vengeful feeling, which would prompt us to instant and violent action. We hold such persons in greater horror than the robber or the murderer; and if there are beings who would be lightly punished by a long life of scorn and misery, and an eternity of torment, it is those who knowingly and wittingly endanger their country, to advance their own ends.

SAUL KNAPP-OR THE LIFE OF A YANKEE.

SAUL KNAPP's progenitors, as far back as chronicles enlighten us, were begotten and flourished as tillers of the earth in the healthy state of Vermont-the cradle of tall fellows. There it was that Saul, (to use his own words) "was bred, born, and brought up." The first reminiscence of his early progress presents him as a knock-kneed urchin, in crownless hat and feet guiltless of a shoe, whose time was divided between driving his father's kine to pasture and in being driven himself, will he nill he, "up the steep where fame's proud temple shines afar," by Methusalem Birch, who taught whilome the mysteries of Pike and Webster to the youth of Saul's native village. There is no record of Saul's boyish abilities; but from his own recollection, it appears that he was "wonderful set on by his mother," and "figured upon the whole as fast as most on 'em." Howbeit, he was not destined to pluck daises on Parnassus; for, at the discreet age of eighteen, his education was judged complete; and, as all the young Knapps but himself-for Saul was the youngest of ten-had married and swarmed, old Mrs. Knapp was probably anxious that her Saul should be doing something in the world, which might give evidence of his manhood,-for as to Knapp senior, he had long since abdicated the supreme authority in favor of his dame, and at this time, parcel blind and in his dotage, he was an unregarded supernumerary in his own establishment.

Saul, accordingly transferred from Methusalem's hands to the second post in the household, soon gave proofs of his genteel finish by becoming a member of the club, which met nightly at Paph Rhoades's tavern, and growing rapidly into notice at all turkey-matches and squirrel hunts. But, as yet, the desire of Mrs. Knapp's heart, that Saul should get married and carry on the line of the Knapps, at the homestead, was a remote possibility. Although he was regularly at meeting on Sundays, attired most gallantly in what courtesy denominated a longtailed coat, the cynosure of the bright eyes of the five Misses Derby, whose cheeks outvied red-peppers, and whose eyes outshone the ripe fox-grapes, and of many a blooming pickler and preserver, who thought, perchance, that the prospect of Saul and the farm was a smart chance to be aimed at; yet, despite smiles of invitation, red top-knots, and spinning-bees, quilting-parties, and Valentine's curiously spelt, he was not known to be guilty of more than one piece of sparking, which, as it was so peculiar, the reader will, I am persuaded, excuse me for introducing here entire.

Eunice Moray had long looked with approving eye, at Saul; and if "she never told her love," she did not let "concealment, like a worm i' the bud," pale her cheek-she looked daggers, if she spoke none. Suppose yourself, then, reader, peeping into the apartment which served the family of farmer Moray for kitchen, parlor and all,-the farmer himself, looking as if he had been taking Rip Van Winkle's nap, discussing a pipe, and old Mrs. Moray watching the evolutions of an immense spinning-wheel, whose harmonious hum gladdened the heart of the night-farcers far around with its note of comfort and home. Suppose the gentle Eunice seated on one end of what had once been a fine maple, but which now furnished at once a primitive seat, while the other extremity, blazing in the ample fire-place, diffused both warmth and light through the apartment. The light was aided by the beams of a dipt tallow candle, that, stuck to the back of a chair by a fork, shed its ray upon the maiden's labors, as she put the last finishing touches of art to a blue woollen stocking with a white toe, destined, as may be inferred, for no other foot than her honest sire's. From the rafters above,

swung the usual ornaments of peppers and yarbs; and many a pendant cup and platter, of polished delft or shining tin, reflected back the beam of the single luminary. Blue-ware and japanned pepper-boxes, iron candlesticks and a duckgun, formed the paraphernalia of the mantle-piece, all arranged in what is called very good taste, manifesting at once that there was the wherewithal, and what Father Paulus terms the "how-withal.”

