life. Theodore Hook once said to a man at From the court to the king is an easy | alent to the addition of ten years to a man's transition. In our present use of the terms, to say that kingship implied cunning, would be invidious; but a cunning man is originally one who kens, as our Scotch friends would say - that is, a knowing man Teutonic ancesters regarding knowing and doing as so closely connected, that to ken and to can, or to be able, were identical our with them. The king, therefore, was he who knew most and could do most. Queen, or quean, like the Greek gu'nē, with which it is connected, originally meant merely woman, then wife; and hence the queen came to point out the wife of the king by preeminence. Noble is for notable, or known man. Peer means equal to, or on a par with, and originated in the equality of nobles in the feudal times. A duke is a dux, or leader; a marquis had charge of the marches, or frontiers of the kingdom. A count had the jurisdiction of a county, and gained his title from being a co'mes, or companion of the king; a viscount* was vicecount; an earl and an alderman are now very remote from one another, but both are titles of honor derived from senioritythey are early or elder men; a baron is a barrier, or defender; a baronet is a little baron; a sheriff is a shire-reeve- the reeve being an officer whose duty it was to levy fines and taxes. 66 BREVITIES. "Look here, mother," said a young lady just beginning to take lessons in painting, see my picture; can you tell me what it is?" The mother, after looking at it some time, answered: "Well, it is either a cow or a rosebud - I am sure I can not tell which." One hour a day gained by rising early is worth one month of labor in a year. The difference between rising at five and seven o'clock in the morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equiv * Pronounced vi'kount; the 8 being mute. whose table a publisher got very much elated with wine, "Why, you appear to have emptied your wine-cellar into your bookseller." A rather thick-headed witness, in a police court, was asked the question whether a certain party "stood on the defensive." "No, sir," he innocently replied, "he stood on a bench." Bonaparte once at a party placed himself directly before a witty and beautiful lady, and said, very abruptly, "Madam, I don't like that women should meddle with politics."-"You are very right, general," she replied, "but in a country where women are beheaded it is natural they should desire to know the reason." An old gentleman, being asked what he wished for dinner, replied, "An appetite, good company, something to eat, and a clean napkin." cobwebs, and ends in iron chains. The Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs, and ends in iron chains. The more business a man has to do, the more he is able to accomplish; for he learns to economize his time. It is a terrible thought to remember that nothing can be forgotten. I have somewhere read that not an oath is uttered that does not continue to vibrate through all time, in the wide-spreading current of sound; not a prayer lisped, that its record is not to be found stamped on the laws of nature by the indelible seal of the Almighty's will. A lazy fellow once complained in company that he could not find bread for his family. "Neither can I," replied an industrious mechanic; "I have to work for all the bread I get." "If we are to live after death, why don't we have some certain knowledge of it?" said a skeptic to a clergyman. "Why did n't you have some knowledge of this 'If you of your bed, and the walls of your chamber, do not rise early, you can make progress in nothing. If you do not set. apart your hours of reading, if you suffer yourself or any one else to break in upon them, your days will slip through your hands unprofitable and frivolous, and unenjoyed by yourself."" Man doubles all evils of his fate by pondering over them. A scratch becomes a wound, a slight an injury, a jest an insult, a small peril a great danger, and slight sickness often ends in death by brooding apprehensions. He loves you better who strives to make you good, than he who strives to please you. THE RAVEN. THIS bird is common on the continent of Europe, and in most parts of Asia and America, but it is now seldom seen in England, except in a domesticated state. It is more frequently found in the Hebrides than in any other part of Great Britain. In those islands it lives principally on fishes which have been cast on shore by the waves, and on carrion of various kinds, such as dead sheep or lambs, whose death the Raven is accused with some justice of hastening. It is a crafty bird, and can with difficulty be approached. Both in a wild state and in domestication it is very sagacious. In England it is often made an amusing pet, from its cunning and tricks, as well as for its power of pronouncing words and sentences with great distinctness. Mr. Charles Dickens, in his novel of Barnaby Rudge, having given a description of a raven, that seemed somewhat exaggerated even for a work of fiction, vindicated himself from the charge of investing the bird with imaginary powers, in a letter, from which the following passages are quoted: "The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I have' been, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retire THE RAVEN. ment in England by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, good gifts,' which he improved by study and attention in a most ex'emplary manner. "He slept in a stable, generally on horseback, and so terrified a Newfoundland' dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off, unmolested, with the dog's dinner, from before his face. