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soldier after another levelled a firelock, and threatened to "make a lane" through the crowd. Just before nine, as an officer crossed King street, now State street, a barber's lad cried after him, "There goes a mean fellow who hath not paid my master for dressing his hair;" on which the sentinel stationed at the westerly end of the Custom-house, on the corner of King street and Exchange lane, left his post, and with his musket gave the boy a stroke on the head, which made him stagger, and cry for pain.

The street soon became clear, and nobody troubled the sentry, when a party of soldiers issued violently from the main guard, their arms glittering in the moonlight, and passed on hallooing, "Where are they? where are they? let them come." Presently twelve or fifteen more, uttering the same eries, rushed from the south into King street, and so by way of Cornhill, towards Murray's Barracks. Pray, soldiers, spare my life," cried a boy of twelve, whom they met; "No, no; I'll kill you all," answered one of them, and knocked him down with his cutlass. They abused and insulted several persons at their doors, and others in the street, "running about like madmen in a fury," crying "Fire," which seemed their watchword, and "Where are they knock them down." Their outrageous behavior occasioned the ringing of the bell at the head of King street.

The citizens, whom the alarm set in motion, came out with canes and clubs; and partly by the interference of well disposed officers, partly by the courage of Crispus Attucks, a mulatto, and some others, the fray at the barracks was soon over. the citizens, the prudent shouted Home, Home;" others, it was said, called out, "Huzza for the main guard; there is the nest;" but the main guard was not molested the whole evening.

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A body of soldiers came up Royal Exchange lane, crying"Where are the cowards?" and brandishing their arms, passed through King street. From ten to twenty boys came after them, asking, "Where are they, where are they?" There is the soldier who knocked me down," said the barber's boy, and they began pushing one another towards the sentinel. He primed and loaded his musket. The lobster is going to fire," cried a boy. Waving his piece about, the sentinel pulled the trigger. If you fire you must die for it," said Henry Knox, who was passing by. "I don't care," replied the sentry; "damn them, if they touch me I'll fire." "Fire and be damned," shouted the boys, for they were persuaded he could not do it without leave from a civil officer; and a young fellow spoke out, "We will knock him down for snapping;" while they whistled through their fingers and huzzaed. Stand off," said the sentry, and shouted aloud, “Turn out, main guard." They are killing the sentinel," reported a servant from the Custom-house, running to the main guard. "Turn out; why don't you turn out?" cried Preston, who was Captain of the day, to the guard. "He appeared in a great flutter of spirits," and "spoke to them roughly." A party of six, two of whom, Kilroi and Montgomery, had been worsted at the Ropewalk, formed with a corporal in front, and Preston following. With bayonets fixed, they haughtily" rushed through the people," upon the trot, cursing them, and pushing them as they went along. They found about ten persons round the sentry, while about fifty or sixty came down with them. "For God's sake," said Knox, holding Preston by the coat, take your men back again; if they fire, your life must answer for the consequer ces." "I know what I am about," said he, hastily, and much agitated. None pressed on them

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or provoked them, till they began loading, when a party of about twelve in number, with sticks in their hands, moved from the middle of the street, where they had been standing, gave three cheers, and passed along the front of the soldiers, whose muskets some of them struck as they went by. You are cowardly rascals," said they, "for bringing arms against naked men;""lay aside your guns, and we are ready for you." "Are the soldiers loaded?" inquired Palmes of Preston. "Yes," he answered, with powder and ball.” "Are they going to fire upon the inhabitants?" asked Theodore Bliss. "They cannot, without my orders," replied Preston; while the "town-born" called out, “Come on, you rascals, you bloody backs, you lobster scoundrels, fire if you dare; we know you dare not." Just then Montgomery received a blow from a stick thrown, which hit his musket; and the word "Fire" being given, he stepped a little on one side, and shot Attucks, who at the time was quietly leaning on a long stick. The people immediately began to move off. "Don't fire," said La: gford, the watchman, to Kilroi, looking him full in the face, but yet he did so, and Samuel Gray, who was standing next Langford with his hands in his bosom, fell lifeless. The rest fired slowly and in succession on the people, who were dispersing. One aimed deliberately at a boy, who was running for safety. Montgomery then pushed at Palmes to stab him; on which the latter knocked his gun out of his hand, and levelling a blow at him, hit Preston. Three persons were killed, among them Attucks the mulatto; eight were wounded, two of them mortally. Of all the eleven, not more than one had had any share in the disturbance.

