A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO. May the Babylonish curse Strait confound my stammering verse, To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT! Half my love or half my hate; Thou through such a mist dost show us, Bacchus we know, and we allow As the false Egyptian spell Brother of Bacchus, later born, For the smaller sort of boys, Stinkingest of the stinking kind, Nay, rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Or, as men, constrain'd to part While their sorrow's at the height For I must (nor let it grieve thee, CHARLES LAMB. WIT OF CHARLES LAMB. THE PLEASURES OF LONDON.-Streets, streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens; shops sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat seamstresses, ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the streets with spectacles (you may know them by their gait), lamps lighted at night, pastry-cook and silversmiths' shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise of coaches, dreary cry of mechanic watchmen by night, with bucks reeling home drunk; if you happen to wake at midnight, cries of fire and stop thief; Inns of Court, with their learned air, and stalls and butteries just like Cambridge Colleges; old book stalls, Jeremy Taylors," "Burtons on Melancholy, and "Religio Medici' on every stall. These are thy pleasures, O London! NOTHING TO DO.-Positively the best thing a man can have to do is nothing, and, next to that, perhaps, good works. MISERS. The passion for wealth has worn out much of its grossness by track of time. Our ancestors certainly conceived of money as able to confer a distinct gratification in itself, not alone considered simply as a symbol of wealth. The oldest poets, when they introduce a miser, constantly make him address his gold as his mistress; as something to be seen, felt, and hugged; as capable of satisfying two of the senses at least. The substitution of a thin, unsatisfying medium for the good old tangible gold, has made avarice quite a Platonic affection in comparison with the seeing, touching and humbling pleasures of the old Chrysophilities. A bank-note can no more satisfy the touch of a true sensualist in this passion, than Creusa could return her husband's embrace in the shades. A miser is sometimes a grand personification of Fear. He has a fine horror of Poverty; and he is not content to keep Want from the door, or at arm's length-but he places it, by heaping wealth upon wealth, at a sublime dis tance. CANNIBALS.-Lamb writes to his friend Manning to dissuade him from going to China, and endeavors to instil the fear of cannibals into his mind: "Some say the Tartars are cannibals, and then conceive a fellow eating my friend, and adding the cool malignity of mustard and vinegar." THE BEST KIND OF ACID.-Martin Burney was one day explaining the three kinds of acid, very lengthily, to Charles Lamb, when the latter stopped him by saying: "The best of all kinds of acid, however, as you know, Martin, is uityassiduity.' GOOD ACTIONS.-The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. PAYING FOR THINGS.-One cannot bear to pay for articles he used to get for nothing. When Adam laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamia, I think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard, where he had so many for nothing. THAT SAME OLD 'COON. We were sitting on the store-porch of a small Virginia village. I was one of the party, and Martin Heiskill was the other Martin had been out fishing, which was an unusual thing for him. one. "Yes, sir," said he, as he held up the small string of fish which he had laid carefully under his chair when he sat down to light his pipe; that's all I've got to show for a day's work. But 'tain't often that I waste time that way. I don't b'lieve in huntin' fur a thing that ye can't see. If fishes sot on trees, now, and ye could shoot at 'em, I'd go out and hunt fishes with anybody. But it's mighty triflin' work to be goin' it blind in a mill-pond." I ventured to state that there were fish that were occasionally found on trees. In India, for instance, a certain fish climbs trees. "A which what's? exclaimed Martin, with an arrangement of pronouns peculiar to himself. "Oh, yes!" he said when I had told him all I knew about this bit of natural history. "That's very likely. I reckon they do that up North, where you come from, in some of them towns you was tellin' me about, where there's so many houses that they tech each other." "That's all true about the fishes, Martin," said I, wisely making no reference to the houses, for I did not want to push his belief too hard; "but we'll drop them now. ter. "Yes," said he, "I think we'd bet Martin was a good fellow and no fool; but he had not travelled much, and had no correct ideas of cities, nor, indeed, of much of anything outside of his native backwoods. But of those backwoods he knew more than any other man I ever met. He liked to talk, but he resented tall stories. Martin," said I, glad to change the subject, "do you think there'll be many 'coons about, this fall?" "About as many as common, I reckon," he answered. What do you want to know fur?" I'd like to go out 'coon-hunting," I said; "that's something I have never tried.' "Well," said he, "I don't s'pose your goin will make much difference in the number of 'em, but what's the good uv it? You'd better go 'possum-huntin'. You kin eat a 'possum." 