LESSON VII. Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery. [Studies in oratorical address. Speak as if to a large audience but without departing from the melody of conversation.] Forescore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation—or any nation so conceived and so dedicated-can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -Abraham Lincoln. LESSON VII.—Continued. Brutus on the Death of Cæsar. [Study in contrasted inflections and emphasis.] Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor; and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly-any dear friend of Cæsar's,--to him I say, that Brutus' love to Cæsar was not less than his. If, then, that friend demand why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all freemen? As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude, that would not be a Roman ? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile, that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply. None? Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying -a place in the commonwealth, -as which of you shall not? With this I depart: That, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.-Shakespeare. LESSON VIII. The Star-Spangled Banner. O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming; Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? And where is the band who so vauntingly swore, 'Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country they'd leave us no more? Their blood hath washed out their foul footsteps' pollution, No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between our loved home and the war's desolation; Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "IN GOD IS OUR TRUST; -Francis Scott Key. LESSON IX. The Origin of Roast Pig. Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. The manuscript goes on to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following: The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great, lubberly boy, who, being fond of playing with fire, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? Not from the burned cottage—he had smelt that smell before-indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life, indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued: 'You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burned me down three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what-what have you got there, I say?" “O father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats!" The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig. Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, 'Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste-O Lord!”— with such-like barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke. 66 Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for pretense, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly set down to the mess, and never left off till they had dispatched all that remained of the litter. Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the |