EXERCISES.-1. The Latin prefix ex- (which has also the forms e-, ec-, ef-) means out of, from, as exclude, to shut out; educe, to lead out; eject, to throw out; eradicate, to root out; eccentric, from the centre; efflux, a flowing out; efface, to wipe out; effect, a thing made out.

2. Analyse and parse the following: 'A little calendar of small sticks lay at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there.'

3. Make sentences of your own, and use in each one or more of the following words: Soliloquy, captivity, alternately, disguise.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

[William Howard Russell, a brilliant journalist, acted as special correspondent to the Times, while the Crimean war (1854) was in progress, and from time to time sent home splendid battle pictures and descriptions. This is his account of the charge of the Light Brigade, rendered even more famous by Tennyson's spirited poem on the subject.]

1. And now occurred the melancholy catastrophe which fills us all with sorrow. Brigadier Airey gave an order in writing to Captain Nolan, to take to Lord Lucan, directing his lordship 'to advance' his cavalry nearer to the enemy.

2. When Lord Lucan received the order from Captain Nolan, and had read it, he asked, we are told, 'Where are we to advance to?' Captain Nolan pointed with his finger to the line of the Russians, and said, 'There are the enemy, and there are the guns, sir, before them; it is your duty to take them,' or words to that effect. Lord Lucan, with reluctance, gave the order to Lord Cardigan to advance upon the guns, conceiving that his orders compelled him to do so.

3. At ten minutes past eleven our Light Cavalry brigade advanced. The whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment, according to the numbers of

continental armies, and yet it was more than we could spare. As they rushed toward the front, the Russians opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendour of war.

4. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses! Surely that handful of men are not going to charge an army in position! Alas! it was but too true. Their desperate valour knew no bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its so-called better part-discretion.

5. They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace as they closed toward the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who beheld. these heroes rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of twelve hundred yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth from thirty iron mouths a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain.

6. The first line is broken!—it is joined by the second-they never halt, or check their speed an instant. With diminished ranks-thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy-with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into the smoke of the batteries; but ere they were lost from view, the plain was strewed with their bodies, and with the carcasses of horses.

7. They were exposed to an oblique fire from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to a

direct fire of musketry. Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabres flashing as they rode up to the guns and dashed between them, cutting down the gunners as they stood.

8. To our delight, we saw them returning after breaking through a column of Russian infantry and scattering them like chaff, when the flank-fire of the battery on the hill swept them down, scattered and broken as they were. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying toward us told the sad tale. Demigods could not have done what they had failed to do.

9. At the very moment when they were about to retreat, an enormous mass of lancers was hurled on their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the 8th Hussars, saw the danger, and rode his few men straight at them, cutting his way through with fearful loss. The other regiments turned, and engaged in a desperate encounter. With courage too great almost for credence, they were breaking their way through the columns which enveloped them, when there took place an act of atrocity without parallel in the modern warfare of civilised nations.

10. The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry passed, returned to their guns. They saw their own cavalry mingled with the troopers who had just ridden over them; and, to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, the miscreants poured a murderous volley of grape and canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, mingling friend and foe in one common ruin! It was as much as our heavy cavalry brigade could do to cover the retreat of the miserable remnants of the band of heroes as they returned to the place they had so lately quitted in all the pride of life. At thirty-five minutes past eleven not a British soldier, except the

dead and dying, was left in front of the Russian

oc-curred', took place; happened. mel'-an-chol-y cat-as'-troph-e, sad calamity.

Brig-a-dier', the officer who commands a brigade.

re-luc'-tance, unwillingness. con-ceiv'-ing, thinking.

com-pelled', forced.

ef-fect'-ive, fit for duty.

re-doubt', a little fort into which

soldiers may retire for shelter. dis-cre'-tion, prudence; good sense. spec'-ta-cle, sight. belched, poured forth. di-min'-ished, lessened.

ac'-cur-a-cy, certainty of aim; cor

sa'-bres, swords with broad and heavy blades, curved backwards at the point.

dem'-i-gods, beings endowed with

power more than human.
re-treat', turn back.
e-nor-mous, very great.
en-coun'-ter, fight.
cred'-ence, belief.

en-vel'-oped, surrounded and closed
them in.

a-troc'-i-ty, great cruelty.
par'-al-lel, thing equal or like.
mis'-cre-ants, vile bad men.
vol'-ley of grape and can'-is-ter,
the firing of the big guns loaded
with shot like clusters of
grapes, and of tin canisters
with wooden bottoms filled
with shot.
rem'-nants, remains.

EXERCISES.-1. The Latin prefix extra- means beyond; as extraordinary, beyond ordinary; extramural, beyond or without the walls; excessive, beyond bounds; extravagant, going beyond bounds.

2. Analyse and parse the following: 'Demigods could not have done what they had failed to do.'

3. Make sentences of your own, and use in each one or more of the following words: Compel, occur, encounter, diminish.

BIRDS OF SPRING-I.

[The following extracts are by Richard Jefferies, author of the Gamekeeper at Home, Wild Life in a Southern County, and many other works, descriptive of the varied aspects of country life, and of the haunts and habits of wild animals. The extracts are from a paper contributed by him to Chambers's Journal. ]

1. The birds of spring come as imperceptibly as the leaves. One by one the buds open on hawthorn and willow, till all at once the hedges appear green, and so the birds steal quietly into the bushes and trees, till by-and-by a chorus fills the wood, and each warm shower is welcomed with varied song. To many, the majority of spring

birds are really unknown; the cuckoo, the nightingale, and the swallow, are all with which they are acquainted, and these three make the summer. The loud cuckoo cannot be overlooked by any one passing even a short time in the fields; the nightingale is so familiar in verse that every one tries to hear it; and the swallows enter the towns and twitter at the chimney-top.

2. But these are really only the principal representatives of the crowd of birds that flock to our hedges in the early summer; and perhaps it would be accurate to