to the multitude every mark of that faithful knife. The boy is emerging painfully, foot by foot, from under that lofty arch. Spliced ropes are ready in the hands of those who are leaning over the outer edge of the bridge. Two minutes more and all will be over. That blade is worn up to the last half inch. The boy's head reels; his eyes are starting from their sockets; his last hope is dying in his breast; his life must hang upon the next gain he cuts.

16. At the last faint gash he makes, his knife, his faithful knife, drops from his little nerveless hand, and ringing along down the precipice, falls at his mother's feet. An involuntary groan of despair runs, like a death-knell, through the channel below, and then all is still as the grave. At the hight of nearly a thousand feet, the devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart, and closing eyes to commend his soul to God.

17. While he thus stands for a moment reeling, trembling, toppling over into eternity, a shout from above falls on his ear. The man who is lying with half his body projecting over the bridge, has caught a glimpse of the boy's shoulders, and a smothered exclamation of joy has burst from his lips. Quick as thought, the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking. youth. No one breathes; half unclosing his eyes, and with a faint convulsive effort, the boy drops his arms through the noose.

18. Darkness comes over him, and with the words God and mother on his lips, just loud enough to be heard in Heaven, the tightening rope lifts him out of his last shallow niche. The hands of a hundred men, women, and children, are pulling at that rope, and the unconscious boy is suspended and swaying over an abyss, which is the closest representation of eternity, that has yet been found in hight or depth.

19. Not a lip moves while he is dangling there; but when a sturdy Virginian draws up the lad, and holds him up in his arms in view of the trembling multitude below, such shouting, such leaping for joy, such tears of gratitude, such notes of gladness as went

up those unfathomable barriers, and were reiterated and prolonged by the multitude above, were alone akin to those which angels make when a straying soul comes home to God!

QUESTIONS.-1. Where is the scene laid in this piece? 2. What was the first inducement to the boy to make the dangerous ascent? 3. What direction did his father give him when he saw his situation 4. How did he finally escape destruction? 5. Is not inordi nate ambition apt to lead people into dangerous enterprises?

LESSON LXIII.

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. WIST' FUL, attentive; earnest. 2. HOARD. ED, treasured up. 3. IM' PLE MENT, tool. 4. MA TE RI AL, consisting of matter; corporeal. 5. PRO JECT' ILES, things projected or forced forward through the air. 6 Ex PLO' SION, a bursting, or discharge with a noise. 7. RE BOUND' ING, springing, or flying back. 8. TROM'BONE, a kind of deep-toned trumpet. 9. CON SPIRE', join together; unite. 10. Suo' CEED, follow. 11. STAUNCH, Sound; firm; strong. 12. LAUNCH, the sliding or moving of a vessel from the land into the water. 13. SOLVE, explain; unfold. 14. PROB' LEM, a question or difficulty given to be solved, or explained. 15. GIM'-CRACK, trivial contrivance, or mechanism. 16. Lo co Mo' TIVE, a steam-engine on wheels for drawing cars on railways. 17. RE VOLVE', to turn or roll round. 18. SO NO' ROUS, loud sounding.

THE YANKEE BOY.

JOHN PIERPONT.

1. The Yankee boy, before he's sent to school,
Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool,
The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye
Turns, while he hears his mother's lullaby;
His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it,
Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it,
And, in the education of the lad,

No little part that implement hath had.

2. His pocket-knife to the young whittler brings
A growing knowledge of material things.
Projectiles, music, and the sculptor's art,
His chestnut whistle, and his shingle dart,

3

His elder pop-gun, with his hickory rod,
Its sharp explosion and rebounding wad,
His corn-stalk fiddle, and the deeper tone
That murmurs from his pumpkin leaf trombone,
Conspire to teach the boy.

To these succeed
His bow, his arrow of a feathered reed,

His wind-mill, raised the passing breeze to win,
His water-wheel, that turns upon a pin;
Or, if his father lives upon the shore,

You'll see his ship, beam ends upon the floor,
Full rigged, with raking masts and timbers staunch,
And waiting, near the wash-tub, for a launch.

4. Thus, by his genius and his jack-knife driven,
Ere long he'll solve you any problem given;
Make any gim-crack, musical or mute,
A plow, a coach, an organ, or a flute;
Make you a locomotive, or a clock,
Cut a canal, or build a floating dock,
Or lead forth beauty from a marble block;
Make any thing, in short, for sea or shore,
From a child's rattle to a seventy-four.