Now, reader, suppose our friend Saul, showing himself into this comfortable nook, with very much the air of one, who, like Leon, "had stole a hen," and seating himself upon the extreme end of the log which Eunice occupied. The usual compliments passed, and the usual queries made. Saul, while he ponders a fitting subject to begin the converse sweet, amuses himself with counting the drops of tallow, as they fell from the aforesaid dipt candle on the floor, and in picking the superfluous wool from his new hat. The old people, thinking most properly that it belonged to the young folks "faire le frais de la conversation," took no further notice of Saul, who sat dumb as the statue of silence. Although courtship in those parts, did not then, nor does it now, manifest itself in many words, Eunice, probably, wondered at her lover's extreme bashfulness; but putting it all to account of her own charms, waited till love should break the spell. Mean time the evening waned and waned. The old farmer finished his pipe, kicked his brogues into a corner, and stumped off to bed. Mrs. Moray, considerately remembering the time when she was herself sparked, soon followed, and the lovers were left alone. But still, not a word spake Saul. As if possessed with a dumb spirit, he sat gazing on the candle in hope to catch a spark of inspiration thence; but none came. The dipt tallow burned out and was replenished; and by the time its successor had burned to its last flicker, the maiden, tired of so silent a spark, fell asleep. At last the light went out-the fire went out—why make a short story long? Saul,-what could he do else?-followed their example, and went out too.

This, I believe, was the first and last of Saul's amatory visits. In vain were the attractions of the five Misses Derby displayed for conquest hebdomadally; in vain the rich Mehitable Jessup, the heiress of two hundred acres of swamp meadow, sent him an invite, directed in her own fair caligraph, to "MR. Nap." Saul "shackled about the farm,” as his mother expressed it, until old Knapp slept with his fathers, and Saul the son reigned in his stead. Probably, the old farmer's estate, like that of many of our modern magnates, though imposing when kept together, was cut up into rather small slices among all the Knapps, who came in for a share of it; as it appears that Saul, about this time, found it necessary to give up "doing chores" at home, and to mark out some new and profitable avo

cation.

The next that is known of him represents our hero gracing the character of a peripatetic merchant. The smothered fire of enterprize, long smouldering, at length broke forth. His little all was invested in a new adventure, and he followed the star of fortune, at the tail of a tin cart, from north to south, from the Notch to the Alleghany. The traveler met him on every road, with his tumbrilshaped vehicle, hung round with glistening utensils of various descriptions, whose melodious jingle rejoiced the village housewives with its accustomed music, and harbingered his approach long before he was visible. He traded and swapped his way wherever profit beckoned him-his wares decorated the kitchens on both sides the Potomac. Habit and intercourse polished off the roughness of the diamond, and thanks to Nature and Methusalem Birch, Saul was a genius of no common order. Wo betide the rash spirit that encountered him in a bargain, or measured strength with him in a swap. His education received its finishing touch in that great school, the world, and versed in all the arts and mysteries of transmutation and imitation, he could tell, at a glance, the portion of tallow contained in a roll of pomatum, and whether the best nutmegs were manufactured from hickory or black oak.

Thus did Saul prosper in his vocation. Thus did wealth accumulate with experience, until he found himself, one sunny morning, standing by the waters of the mighty Ohio-his cart transmographied into a well-stocked pack, and his sorry Narraganset supplied by a walking-stick, meted into yards and inches, the 'cute vender of lace, tape, jewelry and calico. He had by this time visited, in turn, every corner of the country, however remote, that offered a mart for trade; nor were the most secluded settlements, where civilization reared a log-house or planted an acre of maize, secure from his penetrating and adventurous foot. In pursuit of the "diva pecunia," he climbed mountains, threaded forests and

swamps, swam rivers, and endured hunger and hardship with patience and perseverance that would have astonished Mungo Park. Full many a gem," and so forth; but if there was a man by nature fitted to discover the nearest road to Timbuctoo, or an along-shore north-west passage, that man was Saul Knapp. Such, to this day, is the eastern pedlar. Such is the stuff of which the men are made who people new worlds and revolutionize old ones.

