Instead of looking, as he once did, from the door of his lowly dwelling, on a thick and almost impenetrable forest, his own clearing alone giving him a peep at the beautiful sheet of water he called a pond, Squire Spiffard now saw a long street of comfortable houses, each with its garden and orchard, while the spires of the Court-house, the school, and the church, marked the presence of justice, education, and religion. It is true that the squire's house, like those of most of his neighbours, was not finished. The upper story served, however, for bed-chambers and store-rooms; and below, or on the ground floor, all looked and was comfortable-including the best bed-chamber for the ever welcome guest.

So rapid is the progress of Yankee improvement, that by the time our hero was qualified to appreciate its beauties, the valley of Long-pond had become a little paradise. We do not mean a heavenly, but an earthly paradise, with all its concomitant imperfections, yet possessing that paradisaical feature, youth, with its bloom and growing perfection; and in spite of the diseases incident to youth, a total absence of every symptom of decay.

A row of neat white houses, separated from each other by cultivated enclosures, skirted the level road formed at the foot of one of those hills that encircled this valley. This road was on the margin of a lake, which, after the homely manner of our country, was called a pond; and which presented its sweet waters to the eye, limpid as those of Lake George, so well known to those for whom I write.

This lovely sheet of pure water extended for miles in front of the dwellings occupied by Yankee yeoman, (not farmers of the soil but proprietors,) serving and delighting their wives, and swarms of white-headed urchins. The pond gave to the villagers fish and wild fowl, and afforded the male children opportunities for exercise in swimming, rowing, sliding, and skaiting. Between the road and the lake, the cornfields and meadows spread in rich luxuriance; and as you ascended the hill behind the houses, you were cheered, in the spring, by the fragrance of the apple blossoms, and in autumn, by fruit of every tint and flavour. In winter, the hearths blazed with piles of hickory, and were made to resound with the shouts of gladness by the frequent husking frolic; when the yellow ears of maize are stript of their outward dusky covering, and the grain rasped from the cob, and poured into the basket or bin; while the rustic jest, or the tale of grandfather's wars with the Indians on Connecticut river or father's adventures when opposed to Burgoyne, at old Tye, Bennington, or Saratoga, mingle with the cracking of

the kisskatomasses, the chesnuts, the butternuts, and walnuts, and are interrupted by draughts of the precious juice of the crab, the spitzbergen, and the red-streak, from the orchard-exhaustless source of innocent exhilaration--the gift of heaven, not yet converted to a curse by the poison-making still.

It is not our intention to enter into descriptions of the life of 'the pioneer on an American settlement; let the reader look to the pages of Flint, or the inimitable pictures of nature, character, and manners, in "The Pioneers" of Fennimore Cooper. We merely wish to give some notion of the place of our hero's birth, and of those scenes which surrounded his infancy and boyhood at Spiffard Town; for these scenes of early life are ever present to the adult, go where he will in after days, and the impressions from them make part of his character, and influence his actions, whether as a Ledyard, he explores the Pacific ocean and the deserts of Africa, or as a Starke or a Greene leads his brother yeomen to encounter the invader of home and the homestead. The scenery and scenes of the Valley of Long-pond, tended to form a part of the character of Zebediah Spiffard, and therefore appertain to his memoirs.

We have said, that behind the row of houses which formed the village, was a gently-rising hill, on which bloomed the healthgiving orchard. A few gardens likewise decorated this beautiful hill, with here and there a grove of the undisturbed native growth of the soil, giving a touch of the picturesque to what would otherwise have been too uniform. Do not let it be supposed that we mean to insinuate that the gardens had too much regularity, or neatness, or uniformity; for, except the squire's and the parson's, they exhibited a sufficient portion of luxuriant negligence about them to avert that charge, and in truth were many of them more abundant in weeds than in worth. church likewise ornamented this favoured hill (which in England would have been a mountain), and its rustic spire was a heart-soothing feature in the landscape, whether seen from the rock which towered above its vane, or from the lake in which its peace-inspiring image was reflected.

The

We have given some account of the Adam or first man of this paradise, by name Jeremiah Spiffard, and by title squire ; but as there never was a paradise without an Eve, or a Zebediah without a mother, it is incumbent upon us to introduce the squire's lady, and Zeb's mamma, to the reader. The squire had brought with him to the wilderness, as we have said, and we do not like repetitions, but, at the same time, know that they are very useful to the memories of novel readers, or even the

readers of true histories like this; be that as it may, we have said, and we repeat, he brought with him to the wilderness a yoke of oxen, an axe, a wagon, and a wife. Before the thicket became a paradise-before the swamps on the borders of the lake became meadows, or the blessed sun had been permitted to shine upon the earth and dissipate the encumbent fogs and redundant moisture, poor Mrs. Spiffard died. The husband was left wifeless, childless, and disconsolate. He had loved his wife. She was his first love, and perhaps he never loved again. Marry again he certainly did, or we should never have written these memoirs of his oldest and lawfully-begotten son.

