OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 11 be praised ! still retains some of the good old-fashioned directness and simplicity. Bucks is full of Jacks, and Bens, and Dicks, and we question if there is such a crea ture, of native growth, in all that region, as an Ithusy, or a Seneky, or a Dianthy, or an Antonizetty, or a Deidamy.* The Woolstons, in particular, were a plain family, and very unpretending in their external appearance, but of solid and highly respectable habits around the domestic hearth. Knowing perfectly how to spell, they never dreamed any one would suspect them of ignorance. They called themselves as their forefathers were called, that is to say, Wooster, or just as Worcester is pronounced ; though a Yankee schoolmaster tried for a whole summer to per suade our hero, when a child, that he ought to be styled Wool-ston. This had no effect on Mark, who went on talking of his uncles and aunts, " Josy Wooster," and " Tommy Wooster," and " Peggy Wooster," precisely as if a New England academy did not exist on earth; or as if Webster had not actually put Johnson under his feet! The father of Mark Woolston (or Wooster) was a phy sician, and, for the country and age, was a well-educated and skilful man. Mark was born in 1777, just seventy years since, and only ten days before the surrender of Burgoyne. A good deal of attention was paid to his in struction, and fortunately for himself, his servitude under the eastern pedagogue was of very short duration, and Mark continued to speak the English language as his fa thers had spoken it before him. The difference on the score of language, between Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Maryland, always keeping in the counties that were not settled by Germans or Irish, and the New England states, and through them, New York, is really so obvious as to deserve a passing word. In the states first named, taverns, for instance, are still called the Dun Cow, the In dian Queen, or the Anchor ; whereas such a thing would be hard to find, at this day, among the six millions of
- Absurd and forced as these strange appellations may appear,
they are all genuine. The writer has collected a long list of such names from real life, which he may one day publish Orchistra, Philena, and Almina are among them. To all the names ending in a, it must be remembered that the sound of a final y is given.
