Ir is more than forty years since this veteran author made his first appearance before the public, and at nearly seventy he continues to write with the vivacity, good sense, and strong love of country for which his earliest works were distinguished.

Mr. PAULDING is of Dutch extraction, and was born on the twenty-second of August, 1779, in the town of Pawling, on the Hudson, so named from one of his ancestors. After receiving a liberal education he settled in New York, where except during short intervals he has since resided. Connected with some of the first families of the city, with an income sufficient for his wants, and a love of quiet which forbade his seeking distinction as a lawyer or politician, he would probably have been content with the simple pursuit of ease, had not the follies of the town, and subsequently a conviction of injustice to the country, called into action his powers as a satirist. The first series of Salmagundi, published in 1807, was the production of Mr. Paulding and Mr. Washington Irving, except the verses and three or four of the concluding essays, which were by Mr. William Irving, a brotherin-law of the former and brother of the latter, who was afterward well known as a representative of the city of New York in Congress. This work had a great deal of freshness; its humour, though unequal, was nearly always gay, and as its satire was general, everybody was pleased. Its success surprised the authors, and was perhaps the determining cause of their subsequent devotion to literature. The publisher found it very profitable, as he paid nothing for the copy; and upon his refusal to make any remuneration for it, the work was suddenly and unexpectedly brought to a close.

In 1813 Mr. Paulding published The Lay of a Scotch Fiddle, a satirical poem, and in the following year The United States and England, in reply to the article on Inchiquin's Letters in the Quarterly Review. The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan, the most successful of his satires, ap

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peared in 1816. The allegory is well sustained, and the style has a homely simplicity and vigour that remind us of Swift. A part of this year was passed in Virginia, where he wrote his Letters from the South, which were published in 1817. The humour in them is not of his happiest vein, and the soundness of the views respecting education, paper money, and some other subjects, may be questioned; but the work contains interesting sketches of scenery, manners, and personal character.

In 1818 Mr. Paulding published The Backwoodsman, a poem, and in the next year the second series of Salmagundi, of which he was the sole author. Koningsmarke, or Old Times in the New World, a novel founded on incidents in the history of the Swedish settlements on the Delaware, appeared in 1823; John Bull in America in 1824; and the Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham in 1826. The idea that the progress of mankind is more apparent than actual is a favourite one with Mr. Paulding, and modern improvements and discoveries in political economy, and productive labour, law, and philosophy, are in this work ridiculed with considerable ingenuity.

The Book of St. Nicholas, a collection of stories purporting to be translated from the Dutch; The New Pilgrim's Progress, which contains some of the best specimens of his satire, and Tales of the Good Woman by a Doubtful Gentleman, came out in the three following years.

The Dutchman's Fireside was published in 1831. Its success was decided and immediate, and it continues to be regarded as the best of Mr. Paulding's novels. It is a domestic story, of the time of the "old French war." The scenes are among the sources of the Hudson, on the borders of Lake Champlain, and in other parts of the province of New York. The characters are natural, and possess much individuality. From the outset the reader feels as if he had a personal acquaintance with each of them. One of the most cleverly executed is a meddling little

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old Dutchman, Ariel Vancour, who with the best intentions is continually working mischief: an everyday sort of person, which I do not remember having seen so palpably imbodied by any other author. The hero, Sybrandt Vancour, is educated in almost total seclusion, and finds himself, on the verge of manhood, a scholar, ignorant of the world. He is proud, sensitive, and suspicious: unhappy, and a cause of unhappiness to all about him. His transformation is effected by the famous Sir William Johnson, whom he accompanies on a campaign; and in the end, a self-confident and self-complacent gentleman, he marries a woman whom he had loved all the while, but whom his infirmities had previously rendered as wretched as himself. The work is marked throughout with Mr. Paulding's quaint and peculiar humour, and it is a delightful picture of primitive colonial life, varied with glimpses of the mimic court of the governor, where ladies figure in hoops and brocades, and of the camp in the wilderness, and the strategy of Indian warfare.

