Grief, sickness, compunction, dismay in conjunction, Nights and days ghost-prolific, more grim and terrific . Than judges and juries,

Make the heart writhe and falter more than gibbet and halter !

Arrest me, secure me, seize, handcuff, immure me!

I own my transgression — will make full confession !— Quick! quick! let me plunge in some dark-vaulted dungeon,

Where, though tried and death-fated, I may not be baited By fiends and by furies!

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am armed so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you

For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;—
For I can raise no money by vile means.

O, Heaven! I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection. I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions,

Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces!

10. MILTON ON HIS BLINDNESS.

O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrevocably dark-total eclipse-
Without all hope of day!

O, first created beam, and thou, great Word,
"Let there be light," and light. was over all,
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?

The reader should study the author's meaning in this Soliloquy. In the fifth, sixth lines, &c., he seems to mean simply this: "Death-sleep - they are equal; they do not differ; and if, by the sleep of death, we could throw off all our cares and troubles, such a sleep would be desirable indeed." But the thought of what may come after death immediately checks him in his suicidal speculations.

To be

or not to be - that is the question!
Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,-
Or, to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them!-To die, to sleep;

No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 't is a consummation

Devoutly to be wished!

To die,- to sleep;

To sleep? perchance to dream ;-ay, there's the rub ;olown
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause.- There's the respect*
That makes calamity of so long life!

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the

spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin?

That is, the consideration. Shakspeare often uses the word in this sense.

Who would fardels bear,

To groan and sweat under a weary life,—
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns,- puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

SHAKSPEARE.

ON BEING BANISHED FROM ROME BY THE SENATE

WAN (won), a., pale and sickly.
SLACK, a., loose; weak.
LOATHE, v. t., to abhor.

BAN'ISHED, pp., expelled; ex'iled.
CONTACT, n., touch; close union.
AL-LE GI-ANCE (-je-), n., the duty of a
subject to government.

TARTA-RUS (Greek), n., a name for the infernal regions.

AN'ARCH-Y (-ark-), n., political confusion; want of rule.

PRO-SCRIPTION, n., a dooming to death, exile, or loss of property. CON-VICTED, pp., proved guilty.

In hearth (harth) th is aspirate in the singular, but vocal (as in breathe) in the plural. Pronounce massacre, mas'sa-ker. In thirsty and burst, give the vowel the sound of e in her. Do not pervert oi in poi'son.

BANISHED from Rome! What's banished, but set free From daily contact of the things I loathe?

"Tried and convicted traitor!

Who says this?

Who 'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?
Banished? I thank you for 't. It breaks
I held some slack allegiance till this hour;
But now my sword's my own.

Smile on, my lords.

my

I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs,

chain !

I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,
To leave you in your lazy dignities.

But here I stand and scoff you :

- here I fling
Hatred and full defiance in your facẻ.
Your consul's merciful. For this all thanks.
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline.

"Traitor!" I - but I return. go

Here I'devote your senate! I've had wrongs,
To stir a fever in the blood of age,

Or make the infant sinew strong as steel.

This day's the birth of sorrows! — This hour's work Will breed proscriptions.

For there henceforth shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes hot from Tartarus! - all shames and crimes;
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ;
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and ax,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones;
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night,
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave.

I go but not to leap the gulf alone.

I

go

but when I come, 't will be the burst
Of ocean in the earthquake, — rolling back
In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!
You build my funeral-pile; but your best blood
Shall quench its flame. Back, slaves!

I will return.

GEORGE CROLY.

IMMORTALITY.

O, No! it is no flattering lure, no fancy weak or fond, When Hope would bid us rest secure in better life beyond; Nor loss, nor shame, nor grief, nor sin, her promise may

gainsay;

The voice divine hath spoke within, and God did ne'er SARAH F. ADAMS.

betray.

CXLII. -THE UNSEARCHABLE ONE.

VERGE, n., the outside of a border.

SPHERE (sfēre), n., a globe; an orb.
CHA'OS, n., a confused mass.
IN-EF'FA-BLE, a., unspeakable.

RE-SEARCH', n., laborious search.

PO'TENT-ATE, n., a sovereign; a prince. MAR'VEL-OUS or MAR'VEL-LOUS, a., wonderful.

PRI-ME'VAL, a., original.

GRA-DA'TION, n., regular progress.

In plenitude, gratitude, heed the y sound of long u. Do not say relums for realms (rělmz). Pronounce ere (meaning before) like air; nothing, nŭthing.

In its sublime research, philosophy

May measure out the ocean-deep; may count The sands, or the sun's rays; but, God! for thee There is no weight nor measure:-none can mount Up to thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark, Though kindled by thy light, in vain would try To trace thy counsels, infinite and dark;

And thought is lost, ere thought can soar so high, - Even like past moments in eternity.

Thou from primeval nothingness didst call
First chaos, then existence. Lord, on thee
Eternity had its foundation: all

Sole origin; all life, all beauty thine.

Thy word created all, and doth create,

Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine.

Thou art, and wert, and shalt be, glorious! great!
Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate!

Thou art directing, guiding all, thou art!
Direct my understanding, then, to thee;
Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart.-
Though but an atom 'mid immensity,

Still I am something, fashioned by thy hand!
I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth,

On the last verge of mortal being stand,

Close to the realms where angels have their birth, Just on the boundaries of the spirit-land!