6. I saw their chief tall as a rock of ice; his spear the blasted fir; his shield the rising moon; he sat on the shore like a cloud of mist upon the hill.

7.

There was such silence through the host, as when
An earthquake trampling on some populous town,
Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men
Expect the second.

8. It is on the death-bed, on the couch of sorrow and of pain, that the thought of one purely virtuous action is like the shadow o a lofty rock in the desert-like the light footsteps of that little child who continued to dance before the throne of the unjust king, when his guards had fled, and his people had forsaken him—like the single thin stream of light which the unhappy captive has at last learned to love-like the soft sigh before the breeze that wafts the becalmed vessel and her famished crew to the haven where they would be.

- 9.

10.

Sweet is the scene when virtue dies!
When sinks a righteous soul to rest,
How mildly beam the closing eyes,
How gently heaves th' expiring breast!

So fades a summer cloud
away,
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er
So gently shuts the eye of day,

So dies a wave along the shore.

A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun:
A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow.
Long had I watched its glory moving on
O'er the still radiance of the lake below;
Tranquil its spirit seemed and floated slow,
Even in its very motion there was rest,
And every breath of eve that chanced to blow
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous west.

WATTS.

11.

12.

COMPARATIVE STATEMENTS, OR SIMILES.

Emblem, methought, of the departed soul,
To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given,
And by the breath of mercy made to roll
Right onward to the golden gates of heaven,
Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies
And tells to man his glorious destinies.

JOHN WILSON.

He spoke and Sohrab kindled at his taunts,
And he too drew his sword; at once they rushed
Together as two eagles on one prey

Come rushing down together from the clouds,
One from the east, one from the west; their shields
Dashed with a clang together, and a din
Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters
Make often in the forest's heart at morn,
Of hewing axes, crashing trees-such blows
Rustum and Sohrab on each other hailed.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

as she rose

As when some hunter in the spring hath found
A brooding eagle sitting on her nest
Upon the craggy isle of a hill lake,
And pierced her with an arrow
And followed her, to find her where she fell
Far off;-anon her mate comes winging back
From hunting, and a great way off descries
His huddling young left sole; at that he checks
His pinion, and with short uneasy sweeps
Circles above his eyry with loud screams
Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she
Lies dying, with the arrow in her side,
In some far stony gorge, out of his ken,
A heap of fluttering feathers, never
Shall the lake glass her flying over it;
Never the black and dripping precipices
Echo her stormy scream as she sails by-

more

As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,
So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood
Over his dying son, and knew him not.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.*

75

1. This verse is from Professor Longfellow's Wreck of the Hesperus. 2. That is, true power of expression. 3. The common, but deceptive belief. 4. This simile is from Ossian. (To pp. 73 and 74.)

*These two similes-from the poem of Sohrab and Rustum-are among the finest similes in all literature. The simple and adequate expression is as fine and satisfactory as the truth of the conception.

[The teacher should listen to these with his book shut.]

THE object of these Gymnastics is to perfect the pupil in a clear and distinct articulation. Every child has his own besetting fault in pronunciation or articulation; and one pupil will require more practice in one part of these exercises, and another in another. It would be advisable that, where considerable defects exist, the pupil should draw up a set of exercises himself on the points where he happens to be defective. Errors in the pronunciation of vowels are most easily corrected by imitating the teacher; but errors in consonants are best overcome by continued practice in such words as contain several consonants together. Words like facts should have all the three final consonants brought clearly out. The tendency is to lose altogether or to do injustice to the t.

INTERJECTIONAL OR EXCLAMATORY STATEMENTS.

THESE statements are still more impassioned, and in a more excited key, than the questions of appeal. The "rising inflection" is therefore predominant; and the main point to be observed the chief difficulty to be got over-is to settle on what word this inflection ought to culminate. An indiscriminate raising of the voice becomes mere "spouting," which destroys all right feeling in the listener, and therefore defeats its own object. The reader must try never to forget that he is addressing an object; but he must and ought at the same time to forget the presence of any listeners in the room-he must have his mind full of the object he is supposed to be speaking to.

1.

2.

3.

4.

"Come back! come back!" he cried in grief,
"Across this stormy water1;

And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter!-O my daughter!"

Oh, by thy father's head! by thine own soul!
Art thou not Rustum? Speak! art thou not he?

Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! 3

Awake! arise! or be for ever fallen!4

5. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings! 5

Sweet pleasing sleep! of all the powers the best!

*This is said by King Lear, when his madness is beginning. He thinks that under some roof or other, one of his undutiful daughters may be found.