CHAPTER. II.

Gravity is a mysterious carriage of the body, invented to cover the defects of the mind.

ROCHEFOUCAULT.

IN obedience to the order he had received on board the vessel, old Treadaway introduced his young charge (about six months old) in the village of Oakendale, as the orphan son of a sister of his own, lately deceased, and call'd him Philip Travers.

At ten years of age, the said Philip was a remarkably fine, bluff boy, with an open countenance, and dark-brown hair; but, so prone to mischief, that his supposed aunt declared," it was beyond her to manage him he was a nineted one." Nor did she complain without good ground: when he had no other method of amusing himself, he

would sweep down the dame's well-ranged crockery ware, from off the chimney-piece, cut the good man's casting nets to pieces, grease the old woman's spectacles, or, (on any particular occasion) if he could get possession of her huswife, would stick the seat of her chair full of needles.

Susan (who could boast no greater share of patience than the rest of her sex) seriously, though unwillingly, told her husband, she could no longer execute her domestic duties, unless Philip were removed from home, during some few hours in the day, and proposed to send him to a day-school; which proposal was readily acceded to by Barnaby; and, the following week, he escorted him to the house of Mr. Dennis O'Demagogue.

The aforesaid Mr. Dennis was as arbitrary and tyrannical, in his way, as any Ottoman Prince that ever sway'd the sceptre of Turkey; and as much hated and dreaded by those who were subject to his control. He was ignorant and cruel; supercilious to those he thought beneath him, and as submissive to his superiors; particularly, if he

had any point to carry, wherein their influence might benefit him. "They may laugh at me as much they please, for bowing," he would say, to himself; but, if I rise by stooping, they can't say I have made any very great bull, by my soul!" His person, moreover, was ludicrous. He had a large unmeaning countenance, spiteful eyes, overhung by a mixture of thick red and grey brows; a profusion of hair, of the same pieball hue, grew from his nostrils, and his head was adorn'd with an enormous bushy wig. He was extremely short and corpulent, with one leg some inches shorter than the other, which gave him a shambling gait, and, to remedy which, he wore a high shoe, or, as it is vulgarly call'd, a box-iron-heel. Added to this, he had a mighty big brogue, was a pedant, and, altogether, an object of ridicule, rather than veneration, amongst his pupils.

"This here be the young lad I told thee on, Measter Damycurgag," said Barnaby. Well, and, I hope he is a good lad; for, upon my conscience! he is not an ill-looking one. But, we should not judge from ap

pearance, before we have seen any thing of a person, at all. Can you read, my lad?" "I don't know,” replied Philip.

"Not know!-Arrah! what do you main by that?"

"I never tried."

"Never tried! upon my conscience! that is some raison. Don't you be quite so sharp in your answers, but learn to pay proper respect to your superiors. Go into school, and don't be giving me cause to reprehend you, there,—or Doctor Birch will be after making free with you, honey."

Barnaby shook the boy by the hand, and (telling him it was his aunt's wish, as well as his own, that he should attend to what his master said, and did, and copy him, as much as possible, in every thing) left him.

Away ran Philip to the school-room, where he was quickly surrounded by the pupils of old Demagogue; and, as he was not of a very saturnine disposition, he began to deliver his opinion of his new master, very freely, accompanied by an excellent imitation of his speech and manner; in which he was interrupted by the entrance of the

object of his ridicule-when he concluded with, "Oh! here comes the little gentleman, under the cauliflower-wig!"

Mr. O'Demagogue took his seat, gave two or three hems, and, addressing himself to his new scholar, said-" Come here, Mr. Terrible; bring your book in your hand, and let us see what we can do with the alphabet.-Arrah! move a little quicker, can't you?-Well, now, you see that letter, that's for all the world like the gable-end of your father's cabin, with a beam across the middle of it-what letter is that?"

"I don't know," said Philip.

"And why don't you know?"
"Because, I can't tell."

"That is called A, you see; and A stands for apple, or artichoke, or any other fruit of that sort-mind that.-And what's that next letter, that's German-cousin to the little jontleman that hums about the gardens, in his black bonnet, and yellow velvet breeches, sipping the flowers, and carries a mighty long sting in his tail?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know, again?-That is called B;