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taste be developed by habitual communion with imagery that is graceful and elegant, let the ear be habituated to the rhythm of well constructed discourse, and the young writer will, as by an unerring and unreflecting instinct, put "proper words in their proper places," and thus realize the just ideal of a good style.

R. P. D.

THE QUEEN'S CHILDHOOD.

In the second volume of the "Passages of a Working Life," the following little reminiscence of the year 1827, while Mr. Knight lived at Brompton, occurs:

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"I delighted to walk in Kensington Gardens, sometimes on a holiday afternoon with my elder girls-more frequently in the early morning, on my way to town. Glancing, in the intervals of my present task of reviving old memories, at the work of a poet, who ought to be more widely known, I find these lines:

'Once as I strayed, a student happiest then,
What time the summer garniture was on,
Beneath the princely shades of Kensington
A girl I spied, whose years might number ten,
With full round eyes and fair soft English face.'

“In such a season when the sun was scarcely high enough to have dried up the dews of Kensington's green alleys, as I passed along the broad central walk, I saw a group on the lawn before the Palace, which to my mind was a vision of exquisite loveliness. The Duchess of Kent and her daughter, whose years then numbered nine, are breakfasting in the open air-a single page attending on them at a respectful distance, the matron looking on with eyes of love, while the fair soft English face is bright with smiles. The world of fashion is not yet astir. Clerks and mechanics passing onward to their occupations, are few; and they exhibit nothing of that vulgar curiosity which I think is more commonly found in the class of the merely rich than in the ranks below them in the world's estimation. What a beautiful characteristic it seems to me of the training of this royal girl that she should not have been taught to shrink from the public eye, that she should enjoy the freedom and simplicity of a child's

nature-that she should not be restrained when she starts up from the breakfast table and runs to gather a flower in the adjoining pasture, that her merry laugh should be as fearless as the notes of thrushes round her. I passed on and blessed her; and thank God I have lived to see the golden fruits of such training."

DISCOURAGING ATTEMPTS TO SING.

"JANE, what are you trying to sing, the tune sung by the old cow when she died? What a discord!" Jane stopped singing, dropped her head upon the desk, and the bitter tears ran down her cheeks. The rest of the scholars laughed at the remark, and then proceeded to sing the remaining verses of the song; but although its harmony was not as before broken by the discordant tones of Jane's untutored voice, yet there was not the enjoyment usually experienced in this favorite exercise of the school, for a schoolmate's feelings had been wounded, and there was a real sympathy with her distress, caused by the teacher's thoughtless remark.

Seeing its effect, he was sorry for having spoken in such a manner, but thought that it would be forgotten by the morrow. Forgotten! all else might forget, but the remembrance of those words would always remain with Jane, to keep her, in future, from the vain attempt to sing. No, dearly as she had cherished the idea of becoming a singer, she would bury the desire, rather than subject herself to ridicule again. To her the fact that the teacher ridiculed her efforts, was evidence that she could never learn, and for the future she would be a sad and envious hearer when the school joined in singing, sighing that God had not given her an ear capable of distinguishing musical sounds.

I have not, in this brief sketch, overdrawn the picture. From my own observation, I am lead to believe that a very large number of boys and girls who have a real taste for music, and a longing to become singers, fail to do so just because their parents and teachers thoughtlessly discourage them by ridiculing their first efforts. Many teachers sacrifice the interests of such pupils to the harmony of a school choir, and, instead of pointing out pleasantly the difficulty and

striving to cultivate the ear, they seek the offenders and request them not to sing, or make some remark calculated to ridicule them into stopping; and in nine cases out of ten, sensitive scholars will abandon the effort to learn, considering themselves unable to acquire the art. Teachers, is this right? Would you pursue a similar course with a scholar in penmanship? If he failed to see at once the peculiar curves of each letter and to execute them, would you ridicule his attempts? By no means. You know that the eye must be trained to notice all the peculiar turns and then the hand taught to execute them, and, however rude and laughable the first characters may be, you encourage the pupil and lead him step by step forward towards success. Is it less necessary to encourage attempts to sing? Few are born with a knowledge of music more than of penmanship. It is true that some catch musical sounds much quicker than others, and we say they are born to be singers, but this quickness of perception in the ear is not more remarkable than that in the eye of many penmen, and if there are no defects in voice, I cannot see why a dull ear may not be cultivated to appreciate distinctive tones in music as well as a stupid eye can be brought to distinguish the curves of the letters. in his copy.

