Taught the raised shoulders to invade the ears.
Long time elapsed or ere our rugged sires
Complained, though incommodiously pent in,
And ill at ease behind. The ladies first
'Gan murmur as became the softer sex.
Ingenious fancy, never better pleased
Than when employ'd to accommodate the fair,
Heard the sweet moan with pity, and devised
The soft settee; one elbow at each end,
And in the midst an elbow it received,
United yet divided, twain at once.

So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne;
And so two citizens, who take the air,
Close pack'd, and smiling, in a chaise and one.
But relaxation of the languid frame,

By soft recumbency of outstretch'd limbs,
Was bliss reserv'd for happier days. So slow
The growth of what is excellent; so hard
To attain perfection in this nether world.
Thus first necessity invented stools,
Convenience next suggested elbow-chairs,
And luxury the accomplish'd SOFA last.

The Tusk.

ISAAC ASHFORD.

(Rev. G. Crabbe.)

[Born, 1754; died, 1832. Poems: The Village,' 'Parish Register,' 'The Borough,' Tales in Verse,'' Tales of the Hall.']

Next to these ladies, but in nought allied,
A noble peasant, Isaac Ashford, died.
Noble he was, contemning all things mean,
His truth unquestioned, and his soul serene:
At no man's presence Isaac felt afraid;

At no man's question Isaac looked dismayed:
Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace;
Truth, simple truth, was written in his face;
Yet while the serious thought his soul approved,
Cheerful he seemed, and gentleness he loved;
To bliss domestic he his heart resigned,
And with the firmest, had the fondest mind:
Were others joyful, he looked smiling on,
And gave allowance where he needed none;
Good he refused with future ill to buy,
Nor knew a joy that caused reflection's sigh;

U

A friend to virtue, his unclouded breast
No envy stung, no jealousy distressed

(Bane of the poor, it wounds their weaker mind
To miss one favour which their neighbours find);
Yet far was he from stoic pride removed;
He felt humanely, and he warmly loved:
I marked his action when his infant died,
And his old neighbour for offence was tried;
The still tears stealing down that furrowed cheek,
Spoke pity plainer than the tongue can speak.
If pride were his 'twas not their vulgar pride,
Who, in their base contempt, the great deride
Nor pride in learning, though my clerk agreed,
If fate should call him, Ashford might succeed;
Nor pride in rustic skill, although we knew
None his superior, and his equals few':
But if that spirit in his soul had place,
It was the jealous pride that shuns disgrace;
A pride in honest fame, by virtue gained,
In sturdy boys to virtuous labours trained;
Pride in the power that guards his country's coast,
And all that Englishmen enjoy and boast;
Pride in a life that slander's tongue defied,
In fact, a noble passion, misnamed pride.

At length he found when seventy years were run, His strengh departed and his labour done; When, save his honest fame, he kept no more; But lost his wife and saw his children poor; 'Twas then a spark of-say not discontentStruck on his mind, and thus he gave it vent: 'Kind are your laws ('tis not to be denied), That in yon house for ruined age provide, And they are just; when young, we give you all, And then for comforts in our weakness call. Why then this proud reluctance to be fed, To join your poor, and eat the parish bread? But yet I linger, loath with him to feed Who gains his plenty by the sons of need: He who, by contract, all your paupers took, And gauges stomachs with an anxious look: On some old master I could well depend; See him with joy, and thank him as a friend; But ill on him who doles the day's supply, And counts our chances who at night may die: Yet help me, Heaven! and let me not complain Of what befalls me, but the fate sustain.'

Such were his thoughts, and so resigned he grew;

Daily he placed the workhouse in his view!
But came not there, for sudden was his fate,
He dropt, expiring at his cottage-gate.

I feel his absence in the hours of prayer,
And view his seat, and sigh for Isaac there;
I see no more his white locks thinly spread
Round the bald polish of that honoured head;
No more that awful glance on playful wight
Compelled to kneel and tremble at the sight;
To fold his fingers all in dread the while,
Till Mister Ashford softened to a smile;
No more that meek and suppliant look in prayer
Nor the pure faith (to give it force) are there.
But he is blest, and I lament no more,

A wise good man, contented to be poor.

MENSURATION.

To find the area of a trapezium:—

Parish Register.

(1) What is the area of the trapezium ABCD,* the diagonal AC being 120 yards, the perpendicular DE 30 yards, and BF 25 yards?

(2) What will be the area of a field in the form of a trapezium ABCD, when the perpendiculars are 35 and 4.75 chains respectively, and the diagonal 10 chains?

(3) Given, in the trapezium ABCD, AB 210 yards, DC 360 yards, BF 180 yards, DE 240 yards, and FE 210 yards; find its area in acres, &c.

(4) What is the area of the trapezoid ABCD,* the parallel sides being 4 ft. 6 in. and 8 ft. 6 in. respectively, and the perpendicular height AE 6 ft.?

(5) What is the area of a field in the form of a trapezoid whose sides are 12.6 and 10.75 chains respectively, and perpendicular height 8.25 chains?

THE RUINS OF ASSYRIA.

