The Member From Foxden

THE circumstances were a little peculiar, — it is in vain to deny it. No wonder that several friends of mine, who were struggling and stumbling up to position at the city bar, could never understand why I was selected, by a nearly unanimous vote, to represent Foxden at the General Court. Though I had occupied an old farm-house of Colonel Prowley’s during part of the summer, and had happened to be in it about the first of May to pay taxes, yet it was well known that my city office occupied by far the greater part of my time and attention. And really, when you think of the “ remarkable men ” long identified with this ancient river-town, an outside selection seems quite unaccountable.

Chosen a member of the “ Young Men's Gelasmiphilous Society ” during my first visit to Foxden, of course I tried to be tolerably lively at the meetings. But my innocence of thereby attempting the acquisition of political capital I beg explicitly to declare. The joke of the thing was— But stop ! — to tell just what it was, I must begin, after the Richardsonian style, with extracts from correspondence, For, as the reader may suspect, my friend Colonel Prowley was not inclined to slacken his epistolary attentions -after the success of his little scheme, of which the particulars were given last April. And as my wife turned out to possessthe feminine facility of letter-writing, and was good enough to assume the burden of replying to his voluminous productions, they became the delight of many Saturday evenings devoted to their perusal.

It was about the middle of September when an unusually bulky envelope from the Colonel inclosed a sealed note containing the following communication : —

“ Rooms of the YoungMen’s Gelasmiphilous Society.

“ SIR : You will herewith receive a copy of a resolution nominating you as the Young Men’s candidate for the next Legislature. You are doubtless aware that it is the custom for all new candidates to deliver a lvceum-lecture in Foxden on the evening before the election. We have therefore engaged the Town Hall in your behalf on the P. M. of November fifth. Knowing something of the taste in lectures of those disposed to support you, I venture to recommend the selection of some Light and humorous subject.

“ I am fraternally yrs., “THADDEUS WASPY, “ Secretary Y. M. G. S.

“ P. S. Dr. Howke, who was run last year without success, is upon the opposition ticket. As the old-fogy element of the town will probably rally to his support, it is very important that you bring out the entire strength of Young Foxden. Thus you see the necessity of having your lecture lively and full of fun. If you feel equal to it, I am sure that a Comic Poem would be a great hit.”

As illustrating this extraordinary missive, there is subjoined an extract from the accompanying epistle of my regular Foxden correspondent.

“ I inclose what I am given to understand is a nomination to the Honorable Legislature, a distinction which, I need not say, gives the highest gratification to my sister and myself. You will be opposed in this noble emulation by one Howke, a physician of North Foxden, with whom our venerable and influential Dr. Dastick has much osseous sympathy. Dr. Howke (long leaning to the Rootand-Herb School of Medicine, and having wrought many notable cures with such simples as sage, savory, wormwood, sweet-marjoram, sassafras, liverwort, pine-cones, rosemary, poppy-leaves, not to speak of plasters of thyme, cowslips, rose-buds, fit to refresh the tired wings of Ariel) has latterly declared his conversion to the Indian system of physic. The celebrated Wigwam Family Pills, to the manufacture of which he at present devotes himself, are not unknown to city journals. As I am informed that Captain Strvpe, editor of the “Foxden Regulator,” has a large interest in the sale of these alterative spherules, you will necessarily encounter the hostility of our county journal. I advise you of the full might of these adversaries, that you may come to fuller justification of your supporters in the lecture to be read before us on election-eve. Dr. Dastiek, with some of the elder of this town, haslittle liking for this laic preaching of the lyceum, by reason of the slight and foolish matter too often dispensed, when in the mean time there be precious gems of knowledge, the very onyx or sapphire to bedeck the mind, which the muck-rake of the lecturer never collects. I add for your consideration a few wholesome subjects : — Caleb Cheeschateaumuek, the Indian Bachelor of Arts; A Monody on the Apostle Eliot; A Suggestion of Some New Claimant for the Honors of Junius; Mather’s Four Johannes in Eremo, being Notable Facts in the Lives of John Cotton, John Norton, John Wilson, and John Davenport; The Great Obligations of Homer to the Illustrious Mr. Pope ; “ New England’s Jonas east up in London,” Some Account of this Remarkable Work; Natootomakteackesuk, or the Day of Asking Questions, whether this Ancient Festival might be profitably Revived ?—I should feel competent to give assistance in the treatment of any of these subjects you might select. If the Muse inspire you, why not try a descriptive poem, modelled, let us say, upon William Morrill’s ‘New England’? The silver ring of verse would be joyfully heard among us, and work strong persuasions in your behalf. . . . , I must not forget to mention, that, on the day of your lecture, you will meet at dinner at my house my esteemed W estern correspondent, Professor Owlsdarek, (his grandmother was a Sodkin,) whose great work upon Mummies is the admiration of the literary world, He has been invited to deliver an address upon some speciality of erudition before the trustees, parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy, and that upon the same evening you are to speak in Foxden. As the distance is only ten miles, I shall send him over in the carryall after an early tea. And now to share with you a little secret. The office of Principal of the Academy is vacant, and the wellknown learning of Professor Owlsdarek gives his friends great hope in recommending him for the place. He formerly lived in Wrexford, where his early ' Essays on Cenotaphs,’ published in the local paper of that town, were very popular. Indeed, I think the trustees have only to hear the weighty homily he will provide for them to decide by acclamation in his favor. Thus you see my double interest in your visits^next November ; for, as I think, both my guests will come upon brave opportunities for fame and usefulness.”

“ And what shall you do about it ? ” asked my wife, after we had thoroughly read the documents which have been quoted.

“ Stand,” I replied, with emphasis. “ I don’t think there’s any chance of an election ; but Heaven knows I want the rough-hewing of a political campaign. If I could get a little of the stump-orator’s brass into my composition, it would be worth five years of office-practice for putting me on in the profession.”

“ But you have always had such unwillingness to address an audience,” faltered Kate.

“ The more reason why an effort should now be made to get over it,” I replied. “ In short, I consider this nomination quite providential, for I could never have descended to the vulgar wire-pulling by which such distinctions are commonly gained; and I confess, it promises to be. just the discipline I want. Of course I have no expectation of being chosen.”

“ But why should you not be chosen ? ” urged my wife. “ You are tolerably well-known in Foxden; Colonel Prowley, an influential citizen, is your warm friend; and Mr. Waspy tells you how you may get the support of the active generation.”

“ Yes, — by playing literary Grimaldi an hour or so for their diversion ! A very good recipe, were it not probable that the elder portion of the town would fail to see the humor of it.”

“ But you may be certain that everybody likes to laugh at a lyceum-lecture.”

