Description of a Model Newspaper,

DAILY, SEMI-WEEKLY, AND WEEKLY:

Which paper should be owned and conducted by godly men, and should be sold at the lowest paying rate.

As will be seen, this piece of metrical prose is in 8-and-7 trochaics. The lines, however, contain several peculiarities, all but the first of which need to be pointed out.

I. Each stanza is without rhyme.

2.

3.

No rhyme is found in any two contiguous stanzas taken as one. In every stanza, the vowel or the diphthongal sound in the last accented syllable of each line, and that in the final (unaccented) syllable of each of the first and third lines, are all different.

4. Neither of the two final syllables of the first line of any stanza contains the same vowel or the same diphthongal sound as that in the terminal syllable of the last line of the preceding stanza.

5. The same vowel or the same diphthongal sound does not occur in the last syllable of any two contiguous stanzas.

6. The same vowel or the same diphthongal sound does not occur in the last syllable of the second line of any two such stanzas.

7. As half-stated in 3, the same vowel or the same diphthongal sound does not occur in the last syllable of the second line of any two contiguous pairs of lines, or half stanzas.

Moreover, no emphatic monosyllable is admitted where incompatible with the rhythm; no unemphatic monosyllable is employed in an accented place; no second and no fourth line (all which of course end on the accent) terminate on a secondary emphatic syllable of a word; no word beginning with a vowel sound comes immediately after one ending in a vowel-sound; no word beginning with a consonant-sound comes immediately after one ending in the same consonant-sound; and, excepting nineteen necessary but simple monosyllables and one echoed trisyllable, no word in the piece is used more than once.

The rigorous application of rules so minute and complex must sometimes, obviously, necessitate a recourse to forms of expression such as would scarcely be chosen in writing freely, a consideration to be kept in mind in reading these verses.

The phonetic exhibit, on the right margin, is in explanation of rules 3 to 7 inclusive.

The following are the twenty words alluded to above: a, all, and, are, as, at, by, for, from, in, it, not, of, on, that, the, 'tis, to, with, abstinence. In verification of this list, it may be proper to state that

the writer has made an alphabetic assemblage of all the words in the piece.

The whole composition has many times been systematically and carefully compared with the above rules, 13 in all; and, in each of its 2239 checkable places (exclusive of those caused by comparison of the phonetics of the margin with the orthoëpics of the dictionary), it is believed to be strictly in accordance with the same.

It rejecteth contributions *

Fav'ring wrong, untruth, or guile,
Or that countenance or wink at
Routs, the stage, or harmful sports.

It from things announced to happen
Weedeth such as fail of worth;
And from gleanings past, historic,
Purgeth matters, lines, unsafe.

It admitteth nothing vulgar;
Doth not jest at sacred thoughts;
And ignoreth outrage, swearing,
Hazards, drink, nicotian leaf.

It inserteth not nor hints of
Spiteful or injurious words;
But, when glaring vice it noteth,
Claims for guilty pains condign.

And it barreth fiction vapid,
Frivolous, corrupt, or low;
Shutting out the same as hurtful
Both to wise and saintly walk.

"ODD AS DICK'S HAT-BAND." (Vol. V, p. 16.)

Dr. Brewer, in

his "Phrase and Fable," elucidates the saying as follows:

1. "As tight as Dick's hat-band." The hat-band of Richard Cromwell was the crown, which was too tight for him to wear with safety. 2. " Dick's hat-band, which was made of sand." His regal honors

66

were a rope

3.

of sand."

"As queer as Dick's hat-band." Few things have been more ridiculous than the exaltation and abdication of the Protector's son. 4. "As fine as Dick's hat-band." The crown of England would be WALTER H. SMITH.

a very fine thing for any one to get.

ST. JAMES' WAY. (Vol. V, p. 16.) The Milky Way is so called from the fact that it is seen to best advantage in August. "Old St. James's Day" is August 5th; St. James, the Great Apostle, is referred to. A similar astronomical instance is referred to in the name of the Perseid meteoric shower, which precipitates itself about August Ioth, and has earned for itself in consequence the phrase The tears of St. Lawrence." WALTER H. SMITH.

We are told by Tylor, in his " Primitive Culture," Vol. I, p. 301, that the starry band that lies like a road across the sky, known as the milky way, is called by the Baustös, a South African tribe of savages, "The way of the gods"; the Ojïs, another African tribe of savages, say it is "The Way of the Spirits," by which souls go up to heaven; the North American tribes know it as "The Path of the Master of

Life," also "The Path of Life," and "The Road of Souls," where they travel to the land beyond the grave.

Some of the ancient philosophers maintained that the Via Lactea, or "Milky Way," was formerly the sun's path, and that its present luminous appearance is the track which its scattered beams left visible in the heavens. The more proper name is the Galaxy.

BOHEME'S "WHEEL OF BIRTH." (Vol. IV, p. 395.) The wheel of birth is called by Jacob Boheme Centum Naturæ. This does not simply mean the revolving of life and of the forces of life in general, which is so justly comparable to a circling wheel, and which is liable to be brought into disorder by sin. The "Wheel of Birth," in a stricter sense, is the "Wheel of coming into existeuce," the " Wheel of Becoming," the first magical life-circle, which is the becoming of all natural and creaturely birth and becoming; the first restlessly circling movement, which is the womb and basis of the life that is working itself into shape. It is a secretly-burning wheel, because "life is a fire" (ignis ubique latet). In Bohome's works, image succeeds image, metaphor succeeds metaphor; he, therefore, designates it by another symbol as the " Dark Fire-root," which never dares to catch fire and burst into fierce flames (whereby the whole of life would be brought into confusion), but is destined to remain in latency, in concealment, and in subordination to the higher principle. The "Wheel of Birth may be described as the "Hearth of Life," or, the "Mother of Life." In Nature it is Fire, in the world of souls and spirits it is Desire. Modern thinkers disagree with Bohome on this point, assigning instinct as the deepest root in natural life; and restrict desire to selfconscious life.

In the Epistle of James (III, 6,) it is called "the course of nature," the Greek being trochos tes genéscos; the Latin, rotam nativitatis nostræ. The Emphatic Diaglott translates it" the wheel of nature." George R. Noyes' translation, "the wheel of life." The Douay Version (Vulgate), "the wheel of our nativity." Julia A. Smith's translation, " the wheel of creation." Jonathan Morgan's translation, "the course of creation."

Friends' translation, "the whole course of our being, and is kinIdled in the birth."

Murdock's Syriac translation, "the series of our generation that rolls on like a wheel."