26 THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. Secluded, shut from general notice. Ode, a short lyric poem. Nervous, full of force. Disappears, passes out of sight. ALEXANDER POPE was born at London in 1688, and died at Twickenham, on Thames, in 1744. In youth and manhood he had but feeble health, and lived mostly a quiet if not a secluded life. At a very early age he "lisped in numbers," and was known as an author at sixteen years of age. He had a large command of nervous language, and his verse is remarkable for its accuracy and finish. works : The following ode is perhaps the gem of his VITAL spark of heavenly flame, Quit, oh quit this mortal frame: Hark! they whisper; angels say, Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! O Death! where is thy sting? EXERCISE 1.-Explain or define:-Twickenham, gem, Christian, mortal, lingering, strife, senses, victory. EXERCISE 2.-Learn the above ode quite accurately, articulate every word clearly, note the stops, and try to give the feeling which the poet meant to express. ALTHOUGH the great radical changes which our language has undergone took place before the time of Geoffrey Chaucer, who lived from 1328 to 1400, still a succession of minor alterations, consisting of additions of new words, the disuse of old ones, and the still more frequent changes in the forms and meanings of words, have so far modified the language as to make the reading of books, of even the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a somewhat difficult task to a novice. And as, in the earlier periods of our history, it was seen that the progress of the people suggested and indicated the changes which their language underwent, so too these later and less important lingual changes correlate and run parallel with the history of the people; so that the careful study of either branch supplies facts for, if it does not supply the key to, the other. Our country having now for the last two or three centuries enjoyed, at home, a state of comparative peace and prosperity, having neither undergone conquest by a foreign state, nor suffered much from internal commotion; it may be reasonably inferred that no great or radical change will have taken place in the language of the people, and this we find has been its position. In the time of Chaucer, our national tongue had arrived at its fair manhood; its main features and form were then set. True, it has since gained in body and muscle; but these are from the old sources, no new element of any considerable account has been incorporated with it. For example, the present authorized version of the Bible is that determined upon in the reign of James I. (A.D. 1611), or upwards of 250 years ago. Now we all know that its words are, for the most part, those in present use; and their form and arrangement agree pretty generally with modern usage. There are, however, a few words which have since become obsolete; while, on the other hand, there are many words which are now current English, but which are not to be found in our Bible. It should also be borne in mind, that the translation referred to varied but little from earlier versions, made by Archbishop Parker, Tyndale, and others; so that it may be fairly said, that therein we have a sample of the English of about three centuries ago. If, now, we refer to the words at the head of Lesson 2, which we gave as an example of classical English of our own time, we shall find that of those twenty words, only two occur in the Bible, and these in a somewhat modified form, and are without exception from the classical languages, and many of them strictly technical terms. If we look further through the lesson itself, it will be seen that these new words have an older or Anglo-Saxon setting And we can easily see the necessity for this. Our German forefathers were a working and fighting race, troubling their heads but little with the why and wherefore, the how and whither of things; hence, their language was sufficient for their every-day working life: but when our race began to think more deeply, and sought for the laws that governed their own thoughts and the universe surrounding them, they soon wanted language in which to express what they knew and what they wanted to know; and the terms of the great thinkers of the past have supplied the deficiency. Thus, in all periods of national progress, an advance in science has been followed by large accessions to our language from the Greek and Latin tongues. Again, in comparing the English of our day with that of some three centuries since, we see that though the same words occur, they often do so in a modified form; sometimes the change is in the word itself, and sometimes in the manner in which it is used; while also cases occur in which words are used, but with an altered meaning; that is, the old meaning has gradually merged into a new one. Thus we read that the three children of Israel were thrown into the burning fiery furnace with "their hosen and their hats." We retain the word hose, and we have also hosier, but the plural form hosen is not now used: in fact, the Saxon plural ending in en is retained in but two or three instances. This altered form of words occurs most frequently in the use of the verbs-as, for instance, we have the termination eth in the third person singular, whereas modern use has contracted the termination to s. In the sermon on the mount we read "He that asketh receiveth,”—“ A good tree bringeth forth good fruit." We say, He who asks receives— A good tree brings forth good fruit. In the same discourse we have the following passage, "But when thou doest thine alms," showing an older mode of formation of the verb to do than enters into the present conjugation of the verb. We have also a few compounds that time has softened and modified. Thus, "whatsoever " is shortened into whatever; "wherewithal" is equal to the modern phrase "with what." Another important fact to be kept in mind on this subject is, that while some words have retained precisely the same form they receive in modern usage a meaning differ ing more or less from that which they originally had. As illustration of this we may mention the following nouns :— publican, flesh, ghost, fool, conversation, thought, lamp. In the same way the verbs, let, prevent, resent, offend, allow, and many others have a meaning differing more or less from their originals. EXERCISE 1.-Define :-Parallel, history, conquest, foreign, national, example, arrangement, varied, express, period, Greek, Latin. EXERCISE 2.-Give a list of six Bible words that are now obsolete, six that survive in a modified form, and six with a different meaning. JOHN MILTON, our greatest epic poet, was born in London, in 1608. Much of his early life was spent in political action and writing, being Latin Secretary to Oliver Cromwell. His devotion to study produced an incurable blindness, in which condition the "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained" were written; his daughters penning the glowing lines, as the brave, blind poet recalled those scenes and sights which in earlier days he had so well stored in his memory. To his blindness he refers in most touching strains in the following extract :— HAIL, holy light, offspring of heaven firstborn, Or of the eternal co-eternal beam! May I express thee, unblamed? Since God is light, |