LESSON CXXIX.

pěd'ant ry, boastful display of | ĕp'ie, a poetical recital of some

knowledge of any kind.

great and heroic event.

AMERICA.

The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime
Barren of every glorious theme,

In distant lands now waits a better time,
Producing subjects worthy fame.

In happy climes, where from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true :

In happy climes, the seat of innocence,

Where nature guides and virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of courts and schools:

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe needs in her decay:
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day :-
Time's noblest offspring is the last!

BISHOP BERKELEY,

LESSON

măn'i fes'to, a public declaration.

ha răngues', speeches to public assemblies.

rē'seript, an edict, or decree.

CXXX.

pro serībed', doomed to destruction.

in flăm'ma to ry, tending to

excite anger; seditious.

rep're hĕnd', to blame; censure.

RESULTS OF THE AMERICAN WAR.

We are charged with expressing joy at the triumphs of America. True it is that, in a former session, I proclaimed it as my sincere opinion, that if the Ministry had succeeded in their first scheme on the liberties of America, the liberties of this country would have been at an end. Thinking this, as I did, in the sincerity of an honest heart, I rejoiced at the resistance which the Ministry had met to their attempt. That great and glorious statesman, the late Earl of Chatham, feeling for the liberties of his native land, thanked God that America had resisted.

But, it seems, all the calamities of the country are to be ascribed to the wishes, and the joy, and the speeches of opposition. O, miserable and unfortunate Ministry! O, blind and incapable men! whose measures are framed with so little foresight, and executed with so little firmness, that they not only crumble to pieces, but bring on the ruin of their country, merely because one weak, rash, or wicked man, in the House of Commons, makes a speech against them!

But who is he who arraigns gentlemen on this side of the House with causing, by their inflammatory speeches, the misfortune of their country? The accusation comes from one whose inflamma

tory harangues have led the nation, step by step, from violence to violence, in that inhuman, unfeeling system of blood and massacre, which every honest man must detest, which every good man must abhor, and every wise man condemn ! And this man imputes the guilt of such measures to those who had all along foretold the consequences; who had prayed, entreated, supplicated, not only for America, but for the credit of the nation and its eventual welfare, to arrest the hand of power, meditating slaughter and directed by injustice.

What was the consequence of the sanguinary measures recommended in those bloody, inflammatory speeches? Though Boston was to be starved, though Hancock and Adams were proscribed, yet at the feet of these very men the Parliament of Great Britain was obliged to kneel, flatter, and cringe; and, as it had the cruelty at one time to denounce vengeance against these men, so it had the meanness afterward to implore their forgiveness.

Shall he who called the Americans "Hancock and his crew,"-shall he presume to reprehend any set of men for inflammatory speeches? It is this accursed American war that has led us, step by step, into all our present misfortunes and national disgraces.

What was the cause of our wasting forty millions of money, and sixty thousand lives? The American war! What was it that produced the French rescript and a French war? The American war! What was it that produced the Spanish manifesto and Spanish war? The American war! What was it that armed forty-two thousand men in Ireland with the arguments carried on the points of forty thousand bayonets? The American war! For

what are we about to incur an additional debt of 'twelve or fourteen millions? This accursed, cruel, diabolical American war!

Fox.

Spell and pronounce: — opinion, sincerity, resistance, detest, calamities, massacre, imputes, diabolical, bayonets, condemn, abhor, vengeance, obliged, incapable, ascribe, and cringe.

Synonyms. — sanguinary — bloody; murderous; bloodthirsty; savage; cruel. supplicate - beseech; entreat; beg; petition; imarrest-delay; stop; detain; obstruct; check; hinder; stay; apprehend. arraign — accuse ; impeach; charge; censure; to bring to trial.

plore; importune; solicit; crave.

LESSON CXXXI.

ĕf'flu ençe, a flowing out.
In'fi nite, boundless in time or
space.

ir rā'di ate, to adorn with bright

ness.

e thē're al, celestial.

e tērʼnal, everlasting; endless. suf fū'şion, that which is overspread.

ex pùnged', taken by assault.

ADDRESS TO LIGHT.

Hail, holy Light! offspring of heav'n first-born,
Or of th' Eternal co-eternal beam,

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell?* Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wert; and, at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.

* Job, xxxviii. 19.

Thee, I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to th' Orphean' lyre,

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled.

Yet not the more

Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief,
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit; nor sometimes forget

Those other two, equaled with me in fate,
So were I equaled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,

5

And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note.

Thus with the year

Seasons return: but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,

पद