A Narrative Poem is a tale in verse. A Descriptive Poem usually describes something. Narration and Description are usually combined.

Example:-Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish."

Lyric Poetry embraces all that is written to be sung. It includes Hymns, Psalms, Odes, Songs, Sonnets, and Ballads.

Examples:-"Star-Spangled Banner," Moore's "Last Rose of

Summer."

Didactic Poetry is designed to instruct.

Examples:-Pope's "Essay on Man," Bryant's "Thanatopsis."

Pastoral Poetry is descriptive of country life. Examples: - Whittier's "Snow-Bound," Tennyson's "Enoch

Arden," Goldsmith's "Deserted Village."

Humorous Poetry is of an amusing character; it deals with wit. Many examples may be found in the writings of Oliver W. Holmes, Thomas Hood, and John G. Saxe.

Elegiac Poetry is commemorative of the dead. Gray's "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard" is the best example.

Prose is composition without meter or rhyme. It may take any of the following forms:-Speeches, Letters, Essays, Travels, Novels, Reviews, Biography, and History.

A Speech is a composition to be spoken or read aloud.

A Letter is a composition addressed to a person. An Essay is a brief composition upon any subject.

A Book of Travels is a record of the experiences of a traveler.

A Novel is a fictitious story.

A Review is a criticism of some literary work.

A Biography is a record of the events of the

life of a person.

History is a systematic and interesting record of past events, with their causes and effects.

PAUSES.

Pauses are suspensions of the voice between words and sentences, to make the meaning more apparent and impressive.

Pauses are of two kinds:

Rhetorical or Elocutionary.

Grammatical and

Grammatical pauses are made in writing to aid the eye in grasping clearly the sentence. Then the chief use of the points of punctuation is for the grammatical arrangement of the words. However, it frequently happens that the punctuation marks coincide with the pauses of the voice.

The old-time method of directing pupils “to stop at the several punctuation marks long enough to count one, two, four, or six," has fortunately given way to something more sensible. Also the equally misleading direction that "the voice should remain up at a comma, and should always fall at a semicolon, colon, and period," is not in honored

use.

It seems reasonable that the pause of the voice, and its condition at the pause, should vary according to the varieties of feeling.

Under the influence of excited feeling, a pause at the end of a sentence would be very brief; while the reverse would be true if impressive thought, or sorrowful and solemn emotion were to be conveyed.

It is also true that many long pauses of the voice occur, usually in the utterance of great feel

ing, when a grammatical point would not be permissible.

I maintain that the assertion is | willfully and | maliciously | false.

Habits of mental discipline | are necessary in any system of education.

They show the banners | taken, they tell his battles | won. To be virtuous | is to be happy.

To err is human; to forgive | divine.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them? To die; to sleep;
No more and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to-'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep;

To sleep! perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect,

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time;
The oppressor's wrong; the proud man's contumely;
The pangs of despised love; the law's delay;
The insolence of office; and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ?

The above is an example of solemnity and sublimity, and should be read with very long pauses.

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he:

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good-speed!" cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew;
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the light sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

The above is a good example of animated description, and should be read with very short pauses.

FIGURES OF SPEECH.

A Simile, or Comparison, is a statement of likeness between two things.

Life, like the olive, is a bitter fruit; then grasp both with the press, and they will afford the sweetest oil.

A Metaphor is an implied comparison.

Virtue is a Jewel.

Antithesis is contrasting two objects of thought that differ in some particulars, and agree in others. Cæsar died a violent death, but his empire remained; Cromwell died a natural death, but his empire vanished.

Personification is a figure of speech in which a lifeless object is represented or addressed as though it had life.

Science can not work with a halter about her neck.

Apostrophe is a sudden turning away from the current of thought to address some absent person or thing, as if present.

Synecdoche is a figure of speech by which a part of a thing is put for the whole of it, or the whole for a part.

He employs fifty hands.

Metonomy is a figure of speech by which the name of one object is used to represent some related object.

He drank a glass of milk.

Irony is the use of language that will convey a meaning precisely opposite to the literal signification of the words.

Brutus is an honorable man!

Ellipsis is the omission of words necessary for grammatical construction, but supplied by the thought.

EDUCATION COMPARED TO SCULPTURE.

I consider a human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties, until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.

I shall make use of the same instance to illustrate the force of education which Aristotle has brought to explain his doctrine of substantial forms, when he tells us that a statue lies hid in a block of marble, and that the art of statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and re