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coat. Then that unrivalled artist, James Wallack, made us weep in The Rent Day, and caused us to feel the poetry in As You Like It as we had never felt it before.

Then the little Keeley people came floating across the Atlantic to augment our hilarity for a couple of weeks, and suddenly leave us sighing for their never-accomplished return. Then "Paddy Power," the accomplished and fascinating brother of Lady Blessington, the very genius of mirth, came to flood the Tremont boards with his delightful brogue. Then (proud evening indeed!) Mr. Halleck, the poet, took us to see Macready in Macbeth at the old Park Theatre in the great city. Then John Keese, good-natured, merry soul, introduced us to Mr. Man

sini, Donizetti, and Auber. Then Jenny Lind, the living soul of music, was carolling to us out of melodious skies. Then Fanny Kemble was the Portia of our idolatry. Then Mrs. Barrett and the silver-tongued Jarman were for a time the "divinities that stirred within us.' Then a merry troup of Viennese children absorbed our attention for a space. Then Ellen Tree, with the caressing voice, a lady "fair as unshaded light," with tones in her laugh it was a luxury to hear, and Charles Kean (only her lover then), enchanted us long after the curtain fell. Then Harry Placide, as Grandfather Whitehead, made us gulp down our emotions as we sat shading our eyes in the pit. Then Brother Tom," as Bob Acres, on the same evening, restored our counte-ager Mitchell and pretty Mary Taylor benance to its full measure of uproarious laughter. Then Baron Hackett was Rip Van Winkle, and Jefferson (my Jo) had not yet come to the front. Then Cooper, "the noblest Roman of them all," was lingering a few nights longer, prior to folding up his robes forever. Then Warren was able of Christian beings, and realized in stripling, but just as sprightly on his wellinstructed legs as he is now, and always will be, and that is saying a great deal. Then the elder Booth, incontestably the most electric Hamlet and Sir Giles since Edmund Kean, came and sounded all the depths of human passion and pathos. Then we ran after Master Burke, with the rest of the world, for a season. Then Momus dawned upon us in the shape of exuberant Burton, and informed us how the rogue Autolycus sang, in the Winter's Tale,

"When daffodils begin to peer,"

hind the scenes at the small Olympic. Then it was our annual custom to secure tickets to generous old Mrs. Barnes's yearly benefit, not so much because we liked her acting, excellent as it was, but because she was one of the most charita

her own cramped means how true it is that "one must be poor to know the luxury of giving." Then Yorkshire Mr. G. H. Andrews was our beau ideal of Billy Lackaday and Dromio of Ephesus. Then Mr. W. F. Johnson in mock-heroic comedy was equal, in our opinion, to Liston or Munden. Then the pun - inventive Finn was Paul Pry, and Paul Shack, and anybody else as occasion required. Then Tom Comer sang a comic song and Miss MacBride danced a hornpipe habitually at Mrs. W. H. Smith's benefit. Then we committed to memory the whole of "Bombastes Furioso" from the lips of the players. Then those merry mimes, Mathews, Reeves, and Kilner, were filling our eyes with endless tears of laughter.

Then the Ravel family, formed by nature to make extremes meet, were busily engaged in similar healthful enterprises, doubling up their anatomies, jumping out of unexpected meal-bags, and down

and how Toodles talked and tumbled about in his daily intercourse with the world. Then Charles Kemble, with ravishing perfection, represented Benedick and Mercutio in their habit as they lived. Then Manager Barry was Master Walter, in The Hunchback. Then Sheridan Knowles took, by right of authorship, the character for a brief space, but we pre-into impossible chimneys. Then that ferred our favorite townsman in the long bright-winged creature, Fanny Elssler, speeches in that play. Then Gilbert play- was bewitching us with her inimitable ed Falstaff, and Murdock enacted Romeo "Cracoviennes," and her bewildering to our deepest satisfaction. Then J. R. "Tarantellas." Then Adrienne was reScott brought Napoleon before us, with vealed to us. Then we heard, once and arms folded and rapid speech, striding forever, that never-to-be-forgotten volmoodily up and down the stage, and tak-canic utterance in Corneille's Polyeucte, ing huge quantities of snuff out of a lea- "Je crois !" as Rachel, with eyeballs all thern pocket in his embroidered buff waist- | aflame, flew with tumultuous passion

