er as the State has threatened (but never done it!) to tumble
itself out of our unfashionable Union. We are a great people, you see;
but having the impediment of the Union in the way of displaying our
might, always stand ready to do what we never intended to do. We speak
in that same good-natured sense and metaphor used by our politicians,
(who are become very distinguished in the refined arts of fighting and
whiskey-drinking,) when they call for a rope to put about the neck of
every man not sufficiently stupid to acknowledge himself a secessionist.
We imagine ourselves the gigantic and sublime theatre of chivalry, as we
have a right to do; we raise up heroes of war and statesmanship,
compared with whom your Napoleons, Mirabeaus, and Marats--yes, even your
much-abused Roman orators and Athenian philosophers, sink into mere
insignificance. Nor are we bad imitators of that art displayed by the
Roman soldiers, when they entered the Forum and drenched it with
Senatorial blood! Pardon this digression, reader.

Of a summer morning you will see McArthur, the old Provincialist, as he
is called, arranging in his great bow windows an innumerable variety of
antique relics, none but a Mrs. Toodles could conceive a want for--such
as broken pots, dog-irons, fenders, saws, toasters, stew-pans, old
muskets, boxing-gloves and foils, and sundry other odds and ends too
numerous to mention. At evening he sits in his door, a clever picture of
a by-gone age, on a venerable old sofa, supported on legs tapering into
feet of lion's paws, and carved in mahogany, all tacked over with
brass-headed nails. Here the old man sits, and sits, and sits, reading
the "Heroes of the Revolution," (the only book he ever reads,) and
seemingly ready at all times to serve the "good wishes" of his
customers, who he will tell you are of the very first families, and very
distinguished! He holds distinguished peoples in high esteem; and
several distinguished persons have no very bad opinion of him, but a
much better one of his very interesting daughter, whose acquaintance
(though not a lady, in the Southern acceptation of the term) they would
not object to making--provided!

His little shop is lumbered with boxes and barrels, all containing
relics of a by-gone age--such as broken swords, pistols of curious make,
revolutionary hand-saws, planes, cuirasses, broken spurs, blunderbusses,
bowie, scalping, and hunting-knives; all of which he declares our great
men have a