In the following year Mr. Paulding published Westward Ho! The moral of this story is, that we are to disregard the presentiments of evil, withstand the approaches of fanaticism, and feel confident that the surest means of inducing a gracious interposition of Providence in our favour is to persevere ourselves in all the kind offices of humanity toward the unfortunate. The characters are original and well-drawn. The Virginia planter who squanders his estates in a prodigal hospitality, and with the remnants of a liberal fortune seeks a new home in the untried forests; Zeno and Judith Paddock, a pair of village inquisitors; and Bushfield, an untamed western hunter, are all actual and indigenous beings. Mr. Paulding had already sketched the Kentuckian, with a freer but less skilful hand, in his comedy of Nimrod Wildfire. Whoever wanders in the footsteps of Daniel Boone will still meet with Bushfields, though until he approaches nearer the Rocky Mountains the rough edges of the character may be somewhat softened down; and Dangerfields are not yet strangers in Virginia.

His next work was on slavery in the United States, and this was followed in 1835 by his excellent life of Washington for youth, which is published in Messrs. Harpers' Family Library.

After the close of our second war with

Great Britain he resided some time at the seat of government, and was subsequently many years navy agent for the port of New York. When President Van Buren formed his cabinet, in the spring of 1837, he was selected to be the head of the Navy Department, and he continued in that office until the close of Mr. Van Buren's administration, in 1841.

Upon retiring from public life, being then more than sixty years of age, he resumed his pen, and some of his magazine papers, written since that time, are equal to any of the productions of his most vigorous days. In 1846 he published The Old Continental, or the Price of Liberty, a novel which he had nearly co pleted before he entered the cabinet. It has all his peculiarities of manner and spirit.

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The various works by Mr. Paulding which I have mentioned make twenty-five volumes, and the stories, essays, and other papers which he has published in the Tales of Glauber Spa, and in periodicals, would increase the number to more than thirty.

Mr. Paulding's writings are distinguished for a decided nationality. He has had no respect for authority unsupported by reason, but on all subjects has thought and judged for himself. He has defended our government and institutions, and has imbodied what is peculiar in our manners and opinions. There is hardly a character in his works who would not in any country be instantly recognised as an American.

He is unequalled in a sort of quaint and whimsical humour, but occasionally falls into the common error of thinking there is humour in epithets, and these are sometimes coarse or vulgar. Humour is a quality of feeling and action, and like any sentiment or habit should be treated in a style which indicates a sympathy with it. He who pauses to invent its dress will usually find his invention exhausted before he attempts its body.

He seems generally to have no regular schemes and premeditated catastrophies. He follows the lead of a free fancy and writes down whatever comes into his mind. He creates his characters, and permits circumstances to guide their conduct. Perhaps the effects of this random and discursive spirit are more natural than those of a strict regard to unities. It is a higher achievement to maintain an interest in a character than to fasten the attention to a plot.

NEW YEAR IN ELSINGBURGH.

FROM KONINGSMARKE.

THE holydays, those wintry blessings which cheer the heart of young and old, and give to the gloomy depths of winter the life and spirit of laughing, jolly spring, were now near at hand. The chopping-knife gave token of goodly minced pies, and the bustle of the kitchen afforded shrewd indications of what was coming by and by. The celebration of the new year, it was well known, came originally from the northern nations of Europe, who still keep up many of the practices, amusements, and enjoyments, known to their ancestors. The Heer Piper valued himself upon being a genuine northern man, and consequently held the winter holydays in special favour and affection. In addition to this hereditary attachment to ancient customs, it was shrewdly suspected that his zeal in celebrating these good old sports was not a little quickened in consequence of his mortal antagonist, William Penn, having hinted, in the course of their controversy, that the practice of keeping holy days savoured not only of popery, but paganism.

vellous, a thing which always puts the governor out of humour.

Counsellor Langfanger talked wonderfully about public improvements; Counsellor Varlett sung, or rather roared, a hundred verses of a song in praise of Rhenish wine; and Othman Pfegel smoked and tippled, till he actually came to a determination of bringing matters to a crisis with the fair Christina the very next day. Such are the wonder-working powers of hot punch! As for the Dominie, he departed about the dawn of day, in such a plight that if it had not been impossible, we should have suspected him of being as it were a little overtaken with the said punch. To one or two persons who chanced to see him, he actually appeared to stagger a little; but such was the stout faith of the good Dominie's parishioners, that neither of these worthy fellows would believe his own eyes sufficiently to state these particulars.

