liarly melancholy emotions. Often I nearly resolved to reveal to him the certainty of his almost immediate dissolution. But it seemed like a ruthless sacrilege to break with a word the deceitful but soothing spell which now kept him constantly peaceful and happy. Beside, since nature had given it to him, why should I take it away? If death, the loathed monster, approached with his hideous features covered, why should I tear off the veil and disclose the sight of horror? For a long time his face had assumed an expression of unusual intellectuality. The brightness of his eyes reminded me of the fine description by Proctor: "Look in my eye, and mark how true the tale I followed my poor friend to the grave, one soft summer afternoon, with a heavy heart, and have since perused this little picture of his latest visions with a sad pleasure. If, as the reader follows them to their last dreary termination, he is induced to examine his own calculations for the future, my melancholy task will not have been accomplished in vain. CONVERSATION. I BELIEVE my. friend, old Henderson, would talk you to death if you would let him. He has neither sense nor taste, but his memory is awful. I have seen him hold a large company enchained, not by the fascination of wit and eloquence, but by a downright overbearing determination to monopolize the whole conversation, and without the ingenuity to perceive that instead of admiring, one half of his auditors are laughing at him and the other meditating upon the most respectful means of escape. I can excuse, and even sympathize with an old sailor or soldier who has risked his life a thousand times in the dangers of sea or battle, for dwelling with enthusiasm, which he, imagines must be shared by all, upon those scenes and events where the chords of his noblest feelings have been struck, but protect me from the sturdy energy of veteran prosers whose zeal and prejudices are all based on vanity and conceit. 66 "My dear friend," said Henderson to me one day as I was hurrying home to dinner a few minutes after the time; "listen to me one word more. I am old now, and may venture to state that my experience is not small. I have travelled, sir, travelled all over the United States, and a part of Great Britain; and I kept a note book, wherein I set down all the remarkable events don't be in such a hurry, my dear fellow, I'm never in a hurry." "Doubtless, doubtless, Mr. Henderson, but just at this moment "Tush, man-you don't get an opportunity of hearing me every day.' "Thank heaven for that," thought I. "In this note book," he continued, "I set down, as I said before, all the remarkable things I heard and saw with all my apposite moral reflections. Thus, sir, I have accumulated a mass of the most valuable notes, thoughts, opinions, sketches of character, anecdotes, &c., &c., &c. You shall read them, my young friend. They will give you more insight into "With pleasure, sir, but 66 Why now there's your cousin Bob, as fine a fellow, sir, as ever trod shoe leather, he knows my friend Stamford who travelled with me half-no, not halfyes-I think I may say half of the way. Stamford married a Miss Dunlap, at Plymouth. Her father was a doctor, as clever a fellow as ever- -well-I remember it as well as if it were but yesterday. It was on the sixteenth day of April, 1799, and the next morning, says he to me, says he-" But enough of this, lest the reader should grow as tired of him as I was. I should almost as cheerfully submit to the necessity of listening to another talking. friend of mine, who has the misfortune to be an author. Long habits of writing, to which he has concentrated all the faculties of his mind, have made it impossible for him to give birth to a single idea before he has arranged it in a regular sentence, with suitable branches and a flowing period. Ask him how he does, and he reads you a homily on the state of his system-the causes of his diseases, and the method he has laid down for himself to accomplish a cure, with the swelling pomposity of Dr. Johnson. He'll quote Greek upon a tea kettle. When he gives his well known preliminary "hem," as he clears his throat for an attack, I wish I might get the toothache, as an excuse for taking my departure. Such a man in a stage coach, where you are entirely at his mercy, is worse than the nightmare. Heaven preserve me from your professed shiners in conversation. But of the colloquists who are calculated to exhaust the patience, the mistified talker is the most provoking. He covers up an idea of the most ordinary signification, or rather buries it under a multiplicity of words. If you put an interrogation to such an one, he stops, reflects, and then commences narrating some anecdote which he intends to apply to something which he intends to say. He hovers round and round a subject, and just when you trust he is coming to the point, strikes off into some unknown region and leaves you perfectly bewildered as to his meaning. Either he has no mind, no opinions, or you see them through the medium of his conversational powers as you glance at nature through a prism, and behold fragments of trees, walls, rivers, and houses turned upside down, in grotesque groups, and colored with strange hues. Set a nervous, clear headed person to transact business with one of this sort, and he will almost go mad. Some are habitual praisers of every thing around them others never open their lips but to snarl. These last are monsters in society. They prowl around like vicious dogs, snapping and biting at whatever comes within their reach. Instead of comparing the faults VOL. II.