answered, “That is well;-but I bargained for twenty." And his wish was prophetic; he had not miscalculated the superiority of his followers; twenty actually surrendered. Having ordered the fleet to be anchored, he now said, "Don't throw me overboard. Kiss me, Hardy." Hardy knelt down and obeyed. "Now, I am satisfied; thank God I have done my duty." Hardy kissed him again, received his blessing, and then took leave of him for ever. The death of Nelson was felt in England as something more than a public calamity; men started at the intelligence, and turned pale, as if they had heard of the loss of a dear friend. An object of our admiration and affection, of our pride and of our hopes, was suddenly taken from us; and it seemed as if we had never till then known how deeply we loved and reverenced him. What the country had lost in its great naval hero-the greatest of our own and of all former times—was scarcely taken into the account of grief. So perfectly, indeed, had he performed his part, that the maritime war, after the battle of Trafalgar, was considered at an end. The fleets of the enemy were not merely defeated, but destroyed; new navies must be built, and a new race of seamen reared for them, before the possibility of their invading our shores could again be contemplated. It was not, therefore, from any selfish reflection upon the magnitude of our loss that we mourned for him; the general sorrow was of a higher character. The people of England grieved that funeral ceremonies, and public monuments, and posthumous rewards were all that they could now bestow upon him whom the King, the Legislature, and the nation would have alike delighted to honour; whom every tongue would have blessed; whose presence, in every village through which he might have passed, would have wakened the church-bells, have given school-boys a holiday, have drawn children from their sports to gaze upon him, and old men from the chimney-corner to look upon Nelson ere they died. Mizzen-top.-A ship, properly so called, has three lower masts, all fixed on deck-the foremast, the mainmast, and the mizzenmast. The mizzenmast is the one nearest the stern or hinder end of the vessel. The cockpit. The room in a ship of war to which the wounded are carried to have their wounds dressed. EXERCISES. 1. Explain the various nautical phrases used in the lesson. 2. Write in your own words an account of the death of Nelson. LESSON V. The Daffodils. con-tin'-u-ous, stretching in mar'-gin, edge, border. a long line. joc'-und, merry, happy. pen'-sive, thoughtful. va'-cant, idle, empty. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Ten thousand saw I at a glance, In such a jocund company. I gazed-and gazed—but little thought For oft when on my couch I lie, W. WORDSWORTH. The milky way,—or, as it is sometimes termed, the galaxy, is a luminous track in the sky, now known to be composed of countless stars. EXERCISES. 1. Point out the words in the poem that describe the appearance and the motions of the daffodils. 2. The poet says that the show of the daffodils brought him great wealth. In what did this wealth consist? 3. What is meant by the "inward eye"? How is the inward eye the bliss of solitude? mould, fashion, shape. Darling. slab, beam. waft'-ed, sent, caused to ascend. ward, a division of a hos pital. [for. yearn'-ing, earnestly longing INTO a ward of the white-washed halls, Matted and damp are the curls of gold, Kiss him once for Somebody's sake, They were Somebody's pride, we know: Somebody's hand has rested there; Was it a mother's, soft and white? And have the lips of a sister fair Been baptised in those waves of light? God knows best; he was Somebody's love; Night and morn, on the wings of prayer. Somebody's watching and waiting for him, Tenderly bury the fair young dead, Pausing to drop on his grave a tear; Carve on the wooden slab at his head, Somebody's darling slumbers here." LACOSTE. Somebody's Darling. This pathetic and touching poem is founded on incidents that were of common occurrence in the great American civil war. Hundreds of youths left their ordinary avocations and joined the ranks of the Northern army. It was impossible to identify all those who fell in the bloody struggle, but, as each one was buried, a wooden slab was erected over his grave, with his number and the name of his regiment attached. |