MRS. HANNAH F. LEE, the author of numerous popular writings, is a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts, the daughter of an eminent physician of that place. She has been for many years a widow. Her residence is at Boston. AF Lee. In 1832, when the autobiography of Hannah Adams appeared, the "notices in continuation by a friend," forming half of the volume, were from her pen. Her first distinct publication was a novel, Grace Seymour, published at New York, the first edition of which was mostly burned in the great fire of 1835. In 1838, appeared anonymously, The Three Experiments of Living, a work which she wrote as a sketch of those times of commercial difficulty, without reference to publication. By the agency of the eminent philologist, John Pickering, it was brought before the public, and attained at once extraordinary success. This was followed immediately by a volume of romantic biography, Historical Sketches of the Old Painters, taking for the subjects the lives of Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Correggio, and others. With a similar view of popularizing the lessons of history, Mrs. Lee wrote the works entitled Luther, and his Times; Cranmer, and his Times; and the Huguenots in France and America; books of careful reading and graphic description. Mrs. Lee is also the author of a series of domestic tales, illustrating the minor morals of life and topics of education, as Elinor Fulton; a sequel to Three Experiments of Living; Rich Enough, the title of which indicates its purpose. Rosanna, or Scenes in Boston, written for the benefit of a charity school; The Contrast, or Different Modes of Education; The World before you, or the Log Cabin; and in 1849 a volume of Stories from Life, for the Young. Still regarding the tastes of youthful readers, with a style and subject calculated to gain the attention of all, she published, in 1852, a familiar History of Sculpture and Sculptors. A Memoir of Pierre Toussaint, a negro, born a slave in St. Domingo, who lived in New York to an advanced age, and who had been a devoted humble friend of her sister, Mrs. Philip Schuyler-a curious and interesting biography, published at Boston in 1853-completes the list of Mrs. Lee's useful and always interesting productions.* GEORGE WOOD, THE author of Peter Schlemihl in America, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was Mrs. Hale's Woman's Record. department. He was connected with the Treasury department from 1822 to 1845, for thirtythree years, when he came to New York to reside. In the latter city he wrote his Peter Schlemihl in America, which was published in Philadelphia in 1848. It is a sketchy satirical work of the school of Southey's "Doctor," adopting a slight outline of incident from the famous invention of Von Chamisso, and making it a vehicle for the humorous discussion of social manners, fashionable education and affectations, the morals of the stock exchange; and above all some of the religious and philosophical notions of the day, as Puseyism and Fourierism. The author's humorous hits are not equally successful, but his curious stores of reading are always entertaining; and with a better discipline in the art of literature his matter would appear to more advantage. After the publication of this book he returned to Washington, where he has since resided. A second work from his pen is announced at Boston with the title, The Modern Pilgrims. THE CIRCLE OF FINANCIERS FROM PETER SCHLEMIHL. It is now some twenty years since I came to this city, merely to pass the winter and spring, and to return to Europe in June following. I had not been in the country for some years, and wishing to be as quiet as possible, I took private rooms at the "Star Hotel," and entered my name as Thomas Jones, and for a while was perfectly secure in my incognito; but accidentally meeting with some old friends, who had become conspicuous operators in Change Alley, I was drawn out from my retreat and almost compelled to accept their earnest and most hospitable invitations to their several houses. I assure you I was not at all prepared for the astonishing changes I found in their circumstances. Men whom I had left dealing in merchandise and stocks, in small sums, living in modest houses at a rent of four or five hundred dollars a year, now received me in splendid mansions, costing in themselves a fortune, and these were filled with the finest furniture, and adorned with mirrors of surpassing size and beauty. Their walls were covered with pictures, more remarkable for their antiquity than any beauty I could discern in them, but which they assured me were from the pencils of the "old masters." One of them even showed a "Madonna in the Chair," of which he had a smoky certificate pasted on the back, stating it to be a duplicate of that wonder of the art in the Pitti palace; and another had a Fornarini," which he convinced me was genuine, though I was somewhat skeptical at first, but of which I could no longer doubt when he showed me in the depth of the coloring of the shadow of her dress, the monogram of Raphael himself. There was one picture to which my especial attention was called, and upon which I was specially requested to pass my opinion. It seemed to me a mere mass of black paint, relieved by some