Make ít, said I? Ay, when he undertakes it,

He'll make the thing, and the machine that makes it.

5. And when the thing is made, whether it be
To move on earth, in air, or on the sea,
Whether on water, o'er the waves to glide,
Or upon land, to roll, fevolve, or slide;
Whether to whirl or jar, to strike or ring,
Whether it be a piston or a spring,
Wheel, pulley, tube sonorous, wood or brass,
The thing designed shall surely come to pass;
For when his hand's upon it, you may know
That there's go in it, and he'll make it go.

QUESTIONS.-1. What is the "magic tool," alluded to in this piece! 2. How does the Yankee boy use it? 3. In what way does this early use of the pocket-knife seem to inform his mind? 4. Does the Yankee usually succeed in his contrivances when he becomes a man? Might not his example teach perseverance and industry? Why the rising inflection on it, 4th stanza? What Rule?

5.

LESSON LXIV:

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. VER' DANT, green. 2. CAS' TLED, furnished or fortified with a castle. 3. AN' CIENT, old; antique. 4. PEN' SIVE, musing. 5. ROY AL, kingly; princely. 6. BIG' Or, one obstinately and blindly attached to some creed or system. 7. FORG' ED, formed; made.

Avoid saying fiels for fields, wuth for worth, at tome for at home, &c

MY COUNTRY.

GEO. W. BETHUNE

1. My country, oh! my country,
My heart still sighs for thee,
And many are the longing thoughts
I send across the sea.

My weary feet have wandered far,
And far they yet must roam;
But, oh! whatever land I tread,
My heart is with

my home.

9. The fields of merry England
Are spreading round me wide,
The verdant vales and castled steep,
In all their ancient pride;

But give me to my own wild land,
Beyond the soft sea's foam,
For there, amid her forests free,
My spirit is at home.

I've listened, at the sunset hour,
To the songs of merry France,
And smil'd to see her peasants glad
In the evening's cheerful dance;
But sadness chased away the smile,
As I thought, far o'er the sea,
Of the pensive group around the hearth,
Whose hearts were sad for me.

4. There's no home like my own home,
Across the dark blue sea;

The land of beauty and of worth,
The bright land of the free;

Where royal foot hath never trod,
Nor bigot forged a chain;

Oh! would that I were safely back

In that bright land again!

QUESTIONS.-1. What difference does the writer find in the scenes at home and those abroad? 2. What feeling or spirit is prominent in this piece?

LESSON LXV.

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. RE TEN' TION, having power to keep or retain. 2. DIS CLOS' URES, discoveries or exposures. 3. AP PRE HEND'ED, seized; taken up. 4. AN EC DOTE, story; incident. 5. EN TERTAIN' ED, kept in mind; cherished. 6. TREACHER OUS LY, faithlessly; wickedly. 7. IN TER FER ENCE, an intermeddling; interposition. 8. AP PEAS ED, allayed; satisfied. 9. CEM' E TER Y, a place for the burial of the dead. 10. IN TENS' I TY, extreme degree; excess. IN TER' RO GA TED, questioned. 12. PLAINTIFF, the party making complaint; an accuser. 13. DE FEND' ANT, the party that opposes a complaint or charge. 14. RE TREAT', retire; go away. 15. COM'BAT ANTS, the opponents in a fight or combat. 16. DIS EN TAN' Gle, to get clear; extricate. 17. A vow' ED, confessed.

11.

1. PLUTARCH, a celebrated Greek writer, famous for his history of the Lives of Great Men of Antiquity, was born in Chæronea, in Boeotia, about fifty years after the birth of Christ.

2. PYRRHUS, king of Epirus, the ablest general of his time, was born about the year B. C. 318, and died B. C. 272.

ATTACHMENT OF DOGS TO THEIR MASTERS.

CHAMBERS' MIS.

1. The attachment of the dog to his master, becomes a ruling passion, and, united with a retentive memory, has led to some remarkable disclosures of crime. We are told by 'Plutarch of a certain Roman slave in the civil wars, whose head nobody durst cut off, for fear of the dog that guarded his body, and fought in his defense.

2. It happened that king 'Pyrrhus, travelling that way, observing the animal watching over the body of the deceased, and hearing that he had been there three days without meat or drink, yet would not for