For all the practical purposes of life, tact carries it against talent, ten to one. Take them to the theatre, and put them against each other on the stage, and talent shall produce you a tragedy that will scarcely live long enough to be condemned, while tact keeps the house in a roar, night after night, with its successful farces. There is no want of dramatic talent, there is no want of dramatic tact; but they are seldom together: so we have successful pieces which are not respectable, and respectable pieces which are not successful. Take them to the bar, and let them shake their learned curls at each other in legal rivalry; talent sees its way clearly, but tact is first at its journey's end. Talent has many a compliment from the bench, but tact touches fees from clients. Talent speaks learnedly and logically, tact triumphantly. Talent makes the world wonder that it gets on no faster, tact excites astonishment that it gets on so fast. And the secret is, that it has no weight to carry; it makes no false steps; it hits the right nail on the head; it loses no time; it takes all hints. Take them into the church. Talent has always something worth hearing, tact is sure of abundance of hearers; talent may obtain a living, tact will make one; talent gets a good name, tact a great one; talent convinces, tact converts; talent is an honor to the profession, tact gains honor from the profession. Take them to court. Talent feels its weight, tact finds its way; talent commands, tact is obeyed; talent is honored with approbation, and tact is blessed by preferment. Place them in the senate. Talent has the ear of the house, but tact wins its heart, and has its votes; talent is fit for employment, but tact is fitted for it. Tact has a knack of slipping into place with a sweet silence and glibness of movement, as a billiard ball insinuates itself into the pocket. It seems to know every thing, without learning any thing. It has served an invisible and extemporary apprenticeship; it wants no drilling; it never ranks in the awkward squad; it has no left hand, no deaf ear, no blind side. It puts on no looks of wondrous wisdom, it has no air of profundity, but plays with the details of place as dexterously as a well taught hand flourishes over the keys of the piano-forte. It has all the air of commonplace, and all the force and power of genius: COMPOSITION. Give six expressions in reference to tact. Explain the following sentences: (a) Take them to the bar, and let them shake their curls at each other in legal rivalry: talent sees its way clearly, but tact is first at its journey's end. (b) Tact has served an invisible and extemporary apprenticeship; it wants no drilling; it never ranks in the awkward squad; it has no left hand, no deaf ear, no blind side. (c) Tact seems to know everything without learning anything. HER THE SHIP. O'er wrathful surge, through blackening storm, Majestically calm would go 'Mid the deep darkness, white as snow! Many ports will exult at the gleam of her mast Hush! hush! thou vain dreamer: this hour is her last. Five hundred souls in one instant of dread Are hurried o'er the deck; And fast the miserable, ship Becomes a lifeless wreck! Her keel had struck on a hidden rock, Her planks are torn asunder, And down come her masts with a reeling shock And a hideous crash like thunder. Her sails are draggled in the brine That gladdened late the skies; And her pennant, that kissed the fair moonshine, Her beauteous sides, whose rainbow hues Gleamed softly from below, And flung a warm and sunny flush O'er the wreaths of murmuring snow, To the coral rocks are hurrying down, To sleep amid colors as bright as their own. Oh! many a dream was in the ship An hour before her death; And sights of home, with sighs disturb'd The sleepers' long-drawn breath. Instead of the murmur of the sea, His arms enclose a blooming boy, And his wife by turns she wept and smiled, As she look'd on the father of her child-- --He wakes at the vessel's sudden roll, Astounded, the reeling deck he paces, Now is the ocean's bosom bare, No image meets my wandering eye But the new-risen sun and the sunny sky. Though the nightshades are gone, yet a vapor dull While a low and melancholy moan Mourns for the glory that hath flown. COMPOSITION. Describe a shipwreck from this SUMMARY: A cloud is seen in The ship is sailing proudly on the calm waters. the horizon. It grows bigger and blacker, the wind tosses the white caps on the waves. The captain gives orders to furl the sails. Suddenly the storm strikes the ship. The wind whistles through the rigging. The waves toss the ship about; she springs a leak; the men are ordered to the pumps; the sea gains on them and the passengers are called to assist. The masts go over; the life-boat is lowered, some get in, others fall into the waves; some wait till the ship goes down and eling to spars and rafts. Some may be afterwards picked up, while many are lost. Try to bring in quotations from above poem. surge array majestically draggled pennant sycamore ghastly fathom eaves bedims ON THE SYMBOLISM OF CHRISTIANITY. Cardinal Wiseman (1802-1865) was born of Irish parents at Seville, in Spain; ordained priest in 1825, and for several years was Rector of the English College at Rome. On the re-establishment, in 1850, of the English Catholic Hierarchy, he was appointed by Pius IX. Archbishop of the new See of Westminster, and raised to the dignity of Cardinal. It was a beneficent Providence which selected such a man for the revival of the Church in England. To the essentials of the priestly character he united the most profound and varied learning, the most liberal and pleasing culture. In languages, in philology, in orientalism, in theology, in literary criticism, in natural science, in controversy, even in fiction he has left the records of his versatile genius, and has shed lustre not only upon his Church but upon English literature. His "Lectures on Revealed Religion" are a complete answer to modern infidelity. His best known work is "Fabiola,” a historical work of fiction. I WILL suppose, if you please, an ancient Roman revisiting the Pantheon: the first thing which would strike him would be the sign of salvation - the image of Christ crucified, raised upon every altar, and most conspicuously upon the principal and central one. On the right, the picture of one whom men are stoning, while he, with eyes uplifted, prays for their conversion, would rivet his attention: and on the left, the modest statue of a virgin, with an infant in her arms, would invite him to inquiry. Then he would see monuments of men, whose clasped or crossed hands express how they expired in the prayer of hope; the inscription, on one side, would tell him how the immortal Raphael had willed that no ornament should deck his tomb but that very statue of God's mother which he had given to that church; another informs you that the illustrious statesman (Gonsalvi), after bequeathing the fortune he had made in the service of the public, without reserve, to the propagation of Christianity among distant nations, would have no tomb; but that his friends had, as it |