few white spots; but what it was designed to represent was altogether beyond my skill to discover; and finding myself so perfectly at a loss, and not daring to venture a guess, I candidly confessed the embarrassment in which I was placed. My friends, for it was at a dinner party, all cried out, "it was capital," "a most admirable criticism," there was "nothing but black paint to be seen," etc.; but our host, not at all disconcerted, said that the picture was a 'Salvator Rosa,' and we should see it to be so, and we should enjoy our surprise." So he directed all the shutters to be closed save a single half window; and to be sure, there were discernible some armed men at the entrance of what we were told was a cave, in the act of throwing dice, and in the foreground some pieces of plate. "There," said he, "there's the triumph of art!" He looked for applause, and it was given; for who could refuse to applaud the taste of a gentleman who gave good dinners, and whose wines were faultless? To be sure the merits of a picture so plastered with dark brown and black paint as to be undistinguishable, were not so much to my taste as his dinners and wines were; yet as he assured us it was a genuine "Salvator Rosa," having swallowed his wines, I must needs do the same with his pictures. I assure you, my dear madam, that this is no exaggeration of the "old masters" which I have had exhibited to me in this country. But whatever may have been my misgivings as to the genuineness of the particular "old masters," I had no doubt as to the sums paid for them, of which they showed me the receipted bills in order to make "assurance doubly sure." And though even then I might have had some lurking suspicions that in these matters my friends may have taken the copy for the original, I could not be mistaken as to the solidity and costliness of the rich plate with which their tables were literally covered. I have visited merchants of other countries, but none whose riches were more apparent than that of my friends in Babylon. It seemed as if the lamp of Aladdin had come into their possession, and that the wealth I saw in all their houses was created by some process purely magical. Nor was my surprise limited by these exhibitions of taste and luxury. Their entertainments were varied and costly, their wines unsurpassed, except in the palaces of some of the princes of the German Empire. Tis true, they had no Johannisberg in their bottles, but the labels were in their proper places on the outside of them; and I was assured, and had no reason to doubt, that every bottle cost as much as the Johannisberg would have done had Prince Metternich brought his few hundred pipes into the wine market, instead of supplying only the tables of kings and emperors, as he is accustomed to do. The wine was indeed admirable, and was drunk with a gusto, and the glass was held up to the eye before drinking with that knowing air which few have any knowledge of, and which distinguishes men who know what they drink and how to drink. Our conversation, I found, took a uniform turn to stocks; to grand systems of improvement of the country; digging canals, laying down railroads, and establishing new lines of packets, with some peculiarity of terms as to making a good "corner" on this stock, and "hammering down" another stock, and "bursting a bank" now and then; all of which, I was told, were “ fair business transactions." They sometimes held a long talk as to getting up a ‘leader” for the organs of the party for a particular purpose; and on such occasions two or more would retire to a side-table to prepare the article, which was to be read and approved by the assembled party; or it might be to get up a set of patriotie resolves for congress, for their legislature, or for a ward committee. Indeed, there were few things these friends of mine did not take in hand; and so varied and multiform were their movements, that I was perfectly at a loss to conceive to what all these things tended. I was indeed charmed by the frankness with which they alluded to these matters before me, almost a stranger as I was to some of them; and seeing that they spoke of their moneyed affairs as being so prosperous, of which, indeed, I had the most marked and beautiful manifestations in everything that surrounded me, I ventured to mention, with no little diffidence, and as one hazarding a very great request, to a compliance with which I had no claims whatever, that I had some spare capital in foreign stocks which paid very low interest, and if they could point out a way of a better investment of this money, it would be conferring on me a very great favor to let me take some small amount of their stocks, which seemed so safe and lucrative. With a frankness and cordiality altogether irresistible, they at once told me it would gratify them all to make me a partner in their plans, all of which were sure to succeed. Nothing could have been more hearty than their several expressions of readiness to aid and serve me; and although I have had some acquaintance with men, I assure you I was for once perfectly disarmed of all suspicion of guile in these capitalists and financiers. They asked me what amount of capital I had at command; when I told them that the amount of funds invested in stocks of the Bank of