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1. Give some account of the Castle of Chillon.

2. How far are the statements in the poem strictly true?

3. What portions are the creations of the poet's fancy?

4. On account of what were Bonnivard and his brothers imprisoned?

5. How were the brothers placed in the dungeon?

6. Which of them died first? 7. Which of them died next? 8. Why was the younger brother so beloved of his father?

9. Describe the gentle decay and grad

ual extinction of the younger brother's life?

10. How did Bonuivard get free from his chain?

11. What liberty was he now allowed? 12. Why did he wish to look from his lonely window?

13. Name the objects he saw when he looked from his cell,

14. What was the effect of this prospect on his mind?

15. With what does the poem conclude? 16. Why was he sorry to leave his dungeon?

XXXIX.-APPROACH OF MACBETH'S FATE.

DUNCAN, grandson of Malcolm the second, a prince of pacific temper and great virtues, ascended the throne in 1033. In king Duncan's time a great fleet of Danes came to Scotland and landed their men in Fife. Macbeth, a near relation of the king, was general of the army,-and he in conjunction with one Banquo, Thane of Locha. ber, led the king's forces against the invaders and drove them out of the country. Macbeth was thane of Glammis, a district in Forfarshire, the governors of provinces being at this time in Scotland called Thanes, a title similar to thaf of Earl now. Macbeth and Banquo returning from their victory over the Danes were met by three old women in a great heath or moor near Forres, a town in Morayshire, who waited till Macbeth came forward, when the first woman said,-"All hail, Macbeth.hail to thee, Thare of Glammis,"-the second said, "All hail, Macbeth.-hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor,"-the third said, "All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king of Scotland."-These three old women were considered, in the town of Forres, where they lived, to be witches, and able to tell what was going to come to pass. Nobody would believe such folly now-a-days surely; but in those early days even great men such as Macbeth gave heed to it. It would seem that the old women, seeing that they were respected and feared, endeavoured to impose upon people by pretending to tell what was going to happen to them, in order to get presents for so doing. Just as Macbeth left the old women, word was brought him that his father was dead, so that he was now Thane of Glammis by inheritance, and also that the king had made him Thane of Cawdor, for his valuable services in the war. Macbeth thus seeing part of their words come to pass, began to think how he was to make himself King, as well as Thane of Glammis and Cawdor. Macbeth's wife, whose name was Gruoch, an ambitious and wicked woman, urged him to slay Duncan the king, now an old man. Accord ingly Macbeth invited the king to his great castle near Inverness, and during the night, when a dreadful storm was raging, he entered the king's bedroom and killed the old man. Macbeth thus seized the sceptre, which he held with a vigorous grasp for fifteen years. At the end of that time prince Malcolm the son of Duncan, and Macduff Thane of Fife, obtained help from the English king and led an army against the tyrant, who was now within the castle of Dunsinane, a strong fortress near Perth, where he imagined he was quite safe, as the three old women had told him that no one would kill him till Birnam wood should come to Dunsinane,-that wood being at a distance of some miles from the castle. When the English were about to march across the broad valley to Macbeth's castle, Macduff advised each soldier to cut down a bough of a tree and carry it in his hand in order that the enemy might not know their number. When the tyrant saw the appearance of a forest coming from Birnam, he lost courage and his followers deserted him. He sallied forth at the head of the few followers who remained faithful to him, and was killed fighting hand to hand with Macduff,-1054.

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Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls:

The cry is still, They come: Our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie,
Till famine, and the ague, eat them up:

Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home. What is that noise?
Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord.

Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir

As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me. Wherefore was that cry?
Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macb. She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Enter a MESSENGER.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

Mess. My lord,

I shall report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do it.

Macb. Well, say, sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon methought The wood began to move.

Macb. Liar, and slave!

Striking.

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.

Macb. If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.

I pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,

That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane ;-and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this, which he avouches, does appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
I'gin to be a-weary of the sun,

And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum bell:-Blow wind! come wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

1. What was the character of Dunean whom Macbeth slew ?

2. Who invaded Scotland during Duncan's reign?

3. Where did Macbeth fall in with the three old women?

4. What did the first say to him? and the second? and the third ?

5. What part of their words seemed to be immediately fulfilled?

6. Who urged Macbeth to kill Duncan and make himself king ?

[Exeunt. Shakspere.

