CONVERSATION.

When the pupils come to read the Extracts for the second time, as advised at p. 36, they might be questioned by the master upon each lesson in the following manner. The questions should be so arranged as to be answered as far as possible with words already known.

UNION, P. 10.

1. Quel est le titre de la première histoire? 2. Est-elle courte? 3. Est-elle longue? 4. Qui l'a traduite? 5. Qui l'a lue en français? 6. A qui l'avez-vous lue? 7. Dans quelle langue l'avez-vous traduite? 8. Comment l'avez-vous traduite? 9. Combien de fois l'avez-vous traduite? 10. Est-elle difficile? 11. Est-elle ancienne? 12. Comment s'appelait le père des trois jeunes princes? 13. Etait-il jeune? 14. Combien d'enfants avait-il? 15. Comment s'appelaient ses enfants? 16. Quel était l'aîné? 17. Quel était leur titre? 18. Combien de frères chacun des trois princes avait-il? 19. Quand comparurent-ils devant leur père? 20. Qu'est-ce qu'il leur ordonna? 21. A qui le vieux roi commanda-t-il de rompre un faisceau de flèches? 22. Dans quelle circonstance? 23. Combien de flèches y avait-il ? 24. Les trois jeunes princes étaient-ils forts? 25. Où régnait leur père? 26. Rompirent-ils le faisceau ? 27. Pourquoi ne le rompirent-ils pas ? 28. Qui le prit après eux? 29. Que fit-il après l'avoir pris ? 30. Qui brisa les flèches? 31. Comment les brisa-t-il ? 32. Devant (421.) qui les brisa-t-il! 33. Qui avait essayé avant (420.) lui? 34. Combien de doigts avez-vous? 35. Combien de mains avez-vous? 36. Combien de doigts avez-vous à chaque main? 37. Après quoi le vieux roi se tournat-il vers ses trois fils? 38. Que leur dit-il alors? 39. Avait-il raison? 40. Etes-vous roi ? 41. Etes-vous prince (ou princesse)? 42. Avez-vous des flèches? 43. Où se trouve la première histoire? 44. Qui la sait? 45. Qui ne la comprend pas?

COMPOSITION.

N.B.-When masters are short of exercises, which happens when the pupils have not had time to study all the rules connected with certain subjects of unusual length, I would recommend the dictation of sentences, framed on the following plan, for the purpose of translation into French :

4. The aged king

1. The king was old. 2. Who was old? 3. He has three sons. called his three sons. 5. The three young brothers called their father. 6. The father was not young. 7. The young men had arrows. 8. Had the old king any arrows? 9. The three princes had no arrows. 10. The king and his three sons were on the point of dying. 11. I shall break the arrows before the king. 12. Were the three brothers united? 13. The three sons were not united. 14. The sons and daughters of the aged king were united. 15. The king, old as he was, was invincible. 16. The three princes, young as they were, were not invincible. 17. We shall break the arrows with the tips of our fingers. 18. Take these reeds, said the father to his three daughters. 19. I shall untie the arrows before the king's daughters. 20. "Be united, and you will be invincible," said the old king to his

three sons.

ENGLISH VERSION.

1.-UNION. (P. 10.)

An aged king, on the point of death, summoned his three children, and ordered them to break a bundle of arrows; the youths, strong as they were, not having been able to break it, he in his turn took it, and having untied it, he snapped with the tips of his fingers each arrow separately; then turning towards his three sons, he said to them, "Such are the effects of union; together, you will be invincible; taken separately, you will be broken like reeds.

2. THE THREE MEN AND THE TREASURE.

Three inhabitants of Balck, a city of Asia, were travelling together; they found a treasure, and divided it. They continued their journey, talking as they went of the use they would make of their wealth. The provisions they had brought with them being consumed, they agreed that one of their number should go and purchase some at the nearest town, and that the youngest should undertake this message: he set off. On his way, he said to himself, "I am rich just now, but I should be far more so, if I had been alone when we found the treasure. These two men have deprived me of my wealth. Might I not regain it ? That would be easy for me. I should only have to poison the provisions which I am going to buy on my return, I should say that I have dined at the town. My companions would eat without distrust, and die. I have but a third of the treasure, then I should have the whole." Meanwhile, the two other travellers were saying to each other, "We had no need that that young man should come and attach himself to us; we have been obliged to share the treasure with him; his share would have increased ours, and we should be really rich. He will soon be back-we have trusty poignards." The young man returned with the poisoned provisions; his companions murdered him: they ate; they died; and the treasure belonged to no one.