“ Everybody but a clique of pseudowiseacres in Foxden perhaps may,” I replied, “ But our good friend, the Colonel, has so established his antiquarian dictatorship over his contemporaries, that I believe nothing adapted to the present century could possibly please them.”

“ You may depend upon it,” argued Kate, consolingly, “ that all the lieges of Foxden will be so taken up with this Professor Owlsdarck, who is fortunately to be there at the same time, that they will give little thought to your deficiencies. At all events, there is nothing to be done but to try to please the Young Men who give you the nomination.”

Of course I agreed in this view of the case, and began to cast about for some grotesque subject for my lecture. But regret at disappointing the expectations of my old friend caused me to dismiss such light topics as presented themselves, and after searching for half an hour, I declared myself as much at a loss as ever.

“I think I have it!” cried Kate, at length. “ Both your correspondents say that a poem would be particularly acceptable, — and a poem it must be.”

“ Modelled on William Morrill’s ' New England ’ ? ” I said, dubiously.

“Not at all; but a comic poem, such as the secretary asks for. The dear Colonel will be pleased at the pretension of verse, and your humorous passages may be passed off as poetic license.”

“ There is much in what you say,” I replied; “and if I put something about New England into the title, it will go far to reconcile all difficulties.”

“ Why not call it ‘ The Whims of New England ’ ? ” suggested Kate.

“ ' The Whims of New England,’ ” I repeated. Let me think how it would' look in print: — * We understand that the brilliant, sparkling, and highly humorous poem, entitled “ The Whims of New England,” which convulsed the elite of Foxden on Friday evening last,’ etc., etc. Yes, it sounds well! ‘ The

Whims of New England,’ it shall be ! ”

It was a great satisfaction to have decided upon the style and title ; and I sat down at once and began to jot off lines of ten syllables. “ What do you think of this for a beginning?” I presently asked : —

“ But why begin with all these questions ? ” inquired Kate.

“ It is the custom, my dear,” I replied. decisively. “ It is the conventional ' Here we are ’ of the poetical clown.”

“ Well, you must remember to be funny enough,” said my wife, with something like a sigh. “ It is not tlie humorous side of her hero’s character that a woman likes to contemplate ; so give me credit for disinterestedness in the advice.”

“ ' Motley ’s the only wear ’! ” I exclaimed, — “ at least before the Young Men of the Gelasmiphilous Society. I have a stock of Yankee anecdotes that can be worked off in rhyme to the greatest advantage. In short, I mean to attempt one of those immensely popular productions that no library — that is, no circulating library — should be without.”

Easier said than done. The evenings of several weeks were pretty diligently devoted to my poem. I determined to begin with a few moral reflections, and in these I think I succeeded in reaching the highest standard of edification and dulness. Not that I did n’t succeed in the revel of comicalities I afterward permitted myself; but the selection and polishing of these oddities cost me much more labor than I had expected. I was really touched at the way in which my wife sacrificed her feminine preference for the emotional and sentimental, and heard me read over my piquant periods in order that all the graces of declamation might give them full effect. And when my poem was at length finished, when my stories had been carefully arranged with their points bristling out in all directions, when every shade of emphasis had been studied, I think it might have been called a popular performance, — perhaps too popular; — but that is a matter of opinion.

I felt decidedly nervous, as the time approached when I should make my first appearance before an audience. And the receipt of long letters from Colonel Prowley, overflowing with hopes, expectations, and offers about my contemplated harangue, did not decrease my embarrassment.

“ How shall I tell the old gentleman,” I exclaimed, one day, after reading one of his Pre-Adamite epistles, — “ how shall I tell him, that, instead of the solid discourse he expects, I have nothing but a collection of trumpery rhymes ? ”

“ Why tell him anything about it?” said Kate. “ The committee have not asked you to announce a subject, or even to declare whether you intend to address them in prose, or verse. Then say nothing ; when you begin to speak, it will be time enough for people to find out what you are to speak about, and whether they like it or not.”

“A capital plan ! ” I cried; “ for I know, that, if Prowley, Dastiek, and the rest of them, can once hear the thing, and find out how popular it is with the audience, they will come round and talk about sugared verses, or something of the sort.”

So it was decided that no notice of what I was to say, or how I was to say it, should be given to any inhabitant of Foxden. The town, unprepared by the approaches of a regular literary siege, must be carried by a grand assault. At times I felt doubtful ; but then I knew it was the distrust of modesty and inexperience.

II.

A FINE, clear day, unusually warm for the season, was the important fifth of November. Devoting the early hours to tedious travelling by the railroad, we drove up to the Prowley homestead soon after eleven o’clock. The Colonel and his sister received us with the old enthusiasm of hospitality,—Miss Prowley carrying Kate up-stairs for some fresh mystery of toilet, while her brother walked me up and down the piazza in a maze of inquiries and information.

I was glad to find that he cordially approved my resolution not to announce in advance the subject or manner of my evening performance. Professor Owlsdarck had said nothing of the particular theme of discourse selected for the trustees ; and, indeed, it had often been the custom for the Foxden Lyceum to make no other announcement than the name of the lecturer. I was greatly relieved by this assurance, and was about to express as much, when my companion left me to greet a tall, ungainly-looking gentleman who came round the east corner of the house. This stranger was about forty years old, wore light-blue spectacles, and had a near-sighted, study-worn look about him that speedily suggested the essayist of cenotaphs. There was a gloomy rustiness in his countenance, a stiff protrusion of the head, and an apparent dryness about the joints, that made me feel, that, if he could be taken to pieces and thoroughly oiled, be would be much better for it.

“ Let me have the pleasure of making two valued and dear friends of mine acquainted with each other!” exclaimed Colonel Prowley. “ Professor Owlsdarck, permit me to”-and with flourishes of extravagant compliment the introduction was accomplished.

“ Brother, brother, Captain Strype wants to see you a moment; he has gone into the back-parlor,” called the voice of Miss Prowley from a window above.

Our host seemed a little annoyed ; muttered something about the necessity of conciliating opposition editors; excused himself with elaborate apologies; and hurried into the house, leaving his two guests to ripen in acquaintance as they best might.

“ Fine day, Sir,” I remarked, after a deferential pause, to allow my companion to open the conversation, had he been so disposed.

“ Fine for funerals,” was the dismal response of Professor Owlsdarck.

“ On the contrary,” said I, “ it seems to me one of those days when we are least able to realize our mortality.”

“ Then you think superficially,” rejoined the Professor. “ A warm day at this time of year induces people to leave off their flannels ; and that, in our climate, is as good as a death-warrant.”

“ I confess, I never looked at it in that light.”

“ No. because you look at picturesqueness, while I look at statistics. Are you interested in mummies ? ”

I signified that in that direction my enthusiasm was limited.