After bearing up manfully for a time without a help-mateafter seeing all clear around him-settlers coming in upon his land as fast as a land-owner could wish-a school-house, a tavern, and a church built, he paid a visit to Boston, where his elder brother resided, and in truth his principal business was to seek a wife. He felt it to be his duty to contribute to the schoolhouse and church. Under such circumstances the object is soon found. Some of those who purchased his lands and brought families into the settlement, said "they thought Squire Spiffard might have found a wife among their daughters, as fit for a squire's lady at the Valley of Long-pond, as any he would be like to find among the fine ladies of Boston." Perhaps they were right. We shall see.

An Englishman, Mr. James Atherton, had recently arrived at the metropolis of Massachusetts, in search of what he had lost in London-fortune. He was what Shakspeare has called ebbing" man; and has said—

an "6

"Ebbing men, indeed,

Most often do so near the bottom run
By fear or sloth."

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He had run so near the bottom as to touch. He brought with him a wife and three daughters, two of whom, although, until the voyage of emigration, they had scarcely been out of the sound of Bow-bell, and never in the first, or perhaps second, circles of that country of circles, were nevertheless genteel, and what is called well-educated; the third was yet a child. knowledge of the new world into which their father had brought them, had not been thought of as a part of their education. Their father knew as little of it, except as a mart for merchandise and a nursery of rebellion. Europeans, then, disdained such knowledge. They have since been induced to inquire how it is, that a people of many millions manage to prosper

without the protection of kings or lords, or a national church, or a standing army; and by what contrivance they render harmless the hosts of paupers and criminals, which want and worthlessness drive from the shores of the old world, for refuge in the new.

The elder daughters of Mr. Atherton had the usual cockney contempt for all foreigners, especially Yankees ; and although conscious of their father's humiliating necessities, felt themselves better than any thing in Boston. The oldest of these young ladies, who was about five-and-twenty, was what is called showy; nay, she was handsome. Fine, dark, glossy hair, fine teeth, fine complexion, brilliant eyes, tall person, fashionable dress, and an animated manner, fascinated the Vermont yeoman; who would have been despised by the second sister, a more decided beauty (though very like the first), and perhaps by Louisa, the oldest of the three, if the prudent father had not given her some hints which were not to be neglected. In short, Jeremiah Spiffard married the beautiful English fine lady, and took her to Spiffard-town, at that time consisting of five houses, a schoolhouse, tavern, church, and blacksmith's-shop.

What a change was here! From the metropolis of Great Britain, to a paltry village in Vermont. From a Lord mayor's ball to a husking frolic. To live in Boston was death to Louisa, (so she said), what, then, was life in Spiffard-town? Her husband's good sense and kind behaviour, with handsome furniture and garniture brought from Boston, made this death in life somewhat supportable. Then there was some satisfaction in showing off to the natives, and in being the great lady of the place. Besides that, during the first year of her residence, she experienced the fears, hopes, and joys, attending the birth of our hero. Then came a visit to Boston to see her family, who were preparing to return, disappointed, to England. They did return; and Mrs. Spiffard the second, returned to Spiffardtown, feeling that she was abandoned by all that she held most valuable in the world: for what, alas! to a London lady, is a Yankee husband, and a Yankee child, if she is doomed to live in a Yankee village?

Thus Squire Spiffard had not only got a town lady, but a foreign lady-a London lady-for a wife. Never let an American marry an Englishwoman, unless he is willing and resolved to abandon his country. We say English, because we know more of them, and think higher of them, than of any other Europeans. If an American marries in England, and brings his wife home, it is almost impossible but that domestic misery is

the consequence. No Englishman has a just notion of this country; and we must not expect better information in the better sex, who are accustomed to rely for that article too much upon the stronger. A woman, who, even under the influence of love, gives up parents and country, will find every disappointment doubled, and every sorrow aggravated, by the recollection of what she left behind; and disappointments and sorrows will come, do what we will. Spiffard had the consolation of knowing that he did not induce his wife to leave her country; but then he was the cause that she did not return to it. In short, he had made a very foolish choice of a wife. Mrs. Spiffard became a very discontented woman; and not the less so, for finding that her claims to superiority were resisted or laughed at by the wives and daughters of the settlers, who rapidly increased her husband's village; many of whom were, in all the better part of knowledge, better instructed than the squire's lady.

CHAPTER VI.

A Sporting Gentleman, and a Philosophic Lady.

'Alas! poor hurt fowl! Now will he creep in sedges."

ANOTHER year passed, and another child was given to the husband; and early in the third year of her residence at Spiffard-town, the arrival of an English gentleman of fortune, with his wife and two young children, gave a gleam of joy to the misplaced Louisa; but only to plunge her in deeper darkness.

The gentleman brought letters from Mrs. Spiffard's father; and having, as he thought, determined to make America the