"Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?"

"Bless me, how people propagate a lie!

"Not I!"

Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and

one;

And here, I find, all comes at last to none!

6. "Did you say anything of a crow at all?"
"Crow?-crow? Perhaps I might, now I recall
The matter over." "And pray, sir, what was't?"
"Why, I was horrid sick, and, at last,

66

I did throw up-and told my neighbor so-
Something that was as black, sir, as a crow!"

John Byrom.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. What locality is indicated by "the Strand " ?— "Change" (Exchange)?" Alley"? (Is it London ?)

II. Two (too), straight (strāt), eŏm'-rade (kom'rād or kŭm'rād), begged, prop'-a-gate, none (nŭn).

III. Supply omission in 'tis ;-meaning of im in impossible;-of se in whose (like 's, it denotes possession). Of what is Mr. an abbreviation? What punctuation-mark must always be placed after an abbreviation? Meaning of n in thrown? (like ed, it denotes past or completed action.) "Horrid sick "—is this proper language to use? (Such expressions are called vulgarisms, or slang.)

IV. “Curious comrade" (curious for anxious, or inquiring), “by-theby," virtuoso," and so forth" (stands for what remarks in the line where it occurs?), "such a place" (stands for the name of the locality given by the speaker), "resolve a doubt."

V. Make a list of the different steps in reducing this street-rumor to its foundation. Which party says, "Bless me, how people propagate a lie!" "All the Alley "-what is meant?

LXVII. THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON.

MARKED FOR LOGICAL ANALYSIS AND EMPHASIS.

The birthday of the "FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY!" May it ever be freshly remembered by AMERICAN HEARTS! May it ever reawaken in them a filial VENERATION for his memory; ever rekindle the fires of patriotic regard for the COUNTRY he loved so well; to which he gave his youthful vigor and his youthful energy during the perilous period of the early Indian warfare; to which he devoted his life in the maturity of his powers in the field; to which again he offered the counsels of his wisdom and his experience as presi dent of the convention that framed our Constitution; which he guided and directed while in the chair of State; and for which the last prayer of his earthly supplication was offered up, when it came the moment for him so well, and so grandly, and so calmly TO DIE.

He was the FIRST man of the time in which he grew. His memory is first and most sACRED in our LOVE; and ever hereafter, till the last drop of blood shall freeze in the last AMERICAN HEART, his name shall be a spell of power and of might.

Yes, gentlemen, there is one personal, one VAST FELICITY, which no man can share with him. It was the daily beauty and towering and matchless glory of his life which enabled him to CREATE HIS COUNTRY, and at the same time secure an undying love and regard from the WHOLE American people. "The first in the HEARTS of his countrymen!" Undoubtedly there were brave and wise and good men, before his day, in every colony. But the American nation, as a NATION, I do not reckon to have begun before 1774. And the FIRST LOVE of that YOUNG AMERICA was WASHINGTON. Rufus Choate.

LXVIII. THE BROOK.

1. I come from haunts of coot and hern; I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

2. By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

3. I chatter over stony ways,

In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

4. I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

5. I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

6. And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel,

With many a silvery water-break,
Above the golden gravel.

7. I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers;