occult, primary, instinctive and inscrutable qualification which the Creator, from motives we must not presume to scan, suffered to become stinted in his breast. You determine once more to endeavour to rouse him by giving him a terrible lecture, and if your efforts should not be blessed with success, to consider the case as hopeless and to ship him off to the East Indies that he may not disgrace his family.

The lecture is administered, but the fellow makes faces while you are preaching. He cannot be brought even to listen to you; and the lecture over, he proves more wicked than before. Thus he goes to the East Indies, before the mast, and dies a few weeks after his arrival in that country.

A similar one falls into my hands. On examining the history of his life I find that he lost his mother when an infant, and that his father's second wife, vexed to hear the first, whom the boy resembles, frequently mentioned as a very superior woman, persuades herself and her husband the lad has a bad heart. In consequence of this he was severely rebukeď for every little mistake or oversight; was constantly treated with coldness and suspicion; was kept at a distance, and becoming the regular but of his stepmother's ill humour, the odious reproaches of his baseness and perversity never ceased to ring on his car while in the house. His bad name, spreading thence through the village, the same reproaches pursued him in the countenance and manner towards him of all the inhabitants and even of his playmates. Hence he never tasted the satisfaction of being approved of, and sought for relief from the mortification of being disliked, first in the pleasure of plaguing others, and afterwards in the immoderate indulgence of sensual gratifications. Hence a chain of vitious associations throughout, and the result-depravity!

To attempt whether he may perhaps be reformed, I begin with presuming him possessed of qualities in which I know he is deficient. I tell him that I am glad to find people had formed erroneous ideas of him; that his natural disposition was excellent, though he had unfortunately acquired some bad habits; and that he possessed much more capacity and energy than many of those mean and tame people who blamed him. I trust him, though I know that he cheats. I confide in him, though I know that he is habitually faithless. If he behaves amiss, I pretend not to know it. I allure him to the virtues he wants by giving him a foretaste of the gratifications which would attend their acquirement. I make much of him when he merits praise, and often bestow it, if it can only be done with a colouring of propriety, when in reality he was deserving of censure. I secretly prevail on some friends to join me in this method. By these means I make him of consequence; I make him respect himself. I change by slow degrees

the whole train of his associations. He becomes a new man-he thanks ine for having made him so, and continues to live a useful member of society, beloved and respected by all who know him.

A gentleman at New York had a clerk who kept his books and papers. After some months, on settling the bank account he discovered a deficiency of five hundred dollars, and it appeared that this sum had been drawn from the bank by means of a forged check. The clerk immediately on the discovery left the office; but the gentleman suspecting the place where he would probably endeavour to hide himself, followed him instantaneously, entered the room, found him; upbraided him humourously for having left the office when he must know how much he was wanted, took him home and gave him among other 'papers the forged check, with a request to enter it, since it had been neglected to enter it when it was drawn.-The astonished clerk received it trembling, and did as he had been told. He perceived his employer was determined not to see what he had done! The gentleman continued to treat him with marked politeness, and even with confidence. The $500 were by degrees replaced by the clerk from his salary. Not a word was ever said on the subject; and he lives now a man of worth and respectability in that city.

What associations must have been produced in the mind of the clerk by this couduct! How deeply must he have been moved by this forbearance and delicacy! What a new and elevated tone must his mind have taken! How incapable must he have become of a similar transgression; and how different would have been the result had he been arrested, imprisoned, tried and branded by an ignominious sen

tence !

Is not many an unfortunate female-are not most of them driven to prostitution because their first false steps do not meet with indulgence and forgiveness? We constantly create vice by not knowing how to treat error! Self-love, the fundamental principle of human nature, and the repugnance to pain constantly produce a reconciliation between ourselves and our faults. In a continued self-disapprobation, no human being can exist. If the fallen therefore can no longer live among the virtuous, because these do not know to forgive, and still to love and to honour,-they must needs seek new sources of satisfaction in a new train of associations, and among new comrades. The circumstances in which they are placed work this change; and thus we see why love and charity are so strongly enforced in the sacred writings. They are not only virtues in themselves, they are the support of virtue, the antidote to degradation in their effect upon others.

The rogues of England become respectable men at Botany Bay. There is honour among thieves. Every where the vitious are only

the unfortunate, the spoiled, by false treatment and bad situation. Religious fanaticism or visionary ideas of liberty, by destroying the sound associations and establishing those which might be called morbid, will convert the humane into tigres, the reasonable into fools; and in the same manner what is virtuous and honest, what is dignified and honourable, what is graceful and polite may be found to disappear in a whole nation under a long continued, mean and clownish administration.

If those who educate youth, who organize institutions, who preside at public amusements, who give a tone and impulse to societyif those who govern, if those who legislate-but silence! I forget that wealth and party zeal as yet are thought sufficient to qualify for such situations in this country!

LECTURE V.-ON PAUSES,

The judicious observance of which gives expression and animation to the subject discussed.

