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4. Should they who are nearest and dearest thy heart,Thy friends and companions,—in sorrow depart, "Look aloft” from the darkness and dust of the tomb, To that soil where affection is ever in bloom.

5. And, oh! when Death comes, in his terrors, to cast
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,

In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart
And a smile in thine eye, "LoOOK ALOFT,"-and depart.

JONATHAN LAWRENCE.

IN

SECTION XXIII.

I.

107. MOUNT VERNON IN 1759.

N his letter from Mount Vernon,' Washington writes: "I am now, I believe, fixed in this seat, with an agreeable partner, for life, and I hope to find more happiness in retirement, than I ever experienced in the wide and bustling world."

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2. This was no Utopian dream, transiently indulged ămid the charms of novelty. It was a deliberate purpose with him, the result of innate and enduring inclination. Throughout the whole course of his career, agricultural life appears to have been his beau ideal of existence, which haunted his thoughts even amid the stern duties of the field, and to which he recurred' with unflagging interest, whenever cnabled to indulge his natural bias."

1 Mount Vernon, Virginia, the former residence of Washington, on the west side of the Potomac, eight miles below Alexandria. It contains the mansion and tomb of the "Father of his Country."

2 U t5' pi an, ideal; fanciful; having no real existence. Utopia is a name given by Sir Thomas More to a fancied island, in which every thing was perfection. The term is

derived from two Greek words, meaning "no place."

"In nate', inborn; native; natural. * Beau ideal, (bỏ`ide al), an im age or picture, formed in the mind, of the greatest beauty or excellence, free from all defects and blemishes which nature exhibits.

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'Recurred, (re kård), came back. Bi' as, a leaning of the mind; inclination.

3. Mount Vernon was his harbor of repose, where he repeatedly furled his sail, and fancied himself anchored for life. No impulse of ambition tempted him thence; nothing but the call of his country, and his devotion to the public good. The place was endeared to him by the remembrance of his brother Lawrence, and of the happy days he had passed here, with that brother, in boyhood; but it was a delightful place in itself, and well calculated to inspire the rural feeling.

4. The mansion was beautifully situated on a swelling height, crowned with wood, and commanding a magnificent view up and down the Potomac. The grounds immediately about it were laid out somewhat in the English taste. The estate was apportioned into separate farms, devoted to different kinds of culture,' each having its allotted laborers. Much, however, was still covered with wild-woods, seamed with deep dells and runs of water, and indented with inlets-haunts of deer, and lurkingplaces of foxes.

5. The whole woody region along the Potomac, from Mount Vernon to Belvoir, and far beyond, with its range of forests and hills, and picturesque' promontories,' afforded sport of various kinds, and was a noble hunting-ground. Washington had hunted through it with old Lord Fairfax in his stripling days: we do not wonder that his feelings throughout life incessantly reverted to it.

6. "No estate in United America,” observes he, in one of his letters, "is more pleasantly situated. In a high and healthy country; in a latitude between the extremes of heat and cold; on one of the finèst rivers in the world,-a river well stocked with various kinds of fish, at all seasons of the year, and in the spring with shad, herring, bass, carp, sturgeon, &c., in great ăbundance. The borders of the estate are washed by more than ten miles of tide-water; several valuable fisheries appertain to it; the whole shore, in fact, is one entire fishery."

'Cult'ūre, cultivation; employ. ment of means or labor in making, producing, or in refining and advancing.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

good or pleasing picture; presenting that peculiar kind of beauty which is agreeable in a picture.

3 Prom' on to ries, high lands ex

'Pict`ur esque', fitted to form a tending into the sea; headlands.

S

II.

108. WARREN'S ADDRESS.

TAND! the ground's your own, my braves-
Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it, ye who will.

2. Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they're ǎ-fire!
And before you, see

Who have done it! From the vale
On they come! and will ye quail ?—
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

3. In the God of battles trust!
Die we may-and die we must;
But, oh, where can dust to dust

Be consigned so well,

As where heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,

Of his deeds to tell?

III.

REV. JOHN PIERPONT

109. THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

O, now the cannon thundering to the sky,
The thickening fumes that scent the heated air,
Recall the camp, and spread before mine eye
The pitch of battle and the triumph there.

2. The summoned plowman grasps the ready gun,
And swiftly strides across the furrow's sod;
The smith, ere half the heated shoe is done,
Swings on in haste, and rides the steed unshod.

3. The mason flings his glittering trowel by,

And leaves behind the pale and weeping few ;
The miller's wheel above the stream hangs dry,
While o'er the hill he waves the swift ǎdieu.

4. Lo, all the air is throbbing to the drum ;
In every highway sounds the shrilly fife ;
And flashing guns proclaim afar they come,

Where hurried banners lead the way to strife. 5. Though rude the music, and the arms are rude, And rustic garments fill the motley' line,

Yet noble hearts, with noble hopes imbued,"
Thrill through the ranks with energy divine ;—

6. Thrill through the ranks until those sounds become
Celestial melodies from Freedom's lips!

These arms an engine' to strike despots' dumb,
And leave oppression howling in eclipse."

7. Then comes the struggle, raging loud and long-
The seven years' battle with the banded foes-
The tyrant, and the savage, and the strong

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Grim arm of want with all its direful' woes.

8. Half clad and barefoot, bleeding where they tread, Where hunger and disease allied consort,'

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The pale survivors stand among their dead,

And brave the winter in their snow-walled fort.

9. But heavier than the (thŭ) storms which fold the earth, Than all the ills which winter's hand commits,

The bitter thought that at the sacred hearth
Of unprotected homes some horror sits.

1 Mŏt' ley, made up of various kinds of colors; formed of different or unlike parts.

2 Im būed', colored deeply; impressed or filled

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ter; one who rules others regardless of the laws; tyrant.

Б

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Eclipse', obscuration; darkness. Grim, of forbidding or fear-awakening appearance; fierce; frightful. "Dire' ful, evil in a great degree; dreadful; terrible.

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10. But God is just; and they who suffer most, Win most; for tardy triumph comes at last! The patriot, bravely dying at his post,

Hath rivaled all the Cæsars' of the past.

11. Right conquers wrong, and glory follows pain,
The cause of Freedom vindicated stands ;
And Heaven consents; while, staring o'er the main,
Old Europe greets us with approving hands.

12. If now a film o'er-swim my agèd gaze,
Or if a tremor in my voice appear,
It is the memory of those glorious days

Which moves my failing frame and starts the tear.

13. Oh, on this sacred spot again to rest,

Where passed the patriots, ere this old heart faints!
Then I depart, with a contented breast,

Where they are walking crowned among the saints. 14. Here on these steps, made holy by their tread,

I list their Lindling voices as of yōre; And hear that bell, now hanging speechless, dead, Which rung for Freedom, broke, and rung no more. 15. Broke with the welcome tidings on its tongue, Broke, like a heart, with joy's excessive note,— "Tis well no cause less glorious e'er hath rung In silver music from its hallowed throat.

THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

IV.

110. AMERICAN EXPERIMENT OF SELF-GOVERNMENT.

WE

E are summoned to new energy and zeal, by the high nature of the experiment we are appointed in Providènce to make, and the grandeur of the theater on which it is to be performed. At a moment of deep and general agitation in the Old World, it pleased Heaven to open this last refuge of humanity.

1 Cæsars, (se' zarz), here relates to Julius Cæsar, a Roman warrior, statesman, and man of letters, who

was one of the most remarkable men of any age.

2 Vin' di cât ed, proved to be right.

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