fun and frolic they will have. All your hushing and humming are vain. Your efforts to put them to sleep only serve to wake you up. A bouncing boy, a year and a half old, creeping out of his crib slily, and pouncing upon his father's face with chirp and chuckle is better than any alarum-clock. A clock will soon run out its cacophonous rattle, but a child never runs down or ends his fun till you are out of bed. But since taking up our abode near a wood in the country, we have discovered a new method of waking early. For a countless multitude of birds, in all the trees and shrubbery, aim their notes at us with such sweet archery that we are pierced through and through with the silver arrows of music. It is in vain that you wrap the pillows about your ears. It is useless for you to reflect that you need sleep, and will not get up. Every one knows that the effort of will made to resist the influence of sound is sure to defeat its own purpose. While we are resisting we are wakening. 7 Thus, this very morning, all the trees about our little old house were belfries, and rang out more chimes than were ever heard at Cologne or Antwerp. After the first dawn of consciousness we turned resolutely to the wall, determined to sleep on. But that's a robin," said our ears; "that's a thrush; " and "there pipes a blackbird:" and the whole orchestra with flutes, fifes, and clarionets tuned up, and seemed to laugh us out of the idea of sleeping. No; if any one really wants to rise early, there is nothing like a rural retreat, where there is no gas or electric light in the streets to turn night into day, and where the only concert-halls are the woods and groves, in which the performance begins about four in the morning. 1 A literature, the books written in any given language; thus English literature consists of the books written in English. (Lat. litera, a letter.) 2 People in Europe, &c. This is in one sense quite true, because the sun rises in London five hours before it rises at New York. For every 15° of longitude the difference of time is one hour. 3 The Orient, the East. 4 Barometer, an instrument for measuring the weight of the atmosphere. (Gr. baros, weight; metron, measure.) 5 Thermometer, an instrument for measuring the temperature of the atmosphere. (Gr. thermos, warm.) Cacophonous, ill-sounding. (Gr. kakos, bad; phone, sound.) 6 7 Dawn of consciousness, beginning to be conscious or aware of one's own existence. LYCIDAS. [In this poem Milton bewails his learned friend and fellow-student, Edward King, who was unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester, in the Irish Sea, 1637.] YET once more, O ye laurels, and once more, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude; 4 Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 8 For we were nursed upon the self-same hill," Towards heaven's descent had sloped his westering But O the heavy change now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! 12 Thee, shepherd, thee, the woods, and desert caves, With wild thyme and the gadding vine 12 o'ergrown, And all their echoes mourn: The willows, and the hazel copses green, Shall now no more be seen Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays; Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. Alas! what boots it 13 with incessant care Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise To scorn delights and live laborious days: Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, 20 Nor in the glistering foil 22 Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." Weep no more, woful Shepherds, weep no more, For Lycidas your sorrow 23 is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor; So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves. Where, other groves and other streams along, 15 Abridged. 14 Shepherd's trade, here the poet's 16 As others use, as others are ac- 17 Amaryllis and Neæra. No one in particular is meant; they are merely names for maidens in general. 18 Last infirmity, &c. Fame, or the love of glory, is the last desire that the noblest lose. 19 Guerdon, reward; in this case, 20 The blind Fury, &c., death comes 23 Your sorrow, your cause of sor row. 24 Unexpressive, inexpressible; that cannot be expressed. A THE EUCALYPTUS. FRENCH naturalist, about a hundred years ago, discovered in Tasmania a tree which is likely to become widely spread throughout the world, and which has already turned many a waste into a beautiful woodland. This famous tree is the Eucalyptus. Its discoverer describes it as "one of the loftiest objects in nature." "The trunk," he proceeds, "is suitable for purposes of naval construction, and would serve for masts, though not so light and elastic as that of the pine. We were obliged to fell one of them to procure the flowers. The sun was then very hot, and the sap rose to the surface abundantly. This handsome tree of the myrtle tribe has a thin bark; the branches curl a little in shooting upwards; and the bark, the leaves, and the fruit are aromatic." 1 All that he noticed was the natural beauty of the tree and the value of its timber, which is, indeed, almost as hard and durable as the best Burmese teak. But of its two most important qualities-the rapidity of its growth, and its effect in checking miasma 2-he does not seem to have been aware. The Eucalyptus is said in seven years to attain a girth equal to that of the best English oak in twenty, and in twenty years to far exceed the dimensions of an oak five times its age; while the wood is so firm and dense that a large baulk of it will sink even in the open sea. From Tasmania the timber is very largely exported. South Sea whalers, and other vessels which have to stand rough work, are built of it in the American dockyards, and it also furnishes admirable material for railway sleepers. But even more valuable than the uses to which it can be put when felled are those which it serves |