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2 The social glass I saw him seize,
The more with festive wit to please,
Daily increase his love of cheer-
Ah, little thought he I was near!
Gradual indulgence on him stole,
Frequent became the midnight bowl.
I in that bowl the headache placed,
Which, with the juice, his lips embraced.
Shame next I mingled with the draught;
Indignantly he drank and laughed.

3 In the bowl's bottom Bankruptcy
I placed he drank with tears and glee.
Remorse did I into it pour;

He only sought the bowl the more.
I mingled next joint torturing pain;
Little the less did he refrain.
The dropsy in the cup I mixed;
Still to his mouth the cup was fixed.
My emissaries thus in vain

I sent the mad wretch to restrain.

4 On the bowl's bottom then myself..
I threw; the most abhorrent elf
Of all that mortals hate or dread;
And thus in horrid whispers said-
"Successless ministers I've sent,
Thy hastening ruin to prevent;
Their lessons nought-then here am I;
Think not my threatenings to defy.
Swallow this, this thy last 'twill be,
For with it thou must swallow me.

5 Haggard his eyes, upright his hair,
Remorse his lips, his cheeks despair;
With shaking hand the bowl he clasp'd,
My meetless limbs his carcass grasp'd
And bore it to the churchyard-where
Thousands, ere I would call, repair.

6 Death speaks—ah, reader, dost thou hear?
Hast thou no lurking cause to fear?
Has not o'er thee the sparkling bowl

Constant, commanding, sly control?
Betimes reflect, betimes beware-
Though ruddy, healthful now and fair,
Before slow reason lose the sway,
Reform-postponed another day,
Too soon may mix with common clay.

EXERCISE 51.

The Plague in London.-ROTHElan.

In its malignancy, it engrossed the ill of all other maladies, and made doctors despicable. Of a potency equal to death, it possessed itself of all his armouries, and was itself the death of every other mortal distemper. The 5 touch, yea, the very sight of the infected, was deadly; and its signs were so sudden, that families seated in happiness at their meals have seen the plague spot begin to redden, and have wildly scattered themselves forever. Mothers, The cement of society was dissolved by it. 10 when they saw the sign of the infection on the babes at their bosom, cast them from them with abhorrence. Wild places were sought for shelter;-some went intc ships and anchored themselves afar off on the waters. But the angel that was pouring the vial had a foot on the No place was so wild, 15 sea, as well as on the dry land. that the plague did not visit-none so secret that the quick-sighted pestilence did not discover, none could fly that it did not overtake.

It was as if Heaven had repented the making of man20 kind, and was shovelling them all into the sepulchre. Justice was forgotten, and her courts deserted. The terrified jailers fled from the felons that were in fettersthe innocent and the guilty leagued themselves together, and kept within their prisons for safety;-the grass grew 25 in the market-places;-the cattle went moaning up and down the fields, wondering what had become of their keepers; the rooks and the ravens came into the towns, und built their nests in the mute belfries;-silence was universal, save when some infected wretch was seen 30 clamouring at a window.

For a time all commerce was in coffins and shrouds

but even that ended. Shrift there was none; churches and chapels were open, but neither priests nor penitent entered; all went to the charnel house. The sex35 ton and the physician were cast into the same deep and wide grave-the testator and his heirs and executors were hurled from the same cart into the same hole together. Fire became extinguished, as if its element too had expired: the seams of the sailorless ships yawn40 ed to the sun. Though doors were open, and coffers unwatched, there was no theft; all offences ceased, and no calamity but the universal wo of the pestilence was heard among men. The wells overflowed, and the conduits ran to waste; the dogs banded themselves together, 45 having lost their masters, and ran howling over all the land; horses perished of famine in their stalls; old friends but looked at one another when they met, keeping themselves far aloof; creditors claimed no debts, and courtiers performed their promises; little children went wander50 ing up and down, and numbers were seen dead in all corners. Nor was it only in England that the plague so raged it travelled over a third part of the whole earth, like the shadow of an eclipse, as if some dreadful thing had been interposed between the world and the sun55 source of life.

