and who were in alliance with certain ecclesiastical tricksters, did not even blush to own), followed me at every step. The scum of New-York in the shape of Negroes, Irishmen, Germans, &c., were hired, in well-organized gangs, to drop mysterious allusions and to offer me other insults in the street, (and thus I was daily forced to see and hear things in New-York, of which I had never dreamt before,) while a body of proselyting religionists were busy in their endeavors to make me a submissive tool of some ecclesiastical party or else to rob me of the last prospect of eating a respectable piece of bread and butter. This odious vice of certain countrymen of yours was in fact the prolific source of all the difficulties I complain of, and it is remotely the cause of my confinement here.

In the course of this last year, however, these manœuvres assumed a still more startling and iniquitous shape than before. Hitherto my domicile had been safe and quiet. For, although meddlesome attempts had been made to force certain associations on me and to cut me off from others, I had still been left sufficiently unmolested to accomplish some study without any flagrant interruptions. This last resource of self-defence and happiness was destroyed me at the beginning of last winter. New appointments at the University, (some of them degradations to me, at any rate, employed for humiliating purposes,) and the petty jealousies, nay even animosities, which among men of a certain order of intellect are the natural consequence of such changes, soon introduced disorder into the Institution, fostered a spirit of rebellion against me, and before the end of the first term of the present year, my course of instruction was entirely broken up. The difficulty (which in fact was wholly due to a shameless inefficiency of discipline,) was enveloped in a sort of mummery, the sum and substance of which, however, was plainly this: "that if I remained in the Institution in the unmolested enjoyment of a peaceful life of study, my independent progress would be an encroachment on certain colleagues of mine;" and this was in fact, thrown out as a hint for me to leave. The rent of my private room in the building had already been nearly doubled by Prof. J.—— for the same reason. As the University, however, had contributed but an insignificant item to my support, I neither considered it necessary to remove from the building, which is accessible to all classes of tenants, nor did I make much account of a self-made suspension of my course, although I grieved to think of the means that had been used to superinduce such a necessity. Prof. L——, who has always exhibited a pettiness of disposition, altogether unworthy of a man of science, had openly before my eyes played the confidant and supporter of a disorderly student, who on my motion was under college discipline, and the meetings of the faculty were made so disgusting to me, that I could no longer attend to make my reports. New methods of annoyance were devised. The council-room of the Institution, next door to mine, was converted into an omnibus for noisy meetings of every description—religious gatherings in the morning—ominous vociferations during recitation time—obstreperous conclaves of students in the afternoon—and violent political town gatherings in the evening. Besides all this, the menials of the Institution were corrupted into unusual insolence towards me, (among them my special attendant,) and the vexations of this description became so annoying to me, that for some time I had actually to do my own chamber-work. I had almost forgotten to mention certain mysterious desk-slammings in the council-room, and equally significant and intimidating door-slammings, particularly at a room opposite mine, which communicates (I believe) with a private part of the building, now occupied by a dentist, (that sublime science having also found its way into our college,) at unseasonable hours of the night, sometimes accompanied with various remarks, one of which now occurs to me: "Oh, you are not one of us!" (sung in operatic style.) The quiet of my residence was, moreover, destroyed by horrid vociferations at all hours of the night, before my very door, and regularly under my window, and these were made not only by students, (of which there were only a few, supported in their insubordination) but by an extra-academic body of men and women, certain zealous religionists and their impenitent coadjutors, evidently the abettors of my in-door enemies, and by two of my colleagues. A night or week of such proceedings would be enough to set a man crazy. What must be their effect if they continue for months? And yet expressions like the following were perpetually ringing in my ears:—"Go on!" "You are the man!" "You are not the man!" "Go on! no, stop!" (by the same voice in the same breath.) "Out of the Institution with that man!" (by the laurelled valedictorian of last year.), "Stand up!" (by Prof. C——, close to my door.) "He started with nothing!" (by the same voice in the same place). "Pray!" (by ditto.) "You have finished!" "Go away!" "Thank God, that that man is out of the Institution!" (by a lady member of a certain religious fraternity, on terms of intimacy with a certain prominent politician of the neighborhood.) "Pursue him, worm that never d-i-e-s!" (theatrically shrieked by the same voice.) "You are a dead man! Dead, dead, dead, dead!" (by