any collateral information connecting it with human life or animate existence, has a charm for the young that at once fixes it in their memories; and a dense-witted, wearied, yawning class can be brightened up into a little circle of bright-eyed listeners all agape for knowledge, if the teacher strike out of the stupid old droning track, and begin his next section with an anecdote or an illustration.

navian words." In the names of places we have by for village, in Whitby, Grimsby, &c.; fell for hill (Norse fjeld) in Crossfell, Scawfell; gill (this should be spelt ghyll), a ravine, in Ormesgill; Scar, a steep rock, in Scarborough; Tarn, a small deep lake, in Tarnsyke, &c. Had Mr. Meiklejohn been acquainted with the lake country, he could have infinitely enriched and amended his examples, but we have taken what we have found, there being enough to illustrate the principle. There are said to be thirteen hundred and seventy-three names of places in England, of Danish or Norse origin, among which are the islands ending in ey-ey, ea, or æ, being all different forms of the Norse word for an island -as Jersey, Cæsar's Island; Athelney, Noble's Island; Anglesea, island of the Angles, &c.

There is one part of grammar, at present a terrible weariness and vexation of spirit, which might be made very pleasant reading, and that is the derivation of words. There are better methods of teaching this art and mystery than by mere lists of Greek and Latin roots; and in an admirable section called the Matter of the English Language, Mr. Meiklejohn has shown in his Easy English Grammar how charmingly The greatest addition to our language has this subject can be treated. Though our lan- been from the Latin, either directly to a small guage is an aggregation of many materials, rather extent, during the Roman occupation from than one broad stream flowing from one original A.D. 43 to 480, or to a large extent when source, and merely changing by the way, yet Roman missionaries introduced Christianity it has a certain inner life of its own which assi- among us in A.D. 596; or indirectly, by the milates all these varying materials, and welds introduction of the Norman-French language them into one harmonious whole. Certainly and literature in the time of Edward the Conthe manner of construction is somewhat irre-fessor first, and later, when William the Congular, and the application is not unfrequently queror came. The Latin element in English strained, but this is because we have never comprises ten-fortieths of the whole; the purely given any serious scientific attention to the English is twenty-five fortieths; and the creation or preservation of our tongue, but remaining five-fortieths are made up of Keltic, have trusted to chance and haphazard, and the Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Italian, Hinnatural cohesion of verbal particles, when once dostanee, Spanish, Dutch - in fact, from placed in contact with each other. Conse- words of almost every language of the globe. quently, a full and exhaustive system of analysis One hundred and fifty-four Greek and Latin and derivation shows some strange and un-roots give thirteen thousand English words. looked-for results. Once all Keltic, we have now comparatively few words of the old tongue left among us. The Thames, the Severn, and the Trent; the Mendip Hills, the Chiltern, and the Malvern; Devon, Wilts, Kent; London, Dover, Liverpool, are all Keltic names of rivers, hills, counties, and towns respectively; so are names of places beginning with Aber, the mouth of a river, as Arbroath, former Aberbrothwick, and Aberwick, now Berwick; the names of places beginning with Caer, a fort, as Carlisle, Carnarvon, Caerlton; with Dun, a hill, as Dumbarton, Dunmore, Huntingdon; with Lin, a deep pool, as Linlithgow, King's Lynn; with Llann, a church, as Llandaff, Llanberis; with Tre, a town, as Coventry (or convent town); with Inver, the mouth of a river, as Inverness, Inverary. Also certain common words are Keltic, as basket, trap, cart, gown, pike, crag, whip, brave, cloud, plaid, crockery, tartan, darn, wire, mattock, mop, rasher, rug, button, crook, kiln, flannel, gyves, gruel, welt, mesh, rail, glue, tackle, coat, pranks, balderdash, happy, peit, sham, and others. The Scandinavian or Norse element is found chiefly in the provincial dialects of Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, where we have force for waterfall, Another odd and interesting part of grammar greet for weep, ket for carrion, and lile for is the tracking out of the meanings of words little; all of which," says Mr. Meiklejohn, changed by constant application. Thus, gazette, from whom we are quoting, and who is respon- which was once gazetta, a small Venetian coin sible for these assertions, are pure Scandi- said to have been the price of the first news

