drum elementary grammar into the dull heads of inattentive boys is under no circumstances an enlivening occupation. But it is ten times more dreary than usual when, instead of being Latin or Greek-languages resuscitated from their graves, as boys suppose, for the sole purpose of tormenting them-the grammar is of the teacher's own native tongue. What must it be when the language to be taught, besides being that of the fatherland, is regarded by the teacher as the most logical, the most expressive, and the most harmonious in the world, while by the learner it is persistently regarded as irrational, ugly, and absurd?

Juvenal, with his own bold pencil and in his own glowing colours, painted the hard case of the Roman pedagogue, a sort of male Jane Eyre, struggling for the sake of his miserable pittance against the laziness and insolence of purse-proud and vicious aristocratic youth. How far more effective would the satire have been if the elegant and refined Athenian sage had sat for the portrait ! But the satirist had lashed too severely the Greekling's character to be able to consistently make a hero, or even a martyr, of him. Nor was the degenerate representative of Aristotle and Zeno a very worthy object of pity or respect. So the little Quirites who learned Greek in Rome treated their foreign master, doubtless, in a way very similar to that in which schoolboys treat 'Monsieur.' All the odium which ignorant people naturally attach to the character of an alien-which made the Greeks treat their Asiatic neighbours as 'barbarians,' and makes the Chinese treat Europeans as ‘devils'—is fostered and intensified in the rude and unfeeling mind of the ordinary boy; and it affords him a particular pleasure to be able, in ridiculing the foreigner, to insult at the same time the master. Accordingly, he will utilise skilfully all the ample opportunities which French pronunciation and French syntax afford for offending the susceptibilities of the too patriotic teacher. Is a vowel sounded in a manner new and difficult to rather clumsy English lips?—it is straightway laughed at as a silly and arbitrary perversion of the natural sound of the letter. Are there any

supposed deficiencies or inaccuracies in the French vocabulary? -they are pointed out with ineffable scorn, and made a reproach against the nation in general and its representative in particular. Unrestrained, and perhaps sometimes excusable

mirth is provoked in the upper form by the rules of French versification, while to a less advanced class Gil Blas is no caricature, but a type of the ordinary Frenchman of average intelligence, suffering the mishaps which every Frenchman deserves for his innate stupidity.

To the French master of honourable descent, whose highest pride is his country, and only his second thoughts for himself, these outrages on the national character are the severest parts of his trials. But there are personal insults always impending over him, if not always actually outspoken, and which will, it is well known, lash him into a fury both impotent and ridiculous. If a well-worn allusion to snails and frogs as an article of food fails to produce the desired effect, the battle of Waterloo is reproduced-that unfailing theme for 'getting a rise out of Mossu.' The French class is nothing if not insubordinate, and the youth who quakes most abjectly before the frown of the head-master is the most ready to defy all discipline at the hands of the foreigner. But this wretched man has no means of coercion except his own powers of self-assertion; which—what with exile, poverty, and the inclemencies of an insular climate-are reduced to a minimum. Herein, also, he differs miserably from most other pedagogues of ancient and modern times. When the Roman schoolmaster taught his own language to the fairhaired children of the British chief, he was armed with a solid ruler, capable of overawing the most impudent urchin. And even in the backwoods, although a pupil has been known to draw a revolver on his instructor, the latter has generally at command some means of more than moral supremacy. The . French master has no such weapon. His sole remedy is an appeal to the chief—a man often as ignorant of French as the offender himself, and in the memory of whose school days the French master is recorded still more as a laughing-stock than he is at the present time. So the poor man usually fights his own unequal battle, struggling in an undignified position to keep up a show of dignity, and affecting the semblance of dignity which he has no real power to enforce. One chance, one only chance, he sometimes has of varying his life with a few brighter and happier moments. Kind fate may appoint him instructor of the neighbouring young ladies' school. Here, if he be only wise and stout-hearted enough, he may don for a time the

mantle of honour and respect. Within those vestal precincts the manly form is welcomed with unfailing interest, even though it appear in the shape of a poor, and perhaps broken-hearted, refugee. With the girls, France is the 'grand nation,' not only because they are less narrow-minded and have a greater smattering of Continental history, but from the hackneyed claim it has asserted to superior gallantry. But the bright gleams are transient, and a few short hours see the toiler back among his tormentors, to whom he is a recognised and almost legitimate butt.—Globe.

