ch on opening he
found to contain the following communication:--

"Worthy Mr. Hyacinthus--

"A friend unknown to you, but not altogether so to fame, and one.
whom no display of the subtlest ingenuity on behalf of your acute and
sagacious intellect could ever decypher through the medium of this
epistle, begs to convey to you a valuable portion of anonymous
information. When he says that he is not unknown to fame, the assertion,
as far as it goes, is pregnant wid veracity. Mark that I say, as far
as it goes, by which is meant the assertion as well as the fame of your
friend, the inditer of this significant epistle. Forty-eight square
miles of good sound fame your not inerudite correspondent can
conscientiously lay claim to; and although there is, with regret I admit
it, a considerable portion of the square superficies alluded to, waste
and uncultivated moor, yet I can say, wid that racy touch of genial and
expressive pride which distinguishes men of letters in general, that the
other portions of this fine district are inhabited by a multitudinity
of population in the highest degree creditable to the prolific powers
of the climate. 'Tisn't all as one, then, as that thistle-browsing
quadruped. Barney Heffeman, who presumes, in imitation of his betters,
to write Philomath after his name, and whose whole extent of literary
reputation is not more than two or three beggarly townlands, whom, by
the way, he is inoculating successfully wid his own ripe and flourishing
ignorance. No, sir; nor like Gusty Gibberish, or (as he has been most
facetiously christened by his Reverence, Father O'Flaherty) Demosthenes
M'Gosther, inasmuch as he is distinguished for an aisy and prodigal
superfluity of mere words, unsustained by intelligibility or meaning,
but who cannot claim in his own person a mile and a half of dacent
reputation. However, _quid multis_ Mr. Hyacinthus; 'tis no indoctrinated
or obscure scribe who now addresses you, and who does so from causes
that may be salutary to your own health and very gentlemanly fame,
according as you resave the same, not pretermitting interests involving,
probably, on your part, an abundant portion of pecuniarity.

"In short, then, it has reached these ears, Mr. Hyacinthus, and between
you and me, they are not such a pair as, in consequence of their
longitudinity, can be copiously shaken, or which rise and fall according
to the will of the wearer; like those of the thistle-browser already
alluded t