(From 'Nineveh and its phil-o-lo'-gi-cal, relating to language am-phi-the-a-tre, a building of a circular form, with seats all round cu'-nei-form, having the form of a wedge quad'-ran-gle, a figure with four angles stu-pen'-dous, wonderful, astonishing

Remains,' by A. H. Layard.)

con-jec'-ture (v.), to guess
vague, unfixed, indefinite

con-sec'-u-tive, following in succession
e-jac-u-la'-tion, a short occasional pray-
er, a sudden exclamation

I HAD traversed Asia Minor and Syria, visiting the ancient seats of civilisation, and the spots which religion has made holy. I now felt an irresistible desire to penetrate to the

* See definitions and figures at the end.

regions beyond the Euphrates, to which history and tradition point as the birthplace of the wisdom of the West. Most travellers, after a journey through the usually frequented parts of the East, have the same longing to cross the great river and to explore those lands which are separated on the map from the confines of Syria by a vast blank stretching from Aleppo to the banks of the Tigris. A deep mystery hangs over Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldæa. With these names are linked great nations and great cities dimly shadowed forth in history; mighty ruins, in the midst of deserts, defying by their very desolation and lack of definite form, the description of the traveller; the remnants of mighty races still roving over the land; the fulfilling and fulfilment of prophecies; the plains to which the Jew and the Gentile alike look as the cradle of their race. After a journey in Syria the thoughts naturally turn eastward; and without treading on the remains of Nineveh and Babylon our pilgrimage is incomplete.

I left Aleppo with my companion on the 18th of March. We still travelled as we had been accustomed-without guide or servants. The road across the desert is at all times impracticable, except to a numerous and well-armed caravan, and offers no object of interest. We preferred that through Bir and Orfa. From the latter city we traversed the low country at the foot of the Kurdish hills, a country little known, and abounding in curious remains. The Egyptian frontier at that time extended to the east of Orfa, and the war between the Sultan and Mahommed Ali Pasha being still unfinished, the tribes took advantage of the confusion, and were plundering on all sides. With our usual good fortune, we succeeded in reaching Nisibin unmolested, although we ran daily risks, and more than once found ourselves in the midst of foraging parties, and of tents which an hour before had been pillaged by the wandering bands of Arabs. We entered Mosul on the 10th of April.

During a short stay in this town we visited the great ruins on the east bank of the river, which have been generally believed to be the remains of Nineveh. We also rode into the desert and explored the mound of Kalah Sherghat, a vast ruin on the Tigris about fifty miles below its junction with the Zab. As we journeyed thither we rested for the night at the small Arab village of Hammum Ali, around which are still the vestiges of an ancient city. From the summit of an artificial eminence we looked down upon a broad plain, separated from us by the river. A line of lofty mounds bounded it to the east, and one of a pyramidical form rose high above the rest. Beyond it could be faintly traced the waters of the Zab. Its position rendered its identification easy. This was the pyramid which Xenophon had described, and near which the ten thousand had

encamped the ruins around it were those which the Greek general saw twenty-two centuries before, and which were even then the remains of an ancient city. Although Xenophon had confounded a name, spoken by a strange race, with one familiar to a Greek ear, and had called the place Larissa, tradition still points to the origin of the city, and, by attributing its foundation to Nimrod, whose name the ruins now bear, connects it with one of the first settlements of the human race.*

Kalah Sherghat, like Nimroud, was an Assyrian ruin a vast shapeless mass, now covered with grass, and showing scarcely any traces of the work of man except where the winter rains had formed ravines down its almost perpendicular sides, and had thus laid open its contents. A few fragments of pottery and inscribed bricks, discovered after a careful search amongst the rubbish which had accumulated around the base of the great mound, served to prove that it owed its construction to the people who had founded the city of which Nimroud is the remains. There was a tradition current amongst the Arabs, that strange figures carved in black stone still existed among the ruins; but we searched for them in vain during the greater part of a day, in which we were engaged in exploring the heaps of earth and bricks covering a considerable extent of the country on the right bank of the Tigris. At the time of our visit the country had been abandoned by the Bedouins, and was only occasionally visited by a few plunderers from the Shammar or Aneyza tents. We passed the night in the jungle which clothes the banks of the river, and wandered during the day undisturbed by the tribes of the desert. A Cawass who had been sent with us by the Pasha of Mosul, alarmed at the solitude and dreading the hostile Arabs, left us in the wilderness and turned homewards. But he fell into the danger he sought to avoid. Less fortunate than ourselves, at a short distance from Kalah Sherghat he was met by a party of horsemen, and fell a victim to his timidity.

Were the traveller to cross the Euphrates to seek for such ruins in Mesopotamia and Chaldæa as he had left behind him in Asia Minor or Syria, his search would be vain. The graceful column rising above the thick foliage of the myrtle, ilex, and oleander; the gradines of the amphitheatre covering a gentle slope, and overlooking the dark blue waters of a lake-like bay;

* 'He (Nimrod) went out into Assyria and built Nineveh, the city Rehoboth and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah; the same is a great city.' (Gen. x. 11, 12.) The ruins of Nimroud had been identified with Resen, of which Larissa was believed, first by Bochart, to be a corruption, arising from the (presumed) use by the inhabitants of the country of the common Shemitic article al' before the word. It may be observed, in the first place, that the philological grounds are inadequate: and, in the second, that if this were Resen, no room would be left for the site of Nineveh, a still greater city.