When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

2. His steps are not upon thy paths—thy fields

Are not a spoil for him—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :there let him lay.

3. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war-
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

4. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts : not so thou-
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play,

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

5. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time

Calm or convulsed, in breeze or gale or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime,
The image of eternity, the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

a

6. And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror—'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane—as

do here.

Byron. de-struc-tion mon'-archs As-syr'-i-a

mir'-ror de-spise cap'-i-tals ty'-rant

sub-lime shiv-er-ing Ar-ma'-da un-change-a-ble e-ter’-ni-ty quake Tra-fal'-gar cre-a'-tion

in-vis'-i-ble con-trol', rule.

yeast of waves, the waves somerav'-age, ruin; the act of plunder- times froth like yeast, the preing and destroying.

paration which raises dough un-knelled', no bell being tolled at

for bread. his burial.

Carth'-age, formerly a great city on

the north coast of Africa. It spray, water driven by the wind was long the rival of ancient from the tops of waves.

Rome, but is now entirely arm'-a-ments, big guns, &c., with destroyed. which ships are armed.

de-cay, falling or wasting away. oak le-vi'-a-thans, large ships built az'-ure, of a faint blue.

vile, evil.

a

EXERCISES.-1. The affixes -al, -ar, -ary, -ic, -ical, -ine, -ish, ory, denote belonging to; as post, postal ; angle, angular ; tribute, tributary; cube, cubic, cubical ; feminine (femina, a woman); fool, foolish ; preface, prefatory.

2. Analyse and parse the last three lines of stanza 3.

3. Make sentences of your own, and use in each one or more of the following words : Ravage, convulse, armaments, arbiter.

:

MARIE-ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE. [The following passage is taken from Burke's celebrated work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, which was published in 1790. Marie-Antoinette was the daughter of the famous Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria. She was married to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XVI. of France. She was put to death by the guillotine in 1793. ]

1. It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles ; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in-glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall !

2. Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to that enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to

avenge

even a look that threatened her with insult.

3. But the age of chivalry is gone.

That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

SPEECH OF MARK ANTONY. [The following lesson is from Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, Act Third, Scene Second. It is the speech made by Mark Antony, at the funeral of Cæsar, who had just been assassinated (44 B.C.). This was the work of Brutus, Cassius, Casca, and others, who had conspired against him. Antony was allowed to speak in Cæsar's funeral, by his opponents Brutus and Cassius.]

Antony. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones : So let it be with Cæsar. Noble Brutus

5 Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious; If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Cæsar answered it. Here, under leave of Brutus, and the restFor Brutus is an honourable man,

10 So are they all, all honourable menCome I to speak in Cæsar's funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me; But Brutus says

he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.

15 He hath brought many captives home to Rome,