lapdogs and Canary birds; but every speech was a blunder, and the monosyllabic answers brought down my courage like so many popguns. At last, when all my resources had failed, we came to our journey's end, and I was left to stammer civil things to the party about my great delight, and so forth, while my uncle led my aunt, with much solemnity, to a conference in the adjoining room. I guessed very well what was going forward. In every pause of my civility, I could hear my uncle's voice proceeding in a sort of dead march, and, in one of the higher notes, I could plainly distinguish the word "tinker," and presently afterwards, "eighteen-pence," and "a score at the alehouse." The colour deepened in my cheeks, and my cousins began to titter, which they ascribed with perfect good-breeding to the pleasantry of my jokes, till I heard my tutor announced, and was summoned to appear before the conclave. My gentle aunt was sitting with her handkerchief to her eyes, my uncle with a sheet of foolscap paper in his hand, (which I afterwards found to be the muster-roll of my delinquencies,) and my tutor

thrumming upon the crown of his hat, as though he were beating time to my approach.

"Pray, sir,” said my uncle, who opened the proceedings, "will you oblige me with an account of the manner in which you usually spend your time?

My tutor cast an appealing look to me through the corner of his eye, as much as to say that I had more reputations than my own to take care of. I saw my cue, and was determined, if a lie would serve him, to give him the full benefit of it; it was not, however, given in that slapdash manner in which it ought to have been given, but bore a strong family likeness to lies in general.

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Why, sir," I stuttered, "I read Latin before breakfast, and Greek before luncheon, and history before dinner, and mathematics before supper."

"And Hebrew before bed-time," rejoined my uncle. "Very well, indeed; I am glad to find you so industrious. Pray, what Latin authors are you reading now?"

I felt a little puzzled; at last, I ventured

upon Homer and Xenophon, and Blackstone's Commentaries.

"I beg pardon," said my tutor, whose thrumming faculties were completely congealed, "he means Cæsar's Commentaries."

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Yes, sir, I mean Cæsar's Commentaries." "Oh, of course," replied my uncle, "and Horace, and Virgil, and Cicero, and the rest of the Greek philosophers. And now, as a specimen of your history, can you tell me who was the first Roman emperor?

I saw my tutor's lips move, and could distinguish that the name was in two words, so, for fear I should be thought at a loss, I bounced out at once with "Oliver Cromwell." My uncle smiled a ghastly smile, my aunt sobbed aloud, and my tutor wiped his forehead, as much as to "It is all over!" say,

Thus ended my examination in history and the classics, with which my uncle was so well satisfied, that he declined troubling me with mathematics, and straightway proceeded to my acquirements in other matters, for which he resumed the sheet of foolscap.

"You have no doubt," said he, "made

some pleasant acquaintance in the neighbourhood?"

I did not know exactly what to answer, and so I said, "Yes, sir, very."

“I am very happy to hear it. Will you be obliging enough to tell me who they are?”

This was a question neither classical nor historical, but I found it equally puzzling, and replied, that I did not exactly know who they

were.

"Very likely," said my uncle; "I will endeavour to assist you.'

With that, came a list of worthies, with their characters, and additions, so circumstantially detailed, that there was no possibility of disowning them, and I was reluctantly compelled to plead guilty to Billy the Skulker, Jemmy the Smasher, Dickey the Swiller, and a whole host of gentry, to whom whipping and the stocks were mere every-day amusements, and for whom the gibbet had no terrors.

My aunt sobbed louder and louder, and my tutor waxed warmer and warmer, and my uncle broke up the conference by wishing them joy of their protegé and pupil, who certainly did

ample credit to the foresight of the one and the learning of the other. Having, as he thought, sufficiently opened his sister's eyes, he strode, with a stately step, into the room where I had heard the rest of the party laughing at my expense, and in a few minutes, I had the happiness of seeing the barouche bear them off, at the rate of twelve miles an hour. I looked after them till they were fairly out of sight, burning with indignation at the disgrace I had undergone, and determined to be revenged on my uncle, by becoming a greater vagabond than ever.

When I had come a little to myself, the first sound I heard was the suave voice of my tutor, breathing the words of comfort into the ear of my aunt. "My dear madam," said he, "he was taken perfectly unawares. The most erudite man is unable to answer such abstruse questions upon the spur of the moment, and I am firmly of opinion that he is a much better scholar than his uncle.-Come here," he continued, addressing me, "and tell me who was the first Emperor of Rome."

"Alexander the Great."