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CHAPTER THE LAST.

All disposed of.

"To say nothing, or to say all you think, and at all times, provided no personal offence is intended, or sought to be given, is the course for an honest man, for a lover of truth, invariably to pursue."-Anon.

"Thither in a sieve I'll sail."

"To what issue will this come."

"Read on this book."

"I hold it fit that we shake hands and part."-Shakspeare.

"Fame is the wise man's means; but his ends are his own good, and the good of society.-Bolingbroke.

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Purpose is but the slave of memory. Farewell.-Shakspeare.

THE REV. MR. LITTLEJOHN sat between his father and wife. He had been intently reading the Scriptures.

"I strongly desire again to become a teacher of the lessons of life, but I must refrain for years yet to come. I will employ those years in those studies which enrich the mind and fit the student for his high calling. I will not ascend the pulpit until the world is convinced that the former aberration of my reason has left no traces but those of salutary humiliation and selfdoubting."

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My son, the perfect restoration of your health and reason are already proved."

"To you-not to the world-not to the public-who are more prone to observe the failing than the amendment. I do not mean to censure them for it. The failing was glaringly obtrusive; the amendment is quiet, and shrinking from observation. Quiet does not catch the attention of the busy or the gay; and the busy or the gay are the world. Man may justly require a long continuation of the interrupted exertion of reason, to give assurance of perfect restoration and habitual

health of mind, in one who professes to teach truth. I have in you, my father, and you, Eliza, a double assurance that I shall continue in the paths of peace."

He pressed his father's hand. The old man's eyes filled with tears of love and joy. Eliza threw herself on her husband's neck and wept. He alone could speak.

"The restoration of physical and mental health; the gifts of fortune and of such friends, might be thought enough for earthly happiness; if we did not know that happiness can only be gained by continued efforts to bless cur fellow men-by doing our duty to man, and thereby doing the will of God.” With such views and resolutions we may leave this domestic circle.

One of the personages introduced to the reader, and for whom I hope some interest is felt, was not inclined to quiet.

George Frederick Cooke had not neglected his faithful servant; and Trustworthy Davenport found himself, by the accumulation of wages, and a handsome legacy, in possession of what he said was "a considerable small fortune."

After he had most sincerely mourned for his friend and master, he told Dennis Dogherty that he was "railly at a nonplush as to what next to do."

"Why don't you set up for Congress ?" said Dennis.

"No. I don't like to talk and do nothing; besides I like to have my own way. I have determined to travel; but I am at a loss to make up my mind as to the how, or the which way." "Travel. For what would you travel?"

"To see the world and bring home notions. I never was tied to one spot so long before; and now that I can't help the only cretur on arth I ever called my master-now that good man-that mought a' been, if he would a' took the water naturally-now that he is gone, I must go."

"Not the same way, sure?"

me.

"Not yit. But I was born with the desire to travel. My mammy never could keep me long enough on her lap to feed I have got the name of the Yankee traveller, and I well deserve it. To be sure I might, now that I have serv'd a sort of 'prenticeship to the stage-I might make my debutt, as they call it, and then go to London as a star, "slow rising from the west," as one of the poets has it. But I have an objection to stand up, without any breast work, to be shot at by encores or hisses, just as any drunken blackguard or conceited coxcomb pleases, and have no chance to fire back again. trade and travel for Trusty!"

No! Free

"But what will you get by it?"

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Knowledge and seal-skins. I never envied any man so much as my brother Yankee, that Ledyard, who kept going round the world, as long as he could go ahead, by land or water, and rather than not be going he would go barefoot to Siberia. Then there was another Yankee, that Shockford, a rale water-dog, that mann'd his own vessel with his own hands-"

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Niggers, I suppose."

"And steered her with his own head. Himself captain, mate, cook, cabin-boy and crew! How grand that fellow must have felt when he danced on the waves, and buffetted the winds! When he had the whole ocean to himself, and could say to the sun, "You and I are the only creturs above this wide and boundless prairie of salt water, and for aught I know, I am the greater of the two!"

Trusty, who could not be stopped by Dennis's "Niggers,” was now silent in the contemplation of his imagined sublimity; and the Hibernian was as much bewildered as one of that clear-headed race could be.

"Mr. Devilsport," he said, at length, "Dis is not the first time that you have bother'd me; and what you mane by yourself and your son, and your hands and your mate, I don't comprehend exactly at all. But is it how you are to manage to spind your fortune now you are Cooke's executor ?"

"His legatee. Heaven bless him, I didn't call him master for the sake of a legacy. He is gone, and so I'll travel. I am rich-that is, I am well to do in the world, if I do well. Plain dealing and switchell for that."

