pelled to plant this vegetable? Were not vast sums of money retained in the land by the cultivation of the potato, which would otherwise have been used to purchase rice and other grains in foreign markets? Had not the king succeeded in introducing the silk-worm into his dominions? Had not the manufacture of woolen goods been greatly promoted by the adoption of a better method of raising sheep?

4. But Frederick had not only fostered agriculture and industry; he had also evinced the liveliest sympathy for the arts and sciences. Scholars and artists were called to his court, and every assistance was rendered them. Universities and academies were also endowed. His life was drawing to a close; and the poor decrepit body reminded the strong and active mind that it would soon leave its prison, and soar to heaven, or into illimitable space.

5. There were several hours in which he suffered but little, and these were in the early morning, when he felt refreshed after having slept one or two hours. One or two hours sleep! These were all that Nature accorded the royal invalid, who had watched over Prussia's honor for half a century, and whose eyes were now weary and longed for repose.

6. But he wished to employ his hours of wakefulness in the night for the good of the people, and ordered that the members of his cabinet assemble in his room with their reports at four o'clock in the morning. After he had ridden in his gardens, and taken a last leave of the scenes so dear to him, he was carried again into his dark house, and into his library. "All is finished," he said loudly. "I have seen my gardens for the last time, and have taken leave of Nature. When my body leaves this house again it will be borne to eternal rest, but my spirit will fly to you, my friends, and roam with you in endless light and knowledge. But," he continued in firmer. tones, "my sun has not yet set, and as long as it is light, I must and will work.”

7. No one dared disturb him, as he sat writing at his desk. Yet his favorite companion, his faithful greyhound Alkmene,

sat watching him intently, and when the king spoke to her, barked joyously and jumped into his lap. The king pressed the little greyhound to his breast; deep silence reigned in the room. The wind howled dismally through the trees in the garden, and whispered and murmured as if the voices of the night and the spirits of the flowers and trees wished to bring the king a greeting. Suddenly Alkmene uttered a long and dismal howl, and ran to the door, and scratched and whined until the servants took heart and entered the room. The king lay groaning in his arm-chair, his eyes glazed, and blood flowing from his pale lips. His physician and a surgeon were summoned at once, and the king was bled, and his forehead rubbed with strengthening salts.

8. He awoke once more to life and its torments; and for a few weeks the heroic mind conquered death and bodily decrepitude. When the king of the desert, the lion, feels that his end is approaching, he goes into the forest, seeks the densest jungle and profoundest solitude, and lies down to die. Nature has ordained that no one shall desecrate by his presence the last death-agony of the king of the desert. His Sans Souci was the great Frederick's holy and solitary retreat; and there it was that the hero and king breathed his last sigh on earth, without murmur or complaint. He died on the morning of the seventeenth of August, in the year 1786. 9. A great man had ceased to live. There lay the inanimate form of him who had been called Frederick the Second. But a star arose in the heavens, and wise men gave it the name in Frederick's honor. The same star still shines in the firmament, and seems to greet us and Prussia: Frederick's Honor!

Sans Souci (without care). The name of the palace of Frederick the Great.

A

LESSON LVII.

THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS.

ANONYMOUS.

MONG the stories in the Arabian Nights which first fix

the attention of most people, is that of the merchant who understood the language of animals, and a delightful story it is. The youthful imagination sees no absurdity in the idea; and I often ask myself, is fable entirely wrong in this matter? Have not all animals a language of their own? Have not birds a language which other birds understand? and insects? and, for that matter, even fishes?

2. We know that there are many creatures on the earth utterly unconscious of the existence of man; and we might, if we were not too proud, ask ourselves, in like manner, if there may not be many things in the animal creation of which man is necessarily unconscious. If I walk through the woods on a bright summer's day, or sit under the oaken or beechen shadows, I am conscious of a tide and tremor of life around me. I hear the birds singing, and twittering, and chattering, each species with its own peculiar note.

