Tutor. Why, Sir, it is found even in Colleges that dunces triumph, and men of letters are disregarded by a general combination in favour of dulness.

Planter. Can you drive well, Sir ?*

Tutor. Drive, Sir, did you say? I really do not comprehend you.

Planter. I mean, Sir, can you keep your scholars in order?

Tutor. Yes, Sir, if they are left entirely to my direction.

super

Planter. Ah! that would not be. Mrs. H-, who is a woman of extensive learning, (she lost a fine opportunity once of learning French, and only a few years ago could write the best hand of any lady in Charleston,) Mrs. H— would intend your management of the school. Tutor. Mrs. H—, Sir, would do me honour. Planter. Mrs. H-, Sir, is, in the real sense of the word, a woman of literature; and her eldest daughter is a prodigy for her age. She could tell at nine years old whether a pudding was boiled enough; and now, though only eleven, can repeat Pope's Ode on Solitude by heart. Ah! Pope was a pretty poet; my wife is very fond of Pope.

* The term drive, requires some little note explanatory to the English reader. No man forgets his original trade. An Overseer on a Plantation, who preserves subordination among the negroes, is said to drive well; and Mr. H- having once been an Overseer himself, the phrase very naturally predomi→ nated in his mind.

You have read him, I make no doubt, Sir. What is your opinion of his works?

Tutor. In his Rape of the Lock, Sir, he exhibits most of the vis imaginandi that constitutes the poet; his Essay on Criticism is scarcely inferior to Horace's Epistle to the Pisoes; his Satires

Planter. But I am surprised, Sir, you bestow no praise on his Ode on Solitude. Mrs. H, who is quite a critic in those matters, allows the Ode on Solitude to be his best, his noblest, his sublimest production.

Tutor. Persuaded, Sir, of the critical acuteness of Mrs. H-, it is not safe to depart from her in opinion ;-and if Mrs. Haffirms the Ode on Solitude to be the sublimest of Mr. Pope's productions, it would be rather painful than pleasant to undeceive her in opinion.

Planter. That is right, Sir, I like to see young men modest. What spelling-book do you

use?

Tutor. What spelling-book, Sir? Indeed--really-upon my word, Sir,-any-oh! Noah Webster's, Sir.

Planter. Ah! I perceive you are a New England man, by giving the preference to Noah Webster.

Tutor. Sir, I beg your pardon; I am from Old England.

Planter. Well, no matter for that,—but Mrs. H——, who is an excellent speller, never makes

H

use of any other but Matthew Carey's spellingbook. It is a valuable work, the copyright is secured. But here comes Mrs. H- herself.

Mrs. H now entered, followed by a negro girl, who held a peacock's feather in her hand. Mrs. H― received my bow with a mutilated curtesy, and throwing herself on a sopha, called peremptorily to Prudence to brush the flies from her face. There was a striking contrast between the dress of the lady and her maid; the one was tricked out in all the finery of fashion; while the black skin of the other peeped through her garments.

Well, my dear, said Mr. H, this young man is the person who advertised for the place of tutor in a respectable family. A little conversation with him will enable you to judge, whether he is qualified to instruct our children in the branches of a liberal education.

Mrs. H. Why independent of his literary attainments, it will be necessary for him to produce certificates of his conduct. I am not easily satisfied in my choice of a tutor; a body should be very cautious in admitting a stranger to her family. This gentleman is young, and young men are very frequently addicted to bad habits. Some are prone to late hours; some to hard drinking; and some to Negur girls: the last propensity I could never forgive.

Mr. H. Yes, my dear, you discharged Mr. Spondee, our last tutor, for his intimacy with the

Negur girls :-Prudence had a little one by him. Prudence looked reproachfully at her master; the child was in reality the offspring of Mr. H—, who fearing the inquiries of the world on the subject, fathered it upon his last tutor. But they must have been blind who could not discover that the child was sprung from Mr. H; for it had the same vulgar forehead, the same vacant eye, and the same idiot laugh.

Mr. H. Do, my dear, examine the young man a little on literary matters. He seems to have read Pope.

Mrs. H. What, Sir, is your opinion of Mr. Pope's Ode on Solitude?

Tutor. It is a tolerable production, madam, for a child.

Mrs. H. A tolerable production for a child! Mercy on us! It is the most sublimest of his productions. But tastes sometimes differ. Have you read the words of Dr. Johnson? Which you approve the most.

do

Tutor. Why, Madam, if you allude to his poems, I should, in conformity with your judgment, give a decided preference to his Epitaph on a Duck, written, if I mistake not, when he was four years old. It need scarcely fear competition with Pope's Ode on Solitude.

At this moment the eldest daughter of this learned lady, of this unsexed female, tripped into the room on light, fantastic toe. Come, my

daughter, said the lady, let this gentleman hear you repeat the Ode on Solitude.

Excuse me, Madam, cried I, taking up my hat and bowing.

Do hear the child, bawled Mr. H——. I pray you Sir to excuse me, rejoined I.

Mrs. H. It will not take the child ten minutes.

Tutor. Ten minutes, madam, are the sixth part of an hour that will never return! Mr. H. Politeness dictates it.

Tulor. Excuse me, I entreat you Sir.

Mr. H. I cannot excuse you, I shall hire you as tutor, and I have a right to expect from you submission. I may perhaps give you the sum of fifty pounds a year.

Don't mention it, Sir, said I. There again you will have the goodness to excuse me. Madam, your most obedient. Miss, your very obsequious. Sir, your humble servant.*

My walk back to Charleston was along the shore of the Atlantic, whose waves naturally associated the idea of a home I despaired ever again to behold. Sorrow always begets in me a disposition for poetry; and the reflexions that

* It has been my object in this scene to soften the condition of private tutors in America, by putting up Mr. Hin signum terroris et memoria to other purse-proud planters. I write not from personal pique, but a desire to benefit society. Happy shall I think myself should this page hold the mirror up to the inflation of pride, and insolence of prosperity.