Hugeous reminiscences of delight come over my spirit, in this
connexion ; post-school-hours ; the steaming bowl of flip, or
those orthographical convocations, where buxom maidens exulted
in their secret heart, as tall words were vociferously mounted, in
correct emission, by greenhorn swain. Sleigh-rides likewise;
amatory pressures, under skin of buffalo or bison ; long proces-
sions through wintry villages, whose tall smokes rose from every
chimney ; pillars of blue, standing upright in the air, like colunms
of sapphire. Cider, with its acidity of remembrance ; apples, that
melted on the tongue, as they descended toward the diaphragm ;
landscapes of snow ; and slides down hill ! — not forgetting those
skating achievements, which for the time being fill the mind with
such pride. All these circumstances and events, with curious con-
fusion, hang in a nucleus about my memories of a rural hearth;
* but these 1 passen by, with nameless numbers moe.' Shaks-
peare had a good notion of the comforts to which I refer. He
puts a lovely sentiment into the mouth of King Richard H.,
when he causes him to utter to the royal lady this tender lan-
guage :

' Good sometimes qaeen, prepare thee heoce for France :
Think I am dead ; and that from me thou tak*8t,
As from my death-bed, my last living leave.