So infuriated were the soldiers, that, when the men returned to take up the dead, they prepared to fire again, but were checked by Preston, while the Twenty-ninth regiment appeared under arms in King street, as if bent on a further massacre. "This is our time," cried soldiers of the Fourteenth; and dogs were never seen more greedy for their prey.

The bells rung in all the churches; the town drums beat. "To arms, to arms," was the cry. And now was to be tested the true character of Boston. All its sons came forth, excited almost to madness: many were absolutely distracted by the sight of the dead bodies, and of the blood, which ran plentifully in the street, and was imprinted in all directions by the foot-tracks on the show. "Our hearts," says Warren, "beat to arms; almost resolved by one stroke to avenge the death of our slaughtered brethren." But they stood self-possessed and irresistible, demanding justice, according to the law. "Did you not know that you should not have fired without the order of a civil magistrate?" asked Hutchinson, on meeting Preston. "I did it," answered Preston, "to save my men.”

The people would not be pacified till the regiment was confined to the guard-room and the barracks; and Hutchinson himself gave assurances that instant inquiries should be made by the county magistrates. The body of them then retired, leaving about one hundred persons to keep watch on the examination, which lasted till three hours after midnight. A warrant was issued against Preston, who surrendered himself to the Sheriff; and the soldiers who composed the party were delivered up and committed to prison.

STUDY OF THE INFINITE-FROM THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY ADDRESS. 1854.

The moment we enter upon an enlarged consideration of existence, we may as well believe in beings that are higher than ourselves, as in those

that are lower; nor is it absurd to inquire whether there is a plurality of worlds. Induction warrants the opinion, that the planets and the stars are tenanted, or are to be tenanted, by inhabitants endowed with reason; for though man is but a new comer upon earth, the lower animals had appeared through unnumbered ages, like a long twilight before the day. Some indeed tremulously inquire, how it may be in those distant spheres with regard to redemption? But the scruple is uncalled for. Since the Mediator is from the beginning, he exists for all intelligent creatures not less than for all time. It is very narrow and contradictory to confine his office to the planet on which we dwell. In other worlds the facts of history may be, or rather, by all the laws of induction, will be different; but the essential relations of the finite to the infinite are, and must be, invariable. It is not more certain that the power of gravity extends through the visible universe, than that throughout all time and all space, there is but one mediation between God and created reason.

But leaving aside the question, how far rational life extends, it is certain that on earth the capacity of coming into connexion with the infinite is the distinguishing mark of our kind, and proves it to be one. Here, too, is our solace for the indisputable fact, that humanity, in its upward course, passes through the shadows of death, and over the relics of decay. Its march is strown with the ruins of formative efforts, that were never crowned with success. How often does the just man suffer, and sometimes suffer most for his brightest virtues ! How often do noblest sacrifices to regenerate a nation seem to have been offered in vain! How often is the champion of liberty struck down in the battle, and the symbol which he uplifted, trampled under foot! But what is the life of an individual to that of his country? Of a state, or a nation, at a given moment, to that of the race? The just man would cease to be just, if he were not willing to perish for his kind. The scoria that fly from the iron at the stroke of the artisan, show how busily he plies his task; the clay which is rejected from the potter's wheel, proves the progress of his work; the chips of marble that are thrown off by the chisel of the sculptor, leave the miracle of beauty to grow under his hand. Nothing is lost. I leave to others the questioning of Infinite power, why the parts are distributed as they are, and not otherwise. Humanity moves on, attended by its glorious company of martyrs. It is our consolation, that their sorrows and persecution and death are encountered in the common cause, and not in vain.

