quieter feelings, and felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects. Still I continued in the churchyard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralising upon them with that kind of levity which will not unfrequently spring up in the mind in the midst of deep melancholy. I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful children. I said jestingly, where be all the bad people buried? Bad parents, bad husbands, bad children, what cemeteries are appointed for these? Do they not sleep in consecrated ground-or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their lifetime, discharged the offices of life perhaps but lamely? Their failings, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. Man wars not with the dead. It is a trait of human nature, for which I love it. Charles Lamb. per-ceive' ac-cus'-tomed va'-cant in-i'-ti-als nur'-tur-ing sim-plic'-i-ty un-mo-lest'-ed char'-ac-ter lux-ur'-i-ant ex-trav'-a-gant-ly lei'-sure coun'-sel-lor, one who gives ad- ep'-1-taph, inscription upon a tomb. vice. re-proach', shame. trance, dream; unconscious state. trait, feature. EXERCISES.—1. Make nouns from the following adjectives: Kind, vacant, naked, desolate, gentle, mature, absent, innocent, extravagant, languid, impatient, scarce. 2. Make adjectives from the following nouns: Dread, music, sport, luxury, parent, table, reason, moment. 3. Make nouns from the following verbs: Accomplish, pray, associate, create, forgive, suffer, comfort, enjoy, attend. 4. Make sentences of your own, and use in each sentence one or more of the following words: Accomplish, consecrate, languid, counsellor. SIEGE OF LONDONDERRY-I. [When William, the Prince of Orange, landed in England, James II. fled to France, but soon returned to Ireland, and raised an army to struggle for his crown. Londonderry, in the north, declared for William, and closed its gates upon the army of James. It was at once invested, and its siege vigorously commenced in the April of 1689. This extract is from the History of England, by Lord Macaulay, the brilliant historian and essayist.] 1. July was far advanced; and the state of the city was, hour by hour, becoming more frightful. The number of the inhabitants had been thinned more by famine and disease than by the fire of the enemy. Yet that fire was sharper and more constant than ever. One of the gates was beaten in; one of the bastions was laid in ruins; but the breaches made by day were repaired by night with indefatigable activity. Every attack was still repelled; but the fighting-men of the garrison were so much exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs. Several of them, in the act of striking at the enemy, fell down from mere weakness. 2. A very small quantity of grain remained, and was doled out by mouthfuls. The stock of salted hides was considerable, and by gnawing them the garrison appeased the rage of hunger. Dogs, fattened on the blood of the slain who lay unburied around the town, were luxuries which few could afford to purchase. The price of a whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses were still alive, and but barely alive; they were so lean that little meat was likely to be found upon them. It was, however, determined to slaughter them for food. 3. The people perished so fast that it was impossible for the survivors to perform the rites of sepulture. There was scarcely a cellar in which some corpse was not decaying. Such was the extremity of distress, that the rats who came to feast in those hideous dens were eagerly hunted and greedily devoured. A small fish, caught in the river, was not to be purchased with money; the only price for which such a treasure could be obtained was some handfuls of oatmeal. Leprosies, such as strange and unwholesome diet engenders, made existence a constant torment. The whole city was poisoned with the stench exhaled from the bodies of the dead, and of the half-dead. 4. That there should be fits of discontent and insubordination among men enduring such misery was inevitable. At one moment it was suspected that Walker had laid up somewhere a secret store of food, and was revelling in private, while he exhorted others to suffer resolutely for the good cause. His house was strictly examined; his innocence was fully proved; he regained his popularity; and the garrison, with death in near prospect, thronged to the cathedral to hear him preach, drank in his earnest eloquence with delight, and went forth with haggard faces and tottering steps, but with spirits still unsubdued. 5. There were, indeed, some secret plottings. A very few obscure traitors opened communication with the enemy. But it was necessary that all such dealings should be carefully concealed. None dared to utter publicly any words save words of defiance and stubborn resolution. Even in that extremity the general cry was 'No surrender.' And there were not wanting voices which, in low tones, added, 'First the horses and hides; and then the prisoners; and then each other.' It was afterwards related, half in jest, yet not without a horrible mixture of earnest, that a corpulent citizen, whose bulk presented a strange contrast to the skeletons which surrounded him, thought it expedient to conceal himself from the numerous eyes which followed him with cannibal looks whenever he appeared in the streets. 6. It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison that all this time the English ships were seen far off in Lough Foyle. Communication between the fleet and the city was almost impossible. One diver who had attempted to pass the boom was drowned. Another was hanged. The language of signals was hardly intelligible. On the thirteenth of July, however, a piece of paper sewed up in a cloth button, came to Walker's hands. It was a letter from Kirke, and contained assurances of speedy relief. 7. But more than a fortnight of intense misery had since elapsed, and the hearts of the most sanguine were sick with deferred hope. By no art could the provisions which were left be made to hold out two days more. Just at this time Kirke received a despatch from England, which contained positive orders that Londonderry should be relieved. He accordingly determined to make an attempt, which, as far as appears, he might have made, with at least an equally fair prospect of success, six weeks earlier. 8. Among the merchant-ships which had come to Lough Foyle under his convoy, was one called the Mountjoy. The master, Micaiah Browning, a native of Londonderry, had brought from England a large cargo of provisions. He had, it is said, repeatedly remonstrated against the inaction of the armament. He now eagerly volunteered to take the first risk of succouring his fellow-citizens; and his offer was accepted. Andrew Douglas, master of the Phoenix, |