“ So I supposed,” said Professor Owlsdarck. “ And yet how can a man be said to know anything, who has not mastered this alphabet of our race ? The naturalist or botanist studies the remains of extinct life in the rock or the gravel-pit. But how can the crumbling remnants of bygone brutes and plants compare in interest with the characteristic physical organization of ancient men ? Remember, too, those natural and original peculiarities which distinguish every human body from myriads of its fellows. No, Sir, depend upon it, if Pope was right in declaring the proper study of mankind to be man, we must begin with mummies.”

“ But in these days,” I pleaded, “ education has become so varied, that, if we began at the beginning to study down, no man’s lifetime would suffice to bring him within speaking distance of ordinary affairs.”

“ Education, as you call it, has become varied, but only because it has become shallow. Education is everywhere, and learning is wellnigh gone. Men sharpen their vulgar wits with a smattering of trifles; but fields of sober intellectual labor are neglected. What is the gain of surface to the fatal loss of depth in our acquirements ! ”

“ For my own part,” I said, “ I have generally striven to inform myself upon topics connected with our own country.”

“ And such subjects are most interesting,” replied the Professor, “ if only the selection be proper and the study exhaustive. The bones,” he continued, laying a pungent emphasis on the word,— “the bones of the Paugussetts, the Potatucks, and the Quinnipiacs are beneath our feet. The language of these extinct tribes clings to river, lake, and mountain. Coming from the contemplation of a people historically older, I have been refreshed in the proximity of these native objects of research. Consider the mysterious mounds on either side of the Ohio. What better reward lor a life of scrutiny than to catch the slightest glimpse of the secret they have so long guarded ! ”

After this manner talked Professor Owlsdarek. Our conversation continued long enough to show me his complete adaptation to the admiring friendship of Colonel Prowley. He had the desperate antiquarian dilettanteism of our host, with a really accurate knowledge in unpopular, and most people would think unprofitable, branches of learning. His love of what may be called the faded upholstery and tattered millinery of history was, indeed, remarkable. His imagination was decidedly less than that of Prowley, but his capacity for genuine rummaging in the dust of ages was vastly superior. Colonel Prowley (to borrow a happy illustration from Mr. Grant White) would much rather have had the pen with which Shakspeare wrote “ Hamlet ” than the wit to understand just what he meant by it. Owlsdarek, on the contrarv, would have preferred to understand the anatomy and habits of life of the particular goose which furnished the quill, and the exact dimensions of the onions with which it was finally served. Yet, notwithstanding a quivering sensation produced by the mouldy nature of his contemplations, I found the Professor’s conversation, within the narrow limits of his specialities, intelligent and profitable. He had none of the morbid horror of giving exact information sometimes encountered in more pretentious society ; and I confess it is never disagreeable to me to meet a man whose objects of pursuit are not precisely those of that commonplace, highly respectable citizen we all hope to become-

It must have been an hour before Colonel Prowley rejoined us, and when he returned it was easy to see that something annoying had happened.

“ Ah, my dear friend,” he began, “ here has been a sad mistake ! Your wife has shown your address to the chief leader of the party which opposes your election. Captain Strype, editor of the “ Foxden Weekly Regulator,” did not come here for nothing. He sent me out of the room to get some beans to illustrate the Athenian manner of voting, and then he managed to get a sight of your manuscript.”

“ I hope it is no very serious blunder,” said Kate, who had followed the Colonel to the piazza. “It was thoughtless, I admit; but the gentleman told me that he was an editor, and that it was always the custom to give the press information withheld from the general public. And then, he promised secrecy ; and, after all, he had the manuscript only about five minutes,—just long enough to get an idea of the subject and its style of treatment; so I hope there ’s no great harm done.”

“ I should have thought you would have remembered Strype’s connection with Howke and his Indian quackery,” said I, a little irritated. “ But it can be no great matter, since it will only give him an hour or two more to prepare the adverse criticism with which he will honor my performance.”

“ It is of much more matter than you think,” said Colonel Prowley, sadly. “ For the ‘ Regulator,’ which appeal's to-morrow, goes to press this afternoon. Strype don’t like to have it known, ns it lessens the interest of the ‘ Latest Intelligence ’ column ; but I happened to find it out some time ago.”

“Then we are worsted indeed,” I cried. “ His eagerness is well explained ; for, of course, any strictures he might make, on hearing the exercises this evening, would be useless for his purpose.”

“ A critique.of the performance, purporting to come from an impartial auditor, will be printed in a thousand ‘ Regulators ’ before you open your lips in our Town Hall,” said the Colonel, bitterly.

I knew for the first time.that stinging indignation felt by all decent aspirants for public favor upon encountering the underhand knavery which dims the lustre of democratic politics. It is not the blunt, Open abuse, my young republican, which you will find galling, — but the contemptible meanness of dastards who have not mettle enough to be charlatans. For an instant my blood ran fiery hot; I grasped my cane, and for a moment had an impulse to fly after Strype and favor him with an assault-and-battery case for his despicable journal. But the passion was speedily over; for, upon reflection, I saw that no real injury could be done me with those who witnessed the success I confidently expected. And — it is awkward to acknowledge it — I nearly regained my former complacency when my wife whispered that Strype had declared to her that Professor Owlsdarck had come upon a bootless errand; for the Wrexford Trustees would never provide their Academy with so dark and gloomy a Principal, though ho carried the Astor Library in his head. Do not mistake the encouragement I derived .from this announcement: there was in it not the slightest ill-will to the distinguished antiquary, but only a comfortable appreciation of my own sagacity in putting it out of the power of any mischievous person to oppose my election on similar grounds.

Soon after this I proposed to Kate to go to the arbor at t the end of the garden, and hear, once more, the sensation-passages of my poem, to the end that I might be certain that all the proprieties of pause and emphasis we had agreed upon were fresh in my memory. It turned out that there was just time to do this satisfactorily before the bell rang for dinner. And I felt greatly relieved, when, upon reentering the house, I closed the bothering production for the last time, and left it — where I could not fail to remember it — with my hat and gloves upon the entry-table

You are apt to catch people in their freshness at a one o’clock dinner. Full of the halt-finished schemes of the morning, they have much more individuality than at six. For, the work of the day fairly over, the clergyman, the merchant, the lawyer, and the doctor subside to a level of decent humanity, and leave out the salient contrasts of breeding which are worth noting.

