XXIV. SHORT SELECTIONS IN PROSE.

I. DRYDEN AND POPE.

DRYDEN knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, more certainty in that of Pope. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is the velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and leveled by the roller. If the flights of Dryden are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If, of Dryden's fire, the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.

-Samuel Johnson.

NOTE.-A fine example of antithesis. See p. 26.

II. LAS CASAS DISSUADING FROM BATTLE.

Is then the dreadful measure of your cruelty not yet complete? Battle! against whom? Against a king, in whose mild bosom your atrocious injuries, even yet, have not excited hate; but who, insulted or victorious, still sues for peace. Against a people, who never wronged the living being their Creator formed; a people, who received you as cherished guests, with eager hospitality and confiding kindness. Generously and freely did they share with you their comforts, their treasures, and their homes; you repaid them by fraud, oppression, and dishonor.

Pizarro, hear me! Hear me, chieftains! And thou, All-powerful! whose thunder can shiver into sand the adamantine rock, whose lightnings can pierce the core of the riven and quaking earth, oh let thy power give effect to thy servant's words, as thy Spirit gives courage to his will! Do not, I implore you, chieftains,-do not, I implore you, renew the foul barbarities your insatiate avarice has inflicted on this wretched, unoffending race. But hush, my sighs! fall not, ye drops of useless sorrow! anguish, choke not my utterance.

NOTE.-Examples of series. See p. 28.

heart-breaking

-R. B. Sheridan.

III. ACTION AND REPOSE.

John Ruskin, 1819 is a distinguished English art critic and author. From 1869 to 1884, he was Professor of the Fine Arts at Oxford University. His writings are very numerous, and are noted for their eloquent and brilliant style.

About the river of human life there is a wintry wind, though a heavenly sunshine; the iris colors its agitation, the frost fixes upon its repose. Let us beware that our rest become not the rest of stones, which, so long as they are tempest-tossed and thunderstricken, maintain their majesty; but when the stream is silent and the storm passed, suffer the grass to cover them, and are plowed into the dust.

IV. TIME AND CHANGE.

Sir Humphry Davy, 1778-1829, was an eminent chemist of England. He made many important chemical discoveries, and was the inventor of the miner's safety lamp.

Time is almost a human word, and Change entirely a human idea; in the system of nature, we should rather say progress than change. The sun appears to sink in the ocean in darkness, but it rises in another hemisphere; the

ruins of a city fall, but they are often used to form more magnificent structures: even when they are destroyed so as to produce only dust, Nature asserts her empire over them; and the vegetable world rises in constant youth, in a period of annual successions, by the labors of manproviding food, vitality, and beauty-upon the wrecks of monuments which were raised for the purposes of glory, but which are now applied to objects of utility.

V. THE POET.

William Ellery Channing, 1780-1842, was a distinguished clergyman and orator. He took a leading part in the public affairs of his day, and wrote and lectured eloquently on several topics.

It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys; and in this he does well, for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being.

VI. MOUNTAINS.

William Howitt, 1795-1879, was an English author. He published many books, and was associated with his wife, Mary Howitt, in the publication of many others.

There is a charm connected with mountains, so powerful that the merest mention of them, the merest sketch of their magnificent features, kindles the imagination, and carries the spirit at once into the bosom of their enchanted regions. How the mind is filled with their vast solitude! How the inward eye is fixed on their silent, their sublime, their everlasting peaks! How our hearts

bound to the music of their solitary cries, to the tinkle of their gushing rills, to the sound of their cataracts! How inspiriting are the odors that breathe from the upland turf, from the rock-hung flower, from the hoary and solemn pine! How beautiful are those lights and shadows thrown abroad, and that fine, transparent haze which is diffused over the valleys and lower slopes, as over a vast, inimitable picture!

XXV. THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE.

George Arnold, 1834-1865, was born in New York City. He never attended school, but was educated at home, by his parents. His literary career occupied a period of about twelve years. In this time he wrote stories, essays, criticisms in art and literature, poems, sketches, etc., for several periodicals. Two volumes of his poems have been published since his death.

"T WAS a jolly old pedagogue, long ago,

Tall, and slender, and sallow, and dry;
His form was bent, and his gait was slow,
And his long, thin hair was white as snow,
But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye:
And he sang every night as he went to bed,
"Let us be happy down here below;

The living should live, though the dead be dead,"
Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He taught the scholars the Rule of Three,
Reading, and writing, and history too;
He took the little ones on his knee,

For a kind old heart in his breast had he,

And the wants of the littlest child he knew. "Learn while you're young," he often said,

"There is much to enjoy down here below; Life for the living, and rest for the dead!" Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

With the stupidest boys, he was kind and cool,
Speaking only in gentlest tones;

The rod was scarcely known in his school-
Whipping to him was a barbarous rule,

And too hard work for his poor old bones;
Besides it was painful, he sometimes said:

"We should make life pleasant down here belowThe living need charity more than the dead," Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane,
With roses and woodbine over the door;
His rooms were quiet, and neat, and plain,
But a spirit of comfort there held reign,

And made him forget he was old and poor. "I need so little," he often said;

"And my friends and relatives here below Won't litigate over me when I am dead," Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

But the pleasantest times he had of all,
Were the sociable hours he used to pass,
With his chair tipped back to a neighbor's wall,
Making an unceremonious call,

Over a pipe and a friendly glass:
This was the finest pleasure, he said,

Of the many he tasted here below:

"Who has no cronies had better be dead," Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago.

The jolly old pedagogue's wrinkled face
Melted all over in sunshiny smiles;
He stirred his glass with an old-school grace,
Chuckled, and sipped, and prattled apace,

Till the house grew merry from cellar to tiles.