express purpose of hurrying forward the executions, and which was found to be fully equal to its infernal work. Thousands of persons were sent to the scaffold on the bare suspicion of not being sound in the cause of the democrats, and, as if this were not enough, the prisons being inadequately guarded, the mob rushed into them, and murdered the inmates before they could be tried. Members of the Convention were sent into the provinces to root out the upholders of the old régime, and awfully they fulfilled their mission. The guillotine could not fall fast enough; volley-firing into squads of helpless prisoners, many of them children, and women with infants at the breast, was resorted to, and so was wholesale drowning, to clear the dungeons. Lists were prepared in which the names of the doomed were written, and in them were to be found, as the revolution went on, the names of those who erst had supported change, but who tried to check it when the wickedness of the measures of it became so apparent.

Under these circumstances it was that Mr. Burke played his part in the famous dagger scene in the British House of Commons; these were the events he had in his memory when he spoke of what this country had to gain by an alliance with France. And dreadfully was he justified in his assertion. Within four weeks of the time he uttered his warning, the head of Louis XVI. had rolled on the scaffold, and already had the French rulers issued an invitation to all peoples to throw down their princes, and promised them the support of the French armies in doing so.

It must indeed have been painful to a keen lover of liberty as Burke was, to be compelled to range himself on the side which was seemingly opposed to it, to be compelled to break with old friends whose tutor and father in politics he had been. But he saw what they did not see, that liberty carried to excess had become licence, that licence was not capable of being contained within any bounds, and that unless a check were forthwith applied to the spirit of licence here, the wild asserters of freedom would in this country, as in France, "cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!" "Truth, truth! How many lies are told in thy name!" These words of an eminent truth-seeker are strictly applicable to the case of the founders and the overthrowers of the French Revolution; but the former had at least the merit of believing what they said, and they sealed their profession with their blood. In England they had many admirers, none greater than Edmund Burke himself, and included within their ranks were Fox and his political friends, who, heedless of the example forced upon their notice, reckoned on their own power to introduce revolutionary principles into the English constitution, and to stop them at a certain point with some magic "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther."

Outside the Parliament, in the ranks of the middle and lower classes, the principles of the Revolution had numerous adherents, though there was not the same reason for adopting them as there was in France. England had never at any time since Magna Charta been in such slavery, never had suffered so dreadfully, as France did before the Revolution, and those dangers which ambition, and pride, and the tyranny of priest, peer, or king, might threaten, had been sufficiently guarded against years before by many constitutional barriers. But there was just enough of misgovernment, of selfishness, corruption, and disunion in the country in 1789, to allow of the key-note struck in the French States-General vibrating through many an English breast. The lovers of change for change's sake of course felt it, and there were numerous lovers of the abstract principle of liberty who recognised in what was going forward the assertion of a right which they believed to emanate from God himself. There was not, however, any guarantee that even the most honest professors might not be carried away by their enthusiasm, or be swamped, as the French asserters of freedom had been, by the men of passion, while there could not be any doubt that on the first show of disaffection in high places, there would be found men of violence who by their nature would have carried events far beyond the bounds prescribed for them by their authors. At the very time Mr. Burke spoke, there were in London many political societies, some secret, others bold in declaring themselves, of which the members openly avowed their sympathy with the French in all that had been done, and it was no mystery that these societies were in direct communion with the most revolutionary of the French political clubs. From the press flowed daily a torrent of seditious matter, and men

who, perhaps, did not mean that their words should be taken literally, but only wished to stir up the popular will to achieve something short of what was indicated, enunciated doctrines wholly subversive of the British constitution.

In spite of the warnings given in France, there were men, like Fox, who could not see danger in these facts, and though sobered a little by the news that the son of St. Louis had been sacrificed, persisted in denying that there was any danger to be apprehended from an alliance with the murderers. It was a wish to startle such men into conviction, to bring the matter home suddenly to their minds in an unusual and therefore striking way, that Mr. Burke, on the 28th of December, 1792, resorted to the theatrical expedient of throwing the emblem of French liberty, fraternity, and equality on the floor of the British House of Commons.

COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.-V.

ACTINOZOA (RAYED ANIMALS).

