EDITOR’S PORTFOLIO.

With this number we begin on the last quarter of the year 1875; and we have the pleasure of informing our host of readers, young and old, that the prospects of “The Nursery” were never so encouraging as now.  It has not only held its own during these hard times, but gone on increasing.  Canvassers may take hold of it with the assurance that future numbers will be improvements even on the past.

“Playing the King,” in our present number, will be a good piece for humorous declamation at school.  Both the artist and the poet have done their work well.

For the coming holidays, there will be no juvenile work equal in attraction to the “NURSERY PRIMER,” which will now soon be ready.  It will be the best book for beginners ever got up.  Already we have received numerous orders for it, to which we shall soon respond.

“The Easy Book” and “The Beautiful Book” ought to be remembered by dealers ordering for the holidays.  These books have only to be seen to be appreciated.  The Nursery series of books is allowed to be the best for the purpose designed, namely, the teaching of children to read, chiefly by their own efforts, that has ever appeared.

Unaccepted articles will be returned to the writers if stamps are sent with them to pay return postage.  Manuscripts not so accompanied will not be preserved, and subsequent requests for their return cannot be complied with.

[Hand—­>] ==New Subscribers for 1876, whose names and money are sent us before November next, will receive the last three numbers of 1875 FREE.==

[Hand—­>] We want a special agent in every town in the United States.  Persons disposed to act in that capacity, are invited to communicate with the publisher.

[Illustration]

    THE DELIGHTS OF THE SEASIDE.

    Oh merry, merry sports had we, last summer on the beach,—­
    Lucy and Oliver and I, with Uncle Sam to teach! 
    At times, clad in our bathing-suits, we’d join our hands, all four,
    And rush into the water, or run along the shore.

    The wet sand, how it glistened on the sunny summer day! 
    And how the waves would chase us back, as if they were in play! 
    And when, on the horizon blue, a sail we would espy,
    How “Ship ahoy!” or “Whither bound?” we all of us would cry!

    The white, white sand, so smooth and hard, oh what a place for fun! 
    With no one by to check our screams, or say, “Now, pray, have done!”
    The sea-birds, not at all disturbed by all our mirthful noise,
    Would cry to us, as if they said, “Shout on, shout on, my boys!”

    Sometimes we’d seek for flattened stones, and skim them o’er the waves;
    Then go where, in the piled-up rocks, the sea had hollowed caves;
    Or sit and feel the cooling breeze in silent happiness;
    Or hunt for seaweed in the clefts, and take it home to press.