DEFINITIONS.-1. Vouch safed', permitted. Au ro'ra, the rising light of the morning. E năn ́çi āt ed, stated formally; announced. 3. In ver'te brate, without a spinal column. Ieh'thy ie, pertaining to fishes. 4. Ŏp'tie al, visible. 5. In'su lã ted, standing alone. Silū'ri an, belonging to the older divisions of geological time. Zō'ophytes, animals partaking of the nature of both plants and animals; polyps. Fi'at, a command. Eär bon If'er ous, coal-producing. Flō'ra, the entire vegetable production of a country or period. 6. Slug'ğish, slow. Glade, an open passage through a wood. 7. Trans muted, transformed. 8. Zenith, the point in the heavens directly overhead. 10. Le vi'a thanş, aquatic animals described in the twelfth chapter of the book of Job.

NOTES.-1. The Midian desert is between the north side of the Arabian Gulf and the Plains of Moab. The latter are east of the lower part of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea.

St. John in Patmos. Patmos is an island off the west coast of Asia Minor. In a grotto attached to a convent on the island is the supposed abode where the apostle John (who had been banished thither by the Roman Emperor Domitian, A. D. 94) saw the visions recorded in the book of Revelation.

44. THE GRASP OF THE DEAD.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON was born in London in 1802; her childhood was spent at the home of a relative in Hertfordshire. Her first poems appeared in the Literary Gazette in 1820. Afterward she published several volumes of poetry, of which Improvisatrice was the most famous; she also wrote several novels, which, however, are now completely forgotten. Her poems are romantic, and possess a melodious rhythm, to which they owe their chief charm. She died October 15, 1838.

1. 'Twas the battle-field, and the cold pale moon
Looked down on the dead and dying;

And the wind passed o'er, with a dirge and a wail,
Where the young and the brave were lying.

2. With his father's sword in his red right hand,
And the hostile dead around him,

Lay a youthful chief; but his bed was the ground,
And the grave's icy sleep had bound him.

3. A reckless rover 'mid death and doom

Passed—a soldier, his plunder seeking;
Careless he stept where friend and foe

Lay alike in their life-blood reeking.

4. Drawn by the shine of the warrior's sword,
The soldier paused beside it:

He wrenched the hand with a giant's strength,
But the grasp of the dead defied it.

5. He loosed his hold, and his English heart Took part with the dead before him ;

And he honored the brave who died sword in hand,
As with softened brow he leaned o'er him:

6. "A soldier's death thou hast boldly died ;
A soldier's grave won by it:

Before I would take that sword from thy hand,
My own life's blood should dye it.

7. "Thou shalt not be left for the carrion crow
Or the wolf to batten o'er thee,

Or the coward to insult the gallant dead
Who in life had trembled before thee."

8. Then dug he a grave in the crimsoned earth Where his warrior-foe was sleeping;

And he laid him there in honor and rest,

With his sword in his own brave keeping.

DEFINITIONS.-1. Dirge, mournful music. 3. Reek'ing, giving forth warm, moist vapor. 7. Băt'ten, to fatten.

45. THE NEWS FROM LEXINGTON.

GEORGE BANCROFT was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1800. After he was graduated from Cambridge, he went abroad to study in Germany. His most important work is the History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent. An English critic describes this work as one of great research, and says, "While the author states his opinions decidedly and strongly, it is pervaded by a fair and just spirit. The style is vigorous, clear, and frank, not often rising into eloquence, but frequently picturesque. It is a national work, and worthy of its great theme."

1. DARKNESS closed upon the country and upon the town, but it was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift relays of horses transmitted the war-message from hand to hand, till village repeated it to village, the sea to the backwoods, the plains to the highlands; and it was never suffered to droop till it had been borne north and south and east and west throughout the land.

2. It spread over the bays that receive the Saco and the Penobscot. Its loud reveille broke the rest of the trappers of New Hampshire, and, ringing like bugle-notes from peak to peak, overleapt the Green Mountains, swept onward to Montreal, and descended the ocean-river till the responses were echoed from the cliffs of Quebec.

3. The hills along the Hudson told to one another the tale. As the summons hurried to the south, it was one day in New York; in one more at Philadelphia; the next it lighted a watch-fire at Baltimore; thence it waked an answer at Annapolis. Crossing the Potomac near Mount Vernon, it was sent forward without a halt to Williamsburg.

4. It traversed the Dismal Swamp to Nansemond, along the route of the first emigrants to North Carolina. It moved onward, and still onward, through boundless groves of evergreen, to Newbern and to Wilmington.

"For God's sake, forward it by night and by day!" wrote Cornelius Harnett by the express which sped for Brunswick.

5. Patriots of South Carolina caught up its tones at the border and despatched it to Charleston, and through pines and palmettoes and moss-clad live-oaks still farther to the south, till it resounded among the New England settlements beyond the Savannah. Hillsborough and the Mecklenburg district of North Carolina rose in triumph, now that their wearisome uncertainty had its end.

6. The Blue Ridge took up the voice and made it heard from one end to the other of the valley of Virginia. The Alleghanies, as they listened, opened their barriers, that the "loud call" might pass through to the hardy riflemen on the Holston, the Watauga, and the French Broad. Ever renewing its strength, powerful enough even to create a commonwealth, it breathed its inspiring words to the first settlers of Kentucky; so that hunters who made their halt in the matchless valley of the Elkhorn commemorated the nineteenth day of April by naming their encampment LEXINGTON.

DEFINITIONS.-1. Re lays', supplies of horses placed on the road, to be in readiness to relieve others. 2. Re veil'le (re vāl'yā), the beat of drum, about daybreak, to give notice that it is time for the soldiers to rise. 6. Com mon wealth', an established form of government; usually applied to governments which are considered free or popular.

NOTES.-4. Cornelius Harnett was an American statesman. He was born in England, but became a citizen of North Carolina before the Revolution, and was afterward a member of the Continental Congress. 5. The Mecklenburg district of North Carolina. The patriots of this district adopted a declaration of independence more than a year previous to the general Declaration, made in Philadelphia, July 4, 1776. 6. Lexington, which was formerly the capital of Kentucky, is a thriving town in the north-eastern part of the State.

46.-HORATIUS AT THE BRIDGE.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY was born in Leicestershire, England, October 25, 1800. At the age of eighteen he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he achieved the highest honors. His poem on Pompeii won for him the Chancellor's medal in 1819, and another poem, on Evening, gained it for him again in 1820. He wrote numerous ballads and essays, but his most famous works are his Lays of Ancient Rome (from which the following extract is taken) and his History of England from the Accession of James II. Macaulay's literary acquirements were wonderful, and he ranks among the most eminent of the British essayists. His style is graceful, forcible, and pointed, and has not been surpassed even by those who make beauty of style their chief aim. He died December 28, 1859.

1. BUT the consul's brow was sad,

And the consul's speech was low;
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe:

"Their van will be

upon us

Before the bridge goes down;

And if they once may win the bridge,
What hope to save the town?"

2. Then out spake brave Horatius,
The captain of the gate:
"To every man upon this earth

Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers

And the temples of his gods?

3. "Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may ;

I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play :