one word, make better wives for it, Frank,—the only character in which a really valuable woman can ever shine. The oldest was a fair blue-eyed lassie, who, I prophesy, will one day be the belle of Virginia. The turn which my letter has unaccountably taken, brings to my mind, what I had like to have forgot, -a manuscript work, which afforded me infinite satisfaction. I used to lay on the sofa in the stately hall, during the sultry part of the day, and read it with wonderful gusto. It was written by an ancestor of the lady with whom I was a guest,-a high man in his day. Strangers, as they sail up James river, are still shown the house, where he once lived in princely splendour; giving welcome and shelter to high and low that passed that way. Judging by the work, the author was a deep scholar; a man of great observation, and a sly joker on womankind. He never misses an opportunity of giving a shrewd cut at them; and as I especially recollect, records with great satisfaction, the theological opinions of one Bearskin, an Indian philosopher, who accompanied him in running the line between Virginia and North Carolina.

Bearskin's paradise was an improvement on that of Mahomet. It was peopled with beautiful maids, gifted with every personal charm, and endowed with every intellectual gift; of which last they made the most excellent use-by never speaking a word. In addition to this, they were extremely docile and good-natured; obeying every wish or command, of course, without the least grumbling. The sage

Bearskin's place of punishment, was a terrible place; containing nothing but ugly old women, who—but let us not insult the memory of our mothers and grandmothers, who some of them doubtless were not beauties, if I may judge by the family pictures. The style of this work is, I think, the finest specimen of that grave, stately, and quaint mode of writing fashionable about a century ago, that I have ever met with any where. Good by.

LETTER IV.

DEAR FRANK,

ONE of the first things that strikes a northern man, who flounders into Virginia, or either of the more southern states, loaded with a pack of prejudices as large as a pedler's is, that he has, all life long, been under a very mistaken notion of the state of their manners. So, at least, it fared with me, who, you know, had a singular antipathy to gouging, and mintjuleps, the latter of which I have, however, pretty nearly got over. Before I had been long in this part of the world, I discovered, to my great surprise, that the people were very much like other folks, only a little more hospitable; and it is now my settled opinion, notwithstanding all counter authorities, that a civil, honest, well-meaning man, like myself, may traverse the southern states, mountains and all, without being either obliged to fight, without special reason, or put up with insults from any body. Every day's experience, in short, convinces me, that the people of our part of the world have been much misled by the idle tales of travelling pedlers, sent out to buy tobacco and cotton, or by the unneighbourly arts of men, knowing better, but misrepresenting for party purposes.

"Ould Virginia,” which, according to the proverb,

66 never tires," has come in for a full share of this ignorant or interested obloquy; for it seems that her sister states have never been brought to forgive her, for not only producing a Washington, but, with an indecorous kind of prodigality, furnishing three or four other presidents in succession. This has scandalized the other states desperately; for each one, as a matter of course, thinks itself entitled to give a president in time, even though it may have so happened that it never produced a man whose talents and opportunities qualified him for that high station. However I may lament this misfortune of poor Virginia, I don't think she is so very much to blame for producing a succession of such distinguished men, and hold, that we of the north are, in duty bound, to forgive her, provided she promise never to do so again. But, whether she does or not, I will confess to you, that such is my want of the true local amor patria, that, provided we get good presidents, I care not what state they come from; since, somehow or other, I have taken up an odd notion, that whether a man be born east, west, north, or south, provided he is born within the limits of our country, he is still an American; and, that the attempt to put in claims to the presidency distinct from merit and talents, originated in the petty ambition of grovelling politicians, who could never expect to gain distinction, except by pampering the vanity of their constituents at home.

Be this as it may, I think it is much to be wished, that the people of the various divisions of the United States were a little more acquainted with each other,

for, I am satisfied, they would be the better friends for it. At present, like the tenants of one of those amazing high houses in Edinburgh, that accommodate several families, though living, as it were, under the same roof, they have scarcely a speaking acquaintance. The impressions, which they long since took upon trust, with respect to each other, from ignorant or ill-natured travellers, interested in deceiving or sporting with their credulity; the stories of horseracing, drinking, and gouging, on one hand, and of tricking and witch-burning on the other, that have passed current for a century or more, are still received as pictures of existing manners, though even, at any time, they were of rare occurrence, and very many of these practices are altogether extinct. The changes which succeed each other, in this chameleon country, more rapidly than in any other part of the world, have, it would seem, passed unmarked and unrecorded, while the good people still continue to believe and tremble. The impressions of the natives here, with respect to those of the eastward, are still tinctured with the remembrance of witch-burnings; and not a pious dame in our northern parts, that would not compound for her son coming back with one eye left, from an excursion into the back parts of the southern states.

Such foolish prejudices are worthy of honest John Bull, who, from time immemorial, has believed that his neighbours, the French, eat frogs, and are destitute of religion, as well as of every manly and womanly virtue. But our people, who all read, and write, and