Amsterdam, which was then paying me but two and a half per cent., was some eight hundred thousand dollars, but that in the French funds I had some six millions of francs, besides other stocks in the English funds, all of which I would willingly transfer to stocks paying six and seven per cent. per annum. The looks of pleasure and surprise with which they received this announcement should have excited in me some suspicion and watchfulness; but I must confess, their expressions of pleasure at being able to serve me were so natural, and had so much of frank and noble bearing in them, and were seasoned with so many agreeable things complimentary to myself, that, I confess to you, my dear madam, I became the dupe of my own vanity. The next week or two passed as the previous weeks had done; dinners almost every day; concerts, the opera, or the churches; soirées, evening parties, with glorious suppers, followed in unbroken succession. There were no more nor less attentions on the part of my friends, but somehow I found myself every day more and more in the society of two or three of these friends, who were either more assiduous in their attentions, or by a concert of action on the part of the others, these, more adroit, were appointed to manipulate me ready for the general use of the set. From these friends I first received the idea of settling in Babylon the Less for a few years, in which I was assured I could double my capital; and although at first the idea did not present itself to me in an attractive form, yet by degrees it was made to wear a very bright and cheerful aspect; so that at length I consented to entertain the idea as one which might possibly be adopted. HENRY CARY. THIS gentleman, whose meditative and humorous essays are known to the public by the signature of John Waters," is a native of Boston, and a resident of New York. In the latter city, he has pursued the business of an East India inerchant, and has become a man of wealth. He also fills the office of assistant president of the Phenix Fire Insurance Company in New York. His birth dates at the close of the last century. His writings, which have been contributed to the New York American, under the editorship of Mr. Charles King, and the Knickerbocker Magazine, extending over a period of perhaps twenty years, consist of quaint poems in imitation of the old English ballad measures, or stanzas for music; sentimental, descriptive, critical, and humorous essays; generally what might be embraced under the words, practical aesthetics. Books, pictures, wines, gastronomy, love, marriage are his topics, to which he occasionally adds higher themes; for like a true humorist his mirth runs into gentle melancholy. His tastes may be described as Horatian. He pursues refined enjoyments, and elevates material things of the grosser kind, as the pleasures of the table, by the gusto corporeal and intellectual with which he invests thein. He is eloquent on the cooking of a black-fish, capable of sublimity on oysters, which he can raise from their low oozy beds to the height of the constellations, and plays marvellously with the decanters. The home-feelings and old conservative associations have in his pen a defender, all the more effective by his habit of sapping a prejudice, and insinuating a moral, in a light, jesting way. When he treats of deeper sentiments, of the affections and religion, as he sometimes does, it is in a pure, fervent vein. We present two of his papers from the Knickerbocker, which show his delicate handling in his different manners. DO NOT STRAIN YOUR PUNCH. One of my friends, whom I am proud to consider such; a Gentleman, blest with all the appliances of Fortune, and the heart to dispense and to enjoy them; of sound discretion coupled with an enlightened generosity; of decided taste and nice discernment in all other respects than the one to which I shall presently advert; successful beyond hope in his cellar; almost beyond example rich in his wine chamber; and last, not least, felicitous, to say no more, in his closet of Rums-this Gentleman, thus endowed, thus favored, thus distinguished, has fallen, can I write it? into the habit of straining his PUNCH! When I speak of Rums, my masters, I desire it to be distinctly understood that I make not the remotest allusion to that unhappy distillation from molasses which alone is manufactured at the present day throughout the West Indies since the emancipation of the Blacks; who desire nothing but to drink, as they brutally express it, "to make drunk come"-but to that etherial extract of the sugarcane, that Ariel of liquors, that astral spirit of the nerves, which, in the days when planters were born Gentlemen, received every year some share of their attention, every year some precious accession, and formed by degrees those stocks of RUM, the last reliques of which are now fast disappearing from the face of Earth. And when I discourse on PUNCH, I would fain do so with becoming veneration both for the concoction itself, and, more especially, for the memory of the profound and original, but alas! unknown inventive Genius by whom this sublime compound was first imagined, and brewed-by whose Promethean talent and touch and Shakespearian inspiration, the discordant elements of Water, Fire, Acidity, and Sweetness were first combined and harmonized into a beverage of satisfying blessedness, or of overwhelming Joy! My friend then-to revert to him-after having brewed his Punch according to the most approved method, passes the fragrant compound through a linen-cambric sieve, and it appears upon his hospi table board in a refined and clarified state, beautiful to the eye perhaps, but deprived and dispossessed by this process of those few lobes and cellular integuments, those little gushes of unexpected piquaney, furnished by the bosom of the lemon; and that, when pressed upon the palate and immediately dulcified by the other ingredients, so wonderfully heighten the zest, and go so far to give the nameless entertainment and exhilaration, the unimaginable pleasure, that belong to PUNCH! PUNCH!