misused word
"education" than "bringing out" this sense when it is
dormant, and training and developing it when it is brought
out. And few things are more useful for exercise in this way
than the under-current of artistry in Cowper's "chit-chat."
His letters are so familiar that it is vain to aim at any
great originality in selecting them. The following strikes
me as an excellent example. What more trite than references
to increased expense of postage (rather notably topical just
now though!) and remarks on a greenhouse? And what less
trite--except to tritical tastes and intellects--than this
letter?

25. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON

Sept. 18. 1784.

My dear Friend,

Following your good example, I lay before me a sheet of my largest
paper. It was this moment fair and unblemished but I have begun to blot
it, and having begun, am not likely to cease till I have spoiled it. I
have sent you many a sheet that in my judgment of it has been very
unworthy of your acceptance, but my conscience was in some measure
satisfied by reflecting, that if it were good for nothing, at the same
time it cost you nothing, except the trouble of reading it. But the case
is altered now. You must pay a solid price for frothy matter, and though
I do not absolutely pick your pocket, yet you lose your money, and, as
the saying is, are never the wiser; a saying literally fulfilled to the
reader of my epistles.

My greenhouse is never so pleasant as when we are just upon the point of
being turned out of it. The gentleness of the autumnal suns, and the
calmness of this latter season, make it a much more agreeable retreat
than we ever find it in summer; when, the winds being generally brisk,
we cannot cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity of air, without
being at the same time incommoded by it. But now I sit with all the
windows and the door wide open, and am regaled with the scent of every
flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known how to make it. We
keep no bees, but if I lived in a hive I should hardly hear more of
their music. All the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of
mignonette, opposite to the window, and pay me for the honey they get
out of it by a hum, which, though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to
my ear as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds that nature utters
are delightful,--at least in this country. I should not perhaps find the
roaring of l