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THE PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC.

To the element of air God has given the power of producing sounds; to the ear the capacity of receiving them; and to the affections of the mind an aptness to be moved by them, when transmitted through the body. The philosophy

of the thing is too deep and wonderful for us; we cannot attain unto it! But such is the fact:

with that we are concerned, and that is enough for us to know.

AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO PERSEVERANCE.

Horne.

No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years.

VANITY OPPOSED TO PRIDE.

Tennyson.

Vanity's a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs, and chuck us over; but pride's a fine horse, that will carry us over the ground, and enable us to distance our fellow travellers. . . . How often have you read of people rising from nothing and becoming great men? This was from talent sure enough; but it was talent with pride to force it onward, not talent with vanity to check it. Marryat.

....

OBJECT OF THE Drama.

The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character. This, we conceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in local and temporary associations, like those canons which regulate the number of acts in a play, or of syllables in a line. To this fundamental law every other regulation is subordinate. The situations which most signally develop character form the best plot. The mother tongue of the passions is the best style.

This principle, rightly understood, does not debar the poet from any grace of composition. There is no style in which some man may not, under some circumstances, express himself. There is therefore no style which the drama rejects, none which it does not occasionally require. Macaulay.

THE VIRTUE OF HUMILITY.

To be humble to superiors is duty; to equals is courtesy; to inferiors is nobleness; and to all is safety it being a virtue, that, for all her lowliness, commandeth the souls it stoops to.

More.

A TRUE CRITIC.

A true critic, in the perusal of a book, is like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones." Swift.

A DAY'S PLEASURE.

"I'd sooner ha' brewin' day and washin' day together than one o' these pleasurin' days. There's no work so tirin' as danglin' about an' starin', an' not rightly knowin' what you're goin' to do next; and keepin' your face i' smilin' order like a grocer o' market-day for fear people shouldna think you civil enough. An' you've nothing to show for't when it's done, if it isn't a yallow face wi' eatin' things as disagree." George Eliot.

TESTIMONY AND ARGUMENT.

Testimony is like an arrow shot from a long bow, the force of it depends on the strength of the hand that draws it. Argument is like an arrow from a cross-bow, which has equal force though drawn by a child.

Boyle.

A COCKNEY.

I meet with a double sense of this word "Cock

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ney, some taking it for

First, One coaxed or cockered, made a wanton or nestlecock of, delicately bred and brought up, so that when grown men and women they can endure no hardship, nor comport with painstaking.

Second, One utterly ignorant of husbandry or housewifery, such as is practised in the country, so that they may be persuaded anything about rural commodities and the original thereof; and the tale of the citizen's son, who knew not the language of cock, but called it neighing.

The name is generally fixed on such who are born within the sound of Bow Bells, and are tender enough, and sufficiently ignorant of country businesses. One merrily persuaded a she-citizen, that, seeing malt did not grow, the good housewives in the country did spin it. "I knew as much," said the cockney, "for one may see the threads hang out at the end thereof."

Thomas Fuller.

THE POWER OF THE POSTMAN.

Perhaps there is no greater test of a man's regu`larity and easiness of conscience than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of a rat-tat! The good are eager for it; but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof. Thackeray.

MEANINGS Of Words.

Duelling.. Folly tampering with murder.
Clock. A dog we keep to bark at us. [try.
An invention for arguing by chemis-
Sweet oil for human machinery.

Gun.

Wages.
Marriage.

Harness for a pair.

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The fangs of a bear and the tusks of a wild boar do not bite worse and make deeper gashes than a goose-quill sometimes: no, not even the badger himself, who is said to be so tenacious of his bite, that he will not give over his hold till he feels his teeth meet and the bones crack. Howell. E

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