and feeds its reservoirs in the darkness of the earth. The admirers of poetry, then, may give up the ancient mythology without a sigh. Its departure has left us what is better than all it has taken away; it has left us men and women; it has left us the creatures and the things of God's universe to the simple charm of which the. cold splendor of that system blinded men's eyes, and to the magnificence of which the rapid progress of science is every day adding new wonders and glories. It has left us also a more sublime and affecting religion, whose truths are broader, higher, nobler, than any outlook to which its random conjectures ever attained.

PROMINENCE OF PARTS TO WHOLE.

[Besides the prominence of words and groups in relation to the separate ideas, there is also their prominence in relation to the whole composition. Thus, in the line, "Then they rode back" (Charge of the Light Brigade), the "then" requires prominence, not only because of its relation to that group but because it helps to emphasize the story of the whole poem. "Then," that is, after the soldiers had done their duty and not till then, "they rode back." Also (as shown under Pause and Leading Statement), those ideas which are the leading ones of the theme should be given prominence, in order to make clear their relative importance.]

Hamlet's Advice to the Players.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the

groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod; pray you, avoid it..

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered. That's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

The Relative Importance of Activities.

HERBERT SPENCER.

Our first step must obviously be to classify, in the order of their importance, the leading kinds of activity which con

stitute human life. The actions and precautions by which, from moment to moment, we secure personal safety, must clearly take precedence of others. Could there be a man, ignorant as an infant of all surrounding objects and movements, or how to guide himself among them, he would pretty certainly lose his life the first time he went into the street, notwithstanding any amount of learning he might have on other matters. And as entire ignorance in all other directions would be less promptly fatal than entire ignorance in this direction, it must be admitted that knowledge immediately conducive to self-preservation is of primary importance.

That next after direct self-preservation comes the indirect self-preservation which consists in acquiring the means of living, none will question. That a man's industrial functions must be considered before his parental ones, is manifest from the fact that, speaking generally, the discharge of the parental functions is made possible only by the previous discharge of the industrial ones. The power of self-maintenance necessarily preceding the power of maintaining offspring, it follows that knowledge needful for self-maintenance has stronger claims than knowledge needful for family welfare-is second in value to none save knowledge needful for immediate selfpreservation.

As the family comes before the State in order of time- -as the bringing up of children is possible before the State exists, or when it has ceased to be, whereas the State is rendered possible only by the bringing up of children; it follows that the duties of the parent demand closer attention than those of the citizen. Or, to use a further argument-since the goodness of a society ultimately depends on the nature of its citizens; and since the nature of its citizens is more modifiable by early training than by anything else; we must conclude that the welfare of the family underlies the welfare of society. And hence, knowledge directly conducing to the first,

must take precedence of knowledge directly conducing to the last.

Those various forms of pleasurable occupation which fill up the leisure left by graver occupations-the enjoyments of music, poetry, painting, etc.-manifestly imply a pre-existing society. Not only is a considerable development of them impossible without a long-established social union, but their very subject-matter consists in great part of social sentiments and sympathies. Not only does society supply the conditions to their growth, but also the ideas and sentiments they express. And, consequently, that part of human conduct which constitutes good citizenship is of more moment than that which goes out in accomplishments or exercise of the tastes; and, in education, preparation for the one must rank before preparation for the other.

Such, then, we repeat, is something like the rational order of subordination: that education which prepares for direct self-preservation; that which prepares for indirect self-preservation; that which prepares for parenthood; that which prepares for citizenship; that which prepares for the miscellaneous refinements of life.

PROMINENCE AND INTEREST.

[Prominence is a valuable medium by which there can be aroused in the listener a keener interest. In "King Robert of Sicily," in proportion to the intensity of defiance in the line, "There is no power can push me from my throne," so is the interest increased in the outcome.]

The Jew.

ZEBULON VANCE.

The Jew is beyond doubt the most remarkable man of this world, past or present. Of all the stories of the sons of men

there is none so wild, so wonderful, so full of extreme mutation, so replete with suffering and horror, so abounding in extraordinary providences, so overflowing with scenic romance. There is no man who approaches him in the extent and character of the influence which he has exercised over the human family. His history is the history of our civilization and progress in this world, and our faith and hope in that which is to come. From him have we derived the form and pattern of all that is excellent on earth or in heaven.

Though dead as a nation-as we speak of nations-they yet live. Their ideas fill the world and move the wheels of its progress, even as the sun, when he sinks behind the western hills, yet fills the heavens with the remnants of his glory. As the destruction of matter in one form is made necessary to its resurrection in another, so it would seem that the perishing of the Jewish nationality was necessary to the universal acceptance and the everlasting establishment of Jewish ideas. Never before was there an instance of such a general rejection of the person and character, and acceptance of the doctrines and dogmas of a people.

We admire with unlimited admiration the Greek and Roman, but reject with contempt their crude and beastly divinities. We affect to despise the Jew, but accept and adore the pure conception of a God which he taught us, and whose real existence the history of the Jew more than all else establishes.

The Jews, under most adverse circumstances, made their mark-a high and noble mark-in every department of human affairs. Christian clergymen have sat at the feet of their rabbis to be taught the mystic learning of the East; Senates have been enraptured by the eloquence of Jewish orators; courts have been convinced by the acumen and learning of Jewish lawyers; vast throngs excited to the wildest enthusi