EXERCISE CVII.

THOMAS CAMPBELL, a British poet, was born in 1777, and died in 1844. The Pleasures of Hope, his first long poem, was published in his twenty-second year, and enjoyed a popularity unparalleled, perhaps, by a first effort. His poetry is characterized by a melodious and polished diction, and is full of humane and generous sentiments. He spent some time in traveling on the continent, and witnessed the battle of Hohenlinden, which was fought in 1800, between the French and Austrians,—the former under Moreau, and the latter under the archduke John. The French were victorious.

EXERCISE CVIII.

GRAN SCALA is a theater in Milan, said to be the largest in the world, capable of holding about four thousand persons. Its musical audiences are said to be very critical.

The king and queen spoken of in this selection were Otho I., a Bavarian, and his Queen, Frederica Amelia. Otho was born in 1815 and became king of Greece in 1835. But he was never popular with the Greeks, and, in 1862, was banished forever from the country. The present king is George I., a Danish prince.

EXERCISE CX.

LORD BYRON, an English poet, was born in 1788, and died in 1824. As a poet he occupies a high rank, but as a man he had many very serious faults. He indulged in a morbid misanthropy, both in his writings and his social intercourse, which rendered his example and teachings very pernicious in their influence. He died in Greece, while attempting to aid that people in gaining their independence.

EXERCISE CXI.

CHARLES LAMB, an English author, was born in 1775, and died in 1834. His writings have a charm not found in

any other author. They are representatives of his own character, genial, kindly, unique. From 1792 to 1825 he was employed as an accountant by the East India company, with a gradually increasing salary. A beautiful trait in his character was exhibited in the affectionate care he took of his sister Mary, who was insane much of the time.

ALCIBIADES, a Greek statesman and general, was born in 450 B. C., and died 404 B. C. He was a man of the highest abilities and of rare accomplishments, but destitute of virtue.

FALSTAFF is a humorous character in several of the plays of Shakspeare,-in the two parts of Henry IV., Henry V., and the Merry Wives of Windsor. He is represented as witty, but of very dissolute morals.

SIR RICHARD STEELE, an English author in the time of Queen Anne, was born in 1675, and died in 1729. He was a man of sparkling wit, genial manners, but very dissipated habits.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, an English writer and politician, was born in 1751, and died in 1816. He was a man of brilliant powers, and stood almost unrivaled as an orator; but he ruined himself by his dissipation. He was a prominent member of Parliament, and was associated with Burke in the impeachment of Warren Hastings.

PROPONTIC is the sea of Marmora, anciently called Propontis. It is remarkable for its great depth, and for never having any tides, and therefore never ebbing.

EXERCISE CXII.

SAMUEL GULLIVER was the hero of Swift's romance of Gulliver's Travels. He is made to visit fabulous regions of dwarfs, giants, rational horses, &c. The object of the story is to satirize the follies and vices of society in Europe.

EXERCISE CXIII.

JOSIAH G. HOLLAND, an American author, was born in Massachusetts, in 1819. He is associate editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. He is the author of several popular works, mostly in the form of novels, but having a didactic aim.

EXERCISE CXIV.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, an American clergyman and author, was born in Rhode Island in 1780, and died in Vermont, in 1842. He was eminent for the fervor of his preaching, the purity of his character, his lively interest in all matters relating to human progress, and his refined and cultivated taste.

EXERCISE CXVI.

WILLIAM COWPER, an English poet, was born in 1731, and died in 1800. He was a man of the purest character, and his poetry is marked by naturalness and moral purity. His letters are pronounced the best in the language. He was, during a large part of his life, subject to fits of great mental depression, and these fits were several times so severe as to reduce him to actual insanity. But, notwithstanding his gloomy tendencies, he had a lively and playful humor, as is evinced in his famous poem, John Gilpin.

EXERCISE CXVIII.

HENRY WARD BEECHER, an American clergyman and author, was born in Connecticut in 1813. Mr. Beecher has exerted a powerful influence upon the public sentiment of the United States. His powers as an orator are of the first rank. He has little sympathy with mere forms, in church or state, and, in his addresses from the pulpit and elsewhere, always goes directly to his point. In political affairs he has always taken the liveliest interest, having freely spoken and written against slavery and other political evils. He has

been settled as a pastor three times,-at Lawrenceburg, Ind., two years, beginning in 1837, at Indianapolis eight years, and over the Plymouth church of Brooklyn, N. Y., since 1847.

EXERCISE CXX.

ANDREWS NORTON, an American theologian, was born in Massachusetts in 1786, and died in 1853. He possessed the most exquisite taste, and was a profound and accurate scholar. He wrote an elaborate treatise on the Genuineness of the Gospels, and other works on kindred topics.

EXERCISE CXXI.

ALEXANDER POPE, an English poet, was born in 1688, and died in 1744. His early education was quite irregular, and mainly conducted by himself. But he was an admirer and diligent reader of the English authors of the age preceding his own. His poems are remarkable for the correctness of their versification, and for much poetic power. In his time, he stood at the head of English poets, and posterity has also assigned him a high and permanent position, though, perhaps, not the highest.

HOMER was the reputed author of the Iliad and Odyssey, -two poems, the first descriptive of the Trojan war, and the other of the voyage of Ulysses to his home in Ithaca after participating in the destruction of Troy. The very existence of Homer, however, has been denied, and the poems passing under his name are by some supposed to be compilations made from the poetic utterances of many rhapsodists. But this view is not so probable as that a man of this name actually lived. He probably flourished about the 9th century B. C. Seven cities contended for the honor of being his birthplace; among these were Athens, Chios, Colophon, and Smyrna.

THE TROJAN WAR is a legendary event said to have occurred in the 12th century B. C. Paris, son of the Trojan king, Priam, was entertained at the house of Menelaus, king of Sparta; and, during the absence of his host, induced the beautiful Helen, wife of Menelaus, to elope with him to Troy. For the purpose of recovering her the Grecian kings united their forces, crossed the Egean Sea, attacked Troy, which was situated near the eastern shore, just south of what is now called the Dardanelles Straits, and after a war of ten years razed it to the ground. One of the gates of Troy was called the Scean Gate. It faced the sea and the Grecian camp.

THEBE was a city of Mysia, a little to the southeast of Troy, of which Aëtion was king. It was taken by Achilles during the Trojan war. The plain on which it was situated was called Hypoplacus, or the Hypoplacian plain, because it lay at the foot of a mountain called Placus.

ACHILLES was the king of Phthiotis in Thessaly, and the son of Peleus, king of that country, and Thetis, a sea-nymph. He was the greatest of the Grecian heroes.

JOVE, or JUPITER, was the king of the gods in the Roman mythology. The Greeks called him Zeus.

HECTOR was the son of Priam, king of Troy, and the chief of the Trojan heroes. It had been foretold that Troy should never fall while Hector lived, and the Greeks accordingly made great efforts to kill him. This was finally done by Achilles.

SCAMANDER was a river near Troy, now called Bounarbachi. DIANA'S BOw.-The sudden death of women was attributed by the ancient mythology to darts from the bow of Diana, the sister of Apollo, and goddess of hunting.

AGAMEMNON, king of Mycæne, in the Peloponnesus, now Morea, was a brother of Menelaus, and the commander of the Grecian armies encamped against Troy.