Did you admire my lamp, quoth he,
As much as I your minstrelsy,
You would abhor to do me wrong,
As much as I to spoil your song.

EXERCISE III.

RULE 3. In reading poetry, care should be taken not to emphasize particles and words that rhyme, unless the sense requires it.

QUESTIONS. What is rule third? What fault is presented in the incorrect reading

of the example? Read the example correctly.

EXERCISE IV.

General Exercise on the rules for reading poetry.

ODE TO THE CUCKOO.

M. BRUCE.

1. HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome sing.

2. What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

3. Delightful visitant! with thee,

I hail the time of flowers,

And hear the sound of music sweet

From birds among the bowers.

4. The schoolboy, wandering through the wood,
To pull the primrose gay,

Starts the new voice of spring to hear,
And imitates thy lay.

5. What time the pea puts on the bloom,
Thou fleest thy local vale,
Another guest in other lands,
Another spring to hail.

6. Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;

Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,

No winter in thy year!

7. O could I fly, I'd fly with thee!

We'd make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit o'er the globe,
Companions of the spring.

EXERCISE V.

NOTE. In reading blank-verse, even where the sense does not require it the pupil should make a slight pause at the end of each line, sufficient to enable the hearer to distinguish one line from another.

A SCENE AFTER A SHOWER.

J. THOMSON

1. Now, in the western sky, the downward sun
Looks out, effulgent, from amid the flush
Of broken clouds, gay shifting to his beam.
The rapid radiance instantaneous strikes
The illumined mountain; through the forest streams;
Shakes on the floods; and in a yellow mist,
Far smoking o'er the interminable plain,
In twinkling myriads lights the dewy gems.

2. Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around;
Full swell the woods; their very music wakes,
Mixed in wild concert with the warbling brooks
Increased, the distant bleatings of the hills,
And hollow lows responsive from the vales,
Whence blending, all the sweetened zephyr spring
3. Meantime, refracted from yon eastern cloud,
Bestriding earth, the grand ethereal bow
Shoots up immense, and every hue unfolds
In fair proportion, running from the red
To where the violet fades into the sky.

4. Here, awful Newton, the dissolving clouds
Form, fronting on the sun, thy showery prism;
And to the sage instructed eye unfold

5.

The various twine of light, by thee disclosed
From the white mingling maze.

Not so the boy

He wondering views the bright enchantment bend
Delightful, o'er the radiant fields, and runs
To catch the falling glory; but amazed,
Beholds the amusive arch before him fly,
Then vanish quite away.

ERRORS.-1. Con-sid'er-ble for con-sid'er-a-ble; 4. a'mi-ble for a'mi-a-ble; 7. put for put; 8. tol'er-ble for tol'er-a-ble; 9. pint'ed for point'ed; 10. fig'er for figure; 18. pr-dic'a-munt for pre-dic'a-ment ; 20. progress for progress, 21. com'fut for comfort.

MISSPENT TIME..

Į. MRS. THOMPSON, a widowed lady of very considerable fortune, resided in an elegant villa, about forty miles from London. She kept a number of servants, and had the most splendid equipage in the whole neighborhood.

a

2. You may form some idea of the grandeur of the building, when I tell you that the entrance to it was half a mile from the villa. It was built of stone, and had more the appearance of the entrance to the palace of a king, than that of a private person.

* For the manner of correcting the errors in this and the following lessons, see Exercise IX., page 27.

NOTE. a Lon'don; the capital of the British Empire, situated on the river Thames, about sixty miles from the sea. It is the largest city in the world, being thirty miles in circumference, and containing nearly two millions of inhabitants.

3. This lady had an only daughter, to whom she was fondly indulgent, and on whom she determined to bestow the best education that could possibly be procured for her, let the expense be what it would.

4. Ann was a very amiable child, and if she had been so fortunate as to have been placed under the care of any one a little more disposed than her mother was, to combat her fancies and want of resolution, she would not have had to regret the immense sums squandered upon her to no kind of purpose, nor to wish she could recall the time she had trifled away in doing nothing.

5. It must appear very extraordinary that this should have been the unhappy fate of a young girl, who wished so much to profit by the instruction procured for her, and had the greatest desire to be an accomplished woman.

6. But Ann wished to be accomplished without having the trouble of making herself so, and she possessed neither the resolution nor perseverance, so absolutely necessary to the attainment of the perfection she aimed at.

7. She began everything with eagerness and alacrity, but the most trifling difficulty which came in her way, put a total stop to her progress, and she immediately persuaded herself that it was not possible she should be able to surmount it.

8. She had, from her infancy, been extremely fond of drawing; and, desiring to be instructed in that agreeable art, one of the first masters was procured for her. In a very short time she had succeeded in copying, with tolerable exactness, the first things he gave her to do, and the greatest hopes were entertained of her making a great proficiency in what she appeared to prefer to every other amusement.

9. The master now gave her some other drawings to copy, which required a little more attention and study, and she began to find difficulties in her way, which she had not foreseen. She tried them twice; they were pretty well executed,