APPARENT SYNONYMS.

It is also a very valuable help to accuracy in the use of words to study apparent synonyms, i.e., words which are distinguished from each other by very slight differences of meaning. It is hardly possible to over-estimate the importance of this in composition. The following examples will illustrate the method to be adopted :

TO HOPE is to anticipate something that will be agreeable.

TO EXPECT is to anticipate what is regarded as certain.
We hope that it will be fine to-day.

We expect that it will rain before night.

DISCOVERY is the disclosure of what has previously existed, though unknown.

INVENTION is the calling something into being for the first time.

Columbus discovered America.

Galileo invented the telescope.

The optical principles upon which telescopes are constructed were discovered.

TO RECOLLECT is to recall from the memory what has slipped from it.

TO REMEMBER is to retain what is now in the memory.
I cannot recollect your name.

I will try to remember your directions.
COMPULSION is physical necessity.
OBLIGATION is moral necessity.

He was compelled to leave the room.
We are all obliged to speak the truth.

EXCEEDINGLY is used adverbially as a stronger word than very.

EXCESSIVELY is used to denote in excess; it is stronger than too much.

The garden is exceedingly large, i.e., very large.
The garden is excessively large, i.e., too large.

Rev. H. LEWIS, "The English Language: Its Grammar and
History."

ON RETIREMENT FROM THE WORLD.

On him that appears to pass through things temporal with no other care than not to lose finally the things eternal, I look with such veneration as inclines me to approve his conduct in the whole, without a minute examination of its parts; yet I could never forbear to wish, that while vice is every day multiplying seducements and stalking forth with more hardened effrontery, virtue would not withdraw the influence of her presence, or forbear to assert her natural dignity by open and undaunted perseverance in the right. Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight in those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendour of beneficence.

Dr. JOHNSON.

CHILDHOOD OF ROBERT CLIVE.

Some lineaments of the character of the man were early discerned in the child. There remain letters written by his relations when he was in his seventh year; and from these letters it appears that, even at that early age, his strong will and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity which sometimes seemed hardly compatible with soundness of mind, had begun to cause great uneasiness to his family. "Fighting," says one of his uncles, "to which he is out of measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and imperiousness, that he flies out on every trifling occasion." The old people of the neighbourhood still remember to have heard from their parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market Drayton, and with what terror the inhabitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit. They also

relate how he formed all the idle lads of the town into a kind of predatory army, and compelled the shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and halfpence, in consideration of which he guaranteed the security of their windows. He was sent from school to school, making very little progress in his learning, and gaining for himself everywhere the character of an exceedingly naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough to probhesy that the idle lad would make a great figure in the world.

MACAULAY, "Lord Clive."

SPEECH AS COMPARED WITH WRITING.

The differences between speech and prose spring very naturally from the different circumstances of either. The speaker must make his meaning immediately intelligible, and must arrest attention at once; otherwise the effect is lost altogether. The reader can review a written sentence at his leisure. Hence the sentence may fairly be a little longer and more complicated in writing than in speech; and hence also, for the sake of arresting attention, a little sacrifice of literal truth to vividness; in other words, a little exaggeration is not uncommon in speech. While speaking, the speaker can explain himself if he perceives that he is not understood; this cannot be done in writing. Hence speech is more irregular and less exact than writing. In speaking there are certain aids to help the speaker, action and gesticulation, the modulation of the voice, and the changing expression of the countenance; objects or persons mentioned can often be indicated by the hand; the auditor or audience can be questioned, and the expression of their faces can be interpreted as assent or dissent, and answered accordingly. The result of all these differences in circumstance is that speech as compared with writing is, (a) less exact in the choice of words, (b) more brief, and (c) more varied in construction.

ABBOTT and SEELEY," English Lessons for English People."

AVARICE.

No

The inordinate desire of wealth has been the occasion of more mischief and misery in the world than anything else. Some of the direst evils with which the world has ever been afflicted have emanated from this source. sooner had Columbus solved the problem of the Western Continent, than the accursed lust of gold began to fire the sordid hearts of his successors. Every species of perfidy, cruelty, and inhumanity towards the aborigines was practised against them, in order to extort from them their treasure; these mercenary wretches forcing the natives of Hispaniola so mercilessly to delve and toil for the much-coveted ore, that they actually reduced their numbers, within less than half a century, from two millions to about one hundred and fifty. The conquest of Mexico by Cortez and his followers, impelled by the same insatiable passion, was accompanied with horrors, atrocities, and slaughters, more dreadful and revolting than almost any recorded in the annals of our race.

THE STORMING OF ARCOT.

I.

Rajah Sahib determined to storm the fort. The day was well suited to a bold military enterprise. It was the great Mohammedan festival which is sacred to the memory of Hosein, the son of Ali. The history of Islam contains nothing more touching than the event which gave rise to that solemnity. The mournful legend relates how the chief of the Fatimites, when all his brave followers had perished round him, drank his latest draught of water, and uttered his latest prayer; how the assassins carried his head in triumph, how the tyrant smote the lifeless lips with his staff, and how a few old men recollected with tears that they had seen those lips pressed to the lips of the Prophet of God. After the lapse of near twelve centuries,

the recurrence of this solemn season excites the fiercest and saddest emotions in the bosoms of the devout Moslems of India. They work themselves up to such agonies of rage and lamentation, that some, it is said, have given up the ghost from the mere effect of mental excitement. They believe that whoever, during this festival, falls in arms against the infidels, atones by his death for all the sins of his life, and passes at once to the Garden of the Houris. It was at this time that Rajah Sahib determined to assault Arcot. Stimulating drugs were employed to aid the effect of religious zeal, and the besiegers, drunk with enthusiasm, drunk with bang, rushed furiously to the attack.

II.

Clive had received secret intelligence of the design, had made his arrangements, and exhausted by fatigue, had thrown himself on his bed. He was awakened by the alarm, and was instantly at his post. The enemy advanced, driving before them elephants whose foreheads were armed with iron plates. It was expected that the gates would yield to the shock of these living batteringrams. But the huge beasts no sooner felt the English musket-balls than they turned round, and rushed furiously away, trampling on the multitude which had urged them forward. A raft was launched on the water which filled one part of the ditch. Clive, perceiving that his gunners at that post did not understand their business, took the management of a piece of artillery himself, and cleared the raft in a few minutes. Where the moat was dry, the assailants mounted with great boldness; but they were received with a fire so heavy and so well-directed, that it soon quelled the courage even of fanaticism and of intoxication. The rear ranks of the English kept the front` ranks supplied with a constant succession of loaded muskets, and every shot told on the living mass below. After three desperate onsets, the besiegers retired behind the ditch.

The struggle lasted about an hour. Four hundred of the assailants fell. The garrison lost only five or six