or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles 40 II. was celebrated. But if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the death's head and the fool's head, and fix our choice on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. 45 The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging in general terms an over-ruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will 50 of the Great Being for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt. the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted 55 for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring. veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with Him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. 60 The difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed to vanish when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but His favor; 65 ANALYSIS. 40, 41. the court of Charles II. What figure? 42. Parse like and Bassanio. 43. What is the meaning of death's head! 48. What does the phrase not content, etc. modify? 52-54. To know.... existence. Analyze. What figure of speech? 56-59. What figure in the sentence? 61, 62. the greatest and meanest of mankind. Is the expression correct when referring to two? 65. Dispose of but and, confident of that favor, they despised all the ac complishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, 70 they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their 75 diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure and eloquent in a more sublime language-nobles by the right of an ear- 80 lier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged-on whose slightest actions the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest-who had been destined, 85 before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes had been ordained on his account. For 90 his sake empires had risen and flourished and decayed. ANALYSIS.-67–74. What figure predominates in these lines? 69. oracles of God. What is the meaning? 70. heralds. These were officers whose duty it was to keep a register of the arms of the nobility. 71, 72. Book of Life. What figure? 79. more precious treasure. What is referred to? 81. Explain the use of the terms creation and imposition. 82-88. Analyze the sentence. 90. What is the antecedent of his? 90, 91. For his sake. . . . decayed. What figure? For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed His will by the pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by 95 the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all Nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God! 100 Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men— the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional re- 105 tirement he prayed with convulsions and groans and tears. He was half-maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlast- 1:0 ing fire. Like Vane, he thought himself entrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid His face from him. NOTES.-111. Vane. This was Sir Henry Vane, who was a member of the Council 112. of State, and who in the Civil War was on the side of Parliament. Fleetwood was the son-inlaw of Cromwell. ANALYSIS.-92, 93. For his sake.... prophet. What figure? 97-100. Name the modifiers of It. What figures in these lines? 101. Parse was made up. 101-103. What figure in the sentence? 108. illusions. Notice that these illusions are exemplified in the next two sentences. 108, 109. He heard the lyres of angels, etc. What figure? 109, 110. Beatific Vision. What is meant by this? 111. Give the grammatical construction of Like and Vane. But when he took his seat in the council or girt on 115 his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had 120 little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious 125 zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure 130 its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger 135 and corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors; mingling with human beings, but having 140 neither part nor lot in human infirmities; insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain; not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. NOTE-138. Sir Artegal's iron man Talus. Spenser rep- True Justice, Artegal," who with an iron fail threshes out falsehool and unfolds truth. 23. CHARLES DICKENS, 1812-1870. CHARLES DICKENS, the most popular novelist of the Victorian Age, was born in Portsmouth, where hig father, John Dickens, held a position in the pay department of the navy, but so much of the novelist's life was spent in London that essentially he may be called a Londoner. His father became a reporter for Parliament, and here the young novelist first acquired a taste for literary work. His father, however, preferred that Charles should be an attorney, and therefore put him to the study of law in an attorney's office. But the occupation was so distasteful to the young man. that he soon abandoned it, and became a reporter for the London newspapers; and it was in this capacity that he acquired that keen insight into human character, and that full appreciation and knowledge of the follies and eccentricities of mankind, which have made his novels so popular and enjoyable wherever the English language is read. His first literary success was a series of charactersketches entitled Sketches by Boz, the nom-de-plume being a little sister's pronunciation of Moses, the nickname applied by Dickens to a younger brother. These sketches first appeared in the Chronicle, but were afterward printed in book-form, and they met with a ready sale. The author was now called upon to write the adventures and misadventures of an ideal company of Cockney sportsmen, the illustrations for the sketches to be furnished by Mr. Seymour. This volume, under the |