth have a cheerful home, 
 Wim crackling fagots on thy midnight fire, 
 Blazing like day around thee ; and thy friends — 
 Thy living, loving friends — still by thy side, 
 To speak to thee and cheer thee. See, my Orra ! 
 They are beside thee now ; dost thou not know them? 
 
 Orra. No, no ! athwart the wavering, garish light, 
 Things move and seem to be, and yet are nothing. 
 
 Elca. My gentle Orra, hast thou then forgot me ? 
 Dost not thou know my voice? 
 
 Orra. 'Tis like an old tune to my ear returned. 
 For there be those who sit in cheerful halls, 
 
THE PHRENSY OF ORRA. 573 
 
 And breathe sweet air, and speak with pleasant sounds ; 
 And once I lived with such ; some years gone by, — 
 I wot not now how long. 
 
 Hughobcrt. Keen words that rend my heart : thouhadstahome, 
 And one whose faith was pledged for thy protection. 
 
 Urston. Be more composed, my lord ; some faint remembrance 
 Returns upon her with the well-known sound 
 Of voices once familiar to her ear. 
 Let Alice sing to her some favorite tune 
 That may lost thoughts recall. [Alice sings. 
 
 Orra. Ha, ha ! the witched air sings for thee bravely. 
 Hoot owls through mantling fog for matin birds ? 
 It lures not me. — I know thee well enough : 
 The bones of murdered men thy measure beat, 
 And lleshless heads nod to thee. — Off, I say! 
 Why are ye here ? That is the blessed sun. 
 
 Elca. Ah, Orra ! do not look upon us thus : 
 These are the voices of thy loving friends 
 That speak to thee ; this is a friendly hand 
 That presses thine so kindly. 
 
 Hart. Oh, grievous state ! what terror seizes thee ? 
 
 Orra. Take it away ! It was the swathed dead ; 
 I know its clammy, chill, and bony touch. 
 Come not again ; I'm strong and terrible now : 
 Mine eyes have looked upon all dreadful things ; 
 And when the earth yawns, and the hell-blast sounds, 
 I'll bide the trooping of unearthly steps, 
 "With stiff, clenched, terrible strength. 
 
 Hugh. A murderer is a guiltless wretch to me. 
 
 Hart. Be patient ; 'tis a momentary pitch ; 
 Let me encounter it. 
 
 Orra. Take off from me thy strangely fastened eye ; 
 1 may not look upon thee — yet I must. 
 Unfix thy baleful glance. Art thou a snake ? 
 Something of horrid power within thee dwells. 
 Still, still that powerful eye doth suck me in, 
 Like a dark eddy to its wheeling core. 
 Spare me ! oh spare me, Being of strange power, 
 And at thy feet my subject head I'll lay. 
 
 Elea. Alas, the piteous sight ! to see her thus, 
 
574 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 The noble, generous, playful, stately Orra ! 
 
 Theo. Out on thy hateful and ungenerous guile ! 
 Tliink'st thou I'll suffer o'er her wretched state 
 The slightest shadow of a base control ? 
 
 [Raising Ore a. from the ground. 
 No ; rise, thou stately flower with rude blasts rent : 
 As honored art thou with thy broken stem 
 And leaflets strewed, as in thy summer's pride. 
 I've seen thee worshiped like a regal dame, 
 With every studied form of marked devotion, 
 Whilst I, in distant silence, scarcely proffered 
 Even a plain soldier's courtesy ; but now, 
 No liege man to his crowned mistress sworn, 
 Bound and devoted is as I to thee ; 
 And he who offers to thy altered state 
 The slightest seeming of diminished reverence, 
 Must in my blood — [To Haetman]. Oh pardon me, my friend! 
 Thou'st wrung my heart. 
 
 Hart. Nay, do thou pardon me, — I am to blame : 
 Thy noble heart shall not again be wrung. 
 But what can now be done ? O'er such wild ravings 
 There must be some control. 
 
 Theo. O none ! none ! none ! but gentle sympathy, 
 And watchfulness of love. — My noble Orra ! 
 Wander where'er thou wilt, thy vagrant steps 
 Shall followed be by one who shall not weary, 
 Nor e'er detach him from his hopeless task ; 
 Bound to thee now as fairest, gentlest beauty 
 Could ne'er have bound him. 
 
 Alice. See how she gazes on him with a look, 
 Subsiding gradually to softer sadness, 
 Half saying that she knows him. 
 
 Elca. There is a kindness in her changing eye. Baillie. 
 
 Joanna Baillie was born in 1762, at Bothwell, in Lanark, Scotland, of which 
 place her father was the parish minister. She removed to London at an early 
 age, and resided in that city, or its neighborhood, almost constantly. Her first 
 volume of dramas, " Plays of the Passions," was published in 1798, her second 
 in 1802, her third in 1812, and her fourth in 1836. A volume of her miscellaneous 
 poems, of which some of the small ones are exceedingly good, appeared in 
 1841. Her tragedies, though not well adapted to the stage, are fine poems, 
 noble in sentiment, and classical and vigorous in language. Scott numbered 
 the description of Orra's madness with the sublimest scenes ever written, and 
 compared the language to Shakspeare's. She died at Hampstead in Feb.. 1841, 
 
MILTON. 575 
 
 SECTION XXXVII. 
 
 L 
 
 186. MILTON. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 WE venture to say, paradoxical ' as the remark may appear, 
 that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavora- 
 ble cir'cumstances than Milton. He doubted, as he has himself 
 owned, whether he had not been born " an age too late." For 
 this notion Johnson has thought lit to make him the butt of his 
 clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature of 
 his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius 
 derived no advantage from the civilization which surrounded 
 him, or from the learning which he had acquired ; and he 
 looked back with something like regret to the ruder age of 
 simple words and vivid impressions. 
 
 2. "We think that as civilization advances, poetry almost nec- 
 essarily declines. Therefore, though we admire those great 
 works of imagination which have appeared in dark ages, we do 
 not admire them the more because they have appeared in dark 
 ages. On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and 
 splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized 
 age. We can not understand why those who believe in that 
 most orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest poets are 
 generally the best, should wonder at the rule as if it were the 
 exception. Surely the uniformity of the phenomenon indicates 
 a corresponding uniformity in the cause. 
 
 3. He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to 
 be a great poet, must first become a little child. He must take 
 to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much 
 of that knowledge which has, perhaps, constituted hitherto his 
 chief title of superiority. His very talents will be a hinderance 
 to him. His difficulties will be proportioned to his proficiency 
 in the pursuits which are fashionable among his contemporaries; 
 and that proficiency will in general be proportioned to the vigor 
 and activity of his mind. And it is well, if, after all his saeri- 
 
 1 Par x a d&x' ic al, seemingly absurd ; inclined to tenets contrary to 
 received opinions. 
 
576 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 fices and exertions, his works do not resemble a lisping man or 
 a modern ruin. We have seen, in our own time, great talents, 
 intense labor, and long meditation employed in this struggle 
 against the spirit of the age ; and employed, we will not say ab- 
 solutely in vain, but with dubious success and feeble applause. 
 
 4. If these reasonings be just, no poet has ever triumphed 
 over greater difficulties than Milton. He received a learned 
 education. He was a profound and elegant classical scholar : he 
 had studied all the mysteries of Rabbinical 1 literature : he was 
 intimately acquainted with every language of modern Europe, 
 from which either pleasure or information was then to be de- 
 rived. He was, perhaps, the only great poet of later times who 
 has been distinguished by the excellence of his Latin verse. 
 
 5. It is not our intention to attempt any thing like a complete 
 examination of the poetry of Milton. The public has long been 
 agreed as to the merit of the most remarkable passages, the in- 
 com'parable harmony of the numbers, and the excellence of that 
 style which no rival has been able to equal, and no parodist 2 to 
 degrade ; which displays in their highest perfection the idiom- 
 atic 3 powers of the English tongue, and to which every ancient 
 and every modern language has contributed something of grace, 
 of energy, or of music. In the vast field of criticism in which 
 we are entering, innumerable reapers have already put their 
 sickles. Yet the harvest is so abundant that the negligent search 
 of a straggling gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf. . 
 
 6. The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton is 
 the extreme remoteness of the associations by means of which it 
 acts on the reader. Its effect is produced, not so much by what 
 it expresses as by what it suggests ; not so much by the ideas 
 which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which are connected 
 with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The 
 most unimaginative man must understand the " Iliad." Homer 
 gives him no choice, and requires from him no exerticn ; but 
 takes the whole upon himself, and sets his images in so clear a 
 light that it is impossible to be blind to them. The works of 
 Milton can not be comprehended or enjoyed, unless the mind of 
 
 1 Rab bin' ic al, pertaining to Rab- which poetry written on one subject 
 
 bins, or Jewish doctors of the law. is applied to another. 
 
 a PaVo dist, one who makes slight 8 Id v i o mat' ic, peculiar to the 
 
 alterations, ironical or jocular, by structure of a language. 
 
