The husband spoke soothingly. "Come, come, no more of this-I am going out for a short time-when I come back let me see that this cloud has left no trace behind it."

66 Oh, God! oh, God! what a wretch am I !" exclaimed his wife, as soon as left alone.

Having thus introduced our readers (in that abrupt manner recommended by critics, and long practised by story-tellers in prose and verse,) to some of the prominent personages of our history, we will now go to the beginning, and, soberly and regularly, give an account of the birth, parentage, and education of Zebediah Spiffard; and perhaps show that he is of noble descent, and might bear heraldric honours on his coach, if he had one-that is as it may be.

We will speak of the water-drinker, showing how he passed through the states or stages of life-of a barefooted Green Mountain boy-a Boston lawyer's clerk-and a travelling yankee gentleman, to the stage, on which we found him, of the New-York Theatre. But in all this it will be our pleasant duty, more especially, to account for that morbid sensibility, which was woven into his very essence, on the subject of ebriety; that dread which he entertained of the effects of any approach to a habit of intemperance- -a dread, which, with the species of fascination that every victim to the habit exerted over him, formed the basis of his character.

CHAPTER V.

Beginning of a Town—and a Man.

"For the table, sir, it shall be served in; for the meat, sir, it shall be covered; for your coming in to dinner, sir, let it be as humours and conceits shall govern."-Shakspeare.

"Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,

While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;

Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm:

Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,

That hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey."-Gray.

GENTLE and courteous reader, or rather readers, (for like Legion, ye are many that shall read these memoirs ;) fair readers for the life of Zebediah Spiffard will be read by every

female that can read, (and all read in this our happy land ;) this book will be sought after by the fair sex, inasmuch as it treats of the gay and the grave-the good and bad-of ladies, and of those who, next to soldiers, are the delight of ladies; we mean players; those lively, happy, delightful children of the mimic world, who present to the minds of youth a picture of enchanting power, ever varying and ever bright. Kind readers, of both sexes, we sit down determined to write for your amusement, (far be it from us to attempt to instruct you,) a faithful narrative of adventures appertaining to the romance of real life, from the perusal of which you shall undoubtedly rise as tired in mind and body, owing to excessive excitement and long continued gratification, as ever you did from the representation of a play, or even of an Italian opera. But as we have promised to begin at the beginning, we must hasten to commence our story.

Zebediah Spiffard was born in the month of October, of the year 1786, in an obscure but very pleasant village, appertaining to the truly democratic state of Vermont. His father had been one of the first settlers, a pioneer, and the village, in accordance with self-complacency, which makes so great an item in the account of human happiness, was called "Spiffard Town."

Squire Spiffard, our hero's father, made the first clearing in the valley of Long-pond, where he arrived with all his worldly possessions, (an axe, a yoke of oxen, a wagon, and a wife,) before a tree had been "felled;" and where he, in a few years, saw a thriving village, the fruit of his enterprising industry, spread from his dwelling and surround him; the inhabitants of which were grateful to the man who had led them to the wilderness, pointing their way to a land flowing with milk and honey. His first shelter, a log hut, now (that is, at this second beginning of our history, and the first beginning of the life of our hero in 1786,) appertained, or was appended to the neat and spacious white mansion that sheltered his numerous offspring, and served as a wash-house, having previously served as a kitchen, when the present kitchen was the mansion-house.

Such is the progress of a settler in the wilderness, and it is but a few years since Vermont was such. The log hut is at first "parlour, kitchen, and hall;" then is erected the log house, larger, better furnished, and more comfortably plastered with clay; then the hut becomes the kitchen, and shortly after, (a saw-mill having been erected on a neighbouring stream,) the framed and planked mansion arises, the house becomes, in its turn, the kitchen, while the original germ, the hut, is degraded to a wash-house or pig-sty.

Instead of looking, as he once did, from the door of his lowly dwelling, on a thick and almost impenetrable forest, his own clearing alone giving him a peep at the beautiful sheet of water he called a pond, Squire Spiffard now saw a long street of comfortable houses, each with its garden and orchard, while the spires of the Court-house, the school, and the church, marked the presence of justice, education, and religion. It is true that the squire's house, like those of most of his neighbours, was not finished. The upper story served, however, for bed-chambers and store-rooms; and below, or on the ground floor, all looked and was comfortable—including the best bed-chamber for the ever welcome guest.

So rapid is the progress of Yankee improvement, that by the time our hero was qualified to appreciate its beauties, the valley of Long-pond had become a little paradise. We do not mean a heavenly, but an earthly paradise, with all its concomitant imperfections, yet possessing that paradisaical feature, youth, with its bloom and growing perfection; and in spite of the diseases incident to youth, a total absence of every symptom of decay. A row of neat white houses, separated from each other by cultivated enclosures, skirted the level road formed at the foot of one of those hills that encircled this valley. This road was on the margin of a lake, which, after the homely manner of our country, was called a pond; and which presented its sweet waters to the eye, limpid as those of Lake George, so well known to those for whom I write.