ROBERT GREENHOW.

ROBERT GREENHOW was born, in the year 1800, at Richmond, Virginia. He was the son of Robert Greenhow, one of the leading citizens of the place, who had at one time filled the office of mayor. Greenhow's mother perished in the conflagration of the Richmond theatre, and he himself narrowly escaped destruction in the same calamity. At the age of fifteen he removed to New York for the purpose of completing his education. He here became a student in the office of Drs. Hosack and Francis, and attended lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he took his degree in 1821, having in the meantime mixed freely in the best society of the city, and gained universal respect by the extent of his acquirements and the activity of his mind. He early developed the powers of an unusually retentive me

mory, said to have been surpassed in the present generation only by that of the historian Niebuhr, a faculty that proved of the greatest service to him through life. After leaving college he visited Europe, where he became intimately acquainted with Lord Byron, and other distinguished men. After his return he delivered a course of lectures on chemistry before the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York.

In consequence of commercial disasters which at this period impaired his father's fortune, Greenhow was forced to rely on his own exertions for support. By the influence of his old friend, General Morgan Lewis, he obtained, in 1828, the appointment of translator to the Department of State at Washington.

In 1837 he prepared, by order of Congress, a Report upon the Discovery of the North-West coast of North America. The researches which he had previously made into the early history of Oregon and California were of essential service to they contributed greatly to establish the claims of himself and the country in this undertaking, as the United States secured by the Ashburton negotiations. The report was afterwards enlarged by the author, and published with the title of History of Oregon and California, which at once took the rank it has since maintained of a thoroughly reliable authority on the subject.

In December, 1848, Mr. Greenhow read a paper before the New York Historical Society, involving curious speculation and research, on the probabilities of the illustrious Archbishop Fenelon having passed some of the years of his youth as a missionary among the Iroquois or Five Nations in the western part of the state. In a previous communication to the Society, dated Washington City, November 16, 1844, he recommends the preparation of a Memoir on the Discovery of the Atlantic Coasts of the United States, calling attention to the absence of popular information on the first discovery of Chesapeake Bay.

In 1850 Dr. Greenhow, on his way to California, passed four months in the City of Mexico, engaged in a minute examination of its monuments and archives. After his arrival in California he was appointed, in 1853, Associate Law Agent to the United States Land Commission for the determination of California claims, holding its sessions in San Francisco. His intimate acquaintance with the Spanish language and the technicalities of Mexican law, were of the greatest service in facilitating the public business. On the resignation of the land agent he made an application for the vacant office, which proved unsuccessful. After the appointment of the new incumbent, he resigned his post, to the great regret of all connected with the Commission.

He died in the spring of the following year, in consequence of the fracture of his thigh, occasioned by falling, during a dark night, into a deep excavation opened in one of the streets of San Francisco.

S. G. GOODRICH.

SAMUEL GRISWOLD GOODRICH, under his assumed name of Peter Parley, ranks among the best

*Supplement to Proceedings of N. Y. Hist. Soc., 1848, pp. 199-209.

known of our authors. He was born at Ridgefield, Connecticut, August 19, 1793, and commenced life as a publisher in Hartford.

In 1824 he visited Europe, and on his return established himself as a publisher in Boston, where he commenced an original annual, The Token, which he edited for a number of years, the contributions and illustrations being the products of American authors and artists; Mr. Goodrich himself furnishing several poems, tales, and sketches to the successive volumes, and rendering a further service to the public by his encouragement of young and unknown authors, among whom is to be mentioned Nathaniel Hawthorne, the finest of whose "Twice-told Tales" were first told in The Token, and, strange to say, without attracting any considerable attention. The famous Peter Parley series was commenced about the same time; Mr. Goodrich turning to good account in his little square volumes his recent travels in Europe, and his tact in book arrangement and illustration. The Geography was an especial favorite, and it is probable that the primary fact of that science is settled in the minds of some millions of schoolboys past and present, in indissoluble connexion with the couplet by which it was first transmitted thereto,

The world is round, and like a bali
Seems swinging in the air.