MILTON. 577 
 
 the reader cooperate with that of the writer. He dues not paint 
 a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. He 
 sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes 
 the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the melody. 
 
 7. We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. The 
 expression in general means nothing ; but, applied to the writ- 
 ings of Milton, it is most appropriate. It is poetry arts like an 
 incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in 
 its occult 1 power. There would seem, at first sight, to be no 
 more in his words than in other words. But they are words of 
 enchantment ; no sooner arc they pronounced than the past, is 
 present, and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at 
 once into existence, and all the burial-places of the memory give 
 up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence, substitute 
 one synonym a for another, and the whole effect is destroyed. 
 The spell loses its power ; and he who should then hope to con- 
 jure' with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in 
 the Arabian tale, when he stood crying "Open Wheat/' "Open 
 Barley," to the door which obeyed no sound but " Open Sesa- 
 me!" 3 The miserable failure of Dryden, in his attempt to 
 re-write some parts of the "Paradise Lost," is a remarkable 
 instance of this. 
 
 n. 
 
 187. MILTON. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 THE character of Milton was peculiarly distinguished by 
 loftiness of thought. He had survived his health and his 
 sight, the comforts of his home and the prosperity of his party. 
 Of the great men by whom he had been distinguished ;it his 
 entrance into life, some had been taken awav from the evil to 
 come ; some had carried into foreign climates their unconquer- 
 able hatred of oppression ; some were pining in dungeons ; and 
 some had poured forth their blood on scaffolds. That hateful 
 proscription, facetiously termed the Act of Indemnity and Ob- 
 
 1 Oc cult', invisible : concealed other, or which have very nearly 
 from the eye or understanding. the Bame signification. 
 
 2 Syn' o nym, one of two or more 3 Ses'ame.Mi tin: an herb- 
 words in the same language which like plant from the seeds oi which 
 are the precise equivalents of each oil is expressed. 
 
578 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 livion, had set a mark on the poor, blind, deserted poet, and 
 held him up by name to the hatred of a profligate court and an 
 inconstant people ! 
 
 2. Venal arid licentious scribblers, with just sufficient talent to 
 clothe the thoughts of a pander in the style of a bellman, were 
 now the favorite writers of the sovereign (suv'er in) and the 
 public. It was a loathsome herd, which could be compared to 
 nothing so fitly as to the rabble of Comus, — grotesque' monsters, 
 half-bestial, half-human, dropping with wine, bloated with glut- 
 tony, and reeling in obscene dances. Amidst these his Muse 
 was placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, lofty, spotless, 
 and serene — to be chatted at, and pointed at, and grinned at 
 by the whole rabble of Satyrs and Goblins. 
 
 3. If ever despondency and asperity could be excused in any 
 man, it might have been excused in Milton. But the strength 
 of his mind overcame every calamity. Neither blindness, nor 
 gout, nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political 
 disappointments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect, had 
 power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience. His spirits 
 do not seem to have been high, but they were singularly equa- 
 ble. His temper was serious, perhaps stern ; but it was a tem- 
 per which no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such 
 it was when, on the eve of great events, he returned from his 
 travels, in the prime of health and manly beauty, loaded with 
 literary distinctions, and glowing with patriotic hopes : such it 
 continued to be when, after having experienced every calamity 
 which is incident to our nature, old, poor, sightless, and dis- 
 graced, he retired to his hovel to die ! 
 
 4. His public conduct was such as was to be expected from a 
 man of a spirit so high and an intellect so powerful. He lived 
 at one of the most memorable eras in the history of mankind ; 
 at the very crisis of the great conflict between liberty and des- 
 potism, reason and prejudice. That great battle was fought for 
 no single generation, for no single land. The destinies of tho 
 human race were staked on the same cast with the freedom of tho 
 English people. Then were first proclaimed those mighty prin- 
 ciples which have since worked their way into the depths of the 
 American forests ; which have roused Greece from the slavery 
 and degradation of two thousand years ; and which, from one 
 end of Europe to the other, have kindled an unquenchable fire 
 
MILTON. 579 
 
 in the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed the knees of the op- 
 pressors with a strange and unwonted fear ! 
 
 5. We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear our- 
 selves away from the subject. The days immediately following 
 the publication of this relic of Milton ' appear to be peculiarly set 
 apart and consecrated to his memory. And we shall scarcely be 
 censured if, on this his festival, we be found lingering near his 
 shrine, how worthless soever may be the offering which w r e 
 bring to it. While this book lies on our table, we seem to be 
 contemporaries of the great poet. We are transported a hun- 
 dred and fifty years back. We can almost fancy that we arc 
 visiting him in his small lodging ; that we see him sitting at the 
 old organ beneath the faded green hangings ; that we can catch 
 the quick twinkle of his eyes rolling in vain to find the day ; that 
 we are reading in the lines of his noble countenance the proud 
 and mournful history of his glory and his affliction ! 
 
 G. We image to ourselves the breathless silence in which we 
 should listen to his slightest word ; the passionate veneration 
 with which we should kneel to kiss his hand, and weep upon it; 
 the earnestness with which we should endeavor to console him, if, 
 indeed, such a spirit could need consolation, for the neglect of an 
 age unworthy of his talents and his virtues ; the eagerness with 
 which we should contest with his daughters, or with his Quaker 
 friend, Elwood, the privilege of reading Homer to him, or of 
 taking down the immortal accents which flowed from his lips. 
 
 7. These are, perhaps, foolish feelings. Yet we can not be 
 ashamed of them ; nor shall we be sorry if what we have written 
 shall, in any degree, excite them in other minds. We are not 
 much in the habit of idolizing either the living or the dead. 
 And we think that there is no mure certain indication of a weak 
 and ill-regulated intellect than that propensity which, for want 
 of a better name, we will venture to christen Bosicellism. 1 But 
 there are a few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny 
 and the severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and 
 have proved pure ; which have been weighed in the balance, 
 and have not been found wanting ; which have been declared 
 sterling by the general consent of mankind, and which are visibly 
 stamped with the image and superscription of the Most High. 
 
 1 Relic of Milton. " A Treatise from the Holy Scriptures alone." 
 on the Christian Doctrine, compiled ' B5s' well ism, see p. 210. 
 
580 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 8. These great men we trust that we know how to prize ; and 
 of these was Milton. The sight of his books, the sound of his 
 name, are refreshing to us. His thoughts resemble those celes- 
 tial fruits and flowers which the Virgin Martyr of Massinger ' 
 sent down from the gardens of Paradise to the earth, distin- 
 guished from the productions of other soils, not only by their 
 superior bloom and sweetness, but by their miraculous efficacy 
 to invigorate and to heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, 
 but to elevate and purify. 
 
 9. Nor do we envy the man who can study either the life or 
 the writings of the great poet and patriot without aspiring to 
 emulate, not indeed the sublime works with which his genius has 
 enriched our literature, but the zeal with which he labored for 
 the public good, the fortitude with which he endured every 
 private calamity, the lofty disdain with which he looked down 
 on temptation and dangers, the deadly hatred which he bore to 
 bigots and tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly kept with 
 his country and with his fame. T. B. Macaulay. 
 
 ILL 
 
 188. SATAN'S ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH. 
 
 BLACK it stood as night, 
 Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, 
 And shook a dreadful dart : what seemed his head, 
 The likeness of a kingly crown had on. 
 Satan was now at hand ; and from his seat 
 The monster moving onward came as fast, 
 "With horrid strides ; hell trembled as he strode. 
 The undaunted iiend what this might be admired — 
 Admired, not feared : God .and his Son except, 
 Created thing naught valued he, nor shunned ; 
 And with disdainful look thus first began : — 
 
 2. " Whence, and what art thou, execrable shape ! 
 That darest, though grim and terrible, advance 
 
 1 Philip Massinger, one of the preserved. The " Virgin Martyr," 
 
 very best of the old English drama- the " Bondman," the " Fatal Dowry," 
 
 tists, was born in 1584, and died in " The City Madam," and " A New 
 
 1640. He wrote a great number of Way to Pay Old Debts," are his best 
 
 pieces, of which eighteen have been known productions. 
 