From pono, to place, we have two hundred and fifty words; from plico, to fold, two hundred; from capio, to take, one hundred and ninetyseven; from specio, to see, one hundred and seventy-seven; from mitto, to send, one hundred and seventy-four; from teneo, to hold, one hundred and sixty-eight; from tendo, to stretch, one hundred and sixty-two; from duco, to lead, one hundred and fifty-six; from logos, a word, one hundred and fifty-six; from grapho, to write, one hundred and fifty-two. Yet great as is this classic influence, it is greater in the fixed than in the moving language. We write down in our dictionaries one-fourth or tenfortieths of Latin words, we speak from thirtysix to thirty-nine-fortieths of Saxon words, and we write from twenty-nine to thirty-eightfortieths of the same Saxon. In Macaulay's essay on Bacon there are thirty Saxon words out of every forty, while in the New Testament there are thirty-seven. "All the common words of every-day use, all the joints of the language, all that makes it an organism, all the words that express the life of individuals or of the nation are pure English. In one word, all that makes a language a language is English; the Latin element merely fills up gaps and interstices."

tinent, is the lazy, drawling, slovenly manner of speech current among our countrymen and countrywomen. Not a letter has its due value, and none of the nicer shades of intonation are given. Those subtle distinctions which are so finely marked in the French manner of speech are with us ignored altogether; and we give such words as witch and which, where and wear, rain and reign, without the faintest sound of difference; while we clip cousin to coz'n, clothes to clo's, preference to pref'rence, slur often into orfen, put h's after s's or soft z's, muddle up fortune into fortshun, and figure into figgur.

less rare. A very common error lies in taking the plural verb immediately after the plural noun, though the noun with which it rightly agrees is in the singular. "One after another of my children have gone;"" the last of his enemies have died;" while, even in writing, such horrible English as "neither he nor she were there," is constantly to be met with.

paper, is now the newspaper itself; bombast, formerly a stuff of soft loose texture, used to stuff out clothes, is now a pompous inflated style; boor, a rustic, is now an ignorant illmannered person; villain, a serf, is a wretch; pagan, a villager, is a heathen; lumber, or things formerly stowed away in a Lombard's or banker's room, is now any kind of useless accumulation-in America, timber; treacle was anciently theriac, a remedy against poison, and specially an electuary made of various drugs pounded together and mixed with honey, now it is only molasses, the syrup which runs from sugar; stationer, or a man with a stall or Besides this grave delinquency in pronunciastation for selling goods, is a man who sells tion, we often speak ungrammatically in our paper and pens, &c., only; romance, the Roman current daily conversation. How many stumble language, is the kind of fictitious literature hopelessly over the traps of I and me; and originally written in that language; cheque, a how many get entangled in the difficulties chequered cloth for counting money, is a piece of the past tense and the past participle! of paper representing money; and stool, a chair," That is between you and I only," is a phrase is now really a chair for the feet. These are by no means rarely heard; "it is me," is even just a few instances of what might be done towards making the study of grammar attractive to the young, and investing nouns and verbs with a human and therefore a living interest. Another thing rarely taught at all, and never taught well, is the art of correct and beautiful speaking. How few people can read aloud decently, or speak properly and pleasantly! As for accent, the chances are as ninety-nine to a hundred that it will be thrown in the wrong place; as in that famous example of the clergyman who, having to read how Saul after solicitation was persuaded to eat, read it thus: "And the woman had a fat calf in the house, and she hasted and killed it, aud took flour, and kneaded it, and did bake unleavened bread thereof. And she brought it before Saul and before his servants, and they DID eat!" Children are never taught to manage the voice in speaking. Singing comes into the category of an art, and therefore attention is paid to it, but speaking is of the natural functions only, and for this nature alone is made answerable. Few nations speak so badly as the English. We all know the clipping, drawling, mouth-shut murmur in which the young man of the period speaks; we all know the sharp, short, asthmatic, catchy way in which some of the girls of the period speak; or that deep chest-voice affected by the more horsey kind; or that shrill head-voice delighted in by the fast sort not specially horsey; or that thin half-whining voice which some of the more quiet and modest kind seem to think part of their quietness, and essential to their modesty. The great aim of most young people seems to be to clip off their words as many letters and syllables as they possibly can, and to make what remains as indistinct as they It seems as if the horror of trouble which is infesting a certain section of our young people had extended to the labours of the lips; and that the neat and careful formation of words was something quite beyond the ordinary energies of life. The first thing which strikes all English people who have ears and keen perception of sounds, on returning from the Con

