23. SPRING.

Is this a time to be gloomy and sad,

When our mother Nature laughs around,
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,

And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

The clouds are at play in the azure space,

And their shadows at play on the bright green vale;
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that reflects his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;

Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

--W. C. Bryant.

24. The human voice is to be considered as a musical instrument-an organ; constructed by the hand of the Great Master of all Harmony. It has its bellows, its pipe, its mouth-piece; and when we know the " stops" "it will discourse most eloquent music." It has its gamut, or scale of ascent and descent; it has its keys or pitch, its tones, its semitones, its bass, its tenor, its alt, its melody, its cadence. It can speak as gently as the lute, "like the sweet south upon a bed of violets," or as shrilly as the trumpet; it can tune the "silver sweet" note of love, and "the iron throat of war;" in fine, it may be modulated by art to any sound of softness or of strength, of gentleness or harshness, of harmony or discord. And the art that wins this music from the strings is elocution. The niceties and refinements of this art are to be acquired, step by step, by well-directed practice.

25. Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle,
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;

Where the light wings of zephyr, oppressed with perfume;

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom;

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute,

Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,
In color though varied, in beauty may vie,

And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye;

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?

'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the sun-

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?
Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell

Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

-Byron.

26. MARULLUS TO THE ROMANS.

Wherefore rejoice that Cæsar comes in triumph?
What glorious conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome.

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts! you cruel men of Rome !

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day with patient expectation
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not raised a universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way,

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?

Begone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude!

-Shakespeare.

The student should be required, first, to write all the words liable to be mispronounced; secondly, all the emphatic words; thirdly, to mark inflections; and, finally, to read the following article for criticism by the teacher.

NATURE'S TEACHING.

1. Nature does not spread for man a soft couch to lull him to repose; nor does she set around that couch abundant supplies which it requires only the stretching out of his hand to obtain. For the animal races she does so provide. She prepares food and clothing for them, with little care of theirs. She spreads their table, for which no cookery is needed; she weaves and fits their garments without loom or needle; and her trees and caves and rocks are their habitations.

2. Yet man is said to be her favorite, and so he is; but thus does she deal with her favorite: she turns him out naked, cold and shivering upon the earth; with needs that admit of no compromise; with a delicate frame that cannot lie upon the bare ground an hour, but must have immediate protection; with a hunger that cannot procrastinate the needed supply, but must be fed to-day and every day; and now, why is all this?

3. I suppose, if man could have made of the earth a bed, and if an apple or a chestnut a day could have sufficed him for food, he would have got his barrel of apples or his bushel of chestnuts and lain down upon the earth and done nothing--till the stock was gone.

4. But nature will not permit this. I say, will not permit it. For hers is no voluntary system. She has taken a bond of man for the fulfilment of one of her primary objects--his activity; because, if he were left to indolence, all were lost. That bond is as strong as her own ribbed rocks, and close pressing upon man as the very flesh in which it is folded and sealed.

5. So is this solid and insensible world filled with meaning to him; the blind and voiceless elements [seem to look upon him and speak to him; and the dark clothing of flesh and sense which is wrapped around him, becomes a network of moral tissues; and everything says: "Arouse thyself! up and be doing! for nature, the system of things, will not have thee here on any other terms."

6. But what, again, does nature demand of this activity? The answer is, discretion. Immediately and inevitably a principle of intelligence is infused into this activity. Immediately the agent becomes a pupil. Nature all around says even to infancy--what all human speech says to it" take

care!" It is, all over the world, the first phrase of the parent's teaching, the first of the child's learning—“take care!"

7. And this phrase but interprets what nature says to all her children. Not as an all-indulgent mother does she receive them to her lap, but with a certain matronly sobriety, ay, and "the graver countenance of love”— saying, "take care-smooth paths are not around thee, but stones and stubs, thorns and briers; soft elements alone do not enbosom thee, but drenching rains will visit thee, and chilling dews, and winter's blast, and summer's heat; harmless things are not these around thee, but, see! here is fire that may burn, and water that may drown; here are unseen damps and secret poisons, the rough bark of trees and sharp points of contact. Thou must learn, or thou must suffer."

In

8. Ay, suffer! What human school has a discipline like nature's ? these schools we are apt to think that punishments are cruel and degrading. But nature has whips and stripes for the negligent.

9. Her discipline strikes deep; it stamps itself upon the human frame— and upon what a frame! All softness, all delicacy; not clothed with the mail of leviathan, nor endowed with interior organs like those of the ostrich or the whale, and yet a frame strong with care, while weakest of all things without it.

10. What a wonderful organ, in this view, is the human stomach ! the main source of energy to the system, strong enough to digest iron and steel, working like some powerful machine, and yet, do you let it be overworked or otherwise injured, and it is the most delicate and susceptible of all things--trembling like an aspen leaf at every agitation, and sinking and fainting under a feather's weight of food or drink. What a system, in this view, is that of the nerves, insensible as leathern thongs in their healthtrembling cords of agony in their disease!

11. Do you not see the wonder which nature and humanity thus present to us? Do you not see man as a frail and delicate child, cast into the bosom of universal teaching? Ay, that teaching comes out to him in. tongues of flame, and it penetrates his hand in the little, seemingly useless. thorn, and it assails his foot with stones of stumbling, and it flashes into his eyes with the light of day; and it broods over his path with the darkness of night; and it sweeps around his head with the wings of the tempest; and it startles him to awe and fear with the crash of thunder. The universe is not more filled with light and air and solid matter, than it is. filled and crowded with wisdom and instruction.

--Adapted from Orville Dewey

MONOTONE.

Monotone is the utterance of successive words or syllables on one unvaried key.

It is employed to express repose of feeling or scene, vastness of thought, veneration, and the over-awing sublimity of grandeur. But even monotone has its expression, and a perfect sameness is rarely to be observed in the delivery of any passage, although very little variety of tone will be used in prose or verse which contains elevated description or emotions of sublimity, solemnity, etc. The monotone is often employed in reading passages on which it is especially desired to fix the attention. By a departure from the ordinary style of reading to the monotone, a passage is rendered peculiarly expressive.

EXAMPLES.

1. Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?

2. O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers ·
Whence are thy beams, O sun, thy everlasting light?

3. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.

Blessing, honor, glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever

4.

Let Thy word control

The earthquakes of that universe- the soul;

Pervade the depths of passion-speak once more

The mighty mandate, guard of every shore
"Here shall thy waves be stayed."

5. Yet should we mourn thee in thy blest abode,
But for that thought "It is the will of God!"