ctness and
simplicity. Bucks is full of Jacks, and Bens, and Dicks, and we question
if there is such a creature, of native growth, in all that region, as an
Ithusy, or a Seneky, or a Dianthy, or an Antonizetty, or a Deidamy.[2]
The Woolstons, in particular, were a plain family, and very unpretending
in their external appearance, but of solid and highly respectable habits
around the domestic hearth. Knowing perfectly how to spell, they never
dreamed anyone would suspect them of ignorance. They called themselves
as their forefathers were called, that is to say, Wooster, or just as
Worcester is pronounced; though a Yankee schoolmaster tried for a whole
summer to persuade our hero, when a child, that he ought to be styled
Wool-ston. This had no effect on Mark, who went on talking of his uncles
and aunts, "Josy Wooster," and "Tommy Wooster," and "Peggy Wooster,"
precisely as if a New England academy did not exist on earth; or as if
Webster had not actually put Johnson under his feet!

[Footnote 2: Absurd and forced as these strange appellations may
appear, they are all genuine. The writer has collected a long list
of such names from real life, which he may one day
publish--Orchistra, Philena, and Almina are among them. To all the
names ending in a, it must be remembered that the sound of a final
y is given.]

The father of Mark Woolston (or Wooster) was a physician, and, for the
country and age, was a well-educated and skilful man. Mark was born in
1777, just seventy years since, and only ten days before the surrender
of Burgoyne. A good deal of attention was paid to his instruction, and
fortunately for himself, his servitude under the eastern pedagogue was
of very short duration, and Mark continued to speak the English language
as his fathers had spoken it before him. The difference on the score of
language, between Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Maryland, always
keeping in the counties that were not settled by Germans or Irish, and
the New England states, and _through_ them, New York, is really so
obvious as to deserve a passing word. In the states first named,
taverns, for instance, are still called the Dun Cow, the Indian Queen,
or the Anchor: whereas such a thing would be hard to find, at this day,
among the six millions of people who dwell in the latter. We question
if there be such a thing as a coffee-house in all Philadelphia, though
we admit it with grief, the respectable town of Brot