A couple of hours' sleep sufficed to disperse the vapours of punch and pepper-pot; for heads in those days were much harder than now, and the Heer, as well as his roistering companions, rose betimes to give and receive the compliments and good wishes of the season. The morning was still, clear, and frosty. The sun shone with the lustre, though not with the warmth of summer, and his bright beams were reflected with indescribable splendour from the glassy, smooth expanse of ice that spread across, and up and down the broad river, far as the eye could see. The smoke of the village chimneys rose straight into the air, looking like so many inverted pyramids, spreading gradu

in his way.

It had long been the custom with Governor Piper, to usher in the new year with a grand supper, to which the Dominie, the members of the council, and certain of the most respectable burghers, were always bidden. This year, he determined to see the old year out and the new one in, as the phrase was, having just heard of a great victory gained by the bulwark of the Protestant religion, the immortal Gustavus Adolphus; which, though it happened nearly four years before, had only now reached the village of Elsingburgh....

Exactly at ten o'clock, the guests sat down to the table, where they ate and drank to the success of the Protestant cause, the glory of the great Gustavus, the downfall of Popery and the Quakers, with equal zeal and patriotism. The instant the clock struck twelve, a round was fired from the fort, and a vast and bottomless bowl, supposed to be the identical one in which the famous wise men of Gotham went to sea, was brought in, filled to the utmost brim with smoking punch. The memory of the departed year and the hopes of the future were then drank in a special bumper, after which the ladies retired, and noise and fun became the order of the night. The Heer told his great story of having surprised and taken a whole picquet-guard, under the great Gustavus; and each of the guests contributed his tale, taking special care, however, not to outdo their host in the mar

and mixed imperceptibly with ether. Scarce was the sun above the horizon, when the village was alive with rosy boys and girls, dressed in their new suits, and going forth with such warm anticipations of happiness, as time and experience imperceptibly fritter away into languid hopes or strengthening apprehensions." Happy New Year!" came from every mouth and every heart. Spiced bevcrages and lusty cakes were given away with liberal open hand; everybody was welcomed to every house; all seemed to forget their little heart-burnings and disputes of yore-all seemed happy, and all were so; and the Dominic, who always wore his coat with four great pockets on new-year's day, came home and emptied them seven times, of loads of new-year cookies.

When the gay groups had finished their rounds in the village, the ice in front was seen all alive with the small fry of Elsingburgh, gambolling and skating, sliding and tumbling, helter skelter, and making the frost-bit ears of winter glad with the sounds of mirth and revelry.... All was rout, laughter, and happiness; and that day the icy mirror of the noble Delaware reflected as light hearts as ever beat together in the new world. At twelve o'clock the jolly Heer, according to his immemorial custom, went forth from the edge of the river distributing apples and other dainties, together with handsful of wampum, which, rolling away on the ice in different directions, occasioned innumerable contests and squabbles among the fry,

whose disputes, tumbles, and occasional buffetings | for the prizes, were inimitably ludicrous upon the slippery element. Among the most obstreperous and mischievous of the crowd was that likely fellow Cupid, who made more noise, and tripped up more heels that day, than any half a dozen of his contemporaries. His voice could be heard above all the rest, especially after the arrival of the Heer, before whom he seemed to think it his duty to exert himself, while his unrestrained, extravagant laugh exhibited that singular hilarity of spirit which distinguishes the deportment of the African slave from the invariable gravity of the free red man of the western world.

All day, and until after the sun had set and the shadows of night succeeded, the sports continued, and the merry sounds rung far and near, occasionally interrupted by those loud noises which sometimes shoot across the ice like a rushing earthquake, and are occasioned by its cracking, as the water rises or falls.

THE QUARREL OF SQUIRE BULL AND HIS SON.

FROM JOHN BULL AND BROTHER JONATHAN.

