member, and two of my sweet cousins gave me each two shillings towards my initiation fee; but I found that there were no meetings, and that the books were stored away for the benefit of future ages, or else laid with well-studied carelessness upon the book-tables of the literary-qu. ? litterery brokers-qu.? breakers-men profound in books-muslin, and well printed-calico; and who ought, therefore, to be able to appreciate such writers as Norswoldwoof-who had paid their entrance money of one hundred or five hundred dollars to buy the glory of being published in a book as gentle-men! who had got beyond b-a-k-e-r in their spelling books, and were patrons of the fine arts! Heaven forgive me if I wrong them! The heaviest affliction that I wish them is, that they will, in some moment of unnatural wisdom, pile up their hoarded cases in the park, and make a bonfire; and re-supply their shelves with Parley's Magazine, Murray's Grammar, and Bennet's Book-keeping. Two parties will be gainers by that operation. The thirsty student, tantalized with hot thirst for the sealed-up fountains of sparkling knowledge which he grasps at in vain, may look on and see the ethereal essence of soul ascend in a curling flame, like the prophet of old, to the Heaven from which it came; and when the burning thoughts have left the mortal scroll upon which they were impressed, he may gather and in-urn their ashes, and stellate them among his household-gods. The other party referred to will derive an advantage better appreciated by them, because more substantial. They will learn "reading, writing and arithmetic." Does any one doubt that these extensive acquirements are matters of use and adornment, of which a trader in opium, calomel, and raw-hides ought to be proud?-Look back twenty years and tell us how many men signed their own names. Go into the register's and surrogate's offices and

look at the deeds and wills executed by the ancestors of the rich. Why, a Dutchman who could WRITE was looked upon as an astrologer or necromancer; and a stray Yankee schoolmaster snooping out a village where he might teach young ideas how to shoot in the day-time, and the rich farmers' buxom daughters how to spell "crucifix" at night, besides keeping singing-school Saturday evening, and leading the choir in "Mear," "Wells," and "Old Hundred," on the next day, was convicted by all such young gentlemen as Abraham Bones [whose life and experience are so happily illustrated by Diedrich Knickerbocker] as no better than a juggler or an obtainer of other people's chattels under false pretences. There is a manuscript history of New York which gives an account of a justice of the peace, before whom all the causes in Duchess county were tried, who knew no touch of quillgraphy, but held his court in the woods, where the soil was loamy; and, by the aid of his cane and certain sticks which he would set up, made his notes of the testimony, and invariably came to a correct conclusion.

But, alas! "times isn't as they used to was;" there is too much learning abroad. People know too much. They have studied hard names and are conceited. They carry out the advice given by our belles-lettres professor in college, and commit to memory the names of books they never read, and cannot be made to understand. Everybody can read. Even your Irish cook, unless she has just left her cabin in Limerick, can spell out her missal. They have got beyond “ac”—“ac” —“tion”—“shion"-" town-shun," and are travelling into the "ologies." the country is in danger of being ruined by too much "light and knowledge." These two last mentioned ambiguous names have been cracked up by all the tract and moral reform societies as being highly preferable to bread

and butter; but what have they done? Have they demolished sin? Have they multiplied virtue? Are public exhibitions upon the stage of reality in Broadway, or of imitation at the Olympic, less gross and pernicious than of old? Are the morals of the city purified? Are we less or more like Sodom and Gomorrah than we were when I was a boy? Men

that are thirty years of age, think. Think, I say, and curse

the men that taught Vice, that they might cure it, and be accounted saints;-who first breathed into the virgin innocence of the ears of their happily ignorant wives and girls that there was such a thing as "guilt;"-who like the serpent seducing Eve, gave Sin a name and called it "Knowledge," promising infinite happiness, while the price of the information was everlasting Hell-fire! How smooth-tongued Belial must gloat over the idiots!