C

Mr. Goodrich has, however, higher if not broader claims to poetic reputation, than are furnished by the little production we have cited. He has found time, amid his constant labor as a compiler, to assert his claims as an original author by the publication, in 1837, of The Outcast, and Other Poems; in 1841, of a selection from his contributions in prose and poetry to The Token and various magazines, with the title, Sketches from a Student's Window; and in 1851, by an elegantly illustrated edition of his Poems, including The Outcast. In 1838, Mr. Goodrich published Fireside Education, by the author of Peter Parley's Tales, a volume of judicious counsel to parents on that important topic, presented in a popular and attractive manner.

Mr. Goodrich is at present United States Consul at Paris, where he has made arrangements for the translation and introduction of his

Peter Parley series into France, under his own supervision.

A simple enumeration of the various publications of this gentleman under his own name, and that of his friend of the knee-breeches and stout cane, is the most significant comment which can be presented on a career of remarkable literary activity.

GOOD NIGHT.

The sun has sunk behind the hills,
The shadows o'er the landscape creep;
A drowsy sound the woodland fills,
And nature folds her aims to sleep:

Good night-good night.

The chattering jay has ceased his din-
The noisy robin sings no more-
The crow, his mountain haunt within,
Dreams 'mid the forest's surly roar:
Good night-good night.

The sunlit cloud floats dim and pale;
The dew is falling soft and still;
The mist hangs trembling o'er the vale,
And silence broods o'er yonder mill:
Good night-good night.

The rose, so ruddy in the light,
Bends on its stem all rayless now,
And by its side the lily white,

A sister shadow, seems to bow :
Good night-good night.

We present the titles of these writings as we find them in Mr. Roorbach's carefully prepared Bibliotheca Americana. Ancient History, 12mo.; Anecdotes of the Animal Kingdom, 16mo.; Book of Government and Laws; Book of Literature, Ancient and Modern; Enterprise, Industry, and Art of Man, 16mo.; Fireside Education, 12mo.; Glance at Philosophy, Mental, Moral, and Social, 16mo.; History of American Indians, 16mo.; History of All Nations on a New and Improved Plan, 1800 pp. small 4to.; Lights and Shadows of American History; Lights and Shadows of African History; Lights and Shadows of Asiatic History; Lights and Shadows of European History; Lives of Benefactors, including Patriots, Inventors, Discoverers, &c. 16mo.; Lives of Celebrated Women, 16mo.; Lives of Eccentric and Wonderful Persons; Lives of Famous Men of Modern Times; Lives of Famous Men of Ancient Times; Lives of Famous American Indians, 16mo.; Lives of Signers of Declaration of Independence; Manners and Customs of All Nations, 16mo.; Manners, Customs, and Antiquities of American Indians; Modern History, 12mo.; National Geography, 4to.; Pictorial History of England, France, Greece, Rome, and the United States, 12mo.; Pictorial Geography of the World, 8vo.; Pictorial Natural History, 12mo.; Poems, 12mo.; School Reader, First, 18ino.; School Reader, Second, 18mo.; School Reader, Third, 18mo.; School Reader. Fourth, 12mo.; School Reader, Fifth, 12mo.: South America and West Indies; Sow Well, Reap Well; Sketches from a Student's Window; Universal Geography; Wonders of Geology, 16mo.; The World and its Inhabitants.

