Silent his fellow-captives' grief,

As fearless spoke the island chief:

"Think not, thou eagle Lord of Rome
And Master of the World,

Though victory's banner o'er thy dome,
In triumph be unfurled,

I would address thee as thy slave;
But as the bold should greet the brave.

"I might, perchance, could I have deigned
To hold a vassal's throne,

E'en now, in Britain's isle have reigned,
A king in name alone ;

Yet holding, as thy meek ally,

A monarch's mimic pageantry.

"Then, through Rome's crowded streets to-day, I might have rode with thee,

Not in a captive's base array,

But fetterless and free;

If freedom he could hope to find
Whose bondage is of heart and mind.

"But canst thou marvel that, free-born,
With heart and soul unquelled,
Throne, crown, and sceptre I should scorn,
By thy permission held;

Or, that I should retain my right,
Till wrested by a conqueror's might.

"Rome, with her palaces and towers,
By us unwished, unreft,

Her homely huts and woodland bowers,
To Britain might have left ;

Worthless to you their wealth must be;
But dear to us—for they were free.
“I might have bowed before, but where
Had been thy triumph now?
To my resolve no yoke to bear,

Thou ow'st thy laurelled brow;
Inglorious victory had been thine,
And more inglorious bondage mine.
“Now I have spoken; do thy will;
Be life or death my lot;

Since Britain's throne no more I fill,
To me, it matters not.

My fame is clear-but on my fate
Thy glory and thy shame must wait.”
He ceased—from all around upsprung
A murmur of applause;

For well had Truth and Freedom's tongue
Maintained their holy cause.

The conqueror was the captive then;
He bade the slave be free again.

BERNARD BARTON.

Caractacus.-Son of Cymbeline, king of South Wales. During nine years he offered a determined resistance to the Roman emperor, Claudius, when he invaded Britain (A.D. 43); but was at last overcome, made prisoner, and carried to Rome. There his bearing and spirit were such that Claudius set him at liberty.

Rome's imperial throne.-The Emperor's judgment-seat, really set up in the Forum, or public square of Rome, though in the poem supposed to be placed in "Cæsar's palace hall."

Triumph. — The conqueror rode through the principal streets of Rome to the Capitol, in a chariot drawn by four horses, with a wreath of laurel on his head, and in a splendid embroidered robe. The captives he had

taken accompanied him in chains.

Eagle Lord of Rome.—Claudius. The eagle was the chief military standard of Rome, and the emblem of its power. The word here means supreme.

To hold a vassal's throne.-To be king merely in appearance, while the real government was exercised by a superior. Rome had many such vassal kings.

A monarch's mimic pageantry.-Royalty without reality. Pageantry always implies showy pomp and grandeur. Woodland bowers.-"The Britons call that a town where they have been accustomed to assemble to avoid an invasion of their enemies, when they have fortified the entangled woods with a rampart or a ditch."

Laurelled brow.-His brow covered with the laurel wreath of victory.

EXERCISES.

1. Write in simple prose the story of Caractacus before the tribunal of Claudius. Compose a letter, as if from a Briton in Rome, giving an account of the interview between Claudius and Caractacus.

2. Give the meaning and etymology of these words-mood, captive, street, aspect, temple, victorious, prostrate, suppliant, audience, reigned.

3. Procession comes from the Latin cedo, cessus, to yield or give place to. Give the meaning of the following from the same root:-cede, cession, accede, access, accession, concede, concession, concessive, precede, recede, retrocession, secede, seceder, secession. Distinguish between cession and session.

4. Explain all the references to Roman customs occurring in the lesson.

THE pace of the camel is irksome, and makes your shoulders and loins ache from the peculiar way in which you are obliged to suit yourself to the

movements of the beast; but one soon, of course, becomes inured to the work, and after my first two days this way of travelling became so familiar to me that (poor sleeper as I am) I now and then slumbered for some moments together on the back of my camel. On the fifth day of my journey the air above lay dead, and all around that I could reach with my utmost sight and keenest listening was still and lifeless, as some dispeopled and forgotten world that rolls round and round in the heavens through wasted floods of light. The sun, growing fiercer and fiercer, shone down more mightily now than ever he shone on me before, and as I drooped my head under his fire, and closed my eyes against the glare that surrounded me, I slowly fell asleep, for how many minutes or moments I cannot tell; but after awhile I was gently awakened by a peal of church bells,—my native bells the innocent bells of Marlen, that never before sent forth their music beyond the Blaygon hills! My first idea naturally was that I still remained fast under the power of a dream. I roused myself, and drew aside the silk that covered my eyes, and plunged my bare face into the light. Then at least I was well enough awakened; but still those old Marlen bells rang on, not ringing for joy, but properly, prosily, steadily, merrily ringing for "church." After a while the sound died away slowly.

It happened that neither I nor any of my party