And here stood Saul upon the woody shores of the mighty tributary to the Mississippi, not far from the junction where it pours its floods into the bosom of its mighty reservoir, as the river nobly foamed and flowed before him in its majesty, with its moss-covered oaks, the growth of centuries, darkening away behind him into the boundless forests untrodden by man, while opposite to him, abruptly rose the banks, clothed to their summits with the rank verdure of the west, and waving with the cedar and the pine. Had Saul been either you or I, reader, a throb of admiration, might, for a while, have filled his bosom; but no fancies of this sort ever passed through Saul's pericranium. The beauty of visible objects, to him, was implied in their pecuniary utility; forests, with him, bore no association other than cords of wood; nor did the cataract suggest any thought more sublime than a saw-mill; so, without a single romantic idea to make disturbance among his calculations of dollars and cents, ginghams and ticks, here he stood in contemplation deep, probably, more upon his probable distance from the smoke of human habitations, than in admiration of Nature's works. Probably he thought, while he deposited his burthen on the grass, and drew forth his homely store of provender, that the universal dish of ham and eggs or boiled chicken, with smoking vegetables, under cover, might be far preferable to a solitary picnic upon bread and cheese in the woods, although far less picturesque.

However, unloading himself of his pack, and drawing forth his canteen, he set to at his homely store with a traveler's appetite, doubtless solacing himself with the sage reflection, that victuals are better than company; for although a cheerful dinner-party is surely an exhilarating sight, yet that no assembly is so dismal as a large company of diners on a small dinner, is incontestible. The rippling murmur of a rivulet was in his ear, as he poured out his "eau de vie" into a hunting flask, and, in obedience to the invitation, he sought and found at a small distance, an insignificant stream, which leaping and chafing at the bottom of a ravine, which it probably had once filled with its ample waters, but into one corner of which now shrunk, by the drought, like Will Waddle of lyric celebrity, offered no unmeet illustration of pride and poverty; and had Saul been any thing of a moralist, which I have already said he was not, might have suggested a similie at the expense of many a threadbare son and daughter of somebody, who, living as the vulgar say by the skin of their teeth," keep up a constant hubble-bubble with their aristocratic ideas, their family, and are forever treading on the toes of all who have unfortunately neglected to bespeak a genealogy. Down into this ravine, at the bottom of which the little brook struggled along, like "ill-weaved ambition," our hero descended, like the pilgrim after the water of truth, in the Arabian tale. He quaffed the invigorating mixture, and was turning to reascend, when, with somewhat the same feelings with which Robinson Crusoe discovered the first foot-print on his island, Saul was suddenly aware, from the sound of oars and voices in his immediate vicinity, that there was, as the papers say, a new arrival."

Picturesque solitudes are not exactly the places where one may expect to meet with the best company, any more than a handsome person is the abiding place of fewest bad habits. ""Tis true 'tis pity," in both cases, yet 'tis true. Saul, with commendable caution, screened himself under the dwarf cedars that fringed his hiding-place, and peeping out to reconnoitre the "parvenus," saw, what, to use his own words, "pretty considerably flabbergasted" him. From his leafy covert met his eye, the unwelcome apparition of a party of Indians, in the act of landing from a large canoe, directly on the spot which he had so lately quitted. The party consisted of three males, with as many squaws, armed with rifles, and painted war-fashion-a fashion, which though mayhap becoming enough in the eyes of the Saukie beau monde, just then in Saul's estimation, gave their ugly physiognomies an aspect truly diabolical. His uncomfortable feelings were not allayed by the recollection of some little stories of a recent misunderstanding between the red-men and their white brethren, with some accompaniments of tomahawking and scalping, usual in such disputes. And on this account, feeling somewhat modest at thrusting himself uninvited into the company of these sons of lampblack and red-ochre, he remained snugly ensconced, until the Indians having

moored their bark, proceeded straight to the spot where Saul had reckoned (without his host) on making his repast.

