ers, and Holland skaters, but the best of them could but "make the judicious grieve." I was once slightly acquainted with a worthy gentleman, the quondam member of a skating club in London, and it must be admitted, that he performed very well for an Englishman. His High Dutch, or as he better termed it, his outer edge skating, might, for aught I know, have been exactly conformable to the statutes of this institution : To these, he would often appeal; and I recollect the principal one was, that each stroke should describe an exact semicircle. Nevertheless, his style was what we should deem a very bad one. An utter stranger to the beauty of bringing forward the suspended foot towards the middle of the stroke, and boldly advancing it before the other, at the conclusion of it, thus to preserve throughout his course, a continuity of movement, to rise like an ascending wave to its acme, then, gracefully like a descending one, to glide into the succeeding stroke without effort either real or apparent-every change of foot with this gentleman, seemed a beginning of motion, and required a most unseemly jerk of the body; an unequivocal evidence of the want of that power, which depends upon a just balance, and should never be lost-which carries the skater forward with energy without exertion; and is as essential to his swift and graceful career, as is a good head of water to the velocity of a mill wheel. Those who have seen good skating will comprehend what I mean, still better those who are adepts themselves: but excellence in the art can never be gained by geometrical rules. The two reputed best skaters of my day, were generalCadwallader and Massey the biscuit baker; but I could name many others, both of the academy and Quaker school, who were in no degree inferior to them; whose action and attitudes were equally graceful, and like theirs, no less worthy of the chissel than those, which in other exercises, have been selected to display the skill of the eminent sculptors of anti

quity. I here speak, be it observed, of what the Philadelphians were, not what they are, since I am unacquainted with the present state of the art; and as from my lately meeting with young men, who, though bred in the city had not learnt to swim, I infer the probability, that skating may be equally on the decline.

The Abbe Raynal, when speaking of Philadelphia, in his Philosophical history of the East and West Indies, observes that the houses are covered with slate, a material amply supplied from quarries in the neighborhood. But unfortunately, for the source from which the Abbe derived this piece of information, there were no such quarries near the city that ever I heard of, and certainly but a single house in it with this kind of roof, which, from that circumstance, was distinguished by the name of The Slate house. It stood in Second street, at the corner of Norris's alley, and was a singular, old fashioned structure, laid out in the style of a fortification, with abundance of angles both salient and re-entering. Its two wings projected to the street in the manner of bastions, to which, the main building retreating from sixteen to eighteen feet, served for a curtain. Within, it was cut up into a number of apartments, and on that account, was exceedingly well adapted to the purpose of a lodging house, to which use it had been long appropriated. An additional convenience, was a spacious yard on the back of it, extending half way to Front street, enclosed by a high wall, and ornamented with a double row of venerable, lofty pines, which afforded a very agreeable rus in urbe, or rural scene in the heart of the city. The lady who had resided here and given some celebrity to the stand by the style of her accommodations, either dying or declining business, my mother was persuaded by her friends to become her successor; and, accordingly obtained a lease of the premises, and took possession of them to the best of F

my recollection, in the year 1764 or 1765. While in this residence, and in a still more commodious one in the upper part of Front street, to which she some years afterwards removed, she had the honor, if so it might be called, of entertaining strangers of the first rank who visited the city. Those who have seen better days, but have been compelled by hard necessity, to submit to a way of life, which to a feeling mind, whoever may be the guests, is sufficiently humiliating, are much indebted to Mr. Gibbon, for the handsome manner, in which he speaks of the hostess of a boarding house at Lausanne. With the delicacy of a gentleman and the discernment of a man of the world, the historian dares to recognise that worth and refinement are not confined to opulence or station; and that although, in the keeper of a house of public entertainment, these qualities are not much to be looked for, yet, when they do occur, the paying for the comforts and attentions we receive does not exempt us from the courtesy of an apparent equality and obligation. An equally liberal way of thinking, is adopted by Mr. Cumberland, who tells us in his memoirs, that the British coffee house was kept by a Mrs. Anderson, a person of great respectability. If then, an educaton and situation in early life, which enabled my mother to maintain an intercourse in the best families in the city, pretentions, in no degree impaired by her matrimonial connection, or an industrious, irreproachable conduct in her succeeding years of widowhood, can give a claim to respect, I have a right to say with Mr. Cumberland, that the principal lodging house in Philadelphia, was kept by a person of great respectability.

A biographical sketch of the various personages, who, in the course of eight or nine years, became inmates of this house, might, from the hand of a good delineator, be both curious and amusing. Among these, were persons of distinction, and some

of no distinction: many real gentlemen, and some no doubt, who were merely pretenders to the appellation, Some attended by servants in gay liveries; some, with servants in plain coats, and some with no servants at all. It was rarely without offi cers of the British army. It was at different times, nearly filled by those of the Forty second or Highland regiment, as also by those of the Royal Irish. Besides these, it sometimes accommodated officers of other armies, and other uniforms. Of this description, was the Baron de Kalb, who visited this country probably about the year 1768 or 1769; and who fell a major general in the army of the United States at the battle of Cambden. Though a German by birth, he had belonged to the French service, and had returned to France, after the visit just mentioned. During our revolutionary contest, he came to tender us his services, and returned no more. The steady and composed demeanor of the Baron, bespoke the soldier and philosopher; the man who had calmly estimated life and death, and who, though not prodigal of the one, had no unmanly dread of the other. He was not indeed a young man ; and his behavior at the time of his death, as I have heard it described by Mons. Dubuisson, his aid de camp, was exactly conformable to what might have been supposed from his character. ★

Another of our foreign guests, was one Badourin, who wore a white cockade, and gave himself out for a general in the Austrian service; but whether general, or not, he one night very unexpectedly, left his quarters, making a masterly retreat with the loss of no other baggage than that of an old trunk, which, when opened, was found to contain only a few old Latin and German books. mong the former, was a folio, bound in parchment, which I have now before me; it is a ponderous tract of the mystical Robert Fludd, alias de Fluctibus, printed at Oppenheim in the year 1618, and in part

A

dedicated to the duke of Guise, whom the author informs us he had instructed in the art of war. It is to this writer probably, that Butler thus alludes in his Hudibras :

He, Anthroposophus and Floud,

And Jacob Behman understood.

From this work of Mr. Fludd, which among a fund of other important matter, treats of astrology and divination, it is not improbable that its quondam possessor Mr. Badourin, might have been a mountebank-conjuror, instead of a general.

Among those of rank from Great Britain with whose residence we were honored, I recollect lady Moore and her daughter, a sprightly miss, not far advanced in her teens, and who having apparently no dislike to be seen, had more than once attracted my attention For I was just touching that age when such objects begin to be interesting and excite feelings, which disdain the invidious barriers, with which the pride of condition would surround itself. Not that the young lady was stately; my vanity rather hinted, she was condescendingly courteous; and I had, no doubt, read of women of quality falling in love with their inferiors: Nevertheless, the extent of my presumption, was a look or a bow, as she now and then tripped along through the entry. Another was lady Susan Obrien, not more distinguished by her title, than by her husband who accompanied her, and had figured as a comedian on the London stage, in the time of Garrick, Mossop and Barry. Although Churchhill charges him with being an imitator of Woodward, he yet admits him to be a man of parts; and he has been said to have surpassed all his cotemporaries in the character of the fine gentleman; in his easy manner of treading the stage, and particularly of drawing his sword, to which action he communicated a