the family Bible near me, I have no authentic record to which to refer, to ascertain what discriminative appellation my respectable god-fathers and god-mothers endowed me withal. As I have natu rally a feeble memory, it cannot be expected that I should recollect what took place at my own christening. At so tender an age, that part of the brain which is considered by phrenologists as constituting the physical seat of memory, is too soft and jelly-like to be capable of receiving a durable impression. We are indeed told, that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings many wise and good sayings have proceeded, but I believe there is no record that when these babes attained to riper years, they astonished the world by drawing upon those stores of information which they gathered together while in their swaddling clothes. I have seen no such hinfant fernomenon,' as Mr. Weller would express it. Failing, then, in the recollections of my babyhood, and having no immediate record to which to refer, I am compelled to resort to such collateral and extrinsic testimony as I can find around me. I am in the situation of the poor little old woman, whose confusion as to her identity has been made the subject of a pathetic nursery ballad, by one of the old poets :

'If I be I,

As I suppose I be,

I have a little dog at home,

And he knows me.'

So, if I be I,' surely my friends ought to know it. The little old woman who submitted the question of her personal identity to the evidence of her dog, instead of being enlightened in her search after truth, was doubly confused by the unexpected testimony of that whimsical little beast. He did not recognize her, and barked his unacquaintance. Whereupon the little old woman, in an agony of desperation and self-ignorance, cried out, 'Sure this is none of I!' How she found out who she was, or whether she found it out at all, the legend saith not. Now, if the abounding testimony of friends is against me in my researches to find out who I am, I must hide my diminished head in the darkness of self-ignorance, and depart from among those who once knew me, in the grossest self-confusion. Were my patronymic garnished with a dozen aliases, the multitude might confuse my friends, and they might be bothered to recollect my real name. Unless my memory fails me, my sponsors were in no-wise prodigal, even in the cheap article of names. The priest showered no superfluous baptismal honors on my infant head. I was christened with all the brevity consistent with so solemn a ceremony. I was taught by those under whose nurture and admonition I was brought up, (it was one of the earliest lessons instilled into my infant mind,) that I HAD A NAME. Was this only the flattery of fond parents? Was it a mere nursery tale, invented to keep me quiet! Was it a pious fraud, a holy cheat, one of the censurable tricks of doing evil that good may come? Sir, my parents were no Jesuits. They were no cruel and unmitigated punsters, to play thus unfeelingly with the name of a lovely babe. I was, according to the course of nature, too young to choose a name for myself, and they availed themselves of the permission of the law, to confer a name upon me. It is mine

by their gift; mine by the solemn sanction of the priest; mine by law, human and divine; mine by the records of the church; mine by the entry in the family Bible. Had I supposed that there was any flaw in the title, any link broken in the chain of evidence, I should, on coming of age, have taken measures to clear up the smallest doubt.

If there be such a thing as the transmigration of souls, let my returning spirit be encased in a well-blooded race-horse, or a dog of respectable connexions, and reputable nose. They have names, which are not trifled with, nor perverted. Or if my spirit is to be again enclosed in human flesh, let me be a little foundling, and let me be baptized by the Commissioners of the Alms-House. People would not dare to trifle with a name conferred by great men in office. Your politicians would be careful how they meddled with it. I should be free of the corporation,' born to city honors, a child of the state.

I have an indistinct recollection of a quotation from Shakspeare, which I read on the outside of Longworth's Directory, about the wickedness of filching one's good name. I have double cause for complaint. My good name is not only filched, but it is so disfigured by the thieves, that its own progenitors cannot recognize it. My own friends cram their own literal nonsense into its very midst, and then perk it in my face. If this be not the height of impudence, I know not what is. It is a familiarity that borders on downright rudeness. If the old maxim be true, that too much freedery breeds despise,' I subject myself, by submitting to such freedoms, to general contempt. Were it a pleasant nick-name, the gift of long continued friendship, I would take it, and be proud to wear it. Were it done for shortness,' I might adopt it, were it only for its pith and brevity. But it comes back to me burdened with a load of cumbrous honors, that in my opinion sit most ungratefully upon it. Mouth it, with its added ornament. Word it. Pronounce it. Can you extract a single additional sound, after all your 'damnable iteration? Does it melt more musically from the mouth? Does it tingle more pleasantly to the ear? Does it mean more? Does it represent more to the life the poor misused being to whom it belongs? Do you suppose that he is flattered by such additaments to his honestly-begotten ancestral name? Is it an experiment upon the soft side of his heart? Such trials are dangerous. They probe sometimes a thought too deeply, and tent to the quick the proud-flesh of his heart's core. Pray you avoid such experiments.

me.

Perhaps you mistake my manner of ambition, and think that there is a delicate flattery in adding these honors to the poor name with which my parson and my parents blessed, or thought they blessed, You mistake my taste. I consider these new ornaments as Asiatic and florid; as partaking of that diffuseness which always accompanies a degenerate and declining literature. I am somewhat severe in my taste. I am fond of Attic terseness and pungency. I honor my god-fathers for the Doric simplicity of my plain name. Take away a letter, and you destroy its harmony. Add a letter, and it strikes even the vulgar eye as a showy excrescence. It is primitive and democratic. The baneful spirit of luxury had not crept in, when it was given to me. The public taste has become corrupt, and the virtuous simplicity of the better days of the republic, such as is shown in my simple name, suits not the ears of the moderns.

