their shoulders, as they go, contribute to enliven it. From the mention of a marketcross (as the villagers term it), it may be thought that Muchlore, however now decayed and deprived of its original consequence, can still boast, what is so often a source of importance to a country town, its market; this, however, is not the case: the period when markets were held there not being within the recollection even of the inhabitants, and the court-house now answering no other purpose than that of a depository for a few stalls, used only upon the annual one-day fair: yet the village still possesses much to interest the inquiring and the curious.

In Mr. Osgood's school, situated as we have described, upwards of one hundred young gentlemen were educated; of whom it is not too much to say, that all were alike actuated by the most respectful regard for their tutor, and the greater part of them by a zeal in the attainment of the various

learning imparted to them at the academy, that did equal honour to the master and to the scholars.

The utmost regularity, harmony, and attention to every moral and religious duty, prevailed in the establishment: nor were the pupils more remarked for their proficiency in the several branches of schoollearning in general, than for that strong thirst for information which reigned in the breasts of many, and rendered them not always content with the acquirements of their school-hours, but eager to pursue their acquaintance with many branches of science and art, neither taught in that, nor, generally speaking, in any other academy; but the knowledge of which not a little contributed usefully to amuse and pleasantly to instruct them. With the results of this general predilection for scientific pursuits, not prescribed to them by school discipline, nor expected from them by Mr. Osgood, we shall occasionally acquaint the readers

of our tales: especially as more important consequences sometimes arose out of these occupations of their play-hours, than the youthful votaries could have ventured to anticipate. But it should be remarked, that one effect of this love of science could not escape the observation of any whose minds were imbued with it; it gave an interest to many little incidents and circumstances, that otherwise might have passed unnoticed, and, consequently, without the improvement those propensities educed from them for to such youths the commonest amusements of school-boys afforded not more of bodily than of mental exercise, since a game at cricket or at trap-ball, for example, became to them not merely cricket and trap-ball, but illustrations of the force of impetus in the bat, or of the laws of motion and of gravity in the ball.

In the series of years during which Mr. Osgood superintended the academy at Muchlore, various events, interesting either

to the villagers at large, or to the schoolyouths in particular, may be naturally supposed to have occurred: and such of these, also, as may be conducive to moral improvement, we shall narrate for the entertainment, and, at the same time, with a view to the permanent benefit, of our young readers.

The tutor, ever careful to avail himself of passing occurrences calculated to enforce his lessons of religion and virtue, was more than ordinarily anxious to impress upon his pupils the remembrance of several of these events: and fortunate shall we consider ourselves, if, in the course of our narrations, we can derive from the fleeting accidents of the day, a moral and a lasting good, as happily and as usefully as he did.

A third class of tales, to which we would equally direct the attention of the reader, is that of which the following will form a part-tales devoted less to the relation of village occurrences, than to accounts of the general conduct of one or more of the

pupils, during, and, it may be, subsequently to, their residence at the academy: which will afford, we trust, opportunities of shewing that industry, integrity, and uprightness of mind, are, in a school as well as in after-life, the sources of advantage, reputation, and honour; while the opposites to those virtues must infallibly produce to their unfortunate possessors, whether in the world, or within the smaller sphere of a scholastic establishment, the punishments of misery, contempt, and disgrace.