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dish of balls of sweetened dough fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts—a delicious kind of cake, at present little known in this city (New York) except in genuine Dutch families.

4. The tea was served out of a majestic Delft teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a huge copper teakettle.

5. To sweeten the beverage a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend by a string from the ceiling a large lump directly over the teatable, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth.

6. At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity prevailed,—no flirting, no coquetting, no romping of young ladies, no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with their brains in their pockets, no amusing conceits of smart young gentlemen with no brains at all.

7. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs and knit their woolen stockings, nor ever opened their

lips except to say, "Yes, sir," or "No, ma'am," to any question which was asked them. The parties broke up without noise or confusion. The guests were carried home by their own carriages—that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such as could afford to keep a wagon.

1. Evinced, dexterity, launching, porpoises, preserved, beaux, genuine, distinguished, adroitness, replenishing, beverage, alternately, decorum, primitive, prevailed, coquetting, conceits, demurely, vehicles.

2. Explain "the tea table was crowned," "the genial board,” “the table was graced," "vehicles nature had provided."

XXXIII. EARLY RISING.

1. "God bless the man who first invented sleep!" So Sancho Panza said, and so say

I;

And bless him also that he didn't keep
His great discovery to himself, nor try
To make it as the lucky fellow might-
A close monopoly by patent right!

2. "Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,"
Observes some solemn, sentimental owl.
Maxims like these are very cheaply said;
But, ere you make yourself a fool or fowl,
Pray just inquire about his rise and fall,
And whether larks have any beds at all.

3. The time for honest folks to be abed
Is in the morning, if I reason right;
And he who cannot keep his precious head
Upon his pillow till it's fairly light,
And so enjoy his forty morning winks,
Is up to knavery, or else he drinks.

4. Thomson, who sung about the "Seasons," said
It was a glorious thing to rise in season;
But then, he said it-lying-in his bed
At ten o'clock A. M.,-the very reason

He wrote so charmingly. The simple fact is,
His preaching wasn't sanctioned by his practice.

5. "Tis, doubtless, well to be sometimes awake,— Awake to duty and awake to truth;

But when, alas! a nice review we take

Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth, The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep Are those we passed in childhood—or asleep.

6. So, let us sleep, and give the Maker praise.

I like the lad who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed phrase Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, "Served him right! it's not at all surprising!

The worm was punished, sir, for early rising."

1. Invented, monopoly, sentimental, maxims, sanctioned, hackneyed, observes, inquire, knavery.

2. Is the first line of this poem a maxim? What is a maxim? How does it differ from a quotation? What maxim is alluded to in the sixth stanza? Is this poem humorous or sarcastic?

XXXIV. GLASS.

1. The uses of glass are innumerable, and yet a few centuries ago it was unknown. Then the peasant and the noble had only shutters to their windows, which had to be kept closed in cold or stormy weather.

2. This was inconvenient, and skins were treated so as to be partly transparent, and were stretched across the opening, to let in a little light while excluding the cold and rain. A thin piece of stone, like mica, was sometimes used, and oiled paper also supplied the place of glass.

3. It was at length found that silica, lime, and soda, or potash, could be melted together to form glass, and here and there a few rich people began to have glass windows in their homes; but this was so costly that it was often removed from windows and carefully put away when the house was closed for any reason.

4. At first the operation of making glass was slow and laborious. Sheet glass, like bottles, was blown

for hundreds of years, until a Frenchman discovered the process of making it by machinery. Now glass is so common and cheap that we can hardly imagine a comfortable existence without it.

5. It seems very strange; but many of our modern inventions were known thousands of years ago, and then became forgotten. This is true of the art of making glass, which was known thousands of years before the Christian era, as is proved by pictures on the ancient tombs representing glassblowers at work.

6. But in the first century it disappeared, and for years was a lost art. In Venice, during the fifth century, the art of glass-making was rediscovered, and for a long time it was kept secret from other nations. The people grew rich from its sale, and Venice soon became celebrated everywhere for the beauty of its glassware.

7. After a while other nations found out the secret process, and manufactories were started in Germany and Bohemia, and soon nearly every nation was producing glass of various qualities; yet none rivaled Venice except Bohemia.

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8. The Bohemians rediscovered the art of ing on glass, which had been known years before, but which was lost when glass itself disappeared. In some things they surpassed the Venetians, for they learned to color glass so beautifully that all

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