PERFECT CONVERSATION.-The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humour, and the fourth wit.-Sir W. Temple. POLITENESS may prevent the want of wit and talents from being observed; but wit and talent cannot prevent the discovery of the want of politeness. POETRY is the flour of literature-prose is the corn, potatoes, and meat; satire is the aquafortis; wit is the spice and pepper; love-letters are the honey and sugar; and letters containing remittances are the apple-dumplings. THE LADY.-The aim of a real lady is always to be natural and unaffected, and to wear her talents, her accomplishments, and her learning, as well as the newest and finest dresses-as if she did not know she had them about her. THE POETRY OF LIFE. Our idea of the world may be a singular one; but it pleases us vastly. We consider the world as formed, not for our use only, but for our continued enjoyment. We view it, altogether, with a poetical feeling. We have said, and we again say it, that poetry may be rendered inseparable from every action of one's life. There is poetry in asking a favour-there is poetry in granting it; there is poetry, moreover, in accepting it. There is poetry, too, in a salutation given and received; poetry in a walk, in conversation, in thought, and in action. In a word, when poetry reigns in the heart, everything is viewed and felt with a happy, cheerful, loving, and "poetical spirit. Honest Thoughts for Honest People. THE TALENT OF SUCCESS.-Every man must patiently abide his time. He must wait; not in listless idleness, not in useless pastime, not in querulous dejection, but in constant, steady, cheerful endeavour, always willing, fulfilling his task, "that when the occasion comes he may be equal to the occasion." The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a thought of fame. If it comes at all, it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after. It is an indiscreet and troublesome ambition which cares so much about fame, about what the world says of us; to be always looking in the face of others for approval; to be always anxious about the effect of what we do or say; to be always shouting, to hear the echoes of our own voice.-Longfellow. A GOLDEN MAXIM.-It is the duty of every man, who would be true to himself, to cultivate, if possible, a disposition to be pleased. THE BEAUTIFUL.-Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest, the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things by every method in his power. For no man can bear to be entirely deprived of such enjoyments: it is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent, that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they be new. For this reason, one ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it be possible, to speak a few reasonable words. -Goethe. MENDING MATTERS.-An Irish barrister lately addressed a full court in bankruptcy as "gentlemen" instead of "your honours." When he concluded his speech, a brother barrister reminded him of his error. He immediately rose to apologise: "May it please your honours, I am told I called your honours 'gentlemen.' I made a mistake, your honours." BIRCH RODS make the best babyjumpers. POETRY has a natural alliance with our best affections. It delights in the beauty and sublimity of the outward creation and of the soul. It indeed portrays, with terrible energy, the excesses of the passions; but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and excite a deep, though shuddering sympathy. Its great tendency and purpose is to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life-to lift it into a purer element, and to breathe into it more profound and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of early feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings, spreads our sympathies over all classes of society, and knits us by new ties with universal being. AT a christening, while the minister was making the certificate, he happened to say "Let me see, this is the 30th." "The thirtieth!" exclaimed the indignant mother, "indeed it is only the eleventh!" SELF-KNOWLEDGE." What I have known with respect to myself," says Dr. Priestly, "has tended much to lesson both my admiration and my contempt of others." THIS is a busy month in the garden; | tree primrose, shrubby mellow, broadvarious kinds of hardy annuals may be leaved campanula, and fox-glove. sown now. Among others we may mention hollyhock, French honeysuckle, hellebore, You will do well to protect all kinds of tender plants and bulbs from cold rains and frosts during March. Tulips, hya-ing by the end of May or early in June. cinths, anemones, ranuncules, &c., in beds Cucumbers, rhubarb, and sea-kale roots should be covered at night if there is the should be planted in a well-trenched, rich, least sign of frost. deep soil. Parsley now sown will be fit to gather in August. Vegetable marrow and love-apple seeds should be sown immediately. The former will produce a supply from the first of August, and the latter in October. Next to the general work of pruning, which more or less appertains to every garden, and must be performed, another operation belonging to all establishments may be mentioned as of equal and even greater importance; we mean sowing. There is no work in a garden so carelessly done, and the faults of the sower are laid at the door of the seedsman, who is made to bear the blame. Some people bury the seed too deep, some leave it exposed, and the birds eat it. Some folks think that after they have sown they have nothing to do until the seed germinate and show above ground, without once caring whether they have been moistened by rain or baked by the hot sun, after swelling, as they universally do, before the dampness of fresh-turned ground has gone off. The ground, after a hard frost, is in the best order for working, and no matter how soon all hardy things are sown in the flower, as well as the kitchen garden. CELOSIA. THE Celosia is an elegant plant for conservatory, greenhouse, and dinner-table decoration, combining, with a graceful habit, flowers of great beauty and richness of colour. Some of the varieties supplied by Messrs Barr and Sugden have long beautiful flower-spikes, which may be dried for winter bouquets; others are characterised by their picturesque sprays of mossy or feathery-looking flowers, which are produced in great profesion, and can also be dried. When properly treated the plants continue in fine con tition for many months. Those intended for dinner-table decoration may be treated as standards if necessary. See the engraving. GRAFTING. Most people turn up the ground, rake it, and sow the seed on it loose as it is; whereas the ground should be trodden or beaten Mr. Glenny, sen., the most practical to make it firm. Sow your