can.

It is very much to be regretted that language has been made of little account in our English education; that we have no standard of excellence, either for grammar or pronunciation; and that we take no pains with the organ if even we had this standard as our rule. Schools, where deportment and dancing, and how to get into a carriage gracefully, and how to come into a room with an air, are taught, leave the voice and daily speech alone, trusting solely to the power of imitation for a correct method of pronunciation and the avoidance of any gross mistakes in grammar, but never making the management or modulation of the voice of any real account, nor holding the art of conversation as an art useful to be learned and necessary to be studied, before it can be practised. It would be a good thing if the teachers of our young people could and would take in hand the art of speaking: both with regard to the management of the voice and the carefulness of conversational grammar, as well as with regard to conversation itself.

DOGS WE HAVE HAD.

A VERY yellow, wiry, not to say stubbly terrier of the middle size, with ears cropped to the pattern that suggests the sharp points of the old-fashioned, now exploded gills;" with iron-grey whiskers, and a general air of watchful inquiry for rats; brought back with a string round her, by a ragged boy. This is Vixen the First, originally purchased in open market, and who, after a day's absence, has been brought home. Her ransom costs halfa-crown. Her first introduction to the family

had been from under a hall chair, whither she had retreated, and whence she looked warily. When it was attempted to draw her from this lair (disrespectfully by the neck), she growled and snapped. On this display of an evil soul, it was almost resolved to deport her, but on entreaty one chance was given her, of which she availed herself so speedily, so engagingly, as to become an universal favourite, the best of companions, most honest of creatures. This was in the old school days, when the alliance between dog and boy is of the strictest sort. There is a feeling of equality, then. She shared in everything. As he read and studied, she had her corner, where, coiled up into something like a Snail-shell, and making a pillow of her own hind leg, she dreamed the most exquisite dreams, and groaned over charming processions of endless rats. There were more delightful holidays when the sun was shining, and we went forth for the whole day's walking-a prospect she had forethought of, and enjoyed as much as her master. Then, after miles of walking, we came to the park, and the copses, and sat under a tree, and basked in the sun; the master finding Rookwood excellent company, while the Vixen, with a profoundly business-like air, cultivated her natural history, and explored the district as if she were a canine botanist, bound to report on the Flora of the region. Surely, in these burrowings and upturnings, these testings with eye and nose, they see and discover as many things of interest. Sometimes she would start a rabbit, and pursue it, hopelessly; but these were rare openings. Very pleasant were those bivouacs, and I feel the scent of the May blossoms floating past me now.

over the plain. It was all over. I was alone. What was a review now to me? I was miles from home, and towards home I now went, moodily, and in deep grief. There, faces of surprise and eager questions met me. What have you done with The Vixen?" Question answered testily, I fear with petulance even. Tired and heated, not in the mood to be questioned, I entered the study, about to fling myself into the easy-chair, and mourn privately and wearily. When lo! I see in the easy-chair; fagged also, and very dusty and travel-stained, the yellow runaway, the sauve qui peut, lifting her head, as if it were from a pillow, languidly, wagging her tail, uncertain whether about to receive punishment or congratulation. The boyish heart condoned everything-nay, deemed that she had rather won honours. She had never taken that journey before, yet had made her way home by an unfamiliar road, and must have travelled at headlong speed.

