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GLOSSARY. Trippingly; mouth; town-crier; robustious; periwig-pated; groundlings; dumb-shows; Termagant; Herod; tardy off.

STUDY. What are the main points of advice in the speech? Do they seem to you in every way good? Are they as applicable in other fields, say in reading, as to the stage? What does Shakespeare think is the purpose of playing? Commit to memory the famous lines that give this answer. Is it Shakespeare's main complaint that this ideal is "overdone," or that it is "come tardy off"?

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE

WILLIAM COLLINS

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod,
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair,

To dwell a weeping hermit there!

STUDY. Commit these lines to memory. In what ways do they tell you that the graves of the patriot dead are honored? Notice the personifications. What words call attention to the grief with which their tombs are honored? Is there any other field than war in which bravery can be tested?

THE MEETING OF THE WATERS

THOMAS MOORE

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
Oh! the last rays of feeling and life must depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

Yet it was not that Nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
'T was not her soft magic of streamlet or hill,
Oh no! it was something more exquisite still.

'T was that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near,
Who made each dear scene of enchantment more dear,
And who felt how the best charms of Nature improve
When we see them reflected from looks that we love.

Sweet Vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest

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In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease, 15
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace.

GLOSSARY. Avoca.

STUDY. Read so as to bring out the fine swinging music of this song. Was it the beautiful scenery or something else that made the valley so attractive? What contrast do you find stated in stanza 4? After studying the poem, try to explain the meaning of the title.

THE FRUITS OF LIBERTY

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY

Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who injured her during the period of her disguise were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed. But to those 5 who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in war.

Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe

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to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and 15 frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and her glory!

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces; and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot bear the light of day; he is unable to 20 discriminate colors, or recognize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him unto his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun.

The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which have become half blind in the house of bondage. 25 But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinions subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. `And at length a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos. Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they be35 come wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever. From the essay on "Milton."

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GLOSSARY. Ariosto; grovels; remand; coalesce; educed. STUDY. This passage is from the essay on Milton, one of the earliest and greatest examples of Macaulay's remarkable style, written when he was twenty-five years of age.

Tell the story from Ariosto. In what way does this story illustrate the principle of liberty? What does Macaulay think of the idea that "no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom"? What is his line of argument on this point? With what illustration does he throw contempt over the maxim? Do you find yourself agreeing with Macaulay? (It may be interesting to notice that any nation with a colonial system generally falls back on the theory that Macaulay so contemptuously dismisses.)

Oh, fresh, how fresh and fair

Through the crystal gulfs of air,

The fairy South Wind floateth on her subtle wings of balm!

And the green earth lapped in bliss,

To the magic of her kiss

Seems yearning upward fondly through the golden-creasted calm!

From the distant Tropic strand,

Where the billows, bright and bland,

Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint undertune From its fields of purpling flowers

Still wet with fragrant showers,

The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of June.

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All heavenly fancies rise

On the perfume of her sighs,

15 Which steep the inmost spirit in a languor rare and fine, And a peace more pure than sleep's

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Unto dim, half-conscious deeps,

Transports me, lulled and dreaming, on its twilight tides divine.

Those dreams! ah me! the splendor,

So mystical and tender,

Wherewith like soft heat-lightnings they gird their meaning round, And those waters, calling, calling,

With a nameless charm enthralling,

Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray of sound!

Touch, touch me not, nor wake me,
Lest grosser thoughts o'ertake me,

From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars,—
What viewless arms caress me?

What whispered voices bless me,

30 With welcomes dropping dewlike from the weird and wondrous

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stars?

Alas! dim, dim, and dimmer

Grows the preternatural glimmer

Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings of

balm,

For behold! its spirit flieth,

And its fairy murmur dieth,

And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm!

GLOSSARY. Transports; heat-lightnings; enthralling; preternatural. STUDY. Why is this selection called a dream? Point out expressions that seem to fit into the dream idea. Notice that the effect of the south wind is to produce a sort of trance,- —to produce what the poet calls "transports." This effect is suggested by language of a peculiarly rich and charming character. Its nature can be brought out by careful oral reading.