tramp of steeds, the trumpet, drum, and bugle call. There is a momentary pause,- -a silence like that which precedes the fall of a thunder-bolt,-like that awful stillness, which is precursor to the desolating rage of the whirlwind. In an instant, flash succeeding flash, pours columns of smoke along the plain. The iron tempest sweeps, heaping man, horse, and car, in undistinguished ruin. In shouts of rushing hosts,-in shock of breasting steeds, in peals of musketry, in artillery's roar,-in sabres' clash,—in thick and gathering clouds of smoke and dust, all human eye, and ear, and sense, are lost. Man sees not, but the sign of onset. Man hears not, but the cry of—“Onward!" "The Field of Battle."

2. The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon, large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm, sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick, sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Then the two hearts beating each to each!

"Meeting at Night."

HALL.

BROWNING.

3. When the mind loses hold of its object, whether devotional or intellectual—as it will do, time after time-it must be brought back, and again directed to the object. Often at first it will wander away without the wandering being noticed, and the student suddenly awakes to the fact that he is thinking about something quite other than the proper object of thought. This will happen again and again, and he must patiently bring it back— a wearisome and tiring process, but there is no other way by which concentration can be gained.

"Thought Power."

ANNIE BESANT,

4. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, and pious pastors of our Church-I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion-the Protestant religion-of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practises are let loose among us-to turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage—against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war-hell-hounds, I say, of savage war!

My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor reposed my head on my pillow, without giving this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such preposterous and enormous principles.

"On American Affairs."

LORD CHATHAM.

SPONTANEITY

"All art must be preceded by a certain mechanical expertness," says Goethe, and this is particularly applicable to the subject of elocution. There should be long and patient practise of mechanical exercises for developing accuracy, flexibility, and facility in the use of the voice and vehicles of expression. The highest art is to conceal art, however, and a time comes when the student should abandon his "rules" and "exercises" and yield himself wholly to the thought and feeling to be expressed. If he has been well-trained, the members of expression will perform their work promptly and correctly with little conscious effort on his part. The speaker must test and criticize over and over again the work of his voice, gesture, and expression, until he is thoroughly satisfied as to its accuracy and dependableness. To produce his effects spontaneously there must be freedom from restraint and external force, tho the will should so dominate as to promptly check any violations of harmony or naturalness.

The essential qualities of spontaneity are expression instead of repression, freedom rather than restraint, unity, earnestness, concentration, and naturalness.

EXAMPLES

1. Give us, oh, give us, the man who sings at his work! He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation in its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.

CARLYLE.

2. A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:

That was all. And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

"Paul Revere's Ride."

3. The sea, the sea, the open sea,
The blue, the fresh, the ever free;
Without a mark, without a bound,

LONGFELLOW.

It runneth the earth's wide regions round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,

I am where I would ever be,

With the blue above and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
"The Sea."

BARRY CORNWALL.

4. "Yo-ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig; "no more work to-night, Christmas Eve, Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up before a man can say Jack Robinson! Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here!"

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have done, or couldn't have done, with old Fezziwig standing by. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore. The floor was swept and watered, lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire, and the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry and bright a ball-room as you could desire to see upon a winter night. In came a fiddler with a music-book and walked up to the lofty desk and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomachaches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast, substantial smile. In came the two Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and amiable. In came

the six young followers, whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In they all came anyhow and everyhow! Away they all went, twenty couples at once, hands half round and back again the other way, up the middle and down again, round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up at the wrong place, new top couple starting off again as soon as they got there, all top couple at last with not a bottom one to help them.

When this result was brought about old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, specially provided for that purpose. And there were more dances, and then there were forfeits, and then there were more dances, and there was cake and there was negus, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was great piece of cold boiled, and there were mince pies and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the roast and boiled, when the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley!" Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig, top couple too with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them, three or four and twenty pairs of partners, people who were not to be trifled with, people who would dance and had no notion of walking.

But if there had been twice as many, or four times as many, old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As for her, she was worthy of being his partner in every sense of the term. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves, they shone in every part of the dance. You couldn't have predicted at any given moment where they would have turned up next, and when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had been all through the dance, advance and retire, turn your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread the needle and back again to your own place, Fezziwig cut, cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs. At eleven o'clock the domestic ball broke up. Then old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig stood one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with each of their guests individually as he or she went out wished him or her "A Merry Christmas!" DICKENS.