JOHN BULL was a choleric old fellow, who held a good manor in the middle of a great millpond, and which, by reason of its being quite surrounded by water, was generally called Bullock Island. Bull was an ingenious man, an exceedingly good blacksmith, a dexterous cutler, and a notable weaver and pot-baker besides. He also brewed capital porter, ale, and small beer, and was in fact a sort of jack of all trades, and good at each. In addition to these, he was a hearty fellow, an excellent bottle-companion, and passably honest as times go.

But what tarnished all these qualities was a devilish quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, which was always getting him into some scrape or other. The truth is, he never heard of a quarrel going on among his neighbours, but his fingers itched to be in the thickest of them; so that he was hardly ever seen without a broken head, a black eye, or a bloody nose. Such was Squire Bull, as he was commonly called by the country people his neighbours-one of those odd, testy, grumbling, boasting old codgers, that never get credit for what they are, because they are always pretending to be what they are not.

The squire was as tight a hand to deal with in doors as out; sometimes treating his family as if they were not the same flesh and blood, when they happened to differ with him in certain matters. One day he got into a dispute with his youngest son Jonathan, who was familiarly called BROTHER JONATHAN, about whether churches ought to be called churches or meeting-houses; and whether steeples were not an abomination. The squire, either having the worst of the argument, or being naturally impatient of contradiction, (I can't tell which,) fell into a great passion, and swore he would physic such notions out of the boy's noddle.

So he went to some of his doctors and got them to draw up a prescription, made up of thirty-nine different articles, many of them bitter enough to some palates. This he tried to make Jonathan swallow; and finding he made villanous wry faces, and would not do it, fell upon him and beat him like fury. After this, he made the house so disagreeable to him, that Jonathan, though as hard as a pine knot and as tough as leather, could bear it no longer. Taking his gun and his axe, he put himself in a boat and paddled over the millpond to some new lands to which the squire pretended some sort of claim, intending to settle them, and build a meeting-house without a steeple as soon as he grew rich enough.

When he got over, Jonathan found that the land was quite in a state of nature, covered with wood, and inhabited by nobody but wild beasts. But being a lad of mettle, he took his axe on one shoulder and his gun on the other, marched into the thickest of the wood, and clearing a place, built a log hut. Pursuing his labours, and handling his axe like a notable woodman, he in a few years cleared the land, which he laid out into thirteen good farms: and building himself a fine frame house, about half-finished, began to be quite snug and comfortable.

But Squire Bull, who was getting old and stingy, and, besides, was in great want of money, on account of his having lately been made to pay swinging damages for assaulting his neighbours and breaking their heads-the squire, I say, finding Jonathan was getting well to do in the world, began to be very much troubled about his welfare; so he demanded that Jonathan should pay him a good rent for the land which he had cleared and made good for something. He trumped up I know not what claim against him, and under different pretences managed to pocket all Jonathan's honest gains. In fact, the poor lad had not a shilling left for holyday occasions; and had it not been for the filial respect he felt for the old man, he would certainly have refused to submit to such impositions.

But for all this, in a little time, Jonathan grew up to be very large of his age, and became a tall, stout, double-jointed, broad-footed cub of a fellow, awkward in his gait and simple in his appearance; but showing a lively, shrewd look, and having the promise of great strength when he should get his full growth. He was rather an odd-looking chap, in truth, and had many queer ways; but everybody that had seen John Bull saw a great likeness between them, and swore he was John's own boy, and a true chip of the old block. Like the old squire, he was apt to be blustering and saucy, but in the main was a peaceable sort of careless fellow, that would quarrel with nobody if you only let him alone. He used to dress in homespun trousers with a huge bagging seat, which seemed to have nothing in it. This made people to say he had no bottom; but whoever said so lied, as they found to their cost whenever they put Jonathan in a passion. He always wore a linsey-woolsey coat that did not above half cover his breech, and the sleeves of which were so short that his hand

and wrist came out beyond them, looking like a shoulder of mutton. All which was in consequence of his growing so fast that he outgrew his clothes.

