the South and the West,* and the population floating about on it, is greater than their's to the square mile, and the property in the vessels greater than their's in houses. One must visit closely all the sinuosities of our coast, to understand the activity, enterprize and wealth in which they abound; the neighbouring sea is part of our domain-we have furrowed it so constantly, that we may claim it as much as any ploughed field, and we derive more from it than any field can produce. I say nothing of the character of a population, that has the sea open to them, compared with one pent up in the interior of a continent. Tastes often depend on locality; we should not like to live in a society, that was not ventilated by the sea breeze.

Our ride this day was for five or six miles, along the Assawampset pond in Middleborough, presenting many beautiful views. It was on the borders of this pond, that the friendly Indian Sausaman was assassinated by order of King Philip; which murder was a prelude to the war, that ended in the destruction of that celebrated chieftain and the ruin of his tribe. We came to Bridgewater to sleep at Pratt's inn, an excellent house which we recommend to all travellers, who wish to meet with neatness, good fare, civility and kind treatment; but a new and unexpected disaster awaited us: Nothing less than a village dance of twenty couples. They had come

The acres alluded to, are those, where a plummet can hardly reach the bottom without striking a fish. Fisher Ames said, that "every cod-fish drawn up had a pistareen in his mouth."

from a neighbouring town, began to dance at four in the afternoon, and danced till four in the morning. Strange that, in one short week, we should thus have been discomfited both by Themis and Terpsichore. However, a moment's reflection made us submit to this last mishap with cheerfulness. Our country towns are too much infested with cant, and gloom, and fanaticism. The spirits and blood are curdled and gangrened by them. Youth requires amusement, and when this can be united with healthy and graceful exercise, it is doubly advantageous. A little more of innocent gayety would help to develope their faculties, produce more vigorous health, and animate them to the discharge of all their duties. With these reflections, we willingly gave up a night's rest to the good of the commonwealth.

18th.-A North-East wind, bearing on its dingy wings a soaking mist, directly in our faces. It was precisely one of the cases, in which a wit in this vicinity observed, that whatever the law might hold, he considered it very different to face it per alium, rather than to face it The ride from Bridgewater through Stoughton, Randolph, Milton and Dorchester, is a very pleasing one. The road lies through the notch of the Blue-Hills; the country is

per

se.*

*This legal pun, was made by a gentleman recently deceased, the late Hon. Timothy Bigelow of Medford, after being exposed to a biting North-West wind during a long ride, in a very inclement winter day. This gentleman was known to the public, for the many civil offices he had usefully filled; and will be long remembered by his acquaintance for his stores of humour and anecdote.

a fine one, and in an improving condition. We observed some solid, stone houses recently built. Some of the views on this road are picturesque and romantic. We advise every one to try it in a fair day. If such had been our fate, we should have had much more to say-it is therefore lucky it was not. The month of October has been very shabby this year. But this moon came of a Saturday-we were told how it would be. Let travellers beware of a Saturday's moon. We reached the capital well satisfied.

Bostonium longe finis chartæque viæque est.

SECRET CAUSES

OF THE

AMERICAN AND FRENCH REVOLUTIONS.

A WISH to acquire the German language, combined with other motives, induced me a few years since, to reside for a considerable period, in a German town between the Elbe and the Rhine. This city, like almost every other in that book-producing country, had its circle of literary men and authors: a suitable introduction procured me admission to a club of these gentlemen, who assembled regularly once a week, and some of whom fell into company with each other almost every day. In this circle were two or three romance writers and dramatists, but the greater number was made up of those literary confectioners, who preserve a small kernel in such a mass of paste and sugar, that all its flavour and proportions are completely lost in the cumbrous envelope; in short, without a figure, the society contained some of the most formidable commentators in all Deutchland.

I was often at a loss in our meetings, when they were engaged in their favorite pursuit of embalming some particular passage in an ancient classic; which, after being completely embowelled, and drugged and swathed, bore as little resemblance to the animation of the original, as an Egyptian mummy to the person it was intended to perpetuate. On these occasions I had recourse to smoaking, an accomplishment I attained even quicker than the language, and being provided with a beautiful pipe of ecume de mer, an exchange of tokens with my friend the Graf von Fumendorf, I speedily enveloped myself in a cloud, and in this secure situation, heedless of all the crabbed words and Babel din around me, began at once some castle in the air, my pipe serving all the purposes of the wonderful lamp, and transporting me and my edifices, with as much rapidity, as it did the palace of Aladdin : if at these moments my friends had been on the lookout, they might have often seen their shadows, sweeping over the place where I am now writing.

The town offered no great resources, I was therefore glad to be an honorary member of this club, where if the subjects of discussion became too abstruse, I could seat myself in one corner unnoticed. Another consideration induced me to attend its meetings, one of the most zealous members, with whom it would have been almost an offence to have lightly valued the privilege of admission, had a family which pleased me, where I was allowed to visit at my ease. He was himself a worthy, agreea

ble man, when taken out of his pedantic course of