SATAN'S ENCOUNTEH WITH DEATH. 581 
 
 Thy miscreated front athwart my way 
 To yonder gates? Through them I mean to jmss, 
 That be assured, without leave asked of thee : 
 Retire, or taste thy folly ; and learn by proof, 
 Hellborn! not to contend with spirits of heaven 1" 
 
 3. To whom the goblin, full of wrath replied : — 
 "Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he, 
 
 "Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then 
 
 Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms 
 
 Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons, 
 
 Conjured against the Highest ; for which both thou 
 
 And they, outcast from God, are here condemned 
 
 To Waste eternal days in woe and pain? 
 
 And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of heave n, 
 
 Hell-doomed ! and breathest defiance here and scorn, 
 
 "Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more, 
 
 Thy king and lord ! Back to thy punishment, 
 
 False fugitive! and to thy speed add wings ; 
 
 Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue 
 
 Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart 
 
 Strange horror saize thoe, and pangs unfelt before." 
 
 4. So spake the grisly terror : and in shape, 
 
 So speaking, and so threatening, grew ten-fold 
 More dreadful and deform : on the other side, 
 Incensed with indignation, Satan stood 
 Unterrified, and like a comet burned, 
 That fires the length of Ophiuchus 1 huge 
 In the Arctic sky, and from his horrid hair 
 Shakes pestilence* and war. 
 
 5. Each at the head 
 Leveled his deadly aim ; their fatal hands 
 No second stroke intend ; and such a frown 
 Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds, 
 With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on 
 Over the Caspian ; then stand front to front 
 Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow 
 
 To join their dark encounter in mid air : 
 
 1 Ophiuchus, (6fMii'kus\ the Serpent-bearer; a cluster of fixed stars 
 whose center is nearly over the equator, opposite to Orion. 
 
582 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 So frowned the mighty com'batants, that hell 
 
 Grew darker at their frown ; so matched they stood ; 
 
 For never but once more was either like 
 
 To meet so great a Foo : and now great deeds 
 
 Had been achieved, whereof all hell had rung, 
 
 Had not the snaky sorceress that sat 
 
 Fast by hell-gate and kept the fatal key, 
 
 Risen, and with hideous outcry rushed between. 
 
 John Milton. 
 JonN Milton, one of the greatest of all poets and scholars, was born in London 
 on the 9th of December, 1G08. His father, liberally educated and from a good 
 family, having been disinherited for embracing Protestantism, became a scriv- 
 ener, and acquired a competent fortune. The tirmness and the sufferings of the 
 father for conscience' sake were not lost upon the son, who became a stern, un- 
 bending champion of religious freedom. Milton was educated with great care. 
 He studied ancient and modern languages, delighted in poetical reading, and 
 cultivated the musical taste which he inherited from his father. At fifteen he 
 was sent to St. Paul's School, London, and two years later to Christ's College, 
 Cambridge, where he graduated in due course. He wro*te several poems at an 
 early age. His " Hymn on the Nativity," composed in his twent}*-first year, is 
 one of the noblest of his works, and perhaps the finest lyric in the English lan- 
 guage. Leaving the university in 1632, he went to the house of his father, at 
 Hutton in Buckinghamshire, where he lived five j'ears, studying classical litera- 
 ture and writing poems. During this happy period of his life he wrote " L' Alle- 
 gro," "II Penseroso," "Arcades," "Lycidas," and "Comus." In 1638 the poet 
 visited the Continent, where he remained fifteen months, principally in Italy 
 and France. His study of the works of art during this period probably sug- 
 gested some of his best poetical creations. On his return to England in 1639 he 
 took up his residence in London. The next twenty years, during the Civil War, 
 the Commonwealth, and the Protectorate, the poet's lyre was mute. A Repub- 
 lican in politics and an Independent in religion, during this stormy period ho 
 threw himself promptly and fearlessly into the vortex of the struggle, and, as a 
 controversialist, enrolled his name among the noblest and most eloquent of tho 
 writers of old English prose. In 1643 Milton married Mary Powell, the daugh- 
 ter of a high cavalier of Oxfordshire. In 1649 he was appointed Foreign or Latin 
 Secretary to the Council of State, and retained the same position during the Pro- 
 tectorate. For ten years his eyesight had been failing, when, in 1652, he became 
 totally blind. About the same period his first wife died, but he married soon 
 after. His second wife, Catharine Woodcock, died in 1656. The Restoration 
 of 1660 consigned the poet, for the last fourteen years of his life, to an obscurity 
 "which gave him leisure to complete the mighty poetical task which was to se- 
 cure him an immortality of literary fame. In 1664 he married his third wife, 
 Elizabeth Minshul, of a good Cheshire family. In 1665 he completed " Para- 
 dise Lost," which was first published in 1667. In 1671 appeared the " Paradise 
 Regained," to which was subjoined "Samson Agonistes." He died on the Sth 
 of November, 1674. For a further description of Milton and his poetry, the 
 reader is referred to the two exercises immediately preceding the above. 
 
MURDER OF KING DUNCAN. 583 
 
 IV. 
 
 ISO. TIIE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. 1 
 
 YITAL spark of heavenly flame, 
 Quit, oh ! quit this mortal frame ! 
 Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, — 
 Oh the pain — the bliss of dying ! 
 Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, 
 And let me languish into life ! 
 
 2. Hark ! they whisper : angels say, 
 "Sister spirit, come away !" 
 What is this absorbs me quite, — 
 Steals my senses, shuts my sight, 
 Drowns my spirits, draws my breath ? — 
 Tell me, my soul! can this be death? 
 
 3. The world recedes — it disappears ; 
 Heaven opens on my eyes ; my ears 
 With sounds seraphic ring : 
 
 Lend, lend your wings ! I mount, I fly I 
 
 O Grave ! where is thy victory ? 
 
 O Death ! where is thy sting ? Alexandteb Pope. 
 
 SECTION XXXVIII. 
 
 L 
 
 190. MURDER OF KING DUNCAN. 
 
 MACBETH. 2 Is this a dagger which I see before me, 
 The handle toward my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee. — 
 I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 
 Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
 To feeling as to sight? or art thou but 
 
 Expression, in the delivery of confidence of the hopeful Christian, 
 this exquisite little poem, the reader 'Macbeth', afterward king of 
 
 must bear in mind, requires the con- Scotland, prompted by ambition, an 1 
 
 tinued production of the feeble and urged on by his wife, resolves to 
 
 failing tone of the dying man, while murder the king, then his guest, 
 
 conveying the perfect, enthusiastic and seize the crown. 
 
584: NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 A dagger of the mind ; a false creation, 
 
 Proceeding from the heat oppressed brain? 
 
 I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
 
 As this which now I draw. 
 
 Thou marshal' st me the way that 1 was going ; 
 
 And such an instrument I was to use. 
 
 Mine eyes are made the fool o' th' other senses, 
 
 Or else worth all the rest. I see thee ntill ; 
 
 And on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood, 
 
 Which was not so before. — There's no such tiring' i 
 
 It is the bloody business, which informs 
 
 Thus to mine eyes. 
 
 Now o'er the one half world 
 Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 
 The curtained sleep : now witchcraft celebrates 
 Pale Hec'ate's offerings ; and withered murden 
 Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, 
 Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, 
 W T ith Tarquin's ' ravishing strides, toward his desigj* 
 Moves like a ghost. — Thou sure and firm-set earth, 
 Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear 
 Thy very stones prate of my where-about, 
 xind take the present horror from the time, 
 Which now suits with it. While I threat he lives ; 
 Words to the heat of deeds to cold breath gives. [A bell ring? 
 I go, and it is done ; the bell invites me : 
 Hear it not, Duncan ; for it is a knell 
 
 That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. [Exit. 
 
 Enter Lady Macbeth. 
 Lady M. That which hath made them drunk, hath made me 
 bold : 
 What hath quenched them, hath given me fire. — Hark ! — peace' 
 It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, 
 Which gives the sternest good-night. He is about it — 
 The doors are open ; and the surfeited grooms 
 Do mock their charge with snores : I have drugged their possets, 
 That death and nature do contend about them, 
 
 1 Tar' quin, two kings of Rome : tained the throne by the murder of 
 L.TarquiniusSuperbus, here alluded Servius Tullius, whose daughter, 
 to, seventh in the line of kings, ob- Tullia, he had married. 
 
MURDER OF KING DUNCAN. 585 
 
 Whether they live or die. 
 
 Macbeth [within."] Who's there? — what, ho! 
 
 Lady M. Alack ! I am afraid they have awaked, 
 And 'tis not done. The attempt, and not the deed, 
 Confounds u s. Hark ! — I laid their daggers ready ; 
 He could not miss them. — Had he not resembled 
 My father as he slept, I had don't. — My husband ! 
 
 Enter Macbeth. 
 
 Macb. I've done the deed ! — didst thou not hear a noise ? 
 
