But hate and fury ill supplied

The stream of life's exhausted tide,
And all too late the advantage came,
To turn the odds of deadly game;

For, while the dagger gleamed on high,
Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye.
Down came the blow! but in the heath
The erring blade found bloodless sheath.
The struggling foe may now unclasp
The fainting Chief's relaxing grasp;-
Unwounded from the dreadful close,
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose.

SCOTT.

51. THE AMERICAN FLAG.

Mark this piece for inflection and emphasis, and then require pupils to memorize at least the first stanza.

1. When Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her standard to the air,

She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there;
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle-bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand
The symbol of her chosen land.

2. Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly,
The sign of hope and triumph high!
When speaks the signal trumpet tone,
And the long line comes gleaming on

(Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet,
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet),
Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn
To where thy sky-born glories burn,
And as his springing steps advance,
Catch war and vengeance from the glance.
And when the cannon-mouthings loud
Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud,
And gory sabers rise and fall,

Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall,
Then shall thy meteor glances glow,

And cowering foes shall sink beneath
Each gallant arm that strikes below
That lovely messenger of death.

3. Flag of the seas! on ocean's wave
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave;
When death, careering on the gale,
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail,
And frighted waves rush wildly back
Before the broadside's reeling rack,
Each dying wanderer of the sea
Shall look at once to heaven and thee,
And smile to see thy splendors fly
In triumph o'er his closing eye.

4. Flag of the free heart's hope and home,
By angel hands to valor given,

Thy stars have lit the welkin dome,

And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe, but falls before us,
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!

DRAKE

DICTIONARY LESSON. Define the following words: azure, baldric, cowering, careering, welkin. Write each in a sentence.

52. THE CONSTITUTION.

Let pupils read this piece, and, under your direction, mark ii for emphasis, inflection, and pauses. Then assign it to the boys of the class to be learned by heart for declamation.

1. Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this Constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to come

2. We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the people. No monarchical throne presses these States together. They live and stand under a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever.

3. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize on a mighty scale the beautiful description of the ornamental border of the bucklers of Achilles

"Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned
With his last hand, and poured the occan round.
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,

And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."

DANIEL WEBSTER.

53. SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS.

1. Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say, that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus-a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men!

2. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron-groves of Cyrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture. and partook together our rustic meal.

3. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse; the bleeding body of my father flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling!

4. To-day I killed a man in the arena; and when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died-the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph! I told the prætor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body and burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Ay, upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the prætor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, "Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans!" And so, fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs.

5. O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd-lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe; to gaze into the glaring eye-balls of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze life-blood lies curdled!

6. Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but tomorrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark!