MR. DANIEL WHEELWRIGHT. (continued 2)

"From the Longa Insula Astra, Dec. 10, 1822.

"We take great pleasure in calling the attention of those of our citizens who are parents to the article which will be found immediately below. It was indeed handed in as an advertisement; but we feel so deeply interested in the object proposed, to say nothing of the classical and poetical beauty of the article itself, that we could not forbear awarding to it a greater conspicuity. Indeed we scarcely know when we have published an article with more heart-felt pleasure. The gentleman and lady, we understand, have been reduced by a succession of misfortunes, from a state of affluence to that of much humbler circumstances. But with that noble spirit of independence which, we are proud to say, is so peculiarly the indweller of American bosoms, they have determined to rise superior to their misfortunes, and win for themselves that patronage which they have heretofore had it in their power to dispense. We have had the pleasure of a personal interview with the gentleman who is to have the charge of the proposed institution. He appears to be well educated, modest, and unassuming—a master of the ancient languages, as his lady is of the modern; and from what we have heard, we doubt not their ample qualifications for the undertaking. Mrs. W. has enjoyed the advantages of foreign travel, which will enable her to form the manners of her pupils after the best models of the salons of Paris, Vienna, and London; and we believe that by her judicious counsel she has been of great service to the most celebrated female seminaries in New-York, as also to the distinguished seminary in Troy—all of which, we trust, will soon be rivalled by that of our own village. It is the design of Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright to extend their institute as rapidly as will be consistent with their means, and in the course of a year or two to obtain a charter for a college, with power to confer degrees upon their female as well as their male pupils. And why not? The intellectual equality of females with males has been fully established by the Edgeworths, and Hannah Mores, and Lady Morgans of Europe, and by females equally illustrious among our own fair countrywomen, only they do not occur to us just at this moment. Why, then, should not female proficients be entitled to degrees of merit, as well as nine-tenths of the blunder-heads who go through college, and come out no wiser than they went in? For our parts we shall stand up for female rights,—for, as the poet says:—

"We therefore hope the college will go on, and when we obtain the South Ferry, we will look about to see what is to be done next. But we have not room to extend our remarks—of which, however, there is no occasion, since the eloquent article below will speak for itself.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright beg leave to announce to parents and guardians in this village and its vicinity, that on the 1st of January now ensuing, they will open a literary and classical institution for the instruction of the rising generation—both of young gentlemen and ladies. The rising glories of this western hemisphere have scarcely yet begun to be developed; and as Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright have been deeply impressed with the importance, in a young and rising republic, of having the youth of the land, of both sexes, reared in the paths of virtue and the intellectual flower-garden of knowledge, they have determined to devote their best faculties to the sacred cause of education,—fully believing, from the inexpressible interest they feel upon the subject, that they shall be enabled to exclaim with the immortal poet—

"From long and profound reflection upon the never-sufficiently-enough-to-be-estimated subject of education, Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright have become entirely and unchangeably persuaded that all existing systems of instruction are essentially, and radically, as they may say, if not from the root, erroneous, and consequently defective as it were; and they trust that they shall be enabled to introduce such improvements and innovations in the science of teaching, as essentially to assist the spirit of a generous emulation in its efforts for noble rivalry; to aid the aspirations of a well-regulated ambition; and to encourage, in all possible and practicable ways, the desire of young genius to wing his eagle flight, as it were, on the pinions of intellectual corruscations. Every branch of human learning, either useful or ornamental, or of the least utility, will be taught at the Philomathian Institute, for which Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright feel the utmost confidence in their own capacities and qualifications; since, in addition to being a graduate of one of the first universities of the age in which we live, Mr. W. has studied a learned profession, and Mrs. W. is possessed of the superior advantage of having been reared and educated in several of the leading European capitals. The utmost regard will be had to the morals and manners of such young aspirants as may be entrusted to their charge. To invigorate the constitutions of the pupils, a gymnasium will be provided for the boys of the male sex, and one hour per day will be devoted to callisthenics in the female department, to be occupied by the girls. In this department, the higher branches of instruction, both useful and ornamental, will be prosecuted under the immediate superintendence of Mrs. Wheelwright, who will spare no pains in the inoculation of the soundest lessons of virtue, while yet their young and youthful minds can be bent like the twig, and inclined like the tree, as the poet says. Those who desire it will receive instruction in the elements of moral philosophy, for which purpose they must be provided with Newtown's Principles, and other works of the kind. Mrs. Wheelwright has paid much attention to this sublime and beautiful study, which so enraptured the immortal Milton:—

"It is to such a feast that the young ladies of this village will soon be invited. Great pains will moreover be taken to cultivate the domestic habits and affections, as the poet says:—

"At the same time no efforts will be spared to keep their young budding minds from vicious associations, and to render them as sweet as innocent, as innocent as gay, as gay as happy:—

"Knowing this to be true from experience, the principal and vice-principal of the Philomathian Institute will do all in their power to keep their pupils in the paths of wisdom, and pleasantness, and peace, as Shakspeare, the sweet swan of Avon, says. In one word, it will be the object and aim of Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright to qualify the young gentlemen to act nobly their part in this republican monarchy, and the young ladies whose education has been so long neglected—whose minds have so long been evolved in Siberian darkness—and as it were wasting their sweetness on the desert air—for the wives and mothers of freedom."

Added to this eloquent and promising proclamation, introduced as we have already seen, by the editor, were the names of sundry presidents of colleges, reverend doctors, editors, especially of the religious papers, various public officers, among whom were the governor of the state, the mayor and recorder, several classical teachers, and other gentlemen, as references—most of whom when applied to, declared that they had never heard of the concern before; others admitted that they had allowed reference to be made to their names, because they knew nothing against it; while a few assented to the high qualifications of the teachers without scruple.

As to the morality of such an unauthorized use of great names, on the one part, and the authorized use of them on the other, merely to avoid the utterance of a monosyllable of two letters, when the effect is a deception upon the public, it is not a subject for present discussion. Both practices are abuses of the times, which have been carried to such an extent that nothing can be more unmeaning than references of this kind—in regard as well to schools, and "institutes," and "seminaries," as to the publication of books by subscription, and the superior merits of patent blacking and razor-straps; as to which, by the way, it has always been a subject of speculation to the writer, why a reverend divine or an eminent physician should be supposed better qualified to give an opinion than a boot-black or a barber. Here, therefore, "let us breathe," as Shakspeare says, "and happily introduce a course of learning and ingenious studies," in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XII.

OF THE MARCH OF MIND.

"Smith. The clerk of Chatham: he can write, and read, and cast accompt.

Cade. O monstrous!

Smith. We took him setting of boys' copies.

Cade. Here's a villain!

Smith. H'as a book in his pocket with red letters in't.

Cade. Nay, then, he's a conjuror.

Cade. Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest man?

Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name."—Shakspeare.

"Hail, wedded love"—"and all that sort of thing."

Milton and Matthews.

It may well be imagined that the appearance of such a flourishing literary manifesto as that set forth in the preceding chapter, created an uncommon sensation in the village. The ladies admired the distiches of poetry with which the pompous proclamation was so plentifully sprinkled, and the gentlemen, not being conversant with those convenient helps, the "Elegant Extracts," supposed of course that the advertisers must be persons of considerable erudition. Indeed, the thing took wonderfully, and nothing was thought of, or talked of, by ambitious mothers, and those opening rose-buds, their daughters, for the full period of nine days, but the new "Institute," or "Seminary"—the old-fashioned word "school" never being once mentioned. Nor were the lords of creation unmindful of the good fortune in which they were so soon to rejoice. Various situations were proposed and discussed, for the site of a new edifice which would doubtless be required within a twelve-month, and real estate rose exorbitantly in every vicinity thus designated. A charter from the Legislature was of course to be applied for, and several meetings of those who were to form the Board of Trustees, were held to adjust the details. The privileges of a college were to be obtained, with the power of conferring the same degrees upon female students, as upon males—forgetting, in their ardor, that the constitution of female Bachelors and Masters of Arts would be a misnomer in any other country than Ireland. In one word, there was to be no other classical institution, in this country or any other, comparable with it—and to it the nuns of Canada, the Moravians of Bethlehem, and the azure-hosed professors of modern Ilium, would forever thereafter be compelled to send for instructers.

It need not be added, that under all this excitement, and in view of all these measures, on the opening of the institute, there was a rush of pupils, promising golden returns to the accomplished and enterprising teachers. As to its progress, and the moral and intellectual results, the biographer has not been supplied with the materials for a minute history. It is known, however, that the principals provided themselves with the most modern, and consequently the best elementary "helps" to be found in the bookstores. Justice also requires of the biographer to say, that his friend Wheelwright did not enter upon his preceptorial duties without many severe misgivings; and for some weeks previous to the opening of the seminary, he applied himself to the work of preparation with unwonted assiduity. But he was nevertheless sadly deficient, as may well be supposed. Still, in his classes of geography and rhetoric, he managed to get along for several weeks, by the aid of those convenient instruments of instruction, which contain all necessary questions and answers at the bottom of the pages—Kames and Malte-Brun done over again by sciolists, so that the real authors would be astonished to find how greatly they had been simplified. Alexander's Virgil, also, reflecting the Latin of one page back in English from the other, was of great assistance to him. But in arithmetic and grammar he was completely at fault. He had never been able to repeat the whole multiplication table; and he now found it utterly beyond his capacity to work a common problem in the rule of three. In grammar, moreover, he could never quite distinguish between a noun and a verb; and although he almost committed the rules, and could enumerate the several parts of speech, yet he could never apply the principles in parsing.