'Again I ask, who in the name of confusion am I? Does nobody know me? Am I poor Rip Van Winkle, so soon grown out of We think it hard, that after we are dead and gone, your memories? our names shall be so soon forgotten, but it is doubly hard to think that we cannot keep them alive even in the memories of the living; that even our most intimate friends know not how to write or spell them. There may be cases, growing out of the disadvantages of not having had a common school education, where such mistakes may be excusable; and I know some well educated people who can't spell for the life of them; B, for instance, who has a philosophical system of his own, which would perplex the father of perplexities. With such it can't be helped. The fates never intended them to spell correctly. But you have no such excuse.

I presume, Sir, you will have the assurance to mention to several of my particular friends that you are upon intimate terms with me. If you want a witness to prove it, take the superscription upon your last letter. He is your own witness. Bring him upon the stand, and when you tell the court that, so far from being strangers, we have been intimate for years, play-mates in boyhood, friends in manhood, companions in pleasures and studies, confidants, with tastes and pursuits alike, let him answer for you. His first testimony will prove that you are a stranger to me, or if not a stranger, that your boasts of friendship are false and hollow; that either through heartless levity, or deliberate malice, you have joined in misrepresenting me, and worse confounding the confusion that surrounds my poor but honest name.'

Still, mingled with the annoyances of being nomenclatorially confused, there are some perplexities which scarce deserve the name, and which bring with them rather amusement than annoyance. In military matters, I have had the privilege of paying a fine for the nonperformance of duty. If I have any claim to military rank, I know not how I can be considered above the grade of a private, and yet my landlady will persist in dubbing me colonel. That may be meant for flattery, for these women have a way with them in such matters. This was proved in the case of the country hostess, who when the lawsergeant T. was at her house, persisted in addressing him by the title of captain. On being told, that she gave him a rank to which he had no claim, she answered 'I know he's only a sergeant, but they always likes to be called captain.' I can forgive my landlady, partly because the flattery, if such, was well meant, and partly because she may have confounded me with a gentleman of (nearly) my own surname, who formerly figured as a colonel, and now rejoices in a major-generalship, which high rank, it is but justice to add, he fills as becomes a soldier. I have even found that my colonelcy has expanded into a full-blown generalship. I confess, that when it came to that point, there was a little weakness, a spice of self-congratulation, a momentary self-hugging. I could not help, for the instant, mounting my high horse, he proud in his rich caparison, and I proud in plume, epaulettes, and gold lace, ogling the bright eyes that looked down upon me and my train, cutting old acquaintances, because it was unmilitary to recognize them, drinking the sonorous music of the brass band, issuing my orders to dashing young aids, and grace

fully saluting the governor, as he stood in the balcony of the City-Hall. But it was a lightning glance. The light that o'er my eye-beam flashed,' was gone almost as soon as you could say it came. I sunk into the humble citizen, and scorned to wear the laurels won by others, through dust and sweat, in many a field day of hard marching, and dinner campaigning; I have had the honor of being congratulated for my magnanimity and 'love of country, rather than love of party,' in turning my coat, and becoming an advocate for the well regulated credit system,' after that system had been blown to the winds. Thanks, most worthy citizens, of all parties, who always consider a man honest when he deserts to your side of the house, but I lay claim to no such high honors. Weave your chaplets for other brows:

'A poor Loco-Foco am I !'

When I change, there will be two of us sophisticated,' as the fool in Lear hath it. Tell me not that I am considered a rising young man at the bar. Congratulate me not on the 'stirring' political speech to a large and respectable meeting.' Give me no laud as the caller of conventions, and the inditer of political addresses. Admire not my boldness as a dashing speculator, nor speak of my losses or gains. Yet for these, and all these, have I been congratulated. I have been decked with plumes which others borrowed for me. I have been praised and censured, congratulated and denounced, flattered and sneered at, for matters with which I had as little to do as with the doings of the years before the flood. A friend congratulated me the other day on my improved looks since the change in my condition, and went so far as to hope that the child was doing well. That was the most unkindest cut of all, to one of my unhoused condition, and single wretchedness. Beside, let others think as they may, to my mind there was an impropriety, immodesty, and want of regard to what philosopher Square calls 'the fitness of things,' that my bachelor mind revolts at. Who the devil am I?

CONFESSION.

CONFESSION, like physic, mid mortal extremes,
In the hands of a skilful concoctor,

Is an excellent thing for the patient, it seems,
Though not quite so good for the doctor!

Hence, some spiritual quacks, in attending their sick,
On the virtues insist of confessions;

But should a small thorn their own consciences prick,
Their sole lenitive pills are professions.

As to tears for our sins, if amendment it works,
An ounce-vial full ample perhaps is;

And too little the Heidelberg tun, if there lurk
At the bottom the seeds of relapses.

But confession, what is 't, but to lighten the ship,
With a cargo of sins that hard ride did,
To be fished up again for a fair-weather trip,
The moment the storm has subsided?