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York; but until I can complete my arrangements, I shall confine my endeavors to the single branch of chirography, or writing. The plan I shall pursue is this: when a pupil is placed under my charge for the purposes of tuition in chirography, I shall first observe his peculiar constitution and habits of mind and body. Penmanship is much more intimately connected with the mind than is generally believed, and each scholar demands a very different course of instruction, adapted to his peculiar circumstances. This is the art which I now desire to make public. I have, with infinite study, selected a certain class of words, the joining of whose letters affords a facility in acquiring the art which does not exist in the indiscriminate copies which common teachers set their boys; and my pens are of a very particular make, ac. cording as I am expected to impart a plain round hand, a commercial hand, a hand for private letters, a legal hand, or a hand for ordinary purposes. My system of making pens I shall communicate to my pupils, at the termination of my course, gratis, and the whole to be completed in ten lessons, at about half the price paid to any other master in the world."

I shall make no remarks upon the gentleman's system, but that the present system of reducing all things to system, has been pursued long enough to enable the public to discover that no solid advantages can be obtained in the way of education, exclusive of the old fashioned means of perseverance and laborious study.

TOWN AND COUNTRY.

CAN there be two things more unlike than the city and country? In the first, you have only air, light, and a piece of blue sky stretching above the compact rows of brick walls, to remind you of the original appearance of our planet. The very people seem animals of a different species as they push by, or peradventure almost run over you in the hurry of business. I have sometimes thought that real civility (I mean among strangers) VOL. II.-8

decreased exactly in proportion to your approach to the metropolis. Away off in some obscure and quiet country village, you receive a polite salutation from every passenger; and troops of little girls and boys returning from school, address you with bows and courtesies of profound respect; but as you travel nearer the mighty Babel, you perceive a diminution of that pleasing tribute, till at length you reach the thronged streets, and, like a drop in the sea, are melted into the general mass, where much care is requisite to preserve your neck and your pocket book, two articles, which to a man of business, as society is constructed, are of about equal importance. Nature is sadly metamorphosed in town. Only think that the tender grass and flower bushes have been torn away to make room for these broad, well worn flag stones. Perhaps on this very spot once stood a grove of venerable trees, and a torrent poured its silvery and flashing waters on toward the river; and, in olden times, perchance the spotted panther hath paused to drink; or the eagle, or the wild and beauteous deer hath here in a depth of loneliness, suited to its timid spirit, regarded his branching antlers in the mirror stream; and the dangerous snake hath glided along unmolested, or basked him in the noontide sun. And what have we now? A row of three story brick houses, a grocery store, a lottery office, a tavern: signs too, St. Croix rum and sugar; fashionable hat store; commissioner to take the acknowledgment of deeds; John Thompson, shoemaker; Obadiah Todd, counsellor at law; and crowds of Presbyterians and Episcopalians, Adamsmen and Jacksonmen, pouring along like the tide of the pure and playful brook, above whose once music-breathing channel their shuffling footsteps fall. If we could know their history! Yonder is a noble looking gentleman. With what stateliness he moves along! I should esteem him a poet-an immortal poet. His eye is full of the fire of genius, and he treads as if he would disdain to save his life by means of a dishonorable action. Alas, for Lavater! and alas, for human nature. He is a poor devil of a fellow who lives by gambling. He has no more idea of poetry than his dog, and would betray his friend for five dollars. But take care, or you will run over that little, insignifi

Your eye has passed He is one of the most

cant, shabby man at your right. him carelessly. Look again. gifted of men. The philosopher-the orator-the writer. He has in him the wonderful power to wake in you the highest feelings. He sheds a flood of light upon every subject which he touches-he could thrill you with his fervid and glowing eloquence, and force every chord of your soul to vibrate; and when he would speak, multitudes of the learned and great and beautiful flock to listen. Yonder is a crowd pressing together to enjoy the horror and anguish of that wretched woman. They say she has committed a crime. She has been ground down by poverty-perhaps by hunger, and her sacrilegeous hand has snatched something which the law forbade. The people swear, and curse, and fight, to get near enough to witness her desperate struggles; but two well fed, lusty constables have dragged her feeble form toward a cart in triumph. As the loud laughter announces her defeat, an ashy paleness overspreads her face-her head falls backmiserable creature-she is dead!*

