Nō sail from day to day, but every day
The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts
Among the palms and ferns and precipices;
The blaze upon the waters to the east;

The blaze upon his island overhead;

The blaze upon the waters to the west;

Then the great stars that globed1 themselves in heaven,
The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again
The scarlet shafts of sunrise-but nō

sail.3

TENNYSON.

13.

14.

MISFORTUNE COMES IN TROOPS.

Never stoops the soaring vulture
On his quarry in the desert,
On the sick and wounded bison,
But another vulture, watching
From his high aërial5 look-out,
Sees the downward plunge, and follows;
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,"
First a speck, and then a vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.7
So disasters come not singly;
But, as if they watched and waited,
Scanning one another's motions,
When the first descends, the others
Follow, follow, gathering flock-wise
Round their victim, sick and wounded,
First a shadow, then a sorrow,
Till the air is dark with anguish.

MACBETH'S APPEAL TO THE WITCHES.

I conjure you by that which you profess

(Howe'er you come to know it) answer me;

LONGFELLOW.

Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yeasty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their wardens' heads;

Though palaces and pyramids do slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germins tumble altogether,
Even till destruction sicken, answer me
To what I ask you.

SHAKSPEARE.

SUSPENSIVE STATEMENTS.

65

15. When the mountains shall be dissolved; when the fountains shall be destroyed; when all sensible will still be the everlasting God; when they

of the earth and the world
objects shall vanish away, He
He will be when they exist no more, as He was
had no existence at all.

DR. CHALMERS.

16. Whenever you see a people making progress in vice; whenever you see them discovering a growing disregard to the divine law; there you see proportionable advances made to ruin and

misery.

17. If, when we behold a well-made and well-regulated watch, we infer the operations of a skilful artificer; then none but a "fool ” indeed can contemplate the universe, all whose parts are so admirably formed, and so harmoniously adjusted, and yet say 'there is no God."

66

18. After we have practised good actions for a while they become easy; and when they are easy we begin to take pleasure in them; and when they please us we do them frequently; and by frequency of acts, a thing grows into a habit ; and a confirmed habit is a second kind of nature; and so far as anything is natural, so far it is necessary, and we can hardly do otherwise; nay, we do it many times when we do not think of it.

19.

EPITAPH ON A HERO.

Here lies one who never drew
Blood himself, yet many slew;
Gave the gun its aim, and figure
Made in field, yet ne'er pulled trigger.
Armed men have gladly made
Him their guide, and him obeyed;
At his signified desire,

Would advance, present, and fire.

Stout he was, and large of limb,
Scores have fled at sight of him;
And to all this fame he rose
By only following his nose.
Neptune was he called, not he
Who controls the boisterous sea,
But of happier command,
Neptune of the furrowed land;
And your wonder vain to shorten,
Pointer to Sir John Throckmorton.

Cowl E3.

F

20.

THE HAPPY LIFE.

How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!

Whose passions not his masters are,
Whose soul is still prepared for death
Not tied unto the world with care
Of public fame, or private breath.

Who envies none that chance doth raise
Or vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray,
More of His grace than gifts to lend,
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book or friend;

-This man

is freed from servile bands
or fear to fall;

Of hope to rise
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath

all.

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

1. These lines are to be read with great slowness and solemnity. 2. Entrance and within are the emphatic words, as they are contrasted. (To p. 61.)

1. Plenty bade to bloom, that is, to which prosperity gave happiness. 2. Desires that were very moderate. 3. Satan. This is an extract from the First Book of Paradise Lost. 4. Tried. 5. Blue sky. This verse was written about the death of the Duke of Wellington. 6. Port-hole for a gun. 7. The ocean of death. 8. The old names for Persia and India. 9. Dressed as if for a festival. 10. These are supposed to be three names for one power. (To p. 62.)

1. Thoroughly satisfied. 2. Dark. 3. Brilliance. 4. Picturesque. 5. That is, the tropic zone. 6. Countless. 7. The highest point of the island. 8. The sea. 9. An opening between rocks. (To p. 63.)

1. Appeared as large as globes of light. 2. That bellowed hollower than in the day-time. 3. A melancholy falling inflection. 4. His prey-or, food that he has discovered. 5. Aerial is a difficult word to pronounce. It should be taken to pieces: a-ër-a-ër-i-al. 6. Air. 7. Wings. (To p. 64.)

THE danger, in reading this kind of sentence, is that the reader should consciously and intentionally change his voice. This would be a great mistake. Change of voice there will be; but it should arise, and must arise, only from a change of feeling. The change of feeling will communicate itself to the listener; and thus the right effect will be produced without any conscious effort on the part of the reader.

Each passage should be carefully read over in silence several times by the pupil, and fully questioned on by the teacher.

3.

4.

The wretch, concentred all in self,1
Living, shall forfeit 2 fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,3
Unwept unhonoured and unsung.

I gazed upon the glorious sky,
And the green mountains round;

And thought, that when I came to lie
Within the silent ground,

"Twere pleasant, that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a pleasant tune,
And groves a joyous sound,

The sexton's hand, my grave to make,

The rich green mountain turf should break.

Stop, mortal! Here thy brother lies-
The poet of the poor.

His books were rivers, woods, and skies,
The meadows, and the moor;

His teachers were the torn heart's wail,"
The tyrant, and the slave,

The street, the factory, the jail,

The palace and the grave!

The meanest thing, earth's feeblest worm,
He feared to scorn or hate;

But, honoured in a peasant's form

The equal of the great.

SCOTT.

MOTHERWELL.

He blessed the steward," whose wealth makes
The poor man's little more;

Yet loathed the haughty wretch that takes
From plundered labour's store.

A hand to do, a head to plan,

A heart to feel and dare

Tell men's worst foes

Who drew them

here lies the man

as they are.

MONTGOMERY.

5.

The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her humble nest, lies silent in the field;
But if the promise of a cloudless day,
The morning smiling, bids her rise and play,

Then straight she shows 'twas not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, she made so low
Singing she mounts, her airy wings
Towards heaven, as if from heaven

a choice; are stretched her note she fetched. WALLER.