to Milton soon bewildered him, and made him blind to his duty. He went through college-his further history may be easily imagined.

The mention of themes recals to mind a few desultory rules for composition and conversation, which have been lately collected; and in a treatise of this kind, no hint must be passed by, lest it should never occur again.

1. If you wish to convince people by argument, begin by insulting their feelings, and rousing their passions. Vide our political writers, passim.

2. If you are writing upon political economy, draw your authorities from Petrarch and Dante.

3. If you quote from the Latin poets, choose Claudian and Statius, or in case of need, Sannazarius or Buchanan. To cite Virgil and Horace is a stale college trick.

4. If you seek for the sublime, and are not afraid of floundering, look over the 4th of July orations, and the addresses to the Charitable Fire Society.

5. If you wish to attain general views, and what the painters call a large manner, consult the French state papers. The Dutch have windmills innumerable, they smoke almost as much as the Americans, and drink more gin; every man and woman in the country is by petticoats and breeches surrounded as many times as Erebus was by Styx. Even the fat burgomasters of the present day had heard of the De Ruyters and Van Tromps, the De Wits, and the Princes of Orange; but the French are not puzzled by all these facts; the French emperour in casting his eyes over Europe, puffed away the fog and tobacco smoke that covered the country, and saw at once that Holland was only "the alluvion of the Rhine."

6. Always speak to the purpose; do not attempt to teach a blind man painting. In Andover you would descant upon the apathy consequent on too much mildness of character, harmony and concord in the heads of an institution. In Cambridge, you would dwell on the confusion incident upon too much energy, and upon the calamities attending early marriages.

7. If you are engaged in teaching, make use of classick methods. For instance, do you want to give ladies, who are frightened at the ugliness of the words, an idea of synthesis and analysis, take a group of them making patchwork, and then, like the man who discovered that he had been speaking

prose all his life, they will be surprised at finding that they are performing both those operations at the same time. They are putting together pieces of calico, which is synthesis, and they are taking to pieces the characters of their acquaintance, which is analysis.

8. If you undertake any work, make the frame of it elastick, so that you may change its title or its form, if it should be rendered necessary by events. Make it a sort of polypus, so that if you cut off its head or its tail, another will grow, or if you split it down in the middle, it will become two perfect bodies. Contrive your book like those rare houses, which we see advertised in the country, "as admirably calculated for the private gentleman, trader, or tavernkeeper."

9. If you should be annoyed by punsters, which happens to many an honest man, repeat the following sentence from the illustrious Martinus Scriblerus, and overwhelm them. This sort of gentry are not much read in the ancient authors, and will be easily confounded. If the conversation does not lead to it, lug it in by the head and shoulders; wit and statesmen are both introduced in this manner every day.-Figure to yourself the dismay of a punster assailed by a galaxy of puns like the following:-"Who is not governed by the word led? Our noblemen and drunkards are pimp-led, physicians and pulses fee-led, their patients and oranges pil-led, a new married man and an ass bride-led, an old married man and a horse sad-led, cats and dice are rat-led, swine and nobility are sty-led, a coquette and a tinder-box are spark-led, a lover and a blunderer are grove-led."

Having got from man as an individual to man as a social being, the natural order of the subject leads to a consideration of the form of government best calculated for the general interests of society. Monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, have each their several advantages, and of those attending the latter, we have daily experience in this most enlightened country. But there is one form of government, which legislative theorists have strangely passed over; and though it has been common in all ages, from the time of Socrates to the present, it is probable that no theory of it exists, not even in the pigeon holes of the Abbe Sieyes himself. A gynecocrasy is the most admirable of all governments, and models of it in action may every where be found. If perpetual activity, vigilance, and a steady rein, be valuable qualities, no species of

rule possesses them so remarkably as a gynecocrasy. Theoretical legislators, individuals who are fond of proposing amendments to our constitutions, will do well to study the na-* ture of this government; many of them may have an opportunity without stirring from home, and at farthest will only have to visit some of their neighbours. The Corinthian capital owed its origin to a weed growing beside a stone; the government of a nation may be perhaps ameliorated, or at least changed by contemplating the police of a single family.

Motives to action must exist, whatever may be the form of government In the savage state, hunger is the only one that urges the biped to exertion; but in a social state they are numerous. They are easily, and indeed advantageously converted into passions, and here the great difficulty arises, which is, to control the bad and encourage the good passions. Anger, for instance, is the most common, yet anger is turbulent, vindictive, unjust, and the cause of a thousand evils. In a single man it may cause the misery of millions. Read the Iliad, and judge of its effects; the poem is founded upon them.*

Wealth, the applause of mankind, and a long life of glory are held out as motives; yet all these may be easily shewn to be unreal, or contemptible. Hear what the poet says of wealth.