 Lady M. I heard the owl scream, and the cricket's cry. 
 Did not you speak ? 
 
 Macb. " When ? 
 
 Lady M. Now. 
 
 Mwb. As I descended? 
 
 Lady M. Aye. 
 
 Macb. Hark! — 
 Who lies i' the second chamber? 
 
 Lady M. Donalbain. 
 
 Macb. This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands*. 
 
 Lady 31. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight. 
 
 Macb. There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried, Murder ! 
 That they did wake each other ; I stood and heard them ; 
 But they did say their prayers, and addressed them 
 Again to sleep. 
 
 Lady 31. There are two lodged together. 
 
 Macb. One cried, God bless us! and Amen ! the other ; 
 As they had seen me with these hangman's hands 
 Listening their fear. I could not say, Amen, 
 When they did say, God bless us. 
 
 Lady M. Consider it not so deeply. 
 
 Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce, Amen? 
 I had most need of blessing, and amen 
 
 Stuck in my throat. 
 
 Lady M. These deeds must not be thought 
 After these ways ; so, it will make us mad. 
 
 3Iacb. Me thought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more! 
 Macbeth doth murder sleep — the innocent sleep — 
 Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, 
 Tlie death of each days life, sore laboi-'s bath, 
 Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second c'urse, 
 
586 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 Chief n&itrisher in life's feast : — 
 
 Lady M. What do you mean ? 
 
 Macb. Still it cried, Sleep no more, to all the house ; 
 Glamis hath murdered sleep ; and therefore Cawdor 
 Shall sleep no more — Macbeth shall sleep no more ! 
 
 Lady M. Who was it that thus cried ? Why, worthy thane, 
 You do unbend your noble strength, to think 
 So brain-sickly of things. Go, get some water, 
 And wash this filthy witness from your hand. — 
 Why did you bring these daggers from the place ? 
 They must lie. Go, carry them, and smear 
 The sleepy grooms with blood. 
 
 Macb. I'll go no more : 
 
 I am afraid to think what I have done : 
 Look on't again, I dare not. 
 
 Lady M. Infirm of purpose ! 
 
 Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead 
 Are but as pictures : 'tis the eye of childhood 
 That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, 
 111 gild the faces of the grooms withal, 
 For it must seem their guilt. [Exit. Knocking within* 
 
 Macb. Whence is that knocking ? 
 
 How is't with me, when every noise appalls me ? 
 What hands are here ? — Ha ! they pluck out mine eyes ! 
 Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood 
 Clean from my hands ? No : this my hand will rather 
 The multitudinous seas incarnadine," l 
 Making the green — one red. 
 
 Beenter Lady Macbeth. 
 
 Lady 31. My hands are of your color ; but I shame 
 To wear a heart so white. [Knocking.'] I hear a knocking 
 At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber : 
 A little water clears us of this deed : 
 How easy is it, then? Your constancy' 
 
 Hath left you unattended. [Knocking.] Hark! more knocking : 
 Get on your night-gow r n, lest occasion call us, 
 And show us to be watchers. Be not lost 
 
 So poorly in your thoughts. 
 
 
 
 1 Incarnadine, (in kur' na din), to a Con' stan cy, fixedness or Urin- 
 staln rod, or of a flesh-color. ness of mind ; resolution. 
 
THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH. £S7 
 
 Macb. To know my deed, — 'twere best not know myself. 
 
 [Knocking. 
 
 Wake Duncan with thy knocking ! I would thou couldst. 
 
 n. 
 
 191. THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH. 
 
 FROM my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity 0:1 
 one point in Macbeth'. It was this : the knocking at the 
 gate, which succeeds to the murder of Duncan, produced to 
 my feelings an effect for which I never could account. The 
 effect was, that it reflected back upon the murder a peculiar 
 awfulness and a depth of solemnity ; yet, however obstinately 
 I endeavored wifh my understanding to comprehend this, for 
 many years I never could see why it should produce such an 
 effect. Hero I pause for one moment, to exhort the reader 
 never to pay any attention to his understanding when it stands 
 in opposition to any other faculty of his mind. The mere un- 
 derstanding, however useful and indispensable, is the meanest 
 faculty in tho human mind, and the most to be distrusted ; and 
 yet the great majority of people trust to nothing else ; which 
 may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophical purposes. 
 
 2. My understanding could furnish no reason why the knock- 
 ing at the gate in Macbeth should produce any effect, direct or 
 reflected. In fact, my understanding said positively that it 
 could not produce any effect. But I knew better : I felt that it 
 did ; and I waited and clung to the problem until further knowl- 
 edge should enable me to solve it. At length I solved it to my 
 own satisfaction, and my solution is this : Murder in ordinary- 
 cases, where the sympathy is wholly directed to the case of the 
 murdered person, is an incident of coarse and vulgar horror; 
 and for this reason, that it flings the interest exclusively upon 
 the natural but ignoble instinct bv which we cleave to life ; an 
 instinct which, as being indispensable to the primal law of self- 
 preservation, is the same in kind (though different in degree) 
 among all living creatures : this instinct, therefore, because it 
 annihilates all distinctions, and degrades the greatest of men to 
 the level of "the poor beetle that we tread on," exhibits human 
 nature in its most ab'ject and humiliating attitude. 
 
 3. Such an attitude would little suit the purposes of the poet. 
 
588 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 ■ 
 
 What, then, must he do ? He must throw the interest on the 
 murderer. Our sympathy must be with him (of course I mean 
 a sympathy of comprehension, a sympathy by which we enter 
 into his feelings and are made to understand them — not a sym- 
 pathy of pity or approbation). In the murdered person all 
 strife of thought, all flux and reflux of passion and of purpose, 
 are crushed by one overwhelming panic : the fear of instant 
 death smites him " with its petrific mace." But in the murderer 
 — such a murderer as a poet will condescend to — there must be 
 raging some great storm of passion — jealousy, ambition, venge- 
 ance, hatred — which will create a hell within him ; and into this . 
 hell we are to look. 
 
 4. In Macbeth, for the sake of gratifying his own enormous 
 and teeming faculty of creation, Shakspeare has introduced two 
 murderers ; and, as usual in his hands, they are remarkably dis- 
 criminated : but, though in Macbeth the strife of mind is greater 
 than in his wife — the tiger spirit not so awake, and his feelings 
 caught chiefly by contagion from her, — yet, as both were finally 
 involved in the guilt of murder, the murderous mind of necessity 
 is finally to be presumed in both. This was to be expressed ; 
 and on its own account, as well as to make it a more proportion- 
 able antagonist to the unoffending nature of their victim, " the 
 gracious Duncan," and adequately to expound " the deep damna- 
 tion of his taking off," this was to be expressed with peculiar 
 energy. We were to be made to feel that the human nature, 
 i. e. } the divine nature of love and mercy, spread through the 
 hearts of all creatures, and seldom utterly withdrawn from man, 
 was gone, vanished, extinct ; and that the fiendish nature had 
 taken its place. And, as this effect is marvelously accomplished 
 in the dialogues and soliloquies themselves, so it is finally con- 
 summated by the expedient under consideration ; and it is to 
 this that I now solicit the reader's attention. 
 
 5. If the reader has ever witnessed a wife, daughter, or sister 
 in a fainting fit, he may chance to have observed that the most 
 affecting moment in such a spectacle is that in which a sigh and 
 a stirring announce the recommencement of suspended life. Or, 
 if the reader has ever been present in a vast metropolis on tho 
 day when some great national idol was carried in funeral pomp 
 to his grave, and chancing to walk near the course through 
 which it passed, has felt powerfully, in the silence and desertion 
 
THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH. 580 
 
 of the streets, and in the stagnation of ordinary business, the 
 deep interest which at that moment was possessing the heart of 
 man, — if all at once he should hear the deathlike stillness bro- 
 ken up by the sound of wheels rattling away from the scene, 
 and making known that the transitory vision was dissolved, he 
 will be aware that at no moment was his sense of the complete 
 suspension and pause in ordinary human concerns so full and 
 affecting, as at that moment when the suspension ceases and the 
 goings-on of human life are suddenly resume i. 
 
 6. All action in any direction is best expounded, measured, 
 and made apprehensible by reaction. Now apply this to the 
 case in Macbeth. Here, as I have said, the retiring of the 
 human heart and the entrance of the fiendish heart was to be 
 expressed and made sensible. Another world has stepped in, 
 and the murderers are taken out of the region of human things, 
 human purposes, human desires. They are transfigured : Lady 
 Macbeth is "unsexed ;" Macbeth has forgot that he was born 
 of woman : both are conformed to the image of devils ; and 
 the world of devils is suddenly revealed. But how shall this be 
 conveyed and made palpable ? 
 
