school. The English have a notion that any amount of mental accomplishments is purchased at far too dear a price for their girls if at the expense of health.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that because an English girl leaves school at an early age there is any undue haste in making a woman of her. The exact contrary of this is very strikingly true, and it is a circumstance which adds not a little to her interesting appearance. Just as long as she is a girl,

she is dressed like a girl, and treated like a girl, and taught to think herself a girl, and to be a girl in manners. This habit is strongly marked and universal among all classes. The daughters of noblemen are entirely secluded from company, remaining with the governess when strangers are at the house, till they are eighteen years of age.

One of the best qualities in the character of an intelligent and accomplished English woman has appeared to us to be traceable to this circumstance, and that is her transparent simplicity and truthfulness of manners. She seems what she is. There is no straining after individuality, or smartness. You will rather have the impression of strength not put forth, just as, in the habitually soft and quiet tones of her voice there is an indication, many times, of a suppressed energy which lends a peculiar charm to her conversation. Yet it would be a hasty conclusion from the prevailing softness and repose of manners which characterize the English woman, to imagine that she is particularly lacking in individuality. The very lowest form of this attribute is that which shows itself in startling peculiarities of tone and manner; while that which alone is worthy of the name-individuality of thought, taste, and feeling-will not be easily suppressed by any act of uniformity as regards the degree of vocal strength which a woman shall put forth in ordinary conversation. We remember, when in College, that our professor of elocution was wont to propound as one of the canons of good conversation, always to speak as loud as the rules of politeness will permit. In England, the universally received canon is to use as low a tone as is consistent with being easily heard. This is the style of conversation which the well-bred English woman cultivates, and with admirable success. Her voice is never loud, harsh, nor ringing; but soft, clear, and

rich. You will be struck with something very like the same quality in the prevailing character of English oratory. An English orator is not a noisy speaker. He has evidently cultivated the deeper, richer tones of his voice. He has fulness and strength without harshness. O'Connell had this quality in preeminent degree, and charmed his audience like a minstrel, Brougham has it, and astonishes you by the display of vocal powers, of which it is not easy to decide whether they are more remarkable for their vast compass, or their musical sweetness.

Assuredly it is no disparagement of an English woman to say that she appears in her highest glory as the presiding genius of a happy, joyous home. We will not affirm, for we should be most unwilling to admit, that to her above all others belongs the distinction of having demonstrated how much of deep and holy meaning that little word home can be made to comprise. It is not to be doubted, however, that it is the wife and mother whose image and superscription the homes of every country mainly bear. It will not be expected that we should dwell on so familiar a topic as the peculiar charms of an English home, or attempt the minute description of that whose peculiar attractions no description can reveal to a stranger, any more than a traveller can bring back with him the fragrance of an orange grove, or the song of the nightingale. The traveller talks about orange groves and singing birds nevertheless, and we can have but a very imperfect idea of the true social position and influence of woman in England, until we have caught some glimpses of her at her own fireside.

It is a marked feature of social life in England, and certainly one of its especial charms, that mothers and daughters are so uniformly seen together at their own home. Not only is the mother the first lady to whom you are introduced at the house where you visit, but mistress of the ceremonies throughout; not only does she preside at the dinner-table, but in the evening party she sits as queen. Whatever may be your first impressions of such an arrangement, if it happens that your sympathies are with the younger ladies, you will very soon come to think that the mother's absence would be sincerely regretted by the daughters. As a picture, all must admit the arrangement to be perfect. The portly form and matronly dignity of the mother

are an exquisite foil to the youthful beauty and maiden coyness of the daughters. And you will find nothing to mar, but everything to enhance the interest of the picture. The mother's presence never seems to operate as an unwelcome restraint. Between her and the daughters you will not fail to mark the most joyous, playful, loving freedom, without the sacrifice of a tittle of parental dignity and authority on the one hand, or of sweet and graceful filial duty on the other. It may be said of English families generally that these two things are eminently characteristic, to wit, uniform parental authority, and the most charming freedom of intercourse between parents and their children.