22. THE LION-KILLER.

In

The lion found in North Africa is a very savage beast. some parts of the world lions will turn away when they meet a man, and, unless he touches them, will not attack him. But it is not so with the lions of North Africa-they devour both men and cattle whenever they can find them. Sometimes they leap at the head of their victim, and kill him at once. At other times they amuse themselves with their prey as a cat amuses herself with a mouse. They walk a little way off, and then spring on him again, pat him, and tumble him over, killing him at last, when they are tired, and the poor victim is half dead with fear. These lions eat so many cattle that a brave French soldier tells us, one lion, in the course of his life, will devour as much food as would cost 8,000l. No wonder the people who live there both hate and fear lions very much.

The French soldier whom we have referred to has killed so many lions that he well deserves his name of the 'Lion-killer.' On the first evening of his arrival at the camp in the French colony of Algeria, he heard sad complaints of a lion that had been devouring the flocks and herds. After listening to the account of all that this dreadful beast had done and was doing, the brave little Frenchman amazed them by saying very quietly that he would go and kill him, if they would find him a guide. They all made fun of him on hearing this, telling him if the lion did not eat him, it would only be because he was so small. But this did not turn the brave hunter from his purpose; so at last they agreed to help him. They dug a large hole in the ground, and covered it with trees. On these trees they placed large stones,

and then covered the whole with damp earth. In this hole the Lion-killer was to stand and watch for the lion, who would most likely, as his friends told him, drag him out of it and devour him. Night after night he spent there, but did not find it a very pleasant post, and the lion never came near. At length, however, one night he heard the fierce monster's roar. For two hours he remained in the neighbourhood, and then went off without molesting the hunter. On following his traces, it was found that he passed through the open plain, and the Lion-killer resolved to watch for him there.

To the plain he went, attended by a dozen Arabs. They found a fine cluster of trees, standing as thickly together as if they had but one root. Some of the Arabs ran away from fright; the rest, with the Lion-killer, concealed themselves among the thick trees. There were many traces of the lion, but the lion himself they could not see.

Going back to the camp, fresh complaints of the lion's doings were made. He seemed to be everywhere at once, and yet when they looked for him he was nowhere. At last, after many vain attempts to find him, one night, as they watched, his roar was again heard. When it died away, the Lion-killer and his two friends placed themselves in a small opening in the wood. Soon the crackling of boughs was heard as the beast strode towards them. Nearer he came, and his hidden foes raised their guns ready to shoot at him. At last a bush close to the hunters was stirred by his movement. A few growls were heard, and then came a roar that in the night's darkness made even the brave hunter's heart quake. The lion most likely scented the men, for he raised his huge head above the bushes, and fixed his eye on the Lion-killer, who seized that moment before he could leap on him to shoot him through the side of the head. Another tremendous roar shook the wood-then the smoke cleared away, and the lion lay dead. It was well for the hunters that one shot had been enough, for this lion was so large, that the three men together could not turn him over, and one man alone could scarcely raise his huge head from the ground.

It was for killing this fierce creature that the grateful Arabs gave the brave little soldier the name of the Lion-killer.— Chambers' Series.

23. THE BROKEN FLOWER-POT.

My father was seated on the lawn before the house, his straw hat over his eyes (it was summer), and his book on his lap. Suddenly a beautiful Delft blue-and-white flower-pot, which had been set on the window-sill of an upper storey, fell to the ground with a crash, and the fragments spluttered up round my father's legs. Sublime in his studies, as Archimedes in the siege, he continued to read. Impavidum ferient ruinæ.!

6 Dear, dear!' cried my mother, who was at work in the porch; 'my poor flower-pot, that I prized so much! who could have done this? Primmins, Primmins!'

Mrs. Primmins popped her head out of the fatal window, nodded to the summons, and came down in a trice, pale and breathless.

'Oh !' said my mother mournfully, 'I would rather have lost all the plants in the greenhouse in the great blight last May— I would rather the best teasel were broken! The poor geranium I reared myself, and the dear, dear flower-pot which Mr. Caxton bought for me my last birthday! that naughty child must have done this!'

Mrs. Primmins was dreadfully afraid of my father, why, I know not, except that very talkative social persons are usually afraid of very silent shy ones. She cast a hasty glance at her master, who was beginning to evince signs of attention, and cried promptly, 'No, ma'am, it was not the dear boy-it was I !'

'You? How could you be so careless? and you knew how I prized them both. Oh! Primmins !'

Primmins began to sob.

'Don't tell fibs, nursey,' said a small shrill voice; and Master Sisty (coming out of the house as bold as brass) continued rapidly, 'don't scold Primmins, mamma; it was I who pushed out the flower-pot.'

'Hush!' said nurse, more frightened than ever, and looking aghast towards my father, who had very deliberately taken off his hat, and was regarding the scene with serious eyes wide-awake.

'Hush! And if he did break it, ma'am, it was quite an