ADDRESS TO THE AURORA, WRITTEN IN MID-OCEAN.
Awake Aurora! and across all airs

By brilliant blazon banish boreal bears.
Crossing cold Canope's celestial crown,
Deep darts descending dive delusive down.
Entranced each eve Europa's every eye
Firm fixed forever fastens faithfully,

Greets golden guerdon gloriously grand;

How Holy Heaven holds high his hollow hand!
Ignoble ignorance, inapt indeed-

Jeers jestingly just Jupiter's jereed:

Knavish Kamschatkans, knightly Kurdsmen know,
Long Labrador's light lustre looming low;
Midst myriad multitudes majestic might

No nature nobler numbers Neptune's night.
Opal of Oxus or old Ophir's ores

Pale pyrrhic pyres prismatic purple pours,--
Quiescent quivering, quickly, quaintly queer,
Rich, rosy, regal rays resplendent rear;
Strange shooting streamers streaking starry skies
Trail their triumphant tresses-trembling ties.
Unseen, unhonored Ursa,-underneath
Veiled, vanquished-vainly vying-vanisheth:
Wild Woden, warning, watch ful-whispers wan
Xanthitic Xeres, Xerxes, Xenophon,

Yet yielding yesternight yule's yell yawns
Zenith's zebraic zigzag, zodiac zones.

Pulci, in his Morgante Maggiore, xxiii, 47, gives the following
remarkable double alliterations, two of them in every line :—
La casa cosa parea bretta e brutta,
Vinta dal vento, e la natta e la notte,
Stilla le stelle, ch'a tetto era tutta,
Del pane appena ne dette ta' dotte;
Pere avea pure e qualche fratta frutta,
E svina e svena di botto una botte;

Poscia per pesci lasche prese all'esco,
Ma il letto allotta alla frasca fufresca.

In the imitation of Laura Matilda, in the Rejected Addresses

occurs this stanza :

Pan beheld Patroclus dying,

Nox to Niobe was turned;

From Busiris Bacchus flying,
Saw his Semele inurned.

TITLE-PAGE FOR A BOOK OF EXTRACTS FROM MANY AUTHORS.

Astonishing Anthology from Attractive Arthors.
Broken Bits from Bulky Brair

Choice Chunks from Chaucer to Cning.
Dainty Devices from Diverse Directions.
Echoes of Eloquence from Eminent Essayists.
Fragrant Flowers from Fields of Fancy.
Gems of Genius Gloriously Garnished.
Handy Helps from Head and Heart.
Illustrious Intellects Intelligently Interpreted.
Jewels of Judgment and Jets of Jocularity.
Kindlings to Keep from the King to the Kitchen.
Loosened Leaves from Literary Laurels.
Magnificent Morsels from Mighty Minds.
Numerous Nuggets from Notable Noodles.
Oracular Opinions Officiously Offered.
Prodigious Points from Powerful Pens.
Quirks and Quibbles from Queer Quarters.
Rare Remarks Ridiculously Repeated.
Suggestive Squibs from Sundry Sources.
Tremendous Thoughts on Thundering Topics.
Utterances from Uppermost for Use and Unction.
Valuable Views in Various Voices.
Wisps of Wit in a Wilderness of Words.
Xcellent Xtracts Xactly Xpressed.
Yawnings and Yearnings for Youthful Yankees.
Zeal and Zest from Zoroaster to Zimmerman.

COMPLIMENTARY CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING CHESS.

Cherished chess! The charms of thy checkered chambers chain me changelessly. Chaplains have chanted thy charming choiceness; chieftains have changed the chariot and the chase for the chaster chivalry of the chess-board, and the cheerier charge of the chess-knights. Chaste-eyed Caissa! For thee are the chaplets of chainless charity and the chalice of childlike cheerfulness. No chilling churl, no cheating chafferer, no chattering changeling, no chanting charlatan can be thy champion; the chivalrous, the charitable, and the cheerful are the chosen ones thou cherishest. Chance cannot change thee: from the cradle of childhood to the charnelhouse, from our first childish chirpings to the chills of the church-yard, thou art our cheery, changeless chieftainess. Chastener of the churlish, chider of the changeable, cherisher of the chagrined, the chapter of thy chiliad of charms should be chanted in cherubic chimes by choicest choris ters, and chiselled on chalcedon in cherubic chirography.

Hood, in describing the sensations of a dramatist awaiting his debut, thus uses the letter F in his Ode to Perry :

All Fume and Fret,

Fuss, Fidget, Fancy, Fever, Funking, Fright,
Ferment, Fault-fearing, Faintness-inore F's yet:
Flushed, Frigid, Flurried, Flinching, Fitful, Flat,
Add Famished, Fuddled, and Fatigued to that;
Funeral, Fate-Foreboding.

The repetition of the same letter in the following is very ingenious:

FELICITOUS FLIGHT OF FANCY.

