In addition to these grievances, the drudgery of preparing matter for his paper soon became sickening. At times, heavy demands were made on his exhausted brain; and then the ungentle efforts to lash his mind into a fury; to spread the wings of an imagination borne down by lassitude; to wake up reluctant thought; were most unpleasant. And yet he knew it must be done, and that his readers would judge him by his weakness rather than his strength. This knowledge, with his desire to please, placed him often in a dilemma which nothing but kindred experience can appreciate. When he was in the mood, composition was an agreeable occupation; but when draft after draft had been made upon his labors, a sense of fatigue would come over him, and he knew that the stream of thought yet in motion under such cloudy auspices, would reflect but little brilliancy on the vision of his readers. The misery of editorship is, that one dull article will receive more reprobation than a score of successful ones can remove. Men are prone to judge of things by the worst lights. The virtue which one practices, will seldom be considered expiatory of his vices; the day is judged of by the minute of cloud, rather than the hour of sunshine; and a line of dulness will condemn a page of vivacity. We look at the specks on the sun, the mole on the cheek of beauty, and the blemish on the statue otherwise perfect in its symmetry.

Often, while revelling in visions of happiness, Frank would be recalled to his earthly duties, by the entrance of the boy from the printing-office, y'clept, par excellence, the devil. Every editor is aware of the felicity which these intrusions into his sanctum afford. Fixed in his arm-chair, with a horizontal line of leg before him, while his fancy is with his sweet-heart, or his wife and little ones, as the case may be, he feels quite comfortable. At the next instant, all his glistening thoughts and fairy fancies are 'knocked into pi,' by the entrance of the imp of the printing-office, with a face streaked with ink, round-aboutless and vestless, and having on a pair of inexpressibles hitched up on one side by a twine string, who shrieks out, in a merciless tone, 'I'm come for copy, Sir!' Cowper said that the bray of an ass was the only unmusical sound in nature; but the poet had never experienced the discord occasioned to an editor's mind, by an inopportune demand for 'copy,' or he would have make one more exception.

Often did Frank hold with the dirty-faced urchin such a dialogue as the following:

Devil. 'They want more copy, Sir.'

Frank. 'What's become of that I sent before?'

Devil. 'It's used up, Sir.'

Frank. 'Isn't it enough?'

Devil. 'Not by a jug-full, Sir.'

Frank. 'How much more is wanting?'

Devil. 'Three columns, Sir.'

Frank. 'When will it be wanted?'

Devil. 'Why, I've been here twice before this morning, and I couldn't get in. The foreman's mad as h—ll, and says how as that the paper can't be got out in time.'

Frank. 'Well, be off. I'll have some copy ready in an hour.'

Devil goes off, with a sunken aspect, muttering, as he goes, 'I gets more kicks than coppers. The foreman kicks me for not getting copy, and the editor kicks me for coming for it. Deuce take 'em both! As to the paper, she may be late, for me; and as to the press, I wish she was blow'd to the mischief!'

The 'devil' talks upon the common principle, when he speaks of the paper and the printing-press as belonging to the feminine gender. Your statesman, speaking of the country's prosperity, says, 'Her commerce, her manufactures, and her arts, are flourishing, and will soon advance her high in the respect of nations.' The backwoods-men say of Cincinnati, 'She is the western queen.' A Kentuckian will pet his rifle, and say, 'She's leetle the slickest bore in these parts, and her voice is sweet as Nannie's, and that's saying a heap for her.' Some go so far as to sex learned bodies, and to say of congress, 'The constitution does not confer such powers on her, and beyond those delegated she cannot rightfully act;' thus flinging a petticoat over this venerable body of gray-haired bachelors, husbands, and orators.

The fact is, it is quite difficult to understand the reason why the neuter gender is not applied to all things neither male nor female. Every vessel that skims the billow, in common nomenclature, belongs to the feminine gender. There is not a steam-boat that ploughs the river, however hoarsely it may bark, or however it may fling volumes of smoke above, like streamers, that belongs to the masculine gender. Every ricketty yawl or skiff that is battered to pieces by the tides, belongs to the lovely and ever-to-be-beloved sex. If a pleasure-boat, with its white sail kissing the wave which its prow proudly spurns, wins a compliment, it is sure to be uttered after this wise: 'See how finely she sails!—and

'She walks the water like a thing of life.'

Is not the male sex somewhat scandalously neglected in this matter? Why should not a noble ship, daring and adventurous—a merchant-man, perhaps an India-man—belong to the masculine gender? If it be female, why not be grammatically consistent, and talk of merchant-woman, and India-woman? If it be necessary that inanimate structures be sexed, why not do it with some reference to their qualities? Let a ship be called she, by all means; for a lady is beautiful, and a ship bearing steadily away over the waters, is beautiful to look upon, too; and a lady, though not freighted down with bales and packages by the ton, yet is she burthened with those articles in the dry-goods line which are worn by the ton. Streamers wave from the flag-staff of the one, and ribbons flutter gaily from the main-top of the other. Therefore, let a ship and a woman be of the same sex. But let there be some limits to the license. We take it, there is nothing that floats, which looks less like our own dear sweet-heart, than an old worm-eaten canoe, scooped out of a dead trunk; and yet, when a paddle is applied to the ugly thing, you look at it and say, 'She moves!'

We admit and feel the romance and propriety of sexing 'the poetry of heaven.' Blessings be yet again on benighted Egypt, for she taught us to speak of Osiris and Isis, instead of the sun and moon! Blessed for ever be the spirit of him who first conceived the idea of sexing the starry hosts, from the Cynosure to Sirius! How much more poetical is night in consequence—especially such as Moore speaks of in the Epicurean: