Editorial Miscellany. 179 



In one of the articles of your October number, I happened to 

 use the words, " I am odd enough to suppose." Your type-setter, 

 either misliking or misreading the phrase, printed it " I am old 

 enough to suppose." "Evelyn" naturally infers from this frank 

 confession that my days are in the sere and yellow leaf, and that 

 I am going down the shady declivity of life. 



I have read of persons, avaricious of fame, who procured them- 

 selves to be gazetted among the dead, that they might see what 

 the editors might say of them, feeling sure that they would have 

 the benefit of the Latin maxim, " De mortuis nil nisi bonum" It is 

 a pleasant custom to speak well of the dead, and respectfully of 

 the aged. Thanks to that mischievous type-setter, I am enjoying 

 the honors that wait on old age, without the drawback of its bur- 

 dens. 



My college companions, who, fifteen years ago, were fagging 

 with me over Tacitus and Sophocles, will pronounce it a rare joke. 

 The least that they will do will be to present me with a gold- 

 headed walking-stick, with this inscription, " Maiwre scnex fi, si 

 diu velis esse.^^ 



Make my best regards to Mr. Evelyn. I like his way of treat- 

 ing those who are well-stricken in years. If I live to be as old as 

 he takes me to be, I will write and let him know how it seems. 

 At present I am just clearing myself from " the atrocious crime 

 of being a young man." 



I have no shrinking from old ago, at least not from that phase 

 of it which " Evelyn" so pleasantly pictures, yet I would rather 

 not be precipitated into its realities until the trees which I have 

 planted are ssmewhat larger, and better able to take care of 

 themselves — " Ego me minus diii scncvi esse mallem, qtiam esse senem 

 ante, quam essem." 



Yours, sans wig and crutches, 



Edward North. 



Our assistant editor, Mr. D. W. Ray, has been making himself 

 happy in Kentucky. We append his last letter, in which are some 

 interesting items respecting the progress of horticulture and kin 

 dred matters in that thriving State : 



" I have just returned from a trip of observation at the south- 

 west, where I attended the fair of the South-Western Agricultural 

 and Mechanical Association. I was introduced to the President 