No,"times isn't as they used to was." That's a beauty of a sentence. It has a present past, and a past present mingling in labyrinthic harmony, that fill me with rapturous pluperfection. I mount, I fly.

I am a pretty good democrat, and love the largest liberty; but I am inclined to think that I am a little antidemonexagotheatic. I think Yankee schoolmasters ought to be taken up as vagrants. Cyphering I would permit; but I would let no one go beyond the "rule of three." The use of hard words shall be prohibited by statute. Dictionaries are so common that boys buy them at book-auctions, and study the definitions as they carry home your marketing, and the next day you find them editors of a penny paper upon the strength of their knowing the meaning of "liberty, equality, and tergiversation." The silliest attempt at an aphorism is "the Schoolmaster abroad." How easy to answer it. An old settler

would say, "he'd better stay at home.”—Brom watch him as he goes by the orchard-are them onions all tuk

up? ?"

"Renovare dolorem," as my friend Ritchie says, in French, "Times isn't as they used to was." We squatted, settled, builded meeting-houses, murdered the "Six Nations,"-multiplied by twelve, without knowing arithmetic, killed the Quakers, burned the witches, drained the meadows, cut down the trees, excommunicated the swearers, baptized the infants, courted Saturday night, kissed our wives every day but Sab. bath consecrating ourlips to singing what the minister read to us upon that festival-two lines at a time,-had no hymn books -cushions neither-drew wood for the minister, tightened the cords of his bedstead, sent our boys and girls six miles to the school-house with apple-pie and plain cake according, and a rose for the school master; ploughed, trapped skunks and buried them till they got sweet; pigeons! lord, fifty at a shot were nothing-rabbits, don't mention how they criticised the cabbages; partridges! we used to burn premature sulpher under the apple trees to save the buds! THEN we had no schools for astronomy, chemistry and French. Every boy knew the pointers and the North Star, and he felt, moreover, when he planted his quiet little cottage, fronting the South, with his milk and cheese dairy deep in the hill side, five yards from the kitchen, that his own best-loved Katrina would have things handy.-Were not these people virtuous, good, and happy? Yet they could not write-they could not read. Some of them, however, occasionally could spell. But of what use was reading and writing to them. Their Domine and the Squire could write their testaments and guide their timorous faith. The old Doctor could sew up their scythecuts and set their dislocated bones; and the news of stirring incidents were purely, truly brought by neighbor to confiding

"the

friend. Would a christian, or an honest man, pour Herald," or "Exhibitions of New York as it is," into the bosoms of those ignorant lilies of innocence? Would the God of Heaven permit Satan to spit venom upon his own radiation of beauty?

"Times isn't as they used to was. -By-the-by,-I have been beating over ground that I did not intend to travel on-boggy-muddy,-but my dog is wild, and sometimes makes false points and wont come in. The illustration of Norswoldwoof's sentiment I intended to confine to scholastics, or the accomplishment of scholars. I can not do better than to give a touch of my own experience.

Before I begin, I want to ask a favor. I will give eighteen pence-specie-to any individual who will deliver, for me, to the Editor of the "Spirit of the Times," a copy of " Webster's Spelling-book." Don't send me the kakosyllabic monstrosity which he calls a dictionary; I mean the old thing which he wrote before he forgot what he learned at school, and invented a new alphabet. I want the old book with the story about the green milkmaid, and of the landlord of the apple-tree stoning a boy, and the Justice deciding that Dr. Johnson's dictionary was an ox, and Noah's a Cape Cod bull -cash down.

If a gentleman of leisure were to make up his mind— that is a ridiculous expression, and I stop. Your chambermaid may "make up" your bed, after you had been beseeching multiplied pillows to give you one hour's quiet respite from a headache. Penny-liars may "make up" at a moments' warning a drowned man, a burglary, or a Corlear's-hookerism; but mind has nothing to do with manufacture. Mind thinks, radiates. It is impulsic. It rides with the lightning before the wind. It flashes, and you feel the vivid flagration in your