This

So much was written about the radial arrangement of parts when treating of Cuvier's sub-kingdom Radiata, that it is unnecessary to dwell upon this plan of structure now that we have to describe the animals which best exhibit it. arrangement, it will be seen, gives the name to the animals which are the subject of this lesson. It is, however, equally characteristic of the Hydrozoa. The Calenterata, which embraces both classes, are always radial in all their organs, and although it is not difficult to find a right and left side in many of these animals, this arrangement never entirely obliterates that pattern which we conventionally call star-like. It is perhaps well to make some remarks here with regard to the places where, and the conditions under which these animals live. Technically, the place and conditions are called the habitat and station of a species. All the Colenterata, as we have observed, are inhabitants of the water, and all the Actinozoa are confined to the sea. Until we become acquainted with the lower and the lowest animals, we are apt to conclude that the conditions under which we live are those most favourable to life. Admirably adapted as the human body is to perform all the functions of life, man treads the solid earth and breathes the fluid air, furnished with senses and powers which enable him to escape the manifold dangers and to provide against the constant changes of aërial life, and he does this with such ease that he forgets entirely that he is living under difficult conditions, over which it is only his superior organism gives him the mastery. Whenever the most experienced swimmer or diver takes a "header" into the sea, he leaves behind him the better part of all his perceptive and locomotive powers. The eyes and ears seem muffled, and locomotion becomes a struggle in which he is conscious of wasted power, producing insignificant results. Helpless when thrown upon the ocean, he succumbs at once when plunged beneath its surface. Hence it is not at all unlikely that he should consider the air as the vital fluid and the water the abode of death. The landsman thinks of the continent as abounding with life, and rich with the forms of beauty to which life gives origin, but he thinks of the ocean as a waste, desolate and void. Of course the slightest reflection and knowledge would remove this extreme idea. Our fisheries, maintaining their ground as sources of wealth and means of employment, when the chase of all land animals has ceased to be remunerative, proclaim to the economist, though he be no naturalist, that the water, rather than the land, gives shelter to living beings. Nevertheless, few people sufficiently recognise that the converse of the common notion is correct. Life is far more easily maintained in water than in air. Structures which could not support their own weight in air may be locomotive organs in water, urging the body to which they are attached-slowly, it is true, but effectively-through a medium which, though of greater resistance, presses equally on all parts. Delicate and feeble organs, which would collapse in air, are floated forth in water to subserve the touching, or even the seizing function. Moisture, which is so necessary to almost all the organs, and to the performance of almost all functions, has not to be retained and husbanded with care and contrivance, but laves the whole body. As a striking instance of the importance of this last consideration, it may be stated that the respiration of any animal can only be maintained by having a moist membrane

with the fluids of the body on one (internal) side, and oxygen on the outer side. These are the necessary conditions of respiration, and therefore of life. Now the water contains a sufficient amount of oxygen for the purposes of respiration dissolved in it, and the other condition—namely, the moisture of the membrane which contains the nutritive fluid of the body-is maintained in the water-animal without any contrivance whatever. Hence the exterior of the body, or a lobe or leaflet protruded into the water around, is quite sufficient to enable water-animals to breathe. On land it is different. The higher animals must have elaborate contrivances to maintain the moisture of the respiratory membrane. It must be placed internally, lest the external air and wind should carry off the moisture. It must be confined to small cavities, lest their large capacity should incommode the animals, and being thus limited the membrane must be folded elaborately to increase its area.

in the air, but many of them pass their earlier stages, when they are feeble and need protection and easy conditions of life, in the water. The crust of the earth contains multitudes of animal remains, but the aquatic forms outnumber the aërial in an almost unlimited proportion. Further, the first forms found in the earliest strata are water-animals, and we have good reason to believe that fish existed before reptiles, birds, or brutes.

In conformity with the preceding remarks we find and have found that, in tracing upward the grades of the animal kingdom, we have not yet arrived at any animals suited for an aërial existence. Their parts are not sufficiently differentiated for such a life. With regard to many of the Coelenterata, if placed where the water drains away from them they fall to pieces, or sink into a semi-fluid slimy condition, never to be restored to their original form.