7. When and how did he accomplish that wicked deed?

8. How long did this tyrant reign? 9. Who obtained assistance against him from the English king?

10. Where is the castle of Dunsinane? 11. What did the old women say would happen before Macbeth would be killed? 12. In what were their words apparently fulfilled?

13. By whom was Macbeth slain?

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He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend'

Was moving towards the shore; his ponderous shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

Behind him cast: the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders, like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views

1 Superior fiend,-arch-fiend; Satan.

2 Like the moon,-Milton represents the shield of Satan as large as the moon seen through a telescope, an instrument first applied to observations by Galileo, a native of Tuscany, born 1564, whom he means here by the "Tuscan artist." Milton had visited this truly great man, Galileo, as he himself informs us.

At evening from the top of Fesolé,'
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear-to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral2 were but a wand-
He walked with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle ;3 not like those steps
On heaven's azure: and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire:
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called

5

6

His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa,' where the Etrurian shades
High overarched embower: or scattered sedge
A float, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian" chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore" their floating carcasses

And broken chariot wheels; so thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost, lay these covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded:-

66

Princes, potentates,

Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits;—or have ye chosen this place

1 Fesole, (anciently Faesulae) a city of Tuscany ;-and Vald' Arno, that is (vale of the Arno), both these places are near Pisa, the birth-place of Galileo.

2 Ammiral is a German word, and means any great ship.

3 Marle, soil; properly a calcareous or chalky earth, much used for manure.

4 Heavens,-this word must be pronounced here in two syllables.

5 Nathless, not the less, nevertheless, -a Saxon word.

6 Strow, overspread, now generally written strew.

7 Vallombrosa, that is shady vale, from the Latin vallis a valley, and umbra, a shade, it is in Etruria or Tuscany.

8 Ori'on,-is a constellation represented in the figure of an armed man, and supposed to be attended with stormy weather.

9 Busiris,-Milton thus styles Pharaoh (and not without authority) who perfidiously pursued the Israelites, since he had previously agreed to allow them to depart unmolested.

10 Memphian, from Memphis, an ancient city on the left side of the Nile, famous for the pyramids.

11 From the safe shore,-see Exodus xiv. 23, to the end.

After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue,1 for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven's gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake!-arise!—or be for ever fallen!

1. By what name is Satan called here?
2. Who is the Tuscan artist ?

3. When and where was he born? 4. To what does the poet liken Satan's shield?

5. To what is his spear compared ? 6. Describe his journey to the beach of the burning lake.

7. How numerous were the angels scattered over the lake?

8. What is Vallombrosa ?

9. Why is the constellation introduced here?

10. Who is meant by Busiris ?

MILTON.

11. Who were the sojourners in Goshen? 12. How does Satan call on the fallen spirits ?

13. Does he not appeal to their pride in his address ?

14. Show me that he does so.
15. By what sin fell the angels?
16. By what sin fell man?

17. Is there hope of forgiveness for these fallen spirits?

18. Is there hope for us?

19. Who will quote the words of John iii. 16. ?

XLI.-OVERTHROW OF THE REBEL ANGELS.

So spake the Son, and into terror chang'd
His countenance too severe to be beheld,
And full of wrath bent on his enemies.

At once the four2 spread out their starry wings
With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs
Of his fierce chariot roll'd, as with the sound
Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host.
He on his impious foes right onward drove,
Gloomy as night; under his burning wheels
The steadfast empyréan shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God. Full soon
Among them he arriv'd, in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their souls infix'd
Plagues they, astonish'd, all resistance lost,

1 Virtue, here means courage, strength, as virtus did in Latin. 2 Four, that is, the cherubic shapes,-see Ezekiel i, 9-19, 24. 3 Burning wheels,-see Dan. vii, 9.

4 Empyrean, that is, the highest heaven.

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