quaintance, and her old beaux were deserted for me. But as novelty decked me with charms, so those charms vanished with the flight of novelty. A new face destroyed the impression I had made, and, determined to subject myself no more to the mortification of a refusal, I left her house in a pet, and was called a coquette by the ladies.

Four or five years have passed since; but the events of those years have been nearly similar. The same disposition still remains to teaze and torment me. I am captivated with a new face, and rashly believe it to be the lovely index of the mind. The first interviews are subject to the influence of this impression; 1 become immediately a daily visiter. But I am soon abandoned to the female rage of novelty, or I discover faults and follies I had not expected, and cease my visits. The ladies believe and term me a coquette, fickle as the wind.

My dear Mr. Oldschool I wish and beseech you to explain to the ladies the motives of my actions: I wish you to persuade them, that I am not a coquette, but am too easily and suddenly captivated by their charms, and that, if my acquaintance with them is short, it is my misfortune, and not my fault; I wish you to tell them, that my disposition will not suffer me to share their smiles with any one, and that if I do not possess their whole affections, I cannot visit them

at all. Tell them that I would rather be hated, than treated indifferently. The latter is a source of continual mortification, while the former, though it may for a moment grieve me, yet carries with it its own antidote,

"For grief is proud and makes the owner stout."

Tell them, I pray you, that my friendship is mistaken for love. The frequency of my visits, the ardour of my conversation, and the particularity of my manners, where I am pleased, though resulting solely from friendship, are mistaken by the ladies for love, and offers of marriage are anxiously expected. If they be not made, I am treated with indifference, my visits are discontinued, and I am called a coquette; while there are others, who visit at the same house for years, and are ever treated with civility. I beseech you, Mr. Oldschool, to advise me under what regimen to place my disposition, so as to be on terms of intimacy and friendship with the ladies, without raising false expectations, or subjecting myself and my pecuniary situation to the busy and malicious scrutiny of aunts and sisters, and all the old maids in the neighbourhood.

Yours, &c.

SENSITIVE.

DENNIE.

JOSEPH DENNIE was the son of a respectable merchant in Boston, of the same name, and Mary, daughter of Bartholomew Green, a printer in that town. He was born on the 30th August, 1768. In the year 1775, his father removed to Lexington, a town ten miles distant from the metropolis, which shortly after became memorable as a scene of wanton bloodshed, resulting in the establishment of an independent empire. In the education of Dennie, nothing was omitted that affection could suggest or care accomplish; and the son often dilated with pathetic eloquence on the assiduous attention that guarded his early years. In 1783 he was sent to a school at Boston, to acquire a knowledge of book-keeping. After remaining about twelve months in that situation he was removed to a compting room, where it was intended that he should be initiated in the mysteries of trade. Before the close of the first year his friends were convinced that the pursuit of gain was not the career in which he would succeed. He had always discovered a fondness for books, and he now applied himself, with great diligence to study, in order to obtain an academical education. He became a pupil in the private school

of the late Samuel West, D.D., a clergyman distinguished for profound learning and fervent piety, who resided at Needham, about twelve miles from Boston. Like most boys, he was fond of tricks as well as books; but his worthy preceptor did not find " his pranks too broad to bear with." After a noviciate of two years, he passed the usual examination at Harvard, and was admitted into the second or sophomore class, at the Commencement in 1787, being then nearly nineteen years of age. Here his diligence was exemplary, though often interrupted by pleasure, and injured by desultory reading, Polite literature was the ruling passion in his mind, and it may be said with much truth of Dennie, that it was

What, in nature's dawn, the child admired. The youth endeavour'd and the man acquired.

In a letter, with which I have been favoured by his mother, a pious lady who died a few years ago, at an advanced age, it is remarked, that "he wrote poetry in early life after the manner of Horace, and various other modes, but never pleased himself. Some of these pieces were so pathetic that he could not read them without the tears running down his cheeks. His father persuaded him to quit a pursuit where he would kill himself with his own sword." His ambi

tion was stimulated by the praise with which these efforts were crowned; but his fondness for polite letters produced a neglect of more important studies. He was always so " ill at numbers," that it is said he never could be induced to learn arithmetic. At one time, awakened by the remonstrances of a friend, he purchased a slate and book, but his resolution did not bear him through the Rule of Three. At a subsequent period of his life he was sadly puzzled, on a certain occasion, by his landlady, who wished to be informed of the gross amount of 74 lbs. of mutton at 54d. per pound. After scrawling for a long time on a sheet of paper, he told the lady that the calculation required more labour than the article was worth, and that as there was no doubt the butcher was honest, she might as well pay his demand.

He enjoyed, however, the reputation of a scholar, not only among his class-mates, but in the government of the institution, though his eccentricities did not escape attention. In his senior year an incident occurred which he remembered with lively emotion at every period of his life. It is not easy to reconcile the various relations which exist respecting this circumstance, and if any is to be preferred, the distinction is due to the letter already quoted. According to this authority, he gave umbrage to the Professors by pronouncing one of Lord