"You are a scholar, I see, and know What happened to me so long ago;

What has happened since, you may know some day,
At present I've something else to say,
And that, in brief, is that I am here

On my old, old errand. Up and down
The noisy streets of this nasty town,
(Do they sweep it as often as once a year?)
I have wandered-ending as I began,
For I haven't yet found my honest man!"
"Who have you called upon?" And he:
"People of high and low degree,-
I go for every man that I see,

And the moment I mention Honesty,
They do as you did-they laugh at me!

I questioned an eminent merchant once,

Who stared at me hard, and muttered, 'Dunce!
If you were not ignorant of Trade,

You'd know how fortunes are lost and made.
Honest? Of course, we are all of us that.'
And then, to his scribe, sir, 'What a Flat!'
'Old fellow,' to me, 'in the scramble for pelf,
I have met but one honest man-myself.
I left him rejoicing, and heard the next day
That he'd broken a bank, and ran away:
And, to console him, while he kept shady,
Had taken another gentleman's lady!

When I speak of a bank, sir,
I'm reminded of "Hank," sir,

Whom your people buried with so much display ;
Cleaning the snow for him,

That the soldiers might go for him,

It was rather expensive,-pray, who has to pay?
And there was another man-what was his name?
"Cullender?" "Callender." "Yes, the same:
I wonder if I could obtain his place?

I should like to borrow some thousands on these."
The fool unfolded, and stuck in my face
Some stock of the days of Pericles,-
Scrip for a future chariot race,-

And a note of the scamp Alcibiades! "But as I was saying"-(he wasn't at all,) "I went to the street that is called after Wall, Where I found a stone temple-it wasn't a beautyDedicated, they said, to the goddess of Duty:

I went in with my lantern, and, strange to behold,
The goddess accepted no offering but Gold!
I spoke to a person, who appeared a director,

(He was chewing a straw, and he smelt rather
turfy,)

'If you're looking for Honesty, see the Collector.' And then, to a messenger, 'Show him to Murphy.' Mr. Murphy was out, so they took me to Jayne. A man to remember, sir." "So I am told." "I thought I remembered his fingers of old,They gripped me so tight that I winced with the pain.

He locked the door after me. 'State me the case.' The light of my lantern I flashed in his face, 'I have come-Put it out!-or somebody 'll-hark!

Some men are all ears, but I am all eyes;
I have hosts of officials, informers and spies :
They are looking, like you '-'For an honest man?'
'No-

For the scoundrel importers who cheat in their duties,

Rob the Government-Dash them -and me of my booties

I mean, my just moities.' 'Yes, sir, just so.'
'I like you, old fellow, and some day you'll find-
Were you ever in business? Where do you lodge?
I'm up to all dodges, and down upon Dodge.
You understand now;

Give me your hand now.'

I thought I had left half my fingers behind!" "I see that you've hitherto failed," I said,

"In finding the mythical man that you seek. Have you seen our lawyers, and heard them speak? You have a sort of legal head

That would soon detect them in honesty." "Young man," said the cynic, "you're chaffing me. If I should tell you one-half that I saw,

(But it's still too recent to be described,) How juries are packed, and judges are bribed,You'd stop to reflect, not joke at the Law." "Well, the Pulpit, then." They call me 'A Flat,' But I'm too wise to meddle with that; For I am a heathen, sir, as you see, And like to continue long to be,

If what has been told me, and what I have known,
Of popular preachers throughout your land-
I pass no judgment, you understand,
But, sir, by your leave, I'll leave 'em alone.
But I was going-" the sage went on,

(He was always going, and not yet gone!)
"I was going, I say, to name one more,
Whom I was advised at once to see,-
And who was as honest as he could be.
What was the name now on the door?"

"Was it 'Tweed,' or 'Connolly?" "Who are they?"

Yes, one has gone to a sunnier clime,
(For his health, I suppose,

Though nobody knows :)

While the other-the poor, old man is sick,
Think of it,-old, and sick, and alone!-
Has exchanged his modest mansion of brick,
And gone, for a time, to a palace of stone,
Built on a nice little Island near,

Expressly for such choice spirits as he.
Could you see him? He doesn't receive, I hear:
You must look elsewhere, then, for Honesty!

But the man you mentioned?" "I am told

Of an honest man that I ought to behold,

I am told of a man-I see you are weary-
Who used to be something or other in Erie.

(What Erie may be

Is Greek to me,)

Who might have made millions-perhaps, who did

But took the back track,

And handed them back,

With an Opera House, that his partner had hid-
O, where is this great man's Pyramid?"
"You silly old dolt," I said, "you're fooled;
That isn't your Honest Man,-that's Jay Gould!"

