sources to show that if these are to be assumed as the standard of national morality or manners the English are far in advance of the Americans in vulgarity, vice, and depravity.

This was followed up, in 1822, by A Sketch of Old England by a New England Man, purporting to be a narrative of a tour in that country. It commences with an account of various travelling incidents humorously narrated; but the writer soon passes to a discussion of the social, religious, and political points of difference between the two nations, which occupies the chief portion of the volumes. In 1824 he returned to this subject in a new satire on the English travellers, John Bull in America; or the New Munchausen, purporting to be a tour of a cockney English traveller in the United States. It exhibits a broad caricature of the ignorant blunders and homebred prejudices of this class of national libellers, equally provocative of laughter and contempt. The hero, through various chances, frequently encounters a shrewd little Frenchman wearing a white hat, draped in white dimity, with gold ear-rings, who, from meeting so continually, he is at length convinced is seeking an opportunity to rob, if not to murder him.

In 1815, after a tour through Virginia, he wrote Letters from the South, by a Northern Man, principally occupied with sketching the beauties of the scenery and the manners of the people of the "Ancient Dominion." The author digresses to various subjects, on which he delivers his opinions with his usual straightforward frankness.

The

In 1818 appeared his principal poetical production, The Backwoodsman, an American poem in sentiment, scenery, and incidents. It is in six books of some five hundred lines each, written in the heroic measure. Basil, the hero, appears at the opening as a rural laborer on the banks of the Hudson, reduced to poverty by being confined a whole winter by sickness. On the approach of spring he is attracted by reports of the fertility of the West, the cheapness of the land, and the prospect of improving his condition, and resolves to seek his fortune in that far distant paradise. He abandons his home, and proceeds on his adventure accompanied by his wife and family. wanderer's farewell, as he turns a last look on the course of the Hudson through the Highlands, is a pleasant passage of description; and the journey through Jersey and Pennsylvania to the Ohio, presents various little incidents, as well as sketches of scenery evidently drawn from the life by a true lover of nature. Arrived at Pittsburg, he proceeds with a company of emigrants he finds collected there to his destination in one of those primitive vessels called Broadhorns, which have become almost obsolete since the introduction of steamers. Here the progress of an infant settlement is sketched, and the author, after seeing Basil comfortably housed, leaves him somewhat abruptly to plunge into the desert wild, and introduce his readers to the Indian prophet, who, in conjunction with some renegade whites, was at that time employed in stirring up the savages to take part in the approaching hostilities between the United States and England, and by whom the little settlement of Basil and his companions is subsequently ravaged and destroyed. War ensues; the backwoodsmen with Basil at

their head pursue the savages, and finally overtake them; a bloody fight follows; the prophet falls by the hand of Basil, and the savages are completely routed. Basil returns home; peace is restored, and he passes the remainder of his life in prosperity and honor. The poem closes with a glowing apostrophe to the native land of the author.

The descriptive parts of this poem are perhaps the best portions of the work. The versification is in general vigorous and glowing, though there are not a few occasional exceptions, together with some inaccuracies of expression, which the author would probably now correct were a new edition called for. The Backwoodsman belongs to the old school of poetry, and met with but ordinary success at home, though translations of a portion were published and praised in a literary periodical of the time at Paris.

The scene of Paulding's first novel is laid among the early Swedish settlers on the Delaware. It was originally called Konigsmark, or the Long Finne, a name that occurs in our early records, but the title was changed in a subsequent edition to Old Times in the New World, for reasons set forth in the publisher's notice. It was divided into separate books, each preceded by an introductory chapter after the manner of Fielding's Tom Jones, and having little connexion with the story. They are for the most part satirical, and in the progress of the narrative the author parodies Norna of the Fitful Head in the person of Bombie of the Frizzled Head, an ancient colored virago.

In 1826 he wrote Merry Tales of the Three Wise Men of Gotham, prefaced by a grave dissertation on the existence and locality of that renowned city. This was a satire on Mr. Owen's system of Socialism, which then first began to attract attention in the United States, on Phrenology, and the legal maxim of Caveat Emptor, each exemplified in a separate story. The Three Wise Men are introduced at sea in the famous Bowl, relating in turn their experience with a view of dissipating the ennui of the voyage.

