sleep at the house of a Dutchman, who kept a sort of traveller's rest, rather, I believe, lest he should be obliged to entertain travellers for nothing, than from any great desire to add to the profits of his farm. It was a scene, and an evening, that made me melancholy with the fear of some day dying, and leaving a world so lovely. The house was on a rising ground, behind which, and close at hand, rose a majestic mountain, not savage with rocks and rugged precipices, but exhibiting a green foliage unbroken to the very top, whose graceful, waving outline, brought to the mind images of peace. In front was spread the richest little vale I ever saw; where meadows, and corn-fields, the latter rising half a dozen feet above the fences, and the former, speckled with sheep and cattle, succeeded each other in rich luxuriance. At one extremity ran a branch of the river Shenandoah, half hid among the high elms and sycamores; and a little further on rose a peaked hill, behind which the sun was setting. Every thing seen was peace-and every thing heard was silence,-for it so accorded with the silence, as to render it more striking in the intervals. We sometimes heard the cow-bell-sometimes the negro's sonorous and resounding laugh, which waked the mountain echo,-sometimes his inimitable whistle, emulating the fife,—and occasionally his song, which, heard in the distance, was singularly melodious. As long as I live, I shall never forget that scene.

It was, in truth, a place for a man to make his home; and the honest Dutchman, for such he ap

proved himself, not only by his dialect, but by his invincible predilection for rich bottoms, seemed to think as much; for he appeared to be actually contented, a rare thing in this world. In the calm leisure of the dusk of evening, he and his dame, and a jolly dame was she,-good-humoured as a lark, and round as a dumpling, came and sat with us in the porch; he, with his pipe; she, with her snuff-box, bearing on its lid the likeness of Commodore Porter. This custom is highly eschewed by all orthodox English travellers; but for my part, if a man is not wilfully obtrusive, and transgresses no law of etiquette that he knows of, I like his company, and can generally get something amusing or instructive from him.

Mine host seemed such a rare comfortable dog, that I determined to know, if possible, how he became so; and in order to entitle myself to his history, told him mine beforehand, for country people are always a little curious. The substance of the burgomaster's, or justice's (for so he announced himself) story, was as follows:

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"I married," said he, "at the age of twenty-six, and my wife, though perhaps you won't believe it, was reckoned a beauty in her day. My fortune was three hundred and twenty-eight pounds, and a negro man; and my wife brought me a great chest filled with, I dare say, six hundred petticoats and short gowns, which have lasted till this day; so her clothing cost me nothing. This was what we had to begin the world with. After looking about a little, I bought this farm, which being much worn, and out of order, VOL. II-L 2

I got cheap. The money I had was enough for the first payment, and the rest of the purchase-money was to be paid in three equal annual instalments.

“The farm, as I said, was then in poor order, the fields a good deal worn out, the fences bad, and the house very old. But there was no time to groan; for the year was coming about, and the money must De paid. So Tom, and I, and often my wife, turned out early and late, and worked like horses; and after selling my harvest, I carried my first payment home in hard dollars.

Well," continued the Dutchman, "the next year I went on still better, paid the money still easier, and at the end of the third year, my farm was my own. The times, somehow or other, mended with me every day; and what is very odd, though my wife always brought me at the time of each payment a chopping boy, yet when I returned from making the last, she brought me two fine girls, I suppose because she knew we could now afford it. We now thought to make ourselves comfortable by building a better home, for we had but a poor one before; so in the spring I set to work as soon as the frost was out of the ground. I burnt my own bricks and lime, from my own limestone and clay, and furnished timber and boards from my own farm. In the meantime, the war came on; and as it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, the number of wagons passing this way increased every day, because the produce could not go round by sea. I sold all the produce of my land at my own door, except my wheat. If that

was high, I could afford to send the flour to market; and if not, I cut it into shorts, to feed the wagoners' horses. By the time my house was finished, it was paid for; and now I don't know what I shall build next, for my part. I am forty-three years old. I have twelve hundred acres of as fine bottom as any in Virginia, a good grist and saw mill, a tolerable good wife, if I could only make a fine lady of her— but she sticks to the old chest of clothes like a moth,

-a decent house over my head; and I owe no man a shilling, except Tom, who, by now and then raising a little grain, shooting a deer, and waiting on travellers, has in my hands enough to buy his freedom. But he is free already, for that matter, and knows he can go where he pleases."

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Pray,” said I, “did you ever get a discount?” "A discount,-what's that?" said the Dutchman. "Did you ever borrow money of a bank, and mortgage your land for it?" "No, no," said he, "I wasn't such a fool as that. My poor neighbour, whose house you see over the river yonder, with the windows broke, and no smoke to the chimney, played a trick of that kind; but his farm is soon to be sold at vendue, and I think of buying it. His family were in great distress, though we helped them on a little to get to the back country, where, I hear, they are doing pretty well again."

I will not trouble you with the moral of this story, but conclude this long letter by bidding you beware of discounts. Good night.

DEAR FRANK,

LETTER XXXV.

THE tongue touches where the tooth aches, as the saying goes; the English of which is, that people are apt to talk of what annoys them most at the moment. Thus, the great evil under which I have laboured of late is paper-money, which, throughout the whole of our country, has assumed so many different shapes, and sustained such an infinite variety of value in different places, that a man is obliged to go to a broker to get shaved, as the phrase is, as often as to a barber. This is the true signification of money being the root of all evil. The frequent recurrence of these vexatious visits, during my travels, has brought my mind to think seriously on this subject, and the result of my observations and reflections is, that the present paper system is the most pernicious to the real prosperity, morals, and independence of this country, of any ever devised by the cupidity of man. It has already worked the most dangerous inroads on the virtuous independence, which was not long since the lot of all; and if suffered to continue, will place the whole community in a state of abject dependance on banks.

Power, which used to follow land, has now gone over to paper-money. The landholder does not fee'