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Characteristics of

has no fault, except being a great deal too good for me, and that I must pardon if nobody else should. It might have been two years ago, and, if it had, would have saved me a world of trouble. She has employed the interval in refusing about half-a-dozen of my particular friends (as she did me once, by the way), and has taken me at last ; for which I am very much obliged to her. I wish it was all well over, for I hate bustle, and there is no marrying without some; and then I must not marry in a black coat, they tell me, and I can't bear a blue one. forgive me for scribbling all this nonsense. I must be serious all the rest of my life, and this is a parting piece of buffoonery, which I write with tears in my eyes, expecting to be agitated.-Believe me, most seriously and sincerely, your obliged servant,

Pray

You know

BYRON.

Juvenile Correspondence.

Juvenile correspondence—including letters to as well as from young persons-constitutes an amusing branch of my subject, and may here be briefly referred to. Although not, of course, possessed of high literary merit, nor remarkable for logical arrangement, the letters of boys and girls are generally at least natural and unrestrained-the unvarnished, outspoken language of warm and open hearts. As their leading characteristics, I may specify the combination of incoherent subjects, sudden and startling

Juvenile Letters.

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transitions, the capricious use of capital letters, and the total absence of punctuation; to say nothing of the questionable orthography which they pretty frequently exhibit. In the absence of actual examples, I cannot do better than refer to two choice effusions from the pen of Dick Davenal, one of the heroes in Oswald Cray, with whom most readers of Good Words must be familiar. The two letters in question were respectively addressed to Miss Davenal, the aunt, and Miss Sara Davenal, the cousin, of the youthful writer. The address to the former bore evident marks of care, while that to Sara was scarcely legible. The handwriting of the letters themselves, however, did not correspond with their respective superscriptions. In short, they had been accidentally transposed, and the letter intended exclusively for Sara's eyes fell into the hands of her aunt Bettina! The contrast in the style of the two epistles is very laughable; the one (intended for Sara) being the genuine letter of the light-hearted schoolboy; the other, formal in its tone, and evidently dictated by the master, commencing, 'My dear and respected aunt,' and subscribed, Your most sincere and respectful nephew, Richard

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Dick Davenal.

John Davenal.' I shall only give a portion of

the former.

MASTER DICK DAVENAL TO HIS COUSIN SARA.

DEAR OLD GIRL,-We come home the end of next week, hooray! old Keen was for keeping us till the week after and shouldn't we have turned rusty but it's all fixed now, the 16th is the joyful day and on the 15th we mean to have a bonfire out of bounds, and shouldn't we like to burn up all our books in it! you cant think how sick we are of them. Jopper says he'd give all his tin for next half if books and studies had never been invented, and I'm sure I would, I hate learning and that's the truth and I haven't tried to get on a bit for I know it's of no use trying. Greak's horrid, and our Greak master is an awful stick and keeps us to it till we feel fit to buffet him, its the most hateful bothering languidge you can imagine, and I shall never master a line of it and if it weren't for cribs I should get a caning every day, Latin was bad enougff but greak caps it. We all got into a row which I'll tell you about when I come home and we had our Wednesday and saturday holidays stoped for three weeks, it was all threw the writing-master, a shokking sneek who comes four days a week and found out something and took and told Keen, but we have served him out, we have had some good games this half taking things together, and if we could berry our books and never do another lesson Keens house wouldn't be so bad. Good-buy till next week darling Sara love to Carry and mind you get a jolly lot of mince-pies ready for us. DICK DAVENAL.

P.S.-how's old Betts deafness, its so cold we hope all the ponds will be froze to ice to-morrow.

Master Trelawny.

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I cannot resist introducing two other short characteristic examples from Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy, one of the Christmas brochures of the author of Pickwick, in both of which the allimportant subject of school diet is graphically discussed.

MASTER TRELAWNY TO HIS PARENTS.

MY DEAR PAPA,-I hope you are quite well. I ain't. You know I am not greedy, and not so foolish as to expect at school such jolly things as at home. So you must not be angry when I say what I am obliged to say, that we can't eat what Mrs. Glumper says is dinner; and as there's nothing else but slop and a bit of bread, everybody's starving.—I remain, your dutiful son,

C. S. TRELAWNY.

P.S.-If you don't like to speak to Mrs. Glumper, would you mind asking mamma and Agnes, with my love, to send me a big loaf of bread (with crust and, if possible, browned), that might last a week?

Lieut.-Gen. Trelawny, C.B., K.H.,

Penrhyn Court.

MY DEAR PAPA AND MAMMA,-I hope you are quite well. We ate up the Pie and other Things you so kindly sent, and then began starving again. Rice, and Catterpillars, and what they call Beef-stake Pie but Isn't, as usual. I hoped you would have written to Mrs. Glumper, but perhaps you were Afrade. We held a Counsel, and Settled to run away One by One—till the Dinners get better. We drew Lots and it fell to me. I knew you would Aprove, for I heard you once say, about Captain Shurker, that it wasn't honourable to

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Letters to Juveniles.

Back Out. I have my Second-best suit, some linen, my Bible, and Latin Delectus, and a sum of Money which is the Begining of a Fortune. I know what I am Doing —that is, I shall To-morrow,— -so I hope you won't be angry, and kiss Mama, and my love to Agnes, and I am your Afectionate Dutiful Son, C. S. TRELAWNY.1

The power of being able to write to juveniles in a strain calculated, to interest them is, I suspect, possessed by very few of their 'grave and potent' seniors. It implies the capacity of descending from the platform of ordinary thought and feeling, the power of looking at everything in the fresh and hopeful light of our earliest associations, the exercise of a vivid imagination, and the display of boundless sympathy and buoyancy of spirit. The poet Wordsworth, and also the lamented George Wilson, possessed this somewhat uncommon gift. Among the friends made by the latter wherever he went, were little girls of two years old and upwards. 'He was a great favourite with them,' says his biographer, 'and promised to marry

1 A few years ago, a fond mamma of my acquaintance received a communication from her youngest boy at school, in the following terms :-' DEAR MAMMA,—If you don't come to see me to-morrow, you will find me. dead. Amen!-Your loving CHARLIE.' The 'Amen' is charming. As the youthful writer still survives, it is to be presumed that his request was duly complied with.

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