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EDICT OF NANTES.

1. What origin is ascribed to the gypsies?

2. Describe their general habits and propensities.

3. What notions do gypsies entertain of religion?

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LESSON CCXCVII.. OCTOBER THE TWENTY-FOURTH. Edict of Nantes.

On this day in 1685, Louis XIV. of France revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had been passed by Henry IV. in 1598, and confirmed by Louis XIII. By this revocation, liberty of conscience was abolished; all the Huguenot (or reformed) churches were destroyed; declarations and decrees of council followed one another in rapid succession to heighten their despair; an order was issued even to take their children from them, and put them into the hands of Catholic relations; the ministers were banished, and the rest were prohibited, under the severest penalties, from leaving the kingdom. They no longer looked upon their country but with detestation, and were hurried away by hatred and fanaticism.

Notwithstanding the threatenings, punishments, and even precautions to prevent them, above 500,000 made their escape, carrying along with them not only immense sums of money, but likewise industry and manufactures, by which the kingdom had been enriched.

The people in the north of Germany, Holland, and England received these useful fugitives with open arms; their sentiments against the king were heard all over Europe; and they who carried neither arts nor professions among foreigners, carried with them a thirst of vengeance and courage, which they had but too many opportunities of displaying in wars against their country.

The loss of people was, perhaps, of less detriment to France than the loss of commerce; for a part of those commodities which used to be purchased in France was from that time manufactured in foreign countries by French refugees, whose industry care was taken to perpetuate.

1. By whom was the Edict of Nantes revoked? and when?

2. By whom had it been passed?

3. How many Huguenots are supposed to have escaped ?

4. In a commercial point of view, what was the consequence of their emigrating to other countries?

LESSON CCXCVIII.

OCTOBER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

The Orders of Architecture.

To Greece we are indebted for the three principal orders of architecture, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian ; Rome added two others, both formed out of the former, the Tuscan and the Composite. Each of these has a particular expression; so that a building, or different parts of a building, may be rude, solid, neat, delicate, or gay, accordingly as the Tuscan, the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, or the Composite are employed.

The columns of these several orders are easily distinguishable to common observers, by reason of the ornaments that are peculiar to their capitals; but the scientific difference consists in their proportions. The Tuscan order is characterized by its simplicity and strength. It is devoid of all ornament. The Doric is enlivened with ornaments in the frize and capital. The Ionic is ornamented with the volute scroll, or spiral horn; its ornaments are in a style of composition between the plainness of the Doric and the richness of the Corinthian. The Corinthian order is known by its capital being adorned with two sorts of leaves; between these rise little stalks, of which the volutes that support the highest part of the capital are formed. The Composite is nearly the same as the Corinthian, with an addition of the Ionic volute.

In their private buildings the Roman architects followed the Greeks; but in their public edifices they far surpassed them in grandeur. During the dark ages which followed the destruction of the Roman empire, the classic architecture of Greece and Rome was lost sight of, but was again revived by the Italians at the time of the restoration of letters.

The Gothic style was so called because it was first used by the Visigoths; but at first it was vastly inferior to that which we now call Gothic, and which exhibits grandeur and splendour with the most accurate execution. The Saxon and Norman styles were so called because they were respectively used by the Saxons before the Conquest, and by the Normans after, in the building of churches. The Saxon style was distinguished by the semicircular arch, which they seem to have taken partly from the Romans and partly from their ancestors on the Continent. The Norman was distinguished by the following particulars: the walls were very thick, generally without buttresses, the

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TRIBUTE TO THE "GREAT CAPTAIN" OF THE AGE. 415

arches, both within and without, semicircular, and supported by very plain and solid columns.

These two styles continued to be the prevailing modes of building in England until the reign of Henry II., when a new mode was introduced, which was called modern Gothic. Whether this was purely a deviation from the other two modes, or whether it was derived from any foreign source, is not known. It is, however, supposed to be of Saracenic extraction, and to have been introduced by the Crusaders. The style is distinguished by its numerous buttresses, lofty spires, and pinnacles, large and ramified windows, with a profusion of ornaments throughout. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the taste for Greek and Roman architecture revived, and brought the five orders again into use, although for sacred edifices the Saxon and Gothic styles still maintain the pre-eminence.

1. Whence do we derive the five orders of architecture? are they named ?

- and how

2. Point out the difference between the Ionic and the Corinthian orders.

3. How were the Saxon and Norman styles distinguished?

4. How is the modern Gothic known?

LESSON CCXCIX..

·OCTOBER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

Tribute to the "Great Captain" of the Age.

