14. Elizabeth now lay wholly at the mercy of the beast. There is said to be something in the front of the image of the Maker that daunts the hearts of the inferior beings of his creation; and it would seem that some such power, in the present instance, suspended the threatened blow. The eyes of the monster and the kneeling maiden met, for an instant, when the former stooped to examine her fallen foe; next to scent her luckless cub. From the latter examination it turned, however, with its eyes apparently emitting flashes of fire, its tail lashing its sides furiously, and its claws projecting for inches from its broad feet.

15. Miss Temple did not, or could not move. Her hands were clasped in the attitude of prayer; but her eyes were still drawn to her terrible enemy; her cheeks were blanched' to the whiteness of marble, and her lips were slightly separated with horror. The moment seemed now to have arrived for the fatal termination; and the beautiful figure of Elizabeth was bowing meekly to the stroke, when a rustling of leaves from behind seemed rather to mock the organs than to meet her ears.

16. "Hist! hist!" said a low voice; "stoop lower, gall; your bunnet hides the creater's head." It was rather the yielding of nature than a compliance with this unexpected order that caused the head of our hĕr'oine2 to sink on her bosom; when she heard the report of the rifle, the whizzing of the bullet, and the en raged cries of the beast, who was rolling over on the earth, biting its own flesh, and tearing the twigs and branches within its reach. At the next instant the form of the Leather-stocking rushed by her; and he called aloud-❝ Come in, Hector; come in, you old fool; 'tis a hard-lived animal, and may jump ag'in."

17. Natty maintained his position in front of the maidens. most fearlessly, notwithstanding the violent bounds and threatening aspect of the wounded panther, which gave several indications of returning strength and ferocity, until his rifle was again loaded, when he stepped up to the enraged animal, and, placing the muzzle close to its head, every spark of life was extinguished by the discharge.

J. FENIMORE COOPER.

'Blanched (blancht), whitened; made pale.-2 Her' o ine, a female hero; a female who is the principal character or person in a story.

1.

103. SPRING.

HOME, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come!
O Thomson,' void of rhyme as well as reason,
How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum ?*
There's no such season.

2 The Spring! I shrink and shudder at her name!
For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter!
And suffer from her blows as if they came
From Spring the Fighter.

3. Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing,

And be her tuneful laureates and upholders,
Who do not feel as if they had a Spring
Pour'd down their shoulders!

4. Let others eulogize1 her floral' shows;

From me they can not win a single stanza.
I know her blooms are in full blow-and so's
The Influenza.'

5. Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale,
Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at,
Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale,
Are things I sneeze at!

6. Fair is the vernal quarter of the year!

And fair its early buddings and its blowings-
But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear
With other sowings!

'James Thomson, author of "The Seasons," and "The Castle of In dolence," born in 1700, and died in 1748.-2 Hům, humbug; deceive.-. Lau' re ates, persons honored with a laurel. The Poet Laureate of England is an officer of the king's household, whose business it is to compose an ode annually on the king's birth-day, and the new year.'Eulogize (yu' lo jlz), to commend; to praise highly.— Flo' ral, pertaining to flowers. Stån' za, several lines in a poem or hymn, having a certain arrangement that is repeated again and again.-' In flu ên' za, a catarrh, or cold in the head, which has become epidemic, or diffused among the people. - Vêr' nal, belonging to the spring.

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7. For me, I find, when eastern winds are high,
A frigid, not a genial inspiration;'

Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb,' defy
An inflammation.

8. Smitten by breezes from the land of plague,
To me all vernal luxuries are fables:

Oh! where's the Spring in a rheumatic leg,
Stiff as a table's?

9. I lip in agony-I wheeze and cough;

And quake with Ague, that great Agitator;
Nor dream, before July, of leaving off
My Respirator.3

10. What wonder if in May itself I lack

A peg for laudatory1 verse to hang on?

Spring, mild and gentle !—yes, a Spring-heel'd Jack
To those he sprang on.

11. In short, whatever panegyrics' lie

In fulsome odes too many to be cited,

The tenderness of Spring is all my eye,

And that is blighted!

