with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death and make the silent sepulchre vocal! And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven.

Again, the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn, sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful; it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls; the ear is stunned; the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee, it is rising from earth to heaven; the very soul seems rapt away, and floating upward on this swelling note of harmony!

I sat for some time lost in that kind of revery which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire. The shadows of evening were gradually thickening around me; the monuments began to cast a deeper and deeper gloom; and the distant clock gave token of the slowly waning day. I rose, and retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already passing into indistinctness and confusion.

par'si mo ny, stinginess; sparingness. cog'ni zance, recognition.

cro'sier, a staff surmounted by a crook

or a cross.

prel'ate, a clergyman of a superior order.

THE CHRISTMAS CAROL

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

THE minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,

The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen
That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze

Had sunk to rest, with folded wings: Keen was the air, but could not freeze Nor check the music of the strings; So stout and hardy were the band

That scraped the chords with strenuous hand!

And who but listened - till was paid
Respect to every inmate's claim;
The greeting given, the music played,
In honor of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "Merry Christmas" wished to all!

How touching, when, at midnight, sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,

To hear, and sink again to sleep!

Or, at an earlier call, to mark

By blazing fire, the still suspense
Of self-complacent innocence;

The mutual nod, — the grave disguise

Of hearts with gladness brimming o'er;

And some unbidden tears that rise

For names once heard, and heard no more;
Tears brightened by the serenade

For Infant in the cradle laid.

Hail ancient Manners! sure defence,

Where they survive, of wholesome laws;
Remnants of love whose modest sense

Thus into narrow room withdraws;
Hail, Usages of pristine mould,

And ye that guard them, Mountains old!
pris'tine, belonging to the earliest period or state.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770-1850) is sometimes called England's nature-poet. He was made poet-laureate in 1843.

OF STUDIES

FRANCIS BACON

STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. Το spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar.

They perfect Nature, and are perfected by experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them; for they teach not

their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not.

Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. There is no stand or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. If a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are "splitters of hairs." If he be not apt to beat over matters. and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's cases; so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

con temn', to despise or scorn. 1 con fute', to prove false.

FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) was an English philosopher and states. man. His writings express deep and dignified thought.

WOLSEY'S FAREWELL TO CROMWELL

From "King Henry VIII," Act iii, Scene 2.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

CROMWELL, I did not think to shed a tear In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me, Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.

Let's dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell; And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee:
Say Wolsey - that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor-
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in,
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me:
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;

And, Prithee, lead me in:

There take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe

And my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal