sh;
And their white tusks crunched o'er the whiter skull,
As it slipped through their jaws when their edge grew dull;
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead,
When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed."

"Now, to enter into the conception of a dog--to embody one's self, as it
were, in the person of a brute--to sympathise in its feelings--to make
its propensities our own--to 'lazily mumble the bones of the dead,' with
our own individual 'white tusks'! Pardon me, madam, but with all due
deference to the genius of a Scott, it is a thing he has not dare to
attempt. Only the finest mind in the universe as capable of taking so
bold a flight. Scott's dogs, madam, are tame, domestic animals--mere
human dogs, if I may say so. Byron's dogs--But let them speak for
themselves!

'The scalps were in the wild dog's maw,
The hair was tangled round his jaw.'

Show me, if you can, such an image in Scott?"

"Very fine, certainly!" was here uttered by five novices, who were only
there as probationers, consequently not privileged to go beyond a
response.

"Is it the dancing dogs they are speaking about?" asked Grizzy. But
looks of silent contempt were the only replies she received.

"I trust I shall not be esteemed presumptuous," said Miss Graves, "or
supposed capable of entertaining views of detracting from the merits of
the Noble Author at present under discussion, if I humbly but firmly
enter my caveat against the word 'crunch,' as constituting an innovation
in our language, the purity of which cannot be too strictly preserved or
pointedly enforced. I am aware that by some I may be deemed
unnecessarily fastidious; and possibly Christina, Queen of Sweden, might
have applied to me the celebrated observation, said to have been
elicited from her by the famed work of the laborious French
Lexicographer, viz. that he was the most troublesome person in the
world, for he required of every word to produce its passport, and to
declare whence it came and whither it was going. I confess, I too, for
the sake of my country, would wish that every word we use might be
compelled to show its passport, attested by our great lawgiver, Dr.
Samuel Johnson."

"Unquestionably," said Mrs. Bluemits, "purity of language ought to be
preserved inviolate at any price; and it is more especially incumbent to
those who exercise a sway over our minds--those are, as it were, the
moulds in which our young imaginations ar