It was not long, therefore, before the most forward of his pupils began to discover that they knew more than their instructer—and the natural consequences—contempt and insubordination—speedily followed.

Meantime the qualifications and efforts of Mrs. Wheelwright, in the other branch of the institute, were presently discovered to be equally, even if not more, defective and profitless. She was an Irish lady by birth—had resided for a time in Scotland, and likewise in England—previous to her visit across the channel to complete her education in the capital of la grande nation. When she left the emerald isle, "her speech," to use a phrase of Lord Bacon, "was in the full dialect of her nation." She had afterward conversed enough with English and Scotch, to complete the union of the three kingdoms—to all which was added such a smattering of French as was to be acquired by a residence—as a femme de chambre, as it was afterward scandalously reported—in Paris of a year or perhaps more. She had readily picked up a good many French words, in the course of her sojourn; but her Gallic pronunciation was blended with all the other dialects, among which the brogue of her own mother tongue ludicrously enough predominated.

The reader has probably heard the story of the Yankee candidate for the mastership of one of our common schools, who, on being asked by the inspectors whether he knew any thing of mathematics, answered that he didn't know Matthew, although he had seen a good deal of one Tom Mattocks, in Rhode Island; but he'd never hearn of his having any brother. So with Mrs. Wheelwright—Mr. Syntax was equally a stranger to her. But she had seen some coarse pieces of embroidery from the rustic pupils of country boarding schools, and knew that they were needlework, of some sort. She therefore set herself to teaching that elegant branch of the fine arts. The first group attempted, was a family picture—a mother and her six children at the tomb of their deceased husband and father, under what was meant for a willow tree drooping over an obelisk. But such a group! such a widow! and such weeping children! Indeed they looked sorry enough. Surely no eye e'er saw such scare-crows; and no one could look upon them without emotion—but of what kind, the reader, who has doubtless seen many kindred specimens in this department of a modern education, may decide for himself. The next piece was the Prodigal Son, taking leave of his benevolent father, in a red dress-coat and white-top boots! The drawings were copies, and the needlework resembling the darnings in the hose to be seen on the heels of the ladies sitting in the country markets. Thus much for her fancy work; and the French she taught was on a par. Such French had never before been spoken—out of Ireland!

Such were the condition and prospects of this hopeful seminary, when another unexpected change came over the temporal circumstances of poor Wheelwright. The girls under the charge of his accomplished consort having been engaged in a frolic during her absence to prepare the pottage for dinner—and girls at school will always have their frolics—the gentle instructress returned in a rage, flushed with passion, the heat of the kitchen fire, and perhaps a drop of the crathur—swore several big Irish oaths that she would have no more such carryings on by the childers in her house, and by the powers, she would be afther clearing them out—the spalpeens!—that's what she would, honies!

It was her first outbreak of the kind, and the little misses were appalled, and many of them, thinking, perhaps, that she was crazy, or had "a drop in her eye," ran home in affright. Nor did their parents, or at least the most of them, allow their children again to return.

"Rare are solitary woes," says the poet—on the contrary, they are ever apt to be treading each other's heels; and it was so with the hero of this biography in the present instance. The school had been undertaken as a temporary resource, during the pendency of the legal measures necessary to obtain his estates. It had now been suddenly broken up, and that, too, before any thing but delays and expense had been realized. An incident that occurred the day following, moreover, might have occasioned misgivings as to the future to a man of quicker perceptions than Mr. Wheelwright—but fortunately his wife was the earliest riser. It happened that as his spouse was exchanging some rather undignified jokes with the milkman, a jolly son of Erin came along, whose rubicund visage kindled with a thousand smiles as his eyes rested on the lady.

"Och! the top o' the morning to you, Misthress Judy O'Calloran!" says Pat. "Divil burn me, but it's a long while sin my eyes have seen the like o'ye, Misthress Judy," he continued.

"And that's you, Misther Thady O'Flannerty," replied the fair one—"but I'm not Misthress Judy O'Calloran,—and d'ye think it's myself that does'ent know."

"Troth, and if ye're not Misthress Judy, honey, then it's not your dare ould mother's darther that ye be."

"Whisht!" rejoined the lady:—"Don't ye percave that it's not I—it's not Judy—botheration, Thady—how can ye be afther coming where you ain't known?"

"Och, Judy, thin ye see if it's not ye'rsel, it's bekase I'm not Thady O'Flannerty that was, sin the wake last night. But it's mighty unnathural if it's not Judy I suspict. And where's the man that ye had, Pat Rooney that was!"

"Get ye gone, ye baste," replied the amiable Misthress Wheelwright, "you mallet-headed bog-throtter, to hinsult an honest woman all of a suddint so. No gintilman would thrifle with a dacent woman afther this gate, whin he'd niver seen her."

"Och, murther in Irish now, and it's the blissed thruth, Misthress Judy, that I was tellin ye. But thin, such is the way of the world—Saint Pathrick save us! If the crathur hadn't bin afther laving her own husband, and runnin' off with Pat Rooney, may be that her darlint ould mother's life would have bin extinded many years afther her death—shame on the crathur! But thin, it's not the ould lady's wake that would have bin the last that Thady O'Flannerty attinded in Limerick—bad luck to her!"

Long before her unwelcome acquaintance had finished his oration, however, the indignant lady had scampered into the house, slamming the door after her with great violence, and dashing her pitcher of milk to fragments by the same unguarded action. But Thady followed on, as though to make good his acquaintanceship, and was met at the threshhold by Wheelwright himself, who had been aroused by the clamor.

"And plase your honor," says Thady, "can you tell me where is Misther Whalewright's boardin'-school that was, that's called the siminary that is?"

"That was—sure enough,—said Wheelwright, bitterly. I 'spose this is the place you're looking for as-like-as-not."

"Arrah, thin it's the right place that I'm already in—thanks to Misthress Judy for that. And thin, there's a letter for your worship's honor, and that's yer'self!"

Wheelwright took the despatch, and at once perceived from the superscription, that it was a missive from his counsel. He was turning upon his heel, but Thady, unwilling to retire without a fee, arrested his retreat by saying:—

"Faith, thin, but I'm thinking your honor's mimory is none of the longest, and that a thrifle of change would do me no harm for the throuble I've had."

Wheelwright, hoping that he was the bearer of agreeable tidings from his estates, threw him all but his last quarter, and Thady took his leave with,

"Blissings on your honor, and long life to ye; and as your worship is a civil-spoken gintilman, may be ye'll not think it bowld if I jist hint to your honor, that if Misthress Judy there is a servant, she needs looking to—and bad luck to her!"

Not having heard the street dialogue already related, this benevolent caution was lost upon the husband, who, on opening the note, found it as he had anticipated—a summons to call upon his lawyer in the city. High with hope, therefore,—upon the pleasures of which he had been living already too long,—not doubting that success had at length crowned the exertions of his legal advisers,—and supposing, therefore, that the school was just dissolving at the fortunate moment when it was no longer necessary to his support, he hastened across the ferry. But alas! Little indeed did he anticipate the cause of his summons to the city. The development fell upon his disappointed senses like the crash of a thunderbolt. In the progress of his investigations, the learned counsel had discovered that the accomplished lady of my friend, was none other than one of the unmarried wives of the lamented Captain Scarlett, and that the legal representatives were already in the secure possession of his estates!

CHAPTER XIII.

HE LIVES AS HE HAD NEVER EXPECTED.

"My stars shine darkly over me"—Shakspeare.

"A most poor man, made tame by fortune's blows."—Idem.

How little do one half of the world know how the other half live! And how just the remark of Goldsmith, that they who would know the miseries of the poor, must see life and endure it. More especially do these remarks hold good in respect to the inhabitants of crowded cities. In country towns, and small villages, every body knows every body, and, very commonly, almost too much of every body's business. But in large cities, the people are huddled together in close proximity, and are yet as much strangers to each other as though divided by a waste of wilderness or waters. The rich, who fare sumptuously; the middling class, who have enough, and a little to spare; and the squalid wretch who would be overjoyed with a basket of coals, and a joint of meat; may all be found in the same block, and yet neither one of them know any thing of the comforts, the distress, or the affluence of the other. The middling and lower classes of people in the country are prone to form an undue estimate of the advantages, and the comparative ease, of a city life. Because so much is said of the wealth of cities, they imagine that all who dwell in them must be rich, and consequently have no hard labor to perform. But it is a sad mistake. "Great cities," says the philosopher of Monticello, "are great sores;" and if the envious and discontented poor know little of the splendid misery of the fancied rich,—of the number of aching heads and hearts upon beds of down,—much less do the truly rich, living within great cities, and the world at large without them,—know of the wretchedness and the crime, the poverty and the woe, to be found in the great and crowded marts of trade and commerce in every country. Were mankind, in general, better informed upon these particulars, there would be less of envy in the world, and less of poverty. There would likewise be fewer people "well to do" in the country, crowding to the cities, to become beggars, and at last either to find dishonorable graves, or, when honestly dead, to merit the Italian inscription upon a well man who took physic—"I was well—I wished to be better—and here I am."