seed on the and trustworthy of all public writers on solid surface, and cover it by sifting fine general garden operations, says:-Grafting mould on it; and if the weather prove is one of those interesting operations that warm and dry, take especial care that anyone who can splice a broken stick may the seed be watered, for that ought not perform, and by which the tree that bears to be dry after it be sown. When it has a golden pippin may be made to bear a come up well you may leave it to the royal russet, or any other apple hereafter. weather; it will have rooted into firm A hundred wild crabs or crab-stocks may ground, and can hardly come to mischief if be grafted with the wood of a hundred it be properly thinned out; but if left too different sorts of apples, and then be formed thick and crowded it will destroy, or at least into a choice collection. Grafting consists greatly damage itself. In sowing under in fitting a piece of wood from one tree glass, in pans, or pots, the earth should to the wood of another tree or stock so be pressed solid and smooth, because then atly that the bark of each shall meet seeds show much better, and if too close in perfectly close. When the branch to be some parts you can disperse them about; grafted and the piece to be put on are the most handy thing to do this with is nearly of a size, there are twenty ways of a small brush. The seed being covered with fitting one to the other Cut one the form fine soil sifted over it may be left to itself, of a wedge, and split and trim the other to all but watching that it does not get dry; receive it, so that the barks of both fit close but there is not so much danger of that on one side, if not both; tie them firmly as if it were exposed to wind and sun. together, and cover the join with grafting When the plants come up no time should clay-they will assuredly unite. Cut one be lost in thinning and reducing them to quite sloping, and cut the other with a the proper number to grow well. slope to fit exactly, the same as you would In the kitchen garden the sowing should to splice a broken stick, and the effect will be carried forward on like principles. Now be the same; but suppose the tree to be is the time to sow red beets, silver beets. grafted is very much larger than the shoot salsafy, and scorzonera, for use from the to be put on, cut the slope on the stock end of September.: Lettuces now sown clean, and slope the graft so that it will lie produce plants that will be fine for blanch-flat and close. You must lay it on close to one side, so that the bark shall join that of the larger piece-they will unite, and the scion, or graft, will in time quite cover all the flat part which is left bare; or cut an angular piece out of the stock, and cut the graft to the same angle, so that it shall fit close, and the bark fill up the space, and join that of the tree. In short, make the pieces fit, and let the barks join on one side or other, or both, and you will not fail. OLNEY AND ITS LACE-MAKERS. this market-place is the old house where Cowper resided for nearly twenty years with Mrs. Unwin. WHO has not heard of the "Olney the St. Giles's of Olney. On the south of Hymns," written by the poet Cowper and his friend the Rev. John Newton? But who, among all our readers, has visited Olney? It is a very small town in Cowper's summer-house, from which Buckinghamshire, about ten miles from he dates one of his letters, describing it Northampton. It has, at most, 2400 in- as not much bigger than sedan-chair, is habitants; and what it was when Cowper built of wood and plaster, with a red tile resided there, it is now a poor, sparsely-roof, and is in excellent preservation. As peopled place, the men principally en- the garden is now let separately from the gaged in agriculture and shoe-making, house, let us go round this corner to the and the women and girls in lace-making. left, to ask for the key. Here we are, You can get there by the Midland Rail-seated in a veritable poet's corner! Poor way from King's Cross; and, on the commonplace humanity has been trying way, pay a visit to Bedford, and look into to make a niche for itself in the temple the jail where John Bunyan wrote his world known allegory, the "Pilgrim's Progress." The least expensive way to reach Olney, however, is by the Northwestern Railway, third-class, from Euston Square, by the omnibus which goes every evening from Wolverton station. A pretty little book, on the subject of Olney and its Lace-makers, has just been published by Mr. Macintosh, of Pater noster Row; and by aid of it, and some personal observations made during a recent visit, we may tell something about the place, made famous by the author of "The Task," and John Gilpin's wonderful ride to Ware. of Fame--the walls, door, and ceiling being one mass of scribble of visitors' names, many having come immense distances for the purpose of seeing it. There are lace-makers sitting at their work, singing at the doors of those very same cottages, just as they did when they so sweetly soothed Cowper's mind by singing his own beautiful hymn "Oh, for a closer walk with God!" And here is the gate which Cowper had put up for his own use, so that he might, without the trouble of going round the street, visit his friend the Rev. John Newton, when they were composing the Olney consists principally of one long," Olney Hymns" together. In imaginawide street, with various odds and ends of out-of-the-way places. Many of the houses have gable ends towards the street, and are very old and rough-looking, but substantial and clean in appearance, owing to their being built of a kind of freestone, which does not gather much moss. One bears the date A.D. 1570. The centre of the village widens into a kind of triangle, called the Market Place; one of the outlets of which is Silver End, tion, for the hinges have long since grown too rusty, we pass through it into the vicarage garden and house, and find ourselves near the church. It is in the Early English style; and the spire, which is 180 feet high, makes a fine appearance in the landscape. It has a beautiful peal of bells, and an excellent clock, which chimes many tunes. Near the church is the bridge, which is long in proportion to the width of the river, on account of the swampy nature of its banks. Cowper has made its predecessor famous in his opening lines of the fourth book of "The Task." summer they bathe and fish in it. Picnics also are held on some of its numerous beautiful islets. The inhabitants of Olney are, as we said, much engaged in lace-making; and "Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge, as the little girls are "put to the pillow" That with its wearisome but needful length as early as six or seven years of age, they are taken away from the dame and |