My dear Jeremy,—Have you ever taken a long-bill on the wing of a July morning? Not a note at eight months, flying in the market at a heavy discount—but a genuine long-bill, an old woodcock, springing up at your feet with whistling and whirring wings, and doing his uttermost to get out of the way, without waiting for the formality of invitation expended upon a certain Mr. Tucker? “You have not.” Well, I shall not attempt the task of teacher after Herbert, but you can have no conception of the cool head and steady nerve required to do it well. To an old hand, with dog and gun, with a constitution inured by exercise, it is the glory of the world’s excitements, and as far above the lust of money-getting, as poetry is above note-shaving.

I took my tramp this summer, of three months, among the hills and marshes where this bird—which is a bore in one way only—loves most to congregate, and saw our old friend, “the iron pump” of copper notoriety looking as dry as his purchasers and quite as rusty. I could not resist the impulse to take a crack at him, at forty yards, with my double-barrel, as at an imaginary copper-head. The excavations looked like the ready-made graves of speculators, who somehow or other had not come there to be buried. The very faces of the rocks had been twisted into grimaces, and seemed with their yellow eyes to be grinning at one; so shouldering my gun, and whistling to give strength to an imaginary band playing

I went down into the valley, and took vengeance for bills long dishonored, upon bills that I honor long.

But, Jeremy, we cannot submit to the “vagabond propensity,” as the old farmers call it, of roaming with dog and gun over mountain and meadow, though the morning dew has made the air redolent of sweets, and from every bush and blade of grass nature has hung her pearls invitingly, and lit up, as with the blaze of a torch, the gum and maple trees; though the pure air and fresh water have given health to eye and cheek and vigor to the frame, we must away to the turbulent city, and within its pent up streets and among its crowded artisans and tradesmen wrestle for bread, and shutting out from the heart its glimpses of heaven and repose in the country, grapple with toil, work on, and hope on! Yet with a sure and an abiding trust and faith.

With the opening of the New Year the periodical campaign brings thought and labor. What a world within itself is this business in Philadelphia alone—how stirring the competition—how diverse the interests—how various the success. The unparalleled rise in the business within one short year has been the result of diligent application. The publishers have most gloriously bought their own success, and have raised their works to such a point of beauty and excellence that money can go no further. The spirit of a just competition has urged each man to do his very uttermost to give his readers all that can by possibility be crowded, in the way of beauty and excellence, into his work. Every dollar received goes back in renewed outlay, in costly embellishments and articles. Nothing in Europe at twice their price can at all approach the illustrated American Monthlies in the beauty and costliness of their appointments. At the head of all stands “Graham”—Proud—Imperious—Supreme. He has no long line of broken promises to come up in judgment against him, but for ten long years has steadily gone on increasing in the face of all opposition, until he now stands unapproachable and alone, among the highest class of literary monthlies in the land. There are others of a lighter class—successful—highly successful—but his is the proud honor of having lifted the tone of his literature, and the quality of his engravings, up to the highest European standard of excellence in all respects. There is yet another class, who deal in promises—and promises only—whose best numbers come up to the meanest promise only of their printed circulars, but who go on crowding promise upon failure to redeem, until the virtues of their acts are lost in the fog they raise—fortunately their works also. More than a score of such have we seen entombed—some we have helped to bury—but they come again, like the locust, annually, and swindling a few dupes out of their money, annually die. This is the class which does business altogether by