With secret pleasure each fond parent smil'd, The glittering terrors from his brows unbound, 1 His only hope, his only child. 2 begun, should be began. NOTES. 3 funeral pile, The Greeks burned their dead. 4 hell, rather, Hades, the place of the AN ANCIENT PALACE IN CAIRO.-EDMOND ABOUT. 1. "The house you are going to see,' said Ahmed, 'is the ancient palace of a Mameluke, named Mustapha-Aga. No one can say in what age it was built. Three quarters of old Cairo are in ruin; but there still remain several beautiful habitations, and I have been so fortunate as to buy one. Now will you take your overcoats? They tell me the court is lighted up.' 2. It certainly was illuminated. Eight great fellows, like bronze statues, held, at the end of long pikes, eight chafing-dishes of open iron work, in which flamed shavings of resinous wood. The red fires, smoking and crackling, darted their tongues in all directions; it rained jets of sparks on the white marble pavement. A gushing fountain in the midst of the court seemed to throw up claret-wine, so exactly did the waters reflect the coloured light. The white-washed buildings formed a quadrilateral court, enlivened by twenty balconies, impenetrable to the eye, for every opening is closed by a trellis-work of wood. It seemed that the architect had made every effort to avoid symmetry. These trellises hung as if at random, and were all of a different pattern. 3. One front of the first story projects, and rests on a magnificent granite column. It is a relic of a Greek temple; the marble capital dates from the Ptolemies; the Arabs have ingeniously raised it by a block of sculptured cedar. To the left of the column, at the foot of the wall, an entrance, painted with a thousand colours, and embellished with religious inscriptions, indicates the entrance to the harem, the sanctuary of the family. The piano that we had heard must have been perched in this large gallery; but it is silent now; the lights are extinguished, everything sleeps up there, unless, perhaps, some bright eyes, hidden behind the grating, amused themselves at the expense of three astonished Frenchmen. 4. Then they made us admire a bedroom without a bed, a study without a writing-table; three bathing-rooms without baths. Instead of a bed there is a divan, where one can sleep, dressed, under a gauzė or under a fur covering, according to the season. It is also on a divan that the Egyptian writes without a pen, the paper put flat on the left hand, and the pointed reed in the right. The books and manuscripts, as the clothes, arms, and jewels, rest in lacquered and Mosaic coffers. The carpets are sown with large old boxes, incrusted with mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, or silver. The niches cut in the walls display a world of curiosities, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, or Arab, bronzes, crockery, porcelain, carved ivory. The walls are decorated with arabesques, painted or moulded in the stucco. 5. There are not two rooms that communicate on the same floor; you must always go up or down. Sometimes the same apartment has two levels, of which the most elevated makes a sort of platform. The air circulates everywhere, as the wooden trellis-work takes the place of windows; everything is exquisitely clean, everything smells sweet, and the stranger asks himself if this perfume of roses proceeds from the garden or from an invisible perfuming pan. 6. At the moment we least expected, a door opened. Ahmed gently pushed us, and we found ourselves transported into a real paradise. It was a grove, I had almost said a wood, where the palms, the orange trees, the myrtles, the oleanders, the mimosas, the banyan, and the bamboos, mix in a lovely and inextricable mass. A large tree here and there, sycamore, olive, fig, spreads itself out, and reigns over the grove. Sometimes there is a glade where roses, jasmine, pelargoniums flourish in enormous bouquets. One sees there plants rare even in Egypt; for example, the cream-tree by the side of the coffee-tree. 7. A thousand little threads of water run and murmur through canals of baked earth, and go to water the plants one after another; a multitude of frightened birds flutter from bough to bough, in the midst of many-coloured lanterns and torches which had interrupted their slumbers, whilst the motionless sphinxes and mysterious statues of Isis coldly reflected the fire-light from their granite surfaces. The crescent moon married her silver light to the turbulent glow of the illumination, the sky sparkled with stars, the eternal lamps above, and the transient lamps below, blended their images in the rapid waters of the Nile, for that old river was flowing at our feet. Seated on the first of the flights of steps which conducted the master to his boats, we watched the great sails pass quietly by; the point of Rhoda shone on the left, and the palaces of Giseh were stretched out on the opposite bank nearly opposite us. With a little more light we could have distinguished the Pyramids. 