At

for my official reception. The introducer was in a great stew, and made us at least six visits to repeat the same thing in the course of the forenoon. ten minutes before two a couple of royal coaches arrived, the first for and the second (more gorgeous) for me. Mounted guards, with three-cornered hats and jack-boots, rode on each side in files. The introducer, blazing with gold and orders, sat on my right, and we started at a foot pace for the palace, about a hundred yards away.

"The troops and bands saluted as we passed, and, alighting, we were escorted through long suites of rooms to the royal presence. There I found the king, with many of the court dignitaries in a long semicircle, his Majesty in the middle. I made one bow at the door, a second midway, and a third on facing the king. I made my speech in English, he answered me in Spanish, then came forward and exchanged a few compliments with me in French, and all was over."

In 1880 Lowell was transferred to London, where he became immensely popular. Queen Victoria said, when he went away, that no ambassador “had ever excited more interest, or won more general regard in England." His ready wit and brilliancy won all hearts, but he himself could never understand why he was such a favorite there.

As Lowell's second wife and three of his children had died, when he returned from London, he was

unwilling to make his home again at Elmwood, the old house where he was born; and it was not until the last years of his life that he lived there again. He spent his time between Boston and Europe, still continuing to write, and just before his death at Elmwood, August 12, 1891, he had put into final shape a complete edition of his works.

The following extract from one of Lowell's letters to his nephew is good for every boy to read:

"Let me council you to make use of all your visits to the country as opportunities for an education which is of great importance, in which townbred boys are commonly lacking, and which can never be so cheaply acquired as in boyhood. . . Now when you are at school you are furnishing your brain with what can be obtained from books. While you are in the country, you should remember that you are in the great school of the senses. Train your eyes and ears. Learn to know all the trees by their bark and leaves, by their general shape and manner of growth. Learn also to know all the birds by sight, by their notes, by their manner of flying; all the animals by their general appearance and gait or the localities they frequent. You would be ashamed not to know the name and use of every piece of furniture in the house; and we ought to be as familiar with every object in the world, which is only a larger kind of house."

di'a lect, a form of speech peculiar to one's region.

PRELUDE TO THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

OVER his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:

Then as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,

First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent

Along the wavering vista of his dream.

Not only around our infancy

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

Over our manhood bend the skies;

Against our fallen and traitor lives

The great winds utter prophecies:

With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the Druid wood

Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the Devil's booth are all things sold,

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking;
No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,
In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,
'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;
We sit in the warm shade and feel right well
How the sap creeps up and blossoms swell;
We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back,

For other couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true

As for the grass to be green or skies to be blue,'Tis the natural way of living:

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;

The soul partakes of the season's youth,