rally considered a point of honour among the younger descendants of the old Virginians, to have the first call for a Christmas present, whether they get it or not. "Come boys," exclaimed our uncle, "your father in giving you educations, has not forgotten, I am certain, to instruct you in the difficult art of making good egg-nog; come, lend us a hand, as the sailors have it. Carmine, you are fond of colours, compound that yellow and white sugar together." The old gentleman, as I found, was very fond of a pun, and never failed to make one when he could, or to laugh at it when it was made; and upon this occasion, a most enlivening burst escaped him. Frank," continued he, "while Jeannette and the painter are preparing the eggs, do you take this bottle and go into the cellar; turn to the left and unlock the door with this key; when you have got into the vault, look for the barrel marked on the head 'ditto Peach, 1804:' fill your bottle with it and return." These directions he gave with great minuteness, and I soon returned with the correct kind of spirit. My uncle was very particular in the formation of the bowl; he kept the painter grinding the yelk for some time, before he would pour in the sugar and spirit; and then the brandy was only allowed to flow in a very small stream from as high an elevation as the raising of his hand would allow ; the milk was next very cautiously administered, by constant stirring, and at last the transparent foam surmounted the whole preparation; like

"The baboon's blood,

To make the mixture slab and good.".

"I never saw but one man," said my uncle, (tasting a spoonful of the egg-nog very critically,) "I say I never saw but one man, who could excel me in making a bowl of this kind. He was a little fat, redfaced fellow, who was from some place near the Peaks of Otter in Bedford, who served with me some twenty years ago in the Assembly. He here the door suddenly opened, and the captain and officers of the frigate in the river, in splendid uniforms made their appearance. My uncle, with that regard towards the gallant sons of the American Navy, which they so richly deserve, had upon the preceding evening, sent them an invitation to spend the next day at his house. An introduction in old Virginia is generally but a very short step from familiar acquaintance, and in the time that a glass or two of egg-nog was drunk, Carmine, myself, the captain and officers were upon the easiest terms.

A large company was assembled to dine that day at my uncle's residence. Besides the captain and officers, there were all the gentlemen acquaintances of my uncle, for ten miles around him, together with several strangers. Amongst the rest, I was particularly struck with the appearance of a tall thin young man, with a mild, though pensive cast of countenance, dressed in a full, clerical suit of black; and with the contrast of a stout, brawny, careless, though genteel looking personage, with a very peculiar comic squint of one eye. The first, my uncle informed me, in a whisper, was a young Minister, who had been a great traveller and Missionary; the other was a gentleman from the back woods, or

Western country; "and considering," says the old gentleman, "that he is from among a set of savages on the Kanawha river, he is a very shrewd, humourous fellow." After a grace from the Minister, the company proceeded to discuss one of those bounteous, over-flowing dinners, which, upon every occasion, festival or otherwise, adorns the board of a low-land Virginian. There was the never-failing, ever enduring ham and turkey; there were wild fowl and tame fowl; partridges and ducks: white perch and black perch; oysters and crabs; every kind of vegetable and confectionary, the names of which I have entirely forgotten, except a massive poundcake, whose iced walls rose above the custard bowl like the Grand Tower Rock over the waters of the Mississippi. The ambrosial egg-nog was rapidly poured forth in libations to mirth, and medically speaking, as my friend Doctor Wriggle observed, "formed an admirable menstruum to dissolve the heterogeneous mass of viands which were swallowed." After the cloth was removed, and wine placed upon the table, a health was proposed by the captain to their host, my uncle; it was drunk, and the ladies retired. My uncle, in return, filled a bumper to the Navy, which was drunk with applause; even the pensive countenance of the young Minister light ened as he raised the glass and slightly touched it with his lips.

There was an appearance of dejection and melancholy about this person, that excited my curiosity and sympathy, though the pale, emaciated face and deep sunk eye showed plainly that disease, if not

distress of mind, was rapidly preying upon him. The conversation was growing animated. The backwoodsman and my uncle were enjoying some marvellous good joke in an obstreporous laugh; Carmine was explaining to one of the officers the meaning of some mutilated sketch, and the whole company were amusing themselves in pairs, save the Minister, who sat perfectly abstracted and seemingly unconscious of the mirth around him. The quick eye of my uncle saw the deep depression of the stranger's feelings, and filling his glass, passed the bottle around. "Come, gentlemen," said he, "a health; Mr. Coon, my friend, has promised to relate a good tale. Empty your glasses and attend." The backwoodsman looked at my uncle not with surprise, for he appeared to be one of those personages who are never at a loss; but he seemed to pause a moment for preparation, and clearing his voice with his head slightly turned upon his left shoulder and one eye cock'd, he thus related the story of

THE LAST OF THE COCK'D HATS.

"I was born," said the backwoodsman, "upon Poka Creek in the western part of this State, and from my earliest infancy have been familiar with all the stages of civilized comfort, from the small shanty of maple bark slanting off from a fallen tree, up to the less romantic, but much more comfortable edifice of brick. 'Tis strange that custom and early associations have endeared to me the pristine, unsophisticated mode of life with all its privations, in which

I spent my infancy, and make me regret that I should have ever arisen above the luxury of the moccasin shoe or puncheon floor. But to proceed; in my youth, when a poor man came into the neighbourhood to settle, and those who came there were generally very poor, the neighbours would gather together from far and near, dressed up in their hunting shirts, leggins and moccasius, with a tremendous rifle (their constant companion in the wilderness) on their shoulders, and a long buckhorn-handled knife and tomahawk stuck in sheaths, which dangled from their pouches. Each man would also bring an axe, and for no other compensation than a dram or two of whiskey, would turn in to work with might and main, and before the setting of the sun a curious misshapen log-house would appear in the midst of the howling wilderness.

The next day, would commence the clearing and log-rolling, and at night the house warming. Barefooted, strapping girls and sturdy huntsmen would labour away upon the dirt floor to the music of a banjo and jewsharp, shewing more strength and good will than elegance in the real dig-potatoe step of old Virginia.

This is the first step, and I have no doubt the happiest in the various grades or stages, which accrues in the progress to the most refined state of civilized society. Let those who doubt it listen with what rapture one of our old toothless backwoods dames will descant upon the fun and frolics of her earlier years at one of these junketings, log-rollings or cabin-raisings. Oh! they were happy days,