128. The Antiquity of the Globe (Hugh Miller) 129. Winter in London (Douglas Ferrold) PART III. 134. The Pecksniffs' Visit to Miss Pinch (Dickens) 135. The Flying Stars of 1866 156. The Encounter of Braveand the Panther (Fenimore Cooper) 239 157. Character of Mr. Pitt (Grattan) . . 253 The words printed in black type are those under which the grammatical, idiomatic, or other difficulties are explained in the Vocabulary. THE GRADUATED BOOK OF TRANSLATION FROM ENGLISH INTO FRENCH. SENIOR COURSE. 1. ANIMAL COURAGE INFERIOR TO MORAL BRAVERY. Mere animal courage is often associated with the worst vices. The most wonderful examples of it may be found in the history of pirates and robbers, whose fearlessness is generally proportioned to the insensibility of their consciences, and to the enormity of their crimes. Military courage is easily attained by the most debased and unprincipled men, who may be brave from the absence of all reflection; prodigal of life, because their vices have robbed life of its blessings, and especially brave because the sword of martial law is hanging over their heads. If war be a blessing because it awakens energy and courage, then the savage state is peculiarly privileged, for every savage is a soldier. On the same principle those early periods of society were happy, when men were called to contend, not only with one another, but with beasts of prey; for to these excitements we owe the heroism of Hercules and Theseus. On the same principle the feudal ages were more favoured than the present. We need not war to awaken human energy. There is at least equal scope for courage and magnanimity in blessing, as in destroying mankind. The condition of the human race offers inexhaustible objects for enterprise and fortitude and magnanimity. In relieving the countless wants and sorrows of the world, in exploring unknown regions, in carrying the arts and virtues of civilisation to unimproved communities, in extending the B bounds of knowledge, in diffusing the spirit of freedom, how much may be dared, how much endured! Philanthropy invites us to services which demand the most intense, and elevated, and resolute, and adventurous activity. Let it not be imagined that were nations imbued with the spirit of humanity they would slumber in ignoble ease; that instead of the high-minded murderers who are formed on the present system of war, we should have effeminate and timid slaves. Human benevolence is as active as it is forbearing. It will give a new extension to the heart, open a wider sphere to enterprise, inspire a courage of exhaustless resource, and prompt to every sacrifice and exposure for the improvement and happiness of the human race. Away then with the argument that war is needed as a nursery of heroism.-The Globe. 2. THE GOOD OLD TIMES. Even The condition, even of internal trade, was hardly preferable to that of agriculture. There is not a vestige, perhaps, to be discovered for several centuries of any considerable manufacture; I mean of working up articles of common utility to an extent beyond what the necessities of an adjacent district required. Rich men kept domestic artisans among their servants. kings, in the ninth century, had their clothes made by the women upon their farms. But the peasantry must have been supplied with garments and implements of labour by purchase; and every town, it cannot be doubted, had its weaver and its smith. But there were almost insuperable impediments to an extended traffic: the insecurity of moveable wealth and difficulty of accumulating it; the ignorance of mutual wants; the peril of robbery in conveying merchandise, and the certainty of extortion. In the domains of every lord a toll was paid in passing his bridge, or along his highway, or at his market. These customs, equitable and necessary in their principle, became, in practice, oppressive, because they were arbitrary, and renewed in every petty territory which the road might intersect. Several of Charlemagne's capitularies repeat complaints of these exactions. One of them rather amusingly illustrates the modesty and moderation of the landholders. It is enacted that no one shall be compelled to go out of his way in order to pay toll at a particular bridge when he can cross the river more conveniently at another place. ... It was only the milder species, however, of feudal lords who were content with the tribute of the merchants. The more ravenous descended from their fortresses to pillage the wealthy traveller, or shared in the spoils of inferior plunderers, whom they both protected and instigated. Proofs occur, even in the latter periods of the Middle Ages, when civilisation had made considerable progress, of public robberies systematically perpetrated by men of noble rank.-Hallam. 3. ALGIERS. I am certain there is not a healthier, cheerfuller place between Gibraltar and the Dardanelles but the number of English tourists here is wofully limited. The colony of our countrymen does not-consul-general, merchants, and all included-exceed forty, if it reaches that number; and the floating English population, even at this exceptional time, does not number five-and-twenty persons. There are handsome hotels, new, cheap, and scrupulously clean, waiting for English patronage; there is, or there was lately, and there will be again, an excellent English medical man; there is a fund of amusement for idlers, of sketching ground for artists, of materials for study and research, for linguists and archæologists. The country is crammed with Roman relics. There is the East again, the sunshiny, mysterious, dreamy East, as glowing and picturesque as you could wish to have it, but swept and garnished and kept in order by an efficient police and a large European garrison, and all within four and a half days' journey from Charing Cross. Nothing can be more comfortable than the railway from Paris to Marseilles-you can break the journey if you please at Lyons, and take a run to Geneva; the steamers of the Messageries Impériales are swift and serviceable, English-built and English-engined; the arrangements on board are admirable; the Custom House officers at Algiers, when you produce the keys of your trunk, make you a low bow, and, hinting that you must be fatigued with your journey, dispense with the ceremony of examining your luggage; there is nobody to worry you about passports. The city is well drained, |