then placed in the sacks, and a pudding pan full of Indian meal under each chair, an opening being cut in each bag at the side to admit of the introduction of a hot brick, to produce the fumes from the meal. Placing the beautiful couple with the greatest gravity, one in each sack at a respectful distance, and back to back, with the view of avoiding any fomentation of their bad passions by facilities for eyeing each other (and somewhat fearing, in truth, too close inspection of my own countenance, for I found it hard work to contain myself), I tied the sacks loosely around their necks, and the masks behind their ears, and left them under the care of an Irish servant girl, and the diversion of their own eloquence. I departed in triumph, having fairly bagged my game, and telling them I anticipated an immediate call, which would detain me all night in the upper part of the city. I kept them so for the best part of two days, assuring them whenever I allowed an interval of a few hours for sleep, that it would be necessary to resume the fumigations on the least return of their anger, for it invariably produced an exceedingly alarming appearance in the scratches, and they should begin to cicatrize before the remedy was discontinued. The result was most fortunate, and by cultivating their good graces, I obtained such an ascendency over their feeble intellects, that I had only to threaten the bagging process to keep their hands off each other for several years after.

EARLY HISTORY OF FORT LEE

SECOND ARTICLE.

Ir may be thought, and perhaps justly, that when the events that connected this lovely and romantic spot with the history of our country had transpired, the future story of the solitary family that inhabited it, can afford little of interest to the reader; and yet if there be any value in the example of industry and self-reliance, or anything noble in truth or integrity when blended with the ready sympathy of hearts o'erflowing with love to their fellows, and hands open to relieve distress wherever found, their history cannot be without interest. It has ever been the custom of the writer, to study man in his individual character, rather than in his more extended relations with masses of his fellows; whatever interest he may secure to these pages, will depend entirely on such a comparatively humble sphere of observation; and, as his professional habits exclude him entirely from political and public life, he hopes the reader will tolerate a slight tribute to the memory of those from whom he inherited all of truth or affection that may be found in his rude character.

Beattie, in his "Minstrel," may almost be supposed to have visited their glorious forest home, and to have gathered his inspiration from the frowning palisades, when he wrote.

"There, rocks on rocks, piled as by magic spell,
Here scorched with lightning, there with ivy green,
Fenced from the north and west this savage dell.

Oft did the cliffs reverberate the sound
Of parting fragments tumbling from on high;
And from the summit of that craggy mound,
The perching eaglet oft was heard to cry,

Or on resounding wings to shoot athwart the sky."

As you ascend the road leading to the English Neighborhood, up the gorge that separates the palisades from the road, there may yet be seen a vast rock which was severed by lightning, and for half a century bore the signet of the awful element that tore it assunder. I have looked on it with childish awe, as my mother described the fearful scene when it occurred. Thunder storms are here of awful grandeur. I have often heard the grand legato of the storm anthem as it rolled away in the distance of the river, and seen the blinding flash of the lightning followed by the startling staccato thunder-clap as it was echoed back from the mountain wall. In the middle of the night, when all around was still as the sepulchre, the heart would leap, as the sleeper was startled by the "parting fragment tumbling from on high," as it was severed by the silently working moss of centuries, and fell thundering to the shore below, where ages before its huge kindred had gathered themselves to their graves. They lie about in vast masses, as though torn asunder by an earthquake. Indeed, philosophers tell us in their books, that the whole of the southern defile of the river is volcanic, and that it was originally a vast lake, liberated by a mighty convulsion of nature from its northern prison, where it had been confined by the rocky barrier for thousands of years.

The perching eagle sits in solitary grandeur on the cliff, or "sails across the sky and o'er the rolling deep," watching its prey below, or screaming forth its note exultant as it approaches its mate with its quivering victim, in her rocky nest. There they yet dwell, a solitary pair, for they tolerate no interlopers, far beneath the branching limbs of the