Parley's Arithmetic; Africa: America; Anecdotes; Asia; Alexander Selkirk; Bible Dictionary; Bible Gazetteer; Bible Stories; Book of the United States; Book of Books, a Selection from Parley's Magazine; Consul's Daughter; Captive of Nootka; Columbus; Common School History; Dick Boldhero, 18mo.; Europe; Every-Day Book; Fables; Farewell; First Book of History, Western Hemisphere: First Book of Reading and Spelling, 18mo.; Fairy Tales; Flower Basket; Franklin; Gift, 16mo.; Geography for Beginners; Gardener; Greece; History of the World; History of North America; Humorist's Tales; Home in the Sea, 18mo.; Illustrations of Astronomy; Illustrations of Commerce; Illustrations of History and Geography; Illustrations of the Animal Kingdom; Illustrations of the Vegetable Kingdom; Islands; Mines of Different Countries; Moral Tales; Make the Best of It; Magazine; Miscellanies; New Geography for Beginners; New York; Picture Book; Picture Books, twelve kinds; Present: Rose Bud: Rome; Right is Might, 18mo.; Second Book of History, Eastern Hemisphere; Story of Captain Riley; Story of La Perouse; Ship; Sea; Sun, Moon, and Stars; Short Stories; Short Stories for Long Nights; Tales of Adventure; Tales for the Times; Tales of Sea and Land, 18mo.; Tale of the Revolution; Third Book of History, Ancient History; Three Months on the Sea; TruthFinder, or Inquisitive Jack, 18mo.; Universal History; Wit Bought; What to Do, and How to Do It; Winter Evening Tales: Washington; Wonders of South America; Young America, or Book of Government.

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The bat may wheel on silent wing-
The fox his guilty vigils keep-
The boding owl his dirges sing;
But love and innocence will sleep:
Good night-good night!

THE TEACHER'S LESSON.

I saw a child some four years old,
Along a meadow stray;

Alone she went-unchecked-untold-
Her home not far away.

She gazed around on earth and sky-
Now paused, and now proceeded;
Hill, valley, wood,-she passed them by
Unmarked, perchance unheeded.

And now gay groups of roses bright,
In circling thickets bound her-
Yet on she went with footsteps light,
Still gazing all around her.

And now she paused, and now she stoope 1,
And plucked a little flower-

A simple daisy 'twas, that drooped
Within a rosy bower.

The child did kiss the little gem,
And to her bosom pressed it;

And there she placed the fragile stem,
And with soft words caressed it.

I love to read a lesson true,

From nature's open bookAnd oft I learn a lesson new, From childhood's careless look. Children are simple-loving-true; "Tis Heaven that made them so; And would you teach them-be so too— And stoop to what they know. Begin with simple lessons-things On which they love to look: Flowers, pebbles, insects, birds on wingsThese are God's spelling-book. And children know His A, B, C,

As bees where flowers are set:
Would'st thou a skilful teacher be —

Learn, then, this alphabet.
From leaf to leaf, from page to page,
Guide thou thy pupil's look,

And when he says, with aspect sage,
Who made this wondrous book?"

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Point thou with reverent gaze to heaven,

And kneel in earnest prayer,
That lessons thou hast humbly given,
May lead thy pupil there.

GEORGE HILL.

GEORGE HILL was born at Guilford, Connecticut, in 1796. He completed his collegiate studies with high honor at Yale in 1816; was then employed in one of the public offices at Washington, and entered the Navy in 1827 as a teacher of mathematics. In this capacity he made a cruise in the Mediterranean, where his Ruins of Athens, and several other poems suggested by its classic localities, were written. On his return, he was appointed librarian of the Department of State at Washington. After his resignation of this situation, he was appointed United States Consul for the southern portion of Asia Minor, a position he was also obliged to decline after a brief trial, in consequence of ill-health. Returning to Washing

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ton, he became a clerk in one of the Departments.*

Mr. Hill published, anonymously, The Ruins of Athens, with a few short poems, in 1831. These were reprinted, with a few others, in an edition bearing his name in 1839.*

