With that lean head-stalk, that protruding chin,
Wear standing collars, were they made of tin!
And have a neck-cloth, by the throat of Jove!
Cut from the funnel of a rusty stove!

15. The long-drawn lesson narrows to its close;
Chill, slender, slow, the dwindled current flows;
Tired of the ripples on its feeble springs,
Once more the Muse unfolds her upward wings.

16. Land of my birth, with this unhallowed tongue
Thy hopes, thy dangers, I perchance had sung;
But who shall sing in brutal disregard

Of all the essentials of the "native bard"?

17. Lake, sea, shore, prairie, forest, mountain, fall,
His eye omnivorous must devour them all;
The tallest summits and the broadest tides
His foot must compass with its giant strides,
Where Ocean thunders, where Missouri rolls,
And tread at once the tropics and the poles;
His food all forms of earth, fire, water, air,
His home all space, his birth-place everywhere

LESSON XVI.

Liberty.-E. P. WHIPPLE.

1. To the Anglo-Saxon mind, Liberty is not apt to be the enthusiast's mountain nymph, with cheeks wet with morning dew, and clear eyes that mirror the heavens; but rather is she an old dowager lady, fatly invested in commerce and manufactures, and peevishly fearful that enthusiasm will reduce her establishment, and panics cut off her dividends.

2. Now, the moment property becomes timid, agrarianism becomes bold; and the industry which Liberty has created Liberty must animate, or it will be plundered by the impudent and rapacious idleness its slavish fears incite.

3. Our political institutions, again, are but the body of which Liberty is the soul; their preservation depends on their being continually inspired by the light and heat of the sentiment and idea whence they sprung; and when we timorously suspend, according to the latest political fashion, the truest and dearest maxims of our freedom at the call of expediency or threat of passion, when we convert politics

has been applied, from a tradition that a piece of the forbidden fruit which Adam ate stuck in his throat, and caused the swelling.

into a mere game of interests, unhallowed by a single great and unselfish principle, we may be sure that our worst passions are busy "forging our fetters; " that we are proposing all those intricate problems which red republicanism so swiftly solves, and giving Manifest Destiny pertinent hints to shout new anthems of atheism over victorious rapine.

4. The liberty which our fathers planted, and for which they sturdily contended, and under which they grandly conquered, is a rational and temperate but brave and unyielding freedom, the august mother of institutions, the hardy nurse of enterprise, the sworn ally of justice and order; a liberty that lifts her awful and rebuking face equally upon the cowards who would sell, and the braggarts who would pervert, her precious gifts of rights and obligations.

5. And this liberty we are solemnly bound at all hazards to protect, at any sacrifice to preserve, and by all just means to extend, against the unbridled excesses of that ugly and brazen hag, originally scorned and detested by those who unwisely gave her infancy a home, but which now, in her enormous growth and favored deformity, reels with blood-shot eyes, and disheveled tresses, and words of unshamed slavishness, into halls where Liberty should sit throned!

LESSON XVII.

Departure of Marmion from Tantallon, the Castle of the Earl of Douglas.- SIR W. SCOTT.

1. Nor far advanced was morning day,
When Marmion did his troop array
To Surrey's camp to ride;
He had safe-conduct for his band,
Beneath the royal seal and hand,
And Douglas gave a guide:
The ancient earl, with stately grace,
Would Clara on her palfrey place,
And whispered, in an under tone,
"Let the hawk stoop, his prey is flown!"
The train from out the castle drew;

But Marmion stopped to bid adieu:

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Though something I might plain,”* he said,

* "Plain" is a poetic license; a contraction for complain.

"Of cold respect to stranger guest,
Sent hither by your king's behest,
While in Tantallon's towers I staid,
Part we in friendship from your land,
And, noble earl, receive my hand."

2. But Douglas round him drew his cloak. Folded his arms, and thus he spoke :

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My manors, halls and bowers, shall still
Be open at my sovereign's will,
To each one whom he lists, howe'er
Unmeet to be the owner's peer;
My castles are my king's alone,
From turret to foundation-stone, -
The hand of Douglas is his own;
And never shall in friendly grasp
The hand of such as Marmion clasp!"

3. Burned Marmion's swarthy cheek like fire,

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And shook his very frame for ire,
And This to me!" he said,
"An' 't were not for thy hoary beard,
Such hand as Marmion's had not spared
To cleave the Douglas' head!
And, first, I tell thee, haughty peer,
He who does England's message here,
Although the meanest in her state,
May well, proud Angus,* be thy mate!

