Goshens, eleven Canaans, thirty Salems,
eleven Bethlehems, testify to the respect in
which Scriptural names are held; while
homage has been done to classic lands in
sundry log-hut villages, some of them fast
swelling in population and prosperity. "Ilium
fuit" is belied by the existence of sixteen
Troys. There are twelve Romes, and eight
Athenses; but only one Romulus—and I
have not had the good fortune to meet with
any of the Athenians.

Many great writers have been honoured
in these national baptisms. There are several
Homers, Virgils, Drydens, and Addisons,
a couple of Byrons, but not yet (nor likely to
be in any sense) a Shakspeare. There are,
however, five Avons, three Stratfords, a
Romeo, a Juliet; besides, defying classification,
four Scipios, six Sheffields, twelve
Manchesters. There are one hundred and fifty
towns and counties called New somethings,
and only six Old anythings. The most
desperate effort at invention is to be found in
repetitions of Springfields, Bloomfields, and
Greenfields. All the cities of the East are
multiplied many times, with the exception
of Constantinople, which does not figure in
the list at all; but, in revenge, there is one
Constantine. There are very few attempts
at giving to Yankee humour a local habitation
and a name. But I have discovered the
funny title of Jim Henry attached to a
soi-disant town in Miller County, State of
Missouri; and I am sorry to perceive the
stupid name of Smallpox fastened (not
firmly, I hope) on one in Joe Davis County,
Illinois.

The comparative popularity of public men
may or may not be inferred from the number
of times their names maybe found on the maps.
It is remarkable that there are ninety-one
Jacksons, eighty-three Franklins, sixty-nine
Jeffersons, thirty-four Lafayettes, fifty-eight
Monroes, fifty Maddisons, fifty-nine Parrys,
thirty-two Harrisons, twenty-seven Clintons,
twenty-one Clays, sixteen Van Burens,
fourteen Bentons; but there are only three
Websters.

The indigenous fruits, shrubs, and trees
give titles to many of the streets in cities and
towns, but to few of the towns themselves.
There is one Willow, a few Oaks (out of
forty odd varieties of the forest king), and
not one Persimmon, nor, as far as I can
learn, a Pepperidge, one of the most beautiful
of American trees.

A New York newspaper, writing on this
subject, suggests the propriety of passing a
law prohibiting the use of a name for a town
or county that has ever been used before for
the same purpose. But immediately recoils,
like Fear in the Ode,

           Even at the sound itself had made.

And well it might. For if the notion were
followed up, new towns might be numbered,
as streets often are at present, and some such
arithmetical combination might occur as a
letter addressed to

          Mister Jonathan Snookinson,
                    Sixty-Fourth Street,
                                 Forty-First City,
                                           Nineteenth County,
                                              State of Confusion.

               THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT.
                 CHAPTER THE FIRST.

A PARTY of young men were assembled at
a bachelors' dinner. The more solid portions
of the feast had been disposed of, with the
gusto and enjoyment of youthful appetites
in whom the pleasures of gourmandise were
still fresh, and on whose digestion the results
of its indulgence had not yet begun to tell,
and the dessert was placed on the table.

"In heaven's name, Paul, do wake up, and
don't be doing the skeleton at the feast! you
hav'nt opened your mouth to speak, or eat,
half-a-dozen times since we sat down. What the
deuce ails you, old fellow,eh?" and the speaker
—a very young man, with a broad, joyous face,
in which the eyes and teeth that seemed to
be always gleaming and laughing in concert,
caught your attention to the exclusion of
every other feature—clapped his neighbour
on the shoulder, and, pressing his hand where
he had placed it, waited with a questioning
expression in his laughing glance.

Paul woke up, and slowly turned his large
opened eyes vaguely and dreamily on his
interlocutor, but without replying to his
question.

"Reflecting on the brevity of his human
life?—on the uncertainty of his destiny?
—on——"

"Faith, your chance arrow has pretty near
lit the mark!" said Paul, with a half
contemptuous smile.

"Strange as are the time and place for
such reflections, they were precisely what
occupied me."

"Did they? then the case is a grave one,
—an attack of metaphysics, with aggravated
symptoms. What's to be done? where's my
prescription?" and he poured a copious dose
of burgundy into his friend's glass. Paul
drank the wine, and replaced the glass on
the table in silence.

"No better?—try it again." Paul shook
his head, and pushed away the bottle.

"Never mind me, there's a good fellow,
Hugh."

"But I do mind you," Hugh said, kindly.
"I have been minding you for some time,
and I'm sure there's something wrong. We'll
talk about this another time."

And, with more tact than most people
vould have given him credit for, Hugh
turned away, and, joining in the general
tone of the party, left Paul to indulge
undisturbed in his meditations.

In the centre of the table stood a silver
basket filled with a variety of fruit, placed