swift camel, and calling his guard of horsemen about him, he started at full speed for his capital, and abandoned his army to its fate.

6. Instantly, the rumour of his flight spread through the ranks, the panic became general, and the mighty host melted away, without stopping to encounter the charge of the hostile bayonets. Redoubts and entrenchments were carried almost without resistance, and as the English descended on the camp they saw before them, stretching out in endless lines, a confused mass of men and horses, oxen, camels, and elephants, jumbled together in wild disorder, and struggling desperately to escape; while the further progress of the victors was impeded by tents overthrown, broken carriages, and dismounted cannon, with baggage piled up in heaps, and stores scattered loosely about, and all the wreck that accompanies the dispersion of a great armament.

7. It was indeed a wonderful victory which they had that day achieved by their valour, but they were not themselves aware of the full extent of what they had done. They knew that they had beaten an army which outnumbered them by tens of thousands, and driven to dastard flight the tyrant who had murdered their countryman; and they may have guessed that they had overthrown a dynasty and conquered a kingdom. But they could not tell that this was only the first of a long series of similar exploits which were to spread the power of their country over all the land of India, to break the sword of its spoilers and the sceptre of its oppressors, to unite its various nations and languages under the government of one imperial race, and to give to a little island in the Western seas that priceless jewel of the East for which so many kings and heroes had for ages contended in vain.

William Cowper was born in the parsonage of Great Berkhampstead. His father was Chaplain to George II., and his mother, a lady by birth, was the daughter of a Norfolk squire. She died when Cowper was six years old. Delicate and sensitive from childhood, he had a taint of diseased melancholy, which, from time to time, overshadowed his intellect, but when in comparative health he displayed an eminently vigorous, natural, and unaffected genius. "The Task" is his principal poem, and is distinguished, like all his other writings, by its purity and lofty tone, no less than its originality, delightful freshness, and manly strength of thought and expression. Cowper's Letters are the most delightful in the language. Born, 1731; Died 1800.

THERE is a bird who, by his coat,
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow;
A great frequenter of the church,
Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch,
And dormitory too.

Above the steeple shines a plate,
That turns and turns to indicate

From what point blows the weather;
Look up-your brains begin to swim,
'Tis in the clouds-that pleases him,
He chooses it the rather.

Fond of the speculative height,
Thither he wings his airy flight,
And thence securely sees
The bustle and the raree show,
That occupy mankind below,
Secure and at his ease.

You think, no doubt, he sits and muses
On future broken bones and bruises,
If he should chance to fall :
No; not a single thought like that
Employs his philosophic pate,
Or troubles it at all.

He sees that this great roundabout,
The world, with all its motley rout,
Church, army, physic, law,

Its customs and its businesses,
Is no concern at all of his,

And says-what says he ?-Caw!
Thrice happy bird! I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men;
And, sick of having seen 'em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine
And such a head between 'em.

SPELL AND GIVE THE MEANING

dor'mitory, sleeping place. in'dicate, shew.

spec'ulative, here, affording a wide view.

philosoph'ic, wise pate head

round'about, a merry-go-round,
here, the world
mot'ley, diversified.
rout, rabble, crowd.

raree show, lit., the wonders of a
showman's box.

ARCTIC ICE.-Edinburgh Review.

1. ICE, as it appears at sea, is of very different sorts, and presents obstacles of very different natures and of very different degrees of impermeability. There is, first of all, ice as it appears actually forming on the surface of the water, which is frequently spoken of as bay ice; this does not offer any serious difficulty to a stout ship, the weight of which can crush through and the strength of which can resist.

2. So far as is yet known, ice of this nature disappears with the winter; an extended sea, simply and permanently frozen over, has not yet been met with. Such ice is thus commonly enough called first-year ice; and we may understand that so far as our present experience goes, first-year ice is not considered impassable, though it may be difficult.

3. But it is very seldom that ice is allowed to remain in this condition; the swell of the sea transmitted sometimes to a great distance, or, still more, the rise and fall of the tide, breaks it up even as it forms; the pressure of the fragments, one against another, lifts them, tosses them, piles one over another, until they become heavy, solid, irregular masses, which are called floes, and a great number of floes driven together by wind, tide, or current, constitute pack ice.

4. Pack ice, then, may be of very different degrees; if of light, or comparatively light ice, loosely drifted together, a stout ship may pass through it, forcing the floes to one side or the other, by a strongly defended bow; but if the floes are very heavy, and are pressed by the wind, or tide, or current against a line of coast, or into a narrow channel, they freeze together there, and

that with a solidity which no ship that has hitherto crossed the Arctic circle can break through.

5. Icebergs are necessary to complete the ideal picture of an Arctic sea; but, strange as it may sound to many, icebergs are not sea-ice. An iceberg is the lower end of a glacier, which, forced, by the downward flow, into the sea, is broken off by its unsupported weight, or torn off by the upward pressure of the water, and so floats away. Such masses of ice are often, as is well known, of prodigious size; the weathering of the upper part forms them into fantastic shapes resembling spires and arches and things beautiful or grotesque; below the surface of the sea they extend a long way.

6. Ice, it will be remembered, floats with about seveneighths of its volume submerged; and a huge hill of ice, such as an iceberg is, draws a great deal of water; so much so, that they are frequently to be seen grounded in 70, 80, or even 100 fathoms, that is to say, in from 400 to 600 feet. It is by so grounding that they seriously impede navigation; for if several large bergs ground near each other, they constitute a nucleus round which drift ice collects, piles up, freezes together, and forms a pack of the worst kind. It was in such a pack that the Fox was caught in 1857 and held fast for eight months, whilst it drifted down Baffin's Bay and through Davis' Straits, for a distance of nearly 12,000 miles.

7. Pack ice, then, in its different forms, is the one distinct impassable hindrance to navigation. First year ice, or loose drift, can, as a rule, be got through; icebergs can be evaded; but heavy pack, closely pressed together, is as unyielding as the solid rock, and more dangerous, as being itself in motion. Now the nature of the pack depends, in a great measure, on the condition