3. THE TULIP AND THE ROSE. (P. 11.)

A tulip and a rose were neighbours in the same garden; they were both extremely beautiful, yet the gardener bestowed more care and attention on the rose. Envy and jealousy between two rival beauties cannot easily be concealed. The tulip, vain of her outward charms, and not able to endure the idea of being abandoned for another, taunted the gardener with his partiality. "Why is my beauty thus neglected?" she asked him; "are not my hues more bright, more various, and more alluring than those of the rose? Why then do you prefer her to me, and lavish on her all your affection?" "Be not discontented, beautiful tulip," replied the gardener; "I know your beauties, and admire them as they deserve; but there is a perfume in my favourite rose, and internal delights, which beauty alone cannot secure for me."

4. THE BIRD-CATCHER AND THE BLACKBIRD.

A bird-catcher was one day spreading his nets by the side of a hedge: a blackbird, who was perched upon a tree, had the curiosity to ask him what he was doing. "I am building a city for birds," replied he; you see I am storing it with food, and with everything that is necessary for life." Having said this, he went and hid himself behind the hedge. The blackbird, believing him quite sincere, alighted from the tree, entered the city, and was taken. The man issued from his hiding-place, and ran to seize his prey. "If such," said the prisoner to him, "be your good faith, your honour, and the city which you are building, you will have but a scanty population. Wo is me for having listened to you; I am the dupe of your knavery."

5. THE CROW AND THE FOX. (P. 11.)

A crow had perched himself on a tree to eat a piece of cheese. A fox, who observed him in passing, stopped and spoke to him thus: "So ho! good day, Master Crow,† what a fine appearance you have! How handsome you are! Your shape is most beautiful, and your plumage is superb. If you had a voice, there would be no bird under heaven to be compared with you." At these words, the crow opened his beak, and let fall the cheese, which Reynard seized, saying, “Learn, my good sir, that every flatterer lives at the expense of the man who listens to him."

6. THE FROG AND THE OX.

A frog, seeing an ox that was feeding in a meadow, was desirous of being able to equal him in size, and set herself to inflate her wrinkled skin. Then, turning to her little ones, she asked them if she were not almost as large as the ox. They answered, "No."-"What think you now?" resumed she, inflating herself still more." You are not near it."—"What! not yet? This is it then."-"Not at all."-The poor silly beast inflated herself so much that she burst.

7.-BON MOTS, &c. (P. 12.)

A German and a Frenchman, taking a walk one day, met on their way a pig, whose squeaking cries (oui! oui!) provoked the German to say to the Frenchman, "There is a pig, Sir, that talks French."-"You are right," retorted the Frenchman, but he speaks it as many Germans do-he pronounces it ill."

This neighbour answered

A peasant one day besought his neighbour to lend him his ass. him thus: "I regret extremely that you did not ask me for him sooner; I have just lent him to the miller." As he was in the act of excusing himself, the ass began to bray. "Ha!" said the peasant, "listen, it is your ass who is giving assurance of your having lent him to some one; but it must be confessed that you are very obliging." "And for my part," retorted the neighbour, "I think it extremely droll that you should believe my ass rather than myself."

PRECAUTION. Diogenes asked a spendthrift for a good round sum of money. "What !" said the 66 man, you only ask an obole from other people." "That is true," replied Diogenes, "but I cannot reasonably expect that you should be able to grant my request more than once."

A simpleton wrote the following letter to one of his friends:-"My dear C- I have forgotten my gold snuff-box at your house: have the kindness to send it back to me by the bearer of this note." When about to affix his seal, he finds his snuff-box, and adds, by way of postscript, "I have just found it again, do not trouble yourself to seek for it." Then he closes his letter and dispatches it. (921.)

The following is a letter which a school-boy addressed to his father:-"My dear Papa,— I write you to-day, Monday; I shall give my letter to the carrier, who will set out tomorrow, Tuesday; he will arrive the day after to-morrow, Wednesday; you will send me some money, I beg, on Thursday; if I receive none on Friday, I set out on Saturday, to reach home on Sunday."

A blind man, on his way to draw water in the evening at the fountain, was carrying a pitcher with a lighted candle. "What is the use of your candle to you," said a passer-by to him, "since you are stone-blind?" "To warn reckless people like yourself," replied the blind man, "not to run up against me and break my pitcher."