-I cannot articulate the emphatic word without remarking, that it is a liquor that a man might "moralize into a thousand similes!" It is an epitome of human life! Water representing the physical existence and basis of the mixture; Sugar its sweetness; Acidity its animating trials; and Rum, the aspiring hope, the vaulting ambition, the gay and the beautiful of Spiritual Force! Examine these ingredients separately. What is Water by itself in the way of Joy, except for bathing purposes? or Sugar, what is it, but to infants, when alone? or Lemon juice, that, unless diluted, makes the very nerves revolt and shrink into themselves? or Rum, that in its abstract and proper state can hardly be received and entertained upon the palate of a Gentleman? and yet combine them all, and you have the full harmony, the heroism of existence, the diapason of human life! Let us not then abridge our Water lest we diminish our animal being. Nor change the quantum of our Rum, lest wit and animation cease from among us. Nor our Sugar, lest we find by sad experience that "it is not good for man to live alone." And, when they occur, let us take those minor acids in the natural cells in which the Lemon nourished them for our use, and as they may have chanced to fall into the pitcher of our destiny. In short, let us not refine too much. My dear sirs, let us not strain our PUNCH! When I look around me on the fashionable world, in which I occasionally mingle, with the experience and observation of an old man, it strikes me to be the prevailing characteristic of the age that people have departed from the simpler and I think the healthier pleasures of their Fathers. Parties, balls, soirées, dinners, morning calls, and recreations of all sorts are, by a forced and unnatural attempt at overrefinement, deprived of much of their enjoyment. Young men and maidens, old men and widows, either give up their pitchers in despair, or venturing upon the compound-strain their PUNCH. Suppose yourself for the moment transported into a ball-room in a blaze of light, enlivened by the most animating musie, and with not one square foot of space that is not occupied by the beauty and fashion of the day. The only individuals that have the power, except by the slowest imaginable sidelong movement, of penetrating this tide of enchantment, are the Redown-Waltzers; before whom every person recedes for a few inches at each moment, then to resume his stand as wave after wave goes by. You can catch only the half-length portraits of the dancers; but these are quite near enough to enable you to gain by glimpses their full characteristic developements of countenance. Read them; for every conventional arrangement of the features has been jostled out of place by the inspiriting bob-abob movement of the dance. Look before you-a woman's hand, exquisitely formed, exquisitely gloved in white and braceleted, with a wrist "round as the circle of Giotto," rests upon the black-cloth dress of her partner's shoulder; as light, as airy, and as pure, as a waif of driven snow upon a cleft of mountain rock, borne thither in some relenting lull or wandering of the tempest; and beautiful! too beautiful it seems for any lower region of the Earth. She turns towards you in the revolving movement, and you behold a face that a celestial inhabitant of some superior star might descend to us to love and hope to be forgiven! Now listen, for this is the expression of that face: Upon my word this partner of mine is really a nice person! how charmingly exact his time is! what a sustaining arm he has, and how admirably, by his good management, he has protected my beautiful little feet against all the maladroit waltzers of the set! I have not had a single bruise notwithstanding the dense crowd; and my feet will slide out of bed to-morrow morning as white and spotless as the bleached and balmy linen between which I shall repose. Ah! if he could only steer us both through life as safely and as well! but, poor fellow ! it would never do. They say he has no fortune, and for my part all that I could possibly expect from would papa be to furnish the house. How then should we be ever able to-strain our PUNCH!" And he-the partner in this Waltz-instead of growing buoyant and elastic, at the thoughts that belong to his condition of youth and glowing health; -at the recollection of the ground over which he moves; of the government of his own choice, the noblest because the freest in the world, that rules it; -of the fourteen hundred millions