which it is hardly worth while to narrate. Such vain delusions must give place to more substantial and profitable things. I will, however, mention some few of these adventures of early life, or the picture would be quite imperfect.

I was many times honoured with being associated on lists of managers of assemblies and convivial parties, with some of the most noble-spirited youths of the land, and many of them my dear and intimate associates. I regret that I have not preserved each card. What an army of youthful comrades, as well as those of riper years, would they recall to memory; and then to inquire where they now are, what has been their fortune and ultimate fate? I have no doubt that one-half of them would be found among the pale nations of the dead; many having made shipwreck of fortune; and O! how many, alas! may have filled the drunkard's grave! Once endowed with talents, literary acquirements, qualified to fill posts of honour and responsibility in society, the children of prosperity and hope, but, ah! they have fallen! How sad the reflection!

But I will give the youthful reader an account of my first attempt at courtship, and of the first ball I ever attended, hoping he will excuse me from treating further of my own follies on these two points. I treat of these two incidents together for the reason that they were so nearly associated throughout the whole farcical transaction. At the time I was about seventeen years old, it was fashionable and highly

commendable for young men of that age, and from thence upwards, to "go a sparking," as the term then was; but I believe that in this more enlightened and refined day it is called “ going a courting;" but I prefer the old-fashioned expression, from the associations which it recalls. And now, as I am to present you but one case only, I will be more particular in telling you how they used to do up such things about thirty years ago, and leave it with the more modern beaux and belles to compare it with the present mode.

There were two distinct classes or societies in those days, who used to meet in separate assemblies; the younger of which was denominated the "trundle-bed company." After a young lady or gentleman had graduated in the "trundle-bed company," and attained a suitable age and degree of accomplishment, he or she was duly initiated into the higher or older rank; which being done, they were supposed to be qualified to propose and entertain the gravest propositions; and in the case of a young lady, she was now considered an eligible candidate, and was at all times subject to the following deeply interesting interrogation from the enterprising young beau:-"Miss Dulcinea, shall I be favoured with the pleasure of your company next Sunday night ?" This question was usually put with a sufficient degree of palpitation of the heart to give the whole affair a smack of sentiment; and in those days the gentle creature properly appreciated the agitation of

the young swain, and responded to his interrogatory in a manner fitted to quiet his fluttering heart. But from the great number of lone bachelors we have among us at the present day, I am inclined to think that the times must have somewhat changed in this particular. But, as I was going to say, a young lady who had emerged from the "trundlebedders," and who had not a light in her parlour, sitting-room, or kitchen, as the case might be, till almost day, as often as one Sunday night out of three or four, was considered rather below par, and her case in the important matter of matrimony was thought to be rather dubious.

But to my first adventure in this business-a hazardous enterprise you may be sure. And I will be bound that of all the grave undertakings of my life, I never entered upon one with a more doubting and faint heart; for I would have my kind reader know, that for a young gentleman to "get the mitten" in those times was more humiliating than it would be for a young lieutenant to suffer a defeat in his first engagement: in fact I am inclined to think that war and courtship are not altogether dissimilar in this particular. In both a man needs a valiant heart and an ingenious tact. I was to try. my fortune for the first time, and had but just taken leave of my trundle-bed companions, and a failure just then would make me feel! O, you may guess

how!

It was in the autumn of 1817, I was cutting corn

stalks with Schuyler Smith, a very respectable young man, and an intimate of mine. There were two young ladies of our acquaintance, who, like ourselves, had but just emerged from the "trundle-bed company," one by the name of Alice and the other Charlotte Now, the girls were of the first respectability, but Charlotte was considered rather the most engaging of the two, and, in fact, about the finest girl in the town. Schuyler and I, while cutting stalks, resolved to be men, "break the ice," and put the before-mentioned question to these two young ladies, right in their face and eyes, the next Sunday night. But we could not agree who should go to see Charlotte, the favourite, each coveting the glory that would be shed around him if he should be successful. We each trembled at the thought of "the mitten." Finding that we were not likely to agree otherwise, we hit upon the expedient of drawing cuts. Accordingly two slips from a corn-stalk were prepared of unequal length, and the one that should draw the longest should go to see Charlotte; and, as fortune would have it, the lot fell on me. What a moment of hope and fear, of anxiety and doubt! But hope predominated. It was as my sheet-anchor in the corn-field, and by it I nerved up every fibre, and resolved firmly to proceed with the trial the next Sunday night. The auspicious night approached, and ere the sun had shed its last lingering rays upon the western hills, while yet its silver tints cast a glow of mellow beauty

upon the clouds overhanging the horizon, inspiring the young beholder with a tender sentiment and subduing the tumult of his passions, Schuyler and myself were mounted on our nags, their heads turned towards our promised land. The young ladies lived. on the same road, and about a quarter of a mile apart. We soon arrived at the dwelling of the fair Alice. Schuyler dismounted, and I proceeded on my way silently, with a palpitating heart, half hoping, half doubting, but fully resolved, and descended into a deep and somewhat romantic valley, where dwelt the lovely Charlotte, the object of my enterprise, who had it in her power, by pronouncing one short monosyllable of two letters, to chill the very blood in my veins, blight my budding hopes, and stifle the rising gallantry within me!

As I proceeded down the steep descent on the opposite side of the gulf, where stood a very high hill covered with trees and shrubbery, I saw, or imagined I saw, a brilliant something that to me seemed a trailing comet, pass along the brow of that hill. This I thought ominous, and my sentimental pendulum greatly increased its vibrations. But I remembered the old maxim, "A faint heart never won a fair lady," and girded up my courage. I soon found myself seated in the family circle of Deacon The greatest lion that now lay in my way, (as I often found afterwards under similar circumstances,) was the old guardian mother. But I was not there long before, as a sailor would