READING AND ELOCUTION.-XX.

PROMISCUOUS EXERCISES (continued).

II. THE PURITANS.

[Marked for Inflections.]

THE Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior béings and etérnal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Próvidence, they habitually ascribed évery event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vást, for whose inspéction nothing was too minùte. To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscùring véil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with Him fáce to face. Hence originated their contempt for terréstrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and méanest of mankind seemed to vànish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognised no title to superiority but His favour; and, cónfident of that favour, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the óracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of héralds, they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of ménials, legions of ministering àngels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their díadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away!

On the rich and the èloquent, on nòbles and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more précious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublíme language; nobles by the right of an earlier creátion, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mystèrious and térrible importance belonged,-on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest; who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue, when heaven and earth should have passed away.

Events which shortsighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake, èmpires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake, the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pèn of the evangelist and the hárp of the pròphet. He had been rescued by nó còmmon deliverer, from the grasp of nò cómmon foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of nó vùlgar ágony, by the blood of nò éarthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened,* that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that áll nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God.

Thus the Puritan was made up of twò different mèn, the one all self-abasement, penitence, gràtitude, pássion; the other proud, càlm, infléxible, sagàcious. He próstrated himself in the dust before his Máker; but he set his foot on the neck of the king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half-maddened by glòrious or térrible illusions. He heard the ly`res of angels, or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the beatific vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Váne, he thought himself entrusted with the scèptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul, that God had híd his fàce from him. But when he took his séat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left nò percéptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their hy'mns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh, who encountered them in the hall of debate, or in the field of battle.

The Puritans brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment, and an immutability of púrpose, which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact the nécessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on óne subject made them trànquil on évery òther. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hátred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its térrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their ráptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and préjudice, and raised them above the influence of dánger and of corruption.-Macaulay.

III.-POPE AND DRYDEN.

[This piece is marked in application of the rules of Inflection.] Pope professed to have learnt his poetry from Dry'den, whom, whenever an opportunity was presented, he praised through his whole

When an emphatic series causes, thus, a succession of falling inflections, the second one in each clause falls lower than the first.

life with unvaried liberality; and, perhaps, his character may receive some illustration, if he be compared with his master.

Integrity of understanding, and nicety of discérnment, were not allotted in a less proportion to Dry'den than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his poetical préjudices, and the rejection of unnatural thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never desired to apply all the judgment that he had. He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the people; and when he pleased others, he contented himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse latent powers; he never attempted to make that better which was already good, nor often to mend what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, as he tells us, with very little consideration: when occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured out what the present moment happened to supply, and, when once it had passed the préss, ejected it from his mind; for when he had no pecuniary interest, he had no further solicitude.

Pope was not content to satisfy; he desired to excel, and therefore always endeavoured to do his bèst; he did not court the candour, but dared the judgment of his reader, and, expecting no indulgence from others, he showed none to himself. He examined lines and words with minute and punctilious observation, and retouched every par with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing to be forgiven.

For this reason he kept his pieces very long in his hands, while be considered and rèconsidered them. The only poems which can be supposed to have been written with such regard to the times as might hasten their publicátion, were the two satires of Thirty-eight: of which Dodsley told me, that they were brought to him by the author, that they might be fairly copied. "Every line," said he, "was then written twice over; I gave him a clean trànscript, which he sent some time afterwards to me for the préss, with every line written twice over a sècond time."

His declaration, that his care for his works ceased at their publi cátion, was not strictly true. His parental attention never abandonel them; what he found amiss in the first edition, he silently corrected in those that followed. He appears to have revised the Iliad, and freed it from some of its imperfèctions; and the Essay on Criticism received many improvements, after its first appearance. It will seldom be found that he áltered without adding clearness, élegance, or vigoar Pope had, perhaps, the judgment of Dry'den; but Dryden certainly wanted the diligence of Pope.

In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for stúdy, with better means of information. His mind has a larger ránge, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general náture, and Pope in his loca mànners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation, and those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dry'den, and more cértainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either: for both excelled likewise in prose: but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautions and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is some times vehement and rápid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's a velvet lawn, shaven by the scy'the and levelled by the roller. Of génius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inért; that energy which collects, combines, àmplifies, and ánimates; the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dry'den. It is not to be inferred, that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer since Milton must give pla to Pope; and even of Dry'den it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's performances wer always hasty, either excited by some external occasion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without correction. What his mind could supply at call, or gather one excursion, was all that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condénse his sentiments, to múltiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produs, or chance might supply'. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, am higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more régular and cònstank Dry'den often surpasses expectation, and Pópe never falls below Dry den is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.-Johnson.

IV.-UNIVERSAL DECAY.

