what interest may their pages be turned over by succeeding generations of teachers and pupils! From the first of these manuscript volumes we have selected the materials for the following chapter; and as we chanced to be present at the reading, we are able to append to the selections the teacher's remarks upon the pieces read, and upon the manner of reading them.

CHAPTER II.-SELECTIONS FROM ONE DAY'S MISCELLANEOUS READINGS.

I.-The Sower. [Selected by a farmer boy.]

1. The maples redden in the sun;

In autumn gold the beeches stand:
Rest, faithful plough, thy work is done
Upon the teeming land.

Bordered with trees whose gay leaves fly
On every breath that sweeps the sky,
The fresh dark acres furrowed lie,
And ask the sower's hand.

2. Now strew, with free and joyous sweep,
The seed upon the expecting soil;
For hence the plenteous year shall heap
The garners of the men who toil.
Strew the bright seed for those who tear
The matted sward with spade and share,
And those whose sounding axes gleam
Beside the lonely forest stream,

Till its broad banks lie bare,—

For him who breaks the quarry-ledge

With hammer-blows plied quick and strong,
And him who, with the steady sledge,

Smites the shrill anvil all day long.

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3.

Brethren, the sower's task is done;
The seed is in its winter bed;

Now let the dark-brown mould be spread
To hide it from the sun,

And leave it to the kindly care
Of the still earth and brooding air,
As when the mother, from her breast,
Lays the hushed babe apart to rest,
And shades its eyes, and waits to see
How sweet its waking smile will be.

4. The tempest now may smite; the sleet
All night on the drowned furrow beat;
And winds that, from the cloudy hold
Of winter, breathe the bitter cold,
Stiffen to stone the yellow mould;
But safe shall lie the wheat,

Till, out of heaven's unmeasured blue,
Shall walk again the genial year,
To wake with warmth, and nurse with dew,
The germs we lay to slumber here.

5. The love that leads the willing spheres
Along the unending track of years,
And watches o'er the sparrow's nest,
Shall brood above thy winter rest,
And raise thee from the dust to hold

Light whisperings with the winds of May,
And fill thy spikes with living gold
From Summer's yellow ray.

Then, as thy garners give thee forth,

On what glad errands shalt thou go,
Wherever, o'er the waiting earth,

Roads wind and rivers flow!-Bryant.

II.-Figurative Language.

1. When the foregoing piece had been read, the teacher asked, what propriety there was in the expression "autumn gold," in the second line of the first verse, and in the expression "faithful plough," in the third line; and why, in the second line of the second verse, the soil on which the wheat was sown was called "the expecting soil." When these questions had been variously answered by the pupils, he took occasion to make some remarks upon the use of figurative language, a subject to which he had previously called the attention of the more advanced pupils. The following is the substance of his remarks.

2. "Words," he said, " are used in a figurative sense, when they are to be understood in a sense different from their plain and obvious, or primary, meaning, and are thus made to express some idea with the greater force, through the medium of what is, literally, an untruth. Figurative language is generally based upon some real or fancied resemblance between objects; and it is employed when the mind bestows upon the real object under consideration, the qualities or attributes of something else which resembles it.

3. “Thus, when, in autumn, the leaves of beech-trees change to a rich orange or yellow, we may say that they are of a golden yellow, because their color resembles that of gold By a little further stretch of the imagination we may fancy, as the poet does in the second line of the piece just read, that this golden color is gold itself,-as when he says,

'In autumn gold the beeches stand.'

Here the rich beauty of the autumn color of the leaves is expressed with additional force by giving free play to the imagination, and saying that the trees themselves 'stand in gold.'

4. "When the work of the plough is thoroughly done,

by a like figure of speech we may call the plough a faithful plough, just as the poet has done; because the plough seems, to us, in respect to its work, to resemble an intelligent and faithful workman. So, also, in the fourth verse, the winter winds are said to breathe the bitter cold; but in spring-time the genial year is said to walk forth, as if it were an animate object, and to wake the sleeping germs of wheat, and nurse them with dew.

5. "We speak of the head of an army, a column, a state, a family, and a school,—of the head of the Nile, and the heads of a discourse,-because the prominent or controlling parts of the things here spoken of do, in a measure, resemble the head of the animal body. So, also, a man is figuratively said to have a good head, when he has a good intellect. We can here easily trace the resemblances that lead to so many varied applications of this one word.

6. "When we wish to designate the period at which a state enjoyed its greatest glory, the idea is readily connected, in our fancy, by way of resemblance, with the flourishing period of a plant or a tree. We therefore say, very naturally, 'The Roman empire flourished most under Augustus.' The Psalmist used the same figure to denote the prosperity of the righteous, when he said, 'The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.'

7. "It is owing to such resemblances, which are innumerable, and to the desire for variety, force, and beauty of language, that figurative expressions are so abundant in all works of the imagination. When appropriate, they delight by the novelty of the ideas which they suggest; they place the principal subject of thought in a new and striking light; and they add ornament, dignity, and grace to solid thought and natural sentiment. But it must ever be borne in mind that the figure is only the dress, while the sentiment is the body and the substance."

8. After some more questioning on the figurative language employed by the poet,-such as the “willing spheres," -the "whisperings" which the growing wheat germs were to hold with the winds of May,-the "living gold” with which the spikes of wheat were to be filled,—and the glad errands" on which the ripened wheat should go forth, the next piece was read,-also by a farmer boy.

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III.-The Farmer Feedeth All.

1. My lord rides through his palace gate,
My lady sweeps along in state,

The sage thinks long on many a thing,
And the maiden muses on marrying;
The minstrel harpeth merrily,
The sailor ploughs the foaming sea,
The huntsman kills the good red deer,
And the soldier wars withouten" fear;
But fall to each whate'er befall,
The farmer he must feed them all.

2. Smith hammereth cherry-red the sword,
Priest preacheth pure the Holy Word,
Dame Alice worketh broidery well,
Clerk Richard tales of love can tell,
The bar-maid sells the foaming beer,
The fisher fisheth in the mere,”

And courtiers ruffle, strut, and shine,
While pages bring the Gascon wine;
But fall to each whate'er befall,
The farmer he must feed them all.

This is an old form of the preposition without; but it is now regarded as obsolete.

Mère, a pool or lake.

"Gascon wine," wine made in Gascony, an old province in the south-west of France, the people of which were noted for boasting. So, any wine may very properly be called Gascon wine.

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