according to an immemorable right of way; the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of the present race have sported; the antique family mansion, standing apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the surrounding scene,—all these common features of English landscape evince a calm and settled security, an hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation.

It is a pleasant sight on a Sunday morning, when the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, with ruddy faces and modest cheerfulness, thronging tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gathering about their cottage doors, and appearing to exult in the humble comforts and embellishments which their own hands have spread around them.

It is this sweet home-feeling, this settled repose of affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments. IRVING.

EXQUISITE; accurate, exact, very excellent. HARMONIOUS; adapted to each other, having the parts proportioned to each other, symmetrical. COMBINATION; union of particulars. COY AND FURTIVE; modest and shy. FOLIAGE; clusters of leaves, flowers, and branches. GLADE; open place in a forest. COVERT; a shelter, a hiding-place. SEQUESTERED; secluded, retired. QUAINT; odd, fanciful, singular. TRACERY; ornamental stone-work. YEOMANRY; the collective body of freeholders. HEREDITARY; that which descends from an ancestor, as from a parent to a child. DOMAIN; land about a family mansion. RUDDY; color of the human skin in high health. EMBELLISHMENT; that which renders any thing pleasing to the eye, or agreeable to the taste, in dress, furni*ure, manners, or in the fine arts.

THE SUMMER WIND.

DEW; long u, not oo. MORNING; sound the r, and give the last n its ringing sound; do not call it mawnin. sound. FLOWERS; erz as in hers, not uz. FIERCE; ie like long e. MEADOW; ow like SOUNDS; Sound ndz.

SCARCE; give a its long AGAIN; ai like short e long o, not er, nor uh

Ir is a sultry day; the sun has drunk
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervors: the tall maize
Rolls up its long, green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.
But far in the fierce sunshine tower the hills,
With all their growth of woods, silent and stern,
As if the scorching heat and dazzling light
Were but an element they loved. Bright clouds
Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven,

Their bases on the mountains, their white tops
Shining in the far ether fire the air

With a reflected radiance, and make turn
The gazer's eye away. For me, I lie
Languidly in the shade, where the thick turf,
Yet virgin from the kisses of the sun,
Retains some freshness, and I woo the wind
That still delays its coming. Why so slow,
Gentle and voluble spirit of the air?

O, come and breathe upon the fainting earth
Coolness and life. Is it that in his caves
He hears me? See, on yonder woody ridge,

The pine
is bending his proud top; and now
Among the nearer groves, chestnut and oak

Are tossing their green boughs about. He comes i
Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in waves!
The deep, distressful silence of the scene
Breaks up with mingling of unnumbered sounds
And universal motion. He is come,

Shaking a shower of blossoms from the shrubs,
And bearing on their fragrance; and he brings
Music of birds, and rustling of young boughs,
And sound of swaying branches, and the voice
Of distant waterfalls. All the green herbs
Are stirring on his breath: a thousand flowers,
By the road-side and borders of the brook,
Nod gayly to each other; glossy leaves
Are twinkling in the sun, as if the dew
Were on them yet, and silver waters break
Into small waves and sparkle as he comes.

SULTRY; very hot, burning, and oppressive. CANOPIES; covers cer extends over. POTENT; powerful. FERVOR; heat. DECLINES; bends downward. BLOOMS; used for BLOSSOMS. VOLUBLE; active, moving with ease. FRAGRANCE; perfume, grateful odor.

RURAL LIFE IN SWEDEN.

SOMETHING; give n its ringing sound. NORTHERN; er as in her. FORESTS; Sound sts. YELLOW; short e, not short a-ow like long o, not uh. WARM; Sound the r. FIELDS; sound ldz. TAVERNS; sound rnz. HOUSEWIFE; huzwif. MONTHS; sound nths- do not call it munse.

THERE is something patriarchal still lingering about rural life in Sweden, which renders it a fit theme for song. Almost primeval simplicity reigns over that 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. Overhead hang the long, fan-like branches, trailing with moss, and heavy with red and blue cones. 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, and anon come forth into a pleasant and sunny land of farms. Wooden fences divide the adjoining fields. Across the road are gates, which are opened by troops of children.

The

and

peasants take off their hats as you pass. You sneeze, they cry, "God bless you." The houses in the villages and smaller towns are all built of hewn timber, and for the most part painted red. The floors of the taverns are strown with the fragrant tips of fir boughs.

In many villages there are no taverns, and the peasants take turns in receiving travellers. 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, - an heirloom, -to dip the curdled milk from the pan. You have oaten cakes baked some months before; or bread with anise-seed and coriander in it, or, perhaps, a little pine bark in it.

Meanwhile the sturdy husband has brought his horses from the plough, and harnessed them to your carriage. Solitary travellers come and go in uncouth one-horse chaises. Most of them have pipes in their mouths, and hanging around their necks in front, a leather wallet, in which they carry tobacco, and the great bank notes of the country, as large as your two hands. You meet, also, groups of Dalekarlian peasant women, travelling homeward, or townward 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. 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 rusty key, shows you the baptismal font, or the coffin. In the churchyard are a few flowers, and much green grass; and daily the shadow of the church spire, with its long, tapering finger, counts the tombs, representing a dial-plate of human life, on which the hours and minutes are the graves of men. 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.

Nor must I forget the suddenly-changing seasons of the northern clime. There is no long and lingering spring, unfolding leaf and blossom, one by one; no long and lingering autumn, pompous with many-colored leaves and the glow of Indian summers. But winter and summer are wonderful, and pass into each other. The quail has hardly ceased piping in the corn, when winter, from the folds of trailing clouds, sows broadcast over the land snow, icicles, and rattling hail.

The days wane apace. Ere long the sun hardly rises

above the horizon, or does not rise at all.

The moon and the stars shine through the day; only, at noon, they are pale and wan, and in the southern sky a red, fiery glow, as of sunset, burns along the horizon, and then goes out. And pleasantly under the silver moon, and under the silent, solemn stars, ring the steel shoes of the skaters on the frozen sea, and voices, and the sound of bells.

And now the northern lights begin to burn, faintly at first, like sunbeams playing in the waters of the blue sea. Then a soft crimson glow tinges the heavens. There is a blush on the cheek of night. The colors come and go; and change from crimson to gold, from gold to crimson. The snow is