local situation will prevent us from being swept into its vortex. The constitution, which was proposed by the federal convention, has been adopted by the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. No state has rejected it. The convention of Maryland is now sitting, and will probably adopt it, as that of South Carolina will do in May. The other conventions will assemble early in the summer. Hitherto, there has been much greater unanimity in favour of the proposed government than could have been reasonably expected. Should it be adopted (and I think it will be), America will lift up her head again, and in a few years become respectable among the nations. It is a flattering and consolatory reflection, that our rising republic has the good wishes of all philosophers, patriots and virtuous men, in all nations; and that they look upon it as a kind of asylum for mankind. God grant that we may not be disappointed in our honest expectations by our folly and perverseness! With sentiments of the purest attachment and esteem, I have the honour to be, my dear marquis, your most obedient and humble servant, GEORGE WASHINGTON. P.S. If the duke de Lauzun is still with you, I beg you will thank him, in my name, for his kind remembrance of me, and make my compliments to him. May 1st.-Since writing the above, I have been favoured with a duplicate of your letter, in the hand-writing of a lady, and cannot close this without acknowledging my obligations to the flattering postcript of the fair transcriber. In effect, my dear marquis, the characters of this interpreter of your sentiments are so much fairer than those through which I have been accustomed to decipher them, that I already consider myself as no small gainer by your matrimonial connexion; especially as I hope that your amiable amanuensis will not forget, sometimes, to add a few annotations of her own to your original text. G. W. VERSES WRITTEN IN SHORT HAND UPON THE BACK OF A THOUSAND POUND BANK NOTE. THE following effusion is from the pen of a banker's clerk, who, about forty years ago, was well known in Lombard Street by the familiar name of JEMMY TAYLOR. He has been dead many years, and it is the only production that can with any degree of certainty be traced to him. What strange vicissitudes of fate, This poor bank note has known!- My lord demands the bargain'd price, With mouldy bonds and legal pow'rs, From hence, too soon, alas! 'twas torn, But how it shock'd Britannia's + pride! Here, barter'd for a pigmy race, *The cashier who signed it, Thompson. + Alluding to the figure of Britannia in the corner of the bank-notes. The fatal tree was some sign, which it was then customary for bankers to have. The house of Smith, Wright, and Gray, in Lombard Street, was known by the sign of the "Three Kings," and another, in Cornhill, the "Bunch of Grapes;" and even now there are bankers in the Strand and Fleet Street, whose original signs of the Anchor, and the Leathern Bottle, were, not long ago, remaining. § A "banker's runner" was then the term for one who is now chiefly employed in presenting bills, &c. for payment. In Jermyn Street was the house of Graham and Co. eminent bankers. And here again new scenes arise, Of chequered chance the sport: Stands thund'ring through the court. And now again fresh ills it knows, Can Fate no gentler lot contrive? At night, in solemn pomp convey'd There sleeps with gems and rings collate, ON KISSING. IT was a custom among the ancients to place infants, just born, on the ground, whence the parents, or the next in blood, affectionately raised them up, and, in proof of bene * Byde, a dashing junior partner in the then firm of Archer, Byde, and Co. whose house was in White Hart Court. + Crawford, Maxwell, &c. clerks to eminent city bankers. Bob Maxwell was chief clerk to Messrs. Brown, Collinson, and Co. The author seems to have closely taken off their predominant foibles or singularities. "No. 5, Lombard Street," seems to have been a house of very little business, and the safe place, or strong room, where the note was lodged, was adjoining to the pantry. volence and affection, impressed a kiss upon their lips. To the circumstance of placing them upon the ground, Juvenal alludes, when he says, According to Zenodotus, the people of Abydos, at public and solemn festivals, took infants from the arms of their nurses, who attended on purpose, and carried them round to be kissed by those who were present. Silvianus Massiliensis, in one of his epistles, says, "Kiss the feet of your parents like a maid servant, their hands as a pupil, their lips as a daughter." It was formerly the custom to kiss, by putting ear to ear, as appears by the following epigram: "Oscula posco, meis tu libas auribus aures Nostra tuis tundens tempora temporibus. To this mode of kissing there is frequent allusion in the ancient writers, both Greek and Latin, and, in particular, by Plautus. Parents also took their children by the ears when they kissed them. There is at Rome an ancient monument, on which a winged Cupid is represented as taking a female by the ears and kissing her. The women of England (says Polydore Virgil) not only salute their relations with a kiss, but all persons promiscously; and this ceremony they repeat, gently touching them with the lips, not only with grace, but without the least immodesty. Such, however, as are of the blood-royal, do not kiss their inferiors, but offer the back of the hand, as men do by way of saluting each other. Erasmus writes in raptures to one of his friends on this subject: "Did you but know, my Faustus," says he, “the pleasures which England affords, you would fly here on winged feet, and, if your gout would not allow you, you would wish yourself a Dædalus. To mention to you one among many things, here are nymphs of the loveliest looks, goodhumoured, easy of access, and whom you would prefer even to your favourite Muses. Here also prevails a custom never enough to be commended, that wherever you come, every one receives you with a kiss, and when you take your leave, every one gives you a kiss; when you return, kisses again meet you. If any one leaves you, they leave you with a kiss; if you meet any one, the first salutation is a kiss; in short, wherever you go, kisses everywhere abound; which, my Faustus, did you once taste how very sweet, and how very fragrant they are, you would not, like Solon, wish for ten years' exile in England, but would desire there to spend the whole of your life.” Antonio Perez, secretary to the embassy from Philip the Second, of Spain, writes thus to the earl of Essex: "I have this day, according to the custom of your country, kissed, at an entertainment, seven females, all of them accomplished in mind, and beautiful in person.' Dr. Pierius Winsemius, historiographer to their high mightinesses, the states of Friezland, in his Chronijck van Frieslandt, printed in 1622, informs us, that the pleasant custom of kissing was utterly unpractised and unknown in England (just as it is this day in New Zealand, where sweethearts only know how to touch noses when they wish to be kind), until the fair princess Rouix, the daughter of king Hengist, of Friezland, "pressed the beaker with her lipkens,' (little lips,) and saluted the amorous Vortigern with a husjen, (little kiss.) ANNE BOLEYN. AMONG the Harleian MSS. there is (No. 2252) " A Ditty, setting forth the inconstancy of Fortune, from a fable of a falcon, who flew from the other birds to the top of a mountain, adorned with a fine rose-tree, where a loving lion chose her a nest." Wanley has ventured on an explanation of this allegory, which carries with it great appearance of probability. By the falcon," he says, "is meant queen Anne Boleyn, it being her device; by the mountain, England, and by the lion, king Henry VIII.” The poem, though distinguished by the quaintness of the older times, is interesting and curious. It thus commences : "In a fresshe mornynge among the flowrys, Swetly the byrds were syngynge amonge the shewrys |