me into hell!" "No, sir," says the guide, "I have made no mistake; this is really the earth, and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel manner; they have more sense, and more of what men (vainly) call humanity."

MEMORIAL TO CONGRESS ON SLAVERY.

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birthright of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity and the principles of their institution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection-that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people-that you will promote mercy and justice toward this distressed race-and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men.1

FRANCIS HOPKINSON, 1737-1791.

FRANCIS HOPKINSON, the son of Thomas Hopkinson, an English gentleman who emigrated to the colonies in the early part of the eighteenth century, was born in Philadelphia in 1737. His father dying when he was quite young, his education devolved upon his mother, who is said to have been a woman of more than common powers of mind, and who took every pains to foster the genius and to cultivate the talents which she saw her son possessed, as well as to

This may be found in the "Federal Gazette," February, 1790, but two months before the death of the illustrious sage.

instruct him in the pure principles of Christian morals. From school he was sent to the College of Philadelphia, afterwards the "University of Pennsylvania," and then commenced the study of law, and, after the usual period, entered upon its practice. In 1766, he went to England, where he remained two years. On his return he married Miss Ann Borden, of Bordentown, N. J., in which place he established himself in his profession. His legal attainments, general knowledge, and ardent patriotism soon acquired for him a high reputation, and in 1776 he was chosen by the State of New Jersey as one of her representatives in Congress, and, in this capacity, he signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1779, he succeeded George Ross as Judge of the Admiralty of the State of Pennsylvania, which he held for ten years, until the organization of the Federal Government, when he received from General Washington a commission as Judge of the United States, which office he held till the day of his death, which took place on the 9th of May, 1791.

Great as Judge Hopkinson's reputation was as an advocate while at the bar, and distinguished as he was for his learning, judgment, and integrity when upon the bench, he was, perhaps, still more known as a man of letters, of general knowledge, of fine taste, but above all, for his then unrivalled powers of wit and satire. Dr. Rush, after speaking of his varied attainments, says: "But his forte was humor and satire, in both of which he was not surpassed by Lucian, Swift, or Rabelais. These extraordinary powers were consecrated to the advancement of the interests of patriotism, virtue, and science." This praise, however strong, is not, in my estimation, the language of exaggeration, for I hardly know where to find papers of more exquisite humor than among the writings of Francis Hopkinson. His paper on the "Ambiguity of the English Language," to show the ridiculous mistakes that often occur from words of similar sounds, used the one for the other; on "White Washing;" on "A Typographical Method of Conducting a Quarrel," which made friends of two fierce newspaper combatants; "The New Roof," an allegory in favor of the Federal Constitution; the "Specimen of a Collegiate Examination," to turn some branches, and the mode of studying them, into ridicule; and "The Battle of the Kegs," are all papers which, while they are fully equal to any of Swift's writings for wit, have nothing at all in them of Swift's vulgarity.

SPECIMEN OF A COLLEGIATE EXAMINATION.

METAPHYSICS.

PROFESSOR. What is a SALT-BOX ?

STUDENT. It is a box made to contain salt.
PROF. How is it divided?

STU. Into a salt-box and a box of salt.

PROF. Very well! show the distinction.

STU. A salt-box may be where there is no salt; but salt is absolutely necessary to the existence of a box of salt.

PROF. Are not salt-boxes otherwise divided?

STU. Yes; by a partition.

PROF. What is the use of this partition?

STU. To separate the coarse salt from the fine.
PROF. HOW? think a little.

STU. To separate the fine salt from the coarse.

PROF. To be sure; it is to separate the fine from the coarse; but are not salt-boxes yet otherwise distinguished?

STU. Yes; into possible, probable, and positive.
PROF. Define these several kinds of salt-boxes.

STU. A possible salt-box is a salt-box yet unsold in the hands of the joiner.

PROF. Why so?

STU. Because it hath never yet become a salt-box in fact, having never had any salt in it; and it may possibly be applied to some other use.

PROF. Very true; for a salt-box which never had, hath not now, and perhaps never may have, any salt in it, can only be termed a possible salt-box. What is a probable salt-box?

