say that women love novelty; and a proper respect to our own reputation for discernment compels us to abstain from controverting this opinion. The truth is, that a woman is a bundle of sensibilities, and these are qualities which exist chiefly in the fancy. Certain moated castles, drawbridges, and a kind of classic nature, are much required by these imaginative beings. The artificial distinctions of life also have their peculiar charms with the softer sex; and there are many of them who think the greatest recommendation a man can have to their notice, is the ability to raise themselves in the scale of genteel preferment. Very many are the French valets, Dutch barbers, and English tailors, who have received their patents of nobility from the credulity of the American fair; and occasionally we see a few of them, whirling in the vortex left by the transit of one of these aristocratical meteors across the plain of our confederation. In honest truth, we believe that one novel with a lord in it is worth two without a lord, even for the nobler sex-meaning us men. Charity forbids our insinuating that any of our patriots respond to the longings of the other sex, with an equal desire to bask in the sunshine of royal favour; and, least of all, may we venture to insinuate, that the longing generally exists in a ratio exactly proportioned to the violence with which they lavish their abuse on the institutions of their forefathers. There is ever a reaction in human feelings; and it was only when he found them unattainable, that Æsop makes the fox call the grapes sour! We would not be understood as throwing the gauntlet to our fair countrywomen, by whose opinion it is that we expect to stand or fall; we only mean to say, that if we have got no lords and castles in the book, it is because there are none in the country. We heard there was a noble within fifty miles of us, and went that distance to see him, intending to make our hero look as much like him as possible; when we brought home his description, the little gipsy who sat for Fanny, declared she would'nt have him if he were a king. Then we traveled a hundred miles to see a renowned castle to the east; but, to our surprise, found it had so many broken windows, was such an out-door kind of place, that we should be wanting in Christian bowels to place any family in it during the cold months: in short, we were compelled to let the yellow-haired girl choose her own suitor, and lodge the Whartons in a comfortable, substantial, and unpretending cottage. We repeat, we mean nothing disrespectful to the fair-we love them next to ourselves-our bookour money-and a few other articles. We know them to be good-natured, goodhearted—aye, and good-looking hussies enough; and heartily wish, for the sake of one of them, we were a lord, and had a castle in the bargain. We do not absolutely aver, that the whole of our tale is true; but we honestly believe that a good portion of it is; and we are very certain, that every passion re corded in the volumes before the reader, has and does exist; and let us tell them, that is more than they can find in every book they read. We will go farther, and say that they have existed within the county of West-Chester, in the States of NewYork, and United States of America; from which fair portion of the globe we send our compliments to all who read our pagesand love to those who buy them. New York, 1822. THE SPY. CHAPTER I. And though amidst the calm of thought entire, As Etna's fires grow dim before the rising day. Gertrude of Wyoming. It was near the close of the year 1780, that a solitary traveller was seen pursuing his way through one of the numerous little valleys of West-Chester. The easterly wind, with its chilling dampness and increasing violence, gave unerring notice of the approach of a storm, which, as usual, might be expected to continue for several days: and the experienced eye of the traveller was turned, in vain, through the |