 7. In order that a new world may step in, this world must for 
 a time disappear. The murderers and the murder must be in- 
 sulated — cut off by an immeasurable gulf froin the ordinary tide 
 and succession of human affairs — locked up and sequestered in 
 some deep recess'; we must be made sensible that the world of 
 ordinary life is suddenly arrested — laid asleep — tranced — racked 
 into a dread armistice : time must be annihilated ; relation to 
 things without abolished ; and all must pass self-withdrawn into 
 a deep syncope ' and suspension of earthly passion. Hence it 
 is, that when the deed is done, when the work of darkness is 
 perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry 
 in the clouds : the knocking at the gate is heard, and it makes 
 known audibly that the reaction has commenced : the human 
 has made its reflux upon the fiendish ; the pulses of life are 
 beginning to beat again, and the reestablishment of the goings- 
 on of the world in which we live, first makes us profoundly 
 sensible of the awful parenthesis that had suspended them. 
 
 'Syncope, (sing' ko pe), a faint- accompanied with a suspension of 
 
 ing or swooning; a diminution, de- the action of the brain, and a tem- 
 
 crcase, or interruption of the motion porary loss of sensation, volition, 
 
 of the heart, and of respiration, and other faculti :*. 
 
590 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 8. O mighty poet ! Thy works are not as thoce of other 
 men, simply and merely great works of art, but are also like the 
 phenomena of nature — like the sun and the sea, the stars and 
 the flowers, like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and 
 thunder, — which are to be studied with entire submission of our 
 own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be 
 no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert ; but that, 
 the further we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see 
 proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the 
 careless eye had seen nothing but accident. Db Quincey. 
 
 SECTION XXXIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 192. MESSIAH. 
 
 YE nymphs of Solyrna ! ' begin the song — 
 To heavenlv themes sublimer strains belong. 
 The mossy fountains and the sylvan shades, 
 The dreams of Pindus 2 and the Aoni'an maids, 3 
 Delight no more — O thou my voice inspire 
 Who touched Isaiah's 4 hallowed lips with fire ! 
 
 2. Rapt into future times the bard began : 
 
 A virgin shall conceive — a virgin bear a son! 
 From Jesse's root behold a branch arise 
 Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies ! 
 Th' ethereal spirit o'er its leaves shall move, 
 And on its top descends the mystic dove. 
 
 3. Ye heavens ! from high the dewy nectar pour, 
 And in soft silence shed the kindly shower ! 
 The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid — 
 From storm a shelter, and from heat a shade. 
 
 All crimes shall cease, and ancient frauds shall fail ; 
 Returning Justice lift aloft her scale, 
 
 1 S51' y ma, another name for Je- called, because they frequented ML 
 
 rusalem. Helicon and the fountain Aganippe. 
 
 3 Pin' dus, a lofty range of moun- which were in Aonia, one of the 
 
 tains in Northern Greece. ancient names of Bceotw. 
 
 • Aonian maids, tlie Muses, so 4 Isaiah, (1 za' ya). 
 
THE MESSIAH. 591 
 
 Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend, 
 And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend. 
 
 4. Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn ! 
 O spring to light! auspicious babe, be born! 
 See, nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring, 
 "With all the incense of the breathing spring ! 
 See loftv Lebanon his head advance : 
 See nodding forests on the mountains dance ; 
 See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise, 
 And Carmcl's flowery top perfumes the skies I 
 
 6. Hark ! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers : 
 Prepare the way ! a God, a God appears ! 
 A God, a God ! the vocal hills reply — 
 The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity. 
 Lo, earth receives Him from the bending skies! 
 Sink down, ye mountains ; and }*e valleys, rise I 
 "With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay ! 
 Be smooth, ye rocks ; ye rapid floods, give way ! 
 
 6. The Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretold — 
 Hear Him, ye deaf ; and all ye blind, behold ! 
 He from thick films shall purge the visual ray, 
 And on the sightless eyeball pour the day ; 
 
 'T is He th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear, 
 
 And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear ; 
 
 The dumb shall sing ; the lame his crutch forego, 
 
 And leap exulting like the bounding roe. 
 
 No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear — 
 
 From every face He wipes off every tear. 
 
 In ad x aman'tmc chains shall Death be bound. 
 
 And hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound. 
 
 7. As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care, 
 Seeks freshest pasture, and the purest air, 
 Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs, 
 By day o'ersees them, and by night protects ; 
 The tender lambs He raises in his arms — 
 Feeds from His hand, and in His bosom warms : 
 Thus shall mankind His guardian care engage — 
 The promised father of the future age. 
 
592 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 8. No more shall nation against nation rise, 
 Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes ; 
 Nor fields with gleaming steel be covered o'er, 
 The brazen trumpets kindle rage no more ; 
 But useless lances into scythes shall bend, 
 And the broad falchion in a plough-share end. 
 Then palaces shall rise ; the joyful son 
 
 Shall finish what his short-lived sire begun ; 
 Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield, 
 And the same hand that sowed shall reap the field. 
 
 9. The swain in barren deserts, with surprise, 
 Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise ; 
 And starts, amidst the thirsty wilds, to hear 
 New falls of water murmuring in his ear. 
 On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes, 
 
 The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods ; 
 Waste sandy valleys, once perplexed with thorn, 
 The spiry fir and shapely box adorn : 
 To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed, 
 And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed. 
 
 10. The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead, 
 And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead : 
 
 The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, 
 And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. 
 The smiling infant in his hand shall take 
 The crested basilisk and speckled snake — 
 Pleased, the green luster of the scales survey, 
 And with their forked tongues shall innocently play. 
 
 11. Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise ! 
 Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes ! 
 
 See a long race thy spacious courts adorn ; 
 
 See future sons and daughters, yet unborn, 
 
 In crowding ranks on every side arise, 
 
 Demanding life, impatient for the skies ! 
 
 See barbarous nations at thy gates attend, 
 
 Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend ; 
 
 See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings, 
 
 And heaped with products of Sabean ' springs ! 
 
 1 Sa be' an, pertaining to Saba, in Arabia, celebrated for producing ar* 
 
 cicatic planta 
 
OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE OF GOD. 593 
 
 For Thee Mimic's ' spicy forests blow, 
 And seeds of gold in Ophir's 2 mountains glow. 
 See heaven its sparkling portals wide display, 
 And break upon thee in a flood of day ! 
 
 12. No more the rising sun shall gild the morn, 
 Nor evening Cynthia 1 till her silver horn ; 
 But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, 
 One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze, 
 O'erflow thy courts ; the Light Himself shall shine 
 Ilevealed, and God's eternal day be thine! 
 The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay, 
 Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away ; 
 But fixed His word, His saving power remains ; 
 Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns ! Pope. 
 
 n. 
 
 193. OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE OF GOD. 
 
 I WAS yesterday about sunset walking in the open fields, 
 until the night insensibly fell upon me. I at first amused 
 myself with all the richness and variety of colors which appear- 
 ed in the western parts of heaven : in proportion as they faded 
 away and went out, several stars and planets appeared, one 
 after another, until the whole firmament was in a glow. The 
 blueness of the ether was exceedingly heightened and enlivened 
 by the season of the year, and by the rays of all those lumina- 
 ries that passed through it. The galaxy 4 appeared in its most 
 beautiful white. To complete the scene, the full moon rose at 
 length in that clouded majesty which Milton takes notice of, 
 and opened to the eye a new picture of nature, which was more 
 finely shaded and disposed among softer lights than that which 
 the sun had before discovered to us. 
 
 1 1 du' me, or Id a' mae a, an an- ed from the earliest times for its 
 
 cient country of Western Asia, com- gold. Some suppose it to be the 
 
 prising the mountainous tract on the same as the modern Sofala ; and 
 
 east side of the great valleys of El- others conjecture it was situated in 
 
 Ghor and El-Arabah, and west and the East Indies, 
 
 southwest of the Dead Sea, with a 3 Cyn' thi a, the moon, a name 
 
 portion of Arabia. given to Diana, derived fruin Mount 
 
 a O' phir, an ancient country men- Cynthus, her birthplace, 
 
 tionedin the Scriptures, and renown- * Gal' ax y, the Milky Way. 
 
