actly in the same kind, whom I ought not to omít, was Rivington, the printer, of New-York. This gentleman's manners and appearance were sufficiently dignified; and he kept the best company. He was an everlasting dabbler in theatrical heroics. Othello, was the character in which he liked best to appear; and converting his auditory into the "most potent, grave and reverend signiors" of Venice, he would deliver his unvarnished tale:

"Her father lov'd me, oft invited me," &c.

With the same magic by which the listening gen tlemen were turned into senators, my mother was transformed into Desdemona; and from the frequent spoutings of Rivington, the officers of the 42d regiment, and others, who were then in the house, became familiarized to the appellation, and appropriated it. Thus, Desdemona, or rather Desdy, for shortness, was the name she generally afterwards went by among that set of lodgers; and I recollect the concluding line of a poetical effusion of lieutenant Rumsey of the 42d, on occasion of some trifling fracas, to have been

For Desdy, believe me, you don't become airs!

In the daily intercourse with her boarders, which my mother's custom of sitting at the head of her table induced, such familiarities might be excused. They were only to be repelled, at least, by a formal austerity of manner, which was neither natural to her, nor for her interest to assume. The cause of umbrage was a midnight riot, perpetrated by Rumsey, Rivington and doctor Kearsley, in which the doctor, mounted on horseback, rode into the back parlour, and even up stairs, to the great disturbance and terror of the family: for, as it may well be supposed, there was a direful clatter. Quadrupedante sonitu quatit ungula domum.

About the year 1769 or 1770, my grandfather di ed. My inattention to dates disqualifies me for fixing the year, nor is it material. His disorder was a complication of dropsy and asthma. I well remember being with him a few evenings before his death, and seldom saw him in better spirits. He was antieipating my future consequence in life; and, as like Too many others, I was destined in vain,

D'une robe a longs plis balayer le barreau— To sweep, with full sleev'd robe, the dusty bar,*

He was making himself merry with the fancy of my strutting with my full-bottomed periwig and small sword, the costume he attached to a bannister of law, as he was pleased to term what in England is called a barrister. But it will be recollected, that, I have already said the old gentleman was a German, nơ great adept in English, and let me add, no great scholar in any language; although his manners were those of a man of the world, and a frequenter of good company, somewhat blunt, however, and occasionally facetious. The story of the toper and flies, work. ed up into an ode by Peter Pindar, I have more than

once heard related of him.

The scene was laid in Philadelphia, where, being at a friend's house to to dine, and asked to take some punch before dinner, he found several flies in the bowl. He removed them with a spoon, took his drink, and with great deliberation was proceeding to replace them. "Why, what are you doing, Mr. Marks,t" exclaimed the entertainer, "putting flies into the bowl?" "Why, I don't like them," said he, "but I did not know but you might," his mode of suggesting that the bowl should have been covered: for decanters and tumblers, be it observed, are a modern refinement in the apparatus of punch drinking. Whether the

This quotation would apply better, or at least more literally, gowns had been worn at our bar.

Joseph Marks; the name might have been mentioned before,

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story really originated with my grandfather, and. travelled from the continent to the islands, where doctor Wolcott picked it up; or whether the humor was of insular origin, and merely borrowed and vamped up by my grandfather, I pretend not to decide, but certain it is, that he had the credit of it in Philadelphia, many years before the works of Peter Pindar appeared.

If want of occupation, as we are told, is the root of all evil, my youth was exposed to very great dangers. The interval between my leaving the academy, and being put to the study of the law at about the age of sixteen, was not less than eighteen months; an invaluable period, lost in idleness and unprofitable amusement. It had the effect to estrange me for a time from my school-companions, and, in their stead, to bring me acquainted with a set of young men, whose education and habits had been wholly different from my own. They were chiefly designed for the sea, or engaged in the less humi liating mechanical employments; and were but the more to my taste for affecting a sort of rough independence of manners, which appeared to me manly. They were not, however, worthless; and such of them as were destined to become men and citizens, have, with few exceptions, filled their parts in soci ety with reputation and respectability. As I had now attained that stage in the progress of the mind, in which

Neglected Tray and Pointer lie

And covies unmolested fly,

the void was supplied by an introduction into the fair society, with which these young men were in the habit of associating. It consisted generally of Quakers; and there was a witching one among them, with whom, at a first interview in a party on the water, I became so violently enamoured, as to have been up,

A

perhaps, to the part of a Romeo or a Pyramus, had the requisite train of untoward circumstances ensued. But as there were no feuds between our houses, nor unnatural parents to "forbid what they could not prohibit," the matter in due time, passed off without any dolorous catastrophe. Nor was it long before I was translated into a new set of female acquaintance, in which I found new objects to sigh for. Such, indeed, I was seldom, if ever, without, during the whole of my nonage; and with as little reason, perhaps, as any one, to complain of adverse stars. Nevertheless, I should hesitate in pronoun-cing this season of life. happy. If its enjoyments are great, so are its solicitudes; and although it should escape the .6 of slighted vows and cold pangs disdain," it yet is racked by a host of inquietudes, doubt, distrust, jealousy, hope deferred by the frustration of promised interviews, and wishes sickening under the weight of obstacles too mighty to be surmounted. In the language of the medical poet,

The wholesome appetites and powers of life
Dissolve in languor. Your cheerful days are gone;
The generous bloom that flush'd your cheeks, is
fled.

To sighs devoted and to tender pains,
Pensive you sit, or solitary stray,-
And waste your youth in musing.

But the peril of fine eyes, was not the only one which beset me. During my residence in the Slatehouse, I had contracted an intimacy with the second son of doctor Thomas Bond, who lived next door; a connection which continued for several years. He was perhaps a year older than myself, and had, in like manner, abandoned his studies, and prematurely bidden adieu to the college of Princeton. Handsome in his person, in his manner, confident and assured, he had the most lordly contempt for the opi nion of the world, that is the sober world, of any

young man I have known; as well as a precocity inf fashionable vices, equalled by few, and certainly exceeded by none. Admiring his talents and accomplishments, I willingly yielded him the lead in our amusements, happy in emulating his degagee air and rakish appearance. He it was who first introduced me to the fascination of a billiard-table, and initiated me into the other seductive arcana of city dissipation. He also shewed me where beardless youth might find a Lethe for its timidity, in the form of an execrable potion called wine, on the very moderate terms of two and six pence a quart. At an obscure inn in Race street, dropping in about dark, we were led by a steep and narrow stair-case to a chamber in the third story, so lumbered with beds as scarcely to leave room for a table and one chair, the beds superseding the necessity of more. Here we poured' down the fiery beverage; and valiant in the novel feeling of intoxication, sallied forth in quest of adventures. Under the auspices of such a leader, I could not fail to improve; nor was his progress less promoted by so able a second. In a word, we aspired to be rakes, and were gratified. Mr. Richard' Bond, was the favorite of his father, studied physic under him, and notwithstanding his addiction to pleasure, would probably have made a respectable figure in his profession: for he had genius, no fondness for liquor, no unusual want of application to business, and vanity perhaps more than real propensity, had prompted his juvenile excesses. But he was destined to finish his career at an early age, by that fatal disease to youth, a pulmonary consump tion. He had a presentiment of this, and frequently said when in health, it would be his mortal distemper. Yet his frame seemed not to indicate it: he had a prominent chest, with a habit inclined to fulness. Our intimacy had ceased for some time before his death. I know not why, unless he had been alienated by a latent spark of jealousy, in relation to a young lady, for whom we both had a partiality;