And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold

As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good, broad highway leading down ;

And there, through the flush of the morning light,

A steed, as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight.
As if he knew the terrible need,

He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hill rose and fell; but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering south,

The dust, like the smoke from the cannon's mouth, Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster;

The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet, the road,
Like an arrowy Alpine river, flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind,

Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed, with his wild eyes full of fire,
Swept on to the goal of his heart's desire:
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

The first that the General saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops.
What was done—what to do-a glance told him
both;

Then striking his spurs, with a muttered oath,
He dashed down the line 'mid a storm of huzzas.
The sight of the master compelled them to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was

gray;

By the flash of his eye, and his red nostrils' play, He seemed to the whole great army to say,

"I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester down to save the day!"

Hurrah, hurrah, for Sheridan!

Hurrah, hurrah, for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldiers' Temple of Fame,
There, with the glorious General's name,
Be it said, in letters bold and bright,
"Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,

From Winchester-twenty miles away!"

Sheridan's Ride.-On the 19th of October, 1864, during the course of the great American Civil War, the forces of the Northern States, at Cedar Creek, in Virginia, were attacked by the Southern army, and driven back for some distance in considerable disorder. The battle was restored, however, by the opportune arrival of General Sheridan, who hastened to the field from Winchester, and the result was a brilliant victory for the North.

As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray.—As he thought upon all the interests that depended upon the issue of that battle.

The trail of a comet, &c.-The mark made by what is called the tail of a comet in its progress through the heavens. Comet (from the Greek kometes) literally means a hairy star, and the name was given to these bodies from their having a nucleus surrounded by a hairy-like appearance, and a luminous tail resembling a long beard. Comets were supposed to forbode disaster. In Chambers' "Book of Days," Vol. II., p. 583, we read: "The Great Plague of London was attributed by some to a comet which appeared in the spring of that year. As there was a comet in 1668, and in the same year a remarkable epidemic among cats in Westphalia, some of the wiseacres of the day connected the two phenomena together as probably cause and effect." In the word disaster we have evidence of the old belief in astrology. It comes from the Greek astron, a star. An arrowy Alpine river.-Alpine, not necessarily a river connected with the European Alps, but any mountain torrent. Alp has come to be applied to any lofty mountain range.

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray.-Compare the magnificent description of the war-horse in the Book of Job (chap. xxxix. 19-25).

He dashed down the line 'mid a storm of huzzas.—It was said of our own Wellington that his presence alone was worth a moderately sized army-such was the confidence which the soldiers had in him.

EXERCISES.

1. Write the story of Sheridan's Ride in your own words. 2. Point out all the similes in the extract, and show their appropriateness.

3. Point out any figurative expressions which occur in the extract, and show from what the figure is derived.

4. Quote the expressions used to describe the steed at the various stages of the ride.

5. Give the derivation of chieftain, horizon, terrible, prisoners, assaulting, impatient, compelled.

6. How do you account for the letters in italics in the following words :- affrighted, grumble, rumble, highway, light, night, flight, thundering.

7. Quote any allusions you may remember to the supposed influence of comets.

I LABOUR under a species of distress, which, I fear

I*

will at length drive me utterly from the society in which I am most ambitious to appear; but I shall give you a short sketch of my origin and present situation, by which you will be enabled to judge of my difficulties.

You must know, I am of such extreme susceptibility of shame, that, on the slightest subject of confusion, my blood all rushes into my cheeks, and I appear a perfect full-blown rose.

Sir Thomas Friendly, who lives about three miles distant, is a baronet, with an estate of about two thousand pounds a-year, adjoining that which I purchased. He has two small sons and five tall daughters, all grown-up, and living at Friendly Hall, dependent on their father. Conscious of my unpolished gait, I have, for some time past, taken private lessons from a professor, who teaches "grown-up gentlemen to dance;" and although I at first found wondrous difficulty in the art he taught, yet my knowledge of the mathematics was of prodigious use, in teaching me the equilibrium of my body, and the due adjustment of the centre of gravity to the five positions.

Having now acquired the art of walking without tottering, and learned to make a bow, I boldly ventured to accept the baronet's invitation to a family dinner; not doubting but my new acquirements would enable me to see the ladies with tolerable intrepidity; but alas! how vain are all the hopes of theory, when unsupported by habitual practice!