In animals where these contrivances are not found, or not found in efficient condition, life in the air is difficult to maintain. Such animals are always in danger of being dried up. Thus the toad must keep to his dark, moist hole. The grey slug never comes out but at night, and the black slug only after rain. It is, in fact, scarcely too much to say that the water is both the home and the cradle of life. Not only are all the lower animals aquatic, but the lower forms of many of the higher classes are so too. Both zoology and geology proclaim this fact. Life teems in the ocean. Its countless myriads of forms people the main and crowd up even to the coast-line, despite the dangers of the beach. Every sweep of the entomologist's water-net in a fresh-water stream takes some living thing, and every drop of water contains countless animals. Though Nature is redundant of forms everywhere, yet this could scarcely be said of earth or air. With extreme difficulty do animated forms seem to have made conquest of the earth and air. Their mother country, their arsenal where they prepared and armed themselves for the expedition, was the water. Insects, more than any other living things, are at home

The type of the class Actinozoa, which occupies the same relation to the rest of these animals that the simple hydra does to the Hydrozoa, is the common sea-anemone (Actinia mesembryanthemum). This animal has already been described, and its structure may be so well understood by looking at the diagram of its vertical and horizontal sections given in the illustration attached to the last lesson, that we need not refer to it further.

The common sea-anemone is wholly soft, but some of its near allies exhibit a tendency whose results are very complicated and interesting. This tendency is to deposit either externally or in the substance of their tissues carbonate of lime, which, being of the same nature as marble, is hard and enduring. This encrustation forms both a protection and a support to the otherwise soft animals, so that they can not only endure but enjoy the buffeting of the great surface billows of the ocean. Actinozoa of this kind are not so common in England as in the tropical seas, but the Devonshire coast furnishes the little coral-secreting animal represented in the engraving (Fig. I.). When this tendency to deposit a hard structure of carbonate

duce corals in a similar way, but of different shape. These are not fixed like the red coral, but consist of a main axis from which many parallel branches, forming two series on opposite sides, spring. The appearance is so exactly like that of a wing-feather of a bird with its barbules, that the family is called Pennatulidæ, or the family of little quill-pens.

Another widely different order is represented by the Pleurobrachia, an illustration of which is given in the last lesson. This little animal may be found washed up at the edge of the wave on the eastern coast. It is about the size of a large gooseberry, but in shape more like a lemon, with a small elevation at one end and a depression at the other. The substance of the animal is as transparent and as clear as crystal, and it shines in the sun like opal. Attracted by the appearance of this little symmetrical lump of jelly, the beholder on further examination finds that a flickering motion is seen to play along eight bands which run from pole to pole of the animal. If he take the little glistening globe and place it in a tumbler of sea-water, it puts forth two long streaming tentacles, whose secondary branches look like long fringes. The anatomical study of this animal reveals that the flickering along the meridional zones is caused by an apparatus consisting of a number of semi-circular plates which are set on the body with their diameters applied to the surface, the half-circular side free and bearing a fringe of hairs which are constantly in motion, and which in fact are the means of propelling the animal. These plates with their cilia are considered to be like combs, and the order is called Ctenophora, or combbearing animals. The mouth opens at the end, where there is a slight protuberance, and it leads down to a curious branched system of canals, best understood by a reference to the illustration.

Another family of the Ctenophora is represented by a strap-shaped animal, which is called Cestum Veneris, or the girdle of Venus. This animal occurs in the Mediterranean Sea, and is described as very beautiful. The idea which suggested the name is poetic and appropriate, for from the foam of the sea which washes classic shores Venus was supposed to have sprung, and as she emerged, she left behind her

zone.

The Actinozoa, especially the Zoanthoria, play an important part in modifying the earth's crust, for these are the animals which produce the coral reefs and coral islands. The animals mainly concerned in building up coral reefs cannot live at more than about 100 to 200 feet below the surface, and of course they cannot live above it, but they delight in the boisterous waters of the surface. Their instincts guide them to build up on almost all coasts of the tropical seas long banks or bars, which are always highest on the ocean side, and highest of all towards the direction from which the fiercest winds blow.