66 Don't you ever eat 'coons?" I asked. Eat 'coons?" he exclaimed, with contempt. "Why, there isn't a nigger in this county'd eat a coon. They ain't fit to eat.' "I should think they'd be as good as 'possums," said I. "They feed on pretty much the same things, don't they? "Well, there ain't much difference, that way; but a 'possum's a mighty dif ferent thing from a 'coon, when ye come to eat him. A 'possum's more like a kind o' tree-pig, An' when he's cooked, he's sweeter than any suckin'-pig you ever see. But a 'coon's more like a cat. Who'd eat cats?" I was about to relate some city sausage stories, but I refrained. "To be sure," continued Martin, "there's Col. Tibbs, who says he's eat 'coon-meat, and liked it fust-rate; but then ag'in, he says frogs is good to eat, so ye see there's no dependin' on what people say. Now, I know what I'm a talkin' about; 'coons ain't fit fur human bein's to eat." "What makes you hunt 'em, then?" I asked. "Hunt 'em fur fun," said the old fellow, striking a lucifer match under his chair, to re-light his pipe. "Ef ye talk about vittles, that's one thing; an' ef ye talk about fun, that's another thing. An' I don't know now whether you'd think it was fun. I kinder think you wouldn't. I reckon it'd seem like pretty hard work to you. I suppose it would," I said; "there are many things that would be hard work to me, that would be nothing but sport to an old hunter like you.' You're right, there, sir. You never spoke truer than that in your life. There is no man inside o' six counties that's hunted more'n I have. I've been at it ever sence I was a youngster; an' I've got a lot o' fun out uv it-more fun than anything else, fur that matter. You see, afore the war, people used to go huntin' more for real sport than they do now. An' 'twa'n't because there was more game in this country then than there is now, fur there wa'n't-not half as much. There's more game in Virginny now than there's been any time this fifty years.” I expressed my surprise at this statement, and he continued: "Well, so it does, sometimes," said Martin; "but half the people ain't got no time. Now it's different with me, because I'm not a-farmin'. An' then it ain't everybody that kin git 'em. It takes a kind o' eddication to hunt beaver. But you was a-askin' about 'coons.' "Yes," I said. "I'd like to go 'coonhunting.' 66 "There's lots o' fun in it," said he, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and putting up his cowhide boots on the top of the porch-railing in front of him. "It all stands to reason, plain enough. Ef you don't kill them wild critters off, they'll jist breed and breed, till the whole country gits full uv 'em. An' nobody had no time to hunt 'em durin' the war -we was busy huntin' different game then, and sometimes we was hunted ourselves; an' since then the most uv us has had to knuckle down to work-no time for huntin' when you've got to do your own hoein' and ploughin' or, at least, a big part uv it. An' I tell ye that back there in the mountains there's lots o' deer where nobody livin' about here ever saw 'em before, and as fur turkeys, and 'coons, and 'possums, there's more an' more uv 'em ev'ry year, but as fur beavers them confounded chills-and-'coon. They called him Haskinses 'coon, fever rep-tyles-there's jist millions uv 'em, more or less." "Do beavers have chills and fever?" I asked wonderingly. "No," said he; I wish they did. But they give it to folks. There ain't nothin' on earth that's raised the price o' quinine in this country like them beavers. Ye see, they've jist had the'r own way now, pretty much ever sence the war broke out, and they've gone to work and built dams across pretty nigh all the cricks we got, and that floods the bottomlands, uv course, and makes ma'shes and swamps, where they used to be fust-rate corn-land. Why, I tell ye, sir, down here on Colt's Creek there's a beaver-dam a quarter uv a mile long, an' the water's backed up all over everything. Ain't that enough to give a whole county the chills? An' it does it too. Ef the people'd all go and sit on that there dam, they'd shake it down. I tell ye, sir, the war give us, in this country, a good many things we didn't want, and among 'em's chills. Before the war, nobody never heard of sich things as chills round about hyar. "Tain't on'y the beavers, nuther. When ye can't afford to hire more'n three or four niggers to work a big farm, 'tain't likely ye kin do no ditchin', and all the branches and the ditches in the bottomlands