like his private history, James Batter informs me, can
be made out, provided we are allowed to eke a little here and there. That
he was an Englisher we both think amounts to a probability; and, from
having an old "Taffy was a Welshman" for a flunkie, it would not be out
of the order of nature to jealouse, that he may have resided somewhere
among the hills, where he had picked him up and taken him into his
kitchen, promoting him thereafter, for sobriety and good conduct, to be
his body servant, and gentleman's gentleman. Where he was born, however,
is a matter of doubt, and also who were his folks; but of a surety, he
was either born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or rose from the ranks
like many another great man. That, however, is a matter of moonshine; we
are all descended in a direct line from Adam. Where he was educated does
not appear; but there can scarcely be a shadow of doubt, that he was for
a considerable while at some school or other, where he had a number of
cronies. In proof of this, and to show that we have good reasons for our
suppositions, James recommends me to print the following rigmarole
meditations, on the top of which is written in half-text,

SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS.

"--They who in the vale of years advance,
And the dark eve is closing on their way,
When on the mind the recollections glance
Of early joy, and Hope's delightful day,
Behold, in brighter hues than those of truth,
The light of morning on the fields of youth."

SOUTHEY.

The morning being clear and fine, full of Milton's "vernal delight and
joy," I determined on a saunter; the inclemency of the weather having,
for more than a week, kept me a prisoner at home. Although now advanced
into the heart of February, a great fall of snow had taken place; the
roads were blocked up; the mails obstructed; and, while the merchant
grumbled audibly for his letters, the politician, no less chagrined,
conned over and over again his dingy rumpled old newspaper, compelled "to
eat the leek of his disappointment." The wind, which had blown
inveterately steady from the surly north-east, had veered, however,
during the preceding night, to the west; and, as it were by the spell of
an enchanter, an instant thaw commenced. In the low grounds the snow
gleamed forth in patches of a pearly whiteness; but, on the banks of
southern exposure, the green grass and the black trodden pathway again
showed themselves. The vicissitu