So long beneath its eddies, They shall not-shall not have it, From minstrel's lips and hands. Till, buried 'neath its surges, Our last man's bones recline. BECKER. XXIV. THE POET'S WISH. "CERTAINLY in no heart did the love of country ever burn with a warmer glow than in that of Burns: 'a tide of Scottish prejudice,' as he modestly calls this deep and generous feeling, 'had been poured along his veins; and he felt that it would boil there till the floodgates shut in eternal rest." It seemed to him, as if he could do so little for his country, and yet would so gladly have done all."-Carlyle. A WISH (I mind its power), A wish, that to my latest hour The rough bur Thistle spreading wide I turned the weeder-clips aside, BURNS. HOME HAPPINESS. 111 XXV. HOME HAPPINESS. "A CELEBRATED ancient orator, of whose poems we have but a few fragments remaining, has well described the progressive order in which human society is gradually led to its highest improvements, under the guardianship of those laws which secure property and regulate marriage. These two great institutions convert the selfish as well as the social passions of our nature into the firmest bands of a peaceable and orderly intercourse; they change the sources of discord into principles of quiet; they discipline the most ungovernable, they refine the grossest, and they exalt the most sordid propensities; so that they become the perpetual fountain of all that strengthens, and preserves, and adorns society: they sustain the individual, and they perpetuate the race. Around these institutions all our social duties will be found at various distances to range themselves: some more near, obviously essential to the good order of human life; others more remote, and of which the necessity is not at first view so apparent; and some so distant, that their importance has been sometimes doubted, though upon more mature consideration they will be found to be outposts and advanced guards of these fundamental principles-that man should securely enjoy the fruits of his labour, and that the society of the sexes should be so wisely ordered, as to make it a school of the kind affections, and a fit nursery for the commonwealth."-Mackintosh. HAPPY they! the happiest of their kind! Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend. Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind, That binds their peace, but harmony itself, Attuning all their passions into love, Where friendship full exerts her softest power, Ineffable,' and sympathy of soul: Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will, What is the world to them, Its pomp, its pleasure, and its nonsense all! The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom. Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books, To scenes where love and bliss immortal reign. THOMSON. 1. Ineffable, what cannot be described | so as to assist and guide, or so as to stop by language. 2. Let the double meaning of the word be considered. To prevent is to go before, up the way and hinder. Can you quote any other instance of the word being used in the same sense as it has in this passage? XXVI. THE SWISS PATRIOT'S PASSWORD. "THE Swiss [at the battle of Sempach, 1386] had nothing but boards attached to their left arms by way of bucklers, but charged manfully notwithstanding their rude accoutrements, in reliance on their God, and in the cause of their country. Their leaders fought in front of the battle, and many of them soon fell before the levelled spears of the enemy. It was then that Arnold of Winkelried, a knight of Unterwalden (for the chivalry was not all on one side), resolved by his heroic death to render an imperishable service to his fatherland. Exclaiming, 'I THE SWISS PATRIOT'S PASSWORD. 113 will make way for you, confederates-provide for my wife and children -honour my race!' he rushed upon the spears, and grasping several with his arms, he bore them to the ground with the weight of his body, over which the confederates forced their way through the broken ranks of the enemy, who were unable to manoeuvre from the closeness of their array, and half smothered under the sultry summer's sun in their ponderous armour."-History of Switzerland; Lardner's Cab. Cyclo. "MAKE way for Liberty !" he cried, "Make way for Liberty!" and died. In arms the Austrian phalanx1 stood, A living wall, a human wood; Impregnable their front appears, All horrent with projected spears. Opposed to these, a hovering band Contended for their fatherland; Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke3 From manly necks the ignoble yoke; Marshalled once more at Freedom's call, They came to conquer or to fall. And now the work of life and death Yet, while the Austrians held their ground, Few were the numbers she could boast ;5 And felt as 'twere a secret known That one should turn the scale alone ; While each unto himself was he On whose sole arm hung victory. It did depend on one indeed; There sounds not to the trump of Fame Unmarked, he stood amid the throng, Till you might see, with sudden grace, Tell where the bolt would strike, and how. Rout, ruin, panic, seized them all: Thus Switzerland again was free; 1. Phalanx is a Greek word, and it here means a body of soldiers formed in ranks close and deep, so that it can with great difficulty be broken. 2. Horrent is a word borrowed from Milton, who uses the phrase "horrent arms" in the sense of standing on end MONTGOMERY. and bristling, and hence terrible or dangerous. 3. Is broke in any way objectionable here? 4. What is the meaning of this line? 5. The numbers on the side of the Swiss were 1,400, while the Austrians amounted to over 4,000. XXVII. THE PATRIOT'S PRAYER FOR ENGLAND. "He is justly counted a benefactor to his nation who has been able to open to its industry new fields of supply, and to open to the products |