THE LAST DAYS OF COLONEL NEWCOME.

291 to call him "Codd Colonel." "Tell little Frank that Codd Colonel wants to see him!" and the little gown-boy was brought to him; and the colonel would listen to him for hours, and hear all about his lessons and his play: and prattle, almost as childishly, about Dr. Raine, and his own early school-days. The boys of the school, it must be said, had heard the noble old gentleman's touching history, and had all got to know and love him. They came every day to hear news of him; sent him in books and papers to amuse him; and some benevolent young souls-God's blessing on all honest boys, say I-painted theatrical characters, and sent them in to Codd Colonel's grandson. The little fellow was made free of gown-boys, and once came thence to his grandfather in a little gown, which delighted the old man hugely. Boy said he would like to be a little gown-boy; and I make no doubt, when he is old enough, his father will get him that post, and put him under the tuition of my friend Dr. Senior.

So weeks passed away, during which our dear old friend still remained with us. His mind was gone at intervals, but would rally feebly; and with his consciousness returned his love, his simplicity, his sweetness. He would talk French with Madame de Florac, at which time his memory appeared to awaken with surprising vividness, his cheek flushed,' and he was a youth again-a youth all love and hope—a stricken old man, with a beard as white as snow covering the noble careworn face. At such times he called her by her Christian name of Léonore; he addressed courtly old words of regard and kindness. to the aged lady; anon he wandered in his talk, and spoke to her as if they still were young. Now, as in those early days, his heart was pure; no anger remained in it; no guile tainted it; only peace and good-will dwelt in it.

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The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to flicker12 and to fail. One evening the colonel left his chair for his bed in pretty good spirits, but passed a disturbed night, and the next morning was too weak to rise. Then he remained in his bed and his friends visited him there. One afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child was brought to him, and sat by the bed with a very awe-stricken 13 face; and then gathered courage, and tried to amuse him by telling him how it was a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket-match with the St. Peter's boys in the green, and Grey Friars was in and winning. The colonel quite understood about it; he would like to see the game; he had played many a game on that green when he was a boy. He grew excited. Clive dismissed his father's little friend, and put a sovereign into his hand; and away he ran to say that Codd Colonel had come into a fortune, and to buy tarts, and to see the match out. I, curre,14 little white-haired gown-boy! Heaven speed you, my little friend.

After the child had gone, Thomas Newcome began to wander more and more. He talked louder; he gave the word of command

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spoke Hindostanee,15 as if to his men. Then he spoke words in French rapidly, seizing a hand that was near him, and crying, Toujours, toujours!"16 But it was Ethel's hand which he took. Ethel and Clive and the nurse were in the room with him; the latter came to us who were sitting in the adjoining apartment; Madame de Florac was there, with my wife and Bayham.

At the look in the woman's countenance, Madame de Florac started up. "He is very bad, he wanders a great deal," the nurse whispered. The French lady fell instantly on her knees, and remained rigid17

in prayer.

Some time afterwards, Ethel came in with a scared 18 face to our pale group. "He is calling for you again, dear lady," she said, going up to Madame de Florac, who was still kneeling; "and just now he said he wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. He will nɔt know you." She hid her tears as she spoke.

She went into the room, where Clive was at the bed's foot; the old man within it talked on rapidly for awhile: then again he would sigh and be still. Once more I heard him say hurriedly: "Take care of him when I'm in India;" and then with a heart-rending voice he called out, "Léonore, Léonore!" She was kneeling by his side now. The patient's voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep.

At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat a time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum!" 19 and fell back. It was the word we used at school, when names were called; and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of The Master. THACKERAY.

MEANINGS: 1. Spacious, large and roomy. 2. Attained, got. 3. Rally, get strong again. 4. Vacant, empty. 5. Assigned, given. 6. Symptoms, signs. 7. Consciousness, knowing what he was doing and saying. 8. Vividness, clearness. 9. Flushed, grew suddenly red. 10. Guile, bad thought. 11. Tainted, stained. 12. Flicker, to be sometimes great and sometimes small. 13. Awe-stricken, full of terror. 14. I, curre, Go, run. 15. Hindostanee, the language spoken by the Hindoos. 16. Toujours, toujours, always, always. 17. Rigid, stiff, fixed. 18. Scared, frightened. 19. Adsum, I am here.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.

SUCH men--men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind—I have found, labouring conscientiously, though perhaps obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have gone. have found them and shared their fellowship, among the daring, the ambitious, the ardent,3 the indomitably active French; I have

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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 highminded, but enslaved Italians; and in our own country, God be thanked, their numbers everywhere abound, and are everyday increasing. Their calling is high and holy; their fame is the property of nations; their renown will fill the earth in after-ages. Each one of those great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, performs his appointed course,' awaits in patience the fulfilment of the promises; and, resting from his labours, bequeaths his memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, and sleeps under the humble but not inglorious epitaph, commemorating 10 one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy. BROUGHAM.