594 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 2. As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, 
 and taking her progress among the constellations, a thought 
 rose in me which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs 
 men of serious and contemplative natures. David himself fell 
 into it in that reflection, " When I consider thy heavens, the 
 work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast 
 ordained : what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the 
 son of man, that thou regardest him !" In the same manner 
 when I considered that infinite host of stars, or, to speak more 
 philosophically, of suns which were then shining upon me, with 
 those innumerable sets of planets or worlds which were moving 
 round their respective suns ; when I still enlarged the ide'a, 
 and supposed another heaven of suns and worlds rising still 
 above this which we discovered, and these still enlightened by 
 a superior firmament of luminaries, which are planted at so 
 great a distance that they may appear to the inhabitants of the 
 former as the stars do to us ; in short, while I pursue this 
 thought, I could not but reflect on that little insignificant figure 
 which I myself bore amidst the immensity of God's works. 
 
 3. If we consider God in his omnipresence, his being passes 
 through, actuates, and supports the whole frame of nature. 
 His creation, and every part of it, is full of him. There is 
 nothing he has made that is either so distant, so little, or so 
 inconsiderable, which he does not, essentially inhabit. His sub- 
 stance is within the substance of every being, whether material 
 or immaterial, and as intimately present to it as that being is 
 to itself. It would be an imperfection in him were he able to 
 remove out of one place into another, or to withdraw himself 
 from any thing he has created, or from any part of that space 
 which is diffused and spread abroad to infinity. In short, to 
 speak of him in the language of the old philosopher, he is a Being 
 whose center is everywhere, and his circumference nowhere. 
 
 4. In the second place, he is omniscient ' as well as omnipres- 
 ent. 3 His omniscience, indeed, necessarily and naturally flows 
 from his omnipresence ; he can not but be conscious of every 
 motion that arises in the whole material world, which he thus 
 essentially pervades, and of every thought that is stirring in 
 the intellectual world, to every part of which he is thus inti- 
 
 1 Omniscience, (om nfsh' ent), a Om^ni preV ent, present in nil 
 having all knowledge ; all-seeing. places at the same time. 
 
OMNIPRESENCE AND OMNISCIENCE OF GOD. 595 
 
 mately united. Several moralists have considered the creation 
 as the temple of God, which he has built with his own hands, 
 and which is tilled with his presence. Others have considered 
 infinite space as the receptacle, or rather the habitation of tho 
 Almighty ; but the noblest and most exalted way of considering 
 this infinite space is that of Sir Isaac Newton, who calls it tho 
 sensorium i of the Godhead. Brutes and men have their sen- 
 soriola, or little sensoriums, by which they apprehend the pres- 
 ence and perceive the actions of a few objects that lie con- 
 tiguous to them. Their knowledge and observation turn within 
 a very narrow circle. But as God Almighty can not but per- 
 ceive and know eveiwthing in which he resides, infinite spaco 
 gives room to infinite knowledge, and is, as it were, an organ 
 to omniscience. 
 
 5. AVere the soul separate from the body, and with one glanco 
 of thought should start beyond the bounds of the creation ; 
 should it for millions of years continue its progress through 
 infinite space with the same activity, it would still find itself 
 within the embrace of its Creator, and encompassed round with 
 the immensity of the Godhead. "Whilst we are in the body, he 
 is not less present with us because he is concealed from us. " 
 that I knew where I mi^ht find him !" savs Job. "Behold I £0 
 forward, but he is not there ; and backward, but I can not per- 
 ceive him ; on the left hand, where he does work, but I can not 
 behold him ; he hideth himself on the right hand that I can not 
 see him." In short, reason as well as revelation assures us that 
 he can not be absent from us, notwithstanding he is undiscov- 
 ered by us. 
 
 6. In this consideration of God Almighty's omnipresence and 
 omniscience, every uncomfortable thought vanishes. He can 
 not but regard every thing that has being, especially such of 
 his creatures who fear they arc not regarded by him. He is 
 privy to all their thoughts, and to that anxiety of heart in par- 
 ticular, which is apt to trouble them on this occasion ; for, as 
 it is impossible he should overlook any of his creatures, so we 
 may be confident that he regards with an eye of mercy those 
 who endeavor to recommend themselves to his notice, and in 
 an unfeisTied humility of heart think themselves unworthy that 
 he should be mindful of them. Addison. 
 
 1 Sen so' ri um, tho scat of souse or perception. 
 
596 NATIONAL FIFTH HEADER. 
 
 in. 
 
 104. GOD. 
 
 OTHOU eternal One ! whose presence bright 
 All space doth occupy, all motion guide — 
 Unchanged through time's all devastating flight! 
 Thou only God — there is no God beside ! 
 Being above all beings ! Mighty One, 
 Whom none can comprehend and none explore 
 "Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone — 
 Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er, — 
 Being whom we call God, and know no more ! 
 
 2. In its sublime research, philosophy 
 
 May measure out the ocean-deep — may count 
 The sands or the sun's rays — but, God ! for Thee 
 There is no weight nor measure ; none can mount 
 Up to Thy mysteries ; Reason's brightest spark, 
 Though kindled by Thy light, in vain would try 
 To trace Thy counsels, infinite and dark ; 
 And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high, 
 Even like past moments in eternity. 
 
 3. Thou from primeval nothingness didst call 
 Eirst chaos, then existence — Lord ! in Thee 
 Eternity had its foundation : all 
 
 Sprung forth from Thee — of light, joy, harmony, 
 
 Sole Origin — all life, all beauty Thine ; 
 
 Thy word created all, and doth create ; 
 
 Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine ; 
 
 Thou art, and wert, and shalt be ! Glorious ! Great ! 
 
 Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate ! 
 
 4. Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround — 
 Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath ! 
 Thou the beginning with the end hast bound, 
 And beautifully mingled life and death ! 
 
 As sparks mount upward from the fiery blaze, 
 
 So suns arc born, so worlds spring forth from Thee ; 
 
 And as the spangles in the sunny rays 
 
 Shine round the silver snow, the pageantry 
 
 Of heaven's bright army glitters in Thy praise. 
 
god. 597 
 
 5. A million torches, lighted by Thy hand, 
 Wander unwearied through the blue abyss — 
 They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, 
 All gay with lite, all eloquent with bliss. 
 
 "What shall we call them ? Piles of crystal light — < 
 A glorious company of golden streams — 
 Lamps of celestial ether burning bright — 
 Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams? 
 But Thou to these art as the noon to night. 
 
 6. Yes ! as a drop of water in the sea, 
 All this magnificence in Thee is lost : — 
 
 What are ten thousand worlds compared to Thee ? 
 And what am I then ? — Heaven's unnumbered host, 
 Though multiplied by myriads, and arrayed 
 In all the glory of sublimest thought, 
 Is but an atom in the balance, weighed 
 Against Thy greatness — is a cipher brought 
 Against infinity ! What am I then ? Naught ! 
 
 7. Naught ! But the effluence of Thy light divine, 
 Pervading worlds, hath reached my bosom too ; 
 Yes ! in my spirit doth Thy spirit shine 
 
 As shines the sun-beam in a drop of dew. 
 
 Naught ! but I live, and on hope's pinions fly 
 
 Eager toward Thy presence ; for in Thee 
 
 I live, and breathe, and dwell ; aspiring high, 
 
 Even to the throne of Thy divinity. 
 
 I am, O God ! and surely Thou must be ! 
 
 8. Thou art ! — directing, guiding all — Thou art ! 
 Direct my understanding then to Thee ; 
 Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart ; 
 Though but an atom midst immensity, 
 
 Still I am something, fashioned bv Thv hand ! 
 I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth — 
 On the last verge of mortal being stand, 
 Close to the realms where angels have their birth, 
 Just on the boundaries of the spirit-land! 
 
 9. The chain of being is complete in me — 
 In me is matter's last gradation lost, 
 And the next step is f pirit — Deity i 
 
598 NATIONAL FIFTH READER. 
 
 I can command the lightning, and am dust ! 
 A monarch and a slave — a worm, a god ! 
 "Whence came I here, and how ? so marvelously 
 Constructed and conceived? unknown! this clod 
 Lives surely through some higher energy ; 
 For from itself alone it could not be ! 
 
 10. Creator, yes ! Thy wisdom and Thy word 
 Created me ! Thou source of life and good ! 
 Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord ! 
 Thy light, Thy love, in their bright plenitude 
 Tilled me with an immortal soul, to spring 
 Over the abyss of death ; and bade it wear 
 The garments of eternal day, and wing 
 
 Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, 
 Even to its source — to Thee — its Author there. 
 
 11. O thoughts ineffable ! O visions blest ! 
 Though worthless our conceptions all of Thee, 
 Yet shall Thy shadowed image fill our breast, 
 And waft its homage to Thy Deity. 
 
 God ! thus alone my lowly thoughts can soar, 
 Thus seek thy presence — Being wise and good ! 
 Midst Thy vast works admire, obey, adore ; 
 And when the tongue is eloquent no more 
 The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude. 
 
