coast from Or'muz9 to Ceylon', from Cape Comorin' to the Moluc'cas, and the entire commerce of the East was almost 'exclusively in their hands.

The foreign empire of Portugal was brilliant but brief. A single century saw its rise, 'culmination, and decline. Internal factions and revolts; the want of discipline; neglect of defences; a shameful system of rapine, by which individuals were enriched at the expense of the state; pride, selfishness, and avarice, were among the chief causes of its decay.

J. H. FYFE.

accomplished, overtak'en. | exhib'ited, showed; dis- | organized', planned'.

completely, entirely.

conferred', bestowed'. culmination, zenith. despatched', sent out. devōt'ed, dedicated. disheartened, crest'fallen. enlightened, intelligent. enthusiastically, real'ously; ear'nestly. exclusively, entirely.

played'.

explored', exam'ined.
familiarized, acquaint'ed.
improvements, advan'ces.
im pulse, im'petus.
indefin'able, vague. [sons.
individuals, private per-
inspired', encouraged.
mysterious, se'cret; hid'-

den.

1 Cape Nun, on the west coast of Marocco, about six hundred miles from Gibraltar.

2 The Moors, inhabitants of Mauritania (now the Barbary States) in the north of Africa. They were a branch of the Arabs or Moham'medans. They are also called Saracens; that is, Eastern people. The Moors conquered Spain in the eighth century; and a fresh inroad took place in the eleventh century, when the Moorish kingdom of Grana'da was founded. Bloody wars between the Moors and the Christians raged during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Granada was taken by Ferdinand in 1492, and the Moorish power in Spain was completely overthrown.

The mariner's compass.-Its invention is ascribed to the Venetian navigator Marco Polo, in A.D. 1260; but the needle was floated on straws in water till 1302, when Flavio Gioja of Naples first suspended it freely on a fixed point.

phenom'enon, circum

stance.

promontory, head'land. promoted, forwarded. prosperity, success'. provi'sions, measures. rap'ine, plun'der. remain'der, res'idue; rest. unconsciously, unwit'tingly.

'Pres'ter John, that is, John the Priest, an imaginary Christian sovereign, supposed in the Middle Ages to rule in some distant Eastern country.

5 Table Mountain.-So called from its flat summit. It is situated on the peninsula between Table Bay and False Bay, and is 3000 feet high. The mass of white cloud which often covers it in summer is called the Table-cloth. The view on p. 249 represents Cape Town in its present state, -a city of 25,000 inhabitants.

6

King Eman'uel of Portugal, surnamed the Fortunate, reigned from 1495 till 1521.

7 Calicut, whence calico takes its name, a town on the south-west coast of Hindustan', 250 miles from Cape Comorin'.

8 A new route to the East.-The Cape route has now been to some extent superseded by the opening of the Suez Canal. 9 Orʼmuz, the strait joining the Gulfs of Persia and Oman'.

QUESTIONS.-What was the extent of the Map of the World, until the end of the fifteenth century? How far south were the Atlantic shores of Africa known? What country first explored the greater part of the African coast? Why was it natural for Portugal to turn its attention to the Atlantic? Who had familiarized the Portuguese with the luxuries of the East? What invention gave a great impulse to navigation? Who enthusiastically promoted the exploration of Africa? How much of the coast had been discovered when he died? Who was the first to double the Cape of Good Hope? When? What was its former name? Who discovered the passage to India round the Cape? When? How long did the foreign empire of Portugal last? What led to its fall?

GREECE.

HE who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled-
Before Decay's 'effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers;
And marked the mild, angelic air,
The rapture of repose that's there-
The fixed, yet tender traits, that streak
The languor of the placid cheek;

And-but for that sad, shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not now;
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon ;-
Yes, but for these, and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one 'treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,

The first, last look, by Death revealed!

Such is the aspect of this shore.

"Tis Greece-but living Greece no more!1
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start-for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the 'loveliness in death

That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb-
Expression's last 'receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay

The farewell beam of feeling passed away!

Spark of that flame, that flame of heavenly birth, Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth!