The Ruins of Athens is a poem occupied with description and reflection, suggested to the author on a visit to the city, while yet under the sway of the Turks. It contains forty-one Spenserian stanzas, and is written in a subdued and careful manner. Titania's Banquet is a successful imitation of the Masques of the Elizabethan era, but the subject was, for obvious reasons, an injudicious choice for the author. The remainder of the volume is occupied by a few lyrical pieces, suggested by themes of domestic or national interest; several sonnets and imitations of the manner of Swift, Prior, Burns, Herrick, and others-a favorite exercise with the writers of the last century which we do not often meet with in the poets of the present day.

MEDITATION AT ATHENS-FROM THE RUINS OF ATHENS,

Approach! but not thou favored one, thou light And sportive insect, basking in the ray Of youth and pleasure, heedless of the night. Dreamer! the shapes that in thy pathway play, Thy morning pathway, elsewhere chase! away! Come not, till like the fading weeds that twine Yon time-worn capital, the thoughts, that prey On hopes of high but baffled aim, decline, And weary of the race the goal unwon resign. Is thy hearth desolate, or trod by feet Whose unfamiliar steps recall no sound Of such, as, in thine early days, to greet Thy coming, hastened? are the ties that bound Thy heart's hopes severed? hast thou seen the ground

Close o'er her, thy young love? and felt, for thee
That earth contains no other? look around!
Here thou may'st find companions:-hither flee!
Where Ruin dwells, and men, nay, gods have ceased
to be!

Wall, tower, and temple crushed and heaped in one
Wide tomb, that echoes to the Tartar's cry
And drum heard rolling from the Parthenon,
The wild winds sweeping through it, owl's grey
eye

Gleaming among its ruins, and the sigh

Of the long grass that unmolested waves, The race whose proud old monuments are by To mock, but not to shame them, recreants, slaves, The very stones should arm heaped on heroic graves! Here let me pause, and blend me with the things That were, the shadowy world, that lives no

more

But in the heart's cherished imaginings,—
The mighty and the beautiful of yore.

It may not be the mount, the plain, the shore,
Whisper no living murmur, voice nor tread,
But the low rustling of the leaves and roar
Of the dull ceaseless surf, and the stars shed
Their light upon the flower whose beauty mocks the
dead.

The Morn is up, with cold and dewy eye
Peeps, like a vestal from her cloister, forth,

Everest's Poets of Connecticut, p. 277.

The Ruins of Athens; Titania's Banquet, a Mask, other poems. By G. Hill. Boston: 1839. 8vo. pp. 160.

In blushing brightness; the grey peaks on high Lift her old altars in the clear blue north; The clouds ascend, on light winds borne, that come Laden with fragrance; and from each high-place, Where every god in turn has found a home, Nature sends up her incense, and her face Unveils to Him whose shrine and dwelling are all space.

Morn hushed as midnight! save perchance is heard At times the hum of insect, or the grass That sighs, or rustles by the lizard stirred: And still we pause; and may, where empire was And ruin is, no stone unheeded pass,No rude Memorial, that seems to wear Vestige of that whose glory, as a glass Shattered but still resplendent, lives,—and share The spirit of the spot, the "dream of things that were."

Land of the free, of battle and the Muse! It grieves me that my first farewell to thee Should be my last: that, nurtured by the dews Of thy pure fount, some blossoms from the tree, Where many a lyre of ancient minstrelsy Now silent hangs, I plucked, but failed to rear, As 't is, a chance-borne pilgrim of the sea, I lay them on thy broken altar here, A passing worshipper, but humble and sincere.

LIBERTY.

There is a spirit working in the world,
Like to a silent subterranean fire;
Yet, ever and anon, some Monarch hurled
Aghast and pale attests its fearful ire.

The dungeoned Nations now once more respire
The keen and stirring air of Liberty.
The struggling Giant wakes, and feels he's free.

