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XLV. — UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.

SHAKESPEARE.

VILLIAM SHAKESPEARE is universally conceded to be the greatest writer nglish literature, and is often claimed by competent judges to be unsured in the literature of any people whatever.

'his great man was born at Stratford-on-Avon, in England, in 1564. He there on April 23, 1616.

Of his life not much is certainly known. For twenty-six years he lived ondon, connected with theaters in the capacity of actor and play-writer. was thrifty and prosperous, and accumulated a respectable fortune. Shakespeare seems to have written his plays solely to please his contempoes; but these plays have continued to satisfy, to delight, and even to rawe, all subsequent generations. They have never been approached as matic masterpieces. No other writer depicts with such force the workings he human heart, so skillfully lays bare the springs of human motives and The habit of reading Shakespeare is sure to exalt the character disciplining both the intellect and the affections.

-ons.

1. UNDER the greenwood tree

Who loves to lie with me,

And tune his merry note

Unto the sweet bird's throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither

Here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

2. Who doth ambition shun

And loves to live i' the sun,

Seeking the food he eats

And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither

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XLVI. CHOICE QU

ADVERSITY

SWEET are the uses of adversity Which, like the toad, ugly and Wears yet a precious jewel in h And this our life exempt from I Finds tongues in trees, books in Sermons in stones, and good in e

Shak

REPUTATION

GOOD name in man and woman, Is the immediate jewel of their s Who steals my purse steals tra nothing;

'T was mine, 't is his, and has been But he that filches from me my Robs me of that which not enrich And makes me poor indeed.

FEAR OF DEAT

COWARDS die many times before t The valiant never taste of death b Of all the wonders that I yet hav It seems to me most strange that Seeing that death, a necessary end Will come when it will come.

Shak

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RLES DICKENS, doubtless the most popular of modern English novels born on February 7, 1812, and died on June 9, 1870. After a short nce as a writer for newspapers, he found his proper career when, in e published "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club."

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ckwick is still perhaps as much liked as any of the long list of that we associate with the name of Dickens. It stands with "Oliver "Nicholas Nickleby," ‚” “Martin Chuzzlewit," "Dombey and Son," d Copperfield," and others, all of them forming a group of works of unsurpasseu in humor, vividness of description, and power of appealing universal sympathy of mankind.

Don't tell me what Mrs.
Mrs. Peerybingle

THE Kettle began it! ybingle said. I know better.

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leave it on record to the end of time that she ln't say which of them began it; but I say the le did. I ought to know, I hope! The Kettle n it full five minutes, by the little waxy-faced ch clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered irp.

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one ws that. I would n't set my own opinion against opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite on any account whatever. Nothing should ine me. But this is a question of fact. And the is, that the Kettle began it, at least five minutes ore the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence. tradict me, and I'll say ten.

I

. Let me narrate exactly how it happened. uld have proceeded to do so in my very first word, for this plain consideration, if I am to tell a I must begin at the beginning; and how is it

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4. Mrs. Peerybingle, going ou and clicking over the wet ston that worked innumerable rough proposition in Euclid all about bingle filled the Kettle at the returning, less the pattens (an they were tall and Mrs. Peer she set the Kettle on the fire.

5. In doing which she lost it for an instant; for the wa ably cold, and in that slippy state wherein it seems to p kind of substance, patten ring hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's to her stockings.

6. Besides, the Kettle was ag It would n't allow itself to be a it would n't hear of accommoda knobs of coal; it would lean forw and dribble, a very Idiot of a K was quarrelsome; and hissed an the fire.

7. To sum up all, the lid, resis fingers, first of all turned topsy-t ingenious pertinacity deserving sideways in-down to the very And the hull of the Royal Geor

onstrous resistance to coming out of the water, the lid of that Kettle employed against Mrs. ingle before she got it up again.

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and g its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peery, as if it said, "I won't boil. Nothing shall inme!"

But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humor, d her chubby little hands against each other, and own before the Kettle, laughing. Meantime, the blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on ittle Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock.

Now it was, you observe, that the Kettle began end the evening. Now it was, that the Kettle, ing mellow and musical, began to have irrepressiurglings in its throat, and to indulge in short vocal Es, which it checked in the bud, as if it had n't quite e up its mind yet to be good company. Now it that, after two or three such vain attempts to stifle onvivial sentiments, it threw off all moroseness, all rve, and burst into a stream of song so cozy and hila5, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed the least

of.

1. That this song of the Kettle's was a song of invion and welcome to somebody out of doors,—to somey at that moment coming on, towards the snug, small ne, and the crisp fire, there is no doubt whatever. 8. Peerybingle knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing ore the hearth.

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2. It's a dark night, sang the Kettle, and the rotten ves are lying by the way; and above, all is mist and kness, and below, all is mire and clay; and there's

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