ons. He sent a letter, inviting his inamorata to a matinee,
together with an eighteen-carat gold ring. She revolted at the idea of
accompanying him, and sent a note full of piquant raillery, which led
her suitor to procure a carbine and a sword, with some apparatus, and
to declare that he would not forge hymeneal chains upon any one.

4. So proceeding to an isolated spot, without comrades, he severed
his jugular vein, and discharged the carbine into his abdomen. When
inquiry was made, he was found dead, and the coroner sat on the debris
and did his exact duty, though it was no couch of eider he occupied.

5. Had the misguided youth read Ovid less often, and given precedence
to Hemans and Ingelow, his fate might have been different. True, he
might have hung on a greasy gallows like a highwayman, in squalor, and
been the sport of canines for aye; while now, disarmed by death, he
lies in a splendid mausoleum, far from the wharves and haunts of
men, and can't accent his antepenults, and afford the greatest
discrepancies extant in pronunciation.

SELECT READING--THE BLACKBOARD AND CHALK.

1. Learned sages may reason, the fluent may talk,
But they ne'er can compute what we owe to the chalk.
From the embryo mind of the infant of four,
To the graduate, wise in collegiate lore;
From the old district school-house to Harvard's proud hall,
The chalk rules with absolute sway over all.

2. Go, enter the school-room of primary grade,
And see how conspicuous the blackboard is made.
The teacher makes letters and calls them by name,
And says to the children, "Now all do the same;"
Mere infants you see, scarcely able to walk,
But none are too feeble to handle the chalk.

3. We visit the school of much higher pretension,
The blackboard here claims undivided attention;
The walls, dark as Erebus, first greet the eye,
Before them bright misses and lads we espy;
And the sound of the crayon's irregular tappings
Reminds us of spirits' mysterious rappings.

4. One has pictured a vessel, with streamers unfurled,
Another is making a map of the world;
A third has a problem in fractions to solve,
A fourth is explaining how planets revolve;
While a young physiologist, skilled in the art,
Is sketching the muscles, the lungs, and the heart.

5. In the midst of this bustle the school-master stands,
And, lo! he's a crayon in ea