I thought of these things as I wandered with a party of agreeable friends along a retired country road, which wound its way among gentle undulations, occasionally shaded by rich cool forests. Here was a contrast to the hub bub of the town. We stopped upon the old boards of a rough bridge (just such a romantic affair as one sees in the theatre) to admire the scenery-look into the brook-watch the fishes--and the turn of the shining water as it fell over a little bed of stones. At this crisis, a great green bull frog, whether from vanity -for to say the truth, he was a fine, plump, gentlemanly looking fellow-or whether the unfriendly fates, sporting with frogs as well as men, had led him unconscious to the identical spot of all the winding stream toward which our several prying eyes were directed, it is not for me to assert; but it is very certain that such an individual did issue forth from some nameless haunt or other, better known to himself than me, and, with a gentle and brief exclamation, expressive of content, as if the world went well with him, but rather difficult to

* A real incident,

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translate into English, did place himself in a station, which, as the result will show, was a little too conspicuous. There he sat, with his great round eyes started both sides out of his head, and his countenance -which to his fellow frogs might have been a very fine one-expressive of an idea that he had got into a right comfortable situation. Whether he was young and enthusiastic, and, like ourselves, had come out to enjoy the beauties of nature, or whether he was an old and experienced member of the community, or, as the newspapers express it, "an aged and respectable citizen,' silently meditating upon the affairs of his watery world, we had no method of ascertaining. Many little stones, however, were thrown down at him, with various degrees of skill and success, one of which, I regret to state, hit him on the head, whereat he discovered evident signs of dissatisfaction, and abandoning our society with some abruptness, plunged down to the bottom among the sand and sedges, ruminating, probably, in no very pleasant mood, upon this additional instance of the instability of human affairs.

Blackberries grew in abundance by the road side, which we were not particularly averse to appropriate to the purpose for which I presume they were placed there; and, merry as the birds which sometimes flitted across our path, we wandered as fancy led over these summer scenes- -by the bay, through the woods, over fences, and down valleys; breaking the silence of the green forest, and startling its timid and various inhabitants with the unaccustomed sounds of frequent laughter.

Time has a fine fashion of slipping along on these occasions: we are surrounded by so many innumerable objects which attract the eye and captivate the imagination. The bargain-driving, calculating, slavish varlet, whose life is frittered away in the narrow haunts of a great city in petty schemes to extort money from all persons and on all occasions, finds among these winding roads, these lofty hills, built up by the ancient hand of nature, and sweetly decorated with her playful fancies, pleasing feelings are stirring which have been long idle in the depths of his character. The world, in his imagination, shows like some stupendous animal pursuing

at a distance its uncouth gambols, and amid these overshadowing branches and wild ravines, he seems to find a shelter from its vague and unhappy dangers.

WHISKERS.

"I BEG of you, I beseech you; nay, I insist upon it," said Mrs. Lawton to her son.

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Impossible," replied the elegant and fashionable individual to whom the apostrophe was addressed, touching the tip of his snow white collar, almost imperceptibly, with his thumb and middle finger, and introducing the thumb of his other hand within the arm-hole of his vest with rather a dashing air. "It is utterly and absolutely impossible any thing but that."

"But, Charles," continued the persevering old lady, "dear Charles, oblige me this once I have set my heart on it."

"It cannot be," said the youth, assuming a theatrical attitude, and extending his right arm, with his finger pointing toward the sky,

"Twill be recorded for a precedent;

And many an error, by the same example,
Will creep into the state: it cannot be."

"Let me persuade you," said his sister, a fine dashing girl, with a voice like the ringing of silver, and eyes which must have melted the very soul out of any man except a brother. May I entreat you?"

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"Oh, entreat? Certainly, Kate; you may entreat." "Well, there," said she, flinging her arm around his waist, and looking triumphantly at her mother.

"But," added Charles, glancing complacently down upon his long, polished, square toed, graceful boot. "I shan't do it, you know, although you do entreat.”

"Oh," said Kate, "go about your business; you are a perfect fright."

"You think so, do you, Kate?" and he glanced upon

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