s had her heart tarnished, corrupted, ruined, by the insidious poison of books,—books read in secret, remote from the vigilant eye of a tender parent or kind friend. Into the recesses of the solitude of these; yes, even at the hour when the remainder of the family is reposing in peace, and when the rays of the midnight lamp are thrown on the idle, the romantic, or vicious page, let the warning voice of the Plough-Boy enter. May his accents thunder in their ears, Take care how you sow!

The vast increase of taverns, in our country and villages, calls us to beware of men, as well as of books. There is a great difference, my father tells me, between the simplicity of manners, which characterized the times when he was a boy, and the idleness and dissipation which have now spread over the country. Then it was considered a disgrace, to a young farmer, to be seen at a tavern, excepting when absolute necessity called him thither. Now, visit one of these seductive inns, in an afternoon, and we can see a band of hardy striplings, smoking their segars, drinking their cans of beer, or tossing off their glasses of "real Holland," and permitting their minds to be agitated by the evanescent politics of the day, while their families are either ignorant of their habits, or mourning over the tares, which the enemy is sowing in a fruitful field. Alas! even in his time, the Plough-Boy has witnessed the robust young husbandman, graced with an athletic form, adorned with vivid health and manly beauty, and blessed with a lovely wife and innocent prattlers, sink into an early grave, opened by Infamy and closed by Despair, solely in consequence,—first, of suffering his mind to be led aside from his business by the solicitations of idle men, and losing his precious time at the tavern; and then, of "just taking a social glass," which they have told him it would be unmanly to refuse.