thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear all over the districts. The insurance offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time, says my manuscript, a sage arose, who made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, might be cooked without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way among mankind. Without placing too implicit faith in the account above given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especially in these days) could be assigned in favour of any culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in ROAST PIG. I speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig and pork those hobbledehoys - but a young and tender suckling - under a moon old — guiltless as yet of the sty his voice as yet not broken, but something between a childish treble, and a grumble — the mild forerunner, or præludium, of a grunt. He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors ate them seethed, or boiled but what a sacrifice of the exterior tegument! See him in his dish, his second cradle, how meek he lieth! wouldst thou have had this innocent grow up to the grossness and indocility which too often accompany maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal — wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation - from these sins he is happily snatched away · "Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade, Death came with timely care" his memory is odoriferous no clown curseth, while his stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon no coalheaver bolteth him in reeking sausages - he hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure and for such a tomb might be content to die. I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot (few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes, and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. "Presents," I often say, "endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges, snipes, barn-door chickens, plovers, barrels of oysters, I dispense as freely as I receive them. I love to taste them, as it were, upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put somewhere. One would not, like Lear, "give everything." I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude to the Giver of all good favours, to send out of the house, slightingly (under pretext of friendship, or I know not what), a blessing so particularly adapted, predestined, I may say, to my individual palate. It argues an insensibility. I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice thing into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven. In my way to school a grey-headed old beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that he was a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with, and in the vanity of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of charity, schoolboy-like, I made him a present of the whole cake! I walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on such occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction; but before I had got to the end of the bridge, my better feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her good gift away to a stranger, that I had never seen before, and who might be a bad man for aught I knew; and then I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in thinking that I I myself, and not another would eat her nice cake and what should I say to her the next time I saw her how naughty I was to part with her pretty present and the odour of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection, and the pleasure and the curiosity I had taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that I had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last and I blamed my impertinent spirit of almsgiving, and out-of-place hypocrisy of goodness, and above all I wished never to see the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey impostor. Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing these tender victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with something of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be curious to inquire what effect this process might have towards intenerating and dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet we should be cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity, how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might impart a gusto His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few bread crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic; you cannot poison them, or make them stronger than they are but consider, he is a weakling a flower. Pick out the clauses in the first paragraph; tell what kind they are and how they are used. LESSON IV· Write a theme, taking as your subject one of the following. If you wish, put it in the form of a letter. (See Chapter XXX, Lesson I, for a full discussion of letterwriting.) Look over what has been said about "point of view" (Chapter VI, Lesson IV, and Chapter VIII, Lesson IV). 1. Poultry-raising. (For the benefit of one who knows nothing about chickens.) 2. A fire. (From the standpoint of a fireman; of a boy on his way to school; of a dog locked in one of the rooms.) 3. The Huguenot. (See the picture facing page 208. Write it from the standpoint of the man; of the girl.) 4. A sad incident. 5. My favorite author. 6. Butterflies. (For the benefit of one who knows nothing about them; of one who knows a good deal about them.) 7. The adventures of a counterfeit quarter. 8. The Camp Fire Girls. 9. The Boy Scouts. IO. -(Some subject you are particularly interested in.) LESSON V Penmanship, dictation, or memorizing exercise. ELIA ACROSS the English meadows sweet, They know the hour of parting nigh, Looms up the madhouse gaunt and gray. He keeps the lonely lamp aglow, Before his heart had known despair. He waits till she may come once more Between me and this gentle book, I lift my eyes, still brimming o'er With love and laughter · and there falls The shadow of the madhouse walls! E. J. McPhelim CHAPTER XVI CLAUSES (Continued) LESSON I One of the things that mark the difference between the man who knows and the man who doesn't know is the ability of the former to note distinctions between things and ideas that the latter cannot perceive. There is a difference between a rip-saw and a cross-cut saw, between knitting and crocheting, between an in-shoot and an outdrop; and there is a difference between a restrictive clause and a non-restrictive clause. The further one goes in the study of any subject, whether it be accounting, domestic science, physics, or philosophy, the more he must note distinctions, the more he must keep his senses awake to perceive shades of difference. If you will strive in your English work and in your work in other subjects to appreciate similarities and dissimilarities, you will do your work more effectively, with less expenditure of energy, and what is more you will enjoy it much better. Restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. It is often hard to distinguish between restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses. In the sentence "This is the house that Jack built," the clause that Jack built restricts or limits the word house. In the sentence "The house, which was painted a light brown, stood on the brow of the |