+ DU (32.) CORBEAU.-To flatter the crow's vanity, master Reynard titles him by prefixing to his name the particle de, which is used in France (like von in Germany, by princes, nobles, and people of rank, who take their titles from their estates; e. g. Philippe de Valois, Heuri de Bourbon, Matthien de Montmorency, &c.; i. e. Philippe, Henri, ou Matthieu, seigneur (prince ou duc) de Valois, de Bourbon, ou de Montmorency. But many "parvenus" assume the de often upon some imaginary property; and the following happily illustrates how commoners manage to substitute the names of their estates, however small they may be, to their original plebeian appellations:

"Le plus considérable des trois était le neveu de M. Cruchot (notaire). Depuis sa nomination de président au tribunal de première instance de Saumur, ce jeune homme avait joint au nom de Cruchot celui de Bonfons, et travaillait à faire prévaloir Bonfons sur Cruchot. Il signait déjà C. de Bonfons. Le plaideur assez malavisé pour l'appeler M. Cruchot s'apercevait bientôt à l'audience de sa sottise. Le magistrat protégeait ceux qui le nommaient M. le président (544.), mais il favorisait de ses plus gracieux sourires les flatteurs qui lui disaient M de Bonfons. M. le président possédait le domaine de Bonfons, valant sept mille livres de rente" (£280 per annum), &c.-(H. DE BALZAC, Eugénie Grandet.)

Gluck, passing through the Rue St. Honoré, broke a pane of glass in a shop window, value fifteenpence. The shopkeeper, not having change to give for the half-crown-piece which the musician tendered, wished to go out in quest of it. "That were useless," said Gluck to

him, "I shall make up the amount.' And he broke another pane.

Voltaire and Piron had gone to spend some time at a country seat. One day Piron wrote on Voltaire's door, "Rascal." As soon as Voltaire saw it, he went off to the apartments of Piron, who said to him, What accident procures me the pleasure of seeing you?" "Sir," replied Voltaire, " I saw your name on my door, and I come to return your call."

M. Casimir Bonjour, aspiring to the honours of the Academy, presents himself one day to pay a visit at the house of one of the Forty. A chambermaid comes and opens the door for him. "Your name, Sir," she says. The aspirant, with his most gracious smile, replies, "Bonjour," (which means, in English, good-day). Flattered by this politeness, the girl replies, "Bonjour, monsieur, will you be kind enough to tell me your name?" "I tell you, Bonjour." "I, too, can say bonjour, Sir; whom must I announce, pray?" "Eh! Bonjour; it is my name." The chambermaid then understood that, instead of saying, "Bonjour, monsieur;" she ought to have said, "Monsieur Bonjour."

He

THE LEARNED MAN.-An extraordinary and difficult question had been propounded to the celebrated doctor Abou-Joseph, one of the most learned musselmen of his age. ingenuously confessed his ignorance, and on this avowal he was reproached with receiving enormous sums from the royal treasury without being able to decide the points of law on which he was consulted. "There is nothing wonderful in this," replied he; "I receive from the treasury in proportion to what I know; but if I received in proportion to what I do not know, all the wealth of the caliph's dominions would not be sufficient to pay me." DISINTERESTEDNESS.-A wise Arab had consumed his property in the service of a caliph; this monarch, devoted to extravagant pleasures, said to him ironically: "Do you know any one who professes greater disinterestedness than yourself?" "Yes, sire." "Who is it ?" "You; I have only sacrificed my fortune, you are sacrificing your honour."

GREATNESS-Every Frenchman preserves in his memory the discourse which Henry IV. pronounced at the commencement of his reign in an assembly of principal citizens (or chief men) convoked at Rouen. This eternally memorable speech is as follows:-"Already, by the favour of heaven, by the counsels of my worthy ministers, and by the sword of my brave nobility, have I rescued this state from the slavery and ruin which threatened it. I wish to restore to it its power and its splendour. Share in this second glory, as ye have partaken of the former. I have not called you, as my predecessors used to do, to force you blindly to approve my wishes, but to receive your advice, to trust in it, to follow it, to put myself into the guardianship of your hands. It is a desire which seldom enters the mind of kings, or conquerors, or greybeards; but the love which I bear to my subjects renders everything possible and honourable to me."

8. THE TREASURE. (P. 14.)

Two worthy peasants went together to find the priest of their parish. One of them said to him: "I had a field that was quite close to the lands of my neighbour, whom you see here with me; he also had one that was far from his own house and near mine: we made an exchange. But it happened that, yesterday, while digging a trench in the land that my neighbour made over to me, I found a vessel full of gold pieces; I went and took them to him, because, as I understood, that I was to receive from him nothing but the field, the gold which I had discovered there was not less surely his." "No," replied the neighbour, "I cannot look upon this treasure as mine, for it was not I who put it in the ground, and I have made over the field to my neighbour exactly as I bought it. I have no claims to make to anything that he may have found there." "Reverend Sir," said they together, "which of us is right?" The priest replied: "You are two honest men, and I shall reconcile your differences. Is not the one of you about to give his daughter in marriage to the son of the other?" "Yes," they said. Well, then, give this money to the young couple, and do not trouble yourselves to know which of you is right." This was no sooner said than it was done.