Saul, upon making to me this recital, did not deny that he "began to feel queerish;" but he assured me that it was less at the possibility of being discovered, than of seeing his untouched dinner and his pack at the mercy of such unscrupulous heathen. These, the savages soon discovered and pounced upon, with the same noise and avidity that a dozen modern belles would upon Miss Thompson's latest case of fashions; and little dreaming of the inverted blessings which the unfortunate proprietor was showering upon their carcasses, with a din of tongues-say what you will of Indian dignity-which would have shamed a convention of old maids, the interlopers proceeded forthwith to overhaul the contents of his pack. In the snap of a rifle, calicoes, silks, glass-beads, giltbrooches, cotton yarn, bandanna 'kerchiefs, and all the hidden stores of his trade were ransacked with an unrelenting celerity that made the spot resemble Stewart's counter, after a morning visit from the fashionable Mrs. JSaul's very heart turned pale within him as he beheld the beautiful prints, fondly hoped by him to turn the heads and captivate the hearts of the fair ones of Cahokia, twisted around the greasy shoulders of an ancient squaw, complexioned like unplaned mahogany and more hideous than the night-mare, and his jewelry of rich price dangling amidst tin plates and wolves' teeth, from the neck of a scarlet and black warrior. Although Saul had never heard of Nessus and Dejanira, he classically wished that all the plagues of Egypt might stick to the robbers, whom he cursed by all the gods, and in all the terms known to Christian, Jew or Pagan. Tristram Shandy was a fool to him-blight and pestilence-death and annihilation were feathers to the weight of his denunciations; and in the inconsistency of his wrath, he swore to have revenge, if there were justice of the peace, selectmen or constable in Illinois. Feeling, however, that a new pack might be procured rather more easily than a new scalp, he took counsel in his rage, and prudently remained in his lurking-place, breathing softly and cautiously, and refraining from the least movement that might indicate to the savages the proximity of a living being.

The plunderers, having thoroughly rummaged Saul's wares, and decorated their persons with the spoils in such fashion that each resembled a bale of that curious fabric which country wives are wont to term patch-work, betook themselves at last to the canteen, which they discussed with such fervor of devotion, that it made but two circuits and was empty. The taste of the fire-water appeared to suit their palates marvellously, for they recommenced their search more furiously than ever, and to the crowning of their trespasses and Saul's mortification, succeeded in dragging from the bottom of the pack his choicest crypt of all, being nothing less than several bottles of what Saul had intended to produce in the West as prime and genuine Irish smoke,—although, reader, I may as well mention between ourselves, that Saul confessed to me that it was of the best Connecticut manufacture. However that might have been, Indians are no great critics, and our red friends sat down to this newly discovered treasure with the same right good will which you will sometimes see in an experienced sipper of the grape, when the host, after the third course, produces from some secret nook, a cobwebbed bottle, whose age may be guessed from its mellow richness and oily raciness, and from the air of holy and calm satisfaction with which the connoissieur allows it to meander between his lips. This new reinforcement soon put the heathens hors du combat every soul of them, and before they had drained the last bottle, they lay stretched upon the grass inanimate and helpless as so many gorged Anacondas.

Saul, seeing them thus disposed of, began to recollect his presence of mind, and to bethink himself of escaping such dangerous vicinity. The brook, near which he stood, emptied into the river not fifty yards distant, and giving one longing look at his pack, he stole softly along the bottom of the ravine until he came to the shore. A high bank was between him and his enemies, and while it concealed them from sight, he was so near that he could hear their drunken snoring and could see their canoe, moored in the ridge, not thirty paces off. A sudden thought struck him. Reconnoitering cautiously the situation of the drunken revellers, and satisfying himself that they were incapable of annoyance, he silently crept towards the canoe, reached and crawled into it, and laying himself along its bottom, cut the slight fastening by which it was moored; and slowly drifted from the shore until his frail bark feeling the impulse of the current, he launched off "in the full tide of successful experiment," and began to descend

the stream with a rapidity that soon carried him out of eye, ear, and rifle shot of its late proprietors.