While Jonathan was outgrowing his strength in this way, Bull kept on picking his pockets of every penny he could scrape together; till at last one day when the squire was even more than usually pressing in his demands, which he accompanied with threats, Jonathan started up in a furious passion, and threw the TEA-KETTLE at the old man's head. The choleric Bull was hereupon exceedingly enraged; and after calling the poor lad an undutiful, ungrateful, rebellious rascal, seized him by the collar, and forthwith a furious scuffle ensued. This lasted a long time; for the squire, though in years, was a capital boxer, and of most excellent bottom. At last, however, Jonathan got him under, and before he would let him up, made him sign a paper giving up all claim to the farms, and acknowledging the fee-simple to be in Jonathan for ever.

"Well then, I must give you a sketch of his story before I introduce him. He was born in New Hampshire, as he says, and in due time, as is customary in those parts, married, and took possession, by right of discovery I suppose, of a tract of land in what was at that time called the New Hampshire grants. Others followed him, and in the course of a few years a little settlement was formed of real 'cute Yankees, as Timothy calls them, to the amount of sixty or seventy men, women, and children. They were gradually growing in wealth and numbers, when one night, in the dead of winter, they were set upon by a party of Indians from Canada, and every soul of them, except Timothy, either consumed in the flames or massacred in the attempt to escape. I have witnessed in the course of my life many scenes of horror, but nothing like that which he describes, in which his wife and eight children perished. Timothy was left for dead by the savages, who, as is their custom, departed at the dawn, for fear the news of this massacre might rouse some of the neighbouring settlements in time to overtake them before they reached home. When all was silent, Timothy, who, though severely wounded in a dozen places, had, as he says, only been playing 'possum,' raised himself up and looked around him. The smoking ruins, mangled limbs, blood

stained snow, and the whole scene, as he describes it with quaint pathos, is enough to make one's blood run cold. He managed to raise himself upright, and, by dint of incredible exertions, to reach a neighbouring settlement, distant about forty miles, where he told his story, and then was put to bed, where he lay some weeks. In the mean time the people of the settlement had gone and buried the remains of his unfortunate family and neighbours. When Timothy got well, he visited the spot, and while viewing the ruins of the houses, and pondering over the graves of all that were dear to him, solemnly devoted the remainder of his life to revenge. He accordingly buried himself in the woods, and built a cabin about twelve miles from hence, in a situation the most favourable to killing the 'kritters,' as he calls the savages. From that time until now he has waged a perpetual war against them, and, according to his own account, sacrificed almost a hecatomb to the manes of his wife and children. His intrepidity is wonderful, and his sagacity in the pursuit of this grand object of his life beyond all belief. I am half a savage myself, but I have heard this man relate stories of his adventures and escapes which make me feel myself, in the language of the red skins, 'a woman' in comparison with this strange compound of cunning and simplicity. It is inconceivable with what avidity he will hunt an Indian; and the keenest sportsman does not feel a hundredth part of the delight in bringing down his game that Timothy does in witnessing the mortal pangs of one of these kritters.' It is a horrible propensity but to lose all in one night, and to wake the next morning and see nothing but the mangled remains of wife, children, all that man holds most dear to his inmost heart, is no trifle. If ever man had motive for revenge, it is Timothy. Such as he is I employ him, and find his services highly useful. He is a compound of the two races, and combines all the qualities essential to the species of warfare in which we are now engaged. I have sent for him, and expect him here every moment."

As Sir William concluded, Sybrandt heard a long dry sort of " H-e-e-m-m," ejaculated just outside of the door. "That's he," exclaimed Sir William; "I know the sound. It is his usual expression of satisfaction at the prospect of being employed against his old enemies the Indians. Come in, Timothy."

Timothy accordingly made his appearance, forgot his bow, and said nothing. Sybrandt eyed his associate with close attention. He was a tall, wind-dried man, with extremely sharp, angular features, and a complexion deeply bronzed by the exposures to which he had been subjected for so many years. His scanty head of hair was of a sort of sunburnt colour; his beard of a month's growth at least, and his eye of sprightly blue never rested a moment in its socket. It glanced from side to side, and up and down, and here and there, with indescribable rapidity, as though in search of some object of interest, or apprehensive of sudden danger. It was a perpetual silent alarum.