We were always on the best and most familiar terms, and yet she had a quick temper. She was passionate; but she knew that failing, and controlled it. On a few occasions a little chastisement was threatened, and she retreated under a chair, and there, as from a fortification, looked out, all tusks, and teeth, and snarl, with her upper lip turned inside out, filled with a demoniacal fury. The next moment she would be all love and friendliness.

She was not regarded with much favour above stairs, as wanting refinement and elegant manners. It was as though one had "taken up" with a friend of low estate. I think she was aware of this unreasonable prejudice, and, regarding it as insurmountable, never attempted Once, there was a large review of soldiers in to soften it away. In this she showed her this place, and we agreed to go together, as sagacity; yet once when there was company, usual. But I noticed that the Vixen was a gentleman playing the violin-an instrument rather taken aback by the long files of red she detested-the door was pushed open softly, coats: taking a few steps towards them, halt- and she entered, bearing a large junk of ing, and, with suspicious inquiry in the nostrils, stolen beef. There was a kind of pride in her scrutinising the arrangements up and down. achievement, with yet a latent sense of the unShe did not like the distant bugle, and looked lawfulness of the act, there was an air of guilt, round uneasily. So, with the hoarse sounds of and also of stolid audacity in the manner in command, the faint hum and clatter, and the which she entered, walking slowly and leisurely tinkling of arms, chains, and bridles; these in through the midst of the company-half unpastoral associations were not what she ex- skulking, half inviting attention, her eyes pected, and she made slow progress, drawing rolling round the corner towards her master back her head and putting the question with with a comic expression of doubt. The scene her quivering nostrils: "What the deuce, my was true comedy, for it was a polite meetingdear fellow, is all this ?" But when the silks and fine clothes, tea and the "quality". artillery came thundering and clanking up beside and the intruder, wiry and unkempt and a little us, and the first gun and the second nearly dusty, had come direct from the stable. Was shook her off her balance, without a second's it the vanity of her sex prompted her to pay delay, she fled, with ears down, body stretched that visit with her purloined booty? Was it out, hare-like, a victim of sudden panic, scour- ambition, or a love of fine company? She was ing the wide plain. I beheld her between two free of the kitchen, or, better still, the garden, lines of soldiers. I saw her through the smoke, where, with that grizzly nose of hers, she had giving one hurried glance over her shoulder. For dug many a little pit, using the same feature her, the end of her world was come. Pandemo-afterwards as a shovel, to cover up secreted nium was at her heels. Grief and rage filled my treasure. heart. My companion was gone for ever-gone Vixen the First lived many years, during into that cloud of smoke. I should never see her again. I made a vain attempt at pursuit, but saw her grow into a yellow speck, far away

which we enjoyed many delightful country walks together, and she killed innumerable rats, and swam in rivers and brooks, and fought

dearments from even the privileged hand of his mistress, were resented with testy growlings and ill-humoured movings away. The only one for whom he had toleration or the faint appearance of regard was a person of low degree, an old retainer of the family, who kept a little whip privately for his special belioof, and who used to hold conversations with him through the pantry-window. "I'll give you the whip, sir, I will," &c. To this official, I am proud to say for the sake of our common animal nature, he was almost fawning in his behaviour, making affectation of being overjoyed to see him, and when the retainer would return, after an absence of a week,

