prehénsions; its hópes; the consultations of the prúdent; the prayers of the pious; the occasional cheerful hýmn, in which the strong heart threw off its búrthen, and, asserting its unvanquished náture, went úp, like a bird of dawn, to the skies;-do ye not think that whoso could describe them calmly waiting in that defile, lonelier and darker than Thermopyla, for a morning that might never dáwn, or might show them, when it did, a mightier arm than the Pérsian, raised as in act to strike, would he not sketch a scene of more difficult and rarer héroism? A scéne, as Wordsworth has sáid, "mélancholy, yea, dismal, yet consolatory and full of jóy;" a scéne, even better fitted, to súccor, to exált, to lead, the forlorn hopes of all great causes, till tíme shall be nò mòre.

CHOATE.

3. THE STRIFE.

Notice that the last four stanzas constitute one sentence.

The wish that of the living whole

No life may fail beyond the grave-
Derives it not from what we have

The likest Gód within the soul?

Are God and nature then at strife,

That náture lends such evil dréams?
So careful of the type she séems,
So careless of the single life,

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her déeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to béar—

I fálter where I firmly tród;

And, falling with my weight of cáres
Upon the great world's altar-stairs,
That slope through darkness up to Gód,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grópe,
And gather dust and cháff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of áll,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

TENNYSON'S In Memoriam.

4. THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

The low desire, the base design,
That makes another's virtues léss;
The revel of the treacherous wine,
And all occasions of excéss;

The longing for ignoble things,

The strife for triumph more than trúth;
The hardening of the heart that brings
Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the noble will,—

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gáin
In the bright fields of fair renówn,

The right of eminent domain.

LONGFELLOW.

Rule VII. Conditional phrases and clauses, when introductory, take the rising inflection, because the sense is carried forward to the principal statements on which they depend.

EXAMPLES.

1. FROM "THE ARMORY."

Were half the power that fills the world with térror; Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given. to redeem the human mind from érror,

There were no need of arsenals or fòrts.

LONGFELLOW.

As Cæsar loved me, I wèep for him; as he was fórtunate, I rejoice at it; as he was váliant, I honor him; but, as he was ambitious, I slèw him. There is tears for his lóve; joy for his fórtune; honor for his válor; and death for his ambition.

3. WATER.

Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper náture, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated was modeled into sýmmetry, and its crags chiseled into gráce; then, as in the form of snów, it robes the mountains it has made with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen; then as it exists in the foam of the tórrent in the iris which spáns it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline póols which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad láke and glancing. river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of unwéaried, unconquerable power, the wild, várious, fantástic, támeless unity of the séa; what shall we compare to this mighty, this univèrsal element, for. glóry and for beauty? or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul.

4. FROM WEBSTER'S SPEECHES.

I.

RUSKIN.

If disastrous wár sweep our cómmerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our tréasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow gréen again, and ripen to future hàrvests.

II.

If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife

and blind ambition shall hawk at and téar it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made súre, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its árm with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall, if fall it múst, amid the proudest mònuments of its glóry and on the very spòt of its òrigin. Require each pupil, at the next lesson, to read one additional illustration, selected from some extract in this book.

Rule VIII. In poetic description, whether of prose or verse, the prevailing inflection is the slight rising inflection of the "third"

EXAMPLES.

I. FROM WHITTIER'S "RANGER."

Nowhere fairer, swéeter, rárer,

Does the golden-locked frúit-beárer,

Through his painted woodlands stráy,
Than where hillside oaks and béeches
Overlook the long, blue réaches,

Silver cóves and pebbled beaches,
And green isles of Casco Bày:
Nowhere dáy, for delay,

With a tenderer look beséeches,

"Let me with my charmed earth stay."

2. WATER.

Gleaming in the déw-drop, singing in the summer ráin, shining in the. íce-gem till the trees seem turned to living jewels, spreading a golden véil over the setting sún, or a white gauze around the midnight móon; sporting in the cataract, sleeping in the glacier, dancing in the háil-shower, folding bright snów-curtains softly above the wintry world, and weaving the many-colored íris,

Y

that seraph's zone of the sky, whose warp is the ráin of éarth, whose wóof is the sunbeam of heaven, all checkered over with celestial flowers by the mystic hand of rarefaction-still always it is beaùtiful, that blessed cold water! No poison bubbles on its brínk-its foam brings not madness and múrder-no blood stains its liquid gláss-pale widows and starving orphans weep not burning tears in its clear dépths-no drunkard's shrieking ghost from the gráve curses it in words of despair! Speak out, my friends; would you exchange it for the demon's drink-álcohol?"

A shout like the roar of the tempest answered “Nò! No!"

The fisher is out on the sunny séa;

And the reindeer bounds o'er the pasture frée;

And the pine has a fringe of softer gréen,

DENTON.

And the moss looks bright, where my fòot hath been. From the streams and founts I have loosed the cháin.

They are sweeping on to the silvery máin,

They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o'er the fórest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry cáves;
And the earth resounds with the joy of wàves.

HEMANS.

Rule IX. Pathos and tender feeling incline the voice to the slight rising inflection.

EXAMPLES.

1. BABIE BELL.

And what did dainty Babie Bèll?
She only crossed her little hands!
She only looked more meek and fáir!
We parted back her silken háir;
We laid some buds upon her brów-
Death's bride arrayed in flowers!

ALDRICH.