_Mayor_—Take it, with its nails and knuckles. _Charley_—O, Daniel! _Mayor_—What’s the matter, Charley? _Charley_—I hear the echo clank of a culprit’s chains, and I almost feel the hangman’s halter round my neck. And have you not gizzard enough to forgive me, when that rash humor which the people gave me, makes me savage and forgetful? _Mayor_—Yes, Charley, and henceforth, when you are over-savage with your Daniel, and refuse the keys to gilded treasure, and strive to rob his brother Edward, and Father Peter of a million spoils, he’ll say that only Horace can deride, And black people chide, And he’ll let you slide Down the rapid tide Into the grassy dell, Near the borders of—— Where the first sinners fell, And where contractors dwell, And all who truth do sell, So, Charley, fare thee well. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by STEPHEN H. BRANCH, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Life of Stephen H. Branch. With John, James, and Wesley Harper’s permission, I returned to Providence, and went with Smith & Parmenter, who published the “_Literary Cadet and Rhode Island Statesman_,” whose editor was the handsome and talented Sylvester S. Southworth, now editor of the “_New York Mercury_.” Samuel J. Smith courted Miss McBride, a beautiful actress, who extended her hand behind her for sewing silk, when her sister penetrated and broke a needle in the palm or rear of her hand, and she died in two days of lockjaw. I attended her funeral, and so piercing were her lover’s cries, and so mournful was the general scene, that I had to join the mighty throng in the universal lamentation. After the coffin was lowered, and the first spade of earth imparted its thrilling reverberation, he became frantic, and leaped into the grave, and strove to remove the lid, amid the horror of the vast assemblage. In those early years, as now, I was extremely susceptible, and as nature’s evening mantle was closing its sombre folds around us,—and, as the extraordinary spectacle of the enthusiastic lover had thrilled and chilled me to the soul, I departed for my abode, amid the overwhelming cries of a desolate man, who soon sold his interest in the “_Statesman_,” and published the “_News_,” which was the first Sunday journal established in New York. I went with John Miller, of the _Providence Journal_, with Hugh Brown, who printed the Providence Directory—with Mr. Congdon, of New Bedford,—with Beales & Homer, of the _Boston Gazette_,—with Mr. Eldridge, of the _Hamden Whig_, of Springfield,—with John Russell, of the _Hartford Times_,—with Charles King, of the _New York American_, whose publisher was D. K. Minor,—- with Michael Burnham, of the _New York Evening Post_, whose editors were William Cullen Bryant and William Leggett, whose fervent nature and jovial risibles I can never forget,—with Thomas Kite, a stingy