born at Slough, near Windsor, in 1790. His father, Sir William Herschel, was an eminent astronomer, and the discoverer of the planet Uranus. Sir John has made many valuable contributions to astronomical science, having visited Southern Africa and remained there four years, for the purpose of making observations. He is also a gentleman of modesty and worth, and highly respected. He has received the highest scientific honors; and his works on astronomy, optics, and other Branches of natural philosophy, are universally reckoned among the highest authorities on these subjects.

LORD ROSSE, a British astronomer, was born in York in 1800. In 1826 he erected an observatory, the instruments for which were made under his direction. Of these the most noted and important is the large reflecting telescope, which was finished in 1844, at a cost of sixty thousand dollars. It weighs more than three tons, and is the most powerful reflector in the world.

SELECTION LXXXV.

APOLLO was one of the principal gods of the classic mythology. Homer describes him as an archer, as a god of song and stringed instruments, and as a revealer of the future. He is usually represented as a beautiful youth, with long hair, crowned with the sacred bay-tree, and bearing the lyre or the bow.

PLUTUS, in ancient mythology, is represented as the god of wealth. He is said to have been blinded by Jupiter, so that he might distribute his gifts without regard to merit, he having previously given them only to the good.

PACTOLUS (now Sarabat) is the name of a small river in Lydia. When Midas requested Bacchus to take back from him the fatal gift of turning everything he touched into gold, he was told to bathe in the Pactolus, whose sands were by that act converted into precious metal.

THE HELICONIAN RILL is a stream rising in Mount Helicon, in Greece, whose waters are famous for the power attributed to them in the classic mythology, of inspiring the writers of poetry.

GRUB-STREET was a street in London, much inhabited by inferior and half-starved authors. It is now called Milton-street. A garreteer is the occupant of a garret.

ELIXIR VITÆ was the name given, in the Middle Ages, to a supposed liquid which was said to possess the virtue of transmuting common metals into gold.

SELECTION LXXXVI.

JANE TAYLOR, an English writer, was born in 1783, and died in 1824. In connection with her sister, she wrote several instructive books for children.

SELECTION LXXXVII.

REBECCA THE JEWESS, is a character in Scott's Ivanhoe. She is endowed with great purity and kindness of heart, as well as graces of person, and is one of this author's best female charac

ters.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, an eminent and voluminous writer, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1771, and died in 1832. His writings are chiefly novels, in prose and poetry, illustrative of the manners and customs of medieval and succeeding times. The scenes of many of them are laid in the author's native land. Sir Walter attained immense popularity as a writer, and enjoyed the highest respect as an upright and honorable man. He was also a gentleman of warm friendships, and took great pleasure in dispensing a generous hospitality.

ISRAEL was a name applied to Jacob after wrestling with an angel. See the account in the 32d chapter of Genesis. His descendants were also called by this name. Its meaning is, who prevails with God."

SELECTION LXXXVIII.

"He

ELIJAH was a Hebrew prophet, whose history is to be found in the last chapters of the First Book of Kings and in the first chapters of the Second Book of Kings.

HOREB is a mountain in the peninsula that lies between the two northern branches of the Red Sea. It forms the northern ex

tremity of a chain which includes Sinai. It is frequently mentioned in Scripture.

SELECTION LXXXIX.

PERUVIANS were the ancient inhabitants of Peru; they were a comparatively civilized people at the discovery of America. They possessed more intelligence and culture than any other race found by Europeans on the Western continent.

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT, an American historian, was born in Salem, Mass., in 1796, and died in Boston in 1859. He was a laborious and highly successful writer of history, having reference mostly to Spain and her American conquests. His style is clear and pleasing, and his temper impartial. His works are universally

regarded as valuable additions to our literature. For many of his later years he was nearly blind, on account of an accident during his college life; and his literary labor was, in consequence, performed under great disadvantages. Among his works are The Conquest of Mexico, The Conquest of Peru, and Philip II.

QUITO is a city in Ecuador, remarkable for being situated almost directly under the equator, and at an altitude of about 9,000 feet above the sea-level. It is also peculiarly liable to earthquakes.

Cuzco is a city of Bolivia, situated on an elevated table-land. It was the capital of the ancient Peruvian Empire, and the residence of the Incas.

The

INCA was a name applied to the ruling head of the Peruvian Empire, and also to the race or family to which he belonged. rule of the Incas was remarkably wise and beneficent.

SELECTION XCIV.

A. K. H. BOYD is a Scottish clergyman, whose genial and instructive writings have been widely read in the United States. Many of them were contributed to the Atlantic Monthly under the name of "The Country Parson."

ROBERT BURNS, a famous Scotch Poet, was born in 1759, and died in 1796. His parents were poor people, and he himself spent most of his life in hard work and a struggle against poverty. His education was very limited, but his poetry glows with feeling, and its melody is so charming that it has become a part of the permanent literature of the English language.

