I never had the least thought of writing any anecdotes of my youth till last summer, when I was in Holland, and met with your correspondent Mr. B——, at the OÙde Doelen, in Amsterdam. As we were chatting over a bottle of Bordeaux wine, in a very dark, long, wainscotted dining-room—the weather being rainy—Professor Broeck, of Utrecht, came in, and being a monstrously inquisitive old man, extracted from me quite an account of my travels in America and my youthful studies.

“Why, Holm,” said my American friend, “you ought to put this into a book.”

At this, I was much taken aback; for bookish as I have been, I never in all my life put any thing into print, except—when a schoolmaster—a small edition of Greek epigrams from the Anthology, which I compiled from the Paris edition—and this was a failure. On recollection, I must add a Latin elegy, which my head boy made with my help on the death of Washington. It was printed at Richmond, and abounded in errors of the press, so that I was fain to suppress the edition, all but a few copies to patrons, which I corrected with a pen. But Mr. B. insisted I should jot down some of the events of my life, saying that, now in my old age, it would be a comfort to me; and that Lord Kaimes used to give this recipe to any of his friends who happened to be low-spirited—“Write a book.” He added, that it was so uncommon for an American of the old school, and a Carolinian to boot, to have been several times in Europe, and then to nestle in his quondam home on the Roanoke; that, notwithstanding a certain long-windedness, no longer modish, he was sure my scraps would find readers, if among none else, yet among my old pupils, some of whom are in Congress, besides one in a foreign legation. I therefore rigged my little craft, put up a bit of sail, and with a smart whiff of a breeze got out of sounding ere I was aware. Here goes—therefore, and I commit myself to the good will of the friends aforesaid, praying that this may be gently received in quality both of preface and dedication.

H. H.

——