surtout, with pantaloons strapped under his narrow-toed boots; on his
head, instead of a single forelock, he wears a smart auburn wig, with
bushy whiskers of the same hue, the whole surmounted by a German-lustre
hat. He has exchanged his hour-glass for a gold patent-lever watch,
which he carries in his vest-pocket; and as for his scythe, he has
either thrown it aside altogether, or converted its handle into a cane
not much stouter than a riding-switch. If you stare him full in the
face, you will perhaps detect a few wrinkles; but, on a hasty glance,
you might suppose him to be in the very heyday of life, as fresh as he
was in the garden of Eden. So much for the present aspect of Time; but
I by no means insure that the description shall suit him a month hence,
or even at this hour tomorrow.

It is another very common mistake, to suppose that Time wanders among
old ruins, and sits on mouldering walls and moss-grown stones,
meditating about matters which everybody else has forgotten. Some
people, perhaps, would expect to find him at the burial-ground in Broad
Street, poring over the half-illegible inscriptions on the tombs of the
Higginsons, the Hathornes,--[Not "Hawthorne," as one of the present
representatives of the family has seen fit to transmogrify a good old
name.]--the Holyokes, the Brownes, the Olivers, the Pickmans, the
Pickerings, and other worthies, with whom he kept company of old. Some
would look for him on the ridge of Gallows Hill, where, in one of his
darkest moods, he and Cotton Mather hung the witches. But they need not
seek him there. Time is invariably the first to forget his own deeds,
his own history, and his own former associates. His place is in the
busiest bustle of the world. If you would meet Time face to face, you
have only to promenade in Essex Street, between the hours of twelve and
one; and there, among beaux and belles, you will see old Father Time,
apparently the gayest of the gay. He walks arm in arm with the young