[Marked for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.]* We receive such repeated intimations of decay in the world through

* The learner having been conducted through the application of the rules for Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections separately, will now be prepared to study and apply them in conjunction.

which we are passing ;-decline and change and loss, follow decline | and change and loss in such rapid succession, that we can almost catch the sound of universal wasting, and hear the work of desolation going on busily around us. "The mountain | falling || cometh to nought, and the rock | is removed out of his place. The waters | wear the stones, the things which grow out of the dust of the earth || are washed away, and the hope of man is destroyed." Conscious of our own instability, we look about for something to rest on; but we look in vain. The heavens and the earth | had a beginning, and they will have an end. The face of the world is changing, dáily and hourly, All animated things || grow old and die. The rocks crumble, the trees | fall, the leaves | fade, and the grass withers. The clouds | are flying, and the waters are flowing away from us.

The firmest works of min, too, are gradually giving way: the ivy | clings to the mouldering tower, the brier | hangs out from the shattered window, and the wall-flower | springs from the disjointed stones. The founders of these perishable works || have shared the same fáte | long agò. If we look back to the days of our ancestors, to the men as well as the dwellings of former times, they become immediately associated in our imaginations, and only make the feeling of instability stronger and deeper than before. In the spacious domes, which once held our fathers, the serpent | hisses, and the wild bird | screams. The halls, which once were crowded with all that taste | and science and labour | could procure,-which resounded with melody, and were lighted up with beauty, are buried by their own ruins, mocked by their own desolation. The voice of merriment, and of wailing, the steps of the busy and the idle | have ceased in the deserted courts, and the weeds choke the entrances, and the long grasswares upon the hearth-stone. The works of art, the forming hand, the tombs, the very ashes they contained, are all gone.

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While we thus walk among the ruins of the past, a sad feeling of insecurity comes over us; and that feeling is by no means diminished when we arrive at home. If we turn to our friends, we can hardly speak to them before they bid us farewell. We see them for a few moments, and in a few moments more their countenances are changed, and they are sent away. It matters not how near and dear they are. The ties which bind us together || are never too close to be parted, or too strong to be broken. Tears were never known to move the king of terrors; neither is it enough that we are compelled to surrender óne, or two, or many of those we love; for though the price is so great, we buy no favour with it, and our hold on those who remain is as slight as ever. The shadows || all | elude our grasp, and follow one another down the valley. We gain no confidence, then, no feeling of security, by turning to our contémporaries and kindred. We know that the forms which are breathing around us, are as shortlived and fleeting those were, which have been dúst for centuries. The sensation of vanity, uncertainty, and rúin, is equally strong, whether we muse on what has long been pròstrate, or gaze on what is falling now, or will fall ' so soon.

as

If everything which comes under our notice has endured for so short a time, and in so short a time will be no more, we cannot say | that we receive the least assurance || by thinking on ourselves. When a few more friends have left, a few more hopes deceived, and a few more changes mocked us, "we shall be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb: the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto us, and every man shall follow us, as there are innumerable before us." All

power will have forsaken the strongest, and the loftiest wil be laid low,

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and every eye will be closed, and every voice húshed, and every heart will have ceased its beating. And when we have gone ourselves, even our memories will not stay behind us long. A few of the near and dear || will bear our likeness in their bosoms, till they too have arrived at the end of their journey, and entered the dark dwelling of unconsciousness. In the thoughts of others we shall live only till the last sound of the bell, which informs them of our departure, has ceased to vibrate in their cars. A stone, perhaps, may tell some wanderer where we lie, when we came here, and when we went away; but even that will soon refuse to bear us record; "time's effacing fingers" will be busy on its surface, and at length will wear it smooth; and then the stone itself will sink, or crumble, and the wanderer of another age will pass, without a single call upon his sympathy, over our unheeded graves.-Greenwood.

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COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.-VI. ECHINODERMATA (HEDGEHOG-SKINNED ANIMALS.) FROM the earliest times, before Aristotle wrote of animals, the great similarity in outward appearance between the hedgehog, When rolled up in self-defence, and the sea-egg, or echinus, has been so recognised as to cause them to be called by the same In Greek, echinus (exivos) means both the one and the other. In English, we have expanded this superficial association to include the young of our own species when they have arrived at that age when they are always in mischief, and when, according to the notions of a past generation, they were always to be cuffed, because, if they did not deserve it at the time of the infliction, they soon would do so.

name.

With regard to the English association not much is to be said, because, while the human urchin is actively mischievous, and often made to smart for it, passively, the other urchins are very harmless except in passive self-defence. The other resemblance, though misleading anatomically, is very marked, on account of the dense covering of sharp spines sticking out in all directions, matted and crossing one another like the spines of the thistle leaf; and also on account of the globular form, which, though temporary in the land urchin, is permanent in the echinus.

