subject I will question you on these points, that I may know if you have understood everything I have said."

"I have understood every word, and remember it all."

"Some people, in conversation, are apt to tell the same story, or to relate the same circumstance, over and over again. This is done through thoughtlessness, a bad memory, or a keen enjoyment in the relation. I well knew an old gentleman who had great pleasure in giving an account of his preventing a highwayman from robbing a coach."

Oh! how was it?'

He

"The story is a very short one; but I heard him relate it at least a dozen times. said, that in travelling by coach one night, as an outside passenger, through Nottingham Forest, he saw a mounted highwayman coming up; and that having an umbrella in his hand, closely rolled up, he leaned it towards the highwayman, that he might suppose it to be a blunderbuss. The robber rode round and round the coach as it proceeded, but there was the old gentleman on the roof, always ready for him with his blunderbuss; so that, at last, he made off, being afraid to venture on an attack. The old gentleman stoutly maintained that he had prevented the coach from being robbed, and preserved the property, and perhaps the lives of his fellow-travellers."

"Did he really drive away the robber?"

"That I cannot say; for I always entertained a doubt in my own mind whether the man was a highwayman or not. So fond, however, was the old gentleman of telling the story, that I used, out of a joke, to afford him the opportunity, without his suspecting my design. If I spoke a word about Nottingham; or inquired how many forests there were left in England; or asked him if, in the course of his life, he had ever been robbed; or whether he had been used to travel by night; or if a blunderbuss was not a very dreadful weaponon any of these occasions, he immediately drew himself up in his chair, as though he had something of more than common importance to relate, and began at once: 'I remember, many years ago, travelling by night through Nottingham Forest'-telling me the old tale, which he had related so many times before; while I could hardly keep my countenance."

"That story will, I think, keep me from telling the same tale over too often."

On remembering what has been related-Thomas the brewer, and his tin can-Giving an account of what has been said before-Conversation compared to a joint of meat-The bawler, the drawler, the whisperer, and the rattling talkerThe learned doctor, or when I was at Beverley in Yorkshire.

"I HAVE just had a pleasant walk along the road, and as I thought you would be waiting for me, I have hastened home; but, before we proceed further, Edmund, I must ask you a few questions. It will never do to take it for granted that you remember all I tell you." "I hope I have forgotten nothing."

"I hope so too, but it will be much better to make sure of it. When I was about your age, I happened to run into the brewhouse, to speak to our old servant Thomas, who was

busy brewing, just as he called out, 'I want that tin can filled with wort out of the tub.' Hearing this, and seeing a large tin can standing near, I laid hold of the cup and began to lade wort with it out of the tub, and to pour it into the can, instead of letting the person do it who was assisting Thomas. It seemed to me that I was a long time in filling the can, but on this account I worked the harder, till Thomas, who happened to turn round to look at me, cried out, 'Master Edmund! Master Edmund! what are you doing? Why, you are pouring the wort into the wrong can! That can has a hole at the bottom that you may put your thumb through."

"Oh! what a sad affair. Then the wort was running away all the time."

"Every drop of it. And now I want to see whether you are at all like the tin can. You have not forgotten, I trust, that there is a difference between learning to converse and learning to talk fast?”

"No; I have not forgotten that. You said that you should be sorry to make me a great talker. That some chattered very fast; and others prosed on a subject for a long while, without saying much to the purpose.'

"What did I say was necessary to enable any one to converse well?"

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Why, good knowledge, good affections, good principles, and good judgment."

"Very well. Of what does conversation consist?"

manner.

"Of two things- the matter and the The matter is that about which we talk, and the manner is the way in which we talk about it.

"To what did I liken conversation?" "I forget that."

"I said that it might be compared to a joint of meat."

"Oh yes! I remember now. You said that if the meat was not good, it did not much matter in what way it was cooked, for the cooking could not make it what it ought to be; and if it was good, and either overdone till it was burned, or left underdone, being only half roasted, it was not likely that anybody would eat it and enjoy it."

"How did I propose to teach you to converse? How was I to begin with you?"

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By showing me what a bad thing it is to talk ill, and what a good thing it is to talk well."

"Did I convince you that I was right?"

"Indeed you did, uncle. I remember the loud bawler, who called Mr. Lovell a simpleton for not having his hedge cut; and the whisperer, and the drawler; and that lawyer whose tongue went on, rattle! rattle! rattle! continually. You seemed hardly to know which was the worst, the whisperer, the bawler, the chatterer, or the drawler."

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