UNT, an English writer of considerable merit, was born in 1784, 1859. His light essays, of a garrulous, rambling, but lively now his most readable prose. One of his most popular poems

intimate with the great writers Byron, Moore, Shelley, Keats,

BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase!)
one night from a deep dream of peace,
w within the moonlight in his room,
git rich and like a lily in bloom,
el writing in a book of gold.

ing peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
the presence in the room he said,

writest thou?" The vision raised its head, with a look made of all sweet accord,

red, "The names of those who love the Lord!" is mine one?" said Abou. ·

the angel.

Nay, not so,"

Abou spoke more low,

eerly still, and said, “I pray thee, then, me as one that loves his fellow-men."

gel wrote, and vanished.

The next night

e again with a great wakening light,

nowed the names whom love of God had blessed, o! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

ee)..

Abou Ben Adhem is here given as the name of an f. —it (line 4) refers to "moonlight." - sweet accord (line 9), r gracious sweetness.

he simile in lines 3 and 4.

WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT, one of the gr
rians, was born in Salem, Mass., May 4, 1796, and
He was a grandson of the illustrious Colonel Pre
American forces at Bunker Hill.

A special interest attaches to Prescott's career f
his life was spent in partial or total blindness. Y
success as a student and as a writer. His Histories

66

and most widely read of all historical writings.
Ferdinand and Isabelia,'
Peru," and "The Reign of Philip II. of Spain."
The Conquest of Mex

1. THE troops, refreshed by a night
early on the following day, in gainin
sierra of Ahualco, which stretches like
the two great mountains on the north
progress was now comparatively easy,
forward with a buoyant step, as the
treading the soil of Montezuma.

2. They had not advanced far, when, of the sierra, they suddenly came on a than compensated the toils of the pr was that of the Valley of Mexico, or more commonly called by the natives: picturesque assemblage of water, wood vated plains, its shining cities and sha spread out like some gay and gorgeous them. In the highly rarefied atmospher regions, even remote objects have a brilli and a distinctness of outline which see distance.

ching far away at their feet were seen noble pak, sycamore, and cedar, and beyond, yellow aize and the towering maguey, intermingled ards and blooming gardens; for flowers, in and for their religious festivals, were even dant in this populous valley than in other nahuac.

e center of the great basin were beheld the pying then a much larger portion of its surat present; their borders thickly studded with hamlets, and, in the midst, like some Iness with her coronal of pearls, the fair city , with her white towers and pyramidal teming, as it were, on the bosom of the waters, ned "Venice of the Aztecs."

over all rose the royal hill of Chapultepec, nce of the Mexican monarchs, crowned with grove of gigantic cypresses which at this day broad shadows over the land. In the distance e blue waters of the lake, and nearly screened ening foliage, was seen a shining speck, the tal of Tezcuco, and, still farther on, the dark rphyry, girdling the valley around, like a rich hich Nature had devised for the fairest of her

h was the beautiful vision which broke on the he conquerors. And even now, when so sad has come over the scene; when the stately ave been laid low, and the soil, unsheltered fierce radiance of a tropical sun, is in many bandoned to sterility; when the waters have eaving a broad and ghastly margin white with station of salts, while the cities and hamlets

that desolation broods over the landscap ble are the lines of beauty which natur its features, that no traveler, however c them with any other emotions than th ment and rapture.

7. What, then, must have been the Spaniards, when, after working their to the upper air, the cloudy tabernacle pa eyes, and they beheld these fair scenes. tine magnificence and beauty! It was cle which greeted the eyes of Moses f of Pisgah, and, in the warm glow of th cried out, "It is the promised land!"

si-er'ra (se-er'rà), a jagged and saw- pic-tür-esque/ like range of mountains. pôr/phy-ry, a ma-guey' (-gwa'), a plant, called also pris'tine (-tin) the American aloe. tab'er-na-cle,

Pronounce: gorgeous, pyramidal, ghastly, coronal

Ahualco, pronounced ä-wäl'kō; Tenochtitlan, t huac, ä'nä-wäk'; Chapultepec, chä-pool'tā-pěk'; Pisgah, piz'yä.

Explain: to annihilate distance (2); "Venice of th tabernacle (7). — Point out a simile in par. 4.

Find in the Bible the passage to which the last sent Write sentences each containing one or more of th freshed, buoyant, compensated, brilliancy, rapture, &

My crown is in my heart, not on
Not decked with diamonds and In
Nor to be seen: my crown is call
A crown it is that seldom kings e

THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.

LONGFELLOW.

1.

e Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, huge organ, rise the burnished arms; their silent pipes no anthem pealing s the villages with strange alarms.

2.

; a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, the Death-Angel touches those swift keys! id lament and dismal Miserere

ningle with their awful symphonies!

3.

ven now, the infinite fierce chorus, ries of agony, the endless groan,

through the ages that have gone before us, ng reverberations reach our own.

4.

n and harness rings the Saxon hammer, ugh Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song nd, amid the universal clamor,

distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

5.

the Florentine, who from his palace

els out his battle bell with dreadful din, ztec priests upon their teocallis

the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin;