hushed, silent, voiceless, sleeping, breathless, transparent, clear, waveless, engulphed, unmeasured, beautiful, mingled, crystal, golden, silvery, magnificent, breezeless, kindred, &c., &c., &c.

Acquaintance with the beauties of nature, particularly with those of the earth and the sky, and with the lights and shadows of life, must be considered as a great acquisition to any mind; and consequently the command of language, so requisite to embody and depicture the same with the glow and warmth which imagination lends to description, must be regarded as an object worthy of the highest regard by all who aim at being distinguished as writers. *

In descriptions, the principal point to which to direct the attention is the selection of the circumstances. The scene, or the circumstance, should be brought with distinctness and fulness to the view. We should be placed, as it were, by the description in the midst of the group of particulars, and be made fully acquainted with all its peculiarities. That which is called truth to nature is effected by the skilful selection and arrangement of the circumstances, and constitutes the amplification of descriptive writing. In some instances, especially where it is desirable that the description should be bold and striking, the enumeration of circumstances may be less full and minute.

In describing natural scenery, the student will find some

* Probably no writer has ever surpassed Sir Walter Scott in the beauty, fidelity, and accuracy of his descriptions. The following extract, from Mr. Morritt's "Memorandum," taken from Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter, Vol. III., page 30, exhibits his views, and the pains that he took to be accurate. Speaking of the visit of the great novelist at Rokeby, Mr. Morritt says: "I had many previous opportunities of testing the almost conscientious fidelity of his local descriptions; but I could not help being singularly struck with the lights which this visit threw on that characteristic of his compositions. The morning after he arrived, he said, 'You have often given me materials for a romance; now I want a good robber's cave, and an old church of the right sort.' We rode out, and he found what he wanted in the old slate quarries of Brignal, and the ruined Abbey of Egglestone. I observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild flowers and herbs that accidentally grew around and on the side of a bold crag, near his intended cave of Guy Denzil; and could not help saying, that as he was not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses would be as poetical as any of the humbler plants he was examining. I laughed, in short, at his scrupulousness; but I understood him when he replied, "that in nature herself no two scenes are exactly alike; and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes, would possess the same variety in his descriptions, and exhibit appa rently an imagination as boundless as the range of nature in the scenes he recorded; whereas, whoever trusted to imagination, would soon find his own mind circumscribed and contracted to a few favorite images, and the repetition of these would sooner or later produce that very monotony and barrenness which had always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands of any but patient worshippers of truth. Besides which,' he said, 'local names and peculiarities make a fictitious story look so much better in the face.' In fact, from his boyish habits, he was but half satisfied with the most beau tiful scenery when he could not connect with it some local legend; and when I was forced sometimes to confess, with the knife-grinder, 'Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir,' he would laugh, and say, 'Then let us make one, nothing so easy as to make a tradition.""

aid in the following lists of particulars, which are here introduced as suggestive of ideas, which he himself is to mould as they may arise, and combine with what may spring sponta neously from his own mind. *

Its principal water courses:

Its chains of mountains:

A COUNTRY.

The nature of the hills, whether more or less rugged; the nature of the morasses, whether more or less practicable:

The rapidity and depth of the rivers; the nature of their fords, sluices, and piers; the state of the bridges, and their position: of the roads, and the necessary repairs; the reasons for preferring one road to another, which would lead to the same object, such as the ease of procuring subsistence, of travelling in security the lateral communications opening from the great or main roads the population of the villages, occupations of the inhabitants, the means of transportation, the chief commerce of the inhabitants, their industry, habits, and manners -the productions of the country, quantity and kind the liquors, vinous or spirituous, with their

effects on the inhabitants.

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OF RIVERS: Their direction-their course the nature of their beds, their breadth - their floods and times of drought; their meadows, and the marshes that intersect them; the mills upon their banks; the breadth of their valleys-the hills and ridges which skirt them the side on which are commanding heights — the tributary rivulets, and the ravines which open into the valley of the stream - the distance between them; of what nature are the shrubs, the gullies, the brooks, the roads, &c.—the quality of the hedges, they are thin in poor soil, but in rich land they are hick, and formidable objects to the march of troops, &c.

CANALS. Their communication—the nature of the ground through which they are cut-the means of draining them, and of turning their courses; their locks-the mode of destroying and of protecting them how their navigation may be obstructed or improved.

Mills often render water-courses fordable or not, at pleasure, by means of the water dammed up for their supply. When sand is of the ordinary

*These lists of particulars are taken, with slight alterations necessary to adapt them to the purposes of this work, from "Lallemand's Artillery Service," article "Reconnoitering." They were original in a work entitled "L'aide memoire à l'usage des officiers d'artillerie de France," par le General Gassendi.

From the dialogue between the tutor and his pupils, to which reference has already been made, the student will derive some hints upon "the art of seeing," or using his eyes aright. This dialogue, calculated as it is to awaken attention, and to fix habits of observation, is particularly recom mended to the careful perusal of the student, who would relieve his mind from the labors of composition. Habits of observation, attended with careful analysis, not only aid the mind in its search after ideas, but also direct it in a judicious selection of those which are afforded by association.

color, the roads are generally good; but if the sand be black, or mixed with small white grains, the roads are impassable in winter, and often in time of rain.

CLIMATE. The physical causes which may affect health—the quality of the air, cold, hot, wet, or dry; seasons-whether inclement, and how long so- -the means of protection from their effects—the customs of the inhabitants in this respect.

COASTS. The nature of the coasts-whether lined with sand-hills; covered with rocks, which render the approach more or less dangerous; or precipices, which forbid it altogether The parts which are open and uncovered, and proper for landing; the bays which form roadsteads and harbors the points and capes fit for forts and batteries, which may defend the accessible parts; the adjacent islands, which may serve as advanced works to form barriers against the attempts of an enemy; the gulfs, the bays, the roads, the ports · the nature of the winds required to enter or leave these ports, the nature and advantages of which may be pointed out the time of tide most favorable for entering the ports, &c. the dangers to be met-the obstacles to be surmounted the actual state of the forts which protect the coast the batteries, the guard-houses, and the artillery in them; if there be rivers emptying themselves on the coasts, the tides are apt to alter their channel; an account may be given of this influence, &c.

FORESTS AND WOODS. Their situation - their extent; the kinds of trees of which they are composed, whether fit for fuel or for timbertheir extent their magnitude; is the ground of the forest level or hilly; from whence do the roads come, and whither do they lead — their quality -the nature of the ground around them are they near fields, meadows, ravines, hills, mountains, rivers the streams, marshes, springs, dwel lings, &c., near them the distance of all these objects from the borders of the wood or forest; the roads which intersect them, and the swamps which divide them.

HOUSES. Their situations-style of architecture-the ground which they occupy -the mode in which they are built― the materials of which they are composed-the color given them by nature or art—are they old or new-the indications of age -moss-grown, ivy-hung, black with time appendages connected with ancient customs - their associations the improvements of modern art additional conveniences, &c.

LEVEL COUNTRY. Its hedges, ditches, villages, buildings, brooks, canals, marshes, roads, rivers, bridges, &c. *

MOUNTAINS. Their position-their slopes in front and rear-the means of reaching their summits-the nature of the ground-its form -are they covered with wood or with bare rocks—their height - their

*In sandy countries, and those filled with brushwood, there are many marshes covered with water during the winter, which are almost dry in summer. In the winter they are impassable, and are to be mistrusted, even in summer, after long rains.

fertility-pastures, fodder, vegetation, dwellings, towns, villages, castles, workshops, roads, paths, &c.

RIVERS. Do they branch off, or continue in one undivided stream *— where do they rise-whither do they flow-what is the nature of the country through which they flow the quality of the water-clear, spark ling, transparent, thick, muddy, turbid ruffled with eddies and counter currents with or without falls - salt or fresh, sweet or brackish-cold the manufactories moved by - safe for bathing, or dangerous the canals running from or into it-the streams, brooks rivulets, or other rivers that supply it, &c.

or warm the water

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VILLAGES. Their situation - the number of fires or chimneys in oper ation-the nature of the soil - the quantity and quality of the producethe occupation of the inhabitants-their markets-the neighborhood which frequents them the beasts of burden, the flocks, the beeves and poultry they possess - the architecture, or style in which the buildings, houses, barns, and sheep-cotes are built-the position of the church and burying the blacksmith's shopground - whether surrounded by walls, by bushes, by ditches, or palisades the water and wind mills. t

*Rivers which divide into several branches, form islands and peninsulas. The rivers themselves, thus divided, are apt to change their channels at every flood.

† In the description of natural scenery, it will be well for the student to call to memory those beautiful lines of Cowper.

"Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds
Exhilarate the spirits, and restore

The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds,
That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood
Of ancient growth, make music not unlike
The dash of Ocean on his winding shore,
And lull the spirit, while they fill the mind,
Unnumbered branches waving in the blast,
And all their leaves fast fluttering all at once.
Nor less composure waits upon the roar
Of distant floods; or on the softer voice
Of neighbouring fountain; or of rills, that slip
Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall
Upon foose pebbles, lose themselves at length
In matted grass, that with a livelier green
Betrays the secret of their silent course.
Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds;

But animated nature sweeter still,

To soothe and satisfy the human ear.

Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one

The live-long night. Nor these alone, whose notes
Nice fingered art must emulate in vain ;

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime,
In still repeated circles, screaming loud:
The jay, the pye, and e'en the boding owl,
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themselves, and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace forever reigns,
And only there, please highly for their sake."

The particulars which have now been mentioned as suggestive of ideas, will undoubtedly aid the student, and enable him to combine what addresses itself to the eye with that which suggests itself to the imagination, in his endeavors to make verbal pictures of the beauties of nature. The nature and variety of such particulars must necessarily be dependent on the character of the object to be described.

If an individual sensible object is to be described, the questions which naturally arise, and which should most of them be answered in the description, are as follows:

Where is it?
Who made it?

What is it made of?

Is it old or new?

What was it made for?

How is it adapted for the purposes for which it was made?

Is it beneficial or prejudicial to the comfort and convenience of man kind?

Are its effects universal or particular?

Its divisions and parts?

Its dimensions, form, and color?

Does it produce, or is it connected with any sounds ?

How is it constructed?

How does it strike the eye?

What are its resemblances or its differences?

How does it appear from different positions?

In addition to these questions, the student must call to mind what others would naturally arise in the mind of any one, desirous of exact and particular information with regard to the subject of his description, and endeavor fully to answer every such question in his written exercise.

In the description of persons, an entirely different set of questions will suggest the proper answers, to which the description should be a full reply.

What is the personal appearance, complexion, stature, figure, &c.; hands, arms, limbs, eyes, &c.?

What feature is most prominently conspicuous?

The expression of the countenance?

Is the individual remarkable for manly beauty; or illy mado, awkward, and ungraceful?

What is the appearance of his chest, shoulders; length of his limbs, style of his dress?

What are his habits, his age; what graces, accomplishments, or attain ments has he?

What is his moral character his intellectual; who are his associates; what influence have they wrought upon him?

For what virtues or vices is he particularly noted?