9.-THE NAIL.

Paul saddled his horse to go and carry the amount of his rent to the proprietor of the farm which he occupied. When in the act of mounting on horseback, he saw that a nail was wanting in one of the shoes. ""Tis not worth while replacing it," said he to himself, "my horse will not break down on the way in default of a single nail.' At a league from home, Paul saw that the horse had lost the shoe in which the nail was wanting. แ I might easily,"

he said, "get another shoe put on at the adjoining smithy, but I should lose too much time; my horse will reach town well enough with three shoes.' Soon after, the horse caught a thorn and wounded himself. "I might get my nag attended to," said Paul once more to himself; but it is not more than a quarter of a league from here to the town: he will finish the journey well enough as he is." Some minutes after, the horse in limping made a false step, fell, and Paul had his shoulder dislocated. He was conveyed to a village near that spot, where man and horse had to be nursed for ten days. He was much distressed at thus losing his time and his money. He came to this conclusion in his own mind: "No oversight is unimportant. If I had put in a nail, my horse would not have lost his shoe; if I had had a shoe put on, he would not have hurt himself: if I had had his wound dressed in time, I should not have dislocated my shoulder. This lesson will be useful to me for the future."

10.-CHARITY. (P. 15.)

The bakers of Lyons came and asked M. Dugas, provost of the tradesmen of that city, for perinission to raise the price of their bread. When they had unfolded their reasons, they left on the table a purse of two hundred louis, not doubting but that this sum would plead their cause effectually. Some days after, they presented themselves to receive his answer. Gentlemen," said the magistrate to them, "I have weighed your reasons in the scales of justice, and have found them wanting; I have not judged it right that the people should be made to suffer by an ill-founded dearness. Besides, I have distributed your money amongst the hospitals of this city, persuaded that you did not wish to apply it to any other use. It has also seemed to me that, since you are in a condition to make such alms, you are not, as you say, unsuccessful in your trade."

11. THE SCHOOL-BOY.

There was once a boy-a little fellow-for if he had been taller, I daresay he would have been wiser-but he was scarcely higher than this table. His mamma sent him one day to school. The weather was very fine; the sun was shining without clouds, and the birds were singing on the bushes. The little boy would have liked better to run about in the fields than to go and shut himself up with his books. He asked the young girl who was leading him, if she would play with him. But she answered him, "My dear, I have something else to do than play. As soon as I have taken you to school, I must go to the other end of the village to get some wool for my mother to spin; otherwise she would be without work, and would have no money to buy bread."

A moment after he saw a bee that was flitting from flower to flower. He said to the young girl, "I should like extremely to go and play with the bee." But she answered him, "That the bee had something else to do than to play-that it was busy flying from flower to flower to gather there material for its honey." And the bee flew away towards its hive.

Then the little boy saw a dog pass, whose body was covered with great red spots. The little boy would have liked much to play with him. But a sportsman, who was near that spot, began to whistle, straightway the dog ran towards his master and followed him into the fields. He was not long in flushing a partridge, which the sportsman killed at a shot for his dinner.

The little boy continued his walk, and saw, at the foot of a hedge, a little bird that was hopping lightly about. "There he is, playing all alone," said he; "he will, perhaps, be glad that I should go and play with him."-" Oh! not at all," replied the young girl, "this bird has something quite other to do than to play. He must pick up on every side straw, wool, and moss, to build his nest." In fact, at that very moment the bird flew away, holding in his beak a large piece of straw, which he had just found, and went and perched himself on a large tree, where he had begun to build his nest among the leaves. At last the little boy met a horse at the end of a meadow. He wished to go and play with him; but there came a ploughman who led away the horse, saying to the little boy, "My horse has something far other to do than to play with you, child. He must come and help me to till my lands, otherwise no corn could come there, and we would have no bread."

Then the little boy began to reflect, and he soon said to himself, everything that I have just seen has something else to do than to play, I too must have something better to do; I shall go straight to school and learn my lessons. He went direct to school, learned his lessons admirably, and received the applause of his master. This is not all: his papa, who was informed of it, gave him next day a large hobby-horse to reward him for having been so industrious. I ask you now, if the little boy was not very glad at not having lost his time at play.