nt-looking young fellows may
be observed lounging about in the most hopeless idleness, easily to be
distinguished for the sons of gentlemen, wearing in a half slovenly way,
but with a flashy air, expensive clothes and ill-assorted articles of
finery, without possessing either means or energy to cultivate those
manly dissipations which in some sort redeem the idleness of our
European youth, and at certain seasons withdraw them from mere pursuits
of sensuality; making that at least graceful, if not useful to the
community, which here becomes truly hideous, as the reckless air and
wasted features of most of these unfortunate hereditary idlers
sufficiently attest.

I do not anywhere know a class more to be pitied in a country, wherein
the idle man finds neither sympathies, pursuits, nor associates, from
which he can derive emulation, improvement, or even amusement worthy a
rational being; it is, let me add, an exceedingly small class, and of
necessity must, I conceive, decrease rapidly; at present its members
ought to be regarded by parents as moral landmarks, living to warn the
wise and worthy from that course on which their hopes have foundered.

The young ladies appear possessed of the same _naive_, simple, yet
perfectly easy manners which characterise their countrywomen of the
North, where indeed they are principally educated and instructed in all
those graceful accomplishments which embellish and refine our life. It
appears upon a first view strange that, superior as they are, they do
not exercise a greater influence over the youth of the other sex; but
this may be ascribed to the fact, that they are brought out before
either their judgment or knowledge of the world are sufficiently matured
to make them aware of the existence of certain abuses, or of their own
power of reforming them. Then again, marrying very young, they commonly
quit society, in a great measure, at the moment the influence of their
example might be of the greatest service to it.

A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

_Nov. 30th._--Just entered my room, after having been for the last hour
engaged waiting for, and watching the progress of, one of those
startling phenomena which in the earlier ages were wont to be hailed as
especial manifestations of the Creator's anger,--whose influence has
been known to stay the onset of engaging hosts, making men deaf to the
sound of the trumpet, and dead to the yet more stirring influence of
their own furious pas