way to the right owner.  The question was, whether I should keep it, and live like a gentleman; or hand it over to lawyers and commissioners of bankruptcy, and die like a dog on a dunghill.  If I could have thought that the said lawyers, &c. had a better title to it than myself, I might have hesitated; but, as such title was not apparent to my satisfaction, I decided the question in my own favour; the right owners, as I have already said, being out of the question altogether.  I have always taken scientific views of morals and politics, a habit from which I derive much comfort under existing circumstances.

I hope you adhere to your music, though I cannot hope again to accompany your harp with my flute.  My last andante movement was too forte for those whom it took by surprise.  Let not your allegro vivace be damped by young Crotchet’s desertion, which, though I have not heard it, I take for granted.  He is, like myself, a scientific politician, and has an eye as keen as a needle, to his own interest.  He has had good luck so far, and is gorgeous in the spoils of many gulls; but I think the Polar Basin and Walrus Company will be too much for him yet.  There has been a splendid outlay on credit, and he is the only man, of the original parties concerned, of whom his Majesty’s sheriffs could give any account.

I will not ask you to come here.  There is no husband for you.  The men smoke, drink, and fight, and break more of their own heads than of girls’ hearts.  Those among them who are musical sing nothing but psalms.  They are excellent fellows in their way, but you would not like them.

Au reste, here are no rents, no taxes, no poor-rates, no tithes, no church establishment, no routs, no clubs, no rotten boroughs, no operas, no concerts, no theatres, no beggars, no thieves, no kings, no lords, no ladies, and only one gentleman, videlicit your loving father,

TIMOTHY TOUCHANDGO.

P.S.  I send you one of my notes; I can afford to part with it.  If you are accused of receiving money from me, you may pay it over to my assignees.  Robthetill continues to be my factotum; I say no more of him in this place; he will give you an account of himself.

Dotandcarryonetown, &c.

Dear Miss,—­Mr. Touchandgo will have told you of our arrival here, of our setting up a bank, and so forth.  We came here in a tilted wagon, which served us for parlour, kitchen, and all.  We soon got up a log-house; and, unluckily, we as soon got it down again, for the first fire we made in it burned down house and all.  However, our second experiment was more fortunate; and we are pretty well lodged in a house of three rooms on a floor—­I should say the floor, for there is but one.