Again those massive chairs, strong enough to bear a century of future guests, as they had borne a century of past ones, were ranged about the table. The great brass andirons, sparkling with recent rubbing, nearly made up for the spiritual life of the wood-fire that the day was too warm to admit. Mr. Clifton, the clergyman, a gentleman whose liberal and generous disposition could at times catch in the antiquarian ruts of his chief parishioners, was, as usual, the representative guest from the town. Kate and I, being expected to talk only just enough to pay for our admission, listened with much profit while the political question pending the next day, and many matters relevant and irrelevant thereto, underwent discussion.

“ They say Howke’s pills are growing in esteem of late; the names of many reverend brothers of yours are to be read in his advertisements as certifying the cure of some New-England ailment,” observed our host.

“ So I see,” said Mr. Clifton; “and I regret to think that a class of men, uniustly accused of dogmatizing in those spiritual things they assuredly know, should lay themselves open to the suspicion, by testifying in those material matters whereof they are mostly ignorant. Not that I disallow that hackneyed tenth of Juvenal, “ Orandum est ut sit mens Sana,” and the rest of it. But rather would I follow the Apostle, who, to the end that every man might possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, was content to prescribe temperance and chastity, — leaving the recommendation of plasters and sirups to those who had made them their special study.

“ Yet in ancient times,” remarked Professor Owlsdarck, “the offices of priest and physician were most happily combined. Among those lost children of Asia whom our fathers met in New England, the Powwows were the doctors of the body as well as the soul.”

“ For all that, I cannot believe that Shakspeare meant to indorse Indian medicine, as Strype says he did,” said the Colonel.

We all looked surprise and incredulity at this unexpected assertion.

“ You can’t have read the last ‘ Regulator,’ then,” said Prowley, in explanation. “ You know that Howke and Strype have long been endeavoring to find some motto from the great dramatist to print upon the boxes containing the Wigwam Pills; but, somehow, they never could discover one which seemed quite appropriate.”

“ ' Familiar in their mouths as household words,’ ” suggested Mr. Clifton.

“ Well, that might have done, to be sure; but they happened to miss it. So for the last month Strype has been studying the works of numerous ingenious commentators to see whether some of their happy emendations to the text might not meet the difficulty.”

“But it must require the insertion of some entire speech or paragraph to make Shakspeare give his testimony in favor of savage pharmacy,” said I, innocently.

“Not in the least necessary; it merely requires the slightest possible, change in a single letter, — aided, of course, by a little intelligent commentary.”

As we all looked father doubtful, Colonel Prowley sent for the last number of Strype’s valuable publication, and read as follows: —

“IMPORTANT LITERARY DISCOVERY. We learn by the last steamer from England that a certain distinguished Shakspearian Editor and Critic, who has already proved that the Mighty Bard was perfectly acquainted with the circulation of the blood, and distinctly prophesied iron-plated steamers and the potatorot, has now discovered that the Swan of Avon fully comprehended the Indian System of Medicine, and urged its universal adoption. Our readers have doubtless puzzled over that exclamation in Macbeth which reads, in common editions of the poet, ‘ Throw physic to the dogs ! ’ The slightest consideration of the circumstances shows the absurdity of this vulgar interpretation. Macbeth was deservedly disgusted with the practice of the regular family physician who confessed himself unable to relieve the case in hand. He would therefore request him to abandon his pretensions, not to the dogs, which is simply ridiculous, but in favor of some class of men more skilled in the potencies of medicine, The line, as it came from the pen of Shakspearc, undoubtedly read, ‘ Throw Phy sicke to the Powwows ’; in other words, resign the healing art to the Indians, who alone are able to practise it with success. And now mark the perfectly simple method of accounting for the blunder. We have only to suppose that a careless copyist or tipsy type-setter managed to get one loop too many upon the ‘ P,’ — thus transforming the passage into, ‘ Throw Physicke to the Bowwows.’ The proof-reader, naturally taking this for an infantile expression for the canine race, changed the last word to ‘ dogs,’ as it has ever since stood.”

Mr. Clifton smiled, and said, “Even if the emendation and inference could be accepted, the testimony of any man off the speciality he studied would only imply, not that the new school was perfect, but that he realized some imperfection in the old one. And this conviction I have had occasion to act upon, when my church has been shaken by spiritualism, abolitionism, and the like; for I knew that what was truly effective in a rival ministry must show what was defective in my own.”

“ If you speak of modern spiritualism,” said Professor Owlsdarek, “ you must allow it to be lamentably inferior to the same mystery of old. For how compare the best ghostly doings of these days, those at Stratford in Connecticut, for example, I will not say to the famous doings at Delphi and Dodona, but even to the Moodus Noises once heard at East Haddam in that State ? The ancestors of some of those nervous media testify to roarings in the air, rumblings in the bowels of the mountain, explosions like volleys of musketry, the moving of heavy stones, and the violent shaking of houses. Ah, Sir, you should use effort to have put to type your reverend brother Bradley’s memoir on this subject, whereof the sole copy is held by the Historical Society at Hartford.”

“ Every recent quackery is so overlaid with a veneering of science,” said the clergyman, “ that those who have not had sufficient training to know that they lack scientific methods of thought are often unable to draw the distinction between a fact and an inference. There is much practical shrewdness and intelligence here in Foxden ; yet I am constantly surprised to see how few, in relation to antcircumstance out of the daily routine of businesslife, recognize the difference between possibility, probability, and demonstration. And, indeed, it is no easy matter to impart a sense of their deficiency to those who have only been accustomed to deal with the loose forms of ordinary language.”

“ If we may believe the Padre Clavigero,” observed the Professor, “ it will not be easy to find a language so fit for metaphysical subjects, and so abounding in abstract terms, as the ancient Mexican.”

This remark seemed hardly to the purpose ; for whatever the excellences of that tongue might have, been, there were insuperable objections to its adoption as a vehicle of communication between Mr. Clifton and his parishioners. But the lastnamed gentleman, with generous tact, allowed the conversation to wander back to those primitive solidities whither it naturally tended. It did not take long to got to the Pharaohs, of whose domestic arrangements the Professor talked with the familiar air of a man who dined with them once a week. From these venerable potentates we soon came upon their irrepressible mummies, and here Owlsdarck was as thoroughly at home as if he had been brought up in a catacomb. Indeed, this singular person appeared fairly alive only when he surrounded himself with the deadest antiquities of the dimmest past. His remarks, as I have before admitted, had that interest which must belong to the careful investigation of anything; but I could not help thinking into how much worthier channels his powers of accurate investigation and indefatigable research might have been directed.

Colonel Prowley was of course delighted, and declared that every syllable his friend delivered was worthy to be recorded in that golden ink known to the Greeks and Romans; for, as he assured us, there wore extant ancient manuscripts, written with a pigment of the precious metals, of which the matter was of far less importance than that conveyed by the learned utterances we had been privileged to hear.

