2. "If I had as many tongues, and as many words
As there are stars in the heavens, and grains

Of sand on the shore, my tongues would be
Tired, and my words would be exhausted,
Before I could do justice to your immense merit.”

3. "Could we with ink the ocean fill,

Were earth of parchment made,
Were every stick a single quill,
Each man a scribe by trade;

To write the tricks of half the sex,
Would drink that ocean dry.

Gallants, beware, look sharp, take care,
The blind eat many a fly."

4. "For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever, and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed be numbered."

5. "Draw them to Tiber's bank, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest stream

Do kiss the most exalted shores of all."

LESSON LVII.

IRONY.

1. "By these methods, in a few weeks, there starts up many a writer, capable of managing the profoundest and most universal subjects; for what though his head be empty, provided his common-place book be full? And if you will bate him but the circumstances of method, and style, and grammar, and invention; allow him but the common privileges of transcribing from others, and digressing from himself, as often as he shall see occasion, he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatise, that shall make a very comely figure on a bookseller's shelf, there to be preserved, neat and clean, for a long eternity, adorned with the heraldry of its title, fairly described on the label; never thumbed or greased by students, nor bound

to everlasting chains in a library; but when the fulness of time is come, shall happily undergo the trial of purgatory, in order to ascend the sky."

2. "Cicero, deriding the accuser of Bolbus, says: 'O excellent interpreter of the law! master of antiquity! corrector and amender of the constitution!"

3.

"Satan beheld their plight,

And to his mates thus in derision called:

'O friends, why come not on these victors proud?
Ere while they fierce were coming, and when we,
To entertain them with fair open front

And breast, (what could we more ?) propounded turns
Of composition, straight they change their minds,
Flew off, and into strange vagaries fell

As they would a dance; yet for a dance they seemed
Somewhat extravagant and wild; perhaps
For joy of offered peace; but I suppose
If our proposal once again were heard,
We would compel them to a quick result.'”

4. "And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, cry aloud; for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked."

LESSON LVIII.

PERSONIFICATION.

1. "But look, the moon in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill."

2. "Then sated hunger bids his brother thirst
Produce the mighty bowl;

Nor wanting is the brown October, drawn,
Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat
Of thirty years; and now his honest front
Flames in light refulgent."

3.

4.

"I weep for joy,

To stand upon my kingdom once again;
Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
Though rebels wound thee with their horses hoofs;
As a long-parted mother with her child

Plays fondly, with her tears and smiles in meeting,
So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth."

"Thou sun, said I, fair light!
And thou enlightened earth, so fresh and gay!
Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains,
And, ye
that live and move, fair creatures, tell,

Tell if you saw, how came I thus, how here."

5. "Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths; she crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors; unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand wisdom; and ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.

"Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.

"Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. I Wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; I have strength.

"By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me. Riches and honor are with me; yea durable riches and righteousness. My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver. I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment; that I may

cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.

"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled; before the hills was I brought forth while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest parts of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the deep; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children; for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me, findeth life, and shall obtain favor of the Lord. But he that sinneth against me, wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me, love death."

6. "Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist

Of time, though meager all, and ghostly thin,
Most unsubstantial, unessential shade,
Was earthly Fame. She was a voice alone,
And dwelt upon the noisy tongues of men.
She never thought, but gabbled ever on,
Applauding most what least deserved applause.
The motive, the result, was naught to her.
The deed alone, though dyed in human gore,
And steeped in widow's tears, if it stood out
To prominent display, she talked of much,
And roared around it with a thousand tongues.
As changed the wind, her organ, so she changed
Perpetually; and whom she praised to-day,
Vexing his ears with acclamations loud,
To-morrow blamed, and hissed him out of sight.

"Such was her nature, and her practice such.
But O! her voice was sweet to mortal ears,
And touched so pleasantly the strings of pride
And vanity, which in the heart of man
Were ever strung harmonious to her note,
That many thought, to live without her song
Was rather death than life."

7. "Greece, lovely Greece, 'the land of scholars and the nurse of arms,' where sister republics in fair possessions chanted the praises of liberty and the gods; where, and what is she? For two thousand years the oppressor has bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad relics of her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery; the fragments of her columns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruin. She fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermopylæ and Marathon; and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions. She fell by the hands of her own people. The man of Macedonia did not the work of destruction. It was already done by her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions. Rome, republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in the rising and setting sun, where, and what is she? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has but traveled in the paths worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal disease was upon her vitals before Cæsar had crossed the Rubicon; and Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of her senate chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the north, completed only what was already begun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions were bought and sold; but the people offered the tribute money."