2. Tit'tle, a small particle, a jot. 3. Con'tro-ver-sy, dispute, debate. 4. E-răd'i-cat-ed, rooted out. Re-dress', deliverance from wrong, injury, or oppression. Chär'tered, secured by an instrument in writing from a king or other proper authority. Im-mu'ni-ty, freedom from any duty, tax, imposition, etc. 7. Com'pen-sāte, make amends for.

NOTES.-Mr. Webster, in a speech upon the life and character of John Adams, imagines some one opposed to the Declaration of Independence to have stated his fears and objections before Congress while deliberating on that subject. He then supposes Mr. Adams to have replied in the language above.

1. The quotation is from "Hamlet," Act V, Scene 2.

You, sir, who sit in that chair. This was addressed to John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress. Our venerable colleague refers to Samuel Adams. After the battles of Concord and Lexington, Governor Gage offered pardon to all the rebels who would lay down their arms, excepting Samuel Adams and John Hancock.

LXV. THE RISING.

Thomas Buchanan Read (b. 1822, d. 1872) was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania. In 1839 he entered a sculptor's studio in Cincinnati, where he gained reputation as a portrait painter. He afterwards went to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and, in 1850, to Italy. He divided his time between Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Rome, in the later years of his life. Some of his poems are marked by vigor and strength, while others are distinguished by smoothness and delicacy. The following selection is abridged from "The Wagoner of the Alleghanies."

1. OUT of the North the wild news came,
Far flashing on its wings of flame,
Swift as the boreal light which flies
At midnight through the startled skies.

2. And there was tumult in the air,

The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat,
And through the wide land every-where
The answering tread of hurrying feet,

While the first oath of Freedom's gun
Came on the blast from Lexington.
And Concord, roused, no longer tame,
Forgot her old baptismal name,
Made bare her patriot arm of power,
And swelled the discord of the hour.

3. The yeoman and the yeoman's son,
With knitted brows and sturdy dint,
Renewed the polish of each gun,

Re-oiled the lock, reset the flint;
And oft the maid and matron there,
While kneeling in the firelight glare,
Long poured, with half-suspended breath,
The lead into the molds of death.

4. The hands by Heaven made silken soft
To soothe the brow of love or pain,
Alas! are dulled and soiled too oft
By some unhallowed earthly stain;
But under the celestial bound

No nobler picture can be found
Than woman, brave in word and deed,
Thus serving in her nation's need:
Her love is with her country now,
Her hand is on its aching brow.

5. Within its shade of elm and oak

The church of Berkley Manor stood:
There Sunday found the rural folk,

And some esteemed of gentle blood.

In vain their feet with loitering tread

Passed 'mid the graves where rank is naught:

All could not read the lesson taught

In that republic of the dead.

6. The pastor rose: the prayer was strong;
The psalm was warrior David's song;

The text, a few short words of might,-
"The Lord of hosts shall arm the right!"

7. He spoke of wrongs too long endured,
Of sacred rights to be secured;
Then from his patriot tongue of flame
The startling words for Freedom came.
The stirring sentences he spake
Compelled the heart to glow or quake,
And, rising on his theme's broad wing,
And grasping in his nervous hand
The imaginary battle-brand,
In face of death he dared to fling
Defiance to a tyrant king.

8. Even as he spoke, his frame, renewed
In eloquence of attitude,

Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher;
Then swept his kindling glance of fire
From startled pew to breathless choir;
When suddenly his mantle wide
His hands impatient flung aside,
And, lo! he met their wondering eyes
Complete in all a warrior's guise.

9. A moment there was awful

pause,

When Berkley cried, "Cease, traitor! cease! God's temple is the house of peace!" The other shouted, "Nay, not so, When God is with our righteous cause: His holiest places then are ours, His temples are our forts and towers That frown upon the tyrant foe: In this the dawn of Freedom's day There is a time to fight and pray!"

10. And now before the open door

The warrior priest had ordered so-
The enlisting trumpet's sudden soar
Rang through the chapel, o'er and o'er,
Its long reverberating blow,
So loud and clear, it seemed the ear
Of dusty death must wake and hear.
And there the startling drum and fife
Fired the living with fiercer life;
While overhead with wild increase,
Forgetting its ancient toll of peace,

The great bell swung as ne'er before:
It seemed as it would never cease;
And every word its ardor flung
From off its jubilant iron tongue
Was, "WAR! WAR! WAR!"

11. "Who dares "-this was the patriot's cry,
As striding from the desk he came―
"Come out with me, in Freedom's name,

For her to live, for her to die?"
A hundred hands flung up reply,

A hundred voices answered "I!"

DEFINITIONS.-1. Bō're-al, northern. 3. Yeo'man, a freeholder, a man freeborn. Dint, stroke. 5. Măn'or, a tract of land occupied by tenants. Gen'tle (pro. jěn'tl), well born, of good family. 7. Theme, a subject on which a person speaks or writes. 8. Guişe, external appearance in manner or dress. 10. Sōar, a towering flight.

NOTES.-2. Forgot her

name. The reference is to the

meaning of the word "concord,”—harmony, union.

4. Celestial bound; i. e., the sky, heaven.

6. The pastor. This was John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, who was at this time a minister at Woodstock, in Virginia. He was a leading spirit among those opposed to Great Britain, and in 1775 he was elected colonel of a Virginia regiment. The above

poem describes his farewell sermon. At its close he threw off his ministerial gown, and appeared in full regimental dress. Almost every man in the congregation enlisted under him at the church door. Muhlenberg became a well known general in the Revolution, and after the war served his country in Congress and in various official positions.

LXVI. CONTROL YOUR TEMPER.

John Todd, D. D. (b. 1800, d. 1873), was born in Rutland, Vt. In 1842, he was settled as a pastor of a Congregational Church, in Pittsfield, Mass. In 1834, he published "Lectures to Children;" in 1835, "The Student's Manual," a valuable and popular work, which has been translated into several European languages; in 1836, "The Sabbath-School Teacher;" and in 1841, "The Lost Sister of Wyoming." He was one of the founders of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary.

1. NO ONE has a temper naturally so good, that it does not need attention and cultivation, and no one has a temper so bad, but that, by proper culture, it may become pleasant. One of the best disciplined tempers ever seen, was that of a gentlemen who was naturally quick, irritable, rash, and violent; but, by having the care of the sick, and especially of deranged people, he so completely mastered himself that he was never known to be thrown off his guard.

2. The difference in the happiness which is received or bestowed by the man who governs his temper, and that by the man who does not, is immense. There is no misery so constant, so distressing, and so intolerable to others, as that of having a disposition which is your master, and which is continually fretting itself. There are corners enough, at every turn in life, against which we may run, and at which we may break out in impatience, if we choose.

3. Look at Roger Sherman, who rose from a humble occupation to a seat in the first Congress of the United States, and whose judgment was received with great defer