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city of New-York to examine the old jail. It was on the expiration of fifty years from his release. The building was still standing, unchanged in the slightest degree. On entering within the walls, it is true he did not see prisoners dying with the small-pox, or with festering wounds and mutilated limbs ; but, in their stead, there was to be seen a miserable group of poor debtors, half naked, many of them had to sleep on the bare floor, and to depend on accidental charity for subsistence. One of them, had been closely confined six months, because he could not raise fees enough to take advantage of the poor debtor's act. The old gentleman's heart bled to think the wretched place should, after half a century, still be the abode of misery, not by state power, but by individual oppression; but had he lived a few years longer than he did, he would have seen an entire change ;-the dark and awful looking walls become bright and luminous, the iron grates and bars removed, ponderous Ionic columns arise on the front and rear of the building, exhibiting the finest architectural light and shade that can have ever been exhibited in Athens, and the whole edifice devoted to the transactions of Probate business, and the preservation of official records of estates, testate and intestate; and what would have gladdened his heart the more, he would have learnt, that the power of one individual to make a slave of another for a trifling debt had been abolished; and that the reign of those petty tyrants, hucksters and pettifoggers, was nearly over throughout his whole country.

THE MANIAC.

"There's a daisy; I would give you some violets; but they withered all, when my Duncan died: They say he made a good end."

"And will he not come again?

And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead.

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again."

LAST summer, I took a journey with an old friend, who sometimes was silent and melancholy, and at other times whose voice would flow with the copiousness and sweetness of St. Winifred's well. When melancholy, he might say it was like Jaques's, "compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects; and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my after rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness;" and one indeed who sometimes felt the taunting retort of Rosalind :—“ I fear you have sold your own lands, to see other men's." But however much his experience may have cost him, he was a charming companion; one who had a story for every place, and a moral for every tale. We travelled northward, up the majestic Hudson, to Saratoga, viewed the battle plain, sailed down lake George, and made minute observations on the features of this classic ground; the scene both of success and defeat to England and France; and in which the colonists bore a suffering, and in the end a triumphant part.

When we had reached old

Ticonderoga fort, now in ruins, but still the wonder of North America, my friend proposed to leave me to make my surveys alone; as he wished, he said, to visit a family in Vermont, about a dozen miles from the ruins, whose acquaintance he had some time since formed. But as it was rather a dreary place on a cloudy day, I would not consent to the arrangement, so we went on together, to a beautiful thrifty town, which showed marks of taste and wealth. I engaged a room in the inn, and began to Adonize myself for the dinner table, as I saw by the company there, that I should probably dine with a bevy of fair ladies.

My friend had been absent but a few minutes, when he returned with a gentleman, who came to insist on my company to dine that day with our mutual friend. At the hour appointed, I went to the house alone; my companion had returned previously with the gentleman, to pass an hour or two with the family to whom he seemed much attached. The house was a handsome building, in an eligible situation, surrounded by the finest garden I had ever seen in that new country;-indeed, the garden seemed a spot of Fairy land. There was taste and science exhibited in every labyrinth. I never had seen such a profusion of fruits and flowers, and yet all seemed to have been done with taste and care, rather than by any extravagant expenses. I took several turns in the garden before dinner was announced-and on entering the house, was introduced by the owner of the mansion to a lovely wife and four healthy well-behaved children. The lady

was well informed, and presided at her table with great dignity and ease. Her conversation was fluent and appropriate, and she without effort made her guests feel at home at once; with delicacy anticipating their wants, without hastily urging the supplies, in which some kind hostesses think a cordial welcome consists. After dinner I left my companion in conversation with the host, and strolled into the garden with the children, who had been delighted in hearing me praise it. I found they knew the trivial and botanical names of every flower and plant about them; and on inquiring of the youngest girl, who had instructed her in botany? she replied, Only my mother; she has taught us botany, history, astronomy as far as we have gone. The professor of the college has been engaged by father to give us two lessons a week in natural philosophy and astronomy next winter; and mother is preparing us to profit by them. We spent the day and evening with the family, and early the next morning prepared to return to finish our examination of the ruins of the old fort. On reaching them not a little fatigued, we sat on a rock, to rest ourselves a while. My companion asked me how I was pleased with my visit; and on expressing my delight at the garden, the family and, in fact, on the whole of the little excursion into one of the New-England states, where we had seen so much gentility and received such a hospitable welcome; in my turn, I inquired by what chance he had become acquainted with a family living so much out of the course of his travels, when he proceeded to make the following

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