aiming at quantity and rapid reading, we believe he may have a copious command of the vocabulary and a sufficient knowledge of the in less than three years. grammar Is it asked, For what use? We reply, first, to be able to read, if necessary, any portions of modern Latin which come before him; next, to consult, on occasion, any book written in it; thirdly, to enable him to carry on his own education in after life with advantage; and among other things to read, if he choose, Virgil, Tacitus, Cicero, with only such moderate additional effort as the mind of a mature man will not grudge. Fourthly, to increase his power in learning foreign languages. One who knows French makes a valuable step either towards Latin or towards any of the Romance tongues; but one who knows both French and Latin will very rapidly master Italian, Spanish, or Portuguese, should the necessity arise. Nor only so, but every language which has an inverted construction, as Russian, Turkish, becomes easier to him. We may say the same of Welsh. In short, Latin communicates to him a power, and not merely a result, and therefore eminently deserves cultivation, if it can be gained without too great a sacrifice; while if it entail this sacrifice, and after all be not gained, it is a simple

nuisance.

Supposing a youth at seventeen or eighteen, having thus achieved a good familiarity with easy Latin, to pass into a college, he will there be able to follow a professor reading out the ancient writers to a listening class. And this we apprehend ought to be the difference of the collegiate teaching. The student should come to college acquainted with Latin as a language, though unacquainted with the great classical works. He will then be in no danger of becoming merely receptive when the professor goes rapidly over a large surface, commenting on every difficulty or peculiarity; and the

student's enjoyment of a noble writer will not be marred by hammering through a few lines at a time, and by so pausing on separate words as to lose the comprehensive thought and sentiment. So far, if school and college work into one another, we see no difficulty. The question arises, whether in a school course of nine years the French, German, and Latin languages can be taught as we suppose, and yet leave time for the other topics now so much pressed. We do not venture to answer dogmatically; but if there be thirty-eight school hours in the week, and of these twelve be given to the learning of a new language, and two or three, to keeping up by a direct lesson the other languages already learned-say fifteen in al out of thirty-eight that seems to us enough for boys between the age of twelve and sixteen or seventeen. and would leave them twenty-three hours a week for other studies! Little boys beginning French might well have at least three hours a day because nothing so little tires thei brain as to learn a language by bein talked to and by simple reading Indeed, if one could be sure of their coming to school early and remain ing steadily, it would make the theore tically chalking out of a curriculur far less hazardous. Of course, to learn by heart choice poetry; als to draw, and learn geography and arithmetic, are peculiarly appro priate to the youngest minds.

No small embarrassment still remains behind on the question of Greek. The difficulty which here presents itself to us lies in the fact, that, under a system so changed, it is uncertain whether the boys to wards the head of a school, whose parents desire them to learn Greek would be numerous enough to mak it worth while to keep up a syste for teaching the language. If w may suppose this difficulty not to exist, the boy who had studied Latin as his main subject from the age of thirteen to sixteen, must begin Greek

at least as early as sixteen, and continue it till about eighteen (for few now go to reside at the universities earlier), and in two years will learn enough to enter a collegiate class on a par with the average of the classes which now exist. The number of those who learn Greek at all at Oxford might then be largely diminished; but as it would be studied chiefly from love, and by minds conscious of linguistic ability, it may be doubted whether the highest attainments would be sensibly lower than now. In fact, it would be carried on also after the degree by voluntary zeal, as now Sanscrit, Hebrew, or Arabic is occasionally studied.

If the impending revolution bring about any change in the time of commencing Latin and Greek so decisive as we are supposing, the breach of continuity will allow of the question whether our present erroneous and barbarous pronunciation of these two languages ought not to be abandoned. The case of Latin is the more flagrant and pressing as regards the vowel sounds; though on the whole we are right as to accent. As to the vowels, As to the vowels, England is ridiculous to the whole of Europe: even the Scottish pronunciation is better than ours. There is no valid reason why we should not follow the Italian sounds of all the long vowels, being careful to lengthen final i, and sound final ě as ě, not as , so as to distinguish amari from amarě. Short a and i must probably be made shorter than in the Italian practice. The only difficulty turns upon the diphthongs E, E, which the Italians have corrupted into è; a grave and vexatious inconvenience, which has drawn after it a second error when cor g precedes. This is strikingly seen in the name Cæsar, which ought to be sounded Kaisar, as the German may teach us; yet the

Italians make Tchesar of it. There is some uncertainty as to the date when E, a ceased to be sounded as

we sound the Greek at, ot, and took the sounds of German ä, ö, a first step towards the present Italian corruption. Yet the primâ facie evidence is, that Cicero must have sounded them at, o. Another question arises: how early c and g before e and i were soft; yet we think it would be unwise to deviate here without necessity from the Italian practice. The same may be said of the sound, anciently w: but for v English j there is no excuse.

In Greek the difficulty is far greater, because of the enormous divergence of the moderns from the true pronunciation. We cannot wish to follow them, and confuse ŋ,', v, εɩ, ot, vi in a single sound. They themselves are so much perplexed by ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς, that they have droped ipsis entirely, and have borrowed dig of the Turks in compensation. Nor can we acquiesce in losing the aspiration, or in sounding av, ev, av, af, ev, ef. It is reasonable to believe that ā, n, i, ov, v, vi are French â, è, i, ou, u (short), u (long); that is rightly sounded by the moderns (that is, as English au, aw); that we are right enough as to al, El, ol, ε, o, i, though Homer and Pericles are not likely to have pronounced quite alike. The insuperable difficulty remains how to distinguish the three accents, which with the moderns are all alike. The subscript is another vexation. This makes the Greek problem very complex. Nevertheless, to pronounce the accents which we write, would lessen the student's labour, and make our pronunciation less monstrous to the Greeks; and if we at the same time carefully pronounced the long vowels and diphthongs long, in spite of the syllable being unaccented, we should not fall into their error of ruining quantities. This whole subject will in its time have to be considered ; but of course it is of infinitesimal importance compared to the great national question of our schools.

