The writer did not visit the Warm and Hot Springs, and consequently does not notice them.


Remark the use which Shakspeare always makes of his bold villains, as vehicles for expressing opinions and conjectures of a nature too hazardous for a wise man to put forth directly as his own, or from any sustained character.—Coleridge's Table Talk.


For the Southern Literary Messenger.

Extracts from the Auto-biography of Pertinax Placid.

MY FIRST NIGHT IN A WATCHHOUSE.

CHAP. I.

The title of this narrative intimates to the reader by a natural inference, that its writer has spent more nights than one in that abode of the unruly—a watchhouse. I will be candid, and admit the fact, that twice during a pretty long and not unadventurous life, it has been my lot to enjoy the security afforded by that refuge of the vagrant. Twice only—I confess to no more. The first of these dilemmas I am about to speak of now—the second may form a subject of future narration.