You cannot visit an English family in a familiar way without discovering what will possibly surprise you, that a deep dislike of ceremony and state is a very marked characteristic of an English woman. This feeling is strongest among those highest in rank, and has been a marked feature in the character of the Queen herself from her very girlhood. Now that she is a lone widow so prematurely, and her children are growing to the stature of manhood and womanhood, and leaving their home forever, how delightful to recall the sweet pictures of her early married life, when she so much loved to saunter, with her noble and good husband, over the beach near their beautiful house in the Isle of Wight, and to watch those then little children as they amused themselves with trying to find two pebbles of the same shape, or dug wells in the sand with their tiny wooden spades. Was she not a great deal happier amid those sweet domestic scenes than when surrounded by glittering nobility on grand state occasions?

This simplicity of taste is a characteristic of the English woman. Although ceremony is one of the most cherished of her household gods, she escapes from his authority to the utmost possible extent consistent with retaining him at all. Every family must have its state occasions, but she is evidently a great deal happier in the social intercourse which has more of the quiet every-day character in it. On no account must a day pass without her appearing richly dressed; but she will not dress till dinner, which is usually when the day is considerably more than half gone. And all the ordinary arrange

ments of her household manifest a predominating regard for simplicity and not for state, for comfort rather than for show. The house in which she lives may be very antique, with the old and curiously carved timbers which bear up the not very lofty ceiling fully exposed; but it will have every conceivable convenience, even to luxury, with a delightful flower-garden in the rear. The furniture may have been in use for more than half a century; it is all the better for that. Every article has to her the face of a tried and trusty friend. She would not exchange that cumbrous old arm-chair in which her grandfather used to sit whose portrait hangs on the wall-for the most elegant modern chair which London could produce.

Can it be necessary to add to what we have said that the English woman dearly loves her home? It is the goodly heritage of which she dreamed in her happy girlhood, the crown of her hopes, the realm where she reigns, the citadel of her pride, the paradise of her joys, the resting-place of her heart. For every one of its peculiar responsibilities and duties all her previous training has tended to prepare her, and there is no one of them from which her brave and loving woman's heart seeks release. To fill it with substantial comforts is the patient labor of her daily thought; to make it a serene and quiet harbor from a world of restlessness and storms is her holy ambition; while her hand never grows weary in ministering to the satisfaction of those who sit by its hearthstone, or contriving some new and sweet embellishment for its pleasant chambers.

Of the butterfly tribe- the gay, selfish, heartless devotees of fashion, lovers of pleasure, oblivious of all woman's noblest prerogatives we shall not speak; nor yet of the Jezabels and Xantippes, though they are all there. Our picture, however, when finished (and for this we must ask the patience of our readers) will exhibit, with still other soft and pleasant lights, some deep shades.

ARTICLE VII.

THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.

Lectures on the Science of Language, delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in April, May, and June, 1861. By MAX MÜLLER, M. A., Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford: Corresponding Member of the Imperial Institute of France. From the Second London Edition, revised. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street. 1862. pp. 416. 12mo.

Ir is well known that efforts were made for centuries to ascertain the language spoken by our first parents.

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Many supposed, and labored hard to prove, that the fragments of that language are scattered among the different nations and tribes of the earth, and that these fragments need only to be culled out and united to constitute anew the vernacular of Adam and Eve. Others went so far as to claim this honor for a particular language, and could we suppose that that ancient couple used all the languages proved on them they must have been great linguists indeed. According to some, they spoke the Celtic, others urged the Chinese, and yet others the Biscayan, while Goropius Becanus was sure that our erring mother was accustomed to address her husband in the dulcet tones of Low Dutch. But the Hebrew had the most numerous and zealous defenders as the language of Paradise.

The efforts to ascertain this original speech of the human family were made as early as the days of Josephus, and continued till the opening of the present century, and the question was honored by the labors of some of the best scholars of Europe.

Of the futility of all such efforts the partisans of the Hebrew, the most popular candidate, furnished, at length, full proof. Their philological labors showed that all the words common to the great classes of languages in Europe and Asia must have had a common origin, while a comparison of these words showed