During the five years immediately succeeding the catastrophe recorded at the close of the last chapter, I neither saw, nor heard a syllable from, the subject of this narrative. The winter of 1827-28, was one of extraordinary severity in New-York. The month of January, in particular, was unusually tempestuous and severe. Those of the common poor, who had been the most improvident and reckless when they should have husbanded their earnings, were brought upon the public bounty considerably earlier than usual, and backs "hanging in ragged misery" were already more plenty than was wont.

It was on a bitterly cold Saturday morning of that month, that my old and unfortunate friend presented himself in my office—but alas how changed! He looked exceedingly dejected and poverty-stricken—as though what little of energy he ever might have possessed, had been utterly extinguished by the withering touch of penury. A single glance of course served to show that matters had gone hard with him—and that if "the world owed him a living," as he was formerly wont to boast, it was turning him off with a very scanty one. A storm, which had been fiercely raging for several days, gave no signs of exhaustion.—The snow, which had been falling for fifty or sixty hours—not in a fleecy shower, but mingled with cutting particles like hail—filled the atmosphere, and with each successive gust of a stiff northwester, was whirled aloft in vast curling sheets and wreaths—or driven through the narrow streets with a force that was blinding and almost irresistible. Nor man nor beast ventured forth, save from dire necessity, and it seemed as though the storm-king with his fiercest aspect, and armed with all his terrors, had made a conquest of the city.—Wheelwright's left arm was in a sling, and his tattered garments afforded but a sorry protection against the rude peltings of the pitiless storm, of which I have given a very inadequate description.

After the ordinary and reciprocal inquiries as to health, &c. had been interchanged, he sat several minutes with averted eyes, and without uttering a syllable. I saw that he was embarrassed, poor fellow!—and turned to the window—viewing the clouds of snow that were high upborne, like a canopy over the city, or playing in fantastic wreaths as the wind whistled around the cornices of the contiguous buildings—that he might collect himself. At length he broke silence nearly as follows:—

"I'm afeard you will think I have come on rather curious business-like—for me."

"How so? What is the case, Mr. Wheelwright?"

"Why, I've had a hard life on't, since I seen you, when my school was broke up; and I've called to see—I was too proud once to come of such an arrant—but I thought 'twas likely you would not see a poor family suffering in such a storm as this."

"Surely not—if it is in my power to render assistance."

"Well, I thought as much—and I've called to see if you have not some second-hand clothes, and a little something to eat, that you can give us—or any thing else that you can spare—for we are in very great distress."

"Indeed—in actual want—of food and clothes, did you say? What has brought——

"O, don't ask—that woman there—I little thought I should ever come to this."

"Why have you not informed me of it before? Pray what is the matter with your hand, doctor?"

"I accidentally run a gouge through it, and hain't been able to do any work since. We had nothing to live upon. My hands were my only resources from day to day;—my working tools, and every article of furniture in the house, to the last blanket, the last shirt, and my wife's last shawl, have been pawned at the broker's, to enable us to keep the breath of life in us. We have now neither a stick of wood to burn, nor a morsel to eat!"

"Can it be possible, my dear sir, that you are reduced to a condition so deplorable? Why have you not been to see me sooner?"

"I was ashamed."

"But you need not have been. You should not have been left to suffer deprivations like these."

"I knew that, very well; but after all that has happened, I wished to bury myself, and never see the face of an old friend again. I hoped to live through, until my hand got well, and then I could have gone to work again."

"Work? What work?"

"You know I had partly larnt a trade once—pity I ever left it!—and as I retained knowledge enough of the use of tools to make common bedsteads, after my school run down, and my visions of property all vanished, I engaged in that business, and have contrived to get a poor living by it ever since, until I cut my hand so dreadfully."

"But your wife—cannot she do something with her needle?"

"What! that woman?"——

He paused, and heaved a deep sigh. It was a bitter exclamation, from the heart.

"No," he continued. "She has no faculty for getting along. She does nothing but harass my life out."

"A misfortune, in—

"True enough, I missed the fortune; and I should not have come to you now, but that we are freezing, and the children were shivering and crying for something to eat, when I left."

"Children! How many have you?"

"The woman, you know, had one when I married her, and we have had two since. One of these is dead. I am not sorry. Poor little fellow! he is much better off."

But it is needless to continue the colloquy. My heart bled for him. His tale of want and woe was told with the honest simplicity of truth. He did not shed any tears, but looked as though he was past weeping—like the personification of disappointment and despair.

From his relation it appeared, that during four years, my unfortunate friend's only income had been derived from the manufacture of the common article of furniture already mentioned. His place of residence and workshop were in the remote eastern part of the city. He had never the means of purchasing the materials for more than one bedstead at a time, and was obliged, from his extreme poverty, to carry the timber on his shoulders from the Albany Basin to his shop—a distance of two miles. This labor he performed at evenings. The article done, he had then to carry it to the furniture auction rooms in Chatham-square, for sale. The profit, over and above the cost of the materials, constituted the whole of his income—sometimes amounting to a dollar upon each, and sometimes to not more than two and six-pence—according to the run of the sales. And thus from day to day, for four long years, had the poor fellow been living, as we have seen, without allowing the friends of his better years to know where he was, or in what business or occupation he was engaged. Having once been the cause of his father's ruin, he was resolved not to call upon the old gentleman again while he could possibly avoid it, or preserve life without it. The motive for his conduct in this trying emergency, was honorable; and in the present hour of his bitter affliction I felt more sympathy for him, than I had ever supposed it possible to entertain for a man who, in times past, had made such indifferent use of his advantages. If there is any thing in this world that can subdue the passions, damp the ardor, or quench the spirit of a man, it is biting, remediless, hopeless poverty. Many are the minds, far more powerful than that of Mr. Wheelwright, which have sunk under its chilling influence. And my wonder was, how the doctor had borne up as well as he seemed to have done, under the complication of calamities which had befallen him.

Having heard his woeful relation through, I did what any one entitled to the name of man, would have done under the like circumstances. He was provided with an overcoat, and furnished with a little basket of provisions; and I promised to call in the afternoon, and examine into his condition for myself; albeit one of the ancient writers hath informed us that "he that spendeth his liuelode to helpe the poore at theyr nede, semeth mad vnto hym who hath reposed the ayd of this presente lyfe in worldlie riches."

The melancholy history just related by my unfortunate friend, threw me, after his departure, into a train of musing upon the vicissitudes of life, and the inequality with which Fortune distributes her favors. I could not help calling to mind Miss Edgeworth's admirable tale of Murad the Unlucky, and his friend the lucky Saladin. Like the former, Wheelwright seemed destined but to fall from one calamity into another, and effort to retrieve his affairs, did but plunge him deeper into the slough of misery. I could not but perceive, however, that as in the case of the persecuted Mussulman, the misfortunes of my poor friend had their origin in his own bad management, and to speak the honest truth, of common sense. The wound in his hand, indeed, might perhaps be accounted an unavoidable casualty; but had it not been for his previous errors, this misfortune would not have proved the cause of such hopeless penury and suffering.

We shall see, ere we close our tale whether a better if not a brighter destiny did not await him in coming years. Meantime, those who would avoid contemplating a scene of suffering like that which is to follow, should remember with Seneca,—"He that never was acquainted with adversity, has seen the world but on one side, and is ignorant of half the scenes of nature."

Too many there are, even in this boasted age of benevolence, who are thus ignorant of the scenes referred to by the ancient moralist—who believe it a virtue to be rich, and that there is no sin but beggary. "When fortune wraps them warm"—while their tables smoke with savory viands, and the choicest wines distil their grateful aroma—they turn a deaf ear to every sound of distress, exclaiming,

But we can forgive them, as their own worst enemies. They know nothing of the luxury of doing good, and when they are called to make up their last account, they will mourn that they have no investments in those funds that never fluctuate—in that bank "where moth and rust doth not corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." Let such remember, moreover, that as they brought nothing into world, so they can carry nothing out of it. And let it also be remembered, in the language of another, that were there as many worlds as there are particles of sand in our globe, and were those worlds composed of angel gold; or were there any thing in the wide extent of the Almighty's dominion, which is more precious than gold, and were those worlds composed of that material, all melted into one solid mass, to fill the coffers of a single individual, it would avail him nothing in procuring the salvation of his soul, or in affording him happiness beyond the brief period of his three-score years and ten!

CHAPTER XIV.

THINGS PROVE WORSE THAN WAS EXPECTED.

