and an end, as methodically arranged and portioned out as the several parts of a sermon under three heads, or the three gradations of shade in a school-girl's first landscape!

3. For my part, I would rather be set to beat hemp, or weed in a turnip field, than to write such a letter exactly every month, or every fortnight, at the precise point of time from the date of our correspondent's last letter, that he or she wrote after the reception of ours; as if one's thoughts bubbled up to the wellhead, at regular periods, a pint at a time, to be bottled off for immediate use. Thought! what has thought to do in such a correspondence? It murders thought, quenches fancy, wastes time, spoils paper, wears out innocent goose quills. "I'd rather be a kitten, and cry mew! than one of those same prosing letter-mongers.

4. Surely in this age of invention something may be struck out to obviate the necessity (if such necessity exists) of so tasking, degrading the human intellect. Why should not a sort of mute barrel organ be constructed on the plan of those that play sets of tunes and contra dances, to indite a catalogue of polite epistles calculated for all the ceremonious observances of good breeding? Oh the unspeakable relief (could such a machine be invented) of having only to grind an answer to one of ones's 'dear, five hundred friends!"

66

5. Or suppose there were to be an epistolary steam engine. Ay, that's the thing. Steam does every thing now-a-days. Dear Mr. Brunel, set about it, I beseech you, and achieve the most glorious of your undertakings. The block machine at Portsmouth would be nothing to it. That spares manual labor; this would relieve mental drudgery, and thousands yet unborn but hold! I am not so sure the female sex in general may quite enter into my views of the subject.

6. Those who pique themselves on the elegant style of their billets, or those fair scriblerinas just emancipated from boarding school restraints, or the dragonism of their governess, just beginning to taste the refined enjoyments of sentimental, confidential, soul-breathing correspondence with some Angelina, Seraphina, or Laura Matilda; to indite beautiful little notes, with long tailed letters, upon vellum paper, with pink margins, sealed with sweet mottoes, and dainty devices, the whole deliciously perfumed with musk and attar of roses; young ladies who collect" copies of verses," and charades, keep albums, copy patterns, make bread seals, work little dogs upon footstools, and paint flowers without shadow-Oh! no! the epistolary steam engine will never come into vogue with those dear creatures.

They must enjoy the "feast of reason, and the flow of soul," and they must write-yes! and how they do write.

7. But for another genus of female scribes, unhappy innocents! who groan in spirit at the dire necessity of having to hammer out one of those aforesaid terrible epistles; who, having in due form dated the gilt-edged sheet that lies outspread before them in appalling whiteness, having also felicitously achieved the graceful exordium, "My dear Mrs. P," or " My dear Lady V," or "My dear any thing else," feel that they are in for it, and must say something! Oh, that something that must come of nothing! those bricks that must be made without straw! those pages that must be filled with words! Yea, with words that must be sewed into sentences! Yea, with sentences that must seem to mean something: the whole to be tacked together, all neatly fitted and dovetailed so as to form one smooth, polished surface!

8. What were the labors of Hercules to such a task! The very thought of it puts me into a mental perspiration; and, from my inmost soul, I compassionate the unfortunates now (at this very moment, perhaps,) screwed up perpendicularly in the seat of torture, having in the right hand a fresh-nibbed patent pen, dipped ever and anon into the ink bottle, as if to hook up ideas, and under the outspread palm of the left hand a fair sheet of best Bath post, (ready to receive thoughts yet unhatched), on which their eyes are riveted with a stare of disconsolate perplexity infinitely touching to a feeling mind.

I re

9. To such unhappy persons, in whose miseries I deeply sympathize Have I not groaned under similar horrors, from the hour when I was first shut up (under lock and key, I believe), to indite a dutiful epistle to an honored aunt ? member, as if it were yesterday, the moment when she who had enjoined the task entered to inspect the performance, which, by her calculation, should have been fully completed. I remember how sheepishly I hung down my head, when she snatched from which I had made no further progress

than "My

on

before me the paper, angrily exclaiming, "What, child! have you been shut up here three hours to call your aunt a pismire?" From that hour of humiliation I have too often groaned under the endurance of similar penance, and I have learned from my own sufferings to compassionate those of my dear sisters in affliction. To such unhappy persons, then, I would fain offer a few hints, (the fruit of long experience), which, if they have not already been suggested by their own observation, may prove serviceable in the hour of emergency.

10. Let them -- or suppose I address myself to one particular sufferer-there is something more confidential in that manner of communicating one's ideas. As Moore says, Heart speaks to heart." I say, then, take always special care to write by candlelight, for not only is the apparently unimportant operation of snuffing the candle in itself a momentary relief to the depressing consciousness of mental vacuum, but not unfrequently that trifling act, or the brightening flame of the taper, elicits, as it were, from the dull embers of fancy, a sympathetic spark of fortunate conception. When such a one occurs, seize it quickly and dextrously, but, at the same time, with such cautious prudence, as not to huddle up and contract in one short, paltry sentence, that which, if ingeniously handled, may be wiredrawn, so as to undulate gracefully and smoothly over a whole page.

