scene of splendor, festivity, and happiness-in one moment withered as by a spell. - its palaces, its streets, its temples, its gardens glowing with eternal spring, and its inhabitants in the full enjoyment of life's blessings, obliterated from their very place in creation, not by war, or famine, or disease, or any of the natural causes of destruction to which earth had been accustomed-but in a single night, as if by magic, and amid the conflagration, as it were, of nature itself, presented a subject on which the wildest imagination might grow weary, without even equalling the grand and terrible reality.

666. And thou, oh silent form, alone and bare, whom as I lift again my head, bowed low in silent adoration, I again behold, and to thy summit upward from thy base sweep slowly, with dim eyes suffused with tears, AWAKE THOU MOUNTAIN FORM.

667. Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven, if in your bright leaves we would read the fate of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven, that in our aspirations to be great, our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, and claim a kindred with you; for ye are a beauty and a mystery, and create in us such love and reverence from afar, that fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

668. A few hours more, and she will move in stately grandeur on, cleaving her path majestic through the flood, as if she were a goddess of the deep.

669. Falsely luxurious, will not man awake, and springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy the cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour, to meditation due and sacred song.

670. For is there aught in sleep, can charm the wise? To lie in dead oblivion, losing half the fleeting moments of too short a life; — total extinction of the enlightened soul! Or else to feverish vanity alive, wildered and tossing through distempered dreams.

671. But yonder COMES the powerful KING OF DAY, rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud, the kindling azure, and the mountain's brow illumed with fleeced gold, his near approach betoken glad. LO, NOW APPARENT ALL, aslant the dew-bright and colored air, he looks in boundless MAJESTY abroad, and sheds the shining day, that burnished plays on rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams, HIGH GLEAMING

FROM AFAR.

672. PRIME CHEERER, LIGHT! of all material beings FIRST AND BEST; EFFLUX DIVINE, NATURE'S RESPLENDENT ROBE! without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt in unessential gloom; and THOU, OH SUN! SOUL of surrounding WORLDS! in whom best seen shines out thy Maker-may I sing of thee?

673. 'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force, as with a chain indissoluble bound, thy system rolls entire; from the far bourn of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk can scarce be caught by philosophic eye, lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.

674. And thus, in silent waiting, stood the piles of stone and piles of wood; TILL DEATH, who in his vast affairs, ne'er puts things off — as men in theirs and thus, if I the truth must tell, does his work FINALLY and WELL, WINKED at our hero as he passed, "Your house is finished Sir, at last; a narrower house a house of clay -your palace for another day."

675. The smoothness of flattery cannot Now avail cannot SAVE us in this rugged and awful crisis.

676. What PROFIT hath a man of all his labor, which he taketh under the sun.

677. IS there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? The thing which HAS been, it is that which shall be, and that which IS done, is that which SHALL be done, and there is no NEW thing under the

sun.

678. THOU, glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form glasses itself in tempests, in ALL time, calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm, icing the pole, or in the torrid clime dark heaving, BOUNDLESS, ENDLESS, and SUBLIME. the image of Eternity the throne of the Invisible; even from out thy slime, the monsters of the deep are made; each zone obeys thee — thou goest forth, DREAD, FATHOMLESS, ALONE.

679. CENTRE of LIGHT AND ENERGY! thy way is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne, morning and evening, and at noon of day, far in the blue, untended and alone: Ere the first wakened airs of earth had blown, on didst thou march, triumphant in thy light. Then didst thou send thy glance, which still hath flown

wide through the never-ending worlds of night; and yet thy full orb burns with flash unquenched and bright.

680. In thee, FIRST LIGHT, the bounding ocean smiles, when the quick winds uprear it in a swell, that rolls in glittering green around the isles, where everspringing fruits and blossoms dwell.

681 THINE are the MOUNTAINS,—where they purely lift snows that have never wasted, in a sky which hath no stain; below the storm may drift its darkness, and the thunder-gust roar by ; — ALOFT, in thy eternal smile, they lie, DAZZLING but COLD;-thy farewell glance looks there, and when below thy hues of beauty die, girt round them as a rosy belt, they bear into the high dark vault, a brow that still is fair.

682. May THE LIKE SERENITY, in such dreadful circumstances, and a DEATH EQUALLY GLORIOUS, be the lot of all whom TYRANNY, of whatever denomination or description, SHALL, in any age, or in any country, CALL to expiate their virtues on the scaffold.

683. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a MOMENT, in the TWINKLING of an EYE, AT the LAST TRUMP; for the trumpet shall sound; and the dead be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written DEATH

IS SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY.