Never in my life, in any place, or under any circumstances, had I before entered a human abode of such perfect and entire destitution as that of poor Wheelwright! It was a wretched apology for a house, at best, containing two stories, of two rooms upon a floor each. The upper apartments were occupied by several poor Irish families. The front room below had been Wheelwright's workshop, and the family lived in the room back of it. Both looked as though they had been swept and garnished by the hand of Famine herself. Not a single article of furniture, of any description, was left! Crouched over two short brands,—the remains of a couple of sticks of wood which a poor neighbor had given them the day before,—were Wheelwright and his wife, shivering with cold. In one corner of the room lay two or three bushels of chopped straw, in which they slept. Not a bed, nor a blanket, nor a chair, nor any article or utensil of furniture whatsoever, had been left; all, all, was in the hands of the remorseless pawn-brokers, as the sufferers showed me by their certificates—pawned, too, for such pitiful sums as at once attested the oppressive and disgraceful system of avarice upon which those establishments are conducted. The storm yet howled fearfully without, and the hard particles of indurated snow were sifting through the interstices of the crazy building. The eye of man has seldom rested upon such a scene of stern and unmitigated poverty. Shylock or Sir Giles Overreach—aye!—any body but a pawn-broker—would have melted into tears at the spectacle. The children, almost naked, had just been taken to the fire-side of a poor Irish neighbor, to keep their benumbed bodies from freezing to the heart. I was appalled for the moment, as I gazed about upon this unexampled picture of destitution. Before me, seated on his haunches upon the hearth, was poor Wheelwright, resting his chin upon his hand,—and "the woman"—unfortunately his wife—by his side. He was moody—broken—crushed!

"Well!" he exclaimed, as I approached the forlorn couple—"you see what I have come to!"

I saw the state of the case—the cause, and the effect—at a glance—"that woman!"—as he had denominated her with such emphasis in the morning. In good sooth, I liked her not. She looked hale and hearty, notwithstanding their destitution—was ragged, and none of the neatest in her person.

I entered into conversation with her, and soon discovered that she had both a sharp, and, if necessary, an artful tongue of her own. I remarked that she appeared to be in good health, and might, I should have supposed, do something with her needle toward the supply of their pressing necessities. But her excuses were many, and were uttered with genuine Irish eloquence and volubility. The principal of these, however, were, that, what with taking care of her poor dear husband's wounded hand, and looking after the childer, she had not time, and could get nothing to do besides.

"Indeed, your honor," said she, "and sure we had everything that was dacent about us, and were quite happy and comfortable, considering, until my poor dear husband—God bless him, your worship!—kilt his hand, and I don't know where is like to be the end of it."

"But," I remarked, "surely, Mrs. Wheelwright, you could have found time to do a little something—if no more than to buy a loaf of bread and a few coals now and then, to mitigate your sufferings."

"Fait, your honor"—for if the woman had ever lost any portion of the peculiar patois of her own country, while living in Paris as a femme de chambre, or with Capt. Scarlett as a mistress, it had all returned with her more recent associations, and she was now a pure Emerald—"fait, your honor," said she, "and how could I be afther laving the poor body in his distress to go out afther work, when I love him above the world and all that's in it? And then, your worship, I'd no clothes that was dacent to go out in, and to go to jontlemen's houses with such tatters as these, Mr. Wheelwright, says I, it would not do by any manner of means, says I. And that's the rights of it from end to end, if your worship will ounly hear to me."

Wheelwright himself was evidently bowed down by the severity of his wants and the depth of his degradation.

If moral energy had ever been one of his characteristics, it was quite clear that its fire had long since been extinguished; and more than all, it was equally evident that he was the object of domestic tyranny. But he uttered no complaint, and indeed scarcely opened his lips, unless in reply to the interrogations put to him.

My first business was to rescue the unhappy sufferers from immediate want. Had the woman alone been concerned, my solicitude would have been hardly discernible. But whatever had been the defects in the character of Wheelwright, or the errors which, for the most part, were the consequence, the wide contrast between his present and past condition was truly affecting. For his indiscretions, never involving moral obliquity, he had most grievously answered. And, besides, was he not "a man and a brother!" There is no more charitable people in the world than those of New-York. Let any case of distress be presented—any call of real suffering—which has actually been ascertained, and is vouched for by a respectable citizen, the hearts of the New-Yorkers will instantly respond to the appeal. Two or three hours of active exertion, therefore, enabled me to obtain the means, and procure all the supplies actually necessary; and in three days' time Wheelwright and his family were comfortably furnished with bedding, clothing, fuel, and provisions for the residue of the season of snows.

The next measure resolved upon, was the redemption of Wheelwright's tools and other articles of furniture, clothing, &c., from the hands of the pawn-brokers, for which purpose he accompanied me. The object was accomplished after no little trouble, in visiting the principal establishments doing business under the beautiful sign of the three golden balls, in Chatham-street, and redeeming one or two articles here, another there, and a third or fourth somewhere else. But although this part of the labor was an irksome job, attended by scenes and objects of a description exceedingly painful, yet I was enabled to read some dark pages in the book of human nature, which will never be forgotten.

I had previously imbibed a strong prejudice against those receptacles of the goods, new and old, of the poor, the miserable, and the vicious. I had been told of the system of universal cheatery upon which they practised, and the enormous exactions made in grinding the faces of the poor. I had heard described their dexterity in the substitution of colored glass and crystals, for gems, while pretending to examine articles of the latter description brought for pledges, and was prepared to encounter all that was sinister and heartless. But the one-half had not been told me, and I soon found that my previous conceptions fell far short of the reality. As I have already remarked, I had occasion to visit several of them, and was detained at each, by the delays in finding the articles of which I was in search, and for which the holders had doubtless flattered themselves no inquiries would ever be made. The press of business at all, was another cause of delay. It really seemed in my eyes the most fraudulent and oppressive business in which man could engage. As I recovered Wheelwright's articles, one by one, it appeared at once that the most outrageous system of extortion had been practised in every instance. The sums advanced had been pitiful in amount, and the rates of interest charged exorbitant beyond belief. O how does avarice harden the heart, and dry up the current of human sympathy! How lamentable this accursed thirst for gold!

And at every one of these dens, what a crowd of victims were collected! "A motley company indeed—black-legs, and would-be-gentlemen—the cheater and the cheated." The widow parting with her last trinkets, or, perchance, her last disposable article of dress, to procure one more meal for her famishing children! A poor consumptive girl, with the hectic flush upon her wasting cheek, applying for the same purpose; and the griping miser—very likely a woman too!—without a spark of generosity, or an emotion of pity—reading the condition of the sufferers from their countenances, with the coolest imaginable calculation—thus ascertaining from their looks the urgency of their respective cases, that the utmost possible advantage might be taken, and the intended cheat be made the greater. The pick-pocket, moreover, the thief, and the purloining servant, received with equal readiness, and the spoils divided between them, with the fullest understanding that no questions were to be asked! O 'tis monstrous! "The offence is rank, and smells to heaven!"

But my visits to these establishments were fruitful of incidents, the recollection of which is too vivid to be passed lightly over. And as the present chapter is already of sufficient length, it is proposed to appropriate a separate one as a record of some of those reminiscences—one of which may better suffice as a temperance lecture, than a sermon, while another may perhaps interest the reader from its aspect of romance. If the reader chooses, he can pass it over altogether.

CHAPTER XV.

SCENES IN THE LOMBARDS.

"——there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me three thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell on our nation till now."—Idem.

"O sailor boy, sailor boy, peace to thy soul!"—Dibdin.

To one who would study human nature, especially in its darker features, there is no better field of observation than among these pawn-brokers' shops.

In a frequented establishment, each day unfolds an ample catalogue of sorrow, misery, and guilt, developed in forms and combinations almost innumerable; and if the history of each customer could be known, the result would be such a catalogue as would scarcely be surpassed even by the records of a police-office or a prison. Even my brief stay while arranging for the redemption of Dr. Wheelwright's personals, afforded materials, as indicated in the last chapter, for much and painful meditation.

I had scarcely made my business known, at the first of "my uncle's" establishments to which I had been directed, when a middle-aged man entered with a bundle, on which he asked a small advance, and which, on being opened, was found to contain a shawl and two or three other articles of female apparel. The man was stout and sturdy, and, as I judged from his appearance, a mechanic; but the mark of the destroyer was on his bloated countenance and in his heavy, stupid eyes. Intemperance had marked him for his own. The pawn-broker was yet examining the offered pledge, when a woman, whose pale face and attenuated form bespoke long and intimate acquaintance with sorrow, came hastily into the shop, and with the single exclamation, "O Robert!" darted, rather than ran, to that part of the counter where the man was standing. Words were not wanted to explain her story. Her miserable husband, not satisfied with wasting his own earnings, and leaving her to starve with her children, had descended to the meanness of plundering even her scanty wardrobe, and the pittance for the obtaining of which this robbery would furnish means, was destined to be squandered at the tippling-house. A blush of shame arose even upon his degraded face, but it quickly passed away; the brutal appetite prevailed, and the better feeling that had apparently stirred within him for the moment, soon gave way before its diseased and insatiate cravings.