of unoccupied acres of fertile soil, wooing him to make his choice of climate, that belong to it;—of the deep blue sky of Joy and health that hangs above it;-of the GOD that watches over and protects us all ;-and, lastly, of this precious being as the Wife that might make any destiny one of happiness by sharing it-what are the ideas that occupy his soul? He muses over the approaching hour of supper, speculates upon his probable share of Steinberger Cabinet Wein, and doubts whether the Restaurateur who provides may or may not have had consideration enough to-strain the PUNCH. Bear with me once more, gentle Reader, while I recite the title of this essay, Do not strain your PUNCH." ON PERCEPTION. His are the mountains, and the valleys his, COWPER. And from the soul itself must there be sent And thence flows all that glads or ear or sight, COLERIDGE, FROM THE GREEK, Joy, O my masters! joy to the young, the fair, the brave, the middle-aged, the old, and the decrepit i joy, true joy, to every Christian soul of mortal man! Joy, O beloved! that over the once sterile passages of earth, radiant spirits of song and beauty such as these should have passed for thine inexhaustible de light! scattering flowers that can never fade and breathing music incapable of death! revealing to thee treasures, by which thou art surrounded, richer than all "barbaric gold and pearl;" disclosing the latent glories of thine own nature, and proving that not to any future state of existence is deferred that highest of the beatitudes, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Yes!-where, to the sensual and the proud, there exist only darkness and dulness and vague chaotic masses of unformed nature, to thee, O pure in heart, there shall spring forth a new Heaven and a new Earth, wrought out in thy presence, and fashioned by the hand of HIM whose spirit breathes now upon thy spirit, as once He breathed upon the dust of the ground and formed the father of thy race! Thine are the mountains, and the valleys thine, I have placed at the head of this essay a fountain of golden light; and all that I can hope or can desire is, to behold some one young listener kneel with me at its brink, and fill his urn with Joy. So great a part of my own life has been wasted in quest of that which is not bread, nor light, nor joy, nor spiritual sustenance, that all its waning hours would be made comparatively rich by the consciousness of having pointed out to only one inquiring spirit the way that I have myself so lately found. And therefore I venture to write these few unlearned words upon PERCEPTION, and upon the temper in which things should be perceived; with which they should be beheld, and studied, and welcomed to the heart. The experience that is requisite to acquire this temper is within the compass of the human life of every soul; and almost every moment of that life may be made a step towards the attainment of it. There is no position upon the surface of the earth so remote or desolate as not to yield full scope to the largest aspirations after such knowledge to the pure in heart. Indeed solitude, or the solitary communings of the soul within itself, are as indispensable to the acquisition of all spiritual knowledge, as the bustle and intercourse of ordinary life are to that which is merely worldly. When that mysterious impersonation of the Evil principle was permitted to tempt the SAVIOUR of mankind towards the consequences of ill-regulated ambition, all the Kingdoms of the Earth were exposed in rotation to his view, and all the tumultuary glories of their dominion offered to his acceptance and enjoyment: and again, it was suggested to him that he should cast is body to the earth from a pin nacle of the temple, that thousands to do him honor might witness his miraculous escape from injury:but it was in the lone stillness of the cloud-capt mountain, and from the narrow cleft of the overhanging rock, that the ALMIGHTY, yielding in part to the request of the august legislator of Israel, caused His goodness to pass in review before the Eyes of His astonished and enlightened servant; and when Moses descended from the mountain, it was necessary to veil his face from the people, because of the effulgence of spiritual life that beamed from it! This should teach us that it is in retirement from what is called the world, that the soul mainly derives its spiritual good, while the crowd and occupations of society, not necessarily but more frequently, subject us to temptation and error. Joy then, O listener, in the mountain, and the valley, and the resplendent river! Let not an imagination of self-appropriation enter into thy thoughts, but enjoy because it is His gift, alike to thee and to all mankind. Who owns Mont Blanc? whose is the Atlantic, or the Indian ocean? Thine, thou rich one! thine to sail over, thine to gaze upon, thine to raise thy hands from, upwards toward Heaven in thanks for the glories of thy King! Whose are the worlds on which thy sight shall then rest, and the boundless sea of blue in which thy soul is bathed with delight? And, when thine eyes return again to earth in tears of holy joy, who formed the granitic peak, that oldest of His earthly creatures? or placed upon the ridges and summits of the Alleghany chain of mountains, the later