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LOUIS XIV.

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LESSON CCXLIV.

SEPTEMBER THE FIRST.

Louis XIV.

The

On this day, in 1715, died Louis XIV. of France. age of Louis XIV. will always be a memorable period in history; and his personal character, as greatly influencing its events, will continue to be an interesting object of speculation. Yet he had none of the commanding qualities which create a nation or an era, and would not have been distinguished from common princes under common circumstances.

His natural good sense and sedateness would have made him respectable, though not brilliant, in an inferior situation; and it may be said in alleviation of his faults, that never was any man more exposed to moral perversion by a bad education, and the extravagant flattery of a whole people, who indulged their own vanity in adulating and almost deifying their monarch.

He was perpetually told that he was the greatest of all mortals, and he believed it; he saw every thing bowing at his feet, and he thought that his will ought to be the sole law on earth. That he was not an insupportable tyrant could only be owing to something radically good in his disposition. His nation made great advances in his reign; for which, however, it was no further obliged to him, than as he was a general encourager of whatever appeared likely to contribute to his own glory.

One of his ablest panegyrists has summed up his character by saying, that, if he was not a great king, he was at least a great actor of royalty. His plan of pensioning all the eminent men of letters throughout Europe secured to him, at a very small expense, more erudite adulation than any prince in modern times has received.

1. Whose death happened on this day, in 1715 ?

2. How has his character been summed up by an able panegyrist ? 3. What did his plan of pensioning all the eminent men of letters secure to him?

LESSON CCXLV.

SEPTEMBER THE SECOND.

On the Nature and Properties of Salt.

SALT, in the popular sense, is a saline crystallization used to season or preserve meats. This is usually called common salt. Salt is either procured by evaporating seawater, or the water of salt springs, or dug in mines.

White salt and bay salt are of the former kind; and fossil or rock salt of the latter.

In sea-salt prepared by rapid evaporation, the insoluble portion is a mixture of carbonate of lime with carbonate of magnesia, and a fine siliceous sand; and, in the salt prepared from Cheshire brine, is almost entirely carbonate of lime. The insoluble part of the less pure pieces of rock salt is chiefly of a marly earth, with some sulphate of lime. Some estimate of the general proportion of this impurity may be formed from the fact that government, in levying the duties, allowed 65 pounds to the bushel of rock salt, instead of 56 pounds, the usual weight of a bushel of salt.

In Caramania, in Asia, Chardin tells us, rock salt is so abundant, and the atmosphere so dry, that the inhabitants use it as stone for building their houses. This mineral is

also found on the whole elevated table-land of Great Tartary, Thibet, and Hindostan. Extensive plains in Persia are covered with a saline efflorescence; and, referring to the account of travellers, the island of Ormus, in the Persian Gulf, is one large mass of rock salt. According to Hornemann, there is a mass of rock salt spread over the mountains that bound the desert of Libya to the north, so vast that no eye can reach its termination in one direction, and its breadth he computed to be several miles. Rock salt has also been found in New South Wales.

The principal deposit in Great Britain is in Cheshire. The beds alternate with clay and marl, which contain gypsum. It occurs also at Droitwich in Worcestershire. The salt mines in the neighbourhood of Northwich are very extensive. They have been wrought since 1670; and the quantity of salt obtained from them is greater, probably, than is obtained from any other salt mines in the world: but the Cheshire salt, in its solid form when dug from the mine, is not sufficiently pure for use. To purify it, it is dissolved in sea-water, from which it is afterwards separated by evaporation and crystallization. The beds or masses of rock salt are occasionally so thick, that they have not been yet bored through, though mined for many centuries; but it is sometimes disseminated in small masses or little veins among the calcareous and argillaceous marls which accompany or overlie the greater deposit.

In the places where there are salt springs, and salt works are carried on at them, the work-house where the salt is made is always called the wych-house, and hence it

A LAMENT FOR SUMMER.

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is supposed that wych was an old British word for salt, asall the towns in which salt is made end in wych; as Namptwych, Droitwych, Middlewych, &c.

1. How is salt procured?

2. In what part of England is the principal deposit of salt? 3. Why is wych supposed to be the old British word for salt?

LESSON CCXLVI.

SEPTEMBER THE THIRD.

A Lament for Summer.

AGAIN the wheels of time have roll'd along,
And dying summer claims once more a song,
A farewell tribute to its glories past,

Ere winter chills us with its withering blast.
The brightest of the summer sky is fled,
The leaves are faded, and the flowers are dead.
So fades the summer of our life away -

So are we hastening on to sure decay;

And thus our pleasures, hopes, and fears flit by,—
Like flowers they blossom, and like flowers they die.
Come, mourn, ye lovers of the fields and woods,
The gay greensward, the shady solitudes;

Ye nymphs that deck at eve the mystic green,

Lament the pleasures of the sylvan scene.

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But, wherefore weep?" exclaims some hopeful swain,
"Winter will pass, and summer come again;
Again the leaves in all their freshness bloom,
The flowers shed once more their sweet perfume,
The wild bird's song again will fill the grove,
And nature teem with fruitfulness and love."
Oh! far from me to quench the ardent flame,
This heavenly hope of joys to come to blame:
Oh! let me rather dreaming live and die,
Than cope for ever with reality.

Still should I ask, nor deem the question strange,
When summer comes, will she not find a change?
Will all who late enjoy'd her fragrant breath
Escape the grasp of the fell tyrant, death?
Many, who deem their journey scarce begun,
Will long ere then their earthly course have run;
Many a widow weep for husband dead,
And orphan miss the friendly hand that fed;
Many a mother lose the only stay

That propp'd her sinking age from day to day;

Many a maiden for her lover mourn,

And bind the cypress round his funeral urn:

What hopes may fade, what favourite schemes be crush'd,
What voices dear may then be mute and hush'd,

Should bid us pause, and from this earthly clay
In contemplation draw our thoughts away.

Teach us, O Thou! who spread the worlds abroad,
To see in varying times the varied God;

And ever, as revolving seasons pass,

To view our lives reflected in a glass.

LESSON CCXLVII.

SEPTEMBER THE FOURTH.

Hacho, King of Lapland.

HACHO, a king of Lapland, was in his youth the most renowned of the northern warriors. His martial achievements remain engraved on a pillar of flint, and are to this day solemnly carolled to the harp of the Laplanders, at the fires with which they celebrate their nightly festivities. Nor was he less celebrated for his prudence and wisdom than his valour; and, above all, his temperance and severity of manners were his chief praise. In his early years he never tasted wine, nor would he drink out of a painted cup. He constantly slept in his armour, with his spear in his hand; nor would he use a battle-axe whose handle was inlaid with brass.

But Hacho neither persevered in his contempt of luxury, nor did he close his days with honour. One day, after hunting the gulos, or wild hog, being bewildered in a solitary forest, and having endured fatigue without any rest or refreshment, he discovered a large store of honey in the hollow of a pine tree. This was a dainty which he had never tasted; and being both faint and hungry he fed greedily upon it. From this unusual and delicious repast he received so much satisfaction, that at his return home he commanded honey to be served up at his table every day. His palate by degrees became refined and vitiated; he began to lose his native relish for simple fare, and contracted a habit of indulging himself in delicacies; he ordered the delightful gardens of his palace to be thrown open (in which the most luscious fruits had been suffered to ripen and decay unobserved and untouched for many revolving autumns), and gratified his appetite with luxurious desserts. At length he found it expedient to intro duce wine, as an agreeable improvement, or a necessary

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