Vulgarity.

efface , and , to say the truth , nothing can redeem . And a very large class they are , and many allies they have in other mortals as vulgar as themselves . They commit every sort of offence against the laws of good

taste and "bienseance "—they affect to think that there is something praiseworthy in being singular , and despising what they call the " world , " and so the sins they knowingly commit against the laws which happily still govern society and us all , are

as glaring as they are indefensible . But peace to their " manes , " they are hardly worth , after all , the notice of the critic , or the censure of the moralist . The man of genius ridicules them , the man of refinement pities them , and the cultivated , and the tolerant , and the truehearted look upon them Avith a sigh and with a smile .

Now vulgarity accidental is , in our opinion , much more defensible , and far more easily forgiven . There is an ingenuousness in feeling and opinion in some which leads them into a little open warfare , as it were , ofttimes with those social laws of the Medes and

Persians which sway family life , personal life , and national life in the world . They revolt against the dicta of "Mrs . Grundy " and the edicts of a fashionable " Vehmgericht , " as the writer in " Temple Bar " well puts it .

Women specially are ¦ often a little open-mouthed and rash in denunciation , of the cold and heartless etiquette of society , of customs which keep them in , of rules which bind them down , and they make little faux " in this direction

" pas or m that , or commit " betises , " or give way to indiscretions many and marked . _ Well , the world , which is always very mtolerant in the abstract , remember , considers such actions a proof of vulgarity , masmuch as its theory of propriety is , 8 trict

conformity Avith the precepts and code of customaiy conduct which it has sanctioned and which it seeks to enforce . It is here we differ from the World ana the writer in le BarcMefl

" Temp , " y as no one may deem is to be . ( i AH such little deviations from the aneien regime , " "LaVieille Roche , " are 01 % accidental after all , and ought to be

Vulgarity.

treated simply as such , and , above all , pardoned as such . Many arise for the most part from avocation , education , a special state of life , family surroundings , impulse , and above all ardent aspirations and ill-regulated

sympathies . For all such we have much pity , and easily forgive these little slips and mistakes , believing them to be " accidental , " not " essential" vulgarity , and such as time , or example , or higher teaching may yet ameliorate and remove .

But we confess that for the essential vulgar we have but little concern ; life is too short to waste any precious moments of condolence upon them , and they don't deserve it , and they don't want it . For such vulgarity almost always ends in perversity in mean and unworthy notions of others , masmuch as it will not be kept down , and will have a vent .

To the intelligent and educated such spectacles are very sad , and such association is very depressing . Those of us who love what is refining and elevating , all that is generous in sentiment , all that is ennobling in emotion , the

high aims and the noble aspirations if you like , of virtue , and honour , and truth , and religion are ahvays deeply pained when they behold that rampant vulgarity , which nothing can- check , and nothing control , trampling doAvn in overbearing violence all

those affections , and heart impulses which God and nature have implanted in us all , for good- and holy purposes , for affection and tender interest , and drawing out , in their most cruel phase and most pitiable guisethese malignant weaknesses of our

, fallen race , which set us at variance one with another here , and too often promote alike the temporal misery and the eternal wretchedness of man !

Sonnet.

SONNET .

For the "Masonic Magazine " ON THE NEW YEAR , JANUARY , 1877 . DEATH-LIKE , bestrewn upon its chilly bier , PalFd in its frozen , snowy-gleaming dress , Lies the old year—bleak , bald—each leafy tress 2 o