LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

and though they were much attached, the connection was so far broken that Mr. Nicholls was to leave. Then the vicar of Bradford interposed, by offering to secure to Mr. Nicholls the incumbency of Haworth after Mr. Bronté's death. This obviated all objections, and last summer a new study was built to the parsonage, and the lovers were married, remaining under the father's roof. But, alas! in three months the bride's lungs were attacked, and in three more the father and husband committed their loved one to the grave! Is it not a sad reality in which the romance ends?

An eminent actuary, recently dead-Mr. Griffith

Davies, F.R.S.-a notable instance of self-advancement. His father was a small farmer, in Wales. Mr. Davies began life as a quarryman, near Car narvon; he had almost attained manhood before he got any schooling. But he put himself to school, practised arithmetic with an iron pencil on the slate he quarried, and rapidly increased his knowledge. He soon set off for London; got more schooling; then himself became an usher, a schoolmaster, an author of arithmetical works, actuary to several life insurance companies, and a" great arithmetician," consulted and employed by the East India Company and the Bank of England. He was sixty-seven when he died.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

The Dignity of Labour. A Lecture by Newman | Hall, B.A. London: Nisbet and Co. Price 3d. This is an eloquent oration on the dignity of labour, as seen in its universality, the honour which has ever been put upon it, its wonderful achievements in the outer world, and its beneficial effects upon the individual man. It is not often that we meet with a production like this, so original in style, and pervaded by so healthy and hearty a spirit. We feel tempted to give the lecturer's list of distinguished men who have risen from the ranks of toil, not because of its novelty, but on account of the stimulating effect which, we feel sure, the perusal will have on our youthful aspirants :

"If we turn to antiquity, Æsop was a slave, Protagoras was a porter, Cleanthes a drawer of water, Epictetus a slave, Plautus a grinder of corn, Terence a slave, Horace the son of a liberated slave, and Virgil, we cannot doubt, was practically versed in all the labours of the farm. Who knows not the story of Cincinnatus, taken from his plough to the dictatorship of Rome, and who, having in sixteen days delivered his country, returned to his rural toils? Cato also, and many other noble Romans, thought it no disparagement to their patrician dignity to work with their own hands; nor until Roman citizens devolved all the labours of industry on hired slaves, did Rome decline from that lofty elevation which she reached when her senators and her warriors were men of toil.

"Let us come to more recent times. Amongst poets, Metastasio was a mechanic's son, and as a boy sang verses in the streets. Arnigio was a blacksmith. Sir W. Davenant was the son of a vintner. The author of" Hudibras" was the son of a small farmer. Gay was apprentice to a draper. Prior was a tavern boy. Pope was the son of a draper, Collins of a hatter, Beattie of a village shopkeeper, Akenside of a butcher, Cowley of a grocer, Keats of a livery-stable keeper, Chatterton of a sexton. Dodsley was apprenticed to a stocking weaver. Bloomfield was the son of a tailor, and, after being a farmer's boy, became a shoemaker. Ramsay was the son of a miner, and meditated poetry while making wigs. Kirke White was the son of a butcher, and began life at a stocking-frame. Falconer was a sailor boy, Burns a ploughman, Hogg a shepherd, Nicoll a sadler, Ebenezer Elliott a mechanic, Hood an engraver. Ben Jonson, the friend of Shakspere, worked for his bread as a bricklayer, and is thus referred to by Fuller, in his English Worthies: '

Let them not blush who have, but they who

have not, a lawful calling. He helped to build the new structure of Lincoln's Inn; when, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his pocket.' The name of Shakspere himself I have reserved to the last in this enumeration; for, while it has heen disputed whether he was the son of a butcher, a glover, a seller of wood, or a small landed proprietor, there is no doubt that his father, as if unable to write, signed a public Stratford document with a mark, and that the immortal poet himself, when he first came up to London, was glad to earn an honest penny in other ways than in the composition of immortal dramas.

