SUGGESTIONS OF TOPICS OF INQUIRY.

What is the general character of this sketch?

What is a barometer? How is the word applied in the first paragraph? Explain the sentence, "The blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape." Find a similar passage in the first paragraph of The Widow and her Son. Compare the two descriptions.

What is the force of the word profitable in the expression "an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor"? Is labor usually profitable? Was Rip's labor profitable? Why? or why not?

What was the condition of Rip's farm?

Why is it called his patrimonial estate?

What is meant by a "torrent of household eloquence"?

"A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use." To whom does this apply? What is the force of the word mellows?

How did Rip escape from labor and his wife's tongue?

Describe the dog, Wolf.

Describe the stranger whom Rip met on the mountain.

Who composed "the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed"? What contradiction does there seem to be in this expression? What is a paradox?

What effect did the liquor have on Rip? Narrate the story till he reaches the village.

What changes does he perceive in the village?

What is going on in the village?

What is the result of his inquiries for his old companions?

What causes the greatest confusion in Rip's mind?

How many in the company are named Rip?

What comforting news does Judith, his daughter, tell him?

How is the whole mystery cleared away?

Who corroborates the story? Why is he authority?

How did Rip pass the rest of his life?

Select two or three humorous sentences or expressions, and state why they are at all funny.

Commit to memory the first paragraph of this sketch.

Turn the last paragraph into sentences, each of which shall be exactly equivalent in meaning to the corresponding original sentence.

It was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the postboy smacked his whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses were on a gallop. "He knows where he is going," said my companion, laughing, "and is eager to arrive in time for some of the merriment and good cheer of the servants' hall. My

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Saint Francis (1182-1226), founder of the order of Franciscan Friars. Saint Benedight (about 480-543), founder of the order of Benedictine Monks.

Hight, called. Good fellow Robin, Robin Good-fellow, Puck, a celebrated fairy, the "merry wanderer of the night," who figures largely in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, and in many stories of which the scene is laid in England, Germany, and Northern Europe.

Curfew (Fr. couvrir, to cover; feu, fire). The curfew (cover-fire) was the ringing of a bell at eight o'clock at night as a signal to the inhabitants to put out fires and retire to rest. This custom, which was established in the reign of William the Conqueror (who reigned 1066-1087), is still retained in some of the country districts in England.

Cartwright. See note, p. 82.

2. Postboy (Lat. posta, posita, placed, a station where relays of horses are kept for carrying the mails, etc.), a boy that drives a post-chaise; that is, a carriage for conveying travellers or letters from one station to another.

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father, you must know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school, and prides himself upon keeping up something of old English hospitality. He is a tolerable specimen of what you will rarely meet with nowadays in its purity, — the old English country 10 gentleman; for our men of fortune spend so much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much into the country, that the strong rich peculiarities of ancient rural life are almost polished away. My father, however, from early years, took honest Peacham for his text-book, instead of Chesterfield: he determined in his own mind, that there was no condition more truly honorable and enviable than that of a country gentleman on his paternal lands, and therefore passes the whole of his time on his estate. He is a strenuous advocate for the revival of the old rural games and holiday observances, and is deeply read in the 20 writers, ancient and modern, who have treated on the subject. Indeed, his favorite range of reading is among the authors who flourished at least two centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and thought more like true Englishmen than any of their suc

cessors.

He even regrets sometimes that he had not been born 25 a few centuries earlier, when England was itself, and had its peculiar manners and customs. As he lives at some distance from the main road, in rather a lonely part of the country, without any rival gentry near him, he has that most enviable of all blessings to an Englishman, an opportunity of indulging the 30 bent of his own humor without molestation. Being representative of the oldest family in the neighborhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his tenants, he is much looked up to, and, in general, is known simply by the appellation of the Squire,'

7. Bigoted, unreasonably attached to a particular opinion and blind to all argument to the contrary. Devotee (Lat. devovēre, devotāre, to dedicate to the deity), one who is wholly devoted to certain duties, studies, and ceremonies. Old school, a school or party belonging to a former time; a sect, or body of followers, having the character and opinions of old time.

15. Peacham, Henry Peacham of Trinity College, Cambridge, author of The Complete Gentleman, 1622. Chesterfield. Lord Chesterfield (1694 1773), as a literary man, is best known by his Letters to his Son, which treat of manners and politeness.

a title which has been accorded to the head of the family since 85 time immemorial. I think it best to give you these hints about my worthy old father, to prepare you for any eccentricities that might otherwise appear absurd."

We had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and at length the chaise stopped at the gate. It was in a heavy, 40 magnificent old style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers. The huge square columns that supported the gate were surmounted by the family crest. Close adjoining was the porter's lodge, sheltered under dark fir-trees, and almost buried in shrubbery.

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The postboy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded through the still frosty air, and was answered by the distant barking of dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed garrisoned. An old woman immediately appeared at the gate. As the moonlight fell strongly upon her, I had a full view of a little so primitive dame, dressed very much in the antique taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and her silver hair peeping from under a cap of snowy whiteness. She came courtesying forth, with many expressions of simple joy at seeing her young master. Her husband, it seemed, was up at the house keeping Christmas 55 eve in the servants' hall; they could not do without him, as he was the best hand at a song and story in the household.

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My friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park to the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise should follow on. Our road wound through a noble avenue of trees, among the naked branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled through the deep vault of a cloudless sky. The lawn beyond was sheeted with a slight covering of snow, which here and there sparkled as the moonbeams caught a frosty crystal; and at a distance might be seen a thin transparent 65

36. Time immemorial, time whose beginning is not remembered, or cannot be ascertained; time beyond memory.

52. Kerchief (Fr. couvrechief, covering for the head, from couvrir, to cover, and chef, or chief, the head), a cover for the head, head-dress. Stomacher. See note, p. 39.

vapor, stealing up from the low grounds and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape.

"How

My companion looked around him with transport. often," said he, "have I scampered up this avenue, on returning home on school vacations! How often have I played under 70 these trees when a boy! I feel a degree of filial reverence for them, as we look up to those who have cherished us in childhood. My father was always scrupulous in exacting our holidays, and having us around him on family festivals. He used to direct and superintend our games with the strictness that 75 some parents do the studies of their children. He was very par

ticular that we should play the old English games according to their original form, and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport'; yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good 80 old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent could bestow."

We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop of dogs of all sorts and sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound, and curs of 85 low degree," that, disturbed by the ring of the porter's bell and the rattling of the chaise, came bounding, open-mouthed, across the lawn.

"The little dogs and all,

Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me!"" cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of his voice, the bark was changed into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he

78. Precedent (Fr. précéder, to go before; Lat. præ, before, and cedere, to give ground, go), a preceding case which serves as a rule or authority for the disposal of subsequent cases of a similar kind. As an adjective, the word is pronounced precedent, and means going before. How accented? 80. Pedantry (Gr. waidaywyós, paedagōgus, a leader or teacher of children; Ital. pedante, a schoolmaster; Fr. pédanterie), a boastful display of learning, an ostentatious and unsuitable parade of knowledge.

85. Mongrel, puppy, etc. From Goldsmith's Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, in the Vicar of Wakefield, published in 1766.

89. The little dogs, etc. Shakespeare's King Lear, III. 6, 1. 66, 67.

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