tend much with their inclinations, it is generally vain to solicit the good will of those whom we perceive thus involuntarily alienated from us; neither knowledge nor virtue will reconcile antipathy; and though officiousness may for a time be admitted, and diligence applauded, they will at last be dismissed with coldness, or discouraged by neglect. Some have indeed an occult power of stealing upon the affections, of exciting universal benevolence, and disposing every heart to fondness and friendship. But this is a felicity granted only to the favorites of nature. 11. The greater part of mankind find a different reception from different dispositions; they sometimes obtain unexpected caresses from those whom they never flattered with uncommon regard, and sometimes exhaust all their arts of pleasing without effect. To these it is necessary to look round, and attempt every breast in which they find virtue sufficient for the foundation of friendship; to enter into the crowd, and try whom chance will offer to their notice, till they fix on some têmper congenial to their own, as the magnet rolled in the dust collects the fragments of its kindred metal from a thousand particles of other substances. 12. Every man must have remarked the facility with which the kindness of others is sometimes gained by those to whom he never could have imparted his own. We are by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided almost into different species, which regard one another, for the most part, with scorn and malignity. 13. Each of these classes of the human race has desires, fears, and conversation, vexations and merriment, peculiar to itself; cares which another cannot feel; pleasures which he cannot partake; and modes of expressing every sensation which he cannot understand. That frolic which shakes one man with laughter, will convulse another with indignation; the strain of jocularity which in one place obtains treats and patronage, would in another be heard with indifference, and in a third with abhorrence. 14. To raise esteem we must benefit others, to procure love we must please them. Aristotle observes, that old men do not readily form friendships, because they are not easily susceptible of pleasure. He that can contribute to the hilarity of the vacant hour, or partake with equal gust the favorite amusement; he whose mind is employed on the same objects, and who therefore never harasses the understanding with unaccustomed ideas, will be welcomed with ardor, and left with regret, unless he destroys those recommendations by faults with which peace and security cannot consist. 15. It were happy, if, in forming friendships, virtue could concur with pleasure; but the greatest part of human gratifications approach so nearly to vice, that few who make the delight of others their rule of conduct, can avoid disingenuous compliances; yet certainly he that suffers himself to be driven or allured from virtue, mistakes his own interest, since he gains1 succor by means for which his friend, if ever he becomes wise, must scorn him, and for which at last he must scorny himself. a § 11. 4. b§ 49. 1. e Why a period? io? f§ 12. 2. d Sound of u? c Sound of g Sound of ea? h § 44. 17. k Sound of x ? l Sound of ai? v26. 3. w Sound of e? x Is ea a dipthong? y Sound of ie? j Sound of ei? o How pronounced? No. 1. Is man ever in want of employment? Is this natural, or the force of habit? How has this been much deformed? What is said of every person's having an associate ? What is said of the insensible power of some? How must we gain esteem and love? No. 2. Superfluities, innumerable, understood, strongly, consequences, confidence, tenderness, attraction, recollect, different, dislike, coldness, collect, approach, compliance. No. 3. Con-sid-ible for con-sid-erable, ar-mo-ny for har-mo-ny, dar-ters, for daugh-ters, koirs for quires, cap-tur for capt-yure. No. 6. All the marks of punctuation omitted in the third verse; correct them. No. 7. Due and do, grope and group, grot and groat, rot and wrought, symbal and cymbal, noose and news, loo and lieu. No. 8. § 3. 1. 2. 3. No. 10. Mention all the subjects, predicates, and objects, with the respective modifiers of each, in the first verse. Be particular in this exercise. No. 12. All the words in the first verse, and give the sound of each vowel. 1. A romantic girl with a pretension to sentiment which her still more ignorant friends mistake for genius" (for in the empire of the blind the one-eyed are kings) and possessing something of a natural ear has perhaps in her childhood exhausted all the images of grief and love and fancy picked up in her *This is respectfully dedicated to those who think themselves poets. desultory poetical reading in an elegy on a sick linnet or a sonnet to a dead lap-doga she begins thenceforward to be considered as a prodigy in her little circleb surrounded with fond and flattering friends every avenue to truth is shut out she has no opportunity of learning that her fame is derived not from her powers but her position and that when an impartial critic. shall have made all the necessary deductions such asb that she is a neighbor that she is a relation that she is a female that she is young that she has had no advantages that she is pretty perhaps when her verses come to be stripped of all their extraneous appendages and the fair author is driven offe her 'vantage ground of partiality sex and favor she will commonly sink to the level of ordinary capacities while those more quiet women who have meekly sat down in the humble shades of prose and prudence by a patienth perseverance in rational studies rise afterwards much higher in the scale of intellect and acquire a much larger stock of sound knowledge for far better purposes than mere display. 