them with singular vigour and industry. But his passions were strong, his disposition was severe and merciless, and his ambition and love of rule caused him to disregard all restraints of justice and humanity.

There never was a more fortunate usurper of a throne, which he transmitted to a long and subsisting line of descendants; and the establishment of his dynasty is the most conspicuous era of English history.

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1. What British king died on this day, in 1087 ?

2. What accident put an end to his destructive career? 3. To whom did he bequeath his dominions?

LESSON CCLIII.

SEPTEMBER THE TENTH.

Recollections and Associations.

THE effects of association, awakened by external objects, are well described by Gibbon the historian. "At the distance of five-and-twenty years," says he, "I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my breast as I first approached the eternal city. After a sleepless night I trod with a lofty step the ruins of the forum; each spot where Romulus stood or Tully spoke was present to my sight."

Poggio Bracciolini, amid the same ruins, took pleasure in revolving the various occurrences each ruin had seen or given birth to, and such was his proficiency, that he could trace the history of every palace and of every temple. Among the ruins of the Tarpeian rock, he contrasted the state of Rome, proud and imperious Rome! when Tully graced the bar and Cato the senate, with those ruins which, at the moment he viewed the city, lay scattered on every side around him. "The hill of the Capitol on which we sit," said he to his friend, "was formerly the head of the Roman empire; the citadel of the earth, the terror of kings, illustrated by the footsteps of so many triumphs, enriched by the spoils and tributes of so many nations. This spectacle of the world, how has it fallen! how changed! how defaced! The path of victory is obliterated by vines, and the benches of the senators are concealed by a dunghill. Cast your eyes on the Palatine hill, and seek, among the shapeless and enormous fragments, the marble theatre, the obelisks, the colossal statues, the porticoes of Nero's palace. Survey the other hills of the city; the vacant space is interrupted only by ruins and gardens. The public and private edifices, that were founded for eternity, lie prostrate, naked, and broken,

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like the limbs of a mighty giant: and the ruin is the more visible from the stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of time and fortune."

The melancholy appearance of these ruins was the remote cause of Rienzi's attempt to re-establish the ancient commonwealth of Rome; and with what genuine feeling did Petrarch lament that the marble columns and fragments of antiquity, which had formed the glory of that once mighty city, should be transported from their native soil, to adorn the palaces of Naples! Alas! how much more fallen now has become the city of the world; raising its melancholy ruins among fields, which appear, by their utterly abandoned state, to have suffered from a conflagration, a famine, or a pestilence!

1. How does Gibbon express himself with regard to his remembrance of the "eternal city?"

2. What said Bracciolini while sitting on the Capitoline hill?

3. What caused Rienzi to attempt the re-establishment of the Commonwealth of Rome?

LESSON CCLIV.

SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH.

The Soldier's Dream.

OUR bugles sung truce, for the night cloud had lour'd,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky,
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When, reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring faggot, that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,

And twice, ere the cock crew, I dreamt it again.
Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track,

Till autumn and sunshine arose in the way,

To the house of my fathers, that welcomed me back. I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung. They pledged me the wine cup, and fondly I swore From my home and my weeping friends never to part; My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er,

And my wife sobb'd aloud, in her fulness of heart.

Stay, stay with us!-rest!- thou art weary and worn!" (And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay), But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

LESSON CCLV.

SEPTEMBER THE TWELFTH.

Genius.

THE word GENIUS, in its general acceptation, means an aptitude for a particular pursuit, founded on some stimulus in youth, by which the mind and faculties are directed to excellence. It combines opposite intellectual qualities: the deepest penetration with the liveliest fancy; the greatest quickness with the most indefatigable diligence. To what is old it gives a new form; or it invents new; and its own productions are altogether original. We estimate it higher than talent, in the common acceptation of that term, which in the capacity for originating in extent and energy is inferior to genius. Where ordinary powers advance by slow degrees, genius soars on rapid wings.

