Sat fair-proportioned on her polished limbs,
Vailed in a simple robe, their best attire,
Beyond the pomp of dress; for loveliness
Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorned, adorned the most.

III.
Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self,
Recluse amid the close embowering woods.
As in the hollow breast of Apennine,
Beneath the shelter of encircling hills,
A myrtle rises, far from human eye,
And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild;
So flourished blooming, and unseen by all,
The sweet Lavinia; till, at length, compelled
By strong Necessity's supreme command,
With smiling patience in her looks, she went
To glean Palemon's fields. The pride of swains
Palemon was, the generous, and the rich;
Who led the rural life in all its joy
And elegance, such as Arcadian song
Transmits from ancient uncorrupted times.

IV.
He then, his fancy with autumnal scenes
Amusing, chanced beside his reaper-train
To walk, when poor Lavinia drew his eye;
Unconscious of her power, and turning quick
With unaffected blushes from his gaze:
He saw her charming, but he saw not half
The charms her downcast modesty concealed.
And thus in secret to his soul he sighed :

“She looks, methinks,
Of old Acasto’s line; and to my mind
Recalls that patron of my happy life,
From whom my liberal fortune took its rise ;

Now to the dust gone down; his houses, lands,
And once fair-spreading family, dissolved.
'Tis said that, in some lone obscure retreat,
Urged by remembrance sad, and decent pride,
Far from those scenes which knew their better days,
His aged widow and his daughter live,
Whom yet my fruitless search could never find.
Romantic wish! would this the daughter were !"

VI.

When, strict inquiring, from herself he found She was the same, the daughter of his friend, Of bountiful Acasto, who can speak The mingled passions that surprised his heart, And through his nerves in shivering transport ran? Then blazed his smothered flame, avowed, and bold; “ And art thou, then, Acasto’s dear remains ? She, whom my restless gratitude has sought, So long in vain? Oh, heavens! the very same, The softened image of my noble friend, Alive his every look, his every feature, More elegantly touched. Sweeter than Spring! Thou sole surviving blossom from the root That nourished up my fortune! Say, ah, where, In what sequestered desert hast thou drawn The kindest aspect of delighted Heaven ? Into such beauty spread, and blown so fair; Though poverty's cold wind, and crushing rain, Beat keen and heavy on thy tender years ?

VII. "Oh, let me now into a richer soil Transplant thee safe! where vernal suns and showers Diffuse their warmest, largest influence; And of my garden be the pride and joy! Ill it befits thee, oh, it ill befits Acasto's daughter, his whose open stores, Though vast, were little to his ample heart,

The father of a country, thus to pick
The very refuse of those harvest-fields,
Which from his bounteous friendship I enjoy.
Then throw that shameful pittance from thy hand,
The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine,
If to the various blessings which thy house
Has on me lavished, thou wilt add that bliss,
That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee!"

EXERCISE CLIX.

APOS'TROPHE, literally, a turning away from (APO, from, and STROPHE, a turning), is the name applied to a digression in discourse, where the speaker suddenly addresses some one who is dead or absent, as if alive or present; or some inanimate object, as though having the qualities that belong to intelligent beings.

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.

TARD BYRON.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll !
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin,-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan-
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

II.
His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields
Are not a sport for him,—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise,

* See next Exercise.

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling to his gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

III.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war:
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into the yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

IV. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts : not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play.

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow:
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

v.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time
Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the role, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving: boundless, endless, and sublime-
The image of Eternity—the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Oboys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone

VI.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
Were a delight; and, if the freshening sea
Made them a terror—'twas a pleasing fear;
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here

EXERCISE CLX.

GEORGE GORDON BYRON (Lord Byron) was born in London, January 22d, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, in Greece, April 19th, 1824. In his nineteenth year, on leaving Cambridge University, where his course had been marked by an intractable disposition, he commenced his career as an author by publishing the “Hours of Idleness.” It was criticized with great severity by the Edin. burgh Review, to which attack he replied with still greater severity in a caustic satire, entitled “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." His life, after this, was marked by great misfortunes, occasioned chiefly by his own wild and wanton conduct; but it was distinguished by a series of political productions which have been more admired and more condemned than those, perhaps, of any other writer, whether living or dead. His strange lot, and his stranger career, are admirably sketched in the present Exercise.

SKETCH OF LORD BYRON.

MACAULAY. 1. The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans illustrates the character of her son the regent, might, with little changa, be applied to Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bidden to his cradle. All the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited, came last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had done for their favor. ite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing.

2. In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of oppo