other dogs with credit and reputation, and mitted that he never attempted to bite them; was a most pliant and entertaining companion. | but after his meal, or indeed at any season, when Sometimes her tastes, being of a vagabond sort, he was stretched at length on his rug, any enled her away from home in the company of dogs about town, who were of wild and even profligate manners. These excesses gave her a taste for the pleasures of the table, and an immoderate fancy for meat, which had the usual fatal results of a free life. In due time she was laid up with an attack of the malady so fatal to canine personal charms. There was the usual fierce scratchings, and finally the wiry hair began to come off in patches. Eminent physicians were called in, and some sort of cure ellected. But the moral weakness was not to be eradicated-nay, it developed with restraint; and a fatal outrage, when she was detected on the table-cloth after lunch, in the act of trying to get a convenient hold of a going-artful hypocrite-into convulsions of limbless fowl, preparatory to carrying it away, caused a council to be held at once in reference to her case. It was resolved, after a secret deliberation-our opinion had not then much weight in the councils of the house-to get rid of Vixen the First: not, I am happy to say, by execution or other violent measures, but by conferring her as a gift on a gentleman in the country, who fortunately had a taste for "varmint"in the sense of what is Bohemian in the matter of sport-and for this reason was willing to overlook those cutaneous blemishes. But though unlike the leopard, she might change her spots, she could not overcome her old appetites, whetted by sharp country air and pastimes; and we were soon grieved to learn that the amateur of "varmint" had found himself constrained to part with his useful assistant. More than two years later, at a sea-side place, a decayed-looking "cur" came creeping across the street from the heels of a Sykes-looking fellow, and looked up to me with wistful recognition, as though half afraid that such acknowledgment would take the shape of the prompt and sharp kick. There was something very piteous in this cringing self-depreciation. The dog, too, was thin and bony, and the tail, once carried so jauntily, as a knowing fellow wears his hat, was now gathered up timorously under the legs. Suddenly Sykes gave a whistle and a sharp curse, and the luckless animal slunk off. That was the last I saw of Vixen the First.

whinings, jumpings, and such pretences of delight. His mistress has been away a month, and he has been known to trot up the kitchen stairs to see what the commotion of her return might be about, stand at a distance, look on at the new arrival, then coolly turn his back, and strut leisurely down again, as though the matter was unworthy his attention. Yet it was almost impossible not to feel an interest in him, for this very indifference or independence. And he had his good points also. He was a perfect gentleman; seemed always to recollect his good birth and breeding, and no persuasions of servants could retain him below in their kitchen quietly, save in very cold weather, when he had his reasons for engaging the great fire there. He was always intriguing to slip away from servants. But, faithful to his principles, he knew their dinner hour to the moment, and no seductions of high society would then prevent his going down to join them at that desirable time. Sometimes if detained above by stratagem, he would at last escape, and would come galloping in among them, panting, with an air, as though he were conferring a favour, and as who should say, "I was unavoidably detained, but I have since tried hard to make up for lost time."

He had likewise learned little tricks of begging round the table for food-a practice a little humiliating for a gentleman of his birth, but still consistent with his principles. For, if invited "to beg" where food was not conA year or so later some one brings to the cerned, he would resent it, and if importuned, house a little diminutive Sky terrier, coal black, would growl. During meal-time he certainly rough-haired, not uncomely, and about two gave his mistress the preference, going on hands long. This gentleman is known as short excursions to any one who invited him "Jack." Being a lady's property, he is forth- with any conspicuous morsel, but returning to with pampered, and made free of drawing-rooms her side. If, however, she said, "No more, and bedrooms which I feel acutely as a retro-sir," and showed him the palms of her hands, spective injustice to the memory of the lost Vixen the First.

Jack was, I suppose, the most delightful instance of real, natural, undisguised selfishness that could be conceived. Loaded with benefits, stuffed with delicacies, he made not the slightest pretence of caring for the persons who so favoured him. In justice to him, it must be ad

he at once turned away from her, with unconcealed contempt, taking up his residence with some more promising person. No bare endearments could in the least detain him. Another merit of his was rare personal courage. He was afraid of no one, man, woman, child, or dog. For so tiny a creature this was really to be admired. Attack him with a stick or

