I had advertised in the Baltimore Paper for the place of domestic Tutor, and one morning, while I was standing before the door of the city of Strasburgh, the bar-keeper brought me a note very carefully sealed. I eagerly took it from his hand, impressed with an idea that it was sent me by some opulent merchant who wanted an instructor for his children; and already was I delighting my fancy with the rewards of knowledge, when on opening the note it produced what Rabelais calls the most gloomy of all moments, the payment of a landlord's reckoning.

"SIR,

"According to the custom of the house, Mr. "Wyant has requested me to send in your bill. "To eight days board, at 9s, 4d.- £3 14s. 8d. "I am, for Mr. Wyant, John Kellen."

I called Mr. Wyant into a private room. He obeyed the summons with a true German smile. Wait, Sir, said I, a few days. He started back, rolling wildly his eyes. "Mine Got!" cried he, "if I wait a few days, how "can I go to market?" I will give you, said I, my note of hand. Note of hand! cried he. Mine Got! I have a drawer full of notes of hand. Well, said I, pray leave your damnable face and I will pay you the cash tomorrow.

I had been informed that Mr. Burr was at

the Federal City; and the Federal City, as one of our Travellers in America solemnly remarks, is only forty-three miles from Baltimore. I was determined, therefore, to give him a missive by the post; and my missive was a la Quin.

Sir, I am at Baltimore.

The next mail brought me a letter from Mr. Burr, which dissipated the clouds that obscured the horizon of my life. He did not make answer, like Quin's correspondent, Stay there, and be d-d; but in a letter breathing kindness, and protestations of friendship, desired me to send him the estimate of the expences of my late travels, which he proposed immediately to reimburse.

I retired to my room, and computed, with diplomatic accuracy, my unavoidable expences on the road, from the day I crossed the Hudson till I descended the Treasury-stairs at the Imperial City. The answer of the VicePresident will evince that he did not think himself overcharged.

DEAR SIR,

You Men of Letters are the worst calculators in the world. I am persuaded I only discharge a just debt, when I enclose double your

amount.

Accept the assurances of my regard, AARON BURR.

At this letter my pride took alarm. It produced from me an answer, and a restitution of half the bills.

SIR,

As I cannot possibly descend from the respectability of a Creditor to the degradation, if I may be allowed the expression, of an Eleemosynarist; I decline receiving more than half of what you remitted me.

I am,

With profound respect, &c.

Being proffered a situation in a part of Virginia I had not visited, and having it in my power to journey at my leisure by the friendship of the Vice-President, I departed without regret from Baltimore, on foot and alone.

It was the latter part of March when I left the once-flourishing town of Baltimore,* and again directed my steps towards the imperial city. But my mind was somewhat altered. Experience had cured me of my illusions. I was no longer elated with the hope of being lifted above the crowd; but my ambition was contented with the harmless drudgery of teaching children their rudiments.

After walking a few miles, I turned into a wood to call at the house of a brother-peda

[*Trade fell off after the establishment of peace in Europe. Course of Maryland exports: 1799, $16,299,609; 1801, $12,767,530; 1802, $7.914,225. Scharf, Vol. II, p. 604.]

gogue, who had invited me the preceding evening at a public-house, to visit him in his literary retirement. Boys and girls rent the air with their acclamations as I approached the dwelling; but the School-master's daughter, a lusty lass of nineteen, escaped into the woods, and I could only catch a glimpse of her flying across the green. I was not Apollo or I should have followed this Daphne.

"

The board placed above Mr. Macdonald's sylvan Academy diverted me not a little. Anthony Macdonald teaches boys and girls "their grammar tongue; also Geography "terrestial and celestial. -Old hats made as "good as new."

But Mr. Macdonald was not at home; his daughter had fled and I trod back the path to the main-road, where I sought an asylum under the roof of the Widow Smith, who regales the woe-begone Traveller with whiskey; and

"Where the gaunt mastiff growling at the gate,
"Assaults the stranger whom he longs to eat."

Old age is garrulous, and the Widow did not want for talk. She admired that Miss Macdonald instead of staying in the house to receive a stranger, should run into the woods. For her part she was never scared at folks, however well-dressed; and yet all her life she had lived in the country.

Pursuing my journey, I arrived at Elk

I

Ridge Landing, where I supped at a genteel tavern with the hostess and her sister, who are remarkable for the elegance of their conversation, and the amenity of their manners. found the old Manor-house of Charlotte Smith lying on the table, of which the concluding part seemed to have been moistened with tears of sensibility.

The next day I resumed my walk; refreshing myself at Spurrier's, carousing at Dent's, and sleeping at Drummond's; three publichouses on the road, which the Traveller passes in succession. The weather was somewhat warm in the middle of the day; but this only made the springs more grateful, at whose waters I stopped to allay the thirst produced by walking.

Rousseau in enumerating the pleasures of pedestrian traveling, makes no mention of the joy with which the solitary walker beholds a spring on the road; from which omission I am inclined to believe that the foot-travels of the eloquent Swiss were performed round his chamber.

The next morning proceeding forward, I reached Bladensburgh before the going down of the sun; and at night-fall to my great satisfaction I entered the imperial city. The moon was rising from the woods, and I surveyed the Capitol by its light, meditating on the future state of the Western Empire; the clash of in