affirmative, patient reader, then may you be able to conceive my situation, and understand the workings of my feelings, while I stood for a while a spectator of this cousinly intercourse. At length I could restrain myself no longer, and catching a little dark-eyed, laughing witch of a creature in my arms, I imprinted on her glowing cheek, and then on her pouting lips, kisses that I fear may have burned her, for she screamed, or rather yelped, little wretch as she was, like one of the quadrupeds above mentioned. And then there was confusion, and flight, and questions, and inquiries, and then I arose to explain: spake of the illusion of the moment thought I was a real cousin - wished I was humble apology-future good behaviour-forgiveness, and was forgiven!

BEAUTIFUL! beautiful!- very beautiful!' I softly exclaimed, as the last words of the piece she had been reciting still lingered on her sweet lips. It was a tale of love, wherein the heart had breathed out a world of tenderness. The story was a trite one, and there was not even novelty of expression to recommend it. It was merely another exemplification of the truth of the great dramatist's remark, that 'the course of true love never did run smooth.' But it was in the peculiar character of the reciter - in the softened expression that for a few brief moments chased away the proud smile from her mouth in the deep tendernesst hat beamed from her dark and haughty eyes - in the tremulousness of her tones, as words, broken words, almost inarticulate from the excess of feeling which shook her slender frame, fell upon my ear, that the charm consisted. I had gained possession of her hand, and while I twined her soft and dimpled fingers within my own, Why, oh! why,' I exclaimed, are moments like these so rare, my dear. -? I have watched you hour after hour in the brilliant circle of which you are the ornament and pride, to see if the voice of flattery, or the murmur of admiration, could for one moment lose their effect upon you; but your eyes have never lost their lustre, and your cheek has ceased not to burn with the flush of gratified vanity; and I have turned aside with an aching heart, and felt that the time had not yet come, when you could prize the deep and abiding homage of one true heart. Has that moment now arrived, my ? Will you permit me now, while for a moment your own kind and natural emotions have resumed their sway, to tell you how long and earnestly I have watched your course, how fearfully I have regarded the allurements of fashion, of admiration, of flattery, which have beset your path from the moment of your first appearance in society, as that of woman has rarely been beset? - how in every change, in every scene, I have observed your high and noble nature struggling through the mists that have partially obscured it? — how, hoping all things and fearing all things, I have until this moment kept within my own heart the feelings which now burst forth beyond control? and how?'.

Mr. Wilson!' announced the servant, as he suddenly opened the door. The half-bent form of- became suddenly erect. The subdued look was gone, and the downcast eye was again raised, and

burned with all its former haughty fire. The transformation was as instantaneous as it was complete; and as, with a light laugh and a heightened color, she called the attention of the new comer to what she was pleased to call my lackadaisical countenance, I could not believe that she was the same being who had a moment before listened with such flattering attention to my opening tale of love. Resentment usurped the place a few moments before occupied by softer feelings, and I answered with a spirit equal to her own. There is a limit to the long enduring patience even of a lover. That limit was past, and I was free. Free, did I say? Yes, free, as those who have determined no longer to submit to bonds, but have not yet broken their chains, are free!

Whew! This Tammany-Hall speechifying is ruining my style. I have here just wound up the whining complaint of a disappointed lover with one of the most grandiloquent sentences of my late electioneering speech. If you are not accustomed to the patriotic outpourings of ambitious young politicians, my dear reader, you will have some difficulty in gathering from the aforegoing discourse about bonds, and chains, and freedom, that I had come to the conclusion to be flirted with no longer, and that I had determined to draw off my besieging forces, while I could do so with the semblance of honor.

'GOOD HEAVENS!' exclaimed a friend of mine to me a few moments

since, -'poor Charles H is a ruined man. He has been cornered by the brokers on the - stock, and has lost all his fortune. What a shocking affair!' Bad enough, it is true, to one who has been accustomed to the artificial wants which wealth engenders; but to the poor man by nature, a mere nothing. I am of the opinion that it is a subject of congratulation for one to have been born the heir of what some respectable person in the poetical line has been pleased to denominate the heritage of wo,' - meaning thereby, I suppose, poverty. It is not so very unpleasant to be a ruined man,' when one becomes used to it, or when one has never been otherwise. For my own part, I was never other than such. I have been a ruined man' from my cradle - I was born a' ruined man' - and I feel the ill effects of poverty no more than one who has never been accustomed to shoes feels the want of them.

