eyes, and the floods are lifted up around us, and we take our leave of earth and its inhabitants, until of our further voyage there is no witness save the Infinite and Eternal.

LESSON XLVI.

To an absent Wife.-HEBER.

[The following lines, addressed to his wife, were written by the late Bishop Heber during his absence from her, on his long and arduous visitation of the Upper Provinces in British India, not long before his death.]

If thou wert by my side, my love!
How fast would evening fail,
In green Bengala's palmy grove,
Listening to the nightingale!

If thou, my love! wert by my side,
My babies at my knee,
How gaily would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning gray,
When, on our deck reclined,
In careless ease my limbs I lay,
And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream
My twilight steps I guide,
But most beneath the lamp's pale beam
I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,
The lingering noon to cheer,
But miss thy kind, approving eye,
Thy meek, attentive ear.

But when of morn and eve the star
Beholds me on my knee,

I feel, though thou art distant far,
Thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on! then on! where duty leads,
My course be onward still,
O'er broad Hindoostan's sultry meads,
O'er bleak Almorah's hill.

That course, nor Delhi's kingly gates,
Nor wild Malwah detain,

For sweet the bliss us both awaits

By yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say,
Across the dark blue sea,

But ne'er were hearts so light and gay,
As then shall meet in thee.

LESSON XLVII.

Commanding Position of the United States.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

Our country stands, at the present time, on commanding ground. Older nations, with different systems of government, may be somewhat slow to acknowledge all that justly belongs to us. But we may feel, without vanity, that America is doing her part in the great work of improving human affairs. There are two principles, strictly and purely American, which are now likely to overrun the civilized world. Indeed, they seem the necessary result of the progress of civilization and knowledge. These are, first, popular governments, restrained by written constitutions; and, secondly, universal education. Popular governments and general education, acting and reacting, mutually producing and reproducing each other, are the mighty agencies which, in our days, appear to be exciting, stimulating and changing civilized societies. Man every where is now found demanding a participation in government, and he will not be refused, and he demands knowledge as necessary to self-government. On the basis of these two principles, liberty and knowledge, our own American systems rest. Thus far we have not been disappointed in their results. Our existing institutions, raised on these foundations, have conferred on us almost unmixed happiness. Do we hope to better our condition by change? When we shall have nullified the present constitution, what are we to receive in its place? As fathers, do we wish for our children better government or better laws? As members of society, as lovers of our country, is there any thing we can desire for it better than that, as ages and centuries roll over it, it may possess the same invaluable institutions which it now enjoys? For my part, I can only say, that I desire to thank the beneficent Author of all good, for being born where I was born, and when I was born; that the portion of human existence allotted to me, has been meted out to me in this goodly land, and at this interesting period. I rejoice that I have lived to see so much developement of truth, so much progress of liberty, so much diffusion of virtue and happiness. And, through good report and evil report, it will be my consolation to be a citizen of a republic, unequalled in the annals of the world, for the freedom of its institutions, its high prosperity, and the prospects of good which yet lie before it. Our course is onward, straight onward, and forward. Let us not turn to the right hand nor to the left. Our path is marked out for us, clear, plain, bright, distinctly defined, like the milky way across the heavens. If we are true to our country, in our day and generation, and those who come after us shall be true to it also, assuredly, assuredly, we shall elevate her to a pitch of prosperity and happiness, of honor and power, never yet reached by any nation beneath the sun.

LESSON XLVIII.

Scene from Remorse, a Tragedy.-S. T. COLERIDGE.

The sea shore on the coast of Granada. Don ALVAR, wrapped in a boatcloak, and ZULIMEZ (a Moresco), both as just landed.

* Zulimez. No sound, no face of joy, to welcome us! Alvar. My faithful Zulimez, for one brief moment Let me forget my anguish and their crimes. If aught on earth demand an unmixed feeling, 'Tis surely this-after long years of exile, To step forth on firm land, and, gazing round us, To hail at once our country and our birth-place. Hail, Spain! Granada, hail! Once more I press Thy sands with filial awe, land of my fathers!

Zul. Then claim your rights in it! O revered Don

Alvar,

Yet, yet give up your all too gentle purpose.
It is too hazardous! reveal yourself,

And let the guilty meet the doom of guilt!

Alv. Remember, Zulimez! I am his brother

Injured, indeed! Oh, deeply injured! yet
Ordonio's brother.

Zul. Nobly-minded Alvar!

This sure but gives his guilt a blacker dye.

Alv. The more behoves it, I should rouse within him

Remorse! that I should save him from himself.

Zul. Remorse is as the heart in which it grows:

If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews

Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy,

It is a poison-tree, that, pierced to the inmost,
Weeps only tears of poison.'

Alv. And of a brother

Dare I hold this, unproved? nor make one effort
To save him?--Hear me, friend: I have yet to tell thee,
That this same life, which he conspired to take,
Himself once rescued from the angry flood,
And at the imminent hazard of his own.

• Add, too, my oath

Zul. You have thrice told already
The years of absence and of secrecy
To which a forced oath bound you: if, in truth,
A suborned murderer have the power to dictate
A binding oath.

Alv. My long captivity

Left me no choice: the very wish, too, languished
With the fond hope that nursed it; the sick babe
Drooped at the bosom of its famished mother.
But (more than all) Teresa's perfidy;

The assassin's strong assurance, when no interest,
No motive could have tempted him to falsehood ;
In the first pangs of his awakened conscience,
When, with abhorrence of his own black purpose,
The murderous weapon, pointed at my breast,
Fell from his palsied hand.

Zul. Heavy presumption!

Alv. It weighed not with me.-Hark! I will tell thee

all:

As we passed by, I bade thee mark the base
Of yonder cliff-

Zul. That rocky seat, you mean,
Shaped by the billows?-

Alv. There Teresa met me,
The morning of the day of my departure.
We were alone: the purple hue of dawn
Fell from the kindling east aslant upon us,
And, blending with the blushes on her cheek,