[15] Prof. Seeley advocates the plan of devoting a part of the time during the last two years at English schools to Latin. The proper study of English must also include in it an analysis of the Latin element, and an explanation of the derivation of words of Latin origin. THE WARNING. Ye nations of earth, give ear, give ear, From Holy Writ comes the warning true, The voice of the ancient captive seer Through the dim-aisled centuries reaches you. Thus saith the seer: "Ye have lifted high Against his altar your impious hand; From the Lord's spoiled house is heard the cry, 'Destruction swift to this guilty land.'" But a deeper than Belshazzar's wrong Veils the light of these mournful years, And many an eye in the saintly throng Turns from the earth bedimmed with tears. The Holy City by promise given, A precious dower to the spotless bride, Is trodden by feet outlawed, unshriven, And her streets with martyrs' blood are dyed. The crown that ever has fallen as light On holy brows, from the Hand above, Has been torn away by sinful might From him whose rule was a father's love. The deed was by one; the sin by all; By ay, or by silence, ye gave assent; Ye saw the shrine to the spoiler fall, Nor hand ye lifted, nor aid ye lent. O nations of earth! give ear, give ear, From Holy Writ comes the warning true, The voice of the ancient captive seer, From the far-off ages, speaks to you! WRITING MATERIALS OF THE ANCIENTS. It is curious to remark the various and apparently incongruous substances which men, in their efforts to preserve knowledge or transmit ideas, have used as writing materials. The animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms have each and all been laid under contribution. In every land and in every age, stone and marble have been employed to perpetuate the remembrance of the great deeds of history. Inscriptions cut in jasper, cornelian, and agate are to be met with in every collection of antiquities. A cone of basalt covered with cuneiform characters was found some years since in the river Euphrates, and is now preserved in the Imperial Library of Paris, side by side with the sun-baked bricks on which the Babylonian astronomers were wont during seven centuries to inscribe their observations on the starry heavens. The Romans made books of bronze, in which they engraved the concessions granted to their colonies; and they preserved on tablets and pillars of the same durable material the decrees and treaties of the senate, and sometimes, even, the speeches of their emperors. "The Bœotians," says the learned Greek geographer Pausanias, "showed me a roll of lead on which was inscribed the whole work of Hesiod, but in characters that time had nearly effaced."