felt proud in view of the happy result of my labor, and rejoiced that I had entered upon so noble a career of usefulness. The close of the first term drew near, and as I wished my patrons to have an opportunity of witnessing what advancement had been made thus far, I directed my pupils, in their next letters home, to request the favor of a visit from their parents, previous to the commencement of the approaching term. The result of my courtesy will be ascertained from the following communications, which came to hand during the next fortnight. I must premise, however, that it had been a regulation of the school, from an early date, that each pupil should write to his parents semi-monthly, at least, expressing himself freely respecting his studies, his views, and the domestic affairs of our little republic. I had intended to preface the several epistles with a sketch of their respective authors, but as I have already trespassed too far, I will give the series at once, and leave to imagination the task of introduction. They ran thus:

NUMBER ONE.

'SIR: I should look pretty, I guess, to be ketched up to your place, after you've treated my dear little Potosi so barbarous. He's writ to me several times that I must come and fetch him hum, and I should done so long ago, 'fe had n't threatend he'd kill my canaries, and stick up pins in my rocking-chair, 'fi did n't. Now I likes such a spirit, but I wont let him think that he can scare me, if he is a genus-it's mor 'n his poor dear father ever did - but that's neither here nor there. What I look to, is, the treatment of the sweet little fellow. He states that he has n't had his bed warmed once not once!-all this blessed spring; that he's obleeged to git up by sunrise, and dress himself in a room where there is n't no fire, and, Sir, must I say it, to wash in cold water and wipe his dear sweet face on a cold towel!- I dare say a common huckabuck, though he don't mention that. Now that's what I call barbarous treatment-and, Sir, towards whom? Why, Sir, towards my dear little Dorado, scarcely turned of fifteen, who has always had his bed warmed till June, and a hot blanket to his feet in the bargain - never got up till eight o'clock-nor washed in cold water, nor wiped on a nice damask napkin, that had n't been aired over night. My heart fairly pit-a-pats to think how dreadful the poor little dear must have underwent sence he's been up there. I wrote to him to run away the first opportunity, if you would n't let him come without. Pray send him hum by the first boat, and thus show that you can do one act of humanness to one you've used so shocking. Yours with contempt,

'P. S. I shan't pay a shilon for such inhuman edication.' I sent him by the first boat, with a receipt in full.

'MRS. SNOOKS.'

NUMBER TWO.

'SIR: I have received several epistles from my sons sinse they have been at your establishment, of an infamous and disreputable character. The speling was all corect, but that I regard as mere moonshine, compared with the hand-writing; and that of my sons, Sir, would have disgrased an orrang-owtang. Indeed there was not an i dotted, nor a t crossed throughout, and though the commas were propperly placed, they were altogether to straight to preserve the line of beauty. As for the capitle letters, they were toto selo out of proportion with the smaller characters, and, what I hold to be unpardonable, all the d's were turned up for all the world like a little dog's tail curled over his posteriours. Now it cannot be that the noble science of caligraphy is philosophicly taught in your establishment. I expect, from the general run of my son's chirography, that your assistant in that department belongs to the angular fraternity, who are doing such ireparable injury to the rising generation. Such being my apprehension, and having the welfare of my truly promising children much at heart, (it's astonishing how they have retrograded in writing sinse they left me,) I feel myself under the necessity of recalling them at the end of the quarter. To be sure, they are highly pleased with the school, and express a desire to remain with you; but I cannot think of it; they must not disgrase me by acquiring a habit of cacography which would effectually preclude them from cutting a flourish in the world, to which an accomplished pen is the surest 'Respectfully,

pasport.

'A. GRAPHIC.'

NUMBER THREE.

