606. O how canst thou renounce the boundless store of charms that nature to her votary yields! The warbling woodland, the resounding shòre, the pomp of gròves, the garniture of fields; all that the genial ray of morning gilds, and all that echoes to the song of èven; all that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields, and all the dread magnificence of heaven; oh how canst thou renounce and hope to be forgiven.

607. The coffin was let down to the bottom of the grave, the planks were removed from the heaped up brink, the first rattling clods had struck their knell, the quick shovelling was over, and the long, broad, skilfully cut pieces of turf were aptly joined together, and trimly laid by the beating spade, so that the newest mound in the church yard was scarcely distinguishable from those that were grown over by the undisturbed grass and daisies of a luxuriant spring.

608. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation; but the God of the universe he acknowledged in every thing around him. He beheld him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midway thròne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze, in the lofty pine, that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler, that never left its native gròve; in the fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his foot; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in humble, though blind adoration.

609. Our lives, says Seneca, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the púrpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do.

610. It was necessary for the world that arts should be invented and improved, books written and transmitted to postérity, nations conquered and civilized.

611. All other arts of perpetuating our ideas, except writing or printing, continue but a short time. Statues can last but a few thousands of years, edifices féwer, and colours still fewer than èdifices.

612. Life consists, not of a series of illustrious actions, or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necèssities, in the performance of daily

dùties, in the removal of small inconvéniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures.

613. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at àge, then to be a man of bùsiness, then to make up an estàte, then to arrive at hónors, then to retire.

614. The devout man does not only believe, but feels there is a Deity; he has actual sensations of him; his experience concurs with his reason; he sees him more in all his íntercourse with him; and even in this life almost loses his faith in convìction.

615. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adùltery, fornication, unclèanness, lasciviousness, idòlatry, witchcraft, hàtred, vàriance, emulations, wràth, strife, seditions, hèresies, ènvyings, murders, drunkenness, revéllings, and such like.

616. But the fruit of the Spirit is lòve, jòy, pèace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, méekness, tèmper

ance.

617. The ill-natured man, though but of equal parts with the good natured man, gives himself a large field to expàtiate in; he exposes those failings in human nature over which the other would cast a vèil, laughs at vices which the other either excuses or concèals, falls indifferently on friends or enemies, exposes the person who has obliged hím, and in short sticks at nothing that may establish his character of a wit.

618. What can interrupt the content of the fair sex, upon whom one age has labored after another to confer honors, and accumulate immunities? Those to whom rudeness is infamy, and insult is cowardice? Whose eye commands the brave, and whose smile softens the sévère? Whom the sailor travels to adòrn, the soldier bleeds to defend, and the poet wears out life to celebrate; who claim tribute from every art and scìence, and for whom all who approach them endeavor to multiply delights, without requiring from them any return but willingness to be pleased.

619. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermìlion; made it the seat of smiles and blùshes; lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes; hung it on each side with cu

rious organs of sense; given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair, as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

620. Should the greater part of the people set down and draw up a particular account of their time, what a shameful bill would it be ! So much in eating, and drinking, and sleeping, beyond what nature requires; so much in revelling and wantonness; so much for the recovery of the last night's intemperance; so much in gaming, plays, and masquerades; so much in paying and receiving formal and impertinent visits; so much in idle and foolish prating, in censuring and reviling our neighbors; so much in dressing out our bodies and talking of fashions; and so much wasted and lost in doing nothing at all.

621. They, through faith, subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lìons, quenched the violence of fìre, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made stròng, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the àliens.

622. I conjure you by that which you profess, (howe'er you came to know it) answer me. Though you untie the winds, and let them fight against the churches; though the yesty waves confound and swallow navigation up; though bladed corn be lodged, and trees blown down; though castles topple on their warder's heads; though palaces and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations; though the treasure of nature's germins tumble altogether, even till destruction sícken, answer me to what I ask you.

[Sometimes the falling inflection is used at each particular in the enumeration except the last, as in the following sentences.]

623. To advise the ignorant, relieve the nèedy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day in our lives.

624. The miser is more indústrious than the saint. The pains of getting, the fear of losing, and the inability of enjoying his wealth, have been the mark of satire in all

ages.

625. When ambition palls in òne way, interest another, inclination a thìrd, and perhaps reason contrary to áll, a man is likely to pass his time but ill, who has so many different parties to please.

626. As the genius of Milton was wonderfully turned to the sublime, his subject is the noblest that could have entered into the thoughts of man. Every thing that is truly great and astonishing has a place in it. The whole system of the intellectual world, the chaos and the creation, heaven, earth, and héll, enter into the constitution of his poem.

627. Labor, or exercise ferments the hùmors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distribútions without which, the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

LESSON XXXII.

IRONY.

Irony consists in such expressions as are intended to convey a meaning directly opposite to what the words imply. Thus, when we say of a boy who never gets his lesson, that he is an admirable scholar: this is called IRONY.

The word or words which are ironical, are generally to be emphasized, sometimes with the circumflex and sometimes with the other accents. In the following sentences the ironical parts are printed in Italic letters, and the pupil will manage his voice in pronouncing the accented words, according to the principles explained in Lesson 22, page 49.

628. They will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride.

629. That lûlled them as the north wind does the sea. 630. (( This is well got up for a closing scene," said Fergus, smiling disdainfully upon the apparatus of terror. 631. Your consul is merciful: for this all thanks. He DARES not touch a HAIR of Cataline.

632. Surely in this age of invention, something may be struck out to obviate the necessity (if such necessity exists) of so tasking — degrading the human intellect. Why should not a sort of mute bárrel organ be constrùcted, on the plan of those that play sets of tunes and country dances, to indite a catalogue of polite epistles, calculated for all the ceremonious observances of good breeding? Oh the unspeakable relief (could such a machine be invented) of having only to grind an answer to one of one's dear five hundred friends.

633. Or suppose there were to be an epistolary steamèngine― Ay, that's the thing Steam does every thing now-a-days. Dear Mr. Brunel, set about it, I beseech you, and achieve the most glórious of your undertakings. The block machine at Portsmouth would be nothing to it. That spares manual labor this would relieve mental drudgery, and thousands yet unborn But hold! I am not so sure that the female sex in general may quite enter into my views of the subject.

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634. And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, "Cry aloud, for he is a God: :- either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked.

635. We have much reason to believe the modest man would not ask him for his debt, where he pursues his life.

636. O terrible war! in which this band of profligates are to march under Cataline. Draw out all your garrisons against this fórmidable body!

637. But it is foolish in us to compare Drusus Africanus, and ourselves with Clôdius; all our other calamities were tolerable; but no one can patiently bear the death of Clodius.

638. Do you think yourself as learned, or as smart a boy as Charles? Has he not learned the whole of the first page in his book? And did he not learn three lines in two hours? Could you do as much as that?