the end of illustrating in some substantial manner (so it is written at this day) their appreciation of a politician so distinguished, I was waited upon by a delegation of the before-named politicians, (two of whom came slightly intoxicated,) who had come, as they said, to tender to me an invitation to visit New York. A public reception by the Mayor and Council; a grand banquet at Tammany Hall; the honor of being made one of its Sachems; free apartments and two charming serenades at the New York Hotel; and divers suppers at very respectable houses, were temptingly suggested as an inducement for me to come out and take a prominent position. Indeed, such were the representations of this distinguished delegation, that I began to think the people of New York singularly rich and liberal, seeing that they trusted their surplus money in the hands of persons who were so loose of morals that they could find no other method of spending it than suppering and serenading men of my obscure stamp.

But if my father was alarmed lest my morals should suffer by these temptations, my mother would have answered to heaven for my virtue, though a dozen damsels were setting snares for me. And this will be shown in the next chapter.

CHAPTER II.

WHICH TREATS OF HOW I LEFT MY NATIVE CAPE, AND SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS.

I HAD no sooner disclosed to my father my musings with Fame, and the aspirations she had excited in me, than he went right into a passion, and set me down as extravagant and mad. He had entertained hopes of making me a schoolmaster, perhaps an inspector of fish, in which office excellent opportunities for increasing one's fortunes were offered; but I had been rendered quite useless to the parish ever since the New York politicians had taken me into their favor. Anybody, he said, might go out upon and know the world, but few had the courage and daring to grapple with its difficulties. And then, the world was so wicked that men of reflection instinctively shrank from it. Notwithstanding my wild, visionary plans, he yet had hopes of me. But if I sought distinction in the political world, it would be well not to forget that it had at this day become a dangerous quicksand, over which a series of violent storms continually heaved. And these storms, by some mysterious process or other, were incessantly casting up on the shore of political popularity and making heroes of men whose virtues were not weighty enough to keep them at the bottom. "Be an humble citizen, my son," said he: "learn to value a quiet life. You are not given to loud and boisterous talking, to lying, or to slandering; which things, at this day, are essential to political success. Worthy and well disposed persons are too much afraid of being drowned in the violence of the storm politicians with shallow brains and empty pockets create, by their anxiety to take the affairs of the nation into their own keeping. Remember, too, that if you fail in the object of your ambition (and you are not vagabond enough to succeed), the remotest desert will not hide you from the evil designs of your enemies. You may seek some crystal stream; you may let your tears flow with its waters; but such will not lighten your disappointment, for the persecuted heart is no peace-offering to the political victor. Politically vanquished; and you are like an unhappy lover who seeks him a rural deity and sings his complaints to the winds. Your eye will become jealous at the fortunes of others, but your sighs over the cruelty of what you are pleased to call human imperfections will not bring back your own. Stay quietly at home, my son, and if you cannot be a schoolmaster, chance may one day turn you up President of these United States. Let your insanity for writing books not beguile you into crime; and above all, I would enjoin you, my son, never to write the 'Life and Character' of an in-going President, for then, to follow the fashion of the day, and make for him a life that would apply with equal truth to King Mancho, or any one of his sable subjects, will be necessary that you write him down the hero of adventures he never dreamed of, and leave out the score of delinquincies his real life is blemished with. If you do this, wise men will set you down a scribbler for charity's sake."

Thus spoke my venerable father. But I remembered that he had several times before said that if I would so square my morals as to become in favor with the matronly portion of the parish he would even try and make a parson of me, which was, in his opinion, a promotion still higher than schoolmaster. Having got a parish, and chosen the richest damsel of the flock for my wife, there was nothing to hinder me from snapping my fingers at the world and its persecutions.

My father, I would here observe, in justice to his memory, was much given to the study of religion, and would not unfrequently invite to his house the parson of a neighboring village, that he might debate with him on matters appertaining to the creed, which he had been thirty years narrowing down to the finest point. And yet he always kept a vigilant eye to his worldly affairs, nor ever let a man get the better of him in a bargain. Indeed it was said of him that though he had not been to sea for many a day he so linked himself to the fortunes of his neighbors as to secure a large share of the bounty so generously paid by our government. That there was nothing in this inconsistent with his love of true religion my father was assured by the parson, who held that worldly possessions in no wise blunted the appetite for redemption; and that even bill-discounting quakers, with their bags of gold on their backs, would not find the gates of heaven shut to them. And as the parson was a man of great learning, though small of figure, and very curatical in his features and dress, his opinions were in high favor with the villagers, among whom he had given it out that he was a graduate of Yale and Harvard, both of which celebrated institutions had conferred high honors upon him. This high throwing of the parson's lasso getting abroad atoned for innumerable antiquated and very dull sermons, for the delivery of which he would excuse himself to his private friends by saying that his salary was but four hundred dollars a year, one third of which he took in No. 2 mackerel no one would buy of him. He was excessively fussy; and if he advocated temperance to-day, he would to-morrow take a sly smash, never forgetting to add that it was recommended by his physician, who was likewise a man of great learning. Under the influence of this medicine, it was said, by malicious people, which no parish is with—out, that if the occasion demanded a serious sermon he was sure to preach one that would send all the young folks of his congregation into a titter. If the occasion was such as to tolerate a little humor, he was sure to send them all into a melancholy mood with the gravity of his remarks. In fine, he was sure to be on the opposite side of everything natural. The only question he was not quite sure it would do to get upon, was the slavery question. And for this he always excused himself by saying that there were many others in the same condition. It would not do to be in the desert, hence he inclined to the policy of our fashionable clergy, who are extremely cautious not to steer too close to questions not popular enough to be profitably espoused. If Parson Stebbins (for such was his name) let drop a few words in favor of freedom to-day, Obadiah Morgan, the most influential member of his church, would to-morrow politely withdraw. A word or two complimentary of the South and her peculiar institutions was equally sure to find him taken to task by the philanthropic females of his parish. In truth, he could approach neither side of the question without finding a fire in his rear. And as his empty pocket would not allow him to rise to independence, he resolved to preach to that portion of his church which was content to let the slavery question