This was followed by The Traveller's Guide, which was mistaken for an actual itinerary, in consequence of which it was christened somewhat irreverently The New Pilgrim's Progress. It is a burlesque on the grandiloquence of the current Guide Books, and the works of English travellers in America. It exhibits many satirical sketches of fashionable life and manners, and will be a treasure to future antiquaries for its allusions to scenes and persons who flourished at the time when, as the writer avers, the dandy must never, under any temptation, extend his morning promenade westwardly, and step beyond the northwest corner of Chambers street, all beyond being vulgar terra incognita to the fashionable world. Union Square was then a diminutive Dismal Swamp, and Thirteenth street a lamentable resort of cockney sportsmen. This was in 1828, when to be mistress of a three-story brick house, with mahogany folding doors, and marble mantels, was the highest ambition of a fashionable belle. After exhausting New York, the tourist recommends one of those "sumptuous aquatic palaces," the safety barges, which it grieves him to see are almost deserted for the swifter steamers, most

especially by those whose time being worth nothing, they are anxious to save as much of it as possible. In one of these he proceeds leisurely up the river to Albany, loitering by the way, noticing the various towns and other objects of interest, indulging in a variety of philosophical abstractions and opinions, now altogether consigned to the dark ages. Finally he arrives at Balston and Saratoga by stage-coach, where he makes himself merry with foibles of the élite, the manœuvres of discreet mothers, the innocent arts of their unsophisticated daughters, and the deplorable fate of all grey-whiskered bachelors, who seek their helpmates at fashionable wateringplaces. The remainder of the volume is occupied with rules for the behavior of young ladies, married people, and bachelors young and old, at the time-renowned springs. A number of short stories and sketches are interspersed through the volume, which is highly characteristic of the author's peculiar humors.

Tales of the Good Woman, by a Doubtful Gentleman, followed in sequence, and soon after appeared The Book of St. Nicholas, purporting to be a translation from some curious old Dutch legends of New Amsterdam, but emanating exclusively from the fertile imagination of the author. He commemorates most especially the few quaint old Dutch buildings, with the gableends to the streets, and steep roofs edged like the teeth of a saw, the last of which maintained its station in New street until within a few years past as a bakery famous for New Year Cakes, but at length fell a victim to the spirit of "progress."

The Dutchman's Fireside, a story founded on the manners of the old Dutch settlers, so charmingly sketched by Mrs. Grant in the Memoirs of an American Lady, next made its appearance. It is written in the author's happiest vein, and was the most popular of all his productions. It went through six editions within the year; was republished in London, and translated into the French and Dutch languages. This work was succeeded by Westward Ho the scene of which is principally laid in Kentucky, though the story is commenced in Virginia. The Dutchman's Fireside was published in Paris under the title of Le Coin du Feu d'un Hollandais, For each of these novels the author, as we are assured, received the then and still important sum of fifteen hundred dollars from the publishers on delivery of the manuscript.

A Life of Washington, principally prepared for

• Mrs. Grant was born in Glasgow in 1755, the daughter of Duncan M'Vickar, who came in her childhood to America as He resided at different parts an officer in the British army. of New York; for a time at Albany and at Oswego, visiting the frontier settlements, This residence afforded Mrs. Grant the material for the admirable descriptions which she afterwards wrote of manners in this state as they existed before the RevoIntion In 176 she returned to Scotland. In 1779 she was married to the Rev. James Grant, the minister of Laggan in The Highlands, becoming his widow in 1801. After this, sho turned her thoughts to literature, first publishing a volume of Poeme in 1, then her Letters from the Mountains, being #lection from her correspondence from 1778 to 1804, in

Her Memoirs of an American Lady was published in her Dave on the Nuperstitions of the Highlands in JEFF and a Poom, Eighteen Hundred and Thirteen, in 1814. boring her latter years she was quite a celebrity in EdinMorph. Apuring pleniantly in the Diary of Walter Scott, who drew up the mucinurial which secured her a pension of one kontrail pomals from George IV. She died Nov. 7, 1888, at Men man of mighty three

