He became at last a great man, according to the city acceptation-for he was a director of a half-broken insurance company, and bank ;-every body looked up to him, not because he would, but because he could be of service to them; and the president of one of the banks was heard to say publicly one day, that he believed that H- was one of the most moneyed men in the city. Thus he lived, and thus will he die, without ever having conceived even the abstract idea of any pursuit, but that of money, money, money; or any enjoyment but in its accumulation.

But little D, on the contrary, was determined to be a gentleman, according to the fashionable idea of the present day in our cities. As he was to be rich, there was no occasion for him to know any thing--but how to enjoy it like a gentleman. He accordingly took his degree as the head dunce in the college; and the first thing he did on coming into the possession of nearly half a million, was to send out his measure for a suit of clothes to a London tailor. He forthwith enlisted himself under some tavern bucks, and strutted up and down Broadway, with a surtout which saved the corporation the trouble of sweeping the streets-was seen everywhere at public places and parties, without doing any thing but yawn at the one, and stand in every body's way in the other, eating pickled-oysters. His estimate of a party, where a man of feeling and refinement would go to enjoy elegant society, and rational amusement, was always founded on the quantity of porter, wine, and pickled-oysters, handed round. Never was he

known, on any occasion, to do any one thing either pleasing or useful, and, of course, in a little time he attained to the reputation of a fine gentleman; because, as he never did any thing, he must needs be so; employment being unworthy that high character. Some of the best bred people doubted his pretensions, until he thought of finding fault with every thing he heard and saw, when the opinion of his high breeding became unanimous.

Whether the people got tired of him, or he grew tired of the people, I don't exactly know; but in order to get a new gloss, he went abroad, staid six months, and came back vastly improved; for he found this country more intolerable than ever,-a sure sign of excessive refinement, especially as he made a point of proclaiming his opinion aloud at all parties. When I was last at N- I saw him in a book-store, reading a book upside down, and dressed as follows: to wit, one little hat, with a steeple crown; one pair of corsets; one coat, so tight he could just breathe; one pair of pantaloons, so immeasurably wide and loose you could hardly tell whether they were petticoats or not; I don't recollect the residue of his costume,-but his hair came out from beneath his hat like an ostrich's tail, and he stuck out behind like the African Venus. No doubt the ladies found him quite irresistible.

One might moralize and speculate on what had been the different estimation of these young men, had they pursued a course becoming their fortune and education, and devoted themselves to a useful

or brilliant career. Had they employed part of their fortunes, and their leisure, in adorning their minds, and encouraging a taste for refined, elegant, and scientific pursuits. Although perhaps they might not have attained to any lofty eminence, they would have become associated, at least, with those that were eminent. They might have become their patrons, if not their equals, and attained to a blameless, nay, noble immortality, as the munificent encouragers of genius; instead of being, in their lives, the contempt of the virtuous and the wise; and in their deaths, the companions of oblivion. But I have already tired myself, and so-Good by.

LETTER VI.

DEAR FRANK,

In my last letter, if I remember right, I tote you (as they say in Virginia) up to Richmond, by what may be called a circumbendibus. Since then I have made an excursion to York and Williamsburgh; the one celebrated as the place where the last blow of our revolutionary war was struck; the other as having been the ancient seat of the state government. Yorktown is on the right bank of York river, directly at its mouth. It now exhibits an appearance of desolation and decay, which, being so seldom seen in our youthful country, is the more apt to excite the notice of a stranger. These ruins are not so much the effect of time, as the consequence of neglect and desertion, and possess, of course, nothing of the interest belonging to antiquities. A few years ago a great fire happened here, which completed the desolation of the place, by singling out, as its victims, with a sort of capricious cruelty, many of the best houses in the town. Immediately opposite to York is the town of Gloucester, consisting, as far as I could see, of a few poplars.

But, whether flourishing or in ruins, Yorktown will ever be an object of peculiar interest, as the scene where the progress of European arms terminated,

there, and I hope for ever in the new world, whose fate it so long was, to be domineered over by petty states, situated at a distance of three thousand miles, and whose sovereigns, though incapable of governing at home, affected to tyrannize here. The time, I hope, is not far distant, when not an inch of this great continent will be tributary to any other quarter of the globe; and when, if we choose to extend our ambition so far, we may have colonies in Europe, as Europe has so long had in America. Every nation, like every dog, has its day, and the splendours of the civilized world, which rose in the ruddy east, may set at last in the glowing west, equally bright and glorious.

In the evening I traced the outlines of the British fortifications, accompanied by an escort of a dozen boys, who pointed out the remains of the house where Lord Cornwallis had his head-quarters, and which he was obliged to abandon before the end of the siege, on account of the shower of bombs which fell on it, and at length destroyed every part but the chimney, which, if I remember right, is yet standing. These lively historians of the "village train” were exceedingly communicative, and answered all my questions with one voice—that is, they all talked at once. There is a tradition current here, the truth of which I cannot vouch for, that after quitting the house I mentioned, Cornwallis occupied a cave, which I was shown, excavated in the side of a bank fronting on the river. It consists of two rooms, cut or scraped, in a soft sandstone, and is thirty or forty feet under