night, and he will be enabled to enter in some sort into the horror of heart with which this solitude was anciently chosen by man for his habitation. They little thought, who first drove the stakes into the sand and strewed the 5 ocean reeds for their rest, that their children were to be the princes of that ocean and their palaces its pride.

From Stones of Venice

Adige (ä'dē jā) and Piave (pyä ́vā): rivers of northern Italy. calcareous: full of shells and other forms of lime deposits. — confluence: running together. the princes of that ocean: for many years Venice was the capital of a celebrated republic and the first sea power of the world. The ceremony by which the doge, or chief magistrate, of Venice "wedded the *Adriatic was an interesting one.

VENICE

LORD BYRON

George Gordon, LORD BYRON (1788-1824) ranks with the most famous of English poets. His verse, though well-nigh perfect in form, lacks something of the highest quality. The following lines are from Childe Harold's 10 Pilgrimage.

15

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,
A palace and a prison on each hand;

I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles

O'er the far times when many a subject land

Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers, 5 At airy distance, with majestic motion,

A ruler of the waters and their powers.

And such she was; - her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
10 In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
15 And music meets not always now the ear;

Those days are gone but Beauty still is here;

States fall, arts fade, but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,

20 The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

Bridge of Sighs: a covered passageway leading from the doge's palace to the prisons; so called because condemned criminals had to pass through it. - the winged Lion: the device of the Venetian republic, as the eagle is that of the United States. Cybele (sĩ bē ́lė): the great mother of the gods in Greek and Roman mythology. - tiara (ti a' ra): Cybele is represented in art with a crown whose rim is cut to imitate the towers and battlements of a fortress. Tasso a great Italian poet. masque: a gay masquerade.

EACH AND ALL

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, a distinguished author, philosopher, and lecturer, was born in Boston in 1803, and died in Concord in 1882.

All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough ;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even;
He sings the song, but it cheers not now,
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
sang to my ear,
-they sang to my eye.

He

The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,

I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore

With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.

THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN

JOHN RICHARD GREEN

JOHN RICHARD GREEN (1837-1883) was an English historian who gives interesting pictures instead of dull figures and statistics.

NOTE. In 1314 a decisive battle was fought between the English and Scottish armies at Bannockburn. The heir to the throne of Scotland and 5 the leader of her army was Robert Bruce. Bruce's success in repelling the threatened English invasion has made his name famous. Wallace and "The Bruce," as he is called, are still held in warm remembrance in Scotland as the greatest heroes of her history.

Strong and of commanding presence, brave and genial 10 in temper, Bruce bore the hardships of his career with a courage and hopefulness which never failed. In the legends which clustered round his name we see him listening in Highland glens to the bay of the bloodhounds on his track, or holding single-handed a pass against a crowd of 15 savage clansmen. Sometimes the little band which clung to him were forced to support themselves by hunting or fishing, sometimes to break up for safety as their enemies tracked them to the lair. Bruce himself had more than once to fling off his shirt of mail and scramble barefoot 20 for very life up the crags.

Little by little, however, the dark sky cleared. James Douglas, the darling of Scotch story, was the first of the Lowland barons to rally again to the Bruce, and his daring gave heart to the king's cause.

A terrible ferocity