Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead
Thus on, till wisdoin is push'd out of life.

Give an example of Trochaic verse.

Restless mortals töil för nöught;
Bliss in vain from earth is sought;
Bliss, a native of the sky,
Never wanders. Mortals, try;
There you cannot seek in vain ;
For, to seek her, is to gain.

Idlě after dinner in his chair,
Sat a farmer, ruddy, fat and fair.

Give an example of Dactylic measune.

From the low pleasures of this fallen natüre,
Rise we to higher, &c.

Give an example of Anapast verse.

O ye woods, spread your branches ǎpace;
To your deepest recesses I fly;

I would hide with the beasts of the chace;
I would vanish from every eye.

May I govern my passions with absolute swayi
And grow wiser and better as life wears away.

Q. How many kinds of poetical pauses are there ?

A.. Two-one for the sense, and one for the melody, perfectly distinct from each other. The former is called the sentential pause; and the latter, the harmonic pause.

The sentential pauses are those, which are known to us, by the name of stops, as comma, semicolon, &c.

Q. What have you to remark respecting the harmonic pause ?

A. The harmonic pauses may be subdivided into the final pause, and the caesural pause. These sometimes coincide with the sentential pause, and sometimes have an independent state; that is, exist where there is no stop in the sense.

Q. Where, in reading poetry, is the final, and where the cœsural pause to be made?

A. The final pause takes place at the end of the line, closes the verse, and marks the measure : the cœsural pause divides the line into equal or unequal parts, falling generally on the 4th, 5th, or 6th syllable, in heroic verse. The final pause preserves the melody, without interfering with the sense; for, as it has no peculiar note of its own, but always takes that which belongs to the preceding word, it changes with the matter, varies. with the sense, and prevents monotony.

Examples.

The silver eel" in shining volumes roll'd,
The yellow carp" in scales bedropp'd with golde

Round broken columns" clasping ivy twin'd,
O'er heaps of ruin" stalk'd the stately hind.

Oh say, what stranger cause" yet unexplor'd,
Could make the gentle belle" reject a lord.

The line is sometimes divided into four parts,. by the introduction of what is called a demi-cæsnra; thus:

Warms in the sun" refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars" and blossoms' in the trees; Lives through all life" exterals through all extent,

Spreads undivided" operates unspent.

MUSIC.

Q. In what does music consist ?

A. It consists in a succession of pleasing sounds, with reference to a peculiar internal sense, implanted in us by the great Author of Nature.

Q. What does music teach, considered as a science?

A. Considered as a science, music teaches us the just disposition and true relation of sounds, so that they may affect us in the most agreeable manner: As an art it enables us to express these sounds with facility and correctness.

Q. What is to be understood by the composition of music?

A. It is the act of framing pieces of music, and writing them in notes upon paper, according to the rules of the science.

Q. How many sounds may be expressed by the human voice ?

A. Ordinarily, twenty-two.

Q. What is melody?

A. Melody is the agreeable effect, which arises from the succession of single sounds.

Q. What is harmony?

A. Harmony is the pleasing union of several sounds at the same time.

Q. What are the principal qualities of musical sounds ?

A. The primary and essential qualities of musical sounds are relative acuteness or gravity, and proportionate duration.

Bodies of unequal size, length, or tension, emit sounds differing both in duration and in gravity or acuteness. Thus in a set of regular tuned

G

bells, the largest gives the gravest sound, and the smallest, the most acute. Human voices also dif fer in this respect; a man's being more grave than that of a woman,

Q. Whence is the word music derived?

A. It is supposed to have been originally formed from the Latin word musa, muse: the muses being considered as its inventors.

Q. Had not music a very early origin?

A. It appears to have been among the most ancient of the arts; and of all others, vocal musie must undoubtedly, have been the first kind: for man had not only the various tones of his own voice to make his observations on, before any other art or instrument was found out, but had the various natural strains of birds to give him occasion to improve his own voice, and the modulations of sound it was capable of expressing.

Q. How are the various musical instruments supposed to have been invented P

A. The first invention of wind instruments is ascribed to the observation of the wind whistling in the hollow reeds. As for other kinds of instruments, there were so many occasions for using cords or strings, that men could not fail to observe their various sounds; this may have given rise to the stringed instruments; and for the pulsatile instruments, as drums, cymbals, &c.