customed usual good

upon the Roman territories. His attended him in this expedition; he

their army, and besieged their capital. reduc

tion of this place would have been scarce ing were it not

mention

an action of the Roman general, that

has him more credit with posterity triumphs united. A

all his other

who had the care of the

children belonging to the principal ing found

offered to put

surest

The

whose

time

of the city, havto decoy them into the Roman camp, into the hands of Camillus, as the to a speedy surrender. was struck with the treachery of a wretch

of inducing the

it was to protect innocence. He for some

the traitor with a stern air; but at find

ing words, "Villain," the noble Roman, "offer thy to creatures like thyself, and

abominable

me; what though we be the
there are natural ties that bind
never be
; there are duties

as well as in

cence, but

to

of your city, yet mankind, which should from us in war

; we fight not against an age of innomen,-men who have used us

, in

deed, but yet whose crimes are virtues when with thine. such base arts let it be my duty to use only Roman arts,-the arts of valour of arms."

So

hands tied

he immediately

him to be stripped, his

him, and in that ignominious

to be whipped into town by his own scholars. This generous behaviour in Camillus

more than his

GOLDSMITH.

arms; and the magistrates of the town immediately

to the senate.

HUMOROUS ACCOUNT OF THE BREAKING UP OF AN
AMERICAN SCHOOL DURING THE LATE WAR.

THIS recital, the master observed, is painful; but I shall endeavour to proceed in it. My sorrows commenced with the dispersion of my pupils, who, not having taken up the sword, were no otherwise engaged in the quarrel than by books. And when the enemy entered, not contented with Alexander to ravage the terrestrial globe, they had the cruelty to demolish it in a few mi

nutes; and next, like the giants of old, they attempted the celestial, and succeeded also in this. All the elements of Euclid afforded no demonstration to them of the errors of their conduct; his propositions were torn out, and scattered about the ground. The philosophy of Newton shared the same fate. In vain did the air-pump assure them with its last gasp that a perfect vacuum was not to be made by them, though they were determined to make a void. The eloquence of Cicero could not save him from laceration. Next fell the languages, and every part of speech in the grammar begged for quarter. The nouns suffered a general declension. The pronouns, as they frequently stood in the place of the nouns, shared a similar fate. The verbs were reduced to the optative mood, perpetually wishing to be in any tense rather than the present. In vain they tried the imperative mood, but ne occidè would not do. The supines lay helpless on the floor ready to give up the ghost, and every participle participated with the verb in all its sufferings, the whole being passive. Adverbs and conjunctions tried in vain to rally, and join their forces against the common foe. The prepositions could no longer stand their ground before the nouns to govern them, though armed with the pro and con of each subject. And, during the whole havoc, the interjections were uttering the most melancholy plaints, as Alas! Ah! Oh! Woe is me!

Youth's Monthly Visitor.

SKETCHES IN NATURAL HISTORY.

THE treacherous Spider, when her nets are spread,
Deep ambushed in her silent den does lie,
And feels, far off, the trembling of her thread,
Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly;
Then, if at last she find him fast beset,

She issues forth, and runs along her loom;
She joys to touch the captive in her net,

And drags the little wretch in triumph home!

WHILE moonlight, silvering all the walls,
Through every mouldering crevice falls,

DRYDEN.

And tips with white his powdery plume,
As shades or shifts the changing gloom-
The Owl-that watching in the barn,
Sees the mouse creeping in the corn,-
Sits still, and shuts his round blue eyes
As if he slept,-until he spies
The little beast within his stretch,-
Then starts and seizes on the wretch.

BUTLER.

SEE! from the brake the whirring Pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings;
Short is his joy! he feels the fiery wound,
Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.
Ah! what avails his glossy varying dyes,
His purple crest, and scarlet-circled eyes,
The vivid green his shining plumes unfold,

His painted wings, and breast that shines with gold.

BEHOLD, ye pilgrims of the earth, behold!
See all but man with unearned pleasure gay!
See her bright robes the Butterfly unfold,
Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May!
What youthful bride can equal her array?
Who can with her for easy pleasure vie?
From mead to mead on gentle wing to stray,
From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly,
Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky.

РОРЕ.

THOMSON.

THE tawny Eagle seats his callow brood
High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood;
On Snowdon's rocks, or Orkney's wide domain,
Whose beetling cliffs o'erhang the western main,
The royal bird his lonely kingdom forms

Amidst the gathering clouds and sullen storms;
Through the wide waste of air he darts his sight,
And holds his sounding pinions poised for flight;
With cruel eye premeditates the war,
And marks his destined victim from afar ;
Descending in a whirlwind to the ground,
His pinions like the rush of waters sound;

The fairest of the fold he bears away,
And to his nest compels the struggling prey.—
He scorns the game by meaner hunters tore,
And dips his talons in no vulgar gore!

MRS BARBAULD.

THE fiery Courser, when he hears from far
The sprightly trumpets, and the shouts of war,
Pricks up his ears, and, trembling with delight,
Shifts place, and paws, and hopes the promised fight:
On his right shoulder his thick mane reclined,
Ruffles at speed and dances in the wind.

Eager he stands,-then starting with a bound,
He turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.
Fire from his eyes, clouds from his nostrils flow,
He bears his rider headlong on the foe!

DRYDEN'S Virgil.

THE Ostrich flies :—her scattered eggs are found
Without an owner on the sandy ground;
Cast out on fortune, they at mercy lie,
And borrow life from an indulgent sky:
Unmindful she, that some unhappy tread
May crush her young in their neglected bed,-
Along the wilderness she skims with speed,
And scorns the rider and pursuing steed!

and it can be

to speak. At first, it obstinately

perse;

all instruction, but it seems to be won verance; makes a few attempts to imitate the first and when it has acquired the articulation of one word distinctly, the rest of its is generally learned with

great ease. The following anecdote is

of this species:—“ A

of a bird

belonging to

King Henry

of West

the Seventh, who then resided at his

minster, by the

Thames, had learned to talk many from the passengers happened to take the water. One day, sporting on his perch, the poor fell into the water, and immediately

as loud as possible, A boat! a boat!-twenty pounds for a !

A waterman, who happened to be made for the place where the taking him up, restored him to the happened to be a

,

, hearing the
was floating, and
As the bird

the man insisted that he ought

more equal to his services

to his

pounds,

it.

;

the knave a

to have a
trouble; and, as the parrot had proposed
he said that his
was bound in honour to
The king agreed to leave it to the parrot's
which the bird hearing, cried out, "
groat.'"

SUPPLY AND DISTRIBUTION OF WATER IN CITIES.

THE supply and distribution of water in a large city are well worth observing. From a general reservoir, a few main pipes issue to the chief divisions of the town: these send suitable branches to every street; and the branches again divide to the lanes and alleys: while at last a small leaden conduit rises into every house, and, if required, carries its precious freight into every apartment. A corresponding arrangement of drains and sewers carries the water away again when it has answered its purpose, and sends it to be purified in the great laboratory of the ocean. In former times large bridges, called aqueducts, were constructed for the purpose of carrying water into towns; and many such buildings still remain in various parts of the world, especially in China. But since it was discovered that water rises to the level of its source when carried in pipes, even though it should have to cross valleys on the way to its place of destination, a single pipe of large dimensions is found quite adequate to carry water from the fountainhead to the reservoir in the city.

English citizens have now become so habituated to the blessing of a supply of pure water, that it causes them no more surprise than the regularly returning light of