on the occasion, and given their consent to the measure. The embarrassment and distress of mind which I experienced were visible in my countenance; and my guard, who is a man of infinite good nature, immediately suggested, as a more expeditious plan of supplying my wants, a benefit at the theatre. Though profoundly ignorant of his meaning, I agreed to his proposition, the result of which I shall disclose to thee in another letter.

Fare thee well, dear Assem; in thy pious prayers to our great prophet, never forget to solicit thy friend's return; and when thou numberest up the many blessings bestowed on thee by all-bountiful Allah, pour forth thy gratitude that he has cast thy nativity in a land where there is no assembly of legislative chatterers; no great bashaw who bestrides a gun-boat for a hobby-horse; where the word economy is unknown; and where an unfortunate captive is not obliged to call upon the whole nation to cut him out a pair of breeches.-Ever thine, MUSTAPHA.

SALMAGUNDI.

MINE UNCLE JOHN.

To those whose habits of abstraction may have let them into some of the secrets of their own minds, and whose freedom from daily toil has left them at leisure to analyze their feelings, it will be nothing new to say that the present is peculi. arly the season of remembrance. The flowers,

the zephyrs, and the warblers of spring, returning after their tedious absence, bring naturally to our recollection past times and buried feelings; and the whispers of the full-foliaged grove fall on the ear of contemplation, like the sweet tones of far distant friends whom the rude jostles of the world have severed from us, and cast far beyond our reach. It is at such times, that casting backward many a lingering look, we recall, with a kind of sweet-souled melancholy, the days of our youth and the jocund companions who started with us the race of life, but parted midway in the journey to pursue some winding path that allured them with a prospect more seducing-and never returned to us again. It is then, too, if we have been afflicted with any heavy sorrow, if we have even lost-and who has not ?-an old friend, or chosen companion, that his shade will hover around us; the memory of his virtues press on the heart; and a thousand endearing recollections, forgotten amidst the cold pleasures and midnight dissipations of winter, arise to our remembrance.

These speculations bring to my mind MY UNCLE JOHN, the history of whose loves and disappointments I have promised to the world. Though I must own myself much addicted to forgetting my promises, yet, as I have been so happily reminded of this, I believe I must pay it at once, "and then there's an end." Lest my readers, good-natured souls that they are! should in the ardour of peeping into millstones, take my uncle for an old acquaintance, I here inform

them that the old gentleman died a great many years ago, and it is impossible they should ever have known him:-I pity them-for they would have known a good-natured, benevolent man, whose example might have been of service.

The last time I saw my uncle John was fifteen years ago, when I paid him a visit at his old mansion. I found him reading a newspaper-for it was election time, and he was always a warm federalist, and had made several converts to the true political faith in his time, particularly one old tenant, who always, just before the election, became a violent anti, in order that he might be convinced of his errors by my uncle, who never failed to reward his conviction by some substantial benefit.

After we had settled the affairs of the nation, and I had paid my respects to the old family chronicles in the kitchen-an indispensable ceremony-the old gentleman exclaimed, with heartfelt glee, "Well, I suppose you are for a trout fishing: I have got everything prepared, but first you must take a walk with me to see my improvements." I was obliged to consent, though I knew my uncle would lead me a most villainous dance, and in all probability treat me to a quagmire, or a tumble into a ditch. If my readers choose to accompany me in this expedition they are welcome; if not, let them stay at home like lazy fellows and sleep-or be hanged.

Though I had been absent several years, yet there was very little alteration in the scenery, and every object retained the same features it bore

when I was a schoolboy; for it was in this spot that I grew up in the fear of ghosts and in the breaking of many of the ten commandments. The brook, or river as they would call it in Europe, still murmured with its wonted sweetness through the meadow; and its banks were still tufted with dwarf willows, that bent down to the surface. The same echo inhabited the valley, and the same tender air of repose pervaded the whole scene. Even my good uncle was but little altered, except that his hair was grown a little grayer, and his forehead had lost some of its former smoothness. He had, however, lost nothing of his former activity, and laughed heartily at the difficulty I found in keeping up to him as he stumped through bushes, and briers, and hedges; talking all this time about his improvements, and telling what he would do with such a spot of ground and such a tree. At length, after showing me his stone fences, his famous two year old bull, his new invented cart, which was to go before the horse, and his Eclipse colt, he was pleased to return home to dinner.

After dining and returning thanks,-which with him was not a ceremony merely, but an offering from the heart,-my uncle opened his trunk, took out his fishing-tackle, and, without saying a word, sallied forth with some of those truly alarming steps which Daddy Neptune once took when he was in a great hurry to attend to the affair of the siege of Troy. Trout fishing was my uncle's favourite sport; and though I always caught two fish to his one, he never would ac

knowledge my superiority: but puzzled himself, often and often, to account for such a singular phenomenon.

Following the current of the brook for a mile or two, we retraced many of our old haunts, and told a hundred adventures which had befallen us at different times. It was like snatching the hour-glass of time, inverting it, and rolling back again the sands that had marked the lapse of years. At length the shadows began to lengthen, the south wind gradually settled into a perfect calm, the sun threw his rays through the trees on the hill-tops in golden lustre, and a kind of Sabbath stillness pervaded the whole valley, indicating that the hour was fast approaching which was to relieve for a while the farmer from his rural labour, the ox from his toil, the school urchin from his primer, and bring the loving ploughman home to the feet of his blooming dairymaid.

As we were watching in silence the last rays of the sun, beaming their farewell radiance on the high hills at a distance, my uncle exclaimed, in a kind of half desponding tone, while he rested his arm over an old tree that had fallen-"I know not how it is, my dear Launce, but such an evening, and such a still quiet scene as this, always make me a little sad; and it is at such a time I am most apt to look forward with regret to the period when this farm on which 'I have been young but now am old,' and every object around me that is endeared by long acquaintance,-when all these and I must shake hands and part. I