These banks or reefs come to the surface at some distance from the shore, and enclose a lagoon of still water which is a safe harbour for ships. Certain islands in the South Seas are entirely composed of coral, and they are almost all of a circular form, enclosing a basin of water. These ring-like islands are called atolls. The enclosed basin is shallow, but outside the island, even close to the shore, the sea is too deep to be fathomed. The phenomena of reefs furnished to our renowned naturalist, Darwin, a means of proving that the crust of the earth was being slowly upheaved or slowly depressed in different

areas.

In Figs. VI., VII., VIII., and IX., in the preceding page, the principal forms of reefs are represented as though we had cut perpendicularly down through land, reef, and sea, and so could see their relations.

In Fig. IX., A represents a volcanic island surrounded by a barrier reef with its enclosed lagoon. Suppose this to be slowly lowered in relation to the surrounding sea, the corals will continue to build upon their old foundation, maintaining their position at the surface, while the solid mountain disappears, until finally a ring-like reef, or atoll, will be formed.

If, on the other hand, the land rise the corals are killed, and fresh ones must begin further down on the submarine flanks of the mountain, while a fringing reef (Fig. VII.) is left on the side of the mountain above sea level.

The actual position of coral reefs corresponds well with this theory.

READING AND ELOCUTION.-XIX.

ANALYSIS OF THE VOICE.

RULES ON EXPRESSIVE TONE (continued). Rule 10.-Moderate grief and sorrow, pity, and tender love and admiration are expressed by "softened force," "high" notes, and slow "movement;" by prolonged and swelling "medial stress;" and by "pure," but "chromatic," or plaintive utterance. The "rising inflection," in the form of "semitone" (half tone), prevails in the expression of these emotions. Example of Moderate Grief. Enamoured death, with sweetly pensive grace, Was awful beauty to his silent face.

No more his sad eye looked me into tèars!
Closed was that eye, beneath his pále, cold brów ;
And on his calm lips, which had lost their glów,
But which, though pale, seemed half-unclosed to speak,
Loitered a smile, like moonlight on the snow.

Pity.

Morn cáme again;

But the young lamb was dead.
Yet the poor mother's fond distress
Its every art had tried

To shield, with sleepless tenderness,
The weak one at her side.
Round it, all night, she gathered warm
Her woolly limbs,-her head

Close curved across its feeble form;
Day dawned, and it was dead.
It lay before her stiff and cold;
Yet fondly she essayed

To cherish it in love's warm fold;
Then restless trial made,
Moving, with still reverted face,

And low complaining bléat,

To entice from their damp resting-place
Those little stiffening feet.

Tender Love and Admiration.

Hushed were his Gertrude's lips, but still their bland And beautiful expression seemed to melt

66

With love that could not die! and still his hand She presses to the heart no more that felt. [o] Ah! heart, where once each fond affection dwelt, And features yet that spoke a soul mòre fair! Rule 11.-Impatience, eagerness, and hurry are denoted by "loud," "high," and "quick movement;' impatience, by vanishing," or final "stress;" eagerness, by expulsive medial stress;" hurry, by abrupt "radical" or initial "explo give" "stress:" all three emotions are sometimes marked by the "tremor," and by "aspirated," and sometimes "anhelose or panting utterance-eagerness occasionally by the "orotund." The "falling inflection characterises the tones of these emotions.

Example of Impatience.

Mortimer. Fie! cousin Percy-how you cross my father!
Hotspur. I cannot choose: sometimes he angers me,
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,

Of the dreamer Merlin, and his prophecies;
And of a drágon, and a finless fish,

A clip-winged griffin, and a moulten råven,
A couching lion, and a ramping cat,

And such a deal of SKIMBLE SKAMBLE STUFF,
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what,-
He held me, but last night, at least NINE HOURS,
In reckoning up the several DEVILS' names
That were his lackeys: I cried "humph!" and "well!" "go tò!"—
But marked him not a word. Oh! he's as tedious
As is a tired horse, a railing wife;

Worse than a SMOKY HOUSE-I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a WINDMILL, FÀR,
Than feed on cates and have him TALK to me,
In any summer-house in CHRISTENDOM,

Eagerness.