"If I understand, you have not yet made up your mind.” "Pretty much. Travel I will. But whether I shall invest my funds in a carriage, horse, and a stock of wooden clocks and tin ware for the western states and territories, and so travel by land; or whether I shall build a vessel, load her, and navigate her round Cape Horn to trade with the savages and cannibals of the South Sea Islands; then cross the Pacific to China, and return by the Cape of Good Hope, I have not yet determined."

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Blood and tunder! Why you must have a bank or a treasury department of your own to do all that. Build a ship— man her and victual her! You have big notions, Mr. Devils

port!"

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Yankee notions. Did you not hear of a man who crossed the Atlantic in a boat just big enough to carry himself, his

provisions and water; mann'd her with himself, and by himself, and was owner, captain, mate and crew?"

"That I did not.

And what countryman was he?"

"What country but Yankee-land could grow sich a cretur? Now if he could do that thing, I'll be swampt if I don't do more."

"And swampt you will be, sure enough."

"I've a conceit that I'll be the greatest Yankee-traveller the world ever saw. Yes, Dennis, I think the south sea voyage is more sublime than the tin-cart!"

As we have not heard of any extraordinary sensation produced by Trustworthy in the territories, or the Rocky Mountains, we suppose that he indulged himself as a navigator, and is now luxuriating in the Sandwich Islands, or exploring the yellow sea, or making discoveries at one or other pole. We doubt not his safety, and unless when he returns he should write his autobiography or reminiscences, we hope to be employed for the benefit of posterity in doing both for him.

Dennis aspired to a seat in congress. His first step was a corner grocery, by which he found that the city elections were to be influenced through the naturalized. How high he stands on the ladder we know not.

George Frederick Cooke died on the 26th of September, 1812. Attended to the last by his family physician, his trusty valet, and one who had been his faithful nurse throughout his illness. None knew the story of Mrs Johnson and her son, but that son's wife.

Of the inferior actors in our tragi-comedy, one more shall be noticed. Old Kent married a second wife, but never forgot the first. In process of time, with his younger wife, and a brood of young Kents, he wisely determined, for his children's sake, to remove to Liberia, where we hope he is still usefully employed as a teacher, and keeper of a circulating library, his school well attended, and his books (among which we hope this will be placed) much sought after. He writes occasionally to his friends in New York, particularly Mrs. Emma Johnson; and joins in blessing the leaders and supporters of the society for removing the descendants of Africans to the land of their fathers, imbued with those principles and precepts-instructed in that knowledge and those arts, which will make the desert bloom as a garden, and cause

the white man to blush at the thought that ever there should have been a day in which it was necessary for the negro to cry, "am I not a man and a brother?" while exposed for sale to the highest bidder in the city of Washington.

Before the marriage of Eliza Atherton to Thomas Littlejohn, she insisted upon Spiffard's receiving such accumulation as had accrued of the proceeds of the annuity which he, in his days of supposed wealth, had liberally purchased for the Atherton family. After her marriage, the benefit of the whole was transferred to him. This made him independent: the Littlejohns insisted upon his receiving that which was no longer needed by those who had enjoyed his benevolence. He became a traveller; but a less ambitious one than his fellow Yankee.

Twelve years after the death of Mrs. Spiffard, a little thin gentleman was seen mounting to the pulpit of a church in Virginia; and to the surprise of the stranger, who had arrived from New York, he recognised Zebediah Spiffard, his old acquaintance of the Park Theatre. After hearing a most excellent sermon, the stranger waited in the street to accost the preacher, and accomplished a meeting, after the reverend man had passed through the kind and affectionate greetings of a large congregation. He was, after due study, ordained. He enjoyed the fruits of his experience and of his benevolent disposition, having all the comforts of life about him, except a wife. But there existed in Virginia circumstances which, after struggling against them in vain, forced him to return to the north. Many were the inducements to remain in that favoured land: frank manners, kind dispositions, unbounded hospitality; but he, even at that day, he set his heart upon establishing a "temperance society," foreseeing that if such a plant could be made to take root, it would spread, and be nourished and cultivated by all who saw or tasted of its fruit. Yes, Zebediah Spiffard, who had seen and felt the evils of intemperance, was the projector of the scheme which has saved thousands from destruction. But, alas! the obstacles that have always opposed projectors, did not fail to oppose our worthy clergyman. The mint-julep before breakfast in summer, and the egg-nogg in winter; the enticing toddy, with ice, at one season, and smoking hot at the other, as a prelude to dinner-with all the varieties of good old Jamaica rum, French brandy, real

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