cabins of the people, over whom he ruled with almost absolute authority. They were exterminated, about the year 1730, by the French and the Choctaw Indians.

T. B. THORPE, an American author and artist, was born in Massachusetts in 1815. Among his pictures is a full-length portrait of General Zachary Taylor, under whom he saw much of military life; also Niagara As It Is, in which, for the first time, the three falls were represented in one view on canvas. The lastnamed picture was exhibited in 1860. In 1853 he became a frequent contributor to Harper's New Monthly Magazine.

BABEL was a tower, said, in Scripture History, to have been commenced by the immediate descendants of Noah soon after the flood. The enterprise was arrested by a divine interference which confused the speech of the workmen. Babel is supposed to have been situated near the Euphrates River.

SELECTION XXXVIII.

THOMAS CAMPBELL, a British poet, was born in 1777, and died in 1844. The Pleasures of Hope, his first long poem, was published in his twenty-second year, and enjoyed a popularity unparalleled, perhaps, by a first effort. His poetry is characterized by a melodious and polished diction, and breathes humane and generous sentiment. He spent some time in traveling on the Continent, and witnessed the battle of Hohenlinden, which was fought in 1800, between the French and the Austrians, the former under Moreau, and the latter under the Archduke John.

SELECTION XLII.

HANNAH MORE, an English author, was born in 1745, and died in 1843. In early life she wrote dramas for the stage, but her later writings are generally of a more serious character. Among them is a volume of Sacred Dramas. Cœlebs in Search of a Wife is her most popular work, ten editions of which were issued in one year.

SELECTION XLVI.

SCHILLER, a German poet, dramatist, and historian, was born in 1759, and died in 1805. He was a man of genius and indomitable industry. His compositions were mostly written for the stage, but his ballads and lyric poems are also of a high order. His most elaborate drama is entitled Wallenstein, though his last, called William Tell, is the most popular. Schiller shortened his life by excessive labor.

SELECTION XLVII.

CORNELIUS C. FELTON, an American author, and President of Harvard College, was born in 1807, and died in 1862. He was eminent for his attainments in the Greek language, and in the history of the Greek people. For many years he was Eliot Professor of the Greek language and literature in Harvard College, and he was the author of many works bearing upon that subject. He was held in high repute as a man, and filled many honorable positions, At the time of his death he was a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and one of the regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

LEONIDAS, King of Sparta, was killed at the battle of Thermopyla, 480 B. C. When Athens and Sparta, alone of all the Greek confederacy, resolved to resist the invasion of Xerxes, Leonidas led the Spartan forces, and gained immortal glory, especially by the death of himself and a small number of his men, who, in a narrow pass, resisted the entire Persian army.

JUPITER, in the Roman mythology, was the king of the gods. He is said to have been armed with thunder and lightning, and at the shaking of his shield the tempest raged, and the rain and the hail descended.

PARNASSUS is a famous mountain of Greece. Its sides are well wooded and abound in caverns and picturesque ravines. It was celebrated in antiquity for its sacred character. Delphi, at its foot, was the seat of the famous oracle of Apollo. The muses had their haunts on its top.

ETA is the name of a mountain range of Greece. It extends westward from Thermopyla.

EUBA is the largest island of the kingdom of Greece. It is situated along the northern coast of Thebes and Attica. It is now called Negropont.

THERMOPYLÆ is the name of a famous pass in Greece. The pass is about five miles long and is hemmed in on one side by precipitous rock of from 400 to 600 feet in height, and on the other It is here that side by the sea and an impassable morass. Leonidas and his Spartans died in defending Greece against the, invasion of Xerxes.

ISMENUS was a river of Boeotia in Greece.

HELICON is the name of a beautiful and fertile mountain near the gulf of Corinth in Greece. It was the favorite abode of the

muses.

AGANIPPE was a fountain, near Mount Helicon, whose waters

were believed to endow those who drank of them with poetic inspiration.

PITTACUS, one of the seven wise men of Greece, was born in Mytilene, about 652 B. C. It is said that at one time when the Mytileneans were engaged in a war with the Athenians, Pittacus slew the leader of the enemy, and that great rewards were therefore offered to him, but that he would take only as much land as he could throw his javelin over.

MITYLENE, or MYTILENE, is an island of the Grecian archipelago, belonging to Turkey.

SELECTION XLVIII.

ABRAHAM was the ancestor of the Hebrew nation, and was eminent for his faith in God and his trust in the divine promises, and also for his obedience to the divine commands. See an account of him in the book of Genesis, from the 11th chapter to the 23d inclusive.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, a celebrated American philosopher and statesman, was born in Boston in 1706, and died in Philadelphia in 1790. He is famous for having proved the identity of electricity and lightning; for the important services he rendered the Americans in the war of Independence, by his negotiations in their behalf with the French government, and by other civil services; and for the numerous maxims, useful and practical, which he published under the assumed name of Richard Saunders, or Poor Richard. Dr. Franklin stands at the head of the practical philosophers of modern time. His native city, Boston, has erected, near the City Hall, a bronze statue to his memory.

