"Forward, the Light Brigade:
Charge for the guns!" he said.
Into the valley of death,
Rode the six hundred.

2. "Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldiers knew
Some one had blundered;
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of death,
Rode the six hundred.

3. Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volleyed and thùndered:
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well;
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell,

Rode the six hundred.

4. Flashed all their sàbres bare,
Flashed as they turned in áir,
Sab'ring the gunners thére,
Charging an ármy, while

All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery smoke,
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian

Reeled from the saber-stroke,

Shattered and sùndered.

Then they rode back, but not,

Not the six hundred.

5. Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them,

Volleyed and thùndered:
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero féll,
They that had fought so well,
Came through the jaws of death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

6. When can their glòry fade?
O, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

ALFRED TENNYSON.

20.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING.

From one of the following books or periodicals, select some interesting extract, and let each pupil read one or more paragraphs or stanzas: St. Nicholas, Tennyson's Poems, Hawthorne's True Stories, Youth's Companion, The Century, Harper's Monthly.

DEFINING MATCH. Choose sides. Select words from all previous defining lessons.

21. ABOUT RIVERS.

Mark this piece for inflection, emphasis, and pauses, as the first paragraph is marked.

1. Let us trace a river to its sòurce. Beginning where it empties itself into the séa, and following it backwards, we find it from time to time joined by tributaries which swell its waters. The river of course becomes smáller | as these tributaries | are pàssed. It shrinks | first | to a brook, then | to a streàm; this again divides itself | into a number of stréamlets, ending in mere threads of water.

2. These constitute the source of the river, and are usually found among hills. Thus, the Severn has its source in the Welsh mountains; the Thames, in the Cotswold Hills; the Missouri, in the Rocky Mountains; and the Amazon, in the Andes of Peru. But it is quite plain that we have not yet reached the real beginning of the rivers. Whence do the earliest streams derive their water?

3. A brief residence among the mountains would prove to you that the streams are fed by rains. In dry weather you would find the streams feeble; sometimes, indeed, quite dried up. In wet weather you would see them foaming torrents. In general, these streams lose themselves as little threads of water upon the hill-sides.

4. Sometimes you may trace a river to a definite spring. But you very soon assure yourself that such springs are also fed by rain, which has percolated through the rocks or soil, and which, through some orifice that it has found or formed, comes to the light of day. But we cannot end here.

5. Whence comes the rain that forms the mountain streams? Observation enables you to answer the question. Rain does not come from a clear sky.

It comes

from clouds. But what are clouds? Is there nothing you are acquainted with which they resemble? You discover at once a likeness between them and the condensed steam of a locomotive.

6. At every puff of the engine a cloud is projected into the air. Watch the cloud sharply. You notice that it first forms at a little distance from the top of the funnel. Give close attention and you will sometimes see a perfectly clear space between the funnel and the cloud. Through that clear space the thing which makes the cloud must pass.

7. What, then, is this thing which at one moment is transparent and invisible, and at the next moment visible as a dense opaque cloud? It is the steam or vapor of water from the boiler. Within the boiler this steam is transparent and invisible; but to keep it in this invisible state, a heat would be required as great as that within the boiler.

8. When the vapor mingles with the cold air above the hot funnel, it ceases to be vapor. Every bit of steam shrinks, when chilled, to a much more minute particle of water. The liquid particles thus produced form a kind of water dust of exceeding fineness, which floats in the air, and is called a cloud.

9. Watch the cloud-banner from the funnel of a running locomotive: you see it growing gradually less dense. It finally melts away altogether; and, if you continue your observations, you will not fail to notice that the speed of its disappearance depends on the character of the day.

10. In moist weather the cloud hangs long and lazily in the air; in dry weather it is rapidly licked up. What has become of it? It has been reconverted into true invisible vapor. The drier the air, and the hotter the air, the greater is the amount of cloud which can be thus dissolved in it.

11. Make the lid of a kettle air-tight, and permit the steam to issue from the pipe; a cloud is formed in all respects similar to that which issues from the funnel of the locomotive. To produce the cloud, in the case of the locomotive and the kettle, heat is necessary. By heating the water we first convert it into steam, and then by chilling the steam we convert it into cloud.

12. Is there any fire in nature which produces the clouds of our atmosphere? There is the fire of the sun. Thus, by tracing a river backwards from its end to its real beginning, we come at length to the sun.

JOHN TYNDALL.

COMPOSITION. Without looking on the book, write a short abstract of this piece from memory.

22.

PASSAGES FROM SHAKESPEARE.

I.

MERCY.-PORTIA TO SHYLOCK.

The quality of mercy is not strained;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;

An earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,-
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;