THOMAS HOOD.

104. A CHALLENGE TO AMERICA.'

ET us quarrel, Aměrican kinsmen. Let us plunge into war. We have been friends too long. We have too highly promoted each other's wealth and prosperity. We are too plethoric, we want depletion; to which end let us cut one another's throats.

2

In spi rå' tion, act of drawing in the breath; a highly exciting influence.- Chůbb, a maker of locks and chests supposed to be fire-proof.— 8 Res pi rà' tor, an instrument covering the mouth with net-work, to keep out the cold air.- Lâud' a to ry, containing praise; tending to praise.—3 Panegyrics (pan e jîrʼiks), formal praises.— Fål' some, gross; nauseous; disgusting. This Lesson is a striking instance of what rhetoricians call Irony, in which the meaning is exactly the reverse of what the words express, and the style of reading it is very peculiar · see the Circumflex, pages 27 and 34.- Pleth' o ric, fall, as of blood; fleshy; fat.-' De plè' tion, act of emptying; bleeding or blood-letting

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2. Let us sink, burn, kill, and destroy-with mutual energy; sink each other's shipping, burn each other's arsenals,' destroy each other's property at large. We will bombard your towns, and you shall bombard ours-if you can. Yet us ruin each other's commerce as much as possible, and that will be a considerable some.

3. Let our banks break while we smite and slay one another; let our commercial houses smash right and left in the United States and the United Kingdom. Let us maim and mutilate one another; let us make of each other miserable objects, cripples, halt, and blind, adapted for the town's end, to beg during life.

4. Come, let us render the wives of each other widows, and the mothers childless, and cause them to weep rivers of tears, amounting to an important quantity of "water privilege."

5. The bowl of wrath, the devil's punch-bowl, filled high, filled high as possible, share we with one another. This, with shot and bayonets, will be good in your insides and in my inside - in the insides of all of us brethren.

6. Oh, how good it is-oh, how pleasant it is, for brethren to engage in interne'cine strife! What a glorious spectacle we Christian Anglo-Saxons, engaged in the work of mutual destruction in the reciprocation' of savage outrages-shall present to the despots and the fiends!

7. How many dollars will you spend? How many pounds sterling shall we? How much capital we shall sink on either side-on land as well as in the sea! How much we shall have to show for it in corpses and wooden legs!-never ask what other return we may expect for the investment.

8. So, then, American kinsmen, let us fight; let us murder

'Ar' se nals, places where warlike implements are made or kept; storehouses for guns, powder, shot, etc.- Bombard (bum bård'), attack with bombs, or large iron shells filled with powder, thrown from mortars or cannon.- Mu' ti låte, to cut off, as a limb. Hált, lame." Water privilege, the advantage of a water-fall in streams sufficient to raise water for driving water-wheels. In ter nè' cine, mutually destroying ; deadly. Re cip ro ca' tion, interchange; giving and receiving in return. In vest' ment, property or money placed at interest, or in such a position that it will increase.

and ruin each other. Let demagogues' come hot from their conclave' of evil spirits, "cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war," and do you be mad enough to be those mad dogs, and permit yourselves to be hounded3 upon us by them.

PUNCH.

105. WAR.

WAR is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph of Death, who glories not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims; here they are the vigorous and the strong.

2. It is remarked by the most ancient of poets, that in peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children: nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely, indeed, but with that moderate and tranquil sõrrōw, which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many tender ties, many animating prospects. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair; the agèd parent, the widowed mother, loses, when she is deprived of her children, every thing but the capacity of suffering; her heart, withered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.

3. But, to confine our attention to the number of the slain would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from the religious prospects, as comparatively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are liable. We can not see an individual expire, though a stranger or an enemy, without being

'Dêm' a gogue, a leader of the people; a man who seeks to flatter and delude the people to his own interests, by appeals to their selfishness.— 'Con' clave, a secret assembly.- Hound' ed, set on the chase. -* Conquest (kong' kwest), that which is conquered or subdued.-- In åd' equate, not just; incomplete; defective.- Sword (sord). –' Exempt (egzemt') free; not subject to.