cieties, this will no doubt be regarded as a heavy item in the account. At that time, it was less thought of, since it was the universal custom, in all regiments of the militia, with which I had any acquaintance, for the officers, on every muster day, to get gloriously drunk in their country's service.

So stood one side of my account current with the world and the militia. On summing it up, I thought then, and I think now, that the amount was sufficiently serious. But, to counterbalance it, there stood arrayed, on the other side, the following items:

First, Military Glory!

It deserves a line by itself-MILITARY GLORY! The unwarlike, unambitious reader_may_cry, Fudge! but, for all that, there is something in it. Something, I cannot tell what; but something that will induce a man to relinquish all other of life's pursuits and pleasures; something that absorbs the soul, and makes one insensible of pain, of mortification, of poverty, of disgrace; something, the recollection of which, consoles me even in an almshouse, and makes my heart swell with the remembrance of former delights!

Secondly, The pleasure of wearing a blue uniform flushed with red, riding on horse-back at the head of a regiment, and being much admired, as Spenser expresses it,

Of fools, women and boys,

the gaping crowd, who follow in every great man's train.

Thirdly, The noble consciousness of serving my country. These three considerations, at that time, seemed to me sufficient to raise a heavy balance in favor of the militia. I have often reconsidered the matter, especially since my retirement to this, my present asylum; and, though I must confess, that I have sometimes had my misgivings, (as who has not?) yet, on the most settled and serious estimate of the matter, I am satisfied, I was right,-satisfied that, when 1 commenced my career as colonel, I was vastly in debt to the militia; and my indebtedness to it has since gone on every day increasing.

It is not my intention to write the military history of the commonwealth; I therefore shall not enter into details of my achievements as a colonel. I have desired rather, for the benefit of the young aspirant after military renown, to show the steps by which I obtained a preferment so honorable to myself, and so useful to my country; the deeds which rendered that preferment so honorable on the one hand, and so useful on the other, I shall leave to be recorded by other pens.

Let me observe, however, that the meridian glory of my military career corresponded exactly with the era of the last war, and that, beside my ever-to-be-remembered deeds of valor at fall reviews, and spring inspections, I attained immortal renown in that famous campaign on Boston Common, in which the Massachusetts militia so entirely routed the British fleet, which was cruising off the harbor. At this eventful period, my well-known vigor and activity caused my services to be in the greatest demand, and I was continually passing from one corner of the state to the other, on military duty. By way of specimen of my wonderful courage and success, I shall take the liberty of briefly describing a single incident in my career, which, at the time, made a great noise, and was thought to be, on the whole, the most

honorable to the militia, of any thing that happened in the course of the war.

I was stationed, with three or four companies under my command, to protect a considerable town on the sea-coast, against the insults of the enemy's fleet. On a point of land, projecting into the sea, was a considerable fort, built with much art, and every way admirably fitted for service, except that it had no guns in it. However, in the centre of the fort was a watch-house, where a corporal's guard was stationed, my head-quarters being in the town, about half a mile distant.

One very dark, rainy night, when every thing was still in the town, and the corporal and his guard,-like prudent men, as they were,-slept quietly under cover of the guard-house, one of the enemy's cruisers, which lay some three miles distant in the offing, sent a boat's crew ashore, to attack the fort. They reached the beach at the foot of the little promontory on which our fortifications had been thrown up, and, under protection of the darkness, they scaled the walls of the fort, made the corporal and his guard prisoners, and set fire to the watchhouse. As the fort had no guns, they were not able to fire upon the town; such is the wisdom of placing no armament in those fortifications which are intrusted to the militia! Indeed, so great is the fertility of their resources, and the greatness of their courage, that, on most occasions, they do better without arms than with them; and I have often thought that the muskets they carry might be laid aside as quite uselesss. But this is a digression.

Like a wise and vigilant commander, I happened that night, just as the watch-house blazed up, to be looking out of my chamber window, being kept awake, by a very severe tooth-ache; and, I no sooner saw the light, than, guessing what might be the matter, I sprung out of bed, and bawling at the top of my voice, soon raised the whole household. They commenced bawling, also, and soon raised the whole town. Lights began to dance from window to window, the church bell began to ring, the children to cry, the dogs to bark, the pigs to squeal, and the huge uproar soon reached the ears of the enemy in the fort, and suggested to them the wisdom of retreat.