"Go home," was his harsh and angry exclamation; "what brings you here, running after me with your everlasting scolding? go home, and mind your own business."

"O Robert, dear Robert," answered the unhappy wife, "don't pawn my shawl. Our children are crying for bread, and I have none to give them. Or let me have the money; it is hard to part with that shawl, for it was my mother's gift; but I will let it go, rather than see my children starve. Give me the money, Robert, and don't leave us to perish."

I watched the face of the pawn-broker to see what effect this appeal would have upon him, but I watched in vain. He was hardened to distress, and had no sympathy to throw away. "Twelve shillings on these things," he said, tossing them back to the drunkard, with a look of perfect indifference.

"Only twelve shillings!" murmured the heart-broken wife, in a tone of despair. "O Robert, don't let them go for twelve shillings. Let me try somewhere else."

"Nonsense," answered the brute. "It's as much as they're worth, I suppose. Here, Mr. Crimp, give us the change."

The money was placed before him, and the bundle consigned to a drawer. The poor woman reached forth her hand toward the silver, but the movement was anticipated by her husband. "There Mary," he said, giving her half a dollar, "there, go home now, and don't make a fuss. I'm going a little way up the street, and perhaps I'll bring you something from market, when I come home."

The hopeless look of the poor woman, as she meekly turned to the door, told plainly enough how little she trusted to this ambiguous promise. They went on their way, she to her famishing children, and he to squander the dollar he had retained, at the next den of intemperance.

While this little scene was in progress, another had been added to the number of spectators. This was a young man, dressed in the height of the fashion, that is to say, in a be-frogged and be-laced frock coat with a standing collar, a pair of cossack pantaloons tapering down to the foot with a notch cut in the front for the instep, and a hat about twice as large at the crown as at the rim, much resembling in shape an inverted sugar-loaf, with the smaller end cut away. He had a reckless, dare-devil, good humored look, and very much the air of what is called "a young man about town;" that is, one who rides out to Cato's every afternoon, eats oyster suppers at Windust's every night after the play, and spends the rest of his time and his money at billiards. I had cast my eye upon him occasionally during the affair of the shawl, and saw that he took a deep interest in its termination. The moment the poor woman was gone, he twitched from his neck a gold chain, at the end of which was a small gold watch, and placing it in the hands of the pawn-broker, with whom he seemed to be on terms of acquaintance, he exclaimed, "Quick now, Crimp; thirty dollars on that; you've had it before, and needn't stop to examine it."

The money was instantly produced and paid over; and the young man of fashion, crumpling the notes up in his hand, ran off at full speed, first looking up and then down the street in a manner that gave me a suspicion as to the cause of his haste. I took the liberty of following him to the door, and was in abundant time to find my conjecture verified by seeing him accost the poor woman who had just left the shop, thrust into her hand either the whole or part of the sum he had just received on the pledge of his watch and chain, and then hurry away to the other side of the street, without stopping either for thanks or for explanation.

The reverie of mingled surprise and admiration into which I was thrown by this unexpected manifestation of benevolence, was interrupted by a loud outcry from Mr. Crimp, the pawn-broker, and by seeing him, with a look of wrath and horror, hurry round his counter and out through the door, upon the sidewalk, where he stood for a moment straining his eyes down the street, as if in search of the kind-hearted youth, who had by this time disappeared up one of the cross streets.

"The villain," he exclaimed; "the swindling scoundrel! Which way did he go, the ungrateful thief? Tell me," he continued, turning to me, "tell me which way he went, and I'll give you any thing you've a mind to ask. Yes, I'll give you—half a dollar, if you'll show me where he is."

I was not a little astonished at all this, but deferring the gratification of my curiosity for the present, pointed out to Mr. Crimp the course taken by his late customer, and mentioned also what I had seen take place between him and the poor woman. The information, or perhaps even the brief space employed in giving it, seemed to produce a change of intention in the mind of the estimable gentleman.

"Ah it's no use," he said; "he's got off clear by this time, and my thirty dollars is a case. But I'll find him yet, some day." And thus soliloquizing, Mr. Crimp returned into his shop.

The explanation for which I was so curious, was now afforded me. The young man had several times before deposited the watch in the hands of Mr. Crimp, as the quid pro quo of certain needful advances, and as often redeemed it, when accident or luck at the billiard table placed the requisite funds at his disposal. Taking advantage of the familiarity that had thus grown up between the broker and the trinket, as a means of dispensing with the usual and requisite examination, a gilt chain had been substituted for the gold one, which had been so often deposited with the watch; and the deception had passed unnoticed until it was too late. The watch itself was probably worth about the sum advanced.

There was another case of a very touching description, which occurred at the place of my next visit. It was that of an interesting female, of about five and thirty, and in the garb of mourning. She entered the place evidently with reluctance and timidity, and could hardly make the object of her visit known, from very emotion. She was of a delicate frame; of easy and rather graceful manners, and but for the ravages of care upon her countenance, might yet have been beautiful. At length she brought forth a ring from a pretty little morocco case, upon the pledge of which she wished to realize such an amount of money as would sustain herself and children through the winter. I saw that it was costing her a pang to part with the gem; but necessity knows no law. The eyes of the extortioner kindled, for the instant, and with evident exultation, at the first glance of the jewel—but they fell in a twinkling as he assumed the cold, hard aspect of his calling, took the ring in his fingers, and holding it up to the window, pretended to examine it—assuming, at the same time, an air of affected disappointment. He thereupon began at once to depreciate the article—declaring that it was nothing but a Brazilian crystal, and that he would hardly take it at any price. I saw by the countenance, and the heaving bosom of the lady—for such I was convinced she was, though in reduced circumstances—that she was bitterly disappointed—having calculated upon realizing a considerable sum from an article which she had supposed of much higher value. But the miser was inexorable, and peremptorily refused to advance more than four or five dollars. Her appearance and manner at this moment were affecting to a degree. "Well," said she: "'tis hard, but patience must endure. I have left my babes a-crying, and I must do it; and when this is gone, I must depend upon Him who feedeth the young ravens when they cry. But," she added, with a heavy sigh, "he said it was worth a great deal more than that." There was a peculiar tenderness and affection in the manner in which she, involuntarily perhaps, made this reference to some one who was not present; and the rising tear trembled and glistened in her eye, like the jewel in the miser's fingers.

I had seen, as the sordid wretch eyed the ring with secret satisfaction by the window, from its brilliance, that it was a gem of value. It glittered and sparkled in the light, with an intensity that nothing equals but the diamond; and I was determined that the fair and unfortunate owner should not be thus imposed upon. Just before the bargain was completed, however, as I was about to interpose myself, another gentleman, who had also been watching the procedure, stepped forward and declared that that beautiful ring should not be thus sacrificed to the rapacious Hebrew. The latter at once endeavored to hasten matters, and declaring the bargain to have been completed, would have succeeded in thrusting the jewel into the drawer, but for the resolution of the gentleman, who seized and saved it. The wretch muttered something about people's interfering in business that was exclusively his own concern, but to no purpose. The poor widow was rescued from his fangs; and although it was a struggle to part with the ring, which indeed contained a choice brilliant, her heart was gladdened by the receipt of seventy-five dollars, from one who was willing to pay its value.

The tale of this poor lady in whose case my sympathies had been thus enlisted, was not without interest. She was an orphan, daughter of a Virginia planter who had been eaten into poverty by his own slaves, so that his children were left portionless, and had been married when young to one of those high-minded, gallant spirits, who bear their country's flag so proudly on the wave—brave, and generous to a fault, and in fact one of those who almost literally "spend half a crown out of six-pence a day." She was adored by her husband, to whom she early presented several cherub-looking sailor-boys, and while he lived to supply her wants, though free-hearted and reckless of expenditure, she had always enough for the present, and "a shot in the locker," to serve while he was tossing upon the main. But alas! she had occasion too soon to deplore the capricious uncertainty of all sublunary enjoyments.

Never was a more beautiful day, nor a more gallant spectacle, than when the ship to which Lieutenant —— was attached, got underway, and departed for her last cruise in the West India seas. Every sail was set, and so clear was the atmosphere, that the light tracery of her rigging was seen against the sky, as she bore down through the Narrows. Maria watched the ship intently until the last dark point of the top-mast disappeared in the distance. How her bright eye sparkled, when she heard the praises of her husband's carriage on deck as he assumed his duties, spoken from the lips of friends who had with her witnessed the departure of the ship!—But before she retired to rest, tears had more than once usurped the features which were a few hours before dimpled by joy. A strange sensation—some unusual and undefinable apprehension of—she knew not what—had taken possession of her bosom, and she closed her long, silken eye-lashes to sleep even while yet she had scarce done weeping.