wonder of those stupendous masses of limestone rock that rise in perpendicular structure to the clouds? The traveller, emigrating to the west, descends from the covered wagon that contains his bed and his reposing children, and prepares his breakfast and his journey in the dawn of morning, before day has yet visited the vales below; and the smoke of his fire, guided by the vast wall of rock, mounts in an unbroken column to the skies. The small and delicately-pencille l flowers that are scattered at his feet or are trodden under by them, and that seem as if they could only abide in solitude, who planted them? And the vine that creeps upward and finds for its tendrils jutting points and crevices that are inscrutable to the eye of man, how beautifully does its bright green foliage wave in contrast with the darkgrey of the towering mass of rock! And the azure, the purple, green, and gol lea birds and insects that play around and welcome the earliest sunbeams with a vivacity and joy that prove their lives to have been one long festival of native sport and pleasure! Everywhere, around, abroad, above, COLOR, COLOR, COLOR, the unspeakable language of God's goodness and love, with which He writes His promises in the Heavens and unnumbered comforts on the soul of man! Now it is in this spirit that, when returning and mingling with the world, our powers of perception should be exercised and sustained. Teach thyself to enjoy the fortunes of thy friends, and enumerate the advantages of all mankind around thee as if they were all thine own. Do this without one envious, or repining, or selfish thought, And from thy soul itself shall issue forth Thou art childless perhaps, or poor, or embarrassed with debt, or old, and broken-hearted in thy hopes. But the hearth of one of thy friends is clustering with immortal gems of beauty and intelligence of every age and promise; go among them in this spirit; thou shalt be more welcome than ever, and every child shall be thine own! And the one only daughter of another friend, in whom all his hopes are centred, and all to be realized that opening bud of grace and beauty, of refinement, gentleness, and truth-let her be to thee a Treasury of Joy! There can need no word, no regard that might by possibility be deemed intrusive, no earnest expression even of thy trust in the happiness of all her womanly affections. But when thine eye sees her then let it give witness to her, and when thine ear hears her then let it bless her! Do this with a full heart and silent lips, and thou shalt share largely in the bright fortune of thy friend. Her image and her silvery voice shall come visit thee in thy walks or at thy lonely fire-side, and thou shalt count her among the jewels of thy soul. The riches of another, thou shalt find unexpectedly to be thy wealth; and in his youth and vigor thou shalt become suddenly strong. Let another freely own the statuary or the painting, so that the sight of its magical beauties or its delicious hues be accorded to thee. And another the library; delight thou that the knowledge it contains is opened by the freshness of his heart to thy thankful and devout acquisition, Rejoice in his resources; share, at least in thought, in all his pleasures; his generosity; his acquisitions and his success in life so superior to thine own. Walk with him; build with him; delight in his garden; admire his fruits and flowers; love his dog; listen with him in rapture to his birds, thou shalt find cadences in their song sweeter than were ever known to thee before; and drink his wine with him in an honest and cheery companionship, with grateful reference to that BEING who planted the Vise to gladden the heart of man and warm it into social truth and tenderness. Thus, that which many have esteemed the hardest requisition of Christianity, that we should love others, namely, as ourself, shall prove to thee a source of the richest and most refined and u failing pleasure; and, without diminishing the abundance of those who surround thee, make thee a large and grateful sharer in it. Thou shalt walk over the Earth like a Visitant from above, enjoying and promoting Virtue in every form; and unfolding, out of the beautiful and useful, the cheerful and the good. Thoughts for the happiness of others shall rise whispering from thy heart, in prayerful words, to the Spirit of Truth; and thou shalt know that they have all been heard. Thou shalt look upward for illumination, or for support, and ne cloud intervene between thee and the Source of Light and Strength. Young and old shall come forth to greet thee with open-handed Joy. And, if thou shouldest be WOMAN-flowers shall spring up to mark thy footsteps, the skies smile over thee, and the woods grow gay and musical at thine approach; for thou hast the happiness of others for their own sake at thine heart, thy pure heart, thy true heart, thy WOMAN'S heart And thence, flows all that glads or ear or sight, FRANCIS LIEBER. FRANCIS LIEBER, professor of History and Political Philosophy and Economy in the State College of South Carolina at Columbia, a member of the French Institute, and author of numerous volumes which have for their range the most important topics of government and society, was born at Berlin, March 18, 1800. His boyhood fell upon the period |