"A famous fish-factor found himself father of five flirting femalesFanny, Florence, Fernanda, Francesca, and Fenella. The first four were flat-featured, ill-favored, forbidding-faced, freckled frumps, fretful, flippant, foolish, and flaunting. Fenella was a fine-featured, fresh, fleet-footed fairy, frank, free, and full of fun. The fisher failed, and was forced by fickle fortune to forego his footman, forfeit his forefathers' fine fields, and find a forlorn farm-house in a forsaken forest. The four fretful females, fond of figuring at feasts in feathers and fashionable finery, fumed at their fugitive father. Forsaken by fulsome, flattering fortune-hunters, who followed them when first they flourished, Fenella fondled her father, flavored their food, forgot her flattering followers, and frolicked in a frieze without flounces. The father, finding himself forced to forage in foreign parts for a fortune, found he could afford a faring to his five fondlings. The first four were fain to foster their frivolity with fine frills and fans, fit to finish their father's finances; Fenella, fearful of flooring him, formed a fancy for a full fresh flower. Fate favored the fish-factor for a few days, when he fell in with a He found himfog; his faithful Filley's footsteps faltered, and food failed. self in front of a fortified fortress. Finding it forsaken, and feeling himself feeble, and forlorn with fasting, he fed on the fish, flesh, and fowl he found, fricasseed, and when full fell flat on the floor. Fresh in the forenoon, he forthwith flew to the fruitful fields, and not forgetting Fenella, he filched a fair flower; when a foul, frightful, fiendish figure flashed forth: Felonious fellow, fingering my flowers, I'll finish you! Fly; say farewell to your fine felicitous family, and face me in a fortnight! The faint-hearted fisher His five daughters fumed and faltered, and fast and far was his flight. flew to fall at his feet and fervently felicitate him. Frantically and fluently he unfolded his fate. Fenella, forthwith fortified by filial fondness, followed her father's footsteps, and flung her faultless form at the foot of the frightful figure, who forgave the father, and fell flat on his face, for he had He feasted her fervently fallen in a fiery fit of love for the fair Fenella. till, fascinated by his faithfulness, she forgot the ferocity of his face, form,

and features, and frankly and fondly fixed Friday, fifth of February, for the affair to come off. There was festivity, fragrance, finery, fireworks, fricasseed frogs, fritters, fish, flesh, fowl, and frumentry, frontignac, flip, and fare fit for the fastidious; fruit, fuss, flambeaux, four fat fiddlers and fifers; and the frightful form of the fortunate and frumpish fiend fell from him, and he fell at Fenella's feet a fair-favored, fine, frank, freeman of the forest. Behold the fruits of filial affection.

A BEVY OF BELLES.

The following lines are said to have been admirably descriptive of the five daughters of an English gentleman, formerly of Liverpool :

Minerva-like majestic Mary moves.

Law, Latin, Liberty, learned Lucy loves.
Eliza's elegance each eye espies.

Serenely silent Susan's smiles surprise.

From fops, fools, flattery, fairest Fanny flies.

MOTIVES TO GRATITUDE.

A remarkable example of the old fondness for antithesis and alliteration in composition, is presented in the following extract from one of Watts' sermons:

The last great help to thankfulness is to compare various circumstances and things together. Compare, then, your sorrows with you sins; compare your mercies with your merits; compare your comforts with your calamities; compare your own troubles with the troubles of others; compare your sufferings with the sufferings of Christ Jesus, your Lord; compare the pain of your afflictions with the profit of them; compare your chastisements on earth with condemnation in hell; compare the present hardships you bear with the happiness you expect hereafter, and try whether all these will not awaken thankfulness.

ACROSTICS.

THE acrostic, though an old and favorite form of verse, in our own language has been almost wholly an exercise of ingenuity, and has been considered fit only for trivial subjects, to be classed among nugæ literariæ. The word in its derivation includes various artificial arrangements of lines, and many fantastic conceits have been indulged in. Generally the acrostic has been formed of the first letters of each line; sometimes of the last; sometimes of both; sometimes it is to be read down

ward, sometimes upward. An ingenious variety called the Telestich, is that in which the letters beginning the lines spell a word, while the letters ending the lines, when taken together, form a word of an opposite meaning, as in this instance :

U nite and untie are the same-so say yo U.
Not in wedlock, I ween, has this unity bee N.
In the drama of marriage each wandering gou T
To a new face would fly-all except you and I-
E ach seeking to alter the spell in their scen E.

In these lines, on the death of Lord Hatherton, (1863), the initial and final letters are doubled:

*

Hard was his final fight with ghastly Death,
He bravely yielded his expiring breath.
As in the Senate fighting freedom's ple a,
A nd boundless in his wisdom as the se a.
The public welfare seeking to direct,
The weak and undefended to protec t.
H is steady course in noble life from birth,
H as shown his public and his private wort h.
E vincing mind both lofty and sedat e,
Endowments great and fitted for the State,
Receiving high and low with open door,
Rich in his bounty to the rude and poo r.
The crown reposed in him the highest trust,
To show the world that he was wise and jus t.
On his ancestral banners long ago,
Ours willingly relied, and will do so.
N or yet extinct is noble Hatherton,
Now still he lives in gracious Littleton.

Although the fanciful and trifling tricks of poetasters have been carried to excess, and acrostics have come in for their share of satire, the origin of such artificial poetry was of a higher dignity. When written documents, were yet rare, every artifice was employed to enforce on the attention or fix on the memory the verses sung by bards or teachers. Alphabetic associations formed obvious and convenient aids for this purpose. In the Hebrew Psalms of David, and in other parts of Scripture, striking specimens occur. The peculiarity is not retained in the translations, but is indicated in the common