But the ship assumed her station in the squadron in due season, and every return vessel brought letters from her Frederick, full of affection for herself, and kisses and remembrances for Jack, Tom, and the baby. Often, moreover, did they abound with glowing descriptions of the scenery of those sunny West India climes, through which he had strolled when occasionally on shore. It was summer, and the tropical sun was reigning in his full glory. But his mind was enthusiastic and poetical, and the nights, so transcendantly beautiful in those regions, were his delight. After the sun, which had been blazing with irresistible fierceness in an unclouded sky, through the day, had sunk to rest, there was such a luxury in the enjoyment of a tropical evening! The clearness and brilliancy of the heavens, the serenity and soft tranquillity of the atmosphere, diffusing the most calm and delightful sensations. The moon shines out with a greater radiance in those heavens than in ours, and when she coquettishly turns her back upon this side of our mundane sphere, her place is well supplied by the superior brilliance of the stars. Such, in those clear skies, is their glittering effulgence, that the visiter from other latitudes would scarce suppose them to be the same luminaries that sparkle in their own heavens. Venus—the bright and beautiful divinity of love—appears of far greater magnitude than here,—shining with a much greater intensity of brightness—so strong indeed as to cast a shadow from the trees. These things were all described by Frederick to his Maria, with a richness and a glow of language, such as sailors seldom use. And all that was wanting to complete his happiness, was his Eve to stroll by his side among the groves of citron and lemon—redolent with every fruit that is inviting, and every flower that is beautiful. And how she longed to be with him I need not tell!

While, however, the ship was yet in those seas, cruising in the gulf of Mexico, autumn came on, and with it the season of storms. The lofty peaks of the stupendous mountains, in some of the nearest islands, were frequently in sight, perceptible often at a great distance, from the peculiar transparency of the atmosphere. At length the experienced navigators discerned celestial phenomena, which caused them to watch the heavens with greater solicitude. Piles of massive clouds, fleecy, and of a reddish hue, were observed in the morning, in the south-eastern quarter of the heavens, and the crests of the mountains, cloudless and yet of an azure cast, seemed nearer the ship than they were wont. Soon the pillowy masses of vapor began to move lazily toward the mountains—flashes which were but dimly discerned breaking from them, followed by the hollow and distant roll of thunder—sometimes so distinctly as to sound as if reverberating from peak to peak among the mountains, though yet at a very great distance. The ocean, too, began to heave as though in labor, and its roaring was borne along upon the freshening breeze. These indications spoke but too clearly the approach of one of those dreadful visitations in which the Almighty so frequently displays his power in the West India seas, and proclaims his judgments in such melancholy dispensations. The wind increased, the roaring of the ocean deepened upon the ear, and all hands in every craft upon the gulf were engaged in reefing their sails, and making every thing snug for the onset.

Nothing can be more fierce, sudden, or uncontrollable, than the West India hurricanes. Electrical in their origin, the moment the spark produces a combination of oxygen and hydrogen, the sudden and terrible fall of hail and rain pouring impetuously down, creates a vacuum into which the air rushes from every direction with tremendous velocity. Sometimes the air, by the meeting of opposite currents, assumes the form of a whirlwind: a dark cloud preceding it, unrolling itself suddenly, and mantling the whole heavens in gloom, lightened occasionally by the flashings of lurid fire,—while if upon land, houses, corn-stacks, cane-fields, and even whole forests, are whirled aloft and scattered to fragments in an instant; or, if upon the deep, the whole ocean is wrought into maddened and foaming fury; and woe to the vessel, no matter for its strength or magnitude, that is brought within the vortex of the tempest.

Such was the fact in regard to the hurricane of which I am speaking. Some of the light craft then upon the gulf, escaped and came into the harbor of New-York. They reported that never within the memory of man, had that sea been the scene of so fearful a tempest. It commenced with a tremendous crash from the heavens, and the gulf was almost instantly lashed into a foam of contending currents. At the instant of its commencement, apparently in the very focus of its fury, one of them saw a dark object, resembling a ship of war, rise upon the ridge of a towering wave, and then sink with a heavy roll into the trough of the sea, whence she rose no more. It was a fearful night, that which followed; the seas rushing and doubling onward, curling and foaming and breaking with awful majesty. But the United States ship Hornet was never heard of more. Her gallant officers and daring crew—full of high health and hope but an hour before—were all—all, in that dread moment—without one instant to bid adieu or breathe a prayer—hurried to their doom!

But to return from this digression. Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright's articles were all redeemed, and their house comfortably warmed and supplied for the winter, as I have already intimated. And in addition to such present relief as was rendered imperatively necessary by his wounded hand, the funds contributed for his benefit enabled me to lay in, for his use and behoof, ample materials for sixty bedsteads—a stock in trade rendering him a rich man, compared with what had been his temporal condition for a long while before. His spirits in a good measure revived at even such a change in his circumstances—and his wife poured forth an overwhelming torrent of Irish blessings, with thanks to "his honor," and "his worship," without number.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE END OF THIS EVENTFUL HISTORY.

"Slender, I broke your head—what matter have you against me?"—Shakspeare.

One of the most amusing, and, indeed, one of the best pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, is that of Garrick, between comedy and tragedy. On the one side, with her mask in hand, stood the presiding divinity of comic poetry, coaxing the immortal hero of the sock and buskin with her archest smiles; while on the other stood Melpomene, rapt in solemn thought, and with eyes upraised in gloomy grandeur, pointing the actor to a loftier walk than that of her witching sister Thalia. The situation of poor Garrick is most embarrassing—and appears the more so from the powers of face at his command, as delineated by the artist, whereby he is represented as doubting to which invitation he should yield, while with one half of his face he looks the deepest tragedy, and with the other, the merriest comedy.

Very much in the situation of Garrick, as thus described, does the biographer find himself at the threshhold of this concluding chapter. It is not his fault, however, that comic or rather farcical incidents must follow so closely upon the pathetic. But "the course of true love never did run smooth"—a fact of which, as the reader has already seen, my unfortunate friend Wheelwright had had some knowledge, early in his wedded life—and of which he was convinced over again, soon after the events recorded in the last two chapters.

It was on a clear frosty morning in March, that one of the watchful guardians of the peace and quiet of the city, connected with the police establishment, did me the unexpected honor of a visit. He stated that a poor but very decent sort of a man had fallen into the hands of the watch during the preceding night, and had been committed to Bridewell by the sitting magistrate, on a charge of assault and battery. According to the report of Dogberry, the man was "quite down-in-the-mouth about it, and," (he added,) "he contests that he is entirely hinnocent. He also says he is acquainted with you, and he thinks if you would be good enough to come up to the hall and see him, no doubt that you would bail him out."

"How is that, my friend? A man taken up in a night-row, and now in Bridewell, and says he is an acquaintance of mine—eh?"

"So he says, and he looks as though he might have seen better days. We have to deal with many such—but then he don't act as though he was often in such scrapes, no how."

"His name?"

"Doctor—Wheel—Wheelwright, I think they call him."

"O—ah—yes:" another incident, thinks-I-to-myself, in the chequered life of my unhappy friend.

"And a striking incident, too, according to the account of the Irish woman who lodged the complaint."

"An Irish woman! Mischief in her proper shape again. But, my word for it, if it is my quondam friend Wheelwright, who is in the scrape, he has not struck any body or thing—man, woman, or child."

"'Zactly so: that's just what he says; and as he has no friends, he thinks you might stand by him in a pinch, if you knew as how he has been in the lock-up half the night, and has now been walked off to Bridewell."

This was a far less agreeable call upon my attention and services than I had ever had the honor of receiving from him before; but still, knowing the honesty of the man, and his pacific character, and fully believing in his representations of innocence, I at once determined to inquire into the circumstances of the case, and, if necessary, make another effort in his behalf.

The investigation resulted as I had anticipated. The unfortunate husband now opened his heart, and poured out all his domestic sorrows and tribulations before me. He needed not to tell me that he had not married a fortune, as he had supposed, when I first saw him in the hey-day of his honey-moon; but from the simple tale now unfolded, it seemed that, on the contrary, he had been wedded to Mis-fortune, and all her progeny. The rather turbulent lady of Socrates—(unless Mrs. Xantippe was scandalized by her neighbors)—was a sweet-tempered dame, and "gentle as a sucking dove," in comparison with the vixen who had been harassing his life and soul away for years. The only peaceable hours of his existence were those in which she was too much fatigued with liquor to annoy him. When awake and sober, her temper was little better, and her tormenting tongue seemed to have been hung in the middle, so that it might run at both ends. It is related of Foote, the comedian, that when once suffering from the tongue of a shrew, he replied—"I have heard of Tartars, and Brimstones, madam; and by Jove you are the cream of the one, and the flour of the other." And next to the Grecian lady above mentioned, the Tartar who bearded Foote, seemed, in my view, to be the only parallel of Mistress Wheelwright, of which the books give any account.

