forgetting those skating achievements, which for the time being fill the mind with such pride, that one scarcely wishes to reach heaven at last, if that amusement be interdicted among the just made perfect! All these circumstances and events, with curious confusion, hang in a nucleus about my memories of a rural hearth; 'but these I passen by, with nameless numbers moe.' Shakspeare had a good notion of the comforts to which I refer. He puts a lovely sentiment into the mouth of King Richard II., when he causes him to utter to the royal lady this tender language: 'Good sometime queen, prepare thee hence for France: Think I am dead; and that from me thou tak'st, As from my death-bed, my last living leave. In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales Of woful ages, long ago betid; And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, Tell thou the lamentable fall of me!' * * * * * I HAVE not, howbeit, reader, as might be inferred from what has been herein before written, spent all the mean season spoken of, in the busy capital. I have made, with household appurtenances, and delights, and responsibilities, an autumnal tour or 'excrescence' into the country, round about the Empire Town. Quotidian columns have borne the register thereof; hence Benevolence prompt to crucify farther infliction. The landscapes surveyed were beautiful; though it may be said of the eminences, as Mr. William Lackaday observes in the play, of his boy-seen uplands: 'Them there hills wasn't clothed with much werder.' * * * * * HOW many steam-boat accidents are occurring constantly! One of late astonished the peaceful Delaware. But it did one good act. The explosion blew away a piece of very bad orthography in the cabin of one of those craft which ply between Philadelphia and Camden. Perilous voyages do they make, indeed! Nurses with their blooming charges, and who have never been to sea, embark in them to behold the wonders of the deep! The disaster I speak of arose from that which made the angels fall. 'Twas curst ambition. One boat was going several inches ahead of another, and urged its engine to the rate of at least fifty miles the hour. Rivalry was awakened; the captain of the hapless craft yelled to his assistant: 'Josey, we'll have a race with that t'other imperent boat! _Put that other stick of wood into the furnace!_ My pride is elewated. Never mind the expense _this_ time!' The command was given; the boiler collapsed; and ambition was ended! The orthography blown from the steamer was this: 'No smoking _aloud_ in the cabing!' This was an injunction obeyed per force, for it could not be broken.[10] It specified tacit fumigation: ----'Nothing could live Twixt that and silence;' and the unnecessary monition was no great loss, either to luxury or learning. * * * * *