must rely on yourselves ; looking to statesmen only for the capacity to give you salutary counsels. And now after summing up in a word what I have to urge, I have done. I say you should levy the necessary supplies, should maintain the army on its necessary establishment-correcting whatever abuses may be found to exist, but not disbanding it altogether upon the first clamor that is raised—should send ambassadors, wherever they can be useful in informing, admonishing, or anywhere further ing the interests of this country.

9. But you should, beside all this, bring the men to punish. ment whose administration has been stained with corruption, and consign them to abhorr,nce in all times and all places, to the end that those whose conduct has been temperate and pure, may be shown to have consulted at once their own interests and yours. If such shall be your course, and you no longer neglect your most important concerns, it may be that our affairs shall take a better turn. But, if you sit down inactive and confining youi exertions to acclamations and applause, shrink back the moment anything is required to be done, I can conceive nc eloquence which, in the absence of every necessary effort on your part, will have the power to save the country.

EXERCISE XLI.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, author of the following humorous effusion, W 20 one of the most distinguished poets and philosophers of his time. He was born in Devonshire in the year 1772, and died in 1834. “The literary char. acter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge," says an able critic, "resembles some vast but unfinished palace : all is gigantic, beautiful, and rich ; but nothing is complete, nothing compact. He was all his days, from his youth to his death, laboring, meditating, projecting: and yet all that he left us, bears a painful character of fragmentariness and imperfection. His mind was eminently dreamy; he was deeply tinged with that incapacity of acting, which formg the characteristic of the German intellect: his genius was multiform, manysided; and for this reason, perhaps, could not at once seize upon the right point of view. No man, probably, ever existed, who thought more, and more intensely, than Coleridge; few ever possessed a vaster treasury of learning and knowledge; and yet how little has he given us ! or rather how few of his works are in any way worthy of the undoubted majesty of his genius!"

ODE TO RAIN.

BAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

COMPOSED BEFORE DAYLIGHT, ON THE MORNING APPOINTED FOR THE DE

PARTURE OF A VERY WORTHY, BUT NOT VERY PLEASANT VISITOR, WHON IT TA 1 FEARED THE RAIN MIGHT DETAIN.

I know it is dark; and though I have lain
Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain,
I have not once opened the lids of my eyes,
But lie in the dark, as a blind man lies.
O Rain, that I lie listening to,
• You're but a doleful sound at best;
I owe you little thanks, 'tis true,

For breaking thus my needful rest,
Yet if, as soon as it is light,
O Rain! you will but take your flight,
I'll neither rail, nor malice keep,
Though sick and sore for want of sleep,
But only now for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain ! do go away!

II.

O Rain! with your dull twofold sound,
The clash hard by, and the murmur all round,
You know, if you know aught, that we,
Both day and night, but ill agree:
For days, and months, and almost years,
Have limped on through this vale of tears,
Since body of mine and rainy weather,
Have lived on easy terms together.
Yet if, as soon as it is light,
O Rain ! you will but take your flight,
Though you should come again to-morrow,
And bring with you both pain and sorrow;
Though stomach should sicken and knees should swell,
I'll nothing speak of you but well.

But only now for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain ! do go away!

III.

Dear Rain! I ne'er refuse to say
You're a good creature in your way.
Nay, I could write a book myself,
Would fit a parson's lower shelf,
Showing how very good you are.
What then? sometimes it must be fair.
And, if sometimes, why not to-day?
Do go, dear Rain ! do go away.

IV. Dear Rain ! if I've been cold and shy, Take no offense! I'll tell you why. A dear old Friend e’en now is here, And with him came my sister dear; After long absence now first met, Long months by pain and grief beset With three dear Friends ! in truth, we groen Impatiently to be alone. We three you mark! and not one more ! The strong wish makes my spirit sore. We have so much to talk about, So many sad things to let out; So many tears in our eye-corners, Sitting like little Jacky HornersIn short, as soon as it is day, Do go, dear Rain ! do go away!

Yet, knowing well your worth and place,
I'll welcome you with cheerful face;
And though you stay a week or more,
Were ten times duller than before ;
Yet with kind heart, and right good will,
I'll sit and listen to you still ;
Nor should you go away, dear Rain!
But only now for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!

EXERCISE XLII.

The following curious piece, found in an old English collection, was written in answer to the question once put to the author-“Why turns your hair white ?” It is a good example of labored alliteration, that is, the style in which the same sound is made frequently to recur in the same line; as where Milton says—"Behemoth, biggest born of earth.”

WHY DOES YOUR HAIR TURN WHITE ?

W. HUNIS

Where seething sighs and sorrow sobs
Hath slain the slips that nature set;
And scalding showers with stony throbs,
The kindly sap from them hath fet,*
What wonder, then, though that you see,
Upon my head, white hairs to be?

II.

Where thought hath thrilled, and thrown his spears,
To hurt the heart that harmeth him not;
And groaning grief hath ground forth tears,
Mine eye to stain, my face to spot:
What wonder, then, though that you see,
Upon my head, white hairs to be ?

* Fetch, or bring out. The word is obsoleto

R

III. Where pinching pain himself has placed, There peace with pleasures were possessed : And, where the walls of wealth lie waste, And poverty in them is pressed; What wonder, then, though that you see, Upon my head, white hairs to be?

IV. Where wretched woe will weave her web, Where care the clue can catch, and dust : And floods of joy are fallen to ebb, So low, that life may not long last; What wonder, then, though that you see, Upon my head, white hairs to be ?

These hairs of age are messengers Which bid me fast, repent, and pray; They be of death the harbingers, That doth prepare and dress the way; Wherefore I joy that you may see, Upon my head, such hairs to be.

VI. They be the lines that lead the length, How far my race is yet to run: They show my youth is filed with strength, And how old age is weak begun : The which I feel, and you may see, Upon my head, such lines to be.

VII. They be the strings of sober sound, Whose music is harmonical: Their tunes declare what time from ground I came, and how thereto I shall :