The shell of a typical echinus, upon which the spines are set, is a round box of very complex and beautiful structure. It consists of plates of carbonate of lime so closely and accurately fitted together, that, even after the spines have been stripped off, it requires minute examination to discover the lines of division between them. The box has the form of a more or less depressed sphere, varying from the shape of a true globe to that of a Turkish turban. At the two poles of the box are two holes : that which opens on the under side of the animal is the mouth, while that which is found at the centre of the top side is the other end of the food canal. A further examination reveals that the shell is made up of five similar radial divisions, which stretch from pole to pole, and may be thus described:-The central zigzag line, running from mouth to anus, has on either side of it a row of small plates alternating with one another; and on the outer side of each of these rows of plates is a row of small holes. There are six of these holes in each plate. Externally to these perforated plates are situated two other rows of larger plates, one on each side, and these are united at their external edges to the next radial division of the box by a zigzag line. The outer side of both the perforated plates and the plates without holes are covered with bosses, each of which has a more prominent rounded knob projecting from the top of it, which knob has a pit in its centre. These knobs bear the spines. They are of various sizes, but so arranged as to form a beautifully regular pattern; for each plate has at its centre a large boss, and, as the plates are regularly placed one above the other, there are, on the whole shell, twenty rows of these tubercles running from top to bottom, set on lines which correspond to the meridians of a globe. Yet, if the reader has followed the description, he will see that these rows are not all at equal distances from one another, for those on the smaller perforated plates are approximated, while those of the larger plates are removed from one another; nor are the tubercles of the several rows all at the same distance from each other. Besides these tubercles, a great many others of very various sizes lie between the rows. The whole effect of the pattern is very beautiful, and shows that symmetry without sameness, that unity in variety, with which all the works of God abound, striving after, but to which they so seldom attain. and which the architect and the designer are so perpetually

anus.

The ten perforated tracts which, being arranged in pairs, form five double bands or courses, converge towards the mouth and The regularity of these tracts, converging at both ends and leaving between them a solid tract, has suggested a fanciful analogy. They were thought to resemble the gravel walks of our gardens, with their borders or avenues of trees on each side, and so were called ambulacra; ambulacrum being a post-classical Latin word, meaning a garden walk. At the point where the two converging perforated tracts unite, is a single six-sided solid plate, which has at its side nearest the ambulacra a hole from which the ambulacral holes seem to diverge. The five perforated hexagonal plates which thus stand at the end of the ambulacral avenues, are separated from one another and from the top opening by five other irregularly eight-sided plates which surround the small movable scales which cover in the anus. As far as our previous description has gone, the reader will perceive that all the parts are perfectly radial. The five segments are absolutely alike; but one of the eight-sided plates has, between the large pore and the anus, a space which is full of a great multitude of holes, and in this respect it differs from all the other five plates of the series, and is called the madreporic plate. At the other pole of the body there is a large opening covered by a leathery membrane, in the centre of which is the mouth. Placing the animal with its mouth downwards, which is the position it usually occupies, and looking at it from above, let us enumerate the perforations which we have described, beginning from the centre at top, and proceeding outward and

There is, besides this ambulacral or water-vascular system, a blood system, with both heart and vessels. Also, the liquid contained in the box external to the food canal is supposed to be organised. These points of structure need further study.

It will be seen that almost all the parts of the echinus are radially disposed, yet the individuals are separate and locomotive. We have, therefore, the radial structure, which is best suited to a fixed condition, and a vegetative habit, united with habits such as characterise the higher animals, for the echinus does not float or move hap-hazard, as the free-swimming hydrozoon

the stone-lilies. These animals were very numerous in geologic times, and the hard joints of their long stalks afforded no small puzzle to geologists. The problem was solved by the discovery both of the whole fossil hard parts of the animal united, and also of some existing representatives of the order in tropical regions. The Crinoids, as they are called, grow like plants in the seas of the tropics. A stem of gelatinous matter encloses the closely-applied hard joints, and bears on its summit a cup, walled in by more hard pieces, around whose edges long arms are developed. Their shape is too complicated for description

does, but evidently searches for food, and has a definite object in locomotion. We might, therefore, expect that in this class we should find different grades, leading from a fixed condition, with its radial symmetry, up to the more perfect method of locomotion which accompanies an elongated form and a two-sided arrangement.

We might expect that a radiated animal was a fixed, flowerlike animal fallen off from its stalk. This we found to be the case with the Medusa, and we could trace the transformation in the life-history of the animal. In the class Echinodermata, we may also find it is so, only we have to look not simply to the life-history of one animal, but to trace up the development of the different groups throughout the class. The connecting links between the Coelenterata and the Echinodermata are found in

here, but it suffices to say that the cup corresponds to the box of the echinus. It is satisfactory to find that an animal, found in our seas, and long considered to be a free brittle star, commences life like a stone-lily, and absolutely falls off its stem at a certain stage to commence a new locomotive life.

The star-fish represents the next higher grade, and although its general form is so different from that of the echinus, it is not difficult to show how the one may be derived from the other. If we suppose the echinus to be quartered, as we quarter an orange, by dividing it along the zigzag lines between the larger plates, and then each division opened, bent down, and flattened out, while the intermediate membrane is supposed to be indefinitely elastic, so as to stretch and cover in the upper part of the animal, we should have a star-fish. All the ambulacra would be