should be taken to have a firm hold of each syllable, and in private practice to throw them out, as it were, with the lips. The labial muscles will thus become stronger every week, until further practice may be dispensed with. But the reader should take great care let this practice become a habit or a mannerism with him.

Nor should he forget that the one great object and business in front of him is to gain the fullest possession of the author's meaning ; and, if he has got that into his mind and soul, he may be sure that it will come out and express itself through his organs of speech with far less trouble than he imagines. Then the meaning of the author will become the expression of the reader; and the passion of the writer will show itself in the feeling of the reader.

Readings in Prose and Verse.

PART I-POEMS.

POEMS.

LUCY GRAY.

This is a story, by the great poet WORDSWORTH (who died in 1850, and was poetlaureate before Mr. Tennyson), of a little girl who is said to have been lost in the snow on one of the moors of Cumberland.

OFT I had heard of Lucy Gray,
And when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see, at break of day,
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade, Lucy knew ;
She dwelt on a wide moor-

The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green,
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.
"To-night will be a stormy night—
You to the town must go;
And take the lantern, child, to light
Your mother through the snow.”

"That, father, will I gladly do!
"Tis scarcely afternoon-

The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon."

At this the father raised his hook
And snapped a fagot band;

He plied his work, and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand.