My Dearest Love,

Your affectionate husband,

Robert Burns.

4. The Superscription.

By the Superscription of a letter is meant the address which is written upon the envelope.

Why Important. Some care in this respect is needed, both because correctness in the superscription is the chief means for securing the safe delivery of the letter, and because any want of propriety in the superscription is sure to attract criticism. What is inside of one's letter may meet the eye of only the most indulgent friendship, and any little inelegance or carelessness is sure to be forgiven. But the outside usually undergoes the scrutiny of many, and it is but a poor compliment to your friend, that what he receives from you through the hands of third parties should give them the impression that his correspondent is an ignoramus or a boor.

Penmanship. The superscription of a letter, so far as the penmanship goes, should be written with entire distinctness and legibility, with neatness and care, and with some attention to elegance, but never with ornamental flourishes.

Scrupulous Exactness. -The superscription should be written with scrupulous verbal exactness, and attention to conventional propriety.

The Superscription consists of three parts, the Name of the person addressed, the Title, and the Residence.

1. The Name. - Intimate friends often have familiar pet names for each other, nicknames, which they use in the free intercourse of friendship. These may be allowable inside of the letter, but never outside. The name on the outside should be written with formal propriety and correctness, as it would be expected to be written by an entire stranger.

2. The Title.

- The greatest difficulty in addressing a letter is to know what title to give.

Common Titles. - Every one now-a-days, except among the Friends, has some title. A young lad usually has the prefix Master, and any unmarried woman the prefix Miss. Every married woman or widow has the prefix Mrs., and every man who has no higher title is Mr.

Professional Titles. - Medical men have the title M. D. after their name,

and legal gentlemen that of Esquire.* Others, who belong to neither of these professions, but who are graduates of Colleges, have some academic title after their names, as A. M. or Ph. D., &c. In such cases the Mr. before the name should be dropped. It would be ridiculous to write Mr. John Peters, Esq., Mr. Thomas Dobbs, M. D. In like manner, it is absurd to write John Bates, A. M., D. D.

Higher and Lower Titles. - The higher title presupposes the lower. When one reaches D. D., or LL. D., he drops his A. B. or his A. M. It is customary, however, to retain both the two higher titles, D. D., LL. D., if one happens to reach them both, and the LL. D. in such a case is written last, as James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., not James McCosh, LL. D., D. D.

Clergymen. -Clergymen always have the prefix Rev., and Bishops that of Rt. Rev., and this is usually retained even where they have D. D., or some other honorary title, after their name, as Rev. John Maclean, D. D., LL. D.

Honorables.-Judges, Members of Congress, and some other high officers of Government, have the prefix Honorable. This title prefixed to a name extinguishes the title Esquire after it, but not any title of special honor. It would not be right to say Hon. Joel Jones, Esq., but one may with entire propriety say Hon. Joel Jones, LL. D.*

Full Name.- Where an honorary prefix such as Rev. or Hon. is used, it is more respectful to give the full name, as Rev. William A. Butler, not Rev. Mr. Butler; Hon. Salmon P. Chase, not Hon. Judge Chase.

Governors.-The Governor of a State is usually addressed as His Excellency, and this is written in a separate line, with the full name in a second line, and the official title on a third line; thus,

His Excellency,

James Pollock, LL. D.,

Governor of Pennsylvania.

Etiquette in Washington has prescribed the following form, in addressing the President of the United States: On the outside of the letter,

To the President,

Executive Mansion,

Washington, D. C.

Inside: "Mr. President, I have the honor," &c. These forms are the strict etiquette. Not one word more or less is necessary. To write "To the President of the United States," would be surplusage.

3. The Residence. - -In writing upon the envelope of a letter the residence of the person addressed, the same general rules should be observed which have already been given for writing one's own residence at the top of the letter.

* There is a ridiculous fashion among some ill-informed persons of appending Esq. to the name of every one who has no other title. It may be proper sometimes to address in this way a man somewhat advanced in years and of high social standing, who happens to have no special official designation; but to apply the title, as is often done, to boys fresh from school, to clerks and salesmen in stores, and to common daylaborers, is a discourteous and uncivil mockery.

Name of the State. The only additional rule needed is that the name of the State should be written out in full, especially when the letter is to go to some other State than that in which it is written.

The Reason.-There are so many towns having the same name. that in the haste of post-office business a letter is often sent to two or three different places before it reaches the right one, and sometimes it is lost altogether. But there are never two post-offices of the same name in the same State, and the postmasters are always familiar with the location of all the offices in their own State. The name of the State being written in full, in a clear, legible hand, on the face of the letter, it is almost sure to go to the right State, and being once in the State, it is equally sure of reaching the right office, and by the most direct route.*

Arrangement of the Items.

