voice in the chase no more. They who were my friends are pale, silent, low on bloody beds."

2. My eye now rested on the venerable pile of building before me it seemed as yesterday since the master of that stately mansion stood at the gate to welcome my arrival; and now, where was he? Gone-and for ever! The accents of his voice were never to be heard again; my eye was to behold him no more. A slight breeze agitated the naked branches for a moment, as these thoughts passed through my mind: it helped to complete the work of desolation; and several of the still remaining leaves were wafted to my feet. How indiscriminately the pride of the forest, the majestic oak, the trembling aspen, the graceful popiar, with all the tribe of inferior shrubs, were here mingled. All that remained of their once gay foliage lay here—one undistinguishable mass of decay, with no mark to point out to which they had belonged. And shall Death, the great leveller, not reduce us to the same state of equality? What are the great, the noble, the learned, the beautiful, more than the mean, the lowly and the worthless, when they lay down their heads in the grave? They leave a name behind them for a short time, and the best beloved are then soon forgotten!

6. Change the following poetical passages from the rhetorical to the conventional arrangement, altering such expressions as are not allowable in prose:

EXAMPLES.

With hasty step the farmer ran;

And close beside the fire they place
The poor half-frozen beggar man,
With shaking limbs and blue pale face.
The little children flocking came,

And chafed his frozen hands in theirs ;

And busily the good old dame

A comfortable mess prepares.

In pensive guise

Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,

And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard One dying strain to cheer the woodman's toil.

TRANSPOSED.

The farmer ran with hasty steps; and they place the poor half-frozen beggar man, with his shaking limbs and blue pale face, close beside the fire. The little children came flocking

round him, and chafed his frozen hands in theirs, while the good old dame busily prepares a comfortable mess.

Let me often wander in pensive guise over the russet meadow and through the saddened grove, where one dying strain is scarcely heard to cheer the woodman's toil.

EXERCISES.

When Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands,
The clouded pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery pillar's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen:
And Zion's daughters poured their lays
With priests' and warriors' voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,

Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen;
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.

And, oh! when stoops on Judah's path,
In shade and storm, the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light.

F

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn.
But Thou hast said: "The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."

O'er the wide prospect as I gazed around,
Sudden I heard a wild promiscuous sound,
Like broken thunders that at distance roar,
Or billows murmuring on the hollow shore:
Then, gazing up, a glorious pile beheld,
Whose towering summit ambient clouds concealed.
High on a rock of ice the structure lay,
Steep its ascent, and slippery was the way.
The wondrous rock like Parian marble shone,
And seemed, to distant sight, of solid stone.
Inscriptions here of various names I viewed,
The greater part by hostile time subdued!
Yet wide was spread their fame in ages past,
And poets once had promised they should last.
Some, fresh engraved, appeared of wits renowned:
I looked again, nor could their trace be found.
Critics I saw, that other names deface,

And fix their own, with labour, in their place :
Their own, like others, soon their place resigned,
Or disappeared, and left the first behind.
Nor was the work impaired by storms alone,
But felt the approaches of too warm a sun;
For Fame, impatient of extremes, decays
Not more by envy than excess of praise.
Yet part no injuries of Heaven could feel,
Like crystal, faithful to the graving steel;
The rock's high summit, in the temple's shade,
Nor heat could melt, nor beating storm invade.

Their names, inscribed unnumbered ages past, From time's first birth, with time itself shall last; These, ever new, nor subject to decays,

Spread and grow brighter with the length of days.

Thee, next they sang, of all creation first,
Begotten Son, Divine similitude,

In whose conspicuous count'nance, without cloud,
Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines,
Whom else no creature can behold: on thee
Impressed th' effulgence of his glory 'bides,
Transfused on thee, his ample Spirit rests.
He Heav'n of Heav'ns, and all the pow'rs therein,
By thee created, and by thee threw down
Th' aspiring dominations: thou that day
Thy Father's dreadful thunder did'st not spare,
Nor stop thy flaming chariot-wheels, that shook
Heav'n's everlasting frame, while o'er the necks
Thou drov'st of warring angels disarrayed.

Back from pursuit thy pow'rs with loud acclaim
Thee only extoll'd, Son of thy Father's might,
To execute fierce vengeance on his foes,

Not so on Man: Him thro' their malice fall'n,
Father of mercy and grace, thou did'st not doom
So strictly, but much more to pity incline;
No sooner did thy dear and only Son
Perceive thee purposed not to doom frail man
So strictly, but much more to pity inclined,
He to appease thy wrath, and end the strife
Of mercy and justice in thy face discern'd,
Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat
Second to thee, offered himself to die
For man's offence. O unexampled love!
Love nowhere to be found less than Divine!
Hail, Son of God, Saviour of men! thy name
Shall be the copious matter of my song
Henceforth, and never shall my harp thy praise
Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin.

BOOK III.

ON PUNCTUATION AND DICTATION.

SECTION I

EXPLANATION OF PUNCTUATION.

PUNCTUATION is the art of dividing a discourse into clauses, members, and sentences, by means of certain marks called points.

The Comma indicates the slightest pause in the construction of a discourse, and is generally used in the following circumstances.

I. When the subject is part of a sentence, or otherwise consists of a great many words, it is often sepated from the verb by a comma; as, That it is our