HE post-bag the following morn

and sure to gratify every whim and

dame Stellino. She opened it at the breakfast table, cast her eye carelessly over its contents, and slipped it into her apron pocket with an air that bespoke plainly the slender interest aroused by the communication. Not thus did she read a note just afterwards which a servant placed in her hands. Rupert had not appeared at breakfast. She recognised his handwriting before she read the words:

'Will you be in the Vineyard in half an hour's time? I have something of importance to say to you.'

She raised her eyes, they met Westbrook's on the opposite side of the table, and the shadow of a satirical smile touched the corners of his mouth. She coloured with anger, and crushed the note in her hand. Did he guess what conflicting thoughts were wrestling in her mind? Why should she throw away the tangible advantages of a good 'position' for the sake of a chimera connected with this man, who showed so clearly that he despised her; whose contemptuous trifling, whose cold, scornful scrutiny taught her every day how hopeless was the chance of ever regaining her ascendancy over him; yet this was the question which had kept her awake half the night, for she knew that the hour was at hand in which she must pronounce her own fate. Last evening it had been different; the determination to worst her enemies, to succeed, in spite of all opposition, had enabled her to enact the part she had found it convenient to assume.

After all he was a well-looking, clever fellow, likely to prosper in the world, entirely devoted to her,

would think herself blessed with less than this. And for her, with a stormy past, which, though irrecoverably buried, as she believed, caused her a certain disquietude at times when she reflected that after all it was possible that Olivia, at the eleventh hour, might betray her; for her, I say, was not the prospect far too hopeful a one to be allowed to melt away? It rested with her whether it should do so. Last evening she had felt resolute that it should not. Afterwards had come the reaction. She had enjoyed her triumph before Olivia, before Westbrook, before them all; there could be no reason. able doubt on any one's mind that she had but to pronounce the word in order to become Rupert's wife. Yet now, at the last moment, she shrank from pronouncing it.

Did any thought of Olivia's eloquent appeal, any reluctance to inflict on the woman who had once stood by her so nobly in the hour of need, that final wound which, as she well knew, would sever brother and sister for lifedid any such considerations cross her mind that night? If so, they but left their shadows in passing, for when the morning came she was almost as undecided as ever.

She sat there demurely, her eyes upon her plate, cutting up her bread in little strips and dipping ther into her egg, while she thought over the great question of her life. It was the fashion of the house, several of the guests being habitually late, for any one to leave the table who felt disposed. Clara was in no hurry this morning, and Mrs. Pomfret sat on, waiting, but in no

solation to a woman placed as I am. How can you ask if I have any feeling for a man who has treated me as Mr. Westbrook has ? If I have submitted to his presence here it is because I have felt obliged, by my position, to do so. Can you wonder if I have sought to keep my miserable story a secret from every one? I doubted even your generous heart being able to forgive it; though before pledging myself to be your wife, of course I meant to tell you. But now that, alas! you have heard it from others, will you, indeed, believe me? I will tell you all, dear Mr. Marston, and if you can then forgive me, if you can then ask me to be yours, I will by the devotion of my life endeavour that your noble trust and oblivion of the terrible past shall be in some measure rewarded.' She hesitated an instant and wiped her tears away as she glanced up. 'It was Olivia, I suppose, who, moved by a sister's

love

He stopped her. 'Olivia has told me nothing. She is not even aware that I know this, Clara. No matter how it reached me; I come to you before I speak to any other human being on the subject. It is one that only concerns us two. If you will only say that your infatuation for this heartless scoundrel is utterly past, I will believe you, Clara, and I take God to witness that nothing shall come between us two.'

Then, with the tears raining once more down her soft fair cheeks, (and how heartless must be the man who remains unmoved by a woman's tears!) she poured out her story, true enough in its facts, but like most personal narration, viewed with a strong light and shade thrown on it from that side on which the narrator holds his lamp. She spoke of her extreme youth, of her cold and careless husband, of the temptations amid which she had been thrown, of their poverty, of Julian's ardent and re

lentless pursuit. She told him how Julian had urged her to leave her husband, and had sworn that he would marry her-how in her husband's rapidly failing health, she had shrunk from taking this step, while, in an unguarded hour, she unfortunately yielded to her seducer; but she said not a word of the fear of the world which had withheld her from elopement, when she had felt that a few months, at furthest, must render her free. And while she dealt in passionate invective against him whom she called 'the cause of all this evil,' she implied, as distinctly as any words could convey, that all love for Westbrook was long since dead within her. She spoke, as she had spoken to Olivia, of his conduct after her husband's death, and of all she had suffered; and so far spoke the truth. But she could not bring herself, now when it rested with her to triumph over her enemies, in spite of their machinations against her she could not bring herself to confess to the blind, mad passion to which she was still a victim. Why should she? Who would ever know it but herself? Why was she to ruin her prospects for an idea'? She drew a touching picture of her life with Mrs. Crosbie, whom she described, perhaps justly, as a hard straightlaced old woman, who would have turned her into the street if she had learnt her niece's disgrace.

'Can you blame me very much if I sought to conceal it?' she said. 'No one knew of the child's existence. My husband, when dying, wrote to my old aunt-the only relation living I had in the world, saying that he left me childless, and charging her to look after me, as I was too young to be allowed to live alone. He had nothing to leave me, and I had nothing but what I could earn, which was little enough then. Had I refused to live with Mrs. Crosbie, had I openly acknowledged the child, my character would have