handed a drinking-horn; it was a common feat, they told him, to drink this dry at one draught. Long and fiercely, three times over, Thor drank; but made hardly any impression. He was a weak child, they told him. Could he lift that cat he saw there? Small as the feat seemed, Thor with his whole godlike strength could not; he bent up the creature's back, could not raise its feet off the ground, could at the utmost raise one foot. "Why, you are no man," said the Utgard people; "there is an old woman that will wrestle you!" Thor, heartily ashamed, seized this haggard old woman, but could not throw her.

And now, on their quitting Utgard, the chief Jötun, escorting them politely a little way, said to Thor: "You are beaten then: yet be not so much ashamed; there was deception of appearance in it. That horn you tried to drink was the sea. You did make it ebb; but who could drink that, the bottomless! The cat you would have lifted, - why, that is the Midgard-snake, the great world-serpent, which, tail in mouth, girds and keeps up the whole created world; had you torn that up, the world must have rushed to ruin! As for the old woman, she was Time, Old Age, Duration; with her what can wrestle? No man nor no god with her; gods or men, she prevails over all! And then those three strokes struck you look at these three valleys; your three strokes made these!"

Thor looked at his attendant Jötun; it was Skrymir. It was, say Norse critics, the old chaotic rocky Earth in person, and that glove-house was some earth cavern! But Skrymir had vanished; Utgard with its sky-high gates, when Thor grasped his hammer to smite them, had gone to air; only the giant's voice was heard mocking, "Better come no more to Jötunheim!"

This is of the allegoric period, as we see, and half-play,

not of the prophetic and entirely devout, but as a mythus is there not real antique Norse gold in it?

Snor'ro (1179-1241), a historian and Thor, the second principal Norse god; high legal officer of Iceland.

O'din, a Norse god, regarded as the source of wisdom and the protector of culture and of heroes.

in dom'it a ble, not to be subdued.

per en'ni al, never failing; unceasing.

the god of thunder.

Jö'tun land, or Jö'tun heim (Ye'toon

him), the land of the giants.

port man'teau, a travelling-case. Mid'gard, in Norse mythology, the abode of the human race.

THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881) was a noted Scotch essayist, historian, and philosopher. This extract is from his "Heroes and HeroWorship."

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

ALFRED TENNYSON

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

Oh, well for the fisherman's boy

That he shouts with his sister at play!
Oh, well for the sailor lad

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on,

To their haven under the hill;

But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

THE TAKING OF QUEBEC

ELIOT B. G. WARBURTON

THE closing scene of French dominion in Canada was marked by circumstances of deep and peculiar interest. The pages of romance can furnish no more striking episode than the battle of Quebec. The skill and daring of the plan which brought on the combat, and the success and fortune of its execution, are unparalleled. A broad, open plain, offering no advantages to either party, was the field of fight. The contending armies were nearly equal in military strength, if not in numbers. The chiefs of both were men already of honorable fame. France trusted firmly in the wise and chivalrous Montcalm; England trusted hopefully in the young and heroic Wolfe. The magnificent stronghold which was staked upon the issue of the strife stood close at hand. For miles and miles around, the prospect extended over as fair a land as ever rejoiced the sight of man-mountain and valley, forest and waters, city and solitude, grouped together in forms of almost ideal beauty.

Quebec stands on the slope of a lofty eminence on the left bank of the St. Lawrence. A table-land extends westward from the citadel for about nine miles. The portion of the heights nearest the town on the west is called the Plains of Abraham. Wolfe had discovered a narrow path winding up the side of the steep precipice from the river. For miles on either side there was no other possible access to the heights. Up this narrow path Wolfe decided to lead secretly his whole army and make the plains his battleground!

The extraordinary daring of the enterprise was its safety. The wise and cautious Montcalm had guarded against all

the probable chances of war; but he was not prepared against an attempt for which the pages of romance can scarcely furnish a parallel.

Great preparations were made throughout the fleet and the army for the decisive movement; but the plans were still kept secret. A wise caution was observed in this respect; for the treachery of a single deserter might have imperilled the success of the expedition had its exact object been known. At nine o'clock at night, on the 13th of September, 1759, the first division of the army, sixteen hundred strong, silently removed into flat-bottomed boats. The soldiers were in high spirits: Wolfe led in person. About an hour before daylight, the flotilla dropped down with the ebb-tide. "Weather favorable; a starlight night.'

Silently and swiftly, unchallenged by the French sentries, Wolfe's flotilla dropped down the stream in the shade of the overhanging cliffs. The rowers scarcely stirred the waters with their oars; the soldiers sat motionless. Not a word was spoken, save by the young general. He, as a midshipman on board of his boat afterwards related, repeated in a low voice to the officers by his side Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," and as he concluded the beautiful verses, he said, "Now, gentlemen, I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec!"

But while Wolfe thus in the poet's words gave vent to the intensity of his feelings, his eye was constantly bent upon the dark outline of the heights under which he was hurrying. He recognized at length the appointed spot (now called Wolfe's Cove), and leaped ashore. Some of the leading boats conveying the light company of the 78th Highlanders, had in the meantime been carried about two hundred yards lower down by the strength of the tide. These Highlanders, under Captain Donald MacDonald,

were the first to land. Immediately over their heads hung a woody precipice, without track or path upon its rocky face. On the summit, a French sentinel marched to and fro, still unconscious of their presence.

Without a moment's hesitation, MacDonald and his men dashed at the height. They scrambled up, holding on by rocks and branches of trees, guided only by the stars that shone over the top of the cliff. Half the ascent was already won, when for the first time, "Qui vive?" broke the silence of the night. "La France," answered the Highland captain, with ready self-possession, and the sentry shouldered his musket and pursued his round.

In a few minutes, however, the rustling of the trees close at hand alarmed the French guard. They hastily turned out, fired an irregular volley down the precipice, and fled in panic. The captain, M. de Vergor, alone, though wounded, stood his ground. When summoned to surrender he fired at one of the leading assailants, but was instantly overpowered. In the meantime, nearly five hundred men landed, and made their way up the height. Those who had first reached the summit then took possession of the intrenched post at the top of the path which Wolfe had selected for the ascent of his army.

Wolfe, Monckton, and Murray landed with the first division. As fast as each boat was cleared, it put back for reënforcements to the ships, which had now also floated down with the tide to a point nearly opposite that of disembarkation. The battalions formed on the narrow beach at the foot of the winding path, and as soon as completed, each ascended the cliff, when they again formed upon the plains above.

The boats plied busily; company after company was quickly landed; and as soon as the men touched the shore,