8. Pug with these missives aimed his blows
So hard and fast, that, in conclusion,
His smarting and be-pelted foes

Fled off in cowardly confusion.

9. At length he proudly stood alone,
With feelings that of rapture savored,
Prepared to thank, in joyous tone,

Dame Fortune, who his cause had favored ;—

10. That he had from the fierce attack

His precious nuts so well defended,
But cast his eyes upon his sack,

And saw that they were all expended!

11. Through these he had maintained his place, And now his foes had all retreated,

He stood precisely in the case

As if himself had been defeated.

Thus oft we see a triumph cost
As much, as if the day were lost.

a Why a comma? ¿ Why a period? c Why capital? e Difference between sat and set. ƒ§ 43. 11.

trophe ? § 43. 12.

n See W. D.

d Why an aposg§ 43. 15. m

No. 1. What had this monkey become master of? What did he do with these? Who came round, and for what? What situation did he find himself in after the victory? What lesson may we learn from this story? Do not those who quarrel, injure themselves more than their enemy.

No. 2. Attack, confusion, proudly, joyous, expended, defected, appeared. No. 3. Strange for strainge, crea-tur and crit-ter, for crete-yure.

No. 5. § 18.

No. 7. Vain and vane, dear and deer, by, buy, and bye, sew and sow, but and butt.

No. 8. § 2. 4. 9. 11. 12. 13. 15.

No. 10. How many sentences are there in the first verse? Mention all the subjects, predicates, and modifiers of each.

No. 12. Spell and define the first two verses.

Form the plural of balcony, monkey, himself, life, eye, gun, blow.
How many different meanings has saw, blow, well, fast, care.

LESSON XXVII.

CAWDOR CASTLE.

Faster come! faster come!
Faster and faster!

1. MY DEAR COUSIN,-aYou need no longer ask me where I have been, but where I have not been, for we are flying so incessantly from place to place, that I even sleep in a hurry,b and grudge myself time to snatch a morsel of dinner; but as it used to be said of the celebrated Lord Cullen, that if he dipped into a book for two minutes, he could talk about it for two years, you will think my way of dipping into a country is on a somewhat similar scale of proportion.

2. We passed near Culloden moor to-day, and saw the dreary scene whered Scotland's lance was shivered, where her shield was broken, her banner of pride laid low, and whered "the red eye of battle was shut in despair."d Some miles beyond stands "Cawdor Castle, about six centuries old, but with a roof still over its head, and surrounded by trees, which even Dr. Johnson condescended to notice with respect.

3. Hail Thane of Cawdor! This castle hath a pleasant seat!" It is, moreover, garrisoned by a civil, courtesying housekeeper, who paraded us about from one "odd-looking room to another, apologizing for the very thing which most delighted me, the rude, uncivilized aspect of the whole place and furniture. I would have been disgusted by the sight of a modern luxury or comfort in such a scene, but every thing remains in the raw unfledged state of old times.

4. No spring cushions, ottomans, footstools,k or other unnecessary necessaries of modern life, but here the strait stiff chairs are great-grandfathersd to any you ever sat in elsewhere; the door is of solid iron, the wainscotsk are as unconscious of paint as when they came from the forest, and the entrance is through a portcullis,k and over a drawbridge rattling on its chains, quite ready to repel an invasion.

5. This primitive state of affairs is more attractive to visitors than to the owners, except in its present capacity of shooting box, and Cawdor Castle is now almost entirely deserted for Stackpole Court and Golden Grove, its more trimmed and

decorated rivals in Wales. Golden Grove, with its richly poetical name, affords a singular exception to the nationality of the Welsh, as it was bequeathed by a primitive recluse named Vaughan, to the only Scotch gentleman probably possessing property in Wales.

6. Pluralities in estates, as well as in livings, are not advantageous, and I sometimes wish for an act of Parliament, making it criminal, like polygamy, to keep two estates, so that those who inherit as many, shall relinquish the one they like least to their nearest of kin, provided he settle there for life. 7. The vaulted kitchen at Cawdor Castle is excavated in solid rock, so that the cook lives like a toad in a stone, and the scullery is on a similar plan, with a low arched roof, looking quite like a natural cave. How many millions of dinners have been cooked in that grate, since the time when oxen were roasted whole, to the present day, when they appear in fancy dress, and assume French names !

8. We were shown a large iron box which the ancestor of Lord Cawdor received when this castle was about to be built. The casket is now empty,b but was then filled with gold, destined to pay the whole expense of building, on the express condition that this treasure should be placed on a donkey's back, when the animal was to be turned loose, with a few strokes of the whip, and at the first place where he afterwards stood still, the foundation must immediately be laid.

