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Fairy-Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite Called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he That frights the maidens of the villagery, Skims milk, and sometimes labors in the quern, And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn, And sometimes makes the drink to bear no barm, Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they shall have good luck. Are you not he?

Puck

Fairy, thou speak'st aright:
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal :
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometimes for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from beneath, down topples she,
And "tailor" cries, and falls into a cough,
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.-

But room, Fairy-here comes Oberon !

Fairy-And here my mistress !-Would that he were

gone!

William Shakespeare.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. From the “Midsummer-Night's Dream," Act II., Scene 1. Puck serves the king, and the Fairy serves the queen of fairies. The king and queen are quarreling, and separate; Puck and the Fairy meet

suddenly, as they are on errands for their superiors. "Cowslip's ear (cow's-lip). The English cowslip differs how from the American ?

II. Wan'-der, eôugh (kawf), měr'-ri-er, neigh'-ing (nā'-), spǎn'-gled (spång'gld).

III. Note the old English thorough for through, moonés for moon's. (Here is an example of the use of the es denoting possession, which we always write 's, omitting the e). Note, the meter requires two syllables in moon-es, and also in lov-ed (és and éd marked with' to show that they are to be pronounced as separate syllables).

IV. Pensioners, rubies, savors, "lob of spirits" (clown of spirits), "passing fell" (surpassingly malicious).

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V. Cowslips tall "-are cowslips tall flowers? One editor of Shakespeare has suggested that we read all for tall. "Gold coats —an editor suggests, "in their gold cups, spots you see." The original words that Shakespeare wrote are doubtful in many places; it is so easy for mistakes to be made in copying manuscripts, or in printing them. "They do square (i. e., draw up in opposite lines to quarrel). "Labor in the quern" (in the hand-mill, when it does not grind well). "No barm" (no yeast-i. e., does not ferment well). "Dewlap " (throat). "Roasted crab" (apple). "Neeze" (sneeze). “Filly foal” (female colt).

C. THE INFLUENCE OF THE SUN.

1. As surely as the force which moves a clock's hands is derived from the arms which wind up the clock, so surely is all terrestrial power drawn from the sun. Leaving out of account the eruptions of volcanoes, and the ebb and flow of the tides, every mechanical action on the earth's surface, every manifestation of power, organic and inorganic, vital and physical, is produced by the sun. His warmth keeps the sea liquid, and the atmosphere a gas, and all the storms which agitate both are blown by the mechanical force of the sun.

2. He lifts the rivers and the glaciers up to the mountains; and thus the cataract and the avalanche shoot with

an energy derived immediately from him. Thunder and lightning are also his transmitted strength. Every fire that burns, and every flame that glows, dispenses light and heat which originally belonged to the sun.

3. In these days, unhappily, the news of battle is familiar to us; but every shock, and every charge, is an application, or misapplication, of the mechanical force of the sun. He blows the trumpet, he urges the projectile, he bursts the bomb. And remember, this is not poetry, but rigid mechanical truth.

4. He rears, as I have said, the whole vegetable world, and through it the animal; the lilies of the field are his workmanship; the verdure of the meadows, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. He forms the muscle, he urges the blood, he builds the brain. His fleetness is in the lion's foot; he springs in the panther; he soars in the eagle; he slides in the snake.

5. He builds the forest, and hews it down-the power which raised the tree and which wields the ax being one and the same. The clover sprouts and blossoms, and the scythe of the mower swings by the operation of the same force. The sun digs the ore from our mines; he rolls the iron, he rivets the plates, he boils the water, he draws the train.

6. He not only grows the cotton, but he spins the fiber and weaves the web. There is not a hammer raised, a wheel turned, or a shuttle thrown, that is not raised, and turned, and thrown by the sun. His energy is poured freely into space, but our world is a halting-place where this energy is conditioned.

7. Here the Proteus works his spells; the self-same essence takes a million shapes and hues, and finally dis

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