inanimate, without taking a vast deal of pains to mention that they were

"Like angels' visits, few and far between?"

Oh, these angels and their visits will surely some day be the death of us.

Can any one think of a teacher, but he must draw upon Thomson for

'Delightful task?" &c.

or upon Lord Brougham, for his still more celebrated declaration, that "the schoolmaster is abroad"a phrase now absolutely nauseous from frequency of repetition. When a fine new colony is spoken of, it is of course " a land overflowing with milk and honey," even although bees should not have yet found their way to the country, and cows are so scarce (owing to their having to be carried eight or ten thousand miles,) that they sell at sixty pounds each, and only can be had by the people of firstrate fortune. When a population is happy in an old country, every man sits under his own vine and fig-tree," though it is more likely, that, while some enjoy themselves in their dining-rooms beside a coal fire, others frequent the neighboring ale-houses during the first three days of the week, being able to make enough to live upon, by working during the remainder. A slight inapplicability, however, is nothing in a quotation, provided only that it give a kind of sense and expression to a sentence which would otherwise be void of both. Thus, a description of an island may be rather tame, the object being itself perhaps rather so; but if by hook or by crook it can be

"Placed far amid the melancholy main,"

(though possibly only two miles from shore,) then does it catch a grace from another and more poetical mind, and passes off well enough. On the same principle, we will wish for

"a lodge in some vast wilderness,

Some boundless contiguity of shade;"

though, in reality, a walk in some neighboring plantation, upon which we are forbidden to intrude by men-traps and spring-guns, would satisfy us to our heart's content.

To be serious: Modern English writers act very sillily in introducing so many quotations from the works of former authors. Such a practice indicates not only a want of taste, but a want of the powers of original thinking, or, at the least, a want of confidence in these powers. We are of opinion that every writer should stand on his own merits alone. The sentiments to be expressed ought to be given to the reader in a plain straight-forward manner, without affectation, and in as simple and intelligible a language as possible, without the extrinsic aid of trappings from the productions of others.

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Quotations of words and sentiments from the Latin, French, or other foreign tongues, are particularly hateful. The exclamation, "O tempora, O mores, "has been applied to every period and state of society during two thousand years, and it is really time it were abandoned. The sin of introducing classic phrases, or of alluding on all occasions to heathen deities, is certainly now much less common than during a former age, when pedantry was frequently accepted as a proof of refinement; still they are too frequently indulged in. The puerile and fictitious transactions of Homer's heroes and heroines are a source of particular annoyance:

we feel convinced that if any man would purge our literature of allusions to the "shield of Ajax," he would deserve a reward for his great public service. Surely our own noble and expressive language is sufficient for every useful and ornamental purpose in every kind of composition calculated for popularity. Away, then, with the paltry practice of interlarding English writing either with foreign words, or what are styled classic allusions, which are injurious to good writing, of no value whatever to that which is bad, and in almost every case thoroughly useless.

WEAPONS OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

The musket has in a great measure superseded the primitive weapons of the New Zealander, although the New Zealanders are as yet far from being expert in the use of it. By Rutherford's account, they only fire off their guns once, and throw them away as soon as they have got fairly engaged, much as some of the Highland regiments are said formerly to have been in the habit of doing. Captain Cruise, in like manner, states that they use their firelocks very awkwardly, lose an immense deal of time in looking for a rest and taking aim, and after all, seldom hit their object, unless close to it. Muskets, however, are by far more prized and coveted by the New Zealander than any of the other commodities to which his intercourse with the civilized world has given him access. The ships that touch at the country always find it the readiest way of obtaining the supplies they want from the natives, to purchase them with arms or ammunition; and the missionaries, who have declined to traffic in these articles, have often

scarcely been able to procure a single pig by the most tempting price they could offer in another shape.

THE PLACE VENDOME.

Since the time of Louis XVI., while many of the ancient architectural ornaments of Paris have been razed to the ground, many new and splendid edifices have been erected in their places; and almost every year has added something both to the embellishment and extension of the city. The number of convents, immediately before the Revolution, amounted to one hundred and thirty-three; and of the buildings belonging to these establishments the greater number have been either demolished or

converted to other purposes. Squares and marketplaces have been erected on the sites of some; others have been turned into prisons, hospitals, barracks, and schools. Many new streets also have risen on the extensive grounds formerly occupied by these institutions, of which only a small number were re-established after the restoration of the Bourbons.

Since that period, the principal additions which have been made to the extent of the city, have been in what is called the Quartier Poissonière, to the east of La Chaussée d'Antin, and in the new quarter which has been formed immediately to the west of the Champs Elysées. All these erections, however, are still within the limits assigned to the city in the time of Louis XVI. The wall built in his reign, and still forming the boundary of Paris, has been since surrounded by a road planted with trees, which bears the name of the Boulevard Extérieur, the epithet of Intérieur being given to that formed by Louis XVI. The Boulevard Extérieur was not completed till the close of the reign of Napoleon. To the taste and energy of the Emperor, Paris owes many of its most magnificent embellishments. A much more complete supply of water than the city had ever before possessed-the public granaries in the garden of the Arsenal the Abattoirs, many new markets, quays, and cemeteries—the Pont d'Austerlitz, the Pont de Jena, the Pont des Arts, and the Pont de la Cité, may be mentioned among the improvements of which he was the author. The Exchange (which, however, was only completed in 1826), the Column of Victory in the Place Vendôme, the Triumphal Arches of the Place du Carrousel, and of the Etoile, (still unfinished), and the splendid new streets of Castiglione de la