I have a dim, indistinct conception of a state of existence encumbered with effects, and cares of money - real estate, personal property, rents, stocks, household furniture, servants, horses, dogs, children, and such matters; but as to having ever entertained a wish to exchange my present state of independent, total, entire, and unconditional poverty for it, I can with great sincerity acquit myself of any such idea. Now I am in that enviable condition so frequently spoken of, in which I have every thing to gain, and nothing to lose.' No! I thank Heaven, my infant hands were not clutched around a patrimony, which the world about me were endeavoring to divert to their own uses; my early perceptions were not quickened with the knowledge that others coveted the good things which I enjoyed; my eyes in childhood never

learned to look suspiciously upon all who approached me, and to seek for enemies where there was the pretence of friendship. My wants were simple and natural — the want of bread, and my distress such as nature sanctions - that I had it not. I never ran through with the fine estate my father left me,' as I have heard it reproachfully said of others. My father on earth left me no estate, and that which my Father in Heaven gave me, (I speak it with reverence,) I shall enjoy while I have the sense of enjoyment. This I cannot 'run through with,' or dissipate. It is as boundless as the regions of space. I know not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth,' neither do I care. My drafts on it are always honored, and it detracts not from my enjoyment of it, that my fellow creatures are all as liberally supplied with it as myself. No pressure in the money market,' no depreciation in real estate,' can effect it. Drought or freshets, the invasions of foreign enemies, or internal dissensions, cannot lessen its value, nor diminish its quantity. For me, nullification has no terrors; I am indifferent about the payment of the French claims; I am not alarmed at the proceedings of the abolitionists; and I care not whether the Fanny Wright doctrines or Agrarianism prevails, or whether the Loco Focos can keep their tallow candles burning in Tammany-Hall. I have, as I before remarked, much to gain, and nothing to lose, by any event which can happen in the political or moral world. What I was born, I am, with a slight elevation in grade, now -a loafer. My respected father was a loafer, my beloved mother was a loaferess, and my posterity, as far as I have been able to keep them in sight, and observe them, all belong to that numerous portion of the human family. My mother sold apples and cakes at a stand in the open air on the corner, near St. Paul's Church. How long she had been engaged in the business, in that particular spot, or whether she had not always occupied it, I have no means of ascertaining, and cannot state. My earliest recollections are of playing on the side-walk in that vicinity. My earliest sufferings arose from certain applications on the part of my mother to 'my western end' for not keeping out of the gutter, and my first cares were, to get out of the way of cross-looking men before they kicked me. My youth, the innocent period of my youth,' was spent, or at least the week days were spent, in munching such unsaleable apples, and dismembered cakes, as my mother gave me, and in stealing those she would not so willingly part with. On Sundays, I used to go to a little den in Gold-street, where we, that is to say, my mother and myself, and my father, when he could be found, slept at night. Here, on this day of rest, we used to have what my mother called meals. The cold victuals which had been collected on Saturday, were warmed in a pan, and placed on the old chest that contained our family wardrobe, and stock in trade, and we had the satisfaction of eating under the cover of a roof.

One day my mother told me that I was twelve years old, and that as she could not afford to support me any longer, I must do something for myself. She also informed me (a fact, by the way, that had never before come to my knowledge,) that she had three brothers, engaged in business, either of whom was willing to give me employment. She con

* Vide Peter Simple.

cluded her maternal communication, by making it known to me, that she had resolved to bind me as an apprentice to one of them, but that I should have my choice of their three professions. On inquiring as to their several occupations, she announced to me in a somewhat pompous manner, that one was a dealer in paper,' the other a 'victualler,' and the last was employed in the sign business.' Thinking that any thing relative to paper must be a light employment, I made choice of the profession of my uncle who dealt in that article.

Accordingly, my mother took me by the hand, and led me down to a cellar in Thames-street, where I had the honor of an introduction to my respected relative in the paper line.' We found him on our entrance engaged with a piece of board, shoving up to a large heap in the corner of a dark room several smaller piles, composed of bits of dirty paper, which some half dozen children had emptied from bags that they held in their hands. On my mother's announcing her business, he at once signified his readiness to receive me into his employ, and taking down from the wall a coarse canvass bag which hung there, and handing it to me, he, without further ceremony, directed me to go out with the children, who were leaving, saying that they would show me what I had to do.

