LESSON CCCLVI.- -DECEMBER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

My Lady's Album.

A PRETTY little volume, with a pretty little cover;
Arontispiece, o'er which two pretty little Cupids hover;
An acrostic on the pretty little owner of the book;
A portrait of a pretty little shepherd with a crook;
Some stanzas by a pretty little authoress of fame;
Some others by Eugenio, a pretty little name;
Two pretty little similes about a pair of eyes;
Three pretty little elegies, stuck full of pretty sighs;
A pretty little picture of a virgin in a grove;
A ditto of a pretty little gentleman in love-
Each smiling in the other's face as prettily as can be;
A pretty little tale in prose, like "Eloise or Granby;"
A pretty little pastoral, remarkably romantic;

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A ditto by a youngster who is manifestly frantic ;
Some pretty little music, rather hard to understand;
A pretty little Venus, with a turtle-dove in hand;
An Ode to Love, a thundering Pindaric on Despair-
Both pretty little touching manufactures, you may swear;
Two pretty little couplets on two pretty lips and small,
Which I never yet have kiss'd, and am afraid I never shall;
A pretty little sunset, full as red as any rose,

With verses like the twilight, made to lull you to repose;
Three pages upon nothing, but intended to be wit,
Reversing the old proverb of ex nihilo nil fit.

A pretty little storm, described in pretty little rhyme,
Which, but for its absurdity, would really be sublime;
A pretty little anagram; two riddles on a tear;
Three rebuses by one who is no conjuror, I fear;
A pretty little satire, inoffensive as a child;

A tempest in the Highlands, which looks anything but wild;
Four odes, as long as tailors' bills; a poem in blank verse-
(Exceeding blank); a fairy tale in Sapphics, which is worse;
A pretty little etching of Canova's Graces, merry all
And talkative, apparently, as mutes are at a burial;
A pretty little Adam, and a pretty little Eve-
(Quite a summer eve in beauty)—with a posy in her sleeve;
A pretty little story of a wild Italian bandit,

Exceedingly affecting, if one could but understand it;
Some pretty little flowers, and some pretty little shells,
Bepainted most divinely by some pretty London belles:
Dear reader, all these pretty little items, great and small,
Are a pretty little lady's, who is prettier than all.

DUKE OF GUISE.

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LESSON CCCLVII.

-DECEMBER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

Duke of Guise.

On this day, in 1588, was assassinated, in his thirty-eighth year, Henry de Lorraine, Duke of Guise. He was a good soldier, but of a turbulent temper; and formed the association called "The League," on the pretence of defending the Catholic religion, and the liberty of the state.

It is said, the Duke of Guise long controlled Henry III., and even was in open rebellion against him. The demands of the leaguers certainly became more and more audacious, and Henry evidently tottered on his throne. It was at length determined, in his council, to get rid, by assassination, of a subject too powerful to be legally dealt with as his treasonable designs merited.

Such an expedient was but too characteristic of those wretched times, and of the king who adopted it; yet few deeds of the kind have had more to plead in their justification.

Preparations were made for the enterprise, and the king himself distributed poniards to nine chosen men of his guards. Guise was not without warnings of the impending blow, and the evening before his death a billet was found under his napkin disclosing the plot. He read it, and cried, "They dare not." Nevertheless he consulted with his friends what should be done; and his brother the cardinal proposed, as the best mode of avoiding the threatened danger, to retire from Blois to Paris. But the discouragement his party would receive from such a step being represented to him, he resolved to run all hazards.

He went to the presence-chamber, and was somewhat surprised to see the guard doubled. As he entered, the door was shut after him. He proceeded with an unruffled countenance to the cabinet-door, where he was suddenly pierced with several stabs. He fell, and, exclaiming, "My God, have mercy upon me!" instantly expired. The Cardinal de Guise was seized and put to death the next day. Their bodies were consumed lest the people should make relics of their remains.

1. Who was assassinated on this day, in 1588?
2. What was determined in the council?

3. What did his brother, the cardinal, propose ?
4. What became of their bodies?

LESSON CCCLVIII.

DECEMBER THE TWENTY-FOURTH.

Robin Hood.

On this day, in the year 1247, died the celebrated Robin Hood. This famous outlaw and deer-stealer was captain of a notorious band of robbers, who infested the forest of Sherwood, and thence made excursions to many parts of England in search of booty, but never proceeded to acts of cruelty, except in his own defence.

He was a man of family, which by his pedigree appears to have had some title to the earldom of Huntingdon. The era in which he played his pranks was the end of the twelfth century.