Mr. Clifton showed no disposition to dispute this assertion, but kindly assisted by asking many intelligent questions, none having reference to anything later than B. C. 500. After dinner we adjourned to the library, and passed the afternoon in looking over collections of autographs and relics. We were also shown some volumes possessing an interest quite apart from their rarity, and some very choice engravings. In short, the hours went so pleasantly that we were all astonished when our host, looking at his watch, declared that it was time to order Tom to bring the carryall for Wrexford. Accordingly, Miss Prowley having rung the bell, whispered in the gentlest manner to the maid who answered the summons.

A shrill feminine shouting was presently heard from the rear of the house, followed by the voice of Tom gruffly responsive from the distant barn. At this juncture Mr. Clifton took his leave, and Professor Owlsdarck retired to his chamber to bedeck himself for the trustees, parents, and pupils of the Wrexford Academy.

III.

TOM and the carryall at length appeared, and Professor Owlsdarek, in a new suit of black clothes, in which the lately folded creases were, very perceptible, came forth a sort of musty bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiced aa strong Statistician to run his appointee race. Kate and I thought it best to di miuish the final bustle of departure by lingering on the piazza just before the open door, where we could easily add our parting good - wishes, when he succeeded in getting out of the house. For there seemed to be some trouble in putting the Professor, with as little “tumbling” as possible, into his narrow overcoat, and then in finding his lecture, which had dropped under the table during the operation, and then in recovering his spectacles from the depths of some obscure pocket. Although Colonel Prowley had well nigh exhausted the language of jubilant enthusiasm, I managed, while helping Professor Owlsdarek into the carryall, to express a respectful interest in his success. Yet, while the words were on my lips, I could not but remember what Strype had said in the morning, and admit the great likelihood of its truth. And although beginning to feel pretty nervous as the time drew near for my own sacrifice, I congratulated myself upon a preparation in accordance with the modern demands of a lyceum audience. With a pleasant sense of superior sagacity to this far more learned candidate for popular favor, I proposed, instead of returning to the house, to take an hour’s stroll by the river, and go thence to the Town Hall at the appointed time.

“ The very thing I was going to suggest,” said Kate, “for I don’t feel like talking. My mind is so full of excitement about your poem that ordinary conversational proprieties are almost impossible.”

Our host, with true courtesy, permitted us to do as we pleased, merely saying that he would reserve the seat next him for my wife, so that we need not arrive till it was time to commence the performance.

“But you are going to forget your manuscript! ” he pleasantly added. “ See, it lies on the entry-table with your gloves and overcoat.”

Of course there was no danger of doing anything of the sort, for a memorandum to take good care of that had printed itself in the largest capitals upon the tablets of memory. I did feel disagreeably, however, when my old friend, in handing it to me, looked wistfully at the neat, case of polished leather in which it was securely tied. It was, indeed, painful to disappoint both in subject and style of composition the kind interest with which he waited my appearance before an audience of his townsmen. The only antidote to such regrets was the reflection that I had prepared what would be most likely to cause the ultimate satisfaction of all parties; for his mortification at my general unpopularity and consequent defeat would of course have been greater than any personal satisfaction he might have experienced in the dry and antique matter accordant with his peculiar taste. I essayed some cheerful remark, as the shining packet slipped into my breast-pocket, and I buttoned my coat securely across the chest, that I might be continually conscious that the important contents had not dropped out.

“ Remember, I shall be on the second settee from the platform; for I would not willingly lose the slightest word,” was the farewell exclamation of Colonel Prowley.

“ You are too good, Sir,” I answered, as we turned from the house; “ I may always count upon your kind indulgence, and perhaps more of it will be claimed this evening than your partiality leads you to suspect.”

“ And now,” said I to Kate, when we were fairly out of hearing, “ let us dismiss for the last hour this provoking poem, and forget that there are lyceuinlectures, Indian doctors, and General Courts in this beautiful world.”

Of course I never suspected that we could do anything of the kind, but I thought an innocent hypocrisy to that effect might beguile the time yet before us. Kate acquiesced; and we walked along a wooded path where every stone and shrub was rich in associations with that first summer in Foxden when our acquaintance began. And soon our petty anxiety was merged in deeper feelings that flowed upon us, as the great event in our mortal existence was seen in the retrospect from the same pleasant places where it once loomed grandly before us. The sweet, fantastic anticipations that pronounced the “ All Hail, Hereafter,” to the great romance of life again started from familiar objects to breathe a freer atmosphere. The coming fact, which all natural things once called upon us to accept as the final resting-place of the soul, had passed by us, and we could look onward still. We saw that marriage was not the satisfaction of life, but a noble means whereby our selfish infirmities might be purified by divine light. Well for us that this Masque and Triumph of Nature should not always be seen as from the twentieth year ! It is too cheap a way to idealize and ennoble self in the noontide sun of one marriage-day. Yet let the gauze and tinsel be removed when they may; for all earnest souls there are realities behind them that shall make the heavens and earth seem accidents. It once seems as if marriage would discolor the world withroseate tint; but it does better : it enlightens it. Thus, in imagination, did we sally backward and forward as the twilight thickened about us. In delicious sympathy of silence we watched quivering shadows in the water, and marked how the patient elms gathered in their strength to endure the storms of winter.

“It is not a lottery,” I said, at last, unconsciously thinking aloud.

“ No,” responded Kate ; “ it was so christened of old, because our shrewd New-Englanders had not made possible a better simile. It is like one of the great Gift Enterprises of these latter years, where everybody is sure of his money’s worth in book or trinket, and is surprised by a present into the bargain. The majority, to be sure, get but their bit of soap or their penny-whistle, while a fortunate few are provided with gold watches and diamond breast-pins.”

I thought this a good comparison ; but I did not say so, for I was in the mood to rise for my analogy or allegory, instead of swooping to pick it out of Mr. Perham’s advertisements.

“ Nay, nay, my dear,” I rejoined, at length ; “ let us, who have won genuine jewelry, exalt our gains by some nobler image. A stagnant puddle of water may reflect the blessed sun even better than this river that eddies by our feet, yet it is not there that one likes to look for it.”

“Perhaps it is the farthest bound of reaction from transcendentalism, that causes us, when we do think a free thought, to look about for something grimly practical to fasten it upon,” argued Kate, smilingly. “ Yet I do not quite agree with the reason of my Aunt Patience for devoting herself to the roughest part of gardening. A taste for flowers, she contends, is legitimate only when it has perfected itself out of a taste for earth-worms. There are truly thoughts only to be symbolized by sunset colors and the song of birds, that are better than if mortared with logic and based as firmly as the Pyramids.”