'SIR: I have been excessively chagrined by the last few letters received from my son. The hand-writing was bold and fair, I acknowledge, and indeed the composition was very well for a lad-I think I may say excellent and demonstrative of great improvement in that particular; but the spelling was absolutely outrageous. There were certainly half-a-dozen orthographical sins of omission and commission in as many lines. Honour was spelt without the u, publick without the k, and traveller with but one ! Now one might as well suppose a traveller could plod on his journey as well with one leg as with one l. I see you have adopted Webster as your standard -a most erring and dangerous authority. Sir, he has much to answer for in behalf of the injury he is doing to the rising generation. He is a literary heretick, and will destroy the noble republick of letters, if he continues to multiply proselytes to his specious doctrines. He might as well clip off the tongue or the palate of his disciples, as to curtail the k's, knock out the i's, et cetera, of the king's English. He's a perfect linguicide a vernacular murderer, and would no doubt be appointed executioner to a literary Nero. But to my son; his letter, as I intimated, was well conceived and expressed, and all scriptorial minutiæ were present; but what avail all these, if marred by bad spelling? It's all nonsense the ado that's made about calligraphy, either literally or metaphorically speaking the true beauty of all writing is in the spelling-every thing else is meretricious; and as I understand you have but two exercises daily in this paramountly-important art, you will do me the favor to send honie my truly-clever son at your earliest convenience. Yours truly,

--

'TODD JOHNSON.'

NUMBER FOUR.

'SIR: There are limits to patience, as to all else human; and the last letter from my poor little suffering Eugene has placed me entirely beyond them. He states that his fare, ever since he has been with you, has been of the crudest and most unpalatable kind, and not only that, but eked out with miserable parsimony. Chocolate with bread-and-butter at breakfast, cold coffee to dinner, and milk with toast, etc., at supper. Preserves only three times a week pies the same- cakes the same- hot rolls the same- - and muffins the same! All the rest of the week, baked beans, hasty pudding, apple-sauce, and cold meats of a Sunday! I am sure he must be a perfect skeleton by this time. I have always suspected that school-masters were no better than they should be, and now I am certain of it. How could you have the heart to reduce the son of an alderman to such wretched sustenance! Why, Sir, at his father's generous table, such pitiful viands were never heard of. The dear child has been accustomed to wine from his cradle; it has been as free to him as water; and as for cakes, comfits, and such delicacies, he never knew the bitter want of them. The maid always laid a nice piece of fruit-cake under his pillow when she made his bed, and a bottle of muscat always stood within reach, if he were thirsty during the night. No wonder he yearns to fly to his fond mother, when he thinks of all these little necessary comforts, and compares them with the stale bread-and-butter, and the cold coffee, (served up in white bowls, I dare say,) to which your saw-dust-pudding frugality would accustom him! I shall never forgive myself for so long neglecting to send for him home. He will be fifteen tomorrow week, ere which time I trust you will have returned him to those who regard the welfare of a favorite of genius too tenderly to sacrifice it on the altar of mammon. 'I remain, &c.

'APICIA OPHIR.'

NUMBER FIVE.

'SIR: My nerves have been very much disturbed by the last two or three letters from my sons, whom, in evil hour, I committed to your charge. Verily the last one came near throwing me into convulsions, such was the exacerbation of my feelings by its perusal. Among multifarious other matter, it stated that you are in the practice of having meat at least once a day at your table, and that roast pig is often the abomination selected. Sir, in the Zoological Institute of this metropolis, where are congregated the most voracious creatures of earth and air, it is not a matter of wonder that such a practice should prevail; they are naturally carniverous-blood-thirsty by instinct and furnished with claws and incisores accordingly. But for human beings, endowed with reason, and possessed of no such cannibal appliances or propensities, to be aping the ferocious habitudes of the beasts that perish, gorging their epigastric regions with the mangled nerves and muscles of murdered beeves, lambs, pigs, et id genus omne, is an outrage against nature, and the divinity of health. For two score years and upward have I followed the god-like practice of medicine, and never yet have I encountered dis

