HISTORICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL POEMS.

I. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. SIR JOHN MOORE was born in Glasgow, in the year 1761, and after a complete military education, as well as distinguished services in the field, he was appointed to the chief command of the army to be employed in Spain. Moore, finding the reinforcements poured in by Napoleon too great to be successfully resisted, was induced to commence a retreat which turned out to be both precipitate and disastrous. The disasters, however, were closed on the 16th January, 1809, by the battle of Corunna, in which the British troops, though previously much exhausted, were animated by their gallant leader, and repulsed their pursuers under Marshal Soult. But their triumph was dearly purchased by the loss of their commander, the circumstances of whose death · may challenge a comparison with the most illustrious examples of ancient or modern times, - with the last moments of Epaminondas, Bayard, Wolfe, or Nelson.

Mr. Alison has so graphically described the circumstances of the death of Moore, that we shall, for once, exceed the limits we had prescribed to ourselves in these introductory notes, by giving the following extract:

« Sir John Moore received his death-wound while animating the 42nd to the charge. A cannon-ball struck his left breast, and beat him down by its violence to the earth; but his countenance remained uuchanged ; not a sigh escaped his lips, and, sitting on the ground, he watched with anxious and steadfast eye the progress of the line. As it advanced, however, and it became manifest that the troops were gaining ground, his countenance brightened, and he reluctantly allowed himself to be led to the rear. Then the dreadful nature of the wound appeared manifest; the shoulder was shattered to pieces : the arm hanging by a film of skin; the breast and lungs almost laid open. As the soldiers placed him on a blanket to carry him from the field, the hilt of his sword was driven into the wound ; an officer attempted to take it off, but the dying hero exclaimed, “It is as well as it is: I had rather it should go off the field with me.' He continued to converse calmly, and even cheerfully; once only his voice faltered, as he spoke of his mother. Life was ebbing fast, and his strength was all but extinct, when he exclaimed, in words which will ever thrill in every British heart.—' I hope the people of England will be satisfied ; I hope my country will do me justice.' Released in a few minutes after from his sufferings, he was wrapped by his attendants in his military cloak, and laid in a grave hastily formed on the ramparts of Corunna, where a monument was soon after con.

structed over his uncoffined remains by the generosity of Marshal Ney. Not a word was spoken as the melancholy interment by torchlight took place; silently they laid him in his grave, while the distant cannon of the battle fired the funeral honours to his memory.”— Alison's History of Europe.

Derivation. Etymology. Syntax.
Funeral. Bayonets. Hurried. Corse.
Corse. Martial. Hero.

Hero.
Soldier. Field. Warrior, Lantern,
Kam part. Gone.

Dead

We, v. 5, 1. 4.
Distinguish between the following words :
Heard and Herd.

Lay and Lie.
Corse, or Corpse, and Corps. Hollowed and Hallowed.
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse to the rampart we hurried ;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot

O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,

The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,

And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,'

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him ;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,

With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,

And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, 3

And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,

And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,

And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,-.
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on

In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring ;
And we heard the distant and random gun

That the foe was sullenly firing.

3

BOADICEA.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory ;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone-
But we left him alone with his glory.

Rev. C. WOLFE.

5. But.- What part of speech? - What other word might be used instead of it?

.. Breast, used in what sense ?
2. Point out the ellipsis in this line.

3. Another reading of this line is, And we steadfastly looked on the face of the dead.- Which do you prefer, and why?

4. Parse and construe little.

7. Another reading is, in.-Which is to be preferred ?

Sway.

II. BOADICEA, AN ODE. “ BOADICEA, the queen of the tribe of the Iceni, and her daughter, having suffered outrage and barbarous cruelty from some licentious Roman soldiers, many of the tribes, roused to a common thirst of vengeance by her wrongs, flocked round her. She appeared among the assembled multitude exciting them to do battle. But the Romans, under their leader, Suetonius, were victorious over the combined host of barbarians, whom they cruelly slaughtered. The wretched Boadicea, disappointed alike of revenge and her country's release, died by her own hand.”— White's History of Great Britain and Ireland. Derivations.

Etymology. Miscellaneous. Syntax. Indignant. Prophetic. Chief.

Boadicea.

Word, v. 2, 1.3. Resentment. Pregnant. Country's Ode,

They, v. 8, 1.. Abhorred. Celestial.

Roman rods.
l'rogeny.
Monarch.
Glow.

Druid. l'osterity. Vengeance.

Cæsar's eagles. lavincible.

Distinguish between the following words :
Rods and Roads.

Flew and Flowed.
Mien and Mean.

Due and Dew.
Counsel and Council, Knew and New.

Dying and Dyeing.
WHEN the British warrior Queen,

Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,

Counsel of' her country's gods :
Sage beneath the spreading oak

Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke

Full of rage and full of grief.
Princess! if our aged eyes

Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
"Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.”

Rome shall perish !_write that word

In the blood that she has spilt:
Perish, hopeless and abhorr'd,

Deep in ruin as in guilt.
Rome, for empire far renown'd,

Tramples on a thousand states ;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground-

Hark! the Gaul is at her gates !
Other Romans shall arise,

Heedless of a soldier's name;
Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize,

Harmony the path to fame.*
Then the progeny that springs

From the forests of our land,
Arm’d with thunder, clad with wings,

Shall a wider world command.
Regions Cæsar never knew

T'hy posterity shall sway ;
Where his eagles never flew

None invincible as they.
Such the bard's prophetic words,

Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords

Of his sweet but awful lyre.
She, with all a monarch's pride,

Felt them in her bosom glow ;
Rush'd to battle, fought, and died,

Dying, hurl'd them at the foe.
Ruffians, pitiless as proud,

Heaven awards the vengeance due ;
Empire is on us bestow'd,
Shame and ruin wait for you!

COWPER. 1. What other preposition might be particularly who are meant by the “other used for of, here?