The fatal word “Pyramids” sent us flying through the ages till we reached the tombs of the Pharaohs, whence we came bounding back again through Grecian civilization, mediaeval darkness, and modern enlightenment, till we naturally stopped at Professor Owlsdarck and the carryall, by this time nearing Wrexford. My own literary performance, so associated with that of the Professor, next occupied our attention, and we realized the fact that it was time to be moving slowly in the direction of the Town Hall.

“ Don’t let us get there till just the hour for commencing,” said I, endeavoring to restrain the quickened step of my companion.

And I quoted the ghastly merriment of the gentleman going to be hung, to the effect that there was sure to be no fun till he arrived.

We said nothing else, but indulged in a very definite sort of wandering by the river’s bank, — I nervously looking at my watch, occasionally devouring a troche, and patting my manuscript pocket, or, to make assurance doubly sure, touching the polished surface of the case within.

We timed it to a minute. At exactly half-past seven o’clock, I proceeded up the broad aisle of the Town Hall, put my wife into the place reserved with the Prowley party upon settee number two from the platform, and mounted the steps of that awful elevation amid general applause.

The President of the Young Men’s Gelasmiphilous Society, who occupied a chair at the right of the desk, came forward to receive me, and we shook hands with an affectation of the most perfect ease and naturalness. Here, a noisy satisfaction, as of boys in the gallery, accompanied by a much fainter enthusiasm among their elders below.

“ You are just in time,” whispered the President. “ I was afraid you would be too late ; we always like to begin punctually.”

“ I am all ready,” said I, faintly ; “ you may announce me immediately.”

I subsided into the orator’s chair, and glanced, for the first time, at my audience. The Young Men, somehow or other, did not appear so numerous as I had hoped. On the other hand, Dr. Dastick, and a good many friends of eminently scientific character, loomed up with fearful distinctness. Even the malleable element of youth seemed to harden by the side of that implacable fibre of scholastic maturity which was bound to resist my most delicate manipulation. I withstood, with some effort, the stage-fright that was trying to creep over me, and hastily snatched the manuscript from my pocket. Yes, I must have been confused, indeed ; for here is the string round the case tied in a hard knot, and I could have taken my oath that I fastened it in a very loose bow ! I picked at it, and pulled at it, and humored it in every possible way, but the plaguy thing was as fast as ever. At last—just as the President was approaching the conclusion of his remarks, and had got as far as, “ I shall now have the pleasure of introducing a gentleman who,” etc., etc.— I bethought myself of a relief quite as near at hand as that key which Faithful held in his bosom during his confinement in Doubting Castle. My penknife was drawn to the rescue, and the string severed, while the President, retiring to his chair, politely waved me to the place he bad occupied. Again great applause from the gallery, with tempered applause from below. With as much unconcern as I could conveniently assume, I advanced to the front, took a final survey of the audience, laid my manuscript on the desk, turned back the cover, and fixed my eyes upon the page before me.

How describe the nightmare horror that then broke upon my senses ? Upon the first page, in large, writing-master's hand, I had inscribed my title: •—“ THE WHIMS OF NEW EXGLAND : A POEM.” In its place, in still larger hand, in lank and grisly characters, stared this hideous substitute : —

“ THE OBSEQUIES OF CHEOPS : A LECTURE.”

“With that vivid rapidity with which varied and minute scenery is crowded into a moment of despair, I perceived the fatal blunder. Owlsdarck and I had changed manuscripts. Upon that entry-table Where lay my poem, the hurry and bustle of departure had for a moment thrown his lecture. The eases being identical in appearance, he had taken up my unfortunate production, which, doubtless, at that very moment, he was opening before parents, trustees, and pupils connected with the Wrexford Academy. I will not deny, that, in the midst of my own perplexity, a ghastly sense of the ridiculous came over me, as I thought of the bewilderment of the Professor. For an instant of time I actually knew a grim enjoyment in the fact that circumstances had perpetrated a much better joke than any in my poem. But my heart stopped beating as an impatient rumble of applause testified that the desires of the audience were awaiting gratification.

I glared upon the expectant faces before me ; but they seemed to melt and fuse into one another, or to dance about quite independently of the bodies with which they should have been connected. I strove to murmur an apology ; but the words stuck in my throat.

More applause, hi which a slight whistling flavor was apparent. A kicking, as of cow-hide boots of juvenile proportions, audible from the gallery. A suspicion of cat-calling in a monad state of development about the door. Of course my prospects were ruined. My knees seemed disposed to deposit their burden upon the floor. Hope was utterly extinguished in my breast. There I stood, weak and contemptible, before the wretched populace whose votes I had come to solicit. Then it was, the resolution, or rather the rage, of despair inspired me. I determined to take a terrible vengeance upon my abandoned constituents. Quick as lightning the thought leaped to execution. I seized the insufferable composition before me, and began to fulminate its sentences at the democracy of Foxden.

“ Fulminate ” is expressive ; but words like “roar” and “ bellow ” must be borrowed to give the reader an idea of the vocal power put into that performance. For it is a habit of our infirm natures to counteract embarrassment by some physical exaggeration, which, by absorbing our chief attention, leaves little to be occupied with the cause of distress. Persons of extreme diffidence are sometimes able to face society by behaving as if they were vulgarly at their ease, and men troubled with a morbid modesty often find relief in acting a character of overweening pride. Thus it was only by absorbing attention in the effort to produce a very sensational order of declamation that I could perform the task undertaken. Owlsdarck’s handwriting was luckily large and legible ; and I was able to storm and gesticulate without hindcrance.

I ploughed through the tough old homily, tossing up the biggest size of words as if they were not worth thinking of I went at the lamented Cheops with a fearful enthusiasm. The air seemed heavy with a miasma of information. It was not my fault, if every individual in the audience did not feel personally sticky with the glutinous drugs I lavished upon the embalmment. I was as profuse with my myrrh, cassia, and aloes, as if those costly vegetable productions were as cheap as cabbages. I split up a sycamore-tree, to make an external shell, as if it were as familiar a wood as birch or hemlock. At last, having got his case painted all over with appropriate emblems, and Cheops himself done up in his final wrapping, I struck a mighty blow upon the desk, which set the lamps ringing and flaring in majestic emphasis.

It was at this point that the presence of an audience was once more recalled to me. Enthusiastic applause, peal after peal, responded to my efforts. I ventured to look out into the hall before me. Dr. Dastick was thumping with energy upon the neighboring settee. The elders of Foxden were leading the approbation, and a wild tattoo was resonant from the gallery. The face of Colonel Prowley was aglow with satisfaction, and the dear old gentleman actually waved his handkerchief as he caught my eye. But my frightened, pale-faced Kate, — my first shudder returned again as I met her gaze. Again ! felt the sinking, prickling sensation of being in for it. There was no resource but to charge at the Professor’s manuscript as vigorously as ever.