SELECTION L.

SPRINGFIELD, a city of Massachusetts, is situated on the east bank of the Connecticut river. It is one of the handsomest and most flourishing inland towns in the State. The United States Arsenal, established at Springfield in 1795, is the most extensive in the Union. The arsenal furnishes employment to about 2,800 men, who make about 1,000 muskets per day.

CAIN was the oldest son of Adam and Eve. He killed his brother Abel, and, as a punishment, was condemned to be a fugitive and vagabond on the earth. See an account of him in the book of Genesis, 4th chapter. He is alluded to here because he was the first murderer.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, an American poet, was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807. From 1835 to 1854, he was professor of modern languages and belles-lettres in Harvard College. Since

that time he has lived in retirement. He occupies a high rank among American poets. His poetry is characterized by beauty, gentleness, quaintness of illustration, and a catholic humanity.

SELECTION LI.

HENRY CLAY, an American statesman, was born in Virginia in 1777, and died at Washington in 1852. He was in public life, in one capacity or another, for fifty years, having been elected to the Legislature of Kentucky about the year 1802. In 1806 he was elected to the Senate of the United States, for a brief terin. In every position he occupied, he distinguished himself; whether as a member of the Legislature or of Congress, as the presiding officer of the Kentucky House of Representatives or of that at Washington, or as the American Minister in forming the treaty of Ghent,-in every office and in every place, his shining qualities made him conspicuous, and his genial, hearty manners, gallant bearing, and fervid eloquence always magnetized men, and secured for him hosts of friends. Mr. Clay was urged for the Presidency by a large and enthusiastic party, and his great talents and brilliant reputation certainly pointed him out as eminently fitted for that exalted position. But political events defeated his aspirations in this direction.

SELECTION LII.

HARPER'S FERRY is a post village of Jefferson County, West Virginia. It is situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. This place was the scene of the exploit which made John Brown famous. It suffered severely during the civil war of 1861-5.

SHENANDOAH is the name of a river which flows into the Potomac at Harper's Ferry.

THE POTOMAC is a river flowing in a south-easterly direction, and forming the boundary between Maryland and Virginia. It passes by Mount Vernon and the tomb of Washington. In some parts of its course it is a stream of great beauty.

A. H. QUINT is a clergyman of Massachusetts. He was a chaplain in the Union army during the great rebellion of 1861-5.

SELECTION LIV.

MAJOR JOHN ANDRÉ, an officer of the British army, was born in London in 1751. At the age of eighteen he entered a countingroom, but not being pleased with trade, he went with a lieutenant's commission to Canada, where he was captured in 1775. After a few months, he was exchanged, and soon became aide-de-camp

16

to Gen. Grey. Subsequently, at the instance of Sir Henry Clinton, he was promoted to the rank of major, and appointed adjutant-general. When Arnold was devising a way of surrendering West Point to the enemy, his correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton was through Major André, who wrote under the name of John Anderson." He daringly entered the American lines, and met Arnold near the village of Haverstraw, N. Y., Sept. 22, 1780. Arnold's plan of treason was here consummated, and it was while on his way back to New York, after having crossed the river, that Major André was arrested, near Tarrytown. He was tried, condemned, and hung as a spy, and died much lamented by both friend and foe, at the age of twenty-nine.

SELECTION LV.

NATHAN HALE, a revolutionary officer, is the hero of this poem. He was born in Connecticut in 1755, and executed as a spy, in New York, in 1776. While an officer in the army, he volunteered to go into the British camp and obtain information for Washington, which he successfully accomplished; but on his return he was taken by the British, tried and executed. After his sentence he was refused the privilege of reading the Bible or seeing a clergyman. His last words were, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

SELECTION LVII.

PATRICK HENRY was born at Studley, Hanover County, Va., May 29, 1726. He died June 6, 1799. He was sent first to an old field school, where tuition was chiefly confined to the English and primary branches. At ten years of age he returned home, and prosecuted his studies under the care of his father. Here he acquired a competent English education, and some acquaintance with Latin and mathematics, but hunting and angling being passions with him, he did not give himself up to study. He would desert his books at any moment to seek the forest with his gun, or the streams with his fishing-rod. At sixteen, his father set him up in business, but he displayed neither the tact nor disposition necessary to success. His social and sporting propensities grew upon him, and he became more and more indolent. *At the end of two or three years he became insolvent, and his store was closed. He then commenced farming, but soon abandoned it, and again turned his attention to merchandise. Again he became a bankrupt, and was obliged to cast about for some means of support. At the age of twenty-four, after only six weeks' study, he obtained a lawyer's license, having made a pro