"What!" cried the old man, "Michael Angelo gone to Rome, and not a word of advice about my statue? The scape-grace! but I shall see him again, or I will follow him to the eternal city. His opinion is worth that of all the world! But one thing!" He looked at it again—he listened to the murmurs of applause which it drew from all who beheld it—a placid smile settled on his face. "But one thing: what can it be?"

Years rolled by. Michael Angelo remained at Rome, or made excursions to other places, but had not yet returned to Florence. Wherever he had been men regarded him as a comet-something His fame fiery, terrible, tremendous, sublime.

spread over the globe; what his chisel touched it hallowed. He spurned the dull clay, and struck his vast and intensely brilliant conceptions at once from the marble. Michael Angelo was a name to worship, a spell in the arts, an honour to Italy, to the world. What he praised, lived; what he condemned, perished.

As Donatello grew old, his anxiety grew more powerful to know what the inspired eyes of the wonderful artist had detected in his great statue.

At length the immortal Florentine turned his eyes to his native republic, and, as he reached the summit of the hill which rises on the side of Porta Romuna, he beheld the magnificent and glorious dome and Campanile, shining in the soft golden radiance of the setting sun.

Ah, death can no worth ward thee? Must the inspired artist's eyes be dark, his hand motionless, his heart still, and his inventive brain as dull as the clay he models?" Yes! Donatello lies stretched on his last couch, and the light of life is passing from his eyes; yet even in that awful hour, his thoughts ran on the wishes of his past years, and he sent for the Florentine artist. His friend came instantly.

"I am going, Michael, my chisel is idle, my vision is dim; but I feel thy hand, my noble boy, and I hear thy kind breast sob. I glory in thy renown: I predicted it; and I bless my Creator that I have lived to see it; but before I sink into the tomb, I charge thee, on thy friendship, on thy religion, answer my question truly."

"As I am a man, I will.”

"Then tell me (without equivocation) what it is my St. George wants."

"The gift of speech!" was the reply.

A gleam of sunshine fell across the old man's face. The smile lingered on his lips long after he lay cold as the marble upon which he had so often stamped the conception of his genius.

ANON.

Florence. One of the most famous cities of Italy, on the river Arno; celebrated for its schools of painting and sculpture, and no less famous in literature. Byron calls it the "Etrurian Athens" :

“But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps A softer feeling for her fairy halls.”

Childe Harold, Canto iv. stanza 48.

The antique. That which is old. In the lesson it means the specimens of sculpture that have come down from Greece and Rome, which were considered as inimitable. Donatello.-A famous sculptor of Florence. The St.

George was his great work.

Beyond the Alps.—i.e., throughout Europe. Michael Angelo.-Painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and poet. A native of Florence; born, 1474; died, 1564. Studied its profiles.-In painting and sculpture the profile is a head or portrait represented sideways, or in a side view; the side face or half face (from Latin, pro ; and filum, a thread or line).

Gone to Rome.-The usual resort of all young sculptors, who went there to study the remains of ancient sculpture, so abundant in Rome.

The eternal city.—Rome.

A comet (from the Greek kome, hair).—Literally, a hairy star. The motions of comets are very irregular and erratic, and, in this view, Angelo was regarded as a comet. We still speak of a famous singer or actor as a star. He spurned the dull clay.-Sculptors generally make a model of their subject in clay, and then in marble; Angelo disdained the use of the clay model, but carved his subject direct from the marble.

The immortal Florentine.-Angelo.

His native republic.-Etruria or Tuscany.

Porta Ramana.-The Roman gate; a gate of Rome. Campanile. In architecture, a clock or bell-tower. The Campanile in the lesson was that of the famous St. Peter's Church in Rome. See Byron's description of this Church in "Childe Harold," Canto iv. stanzas 153-159.

The gift of speech.-The highest compliment he could have paid. The work was so perfect that nothing but the gift of speech was wanting to make it life-like.

EXERCISES.

1. What is meant by the following phrases :-(a) Fling by thy chisel now; (b) I shall cease my devotion to the antique; (c) He might tread on the heels of Donatello; (d) They spoke at random; (e) He watched the development of the spirit; (f) He struck his conceptions from the marble.

2. Give the etymology of these words-studio, rapture, excel, rivals, devotion, intense, sanguine, position, profound.

3. Profile comes from Latin pro, before; and filum, a thread. Give the meaning of these phrases-He hung it on the file; A file of soldiers. Distinguish between this word file and file, an instrument; and file in the word defile.

4. Distinguish between these words-statue, statute; adds, adze; day, Dey; heel, heal; alter, altar; geniuses, genii.

As I was looking astern, I saw a black object rise out of the water and glide up alongside, cutting

the surface with as fine a line as if a sharp weapon

had passed through it.

"We'll have that fellow," cried the captain, who had just come on deck.

send a piece of fat pork aft. a hook ready?"

"Tell the cook to Boatswain, have you

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Sam Harworth, and he produced a hook of eight inches in length, with a larger curvature than a little finger can make, the point being as sharp as a needle. To it was attached four feet of strong chain, and a stout line capable of sustaining any strain likely to be put on it. The ends being secured, it was coiled away ready to run out without impediment.

Old Sam now fixed on to the hook a junk of pork of some four pounds weight. This was at once hove overboard, and eagerly watched by all hands aft. We had not long to wait, when the huge shark espying the tempting bait, turning up its belly, made a desperate grab at it, and then darted off at so rapid a rate that the line was quickly drawn out.

Old Sam, however, taking it at the right moment, gave a sharp tug.

"The hook is fixed fast enough now," he cried out. "He'll not get away if the line doesn't break."

Meantime, two other seamen were getting ropes ready with running bowlines at their ends. The shark being hauled up, one was passed down the