that all that we do know, Charley tells us." For I was already an insatiable reader, and always recalling what I read, and always communicating my knowledge to others in the form of small lectures. I had a book of Scripture stories, with a picture of Pharaoh in his chariot, with the title, "Pharaoh's host sunk in the Red Sea." Hence I concluded that a _host_ was a vehicle of a very superior description. A carriage-builder in our neighbourhood had executed a chaise of very unusual magnificence, and as I stood admiring it I informed Hillburn that this was what was called by the learned a _host_, and that it was in such a host that Pharaoh perished. I remember elevating my voice somewhat for the benefit of a bystander, being somewhat proud of this bit of knowledge. Unfortunately, not only my father, but also my teacher, and with them the entire population of North America, in those days regarded a good knowledge of arithmetic as forming nine-tenths of all that was most needful in education, while indulgence in a taste for general information, and "literature" especially, was glared at with a very evil eye indeed, as tending to injure a "practical business man." That there could be any kind of profitable or respectable calling not based upon arithmetic did not enter into the heart of man to conceive, while among the bankers and merchants of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia there was a deeply-seated conviction that even a wealthy and successful editor, literary man, or artist, was really an inferior as compared to themselves. As this sublime truth was severely rubbed into me several times daily during the greater portion of my youthful life, and as in its earlier stage I rarely met with a man grown who did not look down on me as an unfortunate non-arithmetical, unbusinesslike creature, and let me know it too, I very naturally grew up with a low estimate of my own capacities; and as I was proud and sensitive, this was to me a source of much suffering, which often became terrible as I advanced in years. But at that time the position of the literary man or scholar, with the exception of a very few brilliant magnates who had "made money," was in the United States not an enviable one. Serious interest in art and letters was not understood, or so generally sympathised with, as it now is in "Quakerdelphia." There was a gentleman in Philadelphia who was a scholar, and who having lived long abroad, had accumulated a very curious black-letter and _rariora_ library. For a long time I observed that this library was never mentioned in polite circles without significant smiles. One day I heard a lady say very meaningly, "I suppose that you know what kind of books he has _and how he obtained them_?" So I inquired very naturally if he had come by them dishonestly. To which the reply, half- whispered in my ear lest it should be overheard, was, "They say his books are all _old_ things, which he did not buy at any first-class stores, but