 Derzhaven. 
 Gabriel Romanovitcii Derziiavin, a Russian lyric poet, was born in Kasan, 
 July 3d, 1743. lie gained distinction in the military and civil service, receiving 
 the appointment of secretary of state in 1791, and of minister of justice in 1S03. 
 Many of his poems abound with beautiful moral sentiments and expressions, 
 especially the above ode to "God," which was translated into several European 
 languages, and into Chinese and Japanese. It is said to have been hung tip in 
 the palace of the emperor of China, printed in gold letters on white satin : it 
 was in like manner placed in the temple of Jeddo. His complete works, in five 
 volumes, appeared at St. Petersburg in 1810. He died July Gth, 1S16. The above 
 olmirablc translation was made by Sir John Bowring, British goverror of 
 
 Hong Kong. 
 
INDEX 
 
 TO WORDS DEFINED, WORDS PRONOUNCED, ETC. 
 
 The figures refer to the pages where the words are to be found. 
 
 A, 77. 
 
 Abraham, 87. 
 Achaians, 396. 
 Acme, 114. 
 Acropolis, 299. 
 JSolian, 469. 
 Adoratiou, 82. 
 Again, 78, 94. 
 Aid-de-eiunp, 91. 
 Aidenn, 562. 
 Air, 77. Ajax, 242. 
 Alexander, 231. 
 Alexandrine, 242. 
 Alibi, 2z6. 
 Alien, 202. 
 Analogous, 236. 
 Antinous, 226. 
 Antiquarian, 115. 
 Aonian maids, 590. 
 Apollo Belvld., 226. 
 Arable, 200. 
 Arbuthnot, J., 237. 
 Archives, 349. 
 Architrave, 88. 
 Anstarchus, 223. 
 Aromatic, 16S. 
 Arthur, King, 426. 
 Ascham, 11., 362. 
 Astral, 326. 
 Athlete, 281. 
 Au fait, 225. 
 Aunt, 92. 
 Aurora, 891. 
 Avalanche, 95. 
 Awakes, 78. 
 Avaunt, 154. 
 Ay, 117. 
 Bacchus, 528. 
 Bacon, Francis, 211. 
 Bagdad. 180. 
 Bailey, P. J. 476. 
 Bannockburn, 2S7. 
 Barbacan, 37a. 
 Baton, 279. 
 Bat lis, 463. 
 Bcattie, James, 472. 
 Belles-lettres, 115. 
 Bellows, 530. 
 Beneath, 116. 
 Beneficent, 200. 
 Beneficence, 82. 
 Benign, 356. 
 Bergs, 77. 
 Beteem, 490. 
 Bigamy, 116. 
 Birds, '77. 
 Bolingbroke, 514. 
 
 Bombs, 523. 
 
 Boreal, 172. 
 
 Bosom, 78, 364. 
 
 Bosoms, 153. 
 
 Boswell, J., 210. 
 
 Boswellism, 579. 
 
 Bouquet, 802. 
 
 Bowles, W. L.,470. 
 
 Bozzaris, M., 398. 
 
 Brute, 82. 
 
 Bunker Hill, 176. 
 
 Burke, Ed., 237. 
 
 Iiurr, Aaron, 3">9. 
 
 Cjssar, C. J., 312. 
 
 I aliph, 180. 
 
 Calypso, 860. 
 
 Cant, 851. 
 
 ('ap-a-pie, 308. 
 
 ( 'arr, 285. 
 
 i Carpio, B. del., 309. 
 I Camilla, 242. 
 
 Castellated, 463. 
 
 ( iassock, 119. 
 
 Catiline, L.S., 387. 
 ICato, M. P., 533. 
 
 Cecilia, 531. 
 
 < Vntaur, 556. 
 
 Cerement, 140. 
 
 Chalons-sur-Marne, 
 267. 
 
 Charon, 382. 
 
 Chateaubriand, 536. 
 
 Charybdis, 422. 
 ! Chatam, 238. 
 J Chaucer, G. 88. 
 ! Cicero, M. T., 205. 
 ! Claymore, 154. 
 
 Coleridge, II., 475. 
 : Coliseum, 258. 
 | Columbus, C, 95. 
 | Command, B4. 
 I Concatenation, 380. 
 \ Concomitant, 843. 
 
 I Miistabulary, 114. 
 
 I lonstancy, 586. 
 
 I loDStantiue I., 255. 
 ; Constellation, Bl. 
 
 < ionsumuiate, 86. 
 
 Contemporary, S6. 
 
 Contumely, 141. 
 
 Conversazione, 225. 
 
 Correi, 143. 
 
 Coronach, 143. 
 
 Courteous, 494. 
 
 Cromwell, O., 361. 
 
 Cuisse, 482. 
 
 Culloden, 153. 
 
 Culverin, 307. 
 
 Cumber, 143. 
 
 Curacy, 11!'. 
 
 Curran, J. P., 137. 
 
 I J nt hia, 598. 
 
 Cytheris, 3»i7. 
 
 Czar, 92. 
 
 Dacian, 257. 
 
 Dante, 292. 
 
 Dare, 86. 
 
 Darius 111., 528. 
 
 I >ai win E.. 478. 
 
 Daw, Sir II., 537. 
 
 Death, 584. 
 
 Deciduous, r>44. 
 
 Delfthaven, 284. 
 
 Demosthenes, 206, 
 
 Denham, J., 242. 
 
 Denizen, 202. 
 
 Derelict, 344. 
 
 Diana, 226, 367. 
 
 Diapason, 99. 
 
 Dilatory, 351. 
 
 Dodsley, B., 244. 
 ] Durable, 380. 
 
 Eabth. 77. 
 
 Ecstatic, 100. 
 , Edwards, J., 464. 
 
 Effuse, 83. 
 | EI Dorado, 285. 
 
 Elliot, E., 238. 
 
 Emmett, R., 136. 
 
 Epaulettes, 280. 
 , Epictetus, 364. 
 
 Epicurean, 549. 
 I Equipage, 266. 
 
 Kiel) us, 520. 
 '■ Et cetera, 279. 
 
 En regie, 225. 
 
 Kuril 'ides. 
 
 Euthanasia, 132. 
 
 Excursion, 266. 
 
 Exemplary, 138. 
 
 Exotic, 168. 
 
 Extraordinary, 165. 
 
 Falchion, I 
 
 Feature. 165. 
 
 Foray, 143. 
 
 Franklin, B., 213. 
 
 Front-de-Bceuf, 375 
 
 Fruits. S3. 
 
 Fuller's bird, 147. 
 ; Gaiuisu. 13S. 
 
 Galaxy, 593. 
 
 Gape, 493. 
 
 Ger-falcon, 434. 
 
 Ghoul, 553. 
 
 Gibbon, E., 95. 
 
 Gifford, Win, 238. 
 ; Gil Bias, 222. 
 i Gladiator, 254. 
 , Gone, 77. 
 I Gorgon, 356. 
 
 Gospel, 200. 
 
 Goths, 257. 
 'Graphic, 115. 
 
 Greaves, 432. 
 
 Green Harbor. 340. 
 
 ( Irey, Jane. 862. 
 
 Guerdon, 422. 
 
 Gymnosop lusts, 118 
 
 Halt, 93. 
 
 Hall, Robert, 213. 
 
 llallain. Henry, 239 
 
 Halleluiah, 99. 
 
 Hamilton, A., 292. 
 
 Hamlet, 498, 501. 
 
 Hampden, J., 292. 
 
 Harpy, 14-<. 
 
 Hazii'lt, Win, 239. 
 
 Hearth, 2 .".4. 
 
 Hecate, 266. 
 
 Helen, 530. 
 
 Helicon, 399. 
 
 Hercules, 226. 
 
 Herodotus, 343. 
 
 Hesperus, 577. 
 
 Ilierocles, 378. 
 
 Hieroglyphic, 93. 
 ; Homer, B7. 
 
 Horace, 231. 
 
 Hortus siccus, 226. 
 ; Howard, Jolm, 301. 
 
 Hume, David, 237. 
 
 Hurdle, 123. 
 I Ilurdis, Jas., 473. 
 I Hurrahs, 93. 
 
 Hurtle, 555. 
 
 Hyperbolical, 379. 
 
 Hyperion, 4 
 
 Hypothesis, 200. 
 
 Idiomatic, 576. 
 
 Idume. 598. 
 ! Immcthodie, 200. 
 
 Imperatoriai, 812. 
 
 Importunate, 14 '. 
 
 Imprecations, 268. 
 
 Improvise, 44'.'. 
 
 Incarnadine, 5^6. 
 
 Indian. 96. 
 
 Ineffable, S5. 
 
