We determined to keep our own counsel, and thereupon ratified our unintentional exchange of productions. I presented my poem to Professor Owlsdarck, and he resigned in my favor all right, title, and interest in Cheops and his Obsequies. We both felt easier after this had been done, and walked arm-in-arm into Dr. Dastick's parlor, conscious of a plethoric satisfaction strange to experience. I need hardly allude to the indignation of the Foxden electors, when the "Regulator" appeared the next morning with a bitter _critique_ of my performance in the Town Hall. There is notoriously a good deal of license allowed to opposition editors upon election-day. But to ridicule a serious and erudite lecture as "a flimsy and buffooning poem,"--there was, really, in this, a blindness of passion, a display of impotent malice, an utter contempt for the common sense of subscribers, to which the history of editorial vagaries seemed to furnish no parallel. Of course, a libel so gross and atrocious not only failed of its object, but drove off in disgust all decent remnants of the opposing party which the lecture of the previous evening had failed to conciliate. And now I think it has been explained why I was chosen to represent Foxden, and how my vote came to be so nearly unanimous. Whether I made a good use of the lesson of that fifth of November it does not become me to say. But of the success of the Principal of the Wrexford Academy in the useful sphere of labor upon which he then entered I possess undoubted evidence. "Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff man. in school," exclaimed a chubby little fellow in whom I have some interest, when he lately returned from Wrexford to pass the summer vacation,--"Old Owlsdarck's a pretty stiff man in school; but when he comes into the play-ground, you ought to hear him laugh and carry on with the boys!" A few seasons ago the Professor consented to repeat his famous poem upon "The Whims of New England," and made the tour of the river-towns, and several hundred dollars. He wrote me that he had received tempting overtures for a Western excursion, which his numerous lyceum-engagements at home compelled him to decline. I have since faced many audiences, and long conquered the maiden bashfulness of a first appearance. It is necessary to confess that my topics of discourse have generally been of too radical a character to maintain the unprecedented popularity of my first attempt. I don't mind mentioning, however, that the manuscript wherewith I delighted the people of Foxden is yet in my possession. And should there be among my readers members of the Inviting Committee of any neighboring Association, League, or Lyceum, they will please notice that I am open to offers for the repetition of a highly instructive _Lecture: Subject, The Obsequies of Cheops_. MOUNTAINS AND THEIR ORIGIN.