"What shall I do, then? Where shall I go?
This is your country: tell me, please."
I looked at him sternly, and sadly-No-
A tear in the eye of Diogenes!

"Go to Washington next," said I. "Go now."
He rose up sadly, and made me a bow.
"Your kindness I shall never forget:
You're the honestest man that I've met yet.
Not all honest, eh?" I answered then,
"You must look in Congress for honest men."
He went with a sigh, and I slammed the door,
(For, to tell the truth, he was getting a Bore,)
And fell to reading the news, as before:-
Reading of Sanborn, and of Jayne,-

Reading of Sanborn over again,

Reading of Richardson, and routine,

Reading of Butler, so serene,—

Reading of Sanborn, and of Sawyer,—

Reading of Congressmen, reading of lawyer,-
Reading of jury, reading of judge,-
Reading-Fudge!

Ten days from that day, in the Washington news,

"WHAT has William Shakespeare, pray,
Ever done to William Page,
Now, or in a former day,

That year by year, in his old age,
He libels his face and person,
(In spite of the dreadful curse on
Whoever disturbs his dust,)
In a manner so unjust,
Making our 'pleasant Willy'
Appear uncommonly silly?

That Shakespeare standing there!
With such a ridiculous look,
Pretending to read a book,-
And his legs, an impossible pair-
I wonder the body don't fall!
Art! Do you call that Art?
It must be of the primary school,
For pupils of tender years!"
"Keep cool, my friend, keep cool:
That isn't Shakespeare at all-
It's Bottom, learning his part-

And playing it without ears!"

MISSOURI is the child of a compromise whose epitaph was written in letters of blood. Its chief city was founded more than a century ago, by a colony of adventurous Frenchmen; and for many years, during whose lapse the title to its soil was savagely disputed by Gaul and Indian, was a fur-trading post. When VOL. VIII.-17

Laclede Liguest and the brave band of men who followed him set out from New Orleans, in 1763, to explore the country whose exclusive trade had been accorded them by charter from the hands of the governor of the province of Louisiana, the lands west of the Mississippi were unexplored and unknown. Beyond the mouth

than a thousand inhabitants. In those days it was scoffingly called "Pain Court" (short bread), because grain was expensive, and the hunters who came to the "metropolis" to replenish their stock of provisions got but scant allowance of bread for their money. The Osages were forever hanging upon the outskirts of the settlement, and many an unfortunate hunter was burned at the stake, impaled, or tortured slowly to death by them. Towards the close of the last century, however, the inhabitants pushed forward into the wilderness, and the fur trade increased rapidly. Hosts of neat, one-story cottages, surrounded by pretty gardens, sprang up in St. Louis; France once more recovered her possessions west of the Mississippi; and in 1804 the settlement which Laclede Liguest had so carefully founded, hoping that it might forever remain French, came under the domination of the United States. A formal surrender of Upper Louisiana was made to the newly enfranchised American colonies; the stars and stripes floated from the "government house" of St. Louis; and the Anglo-Saxon came to the front, with one hand extended for a land grant, and the other grasping a rifle, with which to exterminate Indian, Spaniard or demon, if they dared to stand in his way.

Looking down upon the St. Louis of to-day, from the high roof of the superb temple which the Missourians have built. to the mercurial god of insurance, one can hardly believe that the vast metropolis. spread out before him represents the growth of only three-quarters of a century. The town seems as old as London. The smoke from the Illinois coal has tinged the walls a venerable brown, and the grouping of buildings is as picturesque and varied as that of a continental city. From the water side, on ridge after ridge, rise acres of solidly built houses, vast manufactories, magazines of commerce, long avenues bordered with splendid residences; a labyrinth of railways bewilders the eye; and the clang of machinery and the whirl of a myriad wagon-wheels rise to the ear. The levee is thronged with busy and uncouth laborers; dozens of white steamers are shrieking their notes of arrival and departure; the ferries are choked with traffic; a gigantic and grotesque scramble for the almost limitless West beyond is spread out before the vision. The town has leaped into a new life since the war; has doubled its population, its manufactures and its

THE OLDEST HOUSE IN ST. LOUIS.

tiny garrison, and in the old stone tower which the Spaniards had built, debtors and criminals were confined together. French customs and French gaiety prevailed; there were two diminutive taverns, whose rafters nightly rang to the tales of hairbreadth escapes told by the boatmen of the Mississippi. The Chouteaus, the Lisas,