the flag, and passed back with it to his own ship. The English, seeing the flag struck, shouted victory, and the Dutch, not knowing how it had happened, were soon thrown into confusion, and the ship was taken. When this was done, to the surprise of all young Hopson descended from the rigging to the deck, with the enemy's flag wound round his arm. Some of the officers were disposed to blame him for this irregular piece of service, but the admiral commended his bravery, and rewarded it by promoting him upon the spot. Other occasions soon occurred to try his courage and skill, and he acquitted himself so well, that he rose rapidly to the highest honours. The most celebrated action in which he was engaged was the battle off Vigo, where he was in command as vice-admiral, at the beginning of Queen Anne's reign. Upon his return home he was knighted, and obtained a handsome pension from the queen. He now quitted the service, and resolved to pay a visit to the place of his birth. He had not once set foot in his native village since he left it as a runaway apprentice. Those inhabitants who remembered him as a lad, had heard of his exploits, without suspecting who the brave captain was. We can fancy how great must have been their astonishment when he appeared among them, and they learnt that the tailor's apprentice had returned to his native village, as the brave and illustrious admiral, Sir Thomas Hopson.

* Rigging.] The ropes attached to the masts and sails.

LESSON 10.

NOVEMBER IN ETTRICK FOREST.

NOVEMBER'S sky is chill and drear,
November's leaf is red and sear: *
Late, gazing down the steepy linn,†
That hems our little garden in,
Low in its dark and narrow glen,
You scarce the rivulet might ken,‡
So thick the tangled greenwood grew,
So feeble trill'd the streamlet through:
Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen
Through bush and brier, no longer green,
An angry brook it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade,
And, foaming brown with double speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

No longer Autumn's glowing red
Upon our forest hills is shed;

No more, beneath the evening beam,
Fair Tweed reflects their purple gleam;
Away hath pass'd the heather-bell
That bloom'd so rich on Needpath-fell ;§
Sallow his brow, and russet bare
Are now the sister-heights of Yare. §
The sheep, before the pinching heaven,
To shelter'd dale and down are driven,
Where yet some faded herbage pines,
And yet a watery sunbeam shines:
In meek despondency they eye
The wither'd sward and wintry sky,
And far beneath their summer hill,
Stray sadly by Glenkinnon's rill:
The shepherd shifts his mantle's fold,
And
wraps him closer from the cold;

Sear.] Dry. † Steepy linn.] Stream with steep banks.

Ken.] Discover.

§ Mountains in the neighbourhood.

E

*

His dogs no merry circles wheel,
But, shivering, follow at his heel,
A cowering glance they often cast,
As deeper moans the gathering blast.

*

My imps, though hardy, bold, and wild,

As best befits the mountain child,

Feel the sad influence of the hour,
And wail the daisy's vanish'd flower;
Their summer gambols tell, and mourn,
And anxious ask," Will spring return,
And birds and lambs again be gay,
And blossoms clothe the hawthorn spray ?"

Yes, prattlers, yes. The daisy's flower
Again shall paint your summer bower:
Again the hawthorn shall supply
The garlands you delight to tie;
The lambs upon the lea shall bound,'
The wild birds carol to the round,
And while you frolic light as they,
Too short shall seem the summer day.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

*Imps.] Children.

LESSON 11.

GREENLAND MISSIONARIES.-PART I.

HIGH up in the cold northern ocean, between Iceland and the north-east of America, you will see a large country, called Greenland. It consists, for the most part, of barren rocks and lofty mountains covered with perpetual snow. But there are valleys in the south and west, which lie open to the sea at one end and are shut in on the other sides by the mountains, and in those low grounds the earth is thawed in June, and does not freeze again until September.

During the short summer the sun shines very warmly upon the valleys, and causes the grass and mosses of various kinds to spring up abundantly, so that the earth is covered with a green carpet, and by the side of the little brooks which water the valleys there are berry-bearing shrubs, birch trees, and willows; but they are all very small. A tree is thought large in Greenland if it grows to the height of a man, and has a stem three or four inches thick. Many hundred years ago, men from Iceland and Norway discovered this country and settled there. They hunted the rein-deer, the white bears, and foxes, and caught abundance of fish and sea-fowl for their food; they had also plenty of seals, which they valued for their oil and skins. These men were heathens when they first came to Greenland; but soon afterwards Christian missionaries preached the gospel in Norway, and in a few years the glad tidings were carried to Greenland also. Then the settlers gave up the worship of their false gods, and were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ: and churches, of which the ruins remain to this day, began to be built in the Greenland valleys.

For a long while the settlers prospered and increased in the land. A tribe of savages who were very short of stature used sometimes to visit Greenland, coming in canoes from the west. They were feeble and timid, and the settlers, who were a tall and robust race, despised these people, and, sometimes, ill-treated them, for they had not yet learned from their religion to be kind to every one, and to "honour all men."

And now sad times came. In the year 1350, a terrible plague, called the Black Death, which had

ravaged Asia and Europe, spread even to Greenland. So many of the settlers died that some of the valleys were quite deserted, and the next time that the savages came they found their former enemies weak and few in number, and they took possession of much of the best land themselves. The people of Norway had been used to send ships very frequently to Greenland, but they suffered so much themselves, at first from the plague, and afterwards from war with the neighbouring countries, that for many years they quite neglected their brethren in that distant land. After a long time a clergyman was sent out to be Bishop of Greenland, and many other persons went with him, but they were never heard of again, and no one knew what became of the ship. Other ships were sent, and were driven back by storms, or broken to pieces in the floating ice, and the Norwegians became afraid to send any more. But, now and then, ships which went to the whale fishery in the northern seas visited the coast of Greenland, and the sailors reported that they saw savages there whose language they did not understand. And so three hundred and fifty years passed away from the time of the Black Death, and few persons in Norway remembered that there had once been Christian men in Greenland, who spoke the same language and were of the same race as themselves.

About the year 1710, a clergyman, named Hans Egede, who had read the history of the settlers in Greenland, became very anxious that some one should go and find out such of their descendants as remained in the country. He feared they must have become heathens like the savages around them, it was so