11. For the more ready practice of this invaluable art of dilating, it will be expedient to stock your memory with a large assortment of those precious words of many syllables, that fill whole lines at once; "incomprehensibly, amazingly, decidedly, solicitously, inconceivably, incontrovertibly." An opportunity of using these, is, to a distressed spinner, as delightful as a copy all m's and n's to a child. "Command you may, your mind from play." They run on with such delicious smoothness!

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

QUESTIONS.- How must epistolary intercourse or letter writing be conducted, in order to be agreeable and useful? What manner of conducting it is ridiculed in this lesson ? What is meant by talking nonsense?

To what inflections, in this lesson, is Rule II, §3, applicable?

Parse “them” in the 10th paragraph. What word may be understood after it? Parse " dilating " in the 11th paragraph. Parse "incomprehensibly," "amazingly," &c., in the same paragraph. Parse "m's" and "n's." Parse "all." Parse "run on" in the last sentence. What is the subject of the verb ? What is the object of the preposition "with?"

ARTICULATION. - E-pis-to-la-ry, not e-pis-t' lary: per-son-al, not per s'nal: mis-er-y, not mis'ry: drudg-er-y, not drudg'ry: fe-lic-it-ous-ly, not flic' tous-ly: Her-cu-les, not Her-c'les: un-fort-u-nates, not un-fort'nates : dis-con-so-late, not dis-con-s'late : sim-i-lar, not simʼlar : du-ti-ful, not dute-ful : cal-cu-la-tion, not cal-c'la-tion: suf-fer-ings, not suf-f'rin's: ex-pe-ri-ence, not ex-pe-r'ence: par-tic-u-lar, not par-tic' lar: un-du-late, not un-d' late.

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. Epistolary, social: 3. well-head: 4. obviate: 5. drudgery: 6. emancipated; mottoes, albums: 8. perplexity 9. emergency 10. confidential, vacuum, dextrously: 11. dilating.

LESSON XC.

RULE. Be careful to give all the consonants their full sound in each woru.

Wan'-ton-ness, n. playfulness, sportive- Chid, v. blamed, reproached. [or troubles,

ness.

Christ'-en-dom, n. territory of Christians:
used for christening or baptism, as if he
said, By my baptism

Prate, n. familiar talk.
Sooth, n. truth.

Rheum, n. (pro. rume) here used for tears.
Dis-pit'-e-ous, a. cruel, without pity.

An-noy'-ance, n. any thing which injures
Troth, n. truth, veracity.

Ex-tremes', n. the greatest degree of dis-
tress: undeserved extremes means, acts
of cruelty which he had not deserved.
Tarre, v. (pro. tar) to tease, to set on.
Dog'-ged, a. surly, stubborn.
Close'-ly, adv. secretly, privately.

PRINCE ARTHUR.

Hubert. HEAT me these irons hot; and, look thou stand
Within the arras; when I strike my foot

Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth,

And bind the boy, which you shall find with me,
Fast to the chair: be heedful: hence, and watch.

First Attendant. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.
Hub. Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you look to it.

(Exeunt Attendants.
Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.

Arthur. Good-morrow, Hubert.

Arth. As little prince (having so great a title
To be more prince) as may be. You are sad.
Indeed, I have been merrier.

Hub.

Arth. Mercy on me!

Methinks no person should be sad but I:
Yet I remember, when I was in France,
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness. By my christendom,
So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,
I should be merry as the day is long;
And so I would be here, but that I doubt
My uncle practices more harm to me:
He is afraid of me, and I of him :

Enter

[Arthur.)

No, indeed, is 't not; and I would to heaven
I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.
Hub. If I talk to him, with his innocent prate

He will awake my mercy, which lies dead :
Therefore I will be sudden, and dispatch.
Arth. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day.
In sooth, I would you were a little sick,
That I might sit all night, and watch with you.

I warrant I love you more than you

do me.

Hub. His words do take possession of my bosom.

(Aside.)

Read here, young Arthur. (Showing a paper.) How now, foolish rheum? (Aside.)

Turning dispiteous torture out the door!

I must be brief; lest resolution drop
Out at mine eyes, in tender womanish tears.
Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?

Arth. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect:

Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

Hub. Young boy, I must.

Arth. And will you ?

Hub. And I will.

Arth.

Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkerchief about your brows,

(The best I had, a princess wrought it me),
And I did never ask it you again:

And with my hand at midnight held your head,
And like the watchful minutes to the hour,

Still and anon cheered up the heavy time;

Saying, What lack you? and, Where lies your grief?
Or, What good love may I perform for you?
Many a poor man's son would have lain still,
And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;
But you at your sick service had a prince.
Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,
And call it cunning: do, and if you will :
If heaven be pleased that you should use me ill,
Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes?
These eyes, that never did, nor never shall,

So much as frown on you?

Hub. I have sworn to do it;

And with hot irons must I burn them out.

Arth. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it:
The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,

Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears,