s widely spread, greedy to touch but his idol's garment.

Useless toil!

et still renew'd; still round and round he goes,
And strains, and snatches, and with dreadful cries
Calls on his boy. Mad frenzy fires him now:
He plants against the wall his feet; his chain
Grasps; tugs with giant strength to force away
The deep-driven staple; yells and shrieks with rage;
And, like a desert lion in the snare,

Raging to break his toils, to and fro bounds.

13. But see! the ground is opening; a blue light
Mounts, gently waving, noiseless; thin and cold
It seems, and like a rainbow-tint, not flame:
But by its luster, on the earth outstretch'd,
Behold the lifeless child! His dress is sing'd;
And o'er his face serene a darken'd line
Points out the lightning's track.

14.

15.

The father saw,

And all his fury fled: a dead calm fell
That instant on him; speechless, fix'd, he stood;
And, with a look that never wander'd, gazed
Intensely on the corse. Those laughing eyes
Were not yet closed; and round those ruby lips
The wonted smile return'd.

Silent and pale
The father stands; no tear is in his eye;
The thunders bellow, but he hears them not;
The ground lifts like a sea,—he knows it not;
The strong walls grind and gape; the vaulted roof
Takes shapes like bubbles tossing in the wind;
See! he looks up and smiles; for death to him
Is happiness. Yet, could one last embrace
Be given, 'twere still a sweeter thing to die.

16. It will be given. Look! how the rolling ground,
At every swell, nearer and still more near,
Moves toward his father's outstretch'd arms his boy:
Once he has touch'd his garment; how his eye
Lightens with love, and hope, and anxious fears!
Ha! see! he has him now! he clasps him round,
Kisses his face, puts back the curling locks
That shaded his fine brow; looks in his eyes,-

17

Grasps in his own those little dimpled hands;
Then folds him to his breast, as he was wont
To lie when sleeping, and resign'd awaits
Undreaded death.

And death came soon, and swift,
And pangless. The huge pile sunk down at once
Into the opening earth. Walls-arches-roof-
And deep foundation-stones-all-mingling-fell!

LESSON CC.

LOVE OF HOME.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER.

1. Ir is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition in early life affect nobody in this country but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them; and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man, who is not ashamed of himself, need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.

2. Its remains still exist: I make it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the

tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narrations and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who raised it and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the name of my posterity, be blotted forever from the memory of mankind!

LESSON CC1.

THE PIONEER.

BY BRAINARD.

1. FAR away from the hill-side, the lake, and the hamlet,
The rock and the brook, and yon meadow so gay;
From the footpath that winds by the side of the streamlet,
From his hut and the grave of his friend far away;
He is gone where the footsteps of man never ventured,
Where the glooms of the wild tangled forests are centered,
Where no beam of the sun or the sweet moon has entered,
No bloodhound has roused up the deer with his bay.

2. He has left the green valley, for paths where the bison
Roams through the prairies or leaps o'er the flood;
Where the snake in the swamp sucks the deadliest poison,
And the cat of the mountains keeps watch for its food.
But the leaf shall be greener, the sky shall be purer,
The eye shall be clearer, the rifle be surer,

And stronger the arm of the fearless endurer

That trusts naught but Heaven, in his way through the wood.

3. Light be the heart of the poor lonely wanderer;
Firm be his step through each wearisome mile;
Far from the cruel man, far from the plunderer,
Far from the track of the mean and the vile!
And when death, with the last of its terrors, assails him,
And all but the last throb of memory fails him,
He'll think of the friend, far away, that bewails him,
And light up the cold touch of death with a smile.

4. And there shall the dew shed its sweetness and luster,
There for his pall shall the oak-leaves be spread;
The sweetbrier shall bloom, and the wild grape shall cluster,
And o'er him the leaves of the ivy be shed.
There shall they mix with the fern and the heather,
There shall the young eagle shed its first feather,
The wolf with his wild cubs shall lie there together,
And moan o'er the spot where the hunter is laid.

LESSON CCII.

REPLY TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

BY EDWARD THURLOW.

EDWARD THURLOW was the son of the Rector of Ashfield, in Suffolk, where he was born in 1732. In 1778 he was created a peer, and immediately after he was appointed Lord High-Chancellor of Great Britain. He died in 1806.

The Duke of Grafton reproached him with his obscure birth, which called forth the following reply.

1. My lords, I am amazed; yes, my lords, I am amazed at his grace's speech. The noble duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this house to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honorable to owe it to these, as to being the accident of an accident? To all these noble lords the language of the noble duke is as applicable, and as insulting, as it is to myself. But I do not fear to meet it single and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than I do; but, my lords, I must say, that the peerage solicited me, not I the peerage.

2. Nay, more; I can say, and will say, that as a peer of Parliament, as Speaker of this right honorable house, as keeper of the great seal, as guardian of his majesty's conscience, as Lord HighChancellor of England, nay, even in that character alone in which the noble duke would think it an affront to be considered, but which character none can deny me,--as a MAN,-I am, at this time, as much respected as the proudest peer I now look down upon.

LESSON CCIII.

PROCRASTINATION.

BY EDWARD YOUNG.

1. BE wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer:
Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life
Procrastination is the thief of time:

Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still.

2. Of man's miraculous mistakes, this bears
The palm, "That all men are about to live"
Forever on the brink of being born.
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel; and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;
At least their own; their future selves applaud.
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is folly's vails;
That lodged in fate's to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
'Tis not in folly, not to scorn a fool,

And scarce in human wisdom to do more.

3. All promise is poor dilatory man;

And that through every stage. When young, indeed,
In full content we sometimes nobly rest,
Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay;
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought,
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same."

4. And why? Because he thinks himself immortal.
All men think all men mortal, but themselves;
Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate
Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread;
But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air,
Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found.
As from the wing no scar the sky retains;
The parted wave no furrow from the keel;
So dies in human hearts the thought of death.
E'en with the tender tear which Nature sheds
O'er those we love, we dropt it in their grave