read at the time; and Sir Walter found his friend thrust by, lamenting that he could not get there. "Farewell!" exclaimed Raleigh. "I know not what shift you will make, but I am sure to have a place." In going from the prison to the scaffold, among others who were pressing hard to see him, one old man, whose head was bald, came so far forward that Raleigh noticed him, and asked "whether he would have aught of him." The old man answered, "Nothing but to see you, and to pray God for you.” Raleigh replied, "I thank thee, good friend, and I am sorry I have no better thing to return thee for thy good will." Observing his bald head, he continued, “But take this night-cap" (which was a very richly worked one that he wore), "for thou hast more need of it now than I."

He ascended the scaffold with the same cheerfulness as he had passed to it; and observing the lords seated at a distance, some at windows, he requested they would approach him, as he wished that they should all hear what he had to say. When he finished, he requested Lord Arundel that the king would not suffer any libels to defame him after death. He embraced all the lords and other friends, with such courtly compliments as if he had met them at some feast. "And now I have a long journey to go, and must take my leave." Having taken off his gown, he called to the headsman to show to him the axe; which not being instantly done, he repeated, “I prithee let me see it: dost thou think that I am afraid of it?" He passed the edge lightly over his finger, and smiling, observed to the sheriff, "This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for all diseases;" and kissing it, laid it down. After this he went to three several corners of the scaffold, and kneeling down, desired all the people to pray for him, and recited a long prayer to himself. When he began to fit himself for the block, he first laid

himself down to try how the block fitted him; after rising up, the executioner kneeled down to ask his forgiveness, which Raleigh with an embrace gave, but entreated him not to strike till he gave a token by lifting up his hand, "and then fear not, but strike home!" When he laid his head down to receive the stroke, the executioner desired him to lay his face towards the east. "It is no great matter which way a man's head stood, so that the heart lay right," said Raleigh; but these were not his last words. He was once more to speak in this world with the same intrepidity he had lived in it: for, having lain some minutes on the block in prayer, he gave the signal: but the executioner, either unmindful, or in fear, failed to strike, and Raleigh, after once or twice putting forth his hands, was compelled to ask him, "Why dost thou not strike? Strike, man!” In two blows he was beheaded; but from the first, his body never shrunk from the spot; it, like his mind, was immovable.

"In all the time he was upon the scaffold, and before," says one of the manuscript letter-writers, "there appeared not the least alteration in him, either in his voice or countenance; but he seemed as free from all manner of apprehension as if he had come thither rather to be a spectator than a sufferer; nay, the beholders seemed much more sensible than did he; so that he hath purchased, in the opinion of men, such honour and reputation, that his greatest enemies are most sorrowful for his death, which they see is like to turn so much to his advantage." 5 I. D'Israeli.

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2 Coke,

1 a disorder which is accompanied by shivering fits. ague, Sir Edward Coke, a celebrated judge during the reign of James I. Disposing of his body. His wife had the head embalmed and placed in a case. She kept it till her death. reprehended, reproved. 5 D'Israeli, father of the great statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield.

"Some I do know, who did not call or think themselves 'prophets'-far enough from that-but who were, in very truth, melodious voices from the eternal heart of nature once again; souls for ever venerable to all that have a soul."-' CARLYLE.

POETRY is the language in which the heart pours out its tenderest feelings; it is the language of devotion, of joy, and of sorrow. The earnest soul struggling heavenward, yet oppressed with sin, held earthbound while it spreads its wings for flight, turns for comfort to the sweet psalmist of Israel, and finds help and life and spiritual strength as it drinks in the melody of the song. It is the language of joy. "O come, let us sing unto the Lord," is the exclamation of the heart's ecstatic delight; and while it ministers to gladness it is balm to sorrow:

"For the unquiet heart and brain

A use in measured language lies."

We cannot easily imagine a grief which should be quite insensible to its influence. Only a poet could tell of a sadness like that of the Hebrew captives, who hung their harps upon the willows, and silently wept by the waters of Babylon.

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Every great poet is a teacher. I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing." So wrote William Wordsworth when the critics had almost persuaded the public to cast his poems aside unread. The position of a teacher is one of considerable dignity; but as it generally means that he is to convey to mankind a message which the world at large knows nothing about, it is usually

his fate to be misunderstood, and often to be abused, by those whom he is anxious to teach. Such was the lot of Wordsworth.

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On April 7th, 1770, William Wordsworth first saw the light of day. It was in the town of Cockermouth, in Cumberland, where his father, an attorney, held the appointment of law agent to the Earl of Lonsdale. His mother died before he reached his eighth year; but her loving care during this brief time made an impression upon his young heart which, throughout his life, was never effaced.

In 1778 he was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School, in Lancashire, where he remained, receiving the education which books afford, until he was fourteen years of age. But books did not contain all the lore he yearned for. Outside his school and beyond the town he loved to roam in solitude. Nature was his companion and teacher. From earliest infancy he had felt the soothing influence of nature's calm. In his autobiographical poem, the Prelude, he tells us that, when a babe in arms, the gentle murmuring of the "Derwent was

"Ceaseless music that composed my thoughts

To more than infant softness."

And as he grew he felt more and more the fascinating influence of hills and trees and babbling brooks. They were his familiar friends, and when he wandered astray would seem to reproach him with the fault. The solemn silence of the mountain-tops filled him with awe and

reverence.

In the half-holidays of his school-days it was his chief delight to join a party of his friends, and

"Sweep along the plain of Windermere

With rival oars,"

always in the direction of some romantic spot-a lonely

island, where stood the ruins of a sacred shrine, or where the over-arching trees threw a solemn shade, and the lilies of the valley bloomed; or perhaps a brighter spot,

"An island musical with birds

That sang, and ceased not;"

and the victory or defeat in the contest was forgotten amid the association of the "selected bourne.”

"In such a race

So ended, disappointment could be none,
Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy ;

We rested in the plain, all pleased alike,
Conquer'd and conqueror."

So long as the boy could indulge in this innocent enjoyment of nature's beauty he was happy. Everything around him was instinct with life, and seemed to hold converse with his soul. The placid lakes and frowning peaks, the lowering thunder-cloud and the soft 9zephyrs of a summer's evening, the hardiest oak and the tenderest blossom, had each its message to him. They were his counsellors and friends.

In 1783 his father died, and the young poet-for he had already commenced to write-was placed under the charge of his uncle. Four years later, having completed his seventeenth year, he went to Cambridge, and was entered at St. John's College. During his last college vacation, the autumn of 1790, he made a tour through France and Switzerland, and, like all the poets of the day, he drank in the 10 revolutionary impulse.

Towards the end of 1791 he again visited France. At Paris and Orleans he watched with close attention the stirring events of that exciting time, mingling with his enthusiasm a sad regret that no fit leader had yet been found to restrain and guide the anger of the people.

In 1796, Wordsworth made the acquaintance of Cole