Ex. 31. 1. Plain description. Description, lively, then Excelsior. 5. 3. Animated. 4. Inspiriting. 2. Sadness. entreaty. 9. Impressive advice. 10. Hopeful. 11. Descriptive. 12. Affect ing narrative.* 'THE shades of night were falling fast, "His brow was sad; his eye beneath The accents of that unknown tongue,— "In happy homes he saw the light 76 Try not the Pass!' the old man said 8' O stay' the maiden said, 'and rest "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! This was the peasant's last Good-night; These annotations should be pencilled at the proper places on the margin by the pupil, who should be encouraged to add others of his own - the number and appositeness of these being taken as the measure of his understanding of the passage. "At break of day, as heavenward, A voice cried through the startled air,— 12A traveller, by the faithful hound, There, in the twilight cold and gray, Longfellow. Ex. 32. Descriptive. Progress of a Glacier compared to the Course 1. Comparison. 2. Narration. 3. Enumeration. 4. Impressive description. 5. Elevated sentiment. 'POETS and Philosophers have delighted to compare the course of human life to that of a river; perhaps a still apter simile might be found in the history of a glacier. "Heaven-descended in its origin, it yet takes its mould and conformation from the hidden womb of the mountains which brought it forth. At first, soft and ductile, it acquires a character and firmness of its own, as an inevitable destiny urges it in its onward career. Jostled and constrained by the crosses and inequalities of its prescribed path, hedged in by impassable barriers which fix limits to its movements, it yields groaning to its fate, and still travels forward seamed with the scars of many a conflict with opposing obstacles. All this while, although wasting, it is renewed by an unseen power-it evaporates, but is not consumed. On its surface it bears the spoils which, during the progress of its existence, it has made its own; often weighty burdens devoid of beauty or value, at times precious masses, sparkling with gems or with ore. *Having at length attained its greatest width and extension, commanding admiration by its beauty and power, waste predominates over supply; the vital springs begin to fail; it stoops into an attitude of decrepitude ;—it drops the burdens, one by one, which it had borne so proudly aloft; its dissolution is inevitable. But as it is resolved into its elements, it takes all at once, a new, and livelier, and disembarrassed form-from the wreck of its members it arises, another, yet the same,'-a noble, full-bodied, arrowy stream, which leaps rejoicing over the obstacles which before had staid its progress, and hastens through fertile valleys towards a freer existence, and a final union in the ocean with the Boundless and the Infinite. 'Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge, Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon He comes, the herald of a noisy world, 2 With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks, And having dropped the expected bag-pass on. Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains, His horse and him, unconscious of them all. D And jewelled turban with a smile of peace, Cowper. Ex. 34. George III. and his Family. 1. Narration. 2. Touching incident. 3. Endearing fondness, description of madness. 5. Resignation. 6. Sorrowful appeal. : 4. Pathetic 1Of all the figures in that large family group which surrounds George and his queen, the prettiest, I think, is the father's darling, the Princess Amelia, pathetic for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and for the extreme passionate tenderness with which her father loved her. This was his favourite amongst all the children of his sons, he loved the Duke of York best. 2Burney tells a sad story of the poor old man at Weymouth, and how eager he was to have this darling son with him. The King's house was not big enough to hold the Prince; and his father had a portable house erected close to his own, and at huge pains, so that his dear Frederick should be near him. He clung on his arm all the time of his visit; talked to no one else; had talked of no one else for some time before. The Prince, so long expected, stayed but a single night. He had business in London the next day, he said. The dulness of the old King's court stupefied York and the other big sons of George III. They scared equerries and ladies, frightened the modest little circle with their coarse spirits and loud talk. Of little comfort, indeed, were the King's sons to the King. But the pretty Amelia was his darling; and the little maiden, prattling and smiling in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to look on. The Princess wrote verses herself, and there are some pretty plaintive lines attributed to her, which are more touching than better poetry : 'Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, I laughed, and danced, and talked, and sung: 'But when the hour of trial came, The poor soul quitted it—and ere yet she was dead the agonized father was in such a state, that the officers round about him were obliged to set watchers over him, and from November, 1810, George III. ceased to reign. All the world knows the story of his malady; all history presents no sadder figure than that of the old man, blind and deprived of reason, wandering through the rooms of his palace, addressing imaginary parliaments, reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly courts. I have seen his picture as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of his daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse Hombourg-amidst books and Windsor furniture, and a hundred fond reminiscences of her English home. The poor old father is represented in a purple gown, his snowy beard falling over his breast-the star of his famous Order still idly shining on it. He was not only sightless: he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God, were taken from him. Some slight lucid moments he had; in one of which, the Queen, desiring to see him, entered the room, and found him singing a hymn, and accompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he had finished, he knelt down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled. What preacher need moralise on this story; what words save the simplest are requisite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. The thought of such a misery smites me down in submission before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch Supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutable Disspenser of life, death, happiness, victory. "O brothers,' I said to those who heard me first in America-'O brothers! speaking the same dear mother tongue-O comrades! enemies 66 |