illiterate manth a stunted mind and a closed heart-should roll by him in a splendid carriage, while he (Paul) is obliged to trudge along the highway on foot. Each made his choice, and each has his compensation. Unless the philosopher would change his mind, as well as his worldly condition, for the rich man's, he has no business to complain of his lot, or to suppose that the rich man is better off.

By pursuing a certain course of political action, and trimming his sails according to the shifting breezes of popular favor, Arthur, who aspires to mere success, independent of merit, if he do not rise to be president, may come pretty near it; for, alas! our presidents now-a-days are not always selected because of their preeminent virtue and ability, as were Washington and others. But Arthur must not complain if he find himself, when at the height of his political ladder, despised by good men and true, his conscience stained and seared, and his self-respect vanished. He will have selected his prize, and won it. Let him not covet the prizes of other people.

I might go on, and illustrate my meaning by reference to what the rest of you have said. But the shower is over, and I must end. The true course is this: first seek to be good, devout, moral, intelligent, generous and just; and then, whatever mode of life you may choose, you may be pretty sure to avoid its dangers, at the same time that you may reap from it all the benefits that a reasonable man should aspire to. You may be com

fortably rich, without being sensual, selfish

and mentally deficient; famous, without losing your uprightness; learned, without cultivating the mind at the expense of the heart.

To Robert, who aspires to be a great author, I would recall a little incident in the life of the most successful author of his day, Sir Walter Scott.EL A few minutes before he sank into the state of unconsciousness which preceded his death, he called his son-in-law and biographer, Lockhart, to his bed-side, and said: “Lockhart, I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man, -be virtuous, be religious, be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie

nere,"

Osborne.

LVII.

THE SEVENTH PLAGUE OF EGYPT.

1. "T WAS morn

the rising splendor rolled

On marble towers and roofs of gold;
Hall, court and gallery, below,
Were crowded with a living flow;
Egyptian, Arab, Nubian, there,
The bearers of the bow and spear,

The hoary priest, the Chaldee sage,

The slave, the gemmed and glittering page -
Helm,154 turban and tiara, shōne

ΕΙ

A dazzling ring round Pharaoh's throne. 2. There came a man the human tide

Shrank backward from his stately stride:
His cheek with storm and time was tanned;
A shepherd's staff 29 was in his hand;
A shudder of instinctive fear

Told the dark king what step was near;
On through the host the stranger came,
It parted round his form like flame.

3. He stooped not at the foot-stool stōne,

He clasped not sandal, kissed not throne;
Erect he stood amid the ring,

His only words "Be just, O king!"
On Pharaoh's cheek the blood flushed high,

A fire was in his sullen eye;

Yet on the chief of Israël

No arrow of his thousands fell;

All mute and moveless as the grave

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Stood chilled the satrap and the slave.

4. "Thou 'rt come," at length the monarch spoke;
Haughty and high the words outbroke:
"Is Israel weary of its lair,

The forehead peeled, the shoulder bare?
Take back the answer to your band:
Go, reap the wind! go, plough the sand!

Go, vilest of the living vile,
To build the never-ending pile,
Till, darkest of the nameless dead,
The vulture on their flesh is fed!
What better asks the howling slave
Than the base life our bounty gave?"

·Behold!"

5. Shouted in pride the turbaned peers,
Upclashed to heaven the golden spears.
"King! thou and thine are doomed!
The prophet spoke · the thunder rolled!
Along the pathway of the sun.
Sailed vapory mountains, wild and dun.
"Yet there is time," the prophet said:
He raised his staff the storm was stayed:
'King! be the word of freedom given :

What art thou, man, to war with Heaven?"

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Flew the proud pageant, prince and slave:
Or, in the chains of terror bound,

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Lay, corpse-like, on the smouldering ground.

66

Speak, king! the wrath is but begun!

Still dumb? — then, Heaven, thy will be done!"

7. Echoed from earth a hollow roar

Like ocean on the midnight shore!
A sheet of lightning o'er them wheeled,
The solid ground beneath them reeled;
In dust sank roof and battlement;
Like webs the giant walls were rent;

Red, broad, before his startled gaze

The monarch saw his Egypt blaze.

Still swelled the plague the flame grew pale;
Burst from the clouds the charge of hail;

With arrowy keenness, iron weight,
Down poured the ministers of fate;
Till man and cattle, crushed, congealed,
Covered with death the boundless field.

S. Still swelled the plague.
uprose the blast,
The avenger, fit to be the last:
On ocean, river, forest, vale,
Thundered at once the mighty gale.
Before the whirlwind flew the tree,
Beneath the whirlwind roared the sea;
A thousand ships were on the wave
Where are they?— ask that foaming grave'
Down go the hope, the pride of years,
Down go the myriad mariners;

The riches of earth's richest zone
Gone! like a flash of lightning, gone!

9. And, lo! that first fierce triumph o'er,
Swells ocean on the shrinking shore;
Still onward, onward, dark and wide,
Engulfs the land the furious tide.
Then bowed thy spirit, stubborn king,
Thou serpent, reft of fang and sting;
Humbled before the prophet's knee,
He groaned, "Be injured Israel free!

10. To heaven the sage upraised his wand;"
Back rolled the deluge from the land;
Back to its caverns sank the gale;
Fled from the noon the vapors pale;
Broad burned again the joyous sun:
The hour of wrath and death was done.

REV. GEO. CROLY.

LVIII. THE HISTORY 01 PRINCE ARTHUR.

*

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1. Ar two-and-thirty years of age, in the year 1200, Johr became King of England. His pretty little nephew, Arthur had the best claim to the throne; but John seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned at Westminster within a few weeks after his brother Richard's death. I doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain if the country had been searched from end to end to find him

out.

2. The French king, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John to his new dignity, and declared in favor of Arthur. You must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless boy; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the King of England. So John and the French king

went to war about Arthur.

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3. He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out at the tournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having known a father's guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother (Constance by name), lately married to her third husband. She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to the French king, who pretended to be very much his friend, and made him a knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but who cared so little about him in reality, that, finding it his interest to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without the least consideration for the poor little prince, and heartlessly sacrificed all his interests.

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4. Young Arthur, for two years afterward, lived quietly; and in the course of that time his mother died. But the French king, then finding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again made Arthur his pretence, and invited the orphan

*Practise the Exercises on the seventh elementary sound, comm ncing page 35.