Delivered up her keys, stript off her robes, And so with all humility besought Her haughty lord that he would scourge her lightly! Thus looking on you as ye stand before me, Mine eye can single out full many a man As great and glorious as the chiefs that fell. IV. But, lo! the earl is "mercifully-minded!" The slaughter of our bravest, cry them shame, V. be deceived. Oh, sirs! look round you, lest ye But think not that the parchment and mouth pardon VI. There's that betwixt you been which you yourselves, Ye should forgive this bloody-minded man ... SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Chronicle: L. chron'icus, pertaining to time; fr. Gr. chron'ŏs (xpóvos), time; h., ana-chronism (an error in computing time), chronic (of long duration), chrono-logy (lõg'õs, discourse), chrono-meter (mět'ron, measure), etc. . . . Defunct: v. FUNCTION. . . . Discourse : v. CAR.... Eject: L. eji'cio, ejec'tum, to thrust out; fr.e and jă'cio, jac'tum, to throw, to cast; h., ab-ject, ad-jěctive, con-jecture (a casting together), dejection, e-jaculate (to throw out), in-ject, inter-jection, ob-ject (to cast against), pro-ject, pro-jectile, re-ject, sub-ject. Liberal: L. libera'lis; fr. li'ber, free, liber'tas, liberty; h., de-liver (through the Fr. de-livrer), liberate, libertine, etc. . . . Pardon: Fr. pardonner; fr. L. per and do'no, dona'tum, to give one something as a present; fr. do'num, a gift; fr. do, da'tum, to give, to put; pardon (par · per, for, and do'no, I give) is formed like our A. S. word for-give; fr. do'no are con-done (to forgive), donor, donation, etc.; fr. do, da'tum are abs'cond (fr. abs and con'do, con'ditum, to put together; h., abscon'do, I hide), add (fr. ad-do), com-mand (v. MANDAMUS), con-dition, date, da'tum (L., pl. da'ta, things given or admitted), donor, e-dit (to give out), manda'mus (we command, first pers. pl. of man'do, I command; fr. man'us, hand, do, I give; h., I give in charge), mandate, per-dition (per'do, per'ditum, to put through, to squander), re-con-dite (re-con'do, recon'ditum, to put up again, to hide), render (lit., to give back; fr. re and do, I give), etc. v. BETRAY.... Recoil: French reculer; fr. the L. re, back, and cu'lus, the posteriors. . . . Verily: fr. the L. ve'rus, true; h., a-ver (a = ad to), veracity, ver-dict (v. DICTION), verify, veritable, very. XVIII. THE CATSKILL MOUNTAINS. 1. I SHALL never forget my first view of these mountains. It was in the course of a voyage up the Hudson, in the good old times before steamboats and railroads had driven all poetry and romance out of travel. Such an excursion in those days was equal to a voyage to Europe at present, and cost almost as much; but we enjoyed the river then. My whole voyage up the Hudson was full of wonder and romance. I was a lively boy, somewhat imaginative, of easy faith, and prone to relish everything which partook of the marvelous. Among the passengers on board of the sloop was a veteran Indian trader, on his way to the lakes to traffic with the natives. He had discovered my propensity, and amused himself throughout the voyage by telling me Indian legends and grotesque stories about every noted place on the river. 2. The Catskill Mountains, especially, called forth a host of fanciful traditions. We were all day tiding along in sight of them, so that he had full time to weave his whimsical narra tives. In these mountains, he told me, according to Indian belief, was kept the great treasury of storm and sunshine for the region of the Hudson. An old squaw spirit had charge of it, who dwelt on the highest peak of the mountain. Here she kept Day and Night shut up in her wigwam, letting out only one of them at a time. She made new moons every month and hung them up in the sky, cutting up the old ones for stars. The great Manitou, or master spirit, employed her to manufacture clouds; sometimes she wove them out of cobwebs, gossamers and morning dew, and sent them off, flake after flake, to float in the air and give light summer showers; sometimes she would brew up black thunder-storms and send down drenching rains, to swell the streams and sweep everything away. 3. He had many stories, also, about mischievous spirits who infested the mountains in the shape of animals, and played all kinds of pranks upon Indian hunters, decoying them into quagmires and morasses or to the brinks of torrents and precipices. All these were doled out to me as I lay on the deck, throughout a long summer's day, gazing upon these mountains, the ever-changing shapes and hues of which appeared to realize the magical influences in question. Sometimes they seemed to approach, at others to recede. During the heat of the day they almost melted into a sultry haze. As the day declined they deepened in tone, their summits were brightened by the last rays of the sun, and, later in the evening, their whole outline was printed in deep purple against an amber sky. As I beheld them thus shifting continually before my eye, and listened to the marvelous legends of the trader, a host of fanciful notions was conjured into my brain which have haunted it ever since. 