Riches are oft by guilt or baseness earn'd,
Oft dealt by chance to shield a lucky knave,
Or throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.

So much for riches. The prosperity of a long life, or the desire of glorious fame, are equally subject to doubt, as is fully proved by the celebrated Portugueze poet, Luis Rafael Soye, whose works are doubtless familiar to all my readers, who has these beautiful thoughts in the 75th stanza of his 11th night.

Quanto he vario o Destino ! quao voluvel

Dos homans distribue as varios sortes !

A huns castiga com eternos loiros,
Premeia a outros com infaustas mortes.

(To be continued.)

The reader is requested to peruse the first twenty lines, and indeed the whole book may be read to great advantage.

SILVA, No. 62.

Frondes addere silvis............Ov.

LUCA GIORDANO.

THIS painter, whose works were at one time the delight and pride of the Neapolitan court, is now scarcely mentioned by connoisseurs, excepting as an instance of the puerile ambition of aspiring to cover the largest pieces of canvas within the shortest space of time. The rapidity of his execution was so remarkable, that it procured him the appellation of Luca fa presto; or Luca, the quick worker.

Among vulgar minds there is, perhaps, no quality which seems to carry with it such an air of inspiration, as this mechanical facility. Hence it was that Luca, though an artist of very moderate talents, attained in his day to a degree of celebrity, which few painters have had the good fortune to enjoy : and, certainly, if mere manual dexterity, without the aid of mind, be sufficient to the constitution of genius, no one had ever juster pretensions to the reputation of that faculty; for no artist in so short a life has ever painted so great a number of pictures at the expense of so little thought. But that his title to this did not pass undisputed, even in his own time, appears from the number of satirical anecdotes, which have been transmitted to posterity in ridicule of his boasted talent.

It is related, among others, that being one day called to dinner, he replied, "verro subito ; ho solamente d'abozzare le teste deidodice apostoli :" I will come directly; I have only to dead-colour the heads of the twelve apostles.

But the answer of Catherine of Medicis, when importuned to pay him a second visit, is no less remarkable for its application to Giordano, than as a poignant satire on the fertile folly of many poets as well as painters. Her visit to Naples happened to be at the time when Luca's pencil was in its highest repute She had been often solicited to honour it with her applause; but the fame of its rapidity produced in her a very different effect from what was expected, and she as often declined. She was, however, at length prevailed on to accompany one of her gentlemen to a famous gallery, which this favourite artist had just completed; but, having reached the place, with great composure she walked to the end; then, im

mediately retracing her steps, returned homeward. The next morning she gave orders for her departure. "Surely, madam," said her gentleman, "you will not quit Naples without revisiting the works of this great artist? You have scarcely given them a glance." "True," replied Catherine; "but it is a maxim with me, that whatever is hastily produced, should be as hastily seen.”

LOGICAL DIVISION,

which is full without redundancy, and concise without confusion, I never found more grossly perverted than in a sentence of Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson. "Of the inhabitants, those of St. Kilda for instance, some are Christians, resembling, both in their religious tenets and the purity of their lives, those of the primitive times; others are of the Romish communion, and the rest are of that denomination of protestants, who adhere to the reformation of that furious bigot John Knox.”

ETYMOLOGY.

Dr. Johnson has frequently been attacked for mistakes in this part of his Dictionary, and Cumberland complains of him for his errours in Greek derivations. This induced me to examine a few of them, among which I think the following are palpable faults. "Admiral," says the Dr. is "of uncertain etymology;" but, after tracing it to the French amiral, I think it may very fairly be said to come originally from unpas, which is used to signify a sea-commander. Dish is derived, according to Johnson, from discus; but he forgets that this was deduced immediately from dixos. To engrave is to be sure but a transcript of the French engraver; but this is almost the pure Greek, vypaper. Gay, to be gay, probably originated from γαιειν. Guerdon both French and English may be traced to the accusative singular of xepos. Heinous, which the Dr. has troubled himself to derive from the Teutonick hoon, might have been more easily detected in aivas, graviter. Safe may very fairly be pursued to sans, and perhaps to Fos, as it was not unfrequently written with the digamma, and very often signified personal safety.