other in jovial toasts while the flames of the burning building illumined these Sardanapalian orgies. Year after year added to the importance of this city by the sea: year after year the Indies poured into its warehouses the riches with which Newport, out of its abundance, dowered New York, Boston and Hartford and ornamented and enriched the stately homes of its merchants. There is, however, one blot on its scutcheon--one which darkens the picture of this prosperity and the means that helped make it--and that is the slave-trade. Yes, the town which was to give birth to William Ellery Channing was one of the first to become interested in this baleful traffic. It is true it was denounced by the Legislature, which as early as 1652 made it penal to hold slaves, yet statistics show that between 1730 and 1752 the return cargoes of all ships from the West Indies consisted of them. The slave-trade of Newport bore fruit in other evils. At this time there were no less than forty distilleries at work, and this rum, exported to Africa, bought and brought home the human freight. However, in 1774 the importation was prohibited, and all male children born after 1784 were declared to be free. Nowhere was there a more courtly and elegant society than in Newport. The rules of etiquette were rigorously adhered to, and there was no jesting on so sacred a topic as the honor and respect due to those whom the good rector of Trinity was wont to allude to as moving in higher spheres. De Segur a year or two later says of it: "Other parts of America were only beautiful by anticipation, but Rhode Island was complete. Newport, well and regularly built, contained a numerous population, whose happiness was indicated by its prosperity. It offered delightful circles composed of enlightened men and modest and handsome women, whose talents heightened their personal attractions." To-day, Newport is the rendezvous of the best society of the land. Handsome women and clever men meet and greet there, but can the society be more distinguished than, from this description, it must have been a century ago? We wonder if the stately dames who in the eighteenth century held court here would quite approve of the _laissez-aller_ of modern intercourse. The youth of to-day, whose highest praise for his fair partner of the cotillon is often that she is "an awfully good fellow," has little kinship with his ancestor, who used to wait at the street-corner to see the object of his devotion go by under the convoy of her father and mother and a couple of faithful colored footmen, thinking himself happy meanwhile if his divinity gave him a shy glance. The gay girl of the period, who scampers in her pony chaise down the avenue from one engagement to the other, and whose most sacred confidence is apt to be that she adores horses and loves "pottering about the stable," is, with all her charms, quite different from the blushing little beauty of 1780, who in powdered hair, quilted petticoat