PLATE VIII. DECIPHERED.

Where the system is most contracted in order to take a speech rapidly delivered.*

Though the whole race of man is doomed to dissolution, and we are all hastening to our long home; yet at each successive moment, life and death seem to divide betwixt them the dominion of mankind, and life to have the larger share. It is otherwise in war: death reigns there without a rival, and without controul. War is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph of death, who glories not only in the extent of his con

* In following a speaker whose utterance is feeble or who is imperfectly heard, it is wonderful to find how much assistance the eye affords to the ear, in catching the periods.

The difficulty of hearing is sometimes occasioned by one or two talkers who place themselves near the writer, quite regardless of him and the speaker, and carry on their accompaniment with the most selfish enjoyment. It is to such persons the fault may be imputed, when any honourable member in either of the houses of parliament complains of an imperfect report of his speech. The reporters to the public papers are constantly subject to this annoyance. It is rarely, that a speech delivered to a silent and attentive audience is not reported with the greatest possible perfection: but the well-turned period of an elegant sentence, and the point of a biting sarcasm, have often been lost amidst the noise and confusion of an inattentive audience. In that part of the British Museum, where artists copy the Elgin Marbles, there is a drawing of a figure with her fore-finger on her lip, and a superscription of the following words, "Silence is becoming in a place devoted to study." The art of taking notes, is, on the part of the Shorthand writer, a study, and must at all times be more or less perfect, according to the accommodation afforded him. There has been of late, every kind disposition shown on the part of those in authority, to give facility to reporting, and it is hoped that in our national assemblies, public liberality will not be defeated in the attainment of this object, by obstructions to which reporters are often subjected from those who, (properly speaking,) should constitute part of the audience only.

quest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims: here it is the vigourous and the strong. It is remarked by an ancient historian, that in peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children: nor is the difference small. Children lament their parents, sincerely indeed, but with that moderate and tranquil sorrow, which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many tender ties, many animating prospects. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair; the aged parent, the widowed mother, loses, when she is deprived of her children, every thing but the capacity of suffering; her heart, withered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.

But, to confine our attention to the number of the slain, would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from religious prospects, as comparatively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are liable. We cannot see an individual expire, though a stranger or an enemy, without being sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment: every other emotion gives way to pity and terror. In these last extremities, we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature. What a scene then must a field of battle present, where thousands are left without assistance, and without pity, with their wounds exposed to the piercing air, while the blood, freezing as it flows, binds them to the earth,

amidst the trampling of horses, and the insults of an enraged foe: if they are spared by the humanity of the enemy, and carried from the field, it is but a prolongation of torment. Conveyed in uneasy vehicles, often to a remote distance, through roads almost impassable, they are lodged in ill-prepared receptacles for the wounded and the sick, where the variety of distress baffles all the efforts of humanity and skill, and renders it impossible to give to each the attention he demands. Far from their native home, no tender assiduities of friendship, no well-known voice, no wife, or mother, or sister, is near to soothe their sorrows, relieve their thirst, or close their eyes in death. Unhappy man ! and must you be swept into the grave unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust!-R. Hall's Sermon on War.

W. H. BIRCHALL, Printer, 5, St. James's-place, Clerkenwell.

83. The dot akove also stands for y, when sounded as i at the end of a word and fora silent, the character seldom or never being used in Short hand, to begin

orend a word.