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author, a gentleman reduced to poverty (Colonel Newcome) is obliged to seek a shelter in his old age in a charitable institution, where the daily roll-call was answered by Adsum, meaning "present," or "I am here." On his death bed the veteran, before closing his eyes forever, answers, as if to a summons from the other world, “Adsum.” — For notes on Dante, Cervantes, &c., see previous pages.

P. 528. Exogenesis. Growth upon the outside.

P. 541. Parvenu. A person of low origin.

of vulgar manners.

The epithet is applied generally to those

P. 547. The reader will find that these exquisite poems require the closest attention, and that they amply repay it.

P. 549.

Nom de plume. An author's assumed name.

P. 555. Arachne. A Greek damsel, skilled in weaving and embroidery, who, having affronted Athene by a challenge, was changed to a spider.

P. 563, et seq. Old-wife is a common name often given to the long-tailed duck, one of the wild sea ducks of New England in the winter. The old-wives are so called on account of their noisy and peculiar call-notes, resembling a loud, excited conversation. Their plumage has in it much white. The kittiwake is a small variety of gull, found on our coast in the winter. The guillemot is a kind of sea-fowl, web-footed, with short wings, not good at flying, but expert in swimming and diving. It is an arctic bird. - The burgomaster is our largest gull, a great destroyer of the eggs and young of the sea-fowl, and a robber of other birds. - Coot is a name given very improperly to our larger sea ducks, such as the eidcr, the king-duck, velvet-duck, &c. — The merganser is a sea-fowl, duck-like, but it has a serrated, narrow bill instead of the usual bill of a duck. The water-witch is our little grebe, a sea bird with curious lobed feet, but a thorough water-bird, diving with great celerity, and almost impossible to shoot. The loon is also a lobe-footed bird, and an expert diver. The auk is an arctic bird of the nature of the penguin, with wings so small it can scarcely fly at all. The auks take the place of penguins in the northern hemisphere. A slangy repertoire. A stock of low phrases.

P. 579.

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P. 587. Caramba. An exclamation of impatience, anger, or regret, according to the tone. Tapidaros. Covered stirrups. · Senorita. A young Spanish lady. - Catenas. Reins. Canon. A deep gorge or ravine. - Chaparral. A dense thicket.Serape. A

horseman's cloak or blanket.

Pp. 598, 599. Attila was the king of the Huns, and for many years, in the first half of the fifth century, was the terror both of Constantinople and Rome. Not long after the death of Alaric, he invaded the Roman empire at the head of half a million of barbarians, and with fire and sword laid waste many of its most fertile provinces. Into the bold sketch of Alaric, which is given in this dirge, the poet, in the license of his art, has thrown some of the distinguishing features of Attila. It may be well to advise the youthful reader that, as a matter of sober history, it was Attila, and not Alaric, who used to say that the grass never grew where his horse had trod; and that it was not Alaric, but Attila, who was called the Scourge of God. Wit! this appellation the king of the Huns was so well pleased that he adopted it as one of his es of honor. Note by F. Pierpont, in American First

Class Book.

P. 611. That this poem should have been attributed to Milton himself is not so strange when we consider that it is a paraphrase of a passage in Milton's "Second Defence of the People of England." The thoughts are Milton's; the form in which they are expressed, though beautiful in parts, and creditable to the authoress, is not at all Miltonian.

P. 613. This striking poem is taken from a volume published by Messrs. Ticknor & Fields. The author died about the year 1865. He resided at one time in Cambridge, Mass., and before that in New Albany, Ind. The editor has not been able to learn anything further of him. — Grapevine. The term in camp for a false report (as by the telegraph).

P. 617. Although Abraham Lincoln was not an author in the usual sense of the word, he had the good fortune to deliver one short address, which will not suffer by comparison

with any passage of similar length either in English or in any other modern tongue. The simplicity of the language is in harmony with the moral sublimity of the ideas. We seem, as we read, to be contemplating the SOUL of the man rising before us serene and unconscious as a mountain. The French philosopher, Vauvenargues, said that "GREAT THOUGHTS COME FROM THE HEART." Applying the apophthegm to this immortal address of Lincoln's, we see that the spontaneous sentiments and conceptions of a great and noble nature, especially those occurring at the scene of some great event, are more vital and powerful than any result of the voluntary intellectual processes. There was not a scholar living who could have added any point, dignity, or grandeur to these sentences.

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