My dear Madam, let us draw around us a charmed circle; not with the trenchant point of murderous steel, but with the type that Faust gave to the world. Within its bounds, intelligence and thought shall guard us safe from Mephistopheles. Come he in whatever guise he may, its subtile potency shall, like Ithuriel's spear, compel him to display his real form in all its native ugliness and dread. And we must pass away; yet may we leave behind, secure in the defence we thus may raise, the dear ones that we love, to be the parents of an angel race that, in the distant days to come, shall tread the sod above our long-forgotten dust. MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING. Jaalam, April 5, 1866. MY DEAR SIR,-- (an' noticin' by your kiver thet you're some dearer than wut you wuz, I enclose the diffrence) I dunno ez I know jest how to interdroce this las' perduction of my mews, ez Parson Willber allus called 'em, which is goin' to _be_ the last an' _stay_ the last onless sunthin' pertikler sh'd interfear which I don't expec' ner I wun't yield tu ef it wuz ez pressin' ez a deppity Shiriff. Sence M^r Wilbur's disease I hevn't hed no one thet could dror out my talons. He ust to kind o' wine me up an' set the penderlum agoin' an' then somehow I seemed to go on tick as it wear tell I run down, but the noo minister ain't of the same brewin' nor I can't seem to git ahold of no kine of huming nater in him but sort of slide rite off as you du on the eedge of a mow. Minnysteeril natur is wal enough an' a site better'n most other kines I know on, but the other sort sech as Welbor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' naterally more wonderfle an' sweet tastin' leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile athout sayin' nothin' in pertickler an' I misdoubt he didn't set so much by the sec'nd Ceres as wut he done by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of fallin' off in spots. He wuz as outspoken as a norwester _he_ wuz, but I tole him I hoped the fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch a good many times fust afore comin' bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro C. Swett from the meetin' house steeple up to th' old perrish, an' took up for dead but he 's alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turnin' of it over I recclected how they ust to put wut they called Argymunce onto the frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a spell whilst you wuz concludin' whether you'd go in or nut espeshully ware tha wuz darters, though I most allus found it the best plen to go in fust an' think afterwards an' the gals likes it best tu. I dno as speechis ever hez any argimunts to 'em, I never see none thet hed an' I guess they never du but tha must allus be a B'ginnin' to everythin' athout it is Etarnity so I'll begin rite away an' any body may put it afore any of his speeches ef it soots an' welcome. I don't claim no paytent. THE ARGYMUNT.