-4 and beauties, the virtues and vices of men and things properly together, and forming a conclusion as the balance is in their favor or against them, they ferret out the worst features, dwell upon them with malicious bitterness, and thus overwhelm every thing in indiscriminate condemnation. In short, while the conversation of all is marked with the peculiarities of their respective dispositions and habits of life, few have attained that elegant familiarity with the world and the human heart which enables them in conversation to please all and offend none. Such an accomplishment is productive of the most agreeable. advantages. It surrounds its possessor with a kind of cheerfulness, delightful to the walks of brilliant fashion and invaluable as the charm of the domestic circle. Yet, perhaps, few subjects engage less of the attention of scholars and eminent men of all classes. They too often exhaust their vivacity in the mental efforts of the closet, and pass among their friends mere abstracted, solitary, and sometimes disagreeable companions, unable to share the simple pleasures of life. LETTER FROM THE CITY. New York, July 10, 1830. DEAR C.-I presume sufficient time has elapsed since your departure from New York to render "private advices" agreeable; yet I have nothing in the world to say which would be interesting to you except the old hum-drum assurances that "I am quite well and hope you are the same," for which valuable piece of information and expression of love, people have been content to pay postage for a very long time. We have had here for a few weeks past a succession of the most pleasant days and nights you ever saw-just sufficiently varied with showers to keep the ground moist, the air fresh and clear and the grass green. And as for the moon, I vow I believe she has stopped going round the earth, for as far as I can recollect she has been full, clear, and round for three weeks back. Our friend, lawyer M., has had a ducking, since you left us. He and I sailed out into' the bay he acted as the captain, I as the crew. As long as the wind did not blow much and the tide was in our favor, captain M.'s nautical abilities showed to very great advantage. He put "his hand upon the ocean's mane," as poor Byron said, with the greatest confidence and familiarity, but the bay of New York, like the great sea of human life, is crossed with many changing and obstinate currents, which play the deuce with your young city sailors. Our captain got among these, where he was compelled to take short notice of trial, and where errors could not be amended on payment of costs; and though, with the best intention in the world, he put the bow of the boat straight for Staten Island, he made a point of Long Island, near the navy yard, about a mile above that from which he had started. Fortu- ' nately being deeply skilled in navigation he determined to "tack," which he did in a very scientific manner. I observed, however, by-the-bye, that instead of making any headway we had drifted another half mile from the point which we were anxious to reach. Theory and practice, you see, are very different things. Finding all his science thrown away upon these foolish tides, the captain resolved to take down the mast and resort to oars; with this intention he sprang from his seat, the current all the time drifting us up, at the rate of four knots, but in his eagerness to precipitate the operation, · he injudiciously stepped upon the side of the boat, which nearly overturned. This produced two consequences worthy of notice. Firstly-the oar splashed into the river on one side. Secondly-the captain' plumped in on the other, with an expression upon his face, as he was falling, which induced me to believe he had adopted that course with great reluctance. He had not been long, however, under the water, when, with much ingenuity and presence of mind, he made for the surface, a choice which I will venture to assert the most mature deliberation could not fail to applaud. Having reached a situation where he enjoyed the additional convenience of air, he exhibited å decided resolution to resume his place in the boat-a very sensible idea, which he proceeded to carry into effect, leaving, however, |