By Delphi's fountain-cave, that ancient Choir Resume their song; the Greek astonished hears, And the old altar of his worship rears.

Sound on! Fair sisters! sound your boldest lyre,Peal your old harmonies as from the spheres.

Unto strange Gods too long we've bent the knee, The trembling mind, too long and patiently.

A. B. LONGSTREET,

THE author of Georgia Scenes, and a native of that state, born at the close of the last century, has practised at intervals the somewhat diverse occupations of law and the ministry of the Methodist Church. He was for several years President of Emory College, at Oxford, Georgia. In his youth he was an intimate of George McDuffie and others, who became leading men of the South, anl the adventures which he shared with these furnish some of the anecdotes of his capital book of humor, entitled, Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c., in the First Half Century of the Republic, by a Native Georgian, which first appeared in a newspaper of the state, and subsequently in a volume from the press of the Harpers, in New York, in 1840. "They consist," the author tells us in his preface," of nothing more than fanciful combinations of real incidents and characters; and throwing into those scenes, which would be otherwise dull and insipid, some personal incident or adventure of my own, real or imaginary, as it would best suit my purpose; usually real, but happening at different times and under different circumstances from those in which they are here represented. I have not always, however, taken this liberty. Some of the scenes are as literally true as the frailties of memory

would allow them to be." In style and subject matter they are vivid, humorous descriptions, by a good story teller, who employs voice, manner, and a familiar knowledge of popular dial gue in their narration. They are quaint, hearty sketches of a rough life, and the manners of an unsettled country-such as are rapidly passing away in numerous districts where they have prevailed, and which may at some future and not very distant day, be found to exist only in such genial pages as Judge Longstreet's. Besides these collected Sketches, the author has been a contributor of similar papers, descriptive of local character, to the Magnolia, conducted by Mr. Simms, and the Orion, another magazine of South Carolina, edited by Mr. W. C. Richards.

GEORGIA THEATRICS FROM THE GEORGIA SCENES.

If my memory fail me not, the 10th of June, 1809, found me, at about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, ascending a log and gentle slope in what was called "The Dark Corner" of Lincoln. I believe it took its name from the moral darkness which reigned over that portion of the county at the time of which I am speaking. If in this point of view it was but a shade darker than the rest of the county, it was inconceivably dark. If any man can name a trick or sin which had not been committed at the time of which I am speaking, in the very focus of all the county's illumination (Lincolnton), he must himself be the most inventive of the tricky, and the very Judas of sinners. Since that time, however (all humor aside), Lincoln has become a living proof" that light shineth in darkness." Could I venture to mingle the solemn with the ludicrous, even for the purposes of honorable contrast, I could adduce from this county instances of the most numerous and wonderful transitions from vice and folly to virtue and holiness, which have ever, perhaps, been witnessed since the days of the apostolic ministry. So much, lest it should be thought by some that what I am about to relate is characteristic of the county in which it occurred.

Whatever may be said of the moral condition of the Dark Corner at the time just mentioned. its natural condition was anything but dark. It smiled in all the charms of spring; and spring borrowed a new charm from its undulating grounds, its luxuriant woodlands, its sportive streams, its vocal birds, and its blushing flowers.

Rapt with the enchantment of the season and the scenery around me, I was slowly rising the slope, when I was startled by loud, profane, and boisterous voices, which seemed to proceed from a thick covert of undergrowth about two hundred yards in the advance of me, and about one hundred to the right of my road.

You kin, kin you?"

Boo-00-00 !

"Yes, I kin, and am able to do it! Oh, wake snakes, and walk your chalks! Brimstone and fire! Don't hold me, Nick Stoval! The fight's made up, and let's go at it. soul if I don't jump down his throat, and gallop every chitterling out of him before you can say quit !'"

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Now, Nick, don't hold him! Jist let the wildcat come, and I'll tame him. Ned'll see me a fair fight, won't you, Ned ?"

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