his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant. peals of 5 thunder.

To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for 10 a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to anything 15 else but his business.

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon 20 grew into great favor.

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, 25 and a chronicle of the old times" before the war."

It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a revolutionary war - that the 30 country had thrown off the yoke of old England — and that, instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him.

35

He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at first, to

vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood, but 5 knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit.

10

Even to this day they never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of ninepins; and it is a common wish of all hen-pecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that 15 they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagon.

VI. TO A WATER-FOWL.

BRYANT.

[WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3, 1794. He was admitted to the bar, but soon left the profession of the law, and has for many years resided in or near the city of New York, as one of the editors and proprietors of the "New York Evening Post," a daily paper which has a wide circulation and much influence. It is not necessary to point out, at any length, the merits of a poet whose productions were the delight of his own countrymen, and were well known abroad, long before the young persons, for whose use this work is intended, were born. It is enough to say that his poems are distinguished by the perfect finish of their style, their elevated tone, their dignity of sentiment, and their lovely pictures of American scenery. He is, at once, the most truthful and the most delightful of painters. We find in his pages all the most obvious and all the most retiring graces of our native landscapes, but nothing borrowed from booksnothing transplanted from a foreign soil.]

1

WHITHER, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou 'rt gone; the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone

Will lead my steps aright.

VII.-MORNING IN THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

EXECUTION OF A HOSTAGE FOR BREACH OF FAITH.

SCOTT.

[WALTER SCOTT was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771, and died at Ab botsford, September 21, 1832. In 1792 he was called to the Scotch bar as an advocate; but he made little progress in his profession, and was soon allured from it by the higher attractions of literature. After having written and published a few fugitive pieces, and edited a collection of border ballads, he broke upon the world, in 1805, with his "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which was received with a burst of admiration almost without parallel in literary history. This was followed by "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake," which added to the author's reputation, and by "Rokeby," and "The Lord of the Isles," which fairly sustained it. These poems were unlike anything that had preceded them. Their versification was easy and graceful, though sometimes careless; their style was energetic and condensed; their pictures were glowing and faithful; the characters and incidents were fresh and startling; and in the battle scenes there was a power of painting which rivalled the pages of Homer. The whole civilized world rose up to greet with admiration the poet who transported them to the lakes and mountains of Scotland, introduced them to knights and moss-troopers, and thrilled them with scenes of wild adventure and lawless violence. Scott held exclusive possession of the poetical throne until Lord Byron disputed it with him, and won a popularity more intense, if not more wide.

But these brilliant and successful poems were hardly more than an introduction to Scott's literary career. In 1814, there appeared, without any preliminary announcement, and anonymously, a novel called " Waverley," which soon attracted great attention, and gave rise to much speculation as to its authorship. This was the beginning of that splendid series of works of fiction commonly called the Waverley novels, which continued to be poured forth in rapid succession till 1827. From the first, there was very little doubt that Scott was the author of these works, although they were published without any name; and when the avowal was made, in 1827, it took nobody by surprise. Of the great powers put forth in these novels- of their immense popularity — and of the influence they have exerted, and are still exerting, upon literature, it is not necessary to speak, nor could such a subject be discussed in a notice like this. Admirable as the whole series is, there is a power, a freshness, and an originality in the earlier ones, such as "Guy Mannering," and "The Antiquary," where the scenery and characters are Scotch, which give them a marked superiority over their younger brethren.

Besides his poems and novels, Scott wrote a Life of Napoleon, various other biographies, and many works besides. He was a man of immense literary industry, and his writings fill eighty-eight volumes of small octavo size. All this did not prevent his discharging faithfully the duties of a citizen, of a father of a family, and (for many years) of a magistrate.

Scott's life has been written by his son-in-law, Lockhart; and it is a truthful record of what he was and what he did. His was a noble nature, with much to love and much to admire. He was a warm friend, most affectionate in his domestic relations, and ever ready to do kind acts to those who stood in need of them. After his first literary successes, he lived before the public eye; and since his death, his whole life and being have been exposed to

the general gaze and there are few lives on record that would bear such an ordeal better.

In consequence of an unwise secret partnership with a printer and publisher, Scott became a bankrupt at the age of fifty-five. He met this blow with an heroic spirit, and addressed himself to the task of discharging the liabilities against him, with a moral energy which was nothing less than sublime. The amount of work he performed between this date and that of his death is fearful to contemplate. His life was shortened by his excessive toils; but he accomplished what he proposed to himself. His debts, materially diminished before his death, have since been entirely discharged by the profits on his collected works. In the portion of his life, from his bankruptcy to his death, Scott's character shines with a moral grandeur far above merc literary fame. Scott was made a baronet in 1820.

This extract is from "Rob Roy," one of the most spirited and popular of the Waverley novels, originally published in 1817. Rob Roy, a Highland chieftain, had been taken prisoner. Morris, an Englishman, had been sent as a hostage to guarantee the personal safety of Rob Roy. The violation of this pledge called down upon his head the vengeance of the wife of Rob Roy.

I SHALL never forget the delightful sensation with which I exchanged the dark, smoky, smothering atmosphere of the Highland hut, in which we had passed the night so uncomfortably, for the refreshing fragrance of 5 the morning air, and the glorious beams of the rising sun, which, from a tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the left

lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its 10 easterly course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill, with all its garland of woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay the bed of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of the morning breeze, each glittering in its 15 course under the influence of the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks, waving with natural forests of birch and oak, formed the borders of this enchanting sheet of water; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of 20 life and vivacity. Man alone seemed to be placed in a state of inferiority, in a scene where all the ordinary features of nature were raised and exalted.