AT this time, and in this very village, there lived a gentleman, in the truest sense of the term, by the name of Edward Lang. He was a man of high family, of aristocratic notions, and thought literature the chief object worthy of pursuit. At the time I saw him, he bore the ills of poverty, the burden of a broken heart, and disappointed hopes. He possessed a well-stored mind, unwearied benevolence, and a Tremaine-like refinement. He had, in the early part of his life, encumbered a large fortune with debts of extravagance, idleness, and folly; and at a subsequent period, lost the remainder in scheming; for he thought that his prëeminence in literature gave him prëeminence in every thing. Every body applauded his plans; they were upon a large scale; they redounded to the good of the place, and ruined him. Bred a lawyer, the unfairness of country practice, the low and degraded crowd it brought him in contact with, caused him to throw up his profession. He took to farming; but he only tried experiments, to the advantage of other people, and his own loss. He got up all sorts of useful societies, which cost him his time, and paid him nothing. He bought all the new works for other people to read; subscribed liberally to reading-rooms and schools. He fatted cattle for the agricultural society, at six times their worth in corn and care. Every body in the village improved their own stock by his; but then all this took money from his pocket. He did not know the state of his affairs, because he hated settlements. He could not bring himself down to the drudgery of life, but did his farming scientifically, in his study, and left the work to hired hands. He failed, and nobody pitied him. He began to be called a 'poor good-for-nothing fellow,' whose chimeras had brought him down. All his neighbors sued him, and he suffered all who owed him to go undunned. He gave up all for lost; sat himself down in wretchedness, disgusted with the world, and tired of himself. I was quite intimate with this gentleman. Being much my senior, for he was about fifty, and a bachelor, he took it upon himself to give me a word of advice. He had been in love himself, and that desperately; though unfortunate in his love affairs, as well as all others. The father of the lady objected to him, on the score of his being unfit to make money. He possessed hordes of wealth, himself, and could have made two hearts happy. But no; this would not do. His ideas of excellence consisted in the faculty of making money and keeping it. 'As for literature and refinement, he did not care for them. _He_ was not a literary man,' he said, 'and yet he was rich, and respected; a president of a bank; had been an unsuccessful candidate for congress, which was _some_ honor, and had it in his power to fill any office in the town he would accept. No; he preferred a man of business for a son-in-law.'