The 'halcyon' days! What a balmy serenity hovers around them--basking in the sunlight of undisturbed tranquillity. This we feel; but how we realize it after reading the little _family secret_ that it wraps up! The [Greek: Halkyon] (halcyon)--_alcedo hispida_--was the name applied by the Greeks to the _kingfisher_ (a name commonly derived from [Greek: hals, kyo], i. e., _sea-conceiving_, from the fact of this bird's being said to lay her eggs in rocks near the sea); and the [Greek: halkyonides hemerai]--_halcyon days_--were those fourteen 'during the calm weather about the winter solstice,' during which the bird was said to build her nest and lay her eggs; hence, by an easy transition, perfect quietude in general. Those who have felt the bitter, biting effect of 'sarcasm,' will hardly be disposed to consider it a metaphor even, should we trace it back to the Greek [Greek: sarkazo]--_to tear off the flesh_ ([Greek: sarx]), _literally_, to 'flay.' 'Satire,' again, has an arbitrary-enough origin; it is _satira_, from _satur_, _mixed_; and the application is as follows: each species of poetry had, among the Romans, its own special kind of versification; thus the hexameter was used in the epic, the iambic in the drama, etc. Ennius, however, the earliest Latin 'satirist,' first disregarded these conventionalities, and introduced a _medley_ (satira) of all kinds of metres. It afterward, however, lost this idea of a _melange_, and acquired the notion of a poem 'directed against the vices and failings of men with a view to their correction.' Perhaps we owe to reviewing the metaphorical applications of such terms as 'caustic,' 'mordant,' 'piquant,' etc., in their _burning_, _biting_, and _pricking_ senses. But 'review,' itself, we are to regard as pure metaphor. Our friend 'Snooks,' at least, found _that_ out; for, instead of _re_-viewing--_i. e._, viewing again and again his book, they pronounced it to be decidedly bad without any examination whatever. A 'critic' we all recognize in his character of _judge_ or _umpire_; but is it that he always possesses discrimination--has he always _insight_ (for these are the primary ideas attaching themselves to [Greek: krino], whence [Greek: kritikos] comes)--does he divide between the merely arbitrary and incidental, and see into the absolute and eternal Art-Soul that vivifies a poem or a picture? If so, then is he a critic indeed. How perfectly do 'invidiousness' and 'envy'[6] express the _looking over against_ (_in-video_)--the _askance gaze_--the natural development of that painful mental state which poor humanity is so subject to! So with 'obstinacy' (_ob-sto_), which, by the way, the phrenologists represent, literally enough, by an ass in a position which assuredly Webster had in his mind when he wrote his definition of this word; thus: ... '_in a fixedness in opinion or resolution that cannot be shaken at all, or without great difficulty_.'