Accordingly, they hastened to embark, and before I could get a sergeant and ten men equipped for action, the enemy were two hundred yards from the shore, rowing with might and main, for the ship. Not content, however, with escaping, and expecting, I suppose, that a single cannon shot would drive all the militia out of the town, and cause even the valiant heart of Colonel Burdock himself to quake within him, they pointed a gun which was fixed in the centre of their boat, either at the church bell, or at the colonel's quarters; as the world has generally supposed, at the former, but as I have always believed, at the latter.

But whatever they aimed at, the rebound of the gun was so forcible, as to beat a plank from the bottom of the boat, which filled with water, and sunk immediately.

Rari apparent nantes in gurgite vasto.

Some sunk, some swam, some caught at oars and seats, and floated as they could. The town's people launched their boats immediately, and picking up the swimming rascals, delivered them over to the military

authority; and these prisoners, captured by the valor of the militia, were next day marched off to Boston, with great ceremony. The corporal and his guard had been picked up among the rest, and were restored to the embraces of their companions in arms; and the skill and courage, with which I had repelled the danger that threatened us, were the theme of universal conversation. At low water, the enemy's gun was fished up from the bottom, and is preserved to this day, in eternal remembrance of the thing. I have lately understood that it is the intention of the governor to have a suitable inscription engraved upon it.

While the war lasted, being in the pay of the government, I did very well; but at the return of peace, I began to feel the consequences of the derangement of my private affairs. I was harassed by duns and constables, sued, imprisoned, and sworn out of gaol. My heart swells with emotion at the thought of my abasement; the truth, however, must be told; but it shall be as briefly as possible. Dunned, sued, imprisoned, even the consciousness of my military glory sometimes failed to support me, and I sought consolation in the bottle. Things went on from bad to worse, till, at last, I was obliged to resign my colonel's commission. I sunk gradually into obscurity, but still retained my love for military affairs; and when, at last I could do no better, I was content to swab out the artillery of the regiment I had once commanded.

Of late years, I have found a refuge in the Applebury almshouse. My employment is picking oakum; for the bruises received by some twenty falls from my horse, in the course of my military career, have incapacitated me for any more active labor; circumstances have compelled me to purge and live cleanly; I solace my leisure hours with meditations on military glory, and the vanity of earthly things; and, having lived a soldier, I hope to die a philosopher.

W

し

WALKING.

BELLEROPHON BURDOCK.

THE English are the handsomest race of men on earth, only because they walk more than any other people. Man is a traveling animal, and a state of rest is unnatural; he outrages nature and propropriety when he rides, having been created to walk. The first inventor of wheels might have been better employed; he has filled the civilized world with indolence and disease. There are more strange vehicles than can be classed or named. The greatest mechanical geniuses of the age study only to promote locomotion by means of railways, Macadam roads and velocipedes. They are, like lovers, bent upon annihilating time and space. Had Archimedes lived now, he would have studied not to move the world, but to propel a rail-road The velocipede is the least objectionable of all vehicles; it has a sort of ostrich gait, neither walking nor yet riding. The body rests, but the feet move.

car.

I suppose that, after man fell, one of his first propensities was to catch a horse and ride. Cain, probably, had an aversion to walking. Na

VOL. III.

