venerable volume, the New England Primer, looking as antique as ever,
though in its thousandth new edition; a bundle of superannuated gilt
picture-books made such a child of me, that, partly for the glittering
covers, and partly for the fairy-tales within, I bought the whole; and
an assortment of ballads and popular theatrical songs drew largely on
my purse. To balance these expenditures, I meddled neither with
sermons, nor science, nor morality, though volumes of each were there;
nor with a Life of Franklin in the coarsest of paper, but so showily
bound that it was emblematical of the Doctor himself, in the court
dress which he refused to wear at Paris; nor with Webster's Spelling
Book, nor some of Byron's minor poems, nor half a dozen little
Testaments at twenty-five cents each.

Thus far the collection might have been swept from some great
bookstore, or picked up at an evening auction-room; but there was one
small blue-covered pamphlet, which the peddler handed me with so
peculiar an air, that I purchased it immediately at his own price; and
then, for the first time, the thought struck me, that I had spoken
face to face with the veritable author of a printed book. The
literary man now evinced a great kindness for me, and I ventured to
inquire which way he was travelling.

"O," said he, "I keep company with this old gentleman here, and we are
moving now towards the camp-meeting at Stamford!"

He then explained to me, that for the present season he had rented a
corner of the wagon as a bookstore, which, as he wittily observed, was
a true Circulating Library, since there were few parts of the country
where it had not gone its rounds. I approved of the plan exceedingly,
and began to sum up within my mind the many uncommon felicities in the