ease but in those unhappy persons who had been guilty at some time or other of eating meat. Flesh, Sir, is the universal pabulum of disease; banish it from the world, and the latter would perish from atrophy. Intemperance in beverage is justly censured by the philanthropists of the day; but, Sir, it is only one of the sequalæ of sarcophagism. He that devours much meat, like Milo of old, will covet large potations thereafter, to allay the morbid thirst of a repletive indigestion. I am now engaged in writing a work on dietetics, which I flatter myself will exercise a salutary prophylactic influence on the welfare of the rising generation. The principles of my system are all drawn from nature, and accord with her prognosis throughout. I amputate the whole code of cookery, bone and sinew, and utterly discard it, Dr. Kitchener and all, as an imposthume, a gangrene upon the body politic. Perhaps I may tolerate the use of bread to laboring persons of craving appetites, hardy constitutions, and the digestive powers of an ostrich; but this I shall not decide positively, till I shall have had further conversation with Dr. Graham, and more elaborately analyzed the composition of Morrison's pills. Pure water, pure milk, emasculated fruits, barley infusions, parched corn, emulsions of arrow root, potatoes, rice, etc., undepraved with spices and unnatural amalgamation, are the substratum on which I intend to rear the superstructure of Hygeia; and whosoever shall enter therein, with a becoming walk, shall thrillingly experience that perfection of the rational and physical entity, viz: mens sana in corpore sano. But to return from my aberrancy to the subject in hand. I easily discover, from the idiosyncrasy of my sons letters, that you have no cordon sanitaire around your table; that meat, pies, and even hot cakes and coffee are daily allowed to your pupils, with other abominations too numerous to mention; and you will therefore do me the favor to put my sons on board the return boat to the city, with strict injunctions on the captain not to let them take any other refreshments during the passage than cold water and pea-nuts.

'Respectfully, etc.

'GALEN FAST, M. D.'

NUMBER SIX.

'SIR: My son's of 10th inst. came duly to hand. Sorry to hear he's been stud'g Latin, &c. What's use? I never studied any such gibberish nothing but Webster's Spelling-Book, and Daboll's Arith'k, and Poor Rich'ds Alm'k-yet got along well enough, made money, got rich, am Bank Dir'r, Memb. Chamb. Com., &c. &c. Latin! um- - fiddle-s'k! Better look into McCull'ch- -some use in that learn all about Cr. and Dr., ct. per ct., cur'cy, exch., bank facil., m'dz., &c.—that's the commodity of true knowledge- the best m'dz. for count'g room - always in dem'd always available in market, when y'r Latin and Greek, and parley vous's, and si señor's, and sine qua non's would n't fetch a sous markee, as one of my captains says. But to point. My son is now fourteen y'rs old-am in want of another clerk -must have finish'd his education by this time-w'd have let him staid another half y'r but for that confounded Latin, and high price of tuition at Boarding-school. Please ship him on board Swiftsure, with invoice and bill of lad'g of books, &c., consigned to Merx & Co., N. Y’k.

'Y'rs, &c.

'JNO. SMITH.' 'P. S. Send bill, and will remit by return mail. Cotton on decline-sugars look'g up. Stocks rather heavy. Sh'd be glad to sell you a lot of damag'd Java a 7 cts. pr. lb., very cheap, and good enough for Board'g-sch'll. Please advise.'

NUMBER SEVEN.

'SIR: If there is one thing in orbem terrarum, that I prize above others, it is Latin. It has been my daily viaticum from boyhood. I may say of the Roman classics what Tully says of poetical pursuits: 'Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, etc. etc. I am apt to regard a taste for Latin as a sixth sense, much to be envied by the uninitiated, as affording its possessor more substantial gratification than the five others combined. Greek is all very well in its way; but it is too slippery for the memorytoo glabrose-and whoever searches among its treasures, will find the To kalov, it is true, but not the summum bonum, which is only to be met with in the glorious tongue of the Cæsars. If I were an autocrat, no other language should be tolerated in my dominions - if any one disobeyed, lingua ci præcidetur. I never doubted its being the language of our first parents in Paradise-so sublime, so appropriate to that period of moral grandeur, when man communed with his Maker in the bowers of Eden. For all the capabilities of human thought, it stands unrivalled and unapproachable, and we listen to its swelling cadences with breathless reverence, as to the peal of the thunder-storm. I would have given the coffers of Croesus to have heard Cicero pronounce, ore rotundo, that passage of a sentence in Marcellus in relation to Cæsar, running thus: Omnes