:

* * * At that epoch, for a short time, there was a silence, and every person in the street, for a moment stood still; London was as dumb as a churchyard. Again the sound of a bell was heard; for it was that sound, so 60 long unheard, which arrested the fugitive multitude, and caused their silence. At the third toll a universal

shout arose, as when the herald proclaims the tidings of a great battle won, and then there was a second silence.

The people fell on their knees, and with anthems of 65 thankfulness rejoiced in the dismal sound of that tolling death-bell; for it was a signal of the plague being so abated that men might again mourn for their friends, and hallow their remains with the solemnities of burial

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EXERCISE 52.

Battle of Borodino.-ANONYMOUS.

The night passed slowly over the wakeful heads of the impatient combatants. The morning of the 7th of September at length broke, and thousands beheld the dawn for the last time.-The moment was arrived, when 5 the dreadful discharge of two thousand cannon was to break the silence of expectation, and arouse at once all the horrors of war. General as the attack seemed, the corps of Prince Bagration had to sustain the accumulating weight of nearly half the French army; and the de10 termination shown by its cavalry was so desperate, that they charged up to the mouth of the Russian guns.Whole regiments of them, both horses and men, were swept down by the cannon shot; and all along the front of Bagration's line, arose a breast-work of dead and dy15 ing. Napoleon ordered up fifty additional pieces of artillery, and a fresh division of infantry, with several regiments of dragoons. This new force rushed on, over the bodies of their fallen countrymen, and did not allow themselves to be checked until they reached the para20 pets of the Russian works. Their vigorous onset overturned with fierce slaughter every thing that opposed them, and obliged Bagration to fall back nearer to the second line of the army. The rage of battle at this crisis is not to be described. The thunder of a thousand 25 pieces of artillery was answered by the discharge of an equal number on the part of the Russians. A veil of smoke shut out the combatants from the sun, and left them no other light to pursue the work of death than the flashes of musketry, which blazed in every direction. 30 The sabres of 40,000 dragoons met each other, and clashed in the horrid gloom; and the bristling points of countless bayonets, bursting through the rolling vapor, strewed the earth with heaps of slain.

Such was the scene for an extent of many wersts, and 35 the dreadful contest continued without cessation until the darkness of the night.-This closed that memorable day, and with it terminated the lives of eighty thousand human beings. The horses which lay on the ground, from right to left, numbered full 25,000.

40

The next day, says Labaume, very early in the morng, we returned to the field of battle. In the space of square league, almost every spot was covered with the killed and wounded.-On many places, the bursting of the shells had promiscuously heaped together men and

45 horses.

But the most horrid spectacle was the interior of the ravines; almost all the wounded, who were able to drag themselves along, had taken refuge there, to avoid the shot. These miserable wretches, heaped one upon an50 other, and almost suffocated with blood, uttering the most dreadful groans, and invoking death with piercing cries, eagerly besought us to put an end to their tor

ments

EXERCISE 53

Shipwreck.-FREDERICKSBURG ARENA.

In the winter of 1825-Lieutenant G of the United States Navy, with his beautiful wife (the most lovely female my eyes ever beheld) and infant child, embarked in a packet at Norfolk, bound to South Caro5 lina. 'Tis true the weather was extremely cold, but as the wind was favourable, this mode of getting to their friends was not considered more hazardous, than the、 same trip by stages through the swamps and sands of the Carolinas. Besides, the vessel in which they sailed 10 was a well known and popular trader, and had never encountered an accident in making her numerous voyages. For the first day and night after their departure, the wind continued fair, and the weather clear; but on the evening of the second day, they being then in sight 15 of the coast of North Carolina, a severe gale sprung up from the northward and westward, and towards midnight, the Captain, judging himself much farther from the land than he really was, and dreading the gulf stream, hauled in for the coast; but with the intention, it is 20 presumed, of laying to, when he supposed himself clear of the Gulf. Lieut. G- - did not approve of the Captain's determination to stand in for land, and the result proved that his objections were well founded; for about four A. M. the vessel grounded. Vain would it be

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