the use of the more youthful class of readers, succeeded these works of imagination. It was originally published in two small volumes, and afterwards incorporated with Harpers' Family Library. Five thousand copies were contracted for with the publishers for distribution in the public schools. It is an admirable production, and shows conclusively that the author is equally qualified for a different sphere of literature from that to which he has principally devoted himself. Though written with a steady glow of patriotism, and a full perception of the exalted character and services of the Father of his country, it is pure from all approaches to inflation, exaggeration, and bombast. The style is characterized by simplicity combined with vigor; the narrative is clear and sufficiently copious without redundancy, comprising all the important events of the life of the hero, interspersed with various characteristic anecdotes which give additional interest to the work, without degrading it to mere gossip, and is strongly imbued with the nationality of the author. Being addressed to the youthful reader, he frequently pauses in his narrative to inculcate the example of Washington's private and public virtues on his readers. The character of Washington, as summed up at the conclusion, is one of the most complete we have ever met with.

In 1836, about the period that what is known as the Missouri Question was greatly agitating the country, both North and South, he published a review of the institution, under the title of Slavery in the United States, in which he regards the subject with strong southern sympathies. He considers slavery as the offspring of war; as an expedient of humanity to prevent the massacre of prisoners by savage and barbarous tribes and nations, who having no system for the exchange of prisoners, and no means of securing them, have in all time past been accustomed to put to death those whose services they did not require as slaves. He treats the subject with reference both to divine and human laws, and passing from theory to the practical question as applicable to the United States, places before his readers the consequences, first of universal emancipation, next of political and social equality, and lastly of amalgamation.

The last of Paulding's avowed publications are The Old Continental, or the Price of Liberty, a Revolutionary story, The Puritan and his Daughter, the scene of which is partly in England, partly in the United States, and a volume of American Plays,* in conjunction with his youngest son William Irving Paulding, then a youth under age. The plots of these pieces are defective, and the incidents not sufficiently dramatic, but the dialogue exhibits no inconsiderable degree of the vis comica.

This closes our catalogue of the chief productions of the author, which appeared at different intervals during a period of nearly half a century.

* American Comedies by J. K. Paulding and William Irving Paulding. Contents-The Bucktails, or Americans in England: The Noble Exile; Madmen All, or the Cure of Love; Antipathies, or the Enthusiasts by the Ears. The first of these was the only one by the father. It was written shortly after the conclusion of the War of 1812. The volume was published by Carey & Hart in Philadelphia, in 1847.

Most of them were republished in a uniform stereotyped edition by Harper and Brothers in 1835. They constitute, however, only a portion of his writings, which many of them appeared anonymously, and are dispersed through various periodicals and newspapers, among which are the New York Mirror, the Analectic, the Knickerbocker, and Graham's Magazine, Godey's Lady's Book, the Democratic Review, the United States Review, the Literary World, Wheaton's National Advocate, the National Intelligencer, the Southern Press, the Washington Union, &c., &c. He also contributed two articles to a volume by different hands edited by the late Robert C. Sands, whimsically entitled Tales of the Glauber Spa. These contributions were, Childe Roeliff's Pilgrimage, and Selim the Friend of Mankind. The former is a burlesque on fashionable tours, the latter exposes the indiscreet attempts of overzealous philanthropists to benefit mankind. Most of these contributions were anonymous, and many of them gratuitous; to others he affixed his name, on the requisition of the publishers. The collection would form many volumes, comprising a great variety of subjects, and exhibiting almost every diversity of style "from grave to gay, from lively to severe."

A favorite mode of our author is that of embodying and exemplifying some sagacious moral in a brief story or allegory, either verse or prose, specimens of which may be seen in the Literary World under the caption of Odds and Ends, by an Obsolete Author, in the New York Mirror, Graham's Magazine, and other periodicals.

He has also occasionally amused himself with the composition of Fairy Tales, and is the author of an anonymous volume published in 1838 by Appleton, called A Gift from Fairy Land, beautifully illustrated by designs from Chapman. We are informed that only one thousand copies of this work were contracted for by its publisher, five hundred of which were taken by a London bookseller. It appeared subsequently to the stereotyped edition of Harper and Brothers, and is not included in the series, which has never been completed, owing, we are informed, to some difficulties between the author and his publishers, in consequence of which it is now extremely difficult to procure a complete set of his works.