fills up, an' a feller's best corn-fields is pretty much all swamp, and his family has to live on quinine." "I should think it would pay well to hunt and trap these beavers,' I remarked. "About two or three years afore the war, I went out on a 'coon-hunt, which was the liveliest hunt I ever see in all my life. I never had sich a good hunt afore, nur never sence. I was a-livin' over in Powhattan, and the 'coon was Haskinses because he was 'most allus seen some- which is contrary to the natur' of a 'coon, which keeps dark all day an' on'y comes out arter dark. But this here 'coon o' Haskinses was different from any 'coon anybody ever see in all this world. Sometimes ye'd see him a-settin' down by a branch, a-dippin' his food inter the water every time he took a bite, which is the natur' of a coon but if ye put yer hand inter yer pocket fur so much as a pocketpistol, he'd skoot afore ye could wink. "Well, I made up my mind 'I'd go out after Haskinses 'coon, and I got up a huntin' party. 'Twa'n't no trouble to do that. In them days ye could git up a huntin' party easier than anything else in this whole world. All ye had to do was to let the people know, an' they'd be thar, black an' white. Why, I tell ye, sir, they used to go fox-huntin' a lot in them days, an' there wasn't half as many foxes as ther' is now, nuther. If a feller woke up bright an' early, an' felt like foxhuntin', all he had to do was to git on his horse, and take his dogs and his horn, and ride off to his nex' neighbor's, an' holler. An' up'd jump the nex' feller, and git on his horse, and take his dogs, and them two'd ride off to the nex' farm an' holler, an' keep that up till ther' was a lot uv 'em, with the'r hounds, and away they'd go, tip-it-ty-crack, after the fox an' the hounds-fur it didn't take long fur them dogs to scar' up a fox. An' they'd keep it up, too, like good fellers, Ther' was a party uv 'em, once, started out of a Friday mornin', and the'r fox, which was a red fox (fur a gray fox ain't no good fur a long run) took 'em clean over into Albemarle, and none uv 'em didn't get back home till arter dark, Saturday. That was the way we used to hunt. "Well, I got up my party, and we went out arter Haskinses 'coon. We started out pretty soon arter supper. Ole Tom Haskins himself was along, because, uv course, he wanted to see his 'coon killed; an' ther' was a lot of other fellers that you wouldn't know ef I was to tell ye the'r names. Ye see, it was 'way down at the lower end of the county that I was a-livin' then. An' ther' was about a dozen niggers with axes, an' five or six little black boys to carry light-wood. There was no less than thirteen dogs, all 'coon-hunters. a right smart dog to hunt a 'coon; and sometimes ye kin train a dog, thet ain't a reg'lar huntin'-dog, to be a fust-rate 'coon-dog, pertickerlerly when the fightin' comes in. To be sure, ye want a dog with a good nose to him to foller up a 'coon; but ye want fellers with good jaws and teeth, and plenty of grit, too. We had thirteen of the best 'coon-dogs in the whole world, an' that was enough fur any one 'coon, I say; though Haskinses 'coon was a pertickerler kind of a 'coon, as I tell ye. Pretty soon arter we got inter Haskinses oak woods, jist back o' the house, the dogs got on the track uv a 'coon, an' after 'em we all went, as hard as we could skoot. Uy course we didn't know that it was Haskinses 'coon we was arter; but we made up our minds, afore we started, thet when we killed a 'coon and found it wasn't Haskinses 'coon, we'd jist keep on till we did find him. We didn't 'spect to have much trouble a-findin' him, fur we know'd pretty much whar he lived, and we went right thar. 'Tain't often anybody hunts fur one pertickerler 'coon; but that was the matter this time, as I tell ye.". It was evident, from the business-like way in which Martin Heiskill started into this story, that he wouldn't get home in time to have his fish cooked for supper, but that was not my affair. It was not every day that the old fellow chose to talk, and I was glad enough to have him go on as long as he would. "As I tell ye," continued Martin, looking steadily over the toe of one of his boots, as if taking a long aim at some distant turkey, "we put off, hot and heavy, arter that ar 'coon, and hard work it was too. The dogs took us down through the very stickeryest part of the woods, and then down the holler by the edge of Lumley's mill-pond-whar no human bein' in this world ever walked or run afore, I truly b'lieve, fur it was the meanest travellin' ground I ever see and then back inter the woods ag'in. But 'twa'n't long afore we came up to the dogs abarkin' and howlin' around a big chestnutoak about three foot through, an' we knew we had him. That is, ef it wa'n't Haskinses 'coon. Ef it was his 'coon, may be we had him, and may be we hadn't. The boys lighted up their lightwood torches, and two niggers with axes bent to work at the tree. And them as |