This lovely sheet of pure water extended for miles in front of the dwellings occupied by Yankee yeoman, (not farmers of the soil but proprietors,) serving and delighting their wives, and swarms of white-headed urchins. The pond gave to the villagers fish and wild fowl, and afforded the male children opportunities for exercise in swimming, rowing, sliding, and skaiting. Between the road and the lake, the cornfields and meadows spread in rich luxuriance; and as you ascended the hill behind the houses, you were cheered, in the spring, by the fragrance of the apple blossoms, and in autumn, by fruit of every tint and flavour. In winter, the hearths blazed with piles of hickory, and were made to resound with the shouts of gladness by the frequent husking frolic; when the yellow ears of maize are stript of their outward dusky covering, and the grain rasped from the cob, and poured into the basket or bin; while the rustic jest, or the tale of grandfather's wars with the Indians on Connecticut river-or father's adventures when opposed to Burgoyne, at old Tye, Bennington, or Saratoga, mingle with the cracking of

the kisskatomasses, the chesnuts, the butternuts, and walnuts, and are interrupted by draughts of the precious juice of the crab, the spitzbergen, and the red-streak, from the orchard-exhaustless source of innocent exhilaration--the gift of heaven, not yet converted to a curse by the poison-making still.

It is not our intention to enter into descriptions of the life of the pioneer on an American settlement; let the reader look to the pages of Flint, or the inimitable pictures of nature, character, and manners, in "The Pioneers" of Fennimore Cooper. We merely wish to give some notion of the place of our hero's birth, and of those scenes which surrounded his infancy and boyhood at Spiffard Town; for these scenes of early life are ever present to the adult, go where he will in after days, and the impressions from them make part of his character, and influence his actions, whether as a Ledyard, he explores the Pacific ocean and the deserts of Africa, or as a Starke or a Greene leads his brother yeomen to encounter the invader of home and the homestead. The scenery and scenes of the Valley of Long-pond, tended to form a part of the character of Zebediah Spiffard, and therefore appertain to his memoirs.

We have said, that behind the row of houses which formed the village, was a gently-rising hill, on which bloomed the healthgiving orchard. A few gardens likewise decorated this beautiful hill, with here and there a grove of the undisturbed native growth of the soil, giving a touch of the picturesque to what would otherwise have been too uniform. Do not let it be supposed that we mean to insinuate that the gardens had too much regularity, or neatness, or uniformity; for, except the squire's and the parson's, they exhibited a sufficient portion of luxuriant negligence about them to avert that charge, and in truth were many of them more abundant in weeds than in worth. The church likewise ornamented this favoured hill (which in England would have been a mountain), and its rustic spire was a heart-soothing feature in the landscape, whether seen from the rock which towered above its vane, or from the lake in which its peace-inspiring image was reflected.

We have given some account of the Adam or first man of this paradise, by name Jeremiah Spiffard, and by title squire ; but as there never was a paradise without an Eve, or a Zebediah without a mother, it is incumbent upon us to introduce the squire's lady, and Zeb's mamma, to the reader. The squire had brought with him to the wilderness, as we have said, and we do not like repetitions, but, at the same time, know that they are very useful to the memories of novel readers, or even the

readers of true histories like this; be that as it may, we have said, and we repeat, he brought with him to the wilderness a yoke of oxen, an axe, a wagon, and a wife. Before the thicket became a paradise-before the swamps on the borders of the lake became meadows, or the blessed sun had been permitted to shine upon the earth and dissipate the encumbent fogs and redundant moisture, poor Mrs. Spiffard died. The husband was left wifeless, childless, and disconsolate. He had loved his wife. She was his first love, and perhaps he never loved again. Marry again he certainly did, or we should never have written these memoirs of his oldest and lawfully-begotten son.

After bearing up manfully for a time without a help-mateafter seeing all clear around him-settlers coming in upon his land as fast as a land-owner could wish-a school-house, a tavern, and a church built, he paid a visit to Boston, where his elder brother resided, and in truth his principal business was to seek a wife. He felt it to be his duty to contribute to the schoolhouse and church. Under such circumstances the object is soon found. Some of those who purchased his lands and brought families into the settlement, said "they thought Squire Spiffard might have found a wife among their daughters, as fit for a squire's lady at the Valley of Long-pond, as any he would be like to find among the fine ladies of Boston." Perhaps they were right. We shall see.

An Englishman, Mr. James Atherton, had recently arrived at the metropolis of Massachusetts, in search of what he had lost in London-fortune. He was what Shakspeare has called an “ebbing" man; and has said—

66 Ebbing men, indeed,

Most often do so near the bottom run
By fear or sloth."

He had run so near the bottom as to touch. He brought with him a wife and three daughters, two of whom, although, until the voyage of emigration, they had scarcely been out of the sound of Bow-bell, and never in the first, or perhaps second, circles of that country of circles, were nevertheless genteel, and what is called well-educated; the third was yet a child. A knowledge of the new world into which their father had brought them, had not been thought of, as a part of their education. Their father knew as little of it, except as a mart for merchandise and a nursery of rebellion. Europeans, then, disdained such knowledge. They have since been induced to inquire how it is, that a people of many millions manage to prosper