He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain
Into his dying child's mouth;-but in vain!

The boy expired. The father held the clay,

And looked upon it long; and when at last Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, He watched it wistfully until away

'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast; Then he himself sank down all dumb and shivering, And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering.

Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down
Over the waste of waters; like a veil,
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown
Of one whose hate is masked but to assail.
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown,

And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale,

And the dim, desolate deep; twelve days had Fear Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell-
Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the

brave

Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the sea yawned around her, like a hell,

And down she sucked with her the whirling

wave,

Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.

And first one universal shriek there rushed,
Louder than the loud ocean-like a crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash

Of billows; but at intervals there gushed,
Accompanied by a convulsive splash,

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

LORD BYRON.

Mess'mate, a mate or companion, who eats at the same table with another.

Familiar, a demon or evil spirit, who was supposed always to be within call, like a servant or attendant.

Death, like Fear in the preceding line, is personified.

As the plough is the typical instrument of industry, so the fetter is the typical instrument of the restraint or subjection necessary in a nation— either literally, for its evil-doers, or figuratively, in accepted laws, for its wise and good men.

You have to choose between this figurative and literal use; for, depend upon it, the more laws and just restraint you accept, the fewer penalties you will have to endure, and the fewer punishments to enforce. For wise laws and just restraints are to a noble nation not chains, but chain-mail; strength and defense, though something also of an incumbrance.

And this necessity of restraint, remember, is just as honorable to man as the necessity of labor. You hear every day great numbers of foolish people

speaking about liberty, as if it were such an honorable thing; so far from being that, it is, on the whole, and in the broadest sense, dishonorable, and an attribute of the lower creatures.

No human being, however great or powerful, was ever so free as a fish. There is always something that he must, or must not do; while the fish may do whatever he likes. All the kingdoms of the world put together are not half so large as the sea, and all the railroads and wheels that ever were, or will be invented, are not so easy as fins.

You will find, on fairly thinking of it, that it is his restraint which is honorable to man, not his liberty; and what is more, it is restraint which is honorable even in the lower animals. A butterfly is much more free than a bee; but you honor the bee more, just because it is subject to certain laws which fit it for function in bee society. And throughout the world, of the two abstract things, liberty and restraint, restraint is always the more honorable.

It is true, indeed, that in these and all other matters, you never can reason finally from the abstraction; for both liberty and restraint are good when they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when they are basely chosen: but of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which characterizes the higher creature and betters the lower creature; and, from the ministering of the archangel to the labor of the insect, from poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust-the power and glory of all creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their freedom.

The sun has no liberty-a dead leaf has much. The dust of which you are formed has no liberty.

Its liberty will come with its corruption; and, therefore, I say boldly, though it seems a strange thing to say in England, that as the first power of a nation consists in knowing how to guide the plough, its second power consists in knowing how to wear the fetter. JOHN RUSKIN.

Explain:-industry, restraint, penalties, liberty, chain-mail, freedom, planets, gravitation, and archangel.

LESSON

văn' ish ing, passing from sight. re veil'le, a sound of drums at day-break.

dis perse' scatter; separate.

L.

scrupu loŭs, cautious; careful; hesitating.

dis păr'i tỷ, inequality; disproportion.

THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.

The last stars were vanishing from night, when the foremost party of British soldiers, led by Pitcairn, a major of marines, was discovered, advancing quickly and in silence. Alarm-guns were fired, and the drums beat, not a call to village husbandmen only, but the reveille to humanity. Less than seventy, perhaps less than sixty, obeyed the summons, and, in sight of half as many boys and unarmed men, were paraded in two ranks, a few rods north of the meeting-house.

How often in that building had they, with renewed professions of faith, looked up to God as the stay of their fathers, and the protector of their privileges! How often, on that village green, hard by the burial-place of their forefathers, had they pledged themselves to each other to combat manfully for their birthright inheritance of Liberty!

There they now stood, side by side, under the

provincial banner, with arms in their hands, silent and fearless, willing to fight for their privileges, scrupulous not to begin civil war, and as yet unsuspicious of immediate danger. The ground on which they trod was the altar of Freedom, and they were to furnish its victims.

The British van, hearing the drum and the alarm-guns, halted to load; the remaining companies came up; and at half an hour before sunrise the advance party hurried forward at double-quick time, almost upon a run, closely followed by the grenadiers. Pitcairn rode in front; and, when within five or six rods of the minute-men, cried out, "Disperse, ye villains! ye rebels, disperse! Lay down your arms! why don't you lay down your arms and disperse ?"

The main part of the countrymen stood motionless in the ranks, witnesses against aggression,— too few to resist, too brave to fly. At this Pitcairn discharged a pistol, and with a loud voice cried, "Fire!" The order was instantly followed, first by a few guns, which did no execution, and then by a heavy, close, and deadly discharge of musketry.

In the disparity of numbers, the common was a field of murder, not of battle; Parker, captain of the militia and alarm-men, therefore ordered his men to disperse. Then, and not till then, did a few of them, on their own impulse, return the British fire. These random shots of fugitives or dying men did no harm, except that Pitcairn's horse was perhaps grazed, and a private of the Tenth Light Infantry was touched slightly in the leg.

Day came in all the beauty of an early spring. The trees were budding; the grass growing rankly a full month before the season; the bluebird and