 Ineradicable, 200. 
 I Inexorable, 92. 
 
 In procinctu, 312. 
 
600 
 
 INDEX TO WORDS. 
 
 Intrepid, 136. 
 Introspection, 341. 
 Isaiah, 590. 
 
 J.VCOBITiSil, 371. 
 
 Jessica, 519. 
 Jove, 367. 
 Jubilee, 144. 
 Jura, 467. 
 Keats, John, 238. 
 Kepler, John, 201. 
 Knowles, J. S., 392. 
 Kopeck, 91. 
 Kosciusko, T., 156. 
 Laocoon, 453. 
 Lateral, 236. 
 Laus Deo, 279. 
 Legerdemain, 359. 
 Leman, 46(5. 
 Lemnian, 367. 
 Leon i das, 95. 
 Lethe, 496. 
 Lets, 495. 
 Leuk, 463. 
 Libyan Jove. 242. 
 Lichen, 73. 
 Livy, 343. 
 Locke, John, 210. 
 Logan, 306. 
 Lucretius, 231. 
 Luther. M., 237. 
 Lydian, 529. 
 Macbeth, 583. 
 Machination, 380. 
 Magician, 205. 
 Maginu, Win. 239. 
 Mahomet, 397. 
 Mammonish, 199. 
 Marathon, 287. 
 Marius, 312. 
 Mars, 502. 
 Marshfield, 339. 
 Massinger, P., 580. 
 Masquerade, 138. 
 Mausoleum, 299. 
 Mayflower, 285. 
 Melliteous, 231. 
 Melnotte, C, 333. 
 Mercury, 502. 
 Merhn/427. 
 Minerva, 300. 
 Mirabeau, 238. 
 Misanthrope, 372. 
 Monody, 5.".:;. 
 Monsieur, 92. 
 Moscow, 146. 
 Muezzin, 476. 
 Mystic, 84, 144. 
 Nepenthe. 561. 
 Newton, Sir i., 201. 
 None, 98. Nooks, 78. 
 North Aa, 157. 
 Nothing, 78. 
 Occult, 577. 
 Olfactory, 116. 
 Oiymp'm, 52o. 
 
 i Olympus, 298. 
 
 Omnipresent, 594. 
 
 Omniscience, 594. 
 
 Ophir, 593. 
 
 Ophiuchus, 581. 
 
 Orchestra, 79. 
 
 Orpheus, 348. 
 
 Ostend, 519. 
 
 P.EAN, 553. 
 
 Pamim, 307. 
 
 Palisade, 375. 
 
 Palms, 78. 
 
 Pampered, 85. 
 
 Pantheon, 121. 
 
 Paradoxical, 575. 
 
 Parnassus, 241. 
 
 Parodist, 576. 
 
 Parrhasius, 366. 
 
 Passinsr, 802. 
 
 Past, 77. 
 
 Paten, 519. 
 
 1'ater-patriae, 275. 
 
 Path, 85. 
 
 Pauline, 333. 
 
 Perennial, 199. 
 
 Pericles, 299. 
 
 Petit larceny, 115. 
 
 Phoebus, 238. 
 
 Phidias, 300. 
 
 Philomela, 84. 
 
 Piccini, 224. 
 
 Picturesque, 234. 
 
 Pindar, 231. 
 
 Pindus, 590. 
 
 Piqued, 224. 
 
 Platsea, 399. 
 
 Plato, 88. 
 
 Plebeian, 388. 
 
 Pleiad, 344. 
 
 Plinth, 88. 
 
 Plutarch, 364. 
 
 Polybius, 364. 
 
 Pope Joan, 121. 
 
 Postern, 376. 
 
 Posthumous, 277. 
 
 Potential, 85. 
 
 Precedent, 350. 
 
 Pregnant, 86. 
 
 Pretty, 449. 
 
 Prerogative, 292. 
 
 Probing, 79. 
 
 Prometheus, 367. 
 
 Puritans, 280. 
 
 Purple, 95. 
 
 Python, 453. 
 
 Rabbinical, 576. 
 
 Rack, 235. 
 
 Raconteur. 342. 
 
 Raschid, H. al, 180. 
 
 Ravish, 82. 
 
 Recognition, 94. 
 
 Redolent, So. 
 
 Refulgent, 81. 
 ! Relic of Milton, 579. 
 i Rendezvous, olio. 
 
 Renunciation, 292. 
 Resonant, 79. 
 Return, 154. 
 Reveille, 170. 
 Reversion, 351. 
 Rienzi, 292. 
 Rood, 501. 
 Root, 77, 233. 
 Rouse, 493. 
 Route, 170. 
 Ruble, 91. 
 Runic, 551. 
 Rural, 84. 
 Russell, Wra. 96. 
 Sabean, 592. 
 Sable, 143. 
 Saco, 170. Saga, 434. 
 Saladin, 563. 
 Salamis, 395. 
 Salvo, 157. 
 Samite, 427. 
 Sarmatia, 156. 
 Satirist, 372. 
 Satyr, 489. 
 Savage, R., 204. 
 Scarce, 77. 
 Scarcely, 82. 
 Sensorium, 595. 
 Seraph, 84. 
 Sergeant, 444. 
 Serried, 313. 
 Sesame, 577. 
 Sheen, 313. 
 Shenstone, W. 360. 
 Sheridan, R. B., 86. 
 Sibyl, 327. 
 Simulacrum, 521. 
 Sinai, 201. 
 Simar, 556. 
 Siren, 133. 
 Skald, 434. 
 Skoal, 436. 
 Smith, Mrs. C, 478. 
 Socrates, 231. 
 Solyma, 590. 
 Song, 87. 
 Sovereign, 510. 
 Spenser, E., 292. 
 Spinet, 326. 
 St. Ambrose, 523. 
 Steele, R., 204. 
 Stridulous, 236. 
 St. Paul's Ch., 300. 
 Stupendous, 83. 
 Sublunary, 300. 
 Supernal, 145. 
 Sure, 118. 
 Swamp, 170. , 
 Swift, J., 237. 
 Sydney, A., 292. 
 Syncope, 589. 
 Synonym, 577. 
 JTalfourd,T.N.,238 
 Talisman, 543. 
 Tamerlane, 86. 
 
 Tarquin, 584. 
 
 Tartarus, 390. 
 
 Tedded, 97. 
 
 Te Deum, 169. 
 
 Tempe, 526. 
 
 Temple, A\ m., 237. 
 
 Tillotson, J., 535. 
 
 Timotheus, 242. 
 
 Tinct, 381, 503. 
 
 Tintinnabulation, 
 551. 
 
 Titans, 175. 
 
 Thais, 527. 
 
 Thanatopsis, 129. 
 
 The, 77. There, 78. 
 
 Therefore, 114. 
 
 Thermopylae, 395. 
 
 Thucydides, 343. 
 
 Tocsin, 307. 
 
 Tragedy, 486. 
 
 Trajan,* 312. 
 
 Transcendent, 205. 
 
 Transmutation, 359. 
 
 Transfigure, 145. 
 j Treason, 186. 
 | Tripod, 510. 
 
 Turbulent, 78. 
 
 Ubiquity, 114. 
 
 Urs, 233. 
 
 Vails, 351. 
 
 Vane, Sir II., 96. 
 
 Vast, 465. 
 
 Venice, 176. 
 
 Venus de Medicis, 
 226. 
 
 Viking, 315. 
 
 Vilhers, 285. 
 
 Vindication, 136. 
 
 Virgin, 77. 
 
 Vis-a-vis, 122. 
 
 Visionary, 165. 
 
 Vizier, 181. 
 
 Vortices, 200. 
 
 Waller, E., 242. 
 
 Warwick, 382. 
 
 Wassail-bout, 435. 
 
 Washington, 275. 
 
 Weird, 77. 
 
 Westminster Ab- 
 bey, 300. 
 
 Wherefore, 93. 
 
 White, J. 13., 477. 
 
 Wilberlbrce, 301. 
 
 W T ilson, John, 238. 
 
 Winkelried, A., 95. 
 
 Woman, 100. 
 
 Wont, 214, 493. 
 
 Wonted, 476. 
 
 World, 585. 
 
 W'ound, 356. 
 
 Wrath, 154. 
 
 Ximi.xis, p., 222. 
 
 Yeoman, 876. 
 
 Yorktown. 17*'>. 
 
 You, 83. Your, 83. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 EDUCATION - PSYCHOLOGY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 
 xveneweu duokj> are sudj 
 
 ecu 10 immediate recall. 
 
 7 DAY USE DURING 
 
 SUMMER SESSIONS 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LD 21A-15m-4,'63 
 (D6471sl0)476 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
W 368! 3