It is an indisputable fact that there is among the young an almost universal love of music, and an equally universal desire to sing, and, without saying anything of the advantages of music at this time, I desire to know how nearly universal it may be made. I would suggest that some teacher of music give, from experimental knowledge, his ideas of dull ears in music, and how large a proportion of such may be cultivated. UNUS.

River Point, Feb. 28, 1865.

CAPRICES OF BEES.

It is a peculiarity of bees that they will suffer some men to handle them with impunity. Wildman was a man who seems to have had an unusual attraction for them, or command over them, as he termed it, though it is not easy to comprehend how a man could have command over four thousand or five thousand insects. On one occasion he paid a visit to Dr. Templeton, the then secretary of the society for

the encouragement of arts, to prove to him how completely bees submitted to his influence. He was brought through the city in a sedanchair, and, it is to be presumed, into the doctor's room, for when he presented himself his head and face were covered with bees, and a huge cluster of them hung down like a beard from his chin. Notwithstanding this novel appendage, he conversed with the ladies and gentlemen who were present for a considerable time without disturbing the insects, and finally dismissed them to their hive without anybody being stung.

The fame of his performance having reached Lord Spencer, he invited him to Wimbledon to meet a large party of his friends. The countess had provided three stocks for the occasion. He first took one of the hives, and emptied the living occupants into his hat, to show that it was not necessary to destroy the bees in order to deprive them of their honey. He next presented himself with a colony hanging about his head and from his chin, and then stepping out of a window on to the lawn, where he had directed a table covered with a clean cloth to be placed, he put them back into the hive. He then made them come out again and swarm about in the air, after which he caused them to settle on the table, and from thence he took them up by handfuls, and poured them out of his hands as if they had no more feeling than pebbles, and finally concluded this portion of his entertainment by causing them to reënter their hive.

His lordship was too unwell to be present at these experiments, so, later in the afternoon, he was taken into his lordship's room with all three of the stocks hanging about him at one time, one on his head, one on his breast, and the other on his arm, from which places he afterwards transferred them to his head and face, so that he was quite blinded, and was led in this condition to the front of his lordship's window. He next requested that a horse might be brought round, which was done, the horse having been first well clothed to guard against accidents. First taking the bees out of his eyes that he might see what he was about, he mounted the horse with the bees hanging about him, and rode backwards and forwards repeatedly, until the company had seen enough of his peformance, when he dismounted and placed the bees on the table, from whence he dismissed them to their respective hives,

It is worthy of remark that though there were a great many persons present on this, as on the previous occasion, yet nobody was

stung. It is really impossible to explain why they should favor one individual more than another, but they certainly do so; it is related of a Duchess of Rutland, that a swarm followed her all the way from the country to a house in Berkeley Square, where they were hived. Accident has sometimes led to what Wildman did with design. A woman named Bennett, living near Birmingham, was beating a fryingpan with a key to keep the swarm from going away, when they all at once settled upon her head and shoulders. Luckily for her she was a woman of nerve, and, instead of making efforts to brush them off, which would have probably caused her to be stung to death, she kept quiet, notwithstanding an occasional sting from bees which had crawled underneath her clothes, and which were probably irritated from being unable to get out. When the evening came, they were hived in the usual way.-All the Year Round.

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QUESTIONS FOR WRITTEN EXAMINATIONS.

GRAMMAR.

Name the compound

1. Name all the personal pronouns of the objective case. personal pronouns of the singular number, and write sentences illustrating the use of each. Name those personal pronouns of double construction (adjective and substantive) and illustrate the use of each in sentences.

2. State in what respects the personal and relative pronouns differ. Write sentences using who of the second person, plural number; that of the singular number, second person; whom of the common gender; which of the objective case; what as the object both of a preposition and a verb.

3. Write the principal parts of ten irregular verbs, including the following: sit, lie, and hang (to take life.) Write the auxiliary verbs of the singular number, second person, present tense; also, those of the past tense, first person, singular number. Write five sentences, each to contain an intransitive verb.

4. Give all the forms of the verb admire, second person, singular number, present perfect tense; also the participles of the same, both active and passive. Verbs of the passive voice are how formed? Verbs of the progressive form are composed

of what?

5. Correct the following in all respects:

the pilgrims landed on the shore of massachusetts december twenty-second

sixteen hundred and twenty.

the name on the card was john jones m. d.

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