THE Duke of Wellington, after an absence from his country of more than five years, was on the 1st of July, 1814, introduced, at his own request, to the representatives of the British nation, when he expressed his acknowledgments for their unanimous vote of congratulation and thanks, and those high rewards which followed the convention of Paris, and the restoration of the house of Bourbon; the twelfth time his Grace had received from both Houses of Parliament that important and gratifying tribute of their just applause.

Mr. Abbot, the Speaker, (Lord Colchester,) after the enthusiasm had subsided, addressed the "great captain" in these memorable words :- -"My Lord Duke,- Since last I had the honour of addressing you from this place, a series of eventful years has elapsed, but none without some note and mark of your rising glory. The military triumphs which your valour has achieved on the banks of the Douro and the Tagus, of the Ebro and the Garonne,

have called forth the spontaneous shouts of admiring nations. Those triumphs it is needless on this day to recount. Their names have been written by your conquering sword in the annals of Europe, and we shall hand them down with exultation to our children's children.

"It is not, however, the grandeur of military success which has alone fixed our admiration, or commanded our applause! It has been that generous and lofty spirit which inspired your troops with unbounded confidence, and taught them to know that the day of battle was always a day of victory! That moral and enduring fortitude, which, in perilous times, when gloom and doubt had beset ordinary minds, stood nevertheless unshaken! And that ascendancy of character, which, uniting the energies of jealous and rival nations, enabled you to wield, at will, the fates and fortunes of mighty empires!

"When the will of Heaven, and the common destinies of our nature, shall have swept away the present generation, you will have left your great name, an imperishable monument, exciting others to like deeds of glory, and serving at once to adorn, defend, and perpetuate the existence of this country amongst the rising nations of the earth."

To the foregoing we are tempted to add a passage from the speech delivered by Lord Brougham, at the splendid banquet given at Dover, in 1839, in honour of the Duke of Wellington, as Warden of the Cinque Ports:- Alluding to the scenes of rapine which had marked the career of former conquerors, and the guilty ambition which led them to enslave their fellow-creatures, he exclaimed, "Our chief has never drawn his sword but in that defensive war, which alone of all warfare is not a great crime. He has never drawn his sword against the liberty of any people, but he has constantly unsheathed it, and, blessed be God, he has triumphantly unsheathed it, to secure the liberty of all! The servant of his prince to command his troops, but the soldier and defender of his country; the enemy of her enemies, be they foreign or be they domestic; but the fast friend of the rights of his fellow-subjects, and the champion of their lawful constitution. The tempest which resounded all over the world is now, thanks to him, hushed; the shock which made the thrones of Europe to quake, and the horns of the altar themselves to tremble, has, thanks to him, expended its force. We may, thanks to him, expect to pass the residue of our days without that turmoil of war in which our youth was brought up; but if ever the materials of some fell explosion should

THE ZENAIDA DOVE.

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once more be collected by human wickedness in any quarter of the globe-if the hushed tempest should again break loose from its cave-if the shock which is felt not now should once more make our institutions to quiver, happy this nation that knows to what wise counsel to look; happy the sovereign that has at his command the right arm that has carried in triumph the English standard all over the globe; happy the people who may yet again confide, not their liberties indeed, for that is a trust he would spurn from him with indignation- but who would confide in his matchless valour for their safety against all the perils which Providence may yet have in store for them.'

1. In what arduous and honourable contest was the Duke of Wellington engaged during his long absence from England previous to 1814? 2. Where are the Douro and the Tagus-the Ebro and the Garonne ? 3. Repeat the concluding paragraph of "the Speaker's" address.

LESSON CCC.-OCTOBER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH.
The Zenaida Dove.

AUDUBON, the celebrated ornithologist, observes, that the cooing of the Zenaida dove is so peculiar that one who hears it for the first time naturally stops to ask, "What bird is that?" A man who was once a pirate (says he) assured me that several times, while at certain wells dug in burning shelly sands, the soft and melancholy cry of the doves awoke in his breast feelings which had long slumbered, melted his heart to repentance, and caused him to linger at the spot in a state of mind which he only who compares the wretchedness of guilt within him, with the happiness of former innocence, can truly feel. He said he never left the place without increased fears of futurity, associated as he was, although I believe by force, with a band of the most desperate villains that ever annoyed the navigation of the Florida coasts.

So deeply moved was he by the notes of any bird, and especially by those of a dove, the only soothing sounds he ever heard during his life of horrors, that, through these plaintive notes, and them alone, he was induced to escape from his vessel, abandon his turbulent companions, and return to a family deploring his absence. After paying a parting visit to those wells, and listening once more to the cooings of the Zenaida dovę, he poured out his soul in supplications for mercy, and once more became what a poet

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