"Let us come to the Arts. Giotto, one of the most eminent revivers of painting, was a peasant's son. Salvator Rosa was brought up in hardship. Claude Lorraine was apprenticed to a pastry-cook. Michael Angelo was the son of a stonemason. Barry was a ship-boy; Opie a sawyer. Gilpin was apprenticed to a ship-painter; Hogarth to an engraver. Sir Thomas Lawrence was the son of an innkeeper. Etty was apprenticed to a printer, and the son of a baker of gingerbread. The unrivalled Turner was the son of a hairdresser in Covent Garden. Haydn, the great musical composer, was the son of a wheelwright. Inigo Jones, great as an architect, was appren ticed to a joiner. Canova, the eminent sculptor, was the son of a stonemason; and Sir Francis Chantrey was a milk-boy, and, having first exhibited his genius in moulding butter, was apprenticed to a carver and gilder, with a premium of £10.

"Let us refer to celebrated authors, and men of learning. Heyne, the eminent classic, was the son of a weaver. Judge Blackstone, the commentator on English law, was the son of a draper. De Foe, the author of The Plague,' and of 'Robinson Crusoe,' was a hosier. Isaac Walton, the author of The Complete Angler,' kept a draper's shop in Fleet-street, seven and a half feet long by five feet wide. Prideaux was assistant in a kitchen. Richardson was the son of a joiner. Buchanan was a common soldier. Cobbett was a labouring boy in the fields. Milner, the church historian, was a weaver. Hutton, the great mathematician, was a stocking weaver. Parkes, the author of the 'Chemical Catechism,' was the son of a small grocer. Professor Porson was the son of a parish clerk. Foster, the essayist, worked at his father's loom. Lord Chancellor Eldon, and his brother, the learned Lord Stowell, were sons of a provin cial shopkeeper. Gifford, editor of the 'Quarterly Review, was a cabin-boy in a small coasting vessel."

Aids to Self-Culture.

THE ESSENTIALS OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND COMPOSITION.

To the true student the essentials of any study are sufficient. Life is too brief to afford time to traverse the whole field of speculation which every study includes. Some branches of the tree of knowledge have their fruit hidden among leaves, and hence occupy much time in the gathering, and, in many instances, the fruit is in inverse proportion to the leaves, and the value attained altogether incommensurate to the labour undergone in the search. This is especially the case with those departments of learning in which the theory is unsettled, or in which attempts have been made to dispense altogether with a theory. A theory—that is, a clear conception of the order, method, and relation of the truths to be taught, and the facts to be explained by them-is absolutely necessary to the construction of any system of tuition in any science or art; but it is not at all essentially requisite that the recondite metaphysic reasonings upon which a theory is founded, and on which its validity depends, should be explicitly protruded on the attention of the pupil; indeed, this ought to be particularly avoided in the earlier stages of study. The theory or plan must exist in the mind of the master builder, and the labours of those who are under him must be so directed and overlooked, that the edifice shall grow up in conformity with the plan, independently altogether of the ignorance of the labourers regarding the all-presiding design, to the upbuilding of which their exertions contribute. Afterwards they may retrace the processes by which the totality of the effect was produced, and comprehend the design to which each and all of those processes were subordinate. It is the same with the student of grammar and composition-the theory of the master must be subordinated to the progress of the pupil, and skill in the processes by which grand results are produced must frequently precede the knowledge of the theoretical methods by which the processes are governed. We purpose in the following paper to sketch out the essentials of English Grammar and Composition without the parade of a given theory, yet subordinated to that one, the principles of which have been already expounded in this serial.*

Composition is the art of expressing thought in proper and effective words: Grammar is the art of arranging the words, expressive of thought, in a manner consistent with the particular idiom and laws of any given language. English Grammar and Composition, therefore, signify the art of expressing thought with accuracy of diction, idiom, and relation; in other words, the vocal or visible expression of any thought in conformity to the customs of the best writers or conversationists of the age in which the thinker lives. Words are the results, representatives, and embodiment of thought.

Each individual exercise of thought refers either to the existences around us, or to their attributes, conditions, or relations.

Each completed act of thought, when expressed either orally or symbolically, constitutes a sentence, i. e., any number of words so arranged as to give full and proper utterance to a judgment or decision formed by the mind-e. g., Ink is a liquid.

Every sentence, logically considered, contains three parts-viz., 1st, Subject, that regarding which we think and speak; 2nd, Predicate, that which we think and speak regarding

* See" Rhetoric," passim, particularly papers II. to VIII. in vol. iii. of the British Controversialist.

