The lion would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along, as a strong guard

Of her chaste person, and a faithful mate
Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard:

Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward;
And, when she waked, he waited diligent,
With humble service to her will prepared:
From her fair eyes he took commandëment,
And ever by her looks conceived her intent.

From "The Faerie Queene."

Una is the heroine of the first Book of Spenser's "Faerie Queene." She appears to have been intended, at least in part, as a poetical impersonation of Truth. At all events, she is one of the sweetest and loveliest visions that ever issued from a poet's brain.

1. 2. In Spenser's time the endings sion, tion, as also cian, and various others, were often used as two syllables.

1. 13. That is, handling, in the sense of treatment. Here, again, we have a relic of ancient usage. So, too, in commandement, in the last stanza of this piece. And in many other like words the old poets often make two syllables where we now make but one.

1. 18. An old witch named Duessa, painted and dressed up into a false show of beauty, and dealing in magic arts. She had lied and cheated the red-cross Knight, the hero of the story, out of his faith in Una and beguiled him with her mighty spells.

1. 32. undight, took off. 1. 33. stole, a long, loose garment reaching to the feet. 1. 48. weet, understand. 1. 64. Redounding, flowing.

PURITY OF CHARACTER.

OVER the plum and apricot there may be seen a bloom and beauty more exquisite than the fruit itself -a soft delicate flush that overspreads its blushing cheek. Now, if you strike your hand over that, and it 5 is once gone, it is gone forever; for it never grows but

once.

The flower that hangs in the morning impearled with dew, arrayed with jewels, once shake it so that the beads roll off, and you may sprinkle water over it 10 as you please, yet it can never be made again what it was when the dew fell lightly upon it from heaven,

On a frosty morning you may see the panes of glass

covered with landscapes, mountains, lakes, and trees, blended in a beautiful fantastic picture. Now lay

15 your hand upon the glass, and by the scratch of your fingers, or by the warmth of the palm, all the delicate tracery will be immediately obliterated.

So in youth there is a purity of character which when once touched and defiled can never be restored 20a fringe more delicate than frost-work, and which, when torn and broken, will never be reëmbroidered.

When a young man leaves his father's house, with the blessing of his mother's tears still wet upon his forehead, if he once loses that early purity of character, 25 it is a loss he can never make whole again.

DELIGHTS OF READING.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK.

Books are to mankind what memory is to the individual. They contain the history of our race, the discoveries we have made, the accumulated knowledge and experience of ages; they picture for us the marvels and beauties of nature; help us in our difficulties, comfort 5 us in sorrow and in suffering, change hours of weariness into moments of delight, store our minds with ideas, fill them with good and happy thoughts, and lift us out of and above ourselves.

There is an Oriental story of two men: one was a 10 king, who every night dreamt he was a beggar; the other was a beggar, who every night dreamt he was a prince and lived in a palace. I am not sure that the king had very much the best of it. Imagination is sometimes more vivid than reality. But, however this 15 may be, when we read we may not only (if we wish it) be kings and live in palaces, but, what is far better, we may transport ourselves to the mountains or the seashore, and visit the most beautiful parts of the earth, without fatigue, inconvenience, or expense.

20

Many of those who have had, as we say, all that this world can give, have yet told us they owed much of their purest happiness to books. Ascham, in "The Schoolmaster," tells a touching story of his last visit to Lady Jane Grey. He found her sitting in an oriel 25

window reading Plato's beautiful account of the death of Socrates. Her father and mother were hunting in the park, the hounds were in full cry and their voices came in through the open window. He expressed his 5 surprise that she had not joined them. But, said she, "I wist that all their pleasure in the park is but a shadow to the pleasure I find in Plato."

Macaulay had wealth and fame, rank and power, and yet he tells us in his biography that he owed the hap10 piest hours of his life to books. In a charming letter to a little girl he says: "Thank you for your very pretty letter. I am always glad to make my little girl happy, and nothing pleases me so much as to see that she likes books, for when she is as old as I am she will find that 15 they are better than all the tarts and cakes, toys and plays, and sights in the world. If any one would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens and fine dinners, and wines and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condi20 tion that I should not read books, I would not be a

king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading."

In

Books, indeed, endow us with a whole enchanted pal25 ace of thoughts. There is a wider prospect, says Jean Paul Richter, from Parnassus than from the throne. one way they give us an even more vivid idea than the actual reality, just as reflections are often more beautiful than real nature. All mirrors, says George Mac

Donald, "are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I look in the glass."

English literature is the birthright and inheritance of the English race. We have produced and are producing some of the greatest of poets, of philosophers, of 5 men of science. No race can boast a brighter, purer, or nobler literature-richer than our commerce, more powerful than our arms. It is the true pride and glory of our country, and for it we cannot be too thankful.

Precious and priceless are the blessings which the 10 books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the noblest spirits, through the most sublime and enchanting regions, — regions which, to all that is lovely in the forms and colors of earth, "Add the gleam,

The light that never was on sea or land,

The consecration and the poet's dream."

15

Without stirring from our firesides we may roam to the most remote regions of the earth, or soar into realms where Spenser's shapes of unearthly beauty 20 flock to meet us, where Milton's angels peal in our ears the choral hymns of Paradise. Science, art, literature, philosophy, - all that man has thought, all that man has done, the experience that has been bought with the sufferings of a hundred generations, all are gar- 25 nered up for us in the world of books.

From "The Use of Life,"