In almost all the writings of Paulding there is occasionally infused a dash of his peculiar vein of humorous satire and keen sarcastic irony. To those not familiarized with his manner, such is the imposing gravity, that it is sometimes somewhat difficult to decide when he is jesting and when he is in earnest. This is on the whole a great disadvantage in an age when irony is seldom resorted to, and has occasionally subjected the author to censure for opinions which he does not sanction. His most prominent characteristic is,' however, that of nationality. He found his inspiration at home at a time when American woods and fields, and American traits of society, were generally supposed to furnish little if any materials for originality. He not merely drew his nourishment from his native soil, but whenever "that mother of a mighty race was assailed from abroad by accumulated injuries and insults, stood up manfully in defence of her rights and her honor. He has never on any occasion bowed to the su

premacy of European example or European criticism; he is a stern republican in all his writings.

Fortunately he has lived to see a new era dawning on his country. He has seen his country become intellectually, as well as politically, independent, and strong in the result he labored and helped to achieve, he may now look back with calm equanimity on objects which once called for serious opposition, and laugh where the satirist once raged.

Though a literary man by profession, he has, ever since the commencement of the second war with England, turned his mind occasionally towards politics, though never as an active politician. His writings on this subject have been devoted to the support of those great principles which lie at the root of the republican system, and to the maintenance of the rights of his country whenever assailed from any quarter. His progress in life has been upwards. In 1814 or '15 he was appointed Secretary to the Board of Navy Commissioners, then first established. After holding this position for a few years, he resigned to take the office of Navy Agent for the port of New York, which he held twelve years under different administrations, and finally resigned on being placed at the head of the Navy Department by President Van Buren. We have heard him state with some little pride, that all these offices were bestowed without any solicitation on his part, or that of his friends, so far as he knew.

After presiding over the Navy Department nearly the entire term of Mr. Van Buren's administration, he, according to custom, resigned his office on the inauguration of President Harrison, and soon afterwards retired to a pleasant country residence on the east bank of the Hudson, in the county of Dutchess, where he now resides.

"I

in the calm pursuits of agriculture, lettered ease, and retirement. In a late visit we paid him at Hyde Park, he informs us, he had visited the city but twice in the last ten years, and gave his daily routine in the following cheerful summary. smoke a little, read a little, write a little, ruminate a little, grumble a little, and sleep a great deal. I was once great at pulling up weeds, to which I have a mortal antipathy, especially bullseyes, wild carrots, and toad-flax-alias butter and eggs. But my working days are almost over. I find that carrying seventy-five years on my shoulders is pretty nearly equal to the same number of pounds, and instead of laboring myself, sit in the shade watching the labors of others, which I find quite sufficient exercise.”

A RURAL LOVER-FROM AN EPISODE IN THE LAY OF THE SCOT-
TISH FIDDLE.

Close in a darksome corner sat
A scowling wight with old wool hat,
That dangled o'er his sun-burnt brow,
And many a gaping rent did show.
His beard in grim luxuriance grew;
His great-toe peep'd from either shoe;
His brawny elbow shone all bare;
All matted was his carrot hair;
And in his sad face you might see,
The withering look of poverty.
He seem'd all desolate of heart,
And in the revels took no part;

Yet those who watch'd his blood-shot eye,
As the light dancers flitted by,
Might jealousy and dark despair,
And love detect, all mingled there.

He never turn'd his eye away
From one fair damsel passing gay;
But ever in her airy round,

Watch'd her quick step and lightsome bound.
Wherever in the dance she turn'd,
He turn'd his eye, and that eye burn'd
With such fierce spleen, that, sooth to say,

It made the gazer turn away.
Who was the damsel passing fair,
That caus'd his eyeballs thus to glare?
It was the blooming Jersey maid,

That our poor wight's tough heart betray'd.

*

By Pompton's stream, that silent flows,
Where many a wild-flower heedless blows.
Unmark'd by any human eye,
Unpluck'd by any passer-by,

There stands a church, whose whiten'd side
Is by the traveller often spied,
Glittering among the branches fair
Of locust trees that flourish there.
Along the margin of the tide,
That to the eye just seems to glide,
And to the list'ning ear ne'er throws
A murmur to disturb repose,
The stately elm majestic towers,
The lord of Pompton's fairy bowers.
The willow, that its branches waves,
O'er neighborhood of rustic graves,
Oft when the summer south-wind blows,
Its thirsty tendrils, playful throws
Into the river rambling there,
The cooling influence to share
Of the pure stream, that bears imprest
Sweet nature's image in its breast.
Sometimes on sunny Sabbath day,
Our ragged wight would wend his way
To this fair church, and lounge about,

