irections for Sonnet-Making_, from the popular pen
of our friend 'T. W. P.' in our last number. An eastern correspondent,
however, questions the correctness of one assumption of the writer: 'It
would be well to avoid coupling such words as moon and spoon; breeze and
cheese and sneeze; Jove and stove; hope and soap; all of which it might be
difficult to bring together harmoniously.' Our correspondent thinks that
this decree was issued without due reflection; and he proceeds to
substantiate his position by 'the ocular proof:'

SONNET.

THROUGH hazy clouds, scarce ruffled by the breeze,
Methought, last night, I saw _the man i' th' moon_;
As in the hollow bowl of silver spoon
A broad reflected face the gazer sees;
(Who trifling, dinner done, with bread and cheese,
Abstractly lifts the spoon aforesaid up;)
Or the same thing beholds in polished cup,
Or concave snuff-box, whence the vocal sneeze!
Sight of _the man_ suggested HOTSPUR'S boast;
But the night froze; and to express such hope
Sounded far softer than the softest soap
To me, who rather chose my heels to toast
In the warm vicinage of glowing stove,
Than pluck the moon's-man's nose, beneath the frigid JOVE![5]

[5] _Sub dio._--HOR.

* * * * *

IF there be not a fruitful lesson in the subjoined, which we venture to
separate from its context in a recent letter from an esteemed friend and
contributor, then we--are mistaken: 'APROPOS of 'American Ptyalism,' in
your March number: a friend was telling me the other day of the agonies he
had suffered from dispensing with the use of tobacco. He had used it in
various ways for thirty years, but finding that he was breaking _down_
under it, he broke _off_ abruptly, about a year ago. 'Let a
tobacco-chewer,' said he, 'who wishes to know what _nerves_ are, abstain
for only one day, and if he has a wife who is delicate and nervous, he
will forever after look upon her with a sympathy that he never felt
before. Why, Sir, for months after I had forsworn tobacco, my mouth and
jaws were any thing but flesh and bone. They were fire, ice, and
prussic-acid, alternately. The roof of my mouth would at one moment have
the feeling of blistering, and the next of freezing; and in addition to
that, needles would occasionally pierce my face in every imaginable way.
My head, for the most part, was a large hogshead with a bumble-bee in it,
and the bung stopped up. You know that I a