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Bob. -- And is this you my old master and friend? Where have you been? Whither have you journeyed since you were at the plantation?

Major Bell. -- It is indeed me, your old master Bob, and your best earthly friend. -- I have been afar and visited philanthropic institutions -- Asylums for the indigent, ignorant, lunatic, the blind, poor widows and orphans.

Bob. -- Master please explain yourself. -- Asylums! what in the name of the seven stars are they?

Major Bell. -- Well, my boy, you may I listen, and I will tell you. An Asylum is a retreat from the world's cares, a refuge from sorrows. Like the shadow of a great rock to the wearied traveller it refreshes and prepares for duty on the pilgrimage of life.

Bob. -- By whom were they established, and by whom supported and governed?

Major Bell. They originated in the bosom of philanthropy: are supported by private beneficence, and maintained by the public -benefaction, and governed by representative humanity. In Europe and America, they are opened alike for various grades, from the vapourish hypocrandiac to the raving maniac, and are fashionable resorts for "intellectual dyspeptics."

-A knock at the door is heard.-

Major Bell. -- Bob, step to the door, and ask the knocker to walk in, for your master at home.

-Enter Col. Duke.

Major Bell. -- Ah, Col. Duke, I have been waiting your approach this evening, but as I am now engaged in a conversation with my boy, Bob, I beg you to seat yourself, and I will soon be at leisure to attend to you.

Col. Duke, of Ky. -- Don't let me interrupt you by any means, as I am not on urgent business, I will remain awhile with an old and particular friend.

Major Bell. -- Now what was you saying Bob?

Bob. -- I will just tell my master a little story, and then, if he pleases, proceed with my subject:

Master Shackleford's Negro stole some chickens of Col. Sherrod's Toney, and when he was brought to Justice Blackwell, he was asked how he happened to do the act. The act, Massa Blackwell, please and bless your old soul, I don't know, spose, spose, cos I was crazy, I was crazy. It is so fashionable to be crazy, master, it saves many a fellow from the State's Prison and Gallows.

Major Bell. -- A pretty good and rational reason, Bob. The major part of all delinquents in moral duty would doubtless like to render such an excuse at the bar of God and man.

Bob. -- And master are those good men known who endeavour to ameliorate the condition of man?

Major Bell. -- Immaterial to you whether they are or not. Their virtues are allied to Heaven, and are registered there.

Bob. -- But their names if you please master, for I have learned something since you've been gone, and can tell you a little that would surprise you for one so dark as I. I know, my dear and respected master, what Asylums are, and I know you are one of their friends, and Master Calhoun says that my black brethren are less liable to insanity when enslaved than free.

Major Bell. -- Why Bob, you surprise me indeed! I am amazed.

Bob. -- Yes: and Master Calhoun thinks Slavery is a good thing, and Texas annexation a good thing: ah, but too much of a good thing is good for nothing, as the old drunken man said when he was reeling home of a dark night.

Major Bell. -- Well Bob.

Bob. -- And when Missouri was admitted into the Union, a beautiful painting was exhibited representing a Negro dancing, and rejoicing that there was more rooms for the Darkies to breathe.

Major Bell. -- Proceed Bob.

Bob. -- Yes, Sir, and the enlargement of Slavery's domains mitigates the evils, and the Abolitionists! Major, why, if we were all set free we would die off like Frogs in Egypt.

Major Bell. -- But Bob,

Bob. -- My master, the prospect before us is rousing I tell you. Seldom are negroes crazy. Once when Col. Hitchcock's regiment was leaving Florida, a terrible storm swept away nearly all of Port Leon, but one old negro who was out of his head, and who would not be massa when all were gone but he.

Major Bell. -- Truly Bob, and who would not be?

Bob. -- Master, I read in Dr. Rush, from your library, (rest and bless his memory,) he had a faithful African by his side when he went to see the poor, and he said they were his best patients, for the Almighty was their paymaster. President Staughton mentioned that negro in his eulogy, as your library unfolds.

Major Bell. -- You surely do astound me.

Bob -- Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, master, you was so long telling, that I concluded to tell you myself of France and Spain, and of the melancholics of England, and of Italy, but not of Germany, for there the people, like the steamboats, smoking as they go, drive away the Blue Devils by their smoke.

Major Bell. -- Now, Bob, do you tell me so.

Bob -- Ha, ha, ha, master, and there was Mr. Pinel, of France; he dressed up wild beasts, two limbed ones though, and made human beings. Oh master, what a terrible affair to be crazy. The name of that Frenchman surely should breathe through every crevice of humanity.

