dle or
torch. Every beam of reason, and ray of knowledge, checks the
dissolutions of the tongue."-JEREMY TAYLOR.

THEY were received by Mrs. Bluemits with that air of condescension
which great souls practise towards ordinary mortals, and which is
intended, at one and the same time, to encourage and to repel; to show
the extent of their goodness, even while they make, or try to make,
their _protege_ feel the immeasurable distance which nature or fortune
has placed between them.

It was with this air of patronising grandeur that Mrs. Bluemits took
her guests by the hand, and introduced them to the circle of females
already assembled.

Mrs. Bluemits was not an avowed authoress; but she was a professed
critic, a well-informed woman, a woman of great conversational powers,
etc., and, to use her own phrase, nothing but conversation was spoken in
her house. Her guests were therefore, always expected to be
distinguished, either for some literary production or for their taste in
the _belles lettres._ Two ladies from Scotland, the land of poetry and
romance, were consequently hailed as new stars in Mrs. Bluemits's
horizon. No sooner were they seated than Mrs. Bluemits began--

"As I am a friend to ease in literary society, we shall, without
ceremony, resume our conversation; for, as Seneca observes, the 'comfort
of life depends upon conversation.'"

"I think," said Miss Graves, "it is Rochefoucault who says, 'The great
art of conversation is to hear patiently and answer precisely.'"

"A very poor definition for so profound a philosopher," remarked Mrs.
Apsley.

"The amiable author of what the gigantic Johnson styles the melancholy
and angry "Night Thoughts," gives a nobler, a more elevated, and, in my
humble opinion, a juster explication of the intercourse of mind," said
Miss Parkins; and she repeated the following lines with pompous
enthusiasm:--

Speech ventilates our intellectual fire,
Speech burnishes our mental magazine,
Brightens for ornament, and whets for use.
What numbers, sheath'd in erudition, lie,
Plung'd to the hilts in venerable tomes,
And rusted in, who might have borne an edge,
And play'd a sprightly beam, if born to speech---
If born blest heirs of half their mother's tongue!"

Mrs. Bluemits proceeded:

"'Tis thought's exchange, which, like the alternate push
Of waves conflicting, breaks the learned scum,
And defecates the student's standing pool."

"T