15

tionally, the best riders are the most barbarous people. The Turk, who seldom walks across the street, and who ties his beautiful wife in a sack and throws her into the Bosphorus, is more at home in the saddle than on the cushion. I was an early walker; while a mere boy I used to walk eight miles to school; and I remember with pride, that, in my sports, I never bestrode a twig, to beguile the way by the imagination of a ride. When I was a young man I lacked something to do, like Hotspur; so, I rose one morning early, and followed the sun westward. This was at Philadelphia, and I carried a small gun over the mountains. I had ten dollars, and a draft on Marietta, for all the rest of my wealth, which was something less than fifty dollars more. I was so prudent at the green age of nineteen, that I insured against my own prodigality, by traveling with the draft instead of the money; well knowing, that what I had not I could not spend. But, like other younkers, I forgot the future, and loitered along by the green meadows, the waving woods and falling waters, till I had exhausted my funds at the foot of the Alleghany mountains. Then I roasted pigeons, squirrels, and other game. I lodged wherever I could make it convenient. Once I slept in a sheepfold, by the side of the bleaters, and had I but had a large knife, I might have supped upon mutton, for I had become tired of game. At the Juniata I found an overhanging shelf of rock, which I spread with leaves and boughs, after I had built a little parapet near the river, lest in a disturbed slumber I should roll over the precipice. The roar of waters was a lullaby, and I was above the reach of the spray. The water-spirits held a meeting that night; I assuredly heard shouts and voices from below, mingled with the tumult of the fall. On the next night I lodged, much to my mind, upon clean straw, with a bag of wheat for a bolster. To be sure, I was somewhat tickled about the face, like Bottom; but I drew the straw around me with a feeling of comfort and independence. At midnight I was roused by a rustling in it, and, raising my body suddenly, I beheld a huge black dog standing within a yard of me; luckily, his fright was greater than mine; he emitted a half smothered yelp, like the cur in Christabelle, and was off in an instant to the top of a hill, where he sat baying the moon till the old cock crowed from the great beam. Doubtless a dog is accessible to superstitious fears, like a man. What is known, man and beast can grapple with; but the unknown is too dreadful. The imagination creates more monsters than ever nature made. In a few days I became tired of this sylvan life, and longed for knives and forks, and napkins, and drew from my pocket for the fiftieth time, an old Savannah bank bill, which seemed but an unpromising subject for such distant circulation. I would have sold all my interest in it for a tenth of its nominal value. However, I walked boldly into the Independent Harrisburgh Wagoner's Rest, under the Laurel Ridge, and called for the "Farmer's Fare," which was promised to travelers on the sign. The landlady set before me, a beef-bone, a rhind of pork, two cold potatoes, and a bowl of butter-milk. Luxury is comparative, and my fare had lately been so indifferent that I enjoyed this banquet. I offered the Georgia scrip with the more confidence, thinking that the publican could not much object to the money, if I should forbear to speak in dispraise of the dinner. As bold measures are best

among strangers, I even asked him if he had not overcharged me: "Sir," said he, "for a snatch we charge a fippenny bit, and I can't afford a dinner like that for a cent less than eleven pence." I told him it was dear, but that I would be satisfied if he would give me silver in change, for I feared that he also had some Savannah bills; whereupon he counted out nine dollars and eighty-seven cents in current coin. I could now afford to linger for a week among the mountains, and I visited many spots of great freshness and beauty.

The Alleghany mountains are singular ridges, running parallel, with wide valleys or glades between them. They have few pinnacles or cliffs; but they are generally rounded. The views, however, are often very beautiful. The ridges are covered with noble forests, and the valleys are cultivated and watered with streams. On the side of the mountain the glades are open to the eye till lost in distance, and other blue ridges of the mountains are seen beyond. The forests here, and in the west, are unequaled on the earth. In the east, there is more gorgeous vegetation, and more profusion of flowers. But a forest in the east is a tangled jungle, the lurking place of serpents and beasts of prey, and the region of miasma. In the west, no tiger prowls, no serpent coils itself around the branches, no noisome vapor strikes with disease and death. The huge trunks of trees stand so near that the branches and tops interlock and exclude the sun. There is no underbrush or grass. The noiseless step falls upon the moist decaying leaf, and the solitude is unshaken but by the dashing of a rivulet or the distant sound of the wind waving the tree tops. This describes but the commencement of a peregrination, which in four months I extended twelve hundred miles, and may hereafter describe. G. W.

THE COMET AND THE CHOLERA.

A LETTER TO THE EDITORS ON POPULAR EXCITEMENT.

How easily mankind are gulled! How slight are the causes which often suffice to throw the public into a fever! Who, that has lived in Massachusetts for the last six months, can wonder at the popular delirium caused by the Rev. Titus Oates, or the executions at Salem, for which our beloved "Bay State" yet blusheth? Me seemeth, that there must be a bump on the human noddle, not yet discovered by phrenologists, which should be called the organ of morbid admirativeness. It cannot be denied that the lords of creation are naturally prone to gloat on whatever is strange, monstrous, wicked, and horrible. A man shall pass through Washington-street with a head upon his shoulders, a handsome head, with its full complement of organs, and no one will look at him twice; but let a being appear with two heads, though it be but a swine, and man and boy run to see. A man with a long beard, nay, a fellow without a nose, shall attract universal attention. There are, perhaps, a hundred good men in Boston, whom no one esteems objects of curiosity; but thousands left their homes and traveled scores of miles to enjoy the dying agonies of the monster