8. A strange, savage, yet almost agreeable music accompanied the grand spectacle-it was the noise of two water-wheels turned by oxen, which drew the water from the river and watered the garden night and day. Ahmed had pipes, coffee, and mastic brought to us, and we felt ourselves in our turn taken possession of by that sensation of comfort, which too well explains the languor of the Oriental world." quadrilat'eral, four sided. bal'conies, small platforms before windows. transient, passing. sphinx, an animal figure, crouching, with a human head, SPELL AND PRONOUNCE capital, the head of a Ptolemies, ancient arabesques', ornaments in the Arab style. inextricable, not to be separated into its parts. I'sis, an ancient Egyptian goddess. sym'metry, harmony of design. ENGLISH COMPOSITION. I. USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS. CAPITAL LETTERS are used in the following positions: 1. The first letter of every sentence. 2. The first letter of every line of poetry. 3. The first letter of a quotation. Titles of Books, &c., come under this rule. 4. The various names of God. 5. Proper names, and adjectives formed from them-as, Richard, Englishman. 6. The names of days and months. 7. Any great historical event or period-as, the Armada, the French Revolution. 8. Any personification of a quality or object--as, Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm. 9. The pronoun I and the exclamation O. 10. Titles prefixed to a proper name-as, Miss Green, Lord Beaconsfield. EXERCISES. lance to Lance and Horse To horse. full Many a gem of Purest ray Serene. Milton Wrote a book called paradise lost. The french people. Fell thirst and famine scowl. mr brown and the prince of wales. The era of the reformation. lo! where the rosy-bosomed hours. why yet does asia dread a monarch's Nod, O'er libya's deserts and through zembla's Snows. My sisters are mary, helen, jane and nancy; my brothers, john, george and william. II. PUNCTUATION. - Punctuation is the dividing a sentence into proper portions by marks or points. The points used are: The Comma, Semicolon; Colon: Dash Period or Full Stop. Sign of Interrogation? Sigu of Exclamation! Parenthesis ().t * Punctuation-Lat. punctum, a poiut, a puncture. Hence a mark. + Parenthesis-Gr., from parentithemi, to put in something beside, a word or phrase put into a sentence, the sense of which is complete without it. U 1. () A COMMA is the shortest pause in speech or reading; as in the first stop of the following examples; Get wisdom, get understanding; forget it not: neither decline from the words of my mouth. The Comma is used: (a) After each adjective before a noun, except the last-as, He was a wise, brave, honest, godly man. Great, good, wise, wonderful, eternal King! (b) After each nominative before a verb, except the last—as, Cheerfulness often succeeds, where fretting, discontent, and faintheartedness fail. (c) After each pair of adjectives coupled by a conjunction: The town is well-built and clean, stirring and bright, busy and happy. (d) Before any new clause, or slight change of thought, in the same sentence; No stir in the air, no stir in the sea. I hammer the ore, and turn the wheel. We feared, yet hoped. She is good-looking, but not amiable. (e) Before and after names and titles of persons addressed: Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear. Yes! we may meet, ungrateful boy, we may! (ƒ) Before and after any words which may be left out without spoiling the sense: They do not, like his other poems, touch any passion. He died, full of honour, at the age of thirty-six. EXERCISE. Insert commas properly in the following sentences: By day the soul o'erborne by life's career Love and love only is the loan for love. Twins tied by nature if they part they die. 2. () A SEMICOLON is a little longer pause, and is used when there is much of the sentence or paragraph behind. Brightens, for ornament; and whets, for use. "Twill buy thee benefit; perhaps, renown. Our freedom chained; quite wingless our desire. 3. (:) A COLON is a still longer pause, and is used when the sense is perfect, but not ended. The worth of each had been complete, Had both alike been mild: But one, although her smile was sweet, |