I followed them, and after proceeding down the side-walk some distance, I observed one of them dart out into the street and pick up and thrust into his bag an old newspaper. A few moments after, a shop lad threw a handful of old brown paper into the street, upon which all my companions rushed up, and in a twinkling every piece of it had disappeared, and was deposited in their bags. Shortly afterward, one of the pedestrian corps hastened to a hillock of dirt, which the street-sweepers had just left, and seizing a little stick, began scratching in it, every now and then picking up a piece of paper, and depositing it in his canvass receptacle. He was followed by the others, and I, having at length discovered the object of their search, joined in their occupation, and in the course of a few hours was able to return to my uncle with my bag well filled. At night, after satisfying my appetite on cold victuals, I made a bed with twelve or fifteen of my fellow-laborers on the piles of paper in the room, and slept until morning. The employment of the previous day was then renewed.

For the next ensuing ten months, my life was without variation. Every Saturday, the collections of the week were put up in large bags, and carried away in carts to the agents of the manufacturers of coarse paper, and sold.

At the end of the period above mentioned, my uncle, who had never treated me with much tenderness, having caught me in the act of pommeling one of my mates, applied his foot to a part of my person that I cannot mention without a blush of indignation. Independent of a feeling of numbness, of an exceedingly unpleasant nature, which immediately ensued, independent, I say, of bodily pain, the injury to my feelings was of an insupportable character. I felt grieved, nay, insulted! The sanctity of my person had been violated, and I mentally resolved that it should not suffer a second attack. I immediately went to my mother, and telling her that my honor had been injured in its tenderest part, detailed the unmerited treatment I had received. She was very much enraged, and declared that I should retire from the 'paper business,' and

go into the employment of my uncle, the 'victualler.' This I accordingly did.

I was now engaged from morning until night, with a basket on my arm, calling at the kitchens of the good people of the city, and begging for cold victuals. When my basket was filled, I took it to my uncle's cellar, in Cross-street, where the contents were separated, and placed in different piles, ready to be sold to the poor people who traded with him. This life I liked very much. It is true, the servants where I called sometimes boxed my ears, or shut the door too suddenly in my face, especially when I called over four times on the same day; but I always had enough to eat, and in cold weather, a good-natured cook would occasionally permit me to warm myself by the kitchen fire. I think I should have continued in this line of business for a long time, had I not become acquainted, about a year after I entered it, with other uncle. He looked so fat and happy, and appeared to feel so comfortable, that I thought I should like to work for him. I accordingly asked him if he could not give me employment, telling him that I had concluded not to remain any longer in my present situation. He replied that he would think of it, and let me know in a few days. About a week afterward, he told me to come with him, and he would give me occupation. After bidding my last master farewell, I went home with my new one.

my

He was a bachelor, and occupied one of the upper rooms in a little story-and-a-half house in Anthony-street, on the front of which some large letters informed those who were able to read, that they had arrived at Patrick O'Hare's Hotel.' My uncle's 'office,' as he chose to style his scant apartment, was not very imposing in its appearance. Its furniture consisted simply of a mat and a blanket, together with a single old chair. There was a number of large pieces of paste-board, covered with letters like the show bills of the theatre, standing against the wall. Piles of smaller bills, such as are distributed to the audience at play-houses, were also scattered about the room. My uncle, soon after my entrance into his 'office,' proceeded to equip me for my new profession. Taking two pieces of paste-board, covered with letters as aforesaid, each about four-and-a-half feet in length, and about two feet in breadth, he fastened them together at one end, by strings inserted near the corners, and slipping my head in between them, he brought one of them down in front in such a manner that it extended from under my chin until it nearly reached my feet. The other piece of the same size hung down my back, covering my rear in like manner. After having tied these two pieces together under my arms, he next took a number of the small bills and fastened them around my hat, and then placing a bundle of them in each of my hands, he proceeded to read off, for my edification — that, as he said, I might know what I was about the various contents of the printed suit in which I was encased. I found that in front, I was an advertisement of the Hygeian Vegetable Pills, while in the rear, I announced to the public the arrival at Peale's Museum of The Great Living Anaconda! In front, I spoke glowingly of the extraordinary and unrivalled effects of this new discovery in medicine, and, with the maxim that 'prevention is better than cure,' informed the friends of good health how easy it was for them, by taking the pills when they were well, to avoid ever being sick; while in the rear, I discoursed most eloquently of the beauty, grace, and enormous size of this rare