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner, he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death. "While I was yet inconsolable for his loss, another friend of mine, in Yorkshire, discovered an older and more gifted raven at a village public house, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me. The first act of this sage was to administer on the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden -a work of immense labor and re-search', to which he devoted all the energies of his mind. When he had achieved this task, he applied himself to the acquisition of stable language, in which he soon became such an ad-ept' that he would perch outside my window, and drive imaginary horses with great skill all day. Once I met him unexpectedly, about half a mile off, walking down the middle. of the public street, attended by a pretty large crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under these trying circumstances I never can forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers. "It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have 127 been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, and thence into his maw; which is not improbable, seeing that he new-pointed the greater part of the garden wall by digging out the mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed, in splinters, the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing; but, after some years, he too was taken ill, and died before the kitchen fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of Cuckoo!' Since then I have been ravenless." The extraordinary gravity which marks the demeanor of the raven has something almost preternatural in it. The manner in which he sets about a piece of mischief, as if he considered it a moral duty, is most absurd. A raven in a Mr. Wood's possession used to watch the gardener taking particular pains to prop up and secure a valuable plant. The labor was always in vain, for the raven, with a sidelong step and an unconcerned air, as if he were thinking of any thing but the plant, would sidle by it, when one wrench of his bill laid the unfortunate plant on the earth, and the raven moved off with a most provoking air of innocence. Another raven watched with great curiosity the process of opening and reading a letter, which Mr. Wood went through. The latter dropped the paper, when the raven took a sidelong kind of a walk toward it, tore it into scraps, and ran away with the largest piece under a waterbutt, where he kept watch over it. We have spoken of the raven's capacity for imitating sounds and uttering sentences. A writer in Fraser's Magazine for April, 1857, gives an account of a tame raven, who divided his time equally between a small church, where prayer-meetings were frequent, and a stable, where he was accustomed to the society of hostlers. In perching on the window-sill of the church, and in listening at the door, he had learned to repeat quite distinctly the words "Let us pray." In the stable, as might be supposed, he had picked up words of a far different import. This raven was known by the name of the Parson among the stable-boys. He was one evening taken as a curiosity to an evening party. Here he perched on the back of a chair, having beneath him the bald head of a worthy old gentleman, and exclaimed, "Let us pray!" As the party was composed of serious persons, the raven might have departed with a good reputation, had he not, in his ambition to show off his accomplishments, ventured further, and immediately added, "Go it, old fellow!" The raven lays from four to seven eggs, of a pale-green color, spotted with greenish brown. The length of the bird is two feet two inches, and the expanse of wing four feet eight inches. The raven was found by the Franklin exploring expeditions far north in the Arctic regions. The Leisure Hour. ACTING RHYMES. A word is fixed upon, to which all the players in succession have to express a rhyme in dumb show. We will suppose the word given to be root. The first player elevates his foot, tugging at the air, and making faces of pain, as if undergoing the agony of pulling on a tight boot. The second points an imaginary gun to shoot. The third looks up at a picture-frame, as to a lady's casement, and, assuming the aspect of a despondent lover, appears to be playing the lute. The fourth makes violent and angry faces, thumping his palm as if in the height of a dispute. him, and blows on it. The victim turns quickly round at the noise. The other, no less quick, has let go the whistle, and while he is watching closely to detect its presence in this quarter he hears it sounded at his back. He turns round again whenever he looks for the whistle it is sounded behind him. It is as well to put a stop to the game at the first signs of insanity exhibited by the bewildered victim. This, however, is quite optional. THE MIRACULOUS VESSEL.Take a tin vessel of about six inches in height, and three in diaminch wide; and in the bottom of the vessel make eter, and having a mouth of only a quarter of an a number of small holes, of a size sufficient to admit of a common sewing-needle. Plunge the vessel into water, with its mouth open, and when it is full cork it and take it out again; then, as long as the vessel remains corked no water will come out of it, but as soon as it is uncorked the water will immediately issue from the small holes at the bottom. It must be observed, however, that if the holes at the bottom of the vessel be more than one sixth of an inch in diameter, or if they be too numerous, the experiment will not succeed; for in this case the pressure of the air against the bottom of the vessel will not be sufficient to confine the water. HOW TO TELL A LADY'S AGE. - Just hand this table to the lady, and request her to tell in which columns her age is contained. Add together the figures at the top of the columns in which the age is found, and you have the great secret. Thus, suppose her age to be seventeen. You will find the number seventeen only in two columns, namely, the first and fifth, and the first figures at the head of these columns make seventeen. Here is the magic table: 53 54 57 59 54 57 59 60 The fifth twists up a roll of paper, and puts it up to his mouth, making the grimaces usually *attendant on the early study of the flute, &c. Forfeits may be exacted for imperfect or badlyexpressed rhymes. The amusement of the game, of course, depends on the nature of the rhymes selected by the players, and their powers of expressing them humorously. Every word must be guessed by the company before another representation is begun. |