I now went to pyramid-making with the same zeal with which I had acted as undertaker. Leeks, parsley, and garlic, to the amount of one thousand and sixty talents, were lavished upon the workmen. Stuffed cats and sacred crocodiles were carried in procession to encourage them. Stones, thirty feet long, were heaved out of quarries, and hieroglyphics chopped into them with wonderful despatch. At last, after an hour and a half of laborious vociferation, I managed to get the pyramid done and Cheops put into it. A sort of dress-parade of authorities was finally called : Herodotus, Tacitus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Pliny, Solinus, and many others, were fired in concluding volleys among the audience. I was conscious of a salvo of clapping, pounding, and stamping that thundered in reply. The last sentence had been uttered. Again the audience blurred and danced before my eyes ; I staggered back, and sank confused and breathless into the orator’s chair.

“ Good, good,” whispered the President. “ It was a capital idea; ha, ha, very funny ! To hear you hammering away at Egyptian antiquities as if you ’d never thought of anything else ! The elocution and gestures, too, were perfectly tall;—the Young Men of our Society were delighted ; — I could see they were.”

“ Permit me to congratulate you, Sir,” said Dr. Dastick, who had elbowed his way to the platform. “ I confess myself' most agreeably disappointed in your performance. There was in it. a solidity of information and a curiosity of important research for which I was totally unprepared. Let me hope that such powers of oratory as we have heard this evening may soon plead the cause of good learning in the legislature ot our State. ”

“A good subject, my dear young friend, and admirably developed,” exclaimed Colonel Prowlev. “You have already won the palm of victory, if I rightly read the faces of some who were too quick to endow you with the common levity and indiscretion of youth.”

“ You have had success with young and old,” said the Reverend Mr. Clifton, kindly holding out his hand. “ We have rarely lecturers who seem to give such universal satisfaction.”

After these congratulations, and others to the same purpose, the real state of the case could no longer be hidden. Instead of the mortification and defeat confidently expected, I had unwittingly made a ten-strike upon that erratic set of pins, the Foxden public. The Young Men, who knew me only as the yt/MTOTTOLog, or laughter-maker, of their merry association, considered the sombre getting up and energetic delivery of the Cheops lecture the very best joke I had ever perpetrated. Some of the most influential citizens, as has been already seen, were personally gratified in the general dustiness of the subject; while others, perchance, were able to doze in the consciousness that the opinions of Cheops upon such disturbing topics as Temperance, Anti-Slavery, and Woman’s Rights must necessarily be of a patriarchal and comforting character. But the glory of the unlooked-for triumph seemed strangely lessened by the reflection that I had no just claim to the funereal plumage with which I had so happily decked myself

“ Gentlemen,” said I, “ I ought to tell you that the address I have delivered this evening is — in fact — is not original.”

“ That’s just why we like it,” rejoined Dr. Dastick. “ No young man should be original; it is a great impertinence, if he tries to be.”

“ I do not mean simply to acknowledge an indebtedness to the ancient authorities quoted in the lecture; but — but, the truth is, that the arrangement and composition cannot properly be called my own.”

“ Not the least consequence,” said Colonel Prow ley. “ You showed a commendable modesty in seeking the aid of any discreet and learned person. You know I offered to give you what assistance was in my power; but you found — unexpectedly, at the last moment, perhaps — some wiser friend.”

“ Most unexpectedly,—at the very last moment,” I murmured.

“ As for originality,” said the clergyman, pleasantly, “when you have come to my age, you will cease to trouble yourself much about it. No man can accomplish anything important without a large indebtedness to those who have lived, as well as to those who live. We know that the old fathers not only dared to lack originality, but even to consider times and peoples in their selection and treatment of topics. Non quod sentiunt, sed quod necesse est dicunt, may be said of them in no disparagement. For, not to mention others, I might quote Cyprian, Minutius, Lactantius, and Hilarius,”-

“Anything hilarious is as much out of place in a lecture as it would be in a sermon,” interrupted Dr. Dastick, who had evidently missed the drift of his pastor’s remarks. “ And I rejoice that the success of our friend who has spoken this evening rebukes those vain and shallow witlings who have sometimes degraded the lyceum. I could send such fellows to make sport in the courts of luxurious princes, for they may well follow after jousts, tourneys, stage-plays, and like sugar-plums of Satan; as, indeed, we need them not in this Puritan commonwealth. But come, all of you, for an hour, to my house ; for I am mistaken, if there be not in my cabinet many rare illustrations of the discourse we have just heard. I have several bones by me, which, if they belonged not to Cheops himself, may well be relics of his near relations. And as an offset to their dry and wasted estate, I have some luscious pears which are just now at full maturity.”

Colonel Prowley and his party had small inclination to resist the Doctor’s invitation, and it was speedily agreed that the lecturer (having, as we have seen, escaped consignment to European monarchs) should have the privilege of mingling in the social life of Foxdcn for the next hour or so.

“ But you forget Professor Owlsdarck,” I ventured to whisper to the Colonel. “ I must see him the instant he returns. That is — I am very impatient to hear of his success. I cannot let him arrive at your house, if I am not there to meet him.”

My host stared a little at this impetuosity of interest, and then informed me that the carryall from Wrexford must necessarily pass Dastiek’s house, and that he himself would run out and stop it and bring in the Professor.

“ No,” I exclaimed, with energy; “promise that I may go out and receive Owlsdarek alone, or I cannot go to Dr. Dastick’s.”

“ I doubt if there would be any precedent for this,” argued the Colonel, grave" Iy.

“ Then we must, make one,” I asserted. “ For surely nothing is more appropriate than that a lecturer, returning from his exercise, whether in triumph or defeat, should be first encountered by some brother of the craft who can have adequate sympathy with his feelings.”

After some demur, Colonel Prowley consented to adopt this view of the case; and we passed out of the hot lectureroom into the still, fresh night. Here Kate took my arm and we managed for an instant to lag behind the crowd.

“ I am not mad yet,” I said, “ though when I began that extraordinary lecture you must have thought me so.”

“ For a few moments,” replied my wife, “ I was utterly bewildered; but soon, of course, I guessed the explanation. You appeared before the Foxden audience with Professor Owlsdarck’s lecture.”

“ And he appeared with my poem before the audience in Wrexford.”

“ Good Heavens ! ” exclaimed Kate, “ I never thought of that part of it ! ”

“ Yet that is the part of it of which it behooves us to think just at present,” I replied. “ To my utter amazement, there has been something, either in the Professor’s wisdom or in my rendering of it, that has taken with the audience. Not knowing what Owlsdarek has done, or may wish to do, I have not explained the humiliating and ridiculous blunder, — though I have stoutly denied myself any credit for the information or composition of the lecture.”

