black sweet, syrupy wine (?) which they used to alloy with three parts or more of the flowing stream. [Could it have been melasses, as Webster and his provincials, spell it,--or Molossa's, as dear old smattering, chattering, would be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries who make barndoor-fowl flights of learning in "Notes and Queries!" -ye Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars!-ye Amines of parasitical literature, who pick up your grains of native grown food with a bodkin, having gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe speaks of, you have "made a Golgotha" of your pages!-ponder thereon!]

-Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses. You will understand by the title that they are written in an imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on a priori grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There is no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and nurtured it; that its mysterious compages or frame-work has survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity; that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to the traditions and habits of

.

the race in favor of artificial clothing; that he will having all the world to choose from, select the very locality where this audacious generalization has been acted upon. It builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and trusts that Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in every sean, and its pockets are full of inspiration.-Now hear the verses.

THE OLD MAN DREAMS.

O for one hour of youthful joy!
Give back my twentieth spring!
I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy
Than reign a gray-beard king!

Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!
Away with learning's crown!
Tear out life's wisdom-written page,

And dash its trophies down!

One moment let my life-blood stream
From boyhood's fount of flame!
Give me one giddy, reeling dream
Of life all love and fame!

-My listening angel heard the pray

And calmly smiling, said,

"If I but touch thy silvered hair,

Thy hasty wish hath sped.

But is there nothing in thy track

To bid thee fondly stay,

While the swift seasons hurry back

To find the wished-for day ?'

-Ah, truest sou! of womankind!
Without thee, what were life?
One bliss I cannot leave behind:
I'll take-my-precious-wife!

-The angel took a sapphire pen
And wrote in rainbow dew,
"The man would be a boy again,
And be a husband too!"

"And is there nothing yet unsaid Before the change appears? Remember, all their gifts have fled With those dissolving years!"

Why, yes; for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;

I could not bear to leave them all;
I'll take-my-girl—and—boys!

The smiling angel dropped his pen,-
“Why this will never do;
The man would be a boy again,

And be a father too!"

And so I laughed, my laughter woke
The household with its noise,-

And wrote my dream, when morning broke
To please the gray-haired boys

IV.

I AM SO well pleased with my boarding-house that I intend to remain there, perhaps for years. Of course I shall have a great many conversations to report, and they will necessarily be of different tone and on different subjects. The talks are like the breakfasts, sometimes dipped toast, and sometines dry. You must take them as they come. How can I do what all these letters ask me to? No. 1. want serious and earnest thought. No. 2. (letter smells of bad cigars) must have more jokes; wants me to tell a "good storey" which he has copied out for me. (I suppose two letters before the word "good" refer to some Doctor of Divinity who told the story.) No. 3. (in female hand)-more poetry. No. 4. wants something that would be of use to a practical man. (Prahctical mahn he probably pronounces it.) No. 5. (gilt-edged, sweet-scented)-"more sentiment,"-" heart's outpourings.".

My dear friends, one and all, I can do nothing but report such remarks as I happen to have made at our breakfast-table. Their character will depend on many accidents,—a good deal on the particular per sons in the company to whom they were addressed. It so happens that those which follow were mainly intended for the divinity-student and the schoolmistress; though other whom I need not mention,

fit to interfere, with more or less propriety, in the conversation. This is one of my privileges as a talker; and of course, if I was not talking for our whole company, I don't expect all the readers of this periodical to be interested in my notes of what was said. Still, I think there may be a few that will rather like this vein,―possibly prefer it to a livelier one, serious young men, and young women generally, in life's roseate parenthesis from years of age to

inclusive.

Another privilege of talking is to misquote.-Of course it wasn't Proserpina that actually cut the yellow hair, but Iris. (As I have since told you) it was the former lady's regular business, but Dido had used herself ungenteelly, and Madame d'Enfer stood firm on the point of etiquette. So the bathycolpian Here-Juno, in Latin-sent down Iris instead. But I was mightily pleased to see that one of the gentlemen that do the heavy articles for the celebrated "Oceanic Miscellany " misquoted Campbell's line without any excuse. "Waft us home the message of course it ought to be. Will he be duly grateful for the correction ?]

-The more we study the body and the mind, the more we find both to be governed, not by, but according to laws, such as we observe in the larger universe. You think you know all about walking,— don't you, now? Well, how do you suppose your ower limbs are held to your body? They are