Help! help!-He's gone-Oh! fearful woe, Yes, soon! for, lo, you! while I speak, LESSON CXL. THE DYING BRIGAND. Brigands, or bandits, have been a fruitful theme of poems and romances, but the bandit of the poet and novelist is as unnatural a being as an ogre or a fairy. Woman, too, ivy-like, has no doubt often clung to worthless objects, because supported by them, with a constancy worthy of a better cause, but no American female, at least, is in any danger of emulating such examples. The following anonymous piece is well written, and affords an advanced pupil a fine chance for effect. He must imagine the brigand mortally wounded, and his bride, attentive to catch his parting accents, his last look, while with his carbine, and a determination of voice and manner which can not be mistaken, she keeps back a circle of police officers, who are eager to rush upon their prostrate victim. She stood before the dying man, And her eye grew wildly bright- Look, dastards!—how the brave can die— By his blood you have tracked him to his lair, Yet leave me, while dim life remains, His was the power that held in thrall, How he avenged his slighted worth, His spirit lives in the mountain breath, Yon deep ravine-the grave !— That which hath been, again may be !— Ay, by yon fleeting sun, Who stirs no morning ray shall see : His sand of life has run!" Defiance shone in her flashing eye, But her heart beat wild with fear;- LESSON CXLI. THE ROVER. The rover is to the sea what the brigand or bandit is to the land, and the following piece resembles the preceding. The poem is a good exercise in elocution, and the pupil has only to bear in mind that a Rover is only a pirate, and a Brigand a robber, notwithstanding all the embellishments of poetry. The authoress is Miss E. COOKE. I'm afloat! I'm afloat on the fierce rolling tide, I fear not the monarch-I heed not the law; Quick-quick-trim her sails; let her sheets kiss the wind; And I warrant we'll soon leave the sea-gull behind; The night gathers o'er us; the thunder is heard; The fire-gleaming flashes around us may fall; They may strike: they may cleave; but they can not appal. With lightnings above us, and darkness below, Through the wild waste of waters right onward we go! Hurrah! my brave crew! ye may drink; ye may sleep; LESSON CXLII. THE GIPSY'S TENT. The Gipsys are a tribe of vagabonds that are supposed to have come from Asia into Europe, and are remarkable for having preserved their national peculiarities in the midst of foreigners. They are a thievish, idle, filthy tribe; but, bad as they are, the comparisons instituted in the second stanza are not entirely without reason. The poem may be spoken by a male or a female pupil. It was written by Miss E. СООКЕ. Our fire on the turf, and our tent 'neath a tree- We may Some crime and much folly may fall to our lot; same: And there's many a king would have less to repent, If his throne were as pure as the gipsy's tent. Pant ye LESSON CXLIII. THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON WHOLLY AMERICAN. The following unequalled sketch of the character of Washington, is extracted from Webster's address on Bunker Hill, at the completion of the monument. It is, in fact, the Peroration, or conclusion, of that remarkable address. America has furnished to the world the character of WASHINGTON! And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind. WASHINGTON! "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen !” WASHINGTON is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country and its institutions. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not, that by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be, WASHINGTON! This structure, now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem. of his character. His public virtues and public princi |