Hotspur. Send danger from the east unto the west So honour cross it from the north to south, And let them grapple :-Oh! the blood more stirs, To rouse a LÌON, than to start a HARE. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,

Oh! my offence is RANK,-it smells to HEAVEN :
It hath the primal | ELDEST | cùrse upon 't,
A BROTHER'S MURDER!-Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will;

My stronger guilt || defeats my strong intènt.-
Oh! WRETCHED state! Oh! bosom, black as DEATH!
Oh! LIMÉD† Soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged!

Note.-Self-reproach has a tone similar to the preceding, but less in the extent of each property, except "force," in which it exceeds remorse, and "pitch," in which it is higher.

Example.

Oh! what a rogue and peasant slàve am Ì!

Is it not MONSTROUS that this player here,

But in a fiction, a DREAM of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his concèit! And all for nothing!
For HÈCUBA?

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would DROWN the STAGE with tears,
And cleave the general ear with HORRID SPEECH!
Make MAD the GUILTY, and APPA'L the FREE,
CONFOUND the iGNORANT, and AMAZE, indeed,
The very faculties of E'YES and ÈARS.

Rule 15.-Mirth is distinguished by "loud," "high," and quick" utterance; and an approach to the rapid, repeated explosions" of laughter, in a greater or less degree, according

This accent is inserted to mark the necessity of pronouncing the second syllable ed in the word drowned.

+ Pronounce the ed in the word limed.

to the nature of the passage which contains the emotion. To these properties are added "aspirated quality," and the "falling inflection," as a predominating one,

Example.

A FOOL, A FOOL! I MET A FOOL i' the forest,

A MOTLEY FOOL;-a miserable world;

As I do live by food, I met a FOOL;

Who laid him down, and basked him in the sùn,
And railed on lady Fortune in good terms,

In GOOD SET TÈRMS, and yet a MÓTLEY FOOL! Rule 16.-Gaiety and cheerfulness are marked by "moderate "" moderate force," "high pitch," and "lively movement; "radical stress;" and smooth, " 'pure quality" of tone, with varied "inflections."

Example.

Celia. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my cóz, be mèrry.

Rosalind. Well, I will forget the condition of my' estate, to rejoice in yours. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports; let me sèe; what think you of falling in love?

Celia. I prythee, do, to make spórt withal; but love no man in good earnest.

Rosalind. What shall be our sport, then?

Celia. Let us sit and mock the good housewife, Fortune, from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

Rosalind. I would we could do so; for her benefits are mightily

misplaced; and the bountiful | blind woman doth most mistake her

gifts to women.

Rule 17.-Tranquillity, serenity, and repose are indicated by "moderate force," "middle pitch," and "moderate movement;" softened"medial stress;" "smooth" and "pure quality" of tone; and moderate inflections.

Example,

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears! soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.

Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st,
But in his motion | like an àngel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed chèrubim :
Such harmony is in immortal souls!

The careful study and practice of tones cannot be too strongly urged on the attention of young readers. Reading devoid of tone is cold, monotonous, and mechanical, and false, in point of fact. It defeats the main end of reading, which is to impart thought in its natural union with feeling. Faulty tones not only mar the effect of expression, but offend the ear, by their violation of taste and propriety. Reading can possess no interest, speech no eloquence, without natural and vivid tones.

The foregoing examples should be practised with close attention and persevering diligence, till every property of the voice exemplified in them is perfectly at command.

XI.-APPROPRIATE MODULATION.

66

The word "modulation" is the term applied, in elocution, to those changes of "force," "pitch," and " movement," stress," quality," and "inflection," which occur, in continuous and connected reading, in passing from the peculiar tone of one emotion to that of another. "Modulation," therefore, is nothing else than giving to each tone, in the reading or speaking of a whole piece, its appropriate character and expression.

The first practical exercise which it would be most advantageous to perform, in this department of elocution, is to turn back to the exercises on " versatility" of voice, and repeat them till they can be executed with perfect facility and precision. The next exercise should be a review, without the reading of the intervening rules, of all the examples given under the head of "tones." A very extensive and varied practice will thus be secured in "modulation." The student should, while performing this exercise, watch narrowly, and observe exactly, every change of tone, in passing from one example to another. third course of exercise in "modulation," is to select some of the following pieces, which are marked for that purpose, as the notation will indicate. A fourth course of practice may be taken on pieces marked by the student himself.

The