, what he called, a
scale-colour. This animal Mr. Jones affirmed to be an admirable resemblance of a
great favourite of the epicures in that country, which bore the title of
lake-fish; and doubtless the assertion was true; for, although intended to
answer the purposes of a weather-cock, the fish was observed invariably to look,
with a longing eye, in the direction of the beautiful sheet of water that lay
imbedded in the mountains of Templeton.
    For a short time after the charter of the regents was received, the trustees
of this institution employed a graduate of one of the eastern colleges, to
instruct such youth as aspired to knowledge, within the walls of the edifice
which we have described. The upper part of the building was in one apartment,
and was intended for gala-days and exhibitions; and the lower contained two
rooms, that were intended for the great divisions of education, viz. the Latin
and the English scholars. The former were never very numerous; though the sounds
of nominative, pennaa; genitive, penny, were soon heard to issue from the
windows of the room, to the great delight and manifest edification of the
passengers.
    Only one labourer in this temple of Minerva, however, was known to get so
far as to attempt a translation of Virgil. He, indeed, appeared at the annual
exhibition, to the prodigious exultation of all his relatives, a farmer's family
in the vicinity, and repeated the whole of the first eclogue from memory,
observing the intonations of the dialogue with much judgment and effect. The
sounds, as they proceeded from his mouth, of
 
»Titty-ree too patty-lee ree-coo-bans sub teg-mi-nee faa-gy
Syl-ves-trem ten-oo-i moo-sam med-i-taa-ris aa-ve-ny« -
 
were the last that had been heard in that building, as probably they were the
first that had ever been heard, in the same language, there or any where else.
By this time, the trustees discovered, that they had anticipated the age, and
the instructor, or principal, was superseded by a master, who went on to teach
the more humble lesson, of the more haste the worse speed, in good, plain
English.
    From this time until the date of our incidents, the Academy was a common
country school; and the great room of the building was sometimes used as a
court-room, on extraordinary trials; sometimes for conferences of the religious,
and the morally