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MEANINGS: 1. Obscurely, without making a noise in the world. 2. Vocation, calling. 3. Ardent, fiery. 4. Indomitably, untamably. 5. Enthusiastic, eager in cause, full of zeal. 6. Possessing, having. 7. Performs his appointed course, any does the work set by God. 8. Bequeaths, gives in his will. 9. Epitaph, inscription on a tombstone. 10. Commemorating, telling of.

READING.

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IF I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead1 under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree as superseding or derogating from the higher office and surer and stronger panoply of religious principles, but as a taste, an instrument, and a mode of pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him. It is hardly possible but the character should take a higher and better tone from the constant habit of associating, in thought, with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, above the average of humanity. It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of good breeding and civilization from having constantly before one's eyes the way in which the best-bred and the best-informed men have talked and conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other. There is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coercion in the habit of reading,

well directed, over the whole tenor 10 of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly," and because it is really the last thing he dreams of. It civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain barbarous.12

SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.

MEANINGS: 1. Stand me in stead, do me good service. 2. Superseding, doing away with. 3. Derogating, taking away from the necessity of. 4. Office, duty. 5. Panoply, complete armour. 6. Denizen, à citizen. 7. Contemporary, one who lives at the same time with. 8. Average of humanity, common run of men. 9. Coercion, restraining power. 10. Tenor, course. 11. Insensibly, without your perceiving it. 12. Barbarous, rude and uncivilized.

ON KNOWLEDGE.

SOME men may be disposed to ask: "Why conduct my understanding with such endless care; and what is the use of so much knowledge?"

What is the use of so much knowledge ?-What is the use of so much life? What are we to do with the seventy years of existence allotted to us? and how are we to live them out to the last? I solemnly declare that, but for the love of knowledge, I should consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher as preferable to that of the greatest and richest man in existence; for the fire of our minds is like the fire which the Persians burn on the mountains; it flames night and day and is immortal, and not to be quenched! Upon something it must act and feed-upon the pure spirit of knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of polluting passions. Therefore, when I say, in the conduct of your understanding, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love coëval' with life-what do I say, but love innocence; love virtue; love purity of conduct; love that which, if you are rich and great, will vindicate the blind fortune which has made you so, and make men call it justice; love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes; love that which will comfort you, adorn you, and never quit you-which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conception, as an asylum3 against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain, that may be your lot in the outer world-that which will make your motives habitually great and honourable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of

meanness and of fraud.

Therefore, if any young man have embarked his life in pursuit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event; let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in which she

dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train; but let him ever follow her as the angel that guards him, and as the genius of his life. She will bring him out at last into the light of day, and exhibit him to the world comprehensive in acquirements, fertile in resources, rich in imagination, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful above his fellows in all the relations and in all the offices of life. SYDNEY SMITH.

MEANINGS: 1. Coëval, of the same age. 2. Respectable, worthy of respect. 3. Asylum, safe place of retreat. 4. Disdains, feelings of contempt. 5. Intimidated, frightened into giving up this pursuit. 6. Comprehensive in acquirements, with knowledge which covers many subjects and fields of research.

GRASS.

GATHER a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow sword-shaped strip of fluted1 green. Nothing, as it seems, there of notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point—not a perfect point neither, but blunt and unfinished, by no means apparently a much-cared-for example of Nature's workmanship; made, as it seems, only to be trodden on to-day, and to-morrow to be cast into the oven: and a little pale hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid,3 leading down to the dull brown fibres1 of roots. And yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes or good for food-stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron," burdened vine —there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced, as that narrow point of feeble green. Observe the peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it especially for the service of mar, are its apparents humility, and cheerfulness. Its humility, in that it seems created only for lowest service,-appointed to be trodden on, and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult under all kinds of violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger the next day; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful; you tread upon it, and it only sends up, richer perfume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with all the earth,-glowing with variegated flame of flowers,-waving in soft depth of fruitful strength. Winter comes, and though it will not mock its fellow plants by growing then, it will not pine and mourn, and turn colourless or leafless as they. It is always green; and is only the brighter and gayer for the hoar-frost.

RUSKIN.

MEANINGS: 1. Fluted, hollowed like a flute. 2. Notable, remarkable. 3. Flaccid, soft and weak. 4. Fibres, fine threads. 5. Citron, a tree which bears a fruit something like lemons. 6. Burdened, with grapes. 7. Adapt, fit. 8. Apparent, seeming. 9. Glowing with variegated flame of flowers, lit up with flowers of all sorts and colours.