4. As to the Indian superstitions concerning the treasury of storms and sunshine and the cloud-weaving spirits, they may have been suggested by the atmospherical phenomena of these mountains, the clouds which gather round their summits, and the thousand aërial effects which indicate the changes of weather over a great extent of country. They are epitomes of our variable climate, and are stamped with all its vicissi tudes. And here let me say a word in favor of those vicissi tudes, which are too often made the subject of exclusive repining. If they annoy us occasionally by changes from hot to cold, from wet to dry, they give us one of the most beautiful climates in the world. 5. They give us the brilliant sunshine of the south of Europe, with the fresh verdure of the north. They float our summer sky with clouds of gorgeous tints or fleecy whiteness, and send down cooling showers to refresh the panting earth and keep it green. Our seasons are all poetical; the phenomena of our heavens are full of sublimity and beauty. Winter with us has none of its proverbial gloom. It may have its howling winds and chilling frosts and whirling snow-storms, but it has also its long intervals of cloudless sunshine, when the snow-clad earth gives redoubled brightness to the day; when, at night, the stars beam with intensest lustre or the moon floods the whole landscape with her most limpid radiance. 6. And then the joyous outbreak of our spring, bursting at once into leaf and blossom, redundant with vegetation and vociferous with life! And the splendors of our summer; its morning voluptuousness and evening glory; its airy palaces of sun-gilt clouds piled up in a deep azure sky, and its gusts of tempest of almost tropical grandeur, when the forked lightning and the bellowing thunder volley from the battlements of heaven and shake the sultry atmosphere! And the sublime melancholy of our autumn, magnificent in its decay, withering down the pomp and pride of a woodland country, yet reflecting back from its yellow forests the golden serenity of the sky! Surely we may say that, in our climate, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth forth His handiwork; day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge." IRVING. SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Climate: Gr. klima, slope; the supposed slope of the earth from the equator to the pole.... Epitome: Gr. èpit'o-mě; lit., a cutting down; fr. èpi, on, těm'nō, I cut; h., an abridgment.... Excursion : L. excursio: v. CURULE.... Intense: L. inten'sus, stretched: v. TENSION. Interval: L. in'ter, between, vallum, a rampart; fr. val'lus, a stake or ... pale; h., circum-vallation, etc. ... Magnificent : L. mag'nus, great, fă'cio, I make. Manufacture: L. man'us, the hand, and factu'ra, a making; fr. fă'cio, factum, to make.... Narrative: L. năr'ro, I relate.... Phenomena : pl. of phenomenon: v. FANCY. . . . Propensity: v. RECOMPENSE. . . . Romance: L. Roman'icus, Roman. . . . Suggest: v. INGEST.... Sultry : A. S. fr. swelt'ry. . . . Summit: L. sum'mus, highest; h. con-summate, sum, etc. . . . Tradition : L. tradi'tio, fr. trans, over, and do, dat'um, to give: v. BETRAY....Treasure: Gr. thesau'ròs, a store laid up.. Veteran: I. vet'us, veteris, old; h., in-veterate, etc.... Vicissitude: L. vicissitu'do; fr. vi'cis, change; h., vicar, vicarious, vice- (in the place of), vice-roy, etc. . . . Vociferous: v. ADVOCATE.... Voyage: Fr. voie, a road; fr. L. vi'a, a way; h., convoy, de-viate, de-vious, en-voy, im-per-vious, in-voice (Fr. envois, things sent), ob-viate, ob-vious, per-vious (having a way through), pre-vious (L. præ'vius going before), trivial (lit., where three ways meet, tri-three), via, (L. by the way of), via-duct (v. SUBDUE), viať'icum (L. provisions for a journey), etc. ... SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou Roughening their crests and scattering high the spray, II. Nor I alone: a thousand bosoms round |