were

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and the United States Bank. Then Webster and Clay and Everett and Choate were in their prime strength, and making us their willing votaries through exalted eloquence. Then we travelled long distances to hear Ogden Hoffman, the peer of the highest in his wondrous power to thrill an audience. Then Channing, the "seraph of the pulpit," was weaving a spell of worship around our receptive natures. Then Emerson was another of our "present deities." Then there was no bleak winter in our year, for the reason that Holmes and Phillips and Curtis were gilding the Lyceum from December to April, and William Simmons was holding the divining-rod and interpreting Shakspeare to us on the off nights. Then Thackeray dawned upon us, discoursing with fine instinct of Swift and Steele and Addison and Sterne, revelling night after night in indescribable wit and wisdom.

across the stage. Then came the peerless Bosio, intense and original, both as singer and actress. Then arose and chanted, amid enthusiastic plaudits, the magnificent, broad, sunny Alboni, the superb contralto, of whom it was said there corn and oil and wine" in her radiant look. (Affluent, gorgeous creature, how she poured out that luscious song at the Lucretia Borgia supper!) Then Anna Mowatt, with her delicate brier - rose beauty, stepped gracefully forward into the dramatic arena. Then "Gentleman George," as he was called, first swam into our ken, with gay and easy motion. Then Ostinelli, with the shining head, presided in the orchestra. Then Forrest drew our stormy applause in Metamora and Spartacus. Then the elder Vandenhoff, a noble, scholarly gentleman of the old school, played Cato and Shylock for us during a brief season, and introduced his talented English daughter to our lasting regardher to whom Dryden's exquisite lines on the Duchess of Ormond might fitly apply: "O daughter of the rose, whose cheeks unite The differing titles of the red and white, Who heaven's alternate beauty well display, The blush of morning with the milky way.' Then we sat spell-bound to Braham's clarion tones in Marmion's splendid charge to Chester-tones that added "a precious hearing" to the ear. (Who will ever sing again to us Arne's exquisite hunting song, "With hounds and with horns I'll waken the day," or "The Bay of Biscay," or deliver with such dramatic feeling "Comfort ye my people," "In native worth," and "Total Eclipse"?) Then we heard Ronconi's consummate rendering of the quack doctor's rôle in L'Elisir d'Amore. Then we listened to the magic of Ole Bull's enchanted violin for the first time, breathless with excitement and "hot expectancy." Then the honeyed voices of Joseph and Mary Wood broke upon us in Sonnambula. Then nomination to finish them before spring, public performance ever tired us, and we could sit out the Hail-stone Chorus at an ill-sung oratorio with enthusiasm. Then the circus meant something to our wonderment, as we gazed across the golden sawdust, sparkling with steeds and knights and spangled damosels. Then we were flattered, perhaps unseemly so, by a bow of recognition from a public performer, and boasted of it ad nauseam to our unbelieving companions.

Then we trusted in Nicholas Biddle

Then James's novels delighted our imagination, and Marryat and Bulwer kept us busy over Japhet and Pelham. Then Dickens was writing Pickwick Papers for us every month, and gloriously supplementing Walter Scott and Cooper. Then Irving was giving us Astoria to travel in, and firing our ambitious resolves to cross the Rocky Mountains. Then Bryant and Whittier and Longfellow, with Tennyson and Browning, were opening up for us new realms of song, and inviting us to take possession. Then Hawthorne was beginning to lead us into his New England Arcadias, pearled with the dews of his beautiful fancy. Then Willis was writing Scripture pieces for us, and we were all committing "Absalom" to memory. Then Elia's essays and Christopher's "Noctes," among other delectable things, began to challenge our attention. Then, blushing with ignorance, we sat down to Gibbon's inviting volumes, with a deter

and ignominiously failed in the attempt. Then we fell upon a pile of old English romances, and succeeded better. Then we habitually quoted Pope and Goldsmith at the debating club. Then Spenser and Wordsworth were too much for us. Then we thought the plays of Sheridan Knowles were masterpieces of dramatic style. Then, waking or sleeping, we could repeat whole cantos of Byron and Scott.