684. OH WINTER! RULER OF THE INVERTED YEAR! thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled, thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks fringed with a beard made white with other snows than those of age, thy forehead wrapt in clouds, a leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne a sliding car, indebted to no wheels, but urged by storms along its slippery way, I LOVE THEE, all UNLOVELY as thou seem'st, and DREADED as thou ART.

685. Lo! the unlettered hind, who never knew to raise his mind excursive to the heights of abstract contemplation, as he sits, on the green hillock by the hedge-row side, what time the insect swarms are murmuring, and marks in

silent thought, the broken clouds, that fringe, with loveliest hues, the evening sky, feels in his soul the hand of nature rouse the thrill of gratitude, to him who formed the goodly prospect; he beholds the God throned in the west; and his reposing ear hears sounds angelic in the fitful breeze, that floats through neighboring copse or fairy brake, or lingers, playful, on the haunted stream.

636. They shall hear of my vengeance, that would scorn to listen to the story of my wrongs. The miserable Highland drover, bankrupt, barefooted, stripped of all, dishonored and hunted down, because the avarice of others grasped at more than that poor all could pay, shall burst on them in an awful charge.

The following remarks upon the Slur, were communicated to the author by a distinguished teacher, after the foregoing lesson was prepared.

"In order to communicate clearly and forcibly the whole signification of a passage, it must be subjected to a rigid analysis It will then be found, that, often one paramount idea pervades the sentence, although it may be associated with incidental statements and qualified in every possible manner. It is the province of the reader, by appropriate inflections and modulations of the voice, to communicate to the listener every shade of meaning, be it more or less delicate. The primary idea then will require a forcible utterance, while the other portions will be thrown into the shade. For want of a better name, we may designate as 'The Slur' that particular element in Elocution, by which those parts of a sentence of less comparative importance, are rendered less impressive to the ear.

"It will be understood, that the use of stress alone, can by no means make a reader; indeed, it is certain that the best elocutionists are those who most adroitly blend emphasis and slur. The presence of the slur generally implies the existence of emphasis; and the former is often used to set an emphatic word or phrase in stronger relief.

"A slurred passage must generally be read in a lower and less forcible tone of voice, and more rapidly than the context; and this element (namely, the slur,) must be employed in cases of parenthesis, contrast, repetition, or explanation, where the sentence is of small comparative importance; and often where qualification of time, place, or manner is made."

In Lesson 10th, page 16th, the pupil was informed that a pause is sometimes made in reading, where there is no pause in the book. The pause to which allusion is there made, is rendered necessary to allow the reader to take breath. This lesson is designed to explain to the pupil another sort of pause, or rather interruption of the voice, caused by the peculiar operation of the organs of speech.

Dr. Rush, in his work on the human voice, has remarked, with regard to the manner that children learn to read, that "the close attention which their ignorance requires, and their slowness of utterance, lead them to lay an equal stress upon every syllable, or at least upon every word. This habit continues a long time after the eye has acquired a facility in following up discourse, and in some cases infects pronunciation throughout subsequent life."

The object of this lesson, which is entitled " Measure of Speech," is twofold: 1st. To teach the pupil so to manage his voice, in conformity with the natural operation of the organs of speech, as to break up the monotonous, or "equal" manner of reading above mentioned, and to introduce such an agreeable variety, as will cause peculiar melody of utterance; and, 2dly. To enable him to read in such a manner that he will not be "out of breath," and consequently to exercise his voice without fatigue.

A MEASURE OF SPEECH consists of an accented and an unaccented portion of sound, produced by one effort of the

voice.

In pronouncing an accented syllable, the voice makes an effort, which must be repeated, if the next syllable is also an accented syllable. But if the next syllable or syllables be unaccented, the voice can pronounce them all with a single effort. Thus, the words spirt, spirit, spiritual, or spiritually, may each be pronounced with a single effort or pulsation of the voice.

*The teacher who would thoroughly understand the subject treated in this lesson, and who aims at excellence in the art of Reading, is referred to the very valuable and scientific work of Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, entitled the "Philosophy of the Human Voice," or to Dr. Barber's Grammar of Elocution, a work founded on the principles advanced by Dr. Rush. Dr. Barber, whose opinion on the subject has great weight, says, "In Dr. Rush's work, the reader may repair to a fountain at once deep and full." In another place, Dr. Barber assures "every public speaker, and every philosophical actor, that he will fail in his duty to himself, if he neglects a diligent perusal of Dr. Rush's Philosophy of the Voice." The same may also be said in relation to Dr. Barber's own work. From the works of both these gentlemen, the author has derived assistance in the preparation of these exercises.