2. When in the sultry glebe I faint, 3. Though in the paths of death I tread, Joseph Addison. FOR PREPARATION.-I. A paraphrase, rather than a translation," of the Twenty-third Psalm. The 1st verse corresponds to the first as numbered in King James's version of the Bible; the 2d to the second and third; the 3d to the fourth; the 4th to the fifth and sixth. Is the imagery of this psalm suggestive of the city or of the country? ployment and surroundings? II. Shěp'-herd (-ērd), guärd (gärd), guide (ğīd). What em III. Mark off into feet the lines of the 1st stanza, showing the syllables where the accent falls. IV. Glebe, meads, crook, beguile, sultry, "sudden greens," wilderness shall smile." ""the barren V. Compare this translation with King James's version, and make note of the expression wherein the latter is stronger or more vivid than the former; also wherein the former is more systematic. Contrast the force of expression in "Though in the paths of death I tread” and “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." What thoughts in either version are not expressed at all in the other? A distinguished preacher says of this psalm: "David has left no sweeter psalm than the short twenty-third. It is but a moment's opening of his soul; but, as when one, walking the winter street, sees the door opened for some one to enter, and the red light streams a moment forth, and the forms of gay children are running to greet the comer, and genial music sounds, though the door shuts and leaves night black, yet it cannot shut back again all that the eye, the ear, the heart, and the imagination have seen; so in this psalm, though it is but a moment's opening of the soul, are emitted truths of peace and consolation that will never be absent from the world. It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophy of the world. It has remanded to their dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows, than there are sands on the seashore. It has comforted the noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the hearts of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their pinching griefs, of orphans in their loneliness. Dying soldiers have died easier as it was read to them; ghastly hospitals have been illuminated; it has visited the prisoner and broken his chains, and, like Peter's angel, led him forth in imagination, and sung him back to his home again." LXXXV.-A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. 1. Noon by the north clock! noon by the east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we pub lic characters have a rough time of it! And among all the public characters chosen at the March meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the Town Pump? 2. The title of "town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians of the board of health. 3. As a keeper of the peace, all water drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices when they are pasted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. 4. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am and to keep people out of the gutters. 5. At this sultry noontide I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dramseller on the mall, at muster day I cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice, "Here it is, gentlemen! here is the good liquor! Walk up-walk up, gentlemen! walk up! walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam -better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price. Here it is, by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen! walk up, and help yourselves!" 6. It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come! A hot day, gentlemen! Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice, cool sweat! You, my friend, will need another cupful, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns and stopped at the running brooks and well curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burned to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jellyfish! Drink, and make room for that other fellow who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations -which he drained from no cup of mine. 7. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers hitherto; nor, to express the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dramshop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by, and whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old stand. 8. Who next?-Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other sch olboy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child! put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the stones that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. 9. What he limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine cellars. Well, well, sir! no harm done, I hope! Go, draw the cork, tip the decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout? 10. Are you all satisfied? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends; and, while my spout has a moment's leisure, I will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leafstrewn earth, in the very spot where you behold me on the sunny pavement. The water was as bright and clear, and deemed as precious, as liquid diamonds. The Indian Sagamores drank of it from time immemorial, till the fearful deluge of fire water burst upon the red men, and swept the whole race away from the cold fountains. Endicott and his followers came next, and often knelt |