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35. MRS. CAUDLE'S LECTURE ON

SHOPPING.

This piece is characterized by lively conversational style, strong emphasis, and the circumflex inflection.

1. What's the matter now? Well, I like thát. Upon my life, Mr. Caudle, that's very cool. I can't leave the house just to buy a yard of ribbon, but you storm enough to carry the roof off. You did n't storm?—you only spoke? Spoke, indeed. No, sir; I've not such superfine feelings; and I don't cry out before I'm hurt. But you ought to have married a woman of stone, for you feel for nobody: that is, for nobody in your own house. I only wish you'd show some of your humanity at home, if ever so little-that's all.

2. What do you say? Where's my feelings, to go a-shopping at night? When would you have me go? In the broiling sun, making my face like a gypsy's? I do n't see anything to laugh at, Mr. Caudle; but you think of anybody's face before your wife's.

3. Oh, that's plain enough; and all the world can see it! I dare say, now, if it was Miss Prettyman's facenow, now, Mr. Caudle! What are you throwing yourself about for? I suppose Miss Prettyman is n't so wonderful a person that she is n't to be named? I suppose she's flesh and blood.

4. What do you say? sleep? Mercy, indeed!

For the love of mercy let you I wish you could show a little of it to other people. O yes, I do know what mercy means; but that's no reason I should go shopping a bit earlier than I do and I won't.-No; you've preached this over to me again and again; you've made me go to meetings to hear all about it; but that's no reason women should n't shop just as late as they choose, Mr. Caudle.

5. It's all very fine, as I say, for you mên to talk to us at meetings, where, of course, we smile, and all that and sometimes shake our white pocket-handkerchiefs-and where you say we have the power of early hours in our own hands. To be sure we have; and we mean to keep it. That is, I do. You'll never catch mě shopping till the very last thing; and-as a matter of principle-I'll always go to the shop that keeps open latest.

DOUGLAS Jerrold.

36. WOUTER VAN TWILLER.

1. The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives, and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they were never either heard or talked of, which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of all ages, magistrates, and rulers.

2. His surname, Twiller, is said to be a corruption of the original Twijfler, which, in English, means Doubter; a name admirably descriptive of his deliberative habits. For, though he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and of such a profoundly reflective turn, that he scarcely ever spoke except in monosyllables, yet did he never make up his mind on any doubtful point.

3. This was clearly accounted for by his adherents, who affirmed that he always conceived every object on so comprehensive a scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it; so that he always remained in doubt, merely in consequence of the astonishing magnitude of his ideas!

4. There are two opposite ways by which some men get into notice,-one by talking a vast deal, and thinking a little, and the other, by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a vaporing, superficial pretender acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts, by the other, many a vacant dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be complimented, by a discerning world, with all the attributes of wisdom.

5. This, by the way, is a mere casual remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. On the contrary, he was a wise Dutchman; for he never said a foolish thing,-and of such invincible gravity, that he was never known to laugh, or smile, through the course of a long and prosperous life.

6. Certain, however, it is, there never was a matter proposed, however simple, and on which your common narrow-minded mortals would rashly determine at the first glance, but what the renowned Wouter put on a mighty mysterious, vacant kind of look, shook his capacious head, and having smoked, for five minutes, with redoubled earnestness, sagely observed, that "he had his doubts about the matter,"-which in process of time gained him the character of a man slow in belief, and not easily imposed on.

7. The person of this illustrious old gentleman was as regularly formed, and nobly proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his backbone, just between the shoulders.

8. His body was of an oblong form, particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs, though exceeding short, were sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that, when erect, he had not a little the appearance of a robustious beer-barrel standing on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a vast expanse, perfectly unfurrowed or deformed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed expression.

9. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in the hazy firmament; and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of every thing that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a Spitzenberg apple.

10. His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight hours; and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller-a true philosopher; for his mind was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and perplexities of this world.

11. He had lived in it for years, without feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century, the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, without once troubling his head with any of those numerous theories by which the philosopher would have perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding atmosphere.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING. Let the class read further extracts from Irving's "Knickerbocker's History of New York."

37. THE UNION.

1. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us,-for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind!

2. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

3. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and Union afterward; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

11

DANIEL WEBSTER.

WRITTEN SPELLING.-WORDS OFTEN MISSPELLED.

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