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tones, "as I was stooping here to drink, I accidentally dropped into the water a casket full of diamonds, which I was employed to carry to the Calif, at Bagdad. Unfortunate wretch that I am! I shall certainly be put to death, on suspicion of having stolen and concealed so valuable a treasure."

9. "Why do you not jump into the well, in search of the casket, instead of making such an outcry?" asked Malek, astonished at the stupidity of the man. "Because the water is deep," replied the fellow, "and I can neither dive nor swim. O! my good master, if you will venture for me, I will reward you with thirty pieces of silver."

10. Overjoyed at the prospect of making good his losses, Malek accepted the offer with exultation. Pulling off his cassock, vest, trowsers, and slippers, he plunged into the well, in search of the pretended casket. He had hardly touched the water when the whining individual-who, it is needless to say, was one of the three rogues who had laid this plot for the plunder of the poor peasant-seized upon his garments, and bore them off to a place of security.

11. After diving, and spending some time in the well, in an unavailing search, Malek climbed up, and looked round for his clothes. To his consternation he found that they were gone, and that with them had disappeared his bewailing friend, the loser of the imaginary diamonds.

12. Thus, through inattention, simplicity, and cre dulity, coupled with too confident a reliance on his own sagacity and wisdom, was poor Malek duped out of all his possessions. A wiser if not a better man, he hastened back to his own humble cottage, with no other covering than a tattered cloak, which a worthy sailor, to whom he told his sorrows, lent him on the road.

XVI.-RUTH TO HER MOTHER-IN-LAW.

TREASURED, pp., hoarded; laid up.

FURNACE, n., an enclosed fire-place.

CAV'ERN, n., a large cave.

PoN'DER, v. t., to think on closely.

Do not say heerd for heard (herd); cavuns for cav'erns; dooty for duty, The diæresis over the e in Israël shows that the two vowels are distinct in sound.

The beautiful story of Ruth, on which the following poem is founded, must be well known to all readers of the Bible.

FAREWELL? O no! it may not be ;
My firm resolve is heard on high !
I will not breathe farewell to thee,
Save only in my dying sigh.

I know not that I now could bear
Forever from thy side to part,
And live without a friend to share
The treasured sadness of my heart.

Too well I've loved in other years
To leave thee solitary now,

When sorrow dims thine eye with tears,
And shades the beauty of thy brow.
I'll share the trial and the pain,

And strong the furnace fire must be,
To melt away the willing chain
That binds a daughter's heart to thee.

I will not boast a martyr's might
To leave my home without a sigh,
The dwelling of my past delight,

The shelter where I hoped to die!-
In such a duty, such an hour,

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The weak are strong, the timid brave;
For Love puts on an angel's power,

And Faith grows mightier than the grave.

For rays of heaven, serenely bright,

Have gilt the caverns of the tomb;
And I can ponder with delight

On all its gathering thoughts of gloom.

Then, mother, let us haste away

To that blest land to Israël given,
Where Faith, unsaddened by decay,

Dwells nearest to its native heaven.

But where thou goest I will go ;

With thine my earthly lot is cast;
In pain and pleasure, joy and woe,
Will I attend thee to the last;
That hour shall find me by thy side,

And where thy grave is, mine shall be;
Death can but for a time divide

My firm and faithful heart from thee!
W. B. O. PEABODY. (1799-1847.)

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XVII.

REPLY TO LORD LYNDHURST.

STARK, a., stiff; — ad., wholly.
ALIEN (ale'yen), n., a foreigner.
GALLANT, a., brave; high-spirited.
PHIL'ANX, n., a close body of troops.
LEGION, n., a body of soldiers.

BLENCHED, v. i., shrank; started back.
IM-POSTURE, n., deception; cheat.
IN-FLEX-I-BIL'I-TY, n., firmness.
CON-FED'ER-ATE, n., an ally.

VO-CAB'U-LA-RY, n., a list of words.

Pronounce Assaye (in Hin-dos-tan') As-si'ye ; Vimieira (in Portugal)) Vim-e-a-e'ra ; Badajos (in Spain) Bad-a-hōs; Albuera (in Spain) Al-boo-a'ra; Toulouse (in France) Too-looz'. Give the y sound to u in Duke.

The following eloquent remarks were made by Richard Lalor Shiel, in the British Par liament, in 1837, in reply to Lord Lyndhurst, who had spoken of the Irish as "aliens! Shiel was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1791. He died in 1851.

1. I SHOULD be surprised, indeed, if, while you are doing us wrong, you did not profess your solicitude to do us justice. Englishmen were never wanting in such protestations. There is, however, one exception. 2. There is a man of great abilities, not a member of this House, but whose talents and boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party, - who has been heard to speak of the Irish as "aliens." Disdaining all imposture, and abandoning all reserve, he

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distinctly and audaciously tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privileges as Englishmen; that they are "aliens." Aliens? Good heavens! Was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, "Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty?"

3. The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable temperament. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but, notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I can not help thinking that when he heard his countrymen děsignated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his eloquent confederate could supply, I can not help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown.

4. The "battles, sieges, fortunes, that he has passed," ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that, from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable,—from Assaye to Waterloo, the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been crowned.

5. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimieira through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before? What desperate valor* climbed the steeps and filled the moats of Badajos?

*The tone of suspension should be given at greatest, the dash indicating a sudden break in the speaker's remarks. The battle he there refers to is Waterloo, fought against Napoleon, June 18th, 1815. The opposing forces were commanded by Wellington, whose "words," to which the orator alludes, were, "Up, Guards, and at them!" Sir Henry Hardinge was the "gallant soldier" to whom Shiel appealed.

All, all his victories should have rushed and crowded

back upon his memory; Vimieira, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse; and, last of all, the greatest

6. Tell me, for you were there, I appeal to the gallant soldier before me, who bears, I know, a generous heart in an intrepid breast; tell me, for you must needs remember, on that day, when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance, while death fell in showers; when the artillery of France, leveled with the precision of the most deadly science, played upon them; when her legions, incited by the voice, inspired by the example, of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset, tell me if, for an instant, when to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the "aliens" blenched!

7. And when, at length, the moment for the last decisive movement had arrived; when the valor, so long wisely checked, was at last let loose; when, with words familiar, but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault, tell me if Catholic Ireland, with less heroic valor than the natives of your own glori ous isle, precipitated herself upon the foe! The blood of England, Scotland, Ireland, flowed in the same stream, drenched the same field.

8. When the chill morning dawned, their dead lay cold and stark together. In the same deep pit their bodies were deposited. The green corn of spring is now breaking from their commingled dust; the dew falls from heaven upon their union in the grave! Par takers in every peril, in the glory shall we not be permitted to participate? And shall we be told, as a requital, that we are estranged from the noble country for whose salvation our life-blood was poured out?

5*

SHIEL

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