his return to Bucks, that he regarded all popular demonstrations with distaste, and, as some of his enemies pretended, with contempt.  Nevertheless, he strictly acquitted himself of all his public duties, and never neglected to vote.  It is believed that his hopes for the future, meaning in a social and earthly sense, were not very vivid, and he was often heard to repeat that warning text of Scripture which tells us, “Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.”

The faithful, and once lovely partner of this principal personage of our history is also dead.  It would seem that it was not intended they should be long asunder.  But their time was come, and they might almost be said to have departed in company.  The same is true of Friends Robert and Martha, who have also filled their time, and gone hence, it is to be hoped to a better world.  Some few of the younger persons of our drama still exist, but it has been remarked of them, that they avoid conversing of the events of their younger days.  Youth is the season of hope, and hope disappointed has little to induce us to dwell on its deceptive pictures.

If those who now live in this republic, can see any grounds for a timely warning in the events here recorded, it may happen that the mercy of a divine Creator may still preserve that which he has hitherto cherished and protected.

It remains only to say that we have endeavoured to imitate the simplicity of Captain Woolston’s journal, in writing this book, and should any homeliness of style be discovered, we trust it will be imputed to that circumstance.

The Crater.

Chapter I.

    “’Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;
    ’Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.”

    Taming of the Shrew.

There is nothing in which American Liberty, not always as much restrained as it might be, has manifested a more decided tendency to run riot, than in the use of names.  As for Christian names, the Heathen Mythology, the Bible, Ancient History, and all the classics, have long since been exhausted, and the organ of invention has been at work with an exuberance of imagination that is really wonderful for such a matter-of-fact people.  Whence all the strange sounds have been derived which have thus been pressed into the service of this human nomenclature, it would puzzle the most ingenious philologist to say.  The days of the Kates, and Dollys, and Pattys, and Bettys, have passed away, and in their stead we hear of Lowinys, and Orchistrys, Philenys, Alminys, Cytherys, Sarahlettys, Amindys, Marindys, &c. &c. &c.  All these last appellations terminate properly with an a, but this unfortunate vowel, when a final letter, being popularly pronounced like y, we have adapted our spelling to the sound, which produces a complete bathos to all these flights in taste.