nostrorum imperatorum, omnes exterarum gentium potentissimorumque populorum, omnes clarissimorum regum res gestas cum tuis, nec contentionum magnitudine, nec numero præliorum, nec varietate regionum, nec celeritate conficiendi, nec dissimilitu dine bellorum posse conferi, etc. etc. How smooth and sonorous, yet spirit-stirring! how calm, yet how magnificent! How inimitable in vocal power! -in all the sounding attributes of sublimity, how like Niagara in its palmiest hour, when the spring floods have added another string to its tremendous lyre! How tame does it appear in our sibilant and barbarous English! All the exploits of our emperors, of foreign nations, of the most powerful people, the most celebrated kings, cannot compare with thine, either in magnitude of controversy, or number of battles, or variety of climes, or celerity of execution, or the dissimilitude of warfare.' Tacitus has one passage of almost equal grandeur-Virgil and Lucretius several - but for nobleness of effect, Tully must bear the palm. By the by, have you ever been able to master all the allusions in his elegant Amacitia and Senectute? I have not yet succeeded, but I hope to find the clue of these ambages. There is also a verse of Hessiod which perplexes me magnopore :

* θαλασση κλύξει παντα ανθρώπων κακα.

I can't fathom it. Nor can I take the measure of Euripides' understanding, when he speaks of the 'projecting foot of the bottle.' Could he have meant one a foot long, or did bottles have feet in his day, or is it a metaphor, for the pes instabilis of one who has used the bottle too freely? I rather incline to the last conjecture, particularly after a lounge at Palmo's. Videsne, from the above, that my counting-room does not engross all my time? Otium cum dignitate,' is my motto. I find leisure for a confab with some one of the classics every day, especially in summer. Aloof from the restigia rulgus, there is a fine old tree at Hoboken, high on an eminence like Milton's hero, and like him surrounded by a multitude of lesser mates, to which I have worn a smooth path as it were to the haunts of my Egeria. A projecting root, cushioned with moss, and luxuriantly curved by nature as if for the easy-chair of a Dryad, affords me a most delightful seat, from whence a leafy vista opens a view of the velivolum and magnificent Hudson, with the spires of the far-off city towering in the cerulean distance, while the hum of bees and the song of birds around and above, and the murmuring of a little rill in the near coppice, haunts me with a levi susurro worthy of Hybla, and harmonizing sweetly with the sylvan melodies of classic lore. It is there, in that sweet spot, that I (fortunate siner, am I not?) peruse my favorite authors in my favorite fanguage ab ovo usque ad mala. I begin with Catullus in early May, when the bustling world melts into love and song, like the heart of the ardent poet in the sunshine of his Lesbia's charms. There is a consonance in the heart-stirring fervor of the Roman madrigal, and the electric brilliancy of that gay season when all nature, ita dicere, goes a wooing. Hail, blessed Spring!-sweet mother of bright hours!

'Amata nobis, tantum amabitur nulla.'

Already have thy winged heralds proclaimed thine advent already does the music of unchained streams, and the charm of opening buds, and the breath of first-born flowers and a new Leipsic edition of Catullus, invoke me to my silvan haunt beneath the favorite tree. I have other authors for other seasons:- But I have wearied you, I fear, and would close instanter, but for fear of boring you with a long postscript. Well, then, tangere rem acu; my son informs me that you have but three exercises per diem in Latin. Now this is too bad six of one honr each would be little enough, mehercle, for so glorious a study. What if he is to be a merchant? I would rather he should understand Latin, than have McCulloch and Adam Smith memoriater. Mere nuge are all your 'Clerks' Manuals,' 'Book-keepers' Assistants,' 'Political Economies, etc., to a commercial gentleman, compared with a smattering, even, of Viri Roma,' or 'Mare's Introduction.' With these views, I have employed a graduate from Oxford as a private tutor for my son in linguam divinam, and accordingly you will much oblige me by expediting his return to the city, as early as you can make it agreeable. Are et vale! 'Resp❜y, etc.,

'MARCUS TULLIUS LATIUM.'

NUMBER EIGHT.