With many an idle sunburnt lout,
And stumble o'er the silent graves;
Or where the weeping-willow waves,
His listless length would lay him down.
And spell the legend on the stone.
'Twas here, as ancient matrons say,
His eye first caught the damsel gay,
Who, in the interval between
The services, oft tript the green,
And threw her witching eyes about,
To great dismay of bumpkin stout,
Who felt his heart rebellious beat,
Whene'er those eyes he chanced to meet.
As our poor wight all listless lay,
Dozing the vacant hours away,
Or watching with his half-shut eye
The buzzing flight of bee or fly,
The beauteous damsel pass'd along,
Humming a stave of sacred song.
She threw her soft blue eyes askance,
And gave the booby such a glance,
That quick his eyes wide open flew,
And his wide mouth flew open too.
He gaz'd with wonder and surprise,
At the mild lustre of her eyes,
Her cherry lips, her dimpled cheek,
Where Cupids play'd at hide and seek,
Whence many an arrow well, I wot,
Against the wight's tough heart was shot.
He follow'd her where'er she stray'd,
While every look his love betray'd;
And when her milking she would ply,
Sooth'd her pleas'd ear with Rhino-Die,
Or made the mountain echoes ring,
With the great feats of John Paulding;-
How he, stout moss-trooper bold,
Refus'd the proffer'd glittering gold,
And to the gallant youth did cry,
"One of us two must quickly die!"

On the rough meadow of his cheek,
The scythe he laid full twice a week,
Foster'd the honors of his head,
That wide as scruboak branches spread,
With grape-vine juice, and bear's-grease too,
And dangled it in eelskin queue.
In short, he tried each gentle art
To anchor fast her floating heart;
But still she scorn'd his tender tale,
And saw unmov'd his cheek grow pale,
Flouted his suit with scorn so cold,
And gave him oft the bag to hold.

AN EVENING WALK IN VIRGINIA-FROM THE LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH.

In truth, the little solitary nook into which I am just now thrown, bears an aspect so interesting, that it is calculated to call up the most touchingly pleasing exertions, in the minds of those who love to indulge in the contemplation of beautiful scenes. We are the sons of earth, and the indissoluble kindred between nature and man is demonstrated by our sense of her beauties. I shall not soon forget last evening, which Oliver and myself spent at this place. It was such as can never be described -I will therefore not attempt it; but it was still as the sleep of innocence-pure as ether, and bright as immortality. Having travelled only fourteen miles that day, I did not feel tired as usual; and after supper strolled out alone along the windings of a little stream about twenty yards wide, that skirts a narrow strip of green meadow, between the brook and the high mountain at a little distance. You will confess my landscapes are well watered, for every one has a river. But such is the case in

this region, where all the passes of the mountains are made by little rivers, that in process of time have laboured through, and left a space for a road on their banks. If nature will do these things, I can't help it-not I. In the course of the ramble the moon rose over the mountain to the eastward, which being just by, seemed to bring the planet equally near; and the bright eyes of the stars began to glisten, as if weeping the dews of evening. I knew not the name of one single star. But what of that? It is not necessary to be an astronomer, to contemplate with sublime emotions the glories of the sky at night, and the countless wonders of the universe.

These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their living nights,

Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Men may be too wise to wonder at anything; as they may be too ignorant to see anything without wondering. There is reason also to believe, that astronomers may be sometimes so taken up with measuring the distances and magnitude of the stars, as to lose, in the intense minuteness of calculation, that noble expansion of feeling and intellect combined, which lifts from nature up to its great first cause. As respects myself, I know no more of the planets, than the man in the moon. I only contemplate them as unapproachable, unextinguishable fires, glittering afar off, in those azure fields whose beauty and splendour have pointed them out as the abode of the Divinity; as such, they form bright links in the chain of thought that leads directly to a contemplation of the Maker of heaven and earth. Nature is, indeed, the only temple worthy of the Deity. There is a mute eloquence in her smile; a majestic severity in her frown; a divine charm in her harmony; a speechless energy in her silence; a voice in her thunders, that no reflecting being can resist. It is in such scenes and seasons, that the heart is deepest smitten with the power and goodness of Providence, and that the soul demonstrates its capacity for maintaining an existence independent of matter, by abstracting itself from the body, and expatiating alone in the boundless regions of the past and the future.