STU. It is a salt-box in the hand of one going to a shop to buy salt, and who hath sixpence in his pocket to pay the grocer; and a positive salt-box is one which hath actually and bona fide got salt in it.

PROF. Very good:-but is there no instance of a positive salt-box, which hath no salt in it?

STU. I know of none.

PROF. Yes: there is one mentioned by some authors: it is where a box hath by long use been so impregnated with salt, that, although all the salt hath been long since emptied out, it may yet be called a salt-box, with the same propriety that we say a salt-herring, salt beef, &c. And in this sense, any box that may have accidentally, or otherwise, been long steeped in

brine, may be termed positively a salt-box, although never designed for the purpose of keeping salt. But tell me, what other division of salt-boxes do you recollect?

STU. They are further divided into substantive and perdant: a substantive salt-box is that which stands by itself on the table or dresser; and a pendant is that which hangs upon a nail against the wall.

PROF. What is the idea of a salt-box?

STU. It is that image which the mind conceives of a saltbox when no salt-box is present.

PROF. What is the abstract idea of a salt-box?

STU. It is the idea of a salt-box abstracted from the idea of a box, or of salt, or of a salt-box, or of a box of salt.

PROF. Very right; and by these means you acquire a most perfect knowledge of a salt-box; but tell me, is the idea of a salt-box a salt idea?

STU. Not unless the ideal box hath ideal salt in it.

PROF. True; and therefore an abstract idea cannot be either salt or fresh, round or square, long or short; for a true abstract idea must be entirely free of all adjuncts. And this shows the difference between a salt idea and an idea of salt. Is an aptitude to hold salt an essential or an accidental property of a salt-box?

STU. It is essential; but if there should be a crack in the bottom of the box the aptitude to spill salt would be termed an accidental property of that salt-box.

PROF. Very well! very well indeed!-What is the salt called with respect to the box?

STU. It is called its contents.

PROF. And why so?

STU. Because the cook is content quo ad hoc to find plenty of salt in the box.

PROF. You are very right-I see you have not misspent your time: but let us now proceed to

LOGIC.

PROF. How many parts are there in a salt-box?

STU. Three. Bottom, top, and sides.

PROF. How many modes are there in salt-boxes.

STU. Four. The formal, the substantial, the accidental, and the topsy-turvy.

PROF. Define these several modes.

STU. The formal respects the figure or shape of the box, such as round, square, oblong, and so forth; the substantial

respects the work of the joiner; and the accidental depends upon the string by which the box is hung against the wall. PROF. Very well; and what are the consequences of the accidental mode?

STU. If the string should break the box would fall, the salt be spilt, the salt-box broken, and the cook in a bitter passion; and this is the accidental mode with its consequences.

PROF. How do you distinguish between the top and bottom of a salt-box?

STU. The top of a box is that part which is uppermost, and the bottom that part which is lowest in all positions.

PROF. You should rather say the lowest part is the bottom and the uppermost part is the top. How is it then if the bottom should be the uppermost?

STU. The top would then be the lowermost; and so the bottom would become the top, and the top would become the bottom; and this is called the topsy-turvy mode, which is nearly allied to the accidental, and frequently arises from it.

PROF. Very good; but are not salt-boxes sometimes single, and sometimes double?

STU. Yes.

PROF. Well, then mention the several combinations of saltboxes with respect to their having salt or not.

STU. They are divided into single salt-boxes having salt; single salt-boxes having no salt; double salt-boxes having salt; double salt-boxes having no salt; and single double saltboxes having salt and no salt.

PROF. Hold! hold! you are going too far.

ON WHITE WASHING.1

DEAR SIR: The peculiar customs of every country appear to strangers awkward and absurd, but the inhabitants consider them as very proper and even necessary. Long habit imposes on the understanding, and reconciles it to anything that is not manifestly pernicious or immediately destructive.

I have read somewhere of a nation (in Africa, I think) which is governed by twelve counsellors. When these counsellors are to meet on public business, twelve large earthen jars are set in two rows, and filled with water. The counsellors enter the apartment one after an other, stark naked, and each leaps

A letter from a gentleman in America to his friend in Europe.