How few can bear prosperity! Indeed, although we all covet it so much, the examples of those ruined by sudden reverses of fortune, would probably present a greater number of those who have been raised from poverty to wealth, than of those who have been cast down from a state of affluence to that of penury. An illustration of this proposition was afforded in the family of Mr. Wheelwright. It appeared that after the change recorded in the last chapter, from a condition of the most abject misery, to that of comparative comfort, the Doctor's lady, elated by her prosperity, began to take airs upon herself, and her carriage was such as to excite the jealousy of her neighbors up stairs. The consequences were a speedy and open rupture, so that occasional hostilities were waged between them; and the civil dudgeon ran so high that all attempts of poor Wheelwright to keep the peace were abortive. At last, on the night of my friend's arrest, one of the ladies from above, remarkable for the dimensions of her facial organ, descended to his apartment in a tempest, and insulted his wife. Like a true Amazon as she was, the latter repelled the invader, pursued her in her flight, and like Scipio carried the war into Africa. The tenants above made common cause with Mistress Judy Pettit, and the gentle lady of Mr. Wheelwright was in turn discomfitted, and compelled to descend headlong down stairs, in rather too quick time for her comfort, with a cataract of Irish women tumbling after her. Wheelwright ran to the rescue of his help-meet, and pulling her through the door, endeavored to shut it on the instant, to keep out the foe; in doing which the proboscis of Mistress Pettit, which was truly of the Strasburgh order, was unhappily and literally caught in the door crack, and beyond all question somewhat injured thereby. In the language of the trumpeter's wife in Tristram Shandy, it was truly "a noble nose," and the pinch it endured, though transient, it must be confessed, was rather severe and biting. Its fair possessor therefore ran into the street, smarting from the pain, and vociferating alternately for the "watch," and "Och murther! I'm kilt, I'm kilt," so pertinaciously and so obstreperously withal, as to wake up several of the guardians of the night, who made a rally, and carried the whole party to the watch-house, including an Irishman who happened to be on a visit up stairs, by the name of Timothy Martin.

From all account, the morning examination before the sitting magistrate must have afforded one of the most amusing scenes for the fancy that have recently occurred this side of Bow-street. It was difficult to say which of the ladies was the most clamorous, Mistress Pettit, the complainant, or Mistress Wheelwright, or whether other females of the party did not talk as loud and as fast as either. Mistress Pettit gave an account of their neighborhood concerns for some time previous.

"Fait, your worship," says she, "we was always afther being kind to them, when they had not a faggot to warm them, or a paratoe to ate; and then she'd come to me sometime, and bring the childer, says she, for she'd two of them at that same time—bad luck to her—and this, your honor, is one of them," (for the eldest of Wheelwright's children had been brought up in the medley;) "and says I to Mistress Wheelwright, says I, plase your worship, you may come with your childer and warm ye, and here's a drop of the crathur that Tim Martin brought to me. And then whin she wint off a-begging as no dacent woman would, bekase I pitied the childer, I tould Mrs. Wheelwright, says I, that they might stay with me till ye come back yourself—and may-be ye'll come the sooner, Mrs. Wheelwright, says I. And come she wouldn't by no manes, but was out all night sometimes."

"Och deevil burn ye," interrupted Mistress Wheelwright, "if ye go on at that rate, I'll tell his honor of the pig ye stole,—you and Tim Martin, ye did."

"Och Murther," cried Mistress Pettit, "that a dacent woman like I should be charged with staling along with such a spalpeen as Tim Martin, your honor."

Whereupon up started Tim Martin, exclaiming—

"Botheration, and that's what I get for kindness," says he, "there's grathitude your worship!—And fait, I'll tell his honor of the money ye stole in the strong box that I left," says Tim Martin, says he.

"Yes," interposed Mistress Wheelwright, "when word com'd that she'd gone off with a man that she had, and left her own childer for me to care for, bad luck to her."

"Och!" Mistress Wheelwright, says Mistress Pettit, says she; "and you and Tim Martin's lies will be the death of me, and he's selling whiskey without a license, yer honor, that's Tim Martin, he is!"

But it is impossible to follow these precious parties through the particulars of their examination disclosing the miseries of their neighborhood, and in their own words, when they all talked together. I must therefore content myself by informing the reader, that the magistrate interposed as soon as he could, by stating that he did not sit there to hear about their squabbles with each other and Tim Martin, but to hear what they had to say against the accused.

Poor Wheelwright! During the whole of the scene just described, he sat upon one of the benches, his eyes cast upon the floor, without uttering a word. When called upon, however, to answer to the charge, he could only deny, and try to explain—but Mistress Pettit and her associates were too much for him. And besides, deny having molested her nose, as he might, the aspect of the member itself bore abundant testimony of rough usage and a narrow escape—to say nothing of the crimson drops, that seemed to have oozed therefrom, and fallen upon good Mistress Pettit's neck-handkerchief. The consequence was, that the magistrate could do no less than commit him, although from Wheelwright's subdued demeanor, he had strong doubts as to his intentional delinquencies. Under these circumstances, I found but little difficulty, from my own knowledge of the man, in persuading the magistrate to release him on his own recognizance.

In a few weeks afterward, Wheelwright ascertained that the always equivocal virtue of his wife had become of so little consequence in her own eyes, as to release him from any farther obligation, in honor or in law, to stand any longer as its nominal guardian and protector. He divided the children, giving her the one to which she had a fair title before he courted her fortune,—but which, poor thing!—proved to be all she had,—and took the only one now living, which bore his own name, to himself. He also at length assumed sufficient energy to divide the house between them—giving her the out-side and retaining the in-side for himself. Thus ends the history of Doctor Daniel Wheelwright in New-York.

"It is the end," says the Bard of Avon, "that crowns all;" and bringing these "passages" in the life of my friend to a close, from the position in which I shall leave him, the reader may perhaps agree with the same illustrious poet:—

"More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before."

At all events, we will "let the end try the man." The latest intelligence which I can furnish the reader respecting him, however, is this. Having recently made a flying excursion through the valley of the Mohawk—visited the old baronial castle of Sir William Johnson, and from thence struck across to the south through the Schoharie-kill valley, to explore the wonders of the great cavern of the Helderbergs, an accident to the light vehicle drawn by my coal-black steed, on my return, obliged me to call upon a coachmaker in the first city west of Albany. On arriving at the shop, and inquiring for the principal of the establishment, I was directed to an athletic man engaged with his whole attention, in giving the finishing strokes to a substantial coach-wheel. Judge of my astonishment, as he looked up, on beholding none other than the hero of the present memoir, in his own proper person! His sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders; his complexion was ruddy; and a cheerful smile lighted up his countenance, such as I had not seen playing there for many a year—never, in fact, since he became acquainted with "that woman there." Every thing about him bore the marks of industry and consequent thrift. "Ah, Mr. Doolittle! is that you?" he exclaimed, as he wiped away the large drops of perspiration that stood upon his face. Indeed, he was quite glad to see me; and after interchanging a few remarks of mutual surprise at such an unexpected though agreeable meeting, and after briefly relating what had been his personal history since I had last seen him under the cloud, he observed,—"You see I have gone clean round 'the circle,' and am at the old spot again—my father's shop. I have always told you that 'the world owed me a living.' But the mischief on't was, I always went the wrong way to work to obtain it. I believe, however, that I have got about right at last."

The reader of the preceding narrative, may perhaps suppose that the materials of which it is framed, are such unsubstantial stuff as dreams are made of. I beg leave, however, at the close, to assure him of his error. With the single abatement that names are changed, and places are not precisely designated, every essential incident that I have recorded, actually occurred, much as I have related it, to a person who, if not now living, certainly was once, and most of them under my own observation. As Scott remarks, at the close of the Bride of Lammermoor, "it is an ower true tale."

The moral is briefly told. Let the young man remember that it requires not actual vice to expose him to all that is humiliating and painful in poverty. He may be assured of misery enough, if he merely neglects the advantages which a kind Providence has placed within his power.

Let the parent learn, before he resolves to educate his son, the importance of ascertaining whether his son was ever designed for professional life. The weak vanity of a parent has frequently ruined his son, and brought down his own gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

THE END.

WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED

BY

LEAVITT, LORD & CO.

WITH SOME EXTRACTS FROM NOTICES OF THEM.

SHIP AND SHORE, or Leaves from the Journal of a Cruise to the Levant—by an officer of the Navy.

Another contribution from a source, to which nobody would have thought of turning, but a few years ago; but which is now beginning to yield fruit abundantly and of an excellent flavor, sound, wholesome and trustworthy; not those warm cheeked and golden pippins of the Red Sea, which 'turn to ashes on the lips'—but something you may bite with all your strength, of a grapy, and oftentimes of a peachy flavor. The preface itself is a gem.—New-England Galaxy.

This book is written with sprightliness and ease, and may justly claim to be considered an agreeable as well as an instructive companion. It is inscribed in a brief but modest dedication to Mrs. E. D. Reed—a lady of uncommon refinement, of manners and intellectual accomplishments. The descriptions of Madeira and Lisbon are the best we have read. The pages are uniformly enriched with sentiment, or enlivened by incident. The author, whoever he is, is a man of sentiment, taste and feeling.—Boston Courier.

MEMOIRS OF MRS. WINSLOW, late Missionary to India, by her husband, Rev. Miron Winslow—in a neat 12mo, with a Portrait.

