spearienne, lui prend fortement le bras et lui dit: "Général, aimez-vous la chasse?" Cette question inattendue laisse le général embarrassé. "Eh bien, si vous aimez la chasse, avez-vous chassé quelquefois aux canards sauvages? C'est une chose difficile, une proie qu'on attrape guère, et qui flaire de loin le fusil du chasseur. Eh bien, je suis un de ces oiseaux, je me suis fait canard sauvage." En même temps il fuit à l'autre bout du salon, et laisse le vainqueur d'Arcole et de Lodi fort étonné de cette incartade.

-VILLEMAIN, Littérature française au xviiie siècle.

B. Translate into French :

The Old Man and his Ass.

An old man and a little boy were driving an ass to the next market to sell. "What a fool is this fellow," says a man upon the road, "to be trudging it on foot with his son, that his ass may go light!" The old man hearing this, set his boy upon the ass, and went whistling by the side of him. "Why, sirrah!" cried a second man to the boy, "is it fit for you to be riding while your poor old father is walking on foot?" The father, upon this rebuke, took down his boy from the ass, and mounted himself. "Do you see," says a third, "how the lazy old knave rides along upon his beast, while his poor little boy is almost crippled with walking?" The old man no sooner heard this, than he took up his son behind him. "Pray, honest friend," says a fourth, "is that ass your own?"- "Yes," says the man.- "One would not have thought so,” replied the other, "by your loading him so unmercifully. You and your son are better able to carry the poor beast than he you."-" Anything to please," says the owner, and, alighting with his son, they tied the legs of the ass together, and by the help of a pole, endeavoured to carry him upon their shoulders over the bridge that led to the town. This was so entertaining a sight, that the people

ran in crowds to laugh at it, till the ass, conceiving a dislike to the over-complaisance of his master, burst asunder the cords that tied him, slipped from the pole, and tumbled into the river. The poor old man made the best of his way home, ashamed and vexed that, by endeavouring to please everybody, he had pleased nobody, and lost his ass into the bargain.-H. WALPOLE.

C. Translate into English:

BOILEAU, Sat. iii.

(N.B.-Same piece as that given in October, 1844.)

D. Translate into French :

But though religion is very kind to all men, it has promised peculiar rewards to the unhappy; the sick, the naked, the houseless, the heavy-laden, and the prisoner have ever most frequent promises in our sacred law. The Author of our religion everywhere professes himself the wretch's friend, and, unlike the false ones of this world, bestows all his caresses upon the forlorn. The unthinking have censured this as partiality, as a preference without merit to deserve it. But they never reflect that it is not in the power, even of Heaven itself, to make the offer of unceasing felicity as great a gift to the happy as to the miserable. To the first, eternity is but a single blessing, since, at most, it but increases what they already possess. To the latter, it is a double advantage; for it diminishes their pain here, and rewards them with heavenly bliss hereafter.

But Providence is in another respect kinder to the poor than to the rich; for as it thus makes the life after death more desirable, so it smooths the passage there. The wretched have had a long familiarity with every face of terror. The man of sorrow lays himself quietly down, with

no possessions to regret, and but few ties to stop his departure; he feels only nature's pang in the final separation, and this is no way greater than he has often fainted under before; for, after a certain degree of pain, every new breach that death opens in the constitution, nature kindly covers with insensibility.

Thus Providence has given to the wretched two advantages over the happy in this life-greater felicity in dying, and in heaven all that superiority of pleasure which arises from contrasted enjoyment. And this superiority, my friends, is no small advantage, and seems to be one of the pleasures of the poor man in the parable; for, though he was already in heaven, and felt all the raptures it could give, yet it was mentioned as an addition to his happiness, that he had once been wretched, and now was comforted; that he had known what it was to be miserable, and now felt what it was to be happy.

Thus, my friends, you see religion does what philosophy could never do it shows the equal dealings of Heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all human enjoyments to nearly the same standard. It gives to both rich and poor the same happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire after it; but if the rich have the advantage of enjoying pleasure here, the poor have the endless satisfaction of knowing what it was once to be miserable, when crowned with endless felicity hereafter; and even though this should be called a small advantage, yet, being an eternal one, it must make up by duration what the temporal happiness of the great may have exceeded by intenseness.

-GOLDSMITH.

FIRST B.A. PASS EXAMINATIONS.

JULY, 1859.

Examiner-ANTONIN ROCHE, Esq.

A. Translate into English:

Histoire des Sept Dormeurs.

Sous l'empire des Décius, sept jeunes nobles d'Ephèse, chrétiens et persécutés, se cachèrent dans une caverne pour éviter la mort; le tyran la fit murer. Dieu, protégeant ces jeunes martyrs, les plongea dans un profond sommeil, qui dura cent quatre-vingt-sept ans, et qui finit lorsque Pulchérie et Theódose II. occupaient le trône d'Orient. À cette époque, le propriétaire de la montagne où se trouvait cette caverne, en fit extraire des pierres pour construire un bâtiment. Le jour pénètre dans le souterrain. Les dormeurs s'éveillent, croyant ne s'être reposés que quelques heures. Jamblius, l'un d'eux, se charge d'aller à la ville chercher des provisions. Il ne reconnaît plus ni l'aspect de la contrée ni les traits de ses habitants; il approche d'Ephèse, et voit avec autant de joie que de surprise la croix briller sur le faîte des temples. En entrant chez un boulanger, il étale, pour le payer, plusieurs pièces de monnaie frappées au coin de Décius. Le boulanger s'en étonne, les voisins accourent, la multitude s'attroupe; on le traîne devant le juge, croyant qu'il a découvert un trésor.