But Solon nobly answered this flatterer: "He should not speak, unless he says what is useful.”

7. You will observe that all wise and good persons are equally remarkable for truth. Indeed, there can be no virtue where there is no truth; and as for falsehood and cunning, none but fools and knaves condescend to adopt them. Adapted from Herodotus.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. Lydia, made by Croesus an empire occupying most of Asia Minor. Find Athens on the map of Greece.

II. Mŏn'-areh, Єræ'-sus (kree'sus), a-gree'-a-ble, false'-ly.

III. There are describing-words which are used with name-words to describe the objects. Make a list of ten of these describing-words, and the name-words to which they belong (wise men, clever answer, much gold, hap pier man, etc.).

IV. Clever, laborer, remarkable, duty, disappointed, conversation, inquired, exclamation, explained, instructed, hint, improved, performed comedies, disapprove, jest, encourage, serious, deserved, ingenious, caressed, bluntness, converse, flattered, condescend, adopt. (The use of a dictionary to find these definitions should not be approved. The exact shade of meaning that the word has in the place where it is used in the readinglesson should be given, rather than the general definition. Definitions can be given and discussed best in the recitation.)

V. Do you think that Solon was right in calling what Thespis, the actor, said, "lies"? Could not Solon have called all fables lies? All poems and stories, and all pictures of events that did not occur-are these lies? Are the stories of "Robinson Crusoe," "The Spider and the Fly," "The Fox and the Cat," lies? (No; because they are not intended as histories, or as narrations of facts. Thespis did not intend to be taken as the real person whose part he was acting; nor was he so taken by the spectators.) Was there not wisdom in Æsop's fables as well as in Solon's bitter remarks? Do we see Merry-Andrews in this country (as they do in England) ?

XXIV. THE RAZOR-SELLER.

1. A fellow in a market-town,

Most musical, cried "Razors!" up and down,
And offered twelve for eighteen pence;
Which certainly seemed wondrous cheap,
And for the money quite a heap,

As every man would buy, with cash and sense.

2. A country bumpkin the great offer heardPoor Hodge, who suffered by a broad black beard, That seemed a shoe-brush stuck beneath his nose; With cheerfulness the eighteen pence he paid, And proudly to himself in whispers said: "This rascal stole the razors, I suppose.

3. "No matter if the fellow be a knave, Provided that the razors shave;

It certainly will be a most enormous prize.” So home the clown with his good fortune went, Smiling, in heart and soul content,

And quickly soaped himself to ears and eyes.

4. Being well lathered from a dish or tub,
Hodge now began, with grinning pain, to grub,
Just like a hedger cutting furze.

'Twas a vile razor!

All were impostors.

Then the rest he tried:

"Ah!" Hodge sighed,

"I wish my eighteen pence were in my purse."

5. Hodge sought the fellow, found him, and begun : "P'rhaps, Master Razor-rogue, to you 'tis fun

That people flay themselves out of their lives.

You rascal! for an hour have I been grubbing,
Giving my crying whiskers here a scrubbing
With razors just like oyster-knives.
Sirrah! I tell you, you're a knave,
To cry up razors that can't shave!"

6. "Friend," quoth the razor-man, "I'm not a knave.
As for the razors you have bought,
Upon my word, I never thought
That they would shave."

"Not think they'd shave!" quoth Hodge, with won-
dering eyes,

And voice not much unlike an Indian yell: "What were they made for, then?-you scamp!" he

cries.

"Made!" quoth the fellow, with a smile-" To

SELL!"

John Wolcott.

FOR PREPARATION.-I. John Wolcott (called "Peter Pindar "). "Eighteen pence" English money (about thirty-six cents of our money. Razors at three cents apiece-"wondrous cheap," indeed!).

II. Müşie-al, ra'-zors, broad (brawd), be-neath', päid, sighed (sid), friend, bôught (bawt), would (wood).

III. What do quotation-marks ("") inclose? Tell whose words are included between them in the first place where they are used;-in the second place, etc.

IV. Fellow, offered, "eighteen pence," certainly, cheap, bumpkin (blockhead), rascal, knave, provided, enormous, prize, lathered, grinning, grub, "hedger cutting furze," impostors, rogue, scamp, quoth.

V. Was it quite honest in Hodge to buy the razors if he thought they were stolen? Is there any need of "most" before " enormous"? Why is the bumpkin called a "clown"? "Flay themselves” (i. e., the razor scratched the skin off, but would not cut the beard).

XXV. ROBINSON CRUSOE'S MANUFACTURE OF

POTTERY.

1. I had long studied, by some means or other, to make myself some earthen vessels-which, indeed, I wanted much, but knew not where to come at them. However, considering the heat of the climate, I did not doubt but, if I could find out any clay, I might botch up some such pot as might, being dried in the sun, be hard and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anything that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this was necessary in the preparing corn-meal, etc., which was the thing I was upon, I resolved to make some as large as I could, and fit only to stand like jars, to hold what should be put into them.

2. It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell how many awkward ways I took to shape this jar; what odd, misshapen, ugly things I made; how many of them fell in, and how many fell out— the clay not being stiff enough to bear its own weight; how many cracked by the over-violent heat of the sun, being set out too hastily; and how many fell in pieces with only removing, as well before as after they were dried; and, in a word, how, after having labored hard to find the clay, to dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I could not make above two large earthen, ugly things (I can not call them jars) in about two months' labor.

3. However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, I lifted them very gently, and set them down again in two great wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them, that they might not break; and, as between the pot and the basket there was a little room to

spare, I stuffed it full of the rice and barley straw; and these two pots, being to stand always dry, I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal, when the corn was bruised.

4. Though I succeeded so poorly in my design for large pots, yet I made several smaller things with better success, such as little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and anything my hand turned to; and the heat of the sun baked them very hard.

5. But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an earthen pot to hold liquids and bear the fire, which none of these could do. It happened some time. after, making a pretty large fire for cooking my meat, when I went to put it out after I had done with it, I found a broken piece of one of my earthenware vessels in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone, and red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it, and said to myself that certainly they might be made to burn when whole, if they would burn when broken.

6. This set me to study how to order my fire so as to make it burn some pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the potters burn in, or of glazing them with lead, though I had some lead to do it with; but I placed three large pipkins and two or three pots in a pile, one upon another, and placed my fire-wood all around it, with a great heap of embers under them.

7. I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside and upon the top, till I saw the pots in the inside redhot quite through, and observed that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt or run; for the sand