As was intimated in the Preface to the Sixth Reader of this Series, the Literary Reader has been prepared as a companion volume to the Fifth and Sixth Readers, and contains classical extracts in prose and verse, which are intended to furnish the Teacher with the means of cultivating the higher attributes of good reading.

Many of the extracts are new, but a good extract was not rejected simply because it had appeared in some other collection. If all such extracts were to be rejected, the field of choice would be very narrow indeed.

A few biographical and other Notes have been inserted, with the view of enabling the Scholar more easily to grasp the meaning. The non-biographical Notes deal almost exclusively with the allusions.

GLASGOW, December, 1880.

T. M.

[SAMUEL ROGERS, born 1763, was a banker in London. His bestknown work is the "Pleasures of Memory," published in 1792. Besides this poem, he is the author of "Poems," published in 1812, and " Italy," published in 1822. He died 18th December, 1855.]

1. THE lark has sung his carol in the sky;

The bees have hummed their noontide lullaby;
Still in the vale the village-bells ring round,
Still in Llewellyn-hall the jests resound;
For now the caudle-cup is circling there,
Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer,
And, crowding, stop the cradle to admire

The babe, the sleeping image of his sire.

2. A few short years-and then these sounds shall bail The day again, and gladness fill the vale;

So soon the child a youth, the youth a man,
Eager to run the race his fathers ran.

Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin, The ale, new brewed, in floods of amber shine. And, basking in the chimney's ample blaze, 'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days, The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled, "'Twas on these knees he sat so oft and smiled." 3. And soon again shall music swell the breeze; Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees Vestures of nuptial white; and hymns be sung, And violets scattered round; and old and young,