abode is dark. O thou who wast so great before! I compass thy grave with three steps.

7. Thou wast, not long since, what I am now, one of the actors in this passing scene. I lent a pitying ear to all thy sighs, and my heaving bosom beat responsive to thy sad complaints. My tears were mingled with thine in the hour of affliction; and, when joy brightened thy countenance, my heart felt a kindred pleasure. I sat with thee, or walked by the way, and held sweet converse. My soul was knit to thee by the ties of cordial amity and soft endearment. Thou hast now left me to mourn the loss of thee in pensive silence. I drop the tender tear on thy hallowed grave, and bid thy sacred ashes rest in peace. I shall join thee in thy dark abode erelong, thy companion in the dust, till we be called forth to stand in our lot in the end of days. I was united to thee in life; I shall soon lie in the same cold arms of death; and (O transporting thought!) we shall rise together, to feel no more the agony of parting.

SECTION III.

VARIETY OF ARRANGEMENT (continued).

Change the following passages of poetry into prose, making such alterations, both in arrangement and in structure, as the meaning and harmony of the sentences require :

EXAMPLE.

A solitary blessing few can find;

Our joys with those we love are intertwin'd;
And he whose wakeful tenderness removes

Th' obstructing thorn which wounds the friend he loves,
Smooths not another's rugged path alone,

But scatters roses to adorn his own.

Few can find a solitary blessing; our joys are entertwined with those whom we love; and he, whose wakeful tenderness removes the thorn which wounds his friend, not only smooths the rugged path of another, but scatters roses to adorn his own.

EXERCISES.

1. Heav'n gives us friends to bless the present scene
Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.

2.

All evils natural are moral goods;
All discipline indulgence on the whole.

Never man was truly blest,
But it composed and gave him such a cast,
As folly might mistake for want of joy.

3. Riches are oft by guilt and baseness earn'd.
But for one end, one much neglected use,
Are riches worth our care (for nature's wants
Are few, and without opulence supplied);
This noble end is, to produce the soul;
To show the virtues in their fairest light,
And make humanity the minister

Of bounteous Providence.

4. But yonder comes the powerful king of day,
Rejoicing in the east. The less'ning cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colour'd air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad;

And sheds the shining day, that burnish'd plays
On rocks, and hills, and tow'rs, and wand'ring streams
High gleaming from afar.

5. No radiant pearl, which crested fortune wears,
No gem, that twinkling hangs from beauty's ears,
Nor the bright stars, which night's blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns, that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such lustre, as the tear that breaks,
For other's wo, down virtue's manly cheeks.

6. Fear not when I depart; nor therefore mourn
I shall be nowhere, or to nothing turn;

That soul which gave me life was seen by none,
Yet by the actions it design'd was known;
And though its flight no mortal eye shall see,
Yet know, for ever it the same shall be;
That soul, which can immortal glory give
To her own virtues, must for ever live.

7. But most by numbers judge a poet's song;

And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong;

In the bright muse, though thousand charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire ;
Who haunt Parnassus but to please the ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
8. 'Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
Appear in writing, or in judging ill;
But, of the two, less dangerous is the offence
To tire our patience, than mislead our sense;
Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
Ten censure wrong, for one who writes amiss.
A fool might once himself alone expose;
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
9. Of chance or change, O let not man complain,
Else shall he never, never cease to wail;

For, from the imperial dome, to where the swain
Rears the lone cottage in the silent dale,
All feel the assault of fortune's fickle gale;
Art, empire, earth itself, to change are doom'd;
Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale,
And gulfs the mountain's mighty mass entomb'd,
And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloom d,
But sure to foreign climes we need not range,
Nor search the ancient records of our race,
To learn the dire effects of time and change,
Which in ourselves, alas! we daily trace.
Yet at the darken'd eye, the wither'd face,
Or hoary hair, I never will repine :

But spare, O Time, whate'er of mental grace,
Of candour, love, or sympathy divine,

Whate'er of fancy's ray or friendship's flame is mine.

ઈ

SECTION IV.

EXPRESSION OF IDEAS.

Let the Pupil express the ideas contained in the following passages, in sentences of his own construction and arrangement :

EXAMPLE.

When a man says, in conversation, that it is fine weather, does he mean to inform you of the fact? Surely not; for every one knows it as well as he does. He means to communicate his agreeable feelings.

Almost every one whom you meet by the way begins the conver sation by remarking, "It is a fine day." But when he does so, it is not because he supposes the fact known to him and not to you; he is merely giving expression to those agrecable feelings which the fineness of the weather excites.

EXERCISES.

1. The private path, the secret acts of men,
If noble, far the noblest of their lives.

2. Listen to the affectionate counsels of your parents; treasure up their precepts; respect their riper judgment; and enjoy, with gratitude and delight, the advantages resulting from their society. Bind to your bosom, by the most endearing ties, your brothers and sisters; cherish them as your best companions, through the variegated journey of life; and suffer no jealousies and contentions to interrupt the harmony, which should ever reign amongst you.

3. Nature expects mankind should share

The duties of the public care.

Who's born to sloth ? To some we find
The ploughshare's annual toil assign'd.
Some at the sounding anvil glow;
Some the swift-sliding shuttle throw;
Some, studious of the wind and tide,
From pole to pole our commerce guide;
While some, with genius more refined,
With head and tongue assist mankind.
Thus, aiming at one common end,

Each proves to all a needful friend.

4. Common reports, if ridiculous rather than dangerous, are best confuted by neglect. Seriously to endeavour a confutation, gives a suspicion of somewhat at bottom. Fame has much of the scold:

you silence her, if you be silent yourself. She will soon be out of breath with blowing her own trumpet.

5. As two young bears, in wanton mood,

Forth issuing from a neighb'ring wood,

Came where the industrious bees had stored,
In waxen cells, their luscious hoard;
O'erjoyed they seized, with eager haste,
Luxurious on the rich repast.

Alarm'd at this, the little crew
About their ears vindictive flew.
The beasts, unable to sustain

The unequal combat, quit the plain;
Half-blind with rage, and mad with pain,
Their native shelter they regain ;
There sit, and now discreeter grown,
Too late their rashness they bemoan;
And this by dear experience gain,

That pleasure's ever bought with pain.

6. That no man can promise himself perpetual exemption from suffering, is a truth obvious to daily observation. Nay, amid the shiftings of the scene in which we are placed, who can say that for one hour his happiness is secure? The openings through which we may be assailed are so numerous and unguarded, that the very next moment may see some messenger of pain piercing the bulwarks of our peace. Our body may become the seat of incurable disease: our mind may become a prey to unaccountable and imaginary fears: our fortune may sink in some of those revolutionary tempests, which overwhelm so often the treasures of the wealthy: our honours may wither on our brow, blasted by the slanderous breath of an enemy: our friends may prove faithless in the hour of need, or they may be separated from us for ever: our children, the fondest hope of our hearts, may be torn from us in their prime; or they may wound us still more deeply by their undutifulness and misconduct. Where then, in this uncertainty of worldly blessings, is the joy on earth, in which thou canst repose thy confidence? or what temporal defence canst thou rear against the inroads of adversity?

SECTION V.

EXPRESSION OF IDEAS (continued).

Let the Pupil abridge the following passages, expressing the ideas in sentences of his own construction and arrangement :