GENTLEMEN,

I Now proceed to the consideration of that essential principle in the art of reading, the proper use of pauses.

The two principles of pause and tone are more intimately connected together than any other two of the five which constitute the correct pronunciation of written language; and they mutually affect each other; nor is there any thing which contributes more to the just and forcible expression of sentiment, than the proper observance of them. I shall in the present lecture confine myself to the consideration of the former.

Pauses in reading and speaking are equally necessary to give precision and expression to the sentiment. Their use, in both cases, is too obvious to need much recommendation or explanation. Rhetoricians, however, have been greatly perplexed about their nature and application. While some consider them as altogether arbi-' trary, depending upon the taste of the reader; others confine them to those grammatical rules, by which certain parts of speech are kept

together, and others divided, in order more fully to ascertain the sense or meaning of an author; without regard to those colloquial pauses and tones, by which the energy of sentiment is most forcibly conveyed. In this, as in most other cases of similar opposition, the golden principle of mediocrity should be observed.

Punctuation therefore, or pauses, should be considered as relating both to grammar and to rhetoric. A system of punctuation may be sufficient for the purposes of grammar, or, in other words it may be sufficient to clear and preserve the sense of an author, and at the same time be a very imperfect guide to the pronunciation of it. The art of reading, though founded on grammar, has principles of its own: principles which arise from the nature of the human voice, from the perception of harmony in the ear, and from a certain superaddition to the sense of language, of which grammar takes no notice. These principles naturally and necessarily influence our pronunciation, and direct us to pauses, which are intirely unknown to every system of punctuation now in use: except that of the ingenious and elaborate Mr. Walker, who has investigated this subject with much critical skill and accuracy. He treats, in his Rhetorical Grammar as well as in his Elements of Elocution, of grammatical and rhetorical, or visible, and audible punctuation; and has given copious examples of their application. To these valuable effusions of judgment, taste, and genius, I refer you, for a more minute discussion than the usual limits of a lecture will permit.

Pauses are equally necessary to the hearer and to the speaker. To the speaker, that he may take breath, without which he cannot proceed far in delivery, and that he may, by these temporary rests, relieve the organs of speech, which otherwise would be soon fatigued by uninterrupted action: to the hearer, that the ear also may be relieved from the fatigue which it would otherwise endure from a continuity of sound, and that the understanding may have sufficient time to mark the distinction of sentences, and their several members.

The pauses, necessary to be observed in reading, are of two kinds; first, those which mark the divisions of the sense, and are therefore called grammatical or sentential pauses, such as the comma, the semicolon, the colon, and the period. To these are to be added the note of interrogation, the note of exclamation, and the parenthesis. These three being expressed not so much by the length of time to be observed in pausing, as by the tone of voice.

Secondly. Emphatical pauses, which are made, when something is said of peculiar moment, on which we wish to fix the hearer's attention. These sometimes coincide with the sentential stops; but more frequently occur where they are not expressed. I shall make some brief remarks on each of these in the order I have mentioned them.

And first of the comma.

The comma usually separates those parts of a sentence, which, though very closely connected in sense and construction, require a short pause between them, and only a short one, without any change of tone; the sentiment, or enunciation of thought never being completely expressed under their restriction.

With respect to a simple sentence or that which consists of one subject and one finite verb, the several words of which it consists have so near a relation to each other, that in general no points are requisite except a period at the end, as " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." "A wise man governs his passions."

A simple sentence, however, when it is a long one, and the nominative case is accompanied with inseparable adjuncts, may admit of a pause immediately before the verb: as, "The good taste of the present age, has not allowed us to neglect the cultivation of the English language." "To be totally inattentive to praise or censure, is a real defect in character."

In the generality of compound sentences, commas are multiplied according to the sense, grammatical construction, and extension of the sentence. The rules for their application are very copiously, explicitly, and accurately laid down in Murray's large Grammar; and by Mr. Walker in his Elements of Elocution, as well as in his Rhetorical Grammar.

The semicolon is used for dividing a compound sentence into two or more parts, not so closely connected as those which are separated by a comma, nor yet so little dependent on each other as those which are distinguished by a colon: as, "Experience teaches us, that an intire retreat from worldly affairs, is not what religion requires; nor does it even enjoin a long retreat from them."

A colon is used to divide a sentence into two or more parts, less connected than those which are separated by a semicolon; but not so independent as separate, distinct sentences: as, "A Divine Legislator, uttering his voice from heaven; an Almighty Governor, stretching forth his arm to punish or reward; informing us of perpetual rest prepared hereafter for the righteous, and of indignation and wrath awaiting the wicked: these are the considerations which overawe the world; which support integrity, and check guilt."

A period should be used when a sentence is complete and independent, and not connected in construction with the following sentence. Some sentences are independent of each other, both in sense and construction: as, "Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." Some are independent only in their grammatical construction: as, "The Supreme Being changes not, either in his desire to promote our happiness, or in the plan of his administration. One light always shines