2. And though it may seem a contradiction, yet it will generally be found true, that girls who take to scribble, are the least studious, the least reflecting, and the least rational. They early acquire a false confidence in their own unassisted powers; it becomes more gratifying to their naturalm vanity to be always pouring out their minds on paper, than to be drawing into them fresh ideas from richer sources. 3. The original stock, small, perhaps at first, is soon spent. The subsequent efforts grow more and more feeble, if the mind, which is continually exhaustingk itself, be not also continually replenished, till the latter compositions become little more than reproductions of the same ideas, and fainter copies of the same images, a little varied and modified perhaps, and not a little diluted and enfeebled. 4. It will be necessary to combat vigilently that favorite plear of lively ignorance, that study is any enemy to originality. Correct the judgment, while you humble the vanity of the young, untaught pretender, by convincing her that those halfformed thoughts and undigested ideas, which she considers as proofs of her invention, prove only that she wants taste and knowledge; that while conversation must polish, and reflection invigorate her ideas," she must improve and enlarge them by the accession of various kinds of virtuous and elegant literature; and that the cultivated mind will repay with large in terest the seeds sown in it by judiciousP study. served, I am by no means encouraging young authors; I am only reminding them, that, Authors, before they write, should read; Let it be obladiesf to turn I am only putting them in mind, that to be ignorant is not to be original. 5. These self-taught and self-dependent scribblers pant for the unmerited and unattainable praise of fancy and of genius, while they disdain the commendation of judgment, knowledge, and perseverance, which would probably be within their reach. To extort admiration, they are accustomed to boast of an impossible rapidity in composing; and while they insinuate how. little time their performances cost them, they intend you should infer how perfect they might have made them, had they condescended to the drudgery of application; but application with them impliesf defect of genius. 6. They take superfluous pains to convince you that there was neither learning nor labor employed in the work for which they solicit your praise. Alas! the judicious eye too soon perceives it!i though it does" not perceive that native strength and mother wit, which in works of real genius make some amends for the negligence which yet they do not justify. 7. But instead of extolling these effusions for their facility, it would be kind in friends' rather to blame them for their crudeness; and when the young candidates for fame are eager to prove in how short a time such a poem has been struck off, it would be well to regret that they had not either taken a longer time, or refrained from writing at all; as in the former case the work would have been less defective, and in the latter, the writer would have discovered more humility and self-distrust. α ή 12. 2. b§ 14. 2. c Sound of ei? d § 47. e Difference between off and of? ƒ Why not ys? g Difference between set and sat? h § 44. 1 Sound of ai? s Mention the figure of speech. u Sound of gh? t§ 57. k Sound of x? § 44. 5. m43. 15. n § 44. 10. o See W. D. p Sound of ei? i Why an exclamation point? Why italics? v Why not s? y § 49. 1. r Is ea a dipthong? w Sound of ou? No. 2. Impartial, contradiction, unassisted, subsequent, reflection, consider, invention, justify, defective. 11. No. 3. Ni-ther for ne-ther, con-sarn-ing for con-cern-ing, pi-son-ous for poi-son-ous, yal-ler for yel-low. No. 6. Punctuate first verse. No. 8. § 3. 2. 5. 9. No. 10. Tell all the parts of each sentence in the first verse. No. 12. All the words in the first verse, and give two or three sounds to each vowel. LESSON XXVI. THE DEAR BOUGHT VICTORY; OR, THE MONKEY AND THE SACK OF NUTS. 1. WITHIN a balcony of state,a At ease, and happy beyond measure,a Become the master of a treasure.b 2. Though not, indeed, of gems or gold, 3. These in a sack he tied with care, 4. They thronged beneath, in greedy train, с 5. For Pug, however rich in fruit, Appeared in bounty greatly lacking, The shells of nuts, which he'd been cracking. 6. At this the suppliants, filled with rage, Resolved to sue to him no longer, But battle now prepared to wage, As they in numbers were the stronger. 7. The monkey,f on this rude attack, Although he thought the means expensive, And turned his nuts to arms offensive. |