Robin Hood was famous for archery, and for his treatment of all travellers who came in his way; levying contributions on the rich, and relieving the poor. Falling sick at last, and requiring to be blooded, he is said to have been betrayed and bled to death. He was buried at Kirlees, in Yorkshire, then a Benedictine monastery, where his gravestone is still shown.

Sherwood is a spacious forest in the west part of Nottinghamshire, and formerly occupied the greatest part of it. It was so thick that it was hardly passable; but during the last half century much of it has been cleared, and its extent is greatly contracted.

The forest now feeds a vast number of deer and stags, and has some towns in it, of which Mansfield is the chief. It abounds in coal, and a road lies through it for thirty miles together. Since the time of Edward I. the nobility and gentry have had grants of it.

1. Who died on this day, in 1247 ?

2. What forest did he infest ?

3. To what family does he appear to have had some title?

4. For what was he famous ?

5. Where was he buried ?

LESSON CCCLIX.

DECEMBER THE TWENTY-FIFTH.

Christmas-Day.

THE feast of our Saviour's Nativity is named ChristmasDay, from the Latin Christi Missa, the Mass of Christ; and thence the Roman Catholic Liturgy is termed their Missal or Mass-Book. In the primitive church this day was usually preceded by an eve or vigil. When the devo

THE PLANETARY BODIES.

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tion of the eve was completed, our forefathers used to light up candles of an uncommon size, which were called Christmas-candles, and to lay a log of wood upon the fire, called the yule-clog or log.

To God let fervent prayers arise

With every daily sacrifice,

The Great Messiah's reign to spread,
And with new honours crown his head.

Soon may he reign where'er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

Great God! may realms of every tongue
Dwell on thy love with sweetest song;
And with united hearts proclaim
That grace and truth by Jesus came.

Blessings abound where'er he reigns;
The prisoner leaps to lose his chains:
The weary find eternal rest,

And contrite hearts with peace are blest.

Where he displays his healing power,
The sting of death is known no more;
In him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost.

Parent of good! to thee we trace

These boundless stores of richest grace;
All have their source in love divine;

And be the praise and glory thine!

1. From what does the anniversary of Our Saviour's Nativity derive the title of Christmas-Day?

2. What was customary in the primitive Christian church on this occasion ?

LESSON CCCLX.

DECEMBER THE TWENTY-SIXTH.

The Planetary Bodies.

THE planets are opaque bodies, which receive their light from the sun; and they are distinguished from the fixed stars, not only by their motion or revolution, but by their not twinkling. The elements of a planet are, 1. its mean distance; 2. its sidereal period; 3. eccentricity; 4. its inclination; 5. place of node; 6. longitude; and 7. its own longitude at a fixed time.

MOTION OF THE PLANETS. Each of the primary planets bend their course about the centre of the sun, and are

accelerated in their motions as they approach to him, and retarded as they recede from him; so that a ray, drawn from any one of them to the sun, always describes equal spaces or areas in equal times: whence it follows, that the power which bends their way into a curve line must be directed to the sun. This power is no other than that of gravitation, which increases according as the square of the planet's distance from the sun decreases.

The universality of this law still farther appears by comparing the motions of the different planets: for the power which acts on a planet near the sun is manifestly greater than that which acts on a planet more remote; both because it moves with greater velocity, and because it moves in a lesser orbit, which has more curvature, and separates farther from its tangent, in arcs of the same length, than in a greater orbit.

To convey some idea of the space occupied by the planetary system, if, indeed, the idea of space so vast be capable of comprehension sufficiently clear to have its due effect on the mind, it may be observed that the sun, which occupies so small a portion of that space, is a million times larger than the earth.

Huygens, one of the most expert astronomers of the last century, calculated the time in which a cannon-ball would run over the space between the earth and the sun, and between the sun and the upper planets, and thence to the fixed stars; and offers experiments to prove that it runs the first hundred fathoms in a second. Continuing to move with the same velocity, it will traverse three leagues in a minute, one hundred and eighty in an hour, and four thousand three hundred and twenty in a day; and therefore, judging upon astronomical principles of the several distances required, and dividing them by the space so overrun in a given time, this philosopher concludes that the ball must take up twenty-five years in passing from the sun to the earth; one hundred and twenty-five in passing from the sun to Jupiter; and two hundred and fifty in reaching Saturn.

But, how astonishing soever these distances may be, they are trivial compared with that of the fixed stars. Those bodies, which appear only as points in the firmament, and of which millions escape our sight, are considered the centres of systems-suns, round which planets revolve. What then must be their distance, since all this multitude of suns shed so small a portion of light on the planet to which we belong?