Inflec

or group in the clause? Answer the same questions concerning each of the remaining members in the sentence. tion upon the word "harmony"? "feeling"? Inflections and emphases in the short sentence, "would to God, &c."? What is the new thought in this sentence? Explain the emphases and inflections in the remaining sentences of the paragraph, and point out the new thought or thoughts in each.

Fifth Paragraph.

Who is addressed as "Mr. President"? What word has been used in addressing him before? What is it to “enter on an encomium"? Does Mr. Webster praise Massachusetts ? What is the highest praise that can be bestowed? Why should he say, "there she is"? What if the world does "know her history by heart"? What is meant by learning a thing by heart? What follows from this? In what sense is "the past secure"? Is it certain that Boston, Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill are to last forever—that is, that they are never to be destroyed? What will really last forever? State the facts that made it proper to refer to these places here? Would it not have been as well to say, sons fought in the great struggle for independence on the soil of every state, from New England to Georgia," as to say, "the bones of her sons, &c?"? Why? Show what, if anything, is gained in the form used? Why does he stop with Georgia, why not say from New England to Florida or Texas?

"her

Etymology and meaning of president? encomium? secure? remain? independence?

Inflection upon "Massachusetts"? [Negative expressions require the rising inflection.] upon "none"? [See note on "limits," first paragraph.] In the sentences of this paragraph, point out the emphatic words, determining them as before directed. [They express the new and important ideas.] Also point out the inflections,-remembering that positive statements require the falling, and negative and conditional ones the rising.

Sixth Paragraph.

Where did American liberty "raise its first voice"? What is meant by this? When was it? Mention some of the events? What building is known as the "Cradle of Liberty"? Why? Show how discord and disunion might

"wound liberty." ." Show how "party strife and blind ambition might hawk at and tear it." What is it to hawk at? Suppose men succeed in throwing off salutary restraint, do they thereby make themselves really more free? What does the "union make sure," according to Mr. Webster? How does it effect this? What will "stretch forth its arm"? Will any of its vigor be lost? Why? Name some of the "proud monuments" amid which it will fall. Where is "the spot of its origin"? State the whole of this last sentence in language that is not figurative. What does Mr. Webster mean to say will take place?

Etymology and meaning of liberty? nurtured? sustained? original? spirit? discord? ambition? salutary? existence? infancy? vigor? monuments?

Where, in the first sentence, does the positive statement begin? What inflections before this, therefore? What one word is most emphatic? In the second sentence, where does the positive statement begin? Inflections previous to this, then, must have been chiefly what? Find and point out the emphatic words as in previous paragraphs.

What effect ought the reading of this selection to have upon us? [It ought to exalt our patriotism, and make us willing to undergo personal trials and deprivations for our country's sake. If we go over the reading of such a selection without having our patriotic impulses stirred, it proves either that we fail to understand what we read, or that we are naturally deficient in love of country.]

XXVI. - THE GOBLET OF LIFE.
H, W. LONGfellow.

1. Filled is life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
1 see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn

With solemn voice and slow.

2. No purple flowers, no garlands green, Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen, Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, Like gleams of sunshine, flash between Thick leaves of mistletoe.

3. This goblet, wrought with curious art, Is filled with waters that upstart

When the deep fountains of the heart,
By strong convulsions rent apart,
Are running all to waste.

4. And as it mantling passes round,
With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,
Whose seed and foliage, sun-imbrowned,
Are in its waters steeped and drowned,
And give a bitter taste.

5. Above the lowly plants it towers,
The fennel, with its yellow flowers,
And, in an earlier age than ours,
Was gifted with the wondrous powers,
Lost vision to restore.

6. It gave new strength and fearless mood; And gladiators fierce and rude

Mingled it in their daily food;

And he who battled and subdued,
A wreath of fennel wore.

7. Then in Life's goblet freely press
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the colored water less,
For in thy darkness and distress,

New light and strength they give.

8. And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,

How bitter are the drops of woe,
With which its brim may overflow,
He has not learned to live.

9. The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight,
The blackness of that noonday night,
He asked but the return of sight,
To see his foeman's face.

10. Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,- for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race.

11. O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,

Patient, though sorely tried!

12. I pledge you in this cup of grief, Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf,

The battle of our life is brief,

The alarm, the struggle, the relief, —

Then sleep we side by side.

Questions.

What is the lesson taught by this piece? Make a clear

explanation of the allusion to fennel.

XXVII.-UNFINISHED PROBLEMS OF THE UNI

VERSE.

O. M. MITCHEL.

1. I cannot detain you to speak of the other departments of astronomical observation, to which I have given much attention. Suffice it to say, we are now recording the places of the stars, in our observatory, with a rapidity and accuracy I think hitherto unheard of. The observer takes his place at the telescope. An assistant is located in such a manner as to read the difference of north polar distance between any assumed standard star and the stars whose places are required, and, just as fast as the stars can come into the field of view, we find it possible to mark their places, and fix their position, and catalogue their magnitudes and peculiarities. Thus we are sweeping a zone of five degrees in width, with an accuracy and precision equal to that of micrometric work. How many stars, think you, we are thus enabled to mark down in a single minute of time? I have taken that group of the Pleiades, and in five minutes I have fastened the places of from thirty to forty stars. In a single hour, in the richer portions of the Milky Way, in a zone of a single degree in width, I have recorded the places of more than one hundred stars.

2. I hope, therefore, that the time is coming when the stars cannot take refuge in their numbers and distance, and

defy the power of man to dislodge them from the high concave in which they are entrenched. We shall grapple with them there; we shall hunt them down; we shall record their places; we shall number them as they come out from the depths of heaven under the penetrating gaze of the great telescopic eye which man has turned toward the stellar sphere! Will you do your part in this grand work? Are you ready to begin? Are you prepared to give a helping hand to the sentinel who gives his time, his talents, and all that he has on earth, to this grand and magnificent investigation?