But genius does not assume its distinctive character in every exercise of its powers. A gifted poet, for instance, is not necessarily an ingenious philosopher, nor does the statesman's genius include that of the soldier. We distinguish this genius, therefore, into various kinds, as poetical, musical, mathematical, military, &c.; thus, for example, Milton possessed a genius for poetry, Mozart for music, Newton for mathematics, &c. Yet, although the union of great excellence in different walks of art and science is but rarely found in one man, some, like Michael Angelo, who was equally celebrated as a statuary, architect, and painter, are found possessing genius of a most comprehensive character.

By the ancients the word genius was used in an absurd or figurative sense, to express a supposed invisible spirit which directs a course of events. There were both good and bad genii. According to the belief of the Romans, every person had his own genius, that is, a spiritual being, which introduced him into life, accompanied him during the course of it, and again conducted him out of it at the close of his career.

1. What is the general meaning of the word genius?-and what does it combine ?

2. In what way does genius assume a distinctive character?

3. What did the Romans believe?

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LESSON CCLVI.

SEPTEMBER THE THIRTEENTH.

Philip II. of Spain.

On this day, in 1598, expired Philip II. of Spain, son of the Emperor Charles V. and Isabella of Portugal. He was in the seventy-second year of his age and the fortythird of his reign.

The character of this prince has appeared in very different colours to persons of different countries and religions. While the Protestants have universally execrated his memory as a persecutor, while the Low Countries have regarded him as a tyrant, and the French as a crafty and unfeeling politician, his subjects of Spain have decorated him with the title of the Prudent, and have honoured him for his gravity, sedateness, magnificence, and attachment to religion.

He had the sagacity to discover and employ men of abilities; he was a friend to learning and the arts, and in many respects his domestic administration was laudable; nor was he ever wantonly cruel, though he shrunk at no severity which he thought necessary for his purposes. But his boundless ambition and bigoted prejudices rendered his whole reign a period of war and contention, and wasted the vast resources which he possessed, without effecting any of the great objects at which he aimed. In fact, the Spanish monarchy dates its decline from his reign.

1. What prince expired on this day, in 1598 ? and whose son was he? 2. In what opposite lights has Philip been regarded?

3. What was his real character?

LESSON CCLVII.

SEPTEMBER THE FOURTEENTH.

Foreign Travel.

OURS is a nation of travellers and no wonder, when the elements, air, water, fire, attend at our bidding to transport us from shore to shore; when the ship rushes into the deep, her track the foam as of some mighty torrent; and in three hours or less, we stand gazing, and gazed at, among a foreign people. None want an excuse. If rich, they go to enjoy; if poor, to retrench; if sick, to recover; if studious, to learn; if learned, to relax from their studies. But whatever they may say, whatever they may believe, they go for the most part on the same errand; nor will those who reflect think that errand an idle one.

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Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honour; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden times of their childhood.

Now travel, and foreign travel more particularly, restores to us in a great degree what we have lost. When the anchor is heaved we double down the leaf; and for a while, at least, all effort is over. The old cares are left clustering round the old objects; and at every step, as we proceed, the slightest circumstance amuses and interests. All is new and strange. We surrender ourselves, and feel once again as children. Like them, we enjoy eagerly; like them, when we fret, we fret only for the moment; and here, indeed, the resemblance is very remarkable, for, if a journey has its pains as well as its pleasures (and there is nothing unmixed in this world), the pains are no sooner over than they are forgotten, while the pleasures live long in the memory.

Nor is it surely without another advantage. If life be short, not so to many of us are its days and its hours. When the blood slumbers in the veins, how often do we wish that the earth would turn faster on its axis, that the sun would rise and set before it does; and to escape from the weight of time, how many follies, how many crimes are committed! Men rush on danger and even on death!

Now, in travelling, we multiply events. We set out, as it were, on our adventures; and many are those that occur to us, morning, noon, and night. The day we come to a place which we have long heard and read of, it is an era in our lives; and from that moment the very name calls up a picture. How delightfully, too, does the knowledge flow in upon us, and how fast! Would he who sat in a corner of his library, poring over books and maps, learn more, or so much, in the time, as he who, with his eyes and his heart open, is receiving impressions all day long from the things themselves? How accurately do they arrange themselves in our memory, towns, rivers, mountains; and in what living colours do we recall the dresses, manners, and customs of the people!

It fills the

Our sight is the noblest of all our senses. mind with new ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues longest in action with