3. I hear the bees and the flies buzzing with more or less vigor, pertinacity, and volume of sound; while a faint echo comes from the distant pastures of the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle, and the barking of the shepherds' dogs. I ask myself whether all these various sounds may not be so many languages, perfectly intelligible to the creatures which speak them to each other, though unintelligible to me. I know that some animals-the dog especially-understand many words that I employ, if I speak emphatically, and that my own dog will do what I tell him; but if I do not understand what one dog says to another, whose fault is it, mine or the dog's?

4. A single sound, with a rising or a falling accent, or a stronger or weaker emphasis, may express different meanings;

and the same sound repeated twice, thrice, or four times, with the rising or falling accent at the first, second, third, or fourth repetition, may contain a whole vocabulary for the simple creatures who emit and understand the sound, and whose wants and emotions are as circumscribed as their speech.

5. Professor Max Müller supplies us with an illustration in point. He says that in the Chinese, the Annamitic, and likewise in the Siamese and Burmuse languages, one single sound does duty in this way for a great variety of meanings. "Thus," he says, "in Annamitic, ba,' pronounced with a grave accent, means a lady or an ancestor; pronounced with a sharp accent, it means the favorite of a prince; pronounced with the semigrave accent, it means what has been thrown away; pronounced with the grave circumflex, it means what is left of fruit after having been squeezed; pronounced with no accent, it means three; and pronounced with the interrogative accent, it means a box on the ear. Thus: Ba bà bà bá, is said to mean, if properly pronounced, 'Three ladies gave a box on the ear to the favorite of the prince.'

6. If we consider this subject without prejudice, may we not see reason to think that the "Bow, wow, wow," of our estimable friend, the dog, may be susceptible of a great variety of meanings, according to the tone and accentuation he gives to those fundamental words or syllables of his language, or the number of repetitions either of the "bow" or the "wow"? Sometimes when a dog barks he will omit the "bow" altogether, and say, "wow, wow, wow," very sharply and rapidly; and it can be scarcely supposed that so very intelligent a creature has no reason for this little change in his customary phraseology.

7. Not only could I cite instances of the language of dogs, but of many other animals, did not my limited space forbid, yet I will refer to a few others. Take, for instance, such an humble creature as the crow. It is difficult to believe that this bird has not two or three, and the nightingale at least a dozen notes in its voice, and that these notes may not, in their

interchange, reiteration, and succession, express ideas with which crows are familiar, and whole poems or histories, such as nightingales love to repeat to one another; and that any one of the many notes in the sweet song of the skylark may not, according to its accentuation, or even its place in the gamut, express as many shades of meaning as the Annamitic ba" of which Mr. Max Müller discourses.

66

8. If animals cannot understand our language, unless in a very few instances of ordinary occurrence, and when accompanied by sign, gesture, and the expression of the eye, neither can we understand their language, except it have the same mute accompaniments. Emerson says that, "we are wiser than we know; I say, it is possible, with all our undoubted superiority, and all our pride of intellect, that we are not so wise as we think.

Max Müller. An eminent German, versed in Eastern languages and literature, born at Dessau, 1823.

LESSON LVIII.

THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the fifteenth of August, 1771. After having undergone the usual routine of juvenile instruction, Sir Walter became a pupil in the High School of Edinburgh; but as a scholar, he appears to have been by no means remarkable for proficiency. At the age of twenty-one, he was called to the bar as an advocate; but it was not his lot to acquire either wealth or distinction at the bar. It was in the field of literature that he was to win the immortality he so well deserved. As a poet or novelist, of whatever age or country, Scott may justly claim to stand in the foremost ranks. Some of his best poems are, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, and Rokeby: while the Waverly Novels are among the purest and brightest gems of English litera ture. He died at Abbotsford, on the twenty-first of September, 1832.

66

"BUT look

OUT see! look up!-on Flodden bent,

The Scottish foe has fired his tent."

And sudden, as he spoke,

From the sharp ridges of the hill,

All downward to the banks of Till,