It is proper to observe, also, that in writing the residence on the envelope, instead of putting it all in one line, as is done at the head of a letter, each item of the residence forms a separate line; thus,

Bridgeton,

Cumberland County,

New Jersey.

315 Green St.,

Trenton,

New Jersey.

Where to put the Name. The name and title should occupy the central portion of the envelope. If they are placed higher up than

the middle, the appearance is awkward, and besides, a clear space above is needed for the postmark and stamp. If the name is written much below the middle, as young misses have an affected way of doing, it does not leave room below for writing the residence without unsightly crowding. It is better, therefore, both for appearance, and for practical convenience, to let the name and title occupy a line that is just about central between the top of the envelope and the bottom. Nor should the name be crowded off to the extreme right of the envelope, as inexperienced persons are apt to place it, but it should be placed about centrally between the two ends. The name stands out more distinctly to the eye, and it gives a more symmetrical appearance to the whole, if there is a clear space left at each end.

* At a critical moment in American affairs, (the time of "John Brown's raid" at Harper's Ferry,) Governor Wise, of Virginia, wrote an important letter to Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania. The letter was addressed to "Harrisburg, Pa." The country postmaster, being naturally more familiar with the towns in his own State than with those farther off, and mistaking Pa. for Va., mailed the letter to Harris[on]burg, Virginia, and before the mistake was discovered, the rapid march of events had made the letter too late.

II. DIARIES.

A Diary, as the name imports, is a daily record.

Subjects. The subjects recorded vary, of course, with the ago sex, occupation, and character of the diarist. It is a form of composition more used perhaps than any other for recording religious experience. Travellers record thus their daily adventures and observations. Students, men of business, men of pleasure even, are wont to write down from day to day things which interest them, or which they desire particularly to remember.

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Essential Character. A Diary is the least exact and formal of all kinds of composition. The primary and governing idea which should control the writer in its formation is, that its pages are meant for his own eye only. He writes an entry to-day in order that, some years hence, when memory begins to fail, he may see exactly what to-day's thoughts or experiences were. It is a record made for the information of one's future self. The first quality, therefore, in such a record, is that it be absolutely honest.

Style. Embellishments and figures of rhetoric are utterly out of place in a diary. It is not necessary, indeed, to the truthfulness of such a record, as some seem to imagine, that it be written in defiance of the laws of grammar. On the contrary, some attention to grammatical and verbal accuracy shows only a proper self-respect. But studied elegance, and what are called the graces of style, show that the whole thing is a sham, and that the writer is not making what he is pretending to make, a private record for his own future information, but is really writing for effect upon the minds of other people.

Dates. - It is essential to the honesty and truthfulness of a diary that the date of an entry should be that on which the entry is actually made. Inexperienced persons, in keeping a diary, sometimes omit making any record for several days, and then, on some day when they have leisure or inclination, make one job of it, and fill up the missing days from memory. This is to make the whole record valueless, either for themselves or for any one else.

Blank Days. — If, on any particular day, no record is made, let the day stand blank. Such blanks are no blemish to a diary; the best diaries often have them. In making the record of a particular day, the writer may, if he chooses, register his recollections of what

took place on previous days, but let them be entered as recollections. The inexorable rule for a diary, from which there should be no exception, is that each entry have a date, and that the date mark truthfully the time of the writing.

The Place. -Persons who keep a diary will likewise find it of great value to themselves to register the place where, as well as the time when, each entry is made. Accuracy and particularity in regard to facts are indeed the essential points in the composition of a diary.

III. NEWS.

Next to writing letters, there is, in modern times, no species of composition of which so much is done as News writing.

Amount.

- The innumerable items which fill the news columns of the daily and weekly papers are enormous in amount, and constitute the chief reading of the public-the daily bread of our literary life.

Literary Character. -The literature of the news columns is not, perhaps, of a very high character; yet that it is a part of the literature of the day cannot well be denied, and the rules which should govern it ought not to be entirely ignored in any work professing to treat of the various kinds of composition in actual use.

The True Medium. - News items are for the most part written in haste. The writers have not time to correct and prune their composition as other writers have. Personally, therefore, they are not held to as strict an account as other writers are, for general accuracy of diction and style. Yet every reader is sensible of the difference between a paragraph of news correctly written and one incorrectly written, and by the exercise of only a moderate degree of attention, the writers of these paragraphs could certainly avoid most of the glaring errors which now mar their work.

Things to be Aimed at. - The chief excellencies of style to be cultivated by the writer of news are accuracy, condensation, and perspicuity. The higher graces of style, such as those growing out of the use of rhetorical figures, lie in a different plane. The news writer has not the leisure for such ornaments, nor, if he had, would their use be in accordance with good taste. What the reader requires of