more;

the French. It was the last effort made by the brave Tyrolese in defense of their country. The brave Henrick, too, was no he was found stretched on the bank of a little stream at the gorge of the valley, wrapped in the banner which he had sworn to defend with his last drop of blood. He had faithfully fulfilled his word, and the standard of freedom had become the winding-sheet of the young hero.

Miss Strickland.

QUESTIONS. What various tones of the voice should be employed in reading the 5th paragraph? (See page xvi.) Why is the rising inflection used on the word aid, in paragraph 10? (See page ix.) What variety of pitch occurs in the 11th paragraph? What should be the general tone of the voice as to pitch, in reading this piece? (See page xv.)

WORD ANALYSIS AND DEFINITIONS.

Aerie, the nest of a bird of prey.

Dc ject ́ed (de, down; ject, cast), cast down; low-spirited.

Dis cord ́ant, disagreeing; harsh; jarring.

Ham'let (ham, home; let, little), a small village.

Me rid'i an, midday; noon; the middle.

Re verber ate (re, back; verber, beat), to beat back; to resound.

LESSON XLII.

DEFENSE OF HOFER, THE TYROLESE
PATRIOT.

1. You ask what I have to say in my defense, — yoû, who glory in the name of France, who wander through the world to enrich and exalt the land of your birth, you demand how I could dare to arm myself against the invaders of my native rocks? Do you confine the love of home to yourselves'? Do you punish in others the actions which you dignify and reward among yourselves'? Those stars which glitter on your breasts, do they hang there as a recompense for patient servitude'?

2. I see the smile of contempt which curls your lips. You say, "This brute, he is a ruffian, a beggar! That patched jacket, that ragged cap, that rusty belt:-shall barbarians such as he close the pass against us, shower rocks on our heads, and single out our leaders with unfailing aim', - these groveling mountaineers, who know not the joys and brilliance of life, creeping amidst eternal snows, and snatching with greedy hand their stinted ear of corn'?

3. Yet, poor as we are, we never envied our neighbors their smiling sun, their gilded palaces; we never strayed from our peaceful huts to blast the happiness of those who had not injured us. The traveler who visited our valleys, met every hand outstretched to welcome him; for him every hearth blazed; with delight we listened to his tale of distant lands. Too happy for ambition, we were not jealous of his wealth; we have even refused to partake of it.

4. Frenchmen! you have wives and children. When you return to your beautiful cities, amidst the roar of trumpets, the smiles of the lovely, and the multitudes shouting with triumph, they will ask, Where have you roamed? What have you achieved? What have you brought back to us? Those laughing babes who climb upon your knees, will you have the heart to tell them, We have pierced the barren crags, we have entered the naked cottage to level it to the ground; we found no treasures but honest hearts, and those we have broken because they throbbed with love for the wilderness around them'? Clasp this old firelock in your little hands; it was snatched from a peasant of Tyrol, who died in the vain effort to stem our torrent! Seated by your firesides, will you boast to your generous and blooming wives, that you have extinguished the last ember which lightened our gloom' ?

5. Happy scenes ! I shall never see you more! In those cold and stern eyes I read my fate. Think not that your sentence can be terrible to me! but I have sons, daughters, and

a wife who has shared all my labors; she has shared, too, my little pleasures, such pleasures as that humble roof can yield, — pleasures that you can not understand.

6. My little ones! should you live to bask in the sunshine of manhood, (you are sporting by the brook that washes our door,) dream not of your father's doom! Should you live to know it, know, too, that the man who has served his God and country with all his heart, can smile at the musket leveled to pierce it. What is death to ME? I have not reveled in pleasures wrung from innocence or want; rough and discolored as are these hands, they are pure. My death is nothing. O that my country could live! O that ten thousand such deaths could make her immortal!

7. Do I despair, then'? No; we have rushed to the sacrifice, and the offering has been vain for us; but our children shall burst these fetters; the blood of virtue was never shed in vain. Freedom can never die! I have heard that you killed your king once, because he enslaved you; yet now, again, you crouch before a single man who bids you trample on all who abjure his yoke, and shoots you if you have courage to disobey. Do you think that, when I am buried, there shall breathe no other Hofers'? Dream you that, if to-day you prostrate Hofer in the dust, to-morrow Hofer is no more'?

8. In the distance I see the liberty which I shall not taste; behind, I look on my slaughtered countrymen, on my orphans, on my desolate fields; but a star rises before my aching sight, which points to justice, and it shall come. Before the sun has sunk below yon mountains, I shall awake in a paradise which you, perhaps, may never reach.

QUESTIONS. What inflection should be used on the word you in the 1st paragraph? (See Rule 3, page x.) Where does the rising inflection occur? Why? What example of antithetic emphasis in the 2d paragraph? What in the 3d paragraph? What questions in the 4th paragraph require the falling inflection? What, the rising? With what quality of tone should the 5th and 6th paragraphs be read? (See page xx.) The 7th and 8th paragraphs?

LESSON XLIII.

THE ALBATROSS.

1. While off the coast of Patagonia, when the weather permitted, some of the passengers, and the watch on duty, occupied themselves in fishing for albatrosses. They are caught by

baiting a hook with pork or blubber, fastening a piece of wood near the bait so that it may be kept floating, and letting it tow astern.

2. These noble birds would wheel and hover over it, and at length alight on the water like a swan, often succeeding in getting all the bait without being hooked. But six or seven times some of them were taken and hauled aboard, the unsuspected hook catching within their long bills. They measured nine or ten feet across the wings. The first one was killed and stuffed, to be carried home for some museum. The rest were sacrificed for their long bills, wings, and large web-feet.

3. This bird is uncommonly beautiful and majestic. Its motion through space is the easiest and most graceful conceivable. In storm or calm, once raised upon its broad pinions, which are never seen to flutter, away it sails, self-propelled, as naturally as we breathe; a motion of the head, or a slight curl of a wing serving to turn it, as the course of a rapid skater is ruled at pleasure by an almost imperceptible inclination to the right or left.

4. A poor Peruvian, who was working his passage home, ascribed all the bad weather and high winds which we experienced to our having killed the albatrosses; and he and the superstitious cook, in the hight of the gale, prevailed upon a young passenger who had taken one the day previous, and was keeping it alive in the long-boat, to let the noble bird go free. 5. Like the mariners in Coleridge's rhyme, they said,

"We had done a wicked thing,

And it would work us woe :

*

Stout they averred we had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

'Ah, wretch !' said they, 'the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow !""

6. This glorious bird is the most beautiful and lovable object of the animate world which the adventurer meets with

*This refers to the "Ancient Mariner," a celebrated poem by the English poet, S T. Coleridge.