Then the summer mornings were full

tain occasion might otherwise be somewhat misunderstood.

One other item-as a postscript, as it were, to the above-I should mention. In those times, many country people of the humbler and less cultivated sort, when mention was made of a person afflicted

or mental, usually spoke of him or her as of the neuter gender, employing the pronoun it.

of singing-birds, always waiting outside our windows to help us begin the day with happiness. Then flowers were born as if to accompany the birds in their benevolent mission. Then all our dreams were pleasant imaginings, Arabian Nights' Entertainments, frolic visions of untroubled joy. Then June was the long-with a native incurable infirmity, bodily est and loveliest month in the calendar. Then we were never depressed by bad weather. Then headache had no lodgement nearer than our neighbor's brain. Then personal rheumatism was unknown to us. Then insomnia had not been invented, and we were not obliged to draw upon the apothecary for vials of sleep. Then we could walk twenty miles a day without fatigue. Then all was gold that glistered. Then we were young!

THE VARIOUS LANGUAGES OF
BILLY MOON.

"To surrender ere th' assault."—HUDIBRAS.

CHAPTER I.

NOT all, and not a majority, of person

al combats in the far South forty years ago, at court grounds and muster fields, sprang from personal hostilities, previous or sudden. They were resorted to often as a trial of superior strength, agility, or endurance. In such encounters, one who would seek for a pistol, a knife, or even a walking-stick, was considered unmanly. Not thus, however, at least commonly, he who, when overcome and prostrate, cried "Enough." Such conduct was understood merely as an admission, technically termed "word," that the defeated yielded for the present only, and with reserve of right and intention to renew the combat in other circumstances which might occur, whether on that same or some subsequent day. The victor was expected to suspend his blows at this admission. Sometimes, when the bottom man refused to yield, and seemed to prefer being beaten into a jelly, by-standers, somewhat before such result, would drag off the top man. Then both combatants, though with blackened eyes and bruised faces, panting and hobbling, would repair to the grocery, take a social grog, and, with mutual compliments, have a cordial understanding to repeat the fight at some convenient time after.

This preface was due to Mr. Oglethorpe Josh Green, whose conduct upon a cer

Mr. (Oglethorpe) Josh Green, so styled to distinguish him from his cousin of that name in Elbert, had whipped out everything in his section, and in search of other conquests he once came some miles southward. It was muster-day for the Dukesborough battalion. A few from the upper borders of the county had heard of his exploits, and one or two had seen him theretofore. A man like him, however, needed not to have friends, or even acquaintances, as, when a fight was to be made up, an entire stranger could easily obtain backers who would see to the maintenance of fair play.

When the muster was over, and O. J. G. (as he sometimes called himself, and was called by others, for short) had looked calmly upon several fights, he seemed to be disgusted.

"You people down here don't 'pear to know how to fight," said he. "It 'pears like you want to have somebody that do know how for to come down here and larn you."

It was a voice loud, harsh, powerful. People looked at him. Indeed, he had already attracted much attention. About thirty or thirty-two years of age, five feet eleven, weighing one hundred and sixty, or maybe more, dark-skinned, his black hair cut short, without an ounce of surplus flesh, from his head to his feet he seemed as if he had been wrought out of iron. As he walked up and down, composedly uttering challenges, there did not seem to be a likelihood that he could find one to encounter him.

Bob Hatchett did say that but for his fatigue (having just now had a turn with Bill Giles, and got Bill's word) he would give him a trial, and take a few-jes' a few-of his lessons.

