insatiable appetite.* I was no more like what I had been, than the cast off skin of the black snake resembles the new dress in which he glistens in the sunbeam. The general's countenance was continually lighted up with smiles, and he seemed faire le bonheur of all around him, it seemed to be his business to make every one happy about him. His countenance

and manners were such as I have rarely seen, and, now that I can form a more just estimate of them, were such as better fitted him for a court than a republic. His lady was truly a most estimable person, of the mildest and softest manners. She gave her son and me a reproof one day, which I never forgot. She saw us catching minnows with pin hooks-made us desist, and then explained, in the sweetest manner, the cruelty of taking away life, wontonly, from the humblest thing in the creation.

Our arrival at Pittsburgh was announced by the thunder of artillery, many times repeated by the echoes of the surrounding hills. I trembled at the thought of appearing before the being whom I held in so much awe- my father! The boy who had taken care of me in childhood, and of whom I have already spoken, watched the landing of the boat, immediately took me in his arms, and then led nie home. We found my father sitting in his ollice, unmoved by the uproar which had disturbed the whole village. I thought he looked more severe

than ever. Raising his spectacles from his clear and polished forehead, he accosted me as follows-" Well, boy, can you read French?" Then taking down a copy of Telemachus, put it into my hands. I stammered, perhaps a little rusty from my residence at Gallipolis, where there was no school-perhaps my fa culties were benumbed with fear. "Sir," said

he, "your progress does not equal my expectations:" then, turning round, said, "Joe, take him to Fenemore the tailor, to get a suit of clothes, and then take him to Andrew Willocks, to have his measure for a pair of shoes."

I was now in the tenth year of my age. In general, few persons under ten or twelve go through any thing worth the trouble of relating; and it is only the boyhood of those who have become greatly distinguished in after life, that can afford a subject of interest without it. The boyhood of Milton, Shakspeare, Newton or Napoleon, excites curiosity in consequence of the magnitude of the space filled by these illustrious names in the history of mankind; like the first rise of the great rivers of the world, which we delight to trace, and, like Bruce, to bestride, on account of the contrast with their subsequent grandeur.

CHAPTER VI.

THE AUTHOR'S EDUCATION-NARROWLY ESCAPES THE DANGERS FROM WICKED ASSOCIATES.

In a few days after my return, my education commenced. Before breakfast two hours were given to M. Visinier, the teacher of French. He was a small man, with a brown coat, long nose and gold snuff box. Telemachus, and a prose translation of the Æneid, were the books I read, and with which I was pleased, perhaps, in part, from having been a traveller also, and perhaps from possessing a natural relish for what is beautiful in composition, and elevated in sentiment. These works were admirably calculated to awaken taste where it existed; and as to Virgil, I must say, that the French served rather to heighten the interest of the original, which I never relished as much. With my father I read English after breakfast, beginning with . Robinson Crusoe, and then the Adventures of Teague O'Regan, a production of his own, intended as a satire upon some of the defective points of our excellent popular government. Possessing a lively sense of the ridiculous, I could not restrain my laughter, at some of the

incidents of Modern Chivalry,' at which, instead of being displeased, he frequently joined me, and I believe the circumstance served to confirm him in the opinion he already entertained of the brilliancy of my intellect. Don Quixotte, Gil Blas, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield followed. I then read Goldsmith's Animated Nature, and his abridged histories of Greece, Rome, and England, and afterwards some volumes of the Spectator, with other reading, which occupied the winter and the best part of the spring and summer. There was little or no interruption in my studies, which continued from the time I rose in the morning until bedtime. I was occasionally allowed an hour before dinner, to saunter about the town, but was kept so closely to my book, that I had scarcely time to become acquainted with the boys in the streets.

Lessons in chirography were given me by Mr Tod, the inventor of a new method of teaching to write like copperplate. His price was high, but such was his supposed excellence, that even elderly ladies were seized with a desire, through his assistance, to attain the accomplishment of a beautiful autograph. One of the students, a relative of my father, undertook to teach me arithmetic, and devoted an hour or two, for this purpose, every day, in the study, where clients were usually introduced. This was a laborious and painful part of my education, for I had little aptitude for numeral figures. The committing to memory the multiplication table cost me infinite labour. I gallopped through

fractions, square root, and through Euclid, Gibson's Surveying, and Fenn's Algebra, with sensations of disgust rather than of pleasure; and excepting Euclid, which I have admired as furnishing the anatomy of the reasoning powers, have recurred to them but little since. But I am here anticipating the course of education. marked out for me.

A love of reading was, however, kindled, which has never been extinguished, and has been my chief employment and solace through. life. That parent may consider himself happy, when he finds that his child is fond of reading. I have crept out of my bed, and have lain a great part of the night, before the slacked coal fire, using the faint light emitted through the bars of the grate, in order to follow the unfortunate Baron Trenck through his singular sufferings and persecutions. My temperament was peculiarly ardent, and when engaged in any thing con amore, my whole soul entered into the pursuit. This disposition for intense application in some things, was not inconsistent with a love of boyish plays and sports in an equal degree; it was the same temperament differently excited.

My father undertook to instruct me in the Latin and Greek. He was himself a most finished classical scholar, having been a tutor at Princeton, and afterwards the principal of an academy on the eastern shore of Maryland; and he was as proud of the success in life of his pupils, and took as much credit to himself for it, as Porson. He considered the classics all