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and Edward lived long enough to see the loss of all the English possessions in France, excepting Calais and a few other towns. The Black Prince, who was admired by the whole English nation, died in 1376; and one year after, his royal father followed him, in the 50th year of his reign.

EXERCISES.-I. Define,-Victories, devoted, energies, prevailed, homage, summoned, and deposition. 2. Briefly outline the reign of Edward I. 3. Give some account of the war with Scotland during the Edwardian period.

THE HARE AND HIS MANY FRIENDS.

Complied, agreed to.

JOHN GAY.

Dew-besprinkled, spotted with dew.

Transport, high pleasure.

Favourite, one in high esteem.

Languid, weak and slow.
Distressed, troubled.

Bestial, of animals.

Mazy, irregular, confusing.

Implored, asked earnestly.
Remarked, said.

Confessed, owned.

Presume, to take for granted.

Adieu, farewell.

A Hare, who in a civil way,

Complied with everything, like GAY,
Was known to all the bestial train
Who haunt the wood or graze the plain :

Her care was never to offend,

And every creature was her friend.

As forth she went at early dawn,
To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn,
Behind, she hears the hunters' cries,
And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies.
She starts, she stops, she pants for breath;
She hears the near approach of death;

She doubles, to mislead the hound,
And measures back her mazy round;
Till, fainting in the public way,
Half-dead with fear she gasping lay:
What transport in her bosom grew,
When first the Horse appeared in view!
"Let me," says she, "your back ascend,
And owe my safety to a friend.

You know my feet betray my flight;
To friendship every burden's light."

The Horse replied: "Poor honest Puss,
It grieves my heart to see thee thus:
Be comforted; relief is near,
For all your friends are in the rear.”

She next the stately Bull implored; And thus replied the mighty lord :

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'Since every beast alive can tell

That I sincerely wish you well,
I may, without offence, pretend
To take the freedom of a friend.
Love calls me hence: a favourite cow
Expects me near yon barley-mow;
And, when a lady's in the case,

You know, all other things give place.
To leave you thus might seem unkind;
But see, the Goat is just behind."

The Goat remarked her pulse was high,
Her languid head, her heavy eye :
"My back," says she, "may do you harm;
The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm."
The Sheep was feeble, and complained
His sides a load of wool sustained;
Said he was slow, confessed his fears,

"For hounds eat sheep as well as hares."

She now the trotting Calf addressed,
To save from death a friend distressed.
"Shall I," says he, "of tender age,
In this important case engage?
Older and abler passed you by;

How strong are those! How weak am I !
Should I presume to bear you hence,
Those friends of mine may take offence.
Excuse me, then; you know my

heart;
But dearest friends, alas! must part.
How shall we all lament! Adieu !

For, see, the hounds are just in view!"

NOTES.-JOHN GAY was born at Barnstaple, Devonshire, in 1688. He was apprenticed to a silk mercer of London, but did not follow the calling. He wrote many works, of which the Beggar's Opera and the Fables are best known. He died, 1732.

EXERCISES.-I. Define,-Ascend, comforted, relief, complained, sustained, addressed, engage, and lament. 2. Tell this fable in

plain prose. 3. Paraphrase the first eighteen lines.

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Occasionally, now and then,

Rigidly, firmly, strictly.
Audacity, extreme boldness.
Majority, the greater number.
Virtually, really.

Temptation, that which entices
to wrong doing.
Habitually, according to custom.
Genuine, real or true.

Lax, loose, not as by law.
Caprice, a sudden fancy or whim.
Embodiment, the forming into a
body.

Selected, sorted out.
Hindered, kept back.
Resorted, went to for aid.
Precisely, exactly.

Cowardly, like a coward by fear. We often hear of what boys calls a strict school, and we know pretty well what it means. Occasionally, we hear also of a lax school. Now, if you were asked which kind of school you would prefer, we think, after really

weighing the question, you would decide for the former. You like your own way well enough, but you have already found out that it is better to submit rigidly to the law of a wise and good governor, than to be subject to the arbitrary will and caprice of any one who has strength and audacity enough to act the bully or the tyrant.

As then, a strict school is a place in which law and not caprice reigns, and where that law is but the embodiment of the wisdom of the teacher, you feel far more safe and happy there than you could do where no such law prevails. Let us trace out a few of the principles on which school laws, or rules, are based.

First, your school authorities determine when you are to be at school. You would feel unjustly treated if, having come to school, you found no one ready to teach you. But as your teacher cannot be occupied all day long to suit individuals, certain portions of time most convenient to the majority must be selected for this purpose, and to these all must conform. Again, you are all aware that time is worth money; that is to say, time profitably employed earns money, so that to waste time is virtually to waste money. Now the time of your teacher belongs to all in the class or in the school. Any one, therefore, who acts so as to cause any of that time to be wasted, so far robs his schoolmates of what justly belongs to them, namely, the teacher's time, which as we have just said, is equal to money.

But you ask, how can your absence waste the time of the teacher? In this way: you learn in a class; that class has a certain amount of work set to be done in a given time. Most subjects to be mastered well must be studied, lesson by lesson, in regular order. A pupil who loses one step by absence, is not prepared to go on to

the next with the rest of the class. To recover this lost step, therefore, the old work has either to be gone over again, and the teacher and pupils alike are unnecessarily annoyed and hindered in their progress; or, you fall to the bottom of your class, and after so dragging on for awhile with dissatisfaction to every one concerned, you at last fall into a lower class and have to repeat some of the work already done.

At the beginning of this lesson we assumed that most of you would, after mature consideration, declare in favour of a strict school in opposition to a lax one. We think it may not be lost time if we endeavour to look at the grounds upon which such a decision was arrived at.

But let us first of all make it clear what we mean by a strict school. We mean one in which the rules and arrangements are framed in a wise and considerate spirit, and when made, are uniformly and rigidly enforced. Now this by no means implies that there shall be either much or little punishment. The truth is, it more frequently happens that the strict school has less, and less severe, punishment than the lax one; and for these two reasons: first, the law being certain to be enforced, no temptation is offered for the breaking of it, by the uncertainty of the merited punishment; and, in the second place, the teacher enforces law rigidly, because he knows that his rules are wise and tend to the welfare of all.

To illustrate further what we mean, we will, passing over such rules as require the full and best attention of each pupil during school hours, take the less obviously necessary law that forbids all copying, cribs, and any other means occasionally resorted to of trying to pass off the work of another as one's own.

On this point we have heard some young persons

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