The warrior had money, and he exhibited it as a temptation. Holding forth his buckskin purse, he said, after beginning with a dollar, and gradually ascending:

"Gentlemen, in this here money-puss

Two

is four dollars, lackin' sevenpence.
dollars and a half o' that money it
would be my desires to put into the mon-
ey-puss of the man that can git my word
in a fight here to-day. The dollar one and
nine that would be left would be enough
to take me back home, and which, in sich
a case, arfter sich fightin' as I seen here,
I shouldn't desires to leave it no more,
leastways to come this way."

Such as that looked like a shame. Finally Jack Hall, who lived on Shoulder-bone, said he couldn't stand it. Jack himself was a man of much power, though he might not have encountered O. J. G. without apprehension.

"Jes' so, boys: never mind."

They came up, and Billy looked inquiringly at Jack and the rest. He was full six feet high, but would have weighed not more than one hundred and forty pounds. He was straight as an arrow— straighter, in fact; for his back was slightly swayed. Lithe, sinuous, tense without constraint, his long arms seemed well capable of striking and of grappling. His broad-brimmed hat sat jauntily on a side of his head. His light hair hung in curls even below his neck, and his blue eyes fairly danced with fiery glee. He did not seem to be over one-and-twenty years old. "Is that your man ?" asked Oglethorpe,

"Stranger," said Jack, "you 'pear like curiously contemplating him. you-you jes' a-spilin' for a fight."

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"That's exactly what I am, sir," answered the stranger. "I'm a-spilin' bad. I hain't fit in so long that I'm gittin' badly spiled. You hit what's jes' the matter with me, the same as ef you was a doctor." "Jes' so; and you would wish to lay down them two dollars and a half, sure enough, would you?"

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'Here they are, sir, ready for you to git; and when sich a lookin' man as you do git 'em, my calkilation will be to move clean away-to some disolate island."

"Jes' so." Jack looked at him and reflected. "I ain't exactly in fix to-day myself; but"-he paused, took out his purse, and counted his money-"I hain't but a dollar, half, and sevenpence. Ef the boys will help me make up the rest, I'll fetch a man here that 'll-that 'll go to school to you for a while. I won't be gone more'n ten or fifteen minutes."

Certainly the balance can be made up; there it is already. Good gracious! the idea of a whole battalion, as it were, being run off its own battle-field by one man, and he a stranger!

Jack went to look for his man. Oglethorpe Josh the while stroked his head, screwed his jaws, felt his muscles, and seemed to smell the battle anear.

CHAPTER II.

"That's him," answered Jack.

"Well, my young friend, you don't want your mammy to know you when you go home to-night, eh? Your desires is to git to the old lady onbeknownst like this evenin', eh?"

Billy said not a word, but after signs from Jack smiled, and nodded his head gayly.

How do you fight?"

Billy, after looking at Jack for a few moments, made several mock strokes with his fists, imaginary grapplings with his arms, kickings with his legs, and then seized his own throat with one hand, and placed the thumb of the other into the corner of one of his eyes.

Oglethorpe Josh looked at these actions piercingly. Turning angrily upon Jack, he said: "Who's this you fotch here? What is he?"

"It's Billy Moon," answered a bystander-one of those chosen as stakeholder. "He's as respectable a man, sir, as any in this county, or anywheres else, exceptin' that he's deef and dumb."

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"Deef and dumb!" said Oglethorpe. 'Ain't he a egiot?"

"Egiot! No, sir: no egiot; got much sense as you, or anybody else on this ground, and as much of a gentleman." "Jes' so," said Jack Hall.

Oglethorpe scanned Billy over and over carefully. Scratching his head, he scanned him again. He looked down and reflected. After reflection he raised his head, but did not seem as if, even when he began to talk, he had reached a definite conclusion. "Gentlemen-I shall-that is, I shall "Why, ef it ain't Billy Moon!" said Bob-not-yes-no-in case, yes-that is— Hatchett and others. "Why, Jack Hall! gentlemen-I-I shall-ah-I shall NOT Billy's too young to cope with that man." fight it."

INSIDE of the time demanded, Jack was seen coming up the street. Slightly ahead of him, looking back eagerly at Jack's earnest gesticulations, walked a youth.