The book contains a good history of that mission, including the plan and labors of the Missionaries, and the success attending them, together with almost every important event connected with the mission. It also presents much minute information on various topics which must be interesting to the friends of missions, relating to the character, customs and religion of the people—their manner of thinking and living: and the scenery of their country and its climate. It also describes the perplexities and encouragements of Missionaries in all the departments of their labor, and throws open to inspection the whole interior of a mission and a mission family, exhibiting to the reader what missionary work and missionary life are, better perhaps than any thing before published—Missionary Herald.

Mrs. Winslow would have been a remarkable character under any circumstances, and in any situation. Had she not possessed a mind of unusual power and decision, she never could have triumphed over the obstacles which were thrown in her way. We hope that in this memoir many a pious young lady, will find incitements to prayerfulness and zeal—and that our readers will enjoy the privilege of reading all the pages of this interesting volume.—Abbott's Magazine.

PASTOR'S DAUGHTER—or the Way of Salvation explained to a Young Inquirer; from reminiscences of the conversations of the late Dr. Payson with his daughter.

ZINZENDORFF, a new original Poem—by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, with other Poems, 12mo. This book is in a neat style, and well calculated for Holiday presents.

HARLAN PAGE'S MEMOIRS, one of the most useful books ever published.

There has been much fear that the attention of the church was becoming too exclusively turned towards the great external forms of sin. These fears are not groundless. Here, however, is one remedy. The circulation of such a work as this, holding up a high standard of ardent personal piety, and piety, too, showing itself in the right way—by quiet, unpretending efforts to spread the kingdom of Christ from soul to soul.—Abbott's Magazine.

COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF PSALMS; on a plan embracing the Hebrew Text, with a New Literal Version. By George Bush, Prof. of Heb. and Orient. Lit. in the New-York City University.

This commentary, although it every where discovers evidence of highly respectable research, is not designed exclusively for the use of mere biblical critics. It is true the author has constant recourse to the Hebrew and to ancient translations and commentaries, &c. in the explanation of difficult passages: but he does it with such clearness of perception and such tact of language that even unlettered readers can hardly fail to be profited by his comments. He has hit with an admirable degree of precision, the happy medium between a commentary purely scholastic and critical, which could be interesting to only a few very learned men, and one exclusively practical, which would be likely to be unsatisfactory to men of exact and scrutinizing minds. It is a pleasing circumstance, although some perhaps may be disposed to make it a ground of carping and disparagement, that the work is an American one. It is written in our own land and by one of our own beloved brethren, and is therefore entitled on the ground of country and patriotism, as well as of religion, to all that kindness and favor of reception, which may be justified by its intrinsic merits. The work is published in a highly creditable style by the house of Leavitt, Lord & Co. New-York.—Christian Mirror.

We have spent so much time, delightfully, in reading this number, that we have little left for description of its contents. We have first an admirable preface of two pages, stating the plan and object of the work. Persons wishing to revive their knowledge of neglected Hebrew, or desirous to learn it anew without a teacher, can find no book better adapted to facilitate the acquisition than this, in addition to a grammar and dictionary.

The good sense of Mr. Bush, is well indicated by his remarks on the word Selah where it first occurs. No mere empiric would have made such an acknowledgment.—Ib.

While the work is adapted to be a real treat more particularly for scholars, it is so conducted that readers merely of the English version can hardly fail to receive from it much profit and delight.—Pittsburgh Friend.

We have not examined critically all the notes, but we have examined them enough to satisfy ourselves of the author's competency to his Work and of his fidelity.—Christian Register.

The mechanical execution of the work is beautiful, particularly the Hebrew text, and fully equal to any thing that has come from the Andover Press, which hitherto has stood unrivalled in this country, for biblical printing. The introduction and notes give evidence of laborious and patient investigation, extensive biblical learning, and heartfelt piety. It promises to be a work of great value and we hope it will meet with ample encouragement.—Cincinnati Journal.

A GRAMMAR OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE, with a brief Chrestomathy for the use of beginners, by George Bush; Prof. Heb. and Orient. Lit. in the N. Y. city University.

We hail sincerely this finely executed volume, with its tasteful display of the University front labelled in gilt on the back. But the outward dress is a matter of minor moment. It is the marrow of the book which gives us pleasure. That it is calculated to be an important accession to the elementary works on Hebrew, no one acquainted with the ripe scholarship of Prof. B. can doubt, much less any one who has examined the book. The main object of the author in preparing it, as we learn from his well written preface, was to facilitate the acquisition of the holy tongue by the simplification of its elements. With the book as a guide, the student will find the entrance upon the language instead of difficult and repulsive, easy and inviting. Taken altogether, we regard the grammar of Prof. B. as eminently adapted to the use of students in our Theological Seminaries; and we see not why it should not successfully compete with the ablest of its predecessors. In addition to its intrinsic rights it has moreover the recommendation of being sold at the low price of $1 25.—N. Y. Evangelist.

It is enough to say for the information of students in this most interesting and valuable department of human (rather divine) knowledge, that in this grammar they will find all the information requisite for ordinary purposes in a form more accessible and inviting than has usually been given it. Minor recommendations are, the inviting character of the print, and the moderate price of $1 25 (the chrestomathy being part of the same volume.) Students in Hebrew, especially if they have made trial of other grammars, will deem this work a valuable accession to our facilities for the acquisition of this original and sacred tongue. It need scarce be added that this commendation is given without any disposition to injure the deserved repute of the almost father of Hebrew literature in this country. He will not surely, regret that a spirit which has done so much to promote, should develop itself in new and felicitous attempts to improve the field that he so arduously and successfully cultivates.—N. Y. Churchman.

Prof. Stuart's grammar is full and copious. Prof. Bush bears testimony to its merit, and observes that his design has been, by a greater simplification of the elements, to produce a work better adapted to the wants of those who are beginning a course of careful study of the language, while the grammar of Prof. Stuart, which leads at once into the deeper complexities of the language, answers in a great degree the purpose of an ample Thesaurus to the advanced student. We believe there is a greater simplification, combined with as much fullness and detail as are requisite to aid the student in attaining an accurate knowledge of the language. We are glad to see that Prof. Bush has returned, or rather adheres to the old system of the distinction of vowels into long and short. It has always appeared to us that the change adopted by Prof. Stuart from Gesenius, substituting for the distinction into long and short vowels, a classification into three analogous orders, brought with it much greater complexity without any adequate compensation in the advantage which might result from it.—Christian Intelligencer.

His grammar is more intelligible and contains less of unnecessary and doubtful matter, than any other equally complete work with which we are acquainted. We have no doubt that its circulation will prove an important means of recommending the study of the Hebrew language.—N. Y. Observer.

The publishers are happy to state, from information recently received from the author, that the above work has been adopted as the text-book on Hebrew Grammar at the Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J., and that it is under consideration, with a like view, at several other institutions in the country.

FEMALE STUDENT.—LECTURES TO YOUNG LADIES, comprising Outlines and Applications on the different branches of Female Education. For the use of Female Schools, and private Libraries; delivered to the Pupils of the Troy Female Seminary. By Mrs. Almira H. Lincoln Phelps, late Vice Principal of that Institution: Author of Familiar Lectures on Botany, etc.

This lady is advantageously known as the writer of "Familiar Lectures on Botany," and other popular works for the use of students and the young generally. Her present work may be safely commended to the class for whom it is more especially designed, and to the use of schools in particular, as one of various interest, and of very judicious and useful composition.—Evening Gazette.

We recommend the work to teachers and all others who are sensible of the vast amount of influence which woman exerts on society, and how inadequately she has hitherto in general been prepared to make that influence beneficial to our race.—Boston Mercantile Journal.

Her views of the various methods of instructing are practical, for they are the results of experience. To parents, particularly mothers desirous of pursuing the most judicious course in the education of their children, I would recommend this book as useful beyond any other I am acquainted with, in arming them against that parental blindness from which the best of parents are not wholly exempt and which often leads them unawares to injure in various ways the character of their children and lay the foundation of future misfortune for their offspring and sorrow for themselves. To young women who cannot afford the expense of attending such schools as afford the highest advantages, Mrs. P.'s lectures afford substantial aid in the work of self-education. Young Ladies about to go abroad to schools or those already from home, may consult this book as they would a judicious mother, or faithful and experienced friend: it will warn them of the dangers to which they will be exposed, or the faults into which they are liable to fall, so that being "forewarned" they may be forearmed to escape them.—In my opinion the peculiar tendency of this work is to produce in the mind that "humility" which "goes before honor," to impart to the thoughtless, a sense of the awful restraints of morality.—Mrs. Willard, Prin. Troy Female Seminary.

The present work is intended to unfold the natural objects of female education. This is accomplished in a series of lectures written in a perspicuous, pleasing style, and treating of the various studies pursued in a well regulated school for young ladies. It is really and truly what it proposes to be, a guide in the intellectual education of woman, and will, we have no doubt, become a standard work in our schools and families.—Ladies' Magazine.