THE MURDERED TINMAN.

"Some fear'd, and fledd; some fear'd, and well it fayn'd;
One, that would wiser seeme than all the reste,
Warn'd him not touch, for yet perhaps remayn'd
Some lingering life within his hollow brest;
Another saide, that in his eyes did rest

Yet sparkling fyre, and badd thereof take heed;
Another saide, he saw him move his eyes indeed.”
Spenser's Faerie Queene.

SOON after the close of the war which resulted in the establishment of the North American republic, one of those itinerant gentlemen from Connecticut, who deal in tinware and other vendables,-a class of our fellow-republicans long since known in everyportion of the Union where a sixpence can be obtained in exchange for a tin skimmer, or a pepper-box,-found his way across through the "Nine Partners" and Poughkeepsie, into the county of Ulster, in the State of New-York. He was a good-looking man, of a free and jovial disposition, glib with the tongue, keen at a bargain, smart at a joke, and 'cute at a swap. And as he travelled up and down among the river towns from Saugerties

and Esopus through Old Paltz and New Paltz, to New Windsor and the Highlands, and occasionally back towards the wilderness as far as Minisink, year after year, he became very generally known. Three or four times in a year he was wont to return to Connecticut, to replenish his stock in trade, and rid himself of the old pewter and other notions for which he had bartered his goods, when he could not exchange them for a less cumbersome and more valuable metal. But these absences were short, and far the larger portion of his time was spent among his honest Dutch customers, to whom he was sure to bring something new and still more inviting at each successive visit. So much of his time was passed among these Dutch settlements, that he soon acquired enough of their language to enable him to crack jokes with the old ladies in their mother tongue, and banter with their plump, simple-minded daughters, from whom he now and then stole a kiss, not much to the dissatisfaction of either themselves or their mothers, for he was a general favourite.. At the quiltings and other merrimakings in the settlements through which he leisurely passed, he was ever a welcome guest, and could always dance the double-shuffle with the prettiest girl of them all, not excepting 'Squire Vanderspeigle's Katrina. If merry Christmas chanced to overtake him west of the Hudson, he attended the turkey-shootings, and won his share of the game; and, indeed, in all the amusements of the rustic inhabitants, he made

himself one of the most successful and popular of visitants.

Eight or ten years rolled away, and the tinman continued to make his rounds, seated on the box of his cart, and, when alone, whistling Yankee-doodle, or some other grave melody, "for want of thought," and widening his circuits as the settlements were pushed farther into the interior. He extended his business, moreover, in process of time, as the taste for finery increased with the march of civilization, -the march of mind not then having commenced, -so that in addition to tin pans, cups, graters, and mouse-traps, he had a chest constructed within the body of his cart, in which he carried pins, needles, coarse muslins and calicoes, pink and black silk for bonnets, and yellow and flame-coloured ribands. Alas! the frailty of woman! From the moment the pedler began to sell flame-coloured ribands, his influence was irresistible, and the balance of trade was in a short time so much against the people of Orange and Ulster, that they must have failed, but that their wheat, butter, and fat turkeys always brought full prices in New-York. It is certain that the specie, as well as old pewter and rags,-not bank-notes, gentle reader, as that species of rags was unknown in the halcyon days of which I am writing, was very rapidly leaving the country, and had it not poured in from other quarters, it must have diminished with each quartennial journey of the pedler to Connecticut. But happily there were few newspapers, and no political econo

mists in those days, so that the worthy burghers never found out that they were ruined because the balance of trade was against them, and because also they couldn't keep their dollars lying idle and without interest in their lockers. But that is neither here nor there.

Whenever the tinman sojourned for a day or two in the rocky and romantic town of New Paltz, he put up at the inn kept by old Mr. Nicholas Van Hoesen, upon whose sign hung the effigy, rather clumsily executed, as the historian must in candour admit, of the patron saint of the Niew Niederlandts, indulging in the luxury of a pipe. The house was of only one story, and the heavy beams thickly laid across from wall to wall, were not covered by the ceiling. But these beams, with the massive, well-plastered walls, were as white and clean as quick-lime could make them; while the bedrooms beneath the high, sharp-pointed roof, and the beautiful white homespun linen sheets, were as sweet and wholesome as need be desired for a bridal-chamber. Here it was that the weary traveller could find the luxury of repose, after sitting, if he chose, of a winter's evening, around the noble fire that crackled and blazed upon the broad hearth, to hear the simple village chroniclers, talking, over their mugs of cider, of the news from 'Sopus, or of Sheneral Vashington and King Shorge, while the vapour of the Indian weed was ascending in little misty wreaths from their pipes, or pouring forth in more dense and ample volumes from their

cloudy and capacious mouths. Here, too, might he learn from their own lips their chivalrous deeds in arms, as they fought their revolutionary battles over again in the relation of the massacre of Minisink, or the burning of 'Sopus by the red-coats, who, to quote their own glowing language, though poured forth in a rather oddly-constructed climax, had come there," to purn up dare housish, murder dare sons, ravish dare wives and daughters, and trow down dare fences pesides !"

Such were the comfortable quarters of the tinman during his quadrennial visits to New Paltz.. But tempora mutantur: old Mr. Van Hoesen died one day, and that, too, most unfortunately, before the pedler had ceased furnishing the people in that region with tin milk-pans, Dutch-ovens, and flamecoloured ribands; and his widow returned to reside with her daughter, who was married to the Rev. Mr. Rip Van Velzer, of Tappan. The old tavern stand was rented to a man by the name of Fowler, who had been a tory-sutler in the British army while in New-York. Soon after these occurrences and changes, things went on badly at the inn. The good old sign of St. Nicholas was taken down, and another erected in its place, having a square and compasses on one side, and a strange mark of five lines, terminating in five acute angles, surrounding a large letter G. on the other. The house was not half so clean as it used to be," the cider had not apples enough in it," and, in short, nothing went on as it did before