In those good days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the universal test of an able housewife-a character, which formed the utmost ambition of our unenlightened grandmothers. The front door was never opened except on marriages, funerals, new year's days, the festival of St. Nich olas, or some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, curiously wrought, sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes of a lion's head, and was daily burnished with such religious zeal, that it was ofttimes worn out, by the very precautions taken for its preservation. The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water-insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us, that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers like unto a duck; but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or what is worse, a wilful misrepresentation.

The grand parlour was the place, where the passion for cleaning was indulged without controul. In this sacred apartment no one was permitted to enter, excepting the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week, for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning, and putting things to rights-always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering on their stocking feet. After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles, and curves, and rhomboids, with a broom-after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fire-place—the window shutters were again closed, to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up until the revolution of time brought round the weekly cleaning day.

As to the family, they always entered in, at the gate, and most generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household assembled around the fire, one would have imagined, that he was transported back to those happy days of primeval simplicity, which float before our imaginations like golden visions. The fire-places were of truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay, even the very cat and dog, enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a right to a corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect

silence, puffing his pipe, looking on the fire with half shut eyes, and thinking of nothing for hours together; the good woman on the opposite side would employ herself diligently in spinning yarn, or knitting stockings. The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth for a long winter afternoon a string of incredible stories about New England witchesgrisly ghosts, horses without heads-and hairbreadth escapes and bloody encounters among the Indians.

In those happy days a well regulated family always rose with the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sun down. Dinner was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers showed incontestible symptoms of disapprobation and uneasiness, at being surprised, by a visit from a neighbour, on such occasions. But though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands of intimacy by occasional banquetings, called tea parties.

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or nobility, that is to say, such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons. The company commonly assembled at three o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company, being seated around the genial board, and each furnished with a fork, evinced their dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish-in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough-nuts,—a delicious kind of cake, at present scarce known in the city, excepting in genuine Dutch families.

The tea was served out of a majestic delf teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shepherdesses tending pigs-with boats sailing in the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. The beaux distinguished themselves, by their adroit

ness in replenishing this pot, from a huge copper tea kettle, which would have made the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days sweat merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup-and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend a large lump directly over the tea table, by a string from the ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth.

At these primitive tea parties the utmost propriety and dignity of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquettingno gambling of old ladies nor hoyden chattering and romping of young ones-no self satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets-nor amusing conceits, and monkey divertisements, of smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all. On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say, Yes Sir, or Yes Madam, to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things, like decent, well educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles, with which the fire places were decorated.

The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. They were carried home by their own carriages, that is to say, by the vehicles nature had provided them, excepting such of the wealthy as could afford to keep a wagon. The gentlemen gallantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, and took leave of them at the door.

LESSON V.

Poor Richard's humorous Account of his Rivals in Almanack making.-FRANKLIN,

COURTEOUS READER,

This is the ninth year of my endeavours to serve thee in the capacity of a calendar-writer. The encouragement I have met with, must be ascribed, in a great measure, to your charity, excited by the open, honest declaration I made of my poverty, first appearance. This my brother Philomaths could,

at my

without being conjurers, discover; and poor Richard's success has produced ye a poor Will, and a poor Robin; and no doubt poor John, &c. will follow; and we shall be in name, what some folks say we are already in fact, a parcel of poor almanack-makers.

During the course of these nine years, what buffettings have I not sustained! The fraternity have been in arms. Honest Titan, deceased, was raised and made to abuse his old friend. Both authors and printers were angry. Hard names, and many, were bestowed on me. They denied me to be the author of my own works; declared there never was any such person; asserted that I was dead sixty years ago; prognosticated my death to happen within a twelve-month; with many other malicious inconsistencies, the effects of blind passion, envy at my success, and a vain hope of depriving me, dear reader, of thy wonted countenance and favour.

Who knows him? they cry. Where does he live ?But what is that to them? If I delight in a private life, have they any right to drag me out of my retirement? I have good reasons for concealing the place of my abode. It is time for an old man, as I am, to think of preparing for his great remove. The perpetual teasing of both neighbours and strangers, to calculate nativities, give judgments on schemes, and erect figures, discover thieves, detect horse-stealers, describe the routs of runaways and strayed cattle; the crowd of visitors, with a thousand trifling questions;-Will my ship return safe? Will my horse win the race? When will my wife die? Who shall be my husband? and how long first? When is the best time to cut hair, or sow sallad? These, and the like impertinences, I have now neither taste nor leisure for. I have had enough of them. All that these angry folks could say, will never provoke me to tell them where I live. I would eat my nails first.

My last adversary is J. J*****n, philomat. who declares and protests that the false prophecy put in my almanack concerning him, the year before, is altogether false and untrue; and that I am one of Baal's false prophets. This false, false prophecy he speaks of, related to his reconciliation with the church of Rome; which, notwithstanding his declaring and protesting, is, I fear, too true. Two things in his elegiac verses confirm me in this suspicion. He calls the first of November, All-Hallows-day. Reader, does not this smell of popery? Does it, in the least, savour of the pure language of

friends? But the plainest thing is, his adoration of saints, which he confesses to be his practice, in these words,

When any trouble, did me befal,

To my dear Mary, then I would call.

Did he think the whole world were so stupid as not to take notice of this? So ignorant, as not to know, that all catholics pay the highest regard to the Virgin Mary? Ah! friend John, we must allow you to be a poet, but you are certainly no protestant. I could heartily wish your religion were as good as your verses. RICHARD Saunders.

L

LESSON VI.

Origin of the American Revolution.-COOPER.

THE increasing wealth of the provinces had attracted the notice of the English ministry, so early as the year 1763. In that year, the first effort to raise a revenue, which was to meet the exigencies of the empire, was attempted by the passage of a law to impose a duty on certain stamped paper, which was made necessary to give validity to contracts. This method of raising a revenue, was not new in itself, nor was the imposition heavy in amount. But the Americans, not less sagacious than wary, perceived at a glance the importance of the principles, involved in the admission of a right, as belonging to any body, to lay taxes, in which they were not represented. The question was not without its difficulties, but the direct and plain argument was clearly on the side of the colonists.

Aware of the force of their reasons, and perhaps a little conscious of the strength of their numbers, they approached the subject with a spirit, which betokened this consciousness, but with a coolness, that denoted the firmness of their purpose. After a struggle of nearly two years, during which the law was rendered completely profitless, by the unanimity among the people, as well as by a species of good-humoured violence, that rendered it exceedingly inconvenient, and perhaps a little dangerous; to the servants of the crown, to exercise their obnoxious functions, the ministry abandoned the measure. But, at the same time that the law was repealed, the parliament maintained its right to bind the colonies, in all cases whatsoever, by recording a resolution to that effect in its journals.