ging the coal waggons, as Harry told me it could."

Her father went on reading:

"Next in close cells of ribbed oak confined,
Gale after gale he crowds the struggling wind,
Th' imprisoned storms through brazen nostrils roar,
Fan the white flame, and fuse the sparkling ore.”

"The great bellows in forges and founderies, which are moved by the steam engine," said Harry. "I never should have thought they could have roared so well in poetry. Pray go on, papa."

"Here high in air the rising steam he

pours

To clay-built cisterns, and to lead-lin'd towers;
Fresh through a thousand pipes the waves distils,
And thirsty cities drink th' exuberant rills;
These the vast millstone, with inebriate whirl,
On trembling floors his forceful fingers twirl,
Whose flinty teeth the golden harvests grind,
Feast without blood, and nourish human-kind."

"Do you understand, Lucy?" said Harry. "I forget, my dear, whether I told you, that the steam engine keeps corn mills and all sorts of mills going."

Lucy nodded. "Do not let us interrupt papa; I will tell when I do not un

derstand," said Lucy, "but I understand all as far as he has gone."

"Now his hard hands on Mona's rifted crest, Bosomed in rock, her azure ores arrest;

With iron lips the rapid rollers seize

The lengthening bars, in their expansion squeeze;
Descending screws, with ponderous fly-wheels wound
The tawny plates, the new medallions round,
Hard dies of steel the cupreous circles cramp,
And with quick fall his massy hammers stamp
The Harp, the Lily, and the Lion join,

And George and Britain guard the sterling coin."

Lucy, I am sure you cannot understand this," said Harry.

66

No, I was just going to say so, Harry; I waited only till papa came to a full stop. But I know that Mona means Anglesea."

Her father said that she was right; that the azure ores allude to copper mines in the Isle of Anglesea, or Mona, which are worked by the steam engine. Cupreous means of copper, and the ores of copper being blueish, the poet calls them "Mona's azure ores." The succeeding lines describe machinery for coining copper, first rolling out thick bars of it into plates, thin as half

pence, then cutting those plates into circular forms, and stamping them with the arms of Ireland, France, and England, the harp, the lily, and the lion. All which is done by machinery, without the hands of men, and that machinery is kept at work by the motion and power of a steam engine,

Harry looked triumphant while his father spoke of these wonders performed by steam. Lucy could not conceive how it could do all this. Her father repeated his promise, that whenever he had an opportunity he would show her how it is done; and Lucy whispered again to Harry, "Very soon, too, perhaps."

"Is there no more, father? Is there nothing about the steam boat?" asked Harry.

"There is," said his father; "and it is curious, that these lines were written several years before steam boats had been brought into use; and at a time when it was scarcely believed by any but a few courageously ingenious persons, that the steam engine could ever be successfully or safely

employed in driving forward vessels on the water. This prophecy, at the time it was made, most people thought merely poetical; and instead of expecting that it would be soon accomplished, it was thought that it would never be effected:

'Soon shall thý arm, unconquer'd steam! afar Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car.””

"The slow barge now goes as fast as you please," said Harry. "The rapid car is to come; and I dare say that will be accomplished soon, papa, do not you think it will? And oh, father, read this; here is something about a flying chariot, which we did not hear:

• Or on wide-waving winds expanded bear The flying chariot through the fields of air.""

His father had purposely omitted to read these, and prudently declined giving his opinion.

Harry became silent and thoughtful for some minutes, but occupied himself with burning a lump of sugar, whose amber drops, as fast as they fell and cooled, he put into Lucy's mouth. And when the

sugar bason was taken from him, he found new recreation for his fingers and thoughts in his mother's tambour needle, which he pushed and pulled up and down, through silk and through paper, till she took that from his hand, and then he had no resource but to lean with both his elbows on her frame, and to watch her plying the needle. Lucy whispered from time to time--

"Will not you come and play at Travellers' with me?"

But in vain she twitched his elbow, it remained fixed.

"My mother's work is like a chain," said "link within link-loop within

Harry;

loop."

"Yes," said Lucy, "it is called chain stitch."

He watched the lengthening chain, which, with the quick noise of successful pricks, advanced towards him, forming a line from one end of the frame to the other, which was accomplished in two minutes, counted by the watch. Then scallops and leaves, pointed and round, grew