Major Bell. -- Yes, yes. Bob, and there were numerous others.

Bob. -- I humbly crave your pardon for telling you that our plantation had two who were a little out of the way, my master his Bob.

Major Bell. -- Bob, you are a saucy fellow.

Bob. -- I tell you what it is master, if a man knows that he is a fool, the battle is half over, and I confess judgement in the case, and if a man knows and feels that he is insane, why ho is sane. Magna est veritas et prevalabit.

Major Bell. -- Well, there is hope then, and hope keepeth the heart whole, and let me tell you Bob, the mind which is restrained like mine has been, instinctively seeks and finds its natural repose in the pleasures of sensation, and the wearied sense aspires to hide itself in the kindlier bosom of emotion, whence the intellect springs up anew in renovated strength.

Bob. -- Yes, master, a consciousness of one's insanity is proof of a dawn of reason for they that be whole need not a physician. Drunkenness is a small madness, and when a man knows he's drunk, ha, ha, ha, ha, ergo he's sober. Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Major Bell. -- What is and has been your ailment?

Bob. -- A very harmless one, master, for us poor Darkies. I believe all white folks were only apples, peaches, pears and oysters, and that I could eat them. That blue noses and pink eyes suggested to me the idea that potatoes were descended from a stock of original beads. I still believe in metempsy-chosis. That you only are an apple. That the King of France is an orange, and the queen of England a pond lily, and that President Boyer was a russett brown, and could I collect them together, I'd devour them for supper, and rid the world of such incumbrances.

Major Bell. -- Exactly my belief, Bob, and two heads are better than one, if one is a negro's or sheep's head.

Bob. -- Oh, master, don't deteri'ate the African race. Has not Mr. Stanhope Smith, he who sleeps near Capt. Stockton, in Princeton, has he not told you?

Major Bell. -- Told you what Bob?

Bob. -- Has he not told you that we are all alike in substance. That it is the mucosity of the membranous portion that gives the tinge to the appearance by.... I will not tax my master with too much information. You can obtain very important information by subscribing for the American Journal of Insanity.

Major Bell. -- Proceed Bob.

Bob. -- Asylums are beautiful, pleasant places, where there is sweet music, pretty flowers and delightful walks -- warm in winter, and cool in summer, and there is a variety of character to interest the ingenuity of usual allotment to mankind, and charming ladies, some bright eyed Ophelias. Sometimes some Madge Wildfires, as Master Walter says.

Major Bell. -- But, Bob, the gentle sex are always lovely even in wrath.

Bob. -- Oh, master, there is no general rule without some particular exceptions, as I heard Professor Barnard say. I dreamed a dream, and thought I saw good angels hovering over the assemblies of the afflicted. I saw them clap their glad wings as ther soared mid-heaven, bearing the enraptured spirit of the departed Rush, and as they nestled him close to their embrace, echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted arch from trumpets that seemed to shake the very Heavens with gladness --

"The memory of the Just is blessed."

Major Bell. -- Ah, me, what will become of us? I was proposing to give a relation of what had been done for Africans, for Insane, for Poor, for Blind, for Dumb, but a negro has instructed me and directs me to the source of knowledge. "I had a dream, 'twas not all a dream." I thought I saw the spirit of the immortal Rush, accompanied by a flight of seraphs, with harps melodious, and bending o'er the scene of his former existence, in the sublimest strains of music, and words familiar to the ear of Earth-tried friends, in choir-attendant, say --

Ye good distressed, ye noble few who there unbending,
Stand beneath life's pressure, bear up awhile,
The storms of wintry life will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.

Bob. -- Stay, stay, master, for mercy's sake. If I am a negro, I am of noble origin, an Egyptian, and you know how the arts travelled. Don't forget it now, master. -- They travelled from Egypt to Greece, and what was she but a horde of savages who seemed to dispute with the beasts of the field, their caverns, and the mangled victims of their ferociousness, until Cecrops planted a Colony amongst them.

Major Bell. -- Cecrops! what sort of crops are they, Bob!

Bob. -- Master, you misapprehend me.-- Cecrops is the name of a man who planted a Colony, from whom remotely descended to us the blessings we enjoy, where it would be sacrilegious to insinuate that the Blacks hold the key of mystery that have come to them from Egyptian Science, and may revive the genius of ancients to repay the kindness of their masters.

(To be continued,)