R

the subject; 3rd, Copula, the sign by which these two notions are shown to be united into

one complete act of thought-e. g., Life (subject) is (copula) fleeting (predicate); but for grammatical purposes the predicate and copula are frequently conjoined to form one word, -the latter being included in the former,—and then the sentence may be divided into two parts only, viz., subject and predicate-e. g., Time (subject) flies (predicate).

EXERCISE I.- Distinguish the subject by writing (1) one above it, or drawing one line below it, and the predicate by writing (2) two above it, or drawing two lines below it, and where a copula (1) (2) (1) (2) occurs, enclose it in brackets-e. g., Babylon (is) fallen, or Babylon (is) FALLEN; Cæsar fell, or Cæsar FELL.

Roses bloom. Stars shine. Morn is breaking. The billows heave. The ships sail. Jesus wept. The pear-tree blossoms. This orange is ripe. The trumpet sounds. The lightning flashes. The horse neighs. Up springs the breeze. Snow is white. Jewels sparkle. The rain falls. The army marches. The fight commences. The enemy retreats. The colours fly. Soldiers are wounded. Men die. Heroes conquer. Knowledge is power. Self-culture is beneficial.

EXERCISE II.-Write thirty similar sentences-e.g., study refines, knowledge elevates.

As all thought concerns itself either with notions or their relations, all words may be regarded as notional or relational, as arranged in the following table:

* See another Table of the Parts of Speech," Rhetoric," No. IV., Vol. iii., p. 127.

N.B.-Some of the relations of notions are indicated by inflections, i. e., changes made in words to modify their primary significations.

A NOUN is the name of any existence, real or ideal; as London, city, truth, army, &c. As the existences, real or imaginary, of which we have to think and speak are so numerous and varied, the proper use of the Nouns is a matter of great importance in composition, whether oral or written. The chief points to be particularly attended to regarding them are 1st, That they are the proper words to express the ideas we intend to communicate to others; 2nd, That they are in the places best adapted to be clearly and plainly understood; and, 3rd, That they are rightly inflected. To these three points we shall specially direct our attention in the following lesson.

EXERCISE III.-Underline the nouns in the following sentences:—“The acorn is cast carelessly abroad into the wilderness, yet it rises to be an oak: on the wild soil it nourishes itself, it defies the tempest, and lives for a thousand years."-Carlyle. "Perfection in outward life is the fruit of perfection in the life within us." "-Arnold. "Life is a train of moods, like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-coloured lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus."-Emerson. "To set the outward actions right, though with an honest intention, and not to regard and find out the inward disorder of the heart, whence the actions flow, is but to be still putting the index of a clock right with your finger, while it is foul or out of order within, which is a continual business, and does no good."—Leighton.

EXERCISE IV.-Write forty sentences, each containing one of the following nouns :-Flattery, Fortune, Industry, Relaxation, Time, Temperance, Life, Work, Tranquillity, Testimony, Passion, Night, Instinct, Reason, Happiness, Luxury, Resentment, Temper, Anger, Air, Moon, Clouds, Stars Summer, Music, Woods, Oak, Icicle, Prayer, Delight, Oblivion, Care, Grain, Flame, Desert, Brook, Ocean, Torrent, Knowledge, Worth.

EXERCISE V.-Supply appropriate nouns in the following sentences, each noun consisting of the same number of letters as there are small dots in the vacant spaces:-Europe was one great

of.......

where the weak struggled for

without..

breaks through a ..... of

in the

.... ....

....

and the strong for

and glitters for a......;

and fills it with a steady and perpetual

with just ......, trusts his

has to fear not only the

of

keeps up a .... of

He who pursues

to the.....; but he that endeavours after it by false... but the ..... of the ......

..... of the

Life is a ... ...

of which we are perpetually changing our ......; we first leave ..... then the better and more pleasing.

then the ... of ripened

.....

........

....

EXERCISE VI.-Fill in the vacant spaces with any nouns which will make sense with the words here given. The, which was now high, and twinkled with all the

of a frosty, silvered the of the, and the and which the seemed, as it were, absorbed by the fleecy of the, where it lay thick and condensed, and gave to the vapoury, which were elsewhere seen, a - of filmy resembling the lightest