Stain’d the sad annals of a giddy reign ;10
Aiming at lawless power, though meanly sunk
In loose inglorious luxury. With him
His friend the British Cassius," fearless bled;
Of high determin'd spirit, roughly brave,
By ancient learning to th’ enlighten'd love
Of ancient freedom warm’d. Fair thy renown
In awful sages and in noble bards;
Soon as the light of dawning Science spread
Her orient ray, and wak’d the Muses' song.
Thine is a Bacon ; him for studious shade
Kind Nature form’d, deep, comprehensive, clear,
Exact, and elegant, in one rich soul,
Plato, the Stagyrite, and Tully join'd.
The great deliverer he! who from the gloom
Of cloisterd monks, and jargon-teaching schools,
Led forth the true Philosophy, there long
Held in the magic chain of words and forms,
And definitions void : he led her forth,
Daughter of heaven ! that slow-ascending still,
Investigating sure the chain of things,
With radiant finger points to heaven again.
Why need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search,
Amid the dark recesses of his works,
The great Creator sought? And why thy Locke,
Who made the whole internal world his own?
Let Newton, pure intelligence, whom God
To mortals lent to trace his boundless works
From laws sublimely simple, speak thy fame
In all philosophy. For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast ?
Is not each great, each amiable Muse
Of classic ages in thy Milton met ?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as chaos, as the bloom
Of blowing Eden fair, as heaven sublime.
Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son:
Who, like a copious river, pour'd his song
O’er all the mazes of enchanted ground:
Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,

THE GERMAN RHINE.

95

Well moraliz’d, shines through the gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown."

THOMSON.

12

1. What Queen of Arts ? Justify the ness, and cleanliness, that eminently epithet.

distinguishes their occupiers.”—M.Cui. 2. Why guardian ?

loch's Gevgraphical Dictionary. 3. Float with golden waves, what is 5. What part of speech is saint here? the meaning of this, and is the expres. and why his own muses in the succeeding sion a happy one?

line? 4. “ A peculiar feature in the phy, 6. What historical facts are here resiognomy of England is the number and ferred to ? and, in particular, show that magnificence of the seats of the nobility the brutal tyrant's rage was useful ? and gentry. These superh mansions, 7. What is meant by the maiden reign? many of which are venerable for their 8. What foe? antiquity, and all of which are sur. 9. In what sense

is proved here rounded with fine woods and grounds, used ? give to the country an appearance of 10. Whose reign is here referred to ? age, security, and wealth, that we should and justify the epithet giddy. in vain look for any where else. The !1. By the British Cassius is meant farm houses and cottages have mostly Algernon Sydney. also a substantial, comfortable look; and 12. Explain fully the meaning of the evince that taste for rural beauty, neat- last three lines.

XXIII. THE GERMAN RHINE.

"Once during the morning a band of apprentices, with knapsacks, passed by, singing The Rhine! the Rhine! a blessing on the Rhine! O, the pride of the German heart in this noble river! And right it is, for of all the rivers of this beautiful earth there is none so beautiful as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. If I were a German I would be proud of it too; and of the clustering grapes that hang about its temples, as it reels onward through vineyards, in a triumphal march, like Bacchus, crowned and drunken.”-- Longfellow's Hyperion.

They shall not-shall not have it,

Our free-born German Rhine,
Though hoarse as famished ravens
They round it croak and whine.
So long its winding current

Shall wear its dark green vest ;
So long as plashing boat-oar

Shall cleave its rippling breast.
They shall not-shall not have it,

Our free-born German Rhine,
So long as hearts are gladden'd by

Its spirit-stirring wine ;

So long beneath its eddies,

As rocks shall firmly stand:
So long as lofty battlements

Shine mirror'd 'neath its strand.
They shall not-shall not have it,

Our free-born German Rhine;
Till amorous youths and maidens
Forsake the marriage shrine.
So long its depths can shelter

A fish amidst their sands;
So long as songs shall echo

From minstrel's lips and hands.
They shall not~shall not have it,

Our free-born German Rhine;
Till, buried 'neath its surges,

Our last man's bones recline.

BECKER.

XXIV. THE POET'S WISH.

“ CERTAINLY in no heart did the love of country ever burn with a warmer glow than in that of Burns : 'a tide of Scottish prejudice, as he modestly calls this deep and generous feeling, 'had been poured along his veins; and he felt that it would boil there till the floodgates shut in eternal rest.' It seemed to him, as if he could do so little for his country, and yet would so gladly have done all.”—Carlyle.

A WISH (I mind its power),
A wish, that to my latest hour
Will strongly heave my breast;
That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake,
Some useful plan or book could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
The rough bur Thistle spreading wide

Amang the bearded bear,
I turned the weeder-clips aside,
And spared the symbol dear.

BURNS.

POEMS OF WORK AND PROGRESS.

I. THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH.

*

*

*

*

“ Work is the mission of man in this earth. A day is ever struggling forward, a day will arrive in some approximate degree, when he who has no work to do, by whatever name he may be named, will not find it good to show himself in our quarter of the solar system, but may go and look out elsewhere, if there be any idle planet discoverable. Let the honest working man rejoice that such law, the first of nature, has been made good on him; and hope that, by and by, all else will be made good. It is the beginning of all.”

“ He that can work is a born king of something; is in communion with nature; is master of a thing or things, is a priest and king of nature so far. He that can work at nothing is but a usurping king, be his trappings what they may; he is the born slave of all things. Let a man honour his craftmanship--his can-do.”-- Carlyle. Compare these adjectives : Conjugate these verbs, and indicate whether

they are trans, or intrans.
Mighty. Whole.

Stands. Blow. Fly.
Sinewy. Rough.

Earns. Ring. Fit.
Honest.

Looks. Catch, Begin.
Give synonymes and opposites to these words :
Spreading.

Crisp, and black and long."
Mighty.

Honest,
“ Large and sinewy." Heavy:
Brawny.

“ Hard, rough hand."
UNDER a spreading chestnut tree

The village smithy stands ;'
The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands ;
And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.?
His hair is crisp, and black and long;

His face is like the tan ; 8
His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate'er he can ;
And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

You can hear his bellows blow ;*
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school

Look in at the open door ;
They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly

Like chaff from a thrashing floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,

And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,

He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice

Singing in Paradise !
He needs must think of her once more,

How in the grave she lies ;
And with his hard rough hand he wipes

A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes ; Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close :
Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

For the lesson thou hast taught !
Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought!

LONGFELLOW.