4. "And, Douglas, more I tell thee here,
Even in thy pitch of pride,
Here in thy hold, thy vassals near
(Nay, never look upon your lord,
And lay your hands upon your sword),
I tell thee, thou 'rt defied!
And if thou said'st I am not peer
Το any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or Highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied!"

5. On the earl's cheek the flush of rage

O'ercame the ashen hue of age:
Fierce he broke forth : ." And dar'st thou, then,
To beard the lion in his den,

The Douglas in his hall?

And hop'st thou hence unscathed to go?

* The Earl of Douglas was Earl of Angus, a maritime country in the north-east of Scotland, now better known by the name of Forfarshire.

No! by Saint Bryde of Bothwell, no!
Up drawbridge, grooms! - what, warder,* ho!
Let the portcullis † fall!"

6. Lord Marmion turned well was his need!
And dashed the rowels ‡ in his steed,
Like arrow through the arch-way sprung,
The ponderous grate behind him rung:
Το
pass there was such scanty room,
The bars, descending, razed his plume.
7. The steed along the drawbridge flies,
Just as it trembled on the rise;
Not lighter does the swallow skim
Along the smooth lake's level brim :

And when Lord Marmion reached his band,
He halts, and turns with clenchéd hand,
And shout of loud defiance pours,
And shook his gauntlet at the towers.

8. "Horse! horse!" the Douglas cried, "and chase '"
But soon he reined his fury's pace:
"A royal messenger he came,
Though most unworthy of the name.
A letter forged! Saint Jude to speed!
Did ever knight so foul a deed!
At first in heart it liked me ill,
When the king praised his clerkly skill.
Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine,
Save Gawain,§ ne'er could
pen a line:
So swore I, and I swear it still, .
Let my boy-bishop fret his fill.

*The guard of the castle.

+ Portcullis was a frame of timber pointed with iron, and serving as a kind of gate of a castle or fortified town, to be let down, in case of surprise, to prevent the entrance of an enemy.

The rowel is the little wheel which forms the sharp points of the

spur.

§ Gawain was a son of Douglas, and a bishop in the church. The story of Marmion, from which this piece is extracted, is a tale of the sixteenth century, during the reign of James IV. of Scotland, a contemporary of Henry VIII. of England, and grandfather of James I. of the latter country. The feudal system prevailed, and chivalry was still an honored institution. During the prevalence of these characteristics of the middle ages, the profession of arms was the only avenue to distinction. Learning was held in light estimation, and was cultivated only by ecclesiastics, and others who were debarred from the military profession. Douglas himself, although one of the most powerful noblemen of the times, could neither read nor write; and the light estimation in which he held these most useful accomplishments of the present day may be seen from his thanks to his patron saint, Bothan, that no child of his, except his "boy-bishop," could write a line.

9. "Saint Mary mend my fiery mood!
Old age ne'er cools the Douglas blood;
I thought to slay him where he stood.
'Tis pity of him, too," he cried;
"Bold can he speak, and fairly ride:
I warrant him a warrior* tried.".
With this his mandate he recalls,
And slowly seeks his castle halls.

LESSON XVIII.

Charles the Second, of England. - MACAULAY.

1. CHARLES THE SECOND, of England, on his restoration to the throne of his ancestors, was more loved by the people than any of his predecessors had ever been. The calamities of his house, the heroic death of his father, his own long sufferings and romantic adventures, made him an object of tender interest. His return had delivered the country from an intolerable bondage.

2. He had received from nature excellent parts and a happy temper. His education had been such as might have been expected to develop his understanding, and to form him to the practice of every public and private virtue. He had passed through all varieties of fortune, and had seen both sides of human nature. He had, while very young, been driven forth from a palace to a life of exile, penury, and danger.

3. He had, at the age when the mind and body are in their highest perfection, and when the first effervescence of boyish passions should have subsided, been recalled from his wanderings to wear a crown. He had been taught, by bitter experience, how much baseness, perfidy, and ingratitude, may lie hid under the obsequious demeanor of courtiers. He had found, on the other hand, in the huts of the poorest, true nobility of soul.

4. When wealth was offered to any who would betray him, when death was denounced against all who should shelter him, cottagers and serving-men had kept his secret truly, and had kissed his hand, under his mean disguises, with as much reverence as if he had been seated on his ancestral throne.

*This word "warrior" should be pronounced war'-yer.