As soon as by the aid of his paddles, Saul had placed himself beyond fear of pursuit, he had leisure to examine his bargain and give vent to his feelings. "Blast the varmint!" was his pious ejaculation, "this ere rotten craft have I got for as good a lot of plunder as a man might want to look at the bloody thievin critters!" And thus in good set Yankee terms he vented his spleen. O! what a capital invention for the vile, is that same faculty of cursing. There are your primitive savages, who are ignorant how to damn their foes-they kill them. Retention of ill-humor, always increases it, as the pent fire of a volcano bursts out more intensely. You will always find good-natured people given to cursing and swearing; and when a man cannot vent his anger thus, beware of him! it must find a passage somewhere. But this is a digression. Saul having thus disburthened his mind, his appetite found an opportunity of reminding him that he had not finished his dinner-"I wonder," thought he, "if the reptiles keep any stores ;" and he commenced, what his harassed mind had not hitherto allowed his thinking of-an examination into the value of his forced bargain. The canoe was of the largest size, and upon lifting up the grass-covering, Saul found that he had on board a lading of valuable furs, the produce apparently of some months' hunting, a good rifle, two silver watches and a deer-skin purse, probably the spoil of some unfortunate trader, for it was full of dollars; and, moreover, what was most immediately available to his present necessities, some dried venison and hoe-cake. " Well, I swon!" said Saul, as he recommenced his dinner, "'t aint such a mortal poor trade a'ter all."

In the course of time he arrived with his cargo at New-Orleans; and verily the dealers in furs soon found that they had a customer of a different calibre from the unsuspicious countrymen who had thitherto monopolized the market. ""T want," as Saul said, "the first offer that did for him-'t want a jack-knife for a beaver-skin that trip." Buyers began to suspect that furs were growing scarce in the wilderness-a report became current that the beavers were receding to the rocky mountains-skins rose in the market. Saul counted his profits and felt grateful to the Saukies. He did not, however, sojourn long at New-Orleans. "There were too many of us there a'ready," said he, and having made a successful hit, he had (a discretion which is seldom manifested by those who have ventured in the pool of commercial speculation) the wit to draw his stakes and forbear tempting fortune. He forsook a life of such uncertainty, and invested part of his gains in a tract of land in Ohio, which was offered him dog-cheap, by a brother Yankee who had been ruined in attempting to establish a newspaper and build a town somewhere on the outskirts of Louisiana. He applied to Saul with a moving tale of disasters, and so worked on our hero's tender part, that in consideration of the vendor's misfortunes, and being, as he said, from his own state, he forbore taking advantage of his poverty, and paid him nearly onefourth the considered value of the land.

Being satisfied that his title was unquestionable, Saul set off for his new land, with a head teeming with anticipations of improvements, manufactories and the Lord knows what not. On reaching the desired spot, he found that he had reckoned without his host, and that there were other Philistines in the West, besides Saukies. Alas! that "hawks should pike out hawks' een." His eastern friend had been too many for him-his land, of a truth, was as pretty a spot of earth as he could have wished, and the deed for it the only one on record worth a straw; but it was already furnished with tenants whom the former proprietor had omitted to make mention of, who occupied the land-not by any right or title precisely defined, as I think, in Coke or Blackstone-but under that prescriptive tenure which we quaintly term squatting. Every one knows what a squatter isa swarthy, lank, bareboned character, measuring some seven feet in height, who dresses in buck-skin, lives upon bear's meat, and never walks abroad without his rifle; who, with his wife, who is to an ordinary woman Glundalclitch to a Lilliputian boarding-school miss, and his six sons, any one of them fit to stand for double bounty in the tallest grenadier guards of Europe, comes from the Lord knows where, and sits him down in the first spot that suits his fancy, clears away the timber and erects his log-house with as much independent sang-froid as if a conveyance of the land had been made to him, signed, sealed, and delivered, according to law.

Saul found to his dismay that with such "Bejouians" meum and tuum were not regarded as orthodox argument, and that his plans of improvement looked