DOON is a small river in south-western Scotland. Burns was born very near it, and celebrates it in his poetry.

JOHN STUART, Earl of Bute, was, for a short time, the prime minister of George III., King of England. He was born in 1713, and died in 1792. He was a man of limited abilities, and very unsuccessful as a statesman.

THE ISLE OF BUTE is an island in the Frith of Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. This is the island referred to in this selection. Its climate is very salubrious, and it is much resorted to by invalids.

MONT BLANC is the highest peak of the Alps, and is much visited by travelers.

CHAMOUNI is a famous valley on the north side of Mont

Blanc.

SELECTION XCV.

LORD JOHN CAMPBELL, Chief Justice of the English court of Queen's Bench, was born in Scotland in 1781. He has been a

very hard worker, both as a lawyer and as an author. He has published biographies of the Lord Chancellors of England and of the Chief Justices of the same country.

LORD ELLENBOROUGH, Chief Justice of the English court of King's Bench, was born in 1750, and died in 1818.

OVID was a Roman poet who lived in the time of the Emperor Augustus. His Latin name was Publius Ovidius Naso. Boys now study some of his works as a part of their classical education. He died A. D. 18.

LORD MACAULAY. See Note on Selection LXXV., p. 349.

JAMES ANTONY FROUDE, an English historian, was born in 1818. His "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth” is a very able and original work. He makes Henry VIII.a much better man than he is generally considered to be.

CHAT MOSS is a morass in Lancashire, England, over which George Stephenson, the celebrated engineer, succeeded in carrying the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, when every other engineer declared the feat impossible. Mr. Stephenson was born in 1781, and died in 1848. In early life, he was very poor; and at eighteen, he did not know his letters. The railway over Chat Moss was built between 1826 and 1830, and was the first on which locomotives were ever used.

SIR CHARLES JAMES NAPIER, an English General, was born in 1782, and died in 1853. His greatest military successes were achieved in the conquest of Sinde, in Western Hindostan, in 1843.

JOHN FOSTER, an English essayist, was born in 1770, and died in 1843. He was an earnest and powerful writer, and labored by his works to improve the condition of the common people in England.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, an English poet and philosopher, was born in 1772, and died in 1834 He was a profound thinker and a poet of great imaginative power; but his indolence and want of will prevented him from finishing many of the literary enterprises which he undertook. Christabel, a poem, was one of his finest productions, but was never finished.

CHARLES KINGSLEY, an English clergyman and author, was born in 1819. He is an energetic and voluminous writer, possessing a vivid imagination and a powerful and philosophical reach of thought. In all social discussions his sympathies are strongly on the side of the common people.

He was

ARISTOTLE was a philosopher of ancient Greece. born in Macedonia in 384 B. C. He was a disciple of Plato, but differed from his master in devoting himself to the study of the atural world and of practical affairs, rather than to that of pure

idealities. He wrote books on logic, natural history, politics, and other topics. Many of these are studied to this day.

SELECTION XCVI.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. See Note on Selection LXXIV., page 347.

SELECTION XCVIII.

Elizabeth BARRETT BROWNING, an English poet, was born in 1809, and died in 1861. She was educated in a rigorous and severe manner, and began to write early in life. Her poetry is highly imaginative, and possesses great power and energy. Aurora Leigh is, by most persons, considered her highest effort. She combines in a wonderful degree the vigor of the masculine intellect and the sensibility of the feminine. She spent many years in Italy, and died there; and some of her poems express the aspirations of the patriots of that country for liberty.

SELECTION XCIX.

THOMAS WOLSEY, an English statesman and prelate, was born in 1471, and died in 1530. He was a man of excellent abilities, but unscrupulous. His skill as a diplomatist was very great, and became known on his being sent to the Continent by Henry VII. But he achieved his greatest success under Henry VIII., whose prime minister he became. No other English subject was ever so distinguished for his wealth and magnificence. But on the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, who was Wolsey's enemy, he soon fell into disgrace, and finally died of a broken heart.

THOMAS CROMWELL, a friend of Wolsey, and, after some time, his successor in the favor of Henry VIII., was born about the year 1500, and died in 1540. For a few years he wielded a mighty power in England, and used it for the overthrow of the Catholic influence in that country. His measures have shaped the permanent policy of the government. But after about eight years of prosperity he fell under the displeasure of the king and was beheaded.

SELECTION CI.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, an American essayist and novelist, was born in 1804, and died in 1864. He struggled for a long time in poverty and obscurity, but his later years were spent in the serene enjoyment of affluence and an extended popularity as a writer. Most of his stories have a weird and ghostly character; and yet, mingled with this, are constant indications of the most genial and kindly nature. Mr. Hawthorne, in the course of his