'SIR: How was it possible you should suffer one of your teachers to threaten personal chastisement to my little son for refusing to go to church? Do you forget who his father is one of the magnates of the metropolis, and who you yourself are-one of a toilful and servile caste, whom we never permit at our tables or soirées? I regard it, Sir, as an instance of impertinent presumption approximating nearly the summary penalty of the cow-skin. You ought to be grateful to fortune that the threat was not executed. And where do you find authority for using bludgeons like the vindictive lic

!

tors of uncivilized Rome? In the trite precepts of a fabulous despot called Solomon, I dare say. Think you there was ever such a sage tyrant in existence as the Jewish wise man No, Sir, no more than there have been such beings as Mahomet's sleepers, or the Gorgons and other demi-devils of ancient mythology. If you had ever attended some of our lectures at Tammany Hall, you would have had some of your puerile credulity laughed out of you before this. I'll bet a cool thousand you never read Paine's Age of Reason in your life, and yet you would suffer a boy to be chastised for daring to be so reasonable as to contravene your silly notions of Sundays, and sermons, and other like bugbears of priestly invention. This church-going and conventicling is all d-d nonsense, and I'll reward the boy handsomely for his spirit and want of prejudice in thinking as his father has taught him respecting you Christians-your fasts, and your tracts, and your temperance societies, and other such sanctimonious trumpery. Life's sands fall fast enough without shaking the glass,' as Paine says, or suffering every seventh day to pass in prayers and 'psalm-singing.' Dum vivimus vivamus' is my creed, and shall be that of my children; so send my son to town before you have frightened him out of his senses by your Calvanistic humbugs, and think yourself fortunate if I ever pay you a shilling for his tuition thus far.

'I remain, &c.,

'OWEN VOLTAIRE.'

'SIR: With surprise and regret I learn from my son's last letter, that your pupils do not attend church but twice a-day. This is not well. You should remember that they have immortal souls that the Sabbath was made for youth as well as men, and should therefore take them to the Sunday evening lecture, also. The intervals between worship, moreover, should be entirely occupied in exhorting and catechising them on the momentous subject of their future and eternal welfare. I hear you sometimes take them to the episcopal, at others to the baptist, and occasionally to the old-fashioned presbyterian worship. These are all in error- - unorthodox, and fanatical particufarly the first-mentioned, respecting whose pharisaical forms and ceremonies, you would find it profitable to read Milton's work on episcopacy. These are they that gainsay abolition, and set their faces like flint against the doctrine of amalgamation. Such exclusive and narrow-minded bigots are to be eschewed by men of enlarged and unprejudiced views. How illiberal their unhallowed exclusiveness, compared with the universal charity of those whom they contemptuously designate as new lights! Their contumely, however, passes us as the idle wind; for, satisfied that we are indeed the light of the world, we marvel not that those who love darkness should hoot and howl at the contrast which reveals their deeds of evil. Secondly: I understand that you disregard the meet counsel of the wise man, and never use the rod, even in cases of extraordinary frowardness. Now, assuredly, no good can ever come of such lukewarmness of severity toward the short-comings of erring creatures, to whom chastisement is as the breath of their nostrils. And, lastly; as my little Épaphroditus seems, from some passages of his letter, to be under conviction, which may prove like the barren fig-tree, unless watered by the droppings of the sanctuary oftener than twice a Sabbath, I am moved to recall him without delay. You will be pleased, therefore, to let him depart forthwith, that he may be present without fail at our fourteen-days'-meeting, which

commences to-morrow.

'Yours in the bonds of love,

'CALVIN SLICKEY.'

'P. S. I see by your advertisement in that unsanctified print, the Courier and Enquirer, that music and even dancing are taught in your institution! Sir, I am shocked beyond measure at the tidings. Send my son from under your roof this night, and let him look not behind him, but remember Lot's wife.'

NUMBER TEN.

'SIR: I thank you for the courteous invitation to visit your charming Academus, and be assured that nothing could afford me more pleasure than to spend a day or two with you, were it consistent with my present engagements. I must forego the gratification, however, for a few weeks, which I can well do, as I am satisfied that my son is not only happy with you, but making very creditable improvement in all his studies. His letters respecting your domestic arrangements, method of teaching, and course of studies, have long ago satisfied me that your school is one in which the business of education, in its enlarged sense, is conducted on liberal principles, and with conscientious fidelity. I am pleased with your general system and its result, so far as I can judge from the liberal views you have expressed to me, and from the improvement evinced by my son.