Spell and pronounce : — commodity, chimerical, navigation, cement, kindred, contexture, cohesion, allegiance, discipline, clearance, ardently, originally, invigorates, magnanimity, monopoly, and privileges.

Synonyms. chimerical — imaginary; fanciful; fantastic; wild; unfounded; vain; delusive; deceitful. allegiance-loyalty; duty; fealty; fidelity. efficacy-virtue; force; energy. magnanimitygenerosity.

Edmund Burke (1730–1797) was born in Dublin; he graduated from Trinity College, in his native city, and then went to London to study law. He soon abandoned the law, however, and devoted himself to literature. The work that has given him a permanent literary fame, is his "Essays on the Sublime and Beautiful." Becoming a Member of Parliament, he commenced that brilliant political career, made particularly prominent by his "Debates upon the American War." In these debates, he opposed the coercive measures of George III., and recommended to the English Government a policy calculated to reconcile rather than antagonize her colonies.

LESSON C.

vie'tor, one who gets the better of another in any struggle.

en shrined', cherished.

am bi'tion, an eager desire of honor or power.

ǎv'a riçe, excessive love of gain.

HYMN TO CONTENTMENT.

Lovely, lasting peace of mind,
Sweet delight of human kind!
Heavenly born, and bred on high,
To crown the favorites of the sky
With more of happiness below
Than victors in a triumph know!
Whither, O whither art thou fled,
To lay thy meek contented head;
What happy region dost thou please
To make the seat of calms and ease?

Ambition searches all its sphere

Of pomp and state to meet thee there;
Increasing avarice would find

Thy presence in its gold enshrined.
The bold adventurer ploughs his way
Through rocks amidst the foaming sea
To gain thy love, and then perceives
Thou wert not in the rocks or waves.
The silent heart, which grief assails,
Treads soft and lonesome o'er the vales,
Sees daisies open, rivers run,

And seeks (as I have vainly done)
Amusing thought; but learns to know
That solitude's the nurse of woe.
No real happiness is found

In trailing purple o'er the ground:
Or in a soul exalted high,

To range the circuit of the sky,
Converse with stars above, and know
All nature in its forms below:

The rest it seeks, in seeking dies,

And doubts at last for knowledge, rise.

Lovely, lasting Peace, appear;
This world itself, if thou art here,

Is once again with Eden blest,
And man contains it in his breast.

'Twas thus, as under shade I stood,
I sung my wishes to the wood,

And lost in thought, no more perceived
The branches whisper as they waved:
It seem'd as all the quiet place

Confess'd the presence of his grace.

When thus she spoke: "Go, rule thy will,
Bid thy wild passions all be still,

Know God-and bring thy heart to know
The joys which from religion flow:
Then every grace shall prove its guest,
And I'll be there to crown the rest."

Oh, by yonder mossy seat,

In my hours of sweet retreat,
Might I thus my soul employ,
With sense of gratitude and joy;
Raised as ancient prophets were,
In heavenly vision, praise, and prayer,
Pleasing all men, hurting none,
Pleased and blest with God alone:
Then while the gardens take my sight
With all the colors of delight;

While silver waters glide along,

To please my ear and court my song;
I'll lift my voice and tune my string,
And Thee, Great Source of nature, sing.

The sun that walks his airy way,

To light the world and give the day;
The moon that shines with borrow'd light;
The stars that gild the gloomy night;
The seas that roll unnumbered waves;
The wood that sheds its shady leaves;
The field whose ears conceal the grain,
The yellow treasure of the plain;—
All of these and all I see,

Should be sung and sung by me:
They speak their Maker as they can,
But want and ask the tongue of man.

Go search among your idle dreams,
Your busy or your vain extremes;
And find a life of equal bliss,

Or own the next begun in this.

Sir, I have entreated an attendance on this day, that you might, in the most public manner, deny the claim of the British Parliament to make law for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands against it. England now smarts under the lesson of the American war; her enemies are a host, pouring upon her from all quarters of the earth; her armies are dispersed; the sea is not hers; she has no minister, no ally, no admiral, none in whom she long confides, and no general whom she has not disgraced; the balance of her fate is in the hands of Ireland; you are not only her last connection,—you are the only nation in Europe that is not her enemy.

Let corruption tremble; but let the friends of liberty rejoice at these means of safety, and this

hour of redemption. You have done too much not to do more; you have gone too far not to go on; you have brought yourselves into that situation in which you must silently abdicate the rights of your country, or publicly restore them. Where is the freedom of trade? Where is the security of property? Where is the liberty of the people?

I therefore say, nothing is safe, satisfactory, or honorable, nothing except a declaration of rights. What are you, with three hundred thousand men at your back, with charters in one hand and arms in the other, afraid to say you are a free people? If England is a tyrant, it is you who have made her so; it is the slave that makes the tyrant, and then murmurs at the master whom he himself has

constituted.

The British minister mistakes the Irish character; had he intended to make Ireland a slave, he should have kept her a beggar. There is no middle policy: win her heart by the restoration of her rights, or cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the nations in a state of war;-the claims of the one go against the liberty of the other, and the sentiments of the latter go to oppose those claims to the last drop of her blood.

The English opposition, therefore, are right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland. They judge of us by other great nations; by the nation whose political life has been a struggle for liberty,America! They judge of us with a true knowledge and just deference for our character; that a country enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, and