LESSON XXI.

THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED.

1. THE day had passed away as a night of rich dreams goes by, and we were unconscious how long we had been strolling around the walls, until the evening light began to stream in more and more feebly through the lofty stained windows, and a deeper gloom settled upon every part of the Abbey. And when increasing darkness had spread through all the cloisters, chapels, and passages, a more solemn and mysterious gloom, I could not but ask, what is night, deep, dark night, without moon, star, or taper, around these silent poets, barons, priests, sages, heroes, and kings?

2. Is never a sigh heard to come forth from these damp tombs? a shout from some sleeping warrior? Might we nor hear from some part of the Abbey a faint voice as if it came from "spirit land?" No! these dead do never waken or walk; the battle-ax has fallen from the strong hand of the Saxon and the Norman, and they rest in stillness together. Genius, which lived in sorrow and died in want, here sleeps as proudly as royalty. All is silence; but here "silence is greater than speech."

3. This is the great treasure-house of England. If every record on earth besides were blotted out, and the memory of the living should fade away, the stranger could still in Westminster Abbey write the history of the past; for England's records are here; from the rude and bloody escutcheons of the ancient Briton to the ensigns of Norman chivalry, and from these to admiralty stars and civic honors. The changes which civilization has made in its progress through the world, have left their impressions upon these stones and marbles.

4. On the monument where each great man rests, his age has uttered its language; and among such numbers of the dead there is the language of many ages. England speaks from its barbarity, its revolutions, and its newest civilization

Each generation has laid some of its illustrious ones here, and it is no wonder that there is not a spot to which an Englishman turns his eyes with so much pride as to Westminster; nor a spot which the traveler so well loves to visit.

5. One cannot but feel both gratitude and indignation here; gratitude for every noble effort in behalf of humanity, civilization, liberty, and truth, made by these sleepers; indignation at every base deed, every effort to quench the light of science or destroy freedom of thought; every outrage inflicted upon man; and every blow aimed against liberty by the oppressors of the race.

6. There is not a great author here who did not write for us; not a man of science who did not investigate truth for us; we have received advantage from every hour of toil that ever made these good and great men weary. A wanderer from the most distant and barbarous nation on earth cannot come here without finding the graves of his benefactors.

7. Those who love science and truth, and long for the day when perfect freedom of thought and action shall be the common heritage of man, will feel grateful, as they stand under these arches, for all the struggles, and all the trials to enlighten and emancipate the world, which the great who here rest from their labors have so nobly endured.

8. And, above all, the scholar who has passed his best years in study, will here find the graves of his teachers. He has long worshiped their genius; he has gathered inspiration and truth from their writings; they have made his solitary hours, which to other men are a dreary waste, like the magical gardens of Armida," "whose enchantments arose amid solitude, and whose solitude was every where among those enchantments." The scholar may wish to shed his tears alone, but he cannot stand by the graves of his masters in Westminster Abbey without weeping; they are tears of love and gratitude.

a Ar-mi'-da.

LESSON XXII.

THE SAME SUBJECT, CONCLUDED.
LESTER.

1. Old structure! Round thy solid form
Have heaved the crowd, and swept the storm,
And centuries roll'd their tide;

Yet still thou standest firmly there,
Thy gray old turrets stern and bare,
The grave of human pride.

2. Erect, immovable, sublime,

As when thou soaredst in thy prime,
On the bold Saxon's sight;

Thou holdest England's proudest dead,
From him who there first laid his head,
"The royal anchoret."

3. Mysterious form, thy old gray wall
Has seen successive kingdoms fall,
And felt the mighty beat

Of Time's deep flood, as thrones, and kings,
And crowns, and all earth's proudest things,
It scatter'd at thy feet.

4. 'Tis vanished! "like a morning cloud,”

The throne, the king, the shouting crowd,

And here I stand alone;

And like the ocean's solemn roar
Upon some distant, desert shore,
A low, perpetual moan.

5. I seem to hear the steady beat
Of century-waves around my feet,

As generations vast,

Are borne unto the dim-seen strand

Of that untrodden, silent land,

That covers all the past.

a Turrets; small towers. b This word should be pronounced in two syllables on account of the measure. e Anch-or-et; a hermit, a recluse.

6. Here too are slumbering, side by side,
Like brother warriors true and tried,
Two stern and haughty foes;

Their stormy hearts are still; the tongue,
On which enraptured thousands hung,
Is hush'd in long repose.

LESSON XXIII.

LIFE IN SWEDEN.

LONGFELLOW.

1. LIFE in Sweden is for the most part patriarchal. Almost primeval simplicity reigns over this northern land, almost primeval solitude and stillness. You pass out from the gate of the city, and, as if by magic, the scene changes to a wild, woodland landscape. Around you are forests of fir. Over head hang the long, fan-like branches, trailing with moss, and heavy with red and blue cones.

2. Under foot is a carpet of yellow leaves; and the air is warm and balmy. On a wooden bridge you cross a little silver stream. Anon you come forth into a pleasant and sunny land of farms. Wooden fences divide the adjoining fields. Across the road are gates, which are opened for you by troops of children. The peasants take off their hats as you pass. You sneeze, and they cry, God bless you. The houses in the villages and smaller cities are all built of hewn timber, and for the most part painted red.

3. The floors of the taverns are strewn with the fragrant tips of fir boughs. In many villages there are no taverns, and the peasants take turns in receiving travelers. The thrifty housewife shows you into the best chamber, the walls of which are hung round with rude pictures from the Bible; and brings you her heavy silver spoons wherewith to dip the curdled milk from the pan.

4. You have oaten cakes baked some months before; or bread with anise seed and coriander in it, and perhaps a little

pine bark. Meanwhile the sturdy husband has brought his horses from the plow, and harnessed them to your carriage. Solitary travelers come and go in uncouth one-horse chaises. Most of them have pipes in their mouths, and hanging around their necks in front, a leathern wallet, wherein they carry tobacco.

5. You meet, also, groups of peasant women, traveling homeward, or city-ward, in pursuit of work. They walk barefoot, carrying in their hands their shoes, which have high heels under the hollow of the foot, and soles of birch bark. Frequent, too, are the village churches, standing by the roadside, each in its own little garden of Gethsemane.a

6. In the parish register great events are doubtless recorded. Some old king was christened or buried in that church; and a little sexton, with a great rusty key, shows you the baptismal font, or the coffin. In the church-yard are a few flowers, and much green grass; and daily the shadow of the church spire, with its long tapering finger, counts the tombs, thus representing an index of human life, on which the hours and minutes are the graves of men.

7. The stones are flat, and large, and low, and perhaps sunken, like the roofs of old houses. On some are armorial bearings; on others only the initials of the poor tenants, with a date, as on the roofs of Dutch cottages. They all sleep with their heads to the westward. Each held a lighted taper in his hand when he died; and in his coffin were placed his little heart-treasures, and a piece of money for his last journey. 8. Near the church-yard gate stands a poor-box, fastened to a post by iron bands, and secured by a padlock, with a sloping wooden roof to keep off the rain. If it be Sunday, the peasants sit on the church steps and con their psalm-books. Others are coming down the road with their beloved pastor, who talks to them of holy things from beneath his broad-brimmed hat.

a Geth-sem'-a-ne; a Scriptural allusion to the retired garden of Gethsemane near Jerusalem, in which Christ prayed before he was betrayed by Judas. b This superstition was also common to the ancient Romans and American Indians. c Journey; passage from this

to another world of existence.