9. Many houses are so ill situated, one might imagine that nothing wiser than a donkey had fixed on the site, but this long-eared architect excelled most "capability men." He paused near the river, beside a very fine thorn tree, and one of the rooms has been built round the stem, which yet stands bare and rugged, within the apartment, its rootk on the floor,k and its head piercing the ceiling.

10. This has a singular effect, as if it had forced a way through the roof; and if tradition speak the truth, this aged block of wood must now be at least six hundred years of age, coeval with the time of Macbeth, when the Thane of Cawdor was a prosperous gentleman."

11. In the external wall of Cawdor Castle, about half way from the summit, a thriving, full-grown mgooseberry bush has contrived to take root, though we could not but wonder where it found any nourishment or support! It clings to the interstices of a solid stone wall, nine feet thick, and there produces

an ample crop of gooseberries, the most genuine wall-fruit I have seen, which might have been gathered if we could have made a long arm, to reach about ten feet down from the nearest window. Baron Munchausen's cherry-tree growing on a stag's head, was not much more surprising.

12. In this delightful old castle we were shown King Duncan's chain armor. There are four houses in Scotland where that monarch was undoubtedly murdered; Glammis Castle, a blacksmith's hut near Forres, Inverness Castle, now superseded by the Jail, and Cawdor Castle, which appears to me the most appropriate scene for the occasion, being quite a readymade tragedy in itself.

13. I walked slowly up the very steps which Lady Macbeth ascended, trying to feel as like Mrs. Siddons as possible, but if A- had treated us to one of Kean's very best starts in Macbeth, he would have precipitated the whole party to the bottom of a steep spiral staircase. We reached, at length, a most ominous looking door,k very low, and creaking on the hinges with a most unearthly sound, which opened into the fatal apartment, where there is a vaulted stone roof.t

14. I was wound up now, to behold a scene quite a la Shakspeare, but, alas, a sad disappointment awaited us! all within was fresh, clean, and new, exhibiting not so much as a grain of dust, or a stain of blood,k and we were informed that an accident had destroyed every relic of antiquity.

15. In the chimney of this old room, a colony of jack-daws established their nests, which took fire one night, when King Duncan's bed perished, and the whole proofs of the murder were destroyed. Another bed which we were shown in this house might have been substituted, as it was the most dismal piece of furniture I ever beheld, with plumes of black feathers at every corner, silver ornaments and velvet hangings, so that if mounted on wheels like a hearse, it would have been quite fit for the undertaker.

16. You may trace out half the history of Scotland in this entertaining old castle! I wish we had four pairs of eyes at least to look about us with! We were next ushered into a crevice, which can scarcely be dignified with the name of a closet, where old Lord Lovat, at the age of eighty, remained in concealment during six weeks after escaping from the battle of Culloden.

17. If we ever have to flee for our lives, I could not desire

a better hiding place; for though the English troops had certain information that the aged peer was confined in this very house, they never succeeded in discovering him! The entrance is most curious and complicated, for I stood on the leads close beside the place without detecting a nook in which so much as his wig could have been harbored.

After

18. A sort of supplementary elevation, like a chimney, rose above the roof, by placing a ladder against which we scrambled to a narrow platform, and there saw a nearly invisible door, scarcely wider than the entrance to a dog kennel. creeping with difficulty into this aperture, we found an apartment under a pent roof, twice the size of a bathing machine, where Lord Lovat remained, day after day, and week after week, almost within sight of his own magnificent estates.

19. A very few miles off were the trees on which he formerly hanged so many of his own retainers, the halls in which he once executed tyrannical sway, and the house in which both his amiable, high-born wives successively wore out their miserable existences, in a species of rigid imprisonment.

20. Early in life, he erected a marble tablet in the parish church, bearing a splendid panegyric on himself, and when his friend Sir Robert Monro remonstrated on the absurdity of this "romantic stuff,” he said that his clan must believe whatever he told them.

21. I wonder he did not leave an equally imaginary portrait of his countenance, rather than trust Hogarth's pencil, who found the temptation to caricature quite irresistible, and threatened, when Lord Lovat refused to pay for his picture, that he would "add a tail, and sell it for the frontispiece of a menagerie." It is surprising he did not burn the painting at last, but he stands recorded, at his own request,

To future times a libel and a jest.

22. Had Lord Lovat been staunch to either side, our sympathy would have been greater, but a prospective patent, creating him Duke of Fraser, nailed the weathercock of his opinions; and such patents are often the best remedy for the hot and cold fits of a politician, who "foams a patriot to subside a peer."y

23. We gazed over the wall upwards of sixty feet high, where Lord Lovat, wrapped in blankets, was let down by ropes, at last, to make his escape; and I became perfectly gid