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15. Could every man apply himself to [the] employments which are most suited to his capabilities, and, in his appointed calling, work only with a view to serviceable, sincere, and ennobling results, the measure of his achievements might still, perchance, fall short of his original aspirations; but, being commensurate with his powers, and conformable to the eternal laws, it could not fail to yield him that assurance of security and contentment which, by necessity, proceeds from all faithfulness of action.— Chambers.

16. By the immortal gods, I wish (pardon me, O my coun try! for I fear what I shall say out of a pious regard for Milo may be deemed impiety against thee) that Clodius not only lived, but were prætor, consul, dictator, rather than [that I should] be witness to such a scene as this. Immortal gods! how brave a man is that, and how worthy of being preserved by you! By no means, he cries; the ruffian met with the punishment he deserved; and let me, if it must be so, suffer the punishment I have not deserved.-Duncan's Cicero.

17. Where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gathered around it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its glory, and on the very spot of its origin.— Webster.

18. So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him,and lies down to pleasant dreams.-Bryant

19. Of chance or change, O let not man complain,
Else shall he never, never cease to wail;

For, from the imperial dome, to where the swain
Rears the lone cottage in the silent dale,

All feel th' assaults of Fortune's fickle gale;
Art, empire, Earth itself, to change are doom'd;
Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vale,
And gulfs the mountain's mighty mass entomb'd;
And where th' Atlantic rolls, wide continents have bloom'd.

Beattie.

20. The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,

21.

Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Dic,

If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled!-Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music,-words are weak
The glory they transfuse, with fitting truth to speak.
Shelley.

The honey-bee, that wanders all day long

The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er,
To gather in his fragrant winter store,
Humming in calm content his quiet song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips;
But from all rank and noisome weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness ever pressed
Within the poisoned chalice. Thus, if we
Seek only to draw forth the hidden sweet
In all the varied human flowers we meet
In the wide garden of humanity,
And, like the bee, if home the spoil we bear,
Hived in our hearts, it turns to nectar there.
A. C. Lynch.

22. And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate ere grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,-alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass,

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow

In its next verdure, when the fiery mass

Of living valor, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

23. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state;

Byron.

From brutes what men, from men what spirits know ;
Or who could suffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven,
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.-Pope.
24. As thus the snows arise; and, foul and fierce,
All Winter drives along the darkened air;
In his own loose-revolving fields, the swain
Disaster'd stands; sees other hills ascend,
Of unknown joyless brow; and other scenes,
Of horrid prospect, shag the trackless plain;
Nor finds the river, nor the forest, hid
Beneath the formless wild; but wanders on
From hill to dale, still more and more astray;
Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps,
Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home
Rush on his nerves, and call their vigor forth
In many a vain attempt.-Thomson.

25. O treacherous conscience! while she seems to sleep
On rose and myrtle, lull'd with syren song;
While she seems, nodding o'er her charge, to drop
On headlong appetite the slacken'd reign,

And give us up to license, unrecall'd,

Unmark'd;-see, from behind her secret stand,*
The sly informer minutes every fault,

And her dread diary with horror fills.
Not the gross act alone employs her pen:
She reconnoitres fancy's airy band,
A watchful foe! the formidable spy,
Listening, o'erhears the whispers of our camp;
Our dawning purposes of heart explores,
And steals our embryos of iniquity.-Young.
26. The pulpit, therefore, (and I name it, filled
With solemn awe, that bids me well beware
With what intent I touch that holy thing,)-

*Sco Obs. 3, page 112.

The pulpit (when the satirist has, at last,
Strutting and vaporing in an empty school,
Spent all his force and made no proselyte)-
I say the pulpit (in the sober use

Of its legitimate, peculiar powers)

Must stand acknowledged, while the world shall stand,
The most important and effectual guard,

Support, and ornament of virtue's cause.

There stands the messenger of truth; there, stands
The legate of the skies; his theme, divine;

His office, sacred; his credentials, clear.

By him the violated law speaks out

Its thunders; and, by him, in strains as sweet
As angels use, the Gospel whispers peace.—Cowper.
27. Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
And as the air blows it to me again,
Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
And yielding to another when it blows,
Commanded always by the greater gust;
Such is the lightness of you common men.

28.

29.

Shakspeare.

Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men
Shall e'er prevail against us, or distrust
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.-Wordsworth.

O, Adam, one Almighty is, from whom
All things proceed, and up to him return,
If not depraved from good, created all
Such to perfection, one first matter all,
Endued with various forms, various degrees
Of substance, and in things that live, of life;
But more refined, more spirituous, and pure,
As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending
Each in their sev'ral active spheres assign'd,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
Proportion'd to each kind.-Milton.

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CHAPTER II.--RELATION AND AGREEMENT.

In this chapter and the next, the Rules of Syntax are again exhibited, in their former order, with Examples, Exceptions, Observations, Notes, and False Syntax. The Notes are all of them, in form and character, subordinate rules of syntax, designed for the detection of errors. The correction of the False Syntax placed under the rules and notes, will form an oral exercise, somewhat similar to that of parsing, and perhaps more useful.

OBS.-Relation and Agreement are taken together that the rules may stand in the order of the parts of speech. The latter is moreover naturally allied to the former. Seven of the ten parts of speech are, with a few exceptions, incapable of any agreement; of these, the relation and use must be explained in parsing; and all necessary agreement between any of the rest, is confined to words that relate to each other.

RULE I.-ARTICLES.

Articles relate to the nouns which they limit: as, "At a little distance from the ruins of the abbey, stands an aged elm."

EXCEPTION FIRST.

The definite article, used intensively, may relate to an adjective or adverb of the comparative or the superlative degree; as, "A land which was the mightiest."-Byron. "The farther they proceeded, the greater appeared their alacrity."-Dr. Johnson. "He chooses it the rather."-Cowper. [See Obs. 7th, next page.]

EXCEPTION SECOND.

The indefinite article is sometimes used to give a collective meaning to an adjective of number; as, "Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis."-Rev. "There are a thousand things which crowd into my memory."-Spectator, No. 468. [See Obs. 12th, next page.]

OBSERVATIONS ON RULE I.

OBS. 1.-Articles often relate to nouns understood; as, "The [river] Thames,"" Pliny the younger", [man], "The honourable [body], the Legislature," "The animal [world] and the vegetable world," "Neither to the right [hand] nor to the left" [hand].-Bible. "He was a good man, and a just" [man].—Ib. "The pride of swains Palemon was, the generous [man], and the rich" [man].-Thomson.

OBS. 2.-It is not always necessary to repeat the article before several nouns in the same construction: the same article serves sometimes to limit the signification of more than one noun; but we doubt the propriety of ever construing two articles as relating to one and the same noun.

OBS. 3.-The article precedes its noun, and is never, by itself, placed after it; as, "Passion is the drunkenness of the mind."-Southey.

OBS. 4.-When an adjective precedes the noun, the article is placed before the adjective, that its power may extend over that also; as,

"The private path, the secret acts of men,

If noble, far the noblest of their lives."-Young.

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