umbrella, and he would stand on his defence, dren shrank from her as she jogged by with with his face honourably towards you, growling, the true bull dog, wary, business-like air. snarling, and even mewling with rage, and all But she did not want for pluck or courage, the time retiring cleverly and slowly until he as every street boy knew-a class whom she got to shelter. regarded with detestation. Half a mile away, In the streets he trotted along with infinite the sight of a pair of bare legs, a cap, and a dignity, and towards other dogs bore himself torn jacket, threw her into a fury: down went with a haughty contempt. Nothing was more her head and ears, and she was off like an amusing than to see a big, frisking, free-arrow, and presently flying round the bare mannered dog run at him and coolly tumble legs. Beggar boys, boys with baskets, all sorts him over in the dust, and to see the little of boys, had the same effect: low men with a outraged gentleman pick himself up, all over generally blackguard look fell under the same dust, growling and snarling with rage and odium. I am inclined to believe that in a premortification. More amusing still was it to see vious state of life she had suffered persecution a great Newfoundland dog stalk up, not quite from beings of this sort. She was up to anything sure whether this could be a rat, or one of his in the way of sport or gamesomeness, and if purown species, whom he was bound to respect. sued by any rough, at whose heels she had been As he became importunate in his curiosity, and flying, would retreat under a cart, and there troublesome in his half friendly, half hostile at- stand snarling and spitting horribly. Sometention, it was delicious to see Jack turn and times correction became necessary, and then snap deliberately at him, sputtering rage, while she would take her corporal punishment with the giant would start back confounded, not eyes closed fast, shrinking away from it, and knowing what to make of it. crouching, but with true Spartan fortitude, never uttering even a yelp. Her intelligence was surprising. If her master assumed an expression of displeasure, she grew disturbed and uneasy. And here was a favourite exercise to show off her sagacity. When he was reading and she half snoozing with her chin on her forepaws, he would say in a low quiet voice of displeasure, "What made you do it? What dy'e mean?" Her motion would be to raise her head and look round in a mournfully deprecating way, as who should say, "What is it, master ?" If the reproach were repeated, she would look again with her great sad eyes, the tail pleading slowly, and finally raising herself in the most deprecating way, would steal over, and with a sort of groan, would raise herself on her hind legs and piteously implore forgiveness. The moment she saw a smile, her tail wagged joyfully.

Seven, eight, nine years roll by, and he is actually getting to be a little old gentleman. He wheezes and coughs a good deal as he goes up-stairs. His black eyes are not so brilliant as of yore. But he has become snappish and impatient, more testy and selfish than ever. He is, in fact, just like other old gentlemen. His appetite is just as great, and he will eat hearty meals, which, however, do not agree with him; and though he is usually unwell after these hearty banquets, the lesson is quite thrown away on him. His fine black whiskers have turned grey and rusty. In the house, too, changes have taken place. He has lost friends, and it grieves me to think that in these old days of his he found a change, and learnt what the world was. I wonder did he make a sort of Wolsey reflection on the world, when, with much wheezing and coughing, he had toiled up-stairs, and coming confidently in at the drawing-room would be met with a stern "Go down, sir!-go down!" But what could one do for him? He was not the young buck he used to be, and he had, besides, an affection of the hinder leg, something in the nature of slight paralytic stroke, brought on by excess at

table.

Another wiry yellow dog arrives on the scene, carried in the arms of a Jewish-looking gentleman, in a squirrel cap, whose profession is dogs -with so gentle and amiable an air about her, and with such a resemblance to my old favourite, that I at once redeem her from captivity for the sum of fifteen shillings, and christen her "Vixen the Second."

She had the sweetest disposition, this Vixen the Second. She had even taught herself, God knows how, a sort of moral restraint and discipline. She had her rule of life, based upon what she thought would be pleasing to the Great Being, so he seemed to her, that guided her existence. Take an instance. We all know

those harmless salutations and flirtations interchanged among those of her race, who are perfect strangers to each other, and which appear almost an etiquette. No one had so keen a zest for these interviews as Vixen. Her remarkable air, a little bizarre, but highly attractive, drew crowds of admirers around her. Yet when they came with their insidious homage, she would indeed stop, for she knew what was due to the courtesies; she would, for a second be dazzled; She was the strangest combination in phy- but in another moment the moral principle sique; with the yellow wiry-haired body of the had asserted itself, and with a secret agony ordinary terrier, she had the snout of the bull-for the struggle cost her much, she was dog terrier, perfectly coal black, and the brightest after all-she tore herself away, and came rushand largest of black eyes set darting forward ing to make up for even that second's dallike dark carbuncles. With this truculent liance. On one occasion only did her resoluand remarkable exterior she showed herself tion fail her, and that was when a matchless the most engaging and gentle creature. Cbil-bull-terrier of a dazzling snow-white, and an