« “ But the Professor could n’t have read your poem at Wrexford ? ”

“ Two hours ago I should have thought it so impossible, that only one thing in the world would have seemed to me more so, and that was that I should have read his lecture in Foxden. But, luckily, I have permission to stop the carryall on its way back, and so meet Owlsdarek before he comes into the house. Let us keep the secret for the present, and wait further developments.”

As others of the party had begun to look back, and to linger for us to come up, there was no opportunity for further conference. And so we made an effort, and talked of everything but what we were thinking of, till we reached Dr. Dastiek’s house.

I was conscious of a sweet memory, while passing along the broad, low-roofed piazza where I first met my wife. And I marvelled that fate had so arranged matters, that, again in the moonlight, near that very spot, I was to have an important interview with another person with whom my destiny had become strangely entangled.

One sense was painfully acute while the relics and pears were being passed about during the remainder of the evening. At any period I could have heard the creak of the venerable carryall above the swarm of information which buzzed about the Doctor’s parlor. I responded to the waggish raillery of the young men, talked bones with their seniors, disclaimed all originality in my lecture, thanked people for what they said about my spirited declamation, and — through it all — listened intently for the solemn rumble upon the Wrexford road. Time really seemed to stop and go backward, as if in compliment to the ancient fragments of gums, wrappages, and searabsei that were produced for our inspection. The Carryall, I thought, must have broken down ; Wrexford had, perchance, been suddenly destroyed, like the Cities of the Plain; the Professor had been tarred and feathered by the enraged inhabitants, or, perhaps, had been murdered upon the road; — there was no limit to the doleful hypotheses which suggested themselves.

And, in fact, it was now getting late to everybodyThe last pear had vanished, and people began to look at the clock. Colonel Prowley was audibly wondering what could have detained the Professor, and Dr. Dastick was expressing his regret at not having the pleasure of seeing him, when, — no, — yes, a jerking trundle was heard in the distance,—it was not the wind this time ! I seized my hat, rushed from the house, and paused not till I had stopped the carryall with the emphasis of a highwayman.

“ I have come to ask you to get out, Professor Owlsdarck,” I exclaimed. “Tom can drive the horse home; we ’re all at Dr. Dastick’s, and they’ve sent me to beg you to come in.”

The occupant ofthe vehicle, upon bearing my voice, made baste to alight. Tom gave an expressive “ Hud up,” and rolled away into the moonlight.

“ My dear Sir,” said I, “ no apology,— no allusion to how it happened; we have both suffered quite enough. Only tell me what you managed to do with my poem, and what the people of Wrexfonl have done to you.”

“ What did I do with your poem ? ” echoed the Professor,—there was an undertone of humorous satisfaction in his words that I had never before remarked,—“why, what could I do with it but read it to my audience ? They thought it was capital, andWell, I thought so, too. And if you Want to know what the trustees did to me, you will find it in print in a day or two. The fact is, they called a meeting, after I finished, and unanimously elected me Principal of their Academy.”

I managed to get a few more particulars before entering the house, and these, with other circumstances afterwards ascertained, made the Professor’s adventure to unravel itself thus: Owlsdarck had discovered the change of manuscript about five minutes before he was expected to speak. The audience had assembled, and (in view of the respect which should appertain to the office for which he was an aspirant) he saw the humiliation of disappointing the academic dock by a confession of his absurd position. He glanced at the first page of my verses, and, seeing that they commenced in a grave and solemn strain, determined to run for luck, and make the best of them. Accordingly he began by saying, that, instead of the usual literary address, he should read a new American poem, which he trusted would prove popular and to the purpose. It turned out to be very much to the purpose. The dismal Professor Owlsdarck, giving utterance to the Yankee quips and waggery which I had provided, took his audience by storm with amazement and delight. For the truth was, as Strype had intimated in the morning, a formidable opposition had arrayed itself against the Professor, which (while acknowledging the claims of his profound learning) contended that he lacked sympathy with the merry hearts of youth, a fatal defect in the character of a teacher. Of course the entertainment of the evening filled all such cavillers with shame and confusion. There was nothing to do but to own their mistake, and to support the many-sided Owlsdarck with all enthusiasm. Hence his unanimous election, and hence my infinite relief upon reentering the Doctor’s house.

We determined to keep our own counsel, and thereupon ratified our unintentional exchange of productions. I presented my poem to Professor Owlsdarck, and he resigned in my favor all right, title, and interest in Cheops and his Obsequies. We both felt easier after this had been done, and walked arm-in-arm into Dr. Dastick’s parlor, conscious of a plethoric satisfaction strange to experience.

I need hardly allude to the indignation of the Foxden electors, when the “ Regulator ” appeared the next morning with a bitter critique of my performance in the Town Hall. There is notoriously a good deal of license allowed to opposition editors upon election-day. But to ridicule a serious and erudite lecture as “ a flimsy and buffooning poem,”—there was, really, in this, a blindness of passion, a display of impotent malice, an utter contempt for the common sense of subscribers, to which the history of editorial vagaries seemed to furnish no parallel. Of course, a libel so gross and atrocious not only failed of its object, but drove off in disgust all decent remnants of the opposing party which the lecture of the previous evening had failed to conciliate.

And now I think it has been explained why I was chosen to represent Foxden, and how my vote came to be so nearly unanimous. Whether I made a good use of the lesson of that fifth of November it does not become me to say. But of the success of the Principal of the Wrexford Academy in the useful sphere of labor upon which he then entered I possess undoubted evidence.

“ Old Owlsdarek’s a pretty stiff man in school.” exclaimed a chubby little fellow in whom I have some interest, when he lately returned from Wrexford to pass thesummervacation,—“Old Owlsdarek’s a pretty stiff man in school; but when he comes into the play-ground, you ought to hear him laugh and carry on with the boys! ”

A few seasons ago the Professor consented to repeat his famous poem upon “ The "Whims of New England,” and made the tour of the river-towns, and several hundred dollars. He wrote me that he had received tempting overtures for a Western excursion, which his numerous lyceum - engagements at home compelled him to decline.

I have since faced many audiences, and long conquered the maiden bashfulness of a first appearance. It is necessary to confess that my topics of discourse have generally been of too radical a character to maintain the unprecedented popularity of my first, attempt. I don’t mind mentioning, however, that the manuscript wherewith I delighted the people of Foxden is yet in my possession. And should there be among my readers members of the Inviting Committee of any neighboring Association, League, or Lyceum, they will please notice that I am open to offers for the repetition of a highly instructive Lecture: Subject, The Obsequies of Cheops.