Clime of the unforgotten brave!

Whose land from plain to mountain cave
Was freedom's home, or glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?

Approach, thou craven, crouching slave:
Say, is not this Thermop'ylæ ? 2
These waters blue that round you lave,
O servile offspring of the free—
Pronounce, what sea, what shore is this?—
The gulf, the rock of Sal'amis ! 3

These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own;
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The 'embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires,
Will add to theirs a name of fear
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They, too, will rather die than shame:
For freedom's battle, once begun,
•Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page;
•Attest it, many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid;
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command-
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die!
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from 'splendour to disgrace;
Enough no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell ;4
Yes! self-abasement paved the way
To villain bonds and despot sway.

BYRON. (8)

rap'ture, trans'port. receding, withdraw'ing. splen'dour, magnificence. treach'erous, faith'less. unforgot'ten, undying.

advancing tide of Persians. (See Poem and Note, p. 254.)

Salamis, an island (mod. Koluri) in the Saronic Gulf (the Sea of Ægina, or Athens), between which and the mainland of Attica the Persian fleet was defeated by Themistocles, 480 B. C.

From itself it fell-refers to the indissensions and civil wars which so weakened Greece that, in the second century B. C., she fell an easy prey to Rome.

2 Thermop'ylæ, the famous pass in Thes-ternal saly where Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans bravely fell before the

THERMOPYLÆ.

[IN the year 480 B. C., ten years after the Battle of Marathon, Xer'xes, (8) the son and successor of Dari'us, (b) opened the Second Persian War by invading Greece in person, at the head of the greatest army the world has ever seen. Their numbers have been estimated at more than two millions of fighting men. This immense host, proceeding by the way of Thes'saly, had arrived without 'opposition at the narrow defile of Thermop'ylæ,' between the mountains and the sea, where the Spartan' Leon'idas () was posted with three hundred of his countrymen and some Thespian allies-in all fewer than a thousand men.

The Spartans were forbidden by their laws ever to flee from an enemy; they had taken an oath never to desert their 'standards; and Leonidas and his countrymen, and their few allies, prepared to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Bravely meeting the attack of the Persian host, and retreating into the narrowest part of the pass as their numbers were thinned by the storm of

arrows, and by the living mass that was hurled upon them, they fought with the valour of desperation until every one of their number had fallen. A monument was afterwards erected on the spot, bearing the following inscription:-"Go, stranger, and tell at Lacedæmon that we died here in obedience to her laws."]

THEY fell devoted, but undying;
The very gale their name seemed sighing;
The waters 'murmured of their name,
The woods were peopled with their fame;
The silent pillar, lone and gray,
'Claimed 'kindred with their sacred clay;
Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain;-
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Rolls mingling with their fame for ever.
Despite of every yoke she bears,
That land is glory's still, and theirs!

'Tis still a watch-word to the earth;-
When man would do a deed of worth,
He points to Greece, and turns to tread,
So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head;
He looks to her, and rushes on,
Where life is lost, or freedom won.

BYRON. (5)

mur'mured, bab'bled. opposi'tion, obstruc'tion. retreat'ing, retiring. sanctioned, approved. stand'ards, col'ours.

neither commerce nor any of the peaceful arts; hence the modern word Spartan, meaning hardy, enduring, dauntless.

3 Thes'pian, belonging to Thes'piæ, a city of Boo'tia (Northern Greece), south-west of Thebes. Between 600 and 700 of its citizens are said to have perished with the Spartans at Thermopyla.

PAUL AT ATHENS.

THERE was something, to such an one as Paul," that was spiritstirring in the mighty array that he had to cope with at Athens.1 He was full of courage and of hope. In the cause of Christ he had gone on conquering, and would trust that, even here, he should conquer. He felt that it was enough, even if he saved but one, to recompense the effort and the peril—that it was enough, if, by his faithfulness, he only delivered his own soul.

But his was a mind to look and aim at more than this. He felt the splendour of the triumph there would be in levelling the wisdom and the idolatry of Athens at the foot of the Cross.