He then proceeded to indulge his philosophical humor. He sat down, among the flickering lamps, at the solitary board, and struck up a dirge, accompanying his voice, by knocking with the chopsticks, and whatever else was convenient to his purpose, upon the porcelain bowls and dishes, which he finally broke into a thousand pieces, and setting fire to his mansion, he consumed it to ashes, together with the smoke-house, and all its valuable contents. He then, abandoning all thoughts of taking another wife, travelled into the recesses of Latinguin, in pursuit of his old master, Laoukeun, whom, at length, he discovered. There he acquired the reputation of a profound philosopher; and lay down, at last, in the peaceful grave, where wicked widows cease from troubling, and weary widowers are at rest. No. CXXII. A grasshopper was not the crest of Peter Faneuil's arms. I formerly supposed it was; for a gilded grasshopper, as half the world knows, is the vane upon the cupola of Faneuil Hall; and a gilded grasshopper, as many of us well remember, whirled about, of yore, upon the little spire, that rose above the summer-house, appurtenant to the mansion, where Peter Faneuil lived, and died. That house was built, and occupied, by his uncle, Andrew; and he had some seven acres, for his garden thereabouts. It was upon the westerly side of old _Treamount_ Street, and became the residence of the late William Phillips, whose political relations to the people of Massachusetts, as their Lieutenant Governor, could not preserve him from the sobriquet of _Billy_. I thought it not unlikely, that Peter's crest was a grasshopper, and that, on that account, he had become partial to this emblem. But I am duly certified, that it was not so. The selection of a grasshopper, for a vane, was made, in imitation of their example, who placed the very same thing, upon the pinnacle of the Royal Exchange, in London. The arms of the Faneuils I have seen, upon the silver castors, which once were Peter's own; and, upon his decease, became the property of his brother, Benjamin, from whom they descended to his only daughter, Mary Faneuil, who became, October 13, 1754, the wife of George Bethune, now deceased; and was the mother of George Bethune, Esquire, who will complete his eighty-second year, in April, 1851. From this gentleman, whose grand-uncle Peter Faneuil was, and from other descendants of old Benjamin Faneuil, of Rochelle, I have received some facts and documents--interesting to me--possibly to others.