As I continued strolling forward, there gradually came a perfect calm-and even the aspen-tree whispered no more. But it was not the deathlike calm of a winter's night, when the northwest wind grows quiet, and the frosts begin in silence to forge fetters for the running brooks, and the gentle current of life, that flows through the veins of the forest. The voice of man and beast was indeed unheard; but the river murmured, and the insects chirped in the mild summer evening. There is something sepulchral in the repose of a winter night; but in the genial seasons of the year, though the night is the emblem of repose, it is the repose of the couch-not of the tomb-nature still breathes in the buzz of insects, the whisperings of the forests, and the murmurs of the running brooks. We know she will awake in the morning, with her smiles, her bloom, her zephyrs, and warbling birds. "In such a night as this," if a man loves any human being in this wide world, he will find it out, for there will his thoughts first centre. If he has in store any sweet, or bitter, or bitter-sweet recollections, which are lost in the bustle of the world, they will come without being called. If, in his boyish days, he wrestled, and wrangled, and rambled with, yet loved, some chubby boy, he will remember the days of his childhood, its companions, cares, and pleasures. If, in his days of romance, he used to walk of evenings, with some blue-eyed, musing, melancholy maid,

whom the ever-rolling wave of life dashed away from him for ever-he will recall her voice, her eye, and her form. If any heavy and severe disaster has fallen on his riper manhood, and turned the future into a gloomy and unpromising wilderness; he will feel it bitterly at such a time. Or if it chance that he is grown an old man, and lived to see all that owned his blood, or shared his affections, struck down to the earth like dead leaves in autumn; in such a night, he will call their dear shades around, and wish himself a shadow.

A TRIO OF FRENCHMEN-FROM THE SAME.

My good opinion of French people has not been weakened by experience. The bloody scenes of St. Domingo and of France, have, within the last few years, brought crowds of Frenchmen to this land of the exile, and they are to be met with in every part of the United States. Wherever they are, I have found them accommodating themselves with a happy versatility, to the new and painful vicissitudes they had to encounter; remembering and loving the land of their birth, but at the same time doing justice to the land which gave them refuge. They are never heard uttering degrading comparisons between their country and ours; nor signalizing their patriotism, either by sneering at the land they have honoured with their residence, or outdoing a native-born demagogue in clamorous declamation, at the poll of an election. Poor as many of them are, in consequence of the revolutions of property in their native country, they never become beggars. Those who have no money turn the accomplishments of gentlemen into the means of obtaining bread, and become the instruments of lasting benefit to our people. Others who have saved something from the wreck, either establish useful manufactures, or retire into the villages, where they embellish society, and pass quietly on to the grave.

In their amusements, or in their hours of relaxation, we never find them outraging the decencies of society by exhibitions of beastly drunkenness, or breaking its peace by ferocious and bloody brawls at taverns or in the streets. Their leisure hours are passed in a public garden or walk, where you will see them discussing matters with a vehemence which, in some people, would be the forerunner of blows, but which is only an ebullition of a national vivacity, which misfortune cannot repress, nor exile destroy. Or, if you find them not here, they are at some little evening assembly, to which they know how to communicate a gaiety and interest peculiar to French people. Whatever may be their poverty at home, they never exhibit it abroad in rags and dirtiness, but keep their wants to themselves, and give their spirits to others; thus making others happy, when they have ceased to be so themselves.

This subject recalls to my mind the poor Chevalier, as we used to call him, who, of all the men I ever saw, bore adversity the best. It is now fifteen years since I missed him at his accustomed walkswhere, followed by his little dog, and dressed in his long blue surtout, old-fashioned cocked hat, long queue, and gold-headed cane, with the ribbon of some order at his button-hole, he carried his basket of cakes about every day, except Sunday, rain or shine. He never asked anybody to buy his cakes, nor did he look as if he wished to ask. I never, though I used often to watch him, either saw him smile, or heard him speak to a living soul; but year after year did he walk or sit in the same place, with the same coat, hat, cane, queue, and ribbon, and little dog. One day he disappeared; but whether he died, or got permission to go home to France, nobody knew, and nobody inquired; for, except the