The Normans, strong in cavalry, again and again dashed up the hill against the unyielding ranks of the English, but could not drive them from their position. The advantage lay long with Harold's men, though, as the day wore on, the superior numbers and arms of the Normans began to tell upon them. At last, the Normans pretended to retreat, and the English, leaving the hill to chase them, fell into confusion. The Norman archers, too, finding that their arrows glanced harmlessly off the close-formed English shields, shot them high in the air so as to fall on the defenceless heads of the hinder ranks. King Harold, who had led with the sagacity of a great general, and had fought all day like a lion, fell at last, pierced in the eye with an arrow. The English standard was taken, and the remains of the brave little army fled from the field,-defeated indeed, but not disgraced.

After this decisive victory, William stayed awhile at Hastings, the nearest town; then took Pevensey, also in Sussex; and after obtaining possession of the important towns of Dover and Canterbury, he received the submission of the English barons at Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on Christmas-day, 1066; and thus became King William I. of England.

EXERCISES.-I. Define,-Neighbouring, retained, recognised, concealed, unyielding, possession, and submission. 2. Show how the English, Danes, and Normans were related, and mention some points in which they were unlike. 3. Give an account of the great battle of Senlac (Hastings).

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down

Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till lost by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret,
By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come, and men may go, But I go on for ever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel,
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers,
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance
Among the skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars,
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;

I loiter round my cresses ;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

NOTES. ALFRED TENNYSON, our present " Poet Laureate," was born at Somerby in Lincolnshire, 1809. "The Brook" is a poempicture of a scene in the author's native county. The happy way in which the peculiarities of the scene are described is worthy of very careful study. Tennyson still lives, now and again charming us with his ever melodious and ever characteristic poems.

To understand and properly feel the poem, the reader should study somewhat in detail the geography of Lincolnshire,-its wolds and hills, its fens and marshes, its springs and watercourses. The village of Somerby is about midway between Horncastle and Spilsby. The largest watercourse near is the River Bain, and "The Brook" of the poet is probably one of its small feeders.

TO THE TEACHER.-At this stage the parsing of the first poetical extract from Cowper will probably have been completed; it is recommended that this piece by Tennyson should take its place. Each stanza may be taken in order as one lesson.

EXERCISES.- -1. Give a description of the physical features of Lincolnshire. 2. Paraphase the first six stanzas. 3. Paraphrase the remainder of the poem.

If the structure of the earth on which man dwells, and of the beasts, birds, and fishes that live upon its surface,

forms a profitable subject of study, surely it must be a still more interesting and profitable one for him to understand his own frame, and the conditions under which his bodily and mental powers will best grow and develop themselves. It is equally clear that there can be no safe treatment of disease but that which is based upon a knowledge of the frame to be healed; of the functions. of its several parts and organs; as well as of the properties of the substances employed, and their effects upon living bodies. Notwithstanding this fact, it is true that for many ages the practice of medicine was not so based, but was guided by arbitrary rules, founded upon little better than crude guesses and fanciful theories.

As in literature, art, and science generally, Italy took the lead in the awakening known as the "Revival of Letters," so too was it in Anatomy and Medicine. Here, early in the 14th century, Mundinas, and somewhat later Fabricius at Padua, did much to throw off the yoke of the ancients. But our countryman, Harvey, by demonstrating the true theory of the movements of the heart and blood, led the way for raising medicine from an empirical to a true art based on science.

William Harvey was born at Folkestone, in Kent, in 1578; so that he was contemporary with Shakespeare in England, and with Galileo in Italy. Harvey graduated at Cambridge, and then went to Padua to complete his medical training. It was while listening to the lectures of the famous Fabricius, that Harvey obtained his first notions on the subject on which he afterwards became so renowned. This eloquent Italian teacher appears to have made some advance towards understanding the structure and functions of the heart. In 1602, Harvey returned to England, and commenced practice in London. Seven